Contents

1. Dedication

2. Chapter One - Side Quests Lurk in the Shadows

3. Chapter Two - The Midden Brothers

4. Chapter Three - Hold Up

5. Chapter Four - The First New Recruit in Decades

6. Chapter Five - The Fungal Cavern

7. Chapter Six - On a Roll

8. Chapter Seven - Nothing More Satisfying Than a Quest Turn-in

9. Chapter Eight - Is It Lungs Or Lunch?

10. Chapter Nine - Hungry and on Fire

11. Chapter Ten - Some Good Old Breaking and Entering

12. Chapter Eleven - Violence Isn’t Supposed to be Nostalgic

13. Chapter Twelve - Something More Powerful

14. Chapter Thirteen - Wrapped in Wraith Wrath

15. Chapter Fourteen - Yeah, But What’s in the Safe?

16. Chapter Fifteen - Seriously, What’s in the Safe?

17. Chapter Sixteen - What’s in the Fucking Safe?

18. Chapter Seventeen - Fuck You, and Fuck Your Safe

19. Chapter Eighteen - The Archaeological Discovery of the Century

20. Chapter Nineteen - But First, the Loot!

21. Chapter Twenty - Enter the Lungeon

22. Chapter Twenty-One - An Unforgettable Lungeon

23. Chapter Twenty-Two - Reunion

24. Chapter Twenty-Three - The Black Rook

25. Chapter Twenty-Four - Triumphant Return

26. Chapter Twenty-Five - Dragonfire

27. Chapter Twenty-Six - Twice in One Week

28. Chapter Twenty-Seven - The Vault Vault

29. Chapter Twenty-Eight - Spit it Out

30. Chapter Twenty-Nine - The Pre-Gallivanting Checklist

31. Chapter Thirty - Mind Your Manors

32. Chapter Thirty-One - A Manor of Speech

33. Chapter Thirty-Two - Gods Below

34. Chapter Thirty-Three - Manorisms

35. Chapter Thirty-Four - Harrowing Hijinks in the Haunted House

36. Chapter Thirty-Five - Stage Fright

37. Chapter Thirty-Six - Riddles? Seriously?

38. Chapter Thirty-Seven - The Harder They Are…

39. Chapter Thirty-Eight - The Graveyard Fight

40. Chapter Thirty-Nine - The Final Boss

41. Chapter Forty - All Shall Burn

42. Chapter Forty-One - Rxa1

43. Chapter Forty-Two - It Really Took Three Entire Books for the Plot to Finally Start

44. Chapter Forty-Three - Epilogue

45. Status

46. More From J.P. Valentine

47. Check 'em Out!

Guide

1. Contents

2. Start of Content

To my patrons.

CHAPTER ONE

Side Quests Lurk in the Shadows

TWO WEEKS AFTER their chaotic escape from the city of Pyrindel, Eve had already grown tired of Wes’s cooking.

“Remind me,” she said as she chewed through yet another chunk of unseasoned venison, “never to leave town without a bag full of spices.”

“Sorry,” Wes grunted back, “next time we stage a prison break I’ll remember to buy some garlic on the way out.”

The party was woefully under-supplied, owing entirely to their hasty exit from civilization. They were all equipped reasonably enough, Eve with her leather armor, bone-club, and daggers, Wes with his bright red hexweave mage robes—holes and all—and enchanted staff, and Preston in the same Priestess robes he’d worn since Lynthia. They were ready for a fight.

The companions were not, in contrast, ready for weeks of travel in the dead of winter. They survived well enough with Wes’s flames for warmth and Reginald’s hunting prowess for food, but the journey thus far had been anything but comfortable. Eve again cursed herself for leaving town with a pack full of gold and no supplies.

At least the woods shielded them from the worst of the weather.

The evergreens of the Northern Woods collected what little snow fell this far south, leaving the forest floor clear and dry year round, if dreadfully cold to sleep on. The price paid for such shelter was twofold. The thin layer of snowfall that collected upon the pine needles of the canopy formed an icy curtain, plunging the travelers below into darkness even at the height of noon.

Yet worse, should Wes ever get too enthusiastic about keeping his companions warm, his flames would melt the snow above them, causing it to rain down and ruin any semblance of warmth the party members had dreamt of.

For her part, Eve wondered how the trees actually held up all that snow and what happened to any which fell to the ground below. The air wasn’t hot enough to melt it, not without sunlight, and all that snow had to go somewhere, right?

She chalked it up to magic bullshit and moved on.

“You know,” Eve eventually continued the conversation, “I used to be so scared of these woods. Ma would tell me stories of all the foolhardy adventurers who’d let their guards down and be attacked by some monster lurking in the shadows. Then back when we first actually traveled through them the shadows kept moving, and you could never tell if it was the wind or if something actually was hunting you.” She shivered. “Spooky shit.”

Wes tried to reply, “If you don’t like ‘em, I can always—”

“We’re not burning down the forest,” Preston cut him off.

Eve shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I said ‘used to.’ Now whenever a shadow moves or I look out into the darkness, I don’t see evil monsters waiting to kill me. I see a source of potential exp.”

“No side quests,” Preston said. “We talked about this.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Eve conceded. “The longer we waste on random mini-adventures the longer it’ll be before we find the Dragonwrought.”

“And the longer it’ll be before we sleep in real beds and can eat something Wes didn’t cook,” the Caretaker of Ayla added.

“Besides,” Wes blew right through the insult to his cooking ability, “we’re over-leveled for these woods. Any side quests worth doing will either be further north or in a dungeon somewhere.”

Eve held up her hands. “I’m not arguing. Remember, I was the one to suggest that goblin tribe wasn’t worth our time.”

“That’s just ‘cause you didn’t want to smell like burnt goblin for the next week,” Wes countered.

She’s not the only one! Art telepathically chimed in.

Wes finished, “We all know you’ll take any exp you can get.”

Eve couldn’t argue with that. Ever since she’d reached level fifty-two upon their escape from Pyrindel, experience points had been among her top priorities. For the hundredth time, she reread the message she’d received in lieu of a skill upgrade.

Statistic Growth Upgraded!

+5 Constitution/Level

The notification had implications. To start with, it hadn’t applied to her most recent level-up, leaving her temporarily weaker than she might’ve been if she’d gotten an ability upgrade. On the flip side, ability upgrades could be hit or miss, and five Constitution a level would certainly be useful, especially if she kept leveling as much as she hoped to.

The change also officially separated her growth from the well-studied standard of a tier 4 Mythic, partially answering the old question of what actually made her Unique class unique. Stat growth per level wasn’t supposed to change without a class promotion. Then again, people weren’t supposed to get Legendary quests to fetch a loaf of bread.

Eve wondered if the change was a quirk of Unique classes as a whole, or specific to her. Unfortunately, unless the man of the mists suddenly decided to start answering her questions, she had no way of finding out. Additional mysteries such as how often her stat growth would change or if it would always be +5 or if there was some rule as to which stat got the boost could all, in theory, be answered only one way: by leveling up.

If every level didn’t just give her stats, but also meant the next would grant yet more stats, Eve could see things getting out of hand fairly quickly, assuming, of course, she could keep leveling. Exp costs rose quickly, after all.

She spared a thought for what this revelation meant for the other Uniques she’d met, shivering as she questioned just how high-level they were, and just how powerful that made them.

All this to say, Eve was as eager to level up as she ever had been, and turning down the various side quests that presented themselves as the party traveled continued to irk her. She knew, intellectually, that powering up through other means was just as important, especially if she planned to grind powerful, high-level monstrosities for exp, but that meant holding off on learning more about her Unique class until they found the Dragonwrought or came across another Burendian ruin to explore.

It didn’t help that side quests seemed to lurk beyond every corner.

On their very first day in the dark and frigid woods, the adventurers passed a goblin encampment engaged in some kind of tribal ritual. Once Appraise marked them all as below level twenty, the party had moved on. On the second day, they found an overgrown stone tower with no doors, again electing to ignore the obvious side quest in favor of reaching their destination that much sooner.

The side quests refused to give up.

The companions passed by a glimmering pool of water full of skeletons, circumnavigated a group of bandits hiding out in the woods, refused to read the ancient text on any crumbling marble tablets they found, and practically ran when a raven started speaking to them with the voice of an old man asking for some herb or other for his aching foot.

“No good.” Preston shook his head as he climbed out of a dark and mossy hole that led deep beneath the forest floor. “Message says the dungeon’s a Feldruid’s Domain, not a Burendian ruin.”

“I mean, we could still clear it,” Eve offered. “I don’t know what a feldruid is, but it doesn’t sound good.”

“No reason to,” the healer argued. “It’s below our pay grade, remember? We’d only get a few hundred exp. Better to leave it for whatever level-appropriate adventuring team comes through here next.”

“But when was the last time that happened? We’ve run into a half-dozen side quests in less than a week, it’s clear nobody’s coming through to clear them. At least we’re a lot less likely to die if we take on this feldruid.”

Preston shrugged. “It’s important that quests like these are out there for lower-level teams. Sure, they’re more dangerous, but there needs to be some way for new adventurers to level up. Where would we be if some tier 4 had cleared out that Burendian outpost back in Lynthia?”

Eve sighed. “I know, I know. It’s just… we’re adventurers, and it’s been fuck knows how long since we’ve had an actual adventure.”

Yeah! I want an adventure! Art added.

Wes raised an eyebrow. “You don’t consider drunkenly stumbling through Pyrindel an adventure?”

Art scowled. I don’t even remember that, he mentally grumbled.

“That was a misadventure at best,” Eve said. “Our last real fight was the Stormtide Leviathan—which was really just me getting lucky—and our last dungeon was the Fallen Pass, which was more of a conversation than an actual dungeon.”

Adventure, adventure, adventure! Art cheered.

Preston rubbed his temples. “So what, you want to take a day to stomp through some low-level dungeon so you can feel powerful again?”

“Well I don’t know about powerful, but—” Eve sighed. “I guess it wouldn’t be very dangerous or exciting if we’re over-leveled.”

“Or rewarding,” Wes added.

Eve deflated. “Or rewarding.”

“Look,” Preston exhaled, “I’m sure that whatever trials the Dragonwrought have in mind will include all sorts of wacky hijinks and dangerous adventures. Lucrative adventures. To that end, we’re better off not wasting time chasing whatever catches our fancy in an area for level thirties.”

Eve cracked a smile. “You hear that, Wes? You’re not allowed to fancy Preston anymore until we get to a higher-level area.”

“Well shit,” the Disciple of the Devouring Flame cursed. “I wish he’d told me sooner, could’ve saved us both a whole lot of… uh… stress.”

“Oh, you’re allowed to fancy things.” Preston winked, sidling up to the muscular fire mage. “Just no chasing until we get where we’re going.”

Eve flicked her eyes between the two of them. “Okay, that went a bit further than I’m comfortable with. Why don’t we get moving or change the subject or…?”

A scream rang out in the distance.

“Yeah, perfect,” Eve said. “Let’s talk about whatever the hells that was instead.”

It sounded again, shrill and high pitched and quaking with terror.

Wes furrowed his brows. “It sounds like a child.”

We have to help her! Art sent, a sense of urgency accompanying the words.

“Or a trap,” Preston said. “Why would a child be in the woods?”

Eve shook her head, pulling her club from its mount on her back. “Doesn’t matter. If it’s bait, we’re higher level than whatever’s setting the trap. If it’s not bait, then someone needs our help.”

Preston groaned. “Eve, we talked about side ques—”

The shriek echoed through the trees once more, agonized and bloodcurdling.

Eve tightened her grip on her club. “We have to do something. We’ll be quick. Run in, kill whatever monster’s out there, then back on our way. In and out, no more than a few hours.”

Preston opened his mouth to argue but fell silent as Reginald bounded off into the trees with Art on his back.

We’re coming!

Eve tilted her head, flashed a brief grin, and took off after them. She’d barely made a few steps before the notification appeared.

Tertiary Quest assigned: A Scream in the Woods

Find the source of the screaming.

It looked like she would get her quick side quest after all.

CHAPTER TWO

The Midden Brothers

EVE’S HEART PUMPED with adrenaline as she sped through the dark trees chasing both the echoing screams and her nonhuman companions who had run ahead. She was more worried for the latter.

While the pair would likely be more than a match for any of the monsters that lurked in the Northern Woods—hells, even at level eight Art’s telepathy alone could probably pacify just about anything that didn’t specifically resist it—Eve knew neither he nor Reginald would have the wherewithal to look for traps. If the screaming child really was bait, Art and Reginald had swallowed it whole.

Seconds later, Eve burst into a sunlit clearing, snow crunching beneath her feet for the first time in days. There was no monster. There was no child.

There was an elf with skin a dull ashen gray and red eyes wide with fear. He stood before a wooden wagon missing a wheel and collapsed to the snowy ground.

Where’s the child? Art sent in the most intimidating tone the nine-year-old could muster.

Some combination of Reginald’s razor-sharp teeth and the fact the young Trellac had just spoken directly into his mind seemed to do the trick as the dark elf took a frightened step back. “There—there is no child. Please. We didn’t hurt anyone. We need help!”

Eve stepped around Reginald’s intimidating form, keeping her grip on her club as she addressed the drow. “We heard screaming. A child screaming.”

A hesitant relief washed over the elf at Eve’s appearance. “Ah-yes, that’s-um… an invention of mine.” He reached for a tarnished silver amulet at his chest, pressing at the inscription on its center with his finger. Once more a child’s tormented cries filled the air.

Eve scowled. “Why in three hells would you invent something like that?”

The elf waved a finger through the air as he explained. “Studies show that nearby adventurers are twenty-four percent more likely to respond to a cry for help if they perceive it as coming from an innocent child. By the fact that you’re here, I’d say that it’s worked.”

“And did you consider adventurers would be less inclined to help you if you start with deceiving them? Or that a screaming child in the middle of the wilderness is the most obvious trap I’ve ever heard? Or that adventurers aren’t the only ones that might respond to the sound of a helpless victim?”

The drow blinked. “But the studies show—”

Wes burst into the clearing, his hand and staff bright with flickering flame. “What’s the situation?”

Preston followed.

“I’m… not sure,” Eve explained. “Apparently the screams were his way of calling for help.”

The elf perked up. “A healer! Thank Ayla. You’ve gotta help us. My brother is hurt, the wagon… it fell on his leg.”

A perfectly timed groan from behind the fallen cart punctuated his statement.

Eve raised an eyebrow. “Your brother is injured and you’ve been talking about studies?”

“You asked! And forgive me, but you look like the kind of person who someone like me really shouldn’t be rude to.” He eyed the glowing lines on her neck and the comically large bone club she carried. “Please.”

Eve and Wes kept wary eyes on the strange inventor as he led them around the broken wagon to a second dark elf who, sure enough, was pinned beneath the heavy weight of both the cart and the rather eclectic collection of odds and ends it carried.

“Watch him,” Eve instructed Wes, gesturing to the uninjured brother with the tip of her club. Without dropping the weapon, she grabbed the base of the wagon with her left hand, lifting it from the snow. Preston pulled the wounded elf free.

As the Caretaker gingerly healed the drow’s broken leg, Wes turned to his brother. “So, what are two dark elves doing so far from The Broken Marsh?”

“Wes,” Preston hissed. “You can’t just call them ‘dark elves.’ It’s offensive.”

“Really?” Wes raised an eyebrow. “But that’s how my Da always…”

“And when did you decide your Da was a good standard for how to behave?”

The elf stepped in. “We’re drow,” he said pointedly. “There’s nothing dark about us.”

Wes held up his hands. “Alright, alright. I’m sorry I was rude to the guy with the necklace of screaming children. What are two drow doing in the middle of the Northern Woods?”

“Peddling our wares,” he answered, gesturing to the wagon full of seemingly random items.

Following the elf’s hand, Eve tilted her head to finally read the worn paint on the side of the damaged cart. “The Midden Brothers?”

“That’s us,” the unhurt elf chimed. “I’m Carl Midden, and that there’s my brother, Brady Midden.”

Wes blinked. “Your name is Midden? Like the trash heap?”

“It’s a family business.” Carl grinned. “We travel between the cities and the various communities for high-level entities. In exchange for supplies and other mundane luxuries only available in populated areas, certain groups allow us to pick through their midden for anything we might sell upon our return to civilization.”

Wes’s face only grew yet more confused. “So you’re trash salesmen.”

“Well that depends on your definition of trash. A level two-hundred War Master might call a sword enchanted to grant ten Strength a useless piece of junk, but a fledgling adventurer in Ilvia would pay a pretty penny for that same item.”

“Call it recycling,” Brady chimed in as Preston helped him to his feet. “We provide a service delivering goods from someone who doesn’t want them to someone who does.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “And you do so by digging through the trash?”

Carl smirked. “You’d be surprised at what you can find in a dragon’s midden. You know what they say. A Scourge Lord’s trash is a Soldier’s treasure.”

Satisfied enough with the explanation, Eve took a moment to Appraise the two, confirming that Carl was a level twenty-nine Refurbisher—presumably some kind of enchanter variant—while Brady was a Merchant of the same level. She wouldn’t have been surprised to learn the brothers had the exact same exp total. Similarly, Fatetorn Gaze provided little of value, only highlighting how the two stood somewhat differently than they might’ve if Eve and her gang hadn’t come along.

“So what happened to your wagon?” Preston asked.

“A rock, hidden in the snow.” Carl pointed at the aforementioned stone. “Knocked our rear wheel clean off. Unlucky that Brady was walking right next to it.”

“Really?” Eve followed up. “No monster attacks, no strange magical mysteries, no crazy twists of fate? It was just a rock?”

“Um… yes?” Carl offered.

“Don’t worry about her,” Preston said, “she’s not used to things being this simple.”

“What about your horses?” Eve pressed. “There’s no way you were pulling this thing yourself.”

“No horses,” Brady said. “Couldn’t make the trips we do with horses. The wagon’s enchanted, an old family heirloom. It pulls itself.”

“And let me guess, now that it’s broken you need our help pulling it back to civilization or protecting you from waves of monsters while you travel?”

Carl shook his head. “No, no, we should be fine. What kind of Refurbisher would I be if I couldn’t fix my own wagon? And as for monsters—” He scoffed. “I have three different monster-repelling enchantments on my person alone. Aboard the wagon there’s… we’re not worried about monsters.”

Eve jerked her thumb back at Art and Reginald. “You certainly didn’t repel them.”

“Well I didn’t exactly expect to encounter a Trellac in the gods-damned Northern Woods,” Carl snapped. “I assure you my enchantments—”

Wes’s eyes widened. “You recognize him? Have you seen other Trellacs in your travels? Any that look like the boy?”

“A few.” Carl nodded. “All much further north than this.” He waved toward Art. “I might’ve spotted one who bears his resemblance in the mountains beyond the Draclands, but that was years ago.”

Wes smiled wider. “That’s a better lead than we’ve gotten so far. Thank you.”

“So where are you headed, then?” Preston asked. “If you’ve been as far as the Draclands, I imagine it’s been quite the trip.”

Brady patted the side of the wagon. “We just finished up at Dragonwrought Hold. Next stop is a society of warrior-monks who live on the peak of Mt. Renx, then back to Ilvia to sell our goods and resupply.”

Eve perked up. “You know where Dragonwrought Hold is?”

Brady smirked. “We know where a lot of important places are. It’s part of the business.”

“So how do we get there?”

“Dragonwrought Hold?” Brady turned to point back along the wagon’s tracks. “It’s basically straight that way. There’s a narrow path that leads up into the mountains. Just follow it and you’ll get to where you’re going.”

“Is that all?” Carl stepped in. “Much as I appreciate your help, I need to get to repairing the wagon. Got to get a move on if we want to make it to Mt. Renx before the ice-bridge melts.”

“Well hold up there, Carl,” Brady replied. “Don’tcha think we should pay these nice people for their help? The healing alone could’ve cost a pretty penny back in town.”

Carl frowned. “Well I don’t know we have much to offer. These adventurers seem a bit beyond our target market.”

“Supplies,” Eve put it simply. “We need supplies. Anything to make traveling a bit easier. We-um… we kind of left Pyrindel in a hurry.”

Brady gestured back to the damaged cart. “Oh, well take your pick. Don’t rob us blind, mind ya, not that we could stop you of course. We just need something left over to trade with the monks, see?”

Eve didn’t hesitate to go rummaging through the loaded wagon, driven by curiosity as much as the need for supplies. She rooted through odds and ends ranging from an iron spoon enchanted to hold twice as much soup as its shape should’ve allowed to a worn leather vambrace ensorcelled to treat a scribe’s hand-cramps. It was, overwhelmingly, junk. She supposed she shouldn’t have expected otherwise from The Midden Brothers.

It took a fair bit of digging before she reached what must’ve been the supplies for the warrior-monks on Mt. Renx. Led by her Mana-empowered nose, Eve went straight for the sack of spices. “I want these.”

Brady reared his head back in surprise. “Are you sure about that? Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but you all don’t look too well-equipped for winter, and it’ll only get colder once you get into the mountains.”

“He’s right,” Preston said, pulling a thick fur-lined cloak from the cart. “We should prioritize keeping warm.”

“No,” Eve snapped, her bare skin kept warm by the Mana flowing beneath it. “Spices.”

Wes rolled his eyes. “My cooking isn’t that bad.”

Preston turned to the drow Merchant. “Would these cloaks be a fair trade for the help?”

“Well that sounds okay to me,” Brady replied. “I don’t know about those spices though. Like I said, we need something to trade with the monks.”

Eve spun to face him. “How much?”

Brady raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You’re merchants, right? How much for the spices?”

Brady scratched his chin. “Well I don’t know. Taking into account what we paid for ‘em and what we’ll lose by not having them when we get to Mt. Renx…”

Eve didn’t wait for him to name a number, simply digging into her pack for a fistful of gold. “Here. I’m taking the spices.”

The Merchant’s eyes shot open at the sum. He didn’t complain. “Well okay then.”

Eve shoved the spices into her bag, not for a moment regretting the use of gold. She somehow doubted she’d get much of an opportunity to spend it anytime soon, anyway. At least this way Wes’s meals would have some gods-damned seasoning.

“I think that’s everything, then,” Preston eventually said, wrapping his new cloak over his shoulders. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Brady replied. “There’s no way I would’ve made it up Mt. Renx with a broken leg. Good luck on your adventure.”

“Good luck!” Carl echoed from where he fiddled with the wagon wheel. “It was a pleasure doing business with you.”

As the party turned to leave, Brady called after them. “Once you get strong enough to start discarding your old gear, remember The Midden Brothers! One Scourge Lord’s trash and all that.”

Eve didn’t want to think about what kind of dealings the two drow had with a Scourge Lord, trash or otherwise. Still, she walked away from the encounter with a smile on her face and a bag of pure, concentrated deliciousness in her pack. “So?” she needled Preston. “I’d call that a win.”

The healer pulled his cloak tighter around himself. “Okay, I’ll admit this wasn’t a complete waste of time.” He sniffed. “Even if these cloaks smell like dragon piss.”

Eve laughed. “So that’s what that is. I thought it was Wes.”

“Hey!”

“So anyway,” Eve ignored Wes’s protests, “I’d say that side quest was definitely worth the time. Hells, the information alone probably saved us time in the long run.”

“Alright, alright,” Preston conceded. “It’s good we stopped to help. That doesn’t mean all the other quest-hooks we run into out here are worth chasing.”

Eve kept silent.

“Eve?” Preston pushed. “No more side quests, not without a good reason, okay?”

She didn’t reply. Truth be told, as useful and strange as the Midden brothers had been, the encounter hadn’t quite scratched that itch for excitement, danger, and exp. Intellectually, Preston was right about the best path forward—Eve could see that—but the wilderness was so filled with mystery and possibility. Agreeing to Preston’s plan meant robbing herself of that sense of opportunity, even if she had no intention of following through.

So she made no promises. After all, if there was anything Evelia Greene had learned since leaving Nowherested all those months ago, it was that there was always another side quest.

Tertiary Quest Complete: A Scream in the Woods

Rewards: 3 Winter Cloaks, 1 Bag of Spices, -4 Gold Pieces, 12000 exp.

CHAPTER THREE

Hold Up

EVE WAS PREPARED for a great many things as the party first mounted the treacherous switchbacks up the mountain towards Dragonwrought Hold. She’d expected mud-slicked roads and uneven footing. She’d expected few spots to rest ever to present themselves. Hells, she’d even expected Wes to call “hold up” only to stupidly grin and point out the hold was indeed “up.”

She hadn’t anticipated Art’s complaining.

I’m tired, the hatchling whined. When can we stop?

“Hi, tired,” Wes started, “I’m—”

Eve playfully smacked him. “If you finish that pun, it’ll be ‘hi, tired, I’m bleeding internally.’”

Preston ignored their antics. “We can stop if the road evens out.”

“And dries out,” Eve added. “Sitting down in all this mud doesn’t sound pleasant.”

“I know one way to dry it out,” Wes offered, a thin smile stretching across his face.

“We’re not burning the mud,” Eve said flatly. “It wouldn’t be much of a breather if we filled the air with smoke, would it?”

“But I don’t need to burn it; I just need to—”

Preston turned the conversation back to Art, pointing to the hatchling’s position atop Reginald’s back. “You aren’t even walking. Reginald is doing all of the work.”

He’s tired too!

Preston spent a moment in mental communication with his adopted drakeling before raising an eyebrow. “Really? Or is he just now telling me he’s tired because you asked him to?”

Art went silent, or whatever the telepathic version of silent was.

The healer exhaled. “That’s what I thought.”

Quick as the exchange was, it did manage to keep the young trellac quiet as the adventurers continued their ascent.

Dragonwrought Hold loomed above them, straddling the peak of the mountain which they climbed. Its ebon stonework, melted in dragon flame to forge a sheer surface, cast an imposing shadow across the upward road. At a number of points along the winding switchbacks did Eve look up to see the keep silhouetted in a halo of afternoon sun. The sight gave her chills.

The further the party ascended, the more Eve wondered how exactly the Midden brothers had managed to maneuver their wagon up and down the slope. She knew they had, if only by the wheel-marks impressed into the mud, but the narrow switchbacks and slippery surface should’ve made such a traversal near impossible.

They made it up and down the bloody mountain only to lose a wheel to a rock in the snow. The thought brought a smile to Eve’s face, only to generate yet another question.

“How come there’s so little snow? Shouldn’t it get snowier as we climb higher?”

Preston turned up his palms. “It probably melted. There’s no trees here for shade, so I’m sure this slope practically bakes in the sun all morning.”

“That’d explain the mud,” Eve sighed. “I still think it should be colder up here.”

“No, there’s definitely something fucky going on. Look.” Wes pointed left, towards a distant slope in the same range. Sure enough, a pristine layer of snow blanketed it in glimmering white.

Eve raised an eyebrow. “So… what? There’s some kind of dragon magic making things warmer?”

“Maybe,” Wes offered, “but there’re dragons on the other side of that mountain too.”

“It’s gotta be something to do with the hold,” Preston thought aloud, “considering the only slope without snow is the one the hold is on.”

“You think they’re doing this on purpose?” Eve asked.

“Maybe that’s your first trial,” Wes laughed. “Defeat the mud to make it up the mountain.”

Eve shrugged. “I wouldn’t complain. The Surefooted half of Defiant Body makes it kind of trivial for me, but I suppose they don’t know that.”

“I’m not sure mud poses much of a challenge to prospective recruits,” Preston said. “And I’m not sure it serves as much of a deterrent to anything the Dragonwrought can’t swat away with ease. If they’re heating the mountain on purpose, it’s not for the mud.”

“Maybe they’re just chilly,” Wes said.

“Sure.” Sarcasm dripped from Eve’s voice. “Some of the greatest warriors mankind has ever seen are heating up the entire mountain around their keep because they’re a bit chilly.”

“It does sound a bit ridiculous,” Preston added.

“You never know,” Wes argued. “It wouldn’t be the most ridiculous thing we’ve seen.”

Eve shook her head. “It’s gotta be a side effect of some powerful defensive enchantment or excess heat from some great forge or altar or something. This is the Dragonwrought we’re talking about.”

“Alright, alright,” Wes conceded. “It was just an idea.”

The party continued their trek in relative silence, the only sounds of their passage the unpleasant squelches of the mud beneath their feet. Eve grew to hate them.

Roughly three quarters of their way up the mountain, Preston, in his position at the front of their single-file formation, came to a sudden halt. Eve nearly ran headlong into Wes as the oversized fire mage stopped in front of her.

“What’s the hold up?” She asked, peeking around Wes’s bulky form.

Wes pointed above them. “That hold is—”

“Nope,” Eve cut him off. “You already made that pun. Preston, why’d you stop?”

“I’m taking this damn cloak off,” he called back to her, stuffing the foul-smelling winter garment into his pack. “I’m sweating up here.”

Wes and Art followed suit, the former taking the latter’s cloak and stowing both in his own pack.

Eve scowled. “It’s getting warmer.”

“And not in a fiery way,” Wes said. “It’s warm and wet.”

Eve had to agree, wiping a mix of sweat and humidity from her brow. Torn between describing the atmosphere high up on the mountain as tropical and swampy, the gentle feeling of her feet slowly sinking into the mud made her decision for her.

Preston apparently agreed. “It’s like they’ve brought a swamp up to the top of a mountain.”

“The top of a mountain in winter,” Eve added.

“So half the melted snow went into the mud and half evaporated into humidity. Great.” Preston exhaled. “I hate it.”

The party trekked onward, pushing ever upward even as the air around them grew hotter and denser with moisture. At no point did the heat itself become oppressive, perhaps uncomfortable to be arduously climbing in, but never oppressive. The humidity was another matter. Eve only hoped the air inside the keep itself would be a bit more pleasant.

She’d find out soon enough.

The final switchback eventually gave way to a flat and open road along the mountain’s peak, leading directly to the ebon stone fortress. Dragonwrought Hold towered before them.

Yet for all the imposing power and dark mystery the keep held with its fifty-foot walls, brutal spires, and stretching shadow in the early-evening sun, Eve spared it nary a glance. Her eyes turned right, away from the legendary hold and the forest from whence they’d come.

Eve cast her gaze north, into the realm of the dragons.

The valley had no name, at least none that a human knew. It belonged to the dragons, and they hadn’t deigned to bestow the word upon the lesser races, nor dared men assign their own to a territory beyond their purview. Mapmakers simply marked it with a drawing of a dragon, and all knew what that meant.

Tread lightly.

Eve let her eyes trace the ring of mountains that enclosed the valley, pouring Mana into the effort to sharpen her vision. She counted no fewer than eighteen gaping cave mouths, each concealing in darkness what could only be a great lair and a greater hoard. The Defiant knew not how many dragons might live in any one mountain, nor how many more lairs lay just beyond her view.

At the mountains’ base was a smattering of villages, small wooden huts with thatched roofs built around a ground-level cave entrance, no doubt belonging to the goblins and kobolds and other little races in serfdom to the most fearsome landlords ever known. No doubt the dragons employed their services digging their tunnels and expanding their lairs and mining deeper and deeper into the mountain to grow their all-important hoard.

The valley itself showed no signs of winter, its land as verdant and alive as the height of summer. All manner of livestock roamed the fields, from the familiar cows and sheep to a wide array of herbivores Eve couldn’t begin to name. Much as the flock held her attention, it was the shepherds that raised her eyebrow.

They were human.

Scattered across the valley’s center—distant from any one dragon’s domain—were a series of decidedly human settlements, tilling the land to sustain themselves as they tended the beasts that fed their draconic masters. Eve could only wonder at what deal these men and women had struck with the dragons, nor what freedoms they enjoyed, but as idyllic as the expansive valley and the quaint farms might’ve been, the Defiant couldn’t imagine it was worth living under threat of dragon fire.

Preston was the first to break the silence. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s eerie,” Eve replied, refusing to tear her eyes away from the gently rolling hills and ambling creeks. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it looked like paradise.”

“Maybe it is,” Wes said. “Maybe dragons aren’t all death-and-destruction like the stories say.”

Eve turned to him. “Wes, you’re literally on a quest to kill a dragon.”

“The Blightmaw Dragon,” the mage specified. “And unless I’m missing something, there’s no blight in that valley.”

“Maybe one of the other dragons knows where it is, though,” Preston offered. “Not that we’re strong enough to, you know, fight a dragon, but a lead’s a lead.”

The conversation abruptly fell silent as a deep and booming roar echoed across the valley. All eyes turned northward.

Eve got the best look, her Mana-enhanced eyes the first to spot it.

The setting sun glimmered on viridian scales, obsidian claws, and golden eyes. As the beast, its size unknowable at such a distance, dove through the open sky, Eve did the only sensible thing. She Appraised it.

Level ???? Skysong Dragon

“So… um…” Eve gulped. “What does four question marks mean? Above five hundred? A thousand?”

Wes gaped. Preston paled. Reginald perked up.

The entire party looked on as a jet of green-blue flame roared into being, instantly roasting a single cow. Its herdmates, unharmed and unfazed by the no-doubt familiar sight of dragon fire, simply continued their grazing as the beast swooped down to snatch its prey in its talons, only to fly off back into the mountains.

That was awesome! Art sent.

“That was humbling,” Wes muttered in response.

Reginald wants to know if he can learn to do that.

Preston shrugged. “Drakes can’t normally breathe fire, but drakes also don’t normally follow adventurers around.”

“Especially adventurers who pull the kind of bullshit we do,” Wes added. “Eve has already changed race. Who’s to say Reginald won’t stumble into the middle of some pyromantic ritual and evolve into a never-before-seen fire breathing drake?”

That’d be so cool!

Reginald nodded his head in agreement.

“I’m just glad we don’t have to face anything like that anytime soon.” Wes shuddered. “Blightmaw Dragon or no, I’m spending as much time as I can training and leveling up before I even consider standing in front of that.”

“That makes two of us,” Preston agreed. “Meanwhile we’re gonna have to tie Eve down to stop her from challenging one head on for its exp.”

“What?” Eve protested. “No, I’m not that exp driven.”

Preston blinked. “You’re drooling.”

“No I’m—shit.” Eve’s cheeks reddened as she wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Okay, okay, that’s enough gawking. We’re here for a reason.”

She wrenched her gaze from the lush valley, turning to lead the way to their true objective, the only structure apart from the settlements below, the only hint of human might as far as the eye could see, the only bastion that stood not beneath in servitude, but as an equal among the mountains in its own right.

They’d finally arrived at Dragonwrought Hold.

CHAPTER FOUR

The First New Recruit in Decades

EVE STRODE RIGHT up to the towering double doors at the hold’s front, raising a fist to knock on the unfamiliar dark metal. She managed barely a dull thud.

“Put your back into it!” Wes called from behind her.

“I have two hundred Strength,” Eve answered. “How much back do I need?”

Wes shrugged, making the universal I-don’t-know grunt. “It’s a big door.”

With a sigh, Eve dropped twenty Mana into Mana Rush, bringing her Strength total up to eight hundred and forty-one. She pulled back her fist, before pausing and taking a moment to channel Mana to reinforce her knuckles. Eight hundred Strength would be more than enough to break every bone in her fingers.

Abilities active, Eve knocked again.

The door shook within its frame, ringing out like a gong several octaves lower than a gong had any right to ring. The air itself quaked with the noise, sending Eve’s skull vibrating within her head. Behind her, Wes and Preston covered their ears. The deep tone hung in the air for some seconds before slowly fading and returning the mountain air to stillness.

Nothing happened.

Preston raised an eyebrow. “Is-um… anyone home?”

“They sent me a letter telling me to come here, remember?” Eve asked. “There’s gotta be somebody here.”

“Maybe they didn’t hear you,” Wes offered.

“The entire valley heard her,” Preston said.

“Let’s give it a moment,” Eve eventually decided, lowering her fist.

They waited. Still, nothing happened.

Wes broke the silence. “Maybe they’re in the privy?”

“Fuck it.” Eve recast her Mana Rush and knocked again. Once more the deafening gong rang out, and once more the mountaintop fell silent. Eve redirected her focus to her ears, channeling Mana to enhance her hearing.

A dim grumbling sound emanated from the hold. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

The Defiant perked up. “Do you hear that? There’s someone there.”

Someone grumpy, Art confirmed.

Minutes passed, the time dragging on tormentingly as the party waited in silence.

“Are you-um,” Wes asked, “are you sure they’re coming?”

Eve turned up her palms. “I could knock again.”

“Maybe it’s a test,” Preston said. “Prove your perseverance by waiting patiently for gods know how long.”

“What kind of bullshit test is that?” Wes asked. “We already climbed a mountain to get here.”

Eve leaned in to listen into the keep one more, but not a sound pierced the stone walls and metal door. “I’m going to knock again.”

For a third time she raised her fist, channeling Mana Rush and Mana through her knuckles. Just as she pulled it back for a final knock, the door swung open.

A man stood before them, his back hunched and his skin wrinkled by the inexorable tide of old age. His faded bathrobe, worn pajama pants, and fluffy slippers contrasted with the ease with which he’d pulled open the several-ton door. He barked at the adventurers, “What do you want?”

Even if the old man hadn’t easily pulled aside the massive door, Eve, unlike certain members of the party, had long learned her lesson of Appraise first, react second.

Level ?? Overlord of Thunder

Mythic Tier ?? Class

So not Unique or Legendary and below level two-fifty, but higher level and higher tier than me, Eve reasoned. And also old as fuck. She kept her expression neutral. “I received a note from one Valya Hest offering me a trial as a prospective recruit. I’ve come to claim it.”

“Took you long enough,” the man grunted, stepping aside to let them past. “Now get inside; you’re letting the heat out.”

Eve paled at the idea that the inside of the hold was somehow hotter than the swampy air outside, but she heeded the instructions and stepped through the imposing doorway. At least the humidity dissipated. A little.

The Defiant didn’t immediately start sweating as she stepped inside, but she did reconsider wearing her armor. She bit back a pang of envy that Wes and Preston got to wear their relatively cooler caster robes.

The old man slammed the door behind them, grumbling under his breath as he shuffled his slippered feet along the stone floor. “Valya hasn’t shut up about you for weeks. Goes on and on about how you’re gonna return us to our former glory. Pah! We’re glorious enough, I say.”

Eve didn’t hear a word he said, too distracted trying to figure out how he could be remotely comfortable wearing a bathrobe in this heat. She supposed old people always were cold, but she couldn’t imagine the younger members of the Dragonwrought would put up with keeping the hold so oppressively warm. Maybe he was some important elder?

The Overlord of Thunder led them, at his excruciatingly slow pace, through a grand entry chamber. Torches glowing with smokeless flame hung along the walls, casting the dark stone in flickering orange. Their light failed to penetrate the thick shadows that clung to the vaulted ceiling, granting Eve the impression of staring up into an endless abyss. It was all very dramatic.

Eve loved it.

Great paintings and tapestries decorated the hall, each depicting some legendary Dragonwrought of old deep in battle or hoisting his trophy or a fallen foe. The very history of it all hung in the air, something Eve had more than enough time to enjoy as, again, their guide did not move quickly.

As the party passed a glowing hammer on a pedestal, Eve considered asking the old man what it was and what it did, but gods knew how long that could take. When her grandpa had been alive, he’d spent hours telling stories that could’ve been relayed in a single sentence. Trusting the Overlord to be any different was a risk she didn’t want to take. Then again, given the old man’s ceaseless grumbling, he’d probably just bark at them and keep walking.

At least now Eve knew why it had taken him so long to answer the door.

Eventually, at long last, the balding old man stopped to pull open a grand, wooden door, leading the party through and into what could only be the chamber of the war council.

A massive stone table dominated the room, a map of the dragons’ valley and its surrounding territories carved into it. Twelve ornate chairs circled the table, all empty save for one.

Level ?? Swordsoul

Mythic Tier ?? Class

The woman didn’t look like a Swordsoul. Her frizzy gray hair was in metal curlers, her body adorned not in armor but in a simple nightgown, and instead of a sword she held a book. Eve’s sharp eyes read the title as The Dragonlord’s Mate. She didn’t want to think about what that could mean.

The Swordsoul looked up from her ‘romance’ novel without a hint of embarrassment. “Who are they?”

“Your new recruits,” the old man barked in reply.

“What?”

“Your new recruit, Valya,” the Overlord of Thunder practically shouted.

“Oh,” Valya said. “Good.” She turned her head to the side. “Piskern, go fetch the others. We have a new recruit.”

A four-foot-tall form leapt up from behind the table, chattering something in an unfamiliar language before scurrying out of the room. Eve paid the kobold servant no mind. Her thoughts were fixed on the old woman before her.

Wes spoke his own thoughts aloud. “That’s Valya Hest? Chair of the War Council, Valya Hest? She looks like my grandma.”

Eve snorted. “Don’t be mean. I’ve met your grandma; she’s a very nice lady.”

Preston rounded on them. “Are you insane?” he hissed under his breath. “She’s right there!”

Wes shrugged. “She can’t hear us. Look, she’s still reading.”

Sure enough, the geriatric leader of the Dragonwrought had returned to her book with nary a thought for the young adventurers.

The party fell silent as the far door swung open to reveal the kobold. He stepped aside to allow two more elderly women into the council chamber, who Eve Appraised as an Archdruid of El and a Magma Runner. She had no idea what that meant. As everyone took their seats, Valya finally closed her book.

“Good, we’re all here.”

“Took ‘em long enough,” the old man complained.

“Oh, stop it, Gregory,” the Magma Runner snapped. “You’re the slowest one here.”

“What was that?” Valya asked.

“She said Gregory is slow,” the Archdruid explained with a raised voice.

Wes paled. “This can’t be all of them, right?” he muttered. “This is the Dragonwrought, not a retirement home.”

“Hey, Preston?” Eve whispered. “You said the Dragonwrought haven’t had a new recruit in decades. How many decades?”

The Archdruid answered her question from across the room. “It’s been seventy-two years since Willa here joined our ranks.” She nodded to the Magma Runner.

“What are you talking about?” Valya asked.

“The Emissary wanted to know when Willa joined us,” the Archdruid answered.

“Oh.” Valya nodded. “Tell her to speak up. We don’t all have magical hearing.”

From what Eve gathered, Valya didn’t have much in the way of mundane hearing either.

The four relics bickered amongst each other for some time as the party looked on, most of which consisted of Gregory grumbling something, Valya asking him to repeat himself, and the Archdruid—whose name, Eve discovered, was Beatrice—relaying Gregory’s words with a raised voice.

When at last the Overlord of Thunder had finished voicing his complaint about being the one who had to answer the door despite his bad back, Valya finally turned to address Eve.

“Welcome, sweetie. We’re so thrilled to have you.” She paused, the room falling silent as she thought. “What’s your name, again?”

“Eve.”

“What?”

“Eve!” she yelled.

“You don’t have to yell,” Valya chided her.

Eve muttered to herself, “No, I’m pretty sure I do.”

“Now,” Valya continued, “the bylaws are clear. Before you can visit the dragonforge and be wrought in flame, you have to pass a trial. The trouble is, some pesky adventurers came through and killed the lich next door we used to test recruits against, so we don’t really have a trial for you.”

“Is there a dungeon nearby I could clear for you?” Eve made a point of speaking as loudly as she could without outright shouting. “Maybe some monster that’s moved into the lich’s lair?”

“Come to think of it,” Willa spoke up, “I am almost out of foot cream.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “Foot cream?”

Valya repeated her favorite word, “What?”

Once Beatrice relayed the information to the near-deaf council chair, Valya smiled. “That will do. Your trial, should you be brave enough to accept it, is to fetch some more of Willa’s foot cream. Should you succeed, you will have earned a place among the ranks of the Dragonwrought.” She paused, taking a few breaths. “Does that sound alright, sweetie?”

Eve fought back a scowl. “Um… foot cream. Sure.”

Tertiary Quest assigned: Willa’s Foot Cream

Fetch a vial of foot cream for Willa Efferintian.

Eve sighed. “Alright. So where do we go?”

Valya nodded to the kobold. “Piskern will show you to your rooms so you may rest and prepare for your perilous quest. Come morning, he will show you the way.” She turned to Willa. “He does know the way, right?”

The Magma Runner nodded. “I usually take him with me to harvest the stuff. These hands aren’t as deft as they used to be.”

“Good, good,” Valya said. “I hereby adjourn this meeting of the Dragonwrought War Council.”

Eve didn’t mention that she’d never called any sort of meeting to order.

As the adventurers moved to follow the kobold’s lead out a side door and deeper into the keep, Valya’s voice followed them. “Oh, do remember to let Piskern know if you get hungry. His sister is a wonderful chef.”

Eve grinned at that, shouting thanks over her shoulder as she left the council chamber. Maybe this wouldn’t be all bad. Sure, the keep was uncomfortably warm, and sure, the legendary Dragonwrought had been reduced to four geriatric former adventurers with back pain and hearing loss, and sure, her very first mission for them was to fetch some foot cream, but a hot meal and a soft bed awaited her, and she didn’t even have to make up a fake country to get them.

Eve counted that as a win.

The Defiant retired that night with a sense of tentative hopefulness. Demeaning as her first mission for the Dragonwrought might’ve sounded, once she was a full member, she’d have all sorts of opportunities before her. And hey, at least the tertiary quest should be over quickly.

After all, how hard could fetching some foot cream be?

CHAPTER FIVE

The Fungal Cavern

EVE AWOKE FROM her first night’s sleep in a week to frantic pounding at her door, punctuated by muffled calls in a language she didn’t understand. With a groan, she pulled back the heavenly silken covers of the plush queen bed she’d been assigned and pushed herself to her feet.

As she crossed the barren room, her eyes lingered on the chests and mannequins and display cases and wall mounts that lined it, all empty. She’d dreamt that night of the treasures they’d once held, trophies of a long and epic adventuring career. She’d have to start accumulating a few of her own.

Eve swung open the thick wooden door to reveal Piskern standing in the hallway. In his left hand he held a metal bucket. The kobold chattered in his native language, a series of scraggly grunts and growls that came at a mile a minute. Eve wasn’t sure if the speed was a quirk of the tongue or a sense of urgency. Probably both.

She looked down at the four-foot humanoid, the torchlight glimmering against his rust-brown scales. “Do you speak common?”

Piskern let out an exaggerated sigh, waving his free hand in front of his elongated reptilian snout. Apparently he lacked the anatomy to speak common.

Eve grit her teeth. “Alright, alright, hold on.”

At least he seemed to understand her, going quiet as Eve crossed the hallway to pound on Wes and Preston’s door. Wes opened it.

Eve stepped inside. “Hey, do any of you…” She stopped as she noticed Art, Reginald, and Preston sitting around a breakfast table laden with fruits and breads. “You didn’t invite me to breakfast?”

“We figured we should let you sleep,” Preston replied. “What with your big mission today and all.”

Eve rolled her eyes. “Well, about that…” She stepped aside to reveal the kobold behind her, who promptly launched into yet more of the unfamiliar tongue. “Can any of you tell what he’s saying?”

Wes moved to sit back down at the table. “Beats me.”

Eve snorted. “Most things do.”

Wes lifted a pastry from the breakfast table, smirking as he raised it to his mouth. “Yeah, but poppyseeds don’t.”

Even from across the room the Defiant could smell the vile black spheres on the baked treat. She swallowed down bile.

Preston coughed, refocusing the conversation back on the kobold who hadn’t yet stopped talking. “Anyway, to answer your question, no. I can’t understand him.”

He says you need to go, Art chimed in. The monsters get more aggressive later in the day.

Three sets of eyes turned to stare at the young trellac.

Art stuck out his tongue. No, I didn’t read his mind. That’s rude, remember? At least he remembered the lesson they’d been trying to drill into him for the past three months.

Preston blinked. “Are you trying to tell us you speak kobold?”

It’s not kobold, Art explained. It’s draconic. And I don’t speak it; Reginald does.

Reginald wagged his tail, shaking the table behind him.

Eve shrugged. “That’s good enough for me.” She turned to Piskern. “Let me grab my armor and we can head out. If there’re monsters, I need to be equipped.”

The kobold replied with a sharp grunt which Art promptly translated as “okay.”

Ten minutes later, a fully armed and armored Eve stepped out into the hallway to find Reginald and Piskern exchanging complicated sequences of high-speed growls. “What’s going on?”

She regretted asking less than three words into Art’s explanation.

Well, Reginald thinks it’s inappropriate for a kobold to be working for humans instead of a dragon, but Piskern disagrees because none of the dragons in the valley pay very well, and the Dragonwrought do, but then Reginald asks what there even is to buy up here, but Piskern says it’s actually about the principle of the thing and that the Dragonwrought won’t eat him if he finds them in a bad mood, so now Reginald is trying to convince Piskern to come work for him instead, promising he won’t ever eat him and that he’ll pay three percent of anything he adds to his hoard, but Piskern has already kind of realized that Reginald really doesn’t have much of a hoard to speak of, so negotiations aren’t going well.

Eve raised an eyebrow. “Okay, then.” She supposed one advantage—or disadvantage, depending on one’s perspective—of telepathic communication was that Art didn’t have to stop mid-sentence for such paltry concerns as breathing. “Shall we—uh—get going, then?”

Piskern barked one final grunt—which Eve took for a “no”—at Reginald before nodding and turning to lead the way down the dark stone hall. The party followed.

The kobold, presumably somewhat tuckered out by his debate with Reginald, said little as they walked, only once waving his hand at Eve’s companions and growling a single phrase.

He says we can come watch, but we can’t help you, Art relayed Reginald’s translation. It’s your trial, not ours.

“Makes sense,” Eve said. “At least he’s letting you come. This’d be a lot harder without you two to translate.”

Art beamed. Reginald puffed out his chest proudly.

Piskern led them down into the underground passages beneath the fortress, deftly navigating the winding passageways deeper and deeper into the mountain. Twenty minutes into their journey, he slowed as the orange torchlight gave way to the blinding light of day, and the party stepped out onto the mount’s northern face.

For the second time Eve stopped to take in the beauty of the dragons’ valley, only wrenching her gaze away from the idyllic sight as Piskern ushered her ever forward. He took them down a narrow path, somewhere between a game trail and an actual road, that lead along the slope’s side. Here, there was no mud, as no snow had ever fallen on this face of the mountain. The dragons wouldn’t let it.

A half-hour later, the adventurers found themselves at the mouth of a cave, dark and well-hidden in the rocks of the mountainside. Piskern gestured Eve forward.

You have entered the dungeon: Fungal Cavern! Fight well.

Eve grinned. “Now that’s more like it. Maybe this foot cream mission won’t be so bad.”

Piskern muttered something in reply, but Art didn’t bother to translate it.

Putting the thought out of her mind, Eve took a careful look around. The white light of her eyes cast the cave in the familiar ghostly hue, illuminating the dull-green lichen that lined the walls and floor. Eve breathed a silent thanks for her magically improved traction as she took her first step onto the slippery surface.

At first glance the chamber appeared empty. Eve drew her club. An empty appearance meant danger. At least a visibly crowded dungeon meant she knew where the threats were. The first of them made itself clear as Eve stepped further into the room.

You have ingested an unknown poison!

Eve scowled, watching her Mana tick down as her body fought the unfamiliar toxin. The drain was slow, not necessarily threatening in its own right, but enough to limit her spell options as she progressed through the dungeon. She stopped to pull a scone from her pack, wolfing it down to counteract the Mana loss.

Forced to stay vigilant as she ate, Eve mourned the opportunity to truly relish the treat, but ultimately decided her life was worth more than a week-old strawberry scone.

The Defiant waited patiently at the cavern’s entrance, her eyes constantly scanning the room as she broke the poison. Ten minutes later, her Mana ended its drop and instead began to climb. “I can digest literal poison but not poppyseeds,” she said under her breath. “Some bullshit.”

Acclimated to the deadly environment, Eve moved further into the cavern, finally allowing Piskern and the others in behind her. The kobold and the party alike all wore scarves over their faces, an anti-poison measure Piskern had decidedly not bothered to give Eve. She shrugged. It wasn’t like she would’ve said yes if he’d offered.

Eve’s confidence in her ability to solo the dungeon faltered as Piskern stopped short, growling with audible fear that dripped through even the language barrier.

He says we’re too late, Art translated. They’re awake.

“Who’s awake?” Eve asked.

Neither Art nor the kobold replied.

“Alright,” Eve muttered. “On my own then.”

Two careful steps into the cave later, a chorus of high-pitched screeches echoed from every direction. All at once a dozen spots of lichen around the room began to shift, quaking in time with the elongated whines. Eve braced herself.

The first one to emerge did at Eve’s left.

It was a mushroom. Green lichen coated the top of its four-foot-wide cap, explaining how it’d hidden itself in its hole in the ground. The thing’s stalk was only a foot and a half thick, giving it a comically top-heavy appearance that rather undermined the vicious teeth and threatening screech. Eve wondered how it intended to attack her, given the width of the cap could keep its teeth at bay on its own.

As if to answer her query, two spindly arms extended from the stalk, reaching just beyond the brim of the cap. In one hand it held a knife. “Scree!” it shouted its battle cry as it charged on three stump legs at Eve.

She crushed it with a swing of her club.

You have defeated Level 21 Fungal Anklebiter: +0 exp!

“Oh, I get it,” Wes called from the cave entrance. “Instead of having to fight a lich to prove your worth, you have to fight the lichen.”

Cries of “scree!” drowned out any witty retort Eve might’ve come up with as eleven more anklebiters popped from holes scattered about the floor and walls, each swinging their own six-inch stone knife.

Eve Charged!

The level twenty fungi didn’t make for a coordinated threat, each bumbling into each other as the eyes on their stalks failed to properly gauge the width of their caps. By the time Eve’s first target—one of the few that hadn’t appeared with others next to it—fell to an un-enhanced overhand blow, half of the anklebiters had managed to collide with each other in their race to reach her, falling to the ground.

Eve snorted. “Top-heavy indeed.”

The fight didn’t last long.

Eve went about it methodically, eliminating those that still stood while the fallen maneuvered their spindly arms and clumsy caps to retake their feet. The low-level mushrooms posed little threat to the Defiant, their movements unsteady, their stout legs slow, and their reach shorter than that of her club. Still, Eve kept her focus, ready for any trick the anklebiters might’ve had. None came.

It wasn’t until the last of the screes fell silent that Eve relaxed, slinging her bone club over her shoulder as she turned to face the others. “Is that it? Is that why you had to wake me up to get here early?” They hadn’t even been high enough level to drop exp!

Piskern shook his head.

A powerful thud rang out behind her, shaking the very stone beneath her feet. Eve tightened her grip on her club.

Piskern grunted something in draconic, raising a clawed finger to point behind her.

No, Art translated, that is.

Eve spun just in time to watch the mass of mycelium step from a side passage into the cavern proper. While its cap was the same four feet wide as its predecessors, that was where the similarities ended.

The thing stood ten feet tall, but the shape of its stalk mirrored that of a dwarf, far broader and more muscular than any human could hope to be. It was very muscular. Buff, jacked, ripped, beefy, swole, thick, stacked, and any other word could not fully describe how absolutely juiced this thing was.

And Eve was going to fight it.

Level ?? Mushriarch

Eve leveled her bone club as thoughts of exp filled her mind. The bigger they come and all that. She grinned.

“Let’s do this.”

CHAPTER SIX

On a Roll

EVE LEANED IN, staring the mushriarch down as she silently counted the seconds until Defiant Charge came off cooldown. She watched the beast unblinkingly, ready to Jet to the side at any sudden movement. None came.

Instead, the ten-foot-tall humanoid mushroom gracefully spent the precious moments flexing its mycelial muscles in various poses.

Eve raised an eyebrow. “Is… is it trying to intimidate me?”

“Maybe it’s trying to charm you!” Wes called out from the cave entrance.

Eve blinked. “That’s a charm? Who in the hells would get charmed by that?”

“Yeah, no, of course, nobody would get distracted by-um… what were we talking about?” Preston’s voice trailed off as the mushriarch turned around to enter a rear lat spread, revealing its similarly well-built backside.

Eve snorted, biting back a full-on chortle as she eyed her cooldown. Three, two, one…

She Charged!

Even with its back turned and the soft lichen dampening the noise of her footsteps, the mushriarch noticed her approach.

But Eve was fast.

Pulling back her club and activating Mana Rush for fifty Mana per second, the Defiant made it within five steps of the fungal monstrosity before it whipped around, swinging its fist as it spun.

Eve ducked.

Her quick motion sent the punch flying over her head, but it left her poorly poised for an attack of her own and still barreling towards the bulky mushroom at untenable speeds. Eve awkwardly swung her club at the thing’s left leg, but her bad angle robbed the blow of much of its force. Still, fifteen hundred Strength was nothing to be trifled with, and the griffin bone sank into the mushriarch’s shin.

It roared, revealing the stiletto-thin teeth that crowded its maw.

Eve flinched, not at the rumbling barrage of sound that assaulted her ears, but from the lack of movement from the monstrosity before her. Even with her club six inches into its leg, the mushriarch didn’t collapse, it didn’t recoil, and it didn’t stumble.

Instead, it defied all expectations and put weight on its injured leg to lift the other and deliver its thick foot directly into Eve’s ribs.

The kick sent her flying.

Pain blossomed in her chest as she tumbled through the air, careening headlong towards the cave’s side wall. Seconds before collision, Eve Jetted to a halt, stopping short and unceremoniously falling a few feet to the soft lichen below.

She had barely a moment to recover her footing before the mushriarch charged her.

The cavern quaked with its every footstep, further destabilizing both Eve and the onlookers. Wes, safe as he was at the cave’s mouth, fell on his ass. Eve might have as well, were it not for her sure-footedness.

When the beast reached her, she was ready. She dodged left and back as it swung with a forceful right hook, then used a low-Mana Jet to close in for another swing of her club.

This blow struck true.

The bulging end of the griffin-bone club passed clean through the mushriarch’s stomach, leaving a gaping hole in its wake. Once more the beast roared, but once more it didn’t recoil.

This time, Eve dashed away before the counterattack could land.

She only stopped when she reached the far end of the cavern, spinning around to watch as the mushriarch stood still for moment, its mycelia shifting around to close the hole in its core.

“That’s just not fair!” Eve shouted.

“Try burning it!” Wes yelled from the sidelines.

Eve exhaled sharply. “Right. Fire. Why didn’t I think of that? Let me just blast it with all my fire magic.”

“Exactly!”

Eve sighed as the cavern shook once more, signaling she had no more time to chat. The mushriarch approached.

Once more she dodged its punch, and once more she scored a seemingly devastating blow against its chest, but again the beast regenerated, losing but a few points of muscle mass in the process.

“Try whittling it down!” Preston offered.

“I can’t,” Eve called back. “I only have twenty seconds of Mana left.” Her eyes flicked down to her Mana bar, watching as Mana Rush drained it. Nineteen seconds.

I need to hit something that isn’t just mycelia, she thought to herself as the mushriarch charged once more.

This time she didn’t even get a counterattack in, as the creature came in with a vicious one-two punch that forced Eve to Jet away. She swallowed. It was learning.

As its roar echoed through the cavern a third time, Eve’s eyes fixated on its deadly-sharp teeth. She’d defeated the ankle biters with overhand attacks that had struck the space behind their maws. Even if there was nothing vital behind the mushriarch’s mouth, she doubted it’d regenerate its teeth so easily.

That left Eve the problem of how to best hit something ten feet high.

The beast’s next charge left her little time to strategize.

Gritting her rattling teeth against the quaking ground beneath her, Eve gripped her club. The mushriarch drew nearer. Eve crouched. The mushriarch pulled back its fist.

Just as the fungal monster began its swing, Eve opted for the tried and true method of hitting high-up targets.

She jumped.

Her powerful legs propelled her into the air, above both the mushriarch’s attack and even the red cap atop its head. Eve swung her club straight down.

Just as the tip of the griffin-bone collided with the mushroom cap, Eve Jetted downward, supplying herself the momentum needed to put force behind her blow without ground to brace herself against. Even so, as her club slammed into the creature’s head, enough of the force translated into up into her body to launch her up and over the beast’s massive form.

She and the mushriarch hit the ground at the same time.

You have defeated Level 107 Mushriarch: + 226800 exp!

Eve canceled her Mana Rush, ceasing the drain on her near-depleted Mana pool as she carefully sat up. The lichen had cushioned her fall, but the fifteen-foot drop left her bruised. Her chest still throbbed with pain where the mushriarch had kicked it, signaling a more significant injury. Eve checked her status.

Health: 642/1660

Stamina: 0/0

Mana: 218/6300

She groaned.

“Can I heal her?” Preston asked. “She’s not fighting anymore.”

A sharp growl from Piskern followed.

He says no, Art translated. But if she packed potions, she’s allowed one of those.

Eve forced herself to her feet, trudging over the fallen mushriarch and across the cavern to reach her friends. She snatched the healing potion from Preston’s outstretched hand, emptying the leather pouch in a few quick gulps.

“Bandir’s ballsweat that hurts,” she grunted as the alchemical solution set and healed her broken rib. A few seconds of heavy breathing later, her Health pool glowed a promising 1581. “Did the trick, though. Thanks.”

Preston smiled.

Eve turned to Piskern. “Is that it?”

The kobold shook his head, pointing a gnarled claw at the dark tunnel the mushriarch had appeared from.

He says it’s in there, Art relayed. Didn’t say what ‘it’ is, though.

Eve sighed. “Okay. Can I rest for a bit?”

Piskern nodded.

“Great.” Eve plopped down to the lichen floor, digging through her pack for whatever snacks she could find. Whatever was in the next room, she’d need more than a few hundred Mana to fight it.

After downing two more stale scones, a wedge of cheese, and a fistful of dried meat, Eve gave herself a few minutes to fully digest the meal and finally stood. Swinging her club up over her shoulder, she crossed the cave once more, this time making for the tunnel on the far end.

The light of her eyes illuminated the passageway, casting their ethereal glow along mossy walls and damp rock. The whole place smelled of earth, with a funky fungal overtone that made sense for a place called the Fungal Cavern. What Eve didn’t understand was the undercurrent of sweat that reached her nose, at least, not until the passage opened up into an even larger room, and she first laid eyes on the object of this endeavor.

It was oblong in shape, like an eight-foot-wide sphere had been stretched to twelve feet along one axis. But it wasn’t the shape nor the massive size of the thing which set Eve reeling.

It was the feet.

Dear gods it was a lot of feet.

From every inch of its elliptical form sprouted a foot of some sort, ranging from cloven hoofs to insectoid tarsi to human feet. A good third of its left side was taken up by a single, yard-long foot that Eve could only assume was that of a giant.

Wes sputtered. “It’s just… a giant ball of feet.”

Piskern snarled something.

Not just a ball of feet, Art translated. That’s the embodiment of pure, elemental, feet.

Eve Appraised it.

Level ?? Foot Elemental

“Of course,” she muttered. “I don’t get to fight a fire elemental or an earth elemental like a normal adventurer. Nope. It’s feet for me.”

Preston paled. “That’s disturbing.”

Eve shrugged. “Nothing a few thousand Strength can’t deal with.”

Piskern growled.

You can’t kill it, Art sent. Just knock it out.

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

“Hit it hard but not too hard?” Preston offered.

“It’s easy,” Wes said. “You just have to de-feet it.”

Eve turned to Preston. “Any chance you could tie that air filter around his mouth a little tighter? You know, just enough to shut him up.”

A rumbling from behind her pulled Eve from the exchange as the foot elemental began to move.

It was slow at first, its back feet kicking up to propel it into a forward roll, but with every new foot that hit the ground, a new kick added to its growing momentum. Given that the elemental had a good hundred feet on the ground at any time, it accelerated pretty gods-damned quickly.

Eve dumped twenty-five Mana into Mana Rush as a middle ground, quietly hoping it wouldn’t be too much for the elemental to survive.

It wasn’t.

The Defiant copied her strategy from the previous fight, standing and waiting as the foot elemental barreled towards her. The cavern rumbled louder and louder with ever-increasing frequency as more and more feet hit the floor with every second. Eve readied herself.

At the last moment she Jetted to the side, swinging her club down in a brutal arc.

The feet caught it.

A bird’s talon, a monkey’s foot, and the three-toed curved foot of a beast Eve didn’t recognize all teamed up to grab the bone-club mid swing, holding fast. The elemental rolled past, its momentum more than enough to yank the weapon from Eve’s hands.

She cursed.

The giant ball of feet redirected slowly, maintaining its ever-growing speed as it made a wide turn to continue chasing Eve.

She Charged away.

The Defiant led the elemental in circles around the massive cavern, gaining ground with every turn but losing more and more whenever the mass of feet could build momentum for more than a second.

It gained on her.

Eve’s heart pounded as she tracked its progress, knowing full well that Charge provided a constant boost, one the elemental would soon overtake. Even with Charge and Haste together pushing her running speed to almost eight times what it would otherwise be, the creature behind her had five hundred times as many feet as she did.

Eve wracked her brain for ideas as her pursuer drew ever nearer. Without her club, her only weapons were the daggers at her hips and a high-cost Mana Burst. The former would kill before they incapacitated, and the latter was too unreliable. Already her Mana had dropped below half, and figuring out the proper shape and intensity to knock the elemental out without killing it would take more than one shot.

The thing’s speed grew.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Need something fast. Gusts of wind blew at the back of Eve’s neck as foot after foot passed within inches of her. One particularly long talon scored a thin line down the back of her chest plate.

If I have nothing to hit it with, I just need it to… Eve cursed as she watched it slow slightly at another turn. It doesn’t have enhanced traction!

A plan forming, Eve turned a hard right, breaking the square pattern to dash directly across the center of the cave. The elemental followed.

Eve stopped just against the back wall, turning to watch as the beast got the longest straightaway yet. It accelerated. Eve crouched. The ground quaked with a thousand footfalls. The elemental drew near.

At the latest possible second, Eve Jetted to the side, launching herself along the wall at a higher speed than might’ve been perfectly safe. Even then a horse’s hoof struck her leg. A hideous snap filled the air, but didn’t have the chance to sink in as the foot elemental hit the wall.

The cavern shook.

Dust and dirt rained down from the ceiling.

Eve hit the ground hard, her back skidding against the rock. Her broken leg throbbed. Her Mana dipped below a hundred. Her heart still pounded.

The foot elemental lay unmoving.

“There’s no kill notification,” she grunted through the pain, hopefully assuaging any fear that she’d killed the thing.

Piskern growled in affirmation and stepped into the chamber, approaching the unconscious elemental with his bucket in hand.

Preston rushed to Eve’s side, channeling Ayla’s light into her.

“Is that it, then?” Wes asked. “You did it?”

Eve nodded. “That’s it.”

Preston raised an eyebrow. “How do you know?”

Eve explained, “I said there was no kill notification. I didn’t say anything about other notifications.”

Wes perked up. “Quest complete?”

“Not quite.” Eve smirked. “Even better.” She blinked her status page open, rereading the two notification she found there.

You have cleared dungeon: Fungal Cavern: +1000000 exp!

Level Up!

CHAPTER SEVEN

Nothing More Satisfying Than a Quest Turn-in

EVE BLINKED AT her status screen, then back to the dungeon completion notification, then back to her status screen. “These numbers are getting out of hand.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “Which ones?”

“In Eve’s case?” Preston asked. “Probably all of them.”

Eve shook her head. “Exp requirements. And gains, I guess. They’ve got so many digits they’re getting hard to read.”

Wes snorted. “Hard to read? Intelligence is your worst stat, and you still have more than enough to process those kinds of numbers.”

Another quick look at her status screen confirmed she could indeed internalize the value without a thought. “Alright, fine. Ugly then. Hold on.”

Eve pressed her eyes shut, blocking her view of the floating blue box that had so defined her life. She knew it was just a medium for displaying information, that any real changes would only make it less accurate, but she’d heard tales of foolhardy adventurers fiddling with it. There had to be a way to—

Something popped in Eve’s mind, and her eyes snapped open.

Exp: 187,486/1,742,579

“Commas,” she muttered to herself. “I’ll take commas.”

Wes and Preston looked askance at her as she carefully scanned the rest of her status to confirm nothing else had changed before she finally explained.

“That was stupid,” Preston chided. “You shouldn’t fuck with things you don’t understand. Especially things as important as your status screen.”

“Fucking with things I don’t understand is my favorite pastime, though. That’s how I became a Manaheart, remember?”

Wes snorted. “Except that little mishap almost killed you, remember?”

Eve shrugged. “A lot of things have almost killed me. That foot elemental almost killed me. Now Piskern’s milking it.”

All three of them wrinkled their noses in discomfort as another faint splash rang out from the kobold’s bucket.

“I don’t like that.” Preston shuddered. “I don’t like that at all.”

Eve had to agree. While not the most frightening or intimidating of the enemies she’d faced, the foot elemental certainly took the prize for most uncomfortable.

While he worked, Piskern chatted with Art, the only party member willing to stand within ten feet of the unconscious ball of feet. Reginald, whose maw was too big for the enchanted scarves to fully protect from the deadly spores in the air, waited outside. Eve was tempted to join him.

She didn’t let herself, acknowledging that she’d come here on a quest, and said quest wasn’t over until Piskern left the cavern safely. She doubted the kobold could defend himself should the elemental awaken.

With a sigh, Eve sat back against the cave wall, trying her best to tune out the repetitive squirting noise as she pulled up the notification she’d been ignoring.

Ability Upgraded!

Active Ability - Defiant Charge

100 Mana

Now quadruples running speed and Constitution!

Eve let out a whistle. Sure, she’d once again changed an ability exactly after it would’ve been most useful, but this was the kind of upgrade she could get behind. Speed was her cornerstone, after all, and more was always better.

Quadrupling instead of tripling meant… Eve paused to run the numbers through her head. Between the forty Mana Density she’d gained from leveling up and the upgraded Charge, she could, in theory, run almost ten times as fast as a normal human. And with the amount of Mana she had to spend, she could do it for a very long time.

Eve grinned.

Okay, Art chimed in her head. We’re done!

“Thank Ayla,” Eve muttered as she pushed herself to her feet. As she looked up, she noticed Wes and Preston had long vacated the cavern, probably both in search of fresh air and to distance themselves from the foot elemental.

Piskern led the way out of the chamber, through the narrow passage and past the spore-filled entry room. Already the lichen along the floor had begun to encroach on the dead mushriarch, creeping across the mass of mycelia with eerie speed. Eve hastened her pace.

The sun hung high in the sky by the time Eve emerged from the Fungal Cavern. The adventurers traversed the mountain in relative silence, though from the random barks and growls Reginald let out, Eve knew he and Art must’ve held quite the conversation.

Eve took the opportunity to Appraise the pail of white liquid in Piskern’s hand.

Foot Milk

Rarity: Epic

Of course, Eve thought. Where else would foot cream come from than foot milk. It makes perfect sense. She hated everything about it.

“Do you think we’ll get a reward too?” Wes asked from nowhere.

Eve looked up at him. “Why? You didn’t do anything.”

“What about emotional damages? Sure, I didn’t have to fight it, but I’m not getting the image of the foot elemental out of my mind any time soon.” He overacted a fake gag.

“We can get out of the foot elemental’s cave,” Preston muttered, “but we can’t get the foot elemental out of our nightmares.”

Eve snorted. “Emotional damage? What about the emotional damage dealt by your ‘de-feet it’ pun? You should have to pay me for that. You’ll get paid once we start doing actual commissions. Remember, one of the advantages of me joining the Dragonwrought is they let me work with outside adventurers.”

“Not like they’d have a choice,” Wes pointed out. “Unless they expect you to go solo or team up with the geriatrics.”

Piskern growled.

Those geriatrics could kill you both without breaking a sweat, Art translated. But you’re right. None of them have left the hold in years.

“See, there you go,” Eve said. “The hard part’s over. All I need to do is turn in this quest, officially join the Dragonwrought, and pick a commission. Preferably one involving a Burendian ruin.”

“The hard part’s over, she says,” Wes talked over her. “Wait until she realizes from here on out it’s all hard parts.”

“Save your hard part for Preston. I’m not interested.”

Eve smirked as she continued on along the mountainside, prouder of her joke and the pair of blushes it elicited than she was of beating the foot elemental. She could clear a dungeon any day. Zingers that good were rare enough to savor.

Eve decided then and there that today was a good day. She’d finished the trial, leveled up, flexed her superior wit over her friends, and had a tertiary quest ready to turn in. The Dragonwrought, and all the power they promised, awaited her. All she had to do was claim it.

* * *

Eve slammed her head into a table.

“Why?” her groan echoed through the under-furnished bedchamber. “Why is there so much paperwork?”

“It prevents disputes,” Wes explained. “If everyone’s agreed to the same set of rules, it’s easier to parse out who’s wrong and who’s right when guildmates butt heads.”

Eve waved a handful of documents in the air. “That’s what these are, and I’ve already signed them. Obey direct orders from ranking members, commissions are first come first serve, blah, blah, whatever.” She redirected her attention to the stack of papers still on the table. “Why in the name of Bandir’s left nut do I have to write out the name and level of every single monster I’ve ever killed and explain how I killed it?”

“So they can get an idea of your capabilities to pair you with teammates? To make sure you haven’t worked against the Dragonwrought in the past?”

Eve groaned again. “Why does that even matter? None of the living Dragonwrought have left the keep since I was ten, and it’s not like they have any teammates to pair me with.”

Preston peered over her shoulder. “You misspelled ‘accidental weapon explosion.’ Twice.”

“You know, it is weird that that’s happened twice,” Wes noted.

Preston nodded. “As opposed to against the drake, when you exploded your dagger on purpose.”

Eve patted the weapons at her waist. “Hey, these are designed to explode. I learned my lesson after that second time.”

Preston took another look at her work. “So you’re not counting shattering your mace on the griffin’s skull, then?”

“That was more of a… byproduct of hitting it hard than an actual explosion.”

“Yeah, but you did explode half the bones in your body in the process,” the healer pointed out. “I’m pretty damn sure that was accidental.”

“The form just wants to know how I killed it,” Eve argued. “It doesn’t ask how badly I hurt myself in the process.”

As she finished the work history form, Eve added it to the finished pile before pausing to stretch her cramping hand. Hours had passed since their return from the Fungal Cavern, and she still had neither joined the Dragonwrought nor turned in her quest. Apparently the former required the aforementioned stack of paperwork, and the latter waited on Piskern separating the foot cream from the milk he’d gathered.

Eve deflated.

Steeling herself to continue, she moved on to the form for disclosing any rivals, mortal enemies, or blood feuds she may have. Her high Dexterity helped speed the process, but it did nothing to make it any less mind-numbingly boring. Eve finished the document and moved on to the next one. She sighed. Five forms down, only a half-inch stack of paper left.

* * *

Valya Hest, Chair of the Dragonwrought War Council, looked up from her pornographic novel at Eve and the stack of paperwork in her hand. “Oh, you’re finished. Good, good. You can put those… um…” She slowly squinted around the massive table at which she sat before deciding on a place seemingly at random. “Right there. I’m sure Piskern will… do something with them.”

Eve clenched her jaw, biting back her mounting frustration. “Yes, ma’am.” She refused to even acknowledge the idea that she’d just spent hours filling out documents that nobody had any intention of reading, looking at, or even keeping around. Nope. Clearly one of the nonagenarians would go through it. They wouldn’t ask her for it otherwise, right?

“What was that?” Valya asked.

Eve didn’t clarify, simply placing the papers on the table as directed. “So what’s next?”

“Your what’s hexed?”

Eve rubbed her temples. “I said, what’s next?”

“Oh, oh.” Valya closed her book. “Well, Willa’s told me Piskern has delivered the foot cream to her alchemy lab.” She leaned in. “You didn’t hear this from me, but I think she’s gotten herself addicted to those numbing potions.”

Eve blinked. “Um… okay.”

The old woman sat back. “In any case, we should…” She trailed off. “What were we talking about?”

“Joining the Dragonwrought,” Eve answered loud enough for her voice to echo across the spacious council chamber. “I’ve filled out the paperwork and I’ve finished the trial.”

“Oh, yes, good job, sweetheart. Here, have a candy.” Valya shoved a gold-engraved platinum bowl across the table, gesturing to the paper-wrapped sweets inside.

Eve gingerly took one and shoved it in her pocket.

“Welcome to the Dragonwrought.”

Eve blinked. “That’s—um… is that it? There’s no, I don’t know, ceremony or something?”

“Oh, no, none of that. I suppose there is the matter of reforging your body in dragon fire, but that’ll take a few weeks to set up.”

That got Eve’s attention. “A few weeks? Can we do that any sooner?”

Valya shook her head. “You youths, always in a rush. Take some time off. Do a commission. The world can wait.”

A commission? Don’t mind if I do. Eve bowed her head. “Of course. Thank you, ma’am.”

“Good, good. Now go.” Valya looked down at her book. “I’m getting to the good part.”

Eve practically ran from the room, less than interested in knowing what the old woman considered ‘the good part’ of a book like that. Fortunately enough, her mind had plenty of other thoughts to distract her from the undesirable ones, two notifications chief among them.

Tertiary Quest Complete: Willa’s Foot Cream.

Rewards: 10,000 exp. Admission into the ranks of the Dragonwrought. 1 hard candy.

Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: Dragonwrought!

+1,024,000 exp!

CHAPTER EIGHT

Is It Lungs Or Lunch?

“SO THAT LEAVES…” Wes glanced over to the two mismatched stacks of dusty files on his left. “Four hundred and seventy-two expired commissions, seventeen without a date on them, and four that are recent enough we can be reasonably sure nobody else has already done them.”

“When was the last time any Dragonwrought actually did a commission?” Preston asked. “It’s no wonder there aren’t any new ones.”

Eve couldn’t speak to the last time her new guild had completed a job, but from the layer of dust and cobwebs everywhere, she knew it had been a good long while since anyone else had stepped into the filing room.

Wes groaned. “This is the problem with building your headquarters on top of a mountain. You’re nowhere near any of the people who might want to actually hire you.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Preston said, holding up a commission slip. “A few of these are from the dragons.”

“Oh, perfect,” Eve grabbed the slip. “Let me just file this job that a dragon can’t do himself under ‘things to do when I’m level a thousand.’”

Preston sighed. “This whole process would be easier if we could at least ask if some of these commissions were still valid. Or at least if nobody’s done them yet.”

“Again, fuck isolated keeps,” Wes swore. “There’s a reason literally every other company sets up in a major city. Without their amazing reputation getting people to send news and commissions their way, nobody thinks of the Dragonwrought anymore.”

"I’m sure they had a reason for putting the hold here,” Eve argued. “It’s probably necessary for the whole reforged-in-dragonfire thing. The Dragonwrought should be near the dragons.”

“That still only leaves us with four commissions,” Wes said. “And once we finish them there’s no guarantee any new ones will come in any time soon.”

“Three commissions,” Preston corrected, pointing at one of the unexpired four. “This one is from a dragon asking us to kill another dragon. I don’t think I need to explain why we absolutely are not attempting that.”

Eve snatched the slip of paper off the table. “Not attempting that yet.”

“Or, you know, ever,” Preston countered. “Rule number one of dragons is ‘don’t fuck with dragons.’”

Wes rubbed the back of his neck. “About that…”

Preston held up a hand. “Outside of life quests, we’re not fighting any dragons.”

“Yet,” Eve finished.

Preston glared at her.

“Hey, you said outside of life quests. I’m about eighty percent sure the Stones are just making mine up as we go along, so technically…”

“No,” Preston put it flatly.

“I’m willing to bet it’d be worth a milestone.”

“Still no,” the healer said. “It could be worth ten milestones and we wouldn’t do it, not only because we’re about one tenth the level we’d need to be to have any sort of chance of surviving, but because none of us know a damn thing about the politics down in that valley. Killing some random dragon might send four others hunting us down.”

“Alright, alright,” Eve conceded. “Fine. We won’t take the dragon-killing commission.” As Preston turned away, Eve slipped the commission slip into her pocket. For safekeeping.

“For similar reasons,” Preston changed the subject, “I think we can eliminate the lich lord of Arineah. The commission even says it’s for tier 5s.”

“We’re not killing the bog witch,” Wes insisted, dismissing yet another of the possible jobs. “It’d take a month of travel just to get to the Broken Marsh, and then we’d have to trudge through the swamp for who knows how long.”

“Okay.” Preston pulled up the final somewhat recent commission. “Thoughts on trying the lungeon?”

Wes shrugged. “Maybe if I had some idea of what it was.”

Eve furrowed her brow. “It sounds like a portmanteau of ‘lunch’ and ‘dungeon.’”

“Or like someone misspelled ‘luncheon,’” Wes added.

“Or ‘lunge’ and ‘dungeon,’” Eve said.

“Ooh, that too. Gotta remember to work those glutes.”

“How would that even work?” Eve asked. “You can’t enter the dungeon unless your butt is toned enough?”

“Maybe there’s just a lot of stairs,” Wes replied. “Or some squat-based puzzle you have to solve.”

Preston rubbed his temples. “You two finished?”

“But what if it’s actually the lung dungeon?” Eve asked. “That sounds like it would get kind of gross.”

“Okay,” Preston interrupted. “We’re not going to the lungeon.”

“I don’t know,” Wes said. “You’ve kind of piqued my interest. What is a lungeon?”

“I give it an equal chance of being terrible and being delicious,” Eve replied. “Who doesn’t like lunch?”

“As long as I don’t have to hear you two coming up with more dumb theories the whole way there.” Preston sighed. “I guess it’s our last option anyway.”

“Not exactly.” Eve flashed a sheepish grin as she slid a commission slip across the table.

Wes looked down at it. “This is expired.”

“Ignore the date and look at the job. Just because it’s expired doesn’t mean we can’t do it, just that whoever sent the commission won’t pay the reward.”

Wes frowned. “The reward is the entire…” He trailed off as he read further. “Oh.”

“Exactly,” Eve said. “Whatever we find in that Burendian ruin, whatever I can unlock down there, will be worth way more than the forty gold for clearing the lungeon.”

“So instead of going for an actual job, you want us to chase after a Burendian ruin that someone discovered twenty years ago and sent out commissions for?” Preston exhaled. “What if somebody’s already cleared it?”

Eve shrugged. “I have to progress my secondary quest somehow. The commission fee wasn’t that high, and if the outpost was any indicator, Burendian ruins are more interesting to enchanters than adventurers. The one near Lynthia sat unexplored for years, and this one is nowhere near any settlements.”

“So it might still be active,” Wes thought aloud. “Is there an easy way we can check?”

Preston shook his head. “Not without actually walking out there. We could try sending a message to whomever set this commission, but for all we know he died twenty years ago.”

“C’mon, it’s not that far,” Eve argued. She slid another commission slip across the table, resting it side by side with the one for the Burendian ruin. “And more importantly, it’s less than two days away from the lungeon.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “You want to do two dungeons in one trip?”

“It only makes sense,” she answered. “They’re basically right next to each other.”

“We don’t have to do both,” Preston pointed out. “We don’t have to do either. Might as well stop by both and decide then and there.”

Eve nodded along. “That way if the Burendian ruin is already clear we didn’t waste a trip, and we can skip the lungeon if it turns out to be lungs not lunch.”

Preston brought his hands together in a single clap. “Sounds like a plan.” He turned to Wes. “I’ll start packing, you go figure out what the kiddos are up to?”

“Willa’s got them,” the Disciple answered. “Apparently Art asked her to tell them a story and she’s had them ever since. We’ll need to rescue them.”

Eve pushed herself to her feet. “Well, good luck with that.”

Wes gaped. “You’re not gonna help me?”

“And risk getting trapped in a three-hour conversation with Willa? No, thank you.”

Preston furrowed his brow. “Why do you assume it’ll be so hard? You barely even know this woman.”

Eve tilted her head at him. “You didn’t grow up with grandparents, did you?”

Preston blinked. “Why… um… why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Wes snapped. “Here, I’ll go get everything packed and stop by the kitchen for travel rations and lug the packs to the door. You worry about Art and Reginald.”

“You sure? That seems like a lot.” Preston narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing.” Wes shrugged innocently. “You said it yourself, I barely know this woman.”

“Alright,” Preston elongated the word as he thought. “I guess we’ll meet you at the front door.” He turned, stopping to look back at Eve and Wes as he strode for the door.

They smiled at him.

The healer blinked, suspicion clear in his gaze, and left.

Wes grinned at Eve. “Well that’ll give us a few hours. Anything special you want from the kitchen? I’m sure the cook’ll have time to whip something up for us before Preston escapes from Willa.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “Do you really need to ask?”

Wes snapped his fingers. “Nope, just checking. Two dozen strawberry scones coming right up.”

The two parted ways, Wes headed for the kitchen and Eve, her quarters.

The Defiant took her time upon arrival, carefully repacking her bag and strapping on her armor. She spared a thought for replacing the leather suit, worn and torn as it was from months of mistreatment. She’d originally intended to upgrade her armor in Pyrindel, but the leatherworker there had pointed her north, towards dragon hide as the best leather for channeling Mana.

Eve had a lot of Mana to channel.

Perhaps one of the dungeons before her would provide a replacement, but Eve didn’t hold out hope. What were the odds of finding leather armor in a Burendian ruin, let alone leather armor designed to allow pure Mana through? Actually, given what she knew of the Burendians, that latter actually seemed reasonable, but Eve doubted leather would be their material of choice.

It was more likely she’d find new armor here in the keep. The Dragonwrought almost certainly had all sorts of rare and valuable equipment lying around unused. Eve made a mental note to ask about that once she got back.

Three hours later, she joined Wes and a simultaneously aggravated and exhausted Preston, Art, and Reginald at the front door of Dragonwrought Hold. Preston said nothing, the look in his eyes communicating all there was to be said.

Never again.

So it was that the party, but three days after their arrival at the imposing dark stone keep, made their departure. As many treasures and secrets hid within the ancient structure, they, and her baptism in dragonfire, would still be waiting when they returned. The world at large beckoned, and Eve stepped outside to answer it.

Besides, she was dying to find out what the hells a lungeon was.

CHAPTER NINE

Hungry and on Fire

TWO DAYS INTO their journey east towards the two potential commissions, Preston, completely by accident, decided for them which job they’d attempt first.

They’d been traversing along a mountain trail when the path split in two, forcing the adventurers to choose between staying the course and descending down the mountain. Preston, bringing to use the old traveler’s adage of ‘maintain your altitude’ directed the party along the left trail. Should they make the wrong choice, it would always be easier, he reasoned, to descend a slope rather than attempting to climb one.

Said logic crumbles when faced with a cliff.

By the time the trail came to end at the mouth of a cave, the only other way to go was back the way they came or down a slope too steep and crumbly to offer any real crumb of safety.

As Eve turned her eyes to the cave, she knew it for what it was, and she knew that the party had, accidentally or otherwise, chosen to challenge the Burendian ruin. Wes might even say, looking at the cliff face behind then, that their choice of first adventure was sheer coincidence.

He didn’t.

The pun went unsaid, unnoticed, unthought-of, in one of life’s great and most common tragedies, opportunity lost. It simply vanished, disappeared into the aether, as too did any sense of boredom or the trip’s exhaustion from Eve’s mind as she first stepped foot into the opening before her.

You have entered the dungeon: Burendian Stronghold! Fight well.

Eve grinned. “I got the dungeon message. That means nobody’s cleared it, right?”

“It means nobody’s taken the core,” Preston explained. “For all we know someone might’ve still looted the place.”

“I’m pretty sure nobody’s looted the place. Not unless they managed to lock the door behind them on their way out.” Wes pointed across the cavern at the massive stone doors on the other end. They glowed white with a similar intricate pattern of pulsing Mana as the entrance to the Burendian Outpost all those months ago, but this enchantment stayed lit, holding strong even after millennia of abandonment.

The doors themselves were nearly twice the size as those the party had previously encountered, but that fact failed to hit home quite as hard. As the scale of their adventure had grown, so too had their perception. The doors before them looked to Eve just as large now as the doors at the outpost had looked then. Fighting griffins and leviathans had a way of putting everything else into a different perspective.

“So,” Eve said as her Mana-lit eyes surveyed the empty cavern, “no managorged hares to drain the enchantment.”

“Or if there was wildlife here, the enchantment was too strong for them to drain it,” Wes reasoned. “Stronghold has gotta be better defended than an outpost. Maybe the leyline is thicker?”

“That wasn’t there before.” Eve craned her neck up to squint at what appeared to be a series of iron bars walling off a rectangular opening just above the top of the door. “Some kind of guard room?”

“It’d make sense,” Preston agreed. “Some way for the residents to see and speak with people outside.”

Eve walked forward, her eyes fixed on the guardroom. “Those bars aren’t glowing,” she thought aloud, “maybe that’s our way in. I could climb or Jet up there and—” She stopped short as her foot landed not on hard stone but sank into something soft. A soft squelch sounded. “Shit.”

Preston stared at her with wide eyes. “Did you just…?”

Eve took a step back, scraping off the bottom of her boot. “Yep. That’s twice in like six months I’ve managed to step in a pile of shit. Three times if you count the Lynthia sewers.”

Wes snorted. “Is this your new thing? You’ve figured out how to stop falling on your face so you step in shit now?”

“Why do I need a thing? Can’t I just be a badass adventurer without embarrassing myself every once in a while?”

“It could be worse,” the mage replied. “You could start falling on your face into a pile of shit.”

“Hey, um,” Preston said, “maybe we should stop talking about the mechanics of stepping into poop and start thinking about where the poop came from.”

That’s easy! Art sent, pointing a talon towards the cave entrance. It’s hers!

Three pairs of eyes turned as one to follow Art’s gesture, just in time to watch the sunlight of the cave mouth disappear behind a mass of brown fur. A roar echoed through the cavern.

Level ?? Managorged Cave Bear

“Hey Art?” Preston asked. “I don’t suppose you could ask her to leave us alone, could you?”

She said no.

“Because she wants us to leave?”

Because she’s hungry.

The bear charged into its den, making a beeline for the largest of the trespassers.

Wes readied a fireball.

Eve pulled back her club.

“Art!” Preston yelled. “A little help?”

Oh! Right! the trellac sent.

The bear stumbled, letting out a high-pitched whine as it shook with fear. Still it barreled forward, its momentum carrying it on even as its muscles locked up under the influence of Art’s attack. Moments later it shook away his influence.

That’s the best I can do!

It was enough.

The temporary slow-down gave Wes just enough time to leap from the creature’s path. He landed on the stone ground with a sickening crunch, but Preston’s healing had him on his feet in seconds.

Eve moved to Charge in, but Wes waved her off. “That fucker broke my arm!”

“Preston healed you,” she countered. “You’re fine.”

“It still hurt.” Wes’s hand came alight in flame. “And I haven’t set anything on fire in way too long.”

The bear roared.

“See?” Wes said. “She agrees with me.”

Eve made the sensible decision and ignored Wes’s rambling, swinging back her club and Charging in for the kill. She raced forth, boots hammering against the cave floor at superhuman speeds, wind racing through her chestnut hair.

Wes’s spell was faster.

The explosion of flame took Eve by surprise as it washed over the beast. She Jetted back reflexively, saving herself from the blaze at the cost of her attack. In hindsight, she could’ve easily landed a lethal blow before the flames touched her, but erring on the side of survival only made sense. Wes’s flames were deadly enough. Eventually.

The bear roared once more as the fire took hold, spreading first through her dense fur until nearly all of her huge form was shrouded in flame.

And then it ran at Preston.

“Great!” Eve shouted. “Now the twenty-foot bear is hungry and on fire!” She Charged after it, but the heat of the flames forced her back once more.

“Just keep it busy!” Wes called out. “It’ll go down soon enough.”

Reginald darted towards Preston, bowling the Caretaker out of the way just as the cave bear reached him. The beast roared once more as the healer clambered onto Reginald’s back and rode out of reach.

That left Wes the only one that couldn’t outrun it.

The stench of burning fur assaulted Eve’s nostrils as she ran around the burning bear towards her friend. A surprise swipe of its claws sent her Jetting wildly to the side, but months of training with the skill meant Eve kept her footing. Moments later, she reached the muscular fire mage and scooped him over her shoulder.

The bear ran at them.

Eve ran away.

“Just like old times!” Wes cheered as he lobbed another fire bolt at the monster behind them.

“This is what happens when we don’t have an actual tank,” she yelled back over the rush of the wind. “Gotta keep running away.”

“You know, I’d really hoped we’d find a member of the Dragonwrought who could tank,” Wes said. “You think Valya would say yes if we asked her?”

Eve snorted. “That’d be a sight. The three of us teaming up with a ninety-year-old tank.”

Their conversation came to an abrupt end as, instead of lying down and succumbing to the flames as would’ve been the polite thing to do, the managorged bear let out a tormented roar and ran from the cavern.

Eve slowed to a halt, meeting up with Reginald and his two passengers.

“Alright,” Wes said, rolling off of Eve’s shoulder and onto the ground. “Now for the door?”

Preston stared at them with wide eyes and a pale face. “Are you kidding? We have to go after it?”

“Why?” Wes asked. “The flames will get it eventually.”

“It and half the fucking forest,” the healer practically shouted.

Wes paused for a moment, as if trying to decipher why that would be a bad thing. “And?”

Eve rolled her eyes. “He’s right. Let’s go.” Ignoring the fire mage’s protests, Eve once more whisked him off his feet and tossed him over her shoulder. She ran for the exit.

Absent the speed boost of her on-cooldown Charge, the Defiant ran no faster than the fleeing bear. Fortunately enough, she didn’t have to.

She left a number of small brushfires for Preston and the others to deal with as she chased the bear for nearly ten minutes along the same mountain trail they’d taken to arrive at the ruin in the first place. Only then did the beast finally collapse, giving in to the inexorable hunger of the devouring flame.

Eve and Wes arrived at the burning corpse just as the notification appeared.

You have defeated Level 72 Managorged Cave Bear: + 455,000 exp!

She didn’t put Wes down, simply gesturing at the inferno before them with her free hand. “Put it out.”

Wes didn’t answer.

Eve squeezed his arm. “C’mon Wes. You’re the one with the fire magic, you’re the only one who can…” She trailed off as the whispers hit her ear.

They were coming from Wes, quiet and unintelligible, in a language she’d never heard before. He stared unblinking into the flames.

“Wes? Are you alright?”

His whispering grew louder and more fervent, filled with frantic desperation and a near sense of awe.

Eve shook him. “Wes, we talked about this, no going mad, remember?”

He didn’t reply.

She dropped him on the ground.

“Ow! What the hells was that for?”

“The fire, Wes. Put out the fire.”

Without even looking at it, he waved his hand and the flames died out. “There. The fire’s out. You didn’t have to be mean about it.”

“No, Wes, you—”

“It’s alright. I forgive you.” Wes pushed himself to his feet, turning back towards the dungeon entrance. “It’s hard to be mad when I’m staring at a level-up notification.”

“Congrats,” Eve muttered, “but that’s not—”

“Now come on,” the Disciple of the Devouring Flame walked away, making his way back to the Burendian Outpost. “We’ve got a whole dungeon to explore. Gotta progress your secondary quest, remember?”

Eve blinked as she watched him go, wondering if he was deflecting on purpose or truly didn’t know what had happened. It was probably a bit of both. She didn’t pull herself from her thoughts until Preston caught up.

“I saw the defeat notification. And I see Wes managed not to set the mountain on fire.”

“Yeah.” Eve nodded. “Barely.”

Preston scowled, noticing the look on her face. “Is everything okay?”

Eve didn’t tear her gaze from Wes’s back as her mind whirled. “For now it is,” she finally said. “But for the future?” She took a moment to explain what had happened with Wes, from the fanatical whispering to the way she’d knocked him out of it. “I don’t know,” she eventually answered her own question.

“I just don’t know.”

CHAPTER TEN

Some Good Old Breaking and Entering

PRESTON SCRATCHED THE back of his head as he stared up at the barred-off opening fifty feet up the wall. “Your plan is what, exactly?”

“Jet up, grab the bars, break them open, get inside, progress from there?” Eve offered. “What we do next will depend on what’s up there.”

Preston raised an eyebrow. “You’re gonna grab the bars while you’re flying past. Fifty feet in the air. Sure. Great idea.”

“I could do without the sarcasm.”

“I think you meant to say fun idea,” Wes backed her up.

“We have rope,” Preston argued. “We could just—and I need you to bear with me here—use rope.”

“Unless you have some kind of enchanted grappling hook in that bag of yours, somebody’s gonna need to actually tie off that rope,” Eve pointed out. “May as well do it by Jetting up there.”

Preston sighed, reaching into his bag to pull out a thick coil of rope. “Let the record show I think this is a terrible idea.”

Wes raised his brow. “Since when are we keeping a record?”

Eve ignored him. “It’ll be easy. If I calculate it right, I should be able to match the peak of my jump right to the bars, not shoot past them at high speed.”

“And how much Mana do you need to spend for that?” Preston pushed.

“Um…” Eve blinked. “Two hundred-ish? It’d be easier if I knew exactly how high up that guard station is rather than just estimating.”

“Fifty-eight feet and nine point two inches,” Wes rattled off.

Eve and Preston both turned to stare at him.

“What?” the Disciple asked. “Five hundred Intelligence is useful sometimes. You do realize half my spells require me to know exactly how far I want to throw them, right?”

Eve shrugged. “Okay, so I just plug that into the exponential formula for Jet Mana costs and I need to spend… two-forty-one.” She stuck out her tongue at Preston. “That counts as two hundred-ish.”

Preston rubbed his temples as if to stave off a headache, knowing full well the headache was standing in front of him. “Alright, alright, Jet away. Just try not to fall to your death.”

Eve snatched the rope from his hand. “You know, for a Priestess you have awfully little faith.”

“I have faith in lots of things. I have faith in Ayla. I have faith in the adventurer’s guild. I have faith in the laws of physics. I just don’t have faith in your ability not to fall on your face.”

“Please,” Eve said over her shoulder as she stepped up to the massive, enchanted door, “I haven’t fallen on my face in months.”

Taking a deep breath, Eve turned her gaze to the opening far above her, and Jetted up.

A smile stretched across her face as the wind rushed over it and the glow of the enchantments flew past and gave way first to solid stone and then to iron bars. Her ascent slowed, carrying with it a feeling of weightlessness that sent her heart fluttering. This was flight.

The sense of elation lasted for all of a second as Eve reached her hand forward to grasp the bars before her, even as her momentum turned from stillness to falling. Her left hand gripped the bar just long enough for a fleeting moment of victory before the layer of rust on the outside gave out, sending Eve plummeting with a fistful of iron oxide dust.

Shit shit shit shit shit. Her mind raced. She brought up her ability screen, eyes fixed in desperation on Jet’s remaining cooldown. Precious seconds ticked by as she fell. Hells, she already knew exactly how much Mana to spend to arrest her fall—the same two-forty-one that got her into this mess in the first place. Physics could be convenient sometimes.

This was not one of those times.

Jet’s cooldown hit one second left the same moment Eve hit something decidedly less pleasant. Her backside struck the hard stone floor with a sickening crunch, setting a blaze of agony shooting up her spine. She collapsed backwards, just barely saving her skull from the same fate as her pelvis.

Preston was ready.

Within seconds the pain gave way to Ayla’s healing light, which seemed to pierce her very soul with the same condescending sense of I-told-you-so as Preston himself delivered through his voice. “Well, that went about as well as I could’ve guessed.”

“Hey.” Eve pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll have you know I did not fall on my face.”

Wes snorted. “Because falling on your ass is so much better.”

“Baby steps,” she said. “By this time next year I might start catching myself on my hands. Then nothing can stop me.”

Preston rolled his eyes. “So now we’ve gotten that out of the way, how do we actually get up there?”

Wes turned to Eve. “Don’t you have that skill that lets your feet stick to things? Can you climb up?”

“I’d have to take my boots off, but maybe? It’d be easier if I could make my hands stick too.” Eve nodded at the door. “I’m hesitant to try and run Mana through that though. Who knows how the enchantment will react?”

Preston shrugged. “Then go around. There’s plenty of empty wall.”

Eve nodded. “Alright. No promises, though. This ability does not seem meant for walking up walls.”

“At least this way you keep Jet off cooldown to catch you if you fall,” Preston said as Eve pulled off her boots.

Eve agreed. Healing or otherwise, she wasn’t eager to take another fall. With an awkward smile and a nod to the others, she walked the ten feet to the left side of the door and lifted a bare foot to the rough stone wall. With a bit of channeled Mana, it held fast. “Here goes nothing.”

Walking up a wall without handholds, as Eve soon discovered, was an exercise in core strength. With every step her knees wanted to buckle, or her body fall back and collapse into the wall. Eve gritted her teeth, keeping her muscles tense and her knees locked as much as she could.

Progress came slowly. Fifteen minutes of grueling climbing in, she’d only made it halfway up the domineering height of the enchanted door. She paused to catch her breath, relaxing for a moment and allowing herself to dangle from the two feet that still clung to the cold stone.

Switching strategies, Eve spent a drop of Mana on an upward Jet, just enough to swing her body around the fulcrum of her feet. The expenditure allowed her a single, long stride in exchange for a dozen Mana and a few seconds of cooldown, but it worked.

The technique carried her the rest of the way up, leaving the relatively simpler task of traveling horizontally to reach the bars above the door rather than the barren wall next to it. Eve allowed herself to dangle for this, simply traversing in sidesteps until at last her bare foot found empty air and rusted metal instead of uneven stone.

“Okay,” she breathed to herself as she swung her body upwards and grasped the rusted bars. “Now I just need to break in.”

Eve didn’t bother with half measures, reaching directly for the bone club at her back. Her angle was awkward, but Mana Rush offered more than enough sheer power to trivialize the task, at least in theory.

In practice, the nigh-indestructible griffin-bone cleaved right through the rusted exterior of the metal bars only to bound right off the still solid core within. The force wrenched the club from Eve’s grip, sending it hurtling to the ground below. “Gods fucking—” Eve cut off the curse with a hitched breath. “These bars are either enchanted or some kind of ar-iron alloy,” she called down to the others. “Way stronger than they have any right to be.”

To further prove her point, Eve wrapped both hands around a single bar and pulled with all the might her thousands of points of Strength could manage. Mysteriously, neither it nor the stone in which it was embedded budged. “Do you still have that file we used to take apart the griffin? I could try and file through these.”

“I can burn them!” Wes yelled. “Tie off the rope and I’ll climb up.”

Eve flashed a nervous look towards Preston, but he offered her no support. “We wore out the file on the griffin bones, remember?”

Eve groaned. “Can you control yourself?”

Wes scowled. “I haven’t gone mad yet.”

Eve grimaced. “About that…”

“Other than the normal amount of insane I’d need to be to keep adventuring with you,” he followed up. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep the flames small and contained. Otherwise, smoke’ll be an issue.”

Eve exhaled. Loath as she was to let Wes burn his way through yet another problem, she had to admit her options were few. As she tied off the rope and dropped it down to him, Eve silently prayed he wouldn’t get too obnoxious as fire proved yet again the solution.

Wes had a much easier time of climbing the wall than Eve did, the rope more than making up for his lesser Strength, greater body mass, and lack of relevant ability. Once he reached the top, Eve wrapped it around his waist, tying him in place with a makeshift harness while he clung to the bars.

Secure and in position, he went to work. The base and top of the first came alight at once, the flames tightly constricted in place by Wes’s steel focus. Black smoke billowed into the air.

You have ingested an unknown poison!

Eve coughed back the bitter fumes, more concerned with the foul taste and fouler smell than the damage she knew she was taking. She would be fine. “Wes, the smoke.”

Without turning his unflinching gaze from his work, Wes snapped his fingers and the dark smoke vanished in a puff of flame. Wind blew in from all sides as the air rushed to fill the space vacated by the burned-away fumes. Immediately more smoke began to gather, forcing the Disciple to take regular breaks to burn it away.

Eve could clearly see how having to burn through more mass or in a space more confined than the open cavern would make this process untenable. If Wes had to burn up the whole bar rather than just the two ends, the smoke would gather faster than he could safely clear it, and without the cavernous space around them, they’d swiftly run out of oxygen.

“Remind me to recruit a wind mage,” Eve muttered. “We could keep this space ventilated.”

“Please do,” Wes replied. “More oxygen means more fire. Would be nice to have some to actually fan the flames while I use Fan the Flames.”

Those were the most words Eve got out of him as he worked, but that didn’t stop her from trying. The Defiant chattered all sorts of nonsense at the fire mage, switching from reminiscing about their last Burendian ruin to their regular banter to theorizing about what treasure she hoped to find in the dungeon ahead. Most of her comments received no reply.

Eve talked on. In her mind, the more time Wes spent listening to her, the less he spent listening to whispers in his ear.

When the third bar fell into the guard room beyond, Wes extinguished his flames and climbed through, followed shortly by Eve. They still had three party members stuck in the cavern below, including an adolescent drake who would by no means fit through the gap they’d carved thus far.

As Wes got to work burning through more of the bars, Eve took a look around the barren guard chamber.

The lack of glowing enchantments or anything resembling a control panel left her little hope of figuring out how to open the doorway below, just as the rotting remains of two wooden chairs confirmed the tight room little more than a posting for watchman. Still, Eve grinned.

She didn’t need to open the door. She didn’t need to loot the room or discover the answer to some great mystery. For the moment, she needed one thing and one thing only.

At the back of the chamber, a narrow passage led to a spiral stairway down into the stronghold proper.

They had a way in.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Violence Isn’t Supposed to be Nostalgic

FOR ALL THAT Eve fell on her ass and flopped about climbing the wall up to the guard room, her ascent was far from the most difficult of the group’s. Reginald took that honor.

It took nearly twenty minutes of telepathic coaxing from Preston and Art, including a promise they’d talk to Piskern about entering his employ, just to get the drake to consent to their tying the rope around his midsection. As soon as Eve began to pull him up with her considerable Strength, sending the drakeling’s legs flailing through the air as he swung about haphazardly, Reginald promptly reopened negotiations.

Dragons, and therefore drakes by Reginald’s logic, were meant to fly with dignity and poise. His second thoughts were not whatsoever because he was scared to dangle from a rope fifty feet in the air, absolutely not. This was about dignity, never mind the spiked tail wedged firmly between his legs.

After half an hour of attempting to wrangle the adolescent drake, Reginald covertly asked Art to share a bit of courage, a favor the trellac was all too happy to oblige. Better yet, Art kept his promise and staunchly refused to reveal how he’d gotten Reginald to accept the ride up, even if his smug grin revealed to Wes, Preston, and Eve that he had indeed been involved.

Eve wrote it off as Reginald’s closest friend being the best one to convince him one way or the other, and went to work. Minutes later saw the drake desperately scrambling through the gap in the bars, heaving panicked breaths.

In contrast, Preston and Art each made their way up rather gracefully.

The former maintained control by keeping horizontal and “walking” up the wall as Eve pulled him up, while the latter just allowed himself to swing about a bit, giggling all the way. Even though Art’s wings were far from grown enough to fly, trellacs as a species had little use for a fear of heights.

Only once all members of the party had assembled in the now crowded guard station did Eve take a step into the narrow passage and spiral stairs beyond.

The white light of her eyes blended seamlessly with the identically colored inscriptions that lined the walls and steps. Pulses of light traveled along the twisting lines in much the same way they had in the outpost, only brighter and more plentiful. Besides a general sense of this place being stronger and more fortified, Eve couldn’t begin to fathom what that meant.

Even having experienced it before, Eve halted as she saw her companions in the eerie light of the ruins. Lit in pure light from all directions, all sense of shadow disappeared, giving them all a ghastly and pallid visage. Depth and shape seemed to vanish without the nuance of shadow to highlight them, while freckles and other two-dimensional details leapt to the forefront of visibility.

It was a cold light. As bright as the passage was, it left those within it cast in tones of sickness and death, even though the adventurers were the most alive thing the stronghold had seen in centuries.

The stairway spat them out into a wide and long entry chamber, but feet away from the other side of the massive, enchanted door they’d bypassed. Alarm bells rang out in Eve’s head as she peered down the grandiose hallway, fixing her eyes on the wall at the end where the sentry golem had lain dormant back in the outpost. Here at the stronghold, there wasn’t one.

There were twelve.

Eve let out a breath, unlashing her club from her back. “This’ll be fun.”

Preston eyed the six stone constructs on each wall. “Is this a good idea? Last time we were lucky to survive one of those things.”

Eve slung her club over her shoulder. “That was last time.” She took a step forward, a thin smile stretching across her face as she watched twelve golems lurch to life and step away from the wall sconces in which they’d rested for untold centuries.

Level 35 Burendian Sentry Golem

Even as the constructs towered above her, Eve couldn’t help but notice they felt smaller, less consequential than the behemoth that had so terrorized them back in the outpost. She knew they were no smaller, and she no bigger, but even if her body hadn’t grown in the months since, her prowess had, and so too had bloomed the indomitable nature of her spirit.

Eve Charged in.

Two fire bolts, one from Wes and one cloned by his staff, screamed overhead as they flew past her, colliding with the two most distant constructs. This time they didn’t wash harmlessly against the stone, sticking and spreading and burning as they ate away at both the blocks of marble and the enchantments holding them together. Eve wasn’t the only one who’d grown.

The Defiant Jetted into the air as she reached her first target, striking it from atop with an overhand swing of her bone club. Marble shattered under the force of Mana Rush, and the construct collapsed to the ground.

You have defeated Level 35 Burendian Sentry Golem: +255 exp!

Eve didn’t have time to lament the absolute pittance of exp the things were worth, especially given how she out-leveled them, as a marble fist flew at her.

She leapt to the side, stalling for the few seconds before Jet came off cooldown.

Behind her, the sound of claws scraping against stone rang out as Reginald ran in circles about the cavernous chamber, bearing Art and Preston to safety as a pair of golems gave chase.

Wes kept himself safe in a shroud of flame, filling a corner of the room with an obscuring blaze that not even the marble constructs dared enter. Whatever enchantment controlled the golems was smart enough to give the fires a wide berth now that they’d already claimed two of their number. The Disciple continued his assault.

Falling behind Wes’s damage output, Eve Jetted up once more, bringing her club down to destroy yet another of the sentries. As it and she alike fell to the ground, two marble arms swept in from two different directions.

Eve’s eyes shot open, a surge of panic shooting up her spine for a fleeting second. She braced for impact.

Golden light shimmered into the air around her, forming a shining bubble around her falling form.

The golems stuck true, sandwiching the iridescent barrier between their marble fists but failing to crack Eve’s shield. “Nice of you to step in before I get injured this time!”

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to figure out how you’re going to hurt yourself next?” Preston yelled over his shoulder as Reginald already carried him away from Eve and the constructs surrounding her. “At least the golems are predictable!”

The close call prompted Eve to reconsider her dependence on Jet to reach the heads of the golems; the skill was too important for repositioning to spend a cooldown on assault. As the two golems that had struck Preston’s barrier reeled from their failed attack, Eve picked one and darted in beneath its reach.

Two strikes to its legs sent it tumbling to the floor, but before Eve could finish it, another swept a fist at her, forcing her to Jet to safety. Whirling around, she turned to her other offensive ability, praying it would work as she took aim for the brightest node of white magic at the golem’s center.

The space shined bright with a flash of alabaster light as Eve’s Mana Burst shot through the air, piercing the magic at the sentry’s core. For a precious second she waited with bated breath, watching as the brilliant glow flickered and then faded entirely. Overwhelmed by the influx of power, the enchantment failed and ten lifeless slabs of marble fell to the floor.

Eve grinned.

While Mana Burst cooled down, she took the opening to dart around the other golem she’d felled and finish it off with a bone club to the head. Her foes for the moment vanquished, Eve took a moment to survey the room.

Four sentry golems had collapsed into piles of burning rubble, their animation enchantments devoured by Wes’s ever-hungry inferno. Two more currently claimed the Disciple’s attention as he fanned the flames that inexorably ate away at them.

That left the two that still chased Reginald around the room. Childish laughter echoed after them as Art took great joy in the chase, taunting and jeering at the massive constructs as the drakeling and his passengers continued to outmaneuver them.

Eve darted in, determined to finish off the remaining golems. After all, Wes had already claimed six of the original twelve, and she’d be damned if she let him kill more than she did.

Sensing her intent, Preston directed Reginald towards the Charging Eve, prompting the drake to dash directly between the legs of one of its pursuers.

It was a mistake.

Either through some predictive skill brought about by watching the drakeling evade its attacks so many times or through sheer dumb luck on the golem’s part, it spun its leg to turn just as Reginald leapt past.

The kick landed on Preston’s barrier, not powerful enough to break it but strong enough to send the drake and his passengers tumbling through the air. They hit the back wall hard and slid to the floor. Preston went limp.

He’s okay! Art sent. Unconscious but alive! Without waiting for instruction, the trellac dug through the healer’s pack for a health potion, unscrewing the stopper and raising the leather flask to Preston’s lips.

Eve made for the golem that had struck them, adding a new layer of care to her step. With their healer unconscious, the margin for error drew tighter.

Eve kept her distance, closing in just enough for a quick Mana Burst to drop the nearest sentry.

The final one made for Preston.

Eve got to it first.

Absent other golems to threaten her, the Defiant dumped hundreds from her dwindling Mana pool into a great Jet, launching herself up and across the room at speed.

She hurtled through the air faster than the construct could run, bringing her club down on its head just as her velocity slammed her into its back.

Pain blossomed in her chest as both she and the golem fell to the glowing floor, threatening to blacken her out and rob her of precious consciousness. Eve couldn’t let that happen.

Tightening her jaw, she forced herself upright, first confirming that the last of the golems had fallen to Wes’s flames, then forcefully canceling her Mana Rush before it could drain the last of her Mana.

Wes’s inferno raged on.

“Art!” she yelled through gritted teeth. “Stop Wes! Whatever it takes, make him put those flames out.”

But you said it’s bad to—

“I don’t care what I said. The whispers have him, and if you don’t get him out he’ll kill us all!”

Art swallowed, nodding his head as his eyes set with determination.

Eve wasn’t privy to their mental exchange, nor did she truly want to know what telepathic power Art leveraged to force Wes from his fiery fervor. All she saw was the hatchling nod and the flames die down, revealing Wes standing tall in victory.

Eve’s sense of unease drained away as Wes came through unharmed, and her focus shifted as Ayla’s light flooded in from behind her, mending her broken ribs. Preston had regained consciousness.

“Well that was easy,” Wes bragged as he approached the others.

“Speak for yourself.” Eve rubbed her formerly broken rib. “Some of us have to actually get in close to hit things.”

Wes nodded to cede her point. “It feels good, though, doesn’t it? A couple months ago just one of those things almost wiped us out. We just took down twelve without breaking a sweat.”

Eve sniffed the air around the red-robed fire mage. “You seem pretty sweaty to me.”

“It’s a figure of speech!” Wes protested. “I just spent a whole fight standing in a fire. I may be fireproof but it’s still hot in there.”

Eve laughed. It did feel good, taking down golem after golem as she had. The fight spoke volumes for how far they’d come in such a relatively short time. Even with a few close calls here and there, never once had Eve genuinely feared for the lives of her or her companions, a stark difference from their last encounter with a Burendian sentry golem.

They’d come out together, alive and unhurt, down only the single health potion Art had fed to Preston. It was a testament, in Eve’s mind, to all the work they’d put in and all the risks they’d taken. She swelled with pride, not at their victory, but the progress it represented.

At the end, as Eve surveyed the entry hall and the dozen piles of broken rubble and burnt marble that cluttered it, she took a moment to read her notifications and silently curse.

For all the many ways this fight had differed from the last golem they’d fought, in one endlessly frustrating way, it had remained the same.

The damn things still didn’t drop enough exp for her to level up.

“Oh well,” Eve muttered, setting her sights on the passage deeper into the ruined stronghold, “I guess we’ll just have to find something more powerful.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Something More Powerful

UNLIKE AT THE outpost, the path ahead didn’t diverge in two. Only a single passage led away from the cavernous entry hall and the broken golems that littered its floor, and Eve was all too ready to take it.

As she strode across the quieted battlefield towards its exit, Eve’s thoughts turned back to the original purpose of such a room. After all, what good was a grand entry hall if it only connected to a single hallway? Come to think of it, even the two paths they’d found back at the Burendian outpost hadn’t exactly warranted such a grandiose entry space.

The sentry golems themselves were her first clue—it only made sense to keep the stronghold’s guardians near the entrance. By that logic, perhaps the entry hall itself was less an entry hall and more a rallying point for the defending force. The huge golems needed a lot of space to work with, and the more human-sized passages deeper down certainly wouldn’t accommodate them.

Eve accepted that explanation as good enough for her as she left the chamber behind once and for all. As long as there was some utility to it, she decided, she could accept that the Burendians would bother building such a magnificent space that would ostensibly be of little use. Putting that thought to rest, Eve refocused her attention on the path ahead.

Everything about the stronghold felt more cohesive and alive than the outpost. The enchantments glowed brighter and pulsed more frequently, cracks in the walls were fewer and farther between, and the wooden doors stood stable in their hinges, untouched by the rot that had so plagued the outpost.

The first several doors the party passed led to similar spartan bedchambers as in the prior ruin, albeit with beds and dressers that could still support their own weight. Eve took the opportunity to rifle through a few of the drawers, but she always came up empty-handed.

“So, I know it’s still some big historical mystery what happened to the Burendians,” Preston thought aloud, “but you’d think they would’ve left something behind, right? You found all those alchemical supplies back at the outpost, but no personal effects.”

Eve shrugged. “Maybe they left. Maybe whatever threat they were facing forced them to call all their troops back to the capital. It’d make sense that places like the outpost or this stronghold would be the first they’d abandon.”

“There is no Burendian capital,” Preston argued. “They had a few big cities—including one where Pyrindel is right now—but nothing you could call a capital.”

“There’s no capital that we know of,” Wes corrected. “Maybe we’ll find it.”

Preston snorted. “Sure, a random team of adventurers is going to stumble into the archaeological discovery of the century after teams of professional historians have concluded with relative certainty that it doesn’t even exist.”

Eve shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”

“I’ll credit you there,” Preston said. “Stumbling into random shit that just happens to be extremely important seems to be your forte.”

“Hey that’s only happened…” Eve paused as she thought back through the number of ways she’d been remarkably lucky. “A few times.”

“What I still don’t get,” Preston returned to the prior topic, “is if they left, why did they take some things and leave others? Personal effects I can get, but that serum you found? Whoever made that wouldn’t just leave it behind.”

“Unless he had more of it,” Eve offered. “Or it didn’t work on Burendians because they already had Spirit. Or maybe it needed to sit around for a thousand years before it would start working. Like aging wine.”

Preston pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think that’s how alchemy works.”

“You don’t have the first clue about how alchemy works, and neither do I.” Eve turned up her palms. “I’m just saying there are reasons why the alchemist might’ve left that serum behind while everyone else took all their personal effects when they abandoned the place.”

“Actually,” Wes interrupted from where he stood in the doorway to another bedroom, “they didn’t all leave.”

He stepped to the side, allowing Preston and Eve to step in and see the room beyond. It looked, to Eve’s eyes, nearly identical to every other abandoned living space they’d seen so far—equipped with a bed and dresser and little else—until her eyes turned to one thing that stood out.

A pile of bones lay cluttered in the far corner, whatever pose the skeleton had once held long lost to time.

“I guess we’ve found our missing Burendian.”

“Why is it in the corner?” Wes asked.

“They were hiding,” Preston said. “Or just cowering. It’s a shame the body isn’t in better shape; we could’ve learned a lot from it.”

Eve nodded. “All we got is that the Burendians didn’t leave and something scared three hells out of this guy before killing him.”

“Whatever it was, let’s hope it’s gone,” Preston said. “I don’t want to cross blades with whatever could wipe out an entire stronghold.”

“We’re not crossing blades with it,” Wes replied. “Mostly because none of us really wield blades, but also because I doubt whatever did this did it with a sword.”

Preston rolled his eyes. “Anyway, if the Burendians didn’t leave, why were those other rooms cleaned out?”

“Maybe this stronghold was never filled to capacity,” Eve offered. “Or maybe some people left and others stayed. Either way, this room has an occupant, which should mean…” She trailed off as she stepped up to the dresser, pulling open the top drawer with a cringe-inducing screech of dry wood against wood.

Wes peered over her shoulder. “Anything?”

Eve sneezed.

Dust billowed from the open drawer, filling the room with a gray cloud. “Dust,” she said. “A lot of dust.”

“I can—” Wes coughed. “I can see that.”

Eve reached a hand into the pile of dust that had likely once been the Burendian’s clothes and rummaged around. She found one item still remotely intact.

Burendian Amulet of Regeneration

Rarity: Rare

An inch-wide circle of silver made up the amulet itself, though the thing was so tarnished none of the inscriptions or enchantments were visible. Eve tried rubbing it against her chest piece to clean it off, but somehow her armor came away dirtier and the amulet remained unchanged. “Any idea what this does?”

“Well, it’s a Burendian amulet of regeneration,” Preston said, clearly reading the same Appraise notification she had. “It would be a lot nicer if it actually told us what it regenerates.”

“It’s Burendian,” Wes said. “It regenerates Mana.”

“But it doesn’t say that,” Preston argued. “For all we know it regenerates lost limbs. What if it regenerates limbs humans don’t have to begin with? Or maybe it’s for—”

“Nope, it’s Mana,” Eve said, having already put the amulet on. Sure enough, her Mana bar refilled marginally faster than it had before.

Preston groaned.

Eve grinned. “Hey, loot is loot.” She pulled the silver chain from around her neck, handing it over to Preston. “You should have it. Wes and I both have skills for replenishing Mana; you don’t.”

Preston rubbed his temples. “Eve, we still don’t know if this thing is safe.”

“It is,” she chimed. “The description updated as soon as I put it on.”

Burendian Amulet of Regeneration

Rarity: Rare

Effect: +25% Mana Regeneration

Preston groaned again, knowing that he was right to be cautious even though the outcome had turned out favorable for Eve. “Fine,” he said, slipping the amulet over his head. “But we need to be more careful with enchanted items moving forward.”

“Spoken like someone who never accidentally spilled a mysterious alchemical compound all over himself and ended up turning into a completely new race that’s better than humans in almost every way.”

“There’s something here.” Wes’s voice pulled Eve away from the conversation with Preston. She turned to see the fire mage bent over the skeletal remains, holding up a ring that had fallen from the finger that had once held it.

Burendian Signet Ring

Rarity: Uncommon

“Looks like it’s not enchanted,” Preston said. “Not at Uncommon, anyway.”

Wes nodded. “Still worth taking, though. I’m sure some scholar will find it valuable.” He slipped the rust-coated ring into his pocket. “So that’s it for this room, then?”

The party nodded in agreement and stepped back into the hallway, continuing on deeper into the stronghold. From there on out, every room they passed showed signs of life, an unmade bed or wrenched-open drawers filled with the tattered remains of clothes or letters or, less frequently, another skeleton.

Universally, the corpses had hidden themselves away, cowering in the corner or under the bed or behind the dresser. Twice Wes pushed open the door to a rattling of bones, accidentally shoving aside the remains of a Burendian who had died jamming the door shut with his or her back.

Eve noted, as they surveyed yet another empty bedchamber, that every room with the door firmly closed held a skeleton, while every room with the door ajar stood empty. She wondered if the doors had somehow stopped whatever evil had come knocking, and if the Burendians within hadn’t died of it, but of dehydration and starvation as the invader kept them trapped. She supposed it didn’t matter; they’d died all the same.

The party collected six signet rings in all from the various skeletons they found, but the amulet remained the only enchanted piece they discovered. Eve hoped they’d encounter better loot later in the dungeon, once they moved on from the simple bedchambers of what she assumed were guards and laborers to whatever lodgings the merchants and ruling class had once kept.

After about two dozen of the small bedchambers, the passage spat the party out into a spacious rotunda, well over a hundred feet across. From the crumbling remains of what looked to Eve like market stalls, the space felt more like a village square than a defensive structure or architectural feature.

The same now familiar enchantments stretched across the stone floor, pulsing their eerie light into the room with just enough strength to illuminate the domed ceiling above. Eve strode confidently into the room’s center. “Looks like we have some options.”

“Eight, in all,” Wes agreed, “including going back the way we came.”

“So, which way do we go?” Preston asked, similarly surveying the seven unexplored passageways leading away from the rotunda in various directions.

“Which way do we go first,” Eve corrected. “I’m not leaving any of these unexplored. We’re not getting paid for this, remember. I’m taking every bit of loot this place has to offer.”

Wes shrugged. “So we just pick a direction and head that way? Any preference?”

Not that one. Art’s voice startled the adventurers, the trellac quiet thus far as he’d kept watch in the hallway.

Three sets of eyes turned to follow Art’s pointing talon, looking deep into the tunnel he indicated. That one’s wrong.

Eve noticed it first. Unlike the other passageways around the rotunda, this particular one didn’t hide its contents around a bend or down a set of stairs. Eve’s sightline came to an end not on a wall, but in a cloud of darkness. “The enchantments have failed,” she said. “Seems worth checking out. Maybe we can fix them.”

No, Art sent. It’s angry.

The words sent a chill down Eve’s spine as she once more stared at the distant darkness. “What’s angry? What’s out there?”

Art didn’t answer.

“The enchantments aren’t broken,” Preston muttered. “They’re breaking.”

Eve squinted, channeling Mana to enhance her vision as she gazed down the tunnel. The darkness drew closer.

It’s coming.

The lights in the rotunda flickered twice, but stayed on.

Eve drew her club. “Something’s out there, something powerful enough to mess with the enchantments keeping this place lit.”

Preston raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think…”

Eve crouched into a battle stance. “I think we might’ve found whatever wiped out these Burendians.”

Wes prepared a fireball. “This should be interesti—”

Run!

The force of Art’s thought sent even Eve’s heart pounding. Wes and Preston both stumbled back as the trellac’s panic coursed through them, only to fade as quickly as it came.

The darkness drew closer.

Eve rounded on the hatchling. “Art, what the—”

The faint sound of scrabbling claws frantically scraping against stone echoed from a passage behind them in response. Reginald, it appeared, had heeded the hatchling’s command.

Art was gone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Wrapped in Wraith Wrath

WES MADE THE first move.

Eve whirled around from watching Art and Reginald’s escape just in time to see the Disciple’s blazing projectile shoot through the air into the mouth of the darkened passage. As it neared its target, Eve tensed. “Great,” she muttered, “now I have to try and hit whatever’s back there while it’s on fire.”

Still, she stared intently as the fireball flew, lighting the walls around it in its orange glow. It was under the fiery illumination of Wes’s spell that Eve got her first glimpse of their foe.

Level ?? Mana Wraith

The thing had little in the way of shape, its form more akin to a cloud of white smoke than any corporeal entity Eve had ever seen. It flickered with the same alabaster light of the enchantments, implying that it too was powered by non-elemental Mana.

The wraith didn’t glow, per se, so much as exude a sense of power and danger that Eve’s mind translated into a faint aura surrounding it. As it passed more and more of the ancient enchantments, they flickered out and it grew thicker, denser, more there. The effect was slight, but noticeable enough that Eve could only wonder how long it had been at this, and what exactly it had started as.

She watched as Wes’s fireball reached it, ready for the cloud of Mana to burst into flame and set the whole dungeon on fire.

It didn’t.

As the spell drew near, the wraith pulsed, and the flame winked out. The cloud grew brighter.

“Did…” Preston stammered, “did it just eat your spell?”

Wes blinked. “That’s a new one.”

“Okay, no Mana-based attacks against the Mana wraith,” Eve said. “Good to know.”

“It’s supposed to burn everything!” Wes insisted.

“Can’t burn it if your spell never touches it,” Preston replied. “Can’t do much of anything for that matter.”

“Well you certainly did something,” Eve noted as she carefully eyed the approaching darkness. “You got its attention.”

The speed at which the enchantments between it and them began to wink out increased as the wraith hastened, drawn to the source of its latest feast. As it approached, Eve made out the light of enchantments behind it coming back online as the thing continued on. At least it wasn’t permanently disabling the magic holding the place together.

The thought was little comfort as the lights in the rotunda itself began to flicker.

Wes stared with wide eyes at the encroaching gloom. “How do we even fight that thing?”

“Well if spells don’t work…” Eve leveled her club. “Something’s gotta.”

Wes and Preston both took an involuntary step back.

Eve Charged in.

She made it to the mouth of the passage before the light of her eyes first reached the Mana wraith. Eve couldn’t be completely sure, but the cloud seemed to have taken on a slight reddish tint, courtesy of Wes’s fire Mana mixing with the pure Mana that made it. She decided then and there the Disciple wouldn’t be firing off any more spells at it. The last thing they needed was for this thing to leave a trail of fire in its wake.

As Eve approached, ready to leap into the air and strike with her club, a wave of dread and wrath washed over her, sending a chill down her spine. The sensation was echoed as her eyes too began to dim.

Shit shit shit shit shit. She cursed, darting her gaze over to check her Mana pool.

Mana: 3,083/6,700

That’s not good. She took two more steps forward.

Mana: 2,312/6,700

Eve Jetted away. “I can’t get close!” she yelled to the others. “It’s draining my Mana!”

Wes and Preston shared a look.

“Run?” Wes asked.

“Run.” Preston agreed.

They ran, turning around to dash down the same tunnel as Art and Reginald before them.

Eve was faster.

With Charge still active, she caught up to the men in seconds, snatching them both off the ground to carry them, one under each arm. She sprinted down the eerily lit tunnel, blowing past closed doors and alternate paths by the dozen. They could explore later. Now, the only objective was to survive.

The wraith was determined not to let that happen.

At first Eve’s Charge more than outsped the thing, but with every step she made it seemed to accelerate, turning what started out as a clean escape into a close chase. The few times Eve chanced a look back at their pursuer, the air of darkness and the white cloud within it had drawn closer, inexorably shrinking the distance between them.

Eve’s heart pounded. Whatever that thing was, it had apparently been strong enough to kill every one of the stronghold’s former residents, and unless she missed her guess, it had only grown stronger since. Wes’s spells couldn’t hurt it, and she couldn’t even go near it.

Eve cursed, beating back the hopelessness with all her force of will. A glimmer of hope lit up as her attention turned to the doors they passed. The Burendians had taken shelter behind them, perhaps they could… Eve sighed. The Burendians had starved to death while hiding in their rooms. She wouldn’t resign her friends to the same fate.

The wraith drew nearer.

There had to be some other way. Eve wracked her brain for ideas, falling short with every step. She had to—

In here!

Art’s command rang through Eve’s head, forcing her to come to a skittering stop just in front of an ornately carved wooden door. She jerked it open, shoving Wes and Preston inside.

“I’ll lead it away,” she barked. “Once it’s gone, you have to get out of here. Find help. Maybe the dragonwrought can—”

Wes’s jaw fell open. “Eve, what are you—”

“It was my idea to come here, now I’m gonna get you out.”

Eve, no! Art insisted. You can’t just…

He trailed off as the lights in the hallway blinked out. Eve flashed a grin brimming with confidence she didn’t feel. “Got to go. Wish me luck.” She dashed out into the hall, shutting the door behind her. Without hesitation, she held out an arm to throw a Mana Burst at the wraith to get its attention and took off alone down the ruined hallway.

* * *

Wes slammed an open palm into the door, cursing as he did. “Ayla fucking—” He exhaled. “She’s gonna get herself killed.”

“Not necessarily.” Preston placed a comforting hand on his arm. “She can run faster without us weighing her down. All she needs to do is get far enough away that we can sneak out, then she can hole up in a room like this one until we get help.”

“And what kind of help are we supposed to get?” Wes snapped. “That thing eats spells, and I know Eve was trying to get a hit in, but do you really think a sword is going to kill a giant cloud of evil floating Mana?”

“Somebody high level,” Preston said, keeping his voice level to counteract the emotion in Wes’s. “Even if the dragonwrought are too old to make the trek out here, they have to know somebody we can talk to. Maybe Eve’s man of the mists can help her.”

“I doubt that,” Wes huffed. “He’s more the you-don’t-deserve-to-work-for-me-if-you-need-my-help type.”

“Then we’ll figure something out.” Preston emanated calm with every breath. “In the meantime, we have a few minutes before it’ll be safe to leave this room. We may as well take a look around.”

It took a bit more prompting to get Wes to accept the distraction from worrying about Eve, but once he did the room itself was more than interesting enough to hold his attention.

By Wes’s estimation, they stood in what had once been the bedchambers of someone important. From wall to wall, the space was well over triple that of the spartan quarters they’d seen thus far, dominated by the remains of a four-poster bed in the center. The linens had long turned to dust, but the carved wood of the frame somehow remained intact, preserved by whatever magic preserved the doors and other furniture.

In one corner a pair of stone chairs—their cushions long decayed—faced a hearth. Wes could practically imagine a couple of rich Burendians enjoying a drink in the late hours. On the other side of the suite sat an oaken desk, its surface coated in a layer of dust so thick Wes hesitated to breathe next to it. He could only wonder what letters had been composed and sent from the seat behind it, what secrets its owner had once kept.

He braved the cloud of dust to root through the drawers but, other than a decidedly un-magical brass letter opener, found nothing of consequence. It was as he wiped the letter opener on his robes to clean it that Preston’s voice pulled his attention away.

“I found something!” The healer stooped low on his hands and knees, looking intently under the bed. “It’s a safe of some sort.”

Wes walked over, grabbing the bed frame in his muscular hands and pulling it to the side. The old wood creaked, but held its shape.

Sure enough, a metal hatch lay hidden beneath it, inlayed in the floor. With a snap of his fingers, a wave of flame washed over it, appearing and vanishing in an instant and taking a layer of dust with it.

Preston looked down at the floor safe then up at Wes. “You didn’t happen to find a key in that desk, did you?”

“Nope,” he answered. With a thought he activated Forged in Flames, focusing the spell on just his outstretched hand. It came alight with a hungry blaze. “But I’ve got the next best thing.”

“Fire?”

“Fire.”

* * *

Eve counted the seconds left on her Charge as she raced down the hallway, barely keeping ahead of the malevolent wraith and the darkness that surrounded it. She wondered which would give out first, her Mana or the duration of her most vital mobility skill. She hoped the latter.

Just a little bit further, she told herself as she let yet another door pass her by. I need to get it far enough that it won’t notice the others leaving. She didn’t crane her head over her shoulder to look back. She knew the wraith was gaining on her.

It wouldn’t catch up, not directly, anyway. Charge would run out first, or she’d collapse from Mana exhaustion. Just one more…

Eve skidded to a halt as she saw the wall.

Shit, she cursed to herself. I guess this is it. The tunnel came to an end ahead of her, stopping short at a stone wall with a wooden door in it. Eve yanked it open. I hope this stops it. Without wasting a moment to look inside first, she stepped in, slamming the door behind her.

Eve collapsed to the floor, her back sliding against the door as she sat.

Mana: 613/6,700

“Less than ten percent,” she breathed. “That was too close.” She reached for her pack to withdraw a scone to replenish her reserves, but her hand found only air.

A string of expletives escaped her mouth. I must’ve dropped it when I dropped the others, she realized. They probably still have it. The thought was little relief. Her pack was no use to her in Wes and Preston’s possession. She forced herself to stand. “I hope there’s something I can eat in here,” she muttered to herself. “I’m not gonna last very long without a way to restore my Mana.”

She only managed one step into what was ostensibly a supply closet before the enchantments flickered out. “So it can’t get inside but it can turn off the enchantments. Great.” Eve tried not to think about where she’d be without the supernatural light of her eyes to illuminate the room. No doubt the skeletons they’d found had died alone in the dark. She shuddered.

“Okay,” she said aloud as she cast the light of her eyes across the decayed contents of the row of shelves before her. “Please let there be somethi—”

A thunderous crack rang out from the stone below her. Eve froze. “That can’t be good.”

Another crack followed it. The stone quaked beneath her feet. “Nope, definitely not goo—”

The floor collapsed, unable to support its own weight without the enchantments running through it.

Eve plummeted with it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Yeah, But What’s in the Safe?

THREE THOUGHTS SHOT through Eve’s mind as she plunged down into the depths of the stronghold. The first was of Jet, her main hope of salvation from what felt to be an increasingly lethal drop. She had just over six hundred Mana to spend, which would arrest a fall of over a hundred feet if timed correctly, but she’d need to turn in the air to get a look at the ground below before she could judge the distance.

Her second thought was of the Mana wraith, intimidatingly levitating in the space above her. It hung there for a moment, seemingly unwilling to follow in her descent, before pulsing white and moving back the way it’d come. At least it had given up the chase.

The third thought didn’t strike until Eve had a second to flip herself over mid-air, a surprisingly difficult task without the help of Jet.

Shit.

A torrent of blinding white light raged below, spitting from one opening in the earth across the bottom of the shaft through which Eve fell before disappearing into a second opening. Eve blinked, her eyes watering even as she squinted to stave off the brightness before her. It’d make her task all the harder.

In the seconds she had, Eve frantically surveyed the shaft around her, desperate for any ledge or access point the Burendians had left behind. Wes’s description from the outpost had certainly implied there’d be one, but spotting it was another matter entirely. Between the blinding light below and her watering eyes and the remains of the collapsed floor plummeting around her, Eve’s vision wasn’t exactly at its best.

Still she searched, craning her neck this way and that to peer around falling stone, all the while careening faster and faster towards the torrent below.

A surge of hope raced through her when she found it. A ledge, no more than two feet out and three across, jutted from the stone just above the raging Mana. To Eve’s eyes, it was more of a dark shadow than anything else, but any shadow in the face of the radiance below her screamed of promise.

She took aim.

The seconds passed at a crawl as Eve approached the end of the shaft and the ledge that would be her salvation, holding off on casting Jet until the last possible second. Her target was far too narrow to safely land on with any amount of speed; she’d need to cancel the momentum of her fall.

The air grew hot, and the stone around her began to glow. Eve grit her teeth.

The moment came.

Eve dumped all but the very last of her Mana into Jet, abruptly ending her fall and launching herself across the shaft towards the ledge. It wasn’t until the collision that she realized her mistake.

A guardrail, nigh invisible through Eve’s squinting eyes, struck her in the chest, stopping her just short of landing on the ledge. The last thing she saw as she desperately scrambled to catch herself was the iron door on the other side, leading back into the ruin proper.

Her hands slipped free.

Out of Mana, out of time, and out of options, Eve fell backwards into the leyline.

* * *

Wes clenched his fist, extinguishing the flame as Preston coughed behind him.

“Is there anything you can do about all this smoke?”

Wes nodded, waving a hand and engulfing the black cloud in a flash of fire that vanished again in under a second. It left behind a cloud of gray smoke. “Shit—um—hold on.” He repeated the process, burning away the gray smoke only to find that on burning it emitted more black smoke. “Apparently not.”

Preston raised an eyebrow. “You can’t burn it away? You’re supposed to be able to burn anything.”

The Disciple shrugged. “It’s not a matter of burning. Different things give off different kinds of smoke when they burn. Burning the gray smoke leaves black smoke behind. Burning the black smoke leaves gray smoke behind. It’s an endless loop, and there’s always smoke in the air.”

Preston scowled. “That shouldn’t be possible. That’s not remotely how chemistry works.”

“The way chemistry works, smoke doesn’t burn at all,” Wes argued. “The rules are fuzzy when it comes to the Devouring Flame—probably because it burned the rules—and they get fuzzier when you burn magic things.” He pointed at the partially burned floor safe. “This thing’s enchanted to the high hells. We’re gonna get some weird smoke.”

Preston sighed, “That still sounds like—”

The lights flickered on and off three times before eventually staying on.

Wes blinked. “Is that the wraith? Is it back?”

“If it were back, would the light enchantments still be working?”

“Then what was it?” Wes asked.

It was Preston’s turn to shrug. “Maybe the wraith fucking with the enchantments somewhere else is making the ones here a bit spotty? Either way, the wraith clearly isn’t—”

The lights went out.

“Okay, now it’s here.”

The adventurers waited in the pitch black room with bated breath, unwilling to summon fire for light or so much as speak as the wraith passed by. If they got its attention and it chose to wait outside for them, there’d be no escape.

It’s leaving, Art eventually sent. It’s still focused on Eve, and there’s frustration mixed with all its anger.

Moments later, the enchantments flickered back to life, and the party let out a collective breath.

“If it’s focused on Eve, that means it hasn’t gotten her,” Preston said with relief filling his voice.

“But if it’s come back this way, we still have a ways to wait,” Wes added. “We shouldn’t try and leave until it’s past the rotunda at least.”

Preston reached for his pack to pull out the winter cloak he’d stashed away. “In the meantime, let’s get back to it. We can survive a bit of smoke for a little while.” He wrapped the cloth around his nose and mouth. “I really want to see what’s in that safe.”

“One open safe, coming right up.” With a nod and a grin, Wes knelt back down over the partially burnt floor safe, summoned fire to his hand, and got back to work.

* * *

Eve was pain.

She wasn’t in pain. Agony didn’t course through her every vein, spreading fire and torment wherever it went. She didn’t have those anymore. Her lungs didn’t scream in protest with every torturous breath. Those were gone too.

All that was left was the pain.

She floated listlessly in a world of white, a current dragging at her consciousness and her pain wrenching it apart just as it aimed to sweep her away. She’d have held on if she’d had hands to grasp, dug in her heels if such things had existed. They didn’t.

A poet might’ve said it was her indomitable will that kept her together, her inviolable sense of self that refused to give way to even the insurmountable might of the forces against her. A scholar might’ve argued it was the nature of her class, Unique in its ability to defy strength beyond its reckoning. What was the world’s very source of magic itself compared to the unflinching and ineffable hand of fate?

In truth, it was curiosity that won out.

As all-encompassing as the white river was, a single spot of blue floated within it. Eve, or the rapidly eroding consciousness and unending pain that had once been Eve, wanted to see it.

So she did.

Against all reason, against all logic, against the very current that so strived to rip her apart, Eve approached the floating blue box.

Mana: 85,345,142,389/6,700

That can’t be good. The thought echoed throughout the raging white expanse, unconfined to a brain that wasn’t even there to think it.

The number ticked up.

Just as the thought, why am I not exploding? came up, the answer became apparent. There wasn’t a her to explode. The metaphysics of it all was far too complicated for Eve to bother with. Instead, she busied herself watching the value on the pretty blue box slowly increase.

The numbers made it easier. They distracted her from the pain, from the light, from the endless pull of torrent aching to sweep her away into oblivion. There was something satisfying, even to what little remained of Eve’s humanity, to watching numbers go up.

For a second and for an eternity she floated there, taking refuge from the world around her in the primitive joy of the numbers. As the eons breezed by, as the seconds turned to minutes, the numbers became less and less of a distraction from the pain so much as the pain grew to distract her from the numbers.

She had to get out of there.

The constant stream of mind shattering agony, the unfathomable forces trying to tear her apart, they were getting in the way of watching the numbers go up. They had to go.

Eve reached up and out of the raging torrent, only to realize she had nothing with which to reach. That wouldn’t do.

With every bit of her remaining will, she directed more and more of herself into the cold air above. She focused it all into as small an area as she could, desperate to condense her ethereal consciousness into something that could pull her up, something solid.

In time, it did.

An arm peeked above the river of Mana, its skin pale and marred with a web of jagged white lines. Flailing for a moment through the open air, it finally came to a stop against cold stone, its fingers grasping the lip of a ledge.

The numbers dropped, but Eve didn’t care. The lower they fell the faster they’d rise again, and she’d have all the time in the world to watch them undistracted once she escaped the white.

She pulled.

More and more of the Mana surged inwards, forming a bicep, a shoulder, a chest. Another arm took shape, planting its elbow on the landing to aid in the herculean effort. The values continued to plummet, but a head had formed atop those shoulders, there was a brain to think thoughts beyond the simplicity of big numbers.

She heaved herself the rest of the way up, rolling under the guardrail to collapse on the ledge below. The rough stone scraped against her bare skin, but Eve didn’t care.

She was alive.

Her eyes, no longer bothered by the blinding intensity of the leyline, surveyed it for any hint of her clothes and armor. There were none. Not even the blocks of solid stone that had fallen from the floor above had survived contact with its magic, dissolving directly into Mana. For a moment, Eve wondered why that hadn’t happened to her, before realizing that it indeed had.

Her search, however, was not without fruit. Of all the things to land in the torrential flow, only one was strong enough to withstand the forces involved.

Eve bent over the guardrail, wrapping her hand around her griffin-bone club where it leaned against the stone, its handle peeking out from the leyline below. She pulled it up to the ledge, happy to see it seemed unaffected by its time in the leyline. She certainly wasn’t.

Beyond the newly visible lines of Mana that now stretched across her entire body rather than just her chest and neck, a slew of messages awaited her in the corner of her vision. She considered, for a moment, putting them aside while she found a way through the steel door and went looking for something to cover herself up, but she knew well enough how well linens had survived the ravages of time in the ruin.

Besides, it wasn’t like there were any Burendians around to gawk at her.

So instead she sat, her bare back unbothered by the cold metal against which it leaned, and settled in. With a deep breath and a heart racing with excitement and trepidation at what she might find, Eve dove into her notifications.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Seriously, What’s in the Safe?

“OKAY, OKAY, THAT’S enough.” Preston coughed the words more so than said them, waving the smoke away from his face as best he could.

Wes nodded, extinguishing his flames wordlessly rather than risk taking a breath in the clouded room. “You sure?” he eventually wheezed. “I think I’m almost through.”

In reply, Preston flashed a healing spell at his own throat, mending the damage the smoke had done thus far. It still scraped against him as he spoke. “Check your Health.”

Wes dutifully obeyed, his eyes flashing blue as he brought up the requested value. Sure enough, it had dropped a few points. “Oh.” More than enough proof for him, he allowed himself to fall backwards from the awkward way he’d leant over the floor safe, landing softly in a sit. “What do we do?”

“I’m not sure I want to risk opening the door quite yet,” Preston replied. “The Mana wraith could still be close enough to notice us.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “Then how do you want to clear this smoke? With the door closed there’s nowhere for it to go.”

What about the vents?

Wes and Preston both turned to blink at Art.

“The what?” Preston asked in disbelief.

Reginald found them. How did you think the Burendians survived underground for so long? They had to get fresh air somehow.

Preston rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Hey Wes?”

“Yes?”

“How is it that between an entire outpost and now halfway through a stronghold, we never noticed that there were fucking vents?”

Wes shrugged and grunted the universal nonverbal I-don’t-know sound. “I was a bit busy trying not to panic and or die to really investigate.”

What did you think all these enchantments did? Art asked.

“I don’t know,” Wes answered. “Magic shit, I guess. I’m no enchanter.”

“I always figured they provide light while also delivering power from the leyline to run basic appliances, plumbing, et cetera,” Preston gave his own reply. “It makes sense that ventilation is part of that.”

Wes sat back. “Well, that’s good then. The smoke will clear out on its own.”

“Assuming the ancient Burendian ventilation system can handle this much smoke.”

“Please,” Wes dismissed his concern, “these enchantments have been running for millennia. A little smoke isn’t going to break them.”

“Or,” Preston argued, “they’ve already been through millennia of wear and tear, and a roomful of smoke is exactly what they need to finally fail.”

Wes snapped his fingers. “Point taken, and counterpoint: There’s nothing we can do either way.”

Preston sighed. “Alright, fine. We wait for the smoke to clear, and then get back to work. I really want to know what’s in that safe.”

“It’s a deal,” Wes said. With a grin and a nod he reached into his pack, withdrawing a leather-wrapped deck of playing cards. “In the meantime, anyone for a game of Crowns?”

* * *

Eve began with the shortest of the messages.

You have survived an encounter with overwhelming force: +25 Constitution!

Well that’s a damn good start, she thought to herself as she reread the notification. Constitution was her second fastest-growing stat, after Mana Density, and she’d still picked up almost two full levels’ worth from her fall into the leyline.

Ability Upgraded!

Passive Ability - Ethereal Manifestation

Your body has become more, a manifestation of Mana itself given form by the might of your will. Draw Mana from food or from external sources to fortify yourself or power your abilities. Transcend beyond the limitations of flesh.

Eve gulped. “Well that explains the whole—” Her eyes flashed to the leyline and she trailed off. A shiver ran down her spine. She’d been gone, barely a spark of consciousness floating in a river of power beyond comprehension. Yet there she was, made whole again.

She looked down, running her eyes over the jagged glowing lines that covered her bare body. Some semblance of whole, that was. Eve might’ve freaked out over no longer being human had she been one to begin with, and not being Manaheart didn’t carry the same emotional weight. She’d been one less than a year, after all.

Instead, a far more harrowing thought ran through her mind. Was she even still alive?

Eve decided she didn’t want to grapple with that particular conundrum. She was there. She was thinking. She had notifications to read, abilities to use, a quest to complete. As long as she still had a single point of Health, she’d be damned if anyone tried to claim she wasn’t alive. To reassure herself, Eve quickly glanced at her resources.

Health: 0/0

Oh. That can’t be good. Eve’s heart seemed to stop as she flipped through her remaining notifications to find the relevant one, letting out a curse as she read it.

Statistic Lost: Constitution

Manifestations of magical energy do not have access to the Constitution statistic. All points and future gains have been redirected to its closest analog.

The Defiant forced herself to take a breath, her lungs, which definitely did exist, filling with the cool underground air. She exhaled. So what if she wasn’t alive? Actually, no, Eve didn’t want an answer to that question. She was still there. She was still her. That’s all that mattered.

Forcing the tension in her jaw and shoulders to relax, Eve used her curiosity to distract herself from the existential quandaries. She could question the definition of life once she’d read all her notifications.

Statistic Lost: Mana Density

Manifestations of magical energy do not have access to the Mana Density statistic. All points and future gains have been redirected to its closest analog.

Now that got Eve’s interest. Constitution she could understand, but Mana Density sounded an awful lot like exactly the kind of statistic a manifestation of magical energy would have. Then again, she supposed the stat was a measure of how much Mana she could fit within the confined space of her body, something that didn’t quite mesh with the concept of being made of pure Mana. Eve shook that thought away, and allowed her curiosity to drive her ever forward.

Statistic Gained: Willpower

No longer bound to the laws of your corporeal form, the only limit to your power is how much Mana you can contort to your will.

Eve blinked. “Huh,” she breathed. “If I’m not bound to the laws of my corporeal form anymore, does that mean I can run through Lynthia without getting a speeding ticket?” She snorted, the silly joke some comfort in the maelstrom of emotions she wasn’t quite ready to process.

You have stayed steadfast against overwhelming force: +25 Willpower!

“I guess I couldn’t get that one until I read the one about what Willpower is,” Eve thought aloud. Every word she said vanished beneath the roar of the leyline next to her, but they were never meant to be heard in the first place. She tried not to think about how close she’d come to letting the leyline take her. “Nope, okay, back to notifications.”

She paused. “Actually…” Before she moved on, she reckoned it best to confirm that Constitution and Mana Density had both converted to Willpower and that all the numbers were where she expected them to be. She pulled up her status screen.

Evelia Greene

Manaheart

Level 53 The Defiant

Exp: 1,679,546/1,742,579

Health: 0/0

Stamina: 0/0

Mana: 9,002/9,010

Constitution: 0

Willpower: 901

Intelligence: 57

Dexterity: 188

Strength: 221

Spirit: 0

Sure enough, Constitution and Health were both grayed out just how Spirit and Mana had been on the day she first received her class. In contrast, Willpower, between receiving the twenty-five bonus points and her entire Constitution score, had ballooned to just over nine hundred. “Ayla’s tits,” Eve swore. “Two more levels and I’m gonna hit a thousand.”

Deciding this maybe-not-being-technically-alive thing might not have been all bad, Eve pulled up the next notification.

Ability Upgraded!

Passive Ability - Haste

A quicker step is the difference between life and death. You run and swim [WPW/5]% faster.

A quick reread of the floating text box confirmed the ability itself hadn’t changed; it simply scaled with Willpower instead of Mana Density. Eve had two immediate thoughts. The first was of glee—by combining Constitution with her main stat, she’d effectively gained an extra two hundred points of skill scaling.

The second thought was that ‘wpw’ was a terrible abbreviation for a stat. It made her want to say ‘willpow’ instead of the full name. She hated it.

The next three notifications were simple confirmations that all her abilities had adapted to the change in statistics. The only change, she found, was to Defiant Charge.

Ability Upgraded!

Active Ability - Defiant Charge

100 Mana

Face your foes head on. None shall stand in your way. Fortify your skin and quadruple your maximum running speed for [WPW/5] seconds.

Instead of quadrupling the Constitution she no longer had, the description claimed to ‘fortify her skin.’ She really wasn’t excited to test that one out.

The final skill upgrade was one she’d been expecting ever since she’d read the message about Ethereal Manifestation. After all, she already had an ability that altered her body.

Ability Upgraded!

Passive Ability - Defiant Body

Effects scale with current Mana. Dissociate into pure Mana at will.

“Now that is interesting.” Before fear at the possible consequences could catch up with her, Eve held her hand up to her face and willed it to dissolve. Nothing happened.

Eve tried again, banishing her trepidation to the back of her mind as she devoted every ounce of her thoughts and desires into the task at hand. Over the course of a few focused seconds, the flesh and blood and bone disappeared, leaving behind a thick cloud of bright white Mana. Eve found she could move it around with ease, but it had to remain in contact with the rest of her.

Reforming her hand was as easy as a thought.

The Defiant spent the next several minutes experimenting with the ability, associating and dissociating different body parts. Her head led to the most interesting experience, as her consciousness continued to float in the cloud of Mana, observing the space around it not through eyes but some form of magical perception Eve couldn’t begin to understand. To her, it felt like looking at the world through a pane of cloudy glass. She could perceive basic shapes but nothing detailed.

Given that her body was Mana given shape by her will, it stood to reason that she could will her body to take whatever shape she so pleased. Fuck if she didn’t try. No matter how she directed her focus, every time her arm reformed from the cloud of white light, it reformed as her arm. She could change neither the shape nor color nor makeup of the flesh, much to her disappointment. Shapeshifting off the table, she moved away from complexity and towards scale.

Attempting to dissociate her entire body raised yet another question when instead of passing through the white cloud and falling to the floor, her bone club dissociated with her. Interesting, Eve thought as she snapped back to corporeality and looked down at the weapon to Appraise it. Why is it—oh.

Manaforged Griffin-bone Club

Rarity: Legendary

Eve let out a curse. Even the bone of a beast hundreds of levels above her hadn’t escaped the leyline unscathed. She could only begin to guess what being manaforged meant, but apparently dissociating into a cloud of Mana when she did was a part of it. That was convenient.

Even as she reveled in the new Legendary status her weapon carried, the thought brought her attention back to the leyline. Her armor, her clothes, her daggers had all eroded beneath its might. Eve sighed. She might not have used the manacharge daggers for quite some time, but their loss still stung. At least she’d dropped her pack when she’d left Wes and the others. Accidental or otherwise, the act had saved her most important belongings from the leyline.

Sure, she could afford to lose the man of the mist’s rook or some money—even if the two copper she’d saved for her loaf of bread had some emotional value—but that pack had her scones in it. Eve shuddered at the thought.

With a few deep breaths to regain her focus, Eve turned to the metal door behind her. For all the notifications she’d read, not a one had mentioned reaching a milestone in her secondary quest. Such a lack could only mean one thing.

She wasn’t finished with this gods-damned Burendian stronghold yet.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

What’s in the Fucking Safe?

“THREE CROWNS.” WES laid his cards out on the floor in front of him, revealing the strength of his hand.

I only have two, Art pouted, doing the same.

“None for me,” Preston added, discarding his handful of playing cards.

Reginald opened his jaw, allowing the slightly saliva-coated cards within to fall haphazardly to the floor. Preston leaned over to read them. “And four for Reginald.”

“Bandir’s fucking—” Wes cursed as he slid a few copper pieces over to Reginald. “How does he keep winning?”

The drake swiped the coins over to his growing pile, his tail wagging so hard it thumped repeatedly into the wall behind him. While he didn’t mind, the wall certainly did, already showing a few cracks from the abuse.

Preston pushed himself to his feet, throwing his arms behind his head to stretch his back. “On that note, I think the air’s cleared up enough for now.”

Wes pulled his head from his hands, no longer lamenting the loss at cards. “Finally,” he said. “I’ve been dying to finally open this damn safe.”

Is it almost open?

Wes patted Art on his feathered head. “Almost. I’ve broken through the enchantments and most of the door already. Unless it’s way thicker than it looks, we should be able to get in before the room’s so smoky we have to stop again.”

Preston rubbed his palms together. “Perfect. Let’s get to it.”

“Alright, alright,” Wes said, crouching once more over the partially burnt floor safe. “Shouldn’t be long now.”

* * *

The metal door between her and the rest of the stronghold presented Eve with a dilemma not of difficulty, but of choice. Sure, she could dump a bunch of Mana into Mana Rush and knock it off its hinges, but where was the fun in that? She had a new toy to play with, after all.

It took over fifteen seconds for Eve to dissociate her body and club alike, a time she resolved to work on shortening. Once her physical form had given way to the cloud of light, she looked through her foggy vision and felt around the fringes of herself for the gap beneath the door. Once found, she pushed herself through.

It was a long and tricky process. Three times as she contorted herself to fit through the narrow space, Eve lost control of the Mana on the other side, accidentally allowing it to disperse and losing a chunk of her Mana pool. By the time she at last managed to maintain her hold on the energy on both sides for long enough to push her consciousness through, her supply had fallen below five thousand.

Eve successfully resolidified a few seconds quicker than she’d dissociated, attributable to either practice or simply having less Mana to condense. Electing not to think about if there was less of her now that she’d lost some Mana, the Defiant took a deep breath and surveyed her surroundings.

It was an open room, with stone countertops lining the four walls. It reminded her, in some ways, of the alchemy lab they’d found back in the outpost, yet neither glassware nor mysterious potions cluttered the counters.

The decayed remains of leather-bound books, ancient arcane implements, and assorted magical reagents filled the space. Of the latter, most had long rotted, but the salts and iron filings and other inorganic items held their form, though were likely contaminated by the layer of dust that coated the place.

Absent any furniture, the center of the room revealed its purpose. The familiar enchantments that ran about the floors throughout the ruin came to a stop in the middle of the chamber, forming instead a perfect circle of intricate runes and flowing patterns.

“It’s a ritual room,” Eve muttered the realization. “Where they ran experiments with the leyline to try and create… me, I guess.” She thought back to the description of her race, and how it had implied the Burendians’ greatest goal was to create a Manaheart.

Four skeletons clustered by the exit gave her some clue as to what they had created instead.

“So an experiment gone wrong killed all the Burendians here,” Eve reasoned, “but that doesn’t explain what happened to all the others. The Mana wraith is still here, and I doubt they somehow all made the same mistake at the same time.”

She explored the room a bit further, Appraising the assorted implements on the countertops only to find nothing in good enough repair to be worth looting. The bar wasn’t low. Given her current state, she didn’t exactly have much carrying capacity to go around. Maybe she’d return once she found Wes and Preston and likewise her pack, but she still held out hope she’d find something more valuable later on.

Before leaving the ritual room behind, Eve cast a quick glance at her half-empty Mana pool and down at the enchantments lining the floor, remembering a part of the tooltip from her newest upgrade.

Draw Mana from food or from external sources.

Through her bare foot against the smooth stone, Eve extended her focus into the lines of energy beneath her and pulled.

It came in as a trickle.

Eve pulled harder.

Still, barely a few points of precious Mana joined her pool.

She clenched her eyes shut, directing every ounce of her will towards wrenching the Mana away from the enchantments at her feet.

Magic flooded through her, filling her every bone and joint and tendon with thrumming power in all but an instant. Her sizable pool capped out at nine thousand and ten.

The enchantments didn’t even flicker.

Eve withdrew her will, reaching a hand out to steady herself against the counter as she caught her breath. Ayla’s tits, that’s a lot of Mana. Her mind flashed back to the Mana wraith and how it’d completely extinguished the enchantments around it as it devoured the Mana within. Eve shuddered.

But those enchantments were further away from the leyline, running through a random hallway instead of through the very heart of the Burendian research efforts. Maybe the wraith wasn’t that powerful; it had just been drinking from a lesser flow. Maybe.

Eve took one more deep breath, allowing her heart rate to slow from the exhilaration of draining the Mana and the anxiety the experience elicited. For now, avoiding the monstrosity seemed like the best choice, and she was all too happy to take it. That said, there was only one way out of the ritual room, and Eve had run out of reasons to stay.

Carefully stepping around the heap of ancient skeletons, Eve stepped through the open doorway to mount the spiral staircase beyond. “Onwards and upwards and all that,” she muttered.

The stairway spat her out in what must have once been a library. Stone shelves lined the walls as well as stood freely in neat rows across the floor. At its center, the spiral stairs widened to allow an even thicker central pillar, which now similarly housed shelves for yet more books.

Or at least, what had once been books.

Eve let out an audible curse that the Burendians hadn’t bothered to use their vast enchanting skill to preserve the library, though she supposed they hadn’t exactly planned to be wiped off the face of the world. Still, Eve made a point of scouring every shelf, sifting through the dust and disintegrated pages for anything valuable, anything readable. She found little.

A few books retained their covers, bearing titles such as Advanced Eskrian Loops in Nubid Ritual Circles, and The Thermodynamics of Composting Spells, but no actual pages of text survived the ravages of time.

It wasn’t until Eve was already on her way out that she found it. While no book had made it through the ages, one thing had. Up on the wall behind what she assumed to be the librarian’s desk, protected from the open air by an enchanted frame and a pane of glass, was a map.

The geography was familiar. Eve recognized Leshk where she saw it, but this map extended further north into the wildlands than any she’d ever seen. The Dead Fields were not dead, the Broken Marsh unbroken, and even the lands beyond where few humans had ever ventured seemed lush and fertile in the ancient depiction.

Instead of familiar markers or place names, a series of icons cluttered the map, each unique from the others. Eve recognized a sword, a scepter, a crown, a shield, and a book, as well as what appeared to be a flask where the Burendian outpost had been. A number of the icons, including the one marking her current location, were completely alien, not evoking any imagery she’d seen before.

“Neat,” Eve remarked, expressing the extent of her reaction as she stared at the map. It was the kind of thing, she reasoned, that would either be of immense value to scholars, or completely redundant with information they already knew. On the off chance it was worth something, she elected to take it.

Eve climbed up onto the desk, bracing herself against the back wall next to the map, and did what any adventurer would do when confronted with glass display case.

She smashed it.

She didn’t even need to channel extra Mana through her hand and wrist to stop the pointed shards from biting into her bare skin, her full pool on its own making her manifested body more than tough enough to resist a bit of broken glass.

The protective enchantment lashed out with a burst of Mana, but the quantity was fairly pitiful, and Eve had little trouble simply absorbing the excess energy and venting it out into a Mana Burst behind her.

Reaching into the case, Eve tore the map from its frame, rolling the painted canvas up and slipping it under her arm. “Alright,” she said to herself as she hopped down from the desk. “That’s one potential treasure found, hopefully a few more to go.” With a confident smirk, she slung her club over her shoulder and strode from the room. Treasure awaited.

After all, she had to pay for a new suit of armor somehow.

* * *

A metallic clang rang out through the smoky room as the remains of the safe door fell onto its contents. “I’m in!” Wes cheered.

“Fucking finally,” Preston breathed. “Who would’ve thought burning through a safe could take so long?”

“In my defense,” the fire mage said, “it was enchanted to stop Burendians from getting in. That’s like eight levels of enchantment beyond what anyone today is even capable of, and I burned right through it.”

“Yes, yes, I know, you’re a badass and the Devouring Flame is ridiculous. What’s in the fucking safe?”

“Let me just…” Wes reached in to pull the remains of the door out of the floor safe to reveal its contents. “Um… looks like a few chunks of metal and some papers.”

Preston perked up. “What kind of metal? Is it a valuable metal?”

Wes shrugged. “I’m no blacksmith. Take a look yourself.”

Preston kneeled beside the open safe, craning over to peer inside. Eight fingernail-sized nuggets of glimmering silver lay to one side with a small stack of folded papers on the other. “It looks like silver, but…” He reached in, wrapping a hand around the metal and trying to remove it. It wouldn’t budge. “I can’t even lift it.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “More enchantments?”

Preston shook his head. “No, it’s just that heavy.”

“Shit. You think it’s—”

“Ar-silver,” Preston said. “This much alone is probably worth a fortune, if we can manage to get it out of here.”

“Maybe Eve can lift it?” Wes offered. “She’s stronger than we are.”

“And also not here.”

“Right, but we’re going to come back with help, remember? It’s probably been enough time that the Mana wraith isn’t blocking the exit anymore. With this we can even pay whoever we get.”

Preston nodded. “But first…” He grabbed the top paper off the stack. “Let’s see what information this rich Burendian thought was worth preserving and protecting in his fancy safe.” He unfolded the document, quickly scanning it before stopping short. “Holy shit.”

Wes looked over his shoulder. “What is it?”

“You know how I was joking about us stumbling into the archaeological discovery of the century?” Preston shoved the paper to Wes. “Take a look.”

Wes read it himself before similarly freezing and looking up at Preston.

“Holy shit is right.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Fuck You, and Fuck Your Safe

EVE STROLLED CASUALLY through the halls of the Burendian ruin, her club slung over one shoulder and the rolled-up map tucked under the other. The jagged lines that now covered her entire body pulsed in time with her heartbeat like a wave of light emanating from the network’s epicenter at her chest.

She wondered if her Mana was centered there because that’s where her heart was or because that’s where the volatile compound had originally struck her. She decided it was probably some combination of the two. Either way, what particularly annoyed Eve as she traversed the ancient hall, was that the lines across her body pulsed at an entirely different rate than those on the floor.

It resulted in an asynchronous dimming and brightening of the space that left Eve with a minor ache just behind her eyes. At first she’d hoped to get used to the constantly shifting light, but as her heart rate changed from moment to moment, there was never a consistent pattern to which she could adjust.

Eventually, she grew fed up enough that she stopped short.

“Alright,” she muttered, “If I’m just a collection of Mana held together by will, I should be able to control that Mana, right?” She exhaled, clenching her eyes shut and directing her focus inward.

She’d been able to dim the light of her eyes and chest for months. Theoretically, that process should be easier with the reforming of her body.

It wasn’t.

Electing to send less Mana circulating through parts of her body didn’t function as a concept now that her body was Mana. She had to recontextualize. No longer were the jagged lines places where her Mana shone through the flesh it empowered. The flesh was Mana too.

Eve redirected her will not towards disallowing Mana from appearing on the surface of her skin, but towards creating additional skin where there were cracks.

The process was slow and arduous and uncomfortable, but minute by minute the white web of magic vanished from her body, leaving only the brilliant central node at her chest behind. It didn’t pulse.

“That’s better,” she breathed. Sure, she still glowed a little, and sure the light of her eyes still prohibited her from any significant attempt at stealth—seriously, who actually thought glowing eyes would be a good idea?—but at least she didn’t look like a Mana construct any more. She’d count that as a win.

Continuing on, Eve stopped at the first door she passed, readying herself for whatever great mystery or Mythic loot or horrible threat may have lain within.

She found an empty storage closet.

“Okay,” Eve muttered to herself. “Not all doors can be winners. On to the next one.”

She progressed slowly through each of the rooms she passed, scanning them quickly for anything of value before moving on to the next. The majority of the rooms near the library, she was unsurprised to find, were either quarters or private studies for the scholars in residence.

Eve rifled through desk after desk in search of letters or papers that had somehow survived the ages, but none arose. The Burendians, as it turned out, hadn’t bothered enchanting desks to preserve their contents.

Either way, Eve supposed she didn’t have much in the way of carrying capacity to spare towards any historical documents she might’ve found. Between the map and her club, her inventory was largely constrained to things she could carry without holding them. Anything wearable, she took.

The spoils of her looting consisted of two rings that each generated one extra Mana per second but refused to work if she donned them both, a necklace called a laborer’s medallion which gave a flat five points of Strength and Endurance—Willpower in her case—and a pair of earrings she couldn’t equip because her ears weren’t pierced.

As she held that last in her left fist and took one last look around the bedroom in which she’d found them, Eve quietly resolved to ask Preston’s help piercing her ears. Appraise only told her the accessories were Mythic ‘enchanted earrings,’ and she’d be damned if she let a simple prick through the earlobe stop her from finding out what they did.

As Eve turned to leave the satisfactorily looted room and continue onto the next, her mind wandered to her companions and if they’d managed to escape, how far they’d made it in her absence. Truth be told, she had no idea how long she’d been in the leyline.

Eve approached the exit. Her thoughts, thoroughly engrossed in the value of her loot and the wellbeing of her friends, were not, as it were, available to realize that no light peeked through the gap below the door before her.

By the time she noticed the dark hallway and the awaiting presence of the Mana wraith, it was too late.

The air turned cold as a frigid aura of malevolent wrath enveloped her, pulling her in further even as it pressed to devour her very essence.

For a moment, Eve stared in stunned silence at the white cloud before her as her Mana plummeted. Just as with their last encounter, the closer she drew to it the faster it drained her, wisps of visible white light trailing from her body towards the thing. Where she stood but a few feet away, her pool dropped by the thousands.

But unlike their last encounter, Eve was ready. Eve was different. No more was her Mana defined as hers by the fact she’d generated it or that it lived in her body, nor was it but a resource stored in the soul of a human or Burendian magus.

One thing and one thing alone determined the ownership of Eve’s Mana, and she had Willpower in spades.

In the few seconds it took to regain her bearings, Eve slammed the full force of her will against the wraith’s attempt at feeding. In an instant, the Mana drain stopped. Her Mana was hers.

Eve flashed a thin smirk and stepped closer.

Her grip held.

The closer she moved to the ghastly apparition, the harder it tugged in famished desperation for the power within her. Still she held fast.

Once she was close enough that the faded edges of the glowing white cloud brushed against her cheek, Eve stood steadfast against millennia of hatred and hunger, her feet square and her jaw set.

And Eve began to pull.

No shriek echoed through the ancient hall, no cry of pain or howl of rage met Eve’s assault. The wraith had no mouth with which to scream. Instead, the lights flickered on and the air grew colder and the cloud before her denser as the beast devoted the entirety of its rage, its appetite, its being towards the pitiful ant that dared not only resist it, but strike back.

Eve stood steadfast. This thing had taken what was hers, and she’d take more than like in kind.

The very manifestation of magic and hunger put everything it had towards thwarting her. It failed.

Mana gushed to Eve, filling and overfilling her pool in a matter of moments, but she wouldn’t let a matter as paltry as a limited Mana pool stop her from taking everything the monster had. Taking one final confident step into the center of the cloud itself, Eve did something that would’ve been suicide in another other situation.

She activated Mana Rush for five thousand Mana per second.

Immediately her Mana dropped to less than half, only to near instantly return to full as energy coursed from the wraith to her. One second later, the process repeated.

Time seemed to drag as Eve stood there, locked in a battle of wills with an ancient being that couldn’t begin to contest the indomitable spirit she brought to bear. She refused to move, knowing full well even her newly reforged body couldn’t withstand the simplest motion backed by the two hundred thousand Strength that flowed through her.

All she could do was wait.

What focus she could spare from the spirit that fruitlessly raged against her, Eve spent keeping a close eye on her Mana pool and the state of the cloud around her. She played a dangerous game draining as fast as she did, and she needed to be ready to cancel her Mana Rush the instant the wraith died or the process slowed. At five thousand per second, two consecutive seconds without replenishing her Mana would be lethal.

As the seconds turned to minutes and the minutes grew uncountable, Eve didn’t regret the risks. Gods knew how long she would’ve stood there had she tried to drain the beast any slower.

She reaffirmed her decision when the light flickered out once more as the wraith, in its desperation, gave up its attempts to fight back in favor of siphoning from the enchantments to survive Eve’s assault.

But this was no leyline, and Eve had traveled far enough from the stronghold’s source of power that even the Burendian enchantments couldn’t keep up with the speed at which she devoured the wraith. It was only a matter of time.

If anything, the addition of the enchantments’ power made Eve’s task easier, slowing the process and granting her more of a window to cancel the Mana Rush before it killed her. As the ethereal figure of the apparition grew thinner and softer, Eve even redirected some of her focus towards the enchantments herself, siphoning Mana directly to offset any decreased flow from the creature.

Over an hour and an inconceivably vast amount of Mana later, the notifications popped up and Eve ended her ability.

You have defeated Level 97 Mana Wraith: +1,410,000 exp!

Level Up!

Statistic Growth Upgraded!

+5 Willpower/Level

Eve let out a breath, tension draining from her shoulders as she leaned back against the wall, caring little for the chill of the cold stone against her skin. She’d done it. Relief flooded through her as her fear caught up with her, reminding her how close she’d come and how fortunate she was to have found the tools to defeat the wraith. She shivered.

A clinking sound echoing through the hallway pulled her from her thoughts, and Eve brought her eyes up to see a foot-wide obsidian orb gently rolling along the smooth stone floor where it’d fallen from the wraith’s center. Pushing herself upright, Eve walked over to grab the dungeon core.

You have cleared dungeon: Burendian Stronghold: +5,000,000 exp!

Level Up!

Level Up!

Ability Upgraded!

Active Ability - Mana Rush

X Mana/Sec

Reduced cooldown!

Statistic Growth Upgraded!

+5 Intelligence/Level

Eve let out a laugh, a smile sticking to her face despite the harrowing nature of the experience just moments past. “Now that’s more like it.” With an unfailing grin and the unwavering confidence of an adventurer waltzing through a newly cleared dungeon, Eve shoved the dungeon core under her arm alongside the map and set out to find her friends.

* * *

Preston paced aggressively back and forth across the once luxurious bedchamber, running a hand through his golden hair as he did. “So what does this mean?”

“I don’t know,” Wes answered. “But it’s gotta be important.” He cast his eyes back to the paper in his hand and reread the paragraph of text on it.

Minister Ilindia,

The scepter has fallen. The aggressors continue their inexorable march across the empire, crushing our forces wherever they meet. Realndin has called to abandon the outer fortresses in favor of defending the capital. Wrap up your research and lead your people home. We make our final stand here. The crown must not fall.

Yours in urgency,

War Secretary Dshiol

“Well to start,” Preston reasoned aloud, “it outright says there was a Burendian capital. It doesn’t tell us where, but the fact there is one at all is more than we ever knew.”

“That,” Wes muttered, “and it says something about what happened to the Burendians. They were attacked.”

Preston nodded. “Whoever these ‘aggressors’ were, they must’ve been powerful to wipe out the Burendians. Any ideas?”

Wes shrugged. “It’s not worth speculating. At least we know it was some external force and not an experiment gone wrong like what killed all the people here.”

“On that note…” Preston gestured towards the pale light shining through the gap under the door. “The wraith hasn’t passed by in a while. We should run, find someone to help us rescue Eve. That letter alone should be more than enough to convince someone high-level that it’s worth coming here.”

Wes paled. “I—um—I know we’re in a hurry to save Eve, but it’s gonna be at least a couple of days before we can get anyone back here anyway. An extra hour or two isn’t going to make the difference. Shouldn’t we wait until we’re absolutely sure it’s safe to leave?”

Preston turned to the other two occupants of the room. “Art?”

I can’t sense it, the trellac replied. Wherever it is, it’s reasonably far away.

The healer looked back at Wes. “There you go. At this point, there’s no guarantee more time will translate to it moving further away or heading back towards us. We should go.”

Wes exhaled. “Alright. I just… if we don’t make it out, neither does Eve. She’s gonna sit huddled up in some room and starve just like those Burendians if we can’t find help. I just… want to be as sure as I can.”

Preston softened, placing a comforting hand on Wes’s arm. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “Eve can take care of herself for the time being. We’ll get her out.”

Wes swallowed, setting his jaw in determination. “Alright. Thanks. I wish I could guarantee that we’ll all make it out, but I know… hold on.” He trailed off as the notification flashed into view, not just for him but for them all.

As one, four pairs of eyes, two human and two inhuman, flashed blue to read the barrage of messages.

You have cleared dungeon: Burendian Stronghold: +5,000,000 exp!

Level Up!

Level Up!

Preston let out a sigh of relief. Wes let out a laugh.

“Okay, guys,” the Disciple announced to the room. “I think it might be safe to leave.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Archaeological Discovery of the Century

EVE STOOD ALONE in the spacious rotunda, carefully surveying the various paths away as she tried to remember which one Art had led them down when they’d first escaped from the Mana wraith. It wasn’t going well.

“So… that’s a carved stone hallway eerily lit by enchantments the likes of which have never been seen since the time of the ancients, and that’s a carved stone hallway eerily lit by enchantments the likes of which have never been seen since the time of the ancients, and that’s…” She sighed. “They all look the fucking same.”

“You don’t,” a voice called from a passage behind her. “You look very different.”

Eve turned to raise an eyebrow at Wes. “Different?”

“Well, naked for one.”

“Oh shi—” Eve paled as she watched Preston slap a hand over Art’s eyes, who in turn slapped a hand over Reginald’s eyes.

“What happened?” Wes asked. “You fed your clothes to the Mana wraith and your fashion taste made it so sick it died?”

“Actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that.” Eve knew neither Wes nor Preston were the type to gawk at her, but for the sake of her own comfort she dissociated her body below the neck, leaving her as a floating head atop a cloud of pure white Mana. Her club dissociated with her while the map and earrings and dungeon core fell to the floor with a clatter.

Wes gaped. “You—did you—what?”

Preston furrowed his brow. “Now this I can’t wait to hear.”

So Eve told them. As a disembodied head and a glowing cloud at the center of the ancient market square—market circle?—she told of her run from the Mana wraith, the floor collapsing out from under her as the enchantments failed, and her subsequent tumble into the leyline.

She didn’t go into detail describing her experience within it. How could she? She left it at simply explaining that her body—along with everything she’d been carrying below the level of her bone club—had dissolved and been remade in pure Mana, hence the cloud thing. She told of the ritual chamber and the library, of finding the earrings and stumbling out into the wraith’s waiting arms. Wes didn’t challenge her on the metaphor, whether or not the wraith actually had arms.

As she finished, Wes and Preston both stared at her, slack-jawed.

Preston broke the silence first. “So you’re telling us you ate the Mana wraith?”

Eve blinked. “Um… kinda? I guess in the same sense it was eating the Mana from the enchantments.”

Wes shook his head. “Not ate.” Much to Preston and Eve’s displeasure and Art’s childish giggling, he made an overemphasized slurping sound. “Sucked it right up.”

Preston echoed the slurping sound with clear question in his voice.

“Well it was a bit more intense than that,” Eve argued. “I actually had to—”

Wes interrupted her with an even louder, even cruder slurp. “Suck it to death, got it.”

Art laughed. Reginald wagged his tail. Preston groaned.

Eve exhaled. “So what did you all get up to while I was busy almost dying?”

“Oh, you know, found a safe, opened a safe, looted a safe…” Wes paused. “Actually, we still need your help with that last bit. Found some metal we can’t lift.”

Eve flashed a cocky grin. “So while I was off exploring half the ruin and clearing the dungeon, you still need my help to loot a single room?”

“Hey, we don’t all have access to your magical leyline bullshit,” Wes argued. “And there’s no way you would’ve gotten into that safe without my fire to burn through.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll pick up your metal for you,” Eve teased. “But first, clothes. There’s a spare set in my pack which you oh so graciously held onto for me.”

Preston grinned, holding out the bag. “You mean after you dropped it running away from the wraith.”

She snorted, manifesting a single arm within her cloud of Mana to grab her pack. “What can I say, running away is what I do best.”

Floating over to hide behind one of the ruined market stalls, Eve rematerialized and slipped into her clothes, breathing a silent prayer of thanks as she felt her two copper pieces and the man of the mists’ rook in the pants pockets where she’d forgotten them. Once dressed, she slid her pack over her shoulder and tied her club to it, the weapon awkwardly dangling around absent the back-strap that had been lost to the leyline.

“Alright,” she said as she rejoined the others at the rotunda’s center. “Let’s go see about that metal of yours.” Scooping the map, dungeon core, and earrings off the floor and into her pack, Eve followed Preston’s lead down one of the hallways towards the once-luxurious bedchamber they’d sheltered in.

“Well damn,” she remarked as she eyed the chamber. “Art sure knows how to pick em. This is bigger than any of the bedrooms I saw.”

Preston nodded. “Probably the only one with a floor safe, too.”

Eve followed his gesture, kneeling over the hole in the floor. The light of her eyes reflected brilliantly against the eight small pebbles of silver, each far brighter and shinier than they had any right to be. “You needed my help for these?”

“They’re heavy,” Wes explained. “Very heavy.”

Eve shrugged, reaching her hand into the safe only for the glimmering nuggets to disappear beneath her hand.

You have obtained 8 units of Ar-silver! +80%!

“What the fu—”

“Can you lift it?” Wes asked.

“Kind of?” Eve answered. She stood, showing off her empty hands. “I seem to have absorbed it.”

Preston raised an eyebrow. “What the fuck?”

“That’s what I said.”

Wes stepped forward, urgency in his voice. “Can you get it back?”

Eve furrowed her brow. “Let’s see.” With a thought, she willed a piece of the Ar-silver to materialize in her hand, tossing it into the air and catching it again. “Looks like it.”

You have lost 1 unit of Ar-silver! +70%!

She reabsorbed it.

You have obtained 1 unit of Ar-silver! +80%!

“So, the interesting thing,” she eventually said, “isn’t just that I can absorb it, but that it gives me some kind of bonus.”

Wes looked on in curiosity. “What kind of bonus?”

Eve shrugged. “Hells if I know. The notification just says plus eighty percent.”

“Eighty percent what?”

“Doesn’t say.”

“Well, shit,” the mage cursed. “Eighty percent is a lot.”

“Ar-silver is so valuable because it has all sorts of uses for empowering enchantments,” Preston explained. “My guess is, what with the whole reforging-your-body-in-Mana, you count as an enchantment now.”

Wes paled. “So now she’s eighty percent more Eve?” He rounded on her. “You gotta dump that Ar-silver right now. I can only handle forty percent of you at best.”

“And how much of Preston can you handle, huh?” Eve wiggled her eyebrows at him.

“She’s gotten to dick jokes.” Panic filled Wes’s voice. “It’s already starting.” He turned to Preston. “We need to run.”

Eve rolled her eyes. “So if these little chunks of Ar-silver are worth so much, why are they only giving me ten percent a piece?”

Preston shrugged. “I’m no enchanter. My guess would be it’s because you’re a particularly complex enchantment. Thing. Enchantment thing. My guess is if this amulet we found were woven with a bit of Ar-silver, it’d be ten or twenty times as powerful.”

“But a simple Mana regen amulet isn’t worth the metal,” Eve reasoned.

“Exactly.”

“I’m probably not either,” Eve continued, before realizing what exactly she’d just said. “I mean, obviously I am, but whatever we could get from selling it would probably be worth more than this dubious eighty percent something it’s giving me.”

“Probably not,” Preston agreed. “You need new armor, especially now that you’ve lost the other set.”

“And,” Wes added, “it’ll have to be magical enough to dissolve with you when you go all poof.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “All poof?”

Wes grinned. “Exactly, all poof.”

“Also, you know, those eight chunks aren’t all yours,” Preston said.

“Right, right,” Eve conceded. “We’ll split the pot once we sell them.”

Wes clapped his hands together. “Okay then, sounds like we’re finished here. Do we want to go search the other rooms or head out and go looking for the lungeon?”

“I’ve already searched pretty much everything,” Eve said. “Whoever lived in this room was definitely in charge. Was the Ar-silver all you found?”

A smile stretched across Preston’s face. “Not even close.” He pulled a folded sheet of paper from the folds of his robes. “The Ar-silver may not even be the most valuable thing we found.” He handed the document to Eve. “Not only does it give us some clue as to what actually happened to the Burendians, but it hints at there actually being a capital city somewhere. We just have to find this ‘crown’ and…”

Eve cut him off with a sharp laugh. “Oh, that’s easy. I already have.”

Preston stared. “What?”

“Oh yeah, remember that map I mentioned? It’s got a crown marked right on it.” Pulling the rolled-up canvas from her pack, Eve unfurled the map across the floor, pointing at the crown sigil on it. “Just north of the Dead Fields.”

Wes blinked. “Do you think the Burendians have something to do with… deading the fields?”

Eve scowled at him. “Deading?”

“You know what I meant.”

Eve shrugged. “Who’s to say? Either way, if there are answers out there, my bet is they’re at this crown. I’m sure we could sell its location for a very high—” She cut off as a notification flashed into view.

Secondary Quest Stage Complete: Discover their Legacy

+5,000,000 exp!

Stage Four: Claim the Crown of Lost Burendia

Level Up!

“Well, that answers that, then.”

Wes and Preston both flashed her questioning looks, forcing her to elucidate.

“Secondary quest objective,” Eve explained. “Apparently the next—and I would wager last—stage is to find the crown.”

“Great,” Wes muttered. “Let me just add ‘traverse the Dead Fields to find the long lost capital of a dead race’ to my to-do list.”

“Yep,” Eve chimed. “Right after buying scones and right before killing a dragon.”

Preston turned to him. “You’re right. She is eighty percent more Eve.”

While the others made light jokes at her expense, Eve took the moment to read the ability upgrade that had come with her newest level.

Ability Upgraded!

Active Ability - Mana Burst

X Mana

Infuse the blast with any elemental Mana you’ve absorbed!

I guess that answers that question, Eve thought to herself. She’d wondered how the pure Mana that made up her body would interact with elemental Mana, especially after watching the Mana wraith turn slightly orange after absorbing Wes’s spell. Now she knew—she had to Mana Burst it away.

Sending fire Mana back at a fire mage didn’t seem like a winning strategy, but at least she wouldn’t turn into a fire elemental if she absorbed too much of Wes’s magic. Come to think of it, did that mean she was an Eve elemental now? She liked the thought marginally better than the idea of being an enchantment.

Shutting the notification and shaking the thoughts from her head, Eve rolled up the canvas map and pushed herself to her feet. “Anyway, it looks like we’re done here.”

Wes blinked. “That’s it?”

“Well, yeah. While you were all here playing cards or whatever, I cleared the dungeon, looted the place, and now completed the quest objective we came for in the first place. What else is there?”

Wes opened his mouth as if to say “some epic boss battle” or “us getting way in over our heads and almost dying” before realizing Eve had already done both of those things. Instead, he simply shrugged.

Eve clapped both her hands together. “Alright, that’s one dungeon down, one lungeon to go.”

Without waiting for the others, she strode from the room, leaving Wes and Preston standing there sharing a confused look, neither willing to let her know she was confidently marching off in entirely the wrong direction. She’d figure it out when she got to the collapsed floor.

Probably.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

But First, the Loot!

THE FINAL GLIMMERS of sunset sparkled along the horizon as Eve emerged from the ruin, her pack heavy with loot and her eyes fixed on the next objective. As she surveyed the mountainside on which she stood, she had half a mind to simply leap off the slope before her and arrest her fall with Jet rather than traverse the narrow trail just to find the way down.

It was hard not to be excited for the next dungeon delve after completing such a profitable one.

Still, Eve wasn’t so callous as to leave her companions behind, and she knew well they needed exp as much if not more than she did. Wes and Preston alike grew ever closer to their next class promotions, finally catching up to the tier Eve herself had reached months ago in the Dead Fields.

So wrapped up was she in the exhilaration of progression and so energized was she by both the levels she’d earned and the Mana that filled her pool, that Eve nearly stumbled when Preston’s voice called out to her from the cave mouth.

“We should camp here for the night.”

Eve stopped short. “What?”

“The cave will provide shelter, and the floor in here is more even than out on the trail,” Preston explained.

“No, no, I mean…” Eve trailed off as she turned to appraise the others and saw the way their shoulders sagged and their eyes drooped. Right. Some people actually need to sleep. “Right. That—uh—that makes sense.” Pushing away her disappointment at having to wait a night before exploring the dungeon, Eve stepped back into the cave and back into the pale light of the enchanted door within.

As soon as she sat down, her impatience drained away as all the fear and stress of the past twenty-four hours caught up with her. She exhaled.

While the others went about unpacking the limited camping supplies they’d brought, Eve turned her eyes to the towering door and the broken bars of the guard room above it. Since scaling that wall, she’d fought off a dozen sentry golems, nearly been drained dry by a being of pure malevolent Mana, fell into a fucking leyline, and stumbled face to face with the wraith a second time, only to come out on top with the boons she’d earned for the other harrowing experiences she’d survived.

And it had all taken less than a day.

Eve sighed. She’d never get used to the adventurer’s schedule, the weeks and weeks of mindless travel and endless training punctuated by brief periods of extreme danger. The worst part, at least as far as she was concerned, was the isolation, not from her friends, but from the world.

For all she risked and all she fought for the riches she found, she rarely got much of a chance to enjoy them. It didn’t matter how high level she was or how valuable the loot in her bag might’ve been, she’d be sleeping on the ground tonight.

Perhaps she’d earn enough, grow enough, to retire one day, perhaps even to Pyrindel if Emily could forgive her, but adventuring was an expensive job to do. Gear had to be repaired and replaced, potions and food and supplies replenished. Already she’d mentally written off most of her earnings from the Burendian stronghold as paying for a new set of armor.

Eve let out a breath, leaning back against the rough cave wall. Without the extra padding from her leather armor, the stone abraded against her back. She ran an endless treadmill of earning money and having to spend it, one she could only hope to outrun if she ever wanted to build a quiet life for herself post-adventuring. At least, she figured, she was damn good at running.

Forcing herself from her reverie, Eve pulled open her pack to inspect the loot she didn’t plan on selling. Ignoring the dungeon core and map, she’d found two rings of Mana regeneration, the laborer’s medallion, and the enchanted earrings of unknown effect. Lifting her eyes up towards the others, she found Preston engaged in a deep conversation with Wes on the nature of ducks, and decided not to bother him for the moment.

First, she had an idea to test.

The rings themselves were simple bands of silver with a swirling inscription lining both their interior and exterior, nothing ornate, but pretty enough they wouldn’t look out of place in a ballroom.

Concentrating for a few seconds, Eve dissociated both her earlobes into small clouds of Mana and lifted the earrings into them. After a moment’s fiddling to get everything lined up, she reintegrated the floating Mana reform the flesh beneath her ears. Tentatively pulling her hands away to leave the earrings hanging, she checked her status page.

Nothing had changed.

Scowling, Eve traced a finger around the pin in her right ear, only to find a hole somewhat larger than she’d expected. Directing her focus inward, she found her earlobe hadn’t fully reassociated, leaving a small gap of free floating Mana in which the earring sat. Eve sighed. “I suppose that doesn’t count as wearing them. Great.”

Telling herself she didn’t want to disturb the others to ask for help quite yet and that her reluctance had nothing to do with the process of physically stabbing a needle through her ear, Eve took a few minutes trying to pierce her ears magically. After a few attempts, she gave up trying to reform her earlobes around the earrings, and instead set the items down in favor of re-manifesting her ears already pierced.

It didn’t work.

Eve wasn’t sure if she didn’t will it hard enough or if there was some rule governing her manifestation that stopped her from truly changing things. As per usual, she found the description of the ability on her status page lacking. Once she’d tried everything from forcing the Mana into a particular shape to convincing herself her ears had always been pierced, Eve finally gave up and approached the others.

Refraining from interrupting Art’s deeply inaccurate retelling of an exaggerated adventuring story Willa had told him, Eve sat next to the fire in silence. Wes wordlessly handed her a handful of dried meat and cheese wrapped in cloth.

—and that’s when Willa conjured a volcano beneath the reoin’s feet, killing it in a single blow and saving the entire kingdom!

“Wow,” Preston humored him, “who would’ve thought Eve’s new guild had such… esteemed members?”

They’re the Dragonwrought! The best and most powerful group of humans there is!

Eve smiled at his childish enthusiasm. “They sure are.”

And you’re one of them! It’s so cool!

Wes patted Eve on the back patronizingly. “I’m not sure we can consider Eve one of the most powerful humans there is, given the whole not-being-human thing.”

“Yeah, fuck that.” She smirked. “I’m not one of, I’m the most powerful manaheart there is.”

Wes snorted. “You’re the only manaheart.”

“Exactly.” She raised her eyebrows at him playfully. “I’ve got a unique race and a Unique class and a really big club and better yet, I come bearing gifts.” Eve spread her gathered loot across the floor for the party to see. “The Mana regen rings should go to Preston and me, since Preston can’t wear both and I need the Mana more than Wes does.”

The fire mage raised an eyebrow. “You do?”

“My Mana’s merged with Health now, remember? It’s practically a healing item, and since I’m the only melee fighter…”

Wes backed down. “Point taken.”

Preston slipped the ring around his finger. “So that leaves the medallion and the earrings.”

Eve nodded. “Neither of you really have a use for Strength or Endurance, so I guess I’ll take the medallion?”

“Actually,” Preston argued, “between Mana Rush and your already insane Willpower, I’m not sure an extra five points is really worth it.”

“So we should sell it?” Eve asked. “Sure. We could always use the money, though in the meantime I might wear it for the next—”

“I don’t think we should sell it,” the healer interrupted. “I think there’s another party member who could use the stats more than you.”

Eve furrowed her brow in confusion for a moment before following Preston’s gaze to the party member in question.

Reginald perked up at the attention.

“Can drakes even wear enchanted gear?” Wes asked. “Also, won’t it just fall off his neck? Or flap about as he runs?”

“It’s his choice,” Preston said flatly. “He fought with us and deserves a share of the loot. I think we should give it to him if he wan—”

He wants it, Art answered for the drake before Preston even had time to finish his question.

Eve shrugged. “It’s his. He’ll probably benefit from it more than I would anyway, and Preston’s right. All party members deserve loot.”

As three pairs of eyes turned towards the young trellac, Art’s face lit up with excitement. Do you mean me? Awesome! What do I get?

Eve looked down at the remaining loot. “Well, all that’s left is these earrings, which we still don’t know the effect of. And I’m not sure that…” She looked over Art and the feathered-over avian ears on the side of his head. “You don’t exactly have earlobes.”

Art replied with a flash of sheer disappointment rather than any coherent words.

“It’s okay.” Preston patted him on the head. “You can get something from the lungeon. The first piece of loot we find can be yours if you want it.”

That seemed to cheer him up. Really? Do you think we can find something with Willpower on it?

Eve’s eyes widened at the mention of the stat. “Willpower? You have Willpower?”

Sure, Art answered. All telepaths do. It’s not instead of Constitution or Endurance like yours is, but it’s definitely the same stat. How else would you measure psychic power?

Eve opened her mouth to start theorizing, but Wes cut her off. “Nope. No. Not happening. You’ve got enough side quests as it is. You’re not going gallivanting off in search of psychic powers.”

Eve retaliated. “Okay, first, I can never have enough side quests. Have you seen the rewards the first one’s been worth? Second, I don’t even need another quest for this. I already have a secondary quest to go searching for an incredibly powerful psychic being.”

“We all have that quest,” Preston countered. “And we’re not doing it for some reward; we’re doing it for Art.”

“Exactly,” Wes agreed, though perhaps not to the part Preston intended. “If you get psychic powers, we all get psychic powers. You know what that means?”

Eve knew the shit-eating grin on Wes’s face well enough to know it couldn’t be good. “Please no.”

Mischief flashed across the mage’s eyes. “Imagine it. Me, with telepathy. I could deliver puns directly into your brain from a thousand paces. The punishment would be inescapable! I won’t be pulling any punches either. It’ll be infinite comic power!”

Eve turned to Preston. “Do you think you could help me pierce my ears? I want to see what these earrings do.” As Wes opened his mouth to continue his tirade, she gave him side eye. “I’m not saying I’d rather stab myself in the ears than listen to more of your puns, but that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Wes gaped. Preston laughed. “She’s got you there. And yeah, I can help. I think I’ve got a needle in here somewhere.” He dug through his pack, eventually pulling out a small sewing kit he carried for minor repairs on the road.

The actual process was simple enough, heat the needle in the fire, stabby stabby, use a quick healing spell to force the wound closed around the needle, repeat on the other ear. In under a minute, Eve had a brand new pair of earrings hanging from her ears.

Fortunately enough, the item description updated the moment she put them on, sparing her the effort of trying to figure out what they did by scanning her status page for any changes. Instead, a simple Appraise was all it took.

Burendian Earrings of Mana Cognition

Rarity: Mythic

Effect: Channel Mana through the earrings to temporarily enhance your cognition. Can help with simple and advanced calculations, and memory. +15% resistance to cognitive effects of spells cast by or upon you.

Eve let out a whistle. “Alright, these are actually pretty damn good.” She relayed the effects to the others, already theorizing about how she could use them to calculate Jet angles and timing to facilitate flight.

Preston had other ideas. “Perfect. We’re giving them to Wes.”

Wes and Eve alike turned to stare at him.

“I don’t need help with calculations and memory,” Wes said. “That’s what my five hundred Int is for.”

“It’s not about that,” Eve muttered under her breath as she realized Preston’s intent. “It’s about the resistance.”

Wes blinked. “Resistance? Why do I need to resist… Oh.”

“Spells cast by or upon you,” Eve quoted the item description. “Teachings of the Devouring Flame probably counts.”

“Wait, but I don’t… It’s really not that bad, I just…” Wes watched with a pale face as Preston cleaned the needle and disinfected it in the fire. “Earrings look stupid.”

“Yeah, well, you only have to wear them when you’re setting things on fire,” Eve replied, removing the rings from her own ears. “Maybe that’ll discourage you from being such a pyromaniac.”

Wes gulped.

“Just hold still,” Eve ordered as Preston approached and tugged on Wes’s left earlobe. “It doesn’t hurt. That much.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Enter the Lungeon

“ARE YOU SURE you want to take on the lungeon like um…” Preston waved a hand at Eve’s full pack and unarmored frame. “Like that? Traveling clothes don’t exactly provide much protection, and you’re going to be the one taking the brunt of any attack that comes our way.”

Eve blinked. “Why me? I’m way better at dodging than any of you. Hells, I can make myself incorporeal. Not getting hit is kinda my thing.”

“I’m pretty sure dick jokes are your thing,” Wes retorted.

Preston ignored him. “You’re better at dodging than we are, but you’re also better at surviving a hit. Your traveling clothes don’t provide much protection, but neither do priestess robes. Like it or not, you’re the tank.”

Eve groaned. “We really should’ve recruited someone in Pyrindel when we had the chance. I’m a melee dps, not a tank. I hit things, I don’t get hit.”

Preston shrugged. “Yeah, well, we thought there would be a tank with the Dragonwrought who could party up with us, and that obviously didn’t happen. Maybe once we get back and go through whatever ritual you need to become a full-fledged member we can go looking. Having the first new Dragonwrought in decades has gotta bring us some bites.”

Eve furrowed her brow. “This sounds an awful lot like you’re trying to convince me to give up on the lungeon and head back now.”

“That could be because I am.” Preston paused to navigate a particularly rocky and uneven portion of the mountainside trail they traversed. “You’re more vulnerable than normal without your armor, and there’re multiple huge power-ups waiting for us back at the hold just with the loot we’ve already found. Hells, with how much stuff we’ve already found, there’s no guarantee we’ll even be able to carry whatever we find in this lungeon.”

“We don’t have to clear the place today,” Eve argued, “but we should at least take a look. We’re practically on top of it already, and if it isn’t actually dangerous or worth exploring, I’d rather save the week it’d take to trek to the hold and back. Besides, I really want to know what a lungeon is.”

“Alright,” the Caretaker finally conceded. “We’ll take a peek. But if we look inside and see a single set of lungs, we’re leaving.”

“Deal,” Eve agreed faster than she perhaps should have. “I’ll even agree to never return if it turns out to be full of lungs. There are less gross dungeons out there.”

“Oh, you mean like the one with the foot elemental?” Wes asked. “Or the one with all those men worshiping a topless demon woman with a comically oversized chest?”

“Okay, that second one is gross for a different reason, though. It’s a different kind of gross.”

“Anyway,” Preston pulled their attention to the fork in the path ahead. “Here’s our turn. We’re sure we want to go to the lungeon?”

“Yes,” Eve answered promptly.

Wes shrugged. “Why not? We can always leave if it’s too gross or too dangerous.”

I want loot! Art cheered.

Eve grinned. “Alright,” she said, hopping down to the lower trail that led down the mountain and into the woods below, “let’s go find a lungeon.”

If the descent beneath the dark canopy of the dense forest had imparted the impression that finding the lungeon would be a long and difficult task, the very third tree they passed dispelled such a notion. Nailed to it, directly at Eve’s eye level, was a wooden sign pointing southeast and the word ‘lungeon’ scrawled upon it in fine navy blue paint.

“Well, that’s a new one,” Wes commented.

Preston scratched his head. “Never knew a dungeon to announce its presence like this. Especially not in calligraphy.” He gestured to the elaborate swirls and flourishes with which the word was written. “It’s interesting.”

Eve smirked. “And you wanted to just go back to the keep.” She didn’t wait for a reply before forging ahead, following the direction so graciously given by the wooden sign. The others followed.

The party found three other such signposts guiding them ever more in the direction of the lungeon, all painted with the same crisp professionalism as the first. Every sign they passed spurred Eve forward, stoking her curiosity into a frenzy. Several times she had to willfully slow down to stop herself from naturally outpacing her companions.

Though they’d never know it for the canopy that shrouded it, the sun neared its peak in the sky by the time the adventurers first laid eyes on the lungeon.

It wasn’t the massive redwood, ten feet wide at its base and taller than Eve could fathom from her vantage on the ground, that alerted them they’d reached their destination. Nor, as it turned out, was it the carved wooden door in its trunk that stood wide open as if to welcome them.

No, Eve knew they’d arrived at the lungeon because of the giant sign labeling it as such nailed above the entrance.

Just adjacent to the wide opening into the tree stood a wooden podium facing the forest as if set up for some resident of the lungeon to give speeches to denizens of the woods. It wasn’t until the party approached, squinting into the dark hollow of the tree trunk, that someone appeared to stand behind said podium.

She was clearly a woman, though her race was none Eve had ever laid eyes on. Her skin was a ghastly gray, her dark black hair while immaculately brushed, pressed flat against her head and shoulders, soaking wet. She wore a ragged white dress which dripped similarly with moisture, leaving a trail of water wherever she walked. Soaked as it was, the garment clung to her in a manner Eve might’ve thought inappropriate had she any idea what situation they were in for it to be inappropriate for.

The woman’s arms and legs and feet were unadorned, leaving her to walk barefoot through the same water that fell from her hair and dress. As the party approached, she smiled at them with razor sharp teeth.

“Hi! Welcome to the lungeon. Party of five?”

Eve blinked, carefully resting a hand on the hilt of her club as she mentally counted the number in their adventuring party. “Um… yes?”

“Excellent,” the monstrous woman chimed. “Right this way.” Snatching up a few items from within the podium, she turned, disappearing into the tree.

Eve swiveled her head back to exchange a questioning look with Wes and Preston. Wes shrugged.

Echoing his gesture, Eve followed the watery woman through the doorway into the tree trunk to find her waiting patiently at the top of a wide set of spiral stairs. With a nod and a toothless grin, the damp damsel led them down the steps and into the earth.

You have entered the dungeon: Lungeon! Fight well.

Eve kept a hand on her club and a wary eye on their host as she blinked the notification away. Whatever this place was, it clearly wasn’t all it seemed.

The base of the spiral stairway opened up into a large, torchlit room that bore all but a few resemblances to every tavern Eve had seen. The lack of a bar, the fine white cloths that covered the tables, and the generally refined ambience marked it as a much higher-class establishment than Eve had ever set foot in, but they were not the distinguishing factor.

The clientele were.

The moist maitre d’ stepped over the coiled tail of a lamia, around a table of manticores, and past a pair of goblins who seemed to be on a rather romantic date. Eve spotted a few humans throughout the dining room, but they were far and away in the minority.

Eventually, the humid hostess came to a stop at an empty table, distributing her handful of menus to the five places around it. “And here we are. If you’ll give me one moment…” She trailed off, scurrying across the dining room to grab a foot-tall cushion from a pile in the corner. Pulling one of the chairs back, she strapped it down. “A booster seat for the little one.”

The party stared at her.

“Please, have a seat,” the woman instructed. “Someone will be by to take your orders soon.” With another smile and another display of her brutally sharp teeth, she left.

Eve gave Wes and Preston a confused look. “So… what do we do?”

“We have a seat,” Wes answered. “I’m starving.”

“Is that a good idea?” Preston asked. “I’m not sure I trust this place.”

Eve nodded. “We only came here to take a look. It doesn’t seem like there’re quests or loot or exp to be found here, so we don’t have to take the journey back. We got what we came for, we can head ou—”

“They have scones on the menu.”

Eve sat down faster than a human could sprint. “We’re staying.”

With a chorus of shrugs and raised eyebrows around, Art climbed up into the booster seat, Wes and Preston took adjacent chairs for themselves, and Reginald sat directly onto the floor, tall enough that even from there his head peeked above the tabletop.

The party sat in silence as they each perused their menus, until an amorphous black blob with a dozen writhing tentacles that had somehow squeezed itself into a tailored suit approached their table.

“Hello, and welcome to the lungeon,” it greeted them with a deep voice that seemed to echo itself to create an unsettling sense of hearing double. “My name is Yssifiroth the Dread, and I’ll be serving you today. I regret to inform you that our supply of yeast ran out this morning, so the morning breadbasket is unfortunately not available.”

Eve snorted. Of course it wasn’t.

Yssifiroth continued, “We do still have a number of pastries available, as well as all of our lunch menu if you’re looking to go a more savory route. Any questions?”

One by one the party ordered the meals as Yssifiroth recorded their orders on a notepad he held in one of his tentacles. Wes and Preston both requested normal lunches, while Eve ordered as many scones as the waiter would allow—six—as well as a bowl of stewed boar. Art and Reginald both asked for some kind of fried fowl from the kid’s menu.

Showing a truly uncharacteristic level of etiquette for a party of adventurers, the companions sat in comfortable silence throughout the procedure, holding their tongues until Yssifiroth the Dread had slithered out of earshot.

Eventually, Eve leaned in to break the silence in hushed tones. “Am I missing something? I’m pretty sure I just ordered scones from an eldritch monstrosity.”

“He’s a lesser void beast,” Preston corrected her. “Or at least that’s what Appraise says.”

Mentally kicking herself for forgetting to Appraise both the waiter and the hostess—rude as it might’ve been to do so to their faces—Eve rubbed her eyes. “That’s beside the point. What is going on here?”

Wes shrugged. “It looks like a restaurant. Probably a pretty good one to be this popular.”

Eve followed his gaze to where the hostess was leading a gaggle of giggling dryads to a large table in the back. “I still feel like I’m missing something. Since when do monsters go out to lunch?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Preston asked.

“I have no idea!” Eve answered. “That’s why I want to know more. If this place had always been a restaurant, it wouldn’t be a dungeon. That means it was a dungeon first that somebody converted into a restaurant. Why? For that matter, who? There’s something going on here, and it feels important.”

Wes cocked an eyebrow at her. “Feels?”

“Call it adventurer’s intuition. I don’t know.”

Preston shook his head. “Eve, not everything you stumble into is a part of some great scheme. It’s entirely possible this is… just a restaurant.”

“Maybe.” Eve sat back in her chair. “But if we don’t get attacked or come across some big discovery by dessert, I’ll—”

She cut off as Yssifiroth the Dread returned with five meals and a plate of scones, holding each in its own tentacle as he approached the table. In a single, choreographed motion, he deposited every dish in front of its orderer before pulling away with a flourish.

The mouthwatering smells wafting from the food before her had Eve already lifting her fork even as the void beast stepped back.

“Lunch,” he said in his echoey baritone, “is served.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

An Unforgettable Lungeon

EVE FLICKED AN eye to the empty soup bowl in front of her, a silent war waging deep within her soul between her dignity which argued she should sit back and sip her ale, and her stomach which argued she should lift the bowl to her lips and lick up every last drop of stew that remained.

She did neither. While dignity held fast enough to stop her from licking the dish clean in the middle of the crowded restaurant, her heart’s beating desire for more of the delicious sent her hand snaking across the table to where her scones sat untouched. Saving them for later be damned.

Preston smacked her hand away. “You know you want to save those. If you’re still hungry, we can order dessert.”

Eve snapped her fingers. “Yes. Excellent idea. Dessert. Let me see if I can…” She trailed off, whipping her head around to scan the restaurant for Yssifiroth. Instead, she found what could only be described as a foot-thick giant snake with two bat wings. It stood upright supported by its coiled lower body, with both its wings wrapped in front of it as it wrung the digits at their tips in an all-too-human display of nervousness.

“Excuse me sir,” it hissed with a decidedly feminine voice across the table at Preston, “I was—uh—I was wondering if you were accepting applications.”

The Caretaker blinked. “Applications?”

“For your pack,” the creature—a level forty-one amphiptere according to Appraise—explained. “You’re clearly an accomplished beastmaster, and—uh—I would be honored to have a place in your stable.”

Eve didn’t need Mana-enhanced vision to see the red hue gather on Preston’s face. “My—um—my what?”

Wes laughed and clapped Preston on the back. “You heard her. She wants to join your stable.”

“But I don’t have a stable,” the healer whispered his reply. Taking a breath, he collected himself and turned back to the amphiptere. “What makes you think I’m accomplished?”

“Your company,” the winged snake replied, the nervousness fading from her voice as she grew more excited with every word. “It’s completely unheard of for a human beastmaster to recruit a trellac into their care. The fact you’ve managed that alone would be enough to draw the attention of anyone here.”

Eve opened her mouth to explain that it had, in fact, been her that had recruited Art while Preston had been busy quivering with telepathy-induced fear, but the amphiptere beat her to the punch.

“Not to mention the manaheart,” the beast continued. “I’ve never even heard of one before, and you’ve managed to train yours up to such a high level! Truly, I would be blessed if you would so much as consider me for a position in your stable.”

The restaurant went deadly silent.

Eve gaped. “Did… did she just…”

Preston swallowed, his face red as a radish. “Um… thanks. I’ll—um—I’ll consider your application.”

“Thank you!” The amphiptere bobbed up and down as if jumping for joy, despite her coiled tail never leaving the ground. “Thank you thank you thank you!”

Preston smiled uncomfortably.

Realizing she was taking it a bit too far, the winged snake nodded her head. “I’ll—um… I’ll let you get back to your lunch.” With that, she turned and slithered away.

A wave of whispers spread throughout the dining room, as if following the amphiptere back to her seat. The moment she sat, the rough scrape of wooden chairs against wooden floor rang out from three places at once as three more of the lungeon’s monstrous patrons rose to approach the adventurers’ table. More followed.

Soon enough, a line formed in front of Eve’s table as pixies and kobolds and felbeasts alike took their turn to extol their virtues to the promising Caretaker. After the second applicant, Eve gave up trying to correct their assumption that she was one of Preston’s beasts, instead taking a hint of cruel joy at the look on Preston’s face as the entire restaurant upended itself trying to impress him.

She did wince as she watched Yssifiroth try and fail to navigate the veritable wall of monsters trying to get a word in with Preston, leaving a number of orders untaken and bills undelivered as the tentacled void beast stormed off in a huff. From there, Eve turned her attention to the pageant before her.

“Thank you, Um,” Preston was saying, “I’ll consider your application.”

The ogre bowed both of his heads and turned to leave.

Eve gave Preston a confused look. “Um?”

The healer shrugged. “Just Um. That’s his name.”

Eve grimaced. “Let’s not. Having someone named Um around would just get confusing.”

“Eve!” Wes snapped. “You can’t say that! For all you know Um is a culturally significant name where he’s from. He didn’t choose it.”

“No, he did,” a weaselly voice said from the front of the line. A goblin climbed up onto a spare chair to see Preston over the table. “Ogres in his clan choose their names when they come of age. When they asked him, he didn’t know what he wanted, so he paused to think and… now he’s named Um.”

“That… may be the stupidest tragic backstory I’ve ever heard,” Eve said.

The goblin shrugged. “These are ogres we’re talking about.”

Preston rubbed his temples. “Alright. Ignoring the entire species you just insulted, let’s hear your pitch.”

Eve tuned out the little green humanoid’s tale of being so clever and skilled and talented that his tribe kicked him out. She’d fought goblins enough times she had no intention of teaming up with one. Instead, she directed her focus towards surveying the restaurant at large as it bustled with monsters waiting in line or returning to their seats after throwing their names into Preston’s hat.

It was from her vantage ignoring the cycle of monsters preening and fawning over Preston that Eve first spotted the flash of white cloth moving through the crowd, parting the gathered creatures like a hoe through tall grass.

“Excuse me, terribly sorry, please accept my apologies, oh dear, excuse me, pardon me, excuse me.” A stream of apologetic niceties wafted through the air as the figure approached, only to end when a man in a white chef’s hat and noticeably lacy apron emerged from the crowd followed by the eternally soaked maitre d’.

The man turned to address the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen and unfathomable beings beyond the concept of gender, I ask that you all so kindly return to your seats. This display is getting in the way of the lungeon’s ability to serve its guests, and that includes the noble beastmaster. I’m certain he’ll be more amenable to your applications should you approach him outside after he and his companions have had a chance to finish their meals.”

A chorus of disgruntled muttering echoed throughout the dining room, but the crowd did disperse as one by one the monsters returned to their seats.

The chef, visibly shaking from the experience of speaking to the crowd, turned to speak to the adventurers. “I’m terribly sorry about all that. I swear they don’t teach manners wherever these monsters—” He froze, a look of shocked confusion overtaking his face. “Preston?”

Preston jumped to his feet and spoke through a wide grin. “Alvin! What are you doing here?”

Alvin shrugged. “I run the place. I know it’s not the tea shop I originally wanted, but I never got the money to do that, and I found this abandoned witch’s den with a perfectly functional walk-in oven just sitting here, so… it only made sense.”

“Tell me you’re at least still serving those tea cakes.” Preston patted Wes and Eve on the shoulders. “This is the cultist I was telling you about, the nice one who made the tea cakes.”

Wes scowled at Alvin. “Isn’t he the one that kidnapped you?”

“And the one that saved my life.”

Eve rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Okay, moving past the whole former-cultists who kidnapped then befriended Preston but actually wanted to start a tea shop the whole time, how did you find an abandoned witch's den. Also, what in the three hells is a walk-in oven?”

Alvin grinned. “Exactly what it sounds like. I’m sure the witch used it for some really unsavory purposes but with the right amulet to protect yourself from the heat, it really is the best way to cook, especially if you need to cook for a lot of people.”

“That still doesn’t explain how you went from escaping the cult of Garaxia to refurbishing a witch’s den into a restaurant. Again, how did you even find this place?”

“Technically, I didn’t,” Alvin answered. “Someone very special showed it to me. On that note…” He reached out to grab the hostess by the hand, pulling her in against him and wrapping an arm around her. “I’d like to introduce you all to my fiancé, Lina.”

Eve blinked at the gray-skinned woman. “Lina?”

Lina flashed a smile full of razor sharp teeth. “I’m a rusalka,” she said with remarkable cheer in her voice. “We haunt lakes and rivers where we lure men to their watery deaths.”

Eve looked back and forth between Alvin and the rusalka in her soaked-through dress that clung to her every curve and back to Alvin who seemed not to care whatsoever that it was leaving a giant wet spot all down his left side. “Uh-huh.”

“But then Alvin walked by with a basket of his homemade cranberry muffins and…” Lina let out a dreamy sigh. “I guess you could say I was one who was lured.”

“We’ve been together ever since,” Alvin finished. “She’s the one who showed me this place, and we built the lungeon together.”

“Aw,” Preston gushed, “you two are precious.”

Eve had more questions. “And you’re just… okay with living and working in a dungeon?”

“Why not?” Alvin shrugged. “I lived in a dungeon for two years with the cult of Garaxia, and they didn’t even have a walk-in oven. I had to bake for thirty people in a stone box with some burning wood in it. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a consistent—”

Lina cut him off by placing a calming hand on his chest. “It’s alright, sweetie, you have a whole kitchen now, remember?”

Alvin exhaled. “I do, I do, and I have you to thank for that.” He squeezed her tight and kissed her on the forehead, eliciting a groan from Eve and a cuteness overload from Preston.

Wes, being Wes, interrupted the moment in perhaps the least appropriate way. “Why monsters, though? I mean…” His eyes flicked to Lina. “Beyond the obvious.”

“They’re the ones who live near here,” Alvin explained. “And I don’t discriminate. A customer is a customer, after all, and the restaurant business is more cutthroat than you’d think.”

“And you don’t have issues with adventurers?” Eve asked. “We do generally seek out dungeons and kill monsters. I can’t imagine that’s gone well.”

Alvin shook his head. “Never had an issue. I even have an adventurer I keep on staff to deal with any unruly patrons or track down rare ingredients I need. Big, strong, surly type. Not friendly, but gets the job done and doesn’t pick fights with any guests that don’t deserve it.”

“Huh,” Eve replied. “Interesting.”

Alvin clapped his hands together. “Anyway, I should get back to the kitchen before we start getting complaints about delays. I’m so sorry the other guests were bothering you; I’ll have Yssifiroth comp your desserts to make up for it. If you stick around, I’ll have some time to chat more in an hour once we close to prepare for the dinner shift. Does that sound good?”

Preston gave him a warm smile. “Absolutely. I look forward to catching up.”

“Great!” the former cultist chimed. “I’ll see you after lunch.” With that he turned and strode away, leaving Lina to smile and wave at the table of adventurers before making her own return to her post.

Preston looked sheepishly at his companions. “So… that was Alvin.”

“He seems nice,” Wes said.

Eve grinned. “He had me at ‘free dessert’.”

Preston raised an eyebrow. “It took that long?”

“Hey, I’m a discerning woman.”

Wes agreed. “He did kidnap you.”

“I got out!” Preston huffed. “And Alvin was the one who—” He cut himself off with a cough as a certain void beast in a suit approached the table with his pen and notepad at the ready.

“So,” Yssifiroth said in his deeply disturbing, echoey voice, “can I interest you in some dessert?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Reunion

EVE LEANED BACK in her chair, Mana Rush ticking away at ten Mana per second as she digested far more food than her significant Mana pool could accommodate. Apparently, a dessert order of ‘one of everything,’ while uncommon, was not unheard of at the lungeon, especially given the chef’s propensity for crafting topnotch sweets.

Absolutely delicious as the stew had been, Alvin was, undeniably, a pastry chef through and through.

After taking their time to power through the veritable heap of cakes and creams and fruits and everything in between, the party ordered a pot of tea and sat back to wait out the rest of the lunch shift. It wasn’t long before Alvin came out to join them.

“You took the Dead Fields exit?” the former cultist asked with wide eyes. “That’s suicide. Honestly, I don’t even know why we had that exit. It’s not like any of us could’ve survived out there, and we wanted nothing to do with anything that lived there.”

“Yeah, well, when you’re running from a horde of demons that are twice your level, you take whatever exit presents itself,” Eve replied with a touch more sarcasm than she really intended.

“On that note,” Preston continued, “why weren’t there any signposts? That temple was a fucking maze. Even if we weren’t being chased by lithodemons we would’ve had a hard time finding the right way out.”

Alvin ran a hand through his hair. “I know right? I spent months trying to get Melithor to install signs on some of those passages. Do you have any idea how many of our own people got lost in there? But no, we needed the layout to be confusing for potential invaders. Fat lot of good that did us.”

“In our defense, you were trying to kill Preston to summon a demon,” Wes pointed out.

“Oh, no, I don’t blame you,” Alvin said. “I lost a lot of friends that day, but it wasn’t when you killed them. It was when they rent their own souls in twain to trade away half to creatures of hell to become unholy abominations of flesh and ice. You know, cult stuff.”

Preston rubbed his temples. “How does it even get to that point? I mean… how do you get from wanting a tea shop to merging your very soul with an ice demon?”

Alvin sighed. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot in the last few months, and the more I do, the less I think it had anything to do with want. Sure, everyone there wanted something, and ostensibly that’s why they joined up, but I don’t think that’s the whole story. Want isn’t enough for the things we did.”

The adventurers waited in patient silence as Alvin shut his eyes, took a breath, and continued. “We were lonely. I was stuck in a job I didn’t want with people I didn’t like. Riley had just lost his father. Andrew his son. Melithor didn’t just offer us whatever it was we wanted; he gave us what we needed: to be part of something. To have people around us of a similar mind all working towards the same goal. I still don’t know if Melithor was manipulating us on purpose or he honestly thought he was leading us to our greatest desires. I guess in a way he was.”

Alvin stared into his mug, his eyes fixed on the tea within rather than the people with which he spoke. “It was the most insidious kind of spell Melithor put us under. The components were our own emotions, our own wants and needs. The greatest trick of all was that he didn’t even need to cast it. He showed us the way, and we ensorcelled ourselves. It was our humanity that left us vulnerable to Melithor’s teachings, and there’s a certain agonizing irony that for so many of us it all ended in sacrificing our humanity for a few brief moments of power.”

He took a sip of his tea, carefully setting the mug down before continuing. “I’m ashamed it took me watching my friends tear up their own souls to realize what was happening, but the absolute last people I’m going to blame for what Melithor did to us are the ones who stopped him, even if it was too late for most.”

Eve swallowed back a knot in her throat.

Preston blinked away the wetness in his eyes. “Alvin, that’s… I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. Hells, you were almost more of a victim to Melithor than I was. You were on the altar.”

Preston shrugged. “Eh, it wasn’t my first time lying on an altar for some ritual I wanted no part in.”

Alvin chuckled, the moment of brevity visibly draining the tension in his neck. “It’s okay. I survived. I even got a quest milestone for escaping, so I guess it was all a part of my destiny anyway.”

Eve cast Preston a sideways glance. “I… wouldn’t be so sure,” she said. “Fate can be a bit fucky, especially where we’re involved.” She made a point of not directly mentioning her and Preston’s apparent fatelessness, nor the way their actions affected the world around them. Instead, she looked towards Alvin and activated Fatetorn Gaze.

Sure enough, he glowed with the same angry red as she and Preston. Eve’s eyes widened. Not only had Alvin been knocked astray by their meddling, but he shined brighter with fatelessness than even Wes. Eve had always chosen to interpret it as Wes being off course but still on the path while she’d never had a path to begin with, but somehow Alvin’s path had been erased. She could only think of one reason why that might’ve been.

Without Preston’s direct intervention, Alvin would’ve died.

She didn’t tell him that. The poor man was traumatized enough by his experience with the cult. Instead, she answered his questioning gaze with another theory of hers. “Sometimes I think the quest milestones are less about what you were supposed to do and more about rewarding you for making progress. Any progress.” She left the ‘at least mine and now yours are’ unspoken.

Alvin nodded. “I like that. Maybe the Questing Stones really are making things up as they go along.”

Wes cracked a grin. “Just like we are.”

Alvin laughed, lifting his mug of tea to the air. “Just like we are.”

They toasted.

As the somberness of the moment died down, Lina approached from across the empty restaurant, standing behind Alvin and wrapping her arms around his chest. “Hey sweetie, we have some time before we need to prep for dinner. What do you say you come downstairs with me and we take a nice long bath?”

Alvin shook his head. “Nope. Not happening.” He pointed up to her as he looked to the adventurers and mouthed the word “rusalka.”

Eve snorted.

“If you say so,” Lina pouted, withdrawing her arms and stepping back. “If you change your mind, I’ll be waiting for you all… naked and wet.” With that she turned and sashayed away, pausing at the stairway down to look back and confirm everyone was watching her leave.

It was Preston’s turn to snort. “She’s certainly something.”

Wes stared at the stairs, his brow furrowed in deep consternation. “But… she’s always wet. Why is the bath any different?”

Alvin shrugged. “I don’t question it.”

Eve shook her head. “I don’t get it. Okay, I understand how you can work with monsters in your restaurant or whatever, but dating one? How can you feel comfortable being engaged to someone who’s actively trying to drown you?”

“She isn’t,” Alvin explained, “not really. She’s got some old habits she’s trying to break, and I make a point of not bathing or swimming around her in case instinct takes over, but that’s it. She doesn’t want to kill me. Gods know I’d taste worse than the food I cook for her every day. As long as I don’t put myself in a position where she can act without thinking, there’s no problem, and I love her enough to live with that.”

Preston sipped his tea. “I swear, you two are so cute.”

“I bet having a girlfriend who’s always wet doesn’t hurt too much either,” Eve said, wiggling her eyebrows with unnecessary ferocity.

Wes groaned. Preston rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Alvin didn’t seem to realize she was joking. “Actually, water isn’t very good for—”

“And that’s enough,” Preston cut him off.

Wes looked to Preston. “We need to get Eve a boyfriend. Or girlfriend. Anything, really, if it’ll make her stop with the horny jokes. Hey Alvin, is Yssifiroth single?”

Eve’s eyebrows shot up. “The tentacle monster?”

“No, sorry,” Alvin answered as if it were a serious inquiry. “I’ve met his wife, actually. Lovely woman. She did all the painting for our signs.”

“Oh, I was wondering about that,” Preston said. “Really, they’re great work. Gorgeous job.”

“I’ll tell her you said that.” Alvin smiled. “To circle back, after the temple of Garaxia, I knew I was going to put up signposts wherever I was. I’ve had enough of living in an unmarked maze.”

“I’m sure it’s good for business too,” Eve reasoned. “Anyone who sees one of those signs is gonna start wondering what the hells a lungeon is, then there’s no stopping them from finding you.”

Alvin snapped his fingers. “Exactly. Not that we need any more marketing. You’re lucky you arrived for lunch. Once dinner starts, there’ll be a line out the door for a table. I’m still working on introducing the monster community to the idea of dinner reservations.”

Preston grinned. “You’ll get there. Really, I’m happy to see you’re doing so well. Not just the business, but in life. I mean, you were always cheery when I met you with the cult, but you seem so much more… comfortable with it now.”

Alvin let out a long breath. “I suppose I am. I don’t have the same sense of security I did working for my dad or the same sense of purpose as under Melithor, but I’m finally living for myself. To top it off, I’m less alone than I’ve ever been. It’s not just Lina, but also Yssifiroth, his wife, a few of the regulars I’ve gotten to know, and even that adventurer I mentioned. I’m still working on getting her to open up to me—lot of unresolved trauma, that one—but I’ll get there eventually.”

The words sent a sharp pang of something through Eve’s mind, but she couldn’t quite figure out what.

Wes chuckled. “That sounds about right. I doubt there’s an adventurer out there worth his salt that doesn’t bring some amount of unresolved trauma to the table. It’s practically a job requirement.”

“Maybe you should talk to her,” Alvin said. “I sent her out to find some sallowsalt this morning, she should be back any…” He trailed off as the sound of footsteps echoed down from the spiral staircase. “Oh, here she is now.”

The party watched in silence as a six-foot-tall figure in scuffed leather armor rounded the corner and descended the final steps into the restaurant, her dark black hair tied up in a tight ponytail and her hand glowing a familiar web of jagged white lines.

Eve leapt to her feet, unable to keep the name from spilling from her lips.

“Alex!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Black Rook

EVE CHARGED ACROSS the empty restaurant, bowling over a couple of chairs in the process, to collide with Alex in a high-speed hug. The tank didn’t even flinch from the impact.

“You’re alive,” Eve said, her face pressed against the hard leather of Alex’s chest armor.

Alex hugged her back. “That’s what they keep telling me.”

Eve blinked back the growing wetness in her eyes. “But how? Between the lithodemons and the cave-in—”

“I proved my valor,” Alex replied. “I got a huge windfall of exp for finishing my life quest, then another one when the cave collapsed and killed the lithodemons. All the stats and skills upgrades from that was enough, I guess. I was a Survivor. I survived.”

Eve sniffled, pulling away from the hug. A tear streaked down her face. “Was?”

A thin smile crossed Alex’s face. “I got a lot of exp.”

Unable to restrain her curiosity, Eve Appraised her.

Level 53 The Indomitable Defender

Unique Tier 4 Class

Eve blinked away the blue screen just in time to watch Alex’s own eyes flash the same cyan hue.

The Defender raised her eyebrows. “I’m going to assume you aren’t actually an Emissary.”

Eve snorted. “Nope. Though I did manage to fool everyone at the royal palace in Pyrindel for a while.”

Alex’s eyes widened, and she turned towards Preston and Wes where they still sat around the lunch table. “Please tell me she didn’t actually impersonate a foreign official to the gods damned royal court.”

Silence dominated the room.

Alex groaned, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her thumb and pointer finger. “I leave them alone for five minutes…”

“Hey,” Eve chimed. “In my defense, you left us alone for a lot longer than that. For five months, we only had Preston as our voice of reason.”

From across the dining room, Preston opened his mouth to object, but Eve continued, “Now don’t get me wrong, he’s reasonable enough when there’re no cute animals or shirtless berserkers involved, but…”

Alex sighed. “But between you and Wes, the idiots outnumber him.”

“Exactly!” Eve planted her hands on her hips in a pose of confidence and pride before realizing what exactly Alex had just said. “Wait…”

Alex chuckled, patting Eve on the top of her head as she stepped past and into the restaurant. When she reached the table, she deposited a small leather pouch in front of Alvin. “Here’s your sallowsalt.”

“Thanks,” Alvin sobbed. “I’m sorry, I just—” He sniffled, wiping tears from his eyes. “It’s so sweet to see you all together again.”

Wes looked at him sideways. “Did you know? You said Alex has been working for you…”

Alvin shook his head. “Nope. Like I said, she doesn’t talk much.”

The Defender grunted and fell back into an empty chair.

Alvin grinned. “Yeah, like that.”

“I see Reginald’s gotten bigger,” Alex commented, gingerly petting the drake’s neck. His spiked tail wagged with dangerous enthusiasm. “You, I don’t think I’ve met.”

I’m Art, the young trellac introduced himself. You shouldn’t hide your emotions so much. It’s okay to be happy to see your friends.

“Art!” Preston hissed. “What did I tell you about—”

But I didn’t read her thoughts! Art argued. There’s something blocking them. She’s practically shouting her emotions though. That’s what happens when you don’t let them out. They leak.

Alex stared. “It’s—um—nice to meet you, Art. How did you end up following these fools around?”

They’re helping me find my dad!

Alex blinked, her eyes flashing blue for a moment as she read the incoming notification. “The psychic ten-year-old comes with a quest.”

Throughout the exchange, Eve looked at Alex with a furrowed brow. “What’s blocking your thoughts? Defiant Mind doesn’t even do that.”

“Indomitable Defender comes with a whole slew of mental resistances. I guess mind-reading is one of them.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “You guess?”

Alex shrugged. “You know how tooltips are.”

Eve laughed, retaking her seat at the table. “That I do. That I do.”

“So other than impersonating a foreign diplomat in front of the fucking queen, what have you all been up to?” Alex turned to look at Eve clad in only in her traveling clothes. “And what happened to your armor?”

“Oh, it disintegrated when I fell into the leyline.”

“It did what when you what?” Alex gaped.

“Yeah, there was this evil Mana monster thing chasing us, and I led it away from the others so they could escape, but then because it kept draining the enchantments of their magic the floor collapsed out from under me and I fell into a leyline and had to completely remake my body out of pure Mana.”

Alex stared unmoving for several seconds before slowly raising a hand. “Why—um—why don’t you start at the beginning?”

Eve smiled. “Okay. It all started when we left the temple of Garaxia from the northern exit and got stuck on the wrong side of the mountains.”

Alex paid rapt attention as Eve, Wes, and Preston took turns recounting the details of their journey since parting ways. She nodded along as they told of burning their way through the poison fog of the Dead Fields, turned suitably green as Preston described the Pelsid ooze they’d wrapped their faces in to filter the air, and took a sharp breath when Eve brought up the griffin attack.

Art’s story brought a soft and piteous look to the Defender’s usually hardened brow, only for her scorn to return when he retold Wes’s ‘trellax’ pun for the seventh time. She listened in silence to their quiet journey along the Ilv and their arrival in Ilvia, giving Eve a disapproving glare as the Defiant recounted her quest to sell Archibald the goat and the ensuing fight with the local thieves’ guild.

Eve left out her meeting with the man of the mists, both because she still didn’t quite trust Alvin and because she recalled at their very first meeting the mysterious moist man had specifically told her not to tell Alex about him. She’d probably defy that particular instruction at some point. She was The Defiant after all. Besides, who cared if Alex was the jealous type? She had a Unique class of her own, now.

Instead Wes bragged about his slew of job offers and guild invitations, eventually citing his interview with the Mage’s College as the group’s reason for boarding a ship to Pyrindel.

Eve gleefully described Captain Abraham the parrot with his miniature cutlass and tricorn before delving into their fight with the stormtide leviathan and the subsequent windfall of exp and valuable scales it had brought about.

When she got to their arrival in Pyrindel, Eve did her best to sell the idea that the steward had given her little choice but to play the role of the Emissary, but Alex didn’t buy it for a second. Laying low and entering a massive kingdom-wide tournament were mutually exclusive options, neither of which necessitated acting as the Emissary of a made-up country.

Art excitedly regaled her with tales of the action in the arena, embellishing more than a little bit where he felt the bouts could’ve been more exciting.

When the time came to tell of Emily, Eve struggled to explain her friendship with the young queen in a way that didn’t sound self-aggrandizing or outright made-up. Preston gave her a loaded look whenever Eve described Emily as just her ‘friend’, accurate though the term was.

Alex looked on with pity and indignity as the party told her of Roric’s exile from his clan and the berserker’s ongoing harassment, nodding approvingly when Eve mentioned how hard she’d trained under him.

The Defender was unsurprised when the party’s stay at the palace ended with them in a jail cell. Her expression didn’t even twitch when she learned how they’d escaped in the drunken chaos, having long lost any capacity for disbelief when it came to Eve’s escapades. Instead, she simply nodded and said, “Of course that’s how you got out. Stumbling your way to freedom on a mixture of dumb luck and happening to have the exact right abilities for the situation is about as on-brand for you as it gets.”

Eve went on to describe their journey north and eventual arrival at Dragonwrought Hold, including their surprise at finding it more a retiring home for aging adventurers than any kind of active guild. Her description of the foot elemental elicited a grimace from Alex, which turned back to rapt interest as the tale moved on to the Burendian ruin. Eve pulled out the map and letter to show her their findings.

Alex’s eyes flashed blue. “Well shit. You just progressed my quest for me.”

“Just to clarify,” Eve said, her eyes fixed on Alex’s glowing hand, “you haven’t had any weird transformations of skill upgrades with your hand, have you?”

Alex shook her head. “Nope. The damage reduction from my class means it doesn’t hurt me anymore, but otherwise it’s still the same. Generates Mana naturally that I have to vent with an explosion every once in a while.”

After a moment’s tense silence, Wes asked the question on everyone’s mind. “So if you’re also on a quest for the crown of Burendia, does that mean you’re going to come with us? Rejoin the party?”

All eyes turned to Alex as she took a breath and flashed a thin smile. “Do I have a choice? Honestly, it’s a miracle you all survived this long without me. Really, I’m glad I managed to find you when I did.”

Preston raised an eyebrow. “You found us? I thought you were working for Alvin.”

“A girl’s gotta eat,” Alex said. “And it’s not my fault my plan to find you involved eating Alvin’s cooking. That was more of a happy coincidence.”

Wes furrowed his brow. “And what was this plan of yours, exactly?”

Alex shrugged. “I just went to the most ridiculous place I could find and waited for you to show up. I swear, you all have a talent for homing in on weird shit. A former witch’s den turned restaurant for monsters? It was only a matter of time before you stumbled into this place.”

“I—” Eve tried to speak but cut herself off. “I’d say that’s not a very good plan but—um… it seems to have worked.”

Alex snorted. “To tell the truth it had more to do with all the signs scattered around the forest pointing this way and the fact I knew once you saw a sign for the lungeon you wouldn’t rest until you knew what the hells a lungeon was.”

Wes snapped his fingers. “That’s just good marketing.”

Alvin beamed. “It really is. You know, I keep telling Beafiroth that she should pursue a career as a sign painter. She really is talented.”

The sound of a door opening behind them pulled the party’s attention away from the conversation. “Alvin?” Yssifiroth’s voice echoed through the empty dining room. “We need to get started on dinner prep.”

Alvin let out a sigh. “That’s my cue to leave.” He pushed himself to his feet, turning to extend a hand to Alex. “I take it you’re leaving with them. It was a pleasure working with you, and I wish you all the best on your adventures.”

Alex simply nodded, let out a soft grunt, and shook his hand.

The cultist-turned-chef turned to the others. “So glad to see you again, Preston, and happy to meet the rest of you. I hope you’ll all come back for dinner sometime, on the house, of course.” He smiled his patented ever-hopeful grin. “Lina will show you out the back if you don’t want to get ambushed by a dozen more monsters vying for Preston’s attention. It’s the least we can do.”

He turned, crossing the room to where Yssifiroth waited at the entrance to the kitchen, before looking back and saying a few further words to the gathered adventurers. “And thank you. Without you, I’d never have made my way here.” With that, Alvin smiled and left.

One by one the adventurers stood, gathering up their belongings and taking turns hugging Alex and welcoming her back into the party.

Once she’d tied her bone club to her back once more, Eve once again wrapped her arms around the Defender’s armored form, whispering softly into the tall woman’s ear. “I really missed you, you know. I’m glad you’re back.”

For the first time, Alex’s stoic expression faltered as she let out a quiet sniffle and muttered just loud enough to reach Eve’s ear. “Me too,” she said. “Me too.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Triumphant Return

EVE HADN’T BEEN entirely sure what she’d expected when Alvin had said his rusalka fiancee would take them out the back, but it certainly wasn’t a creaky wooden ladder leading up the side of the tree.

Lina climbed up first followed shortly by Wes and then the others. Eve watched from the floor with a wide grin as Wes continually tried to look up to see where he was going only to get an eyeful of water from Lina’s ever-dripping dress and hair. Eve supposed as immodest as the formfitting wet dress was, it did come with a built-in defense mechanism against someone trying to peek under it, accidentally or otherwise. The fact Wes came away from the climb dripping wet made it all the funnier.

The ladder led to a narrow wooden passage that had been carved through one of the upper branches of the massive tree, sloping upward until it had morphed from a tunnel to a walkway atop the wide branch. Up ahead, Eve could see where it joined with the branches of another tree before disappearing behind the shroud of leaves.

“The witch who lived here had a whole network of bridges between the treetops,” Lina explained. “You know how the old stories often have witches shouting intimidating things from up in the trees? This is how they did it.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “All this just to yell at people from a tree?”

Lina shrugged. “How did you think they got up there? Climbing? Can you imagine a two-hundred-year-old witch with a hunchback climbing trees?” She giggled.

Preston rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I think it’s less about yelling and more about slinging spells from a safe place.”

Alex nodded, running a hand over the wood as she thoroughly analyzed the structure. “This would make for a very defensible position.”

Lina stopped at the end of the branch. “I really should get back and help set up for dinner. There’s a ladder back down a couple trees over, shouldn’t be too hard to find. It was lovely meeting all of you!” She turned to Preston and went in for a hug, which the healer awkwardly maneuvered into a handshake in a bid to keep his robes dry. The others followed suit.

In the end, Reginald was the only party member to actually accept Lina’s hug, which he did with the same wagging tail as he did most things. The entire branch shook with the force of the motion.

“It was lovely to meet you, Lina,” Preston eventually said. “And please, give Alvin my best.”

“I will!” she chimed. “You come back, now! The lungeon always has an open table for friends.”

“Oh, we will,” Eve answered. “After that meal, you’ll have to chain me up to keep me away.”

With a wave and a smile, the rusalka turned and made her way back into the restaurant, leaving the adventurers alone atop the canopy.

Eve squinted at the path ahead. “She—um… she didn’t say how many trees ahead the ladder down is, did she?”

It took the party the better part of an hour to find out the answer was six. Between the paths branching in several directions and how well-hidden they expected the way down to be, the adventurers spent longer than any of them would’ve liked to admit investigating tree after tree in the hopes it was their way back to solid ground.

Eve leapt to and from the bridge network several times in the search effort, utilizing Jet to neutralize the forty-foot fall or launch herself back up. A couple of times she offered to simply ferry the others down with the ability, but Wes insisted the ladder was always just one more tree away. His stubbornness, or course, had absolutely nothing to do with his wealth of experience being tossed over Eve’s shoulder like a particularly humiliated sack of potatoes. Nothing whatsoever.

When Reginald at last managed to sniff out the way down—refusing to say what exactly it smelled of—the adventurers’ journey home fell back into the long familiar routine of group travel.

Alex slotted easily back into the team, her rigid, professional demeanor no more eroded by her time away than reinforced. While, given the events of the prior months, she was no longer any more of a veteran than any other party member, she understood fluently what was required of her and when, and executed more than her fair share of the camp setting, camp striking, and other chores necessary for safe and comfortable multi-day travel.

In many ways, it was as if she’d never left.

In others, it wasn’t.

While she wasn’t above making the rare joke of her own when the occasion demanded, no more did Alex rise to Wes or Eve’s banter, neither joining in nor grumbling about it. Instead, when Wes made a particularly excruciating pun or Eve teased a little too hard, the Defender simply set her jaw, a look of determination sticking to her face that clashed with the otherwise cheerful tone of the conversation.

Each night, Alex insisted on taking first watch, despite repeated reassurance that Eve could function perfectly well without a night’s sleep until they made it back to the keep. The Defender seemed to take it as some vindication when Eve did choose to nap for those extra three hours, if only out of boredom rather than any true need for rest.

Other than those few behavioral oddities, tics Eve attributed to whatever trauma Alex had endured in the months that’d passed, things felt normal. Good, even. The party was whole again, the one major loss that had been as a punch to the gut at the time reversed, made better.

For the first time since that fateful day in the temple of Garaxia, Eve truly felt like she could do anything. Sure, that reminder of her and friends’ mortality still clung heavily to her mind, but she’d taken that lesson to heart months ago. It might’ve taken Alex’s death to drive that truth home, but now her return freed Eve from the guilt that had come hand in hand with it.

That alone kept a smile on her face for the entire journey back.

Alex sweat with the rest of them as they climbed the swamp-like slope up to Dragonwrought Hold, commenting on how selfish it was for the retirees to overheat an entire mountain just so they could avoid putting on a jacket. Eve remarked that the geriatric adventurers very much did still wear jackets. They heated up the entire mountain to avoid putting on a second jacket.

Gregory opened the door for them, shuffling away in his fuzzy slippers as Eve led the party back to the council room where Valya sat in her usual chair.

The Swordsoul closed her erotic novel to look up at the six new arrivals. “Welcome back, dearies, I’m glad you…” She trailed off, squinting and adjusting her glasses. Slowly, she raised a finger to point at each adventurer in turn before opening her mouth to speak again. “Weren’t there five of you before?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Eve nodded. “We um… happened upon our old tank, Alex, while we were out. She’s agreed to rejoin us.”

Valya blinked, her eyes flashing blue for a moment as she Appraised the new member. “Oh my, it seems you have.” She turned back to Eve. “My my, sweetie, it seems you’re amassing quite the collecting of handsome young lads.” Valya approvingly patted the cover of her romance novel. “Good on you.”

All four of the party members old enough to grasp the meaning behind Valya’s words gaped at the sheer, utter, wrongness of it all. Mistaking Alex for a man Eve could understand—the old woman’s eyes had long failed her, and the name Alex could go either way. The fact Valya had called them all handsome and then implied a certain nefariousness to Eve’s intentions was another matter.

Alex, fittingly, was the first to collect herself enough to speak. “I think you might be reading a few too many of those novels, ma’am.”

Other than a slight nod of shock at the femininity of Alex’s voice, Valya didn’t acknowledge her mistake. “Nonsense. The Court of the Vampire Queen is a masterpiece of fiction about what it’s like being a woman in power. Of course, I’m not in charge of a court full of handsome vampires with chiseled jaws, but the parallels exist.”

Eve blinked, the grimace clear on her face. “Uh-huh.”

“You really should read it, dearie. I’m sure you’ll find it absolutely captivating.”

For a moment Eve grit her teeth, trying to decide between her desire to leave a good impression with the incredibly powerful—if aging—adventurer and her absolute disinterest in her creepy harem fantasy. She settled on a dishonest, “I’ll be sure to check it out.”

“Good, good.” Valya smiled, pulling the book in close to her. For a time she simply sat and stared at the gathered adventurers, a scowl growing across her face. “Why are you here, again?”

“We did some commissions,” Eve said, pulling the two slips from her pack. “One to investigate the lungeon, and one to clear out a Burendian ruin.” She didn’t mention that the lungeon had turned out to be harmless or that the commission to visit the ruin had expired years ago. Instead, she slid the paperwork across the table for Valya to read, knowing full well the Swordsoul wouldn’t.

“Oh, very good, very good.” She swept the commission slips off to the side. “I’ll have Piskern load up your badge with the points for these.”

Eve furrowed her brow. “Points?”

“Contribution points,” Valya said. “Oh, sweetheart, how did you think we distributed the gear in the vault?”

Art perked up at that. There’s a vault?

Preston leaned in. “Do the rest of us need to join to get a fair share of the points?”

“Oh, no, no, of course not. Each commission is worth a set amount, divided by however many Dragonwrought share it.” Valya gestured at Eve. “Since only one member went on these jobs, she’ll get them all.”

Five sets of eyes turned a questioning look towards Eve.

“I’ll split ‘em, I’ll split ‘em,” she reassured them. “Even distribution of loot, remember?” She shook her head, turning back to address the Chair of the War Council. “You said these contribution points go onto my badge? How—um—how do I get a badge?”

Valya waved her off. “Don’t you worry, you’ll get one once you’ve been baptized in dragon fire. There’s a whole ceremony we do; it’s really quite touching. The screaming less so, but you know, one time, when I was a youth like you, I actually—”

“Yeah, you mentioned that,” Eve interrupted before Valya could launch herself into a story that would take gods knew how long. “You said it’d take a few weeks to get ready, and that was a few weeks ago…”

Valya blinked. “Oh, was it now? Well, now that I think about it, we did have that tremendous vanilla pudding last night, and it’d been three weeks since we’d last had it, which I think was actually the night after you left. So yeah, I suppose it has been a few weeks since… what were we talking about?”

“The ceremony,” Eve gently reminded the old woman. “Something about dragon fire?”

Valya clapped her hands together. “Oh, that reminds me! Willa has the forge all ready for you. She told me to send you down the very moment you returned.”

“And… um… why didn’t you lead with that?”

The Swordsoul sat back in her chair. “Because I don’t take orders from Willa.”

Eve opened her mouth to speak, paused for a moment, changed her mind, and eventually settled on, “Right. So… where am I supposed to go for this whole dragon fire thing?”

As if on cue, the door to Eve’s left opened to reveal a familiar kobold.

“Piskern will show you,” Valya said. “And when you get down there, be sure to tell Willa we had such a lovely long conversation. That’ll just eat her up.” With a smug grin, Valya Hest reclined in her seat, took a sip of tea, and returned to the comfortable, if salacious, embrace of her book.

As the party stepped out into the hall, Piskern grunted something Reginald’s way, which Art was quick to translate.

He says to follow him, the trellac relayed. The Dragonfire Forge awaits.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Dragonfire

PISKERN LED THE party through the twisting bowels of Dragonwrought Hold at a scampering pace, just fast enough that the adventurers couldn’t quite keep up with him while walking, but would soon pass him if they attempted to so much as jog.

If Eve hadn’t known any better, she’d have thought the kobold had carefully calculated his speed so as to force them to constantly switch between slightly-too-slow walking and slightly-too-fast running. But why would Piskern choose to move in the most frustrating way possible? No, it had to be an accident.

The air grew warmer by the step as the party progressed deeper and deeper into the keep, as if veins of fire pulsed through the black stone walls. Perhaps they did.

The kobold came to a stop outside a ten-foot-tall pair of doors wrought in some strange metal the color of dried blood. An engraving decorated them, depicting eight dragons locked in the deadly dance of aerial combat as beams of dragon flame lanced through the air. It was beautiful.

Piskern gave the party just long enough to gawk at the carving before reaching up with a clawed hand and grasping the knob. The door swung open smoothly and silently. He gestured them forward, barking something in draconic.

“We’re here,” Preston relayed Reginald’s translation. “In we go.”

Eve stepped in first, stopping short when the chamber confronted her. Her jaw dropped.

Wes bowled into her, failing to even budge her slight form.

None of the others commented until they’d navigated Wes’s bulk to actually see for themselves.

After the cramped halls of the keep, the ritual room felt veritably cavernous at over forty feet across. Thin lines the pale gray color of ash stretched across the ebon walls and floor in a web of inscription, joining together to form a circle at the chamber’s center.

Though they stretched out to cover nearly every inch of the room, each and every line could trace its origin back to a glimmering dish inlayed into the side wall. While the lines of enchantment around it remained pristine, the twelve-foot circular obsidian depression seemed to drip into the wall below it, as if it had been melted and allowed to cool time and time again.

It was, however, not the complexity of the enchantments nor the architecture of the space nor even the oppressive waves of heat that emanated through the air that so stole the party’s breath.

It was the view.

Directly opposite the doorway, the ritual chamber came to end not at a wall, but at open sky. No fence or guardrail protected any unwary occupant from the cliff face beyond, but neither did any such protections interrupt the view of the valley beyond. Eve watched in awe as distant dragons soared through the blue sky or humans and kobolds and goblins alike toiled in the idyllic fields below. She smiled.

The Defiant walked with confidence into the chamber, her demeanor unmatched by those among her party who didn’t have a convenient way to survive a tumble down the mountain. Every few minutes a gust of wind would sweep in from outside, simultaneously reminding everyone inside how exposed they were and bringing in welcome relief from the scorching heat.

Willa stood where the opening met the left wall, visibly unaffected by her proximity to the edge but very affected by cool air blowing in. She tugged at the woolen blanket wrapped around her frail frame as she greeted the adventurers.

“Took you long enough,” she barked at them. “It’s freezing down here.”

Eve blinked, took a look at the beads of sweat rolling down her friends’ foreheads, and decided not to reply. “Sorry. We just got back from a commission.”

“I know. Half the valley heard you knocking on the door,” Willa said. “Piskern will give you your badge once we’re done so you don’t keep disturbing everyone whenever you need to be let in.” She shook her head. “Doesn’t explain what took you so long to get here.” The old Magma Runner’s eyes narrowed. “It was Valya, wasn’t it?”

“Um… yes, ma’am,” Eve answered. “She told me to let you know we had a nice long talk.”

Willa spat. “That hag thinks she’s all that because she’s chair of the war council. I’ll let you in on a little secret—she’s only chair because nobody else wanted the job. You be sure to remember that next time she comes barking orders.”

“Of course, ma’am,” Eve replied with no intention of doing any such thing.

Willa sighed. “It’s a good thing our guest is behind his time. He’d not have been happy if you’d kept him waiting, especially for another of Valya’s silly power moves.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “We’re having a guest?”

Preston patronizingly patted him on the shoulder. “She’s getting reforged in dragonfire. Don’t you think we’re missing a piece of that puzzle?”

The Disciple’s eyes widened with realization just as an unnatural gust of wind billowed into the room, nearly knocking the adventurers from their feet.

Eve, Alex, and Willa were the only ones to keep steady.

The Magma Runner grinned. “Oh, here he is now.”

Twice more did the wind sweep across the ritual chamber before the figure appeared.

He was horrific, both in his vastness and in his might. His head alone nearly filled the entire opening, leaving but a few gaps of sunlit blue sky visible past the spikes and ridges and horns as he perched against the mountainside.

His scales were blacker than the obsidian keep, seeming to swallow the very sunlight even as the spots of overlap between them glimmered like stars. Were it not for the light of day behind him, Eve might’ve struggled to make out his features. In some ways, she wished she had.

The creature’s teeth were longer than she was tall, each sharp enough to rend flesh and bone with far less force than the powerful jaw could no doubt generate. Here was a being beyond her concept of strength, beyond any human comprehension other than the sheer terror its visage sparked in the hearts of lesser beings. For the very first time, Eve gazed upon a beast and felt no ambition, no dream of the exp it might be worth.

She felt one thing and one thing only: insignificance.

“Hi, I’m Carl. Sorry I’m late.” The voice escaped the dragon’s maw surprisingly nasal and high-pitched, yet definitively male. “I overslept this morning.”

But it’s mid afternoon. A sense of innocent confusion came tied with Art’s thought. Fortunately, he seemed not to have sent it to the giant scary dragon.

“Um… hi, Carl. I’m Eve. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Oh, the pleasure’s all mine,” Carl purred. “I was still a whelp the last time there was a dragonfire ceremony, so when word came out they were finally going to do another one, I leapt at the chance. You humans have always fascinated me. The way you reproduce so fast and then you grow and you grow and you grow but you always stay so small is just so weird. Most civilized species have the decency to get bigger as they get more powerful, but humans have always been ones to buck off the trend.”

Eve blinked. “Thanks?”

“Once this is over, you should absolutely all come over to my lair for dinner. Not tonight, of course. I’m booked to the horns with meatings. Get it? Meatings? Because we eat meat?” Carl let out a quick laugh, filling the room with the force of his breath. “A bit of dragon humor. I’ll have to pencil you in. What’s your schedule like next month?”

Eve turned to flash a questioning look to the others, getting only shrugs in reply. “I think we’re free?”

“Oh, lovely. I’ll have my serfs talk to your serfs.” Carl grinned, showing his brutal and massive teeth to all present. “Anyway, how does this whole ritual thing work?”

Willa shuffled across the room, gathering up Eve’s companions. “First, we all stand to the side, and she stands in the circle.”

Eve stepped into place and gestured down to her clothes and the club strapped to her back. “What about my things? I imagine most of my stuff won’t stand up to dragonfire so well.”

“The ritual doesn’t use that much,” Willa answered. “And the enchantments should dampen it further.”

Eve shook her head, leaving the circle on the floor to approach the others. She dug her two copper pieces and the white rook from her pockets, handing them, her pack, and her griffin-bone club over to Wes. “Better safe than sorry.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “What about your clothes?”

Eve shrugged. “They’re just traveling clothes. I’d rather risk them getting burnt than undress in front of all of you.”

Wes snorted. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Hey, I fell into that leyline in the process of saving your life.”

“We can step outside,” Alex offered.

“Just get in the circle,” Willa barked. “It’s a ritual. We’re not setting you on actual fire.”

Flashing a smile at her friends, Eve nodded and obeyed the Magma Runner’s command. “Alright. I’m ready.”

“Good. Now all our honored guest needs to do is breathe a weak stream of flame into that receptacle there. Pure flame, please. The ritual isn’t designed to handle your particular element.” Willa pointed at the partially melted circle in the wall that marked the origin of all the ashen inscriptions. “The enchantments will do the rest.”

Wind swept from the room as Carl inhaled.

Wes, Preston, and Alex each held their breath.

Eve braced herself.

And the room came alight.

* * *

In the back of his mind, Preston tuned out the telepathic debate Art and Reginald were having over whether he should try and recruit Carl into his care or if Reginald was more than enough draconid for one beast master. He could settle the kiddos’ argument later.

His eyes flashed up to the ongoing ritual just in time for the burst of flame to jet from Carl’s mouth. Even from across the room its heat washed across his face.

Even before he heard the words, he knew something was wrong.

Willa gasped. “That’s too much! You’re going to kill her!”

Her cries never found home, washed away by the roar of blaze before them.

Carl kept going.

Preston ignored his instinct to stare in wide-eyed terror as the inferno struck the enchantment, annihilating the obsidian and flaring bright as it propagated into the ashen lines and across the room. He didn’t let himself freeze up as the overpowered ritual sped towards Eve. He couldn’t do anything about that.

But he could do something about the dragonfire that was slowly filling the room.

Practically by reflex, he threw up his arm to cast Ayla’s Ward, summoning a golden barrier between the party and the rest of the chamber. Even behind its protection, waves of heat blasted them as the enchantment tried to channel far more power than it was ever designed to handle.

The rest of the party safe, Preston turned his attention to Eve.

The dragonfire hit her from every direction at once, swallowing her in its all-engulfing power.

In an instant, she was gone.

Willa spat out a curse. “Stupid worm. I told him to breathe a weak blast. Does he have any idea how long it’ll take to rebuild the enchantments? Not to mention costing us a promising recruit.”

“Eve—” Alex choked out the word. “She’s…”

Willa jerked a thumb at the inferno before them. “I don’t know, do you think you could’ve survived that? I couldn’t.”

Preston blinked, squinting at the spectacle before him. He couldn’t believe that—wait, was that what he thought it was? There, just above the ground, the air seemed lighter, whiter than the red fire around it. He swallowed back the fear and desperation of the moment, hoping against hope that his eyes didn’t deceive him.

But it was there.

The more he looked, the more he saw it. The brightness of the flames washed away some of the light, and the chaos of the overcharged ritual obscured the view, but there, in the middle of it all, a cloud of pure white Mana floated in the air, mixing and intermingling and absorbing the energy of the dragonfire.

Preston let out a laugh, strong and sharp and full of relief. “She’s okay!” he shouted over the roar of the blaze. “She’s drinking it in!”

A chorus of relieved breaths sounded all around him, but nobody dared relax just yet. Carl still breathed his flame, the fire raged on, and the red light of the inferno encroached ever further into the white cloud.

Eve still lived, but even Preston could see her situation was dire.

The ritual wasn’t over yet.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Twice in One Week

BY THE TIME Eve knew anything was wrong, her body had already given out to the flames.

Her will hadn’t.

It all happened in a moment. A burst of heat, a half-second of unimaginable pain, and then, nothing.

But she was still there.

Her consciousness didn’t disperse with the destruction of her body, her Mana didn’t dissipate into the aether, and her soul didn’t descend into the care of the gods upon taking lethal damage. Something kept her there.

Perhaps it was divine providence or the hand of fate or simply the indomitable nature of her very will. Or perhaps it was that she was a being of Mana standing in the middle of an enchantment built to contain and channel Mana.

Eve decided to go with that latter theory. It carried a lot less emotional baggage.

She had nary a moment to ponder the nature of her situation as the dragon flame scorched even her incorporeal self. It didn’t burn, Eve realized, so much as tore. The sensation fascinated her, or at least it would have if it didn’t also leave her in immense pain. But she’d been pain before. She knew its tricks.

The dragonfire roared through her, abated somewhat—she hoped—by the enchantment at her feet, but still very much there and still very much lethal. The flames ripped away at the white cloud of Mana, rending it away in bits and chunks. It didn’t feed. It didn’t grow. This wasn’t the hungering horror that Wes wielded. This was something else. Something simpler.

Dragon flame didn’t devour. Dragon flame destroyed.

Mana: 4,920/10,810

It didn’t start on the outside of Eve’s influence. It was everywhere, and she was everywhere. It spread within her, mingling and annihilating the Mana it could. Eve fought to hold it off, a single word echoing through infinities of her consciousness.

Mine.

She held, tight as she could, to every point of Mana, only for the overwhelming force of the dragonfire to tear it away nonetheless.

Mana: 2,448/10,810

It was no use. This was no greedy wraith trying to steal her precious Mana. This was a primal force of nature, come to obliterate. Eve could assert control. She couldn’t assert existence.

Mana: 1,303/10,810

The realization struck her as hard as any blow she’d ever felt. That was it. Control. Eve could never withstand the unfathomable might of dragonfire, not on the defensive. She couldn’t stop it from doing the very rending and tearing and shredding that was its nature.

But this force of fundamental devastation had dared enter her area of influence.

And she was low on Mana.

Eve released her iron grip on the pure Mana she held, forgoing the last vestiges of her defense against the sundering flame. It surged forth, attacking her very being with all its might. She let it.

And she attacked it back.

Mana: 517/10,810

Dragonfire tore away a chunk of her Mana, a chunk of her self. She, in turn, claimed it, stealing the thrumming power of the flame right out from under it.

Mana: 781/10,810

Eve didn’t take a moment to celebrate the victory. She didn’t have a moment. A couple hundred Mana did not survival make, and the flame continued to rage around her, with more and more entering her influence by the second. Her fight was far from over.

The onslaught continued, and Eve settled in to wage her war.

Inch by inch, point by point, she stole away the dragonfire, integrating it into herself to replace the Mana it consumed. When her pool reached its cap, she set to work rebuilding her body, pouring both pure Mana and that reclaimed from the inferno into her composition.

Just like before, she started with an arm. The Mana drained from her as she built, but she restored just as quickly from the excess of energy still flowing from Carl’s maw and into the enchantment at her feet.

She was pleased—if unsurprised—when her newly-forged flesh withstood the tempest of magic around it. How could she be harmed by something that was hers?

At some point along the line, the dragon flame ceased to rage through the air, flowing directly from the enchantment into Eve’s new body. The flow didn’t end when she finished her work and her consciousness returned to the confines of a brain, nor did it wreak destruction and agony upon her bare skin. The dragonfire simply washed over her, passing through and coming out unspent on the other side.

Eve exhaled.

It was almost peaceful, letting the energy surge around her, cordoning her off from the rest of the world for a few precious moments. Still Carl breathed his flame, but it couldn’t touch her, not anymore. She grinned.

Eve took the moment’s privacy to blink open her status screen, taking in the notifications that greeted her. They were mostly as she expected.

You have stayed steadfast against overwhelming force: +50 Willpower!

It was the same flat stat boost she’d earned from her experience with the leyline, confined to a single notification instead of split in two. She moved on.

You have integrated annihilation Mana into your manifestation!

Ability Upgraded!

Passive Ability - Ethereal Manifestation

Gain immunity to annihilation magic. Imbue your spells with annihilation Mana.

Eve liked the sound of that. She had, of course, no idea what annihilation Mana did, but it certainly seemed powerful. She took a moment from her elation to wonder why she’d gained annihilation Mana rather than anything to do with fire, but put the question off for now. She could always ask Carl once he was finished breathing dragon flame at her.

Ability Upgraded!

Passive Ability - Defiant Body

Massively increased fire resistance!

Oh, Eve thought, there’s the fire bit. She snorted. Jokes aside, she could already envision a number of uses for that particular resistance given the makeup of her party. First and foremost, it would mean Wes’s flames could no longer force her away from an enemy or block her out of a fight.

She tried not to think about the other way fire resistance would be useful considering the… quirks of Wes’s class, but the thought persistently clung to the back of her mind. Eve hoped she’d never need it.

Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: Rebuild Your Body Twice in One Week!

+2,048,000 exp!

“Not even worth a level-up,” Eve muttered to herself. She sighed. Her exp costs were getting way too high. “Stupid Unique class making everything difficult.”

She thought to pull up her full status screen to review the changes—few as they might’ve been—when the flames suddenly ceased, and the world around her returned to view.

Closing the unsightly blue box, Eve looked down upon herself to note any differences the experience had wrought. Sure enough, one stood out.

While the central node at her chest and the web of jagged lines stretching from it for about a foot in each direction remained the same, said lines took a new shape as they coursed over the rest of her body. All down her abdomen and legs and arms, the lightning-esque chaos had given way to a clean and simple pattern: scales.

Her skin was still skin; she hadn’t changed race for a second time, but the exposed Mana along her body now traced out the shape of overlapping scales giving her a particularly draconic appearance. More still, the color of the scales didn’t match the pure white of her core, but glimmered with every color at once in a hypnotizing prismatic mash. Eve rather liked it.

“She’s okay!” Wes’s cry pulled her from her reverie.

Alex scowled. “And she’s naked.”

Preston sighed. “Again.”

Art covered both Reginald’s and his own eyes before Preston had a chance to.

“How was that?” Nervous excitement colored Carl’s voice. “It wasn’t too weak, was it? I can do stronger.”

“No!” Willa practically shouted. “No, that was plenty strong. Too strong, actually. Way, way too strong. By all rights she should be dead.”

The dragon gasped. “Oh my Ventirax, I’m so sorry! When she said weak I didn’t know… It’s my first time doing this and…” He sniffled, a tremendous sound given the size of his nostrils. “I could’ve killed you.”

“It’s um… it’s alright,” Eve said. “I survived. Just maybe… tone it down a bit the next time you do this?”

“Of course! Of course! I’m really so sorry. I couldn’t live with myself if I…”

Eve exhaled. “Really, it’s okay.”

Carl sniffled once more. “Thanks.”

Willa crossed the room, wrapping her woolen blanket over Eve’s bare shoulders. “I’m glad you’re alright, sweetie.” She flashed a grandmotherly smile. “Welcome to the Dragonwrought.” Having said her piece, the old woman’s body and tone alike turned on a dime to address the dragon in the room. “You’re lucky she survived,” she snapped. “But the room didn’t.” Willa jerked a finger at the now completely melted receptacle on the wall and charred lines across the floor.

Carl’s massive form somehow shrank back, cowed by the wrath of the little old lady. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’ll pay to have it fixed.”

“Good,” Willa barked. With that she turned and patted Eve on the shoulder. “Looks like my work here is done. I’m going back to somewhere it isn’t freezing.”

Eve watched in silence as the Magma Runner slowly shuffled out of the stiflingly hot ritual chamber, her boney form shivering with every step.

Shaking her head, Eve turned to Carl. “Thank you for helping,” she said. “It was a bit touch and go, but I made it through, so…” She shrugged.

The black dragon gave her a slight nod.

“If I can ask a question,” the Defiant continued, “what’s annihilation Mana?”

“Pure destruction,” Carl answered. “In much the same way that pure Mana is creation, even as it sometimes seeks to turn stable things into more pure Mana, annihilation Mana seeks to destroy, usually annihilating itself in the process.” He flashed a toothy grin. “It’s the most destructive force there is, discounting a few entities that have been locked away from our reality for a good long while.”

In the back of the room, Wes coughed.

Eve scowled. “Then how can it coexist with other types of Mana?”

“I don’t know,” Carl said simply. “I produce it; I don’t study it. All dragons wield it naturally through their flame, each adding their own element. At Willa’s request, I withheld my element, so you got the undiluted thing. When a dragon wields it, it looks like fire, and behaves a bit like fire sometimes, but it’s really not. You burn something with dragonfire, it won’t ignite or spread. It’ll just be destroyed.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “That’s kind of a shit name, then. Calling it fire when it’s not fire is just confusing.”

Carl let out a gentle laugh. “It’s your language, not mine.”

“Out of curiosity,” Eve changed the subject, “what is your element?”

Carl smirked as much as a thirty-foot-wide reptilian snout could smirk. “That would be telling. Besides, I hear you humans have ways of divining information you shouldn’t have. Maybe try that.”

Without waiting for a reply, he leapt back from his perch, his powerful wings sending shockwaves of air through the exposed ritual chamber. “It was nice meeting you all!” he shouted over the din of his own flight. “Remember to come visit sometime!” With that he swooped around in a great arc and flew off into the distance.

It wasn’t until Eve glanced over to her companions to see first the glint of blue in Wes’s eyes and then the pallid color and obvious shock on his face that Eve realized what Carl had meant, and jerked her head back to the open wall.

She fixed her eyes on Carl’s ebon form, now barely a speck in the blue backdrop of the clear winter sky, and Appraised him.

Level ??? Blightmaw Dragon

“Oh,” she muttered, the breath leaving her as she realized the implication of the text floating before her eyes.

“Oh no.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The Vault Vault

EVE BIT HER lip. “Well—um… I guess that makes one of us who knows how to complete their life quest, huh?”

Wes blinked, the surprise still apparent on his face. “But… but he’s so nice.”

“He did just try to kill Eve,” Alex argued.

“No.” Eve shook her head. “That was a mistake. He said so himself. Hells, you could even hear it in his voice how sorry he was.”

“He lied,” the Defender put it sharply.

Wes leaned back against the wall, taking deep and fast breaths as his shock turned to fright. “Do you think he knows? M-maybe he has a quest to kill the Disciple of the Devouring Flame.”

Eve exhaled. “He doesn’t know. Based on what he said, I don’t think dragons can even use Appraise. Besides, if he knew who you were or that you had a quest to kill him, he could’ve just killed you then and there. It’s not like any of us could’ve stopped him. He’s a fucking dragon.”

“But that would’ve made an enemy of the Dragonwrought,” Alex reasoned. “You saw how cowed he was by Willa. Sure, that could be an act, but this keep earned its place among these mountains. I think it’s the same reason he tried to kill Eve in a way that’d look like an accident and then gave up when it didn’t work. He doesn’t want to mess with the Dragonwrought.”

It was Preston’s turn to shake his head. “I really don’t think so. Sure, the Dragonwrought are powerful, but they’re not actual dragons. And Wes is right, Carl just seemed so nice.”

“It could’ve been an act,” Alex snapped. “Since when does the name ‘blightmaw’ strike you as nice? Not to mention he conveniently invited us all to come visit him in his lair, away from the Dragonwrought’s protection and right on top of his own gods-damned seat of power.”

“You don’t know any of that,” Eve said.

“I don’t,” Alex replied. “But it’s possible.”

Eve turned, directing her gaze to the telepath in their midst. “Art? Did you get anything suspicious from Carl?”

The trellac shook his head. Dragons are resistant to most kinds of magic. Mine included.

Preston clapped his hands together. “So we don’t know.” Looking back and forth between Eve and Alex, he continued. “Whatever our suspicions, I don’t think we can operate under the assumption that Carl is actively hunting us down. Hiding away in the keep for the rest of my life doesn’t sound like much of a life. At the same time, it might be best to avoid future encounters with him if we can.”

“Welp, if he wasn’t our enemy before, we’ll see where we stand once we reject his dinner invitation.” Eve sighed.

“He’ll forget about it,” Preston assuaged her concern. “The time he gave was some nebulous ‘next month.’ As long as we aren’t here for him to actually tell us when next month, we’re fine.”

Wes nodded, his head bobbing up and down with the nervous energy of a man trying to convince himself things were going to be alright. “Okay. Okay. So we take a commission, get the hells out of here, and make sure it takes a good long while before we make it back. Long enough for Carl to forget about us, anyway. Then we strengthen up until we can hold our own against him.”

Eve grinned. “That sounds like a plan to me. When do we leave?”

“When we’re good and ready,” Alex answered. “You still need new armor and I need a new weapon. Not to mention I’d kind of like to trial for the Dragonwrought myself. Whatever bonus that ritual was supposed to give will probably be useful. I’ll just be sure to ask for a different dragon. Preferably one who’s done it before.”

“Great.” Eve reached out from under her blanket to pat Alex on the arm. “Let’s go see about spending our contribution points, then the rest of us can go looking for a new commission while you fight the foot elemental.”

Alex stared. “The what?”

Eve simply smiled and walked past her, making her way towards the exit.

“The what?” Alex called after her.

Her answer never came.

Piskern awaited in the hallway just outside the ritual chamber, a palm-sized black scale clutched between his gnarled claws. At Eve’s appearance, he shoved it into her hands. “Your badge,” he said.

“Thank you, Piske—wait, did you just speak common?”

“No,” the kobold grunted.

Eve’s eyes fell to the lines that still traced the shapes of dragon scales across her skin. Apparently being reforged in dragon fire came with a few unlisted perks. Shaking her head, she turned her focus to the badge.

Turning it over in her hand, Eve found a pin on the back she couldn’t use given her current state of dress and little else. The scale bore no markings, no sigils, and no visible enchantments, though she could feel the thrum of magic running through it. With a breath, she Appraised it.

Badge of the Dragonwrought

Rarity: Mythic

Effect: Grants entry and free passage within Dragonwrought Hold

Contribution Points: 41

Eve scowled. “Forty-one doesn’t sound like that many points.”

Piskern shrugged.

“Alright, thanks anyway. Could you lead us back to our rooms? I’ll be honest I have no idea which turns we took to get here.”

Piskern grunted, something which was apparently just a grunt and not a word in his native tongue. With a sharp gesture, he beckoned the adventurers to follow and took off through the twisting passages.

As they walked, Eve swore to herself that someday she’d take the time to actually learn her way around Dragonwrought Hold, but given the excitement so far and her plans for the rest of the afternoon, today would not be that day. Studying the remarkably large and confusing layout of the ancient keep would have to wait for a time she didn’t have a treasure vault to look through.

* * *

“We pay in contribution points instead of gold,” Gregory explained as he shuffled excruciatingly slowly down the long hallway towards the vault, “but they’re interchangeable, really. Leave a gold coin in the vault, you’ll earn a point. Take one out, you’ll lose a point. That should give you an idea of what your points are worth.”

Eve deflated at the news. Forty-one points—her bounty from her first two commissions with the Dragonwrought—were apparently worth less than a quarter of the gold she’d had to begin with. Divided five ways, it was a pittance.

Eve chuckled to herself at the thought of eight gold—likely enough to buy the entire town of Nowherested—being a pittance. Ayla’s tits was adventuring expensive. At least the loot they’d gathered, especially the dungeon core and the ar-silver, should prove worth a hefty sum. She hoped.

As he came to an iron door, Gregor reached into the pocket of his bathrobe to pull out a shiny black scale of his own. With a quick tap to the knob, the door swung open. “Badge gets ya in.”

Eve nodded as she and the party followed the old man inside.

You have entered a suppression field. All abilities are disabled.

Wes blinked, snapping his fingers a few times in failed attempts to summon flame. “That’s a new one.”

Eve dismissed the notification to gawk at the vault itself.

The space was an open cavern, rough and misshapen as natural caves are wont to be. A chasm split the room in twain, twenty feet across and uncountably deep. A river of magma flowed within it. On the far side glimmering treasures and enchanted gear sat in neat little rows, punctuated by a massive heap of gold coins twice Eve’s height. Riches gleamed in Eve’s eye.

On the adventurers’ side of the room was a stone podium holding what appeared to be an old ledger and a long pole that leaned against the side of the chasm, its base somehow unaffected by the magma in which it sat. Eve knew its purpose immediately. She groaned preemptively.

“Gods below,” Wes muttered. “You have to vault to get into the vault. The vault vault. It’s brilliant.”

“System’s simple,” Gregory barked. “You vault over, drop off whatever you want to sell, grab whatever you want to buy. You gain points when you drop an item and lose them when you vault over with whatever you took. Don’t try to take more than you can afford. We lost a recruit once cause he couldn’t do that basic math.” He spat.

“You can see what something costs by picking it up,” Gregory continued. “That or Appraising it.” He glared at Eve’s companions. “I’m assuming you trust them. Since they don’t have badges, anything they take comes out of your total. Same with selling stuff.”

Eve nodded, flashing a grin to the others. “No worries there.”

“Good,” the old man grunted. “Now you can explain it all to the next recruit who needs a tour.” Grumbling under his breath, he turned, shuffling off back the way they’d come. Thirty seconds later, as Eve opened her mouth to discuss the loot with the others, he called back over his shoulder. “And whatever ideas you have in your head about cheating the system, forget ‘em. This place’s enchanted out the patootie. Whatever you’re thinking isn’t gonna work.”

Eve didn’t verbally admit that she’d been wondering if her ability to drain Mana from enchantments would be able to work through the suppression field, but she did cringe at Gregory’s words. It wasn’t that she’d actually considered trying to break the rules—stealing from her own guild felt a bit low—but she had wondered. “Of course not,” she simply replied.

Gregory huffed and went on his way.

Wes cracked a grin. “So who wants to be the first to try the vault vault?”

Alex rubbed the bridge of her nose. “You’re welcome to it. I want to take a look at that ledger first. Remember, everything here is here because somebody else didn’t want it.”

Eve followed the Defender, peering around her tall form to glance at the last entry in the enchanted ledger.

Gregory Renderillion: One Pair Fuzzy Slippers of Eldritch Comfiness

-198 Contribution Points

“You’re kidding me.” Eve cursed. “Gregory’s slippers cost almost five times as many points as we have.”

Preston scowled at the words. “Well they are enchanted with eldritch magic. I’m pretty sure that was banned throughout the kingdom two centuries ago.”

Wes snorted. “Gregory you naughty boy, you. Shuffling around with dangerous contraband on your feet.”

“They’re fuzzy slippers,” Eve asked, “how dangerous can they be?”

“Eldritch is banned for a very good reason, Eve,” Preston asserted. “It’s kind of insane Gregory would be willing to take that risk for a pair of slippers.”

Wes shrugged. “I think once you get that high level and that old, you really stop caring about silly things like laws and a potentially agonizing demise at the hands of some unknowable monstrosity from a dimension far beyond our comprehension.”

Eve blinked. “Um… yeah.”

Preston and Alex both stared at Wes, the intensity of his words clashing uncomfortably with the careless tone in which he’d said them.

In a single tension-breaking gesture, Wes clapped his hands together loud enough to echo throughout the wide-open cavern.

“Alright, now let’s do the vault vault.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Spit it Out

EVE CROSSED THE chasm first, grasping tightly to the pole as heat from the magma below rose around her. She landed gracefully on the rough stone before turning to toss the pole back across.

Alex followed suit, making a similarly graceful landing. The others, not so much.

The momentum of the pole sent Preston careening into the vault, almost landing face-first on a leather scabbard without a sword. Wes didn’t fare much better, somehow managing to spin around midair so that the pole’s collision with the vault-side of the chasm launched him directly onto his ass.

Art refused to let go of the pole, clinging to it for dear life until Preston physically pulled him away from it. Reginald, on the other hand, refused to touch the pole to begin with, leaping over the chasm of his own strength.

For a moment Eve worried ignoring the intended method of crossing would trigger some deadly defensive enchantment, but the drake made it over fine. Just to be safe, she wouldn’t let him carry any loot back across.

“First things first,” Eve said once everyone had entered the vault. “No point browsing if we don’t have any idea how much we have to spend.” She reached into her pack, withdrawing the first item she intended on exchanging for points.

Greater Dungeon Core

Rarity: Mythic

Her breath stilled. The room fell silent. With excitement speeding her heart and an air of reverence for the complexity and power of the enchantments around her, Eve carefully and solemnly deposited the dungeon core on the vault floor.

Nothing happened.

Wes exhaled. “Well that was anticlimactic.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Check your badge.”

“Right, right,” Eve said, pulling the black scale from her pocket. “I don’t know why I thought there would be a notification or something. Enchantments can’t normally do that, can they?”

Preston shrugged. “I don’t think the Questing Stones know what contribution points are.”

Eve Appraised her badge.

Badge of the Dragonwrought

Rarity: Mythic

Effect: Grants entry and free passage within Dragonwrought Hold

Contribution Points: 73

A grin spread across her face as she did the math. “That’s thirty-two points for the dungeon core. I guess that Mana wraith was good for more than just a bit of exp.”

“Well, yeah. It also wiped out an entire stronghold of Burendians,” Wes pointed out.

“Yeah but what hasn’t wiped out an entire stronghold of Burendians? For how crazy good they were at enchanting, they also seem to have been really susceptible to random accidents leading to mass death.”

“Hey, that only happened once,” Wes countered. “That we, as an adventuring party, happened to discover ourselves. Out of the total of two ruins we visited.”

“I’d argue it happened twice,” Preston said. “The random accident that turned Eve into a manaheart definitely led to mass death.”

Eve grinned. “And I’m just getting started.”

Setting the conversation aside, she moved on to depositing the spare signet rings from the stronghold, adding another six points to her total. That done, she closed her pack and held out an upturned palm, focusing her attention inward. “And now for the moment of truth.” A single nugget of glimmering silver materialized in her hand.

You have lost 1 unit of Ar-silver! +70%!

“Alright, let’s see what ten percent is worth.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Ten percent of what?”

Wes shrugged. “Fuck if we know.”

“Notification just says plus ten percent,” Eve explained. “It doesn’t say of what.”

Alex opened her mouth to ask another question but shortly decided it was a rabbit hole she didn’t need to explore. Traveling with this particular group, a certain level of ridiculousness was to be expected, after all.

The fingernail-sized ar-silver chunk left a dent in the stone floor where Eve dropped it. Fortunately enough, the vault’s enchantments seemed to simply tally it up and let it sit rather than absorbing it to strengthen themselves. Eve bit her lip as she realized she probably should’ve considered that possibility before dropping the valuable metal on the floor, but the dragon scale badge in her hand drew her attention away from such worries.

Contribution Points: 291

She cackled, filling the vault with waves of maniacal laughter while the others stared at her with a mix of curiosity and a touch of nervous discomfort.

“Two-eighteen,” Eve explained. “One chunk is worth over two hundred gold.”

Wes blinked. “And we have eight.”

Preston snorted. “Where were these when we were trying to buy a house in Pyrindel?”

“Probably better we didn’t have them,” Eve said. “I’d rather have a bunch of points now than a house we can’t use because we got chased out of the city.”

She deposited the rest of the ar-silver all at once, taking care this time to set them down gently rather than risk damaging the floor even more. Eve didn’t want to find out how much the protective enchantments would tolerate.

The total at the end didn’t come out to exactly as she’d calculated, but a quick check confirmed that not all the ar-silver pieces were quite the same size, so a variance in value only made sense. Still, they made for quite the windfall.

Contribution Points: 1836

“So the fair thing to do would be to divide it all five ways, maybe subtract the value of the loot we’ve already doled out,” Preston reasoned. “But that may not be the practical thing. After all those gifts from the different mercenary companies, Wes has more gear than he can use, while Alex needs a weapon and Eve needs armor.”

Wes nodded. “Wherever we go next, we should be maximizing our chances of survival. I’m happy to give up points if it means everyone is well equipped.”

But I want loot! Art sent.

Preston patted him on his feathered head. “And you’ll get loot. We have a lot of points to spend, and I’m sure the girls won’t be too greedy with their choices.” He spoke that last sentence directly at Eve with a glare in his eyes.

Eve held up her hands defensively. “Alright, alright, got it. Don’t pick the most expensive set of armor I can find.”

“Well that fills me with confidence,” Wes breathed.

Eve smirked. “Good.” With that she turned, leaving the group behind as she perused the aisles of neatly placed gear, crafting materials, and miscellaneous enchanted or otherwise valuable objects. She kept an eye out for anything particularly interesting, knowing full well she wouldn’t be able to purchase it on this trip.

Most of the items she came across were either too specific to fit her skillset or explicitly made for a type of class that didn’t apply to her. “Stupid Unique class,” she muttered again. “I hope I don’t have to have everything custom-made now.” She knew in the future she would probably need equipment that could dissociate with her, but at the moment she had neither the time nor the resources to be so picky. Suboptimal gear was better than no gear.

She strolled past neatly folded robes and brilliantly polished plate, knowing her need for extreme mobility would accommodate neither. Leather would be her best bet.

It only took her five minutes to find them.

Dragonhide Cuirass

Rarity: Mythic

Contribution Points: 311

Dragonhide Leggings

Rarity: Mythic

Contribution Points: 293

Eve let out a whistle. Six hundred points was nothing to spend lightly, especially for a set that didn’t include boots or any sort of arm protection. She picked up the cuirass, pressing a hand against the inside and attempting to fire a Mana Burst at it.

The spell passed right through.

Eve grinned. The armor would offer her abysmally low protection against magical attacks, but it similarly wouldn’t hinder her ability to drain Mana from them. Being able to fire off Mana Bursts in any direction was certainly nice, and she couldn’t think of a leather in the world as physically tough as dragonhide.

Sure, it couldn’t dissolve with her, but she doubted the vault would have a single piece of armor that could. She also had to admit the brilliant sheen of the dark brown scaled pattern looked pretty damn good. Whatever arguments Alex might’ve made about function over form, Eve refused to accept that aesthetics didn’t matter.

She made a point of Appraising every other bit of leather armor she could find, but most followed the trend of magic resistance organic materials generally did. The dragonhide set were the only pieces that synergized with her abilities.

Upon her return to the group, Eve found Alex methodically comparing four different spears she’d lined up on the floor in front of her while Wes and Preston Appraised the handful of small items Art had scavenged up. Reginald was nowhere to be seen.

“So the lightning spear offers faster attacks and a way to hit several things at once,” Alex thought aloud, “but the ironbound spear has more direct power, and the rootweaver’s pike has relevant utility.”

“I’d go with the lightning spear,” Eve offered. “Speed is important.”

“Great,” Alex said, picking up the jagged yellow weapon from the floor and tossing it aside. “I can dismiss this, then.”

Eve gaped.

“Speed is important to you,” the Defender explained. “My entire job is to stand my ground. Besides, pairing a lightning spear with an earthen shield sounds like it wouldn’t work out well.” Clenching her lips together, Alex eventually leaned over and grabbed the twisted wooden spear that looked to Eve like it would be entirely impractical to maneuver. “I think the rootweaver’s pike is the choice. I can use the roots to tie down enemies or reinforce my shield.”

Eve nodded, Appraising Alex’s new weapon.

Rootweaver’s Pike

Rarity: Mythic

Contribution Points: 613

“So that leaves us with just over six hundred points left to spend,” Eve said.

“Make that three hundred,” Preston chimed in. “Art’s made his choice.”

Eve turned to see Art joyfully adjusting a silver circlet atop his head, maneuvering it in a fruitless attempt to displace as few of his feathers as possible. The end result was a gap in his plumage where the circlet weighed it down. “What’s it do?”

Thirty Willpower! A burst of excitement came along with the message. And it almost doubles my range!

Eve blinked. “All that for only three hundred points?”

Preston shrugged. “Not much demand for enchantments specific to psychic abilities.”

Eve exhaled, looking to Wes and Preston with sympathy. “So that leaves three hundred points between the two of you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Wes waved her off. “You’ll just owe us when we come back.”

“And three hundred isn’t nothing,” Preston added. “I’ve actually got my eye on a few things around—”

As if on cue, Reginald came ambling up to the group, a piece of brown fabric dangling out the side of his maw.

Wes frowned. “What have you got there?”

The drake didn’t move.

“Reginald,” Wes pressed. “What’s in your mouth?”

Reginald did nothing.

Preston approached. “Spit it out, Reginald.”

He didn’t.

The Caretaker reached out to grab the dangling end of the cloth, but Reginald jerked his head away just in time to thwart the attempt. “I said spit it out!”

Reginald bit down harder.

“Reginald!” Preston snapped. “If you don’t spit that out right now, you’re not leaving here with any loot. Do you understand me?”

The adolescent drake took a step back, lowering head in submission. With a soft whine, he opened his mouth and allowed its contents to fall out.

An old woolen sock, threadbare, worn, and covered in drake saliva landed softly on the floor.

Eve scowled. “That’s what Reginald wants? An entire vault full of enchanted gear and he wants a sock?”

Preston blinked, his eyes flashing blue. “It’s not the sock,” he breathed, curiosity and surprise evident in his voice. “It’s what the sock means.”

Eve frowned, taking the moment to Appraise it for herself.

Greothrax’s Left Sock

Rarity: Unique

Contribution Points: 392

“Who’s Greothrax?”

“I don’t know,” Preston said, “but I get the impression we’re gonna find out.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”

“Because to us it’s a sock,” the healer explained, his eyes fixed not on the party, but on the drake that still stood defensively over the ragged garment. “But to Reginald, it’s a secondary quest.”

The notification popped up in Eve’s vision before she even had a moment to fully parse what Preston had just said.

Tertiary Quest assigned: Greothrax’s Left Sock

Help Reginald return the missing sock to its rightful owner.

“Well,” Wes broke the aura of silence that had descended upon the room, “I think we just found our next job.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The Pre-Gallivanting Checklist

UNFORTUNATELY FOR EVE, Greothrax’s missing sock cost more contribution points than she had to spare, forcing her to toss a few handfuls of her own spending money onto the vault’s ever-growing heap of gold coins. She considered it an advance on the points she still owed Wes and Preston for their share of the loot.

The Defiant kept an eye on her badge as her companions vaulted back across the chasm one by one, watching her point total drop. Eve herself was the last to cross, checking and rechecking that her remaining points matched up with the cost of the dragonhide armor folded under her arm.

Wes was waiting for her on the other side. “That still feels like a lot of contribution points spent on armor you’re already looking to replace.”

Eve shrugged, almost dropping the armor on the floor in the process. As she fumbled to catch it, she answered, “I have no idea how long it will take to find armor that will dissociate with me. I know we were lucky to find something as valuable as the ar-silver, but it took like, two weeks to earn the points we just spent.”

“She’ll never find the perfect armor if she dies on the next job,” Alex said, leading the way from the vault and into the halls beyond. “Equal division of loot and efficient spending practices are all well and good, but survival will always be the most important factor.”

Eve nodded. “That too.”

Preston scowled. “I can think of… maybe one monster that has hide you could potentially use for dissociating armor. Maybe. There are these mist-deer-things that can dissolve into the fog of the Dead Fields.”

“The Dead Fields?” Wes asked. “Why didn’t we see any when we were there?”

“We didn’t see much of anything while we were there,” Eve remarked. “What with the, you know, poison fog that blocked all vision past a few feet.”

“They’re prey animals,” Preston answered. “And again, they can dissolve themselves into the fog. Even if we came across a few, they would’ve disappeared far before we got a chance to see them.”

“Great,” Eve said. “I’ll have to add visiting the Dead Fields again to my list of things to do.”

Alex shrugged. “We’ll have to pass through anyway to get to the Crown of Burendia. May as well hunt some of Preston’s deer-things while we do.”

Eve nodded. “Not for a while, though. At the very least I want to get the boys up to tier 4 before we try and tackle the Crown, and I wouldn’t turn down a bit of leveling beyond that. The Stronghold was a bit touch-and-go, and I expect whatever’s at the Crown will be a lot stronger.”

“Yeah.” A surprising hint of bitterness colored Wes’s voice. “It would be nice if the rest of us could get strong enough to keep up with you.”

Eve blinked. “I’m… sorry? Remember, you killed just as many of the golems as I did, and I didn’t even land a hit on that giant bear. That was all you.” She left unsaid that Wes had gone slightly insane after that particular fight. She wasn’t trying to aggravate him.

“Yeah, right before we spent the rest of the day cowering in a room while you cleared the entire dungeon by yourself,” Wes snapped. Silence hung in the air for a few agonizing seconds before the mage let out a sigh. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I just… it’s been feeling more and more lately like we’re just following you around while you do all the cool shit.”

“Most of the cool shit involves almost dying,” Eve said.

“And it also involves getting a heap of exp and skill upgrades and new abilities. You just keep getting stronger way faster than we do. You already practically cleared the Stronghold entirely on your own, for which you got a new ability, then you got reforged in dragonfire and got a whole extra boost of power, and sure the rest of us are growing too, but even if you’re not already there, it’s only a matter of time before…” Wes trailed off, taking a breath after the rush of words escaped him uncontrolled.

“Before I don’t need you anymore,” Eve finished for him as realization struck. Her heart ached even as she said the words. It was exactly what the man of the mists had warned her would happen, exactly the argument he’d made to convince her to leave Wes and the others behind months ago. “You know I’m never gonna let that happen.”

“And once we start holding you back? Once we’re just a drain on your resources or a distraction while you clear dungeons the rest of us can’t touch? What happens then?”

The words landed like a punch to the gut. “Oh, Wes,” Eve said, sympathy apparent on her face. “Is that what you think?” She stepped up to him, wrapping the bulky mage in as tight a hug as she dared. “You’re my best friend. We’re in this for the long haul, remember? There’s no way I’m leaving you behind.” She turned to face the others. “Any of you.”

Wes muttered a stiff thanks before pulling away from the embrace.

“I’m stronger now because I’m a tier above you,” Eve continued. “In just another commission or two you’ll hit level fifty and we’ll be on even footing again. I’m sure you’ve done enough by now to unlock a good, non-devouring flame, class.”

Wes’s eyes grew dark at the mention of his sinister class line. “I hope so.” Before Eve could respond, he turned, seemingly picking a hallway at random. “I’m going to go get some target practice in,” he said. “Come and get me when it’s time to go.” With that he strode away, leaving a stunned and silent Eve standing surrounded by the rest of the party.

She turned to Preston. “How long has this been brewing?”

“Since you killed the griffin,” the healer answered. “But it wasn’t this bad until the Mana wraith.”

Eve blinked. “How didn’t I see it?”

Preston shrugged. “You know Wes. He can turn anything into a joke if he wants to. Until he can’t.”

Eve stared into the hallway Wes had vanished down. “I hope he’s okay.”

“I hope he doesn’t do anything stupid,” Alex added.

Preston nodded. “I’ll look after him. I think Eve was right, though. What he really needs is to hit tier 4. It’s been a while since he’s really powered up.”

“Yeah,” Eve agreed. “The sooner we can head out on a new job, the better.”

It’s a good thing we have a new quest to do then! Art chimed.

Reginald wagged his tail, taking a chunk out of the black stone wall in the process.

Preston patted feathers atop Art’s head. “And we’ll pursue it as soon as we can, but right now we don’t even know where to start. It might be better to do another commission or two while we put feelers out to try and figure out where Greothrax even is.”

“We can ask the Dragonwrought,” Eve offered. “Maybe one of them remembers who put it in the vault in the first place.”

Yes! Art cheered, scrambling up onto Reginald’s back. Miss Willa knows everything! We should ask her.

With a great leap, Reginald ran off down the narrow hallway, bounding along happily as Art held on for dear life, giggling all the way.

Preston sighed as he watched them go. “I suppose I should supervise. Last time I left them alone with Willa, she fed them all sorts of nonsense about what high level adventurers can do. Honestly, who in their right mind would think a healer could survive having her head cut off? Ridiculous!” Shaking his head, he took off at a jog after the young party-members, leaving Eve and Alex alone in the hall.

“So I guess that leaves us to go speak with Valya,” the Defender said. “Think you can put in a good word for me?”

Eve snorted, walking along Alex’s side toward the council room. “Doubt I’ll have to. You’ve already made it in the door. I know they have this facade of being exclusive, but they’re desperate for recruits. Hells, she’d probably let Art trial for a spot if he asked.” Eve paused. “Don’t tell him I said that. He’ll get himself killed.”

“Maybe Wes should trial,” Alex offered. “He could use the win.”

“We talked about it back then,” Eve explained. “He doesn’t have a way to disable the foot elemental without turning it to ash.”

“Ah. That’s a shame. Maybe he could ask for a different trial?”

Eve shook her head. “We’re waiting until he gets tier 4. Then either he’ll have a nonlethal takedown or be strong enough Valya can’t say no to a different trial.”

Alex nodded. “Makes sense.”

“I just hope he’s alright,” Eve said. “I had no idea he was so upset about it.”

Alex shrugged. “It’s a guy thing. They like to pretend nothing’s wrong until it blows up.”

Eve gave her a sideways glance. “Really? Not telling people when something is wrong? Who would do such a thing? That certainly doesn’t sound like anyone I know.”

“Hey, in my defense, I wasn’t pretending anything. I knew I was traumatized. I just wasn’t telling you.”

“Well, I guess you are the expert on defense.” Eve laughed. “Seriously though, I’m really glad to have you back. I missed you. If you ever want to talk about what you went through in that cave-in, in private or with the others, I’m here.”

“Yeah.” Alex’s gaze darkened. “Really, I’m fine. Like I said, I was unconscious for most of it, then I crawled my way out.”

Eve frowned, about to ask if that really was all there was to it, when a door to her left swung open to admit a certain draconid. “Piskern! Just the kobold I was looking for.”

Piskern grunted at her.

“I was wondering how I might send a letter back home.”

The kobold nodded. “This way,” he barked in rough draconic, turning and scampering away before Eve had a chance to speak.

“Guess I gotta go!” Eve flashed Alex a smile. “Good luck on your trial!”

“Thanks!”

Eve took off at a jog to catch up to the quick kobold, following his lead up a set of spiral stairs into one of the keep’s many spires. At its top she found a cramped room filled only with a desk and chair. Atop the old wood table sat a pile of papers, writing implements, and envelopes along with a single, silver bell on black metal handle.

“Ring the bell when you’re ready to send.”

“Thank you, Piskern,” Eve said.

The kobold only grunted and disappeared back down the stairway.

Eve took a seat, glancing at the word engraved on the silver bell. Huh, she mused, so that’s how they send those. Putting the thought aside, she slid over an empty piece of paper, dipped a quill in one of the several ink pots scattered about the table, and got to work.

Hey Ma,

First and foremost, I’m okay. I think I might be a wanted criminal throughout the kingdom of Leshk now, but I’m okay. I joined a guild. They’re a bit weird, but they’ve been a lot of help so far. It’s been kind of a crazy few months.

She went on to describe everything that had happened since her last letter from Pyrindel, starting with the Midden brothers and ending with Alex’s miraculous return. She left out some of the more harrowing details such as falling in the leyline or running in terror from the Mana wraith. Eve knew Martha would worry about her regardless, but she thought it best not to exacerbate it.

I hope things are going well back home. I know winter’s the busy season at the tailor shop. Sorry I can’t be there to help you. Maybe you can hire a local teenager to help out, at least until the Questing Stones are back in town to assign you someone. I miss you.

Love,

Eve

P.S. I hope whoever delivers this message doesn’t frighten you too much. If it’s who I think it is, he can be a bit of an overdramatic ass.

Grabbing an envelope, Eve scrawled her mother’s name and address on the outside, but didn’t seal it quite yet. Instead, she raised the silver bell and gave it a ring.

“What do you want?” A grisly voice echoed out from a shadowy corner behind her.

Even expecting it, the voice made her jump. Eve turned, looked up at the dark figure, then down at the word ‘shadowgram’ clearly inscribed on the silver bell, then back up at the dark figure. “What does it look like I want?”

The man glanced over at the envelope in her hand. “Two gold. Five if you want me to wait and cover a reply.”

Eve nodded, reaching into her pack to pull out what remained of her meager gold supply. She counted out five pieces, then stuffed the rest into the envelope with her message. “Here.”

The shadows themselves smiled a Cheshire grin as a gloved hand reached into the light to take missive and payment at once. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

“You too—” By the time the words had left Eve’s mouth, the figure was gone, the gloom in which he’d hidden no more than a dull shadow upon the wall. She shook her head. “Ass. Just because you can teleport through the shadows doesn’t mean you have to be rude about it.”

With a sigh, Eve replaced the cap on the inkwell she’d used, tucked the chair back into the desk, and left the letter room behind. Whether or not Art and Reginald managed to get a lead on the lost sock from any of the Dragonwrought, the party would be leaving on one job or another come morning, and Eve needed to pack.

She had yet another adventure to prepare for.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Mind Your Manors

“I’M GOING TO have nightmares about that thing for a week!” Alex griped as the party walked along the forest floor just at the base of the mountains.

“C’mon, it wasn’t that bad,” Eve said. “A bit gross, sure, but terrifying? It’s just a ball of feet.”

“Yeah, nightmares for a week sounds a bit unrealistic,” Wes added. “It’s been almost a month and mine still haven’t stopped.”

Eve and Preston let out a sharp laugh. Alex groaned.

“How’d you beat it, anyway?” Eve asked. “I needed some fancy acrobatics to get it to run into the wall.”

“Oh, it was easy. I just let it run into my shield over and over again until it tired itself out and went to sleep. It took an hour, but I didn’t almost die.”

“Please,” Eve laughed. “Are you really an adventurer if you don’t almost die anytime you do anything?”

“What? No!” Alex said. “That sounds an awful lot like adventuring wrong.”

Preston shook his head. “No, no, I think it’s just an Eve thing.”

Wes snapped his fingers. “Exactly! Tries to walk from one village to another, almost dies. Tries to sail to Pyrindel, almost dies. Tries to get some foot cream for a little old lady, almost dies.”

Eve grinned and continued the list. “Tries to sell a goat, almost dies. Tries to buy a loaf of bread about two hundred times and almost dies a quarter of those. Tries to eat some delicious scones from the royal steward and almost dies.”

“You didn’t almost die in that last one,” Wes argued. “You almost ate some poppyseeds.”

“They were poison, I tell you! Poison! No mere mundane seed could reach the fathoms of unpalatability that lay in ambush within the beautiful folds of that scone.”

Choosing to ignore Eve’s theatrics rather than encourage them, Preston looked ahead to the trellac on drakeback that was leading the way forward. “So where exactly are we going?”

Miss Willa sent us to Ms. Beatrice, and Ms. Beatrice said she found the sock stuck to a pair of her underwear when she got back from a wedding at Avendreth Manor. She thinks it must’ve gotten mixed in when the servants did her laundry one night, Art answered.

“So we’re off to Avendreth Manor,” Eve said. “Which is…?”

This way.

Preston sighed. “I think Eve is trying to ask how far away it is.”

Oh. Just a couple days, Art chimed. At least that’s what Ms. Beatrice said. I don’t know how fast Archdruids walk.

Eve nodded. “Seems easy enough. Stop by this manor, see if anyone knows this Greothrax, maybe even finish the quest then and there.”

“No!” Wes practically shouted. “No, no, no, no, no, nope! You are not allowed to say those words.”

Eve blinked. “What?”

“What were we literally just talking about?” Wes asked. “Not once, in the entire year we’ve been doing this, has anything that ‘seemed easy enough’ actually been remotely easy.”

“He’s got a point,” Preston said. “Odds are there’s one eighty-year-old servant who’s heard of Greothrax, and he sends us across the continent where we have to take down an international smuggling ring just to get an audience with the guy.”

Eve grinned. “And that’s assuming Greothrax actually is a guy. For all we know he’s an ineffable eldritch being.”

Alex let out a sigh. “Did Beatrice say anything about Greothrax?”

Nope! Art sent. The wedding was fifty years ago. He might’ve been a guest or the groom for all she remembered.

Wes scowled. “She remembered the sock but not whose wedding she was at?”

Art shrugged. She said it was the fourth wedding she’d been to that year. Something about all her friends getting married at the same time while she was out saving the world. The sadness was practically screaming out of her.

Eve nodded. “Makes sense. Been to a hundred weddings, only found a weird sock in your luggage once.”

“So we’re going in blind,” Alex said. “Great.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know I’ve gone in blind to every adventure I’ve ever been on,” Eve replied. “And I came out okay.”

“Yeah, remember what I said about you almost dying all the time because you’re adventuring wrong?” Alex asked. “This is what I mean.”

Eve shrugged. “It’s worked out pretty well so far. All these class upgrades I keep getting have gotta be worth something. You know, power gained is a function of risk taken.”

Alex rubbed the bridge of her nose. “You’re gonna get yourself killed someday.”

“Not if I kill someday first.”

Wes looked at her sideways. “What does that even mean?”

“Hells if I know. A bajillion Strength has gotta be enough to kill a concept, right?” Eve took in the three confused stares from her companions before backtracking. “It sounded cooler in my head.”

Reginald snorted, and Art relayed the drake’s thought, He says there must be something wrong with your head, then.

Eve frowned, trying to think up a scathing reply when another thought struck. “Wait a minute. Since after the whole dragon fire thing I can understand Piskern, does that mean I can understand Reginald too?”

He says maybe.

Eve snorted. “That’s not useful. He needs to actually say something.” She looked towards Reginald. “C’mon, say something so I can see if I understand.”

“No.”

An open-mouthed smile stretched across Eve’s face. “Gods below, I can understand him! Fat lot of good it does if he never actually says anything, but still!”

Preston patted her on the shoulder. “Welcome to the club. Too bad all the interesting conversations happen telepathically.”

Wes scowled at him. “Wait, you’re not using your mental link to talk about us behind our backs, are you?”

“No,” Preston said, the grin apparent on his face. “That would be gossip, and I would never gossip about my friends.”

“Well, shit,” Eve swore. “Now I really want to finish the quest to find Art’s dad if only so I can get in on this telepathic gossip.”

“Please,” Preston waved her off. “If you were in on it, who would we be gossiping about?”

Eve stopped in her tracks, staring openmouthed at Preston as he ever-so-casually continued walking. She silently mouthed the word ‘me?’

Wes cackled over the whole exchange.

Despite Eve’s objections, Alex took first watch that night, forcing the Defiant to at least try and get an hour or two of sleep. It was better, she argued, that Eve be ready to stay awake as long as necessary once they got to the manor rather than needing to pass out for a full night in an uncertain situation.

As she tossed and turned in her attempts to get sleep she didn’t need, Eve thought she heard Alex whispering to herself, taking frequent pauses as if engaged in one half of a conversation. She elected not to enhance her hearing to eavesdrop, deciding Alex would share whatever trauma she’d experienced while she’d been gone when she was good and ready.

If talking to herself in the lonely hours of the night was what she needed to cope, Eve wouldn’t get in the way of that.

As the party trudged westward through the late-winter snow they grew ever more grateful for the cloaks they’d purchased from the Midden brothers. Even Eve, untouched by the cold, made good use of one to keep dry as she slept.

The trip, short as it was, passed uneventfully. Snow fell from the dark clouds above for most of it, but well-equipped as they were it posed no challenge to the adventurers. No side quests presented themselves, no monsters attacked, not even a single tree branch seemed out of the ordinary.

It wasn’t until the party arrived at the base of the hill—one of the foothills of the mountain range to the north—on which Avendreth Manor sat that anything of remote interest occurred.

It started to rain.

Thunder roared and lightning cracked, lighting up the dark sky with brilliant flashes that managed to make Eve jump no matter how often they repeated. The deluge of the storm limited visibility to the gravel path on which they walked, obscuring the Manor from view except for the brief moments when the glow of lightning revealed its silhouette.

It stood imposingly upon the hilltop, all sharp edges and gothic curves, casting out a sense of unease across the entire landscape around it.

As Eve led the way up the twisting path, she furrowed her brows. “Why is it raining?”

“Well,” Wes said, “water evaporates into the air and coalesces into clouds in the sky, then when the pressure gets too high or the temperature gets too low, it stops being vapor and starts being water again, which makes it fall back out of the sky.”

Eve exhaled. “I know how rain works. I meant why is it raining now? It’s the middle of winter; it should be snowing.”

A bolt of lightning cracked just two dozen feet to their left. Eve flinched.

“Beats me.” Wes shrugged. “It’s more dramatic this way?”

“Yeah,” Eve muttered, “because the laws of nature bend over backwards so things can be more dramatic.”

They reached a wrought iron gate barring the way in tandem with the stone wall that wrapped around the hilltop, only for said gate to swing open with a harrowing screech. Who or what opened it was not apparent.

“Looks like they know we’re here,” Alex said. “Normally I’d say to keep your weapons drawn, but I’m worried that would offend our hosts.”

“I’ve spoken with my fair share of hoity-toity types,” Eve yelled back over the downpour. “They won’t like the look of us either way.”

“But if we keep our weapons away, we won’t look like we’re trying to attack them,” the Defender argued.

Eve conceded that point, returning her club to its straps at her back.

The approach to the manor was surprisingly quiet, or at least as quiet as a raging thunderstorm could be. Alex, in her role as the party tank, took the job of raising a fist to knock on the delicately carved double doors. While no match for Eve, her Strength was more than enough for the knock to resound across the entire hill.

Almost immediately, the door creaked open of its own accord.

“Well that’s not creepy at all,” Wes muttered.

“Hello?” Alex called into the empty doorway. “Is anybody there?”

A manic giggling echoed through the entry hall, sending a shiver down Eve’s spine as it somehow reached her ears over the din of the storm. “How… how long did you say it’s been since Beatrice was here?”

Fifty years, Art replied, unease clear in his thoughts.

“A lot can happen in fifty years,” Eve said.

“It looks like a lot did happen,” Wes added.

“Anyway,” Alex said, “we didn’t come here to stand frightened in the doorway. If nobody’s here, we might as well take a look around.”

Wes nodded. “Worst case scenario, I can always just burn the house down.”

Eve scowled. “Let’s not do that while we’re inside.”

Alex sighed. “You two are incorrigible.” Shaking her head, she stepped into the manor.

The others followed.

As the last of their members crossed the threshold into the dusty entry hall, the door slammed shut behind them, the distinct sound of a lock engaging echoed after it.

Eve blinked. “Do… do you think they realize I can kick down that entire wall?”

Alex glared at her. “What did you just tell Wes? We don’t know what walls are load-bearing. Do you want to bring this whole place down on top of us?”

Eve opened her mouth, ready to argue that she could just kick a small hole into the wall, when a flash of blue disrupted her train of thought. She knew what the notification said before she even read it.

You have entered the dungeon: Avendreth Manor! Fight well.

“Of course,” she exhaled. “It’s never a simple delivery quest, is it?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

A Manor of Speech

“SO TO REITERATE,” Wes said, “I’m not allowed to burn this place to the ground?”

Alex looked at Wes, then up at the vaulted ceiling, then back at Wes. “You do realize we’re standing between most of this place and the ground, right?”

Eve scowled. “Does reducing a dungeon to rubble count as clearing it? Would you still get exp?”

Wes raised his eyebrows and pointed at her. “Only one way to find out.”

Alex rubbed her temples. “We’re not burning down the manor.”

“But—”

“If we burn down the manor, we burn down any loot that’s inside,” Alex snapped.

“Not to mention people,” Preston added. “Alvin would be dead if we’d just burned down the temple of Garaxia. This place used to be a house. For all we know, the folks who lived here haven’t been able to leave.”

Or Greothrax! Art chimed in. If Greothrax is here, we can’t burn him to death!

Wes sighed. “Alright, alright. Can I at least burn that creepy laughing?”

“But we don’t even know where it’s coming from,” Eve said. “How are you going to burn—”

Before she could even finish her question, Wes snapped his fingers and a gentle flash of flame filled the room. The maniacal laughter ceased.

Eve blinked. “Did… did you just burn the sound?”

Wes shrugged. “The ability does say I can burn anything.”

Alex stared at him, dumbfounded. “I… I can’t even begin to explain all the ways that doesn’t make any fucking sense. Sound isn’t a thing, it’s—”

“It’s best not to question it,” Wes interrupted. “I’m pretty sure the devouring flame burned the laws of physics a while ago. And the concept of internal consistency.”

Eve just looked at him. “What?”

“What part of ‘don’t question it’ did you not get? It’ll just burn your question, anyway.”

As if to punctuate his point, the gentle glow of the burning laughter disappeared, and the room went silent.

“The laughing stopped,” Preston muttered. “That can’t be good.”

“On your guard!” Alex barked.

Eve drew her club, scanning the open entry hall for any sign of a threat. Her eyes passed over the grand stairway at the room’s center, across the balcony that lined the three interior walls, and over the many closed doors on both the first and second floors. It was all rather grandiose and classy, if a bit cobweb chic. She could imagine all sorts of glamorous events beginning in this very room.

Until a door creaked open.

From the second door on the left on the upper floor emerged three pale figures, two in elegant—if dusty—ballgowns and one in a bespoke black coat. One of the women leaned over the wood rail, sticking her bust out far too much for it not to be intentional, and glared at the adventurers with red eyes. In perhaps the snobbiest voice Eve had never heard, she spoke.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

“Honored guests?” Wes tried.

The man opened his mouth, running his tongue over a pair of brutally sharp fangs. “Dinner.”

Eve got her Appraise off just in time to read the results before the three aristocrats leapt into battle.

Level ?? Lesser Vampire

Perhaps for the best, Alex beat Eve to the obvious taunt. “Higher level than me and still only ‘lesser’?” the Defender yelled. “That’s kinda sad.”

All three vampires vaulted the handrail, flying through the air as if on invisible wings. They darted for Alex, fangs bared and claws sprouting from their hands.

She stopped two of them.

The reach of her spear fended off the man, while one of the women’s claws raked harmlessly against the face of her shield. The second vampiress made it behind the Defender, landing a glancing blow on the back of her exposed neck.

Eve forced the creature back with a swing of her club, giving Preston the opportunity to throw a flash of golden light at Alex’s wound.

The three vampires pulled back, floating midair in front of the adventurers as they spoke.

“The cattle wants to play,” the man said.

“Then let’s play,” replied one of the women.

Eve and Wes, rather rudely, didn’t wait for them to finish their conversation.

As Wes launched a bolt of fire at one of the women, Eve targeted the other and dumped a thousand Mana into a single Mana Burst. The dragon scale pattern she’d previously hidden reappeared on her skin as she fired a beam of annihilation Mana at the vampiress.

Wes’s target burst into flame, her dress and skin alike giving way to the inferno. She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry out. She didn’t fall.

Eve’s attack fared somewhat better, disintegrating the vampire into a cloud of ash that rained into a pile on the floor. She smirked.

The burning vampire flew for Preston, knowing the party healer for what he was. As Alex moved to cover him, Eve called out, “I got it! Keep the other one busy!”

Eve Jetted through the air, colliding mid-flight to tackle the undead creature. The flames singed at her skin, but with her excess of fire resistance they were little more than a nuisance. Ayla only knew what kind of damage they might’ve done to Alex.

Fire resistance, unfortunately, didn’t protect Eve from the vampire's claws.

Dragonhide armor did that.

Twice as they careened towards the far wall did the physical attack rake harmlessly against the tough leather. When a third strike bounced off the chest piece just over her heart, Eve whispered a silent thanks she’d spent the points on the expensive armor.

As manaheart and burning vampire alike struck the wall, a sharp pain exploded in the side of Eve’s neck. A hundred points of Mana drained from her pool at the physical damage to her body, but that was it.

You are immune to ability: Drink Blood!

“Nice try,” Eve laughed. “Got no blood to drink.”

Activating Mana Rush for a sustainable hundred Mana, Eve shoved the vampire away, forcing the creature’s fangs away from her neck. Instead of blood, a tendril of white light wafted from the wound.

Eve flashed an evil grin at the still-on-fire vampiress. “My turn.”

With a moment’s focus, Eve exerted her will outward, grasping for whatever magic this beast had within her. In under a second, the Defiant’s Mana pool was full again.

Somehow still not succumbing to Wes’s flames, the lesser vampire leapt to her feet, flying into the air and away from Eve. She turned to watch the undead float away, counting the seconds remaining on Jet’s cooldown. She gripped the handle of her club. This time, there would be no tackle.

A quick glance to the left showed Alex still locked in combat with the male vampire—who was now also on fire—while Wes kept up a barrage of spells to ward the combatants away from the party’s backline.

Eve flicked open her status screen to check her cooldowns, finding her messages strangely empty for this late into the fight. Something was off.

Just as she jerked her eyes over to where a certain pile of ash should have been, pain exploded in her abdomen. In a precious moment of sheer shock, Eve looked down to see a clawed hand bound in supernatural shadows stuck through a hole in her stomach. She tried to cry out in pain, but her lungs could find no air.

No kill notification, her panicked mind came to the frantic realization. The first vampire had survived.

Eve desperately Jetted forward, depleting yet more of her already dangerously low Mana pool in a bid to escape the vampire’s grasp. The momentum sent her stumbling. She collapsed onto the hardwood floor.

The moment the vampire’s claws were wrenched from Eve’s body, a veritable torrent of golden light streamed through the air. Eve drank it up, the healing magic helping knit closed her wounds even as she absorbed the spell’s Mana.

The revived vampire charged for her, but another of Preston’s spells flashed into being. A golden barrier blocked the way, repelling the creature antithetical to Ayla’s light.

It bought Eve the time she needed to regain her feet and face the monster. “How is it not dead?” she called out.

“They’re vampires!” Alex answered as her spear pierced her current opponent. “It’s wooden stake or bust!”

“You’d think annihilation Mana would be enough!”

“The fire will get ‘em eventually!” Wes added. “It’s taking a while to burn through whatever keeps rejuvenating them, but it’ll get there.”

Just as he said it, Alex slammed the base of her spear into the floor, and an arm-sized root burst from the ground, piercing the male vampire through the chest.

You have defeated Level 61 Lesser Vampire: +609,765 exp!

“That’s the only one I’ve got!” the Defender shouted. “We’re gonna have to let the fire deal with the rest.”

As if in counterargument, the flying vampire shrieked with rage and threw a bolt of shadow at Art and Reginald. It struck the drake in the side, his draconic magic resistance the only thing keeping him alive long enough for Preston’s healing to arrive.

Waiting for the fire to take them carried its own risks.

Eve flicked her eyes to the staircase. “I have a better idea!”

Her Mana pool still in the triple digits, Eve Charged for the stairway and slammed her club into the dust-coated mahogany banister. The top broke off in an explosion of splinters.

Realizing her intent, the vampire on the ground ran for Eve, desperate to land a blow before the manaheart could bring an actually lethal weapon to bear.

Eve was faster.

She lunged forward, snatching the broken-off banister top from the floor in an underhanded grip and whirling around at the charging vampire.

In the end, it was the vampiress’s own momentum that drove the stake through her heart.

You have defeated Level 62 Lesser Vampire: + 628,527 exp!

The flying vampire screeched again, the fury in her voice sending a shockwave across the room that knocked Eve off balance and Wes off his feet entirely.

“How do we stake her?” Alex shouted.

“I don’t have enough Mana for Jet!” Eve answered.

I got it, Art sent, cold determination accompanying the thought.

Eve turned to glance up at the burning vampire just in time to watch her suddenly dart through air, first across the room, and then straight down. She landed chest first on the lower half of the broken banister.

You have defeated Level 61 Lesser Vampire: + 609,765 exp!

As the final vampire fell, Wes extinguished his flames and the party took a collective deep breath, just long enough for Eve to turn to the young Trellac.

“Ayla’s tits, Art, did you just make her…”

Art nodded.

“That’s terrifying,” Wes breathed.

Just as Eve was about to tell Art to never, ever do that again, a notification popped into view.

Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: Raise the Stakes!

+ 4,096,000 exp!

Level Up!

Statistic Growth Upgraded!

+5 Dexterity/Level

Eve tried her darnedest to be happy for the influx of exp from the milestone rather than remarkably annoyed at the pun. “I thought the Questing Stones were making up my milestones as they went along,” she muttered to herself, “not Wes.”

She dismissed the messages, taking note of her still-low Mana pool. “Hey, Preston, I know the notifications are exciting, but do you think I could get some—shit.” Eve scanned the room, looking from companion to companion before she called the others away from their status screens. “Hey, guys? Where’s Preston?”

Wes blinked, the blue light of a status screen vanishing from his eyes. “He’s right…” He trailed off as he glanced to where Preston had been standing but moments before.

Preston was gone.

“Ayla fucking damnit,” he cursed. “Not again.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Gods Below

PRESTON WAS FALLING.

No air rushed past his face, no roof above grew more distant, no floor below threatened inevitable collision, but he was falling. That was the only way he could describe it.

He fell and he fell and he fell, plummeting through nothing and everything for endless seconds. Strangely enough, he felt rather calm about the whole thing. He supposed he should be panicking, trying to escape whatever evil trap or strange corner of hell he’d stumbled into, but even his decidedly unnatural fall felt exactly as things should be. That too, should have induced panic.

It didn’t.

After a few curious seconds of taking in the black void through which he fell, Preston decided there wasn’t much he could do about the matter other than wait for him to land wherever that might be. In the meantime, he had notifications to read.

You have defeated Level 61 Lesser Vampire: + 712k exp!

You have defeated Level 61 Lesser Vampire: + 712k exp!

You have defeated Level 62 Lesser Vampire: + 731k exp!

Epic Quest Milestone Reached: Save Her Life XII!

+2m exp!

Level Up!

Level Up!

Level Up!

Level Up!

Class Upgrade Avail—

The blue screen flickered out.

“Ayla fucking damnit,” Preston cursed, trying and failing to bring the message back up. He screamed into the void, “I was reading that!”

The void didn’t respond.

Until it did.

“You’re late,” a stern yet gently feminine voice echoed through the blackness, its accent foreign to Preston but somehow intimately familiar.

He blinked. “I’m late for wh—”

“Time is your concept,” a second voice, grisly and female, barked. “Me and mine have little use for it.”

Preston shouted in response. “What is going on? Where am I?”

Neither voice replied, either unable to hear him or uninterested in what he had to say.

The uptight—that’s what it was, uptight—voice spoke again. “And yet here you are, just in time to try and snatch one of my followers out from under me.”

“Your follower,” the wild voice spat. “He couldn’t be less one of yours if he tried.”

“You’d be surprised. He has a gentle heart.”

“He cares for his pack,” growled the second voice. “As he should.”

Are they talking about me? Preston wondered. If he thought about it, everything they’d said so far could be applied to him, but the bit about followers threw him for a loop. The only being he could be considered a follower of was…

“Ayla’s tits,” he cursed. He slammed a hand over his mouth. “I mean… shit…” He exhaled, hoping either his suspicions were incorrect or the two voices couldn’t hear him.

“I will admit he is not one I would’ve chosen,” the matronly voice said, “but the Stones delivered him into my care, so within my care he shall stay.”

“I remember the accords,” the grisly voice countered. “We let the Stones determine who worships whom so we don’t have any more holy wars. I was there when they were built, and every factor they should’ve measured, every ounce of his identity and own free will goes contrary to entering your service.”

The stern voice let out a short laugh. “You think the Stones made a mistake.”

“I think the stones were tampered with.”

“Be careful where you level those accusations, dear Raelin. Even talk of a break in the accords could bring ruin upon us all.”

“Don’t you ‘dear Raelin’ me,” the grisly voice snapped. “And I’m not necessarily saying one of us tampered with the Stones, but somebody did.”

Preston exhaled a quiet curse. Raelin, he thought, she said Raelin. If that really was the goddess of beasts upon which he was eavesdropping, that meant the other voice had to be…

“That’s impossible,” Ayla chided. “We would know the moment any change was made.”

“So what’s your theory, then?” Raelin asked. “How do you reckon you wound up with a follower you never should’ve had.”

“There is,” Ayla said, “one scenario where the Stones are allowed the liberty to subvert free will and the natural order of things. It shouldn’t be possible this far in advance, but it’s the only explanation that fits.”

Preston could practically hear the scowl in Raelin’s voice. “You think…”

“It’s self defense. Something is coming that the Questing Stones see as a threat to their continued existence, and they deviated from protocol to prevent it.”

“And you just happened to pick up an extra follower from it.”

“As I said,” Ayla argued, “he’s not one I would’ve chosen. Even you can see that.”

“He should’ve been mine.”

“One of the, what, three humans in your care?” Ayla exhaled. “More likely he should’ve been nobody’s, but the Stones needed him to be someone he wasn’t.”

“And he resents you for that,” Raelin pointed out.

“He does.”

“Then cut him free.”

“So you can snatch him up?” Ayla asked. “You know I can’t do that. The Stones delivered him into my care. Removing him would be exactly the break in the accords you came here to accuse me of.”

“A deal, then,” Raelin said. “He’s earned my blessing more than almost any other member of his spiteful race. I’m going to give it to him.”

“And why should I allow you to corrupt my follower with your savagery?”

“For him,” Raelin spat. “Because you still haven’t gotten it into your self-righteous head that just like you wouldn’t have chosen him, he would never have chosen you. He’s in your care against his will, and he deserves some affordances to compensate for it. Hells know what boons I’d need in exchange for putting up with you at all times.”

“If you’re trying to convince me, petty insults are not the way.”

“I don’t need to convince you,” Raelin said. “He will. I know this is a foreign concept to you, but perhaps you should consider asking what your dear follower actually wants. You owe it to him.”

Ayla sighed, “Very well. I’ll ask him when he arrives. I suppose you’re going to stay for the meeting?”

However Raelin replied, it wasn’t verbal.

“As you will,” Ayla said. “I expect he’ll be arriving shortly. In fact…”

Preston’s fall came to a sudden yet strangely gentle end. Despite having fallen for minutes straight and landing flat on his ass on what appeared to be a solid stone pathway, nothing hurt.

“Welcome, child.” A certain sharpness Preston knew wasn’t quite directed towards him filled Ayla’s voice as she continued, “You’re right on time.”

Preston glanced around to take in his surroundings, finding himself in an immaculately manicured garden. The sun shone through a cloudless sky to strike every leaf, every branch, every flower at the perfect angle to accentuate its beauty. The rustic path on which he sat was absent a single fallen leaf or speck of dirt. The stone radiated comfortable warmth onto his skin wherever he touched it.

Looking up, he found what could only be Ayla sitting at a stone table with prim and perfect posture. She wore a modest white gown that flowed over what little of her pale skin it revealed. Dark brown hair sat flawlessly above her ageless face, unmarred by the ravages of time yet bearing the wisdom of the ages.

The only single thing remotely out of its place in the immaculate garden was the seven-foot-tall panther that sat menacingly to the side, the sun reflecting brilliantly off its ebon fur. Preston hadn’t known what he’d expected the goddess of beasts to look like, but he supposed a panther probably made more sense than a human, given Raelin’s obvious distaste for his kind.

Ayla gestured to the chair opposite her. “Please, sit.”

Preston obeyed, pushing himself to his feet and awkwardly shuffling down the garden path. At first, he stood unsure if he should look the goddesses in the eye or try to show deference by averting his gaze, but by the time he made it to the table and took a seat, he decided he’d cursed on Ayla’s name enough times to actually look at her. Raelin, he figured, would probably take it as a sign of weakness if he didn’t.

“I make a point of bringing each of my followers in for a meeting when they reach the fourth tier,” Ayla explained, “so that I may congratulate them on their progress and advise them on their path forward. Normally a choir of seraphim serenade new arrivals with divine melodies on the trip, but it seems somebody chased them off. I do apologize if your journey here was somewhat… disconcerting.”

“I… um… I wouldn’t personally choose falling through an empty black void for twenty minutes, but it wasn’t terrible.” Preston wasn’t sure if he should fess up to overhearing their conversation in the silence of the void, but figured if they’d known he had, they clearly didn’t care.

“Good,” Ayla chimed. “Now, I’m sure you’re as aware as I am that you’re not exactly my typical supplicant.”

“Yeah, I-uh… I picked up on that from the whole ‘male priestess’ thing.”

Ayla nodded. “Your choice of class, along with the way you’ve been using it beyond simply nursing your charges back to health, has similarly marked you as apart from others within my care.” She gestured to Raelin. “My associate believes you’ve trodden upon her domain.”

Preston blinked, jerking his head to address the massive panther. “I-I’m sorry. I never intended to—”

“No apologies,” Raelin spat. “You care for your pack and your pack cares for you. Such is the natural order of things. It is admirable. I’m not here because you have trespassed into my territory. I’m here because by laying claim to you, she has.”

Preston had absolutely no idea how to respond to that without letting on that he’d overheard them earlier, so he simply adopted as shocked an expression as he could manage and looked back and forth between goddess of beasts and the goddess of mercy with jerking speed.

Ayla sighed. “Normally, this is where you and I would have a conversation about the differing ways you can continue to spread my mercy in the mortal realm. Unfortunately, this situation is anything but normal.” She gestured to a teapot and pair of cups that sat between them. “Please, have a drink.”

Preston poured a cup and raised it to his lips, swallowing the hot tea with an unbidden sigh of joy. It tasted vaguely similar to some of the sacramental teas he’d had back at the cathedral, which he just now realized were poor attempts at imitating the brew before him. He took another sip.

“I’d like to give you my blessing,” Raelin put it simply. “In conjunction with hers.”

Ayla let out a beleaguered breath. “It would be an unprecedented arrangement, but I believe I could devise a path for you that would allow for it. Only one, though. You’d lose out on some level of control over your progression. Contrarily, if you elect to stay entirely within my care, I have an array of options that may be of some interest to you. Abnormal or otherwise, you will always be welcome among my flock.”

Preston tried not to take too much offense at the fact the goddess of mercy had just called him ‘abnormal,’ but the wording did irk him. He sat back in his chair. Truth be told, he’d never been particularly fond of Ayla. She was judgmental, self-important, and neither she nor her followers had any real sense of boundaries.

Raelin, he imagined, had her own set of issues. Preston didn’t know much about the beast goddess, other than that she had a deep abiding hatred for humans. Even if she’d decided he was okay, that still included his entire family and most of his friends. He sighed.

“And what if I choose to follow neither of you?”

“That would be irregular,” Ayla said, “but not unheard of. I would never force an unwilling soul into my care—”

Raelin snorted.

“—so if you choose to forego my blessing, that is your right. I’ll warn you that without my or Raelin’s blessings, you’ll find your class options substantially limited.”

“How limited?” Preston asked. “What’s the rarest I could get?”

“Uncommon,” Ayla put it plainly.

Preston exhaled sharply. “That doesn’t sound like much of a choice, then.”

A thin smile spread across Ayla’s face. “It is what makes us different that makes us strong. Like it or not, this is what makes you different.”

“Alright,” Preston said. “I’ll take both blessings.”

Class Upgrade Available: Twice-Blessed Paragon

Unique Tier 4 Class

Requirements: Earn and accept the blessings of two disparate divine beings.

Twelve thousand years ago, the gods devised the Questing Stones to determine which mortal should enter whose service. For the first time in history, that system has failed. You walk the line between two primordial concepts, and the gods themselves have made an exception on your behalf. Prove yourself worthy of their efforts. The heavens themselves have their eyes on you.

+40 Spirit

+30 Intelligence

+8 Constitution

+8 Strength

+7 Dexterity

+7 Endurance

+35 Spirit/Level

+25 Intelligence/Level

+5 Constitution/Level

+5 Strength/Level

+5 Dexterity/Level

+5 Endurance/Level

“Very well.” Ayla nodded. “Go with my blessing. Follow the path of mercy. Bring kindness to those in need, healing to those in pain, and redemption to those who have gone astray. Protect the helpless.”

“Go with my blessing,” Raelin echoed. “Follow your instincts. Hunt when you must feed, sleep when you must rest, and mate when you must carry on your legacy. Protect what is yours.”

Preston didn’t reply to the goddesses’ benediction. He didn’t look them in the eye and thank them for their blessings any more than curse them out for their meddling. He simply opened the notification, reread the class description, and hit ‘accept.’

* * *

Preston Mooreling

Human

Level 50 Twice-Blessed Paragon

Exp: 28,914/11,114,354

Health: 430/430

Stamina: 420/420

Mana: 6300/6300

Constitution: 43

Endurance: 42

Intelligence: 388

Dexterity: 96

Strength: 16

Spirit: 630

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Manorisms

WES ERUPTED IN flame, his entire body engulfed in the inferno in under a second. “That’s it,” he said, “I’m burning this place down.”

“No you’re not,” Alex said simply.

Eve agreed. “That sounds like a great way to accidentally set Preston on fire.”

“I have to do something,” Wes snarled. “One way or another, whoever took him is ending up on fire.”

I thought Alvin took him last time. Alvin’s nice, Art sent.

“I don’t see any friendly pastry chefs anywhere,” Wes spat. “And Preston still would’ve died back at the temple if we hadn’t made it in time to interrupt their ritual. Alvin being nice had nothing to do with it.”

Eve sighed, placing a comforting hand on Wes’s still-flaming arm. Her fire resistance blocked most of the damage. “Wes, it’ll be okay. Preston will be okay. He survived getting captured last time, he’ll survive this time. We’ve just gotta find him.”

Alex turned to Art. “Can you sense him?”

No, the trellac sent. It’s weird. Usually I can feel him for miles, especially with this circlet. It’s like he’s not even in Leshk anymore.

Eve scowled. “Probably some monster or enchantment is blocking communications.”

Alex nodded. “Or just a weird quirk of this dungeon.”

“A manorism, if you will,” Eve joked, keeping an eye towards Wes in the hopes her terrible pun would elicit some reaction from him.

It didn’t.

“We should split up,” Wes said. “There’s too many doors to cover. We’ll find Preston sooner if we can clear several at once.”

“No splitting up,” Alex snapped. “If this is the kind of dungeon to separate lone members and block communications, splitting up is exactly what it wants. We’re no use to Preston dead. We search together, quickly, efficiently, and safely.”

Shaking her head to clear it from the overwhelming sense of deja vu, Eve picked a door at random and walked towards it. “One door’s as good as any other, right?”

Alex stepped in front of her. “Has it really been that long since our last dungeon together?” She sighed. “Tank goes first.”

Eve stepped back, waiting patiently with the others while Alex methodically checked the dusty wooden door for traps. Wes, while no longer visibly on fire, still simmered with rage and anxiety.

“It’ll be okay, Wes,” Eve tried to calm him. “Preston will be okay. Hells, knowing him he’s probably chatting with a ghost that always wanted to open a hat store.”

“You don’t know that,” the Disciple said. “And I’m not pinning my hopes on it.”

“I know,” Eve exhaled. “I know. We’ll find him.”

Her search satisfied, Alex finally turned the knob and pulled the door open. It swung with the most elongated, overemphasized creak Eve had ever heard.

“You’d think those vampires would have invested in some hinge grease,” Eve said. “I can’t imagine trying to live here with doors this squeaky.”

“Eve,” Alex hissed. “Serious time, okay?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.”

Alex led the way into a luxurious dining room, lit by an ornate chandelier and the variety of candelabras which lined the table. Each candle burned with a gentle yellow flame.

The dining table dominated the room, stretching across the entire space. Atop its white tablecloth was a veritable feast of pork and beef and potatoes and vegetables. Wafts of steam drifted off the serving plates.

Thirteen chairs surrounded the feast, eight of which were occupied by desiccated corpses dressed in formalwear.

As the wondrous smell of the still-hot meal hit Eve’s nose, she dug through her pack to withdraw a scone she’d packed for such an occasion. Alex gave her a sour look.

“What?” Eve asked through a mouthful of pastry. “My Mana’s low.”

Alex sighed.

“So what are the odds those bodies come alive and attack us?” Wes asked.

“Higher, now that you’ve said that,” Eve answered.

“It’ll depend on what we do,” Alex said. “I don’t think this is a combat room.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “Room full of dead bodies isn’t for fighting?”

Alex shook her head and pointed at the table. “Look, there’re five open seats, and there’re five of us. I think it’s a puzzle.”

“Oh, good,” Wes said, setting his fist alight. “I’m good at puzzles.”

Eve placed a hand on his elbow and pushed his arm down. “Let’s try to actually solve it first before we set it on fire.” She turned back to Alex. “Is the number of open seats really enough to confirm it’s a puzzle?”

The Defender shrugged. “It’s classic puzzle design.”

Eve scowled. “What would’ve happened if there were six of us? Would one of the corpses have gotten up to make room?”

Alex frowned. “That doesn’t sound likel—”

Eve gasped. “What if they kidnapped Preston to make sure we had exactly five members for this chair puzzle?”

Alex rubbed the bridge of her nose. “That’s probably pushing it.”

“So what’s the puzzle, then?” Wes asked. “Sit in chairs?” He gestured to the well-dressed corpses. “That didn’t turn out so well for them.”

Alex shook her head. “It can’t be a coincidence there’s exactly enough open chairs for us. My guess would be it takes everyone sitting down to start the puzzle.”

Eve furrowed her brow. “That sounds dangerous. Wes is right, sitting in those chairs didn’t turn out so well for eight of the people here.”

“Those bodies were placed there,” the Defender argued. “Eight people didn’t show up for a fancy dinner in the dungeon and then die while sitting completely upright. They were put there for a reason, and there’s that many of them for a reason.”

Eve exhaled. “Okay, okay. How about we start with the sensible thing?”

Desiccated Corpse

Rarity: Common

“Appraise says they’re just corpses.”

Alex nodded. “Okay. I’m going to sit first, so if it is a trap it triggers on me. Stand back.”

The adventurers watched in tense silence as Alex approached the empty chair. Eve gripped her club with white knuckles, ready to leap into action at the first sign of a threat, the sound of Wes’s flames crackling in her ear.

Alex took a breath, activated a defensive skill proactively, and sat down.

Nothing happened.

“The chairs are safe.” Alex sneezed. “Dusty, but safe.”

Taking her cue, Eve pulled back a chair, awkwardly stepped around the corpses on either side, and took a seat of her own. The others followed suit. Reginald, lacking the anatomy for proper use of a chair, nudged his to the side to stand at the table, conveniently right next to Art.

“Not trapped, sure,” Eve said, “but I don’t know about safe.” She wriggled around, trying to find a way to get comfortable in the stiff—if beautifully carved—wooden chair. “With enough time, this thing could wreak all sorts of havoc on your back.”

Wes exhaled, still not remotely in a joking mood. “So we’ve sat. Nothing happened. What’s the puzzle?”

Alex shrugged. “I don’t know. Look around. Tell me what you notice.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “Besides the eight dead people?”

They all have food! Art pointed out. Our plates are empty.

“Maybe we need to serve ourselves?” Eve offered.

“Sure,” Wes said, “let’s do exactly what the dead people did.”

“No.” Alex scowled, her eyes scanning the different place settings. “Let’s do exactly what the dead people didn’t.” She pointed from plate to plate. “He has steak and potatoes, he has the steak, some pork, and the carrots, she has pork and yams. They each only have a few things…”

“But there’s twenty different dishes out here,” Eve finished the thought. “So we just need to find the ones none of the corpses ate.”

The whole process felt less like creative problem-solving and more like a tedious grind as one by one the party picked a dish and went around the table checking plates to see if it was present. When they finally arrived on the quinoa salad, they checked and rechecked to confirm there wasn’t a single grain in front of any of the corpses.

“Are we sure this is the solution?” Wes asked. “Maybe it’s just possible nobody wanted to eat quinoa.”

“Or that the five people who did want to eat quinoa lived to tell the tale,” Alex countered.

“There’s only one way to find out.” Being the closest to the bowl of quinoa, Eve served herself first before standing to circle the table and deliver the grainy salad to her friends. Etiquette, of course, dictated she should simply hand the bowl down the table, but eight of their dining companions rather rudely refused to pass it along. Once everybody had a hefty spoonful of quinoa in front of them, Eve returned to her seat.

“So,” the Defiant said, “Alex first, or everyone at once?”

Alex sighed. “Knowing dungeon puzzles, it probably wants us to all eat at once. Commit to our solution.”

Eve nodded, scooping up a bite with her fork. “Alright, then. On three?” She waited for the others to fill their own forks and nod in confirmation before she began the countdown. “Well, here goes nothing. One, two, three!”

Eve hardly had a moment to enjoy the refreshing acidity and savory layers of flavor to the surpassingly delicious—if texturally unpleasant—quinoa before the room burst into action.

Two seats to her left, the floor opened out from under Wes, dropping the fire mage down a dark chute.

Across the table, the floor beneath Art and Reginald shot up on a giant spring, launching the two into the air and through a hole in the ceiling that promptly slammed shut after them.

Alex fared little better, as an iron band suddenly clamped around her stomach to lock her in her chair, which proceeded to slide uncontrollably into the back wall, which opened up to allow her through before also closing behind her.

Eve’s own chair similarly tried to lock her up and drag her through a different wall, but the Defiant had her own tricks. As the iron bar slammed shut around the front of the chair, Eve dissociated her lower body and Jetted up, allowing her pants and leg armor to emptily flap past the metal restraint.

She landed hard on her side, failing to rematerialize her legs in time to hit the floor steadily. With a groan, Eve stood and surveyed the room.

She was alone.

No signs remained of her missing party members, their chairs absent and whatever passages that had opened up for them resolutely slammed shut. Eve couldn’t even begin to figure out how to follow any of them, let alone which one to go after. She cursed.

“Welp,” she said aloud, chagrin clear on her face, “so much for not splitting up.”

* * *

Preston’s ascent back up through the empty black void was significantly less disturbing, though also significantly lacking in interesting conversations to overhear. As quiet as it was, he decided he preferred the emptiness to whatever hymns Ayla’s choir of seraphim would’ve normally barraged him with. The last thing he needed right now was a bunch of angels telling him how great Ayla was.

Instead, he took the minutes of silence to read through the details of his new class and the ability upgrades that had come with it. As annoyed as he was to not only still be stuck with Ayla, but to have picked up yet another patron goddess, he had to admit being a Twice-Blessed Paragon had its perks. He couldn’t wait to try out some of his new skills.

Twenty minutes later, he emerged into the manor’s entry hall with a flash of divine light and a chorus of a thousand bestial roars, heralding him in all the glory of his two deities. “Ayla’s tits, guys, you’re never gonna believe who I just…”

He trailed off as he realized he stood alone, accompanied only by the burnt bodies of the three vampires and the creepy laughter from somewhere else in the manor. He looked frantically from door to door, trying to discern down which path his companions had ventured. He found no clue.

“Guys?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Harrowing Hijinks in the Haunted House

EVE PACED BACK and forth across the dining room, mind racing as she tried to decide her next step. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out how to reopen any of the secret passages her companions had disappeared down, but a few of them had small gaps around the openings that she could probably fit through as a cloud of Mana.

That had the downside of forcing her to leave her pack, clothes, and armor behind, something she wasn’t exactly excited to do in the middle of a dungeon, especially one as tricky as this. If she did choose to chase after a teammate, she’d have to decide which one.

She could dismiss Alex outright; the Defender could take care of herself. Wes, similarly, had the firepower to handle most anything he came across, but leaving the Disciple of the Devouring Flame to set things on fire unsupervised sounded like a recipe for widespread fiery death.

Art and Reginald had the advantage of being together, while suffering from the disadvantage of being children, underleveled and unaccompanied in a dangerous dungeon. Meanwhile Preston was still out there somewhere, likely in the clutches of some nefarious force trying to commit unspeakable evil.

Eve sighed.

She couldn’t save everyone, at least not all at once.

As she circled the dining table for the twelfth time, Eve’s eyes landed on the only actual door that led deeper into the manor rather than back the way she’d come—an unassuming servant’s door that doubtless led to the kitchen or some staging room for the elegant meals of her current location.

Wes’s words echoed through her head. We’ll find Preston sooner if we split up.

Whether or not splitting up was remotely advisable, the party was split up. The more she thought about it, the more Eve realized that Preston, more so than any of her other companions, likely needed the most help. As the party healer, he was the only one patently unable to defend himself. Wes, Art, and Reginald were all at least somewhat capable of keeping themselves safe.

“Preston it is, then,” Eve muttered. “And the best way to find Preston is to clear as many rooms as I can as quickly as I can.” She turned to the servant’s door. “I guess it’s time to see how big this place really is.”

Mind made up, she crossed the dining room for a final time, sparing a final glance for the five missing chairs and feast upon the table before she swung the servant’s door open. Sure enough, it led to a dim and narrow passage unadorned with the same opulent trappings of the rest of the manor.

With a breath, Eve stepped through, reminding herself that Preston needed her help more than anyone, and that further exploring the manor was the best way to give him that help. Her choice had nothing whatsoever to do with a desire not to leave her sweet new armor behind. Absolutely none. Nope. Finding Preston was the most important task. The others would’ve agreed.

So off she went, leaving her last traces of Wes, Art, Reginald, and Alex behind to search for their missing healer and delve deeper into Avendreth Manor. She could only wonder what horrors she might find.

* * *

A chill ran down Preston’s back as the truth of his situation struck home. He was a healer, alone and defenseless in a high-level dungeon, a beast master without his beasts. His first instinct was to reach out to Art and Reginald through his bond with them. As he shut his eyes and directed his focus, he could feel they were there, but some sort of haze cordoned them off.

“Great,” he muttered, “gods-damned dungeon doesn’t let you talk to people.” He considered, briefly, simply shouting. He hadn’t been in Ayla’s realm for that long. How far could his friends have wandered?

Preston found two problems with that plan. The first was that it functioned under the assumption that time flowed the same way in the divine realms as it did in the mortal plane, a theological debate which he had absolutely no intention of considering at the moment. The second, more practical, concern was that shouting would tell the whole dungeon there was a helpless healer separated from his party.

Preston jumped as a bloodcurdling shriek rang out from somewhere else in the manor, his heart racing with fear and adrenaline for several long seconds after the entry hall fell silent once more. “On second thought, maybe I should just…” he turned around and approached the front door.

It was locked.

“Of course. The literal one party-member that can’t break through a door.” He sighed.

As more and more decidedly creepy noises echoed through the dusty air, Preston decided he rather didn’t like being separated from the party. Hells, when he’d been captured back at the temple of Garaxia he’d at least had Reginald with him, even if the drake was only a hatchling at the time.

He spent a few minutes pondering if he’d be better served staying put or going looking for the others. With the vampires dead, the entry hall was probably safer than any random room in the dungeon, but his companions were similarly unlikely to retread old ground, especially if they thought he’d been captured.

At the end, it wasn’t logic or calculated thought that made Preston’s decision, but instinct. specifically, Primal Instinct, one of his new abilities courtesy of Raelin.

One by one he gazed at the various doors that lined both levels of the entry hall, trying to discern how he felt about each and every one. Most of them set the hair on the back of his neck on end and his heart pumping, clear signs of imminent danger. Preston dismissed those outright.

A few sparked vague senses of emptiness, and two even left Preston with the vague impression of having food, but one door in particular stood out not for carrying a vibe of danger or safety, but of friendliness.

Welp, Preston thought, that’s gotta be my best bet.

Doing his best to mimic the same unwarranted confidence in which Eve lived her life, the Paragon peeled himself away from the front wall and stepped across the open entry hall towards the friendly door. With a gulp, he pulled it open.

He stepped into the warm light of gas lamps, each casting their flickering glow on rows and rows of cramped shelves. Upon them all, neatly labeled and organized by size and style, were hats.

Closing the door behind him, Preston slowly and fearfully walked down one of the aisles, his eyes lingering on the stacks of top hats that obscured his view of the rest of the room. At every noise, every creak of the floorboards or cool draft, he jerked his head towards the source, ready for some horrible monster to pounce.

None did.

Adrenaline rising and heart beating ever-faster, Preston walked past the end of the aisle towards the wooden counter at the back. Constantly he checked his surroundings, looking for any sign of danger or life or the source of the friendly feeling the door had given him. He found nothing. Out of other options, he looked down at the silver bell that sat atop the counter, accompanied by a piece of paper folded to sit upright.

Ring for assistance.

Preston swallowed. He could certainly use some assistance, but ringing random bells in dungeons just because a sign told him to went against every rule of adventuring he could think of. Still, his Primal Instinct didn’t warn him of any danger, and almost seemed to welcome the presence of the bell.

He held his breath. Hand shaking with trepidation, Preston reached out and carefully and anxiously moved to ring the bell. The moment seemed to pass agonizingly slowly as his hand descended through the air towards the ringer. He was just beginning to have second thoughts about ringing the thing when—

“Boo!”

Preston jumped, letting out a noise somewhere between a scream and a squeak as he scrambled forward away from the source of the sudden noise. His belly slammed into the counter, sending him careening forward as he rolled over it and landed in a heap on the carpeted floor behind. The sound of mischievous laughter greeted him.

“The look on your face!” an unfamiliar voice exclaimed through fits of giggling. “Oh, that was a good one. Haven’t heard a sound like that in ages.”

Confusion began to overtake fear in Preston’s mind as he took in the reaction to his fall. Without getting off the floor, he addressed the speaker. “H… hello?”

“Oh, you can come out from down there,” the voice said. “I’ve had my fun.”

Steeling his nerves, Preston pushed himself to his feet, turning to look at his present company.

It was a ghost.

More specifically, it took the figure of a sixty-year-old balding man in a well-tailored outfit that might’ve been stylish a century ago, all the while floating an inch off the ground, which Preston could clearly see through his body. “Your fun?”

“Well this place would hardly be haunted if I didn’t give my guests a fright here and there, now would it?”

Preston scowled. “Haunted?”

The man smiled. “But of course.” He gestured behind Preston, prompting the Paragon to turn around and read the sign hanging above the counter. The ghost spoke as he did. “Welcome to Harold’s Haunted Haberdashery, how can I be of service today?”

Preston turned back around and blinked at the illusory visage. “I take it you’re Harold, then?”

“Indeed,” the ghost replied.

“And um… how did you end up running a haunted haberdashery?”

“Oh, well that’s quite the tale.” Harold leaned forward as if to rest his elbow on the counter, but said appendage ended up hovering a few inches above it. “In life, I always wanted to run a hat shop, but I could never get together the funds or the time to make it happen. After I died, I had nothing but time. I found this old place with enough phantasmal energy to allow me to manifest and move things around, and the rest is history.”

“Okay, I have so many questions,” Preston said. “If you didn’t have money when you were alive, how did you afford this place? How does phantasmal energy work? What is phantasmal energy? Why hats? Also, can I stick around here for a while? I’ve lost track of my friends, and this seems like a safe place to wait for them.”

“Phantasmal energy is… how can I put this?” Harold paused in thought. “I suppose it’s rather like Mana, except not, really, at all. It’s a natural phenomenon that exists in the space between the mortal plane and the realms of the dead, and in some places it leaks. Because it’s not quite of the mortal realm, people like me whose souls got stuck here can manipulate it, and because it’s also not quite of the divine realms, it can, in turn, interact with physical matter.”

“So it’s a hand-wavy mystical energy that lets you do ghost things?”

“Basically!” Harold chimed. “There are a few powerful mages who can manipulate the stuff to interesting effect, but that’s beyond my skillset. I mostly use it to make myself visible and move hats around. Now as for staying a while, but of course! I’m never one to reject pleasant company. I get frightfully few clients around here, and those I do tend not to be particularly skilled conversationalists. Why don’t you settle in and tell me all about how you came to find my humble shop?”

“Oh, yeah,” Preston said, lifting the flap to step out from behind the counter. “Is there a good place to sit?”

“There are a few chairs in the back,” Harold said, “or alternatively, I can think of a better thing to do while we converse.”

Preston lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Harold grinned. “How would you like to try on some hats?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Stage Fright

REGINALD LANDED GRACEFULLY as the hole in the floor slammed shut beneath them, putting an end to their spring-powered launch-through-the-ceiling.

Art didn’t.

Are you okay? The drake asked as the trellac pushed himself to his feet.

I think so, Art replied, rubbing his sore tailbone with the back of a taloned hand. Where are we?

Upstairs, Reginald sent.

No duh, Reg, Art thought to him. I meant what room is this?

Reginald tilted his scaled head back and forth, his draconic eyes more than equipped to pierce the darkness of the unlit space. It looks like some sort of music room.

Art matched his gaze, squinting to make up for his inferior darkvision. Sure enough, he could make out the shapes of lutes and pipes and symphonias and even a harpsichord spread about the room, each either coated in a layer of dust and cobwebs or draped in a white sheet, granting the space an even ghastlier vibe. Why do they need a whole room just for music? Can’t they play music anywhere?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my many years, it’s that humans like to categorize things in silly ways, Reginald answered.

Art stomped his foot. Stop acting like you’re so wise. I’m older than you!

But I’m more grown than you.

One of the wonders of telepathic communication, at least as far as Art was concerned, was that he could stick out his tongue while giving the appropriate retort. Stupid drakes and their stupid fast aging.

Okay, Reginald sent as he swiveled his head back and forth to orient himself within the room. If the dining room was right next to the entry hall, and we’re above the dining room, that means… His eyes fixed on the door to their left, one of three leading out of the music room. The entry hall is through there.

Do we even want to go back there? Art asked. We’re supposed to be looking for Preston, and we’ve already been there. Wouldn’t it be better to keep moving forward?

But what if one of the others went back there? Meeting back at the entry hall makes sense for a split party.

Art scowled. I’m pretty sure the others will have gone looking for Preston too, but I guess we can check.

Exchanging a nod, the two turned and plodded across the music room to return to the entry hall. Art reached a hand up to turn the dusty knob.

It was locked.

Well so much for finding the others, Reginald said, turning back to face the rest of the music room just in time to catch a glimpse of motion. He bared his teeth and let out a low growl.

Art perked up. What is it?

There’s someone here, Reginald sent, relaying the image of a flash of pale fabric disappearing behind the harpsichord.

Art shut his eyes and sent his focus outward, searching the room—somehow the extent of his range—for any lingering consciousnesses or leaking emotions. Surprisingly, one in particular stood out.

Quiet, Reg! Art smacked Reginald’s hindquarter with the back of his hand. You’re scaring her!

Reginald continued his growling. Then maybe she shouldn’t sneak up on people.

She’s not sneaking up; she’s frightened! Art sighed, broadcasting his thoughts for all in the room to hear. Are you okay out there? What’s wrong?

A quiet gasp sounded out from across the room. Only Reginald’s sharp ears were able to pick up the words that followed.

“They didn’t tell me adventurers were psychic!”

This one is! Art proclaimed proudly. But that’s because I’m a trellac. Preston wouldn’t even let me join the adventurer’s guild, so I guess I’m technically not even an adventurer.

“Y… you’re not?” The voice breathed a teary sigh. “Oh, that’s such a relief. I was so scared I’d bungled this whole thing.”

What whole thing? Reginald thought at Art. Ask her ‘what whole thing?’

I’m gonna! Art snapped back before replying to the strange woman. What whole thing?

“I… I just…” The woman sniffled. “I’m new here. He told me my job was to wait here and scare off any adventurers who wandered in, but I was just so nervous I would mess it up that when you got here I ran and hid and now it’s too late to frighten you away because you’ve heard me crying and who runs away from a cowardly banshee anyway?”

Just because you’re a little nervous doesn’t mean you’re a coward, Art sent.

Who’s ‘he’? Reginald thought. Ask her who ‘he’ is.

Hold on! Art replied. He sent his thoughts back to the banshee. And you can still scare people away when you’re frightened. It’s actually easier sometimes. After my mama died, I was the most scared I’ve ever been, but that’s what made me so scary to everyone else.

“But you’re a great big powerful psychic monster. I’m just a noisy ghost.”

Reginald snorted.

I am pretty great, Art allowed his pride to get the better of him for a moment. But I’m just a kid. Come on out and you can see.

“O… okay.” A ghastly visage arose from behind the harpsichord, her pale hair a frazzled mess, her skin so pallid Art could see right through it, and the tatters of her white dress flowing surreally through the air like so many tendrils ready to grasp and choke the life out of a helpless victim.

Wow! Art sent. You look terrifying!

The banshee sniffled. “You really think so?”

Reginald nodded his head.

She smiled through her tears. “Aren’t you the sweetest things. That might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

That’s kinda sad, Reginald sent privately to Art.

Art ignored him. So how do you normally scare people off?

“Well, I’m a banshee, so I suppose I’m supposed to scream at them. Like I said, I’m new to this whole dungeon thing. I used to just float listlessly through the woods where I could avoid any passing adventurers, but the pay here was too good to pass up.” She paused for just long enough to get choked up. “Assuming I don’t get fired for messing this up.”

Art tried to send her calming emotions without explicitly manipulating her feelings, a line he’d learned to skirt months ago while traveling with the adventurers. I think once an actual adventurer shows up, you’re gonna do great.

“T… thank you.”

I’m Art. What’s your name?

“Rita. The world’s most pathetic banshee.”

You’re not pathetic! Art insisted. I think you can be very frightening. Maybe you just need practice.

Reginald gave him the side eye. Is this a good idea?

I was just like her once, Art sent back with a sense of iron resolution. Somebody helped me then, so I’m going to help her now.

Reginald sighed, but didn’t respond.

Art returned his attention to Rita. Do you want to practice on us?

“D-do you promise not to make fun of me?”

Yep! Art chimed, well aware that Reginald would make no such promise. At least Rita had no way of hearing any snide comments the drake made.

“Um… alright, I’ll give it a try. Let me just…” As she trailed off, Rita levitated higher into the air, backing away a bit from the two youths. “I wouldn’t want to spit on you on accident.”

Thanks!

With a nod, the banshee opened her mouth, her entire face distorting unnaturally to allow her jaw to open far wider than any human’s. Rows of sharp teeth materialized where none had been before, adding to overall terror of her visage.

She screamed.

The bloodcurdling shriek echoed across the music room, piercing Art’s very soul and sending waves of supernatural terror with every reverberation.

Art recognized the psychic attack for what it was, carefully picking apart the emotions of fear and helplessness imbued within the scream. It was as powerful a strike as he’d ever felt.

But Rita was no trellac.

The scream went on for far longer than any living being could ever sustain, unlimited by the need for air. When she finally stopped, Art flashed a wide grin and gave her the best approximation for a thumbs up his talons could manage.

That was awesome!

“Really?”

Totally! Any adventurer who comes through here is gonna fall over trying to run away.

Rita’s face returned to a more human shape in time for her to smile back. “Thank you so much! I… think I really needed to hear that.”

Okay, we heard her scream. Reginald insisted, Now ask about this man she works for.

Art sighed. So, um… you mentioned someone’s paying you to scare off adventurers. Who is he?

“Oh, the Phantasm Crafter? He’s nice, if a bit intimidating. He runs this whole place, actually, something about naturally high phantasmal energy. I don’t know much about that, but he’s really generous with his primal fear.”

Art scowled. What’s primal fear?

“Oh just the ethereal manifestation of the deepest fears in the hearts of mortals. There are a few entities that feed off it, banshees included.”

Hmmm, Art purposefully sent the ‘thinking sound’ he’d picked up from Wes. This Phantasm Crafter seems interesting. What’s his name? Do you think we could meet him?

“He never told me his name,” Rita said. “Most of the residents here just know him as the Phantasm Crafter. Or ‘master’ for those in his direct control. As for meeting him… I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Not after you’ve seen me like…”

What if I promise to tell him how terrifying you are?

Rita leaned in. “Would you do that? Really? Gods below that would be amazing! I could get a special commendation!”

Art raised an eyebrow. Is that a yes?

Rita smiled. “He lives on the third floor in the east wing.” She pointed at one of the doors behind her. “Go through there, take a left, follow the hall until you get to the stairs, then turn right when you get to the top. I’ll let the others know you’re friendly and they’ll leave you alone.”

Thanks! Art chimed, already walking alongside Reginald towards the indicated door. It swung open of its own accord. It was nice meeting you! Good luck scaring adventurers. You’re gonna do great!

“You’re absolutely precious,” Rita replied. “And thank you! Good luck with the Phantasm Crafter.”

The door shut behind them as Art and Reginald stepped into the gloomy hallway, leaving them alone.

She was nice, Art sent. I think she’ll get the hang of this scaring thing pretty quick.

She’s no dragon, Reginald snorted, but I suppose her roar will suffice for driving off the weakhearted.

Please! You were terrified! I could feel the fear coming off you.

Nuh-uh, Reginald denied. That must’ve been her fear magic bouncing off me.

I’ve never seen your tail tucked so far between your legs! Art insisted.

It was cold in there!

Really? Art asked. Cold? That’s what you’re going with? You’re a drake.

Exactly! Drakes aren’t scared of a bit of yelling. Rita’s no match for my own mighty roar.

Those are strong words for someone who was so scared of her, Art sent.

That’s because I wasn’t scared.

Art laughed. Drakes are resistant to psychic attacks, not immune. You were scared.

Was not.

Were too.

Nuh-uh, Reginald insisted.

The two continued their lighthearted childish bickering as they progressed down the upstairs hallway. A few times as they walked did a lull in the conversation allow Art’s thoughts to wander towards his companions. He wondered what they were all up to and what kind of adventures they were having without him. He hoped they all got to meet somebody as nice as Rita.

Mostly he worried about Preston, who still felt oddly distant to his psychic senses. Wherever he’d gone, Art prayed the healer would be okay.

His musings came to an end as he and Reginald reached the base of the aforementioned stairway. At least he had a plan. To his thinking, the best way to reunite the party and put an end to all this chaos was a polite conversation with the man in charge. Even without telepathic manipulation, he’d had great success in the past with asking nicely while looking up with wide eyes. Hopefully that’d work here too.

With a determined look on his youthful face and his best friend at his side, Art mounted the stairs and began his climb to meet the man behind the mansion, the mysterious Phantasm Crafter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Riddles? Seriously?

WES PLUMMETED THROUGH the hole in the floor for a few terrifying seconds before his back hit the metal wall of the chute. From there, he slid.

It wasn’t smooth going. Twice as he fell did the hem of his robe catch upon some snag or other in the tin paneling, hiking it up and bringing his slide to a lurching stop. The red hexweave refused to tear, more than strong enough to withstand his not insignificant weight.

By the time the chute deposited him into the cellar, his robes had bunched up around his chest, leaving only his undergarments to protect him from the rough stone floor until friction and the odd tumble ate away his speed. He groaned.

“Ayla’s crooked—” Wes caught himself, silencing his impulse to curse as he realized the inherent risk in making unnecessary noise in the middle of a dungeon. He hadn’t a clue into what manner of trap he’d fallen, only that he’d fallen into it alone.

Should have just burned the puzzle to begin with, he thought as he pushed himself to his feet, allowing his robe to fall back to its proper place. Out of instinct he almost asked Preston to heal his scraped-up behind, before remembering the very source of his urgency. At least we’re split up now. Should give us a better chance of finding him in time. Assuming it isn’t already too late.

Wes forced the dark thoughts from his head, distracting himself by taking in the room around him. He dropped a Mana per second into Forged in Flame to set his left hand alight, casting the comfortable orange glow across the cellar.

It was more of a wide hallway than a fully fledged room. A row of shelved casks lined the left wall, collecting dust as whatever wine or ale within them aged either to new pinnacles of deliciousness or to vinegar. To the right, a rack of dusty bottles sat untouched for gods knew how long. Wes didn’t bother to pull one out and investigate its contents. He had work to do.

For lack of another option, the Disciple of the Devouring Flame stormed through the dark cellar, caring little for the wondrously rustic—if musty—smell of the place, nor stopping to appreciate the delicate care with which each spider web had been strategically placed to further the ambience of the room without impeding access to the shelves. As far as he was concerned, whoever had designed this dungeon was a veritable ass who deserved all manner of violent retribution.

Heh, he laughed to himself. All manor of violent retribution.

Wes immediately regretted even thinking the pun at a time like this, especially when, as if in response to his silent joke, a high-pitched cackling reverberated through the room, bouncing back and forth across the wide stone hallway so many times the noise seemed to come from everywhere at once. Oddly enough, at least as far as Wes’s knowledge of haunted mansions was concerned, there was no maliciousness to the laughter, only mirth, even should it be mirth at another’s expense.

“Who’s there?” Wes shouted, threat in his voice. “I warn you, I’m in no mood for games.”

The voice laughed louder. “Games, says thee? Then games it shall be!”

Wes growled, “That’s not what I—hold on.” He blinked. “Shouldn’t it be ‘says thou?’”

“Alas, but that would break the rhyme, a folly for which we have no time.”

Wes rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Great. I’m stuck with the gods-damned trickster spirit. Couldn’t I have just gotten some skeletons to fight or something?”

“But where in that would be the fun, without some challenge to be won?”

“A fight is a challenge, it’s just…” Wes sighed. “Why am I arguing with you? You’re just going to rhyme some nonsense back at me anyway. If you’re going to attack me, attack me. Otherwise I’m moving on.”

“But on to where, and when, and why? Without some fun, time cannot fly.”

“You literally just said we had no time,” Wes pointed out.

“No time to waste, no time to burn, but plenty of time to rhyme and learn.”

“You’re right I don’t have time to waste,” Wes said as he continued to push on through the cellar. He flashed the flames on his hand brighter. “But I can burn things damn quickly.”

“Oh-ho, he threatens little me! How fearsome must this wizard be?”

“Yeah, yeah, taunt me all you like. If I’m not immune to taunting after traveling with Eve for a year, nobody is.”

“Then say, oh say, you’ll stop and play, a little game along your way!”

“Nope,” Wes snorted. “Whatever game you’ve got, I’m not interested. I’ve got better things to do.”

“Then how will you escape, my friend, from cellar hall without an end?”

Wes scowled, squinting into the gloom ahead of him. Come to think of it, he’d been walking an awfully long time in one direction without any change in scenery. Either Avendreth Manor had a weirdly long cellar or there was magic at play. With his free hand, he threw a Fire Blast down the hall ahead of him, piercing the veil of darkness just long enough for a brick wall to appear, only for his spell to wash harmlessly against it.

Oddly enough, as he continued to walk forward, he never struck the impending wall, instead finding yet more cellar in front of him, the path ahead again obscured in shadow. He sighed. “So I’m stuck in an infinite hallway until I solve whatever puzzle you have for me? Alright. Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

The childish voice responded, “To win your way, to become free, you must answer my riddles three.”

“Seriously?” Wes cocked an eyebrow. “Riddles? You went to the trouble of enchanting a never-ending hallway to make me answer riddles?”

“The first you’ll solve with a fair ease, so listen close if you so please.”

“No, no, you show yourself first,” Wes insisted. “If we’re going to do this whole riddle thing we’re going to do it where I can see you.”

The voice gave way once more to a fit of giggling. Wes jerked his head left just in time to catch the flash of motion between two of the barrels. From where there certainly had been nobody before, an impish figure leapt to the ground, twirling and somersaulting and cartwheeling about until it landed solidly on its two gnarled feet.

The creature itself stood no more than three feet tall, barely above Wes’s knee. Its bare hands and feet were twisted and clawed, its limbs long and spindly, and its face somehow mustached yet entirely without a nose. Beneath the bushy caterpillar on its upper lip, the thing grinned wide and joyously, clutching the lapels of its pink sequined vest—its only garment—as it let out a belly-shaking laugh. “I welcome you to my domain, such games to play, so much to gain!”

Wes sighed. “Alright, let’s get this over with. What’s the first riddle?”

“Ah-ha, but first, the rules, you’ll learn, or else how will, the prize, you earn?”

“You already said,” Wes snapped. “I answer the three riddles, I get to leave. I take it there will be some grisly death awaiting me if I guess wrong, so I’ll try not to do that. Did I get everything?”

“For each answer, rewards you’ll win, for good or ill, for thick or thin.”

Wes scowled. “Yes, yes, I get it. Get the answers right.”

“For riddle first, a question asked, an enemy, perhaps, unmasked.”

“Okay, okay, can we just get to the gods-damned riddles?”

The creature ignored him. “For second ask, an item won, one needed for deeds to be done.”

Wes scratched the back of his neck. “I’m starting to think you don’t actually have any riddles for me and are just trying to waste my time.”

“And finally, for answer three, you’ll finally be allowed to leave.”

“Did you rehearse this?” Wes asked. “Is that what’s going on? You spent hours rehearsing this speech so you’re going to give it no matter what?”

“But riddler best hone your mind, for else a swift demise you’ll find!”

Wes exhaled. “Yep. Got it. Can we get to the riddles now?”

“Perhaps, but first methinks you need a few moments mental reprieve.”

Wes threw his head back in frustration. “What does that even mean?”

“A mind at worry, I’m afraid, will lead to many errors made.”

“Of course I’m fucking worried! You’ve got Preston locked up somewhere and I’m stuck down here dealing with a riddler who won’t even tell his fucking riddles!”

The thing straightened his sequin vest and titled his head. “So breathe with me for moments dear. Relieve yourself of doubt and fear.”

“Right now I’m doubting you actually have any riddles to tell me.”

The creature moved his hands up and down in time to his deep breaths, over-vocalizing each inhale and exhale.

Wes sighed, and breathed along with him, sucking the musty cellar air deep into his lungs before expelling it out again. Despite himself, he felt his muscles begin to relax and his heart begin to slow. Once mage and riddler-thing alike had taken ten full-body breaths, the creature spoke again.

“Before we start I’d like to know, what weighs upon your dear mind so?”

Wes grit his teeth, trying to force himself to remain calm if only to avoid having to do another breathing exercise. “My boyfriend is missing and instead of looking for him I’m stuck down here with you.”

The riddler’s eyebrows shot up. “A boy you say? How very sweet! So tell me, how did you two meet?”

“On an adventuring team,” Wes answered sharply. “Now get on with it.”

“You know, whatever bigots say, I’ve always thought love finds a way.”

“Well it fucking would if you weren’t standing in it,” Wes snapped.

“Oh my, it seems, rage has returned. Let’s try again for lessons learned.”

Once again the impish thing began raising his hands up and down and breathing obnoxiously loudly, refusing to stop until Wes joined in in the breathing exercise. Ten breaths later, Wes spoke.

“Alright.” He kept his voice as even as he could manage. “What’s the first riddle?”

“This riddle first, I came across while lying in a bed of moss.”

Wes exhaled. “Okay. And the riddle is…?”

“While lying there a butterfly just fluttered past and caught my eye.”

“Do I really have to hear the entire backstory of the riddle before you tell it to me?” Wes asked.

“So on a whim I followed it, and found a clearing brightly lit.”

Wes frowned. “Is this part of the riddle, or just how you learned the riddle?”

“The sunbeams shined between the trees, the air abuzz with birds and bees.”

“This is just a poetry reading, isn’t it? You’re going to force me to listen to your poetry before you’ll tell me the riddles.”

The creature continued. “And flowers sprouted from the earth, a panoply, color and mirth.”

Wes scowled and raised his flaming hand threateningly. “I swear to the gods if you don’t tell me the first riddle right fucking now…”

“Oh dear, it seems you’ve lost your calm. Let’s breathe in deep, a spirit’s balm.”

“Alright, that’s it.” Before the creature could embark in yet another breathing exercise, Wes waved a hand through the air and used Flame Manipulation to spread the blaze upon his hand to the creature in front of him. One Fan the Flames later, and the riddler was little more than a pile of ash upon the cellar floor.

With a snap of his fingers, Wes sent the blaze on to burn whatever enchantment created the endless hallway illusion taking what little care he could manage in the moment to avoid burning the walls themselves. He didn’t have it in him to worry if the enchantment breaking down would have some explosive effect. He had to find Preston.

You have defeated Level 14 Riddler Imp: +0 exp!

Wes dismissed the notification.

Moments later, the flames extinguished and cellar calm once more, Wes eyed the brick wall in front of him and the wooden door that led through it. “Finally,” he muttered to himself as he reached out to open it.

“I swear to Ayla, this entire hellfucking dungeon is designed to waste my gods-damned time. I bet Eve’s already racked up a mountain of exp from all the combat encounters she’s got.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The Harder They Are…

WITH A WET squelch, Eve fearlessly slid the knife into place, leaving a trail of red as she pulled it out. A single drop fell to the stone beneath her feet.

“Shit,” she cursed, “I spilled the barbecue sauce.”

It took an immense feat of self-restraint to wrap up and store the sandwich for later rather than devour it in the moment, but that would defeat the purpose of preparing the snack. She’d need that Mana later. She did, however, lick the excess sauce off the silver butterknife. She let out a moan as the tangy and sweet and smoky flavor crossed her tongue. Damn. For a few precious moments, Eve reconsidered her decision to save the sandwich for later.

Steeling her spirit, she shoved the morsel into her pack and took one last look around the manor’s kitchen. It was an awful sight.

None of the classic horror elements one would expect in the kitchen of a haunted mansion were present. There were no suspicious bloodstains, no chopped up human limbs, no grotesquely fat spirit of gluttony. The kitchen terrified Eve in a far more primal way.

Dear gods there were a lot of dirty dishes.

Whoever had prepared the feast back in the dining room hadn’t deigned to clean a single of the pots and pans involved in the three-dozen or so dishes that had filled the table. Eve didn’t dare put the plate and knife she’d used to prepare her sandwich anywhere near the sink for fear of disturbing the delicate balance of the four-foot-tall heap of dishes that sat within.

What truly struck her about the state of the kitchen, however, was the freshness of the mess. She could understand if some enchantment cast over the dining room kept the meal edible, but why bother doing the same with the dirty dishes?

The best conclusion she could come to was that somebody had prepared the meal fresh for their particular party, which seemed like a particularly inefficient way of doing things. Then again, Eve knew practically nothing about freshness enchantments, so maybe those didn’t work either.

The other curious aspect to the manor kitchen was the absolute plethora of unopened bottles of off-brand ghost pepper hot sauce. Wes would’ve had a field day with that one. As far as Eve was concerned, as on-theme as ghost pepper sauce might’ve been for a haunted mansion, she deeply understood why none of the bottles had been opened. She didn’t need to set her mouth on fire to enjoy a good sandwich.

Absent any signs of life or unlife in the kitchen, Eve shouldered her pack and picked an exit. The thin wooden door she chose swung outwards into a dark courtyard, somehow absent the torrent of rainfall that had plagued the manor’s exterior. Sure enough, if she listened close, Eve could still hear the pattering of rain and the quaking of thunder, yet only a dark but clear and starry sky shined above. That last bit was particularly strange, as Eve was pretty sure it was about four in the afternoon.

Shaking that bit of strangeness from her head, Eve stepped out onto the uneven stone of the courtyard, surveying the open space by the white light of her eyes. A stone fountain stood in the center, its statues crumbled beyond recognition and its basin long run dry. Overgrown garden plots lined the four sides, each with paths through them to provide access to the various doors back inside. The most striking features, however, were above.

At each of the four corners of the courtyard, a gargoyle sat perched upon the roof, overlooking the open square. Unlike the fountain statues, the ravages of time had left the gargoyles untouched, the exquisite detail of their rippling muscles, batlike wings, and brutal foot-long claws as lifelike as any Eve had ever seen.

She saw the combat encounter coming a mile away.

Eve had her pack set aside and her club untied and in her hand before the first crack of stone sounded through the air. By the time the first of the gargoyles cracked its neck and stretched out its wings, the Defiant was already Jetting into the air for it. Her club unempowered by anything but her not insignificant base Strength, bounced right off the stone creature. Eve fell back to the ground, landing hard but keeping her feet.

“Mana Rush it is, then,” she muttered as she watched the rest of the gargoyles come awake. “You know what they say, the harder they are, the bigger they… wait. That’s not right.”

One by one the gargoyles took to the air, flying threatening circles above as they awaited an opening through which to strike. Her Jet still on cooldown, Eve had little option but to stand back and wait.

At least, she would’ve had to stand back and wait if she hadn’t happened to have a ranged ability that shot pure annihilation Mana. That would do.

Eve took a moment to carefully track the four dark shapes above her, only able to mark their motion by watching the spots absent of stars in the sky. Once she had a pretty good estimate of their paths, she took her shot.

She dumped two thousand Mana into the Mana Burst, the shimmering prismatic glow of annihilation Mana flying from her hand in a thin cone. It struck the beast in its wing, carving out a three-foot hole in the thin stone membrane on which it flew. The gargoyle plummeted in an uncontrolled corkscrew.

Eve was ready when it landed.

The gargoyle slammed into the rough cobblestone, sending a sharp crack echoing through the air as ground and beast alike felt the force of the collision. Eve Charged in, hoping that over a hundred thousand Strength would be enough to break the magic stone. She didn’t dare drop more than five hundred Mana per second into her Mana Rush, else she run out while the gargoyles safely circled above.

You have defeated Level 72 Manor Gargoyle: + 960,964 exp!

Thirty thousand Strength, as it turned out, was plenty.

Her Manaforged griffin-bone club flew through the air in an overhand swing, striking the fallen gargoyle before it had a chance to regain its feet. It shattered in an explosion of dust and debris, shards of broken stone bouncing off Eve’s armor. The dust was not so harmless.

The cloud reached her eyes before she could leap away, forcing her to slam them shut. She was too late.

Even after she managed to distance herself from the dust cloud, Eve’s eyes burned from the stone particles that had struck them. Tears welled within them, further obscuring her vision of the already poorly lit courtyard. In the precious seconds she spent furiously blinking to clear them, a gargoyle took its opportunity.

Four stone claws raked against her back, failing to pierce her dragonhide armor but more than forceful enough to still break skin and send her flying forward. She landed hard in a rosebush on the opposite end of the courtyard. The blow cost her four thousand Mana.

Eve’s Jet came off cooldown just in time for her to launch herself to the side, careening through the bushes as a second gargoyle descended on the spot where she’d landed.

The Defiant leapt to her feet as soon as she could manage, knowing she couldn’t spare even a moment to regain her bearings. She had three gargoyles left to kill, no Jet for another few seconds, and two eyes still stinging red and clouded with tears. At least she had an idea to help with two of those problems.

The gargoyle that had tried to strike her at the rosebush had instead slammed into the wall at high speed, leaving it reeling for just long enough for Eve to direct her gaze at it. With a moment’s thought, she launched a Mana Burst at it, focusing the blast through her eyes. The surge of Mana annihilated both the tears and bits of irritating stone before continuing on to collide with the living statue’s chest.

You have defeated Level 73 Manor Gargoyle: + 983,312 exp!

Eve heaved a breath, blinking her eyes clear once and for all. Out of instinct more so than any positional awareness, she leapt to the side, the fourth gargoyle whizzing past her just as she’d expected. “No down moments,” she exhaled, darting to the northeast corner.

With Jet and Mana Burst both on cooldown, Eve had no choice but to wait out the timers in a defensible position, ready to strike at any gargoyle that swooped into clubbing range. As she reached the corner, she turned her back to the wall and glanced at her Mana bar.

Mana: 4,921/12,510

That left her with nine seconds before she had to cancel her Mana Rush, fewer if she wanted to Burst one of the gargoyles. With four seconds left on her Jet cooldown, it was going to be tight.

Fortunately enough, the gargoyles lacked the cognitive reasoning skills to know Eve was on a clock, and one of them was perfectly happy to oblige her need for a quick end to the fight. Its face contorted as if to make a ghoulish screech yet unable to generate a sound given its lack of lungs, the living statue swooped down at the Defiant, claws pulled back, ready to swipe her head clean off.

She had no intention of letting it.

Even without Jet, Defiant Charge kept Eve deceptively quick. Before the gargoyle could react, she darted forward, bringing her club in in a right-handed lateral swing. She jammed her eyes shut just before the blow connected, feeling the rain of dust fall harmlessly against her eyelids.

You have defeated Level 73 Manor Gargoyle: + 983,312 exp!

Three down, one to go, five seconds to spare.

Unwilling to risk opening her eyes amidst the dust cloud and unable to waste precious seconds escaping from it before making her move, Eve could only hope the final gargoyle hadn’t altered its course in the last two seconds.

Breathing a silent prayer to whichever deity governed batshit insane adventurers, Eve Jetted into the air towards where she’d last seen the remaining beast.

Midair, she opened her eyes just in time to see the clawed arm swing towards her midsection. She swung back.

Empowered by an obscene amount of Strength and the swiftness of Defiant Charge, Eve’s club struck first, simultaneously shattering the gargoyle and knocking her away from the path of its claws.

You have defeated Level 72 Manor Gargoyle: + 960,964 exp!

Eve canceled her Mana Rush before she even hit the ground.

She landed on her tailbone, sending waves of pain up her spine as she rolled herself upright. Taking one last glance at the four piles of rubble she’d created, Eve let out a heavy breath and finally allowed herself to relax.

Mana: 607/12,510

She chuckled. “And with a full second to spare. This is getting too easy.”

She knew well enough that Wes or Alex would curse her out for saying those words, practically asking the dungeon to throw at her something she couldn’t handle. Eve couldn’t care less. If the dungeon was that smart, it could realize a joke was joke.

Scooting over to lean against the basin of the empty fountain, Eve pulled up her notifications.

Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: The Harder They Are…

+ 8,192,000 exp!

“Well now I know it’s making these up as I go along,” Eve muttered. “I literally said that earlier.”

However odd or off-putting the name of the milestone was, Eve couldn’t stay annoyed at its taunting tone for very long, not with the notifications that followed.

Level Up!

Ability Upgraded!

Active Ability - Defiant Charge

300 Mana

Also quadruples your maximum jumping height!

“Well that would’ve been nice five minutes ago,” Eve mused. “And it’s even tripled the Mana cost—not that an extra two hundred Mana out of thirteen thousand is going to make that much of a difference.” She did appreciate the upgrade, sincerely doubting the gargoyles would be the last flying enemies she’d find herself fighting. Of course, her natural jumping height wasn’t that high, so quadrupling it didn’t exactly change the world, but every little boost helped.

More than satisfied with the outcome and rewards of the fight, Eve pulled up her pack, withdrew an item carefully wrapped in cloth, and sat back to enjoy a delicious barbecue chicken sandwich.

She had to recover her Mana somehow, after all.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The Graveyard Fight

THE NARROW STAIRWAY led Wes up to a pair of horizontal cellar doors which he burst open with little difficulty. The first thing he found was rain.

The supernatural thunderstorm continued to rage in the sky above the manor, the shelter of which Wes found himself lacking. The torrent drenched him in seconds, flattening his chestnut hair and soaking his red robes until they clung to the contours of his body. He didn’t complain. He had a healer to save, and by the gods a bit of rain wouldn’t stop him.

A crack of lightning illuminated the space around him better than his flames ever could, revealing a chaotic sprawl of cracked gravestones and statues to Morthis, one of many forgotten gods of the dead. At the center of it all stood a grandiose sepulcher, constructed of white marble and engraved with murals of stately men and women presiding over their land and embarking on great hunts.

Hanging above on a frame of solid oak stood a bronze bell, poised and ready to toll its knell for the graveyard’s newest permanent resident. A braided rope dangled down over the side of the sepulcher, but Wes knew enough about dungeons to know he had absolutely no intention of ringing the damn thing.

Luckily for him, it rang itself the moment he set foot on the wet grass of the cemetery.

With a reluctant sigh, Wes settled in for a fight.

One by one the graves around him began to glow with pale light, luminescent tendrils that danced about as if to the tune of the tolling bell. They swirled and twirled and flipped and dipped in an eerie display of ghastly choreography before at once they leapt through the air to coalesce around the sepulcher.

It was, as far as Wes was concerned, perhaps the most overdramatic lead-up to a combat encounter he’d ever seen. He couldn’t begrudge whoever’d built it their sense of style, but he was in a hurry.

Hoping he could perhaps speed things up a bit, he tossed a Fire Blast at one of the graves that was taking its sweet time to join the collective at the center. Whatever mystical energy it was that fueled the ritual burned just as well as everything else did when confronted by the devouring flame. Unfortunately, the destruction of that particular grave’s energy didn’t seem to hasten the process at all, but Wes held out hope it would make the big bad at least slightly smaller.

It was still pretty damn big.

Wes watched in anxious readiness as the pale energy began to take shape, forming and solidifying from an amorphous blob into a great beast. It stood thirty feet long, perched atop the sepulcher on seven legs, each seemingly taken from a different animal. Its jaw opened sideways, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth so long they could never have fit in the thing’s closed mouth.

The thing’s flesh was a patchwork of different-sized scales and blotches of fur and even skin. A single batlike wing sprouted from its left shoulder, too tattered to ever have been useful for flight, even if it had had a twin. The vicious barb on the wing’s tip meant it posed a threat nonetheless.

Level ?? Phantasmal Abomination

The abomination roared an earth-shattering cry, brutal and unwavering and somehow resonant across low and high pitches alike.

Wes replied with a war cry of his own. “You don’t stand a ghost of a chance.”

Smiling at his own joke, he quickly reached a flaming hand for the gravestone next to him, setting it alight in natural fire to serve as a Mana battery in conjunction with his Gift of the Devouring Flame. Immediately the whispers began, bidding he spread them across the graveyard and across the world, but he had no trouble ignoring them, muted as they were thanks to the enchanted rings hanging from his ears.

Preparations made and resolve set, Wes drew his staff, gazed across the cemetery at the phantasmal abomination, and did what he did best.

He set it on fire.

* * *

Preston pulled the fuzzy earflaps of the hat away from the sides of his head. “I don’t know about this one. It’s certainly warm, but hearing what my teammates say in combat is kind of important.”

“But of course, but of course,” Harold replied, taking the hat from Preston’s head and gently placing it atop the reject pile. “So from what I’m hearing, you need something practical that won’t wave about or get in the way in the middle of a fight.”

“Exactly.”

“However,” Harold continued in the worst possible way, “as a Twice-Blessed Paragon I’m positively certain that you’re an important religious figure to a great number of people, and the laws of fashion do state that all important religious figures must wear ridiculous and extravagant hats.”

Preston snorted. “All the more reason not to. I’m kind of a religious figure against my will.”

Harold tilted his semi-transparent head. “How does that work?”

Preston rolled his eyes. “Long story short, fuck if I know.” He let out a sharp laugh. “You’re definitely right about the silly hats, though, at least for Ayla. You should see some of the crazy shit those old ladies put on their heads. I suppose it makes them feel important. Raelin though? She probably wouldn’t approve of any hat unless I made it myself from the skin of an animal I killed.”

Harold scratched his beard. “That does pose quite the conundrum.”

“So I think what I need,” Preston thought aloud, “is something humble and understated while still fashionable and expertly made, preferably with as much modern technology as possible.”

“What makes you say that?”

Preston grinned. “That’d be the best way to stick it to both of ‘em. Don’t give Ayla the grandiosity she loves so much, but still wear something that smacks of the civilization Raelin can’t stand.”

Harold let out a low chuckle. “You really are the worst priestess ever.”

“Don’t I know it. You’d think they’d kick me out eventually, but I keep getting promoted. Give me fifty levels and I’ll be the first ever archpriestess that actively dislikes his goddess.”

“So.” Harold clapped his hands together. “Something understated, yet civilized. I can work with that.”

Preston remained seated in the velvet chair in front of the three angled mirrors while Harold disappeared into the depths of the hat shop in search of the perfect fit. He gazed at his soft and pale complexion and the mop of blond hair that had grown below his ears. He ran a hand through it. “Maybe I should cut this while I’m here. Doubt there are any angled mirrors back at the hold.”

From behind a row of shelves, Harold continued the conversation. “It’s nice to finally have a customer again. Most of the residents here either think they’re too good for hats or don’t actually have heads. And that last visitor we got didn’t even stop by to window-shop.”

Preston raised an eyebrow. “Last visitor?”

“Some strange rock lady,” Harold answered. “Came by a few days ago. Popped right out of the ground in the middle of the courtyard. One of the ‘goyles said she left something stashed in the fountain, but none of us have been able to find it for the life of us.”

“That’s weird. And then she just left?”

“That she did. You see, my theory is it’s some important treasure, maybe part of a grand quest. We can’t find whatever she stashed because we don’t have whatever item from the previous stage.”

Preston scowled. “That seems a bit overcomplicated. Could be she just wanted to get rid of something and this was as good a place as any.”

“Could be.” Harold reappeared with a black woodsman’s cap, pointed in the front yet tighter fitting in the back. “These were popular a few years back,” he said, “fairly understated, practical, and with the added benefit of keeping the sun out of your eyes. Not to mention you could stick a bright feather in there for a bit of flair without looking all high-and-mighty like your goddess wants you to.”

Preston shrugged. “Let’s try it.”

Harold fitted it over his head, adjusting the angle as well as a hidden strap in the back for the optimal fit. The front pushed Preston’s hair down over his eyes, so he had to part it to the side in order to see, but that was easy enough.

Preston nodded, turning his head this way and that to get an approximation of how he looked at various angles. “I like it. Simple, well-fitting, and black goes with everything.”

“And it works with all sorts of ornaments. Feathers, flowers, pins, what have you. You can even swap out different accessories to match the rest of your outfit.”

The Paragon looked down at his priest robes. “I guess I’ll add different outfits to the list of future goals. How much do I owe you?”

The two walked over to the counter and exchanged silver, continuing the friendly conversation as they did, but as Preston shoved his change back into his pack, the sound of a bell echoed through the haberdashery.

“Ooh,” Harold said, “sounds like somebody’s triggered the graveyard fight.”

Preston perked up. “The graveyard fight?”

“Oh yeah. It’s probably our biggest and baddest combat encounter. Giant-evil-ghost-monster-thing.”

“That’s gotta be my party!” Preston jerked his head to the door. “Which way is the graveyard.”

Harold jerked his thumb behind the counter. “There’s a door out back that leads right there. You sure you want to jump into that? It’s a high-level fight.”

Preston nodded. “If my friends are out there, they need my help.”

Harold gave him a warm smile. “I knew I liked you. Right this way.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course,” Harold said as he opened the door for the newly hatted Paragon. “Good luck.”

* * *

Wes leapt to the right, burning some of his precious Mana to reignite the gravestone next to him. “Fucking rain,” he groaned. “Why do I always have to fight in the fucking rain?” While the downpour only represented a minor reduction in his damage output, it made it next to impossible to keep up the natural fires he needed to regenerate his Mana. At least he wouldn’t die if he ran out.

Unless, of course, he ran out before the giant ghost monster succumbed to the flames and could get a swing at him without the giant Mana-fueled ring of fire around the graveyard in which he hid. Then he would definitely die.

The phantasmal abomination pounced back and forth, making swift strikes into the inferno before backing out again, trying and failing again and again to guess Wes’s location. With every second the flames ate away at it, driving it inevitably towards oblivion. It was only a matter of time before the thing died.

Wes just needed it to die faster.

He’d given up on lobbing Fire Blasts, more so to obscure his position than for Mana concerns, but he still cast Fan the Flames off cooldown, knowing that every hundred Mana he spent on it would save three hundred spent on upkeeping his hiding place for those extra few seconds. It was a race to see if the beast’s Health or Wes’s Mana would run out first, and Wes was losing.

Out of nowhere, somehow piercing the crackling of the inferno and pained and furious snarls of the abomination, a primal roar echoed through the graveyard.

You have heard the Packmaster’s Call!

+10% Strength!

+10% Dexterity!

+10% Intelligence!

“What in the ninth hell is that?” Wes muttered.

As if in answer, a burst of golden light shined through the orange of the flames, and Wes felt the cuts and scrapes from his fall to the cellar seal themselves shut. His heart froze. “Preston! You’re okay!”

“Of course I’m okay!” the reply sounded from across the graveyard. “I’m not the one who went running off without his healer! Where are the others?”

“Fuck if I know!” Wes shouted back, sprinting through his blaze to avoid giving up his position with the sound of his voice. “We got separated. Can you do anything about the rain? My Mana’s running low and I can’t recover it with all this water in the air.”

“Not in my kit!” Preston yelled. “But I can try and distract the boss so you can go all out!”

“I don’t think that’s—” Wes cut off when a deep and imposing growl filled the air, somehow drowning out the angry snarls of the phantasmal abomination.

Packmaster’s Call makes you immune to Assert Dominance!

“Fuck me,” Wes breathed. “Eve’s gonna have a field day with that ability name.” Forcing himself to focus, he stepped out of his flames to see a slender Preston locked eye to eye with the beast twenty times his size, standing his ground and growling right at it. The beast growled back.

Wes didn’t take the time to wonder where Preston got all these new abilities. If there was one thing he’d learned adventuring with Eve, it was the vital skill of just rolling with it. He took this opportunity and ran with it.

With a wave of his hand, Wes cut the flow of Mana to the ring of fire, allowing the rain to snuff out his hiding place. Instead, he spent the magic casting and recasting Fan the Flames, as well as channeling his deadliest and most expensive weapon.

The Flame Jet struck the beast in the side of the head, melting and vaporizing the phantasm before it could even come alight. The abomination howled in agony, jerking away from Wes’s spell and Preston’s challenge at once.

It raced for Wes, bounding back and forth over the old graves as it desperately tried to dodge around the barrage of fire.

Wes stood his ground. His heart raced with familiar adrenaline; his stomach churned with the very panic his brain didn’t allow itself to feel. He grit his teeth. If one of them was going to fall to the beast before it succumbed to the flames, he’d be damned if it was Preston.

In the end, it was the abomination’s attempts to run around Wes’s Flame Jet that was its undoing. While its zig-zagging charge certainly made it harder to hit with any accuracy, the overwhelming size of the thing made for a pretty easy target. It was running nearly perpendicular to Wes’s beam when whatever spell that bound it together came undone.

The creature burst in an explosion of light, each spirit that had once made it up shooting through the air back to the individual grave from which it came. In under a second, the ghostly light of the monster was gone. Under the barrage of the rain, the orange flames followed suit.

Wes charged across the graveyard to wrap Preston in a hug, holding the Paragon tight enough to stop any force from the eldritch to the divine from ever separating them. “Don’t you disappear on me again,” he whispered. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“Ayla didn’t give me much of a choice in the matter,” Preston breathed.

“Ayla didn’t what now?”

Preston exhaled. “A lot happened. I hit tier 4. I’ll get you all caught up once we find the others. In the meantime, we’ve got notifications to read.”

Wes nodded, pulling away from the embrace and bringing up his flashing messages.

You have defeated Level 95 Phantasmal Abomination: + 14.2m exp!

Level Up!

Level Up!

Wes let out a deep breath. “That’s a fuckload of exp.”

“Enough for level fifty?” Preston asked hopefully.

Wes shook his head. “A few million short, actually. I’ll take that windfall any day of the week.”

Preston nodded. “No dungeon completion, though.”

Wes flicked through his ability upgrades to confirm the dungeon wasn’t over yet. “If that wasn’t the final boss, I don’t think I want to know what is.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Preston said. “Knowing Eve, I’m sure we have about ten minutes before she kills it herself.”

“Yeah,” Wes muttered darkly, “I’m sure she will.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

The Final Boss

THE HIGH-PITCHED clang of hammer against anvil echoed down the spiral steps as Art and Reginald made their climb. To a less imaginative mind, the noise might’ve begged the question of who in their right mind decided to put a forge at the top of a tower. To Art, it begged the question of what cool contraption was being made.

I bet he’s making a sword, the trellac sent. Swords are cool.

He’s not a blacksmith, Reginald replied. He’s the Phantasm Crafter.

So he’s making a phantasmal sword. Awesome!

Maybe we should be a bit careful about how we approach him, Reginald argued. He’s probably pretty powerful if he runs this place.

So are we! Art sent. We’re adventurers, remember? Besides, the way Miss Rita talked about him made him seem nice.

She sounded scared of him.

She was scared of us too, Art sent. And we’re nice. So he must be too.

Reginald paused, his tail drifting lazily from side to side as he thought through Art’s argument. That makes sense, he eventually sent. They continued their climb.

The wooden stairway came to an end in a wide-open workshop, the walls lined with tables and gadgets of all sorts while the floorspace sat strangely empty, as if kept vacant purely for the purpose of leaving room for an epic fight. Upon each wall stood an ornately paned arched window, allowing for a view in all directions from the highest point in the manor. Every minute or so, a flash of lightning shined in through them.

In the corner opposite Art and Reginald, a man stood hunched over a workbench, raising the hammer in his hand dramatically into the air before slamming it down onto the object of his labor yet again. He wore dark purple mage robes lined with pale gray thread that seemed to glow faintly in the dim torchlight of the workshop.

Reginald growled in a short, sharp burst in his approximation of noise a human makes when clearing their throat.

The man ceased his hammering.

“So at last you’ve made it to my lair,” he monologued with his back still facing them. “I must say I’m impressed. You’ve managed to navigate the many deadly challenges and mind-bending puzzles within this haunted place to find the man holding the strings, the puppet master behind it all.” He paused his well-rehearsed speech for several dragging seconds of even better-rehearsed maniacal laughter, his back and shoulders shaking with each resonant chuckle.

“Now you may be peacefully existing under the impression that you’ll punch through me as easily as you overcame my many minions. I’ll relieve you of that delusion soon enough. Now! Prepare!” He twirled around, his robe swirling dramatically through the air as he spun to face Art and Reginald. “To figh—” He stopped short, bushy white eyebrows furrowing into a scowl. “Wait a minute. You’re not adventurers.”

Hello Mister Phantasm Crafter! Art waved. I’m Art, and this is Reginald.

The man stroked his pure white two-inch-long villain goatee. “Um… hello, Art and Reginald. How did you get up here?”

Oh! We… um… got launched into the music room, where a banshee scared us so badly we ran up here.

The man blinked. “Is that so? Rita scared you up here?”

Art nodded. Uh-huh! Miss Rita was very frightening.

The Phantasm Crafter raised his eyebrows. “…Sure. I’ll make certain Miss Rita gets properly rewarded for a job well done. That begs the question of how…” He shook his head. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. This is no place for children to wander about unaccompanied, not while we have adventurers visiting. Come.” He swept his arm dramatically through the air to beckon them forth. “You may wait up here with me until it’s safe to leave. Of course, none of my creations would stoop to harming a child, but you never know with adventurers.”

Art didn’t think adventurers were that bad. He much preferred them to hunters. Hunters were evil. Still, the Phantasm Crafter was being kind enough to invite them into his lair, and neither Art nor Reginald was one to reject such an invitation.

“Welcome to my workshop,” he greeted them. “Everything that goes on throughout the manor is either conceived of, organized, or made right here. From the enchantments running through the walls to the various phantasmal beasts that wander the grounds to our two-dozen independent contractors, it all stems from the well of phantasmal energy I draw from right up here.”

Aren’t wells in the ground? Art asked.

“Not that kind of well,” the man explained. “Fifty years ago, something terrible happened here. Dozens of souls leapt from this world to the next, enough to tear open a small rent in the fabric of reality. Through it, we can harvest phantasmal energy.”

We?

“Well, me. I’m the one who does it, but I like to speak of this place as if we’re all one big family, even if many are paid to be here.”

Okay! Art sent. So once you have this fantastic energy, what do you do with it?

“Whatever I want,” the man boasted. “After the staff members get their share, of course. It powers a number of the enchantments, which has the added bonus of making them resistant to most anti-magic attacks. With whatever’s left, I tinker. I can make anything from animated beings to tools to animated tools. For example, take a look at my current project.” He turned around to reach for the workbench behind him.

Is it a sword? Are you making a ghost sword? That’d be so cool!

“Oh, this is much cooler than a phantasmal sword.” He spun back around, displaying his prize with a flourish. “Behold, the phantasmal fishing hook!”

Art stared at the pale transparent barb of wire. Awesome! What’s it do? Does it catch ghost fish?

“Not as such.” The man flicked the hook, sending a light tinging noise echoing through the workshop. “It’s solid enough to carry bait and hook a fish, yet see-through enough that no fish could catch a glint of metal and realize the bait isn’t all that it seems.”

Wow! I had no idea fishing was so complicated.

“Few do,” the man said.

It’s not complicated, Reginald thought, unheard by the non-telepath in the room. You dunk your head in and snap your jaws around the fish. Easy. Humans overcomplicate it with all their tools.

I don’t know, Reg, Art replied in private. Their way you don’t have to get your face all wet.

The Phantasm Crafter opened his mouth to continue speaking, but the deep resonance of a tolling bell interrupted him. “Ooh boy, oh boy,” he said with glee. “You’re in for a treat.”

What’s going on?

“One of those pesky adventurers has stumbled into my greatest creation yet! Come, come.” He practically skipped over to one of the windows, gesturing Art and Reginald to follow him.

Upon arrival, Reginald put his front legs up on the table in front of the window, and Art climbed up his back to stand on said table. He made it up just in time to watch the perimeter of the graveyard erupt into flame.

It’s Wes! the trellac excitedly sent.

I can see that, Reginald replied. Bold of him to go one on one with that thing.

He can handle it! Art insisted. Wes is unstoppable!

“Isn’t he fearsome?” the man gushed over the patchwork abomination. “I designed him myself, stitched together from a hundred different imprints of different souls that’d passed into the realm beyond in the vicinity. It took a month’s phantasmal energy just to get the details quite right.”

What followed was approximately three minutes of the beast randomly batting at spots within the blaze while the flames slowly ate away at it. Between the brightness of the fire and the thick clouds of smoke and steam which arose from it, none of the three spectators had any idea if the abomination’s attacks were landing remotely close to Wes. The fact the inferno still raged beneath the falling rain told Art the Disciple lived on, but that was the extent of his information.

He was starting to really hate this whole anti-communication enchantment thing.

The Phantasm Crafter slammed a fist on the table. “How is this fair? A man spends months crafting the perfect monstrosity, only for some adventurer to show up and set it on fire! Preposterous!”

A muffled roar echoed through the glass, and suddenly the abomination turned to stare down a new threat.

Preston!

“No, no, no, no, no! Don’t just stare at him you stilly beast! Attack!”

Art watched with wide eyes and a pounding heart as the blaze faded away and Wes emerged to fire his Flame Jet at the beast. Moments later, the fight was over.

The Phantasm Crafter slammed his head into the table. “All that work, wasted.”

Art patted him on the back. It wasn’t wasted, Mister Phantasm Crafter, not if you had fun doing it!

He sniffled. “Is that so?”

Of course! Besides, now you have a chance to build an even better one!

That got his attention. He leapt upright, furiously stroking his villain goatee. “Hmmm. I’ll have to find a beast with a better nose. I assumed thermal vision would be sufficient, but I didn’t expect an adventurer to hide in a fire. Yes, yes, this could be the perfect opportunity. You’re wise beyond your years, young one.”

Thanks, Mister Phantasm Crafter!

“Please, Mr. Phantasm Crafter was my father. Call me Greo.”

Reginald’s ears shot up. Did he say ‘Greo’?

Art blinked at the man. Greo? You wouldn’t happen to be related to Greothrax, would you?

“That’s me!” the man chimed. “Greothrax, the Phantasm Crafter. How can I help you?”

Reginald raised his front claw to tug a certain dirty sock from its place wrapped around his medallion. With his snout, he slid it across the table.

“Is this…” Greothrax gasped. “My sock!” He snatched it off the table, leaning back and hiking up his robes to reveal a matching sock adorning his right foot while his left sat bare upon the cold hardwood floor. “You found my sock!”

Had Eve been there, she might’ve asked why oh why he’d gone on wearing just one sock for the last several decades. Art, however, had never worn socks, so the question didn’t occur to him. Reginald found it, he sent, patting the drake on the head.

Greothrax tugged the sock over his foot, letting out a quiet breath of sheer comfort. “My dear Reginald, how can I thank you? What, within my significant power, can I do to repay this magnificent deed you have done for me?”

Ask him. Reginald sent directly. Ask him, ask him, ask him, ask him, ask him.

Okay, okay, Art replied. I’m asking.

“Hmmmm,” Greothrax hummed once Art relayed Reginald’s request. “I suppose I could manage that. I assume you’d like them fully functional. Would you like them attached permanently or removable?”

Permanent, came the reply.

Art spent the next few minutes serving as a go-between while Greothrax and Reginald worked out the details of the drake’s quest reward.

“Wonderful, wonderful,” Greothrax stood, rubbing his hands together. “If you’ll follow me to my crafting table, I’ll get right to work.”

Art and Reginald walked with him back to the table he’d been hammering away at when they’d arrived. The former climbed up to sit on one side of it while the latter leaned up on his front legs, tail wagging furiously with excitement.

“I’ll have to use up some of my reserves of phantasmal energy, but it’s worth it to have my sock back.” Greothrax patted the table and picked up his hammer. “Now, where to start?”

As the Phantasm Crafter mentally sketched out his blueprint for Reginald’s prize, Art scowled at the crafting table itself. While the dark stone and various runes engraved upon it meant nothing to him, there was something about the perfect obsidian sphere inlayed in the center that reminded him of other, similar spheres he’d seen. Lacking the human ability to Appraise things, he indulged his curiosity the only way he could.

He touched it.

The notification popped into vision the moment his talon touched the cool sphere, one he’d read before and would always appreciate, even if monsters couldn’t get exp for it the same way the humans did.

You have cleared dungeon: Avendreth Manor!

Art grinned. For all that he was no member of the adventurer’s guild, for all that he had no class and leveled up through aging and feeding rather than completing quests, for all that he depended on the grown-ups in his party, it hadn’t been any of them that had completed the dungeon. It’d been him. Him and Reginald.

And as far as he was concerned, that made the two of them just as much adventurers as the others.

CHAPTER FORTY

All Shall Burn

“WE SHOULD TRY and find our way up if we can,” Wes explained as he surveyed the various doors around the graveyard that led back into the manor proper. “Eve and Alex can take care of themselves. The kids got launched to the upper level.”

“I wouldn’t consider Art defenseless,” Preston replied. “You saw what he did to that vampire.”

“I also saw what he did to the entire city of Pyrindel,” Wes said. “When we left him unsupervised for two minutes.”

Preston snapped his fingers. “Up it is, then. Should we take a look around here, first?”

“Probably worthwhile,” Wes agreed. “If there’s nothing valuable in that sepulcher, I’ll quit adventuring here and now.”

“Alright. You see about getting in there and I’ll do a loop around to make sure we didn’t miss anything in plain sight.”

Wes nodded, turning back to face the small marble building at the center of the graveyard. The beautiful murals carved into it were a little worse for wear, the finer details ever-so-slightly melted from their proximity to the burning abomination, but the wrought-iron door—or at least its hinges—had managed to survive. With a snap of his fingers and a flash of light, Wes burned away the rust upon them and swung the door open.

It was quiet inside. The thick marble walls so wonderfully muted the din of the rainstorm, giving the dark and dusty space a sense of unnatural peace. Wes spent a pittance of his remaining Mana to set his hand alight, casting the familiar orange glow across the room.

A rectangular stone sarcophagus dominated the cramped space, its surface engraved with runes the likes of which Wes had never seen. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought the place built yesterday. Not a speck of dust sat upon the stone. No cracks nor scratches marred its surface.

Flat on the center of the sarcophagus, atop no pedestal and adorned with no inscriptions of warning, sat a plain copper ring. Wes scowled. He’d expected some ancient locked-away evil or the keys to whichever ritual had formed the phantasmal abomination. A single ring without decoration or apparent value seemed out of place.

Until he Appraised it.

Ring of the Eldritch Plaguebearer

Rarity: Legendary

“Shit.” Wes took an unbidden step away, distancing himself from the copper ring until his back hit the sepulcher wall. “Shit shit shit shit shit.”

As he stood at the back of the sepulcher, staring intently across the room, two thoughts came to Wes’s mind. The first was that that ring had to be the most cursed piece of loot any adventurer had ever found, ever. The second was that a Legendary ring had to be worth a shitload of contribution points. He swore.

It was the classic adventurer’s dilemma. How much risk was he willing to take for the sake of a massive payday? He shook his head. Practically the first rule he’d learned as an adventurer was that you do not fuck with anything eldritch. But then again, enchanted rings didn’t do anything unless you equipped them, right? Worst case scenario, he could just burn it.

Wes chuckled. Maybe that was the answer, defeat one otherworldly apocalyptic force with another.

The Disciple had just decided to discuss the matter with his companions before making a decision one way or the other when he heard Preston outside mutter the most dangerous words to ever escape the healer’s lips.

“Hey there, little buddy. Are you lost?”

Wes had never run anywhere as fast as he dashed from that tomb to confront Preston and whatever cute yet terrifyingly powerful animal he’d fallen in love with this time. It was to his surprise, then, that he found the healer not stooped over a baby version of the phantasmal abomination, but gazing up at three pale floating lights.

He Appraised it before bothering to ask any questions.

Level 3 Phantasmal Remnant

The small lights pulsed once, and Preston smiled. “How did you get here?”

The lights blinked once more.

“Aww, I’m sorry to hear that,” Preston replied. “Do you want to come with us? I can’t promise you’ll be safe but there’s bound to be fewer phantasmancers wherever we go next.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “Preston, did you just… invite it to join the party?”

“Her name’s Lumy,” the Paragon said.

Wes stared. “And you know that because…?”

“I pack-bonded her. She’s only been sentient for a few minutes and she’s already terrified somebody’s going to try and break her down for phantasmal energy.”

“So you’re telling me you rejected the giant list of high-level monsters literally queuing up to pack-bond with you so that you could recruit some floating lights?”

“She’s frightened,” Preston said as if that explained everything.

Wes took a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm rather than arguing about Preston’s strategically suboptimal choice of pack member. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could greet Lumy or question Preston or bring up the frankly terrifying ring he had found, a blue notification popped into view.

You have cleared dungeon: Avendreth Manor: +10m exp!

Level Up!

“Ayla’s tits.”

“Well there you go,” Preston said. “Eve finished the dungeon for us.”

“Not that,” Wes breathed. “I just hit level fifty.”

“Ooh, shit. What’d you get?”

“Hold on, let me just…” Wes trailed off as he opened the first of his promotion options.

Class Upgrade Available: Flamedancer

Rare Tier 4 Class

Requirements: Know four fire-Mana spells. Spend an entire combat encounter shrouded in flames.

The Flamedancer bends the battlefield to their advantage, hiding in the obscurity of his inferno while his spells wreak their fiery havoc. Within an active blaze, none can match the Flamedancer’s mobility, safety, and might. Burn bright, and dance as do the flames.

+30 Intellige—

“What in the—” Wes’s heart froze as the blue box in front of him burst into flame, the text within crumbling to ash before he could even finish reading it. In a panic, he swiped to the next one.

Class Upgrade Available: Knight of the Eternal Flame

Epic Tier 4 Class

Requirements: Fire mage-type base class with over thirty Strength. Experience wielding—

“No,” Wes breathed as this class too erupted in a blaze of orange. “No, no, no, no, no.” Heart racing, he flipped through every one of his notifications, finding them all ablaze beyond readability. For each he tried desperately to slam the accept button, hoping against hope that one of them, any of them, would work. Any of them except that.

When he got to the bottom of his list, he already knew what he would find. One upgrade, one notification stood unburnt among the rest.

Class Upgrade Available: Vessel of the Devouring Flame

Unique Tier 4 Class

Requirements: Disciple of the Devouring Flame

For all shall wail and all shall perish and all shall feed the ever-hungry.

All shall burn.

+50 Intelligence

+20 Spirit

+8 Constitution

+8 Strength

+7 Dexterity

+7 Endurance

+40 Intelligence/Level

+20 Spirit/Level

+5 Constitution/Level

+5 Strength/Level

+5 Dexterity/Level

+5 Endurance/Level

“No,” Wes breathed. “No, you can’t make me.”

I can.

The whispers came louder than they ever had, even muffled as they were by the enchanted earrings.

You think such trifles will protect you?

Wes screamed as his ears erupted in fiery agony. Out of instinct, he clamped his hands over them, only to feel the earrings crumble to ash.

“Wes!” Preston cried out, dashing away from his new animal companion to place two comforting hands on the mage’s back. Before he even got another word out, golden light rushed in to heal Wes’s singed earlobes. “What’s wrong?”

Don’t listen to him.

“It’s the devouring flame,” Wes forced the words out through gritted teeth. “It’s burning my class options to force me into—”

Silence!

“Don’t take it,” Preston said. “Whatever it is, it can’t be—”

Wes looked up at him with open eyes, the word ‘vessel’ clearly reflected in them.

“Shit,” Preston cursed. “You can’t take that class.”

Take it.

“What else can I do?” Wes asked.

“Just… do nothing for now. Close the notification. We’ve already finished the dungeon, you’ll survive being locked out of exp and using your abilities until we can find someone who knows more about this than we do.”

The devouring flame stayed silent.

Wes nodded, speaking though heavy, panicked breaths. “Okay, okay. I’ll just…” He tried to close the notification.

Class Upgrade Available: Vessel of the Devouring Flame

Unique Tier 4 Class

Requirements: Disciple of the Devouring Flame

A second window popped up next to it, bearing the same class, the same stats, the same imperious description.

All shall burn.

Heart racing with mounting dread, Wes slammed the close button again. Another upgrade window popped up.

Class Upgrade Available: Vessel of the Devouring Flame

And another. And another.

Class Upgrade Available: Vessel of the Devouring Flame

Class Upgrade Available: Vessel of the Devouring Flame

Class Upgrade Available: Vessel of the Devouring Flame

Class Upgrade Available: Vessel of the Devouring Flame

Class Upgrade Available: Vessel of the Devouring Flame

Class Upgrade Available: Vessel of the Devouring Flame

Class Upgrade Available: Vessel of the Devouring Flame

Class Upgrade Available: Vessel of the Devouring Flame

Class Upgrade Available: Vessel of the Devouring Flame

Class Upgrade Available: Vessel of the Devou—

They came in a deluge, an unceasing torrent of new notifications popping up over old in every corner of his visions, following him however he tried to look away. Even as his eyes shut they came, flashing lights of bright blue in darkness behind his eyelids. Class upgrade available. Class upgrade available. Class upgrade available.

The whispers didn’t speak. They knew what they had done and what else was needed of them. For now, they laughed.

A million tormented voices laughed in perfect time with one another, a cacophonous symphony of jeering cackles delivered directly to the center of Wes’s mind. Unbidden, his own voice joined them.

“Wes, Wes what’s going on?” Fear colored Preston’s normally gentle tenor.

“They keep coming. They keep coming. Preston, I can’t make them go away. I can’t stop them.”

You wanted power.

“Okay,” Preston breathed, “okay. Let’s just… let’s take a deep breath and think about this.”

To slay the blightmaw dragon.

“Maybe if you unlock another class you can accept it before the flames burn it away.”

To keep up with your friend and rival.

“Maybe Art can help,” Preston offered. “Put you to sleep until we find a way to—”

To never lose your lover again.

Through gritted teeth Wes forced out the words, “Art. Isn’t. Here.”

Preston cursed. “Help!” he yelled into the night in desperate hope that Art, Eve, somebody, would come.

The graveyard was silent.

Take the class.

“No.”

And have all you ever wanted.

“Fuck. You.”

Then burn.

The fire started in his belly, but soon enough every cell of Wes’s body burned with the agony of its own private inferno. His Health plummeted.

“Wes!” Preston cried. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. What’s happening?”

Wes couldn’t manage an answer.

Ayla’s light flooded him, repairing the damage almost as fast as the flames could wreak it.

Almost.

Point by point Wes’s Health bar emptied, every drop a maelstrom of agony as the Goddess of Mercy warred against the unfathomable destruction of the devouring flame. Even as Ayla herself slowly lost ground in the battlefield of Wes’s body, the mage himself held strong. Even as he writhed in torment, even as his anguished groans echoed piteously across the graveyard, even as the blue light that beckoned reprieve from the torture shined into his eyes, Wes did not give.

Preston did.

“Take the class,” he muttered through the tears streaking down his face.

“No!” Wes snapped. “You don’t… you don’t know what this thing can do.”

“Wes…” A quiet desperation clung to the healer’s voice, heavy with fear and sadness. “Wes, we can handle it. Whatever it is, whatever it says, whatever it can or can’t do, we’ll handle it like we’ve handled all the other crazy bullshit so far.”

“Preston—”

“Take the damn class, Wes. If I have to leave the mortal plane to punch the devouring flame myself, I will. If that’s what it takes, then by Loia’s bloody middle finger I’ll do it. But I can’t lose you. Not now.”

Through it all the whispers stood silent. They knew the only voice that mattered had weighed in.

“I love you.”

For a brief moment, one sacred millisecond of respite from the unrelenting hurricane of torment, Wes’s breath hitched. He forced his eyes open, staring past the wall of notifications to where he hoped Preston sat. He steeled his spirit. He shed his tears. He managed the herculean task of forcing words through his scorched throat. “I love you too.”

And he hit ‘accept.’

* * *

Wesley Rollund

Human

Level 50 Vessel of the Devouring Flame

Exp: 94,821/39,456,855

Health: 181/2050

Stamina: 651/1090

Mana: 5720/5720

Constitution: 205

Endurance: 109

Intelligence: 759

Dexterity: 41

Strength: 47

Spirit: 572

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Rxa1

EVE SAT UP, wiping barbecue sauce off her mouth with her sleeve. Already, her stomach had gone to work on the chicken sandwich, converting the delicious snack into essential Mana. Wait, did she even have a stomach? She knew she didn’t have blood, as only Mana spilled forth when her skin broke. What organs did she and didn’t she have, anyway?

Eve let out a breath, electing to put off that particular existential crisis for another time. As her Mana bar ticked past fifty percent, she pushed herself to her feet. She still had to check the courtyard and the remains of the gargoyles for anything worth looting and return to her search for the others. Of them all, Alex was the only one she really trusted to stay safe and not destroy the entire manor. As for the others, if Wes didn’t find Preston soon, it was only a matter of time before the entire dungeon went up in smoke.

That said, Eve was an adventurer at heart, and she’d be damned if she didn’t check for loot before moving on. Did the world expect her to kill all those gargoyles for free?

So it was she found herself stooped over a pile of dust and rubble, sifting through the broken stone for any gems or ores or other potential items of value. She was still searching through the first of the four gargoyles when the creak of an opening door echoed throughout the courtyard. Eve leapt to her feet, hand poised to draw her club at the first sign of a threat.

“Oh, there you are.” Alex returned her spear to her back, lowering her shield as she stepped into the courtyard. “I was getting worried.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “About me? You know I can handle myself.”

“I also know you’re prone to making remarkably stupid decisions.”

“I am not!”

Alex snorted. “If you say so, your excellency.”

“I’m not the one who insisted on trying to solve the puzzle in the dining room.”

“Hey, my reasoning was sound,” Alex argued. “And I’m still not convinced us all getting separated wasn’t the intended result. For all we know, doing anything else in there would’ve gotten us killed.”

Eve chuckled. “It’s not too late. It was a close call with these gargoyles.”

“Tell me about it,” Alex said, holding her shield up for Eve to see what looked like hoofmarks imprinted into it. “That moving chair took me to the stables. Where they keep the vampire horses. Vampire. Horses.”

“Well, you made it here alright. Which means you get to help me search these gargoyles for loot.”

“Yeah, um…” Alex’s eyes flicked down for a moment. “Sure. Let me just…” She looked around the courtyard, eventually pointing to the pile of rubble next to the fountain. “I’ll take this one.”

“Sure thing,” Eve said, turning away to return to her own searching. “So,” she called to Alex behind her, “how did you find me?”

“I-um… I thought I was finding one of the others, actually. I basically just walked away from the intimidating tolling bell sound cause I figured the most dramatic place in the dungeon is where you’d be. Stupid decisions notwithstanding, leaving the others without adult supervision is a questionable idea at best.”

There was something off about Alex’s voice that Eve couldn’t quite place. Apparently, Eve figured, the vampire horses had been a closer call than the Defender let on. Either way, the joke—if out of character for Alex—helped reassure Eve that her friend wasn’t completely traumatized.

As Eve returned to her task, the crash of shattering stone rang out behind her. It sounded somehow different from the noise of the gargoyles breaking apart, but Eve attributed that to Alex’s use of a shield rather than a bone club. “You know,” Eve said without looking up from her own pile of rubble, “you don’t have to be that thorough. Just a quick look for anything immediately visible is enough for now.”

“I… right, of course,” Alex replied, letting out a quiet laugh. “We’re on a clock, after all.”

Eve stood, disappointed in her lack of findings so far but still hopeful as she moved on to the next crumbled gargoyle. Alex looked up from her work to watch her as she walked.

“I hope the others are okay,” Eve said as she bent over to get searching again. “These gargoyles almost got me, and I’m way better suited for fighting alone than any of them.”

“Except maybe Art,” Alex said. “That kid is terrifying, you know.”

“He would be if he weren’t such a sweetie. Preston’s the one I’m really worried about. Lone healers tend not to do well, especially if he’s been captured.”

“I’d be more worried if it were his first time getting captured. We’ll find him. It’s just a matter of clearing this dunge—” Alex cut off as a notification popped into her vision, the same one that Eve found herself reading.

You have cleared dungeon: Avendreth Manor: +10,000,000 exp!

“Well shit,” Eve exhaled. “I guess that’s that, then.”

“Yeah,” Alex breathed, her voice suddenly quiet. “Just one thing left to do, then.”

“Yep!” Eve chimed. “Notification time!” Without waiting for a response from Alex, she dove into her messages, excited to see what her latest pile of exp would net her.

Level Up!

Statistic Growth Upgraded!

+15 Willpower/Level

Statistic Growth Upgraded!

+5 Intelligence/Level

Statistic Growth Upgraded!

+5 Strength/Level

Statistic Growth Upgraded!

+5 Dexterity/Level

Eve let out a whistle. All that for one level? She’d hoped hitting level sixty would be worth a bit more than the levels before, but thirty more stat points per level? Unique classes were insane. The balancing factor, of course, was that she needed another eighteen million exp to reach level sixty-one, but she’d get there fast enough. Hells, her next milestone would handle most of that on its own.

Eve grinned. If the dungeon was cleared, that meant the danger had passed, which also meant she had time to read through everything and check her status screen. She exhaled a deep breath, feeling the tension leaving her as she reviewed the changes to her stats. At last she could relax.

Until she felt the collar clamp around her neck.

Eve slammed the blue screens shut to find Alex standing in front of her, arms extended as she locked the collar into place. Eve blinked, a mounting nervousness clashing with confusion. “Alex? What’re you doing?”

“What I have to.” A hardness came across the Defender’s face, all too reminiscent of the cold and professional exterior she’d kept up when Eve had first met her. The only difference was that Eve knew her well enough to recognize the cracks.

“You don’t have to do anything!” Eve burst.

“I’m sorry, Eve, but the people you work for… I don’t have a choice.”

Eve scowled. “I don’t work for anybody. The Dragonwrought, maybe, but even that’s a bit of a stre—”

Alex stepped forward, reaching a hand into Eve’s pocket. The Defiant instinctively tried to lurch back, but her muscles refused to follow the command of her mind. Something held her in place. Unperturbed, Alex withdrew, holding an ivory chess piece in the air.

Eve gulped. “Okay, sure, I’ve met him a few times, but I don’t work for him. As far as I’m concerned, he’s some asshole who keeps showing up.”

Alex exhaled. “I wish I could believe that.” She closed her eyes for a long second. When they reopened, they shined blue. Even without enhanced eyesight, Eve had no trouble reading the words they reflected.

Secondary Quest Complete: Capture the White Rook.

Eve’s breath hitched. Her heart raced. More out of instinct than anything else, she tried to Jet away from her friend-turned-captor. Nothing happened.

You have equipped a suppression collar. All abilities are disabled.

Her eyes widened. She reached up to tug at the collar, but without access to Mana Rush the cold metal was more than a match for her natural Strength. She tried draining the collar’s Mana, dissociating herself to slip away, even launching a Mana Burst into it. Every attempt was met with the same notification.

You have equipped a suppression collar. All abilities are disabled.

“Alex, Alex listen to me. I’m not working for him. Whatever they told you, I’m not a part of his bullshit schemes.”

“Then why do you have his token? Or better yet, when you first met him, why did you never tell me?”

The answer struck Eve like a punch to the gut. Because he told me not to.

Eve’s silence was all the reply Alex needed. “That’s what I thought.” She shook her head. “It was stupid of me to hope, wasn’t it?” Alex reached into her own pocket and pulled out an obsidian rook. She crumbled it in her hand.

Instead of dissipating into a cloud of mist as had the white chess pieces Eve knew, the black rook crumbled into dust and stone, falling to the ground and disappearing into the earth. Still, she knew what that meant. Her heart pounded in her chest, her vision narrowed, her throat tightened, and for the first time since she’d first thought Alex dead beneath the mountain, Eve felt fear.

“What… what are they gonna do with me?”

“I don’t know. With any luck, they’ll lock you up until this whole conflict ends.”

Eve’s eyes widened. “With any luck?”

“This is war, Eve. Maybe if you prove yourself useful they’ll treat you better.”

“You mean they’ll let me live.”

Alex didn’t answer, her face maintaining the same stony expression she held so well.

“No,” Eve said. “This is wrong, this is…” Her breathing sped. This couldn’t be it. She didn’t make it this far to get caught in the crossfire between two warring factions she hardly knew. It hurt all the more that it was at Alex’s hand. Alex who’d cried over the loss of her old team. Alex who’d slowly learned to open herself up again. Alex who’d sacrificed herself to save them.

Alex whom Eve had left trapped beneath the mountain. Alex who’d only lived at the whim of some greater power.

Eve hardened her heart and steeled her spirit. This couldn’t be it. She still had to claim the Burendian crown. She had to find Art’s papa. She had to buy her gods-fucked loaf of bread.

She grit her teeth. This couldn’t be it.

This wouldn’t be it.

From somewhere deep within her, Eve called upon a power she’d only touched upon a scant few times in her life. It wasn’t Mana, or Stamina, or levels. It wasn’t divine or infernal or phantasmal or eldritch. It was something uniquely hers.

Eve grasped her indomitable resolve, the same determination that demanded she’d join the adventurer’s guild even without a combat class, that insisted she’d defeat a griffin several times her level, that guaranteed she’d survive the unfathomable forces within the leyline. She held it tight, and she wielded it like an axe, and she spoke defiance with her very soul.

No.

The suppression collar burst open, breaking into pieces as it flew from Eve’s neck.

Unique Ability Unlocked!

Active Ability - Defy

Eve didn’t stop to wonder what a unique ability was, nor why it came without a cost or description. She didn’t have time. Instead she closed the notification and surged forward, landing a Mana Rush empowered punch directly onto the center of Alex’s shield.

The Defender flew across the courtyard, landing hard against the back wall. She groaned.

“Whatever they’ve told you about me,” Eve said, “it’s a lie.”

“Eve… you have to—”

Whatever words were about to escape from Alex’s lips, they died in the din of quaking earth, a sound Eve could only take to mean one thing.

Whomever Alex had called with that chess piece was on their way.

“Goodbye, Alex,” Eve spat. “I hope you’re happy with the side you’ve chosen.” With that she turned and Jetted up and out of the courtyard, forgoing the maze-like halls of the manor for a simple run across the rooftop.

By the time Alex made it to her feet, by the time quaking earth finally calmed and the ground itself opened up to admit a woman with skin of black stone and a scowl unmatched by any living being, Evelia Greene, hunter of bread and the Defiant herself, was long gone.

* * *

Evelia Greene

Manaheart

Level 60 The Defiant

Unique Ability - Defy

Exp: 428,572/18,369,138

Health: 0/0

Stamina: 0/0

Mana: 13,860/13,860

Constitution: 0

Willpower: 1386

Intelligence: 157

Dexterity: 278

Strength: 296

Spirit: 0

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

It Really Took Three Entire Books for the Plot to Finally Start

FIVE ADVENTURERS SAT together in the dark woods, enjoying their meal absent the warmth of a campfire for fear of disturbing the one among their number who lay asleep. Wes slumbered with neither blanket nor bedroll, his hexweave robe the only barrier between his skin and the snowy ground. Even so, his skin radiated heat.

“Is he going to be okay?” Eve asked.

“I don’t know,” Preston replied. “Art?”

The whispers are quiet, the trellac replied. I think without a fire nearby they can’t get to him.

Eve met his gaze. “And if there is a fire?”

Art shrugged. Could be anything between just talking to him and outright controlling him.

Preston nodded. “Can you stop it?”

I think so. At least for long enough to make him put the fires out.

Preston sighed. “I don’t like it.”

“It’s not a perfect plan,” Eve said, “but it’s a plan. Whatever it takes to keep him functional until we can find a more permanent solution.”

“I just wish I knew what that solution could be.”

“Me too, Preston,” Eve said. “Me too. With what you told me about what happened in the graveyard, I think we can safely say getting him to level one hundred and class promoting out isn’t an option.”

“I’d even go as far as to say tier five is our upper limit,” Preston reasoned. “We can’t let him get there without getting him out of the devouring flame’s grip. I just… I don’t know where to even start.”

“If Art can drive away the whispers, maybe his papa can offer something more permanent,” Eve said. “That’d be a fitting reward for a secondary quest, right?”

“Maybe,” Preston said. “We can hope.”

Eve leaned forward, placing a grounding hand on Preston’s shoulder. “We’ll find something,” she said with no uncertainty in her voice. “We always do.”

“Yeah.” Preston let out a long breath, forcing the tension to drain from his shoulders. “I-um… there’s something you should know. On my way down for my meeting with Ayla and Raelin, I overheard them talking about… well I think it was about us.”

Eve listened with bated breath as Preston retold the story of his fall to the divine realm and the eavesdropping he’d done on his way. By the end, she was staring at him with wide eyes. “So the Questing Stones think they’re in danger, and they fucked with our classes and quests to protect themselves?”

Preston nodded. “It makes sense. Or at least it makes more sense than any other explanation I can think of.”

Eve scowled. “But why a Priestess? Are you supposed to heal the magical wandering rocks?”

“No,” the Paragon exhaled. “I’m supposed to heal you.”

The surprised expression on Eve’s face was all the question she needed to ask.

“The Stones forced me into a healing class and gave me the life quest Don’t Let Her Die. I guessed you were ‘her’ when you first told me about your own quest, then confirmed it when I started getting milestones every time I saved your life.”

“And you’re just telling me this now?”

Preston sighed. “I’m sorry, I just… I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want you to think I was only here because the Questing Stones were forcing me to be. I’m sorry. I know it’s stupid, I just…”

“Preston,” Eve interrupted. “It’s okay. It took me like three months to tell you about the man of the mists, I can forgive it taking a while to talk about something like this.”

Preston grimaced. “Actually, Wes told me about the man of the mists. Like… two days after you met him.”

“Of course he did,” Eve snorted before shaking her head and returning to the matter at hand. “So if we’re supposed to protect the Questing Stones, what are we protecting them from? What even is capable of destroying them?”

Against his will, Preston’s eyes flicked over to Wes as he spoke the words, “I can think of a few things. I think it depends on what role he has to play in all this.”

“You think it’ll either be the devouring flame or the blightmaw dragon.”

Preston nodded. “It makes too much sense. In a way we were both dispatched to help Wes on his quest. Whether that means stopping Carl or stopping Wes… I just don’t know.”

Eve let out a breath. “Shit.”

“Shit is right.” Preston exhaled. “Either way, right now we’ve got Wes under control, and we’re nowhere near strong enough to take on Carl. Whatever’s coming, we’ve got some time.”

“Which just leaves this whole proxy war Alex and I have gotten ourselves caught up in.”

Preston shook his head. “I still can’t believe she’d betray you like that. After everything that’s happened…”

“You didn’t see her face,” Eve said. “She was trying to hide it, but I’ve known her long enough to see past the whole Alex-has-no-emotions thing. She was devastated. Like she knew she was sacrificing a friend for the greater good.”

“The greater good?” Preston snorted. “Seriously?”

Eve sighed. “Whatever they told her, it must’ve been bad. Like, evil, bad. Which is weird, because the man of the mists never struck me as evil. He’s a bit of a dick and he thinks he’s all badass and mysterious, but I don’t think he’s evil.”

“I think he’s just said whatever he thinks he needs to say to get you on his side,” Preston reasoned. “Just like whoever got to Alex told her whatever they needed to to get her to turn on you.”

“You’re probably right. The smart call would be to continue under the assumption that both sides are evil and just stay neutral, but I get the impression it’s too late for that.”

“You’re certainly right about that.” Preston looked up at the starry sky above them. “And actually, I think it’s too late for anything other than a good night’s sleep. We can strategize more when we’re rested and Wes can participate.”

Eve nodded. “I’m gonna stay up for a bit. Doubt I could fall asleep even if I needed it.”

“Suit yourself,” Preston said, laying out a blanket and lying down next to the best heat source he could get without lighting a fire. Wes grumbled something in his sleep and pulled the Paragon closer.

It was less than a minute after Preston’s quiet snores first reached Eve’s ear that she noticed the tendrils of mist creeping along the forest floor. She sighed. “Speak of the asshole…” Shaking her head, she pushed herself to her feet and followed the fog into the forest, distancing herself to avoid disturbing the others with the piece of her mind a certain misty man was about to get.

She found him leaning against a tree, his features obscured in the same shroud of mist that walled them off from the rest of the woods. “You lost my token,” he greeted her.

“Fuck you,” Eve replied. “Your shitty token just cost me a friend.”

The man sighed. “A regrettable happening, but an unpreventable one.”

“Unpreventable my ass,” Eve cursed. “If you hadn’t made it look like I’d taken a side in your shitty power struggle, we wouldn’t have had a problem.”

“Language, my dear.”

“Fuck you,” Eve repeated herself.

The man of the mists ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry to tell you, but they would’ve come after you either way, and they were always going to use her to do it. Even if my token made it easier for them to turn her, they didn’t need it. She’s belonged to them from the minute they pulled her out from under that mountain.”

“Why me, then? Other than the fact you got to me first.”

“Because you represent something they can’t abide,” the man said. “Change.”

Eve scoffed. “Really? That’s what you’re going with?”

“It’s the truth. The other side—the black pieces, if you will—are terrified of losing their place in this world. They’ll do anything to stop what they perceive to be a danger to their power.”

“And even without you, I’m a danger to them?”

“But of course.” The man’s smile, obscured as it was in fog, showed in his voice. “What greater threat to the status quo could there be than an adventurer powered by defiance itself? You’re practically built to be everything they fear.”

“And what could they like better than a Unique defender built to stand her ground,” Eve thought aloud.

“You and your friend were always going to find yourselves on opposite sides of this conflict,” the man argued. “That’s the nature of the game.”

“And you would have me play the obedient little soldier and go hunting after the friend that betrayed me.”

The man wagged his finger back and forth. “No. We don’t do obedient little soldiers. That’s their forte. We do defiant spirits yearning to break free from their oppressive rule. Think that might be more your speed?”

Eve sighed. “Not until you tell me what it is you want.”

“I want the same thing you do, to stop the people who turned your friend against you.”

“And why should I believe you?”

“Because they’ve declared you their enemy regardless,” the man said. “You can either try and fight them alone or join us, but you will fight them.”

“You should know by now, I don’t do anything alone.”

“That doesn’t sound healthy. Everybody needs—”

“You know what I meant,” Eve snapped.

The man chuckled. “I do, I do. And to show my sincerity I’ll concede that I was wrong before. Your friends have proven themselves more than worthy to face the challenges to come. I do hope you’ll choose to face them with my help.”

“I’ll talk it over with the others,” Eve said, “but that’s the best you’re getting from me tonight.”

The man of the mists made an overdramatic bow. “That’s all I ask.” With a flourish, he pulled at the fog around them, condensing it until it solidified into a white chess piece. “Take however long you need, and whenever you’re ready, you know how to call me.” He held it out to her. “And try not to lose this one.”

Eve took the ivory piece and turned it over in her hand. “Oh, I’m a queen now?”

“Congratulations,” the man said dryly, “you’ve worked your way up to the most powerful piece on the board.”

“But I’m still just a piece.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” He bowed a second time, this time the mist seemed to flourish with him. “Farewell, my dear apprentice. I hope I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

“Don’t count on it.”

As the mist began to swirl and the dark shape of their master faded away, Eve called out into the forest. “Oh, one last thing!”

The man paused his dramatic exit. “Yes?”

“Fuck you.” Eve said for the third time.

“Fuck you too, my dear.” And with that, the mists swept through the leaves and the branches and the undergrowth, and the man was there no more.

“Patronizing dickhead,” Eve muttered to herself as she shoved the chess queen into her pocket. Dickhead or otherwise, though, she had to wonder whether or not he had a point. She sighed. Of all the things he’d told her to do, there was only one she had any intention of actually doing.

He’d told her to take as long as she needed, and by Ayla she would. At the very least there was little use worrying about it until she had a chance to talk over the encounter with her companions. That’d have to wait until morning.

In the meantime, Eve slunk back to camp, lowered herself to sit in the snow, leaned back against the cool back of a tree, and settled in for the night. Plots and quests and wars between secret organizations could fuck right off for the time being. Cursed loot and betrayals and dangerous new classes aside, every single one of her friends had made it out of the dungeon alive, and for one night, for one solitary night in the ongoing maelstrom of bullshit that was her life, Eve decided that was enough.

So she let out a breath and reached into her pack and pulled out one of her few remaining strawberry scones and spent those few lonely hours she had enjoying the sweetness of the pastry, the coolness of the breeze, and the silence of the night.

Everything else could wait until morning.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Epilogue

WES AWOKE NOT to a barrage of deranged whispers in the back of his mind, nor the roar of an unstoppable inferno blazing around him, but to the grumbling of his stomach. He blinked his eyes open, squinting as the light of day reflected off the snowy ground.

“You’re awake!” Preston exclaimed, rushing over to him. “How’re you feeling?”

“Hungry,” Wes replied.

“I think I can do something about that,” the Paragon said, digging into his pack to grab a bundle of fruit and cheese he’d pillaged from the manor kitchen. “I hereby cure your ills with the power of breakfast!”

Wes chuckled, pushing himself upright. “What happened at the manor? How did we get out?”

“It’s probably best Eve tells you that part,” Preston said.

Wes looked around, finding Art, Preston, and the trio of floating lights known as Lumy his only company. “Where are the others?”

Preston’s smile vanished. “Like I said, it’s best Eve tells you. She’ll be down in a bit.”

Wes blinked. “Down?”

“Anyway,” Preston changed the subject, “what matters right now is that everyone’s okay and that we have a plan to deal with um… with your class.”

“I imagine our lack of a campfire has something to do with that.”

“It does,” Preston said. “Half the plan is to keep you away from any fires.”

“Then how am I supposed to fight?” Wes asked.

“That’d be the other half.”

I’m the other half! Art chimed. Whenever we need your magic or come across a natural fire, I’ll make you put it out!

Wes balked. “Your plan is to have Art mind control me?”

“Until we find a better solution,” Preston said. “The alternative would be retiring from adventuring and living out your days wearing a suppression collar.”

Wes shook his head. “That wouldn’t work. The devouring flame would just burn the collar. I’d need to avoid any fire at all, forever.”

“My point stands. Until we find someone who can help us, this is the best option.”

“Alright,” Wes conceded. “I suppose this means no campfires, then.”

Preston nodded.

“Which in turn,” Wes reasoned, “means I never have to be on cooking duty again.”

Preston scowled. “That’s… not where I expected you to go with this.”

Wes scooted over to lean against a tree. “Hey, I’ll take any wins I can get.” He popped a grape into his mouth. “Anything else you can tell me before the others get back from wherever they went?”

Preston paused for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, there’s one thing.” He reached into his pack and pulled out a small cloth bundle. “Remember that ring you found in the sepulcher?”

Wes’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean the one that’s clearly the most cursed piece of loot ever seen?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“Please tell me you didn’t put it on.”

Preston let out a short laugh. “I’m not that stupid. I just picked it up.”

Wes sighed. “And now you’re cursed?”

“Oh, it’s better than that.” With a sly grin, Preston held out the bundle towards Wes. “Here, take it.”

Wes’s eyes flicked up and down from Preston to the wrapped-up ring in his hand before he finally gave in and took the proffered item. The notification that popped up was not one he’d expected.

Secondary Quest assigned: The World’s Most Cursed Piece of Loot

Hide or destroy the Ring of the Eldritch Plaguebearer so that none may suffer its curse.

Wes scowled at the quest description. “Is it just me, or is this the easiest secondary quest you’ve ever seen? Between Eve’s annihilation Mana and the devouring flame, I’m pretty sure we already have the two most destructive forces out there.”

“You’d think that,” Preston said, “but Eve already tried and failed to destroy it, and I really don’t like the idea of feeding an eldritch curse to the devouring flame. I can’t even count the number of ways that could go horribly wrong.”

“Fair point,” Wes said, handing the bundle back to Preston. “I guess we’ll add it to the quest pile. Is there anything else I should know before Eve gets back? Actually, where did she even go?”

It was her turn! Art sent cryptically.

Wes frowned. “Her turn for what? And where’s Reginald for that matter?”

As if in answer to his question, a cry of unbridled joy and exhilaration rang out from the sky above. Wes looked up through the gap in the canopy just in time to spot a flash of green scales swoop past on ghostly wings bearing a short-haired rider in dragonhide armor.

“Gods below,” he muttered. “Is that…” The notification answered for him.

Tertiary Quest Complete: Greothrax’s Left Sock

Rewards: 10k exp.

Preston grinned. “It turns out Greothrax is quite handy with phantasmal energy.”

For several seconds Wes could only gape, staring slack-jawed at the sky as Reginald flew back and forth on his new pair of phantasmal wings, each tight turn and low dive accentuated by wild laughter or a shout of ecstatic joy from Eve.

After all that’d happened, all the despair and stress and fear of the past few days, all Wes could do was watch the display above him and mutter a few, all-important words.

“Well shit,” he said. “I want a turn.”

STATUS

EVELIA GREENE

Manaheart

Level 60 The Defiant

Unique Ability - Defy

Exp: 428,572/18,369,138

Health: 0/0

Stamina: 0/0

Mana: 13,860/13,860

Constitution: 0

Willpower: 1386

Intelligence: 157

Dexterity: 278

Strength: 296

Spirit: 0

Passive Ability - Haste

A quicker step is the difference between life and death. You run and swim [WPW/5]% faster.

Passive Ability - Defiant Body

The will can only be as steadfast as the shell that houses it. You have cultivated both. Gain increased bone density and sinew strength, resistance to impact, explosive, thermal, and slashing damage. Gain massively increased resistance to fire. Maintain control of your every motion. Gain increased traction, resistance to uneven terrain, resistance to immobilizing and destabilizing effects.

Passive Ability - Defiant Mind

Wield the unmatched will of The Defiant. Your mind is your own. Gain immunity to fear, pacify, and loss of control effects. Gain increased reaction speed. Unlock access to the Fatetorn Gaze general skill.

Passive Ability - Ethereal Manifestation

Your body has become more, a manifestation of Mana itself given form by the might of your will. Draw Mana from food or from external sources to fortify yourself or power your abilities. Gain immunity to annihilation magic. Imbue your spells with annihilation Mana. Transcend beyond the limitations of flesh.

Active Ability - Defiant Charge

100 Mana

Face your foes head on. None shall stand in your way. Quadruple your Willpower, jumping height, and maximum running speed for [WPW/5] seconds.

Active Ability - Mana Rush

X Mana/Sec

The strength of a manaheart is determined by the energy that runs through their veins. You’ve learned to use that to your advantage. Gain [X\WPW/20] Strength for the duration.*

Active Ability - Mana Burst

X Mana

You don’t need to be a master spell caster to simply throw Mana at the problem. Unleash a short-range blast of concentrated mana, dealing magic damage in an area in front of you.

Active Ability - Jet

X Mana

Momentum is a tool just like any other, and you’ve learned to wield it. Massively increase or decrease your personal momentum or that of an individual body part.

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