Contents

1. Dedication

2. Chapter One - We Return to Your Regularly Scheduled Silliness

3. Chapter Two - Gods Damnit, We Have to Go to the Dead Fields Again

4. Chapter Three - These Fields Really Aren’t as Dead as the Name Would Seem to Imply

5. Chapter Four - Seriously, What’s With the Eyepatch Thing?

6. Chapter Five - You’ve Seen One Ancient Ruined City, You’ve Seen Them All

7. Chapter Six - Down

8. Chapter Seven - The Biggest of the Really Big Doors

9. Chapter Eight - Weird Notifications

10. Chapter Nine - Something to Kill

11. Chapter Ten - So Much for the Loot

12. Chapter Eleven - Does Anyone Speak Burendian?

13. Chapter Twelve - What’s Behind Door Number Two?

14. Chapter Thirteen - Save the Date

15. Chapter Fourteen - What Are Ancient Deadly Ruins For If Not Quiet Self-Reflection?

16. Chapter Fifteen - The Worst Possible Place to Have This Conversation

17. Chapter Sixteen - Long Live the Queen

18. Chapter Seventeen - The Crown Jewels

19. Chapter Eighteen - Getting the Hells Out of Here

20. Chapter Nineteen - Every Day is a Gift

21. Chapter Twenty - Nothing Like a Wedding to Bring People Together

22. Chapter Twenty-One - Quest Hint

23. Chapter Twenty-Two - I Always Cry at Weddings

24. Chapter Twenty-Three - What Happens Now?

25. Chapter Twenty-Four - Forgetting Someone?

26. Chapter Twenty-Five - Where There’s a Willow

27. Chapter Twenty-Six - There's a Wayo

28. Chapter Twenty-Seven - Do Hive Minds Commit Grand Larceny?

29. Chapter Twenty-Eight - What Do Undead Do All Day?

30. Chapter Twenty-Nine - Harvester

31. Chapter Thirty - Getting Rid of the Damned Thing

32. Chapter Thirty-One - No More Side Quests

33. Chapter Thirty-Two - Commanding Presence

34. Chapter Thirty-Three - Making an Entrance

35. Chapter Thirty-Four - Like Old Times

36. Chapter Thirty-Five - The Same Side

37. Chapter Thirty-Six - Okay, Maybe One More Side Quest

38. Chapter Thirty-Seven - If You Didn’t See This Joke Coming, You Haven’t Been Paying Attention

39. Chapter Thirty-Eight - A Quick Muffin and Muffout

40. Chapter Thirty-Nine - One Last Upgrade

41. Chapter Forty - The Eleventh Hour

42. Chapter Forty-One - The Battle of Pyrindel

43. Chapter Forty-Two - The Man of the Mists

44. Chapter Forty-Three - It’s Never Over

45. Chapter Forty-Four - A Footrace with Apocalypse

46. Chapter Forty-Five - Into the Fire

47. Chapter Forty-Six - Life Quest Complete

48. Status

49. More From J.P. Valentine

50. Check 'em Out!

Guide

1. Contents

2. Start of Content

To you. For joining me on this strange adventure.

CHAPTER ONE

We Return to Your Regularly Scheduled Silliness

THE PASSING OF months eased the sting of Alex’s betrayal.

The trek back from Avendreth Manor took twice as long as their journey there, mostly owing to the regular stops to while away afternoons taking turns riding Reginald as he flew through the air on his new phantom wings. Despite the relative discomfort of the road and the dependence on dried rations, Eve considered the journey a much-needed vacation.

Under Art’s watchful telepathy, the party even began starting campfires again, though only in short spurts when fully necessary. Even if the trellac could keep Wes under control, the process was uncomfortable for all parties, and thus avoided if possible.

By the time the party did finally make it back to Dragonwrought Hold, they’d come to some semblance of a consensus regarding the two outstanding dilemmas they faced.

The Ring of the Eldritch Plaguebearer, and the secondary quest that came with it, would remain safely stored on Preston’s person. Lacking any leads on how to hide or destroy the phenomenally cursed item, the best they could do was carry it with them until something came up in their unrelated adventures.

The Man of the Mists and his proxy war with whatever entity had turned Alex against them were another matter. As far as Eve was concerned, working with him was the fastest way back to Alex, even if deepening their relationship would make any future conversation with the Defender that much harder.

Preston, still unsure if the Man of the Mists was evil or just a bit of a dick, remained hesitant to work for the strange high-level until Wes reminded him that they’d never cared who sent the commissions they took before.

The relationship they built was simple. Eve, Wes, Preston, Art, and Reginald would remain freelance adventurers under the umbrella of the Dragonwrought, while the Man of the Mists was free to commission them in the same way anybody else might commission an adventuring team.

The arrangement did mean the Dragonwrought got a cut of any given payout, but Eve happily made that sacrifice to keep everything above board. This way, at least officially, they weren’t members of some secret cabal enacting whatever bullshit plots the Man of the Mists so whimmed, but simple adventurers taking commissions as adventurers were wont to do.

Days turned to weeks and weeks to months as the jobs came and went. Every time the party returned to Dragonwrought Hold, they found a new commission there waiting for them, either from the Man of the Mists or a regular citizen who’d heard the legendary guild was up and running again.

Try as she might, Eve couldn’t for the life of her see a connection between the jobs. Whether it be recovering a lost amulet for the queen frog of a local pond, tracking down the source of a strangely rhythmic belching deep in the northern woods, or teaching a family of fifty-foot spiders how to tap-dance, none of the commissions seemed to have anything to do with each other, let alone some higher purpose. Eve was happy enough to be helping people and getting paid for it, even if she couldn’t fathom the end goal.

Preston provided the most likely theory. If those playing the black pieces in this convoluted game of chess knew Eve and the gang were taking jobs for the Man of the Mists, it was entirely possible he was purposefully sending them all over the place to mask his true intentions. How could the party possibly give away their goals if they themselves couldn’t figure them out?

The thought did leave Eve wondering how many—if any—of the commissions had some purpose behind them. For the most part, she was perfectly happy chasing busywork as long as the contribution points and sweet, sweet exp kept rolling in, but her entire purpose in working for the Man of the Mists was to find Alex and perhaps even take down the people who had turned her against them. Doing arts and crafts with an ice elemental didn’t get her any closer to her friend.

It did get her closer to tier 5.

Even as her exp costs skyrocketed, so too did her milestone rewards, which came consistently as she completed the constant stream of jobs, both silly and perilous. Over eleven months of assorted commissions, Eve leveled up a grand total of thirty times, earning fifteen ability upgrades and fifteen boosts to her statistic growth.

Mana Burst and Ethereal Manifestation remained unchanged, governed by her status as a Manaheart rather than the progression of her class. Defiant Charge, Jet, and Mana Rush all got significant boosts to their effectiveness and Mana costs. While better scaling on Mana Rush or faster move-speed with Defiant Charge were all well and good, the changes to Jet garnered the most attention.

Flight was finally on the table.

It was a clumsy affair, lurching wildly about, unable to control her movement in the precious seconds between Jets, and indeed her series of directed launches held no candle to the grace and maneuverability with which Reginald soared through the air, but Eve would take what she could get. She’d like as not never match anything with wings for air superiority, but awkward as it might’ve been, flying through the air entirely of one’s own power was undeniably awesome.

Other upgrades included an Intelligence boost on Defiant Mind, which originally scaled with a pitiful one percent of her Willpower before upgrading twice more to reach four percent, as well as a similar boost to dexterity on Defiant Body.

As ability upgrades went, the far and away most exciting change came at level seventy-five, the exact halfway point between tiers 4 and 5.

Abilities Combined!

Haste and Defiant Body have combined!

Ability Upgraded!

Passive Ability - Defiant Body

Now grants [WPW/3]% faster run and swim speed!

While Eve certainly welcomed the scaling upgrade, the combination of abilities filled her with previously unprecedented quantities of hype. For the first time since level fifty, she had space for a new ability.

She found it then puzzling, when as the months crawled on and she leveled up yet more, no new passive skill presented itself. She continued to earn upgrades to her other abilities and increases to her stat growth, but for some reason that last skill slot stood vacant.

But gods below did her stats grow.

At every even numbered level, Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, and Willpower took turns adding five to their per-level growth, on top of an extra twenty-five per-level divided between them when she hit seventy, eighty, and ninety. The end result was her stats skyrocketed almost as much as her exp costs did, reaffirming to the Defiant that Unique classes were well and truly broken.

By level ninety, she was gaining 310 stat points per level, almost half of which went into her all-important Willpower, and though levels grew progressively more difficult to attain, Eve practically salivated at her ever-increasing rewards.

Of course, the absolutely bonkers stat gain wasn’t the only advantage of a Unique class, as Eve had learned in her confrontation with Alex.

Active Ability - Defy

Her Unique ability still had no description, but in her months of commissions she’d managed to figure out a few things about it. The first was that it was remarkably powerful. In all her adventuring, she’d yet to find anything that would overcome her Defying it. From spells to traps to walls, there seemed to be no limits as far as what she could Defy.

There were, however, limits to actually using the damn skill.

In eleven months, she only managed to actually activate it a handful of times, all in situations where she genuinely feared for the lives of her or her companions. Each time, the ability left her ragged, heaving for breath and hardly able to stand, let alone fight, once the adrenaline of the moment had drained away.

In all, Defy made for a useful last resort in a tight spot if she could end the battle and rest immediately after, but its uses beyond that were remarkably limited, and she had no effective way of training with the ability to find more, even if she did, the thirty-hour cooldown on the skill would make any sort of practice impractical at best. That said, Eve considered any fight in which she didn’t have to Defy anything a good fight.

Her companions leveled up along with her, though the comparatively low milestone rewards their own quests offered meant they lagged behind her now more than ever. Wes and Preston both had yet to reach level seventy-five by the time Eve hit ninety, further widening the level gap between them. At least given everything that had happened to him, Wes had stopped complaining about Eve outpacing him.

In a purely physical sense, Reginald grew the most.

While not quite fully-grown, the drake stretched fifteen feet from tail to tip by his second birthday, large enough that if they squeezed, Preston, Art, and Wes could all fit onto his back at once. Of course, he could fly neither as deftly nor as long while carrying such a load, but the three traveling on drakeback while Eve either ran below or Jetted alongside them made for much faster travel than anything else the adventurers had access to.

As he leveled up, Preston slowly filled out his robes, his newly unlocked Strength scaling making all the difference in the former Priestess’s ability to build muscle. Wes, in contrast, seemed to shrink.

The Vessel of the Devouring Flame still stood a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier than any other party member, but with every level his face seemed to grow more gaunt, his eyes sunken further into his head. He remained his usual punny and bantering self, but it didn’t take Art to see the uncertainty of his situation getting to him.

For his part, Art grew three inches in the year that passed. It wasn’t quite the several feet Reginald had gained, but the young trellac was proud nonetheless.

Even Lumy, the three floating lights Preston had adopted as the newest member of his pack, had grown some. The phantasmal remnant didn’t eat or gain exp, but she did seem to glow somewhat brighter than she had before. She’d even helped the party out by serving as a distraction in a few fights, flaring brighter or flashing in an enemy’s eyes at a key moment.

Preston felt certain Lumy would eventually develop further abilities, but what or when were anybody’s guess. In the meantime, she made herself useful as much as three floating lights could, and according to Art she had an absolutely scathing wit that none of the party’s telepaths deemed to relay to Eve, presumably because she was so often its target.

All in all, those eleven months made for a profitable status quo, a comfortable status quo. They adventured, they looted, they leveled up, they rested. But as the time passed and questions about the eldritch ring, about the devouring flame, about Alex all went unanswered, one by one the party grew impatient with their wacky hijinks. Much as they grew, they didn’t get anywhere.

It was Eve who first decided to change things up.

Whatever reasons the Man of the Mists had for sending them on the jobs he did, they repeatedly proved unable to lead Eve back to Alex. It was thus the idea burrowed itself into the back of her head. If this high-level proxy war wouldn’t get her where she wanted to be, Eve knew of at least one quest that might.

Almost two years ago now, she’d accidentally splashed a volatile compound across her chest, thus beginning the secondary quest that changed her into the world’s only Manaheart. But one step still remained in that quest line, and Eve hadn’t been the only person splashed with that serum.

Somewhere out there, Alexandra Reeve’s right hand glowed with jagged white lines, lines that would someday take her to the same fallen city on which Eve set her sights.

It was time to chase the Crown of Lost Burendia.

* * *

Evelia Greene

Manaheart

Level 90 The Defiant

Unique Ability - Defy

Exp: 23 Billion/445 Billion

Health: 0/0

Stamina: 0/0

Mana: 43,860/43,860

Constitution: 0

Willpower: 4386

Intelligence: 1332

Dexterity: 1423

Strength: 1206

Spirit: 0

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. Gain [WPW/25] Dexterity. You run and swim [WPW/3]% faster.

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 and [WPW/25] Intelligence. 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. Quintuple your Willpower and maximum running speed and jumping height 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/15] 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.

CHAPTER TWO

Gods Damnit, We Have to Go to the Dead Fields Again

EVE LET OUT a quiet groan as she trawled through the Dragonwrought’s vault for the thousandth time. She knew, of course, there would be nothing new to find there. Her team were the only ones still adventuring and finding loot, after all, but still she searched.

With any luck, buried under an ebonsteel cuirass or hidden beneath a bathroom rug of eternal warmth, she’d find something, anything enchanted with poison immunity. As a Manaheart, Eve of course already was immune, and Art and Reginald both had some physiological protection as well. The drake had been unaffected by the toxic mist of the Dead Fields during their last visit, and Art had even lived in the stuff for years before his ma was taken by the hunters.

That left Wes and Preston, neither of whom Eve had much chance of convincing to go back if they’d have to wear pelsid-ooze masks again. Luckily, Preston’s Paragon class came with some significant resistances to poison and disease, but it remained to be seen how well they would hold up to the Dead Fields.

So Eve searched.

As they’d deposited all the useless bullshit they came across in their travels, Eve’s group had accumulated over thirty thousand contribution points, most of which she intended to convert to gold if she lived long enough to retire. As she’d discovered, the Dragonwrought’s policy of using the vault to distribute loot meant that universally useful items tended to be taken while niche enchantments tended to stack up. Nobody in her party needed a redsteel gauntlet that doubled the damage of piercing-based ice attacks, yet somehow the vault had accumulated six of them.

That isn’t to say they hadn’t taken everything they could use. Health and Mana potions had been in short supply before, but that hadn’t stopped Preston from buying all of them. Similarly, the Twice-Blessed Paragon had finally exchanged his old Priestess robes for a flowing white shirt, boiled-leather vest, and leather pants that were, to Eve’s eyes, far too tight. To help defend himself, he’d selected a crossbow enchanted to shoot bolts with varying poisons from blinding, to stunning, to killing.

The whole ensemble painted the picture less of a holy man than of a hunter in the wilds, if a particularly flamboyant one, given the two-foot-long phoenix feather stuck through his hat. Eve was certain neither of Preston’s two goddesses would be happy with it, which she supposed was the point.

Wes, by contrast, had already been fairly well outfitted, so the only upgrades he’d found in the vault had been a few pieces of jewelry that helped bolster his defenses, including a new pair of earrings that gave flat physical damage reduction. As little as the fire mage liked wearing earrings, he liked dying less, and his ears were already pierced.

For their part, Art and Reginald picked up a few smaller pieces of jewelry that came with stat bonuses, but both of them found fit a rather limiting factor. Art’s talons prohibited him from wearing gloves or boots, and just about any piece of armor they found was far too big for the child. Reginald had the opposite problem, far outgrowing anything the vault had to offer.

Eve still wore her dragonhide armor, though it had begun to show the wear of repeated adventure. She held out hope this trip to the Dead Fields would produce the materials needed for armor that could dissociate with her, having already found underclothes that filled that need. Apparently dissolving fabric was easier than hard leather.

Not even the Dragonwrought vault could compete with her leyline-enforced griffin bone club, but Eve had found a nice pair of waterproof boots as well as two spiked gloves to improve her unarmed strikes in the all-too-common situations where she lost her club.

All this to say the party had long combed and re-combed the vault for anything remotely useful, and thus far nothing with poison immunity had turned up.

Eve pushed herself to her feet, letting out a sigh as she stared down at the heap of rejects before her. For a moment she stopped to wonder why they even had a collar of minor asphyxiation, before deciding she really didn’t want to know.

As she turned to go, however, one particular item caught Eve’s eye, less for its enchantment than for how utterly ridiculous it looked.

The pearly white theater mask looked like something a particularly bad clown might wear, with two oversized sad eyes shedding a single black tear and a hyper-exaggerated frown that stretched twice as low as any human mouth ever would. Two sets of leather straps with rusted buckles stretched around the back, allowing the wearer to tie the hideous thing to their face without having to hold it up.

Knowing she’d remember if it’d had poison immunity on it, Eve Appraised the silly mask.

Tragedian’s Diving Mask

Rarity: Epic

Contribution Points: 137

Eve furrowed her brow. Diving mask? Why in the hells would someone enchant that to be a diving mask? Uncertain what exactly a diving mask was, Eve picked the item up and hesitantly held it to her face, thankful there was nobody around to see her do it. She inhaled.

The air tasted… different. Staler and dryer than that of the vault, and smelling faintly of old garlic, yet undeniably still air. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but she supposed if drowning was the other option, she’d take the diving mask any time. Mask still at her face, she Appraised it again in hopes of getting a more detailed description.

Tragedian’s Diving Mask

Rarity: Epic

Effect: While unequipped, slowly stores air in a pocket dimension. While equipped, replaces all air that wearer would inhale with that from the pocket dimension.

Air Stored: 9,999 days

Contribution Points: 137

“Ayla’s tits,” Eve exhaled, pulling the mask from her face and turning it over in her hands. “It’s perfect.”

How could she have missed this? Sure, it didn’t have poison immunity, but they didn’t need poison immunity if they didn’t breathe in any of the poison in the first place.

Eve tucked the mask under her arm and made her way across the vault to grab the pole leaning against her side of the chasm. She did the vault vault back over the supremely enchanted magma river, wrote her withdrawal into the ledger, and stepped into the twisting passages of Dragonwrought Hold.

And thus it was that Eve, with the shit-eatingest of shit-eating grins, went to go show Wes the best hundred and thirty-seven contribution points she’d ever spent.

* * *

“No. No way. Absolutely not.”

“C’mon, Wes,” Preston said, placing a hand on the mage’s arm. “We always knew we’d be going back to the Dead Fields eventually.”

“But we don’t have to go back now!” Wes argued. “Can’t we at least… I don’t know, stop by Pyrindel and commission something that isn’t so…”

“Sad clown?” Eve offered. “I don’t know, I think you make a great sad clown.”

“Also, I’m pretty sure showing up in Pyrindel is a great way to end up back in jail,” Preston said. “I don’t think they’re too happy with us there.”

“Ilvia, then,” Wes insisted. “There’s gotta be some enchanter somewhere that can put poison immunity on something that doesn’t make me look like a failed circus performer.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Eve said. “I think it makes you look like a middling circus performer at worst. You know, good enough to get by, but not good enough to make a lasting impression.”

“I don’t know,” Preston snorted. “That mask is certainly making a lasting impression on me.”

Eve sighed. “If you’re really against wearing the mask, I suppose we can visit Rathis on our way north. I’m sure he’d be happy to stir you up some pelsid ooze.”

Wes snatched the diver’s mask from Eve’s hands. “Nope. No need to bother the Scavenger.”

“We should probably visit him, though,” Preston said. “At least check in to see how he’s doing, maybe bring him some supplies. It’s gotta be lonely out there for the old rat.”

“Ooh, maybe he can help us find some of those dissolving mist-deer-things you mentioned,” Eve said, a grin stretching across her face. “We can even offload unnecessary gear and loot at his cave so it’s not weighing us down in the dungeon.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Wes argued. “For all we know there isn’t even a dungeon there. Maybe it’s just a totally normal, ruined, ancient, long lost, abandoned city without any deathtraps or terrifying monsters.”

Eve blinked at him. “That is a dangerous level of optimism, my friend.”

“It’s not like he could jinx it,” Preston countered. “This is us we’re talking about. Our mere presence means we’ll find the most dangerous possible version of this place anyway. No amount of jinxing could make it any worse.”

“Well if Wes didn’t jinx it, you just fucking did.”

“Anyway.” Wes clapped his hands together to refocus the conversation. “I’ll go stop by the kitchen and get provisions. Eve, you wanna grab Reginald’s bags while Preston rounds up the kiddos?”

“How come I always have to fetch the saddle bags? You know how bad the stables stink.”

“Because they’re three hundred pounds and you have the most Strength?”

“Preston has Strength scaling too, now!” Eve argued. “He can totally lift them.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t have professional experience as a Courier.”

Preston laughed. “Would you rather try and escape a two-hour conversation with Beatrice?”

Eve paused, her entire life flashing before her eyes as she envisioned growing old, dying, and decaying to dust before Beatrice finished telling a single story. “Nope. Stables it is.”

She shot from the room like a rocket, running almost fifteen times the speed of a normal human even without using Defiant Charge. She slowed to a normal walking pace for most of the trip down to the stables, but did make a point of running when she actually got inside.

Apparently whoever had swept the stables in years past had either died of old age or simply left, and the two kobolds that still worked at Dragonwrought Hold were far too busy taking care of the four geriatric adventurers to bother cleaning it. When she’d first visited, Eve had blasted the accumulated waste—as well as the desiccated corpse of the horse that had generated it—into oblivion with annihilation Mana, but try as she might, the smell still lingered.

Even making it in and out with Reginald’s saddlebags in under four seconds, Eve still suffered a whiff of the oppressive scent. “Why do we keep this down here, anyway?” she muttered to herself. “It’s not like Reginald fits down here anymore.”

The green drake growing to the size that he had had truly been a revelation for the adventurers. Beyond the ability to carry three of them through the air, it meant they could equip him with enough saddlebags to lug about all their supplies, freeing up Eve to be that much more mobile in combat. The downside was that they had to resize the leather straps every month to make up for Reginald’s continued growth.

Saddlebags obtained, poison problem solved, and Wes so hilariously tormented, Eve navigated the dark hallways of the keep to rejoin the others, kit up, and take to the skies. They had a long and perilous journey ahead of them, fraught with dangerous environments and monsters far too high level for them to even consider fighting, but the rewards, as far as Eve could tell, would be plenty worth it.

If the previous stages of this secondary quest were anything to go by, reclaiming the Crown of Lost Burendia would come with a whole heap of ability upgrades Eve had long imagined to the point of salivation. Not to mention the exp. Gods below, finishing a secondary quest this big had to be worth a pile. Eve got goosebumps just thinking about it.

Of course, those were all standard quest rewards, even if turned up to the nth degree. She could only wonder what else there might be. She was chasing a crown, after all.

Who didn’t want to be queen?

CHAPTER THREE

These Fields Really Aren’t as Dead as the Name Would Seem to Imply

THE JOURNEY WEST went simply enough. Eve alternated between running along the ground and Jetting through the air depending on the terrain, while the others—sans Lumy who floated along on her own—rode on Reginald’s back.

In the air, the drake outpaced Eve whenever her Defiant Charge was on cooldown, forcing her to lag behind then shoot ahead in short bursts. Meanwhile, under the strain of the saddlebags and three passengers, Reginald needed frequent breaks to catch his breath. The end result was an awkwardly lurching sort of travel that still managed to save a vast amount of time over horseback, let alone walking.

When exactly to turn north was a matter up for debate. Most of the markings on the map Eve had found in the Burendian Stronghold referred to landmarks from thousands of years ago, a great many of which had been wiped out by whatever had made the Dead Fields so dead. Fortunately enough, Xandria’s Teeth—the vast mountain range that kept the toxic fog of the Dead Fields from rolling south—hadn’t exactly changed much in the last few millennia.

That gave them a benchmark for how far north they had to travel—far enough to be a pain. As for how far west, the party could only squint at the map and measure imprecise distances so much. The fact their destination was like as not hidden in the fog would make their task all the harder.

But that was later Eve’s problem.

Current Eve’s problem was far, far more serious.

“What do you mean you didn’t pack any scones?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” There was so little sincerity in Wes’s voice that its absence might’ve formed a vacuum. He pulled the tragedian’s mask from his pack. “I was so busy practicing my sad clown routine I must’ve forgotten.”

“I get it,” Eve said, anger brimming in her tone. “You want my help getting into character, so you decided I’ll help you earn those fake tears.”

Wes let out a laugh. “Ooh, violence. You know, the first step to overcoming addiction is to admit you have a problem.”

“Ladies, please!” Preston inserted. “Be civil.”

“Ladies?” Wes scoffed. “Please. Eve’s no lady, she’s just a peasant girl from some backwater village.”

Eve snorted. “You grew up down the street from me.”

Wes hemmed and hawed, holding his hand to his chest as if aghast at some minor slight. With an aggressively posh falsetto, he replied, “But at least I compose myself with the proper bearing for one who purports to fraternize with high society.”

It was Eve’s turn to laugh. “Wow, you really have been practicing your clown routine.”

That was enough to break the rest of the party of their stoicism, a chorus of laughter echoing through the clearing in which they camped. Even Lumy joined in, her three lights flashing in time with the fits of giggling coming from Art.

The party flew over the mountains rather than bothering with tracking down the pass they’d used prior, though without that landmark they’d have a harder time finding their first stop within the Dead Fields.

Once they entered the thick fog, Wes with his ugly mask and everyone else with their natural or class-provided immunity, a new dilemma struck. They could, in theory, fly above the toxic mist until they neared their destination, but without its cover they’d be exposed to every high-level griffin, roc, horrifying bat-worm-thing, and other flying monster beyond their ability to fight. Similarly, from the air they’d never know when they actually got where they were going.

Staying within the miasma came with its own problems, chiefly, visibility. Eve had learned early in their first visit that moving through the mist with any sort of speed was a risky prospect at best. In the Dead Fields, they’d be on foot.

That said, the party had grown quite a bit since their last excursion into these mists. While Wes now had the disadvantage of having to see through the slightly-too-far-apart eye holes on his mask, Preston’s Paragon class came with a Primal Instinct that gave them a much better idea of where exactly they were at any given point. Combined with Art’s telepathy providing constant updates on how many living creatures were in the vicinity, the Dead Fields had lost some of that terror they’d once held.

Similarly Art’s ability to detect nearby minds meant that by the time the adventurers arrived at the pond that marked the entrance to Drathis’s cave, they already knew the giant rat wasn’t home.

“Maybe he’s out hunting?” Preston offered as the party stood around the clear water of the pond. “We could wait for him here.”

“We should go inside,” Eve said plainly. “For all we know he’s moved out. Or he’s lying dead in there. At the very least we need to check.”

“I don’t know about that,” Wes argued. “It kinda feels like breaking in.”

Eve looked at him sideways. “You just don’t want to get wet.”

“Have you felt this water? It’s freezing!”

With a particularly sarcastic growl, Reginald tapped Wes on the back with his tail, sending the fire mage careening forward into the pond. The great splash spared no one.

“Look on the bright side,” Preston said as he carefully waded into the pond, “you can finally use that diver’s mask for its intended purpose.”

With a laugh, Eve took a running jump and cannonballed into the pool, her Mana-constructed body unaffected by the chill of the water.

Art and Reginald stayed behind, the former for his talons’ poor ability to propel one through water and the latter because he’d grown too big to fit into the cave opening. Lumy was kind enough to light the party’s way through the pond.

The good news, as far as Eve was concerned, was that she didn’t emerge into the verdant cave to find the decaying corpse of a giant rat in the corner. The bad news was that she did find a massive carnivorous plant that immediately snapped a vine around her ankle and tugged.

“Shi—” Eve barely managed to mutter the curse word before she landed hard on her ass and began to slide across the mossy cave floor towards the left of three twelve-foot-wide open maws. With a moment’s thought, she dissociated her left foot into a cloud of white Mana, causing the vine to whip back with only her boot.

“Gods damnit.” Eve pushed herself to her feet. “I’m gonna have to fish that out of a pile of plant slime now.”

“Eve!” Preston gasped as he emerged from the pool behind her. “Be careful! There’s something dangero—”

“Yeah, I picked up on that,” she cut him off, drawing her club and Appraising the thing.

Level ?? Greater Strethian Humantrap

“Oh, I get it,” Wes muttered. “It’s like a flytrap, but human-sized.”

Eve looked at the giant plant and back at Wes. “You know any twelve-foot-tall humans?”

“You know what I meant,” Wes snapped back. “The nice thing about plants is—” he set his hands alight— “they burn.”

“Nope,” Eve said, swatting at his hands until their flames went out. “Nope, nope, nope. That thing has my boot.”

Wes blinked and lowered his hands. “Alright. And what’s your plan then?”

“Do you really have to ask me that?”

Wes sighed. “Overwhelming force?”

Eve grinned. “Overwhelming force.”

She Charged in.

A thorny vine whipped through the air, crashing into her chest. A three-inch thorn made it through her armor and struck a rib, sending waves of pain up Eve’s spine, but she’d taken more than her fair share of hits. One flash of golden light later, and she was good as new.

Her charge barely faltered.

Two more vines swept at her, but she Jetted up and over them, bringing her club about in a mighty swing to strike at the plant’s left mouth. With the added power of Mana Rush bringing her up to over seven hundred thousand Strength, ‘overwhelming force’ might’ve been an understatement.

The plant’s jaw exploded.

Eve leapt back as the humantrap lashed out in whatever a plant’s approximation for pain was. “Why didn’t Art sense this thing anyway?”

“It’s a plant,” Preston stated the obvious. “It doesn’t have a brain.”

“Which means,” Wes added, “there’s no one place you can hit it to kill it.”

Eve shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.” Before her Defiant Charge could time out, she dashed into the wreckage of the mouth she’d destroyed, scanning the mound of plant-parts for a few hurried seconds. Moments later, her hand darted into the fine paste she’d made of it to grab something and Jetted out in time to dodge another swipe of vines.

“Okay,” she said, waving her sludge-covered boot through the air, “you can burn it now.”

The entire humantrap came alight in a massive fwoomp, filling the cavern with acrid smoke as it slowly succumbed to the blaze. Conveniently enough, the same measures the party had taken to survive in the toxic fog protected them from any harm the smoke might’ve done, but Eve did still have to smell it. She gagged.

Even from outside, Art kept a watchful mind’s eye on Wes’s mental state. The moment the kill notification came through, the young trellac took control, forcing Wes to extinguish the inferno against his—or, more accurately, the devouring flame’s—will.

You have defeated Level 108 Greater Strethian Humantrap: + 17.1m exp!

“There, that wasn’t so hard,” Wes said with a grin.

“Speak for yourself,” Eve replied, stooping over to rinse her boot in the pond. “I almost lost a perfectly good boot. This is gonna smell like plant digestive acid for days.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s an improvement over how your boots normally smell.”

“Anyway,” Preston coughed. “The problem now is we have no idea what happened to Drathis.”

Eve scowled, glancing over at the pile of ash that had once been a carnivorous plant. “Well, it’s not like we’ve left any evidence behind to search.”

Wes shook his head. “I don’t think the plant ate him. That thing hardly seemed mobile, and Drathis is smart enough not to let something like that grow on accident.”

Preston raised an eyebrow. “You think he planted it on purpose?”

“He’s right,” Eve muttered. “Look around. None of his stuff is here.”

Sure enough, the bone racks where he’d dried animal hides, the cauldron in which he’d boiled pelsid ooze, and workbench at which he crafted everything else were all mysteriously absent from the Scavenger’s old haunt.

“Then where did he go?” Preston asked. “And why leave the humantrap behind?”

Eve shrugged. “Maybe he thought somebody was hunting him. Maybe he went to try and find more of his kind. Maybe he noticed the plant growing on its own and decided he was better off moving out rather than trying to kill it.”

Hey guys? Art interrupted the conversation. There’s somebody out here.

Eve waited patiently as Preston sent back instructions, only for Art to reply with a mental image of a sound echoing through the fog.

A series of deep croaks filled the air, followed by an all-too-familiar voice talking either to its frogs or to itself. Eve could never know with Drathis.

“Finally back,” the giant rat grunted. “I sure hope my favorite pet giant carnivorous plant is doing well.”

As Art’s vision came to an end, Eve, Wes, and Preston all turned to look each other in the eye, faces aghast as they’d ever been. After two years now of adventuring together, they’d each managed to pick up a number of the others’ mannerisms. In fact, the three of them had grown so in sync, they all reacted in exactly the same way at exactly the same moment.

“Shit.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Seriously, What’s With the Eyepatch Thing?

EVE LEAPT BACK into the pond without hesitation, even dropping a low-mana Jet to hasten her way out of the cave. She resurfaced just in time to watch Drathis appear in the mist.

He didn’t walk into vision, nor did he ride on the back of some beast.

Drathis was pulled.

Twelve, six-foot-tall, jarringly white frogs tugged at series of harnesses, each hopping forth in time with the crack of Drathis’s whip, pulling his sled forward in awkward lurches. The vehicle itself stood on two griffin-bone skis, its hard-leather platform stretching wide enough to fit the rat’s entire workshop. His cauldron, drying racks, worktable, and even a hearth and cot on which to sleep all made their way onto the sled.

Drathis truly had gone mobile.

The rat himself looked much the same, still four-feet-tall and only clothed from the waist up. In lieu of the slime-coated rag he’d used in the past, Drathis wore a mask of leather, its front punched with a series of holes through which he breathed. Whether pelsid ooze or some other function of it protected him from the poison fog, Eve couldn’t tell.

Additionally, the rat had somehow lost one of his eyes. A black leather eyepatch hid the injury, but Eve could see furless scar tissue peeking out on either side of it.

“Why is it always an eyepatch?” Wes muttered to her as Drathis’s sled approached.

“What do you mean?”

“It just feels like every time you go without seeing someone who lives a dangerous life, the next time you see them they have an eyepatch, usually with a dramatic scar across their eye. Why is it always an eyepatch? Is there some monster out there that goes around poking eyes out?”

Preston blinked at him. “What in the hells are you talking about?”

Before Wes could respond, Drathis leapt down from his giant sled and approached the party on foot. His first words he directed at Reginald. “Well, ye got big, didn’t ye?”

He did! Art sent in reply. I’m Art, by the way. It’s nice to meet you!

One by one Drathis scanned the adventurers before finally concluding the one with the unfamiliar face must’ve been the telepath. “Nice to meet ye too,” he replied, seemingly unaware he addressed the trellac that had so terrified him a year ago.

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Eve exclaimed, deciding their situation wouldn’t be any better if Drathis knew they’d overheard him. It wasn’t technically a lie. “When we went inside and saw that thing, we thought it might’ve eaten you.”

“No.” Drathis shook his head. “Planty wouldn’t do that.”

Wes stared at him. “You named it Planty?”

Eve didn’t let that line of questioning continue. “Why not? It’s a humantrap. Those mouths could absolutely fit you inside.”

“Exactly,” Drathis said with a snap of his fingers. “Planty’s a humantrap, and I’m not a human. So how’s he doing? Did his leaves look pert and verdant? Were his flowers plentiful?”

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

“We killed Planty,” Eve put it plainly.

Drathis gasped. “Ye killed Planty? What? Why? He was just a—”

“Homicidal plant that was actively trying to eat us?”

Drathis looked to Wes and then Preston with his one good eye. “I can see how that might pose a dilemma for those two. But ye…” He turned to Eve. “You’re not human either.”

Eve shrugged. “You know, I really don’t think the name ‘humantrap’ really excludes it from eating nonhumans. It was definitely trying to eat me.”

“Are ye sure he wasn’t trying to give ye a hug?”

“With his mouth?” Eve held her foot up. “My boot still reeks of digestive fluid.”

Drathis scowled. “Hmmm. Is there any chance that boot is made of human skin?”

Eve blinked. “I think you’re getting way too caught up on the ‘humantrap’ thing. The plant doesn’t care what it’s called.”

“Didn’t,” Drathis corrected. “The plant didn’t care. Because he’s dead now.”

Wes frowned. “Actually, I don’t think he started caring once he died. You could argue he still doesn’t care. He just doesn’t do anything else either.”

“Not helping,” Preston muttered.

“I’m sorry, Drathis,” Eve said. “Really. If we’d known Planty was in there, we never would’ve gone inside, but once he grabbed me, we didn’t really have much of a choice.”

“I… I don’t blame ye,” Drathis sniffled. “Planty’s as much of a scary bastard as you all are now. I just… I need a minute.”

The adventurers parted to allow the giant rat through, watching with solemn eyes as he plunged into the pond. They left him alone to say his goodbyes.

“Well that went better than it could’ve.”

Eve rounded on Wes. “Did it? He’s not exactly happy with us.”

“Yeah, but he’s not pointing a crossbow at us either. Which… you know… he did when we first met him.”

“I’m just glad he’s alive,” Preston said. “And from the looks of things he’s doing well for himself. Other than the dead pet thing.”

“The new mask definitely looks better than those old rags,” Eve said. “Not as stylish as Wes’s, of course, but he sets a high bar.”

“Not to mention he’s somehow tamed a team of…” Preston Appraised them. “Mid-fifties misthoppers.”

“Is there a lake somewhere?” Eve asked. “I thought frogs needed to moisturize their skin.”

Preston looked at her sideways. “You realize the poison isn’t the only thing in the mist, right? It’s mostly water.”

“Right. I knew that.”

Preston totally believed her. “It’s an interesting setup he’s got, though. Seems more dangerous than just staying in the cave, but I guess there’re only so many resources to scavenge within a day’s travel. Probably didn’t have a choice other than to start taking multi-day trips.”

Throughout this exchange, Wes quietly stared at twelve misthoppers hooked up to the sled as well as the leather whip hanging on a peg at the sled’s front. Under his breath, he finally spoke. “So does this mean he just needs to climb up onto his sled, grab the whip, and—”

“Don’t say it,” Eve cut him off. “Whatever pun you’re about to make, don’t.”

“But it’s right there.”

“No.” Eve said sharply.

Nearly an hour passed in uncomfortable silence before Drathis emerged from the cave, a charred thorn in his hand. “Something to remember him by,” he said. “And possibly a nice tip for a new spear.”

Instead of commenting on the Scavenger’s propensity for repurposing things that perhaps shouldn’t be repurposed, Preston replied with empathy. “It’s what Planty would’ve wanted.”

“Aye,” Drathis breathed, “a chance to keep killing things from beyond the grave.”

He climbed up onto the sled, digging through the heap of bags and bulky items all tied down to find the perfect place to stash the burnt thorn. That done, he stood and addressed the adventurers eye to eye, thanks to the extra feet of height the sled gave him. “I figure ye didn’t come all this way for a quick visit and a touch of murder.”

“We were in the area for a quest and figured we might as well stop by,” Eve explained. “Art wanted to meet you, and we thought we might store some supplies for our return trip at your cave.”

“No.”

“Right. Well. Yes.” Eve stumbled over her words. “Obviously we wouldn’t imagine storing things on Planty’s… yeah. Of course not.”

“So,” Drathis said, leaning back against the pile of junk he’d hoarded on his sled, “what’s this quest of yours anyway? I might know it.”

Eve pulled the map from her pack. “We’re searching for the lost Crown of Burendia. Apparently somewhere north of here—possibly beyond the end of the Dead Fields, we’re not sure how far they go—is where the capital city used to be.”

Drathis scanned the map for a few quick seconds, letting out a few thoughtful sounds as he gazed at the icon for the crown. “Now this is interesting.”

“Isn’t it?” Eve grinned. “Long lost capital of an ancient people. You can see why we—”

“No, I mean your map. It’s all wrong.”

“Well, yeah, of course it is,” Eve said. “It was drawn before the Dead Fields were even—”

“Not that,” Drathis snapped. “I mean they’ve got the city in the wrong place.”

Eve blinked. “They’ve got the what now?”

Drathis pointed at the map. “Ye see, right here they’ve got the ruined city due north of Scarrag’s Peak, but it’s actually a fair bit west of that.”

Preston leaned in. “You know where it is?”

“Of course I do! I know where everything is.” Drathis tapped the side of his head with a claw. “All part of my class knowledge.”

Wes sighed. “Drathis, we’ve been over this, there’s no such thing as—”

Eve interrupted, “Can you take us there?”

“I can get ye close, but not all the way. Place is more dangerous than a lonely dragon’s pantry. And I want a cut.”

“A cut of what?” Wes asked. “We’re not getting paid for this.”

Drathis blinked as much as a one-eyed rat could blink rather than winking. “You’re going into that deathtrap for free? Are ye sure ye aren’t getting scammed?”

“Never,” Wes chimed.

“What use do you have for money, anyway?” Eve asked. “You’re out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“So are ye.”

“Fair point,” Eve ceded. “I can give you…” She dug into her pack. “Forty-seven gold?”

“Deal!” Drathis snatched up the gold just quickly enough for Eve to realize she probably was getting scammed, but she didn’t mind. Drathis had already given them so much, and so far they’d paid him back by killing his pet. If a bit of extra gold would make him happy, she’d readily part with it.

“Alright,” Drathis said, “I can’t fit the big one, but the rest of ye can ride up here with me.”

Art was the first to scramble onto the sled, excited to try riding a sled for the first time. Wes and Eve joined him, more out of respect for Drathis than any real desire to experience the lurching travel of a frog-drawn sled. Preston elected to ride on Reginald’s back as the drake walked alongside them.

As everyone settled in for the trip, Wes asked a question. “So, how did you know it was me under this mask?”

“Class knowledge,” Drathis grumbled.

“What? Drathis, that doesn’t even make sense.”

“It’s cause you’re the only clown he knows,” Eve said from the back of the sled.

Wes rolled his eyes in a sarcastic gesture nobody could see behind the hideously painted mask. “This sled is awesome, though. I never would’ve thought to use-um… misthoppers as pack animals.”

“Aye,” Drathis muttered. “They can be stubborn, but options out here aren’t exactly plentiful.”

“So you just have to harness them up…”

“Aye.”

“And get on the back of your sled…”

“Aye.”

“And get out your whip…”

Drathis ran a hand along the handle of the whip, giving Wes a curious look. “Aye.”

Even through the mask, Eve could hear the big stupid grin on Wes’s face. “And flog the fog frogs?”

Eve groaned.

Preston groaned.

Reginald groaned.

Art giggled.

Drathis fell over.

Wave after wave of high-pitched, full-body cackling echoed through dense fog as Drathis clutched his belly. He laughed and he laughed and he laughed, the sheer inanity of the joke somehow amplifying its effects on him in particular.

Eve watched it all in awe.

When at last the giant rat managed to regain control of himself and climb to his feet, he turned to Wes with a grin of his own. “Flog the fog frogs. How didn’t I think of that?” He placed a hand on Wes’s arm. “Thank ye. I needed that.”

“Any time,” Wes replied. “Sometimes a dumb joke is really the best thing.”

“And you’ve got plenty of dumb jokes, haven’t you?” Eve said.

Wes chuckled. “If I’m gonna be a clown, I might as well be good at it.”

“‘Good’ is a strong word.”

“Sorry, I misspoke,” Wes replied. “I meant to say ‘great.’”

“Alright,” Drathis broke up their banter as he finished lashing down the last of his junk. “Let’s get moving.” He grabbed his whip, stepping up to the front of the sled before turning back to address the others. “Ye might want to hold on to something.”

He didn’t wait for any response or indication of readiness from Eve, Wes, or Art. They had a ruined city to find, after all. Instead, Drathis turned his attention forward, raised his whip, and in a single motion, got the party under way.

Drathis flogged the fog frogs, and off they went.

CHAPTER FIVE

You’ve Seen One Ancient Ruined City, You’ve Seen Them All

EVE MADE IT through ten synchronized jumps of the misthoppers, ten sudden lurches forward followed by slow slides to a halt, before she decided she’d rather walk. After twelve, Art made a similar decision, opting instead to join Preston on Reginald’s back.

Wes, whose stomach was apparently far stronger than Eve had ever given him credit for, stayed aboard the sled, sitting back and chatting with their rodent companion. From her spot alternating walking and jogging to keep pace with the lurching sled, Eve could hear most of what went on between them.

“So why the eyepatch?” Wes so bluntly asked. “What happened in the year since we saw you?”

“What are ye talking about?” Drathis replied. “It’s always been like this.”

“No it hasn’t,” Wes said. “When we were here last year, you very definitely had full use of both your eyes.”

“No I didn’t.”

Wes turned to Eve. “He’s fucking with me, right? He has to be fucking with me.”

Eve shrugged. “Well it’s that or whatever poked his eye out managed to convince him it hadn’t.”

Wes blinked. “What?”

“Yeah I’m going to go with the former,” Eve laughed. “You are very fuckable with…” She scowled. “Wait, that’s not right. Very fuckwithable?”

“Fuckwith-prone?” Wes offered.

“No, that’s not it either,” Eve said. “You’re not prone to being fucked with, you’re easy to fuck with.”

“Fuckwith accessible?” He tried.

From his spot atop Reginald’s back, Preston snorted. “Yeah, you’re an equal opportunity fuck.”

Eve shook her head. “My money’s still on fuckwithable. It flows off the tongue better.”

“Great, so we’ve gone from ‘equal opportunity fuck’ to how easy it is on the tongue.”

Preston blushed.

Eve laughed. “Your words, not mine.”

Wes glared at her through his mask. “You’re the one who started with ‘fuckable.’”

“Okay, maybe partially my words.”

“Have ye considered,” Drathis chimed in, “‘tease-able’?”

“Great, now we’ve gone from fucking to teasing,” Wes muttered.

“That’s probably more accurate,” Eve replied, “but fuckwithable is so much more fun to say.”

Slowly, letting himself linger on every syllable, Drathis fully experienced the act of saying the word. “Fuckwithable. Aye, that is fun.”

All at once, the others followed suit until the conversation had completely devolved into everyone just saying “fuckwithable” over and over again at different speeds, tones, and with slight variations in emphasis. Even Reginald gave it a try, though the series of grunts and growls the word translated to in draconic didn’t carry quite the same satisfaction as in common.

The party traveled for three days on—or, predominantly, next to—Drathis’s frog-drawn sled. The rat had brought with him more than enough water for those that needed it, while Art made the search for food trivially easy. Tracking down and freezing in place low-level prey animals was practically the purpose of trellac telepathy, and Art was all too happy to help his friends hunt for their meals.

On their second day out from Drathis’s cave, they even found a herd of those mist-deer-things that Eve had so hoped to come across. It took a great deal of Art’s focus to force all nineteen of the beasts to ignore their most primal instinct to dissociate into the fog at the first sign of danger, but once he managed it they were no match for Eve’s speed.

The deer-things—called mistlers according to Appraise—had pale brown fur to best blend in with the color of the poison fog. Other than their color, the main visual aspect that distinguished the things from mundane deer was their antlers.

They had three of them.

From the heads of males and females both sprouted three branching antlers that seemed to twist about each other chaotically before rejoining in a single, sharp point at the tip. Beautiful as they were, Eve couldn’t help but shudder at the mental image of the kind of carnage such a weapon would wreak on whatever it pierced.

Fortunately, the prey animals weren’t exactly wired for fighting back.

Other than the one they butchered for food then and there, the party piled the carcasses up on Drathis’s sled. In exchange for the antlers, leftover meat, bones, and whatever other parts of the mistlers the rat could find a use for, he promised to skin them all and give Eve however many pelts she needed to get her armor made.

It wasn’t what she would’ve called a fair deal, but considering the alternative was skinning them all herself and then carting the hides around for their entire delve through the Burendian ruins, Eve happily took it. After all, they weren’t exactly short on gold. Come to think of it, the party really was due a trip into some city or other in joint vacation and opportunity to spend all the coin they’d accrued over a year’s adventuring.

Truthfully, the only disappointment in their hunt of the mist-deer-things was that mistler tasted indistinguishable from any other bit of venison. For how hard to find and kill the damn things were, Eve had really hoped for something interesting.

On the third day, Drathis dropped them off right where the dry dirt of the Dead Fields gave way to a decrepit cobblestone road, cracked with age yet somehow still as perfectly flat and paved with identical stones as any bit of Burendian engineering. “Here ye are,” he announced as the party unloaded their gear. He nodded towards the road. “If I have to tell ye which way it is, good luck making it back.”

Eve smiled. “I think we can figure it out. Thanks, Drathis.”

“Thanks for the ride,” Wes said as he hopped off the sled.

Thank you, Mr. Drathis! Art added. It was nice meeting you!

“Aye,” Drathis grunted. “Your pelts will be waiting for ye at the cave. Good luck in there. You’ll need it.”

Preston frowned. “How do you know we’ll need it? For all we know that place could be empty.”

Eve glared at him. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”

“What?”

Wes managed to say it in perfect sync with Drathis, matching the rat’s grunting tone and dismissive cadence flawlessly.

“Class knowledge.”

Preston snorted. “Should’ve seen that one coming, huh?” He shook his head, letting out a chuckle. “Thanks for everything, Drathis. Good luck out there.”

Drathis nodded, winked—or blinked—with his one eye, and tugged the reins southward. With one final wave of his claws for the adventuring party, he raised his whip, flogged the fog frogs, and lurched off into the mist.

“Alright.” Wes clapped his hands together. “Big scary ancient ruined city number three. Let’s do this.”

Eve frowned at the cobblestone road before them. “It’s weird to see a road on the surface, right? Everything Burendian we’ve seen so far has been underground.”

Preston turned up his palms. “It looks Burendian. I suppose it’s possible Drathis took us to the wrong ruined city—he did say the map was wrong—but it seems more likely that the Burendians had a city on the surface too. It’s the capital, after all. They had to have had some presence on the surface.”

“Makes sense,” Eve said. “Still, I’m not making any assumptions until I see a dungeon notification. Imagine if we went to all the effort of exploring the wrong big scary ancient ruined city.”

Club in hand, Eve took the lead down ruined cobblestones. She kept her eyes and ears flowing with Mana, enhancing her senses at the cost of a few points each second. Even with Art’s telepathy on lookout, the fight with Planty had taught Eve her lesson. Not all threats had minds to read.

But five minutes into their walk, they found the first structure, or at least what was left of it. Eve could track the lines in the stone where Burendian enchantments had once run over the simple cottage, though their Mana had long dried up. The roof had collapsed some eternity ago, leaving little more than four walls surrounding a pile of rubble for the adventurers to search. They didn’t bother.

The buildings—Eve figured them to be the houses of farms long lost to the poison mist—grew more and more common as they walked. The two they found that were still standing both housed colonies of fist-sized fungal creatures that Wes was all too happy to burn away before they had any chance of leaving the building to attack the party. Having watched the way they skittered about the walls and floor of the ruined farmhouses, Eve desperately hoped there wouldn’t be any of them in the city proper.

Two hours down the road, the long-dead farms and collapsed buildings gave way to an open square. The rubbled remains of inns and shops lined the wide-open, paved space, while four roads in total stretched out in the cardinal directions. None of it was of interest to Eve.

The nest was.

Right at the center of the courtyard, stretching easily fifty feet across, stood a circular nest carefully crafted of torn bits of metal and stone. For the time being, Eve ignored the four dark passageways leading into the ground beneath it, electing instead to Jet up and over the mess of stone and steel. With a flap of his ghostly wings, Reginald carted the others in too.

Three eggs stood together in the center of the nest, white and mottled brown and as tall as Eve herself. When she placed a hand on one, no warmth of life passed through. “Whatever laid these hasn’t been here for some time.”

The eggs are dead, Art sent. But Reginald says he knows this smell.

Eve’s and Preston’s eyes met.

“You don’t think…” Eve said.

“What else do we know that’s this big, lays eggs, and hasn’t been around for some time?”

“Guys…” Wes interrupted, stooping down to pick something up from the rubble-nest. He raised his hand to display a tuft of golden fur and a white feather. “Look familiar?”

“Well shit,” Eve cursed. “I guess we know how that griffin got so high level. It’s probably been feasting like a king on all sorts of Managorged animals.”

Preston nodded. “That only leaves one question, then.”

“Exactly,” Wes chimed. “How do griffins lay eggs if they have the back half of a mammal? Shouldn’t they give live birth?”

Eve and Preston both turned to look askance at him.

“That,” Preston said, “was not the question.”

“If we killed the mama griffin,” Eve asked, “where’s the father?”

Wes groaned. “I liked my question more. My question, I actually want to know the answer to. Your question is begging a griffin to swoop down and eat us right now.”

Eve laughed. “Sounds like it’s time to waltz right into the dark underground passage, then.”

“First things first,” Preston said, walking up to stop Wes from discarding the pieces of evidence he’d gathered. With a grin, the Paragon swiped the griffin-feather and stuck it through his hat, stashing the old red phoenix feather carefully in his pack. “Okay, now we can waltz right into the dark underground passage.”

Rolling her eyes at Preston’s need to accessorize in a place like this, Eve leapt back over the lip of the nest and landed gracefully beside one of the four dark openings. With Reginald’s help, the others joined her a minute later.

Thankfully enough, each opening stood tall and wide enough to accommodate two carriages abreast, leaving more than enough space for Reginald’s ever-growing form to squeeze through. Even more fortunate, Eve could just make out the characteristic white glow of Burendian enchantments from somewhere beyond the thick fog that permeated even the underground passage.

As if poised to confirm the party had, in fact, managed to find the correct ancient ruined city, the notification popped into Eve’s vision the moment she set foot beneath the shadow of the ceiling.

You have entered the dungeon: Crown of Burendia! Fight well.

CHAPTER SIX

Down

THE PASSAGE OPENED up into a vast vertical cylinder, the path on which the party walked twisting to the right to follow the wall of the space. Through the mist that permeated even this place, Eve could just barely make out where the four other entrances beneath the griffin nest turned into their own roads, creating four separate spiral paths into the deep.

Peering over the crumbling stone guardrail, Eve could only see fog below. Gods knew how far down it went.

“Are we sure these roads are secure?” Preston asked as he took a hesitant step onto the spiral ramp.

“No idea,” Eve replied without moving or looking away from the guardrail. She leaned over it to look down. “But it’s only about fifteen feet to the road below us, so if there’s a collapse we won’t fall too far.”

“Assuming that road can support our weight and the force of this road falling on it,” Preston muttered darkly.

Wes shrugged. “Ride on Reginald’s back if you’re worried. I’m no engineer, but these roads look pretty stable to me, and the fact none of them have collapsed in the last few thousand years makes me pretty confident.”

“None have collapsed that we can see,” Preston answered, scrambling up Reginald’s leg as he did. The ceiling above them proved too low for him to sit comfortably, forcing the Paragon to lie on his stomach in order to fit aboard the flying drake.

As usual, Eve took the lead onto the counterclockwise road, stepping with confidence into the most dangerous dungeon she’d ever seen. This was going to be fun.

“It’s like an inverted tower,” Wes breathed as he stared across the misty shaft at the roads on the other side. “Instead of building up, they dug down. The amount of work it must’ve taken to move this much earth…”

“The amount of Mana,” Eve corrected. “Knowing the Burendians, they probably used a leyline. There’s gotta be a big one down there somewhere.”

“Probably a node,” Preston said. “This is the capital we’re talking about. They would’ve found the spot where as many leylines crossed as they could.”

“That begs the question then,” Wes followed up, “of what happened to all that Mana? I don’t see any enchantments running along these roads.”

“Either whatever enchantments were collecting it fell apart in the last thousand years, or some enchantment somewhere between here and there has. And if another Mana wraith has been drinking it all up…” Eve smirked. “I’ll have to drink it up.”

From his position at the party’s rear, Art sent an overdramatic slurping noise to everyone present.

“Yep,” Eve laughed. “Just like that.”

By the time they’d made three full revolutions around the cylindrical chamber, the indirect glow of daylight could no longer penetrate the thick fog. Eve’s eyes alone lit the way, unfortunately at a wavelength the mist reflected all too well. The result was a blinding wall of white wherever she looked, while the diffuse reflection cast a silver glow everywhere else. She tried dimming her eyes, and managed to pick up an extra few feet of forward visibility for her efforts, but the change cost the others their ability to see anywhere Eve herself wasn’t looking.

In the end, she decided four sets of eyes were better than one, and let her eyes glow at full brightness. The others could point the way while she followed the guidance of her Mana-enhanced ears.

Without vision of the four sunlit entrances above them, the party had no way to mark their progress into the depths. They walked and they walked and they walked, descending for some unknowable amount of time before a new milestone presented itself.

They found their first crossroads.

The wall to their right opened up into a doorway, its wooden door long turned to dust. A signpost similarly hung above it, but whatever sign had once announced this place to the city around it had vanished to the ravages of time. This shop or inn or whatever it had once been marked the first of a series of openings along the cylinder wall, the end of which lay obscured in the mist.

Of course, the presence of shops and taverns and houses along one of the four spiraling roads demanded a way to move between one road and another. While Eve was certain there would be multi-level shops that included stairs or ladders to connect the levels and thus the roads, such paths would hardly allow the passage of a carriage.

Which explained the bridges.

To the party’s left, the guardrail stopped to make way for a road perpendicular to the wall, jutting out over the abyss. It met with three identical roads at the cylinder’s center, stretching out to make a city square of sorts suspended over the great fall. For fear of a collapse, Eve explored it alone.

“It’s like a normal city,” Preston muttered once she’d explained her findings. “Four main parallel streets, split up into blocks by the perpendicular streets connecting them. It’s just… twisted on top of itself.”

“Which means you get four parallel streets that are each directly connected to all three of the others,” Eve reasoned. “Except they’re not quite directly next to each other, because a two-story shop or house could be on two streets at once, but only ones directly above or below each other.”

“This is getting too complicated,” Wes said. “Can we just settle on like-a-normal-city-but-also-not-at-all?”

Eve snorted. “Sure. It’s not like the city layout really matters to us. These are Burendians we’re talking about. There’s only one direction all the important stuff is gonna be.”

“Down?”

“Down.” Eve nodded. “As close to the leyline as they can get.”

Even knowing they’d find little of import this high up, the party made sure to check every room they passed on their chosen road. With the enchantments down, none had survived as more than a particularly dusty stone room, but it wasn’t furniture or potential loot that concerned Eve.

It was the denizens of the Dead Fields that might have taken up residence.

The third room they came across—some kind of restaurant if the arcane oven in the back was any sign—housed a mound of dirt arranged like a nest. No eggs nor feathers nor tufts of fur remained to indicate what had once occupied it, but it had clearly been about four feet long and dexterous enough to carry soil all the way down there. The lack of any organic tissue left behind seemed to imply the creature had left or died some time ago, likely to the griffin that had once roosted above.

It wasn’t until the party had lost count of the rooms they’d checked that they found something more recent.

“Is that…” Wes ran a hand along the three-foot-wide thin translucent tube that curled about the floor. “Is that a snakeskin?”

“Certainly looks like it,” Eve replied. “Fresh enough to be intact, too.”

“Looks Managorged though,” Preston said. “Unless there are giant snakes in the Dead Fields that nobody knows about.”

Eve snorted. “I wouldn’t dismiss that as a possibility, but knowing where we are, it being Managorged makes the most sense.”

“Which means either the enchantments went down more recently than we thought, or this thing has been roaming down to the lower levels,” Preston reasoned.

Eve shrugged. “If we find it, we’ll kill it. We’ve beaten Managorged bunnies, a Managorged spider, and a Managorged bear so far. What difference is a Managorged snake?”

Wes shuddered. “Bunnies, spiders, and bears don’t slither.”

“Neither will this when we’re done with it.” Eve flashed a grin.

She gave it an Appraise more for kicks than any real hope the skill would provide useful information, and sure enough, all she got was that they’d found a Rare snakeskin. Whether it was Managorged or just weirdly big would remain a mystery for the time being.

The party traveled on.

Down and down and down they went, searching a never-ending series of empty rooms and open squares, all progress masked by the fog above and below. Only the ever-changing remnants of life they found belied the notion of being caught in an infinite loop. Not all stairways lead to somewhere, after all.

They found nests and burrows and desiccated droppings. Even a few decaying skeletons lay untouched in some of the rooms. Lacking a formal education in the local fauna of the Dead Fields, Eve had no idea what any of the bones belonged to, let alone if they were the appropriate size.

The only recurring theme of the party’s findings was the lack of life itself. Everything a wild animal could possibly leave behind, they found, but not once did a living, breathing animal ever reveal itself.

At first Eve suspected it might’ve been a quirk of the road they’d chosen, that given how many millennia had passed, there were bound to be more remnants of life than living creatures, and given the layout of the city, they really were only exploring a quarter of the ruins. But the deeper they went and the more time passed without finding a single living soul, the more Eve began to suspect that life within the Crown had come to an end. She suspected the failure of the enchantments had something to do with it.

The adventurers had no way of knowing how long they’d walked nor how many revolutions they’d made around the cylindrical shaft when the corpse first made itself known. Being a corpse and being some unknown number of days old, the smell reached Eve’s nose long before she ever had a chance to lay eyes on it.

She held in the retch.

Preston didn’t.

“What’s wrong?” Wes asked, the nature of his mask leaving him unable to smell anything other than whatever was in the air the enchantment had stored years ago.

“Something dead,” Eve said. “Somewhere further down.”

Eve followed her nose as much as she could, a task made easier by enhancing the sense with Mana at the cost of having to smell the rotting flesh more. It wasn’t until she reached what she deemed the epicenter without laying eyes on a carcass that she realized her error.

There were four roads.

“I think it’s below us,” she told the others as she climbed up onto the guardrail. “I’ll be right back.”

Hopping down to the road below was as simple as letting herself fall and Jetting at the right moment. She landed in a bit of a run to make up for the lateral momentum she’d needed from Jet, but the maneuver worked well enough. She looked around.

No snake.

With a sigh, Eve called out her status to the others above her and patiently waited for Jet to come off cooldown. She could, of course, simply dissociate herself and float on down to the lower level—hells it’d probably be the safest way to scout—but that would require leaving her armor behind and then going through the long effort of strapping everything back on later, all of which she’d have to do while smelling the gods-damned corpse.

Eve jumped down.

“I found our snake!” she yelled up to the others as she approached the rotting carcass.

As she carefully looked over the swollen brown scales, the massive fangs dripping with venom, and the several puncture wounds scattered about its body, Eve took in a sharp breath.

She didn’t care about pale lines of white light proving the beast had been Managorged. She didn’t care about the pool of dried blood causing her boots to stick to the ground with every step. She didn’t care about the rattle at the tip of the snake’s tail.

Eve cared about the dried root that had inexplicably sprung from the cobblestone street to pierce the beast’s heart, and about the one enchanted spear she knew that could do exactly that.

“Hey guys?” she nervously called out to the others. “I think Alex has been here.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Biggest of the Really Big Doors

“ARE YOU SURE it’s hers?” Preston called down as Eve examined the unnatural root two levels below him.

“It’s hard to say for certain,” she answered. “Alex’s spear definitely isn’t the only enchanted item with a root-summoning power, and it’s also entirely possible there are classes out there that can do that too.”

“But it looks like one of hers?” Wes asked.

“I think so?” Eve squinted at the summoned root where it pierced the giant snake’s heart. “Hey Art?”

Yep!

Eve focused on the image in front of her, keeping it at the forefront of her mind. “Can you show this to the others?”

On it! the boy chimed, relaying the view to Wes and Preston.

“It’s not conclusive,” Wes eventually said, “but you’re right. It definitely could be hers.”

“Which means we have to function under the assumption that there’s a hostile Unique somewhere down here,” Preston followed up.

Eve sighed. “That doesn’t change anything.”

Wes snorted. “Yeah, before I was acting under the assumption that an ancient high-level dungeon was harmless, but now I’ll have to start being careful.”

Preston blinked. “Feeling snarky today, aren’t we?”

“Sorry.” Wes sighed, rubbing his neck behind his mask. “Might’ve progressed a bit too far from sad clown into mean clown territory.”

“I’m coming back up!” Eve called to them as she climbed up onto the guardrail. Given the two roads between her and them, the act of jumping up made for a fun maneuver involving leaping backwards over the rail, falling for a second as she gathered distance from the stone streets, then Jetting at an angle to launch herself up and over the guardrail of her intended destination.

“So, what do you think?” Preston asked once she’d landed.

“It’s gotta be Alex. Sure, it’s possible someone else could’ve made that root, but Alex has a reason to be here. It’d be too much of a coincidence if someone else with the same enchantment or ability just happened to come through the place Alex has a secondary quest to visit, especially when only a handful of people even know this place exists.”

Preston nodded. “Okay. Stick to the plan?”

“Stick to the plan,” Eve confirmed, referring to the combat plan they’d made months ago for a potential encounter with their former friend. Lacking an idea of the Defender’s limits and uncertain if she’d unlocked her Unique ability yet, the party couldn’t be certain which attacks would prove ineffective and which might prove too effective. In the end, they’d pinned their hopes on Art.

If the young trellac could hold Alex in place, Eve would have a chance to maybe talk her through whatever lies those behind the black pieces had told her. If she proved resistant to telepathic control and refused to talk… that’s what scared Eve.

The Defiant hadn’t a clue how much Strength it would take to break through Alex’s defenses, and activating Mana Rush for too much could mean killing her friend. Preston lacked the firepower to even scratch a tank like Alex, while Wes’s flames burned so intensely and indiscriminately that Eve doubted even Alex could survive them.

Eve hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

The party walked on in silence, keeping a lookout now not only for Managorged animals or sentry constructs, but also for signs of Alex. Given that the Defender had clearly come in from the other direction and thus descended on a different road than Eve’s group, they found little. Still, they kept an eye out. Eve even leapt to and from the lower street every once in a while just to check, but always her search came up empty.

The further down they traveled, the more complex were the rooms carved into the stone around them. After gods knew how many revolutions around the vast shaft, single-room shops and houses disappeared entirely in favor of large suites and open markets.

Even further along, the party grew hard pressed to find a space that didn’t span four levels and thus access each of the spiraling roads. It was as if—under Preston’s twisted city comparison—they’d reached a part of town where every building took up an entire block. Instead of houses they found mansions. Instead of individual shops they found single structures shared by a multitude of vendors.

The descent seemed never to end. Around and around and around they walked, stopping to explore every room along their path. The hours came and the hours went, untracked by the adventurers for lack of any method of timekeeping.

Without any semblance of moonrise or sundown, and having no true sense of exhaustion herself, it almost came as a surprise to Eve when Preston spoke the words.

“I think this is as good a place as any to stop for the night.”

Eve blinked. “It’s nighttime?”

“Hells if I know.” Preston yawned. “But it is time for sleep.”

Eve stood alone at the guardrail while the others set up camp, staring out into the brown fog that shined white with the light of her eyes. A part of her wanted to simply jump, allow herself to plummet as far as the shaft allowed before Jetting to a stop. As fun as that sounded, she knew the mist would prevent her from seeing the ground coming until it was too late. She could, of course, dissociate into a cloud of Mana and simply float down, but she also knew that splitting the party to run off alone in the middle of a dungeon with a potential hostile Unique in it would’ve been a terrible idea, even for her.

So Eve waited.

She kept her eyes and ears peeled through the night, catching every little scrape and knock and growl in the distance. Even as the mist obscured vision, noise echoed along the stone walls of the shaft, forming the perfect tunnel from each and every source of sound directly to Eve’s ear. Most carried the hollow tone of great distance or the softness of muffling, but sounds did make their way to her.

There was life down there somewhere, however small and far between.

The next morning—if one could even call it that—came ever so slowly, the concept itself stemming only from the fact the others began to wake up. When at last the party reembarked, Eve led the way with a vigor.

The descent, to put it plainly, had gotten boring.

The side rooms they checked blended into each other, looking all too similar for their lack of furniture, signage, or other distinguishing features. Still they stopped at every doorway, less in hope of loot than in the knowledge that accidentally passing by a monster would leave their backs exposed. It was boring, but it was safe.

Safer, at least.

Some three hours—or as close as Eve could guess, anyway—into their second day within the dungeon, the party found the most exciting thing since the dead snake.

They found the enchantments.

The lines of white Mana were faint at first, practically invisible as they ran along the gaps between the square stones of the floor. With her eyes drowning out their glow, Eve couldn’t see them at all.

It took another three revolutions around the shaft before the Burendian enchantments could overpower Eve’s own light to cast their rhythmically pulsating hue across the adventurers from below. Eve found the ghostly glow strangely comforting, a spark of familiarity reminding her that for all its grandiosity, this ruin was just an extension of two she’d already beaten. The added visibility made for a nice bonus.

Eight circles along the spiral road later, their descent finally came to an end.

All four roads jutted away from the wall for the final stretch, twisting down into one final intersection before joining into a single ramp down into the center of the cavernous space. It spat the party out right in front of a door that dwarfed even the monstrosities they’d snuck past on their prior Burendian excursions.

From their vantage at its base, the top of the double doors was obscured in mist, forcing the party to estimate its size from how long it’d taken them to go from seeing its top to seeing its bottom. The same familiar twisting and twirling lines of enchantment decorated it, meeting in the center in what could only be the locking mechanism. No creature nor construct stood guard.

Wes craned his neck up at the imposing entryway. “Why is it here?”

Eve frowned. “There’s always a door.”

“No, right. I meant why is it here? Usually they’re out front.”

“Because this isn’t an outpost,” Preston breathed. “Or a stronghold. It’s a city. A capital city. Which means…”

“We’re looking at the palace gates,” Eve finished.

“But if they’re still closed,” Wes said, “and locked if those enchantments do anything, how did whatever killed the Burendians get in?”

Eve shrugged. “I get the impression the answers to that question will be inside.” She stepped up to the door. “Let’s see if I can get this thing open.”

Without waiting for a reply, Eve placed an open palm on the line between the two doors, shut her eyes, and cast her focus forth. With second nature determination and practiced exertion of will, she pulled at the Mana running through the enchantment. In under a second her pool was full. In under two she threatened to overload.

Eve knew white lines that traced out the shape of dragon scales had lit up all over her body. She let them. With barely a thought she activated Mana Rush, dumping tens of thousands of Mana into the skill each second purely for the sake of making room for more.

Still the Mana came. It rushed through her in a torrent, new Mana racing in as fast as she could burn through it. Eve grit her teeth and pulled harder.

Even through her closed eyelids she could see the glow of the door flicker. First once, then three times, then at last the enchantment went dark. Eve didn’t wait for it to resurge, shoving forward hard and canceling her Mana Rush before it could run her dry.

With a great and terrible groan, the door swung open and Eve stumbled forward, landing on her hands and knees in the chamber beyond. The others rushed in after her.

“Are you alright?” Preston asked, reaching out to help her to her feet.

“That looked like a lot of Mana,” Wes breathed.

Eve ignored them. She didn’t stand up. She didn’t cast her gaze about whatever room she’d just stumbled into. She didn’t look back at the door behind her. Instead, she simply stared at the message floating before her eyes.

[Alert!] Mana leak detected!

[Alert!] Mana leak detected!

[Alert!] Mana leak detected!

[Alert!] Enchantment Failure Imminent!

[Error!] Gate Enchantments Offline.

“What the shit?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Weird Notifications

PRESTON SENSED THE urgency in her voice, immediately dropping to his knees next to her. “What’s going on?”

Wes scowled. “Did you get a milestone?”

“No… no I…” Eve shook her head. “They’re not from my class.” She looked down at the white lines running along the floor beneath her. “I think they’re from the enchantments.”

Wes’s eyes shot open. “I’m sorry, what?”

As if to punctuate his point, a deep and scraping groan reverberated throughout the cavern, pulling the attention of all present back towards the great doors. Under their own accord, they slowly eked shut, their locking enchantments flaring to life behind them.

[Alert!] Gate Enchantments Restored!

Eve dismissed the notification with a long and drawn-out exhale. “I got a series of messages warning me about a Mana leak, then one saying the gate enchantments were about to fail, then one saying they’d failed.” She pointed back at the doors. “Now they’ve closed, I’ve got one letting me know the gate enchantments are back up again.”

“That’s impossible,” Preston breathed.

“Well, I’m staring right fucking at it.”

Wes scratched the back of his head. “I think ‘impossible’ might be too strong of a word where we’re involved.”

Preston shook his head. “There is no magic that can fuck with the notification system. It’s inviolable.”

Wes froze where he stood, voice suddenly lowered to little more than a whisper. “No it isn’t.”

“Shit.” Preston paused, suddenly remembering the time Wes’s notifications had been very much violated. “I’m sorry. My point still stands, though. Barring ancient apocalyptic forces that have been sealed away from our reality, nothing should be able to interact with the system. Especially not some random enchantment.”

“I wouldn’t call it random,” Eve said.

“Maybe it’s an illusion?” Preston offered. “Or somehow faking a notification?”

Eve shook her head. “If it were an illusion, you could see it too. If it were messing with my head to show me things, Defiant Mind would resist it.”

“Great,” Preston sighed. “The Burendians could interfere with the system. That doesn’t sound the least bit problematic.”

“But why here?” Wes asked. “Why you?”

Eve pushed herself to her feet, eyes forward. “This is the capital, right? Maybe this is the only place they set it up before they had bigger things to worry about. As for what triggered it… I can think of two possibilities. I either took up some part of the enchantment when I was draining Mana from the door, or they were only ever going to work for me.”

Preston blinked. “The enchantments think you’re Burendian.”

“Or that I’m the flesh-Mana hybrid the Burendians were trying to create. Or I’m just the closest thing to a Burendian they’ve seen in millennia.”

“If it’s that…” Wes breathed, “can you control it?”

“Let’s find out.” Eve inhaled, holding the breath in as she focused her mind outward. With as much of her considerable will as she could muster, she issued the command.

Status.

Nothing happened. “Status,” she tried speaking it aloud. Still nothing. She went through a dozen variations asking for everything from a status report to a help menu, but, try as she might, the strange notifications failed to materialize. She shook her head. “No luck.” Without waiting for the others to remark, she reached downward with her will, tugging at the flow of Mana through the floor beneath her feet. As it torrented through her, a notification appeared.

[Alert!] Mana leak detected!

She let go. “I can’t interact with it directly,” Eve explained. “But I can trigger it to send out an alarm.”

“So the Burendians highjacked the notification system for an alarm?”

“It’s gotta be more complex than that,” Wes argued.

Eve nodded. “Either it sees me as a random citizen who deserves danger warnings but doesn’t have direct access, or there’s a control room somewhere we need to find—probably close to the leyline.”

“Could be both,” Preston said.

“Or neither.” Eve shrugged. “My gut says there’s gotta be more to it, but it’s entirely possible it could just be a complicated alert system. In the meantime, I get the impression we’ve got some sentry constructs to fight.”

Actually… Art sent, I think somebody beat us to them.

Three sets of eyes turned to follow Art’s indication, spotting three piles of rubble across the vast entry chamber. They approached to investigate.

“Whatever these were, they weren’t sentry constructs,” Preston said as he ran a hand over a broken chunk of marble the size of a horse. “They’re too big.”

Sure enough, the closest of the three fallen constructs seemed to have been made of a dozen slabs of enchanted stone all bigger on their own than an entire sentry of the style they’d fought in previous ruins. Of course, previous ruins hadn’t had an entry hall cavernous enough for anything this massive, but the sheer scale of the things was impressive.

“It’s the capital, isn’t it?” Eve said. “Makes sense it’d be better defended.”

“Or at least it was,” Preston muttered.

“Over here!” Wes called, down on hands and knees to peer under one of the inert slabs of stone. “There’s another root.”

“Just the one?” Eve asked.

“Yep.”

“It’s gotta be Alex,” Eve reasoned. “Both this construct and the dead snake only had one root, which matches the fact her spear has a long cooldown. If the roots were somebody’s class ability, there’d be more of them.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Preston said, eyes wide as he stared at the remains of the third construct. “She blew this one up.”

Eve followed his gaze to find a pile with the largest slab—doubtless the ‘body’—broken in two around a circular impact, with chips and shrapnel and marble dust showered about the surrounding floor. No signs of elemental force remained, no traces of fire or ice or any other spell-ready Mana. “Who do we know that summons roots and can also make explosions of pure Mana?”

Wes nodded. “That’s confirmation enough for me. Alex has been here. Whether or not she’s still here…”

“No way to know,” Eve said. “The dead snake was at least a week old. It’s possible she got what she came for and left in that time, or that she got trapped or is still looking.”

“Or that she’s waiting for us,” Preston added.

Eve nodded. “We should assume for now that she is, that she’s laid traps, and that she’s more powerful than before, having completed her secondary quest for the crown.”

“Probably smart,” Preston said.

Wes cracked a thin smile. “At least she took care of some of the monsters for us. Kind of like trading one threat for another.”

“Don’t remind me,” Eve groaned, gazing forlornly at the fallen constructs. “All that exp gone.”

“Don’t worry,” Wes patted her on the back. “There’ll be plenty of exp where we’re going. If we survive.”

Preston snorted. “I’m pretty sure there’ll be plenty of exp even if we don’t survive. It just won’t be us that’s getting it.”

Wes grinned at him. “That’s the spirit!”

Eve snorted. “Alright, then. Which way?”

In lieu of two long hallways spanning the entire outpost or a single passage leading to an open rotunda at the center of the stronghold, two dozen doors lined the side walls of the entry hall, matched by three more at the back, right behind the fallen constructs.

“It’s a palace, right?” Preston asked. “I’d bet all those side doors lead to storage rooms and pantries and servants’ passages. A few probably lead to places like the dining hall or ballroom, assuming the Burendians even had balls.”

“I don’t know,” Wes interrupted, “fucking with the notification system seems pretty ballsy.”

“Ha-ha,” Preston laughed sarcastically. “If we’re looking for some kind of control room, I’d bet it’s down one of the side doors. The leyline access definitely is.”

“Alternatively, the throne room is absolutely through one of these central doors,” Eve countered. “As would be any council chambers and royal suites. The Burendians had royalty, right? There’s a literal Crown of Burendia; there has to have been a ruler.”

Wes exhaled. “You’re also assuming Burendians would’ve built a palace the same way we do today. If the leyline—or ley node that I expect we’ll find—was so important to them, it’s entirely possible it’s the centerpiece of the palace, not tucked away.”

Eve nodded. “Forward it is, then. Whatever design principles the Burendians held, it just makes sense that the important shit would be at the center. Makes sense to explore that first, then.”

“Any preference which?” Wes asked.

Preston turned to Art. “Can you sense anything?”

The trellac shook his feathered head. If there’s anything alive up ahead, it’s either shielding itself or the enchantments are blocking it out.

Eve shrugged, stepping up to the door on the left. It was a wooden thing, etched with swirling abstract images yet untouched by enchantment. Whatever magic kept it intact through the ages ran around it, not through it. “We’re going to explore them all, eventually. Doesn’t really matter where we start.” With no sense of urgency nor solemnity, Eve grasped the handle and twisted.

The door didn’t budge.

“It’s locked.”

“All the more reason to open it,” Wes said.

Eve grinned. “I like the way you think.” Having, in her career as an adventurer, very rarely if at all been remotely dissuaded by a locked door, Eve stepped back, raised her foot, and kicked it in.

[Alert!] Interior Door 19 Breached!

“Welp, if there are any Burendians here, the alarm system just let them know where we are.”

“Really?” Preston asked. “I would’ve thought the loud crashing sound of you kicking down a door would’ve done that for it.”

“No, that was for all the monsters that don’t get the alert notifications. Gotta make sure I don’t discriminate against you inferior humans when I accidentally announce our presence.”

Preston sighed. “Of course.”

The hallway, while wide and grandiose, was decidedly human-sized—or Burendian-sized as it were—which posed a particular difficulty to a particular winged drake. Having grown far too large to fit through such passages, Reginald had long become accustomed to keeping watch outside, even if he didn’t like it. For companionship’s sake, Art stayed behind with him.

Eve, Wes, and Preston forged ahead, stopping for a moment to stare at the ornate carvings upon the walls. In a few places, iron bars hung horizontally above heaps of dust where tapestries had once hung before disintegrating to the inexorable crawl of history. Similarly, the nine-foot-high ceiling showed signs of paint, but whatever images had once decorated it had long faded to a few mere chips and thin splotches of color.

“Wherever this goes,” Preston muttered, “it’s too small to be a throne room and too fancy to be a control room.”

Eve shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, we’re exploring them all, remember. Besides, this path looks just as likely to have what I’m looking for.”

Preston sighed. “Do I want to know what you’re looking for?”

Wes snorted. “The same thing she’s always looking for.”

“Exp?”

“Exp.”

Eve laughed. “I just hope Alex left us something to kill.”

“The fact the door was closed and locked is a good sign for that. Alex wouldn’t have picked it, she’d have kicked it down like you did.”

“Which means she probably hasn’t been this way,” Eve followed Preston’s reasoning.

As if to further prove her point, a scraping sound of stone on stone echoed down the hall ahead, its source powerful enough to shake the floor beneath them. Chips of ancient paint and bits of dust rained down from the ceiling above.

[Alert!] Defensive Measure 1873 Activated.

[Alert!] Defensive Measure 1874 Activated.

[Alert!] Defensive Measure 1875 Activated.

Eve stopped short, sharing the notification with the others. “Sounds like constructs up ahead.”

Wes let out a sharp laugh, clapping Eve on the back as he did. “Well there you go. Something to kill, coming right up.”

CHAPTER NINE

Something to Kill

EVE UNSTRAPPED HER club from her back, stepping in front of her squishy companions in case anything should come screaming down the hallway for them. She doubted any sentry constructs of the kind she’d seen so far could fit through the passage, but if Eve had learned anything in her time as an adventurer, it was to be ready for all sorts of wacky bullshit, which seemed a good way to describe three giant constructs somehow fitting through a human-sized hallway.

That didn’t happen, of course, but, by Ayla, Eve was ready for it.

Preston cast a look to Wes. “You good?”

Wes twisted his head around to gaze back down the way they’d come. “I think so. I’ll let you know if we get out of range.”

“Should we grab him?” Eve asked.

Wes shook his head. “Let’s see what’s actually out there first. Could be still in Art’s range, or could be something you can handle on your own.”

“Alright,” Eve said, taking her next steps down the hallway. “Let’s see what defensive measures one-eight-seven-three, four, and five do.”

As the party crept carefully forward, Preston muttered, “Do you think those numbers imply the existence of defensive measures one through eighteen-hundred-seventy-one?”

“Eighteen hundred seems like a lot of defensive measures,” Eve snorted. “But this is the capital. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Or they could’ve started counting at a thousand,” Wes said. “Or the numbers are a code for something. Maybe we’re in the eighteenth section of the palace. Or the eighteenth floor. Or the hundred-and-eighty-seventh room.”

Eve made a farting noise with her tongue. “That’s no fun. I want eighteen hundred defensive measures. At least some of them have gotta be worth exp.”

“And all of them would want to kill you,” Preston added.

“Not true,” Eve argued. “You could consider a locked door a defensive measure, and that one back there didn’t try to kill me.”

“Maybe it did try, but was just really bad at it,” Wes said. “With how hard you kicked it, it’s possible a shard of wood could’ve flown back and gone through your throat. It just… didn’t.”

“That seems like a bit of a stretch,” Preston said.

“Besides,” Eve added, “a shard of wood through the neck wouldn’t kill me.” To make her point, she dissociated her neck and waved her hand back and forth through the resulting cloud of Mana. “I’d just lose a bunch of Mana.”

“Also, a locked door totally isn’t a defensive measure,” Wes said. “Especially a flimsy wooden door like that. I could’ve kicked it down. That was a privacy measure.”

Eve shook her head. “It doesn’t have to be effective against tier 4s to be a defensive measure. Sometimes all it takes is slowing down an intruder long enough for the guards to notice. The sound of kicking down the door works almost like an alarm, and while it doesn’t stop us, a locked door would probably be enough to keep some random citizen off the street from wandering in where he doesn’t belong.”

“But a random citizen wandering in isn’t a threat,” Wes argued. “If a door is locked to stop them, it’s not a defensive measure, it’s a convenience measure. Or, you know, a privacy measure.”

“Guys, guys,” Preston interrupted. “I think we’re getting distracted from the matter at hand.”

Eve and Wes paused.

“The door wasn’t enchanted,” the healer explained. “It couldn’t have been one of the defensive measures the enchantments tracked, otherwise Eve’s notification would’ve called it one when she kicked it in.”

“But what about the front gate?” Eve asked. “I got notifications for that too.”

“You said the notifications called it ‘gate,’ not ‘defensive measure whatever,’” Preston countered.

“My money’s still on some kind of encoding system,” Wes said. “The numbers have gotta designate which defensive measures they’re referencing.”

Up ahead, the sound of metal against stone screeched through the hallway.

“Oh, right,” Eve said. “The sentries.”

The hall opened up into a spacious sitting room, equipped with the iron frames of what had once been upholstered chairs and a rather well-preserved single-family dining table. From the three doors lining the round wall, Eve reckoned they’d found the royal suites.

As if to confirm her theory, all three doors burst open at once to admit defensive measures 1873, 1874, and 1875. Eve Appraised them.

Level ?? Prismed Burendian Bodyguard Construct

“That’s a mouthful,” Eve muttered.

Behind her, Wes scowled. “Art’s out of range,” he said. “Can you handle them without me?”

Eve closed the less-than-useful Appraise messages to actually look at the threats before her. True to their purpose as bodyguards, they stood no taller than an above-average human—which was to say, about as tall as Wes.

They walked on four spider-like legs, each constructed of three, foot-long segments of metal and operated by what seemed to be a string of pure Mana running along them. A narrow body sprouted from the wide base, built of layers of independently rotating octagonal pieces. Many of said segments supported long and thin arms, which gave the things a fuzzy appearance when hanging limply, or threatened to pierce throats and hearts when brandished.

Eve could handle a few dozen pointy ends. What worried her were the cloudy white crystals that sat atop the octagonal bodies. She had no idea what they did, but reason told her she was staring at the prisms Appraise had warned her about.

“I didn’t know the Burendians made constructs out of metal,” she murmured. “The others were all stone.”

“Makes sense when they can’t rely on throwing a few tons of weight around,” Preston said. “Can you take ‘em?”

“I think so,” she answered, bringing her club about into swinging position. “Be ready to run if those crystals do anything too scary, though.”

Wes nodded.

Preston, in lieu of a verbal response, cupped his hands around his mouth, tilted his head up, and let out a roar more befitting a great cat than a lithe and stylishly dressed healer.

You have heard the Packmaster’s Call!

+15% Strength!

+15% Dexterity!

+15% Intelligence!

“Alright.” Eve cracked a sideways grin. “Let’s do this.”

She Charged left, dumping a thousand Mana into Mana Rush and pulling in energy from the enchantments along the floor to replace it just as fast as it drained away.

[Alert!] Mana leak detected!

The constructs responded immediately.

The one directly in front of Eve raised all its arms directly at her, thirty long spikes ready to catch her Charge on their stiletto points. The constructs to her right and behind her stood stock still. If Eve had stopped to look, she’d have noticed their crystals each taking on a colored glow.

She intuited the projectiles coming, but couldn’t have guessed they’d fly at two different speeds.

Moments before colliding with the waiting spikes, Eve Jetted to the side, narrowly dodging both the melee strike of her target and a bolt of electricity arcing from one of the constructs behind her.

She failed to dodge the ice bolt.

Frigid agony blossomed in the small of her back as the spell struck true, piercing her armor and the clothes beneath. White Mana spilled from the wound, causing her pool to slowly drain as the pain rolled up her spine in waves.

Eve kept moving. She didn’t have four thousand Willpower only to get distracted by a bit of pain.

The first swing of her club struck a wall of metal arms, knocking them clean off the construct’s body as it passed but failing to connect with the prism at its top. Eve allowed the momentum of her Jet to carry her past the thing, spending a moment’s focus to reconstitute the chunk of her torso the ice had torn apart.

As she shuffled to a halt, Eve cast her eyes around the room to spot the two distant constructs charging up their next attacks. The prisms atop them shined with different hues, both panoplies of color, yet icy blue was curiously absent from one and electric yellow from the other.

“Oh, I get it!” Wes called from his vantage back in the hallway. “They’re prisms because they break apart pure Mana into component elements.”

“I picked up on that!” Eve shouted as she leapt away from a shard of stone and a black beam she didn’t even want to guess the element behind. Whatever it was, it smelled like old fish. She darted for the nearest construct, hesitant as she was to turn her back to the others. “Can you guys do something about it?”

Eve didn’t wait for a response before Jetting up and over her target, keeping her body horizontal to fit between its crystal and the ceiling. The pointed arms failed to reach her from below, and her club struck the thing square on.

One advantage of fighting constructs built around a single crystal, was how easy it was to figure out exactly what needed to be destroyed in order to win. The downside was how crystals tended to shatter when met with overwhelming force.

In this case, the overwhelming force was named Eve.

She spat out a curse through gritted teeth as a dozen crystal shards shot into her exposed hands. Her armor stopped any other stray bits of shrapnel, but the havoc wreaked upon her hands made for distraction aplenty. The pain stopped when she dissociated the damaged extremities into clouds of Mana, but in the process her club fell straight through to the floor.

You have defeated Level 109 Prismed Burendian Bodyguard Construct: +12.7m exp!

[Error!] Defensive Measure 1874 Offline.

The dual kill notifications were little comfort in the face of two constructs firing pot shots at her while she frantically worked to reform her hands and snatch up her club from where it’d fallen. The low growl echoing through the air and the notification accompanying it, however, were another matter.

Packmaster’s Call makes you immune to Assert Dominance!

Eve cracked a grin as the two remaining constructs halted mid-cast. She called to Preston, “Say, did you ever get around to trying that out on Wes?”

“Fuck off!” came the reply.

Eve cackled at her own joke as she Charged for the nearest bodyguard, slamming her club right through it before it could free itself from Preston’s challenge. This time she managed not to tear her hands to shreds in the process. Eve counted that as a win.

The smile slipped from her face as she turned to the final construct to find it free from Preston’s crowd control, but it wasn’t the dozens of lethal spines threatening to impale her, nor the imminent next projectile she’d have to dodge, that so disturbed her.

It was the color of the Mana it had selected for its next attack.

The prism glowed red.

“Run!”

Eve Jetted for the hallway.

Preston turned to flee.

Wes stepped forward.

The construct threw its fire bolt.

Eve collided with Preston, two of his ribs snapping with a horrific crack as she grabbed him at high speed. Behind them, the spell washed harmlessly against the stone wall.

But it was too late.

The entire sitting room behind them exploded into a maelstrom of inferno, the wooden table, the iron chair frames, the stone walls and floor, all of it burned.

As she Charged out with every bit of speed she could manage, Eve screamed for help both audibly and mentally.

“Art!”

I’m coming!

Eve made it most of the way back to hallway’s entrance before she met up with Art. She didn’t waste time. If the blaze grew bigger than Art’s telepathy could reach, there’d be no… Eve shook her head. She didn’t have time for such thoughts.

Eve unceremoniously dropped Preston on the ground and scooped Art up. Without even stopping to breathe, she Jetted back down the hall.

Time seemed to slow as adrenaline coursed through her. Her breathing sped. Her heart pounded faster than her feet against the glowing stone floor. Heat and pressure washed over her face as she raced the edge of the blaze just as the blaze raced to consume her.

Found him!

Eve skidded to a halt at Art’s message, watching in tense anticipation as the inferno drew nearer. “Can you get through?”

Yeah, I just need… Art sent. Gimme a sec.

The wall of flame pushed further down the hall toward them. “We don’t have a sec.”

Aaaaaand, got him!

The flame winked out.

Eve let out a breath, hugging Art close for a moment before putting him down. “Thanks, that was close.”

What happened? Art asked. He should’ve known not to cast while I’m out of range.

“Surprise fire,” Eve explained. “The constructs we were fighting…” she trailed off as her eyes stared down the hall to see Wes standing alone where the fire had once raged, surrounded by blackened stone and melted slag. To Art alone, she muttered, “What’re we gonna do once we get you back to your da?”

He’ll be able to help! Art chimed. He can do anything!

“I’m sure he can, kid,” Eve murmured, absentmindedly patting him on the back of his feathered head as she gazed without focus at Wes and the burnt room. “I’m sure he can.”

CHAPTER TEN

So Much for the Loot

YOU HAVE DEFEATED Level 111 Prismed Burendian Bodyguard Construct: +12.9m exp!

You have defeated Level 113 Prismed Burendian Bodyguard Construct: +13.7m exp!

Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: Don’t Die A Fiery Death IV

+ 536b exp!

Level Up!

Eve let out her umpteenth silent prayer of thanks that her life quest was so generous with its milestones, handing out the fat exp rewards like sweets on a festival day. Gods knew how much grinding she’d have to do for each level without them. Images flashed through her mind of killing the same skyswallowers over and over again day in and day out. Eve shuddered.

Forcing away the traumatic memory of what had definitively been the most boring month of her life, Eve allowed herself to crack a slight smile as she watched her stats go up. A hundred and thirty-five Willpower per level really was ridiculous.

Feeling a bit better about the events of the last five minutes, Eve brought up the notification she’d been saving for last.

Ability Upgraded!

Active Ability - Jet

X Mana

Can now be applied to held objects!

Eve’s eyebrows shot up. “Well that’s an interesting one.”

“What’s that?” Preston asked, his own notification list significantly shorter for lack of a milestone.

“Skill upgrade,” Eve explained. “Says I can Jet things now.”

Preston blinked. “Like… anything?”

“Well, it explicitly says ‘held objects,’ so I assume I can’t Jet a mountain at someone.”

“Not unless you could hold one.”

Eve rolled her eyes. “You know I can’t do that. A mountain can’t hold itself together with just the limited support my body can provide.”

Preston squinted at her. “You seem to know an awful lot about the physics of picking up a mountain.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s not because you tried, is it?”

Eve let out the most innocent-sounding whistle she could manage.

“Eve,” Preston said, running a hand over his forehead. “Please tell me you haven’t tried to pick up a mountain.”

“I haven’t tried to pick up a mountain,” Eve echoed his exact phrasing and tone of voice.

Preston sighed. “And when it collapsed, how many things did it kill?”

“Oh, don’t be so serious,” Eve waved him off. “I didn’t collapse anything. There’re just… four arm-shaped holes in the base of some mountain back by Dragonwrought Hold.”

“Four?”

“If at first you don’t succeed…”

Their conversation came to an end as Wes emerged from the burnt sitting room, his eyes uncolored by notification blue and his expression stony.

“Hey,” Eve greeted him. “Are you okay?”

Wes exhaled, his shoulders visibly dropping as he let out the breath. “I’m never gonna get used to that.”

Preston raised a sympathetic eyebrow. “The flames?”

“All of it. Going from complete normal to absolutely out of my mind in two seconds. I know it’s the devouring flame controlling me, but it doesn’t feel like that. It’s like… out of nowhere, there’s nothing in this world I want more than to spread the flames. For a few seconds I have this divine purpose to burn.”

“Then Art steps in and that purpose is still there, every atom of my being is screaming that I should be spreading the fire but I can’t. I can only stand and watch as I put it all out. And then the purpose leaves, and then Art leaves, and I’m left there having known this glorious mission only to lose it. And even though that mission is evil and Art is only doing what I asked him to, the fact remains that for a handful of moments, I was part of something big. I was significant on a cosmological scale. And now I’m an adventurer again.”

The air went still. Silence pervaded. Eve opened her mouth to speak, but for the first time in gods knew how long, she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

Preston could. For a few precious seconds he let the silence hang in the air before quietly, yet deliberately, walking up to wrap the fire mage in a great hug. “It’s gonna be okay,” he whispered. “We’ll find a way out of this. I know we don’t have any leads, but as soon as we’re done here, we’ll focus exclusively on finding Art’s father.”

“And if he can’t help?” Eve asked.

“Then I’ll retire,” Wes said. “Build a mansion somewhere secluded, heat and light it with magic, hire staff that know fire can’t be allowed on the premises. There’s gotta be fire suppression enchantments, right? Gods know I can afford it. Got enough contribution points to clear out the Dragonwrought’s vault three times over. Then I’ll just…” He shrugged. “Live out my life as a reclusive aristocrat. Maybe I’ll hold balls.”

Eve collapsed.

Peals of laughter echoed cacophonously through the stone hallway as Eve’s entire body shook with it. Tears streaked down her face. Her cheeks ached. Waves of minor pain rolled up her abdomen as her belly grew sore with it. Thrice she tried to speak, to explain the joke or insist that she was okay, but each time the words vanished behind a new fit of laughter.

Wes scowled at her. “What’s so funny?”

“You…” Eve panted, her eyes flitting over to Preston. “You already hold balls.”

Preston cringed.

Wes raised an eyebrow at him. “You know, maybe this world does deserve to burn.”

“No,” Preston said with a shake of his head. “Just Eve.”

I thought it was funny!

Eve wiped her tears on her sleeve, cheeks still red with the last vestiges of laughter. “Thank you, Art.”

Wes looked at her sideways. “Well, I’m glad you and the ten-year-old share a sense of humor.”

“Children are the future,” Eve said. “Don’t you know they’re the ones who shape culture?”

“If that joke has anything to do with the future of society, I think whatever wiped out the Burendians had the right idea.”

“Exactly!” Eve clapped him on the back. “By wiping out the Burendians, they made room for humanity to grow, so we could one day create comedic masterpieces like that.”

Preston let out a sigh. “Now seems like a good time to remind everyone we’re in the middle of a long-lost ruined palace that’s filled with all sorts of ways to kill us.” He turned to Eve. “Did the enchantments send you any more notifications?”

Eve paused to scroll through the messages she’d already dismissed, skimming past the milestone and level-up to reread those from the dungeon itself.

[Error!] Defensive Measure 1873 Offline.

[Error!] Defensive Measure 1875 Offline.

[Error!] Enchantment Zone 187 Offline.

[Alert!] Forbidden Entity Detected! Evacuate Immediately!

[Alert!] Forbidden Entity Detected! Evacuate Immediately!

[Alert!] Forbidden Entity Detected! Evacuate Immediately!

Eve blinked. “Huh.”

Wes scowled. “What?”

“Two things,” she explained. “For one, apparently that sitting room was enchantment zone one-eight-seven.”

Wes snapped his fingers. “I knew it! Those constructs were defensive measures three, four, and five from section one-eight-seven. There aren’t eighteen hundred defensive measures.”

Eve snorted. “Well, there still might be. For all we know there are thousands of enchantment zones.”

Wes glared at her.

“Alright, alright,” she laughed. “The other thing’s more interesting. I’ve got a bunch of the same notification warning me about a forbidden entity and demanding I evacuate.”

Wes’s eyes widened. “You think they can sense the devouring flame?”

“It has to be, right? The messages line up perfectly with… you know. What’s interesting is that the alerts specifically called it a forbidden entity, which would imply the enchantments couldn’t just tell it was dangerous, they have at least some idea what it is.”

“Forbidden could also just mean not allowed in the palace,” Preston argued. “But your explanation does mesh with our theory that the devouring flame was banished from our reality by something.”

“Possibly the Burendians if their enchantments can recognize something forbidden.”

Wes perked up at that. “If the Burendians locked it away in the first place, then maybe…”

Eve nodded. “We have another secondary quest that could potentially help you. I wouldn’t pin my hopes on it though. The alerts insisted I evacuate, not activate some containment protocol. And you burned right through their enchantments anyway. It seems just as likely they figured out how to interface with whatever banished the devouring flame just like they figured out how to interface with the notification system.”

“I’m going to remain cautiously optimistic for the time being,” Preston decided, “but that’s as far as I’m going.”

Wes nodded. “In the short term, this changes nothing. We were always going to fully explore this place.”

“What’s left of it anyway,” Eve added, looking past Wes and Preston towards the burnt sitting room.

“Art, why don’t you stay with us for a bit,” Preston said, choosing to keep the telepath nearby in case they came across more prismed constructs. “Lumy can keep Reginald company.”

But Reg can’t hear her!

Preston sighed. “They’ll be alright. We need you with us.”

Okay. The trellac deflated somewhat, but the excitement of exploring the ruins did help curb his disappointment at having to leave Reginald behind.

Eve took the lead back down the hall, finding the floor now ramped slightly downward as it approached the sitting room. Absent the upward glow of the now-destroyed enchantments, Eve moved by the light of her eyes.

The walls and floors had burned first and then melted in the residual heat left over after Art had quenched the flames, leaving streaks along the wall where the molten stone had dripped down. Similarly, the neat square stones of flooring with lines of enchantment between them had burned away by almost an entire foot, leaving a smooth, concave depression centered around where the bodyguard construct had first fired its spell.

Said construct, of course, no longer existed as anything more than a bit of ash.

“Welp,” Eve said, planting her hands on her hips. “So much for the loot.”

“Ayla’s tits,” Wes muttered. “How long was I out?”

Eve turned to Preston. “Six seconds? Does that sound right?”

Preston nodded. “Something like that.”

Wes exhaled through his cheeks.

“If it’s any consolation,” Eve offered, “you are absurdly powerful. Once we figure out this whole ‘apocalyptic madness’ thing, you’re gonna swat the blightmaw dragon right out of the air.”

Wes let out a laugh. It was a brief, quiet, breathy thing, but it was, in spite of everything, a laugh. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

The doors themselves were no more, but three openings in the melted wall remained, three paths forward brimming with potential for excitement and loot. If there were bodyguards, there had to have been somebody worth guarding, and people worth guarding tended to have valuables.

Wes, in typical Wes fashion, put it best. “Okay then.” He clapped his hands together to get everyone’s attention. “Let’s find out if these dead Burendian royals had anything worth looting.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Does Anyone Speak Burendian?

A CLOUD OF dust billowed through the air as Eve first stepped foot down the leftward passage, the prevalence of the stuff implying this particular suite had contained somehow more decaying matter than others, either in terms of wooden furniture or a true excess of fabric and cushions. Knowing royalty, Eve assumed the latter.

She and Preston both coughed and blinked through the airborne particles while Wes happily took advantage of his clown mask to avoid such annoyances. Given Art’s presence, the fire mage could’ve readily burned the dust out of the air, but he was understandably not in the mood for liberal use of flame, especially considering that this particular circumstance allowed him and his clown mask some small revenge for Eve’s incessant teasing.

After passing through the antechamber where the bodyguard construct had certainly been waiting, the party stepped into a wide-open bedchamber only to find it lacking a bed. The other almost familiar trappings of a palatial suite were present. A breakfast table, a sitting area, two brilliantly preserved wardrobes, and a flameless enchanted hearth all decorated the dusty space, but there was no bed.

There was a crib.

Even beneath the layer of dust that’d once been bedding and pillows and blankets, the ornately crafted metal structure glimmered gold in the light of the enchantments along the floor. Eve cracked a grin.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about! Gold—the most classic of loot.”

Preston snorted. “Don’t get too excited; it’s not pure gold. You know gold is a terrible building material.”

“Sure,” Eve said, “but maybe not for the Burendians. For all we know, they had some ancient magical metallurgical techniques to make soft metals function for furniture.” With absolutely unwarranted confidence, she strode across the suite to the crib, casually grabbing a piece and snapping it off. Sure enough, the gold was only a thin leaf over what seemed to be cast iron.

“Welp, so much for that.” With a sigh, Eve tossed the broken-off bar over her shoulder. It landed with a clang.

“I’m counting that a good sign,” Wes said. “Pure or otherwise, if they’ve got their cradle coated in gold, there’s gotta be more valuables around here.”

“Probably not here,” Preston countered. “Unless you think we’ll find an Ar-iron baby rattle or whatever. Royal or otherwise, babies don’t generally wear jewelry or enchanted gear.”

Despite nodding in agreement, the party still took the time to perform a cursory search of the nursery. Once they’d opened every drawer and confirmed whatever clothes had once filled the wardrobes had long turned to dust, they made their exit, trying not to think about how the room’s former occupant had met his or her demise with the rest of the Burendians.

The central suite was by far the largest, including the empty frame of a massive four-poster bed, a washroom, walk-in closet, and two attached office spaces. It was to one of those latter that Eve first made her way.

Inside she found a pile of metal odds and ends, small statues and other decorative objects, all sitting in a heap of dust along the back wall. Eve could only assume there had once been a wooden shelf displaying the collection, but that it hadn’t been enchanted against the ravages of time.

The desk, luckily, had.

Mana trailed up from the floor through the four wooden legs of the desk in a dozen intricate patterns, simultaneously enhancing the piece and decorating it in glimmering light. The tabletop was no different, lighting the assortment of papers from beneath.

Eve shuffled through the various budget reports and personal letters, shoulders slumping more and more as she failed to find any information of value. She didn’t care that the latest scouting report placed the enemy precisely three days and seven hours away, she needed to know what this ‘enemy’ actually was. The correspondence on the desk didn’t deign to tell her.

It was only as she shoved aside what seemed to be a particularly racy letter from the king to his wife—that one she’d read fully—that Eve’s hand bumped against something distinctly not paper-like in the pile. A bit of digging later, and it revealed itself.

Ar-iron Letter Opener

Rarity: Mythic

Eve blinked the notification away in shock, taking a breath and re-Appraising the find just to be sure.

Ar-iron Letter Opener

Rarity: Mythic

A grin stretched across her face. “Now that’s more like it.” Putting aside the absolute absurdity of using precious Ar-iron for a gods-damned letter opener, Eve looked over her first piece of loot in what had been a particularly unexciting dungeon thus far.

The short and dull blade itself—once cleared of the dust coating it—shined with a brightness far beyond mundane iron, smooth and pure enough that Eve could see her reflection in it. Intricate designs decorated the handle, all built to frame the seal at its base.

The seal itself depicted a three-tipped crown sitting atop a web of what could only be leylines, stretching out in all directions to eventually form the decorations on the rest of the hilt. Eve could think of no better sigil for the ruler of a nation built upon the leylines. Better yet, the seal further supported the theory that this particular ruin sat atop not a single line, but a point where two or more met.

Eve rather liked it.

Not even trying to wipe the smirk from her face, she stashed the letter opener into her bag. Sure, Ar-iron was the most common of the Ar-metals, but such a find would still fetch a fair bit of gold back in town. Even more enticing was the promise its presence implied. If the Burendian royalty had used Ar-iron for something as mundane as this, what other bits of excessive wealth might remain for the party to uncover? If Ar-silver weren’t too obscenely heavy for practical use, would there have been an Ar-silver letter opener instead?

The only solution Eve could come to was that she desperately wanted to find the royal vault.

Eve ventured on from the office space to find Wes on his hands and knees searching for another floor safe, only to flinch and hit the back of his head against the bed frame as Eve walked up behind him.

“Any luck?” she asked.

“Nothing here,” he groaned, rubbing the impact site. “You?”

“Ar-iron letter opener. Nothing crazy, but worth a pretty penny and carries the implication there’ll be more valuables sitting around.”

“About that…” Preston called from another room. He strode in, holding a brilliantly wrought silver jewelry box with multiple empty sockets across its surface. When he reached the others, he flipped open the lid, revealing its lack of contents. “I think someone’s already been here.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “Alex?”

“Not unless she came through a decade ago,” Preston said, “or has some kind of dust magic now. I mean, you saw yourself, everything coated. Not to mention the sentries were intact, and Alex definitely doesn’t have a way past them without violence.”

“But somebody cleared out the valuables,” Wes reasoned. “Jewelry, gems from that box, whatever else might’ve been lying around.”

Eve sighed, holding up the letter opener. “I found this buried in papers. Either whoever came through here didn’t notice it or figured it wasn’t worth taking.”

Preston snorted. “They’d have to be crazy wealthy for that not to be worth taking.”

“Anyway,” Wes said, “other than Eve’s new desk ornament, this suite looks like a bust. On to the next one?”

“Yeah, let’s check it out,” Eve said. “Maybe our mystery looter only bothered with the main suite. Or maybe there’s more they missed. I just hope they weren’t able to get into the vault. I’m gonna be pissed if there’s nothing valuable down here.”

Preston blinked. “What makes you think we’ll be able to get into the vault?”

“Please,” Eve scoffed. “I’m practically built for breaking into Burendian ruins.”

“Fair point.”

Together the party moved on to the suite on the right of the burnt sitting room, finding it to some degree a combination of the two they’d seen thus far. The layout and size of the space were a mirror image of the nursery, though the furnishings were closer to those of the king and queen’s suite.

The massive bed had long rotted to little more than a metal skeleton, the once-plush upholstery had turned to dust, and nothing of value made itself apparent.

This time, however, the wardrobe was enchanted.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Eve said as she stared across the room at the faint white lines traveling up the wooden closet. “I guess somebody cared a lot about their clothes?”

Sounds like someone we know! Art sent.

“It’s called fashion, sweetie,” Preston said, patronizingly patting the trellac on the head. “And it’s important.”

“Sure it is,” Wes muttered.

“Says the man in a clown mask.”

“Okay, you’ve got me there.”

Eve ignored their back-and-forth to actually approach the wardrobe and tug on the doors. They didn’t budge. With a sigh, she extended her will and sucked the Mana from the enchantments binding them, forcing the wardrobe open with click. “Oh,” she breathed as she gazed at its contents, “that explains it.”

“What explains it?” Preston asked.

Eve gestured up to the collection of frilly dresses, each perhaps two sizes too big to fit Art. “We’re dealing with a preteen.”

“Any jewelry or enchanted things?” Wes asked. “If a princess lived here, she had to have had some stuff.”

“Just this,” Eve said, reaching into the base of the wardrobe to withdraw a leather-bound book. She read the text on the front.

Do Not Read!!!!!!

Preston blinked. “Great. You found a little girl’s diary. The treasure of the century.”

Eve shrugged. “There might be useful information in here. All the documents I could find were way too specific to be helpful. This might be the perfect level of vague.”

Wes pulled back the cover to reveal the handwritten text inside. Not a single letter looked remotely familiar. “So… um…” He scratched the back of his neck. “Does anyone speak Burendian?”

Eve smacked him on the shoulder. “We all speak Burendian. They spoke the same language we do. Weren’t you the one who found the letter that led us here?”

“Right.” Wes blushed beneath his mask. “Then if this isn’t Burendian, what language is it?”

Eve shrugged. “Probably some kind of code. You know how kids can get about diaries.”

“So it’s useless, then. On to the next room.”

“I’m gonna hold onto it,” Eve said, slipping the diary into her pack. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find somebody who can decode it. It was written by some kid. Unless little princess whoever had training in this kind of stuff, it can’t be that complex.”

“That sounds like a lot of effort to invade someone’s privacy,” Preston commented.

“She been dead for a thousand years,” Eve countered. “I don’t think she cares at this point. Besides, I really get the feeling there’ll be important info in here.”

Wes shrugged. “Whatever gets your goat, I guess.”

“No thanks, I’ve had enough experience with goats.” Eve smiled. “Anyway, before we check up on Lumy and Reginald and move on to finding the vault and throne room, we should take one last look around and confirm there isn’t anything else here.”

There wasn’t.

The party sifted through the same mounds of dust, examined the same decayed furniture, bumped heads against the same bed frames searching for floor safes. Whoever had been there before them had been damned thorough. Eve at least held out hope the two items their predecessor hadn’t bothered taking would still prove valuable.

So it was with a mixture of disappointment and trepidatious hope in their hearts that the adventurers left the suites behind, passed through the burnt sitting room, and re-traversed the long hallway to return to the waiting Reginald and Lumy. One door down, two to go.

And in all likelihood, one of them had Alex behind it.

CHAPTER TWELVE

What’s Behind Door Number Two?

AR-IRON LETTER opener and little girl’s diary tucked away, the party made their way back to the open entry hall to find Reginald had decidedly not waited for them by the door. Instead, he and Lumy had embarked on some particularly intense game of cat and mouse in the exact opposite manner one would think.

The large, winged drake bounded across the wide chamber, leaping and darting to and fro as the phantasmal remnant doggedly pursued. Every once in a while, one of Lumy’s lights would clip through Reginald’s tail, but she proved otherwise unable to catch up to him.

“Well, at least they’re having a good time,” Preston said as the party stopped to watch the two at play.

“That makes two of us,” Wes muttered.

“Speak for yourself,” Eve said. “I’m having a great time. C’mon, let’s see what’s behind door number two.”

The center of the three important-looking doors was, thankfully, unlocked, sparing Eve the effort—and the enjoyment—of kicking it down. They proceeded with caution. An unlocked door, convenient as it might’ve been, presented the opportunity for a certain Unique tank to be lurking behind it.

While Eve doubted Alex had the skill necessary to break into the royal suites without damaging the door, she was fairly confident the Defender was capable of opening an unlocked door. Luckily, or unluckily, depending on one’s perspective, the room behind the door offered little in the way of hiding spots.

Immediately past the doorway, the walls of the space fanned outward, matching the sidewards arcs of the hallways on either side. No furniture cluttered the open floor, no columns supported the ceiling, and no sentries stood on guard. Two piles of rubble informed the adventurers exactly what had happened to those last.

Interestingly enough, neither of the fallen constructs showed signs of roots or Mana explosions, which left Eve wondering if it had actually been Alex that had taken them down. They were, of course, covered in a thick layer of dust, but the act of shattering stone tended to generate such without necessitating the passing of years. Whether Alex had destroyed them or their mysterious looter or some as of yet unknown party, Eve could only guess, not that it really mattered.

Someone had been there before them, and unless they were somehow invisible, inaudible, odorless, and completely immune to telepathy, said individual wasn’t there anymore.

So instead of stopping too long to ponder the fate of the two constructs, Eve turned her gaze to the large room’s only other feature of note.

The enchantments on the floor didn’t follow the same stonework pattern as most others, instead swirling about in a labyrinthine web, jutting out from every corner of the chamber all to coalesce at the base of a raised dais just short of the far wall. There, they entered a strangely industrial-looking mess of pipework and stone, all inscribed so densely even Eve’s enhanced eyes couldn’t make out any detail.

It all culminated in a ridiculously heavily enchanted open space with a short staircase on either side leading up to an also heavily enchanted stone chair carved with enough intricate patterns to seem distinctly uncomfortable to sit in.

They’d found the throne room.

“Welp, looks like we’ve found the throne room,” Wes said.

“I don’t know,” Eve countered. “That could be anyone’s chair. Probably somebody short given how high up it is. I bet they’re compensating for something.”

Preston rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Eve, the ruling family of one of the greatest historical empires known to man were not compensating for something.”

“Well of course they weren’t,” Eve said. “Just the king was.”

Wes scratched the back of his head as he scowled up at the throne. “Maybe it’s so tall so they could fit all those enchantments underneath it. I bet the court didn’t appreciate having to crane their necks just to look at the king.”

“You might have a point,” Eve said. “That thing is enchanted up to the tits.”

Preston blinked. “What? It’s a chair. It doesn’t have tits.”

“Yeah, Eve,” Wes added. “Unless your tits are higher up than I thought, that thing’s enchanted way past the tits.”

“I’m gonna sit on it.”

Preston froze. “Eve, no.”

Eve was already walking forward. “Eve, yes.”

“Eve,” the healer argued, “we don’t know what those enchantments do. This is a bad idea.”

She stepped onto the side stairs. “It’s just Mana. I’m Mana. If something goes wrong, I can always just drain the enchantments. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Wes blinked. “Horrible death?”

“Yeah, but besides that. With how enchanted this thing is, it’s gotta have something to do with controlling the enchantments, right? Maybe sitting on the throne is what it takes.”

Eve ascended up to stand next to the throne, casually resting a hand atop the backrest. “I will say, climbing this thing isn’t exactly a dignified activity. I wonder what they do when the king or queen gets too old to handle all these stairs every day.” Her mind conjured an image of old Gregory in his bathrobe and eldritch fuzzy slippers trying to maneuver his way onto the throne. It might’ve been possible, but it sure as hells wouldn’t have looked regal.

“Eve,” Preston tried one more time to get her to stop, “we should explore more first. At the very least we should check the third door. There’s no reason to take this kind of risk without all of the information first.”

“I can think of one reason,” Eve said. “It’s a throne, and I wanna sit on it.”

Wes chuckled. Preston groaned.

“Besides, if it is how to control the enchantments, that sounds like a valuable tool that we’re going to want for the rest of this dungeon, and especially for any potential encounter with Alex. If she’s in that next room, I want the enchantments on our side when we find out.”

Preston sighed. “Let the record show I was against this.”

Wes turned to him. “We’re keeping a record?”

“Gods, no. Who would give any sort of fuck about our lives?”

Eve grinned, stepping in front of the throne. “It’ll be fine.”

“I’m putting that on your gravestone,” Preston said.

“Don’t be overdramatic,” Eve said. “That’s my job.” Without waiting for a reply, Eve winked at the boys and sat down.

Nothing happened.

The throne was roughly as uncomfortable as it looked, which was to say, extremely. The various ridges and points of the decorative carving dug into Eve’s spine even through her dragonhide armor, forcing her to shift back and forth to try and find anything resembling a comfortable spot. She failed.

“Well?” Wes called up from down below. “Anything?”

“Nope.” Eve shook her head. “I guess the enchantments are—”

[Alert!] Court Opening Procedure Engaged.

“What the shit?”

The room went dark.

From nowhere, trumpets blared their heraldry, the music deafeningly loud as it echoed back and forth across the empty throne room. The fanfare felt somehow familiar and not to Eve, as if whatever instruments played weren’t quite the equal of those she’d heard back in Pyrindel.

“Wait!” Preston shouted over the din. “Something’s happening!”

Sure enough, the light of the enchantments along the floor had returned, dim enough for the circular pattern to glow in the dark room without illuminating much of anything. Visible pulses of Mana traveled along the design, each making their way to the base of the throne where they disappeared into the mechanism there.

Seconds passed. The fanfare grew louder, more triumphant. The pulses of Mana grew more frequent. The enchantments grew brighter.

Almost painfully slowly given the volume of the whole affair, light began to coalesce at the base of the platform, gradually creeping up the mess of stone and iron pipes towards the throne itself. For a moment Eve considered leaving the chair, but the display of light and sound so far hadn’t actually done anything. For all she knew this was an essential part of taking control of the enchantments, though she doubted the trumpets played much of a role in that.

Nearly a full minute later, something beneath her rumbled to life. The Mana had reached the throne itself. Still, Eve noticed nothing new, and the ongoing heraldry implied there was more to come.

The pattern on the floor brightened further still, reaching the point that Art, Wes, and Preston all had to look away. The throne itself whirred and hummed as Mana raced through it, populating whatever complexities lay within.

At the peak of its tension, the music stopped.

The throne roared with power.

A spark of pure Mana flashed into the chamber.

The chair itself quaked with force, rubbing and bumping the already-uncomfortable carvings against Eve’s back.

Then, in a burst of brilliant light and energy, something came to life in the open space just below the throne. As it did, the heraldry made its triumphant return, completing its crescendo in energetic fanfare that could’ve given even the most talented bard a run for his money.

Eve stooped over to peer between her legs at the space beneath the chair.

“Ayla’s tits.”

There, raging with a power she knew all too well, was a small, comparatively weak, yet indistinguishable torrent of Mana flowing from one side of the opening to the other.

Preston’s eyes might as well have bulged out of their sockets. “I-is that a fucking leyline?”

“Yep,” Eve called back. “They redirected part of a leyline. That explains the um…” She looked down at the contraption on which she sat. “…all this.”

“I don’t like it,” the healer said. “Anything that needs that much power can’t be good.”

Eve sat back, trying her best to sense the throne beneath her or otherwise access the enchantments. Nothing happened.

Instead, the fanfare wound down, the enchantments on the floor returned to a more palatable brightness, and a notification appeared before her eyes.

[Alert!] Court is now in session.

Eve blinked. “No fucking way.”

“What?” Wes asked. “What’s happening?”

“Nothing.” Eve couldn’t keep the grin from her face. “It feels like the Mana is just passing through and returning to the leyline.”

Preston scowled. “What does that mean? What’re you smiling about?”

“It means,” Eve laughed, spreading her arms wide to indicate the room around her, “that all this, is to put on a fucking light show.”

Wes shook his head. “No way.”

Eve laughed harder. “Oh, it is. It all fits, the dimming of the lights, the music, everything. Even the notifications make sense. Those overdramatic bitches. I love it.”

Preston looked up at her. “Are you absolutely certain the enchantments don’t do anything else?”

“Oh yeah,” she chimed. “This is it. Fuck, I need to tell Emily about this. The royal court at Pyrindel needs to be this level of overdramatic.”

Her curiosity sated, Eve placed both palms firmly on the armrests to push herself from the throne.

“Eve, wait,” Preston tried to stop her.

She stood.

[Alert!] Court Closing Procedure Engaged.

The trumpets returned, louder than ever. Eve slammed her hands over her ears to deafen the sound as she scurried down the stairs to watch from below. In a brilliant flash, the redirected leyline vanished, and a single pulse of Mana shot from the throne across the floor in all directions. Moments later, the room had returned to the state in which they’d found it.

“I cannot believe they do that every time,” Eve commented. “Are they trying to go deaf?”

“Maybe that’s why it’s so loud,” Wes offered. “So they all can hear it after all the hearing loss from spending time near leylines.”

“Okay,” Preston breathed, “we’ve determined the throne room doesn’t do anything.”

Eve opened her mouth to protest.

“Doesn’t do anything useful,” Preston corrected. “On to the third door?”

Um, guys? Art interrupted. You might want to see this.

Wes turned to him. “What’s up?”

It’s um… one of the side doors back in the entry hall. Lumy says it’s changed.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Save the Date

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” Eve asked audibly knowing full well the trellac was going to tell them anyway.

The door changed, Art relayed. Lumy watched it. One second it was a normal Burendian side door, now it’s something else. There was a puff of smoke and everything.

“Alright, let’s take a look,” Preston said, ushering Art, Eve, and Wes out of the throne room. He didn’t bother asking the trellac to share what Lumy saw directly given that they’d finished searching the throne room anyway.

Eve stepped back into the entry hall to find Reginald crouched down to stare at one of the side doors. Lumy floated just above his nose, blinking in confusion. Eve didn’t, of course, know that the particular pattern in which the phantasmal remnant’s lights blinked represented confusion, but given the context it seemed the best conclusion.

“What do we have?” Preston asked as the party approached.

Eve scanned the strange door. The bare wood had none of the fancy carvings so prevalent in Burendian interior design, it’s surface smooth and flat other than a basic shape carved at eye height. It depicted some kind of upright cylinder with horizontal lines wrapped around it at regular intervals, as well as what was clearly meant to be some kind of liquid dripping down the sides.

“Any idea what this is supposed to be?” Wes wondered aloud.

Eve shrugged. “Only one way to find out.” She reached for the handle.

“Hold on!” Preston interrupted. “We should at least take some level of precaution before we go haphazardly opening magical doors that appeared out of nowhere.” He turned to Art. “Can you sense anyone behind it?”

Nope!

“That’s enough precautions for me,” Eve said, leaning in to pull the door open before Preston could stop her. She stepped into a tight space with a bar and four stools and just a few feet of space in which to walk between them and the wall. A small cooking area and a door to some backroom sat behind the bar, but Eve didn’t pay them any heed. Her attention was occupied by the lone cook standing there smiling at her.

“Hi, welcome to—Eve!”

Eve could only freeze, eyes taking in the smiling man with his chef’s hat and pristine apron. An open grin spread across her face. “Hi, Alvin.”

“Alvin!” Preston’s eyes bulged as he stepped around Eve to enter the small space. “It’s so good to see you!” He stepped up to the counter, squeezing between two barstools to lean over and give the former cultist a hug. “What are you doing here?”

“Well,” Alvin explained, “Lina did a bit of market research, and found out that most monsters don’t have the time to leave their dungeons in the morning, so we came up with this as an extension of the lungeon.”

Eve craned her neck to read the sign above Alvin’s head. “The Interdungeonal House of Pancakes?”

“Isn’t it great?” Alvin beamed. “Yssifiroth came up with the name. Space here is at a bit of a premium, so capacity is low, but apparently the witch that used to live where the lungeon is had this weird extra-dimensional space that could latch on to anywhere with high enough ambient Mana. It’s a bit random, but every morning we connect to a door in a dungeon somewhere and serve breakfast to the locals. It’s not much of a moneymaker, but it’s a great way to meet new people.”

Wes scowled. “Wait, so you just… teleport to a new dungeon every morning?”

“Not exactly,” Alvin explained. “Technically, you’re the ones who teleported. The door just appears in a new place at random.”

Eve furrowed her brow. “And how often do you actually get customers? I imagine most random dungeons don’t have much traffic.”

Alvin shrugged. “We get visitors most days. Every once in a while we’ll hit a dud location, but it’s not often enough to stop me.”

“Hold on,” Preston said, “so if we were to spend the full day in here, we could walk out into a different dungeon?”

But what about Reginald? Art asked, offense clear in his tone. He can’t fit through the door!

Preston sighed, patting the back of Art’s feathered head. “We’re not going anywhere; I’m just curious.”

Alvin shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. When you leave it spits you out through the same door you came in from, even if it’s not attached anymore.” He nodded to the door. “If I went through there I’d wind up back at the lungeon.”

“This all seems like a lot of effort to serve pancakes to a few monsters a day,” Eve commented.

“It varies,” Alvin said. “Some days we get a line out the door, though I guess that speaks more to how little space we have than how many customers we get, but I count four stools and four of you.” With a grin, he clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “So, what can I get you?”

Pancakes! Art ordered with enthusiasm as he climbed up onto a barstool as tall as he was. With syrup!

Alvin smiled down at the sheer cuteness before him. He snapped his fingers. “One stack of pancakes, coming right up.”

The griddle was set up in an L-shape along the side and back wall, allowing Alvin to cook and chat with the guests at the same time. As he poured the readymade batter into expertly formed circles, Eve, Wes, and Preston took seats of their own.

“So, other than pancakes, what all do you have?” Eve asked, hoping for one particular item.

“Space is the main limitation,” Alvin explained as he flipped a pancake the size of his head. “I have a kettle for boiling water and this griddle, and that’s about it. I can do pancakes, eggs, hash browns, sausage—if I can cook it on a griddle, I can serve it.”

Wes let out a laugh, patting Eve on the back in an insincere show of offering comfort. “No scones for you.”

All it really took was one look at the ever-growing pile of fluffy pancakes on Art’s plate and the choices between maple, raspberry, and huckleberry syrup to convince all three of the remaining adventurers to follow in his footsteps. It was, after all, hard to justify entering the Interdungeonal House of Pancakes and not ordering the pancakes.

“So,” Eve eventually said through a mouthful of delicious carbs, “how are things back at the lungeon? How’s Lina?”

“She’s thriving,” Alvin said. “She’s taken to the restaurant business like a… well, like a fish to water. Oh, that reminds me!” He dug into the pockets of his apron, pulling out what had once been a gorgeously designed piece of card stock decorated in gold leaf with floral patterns. Judging by the near-crumpled state of the thing, it’d been sitting in his pocket for some time. He handed it to Preston. “You’re all invited.”

“Oh my gods, Alvin!” Preston cooed. “Congratulations!”

Eve had to lean in to peer past Wes at the invitation in Preston’s hand, though she figured she already had a pretty good idea of what it said.

Alvin + Lina, together forever.

Join us for a ceremony followed by a reception at the lungeon to celebrate the eternal bond of love between Alvin and Lina. RSVP on the back with any dietary or environmental accommodations you require. We can’t wait to see you!

“Alvin!” Wes said with the widest of smiles upon his face. “You’re getting married! I’m so happy for you!”

Eve squinted. “What’s an environmental accommodation?”

“When rusalka are young, they can’t actually leave the water,” Alvin explained. “We’re providing a pool for them at the venue so Lina’s little cousins can come. Stuff like that. I’ve got some vampire friends that’ll need shade, for example.”

Eve shuddered as she remembered the vampires they’d fought back at the haunted mansion before realizing that if they were friends of Alvin, they couldn’t be that bad. Then again, those cultists that had tried to murder Preston to summon a demon had been friends of Alvin. She shook the thoughts from her head. “Congratulations.”

“I-um…” Alvin scratched the back of his head. “I’m actually really glad I ran into you.” He turned to Preston. “I was-um… I was wondering if you would officiate. You’re the only Priestess Lina or I know that isn’t a part of a cult, and you know how I feel about—”

Preston practically jumped from his seat, completely ignoring the fact Alvin had just called him a Priestess. “Of course! Alvin, I would love to.” He turned to Wes and Eve. “We’ll be there.”

Art looked up to Wes. Why are they getting married before you? Didn’t you and Preston get together first?

Wes coughed. Preston blushed.

“Hey Art,” Alvin said, sliding the biggest plate of pancakes yet across the counter, “why don’t you bring these out to Reginald? I’m sure he’d love some.”

Okay! the trellac chimed, grabbing the plate with both talons and hopping off the stool. Syrup dripped and sloshed onto the floor as he did, but Art didn’t seem to notice.

Once he was gone, Alvin addressed the couple. “You don’t have to answer that question. Not to us.”

“We’ll get there eventually,” Preston said, placing a hand over Wes’s. “We’ve just had so much other shit going on it’s been hard to think about things like that.”

Alvin leaned in. “You obviously shouldn’t do anything you don’t both feel ready for, but I’d advise you not to let the rest of the world stop you.” He nodded up at the door. “It’s too easy to let all the shit out there distract you from what matters.”

“There’s no rush,” Eve said as she set her fork down. “As long as I get to plan the bachelor party.”

“Eve!” Alvin hissed. “They aren’t even engaged.”

“Do um…” Wes said, his face red as it’d ever been, “Do you want to be?”

Preston froze. “Are… are you…”

“I think I am.”

Silence hung in the air. Eve and Alvin shared a look of shock. A tear welled in Preston’s eye.

“Ayla fucking damnit, Wes,” he yelled.

Wes stared, paralyzed.

Preston reached into his pocket and slammed something onto the counter. “I had a whole speech prepared and everything.”

All eyes turned to the counter to see what Preston had set there.

It was a silver ring.

Wes’s breath hitched. His eyes flitted back and forth between the ring on the counter and the Paragon sitting next to him. Eve could practically hear his heart pounding. “Are we doing this?”

Tears streamed down Preston’s face as he smiled the biggest, purest, most beautiful smile the world had ever seen. “We’re fucking doing this.”

Wes leapt from his seat, snatching Preston up into a great big hug. He held the healer close as he laughed and cried and cursed and whispered love into his ears. Preston, perhaps robbed of his speech, still managed to speak the words themselves.

“Wesley Rollund, will you marry me?”

“I will.”

For some time they stayed there, too wrapped up in their emotions and each other’s arms to even entertain the thought of being anywhere else. Nothing else mattered. For those precious moments, standing at the counter of Alvin’s IHOP, there were no proxy wars, no evil plots, no apocalyptic entities trying to escape into their reality. There was only Wes and Preston and the sheer unbridled joy there is to be found in the arms of a loved one. That’s all they’d ever needed.

The couple pulled away as the door swung open to admit a certain trellac clutching an empty plate in his talons. Art, of course, didn’t need to see the four sets of eyes streaming tears to know the density of emotions flowing through the room. He looked up at Alvin.

Reginald wants more pancakes.

Alvin dried his eyes on his apron as he smiled at the group of adventurers. He sniffled. “More pancakes, coming right up.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

What Are Ancient Deadly Ruins For If Not Quiet Self-Reflection?

ALVIN SENT THEM on their way with packs newly brimming with cloth-wrapped bundles of bacon, sausage, crepes, and other goodies to keep them exceptionally well-fed over the coming days. Against his protests, Eve paid in gold.

Wes and Preston had justifiably spent the rest of breakfast—brinner? The party had lost track of time since entering the ruin, and had honestly thought it to be early evening—fawning over each other while Eve asserted the extent of her significant willpower stopping herself from making crude jokes at their expense. That would be her engagement present to them, a few hours without any dick jokes.

The fact they’d been awake for going on twenty hours combined with the ungodly quantity of pancakes each and every party member had consumed made for the unanimous decision to stop for a few hours of well needed sleep. Reginald provided the framework for it all.

Wes and Preston slept in each other’s arms, leaning back against the soft warmth of the drake’s rising and falling belly. Art, meanwhile, sprawled out on top of Reginald’s side, arms and legs flopping out in every direction as he slumbered. In their many travels together, Eve had seen this Reginald-centric sleeping configuration a number of times, and had made a few… observations.

The first, of course, was just how absurdly comfortably they all looked, the second, how gosh-darned cute they all were.

The third was that Art snored like a Managorged bear.

Night by night, Eve could only stare in awe at the boy’s ability to emit sound far greater than any being his size should’ve been capable of, especially one who hadn’t physically spoken a word in the nearly two years they’d known each other. Reginald, in contrast, slept silently, even if the size of his lungs required he move a significant amount of air with each breath.

Eve, taking the ever important duty of watch while her companions slumbered in the middle of a dungeon, sat back against the stone wall just next to the ornate side door that had once led to Alvin’s pancake shop. The only other member of their party that didn’t need sleep floated over.

“Hi, Lumy,” Eve said, keeping her voice low to avoid disturbing the sleeping adventurers. “How’s the dungeon been treating you so far?”

The three floating lights, unable to communicate without Art or Preston to translate, blinked.

“That’s good,” Eve replied, having no idea what Lumy had just said. “You missed out with the pancakes. Alvin’s cooking is the best.”

Lumy’s upper light blinked a single, sorrowful time.

“Yeah,” Eve said, “being incorporeal sucks sometimes. I’ve been there.” She looked down at herself. “Not permanently, of course, but still…”

Lumy’s lower left flickered twice, once blue and once green.

Eve liked to think that after countless nights alone with the phantasmal remnant, she’d picked up some idea what Lumy meant when specific lights flashed in specific ways. She didn’t.

“Yeah,” Eve exhaled, running a hand through her chestnut hair. It was getting a bit long again. She’d have to ask Preston for a haircut once they were out of the dungeon.

Lumy said nothing.

The pair sat in silence for some time, staring off across the enchanted floor listening to Art snore. There was something eminently peaceful about it all, about the excitement of the day coming to a close in such an overwhelming display of affection. Eve wondered how long it would all last.

“I worry about them, you know,” she finally said. “Not… not really about their safety, though you’d think that’d be the scariest part of all this. I don’t know. I guess part of me just can’t really fathom the idea of anything bad happening to them. Another part knows…” Eve let out a breath. “I have faith in us. We’ve all survived through so much random bullshit so far, I just know that no matter what happens, we’ll be able to get through it. We’ll figure it out. Hells, even Alex isn’t gone, and I’m more worried that she, or we, will do something to hurt somebody else than that we’re not gonna get her back. We will.”

All three of Lumy’s lights flickered in turn, creating a sort of cycling effect.

“It’s the same with Wes’s Vessel class,” Eve said, interpreting Lumy’s response as a gesture to continue. “I know we’ll figure it out, and I know he’ll be okay. I’m just worried that…” She trailed off.

Lumy went dark in silent anticipation.

“If Art’s dad can’t help him, Wes is going to retire from adventuring. He’s said as much. And he’s right to. He’s earned more than enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life without ever stepping into eyeshot of a fire. There just isn’t a good enough reason for him to risk continuing. This whole thing with Alex and the chess pieces and all that… I can figure that out on my own.”

Lumy blinked once, flashing a deep crimson red.

For a moment Eve tensed before allowing the strain to fall away. “I just don’t want to.”

The two went silent again, one for lack of a mouth with which to speak, the other for lack of words that seemed worth saying. Instead they sat, watching the rise and fall of Reginald’s belly. That was the nice thing about these talks with Lumy. The phantasmal remnant never rushed her to say what was on her mind.

“If Wes retires,” Eve finally managed, “Preston’s gonna go with him. That’s a given. And where Preston goes, Reginald goes. Art’ll be with his dad, and I imagine you’ll follow Preston too, since he’s why you’re here in the first place.”

Lumy flashed yellow.

“I know, I know,” Eve said, knowing nothing. “I’m just worrying. There are so many ifs in this scenario it’s barely even worth bringing up. I just…” Eve swallowed. “I don’t want to be alone.”

Lumy blinked in three dozen tones of exasperation, none of which meant anything to Eve.

“You know what? You’re right. I won’t be alone. Alex is still out there, and even if it takes a while to get her and us out of this proxy war, we’re not the only adventurers in the world. There are all sorts of groups out there. One of them has gotta be looking for a melee dps.”

Lumy twinkled like three distant stars.

“Yeah, I know I still Appraise as an Emissary, but I also bring a lot to the table. I have access to the Dragonwrought vault and job board, I’ve got some pretty lucrative-looking secondary quests going on, and I could probably shatter a mountain if I wanted to. Oh, I’m also level ninety-fucking-one. I think they’ll figure it out.”

Lumy flashed purple in what Eve assumed to be laughter.

She smiled. “That does leave me to wonder what’ll happen when I hit a hundred. Emissary is a tier 4 class, but I kinda doubt any have made it to tier 5. I don’t think anybody makes it to tier 5 without a Unique class. What would the tier 5 version of Emissary even be?”

Lumy flared a rather unpleasant shade of brown.

Eve snorted. “Yeah, talk about missing the point. You’re right, though. I’m an accomplished adventurer and any party would be lucky to have me. I’ll be okay.” She paused once more to look over her sleeping friends. “I’m gonna miss them, though.”

The phantasmal remnant didn’t respond.

“Thanks. I needed to hear that,” Eve said, having heard nothing. “I’m gonna miss you too, you know. If Wes does retire, that is. These talks have been a huge help.”

Lumy could only flash her endless repertoire of colors desperately hoping to somehow communicate that Eve had completely misinterpreted almost every single thing she’d tried to say.

Eve just let out a sigh, letting the conversation come to an end. Together they sat there, having tried and failed to truly communicate yet still somehow coming out the other end better for it. So it was that Eve, her fears and worries somewhat assuaged for the time being, sat back, folded her hands behind her head, and settled in for the night.

* * *

[Alert!] Spatial Incursion Ended.

Alex blinked away the notification as whatever had bored a portal through the ruin’s enchantments went away. She was starting to wonder if this was a good idea.

It was them. It had to be them. Nobody else had any method or reason to find the Crown. Still, the message gave her pause. She knew some time had passed since her last confrontation with Eve, but last she’d checked, opening inter-dimensional portals had been beyond the plucky Defiant.

It didn’t make sense. Mila had promised her Eve and the gang had been wasting the last year on wild goose chases meant to distract them. The ability to teleport should’ve been far beyond anything a random tertiary quest could bestow. Maybe it had something to do with those weird lights that’d started following them around.

Whatever Mila said of Eve, Alex had been productive over the last year. She still wielded her rootweaver’s pike, of course, but she’d given up her leather armor for an ebonsteel set she’d earned in exchange for helping a dwarven stronghold defend itself from a rockwurm incursion.

The reflective black metal seemed to stay polished no matter how many nights she slept in it, and the silvery mithril trim made her look rather impressive if she did say so herself, not that she’d ever admit to caring about such things. Her tower shield had been a gift from Mila, the dark obsidian matching well with the sheen of her armor.

She Beneath the Earth, or Mila as her friends and employees knew her, had a reputation for being stingy with such rewards. After Eve had escaped Avendreth Manor by pulling some absolute bullshit right out of her ass, it had taken Alex over a month of perilous adventuring just to work herself back into Mila’s good graces. It had taken two more to accomplish anything worthy of a reward.

Fortunately, Eve wasn’t the only one with some bullshit prepared.

While Alex had absolutely embarked on more dangerous and rewarding quests over the past year than Eve had, Alex’s life quest had already wrapped up, while Eve’s continued to deliver absurdly large heaps of exp on a regular basis. The Defender might’ve railed at the unfairness of it all, but Alex knew well enough that if she hadn’t completed her life quest when she had, she never would’ve survived that cave-in with the lithodemons. She wasn’t bitter. Nope. Not at all.

As if on cue, something began vibrating on the other side of Alex’s camp. With a sigh, she grabbed it and held it to her ear.

“Hello?”

The Defender couldn’t fathom why someone would choose two halves of an oyster shell as the holder for their communications enchantment, but she couldn’t deny the value of it as she spoke into her half. She just wished it’d stop leaving her pack smelling of dead fish.

“Is there an update?” Mila’s voice came through deep and gravelly as ever. “It’s been a while since you reported the Mana leaks.”

“They’re taking their sweet time,” Alex replied, her words going over clear despite the din around her. “But they’ve gotta be close. There’s no way they leave without coming down here.”

“Very good. Contact me when they arrive.”

“I will,” Alex breathed. She didn’t want to do this. Gods, she didn’t want to do this. She had to. After everything she’d heard, after everything she’d seen, she couldn’t stand idly by. Even now she held out quiet hope that she could talk Eve over to her side, but she knew her odds were slim. Hells, the girl’s stubbornness was the stuff of legends, literally if her class was any indicator. She could only hope Mila would give her the chance she needed. Chances, really.

Alex inhaled, the stench of the enchanted oyster shell causing her nose to crinkle. “She won’t get away this time.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Worst Possible Place to Have This Conversation

THE THIRD OF the particularly important-seeming doors opened up into a spiral stairway that Wes decided he absolutely hated the moment he set foot on it.

“It’s not a circle!” he griped as they rounded the first bend. “Look at this.” He placed a hand on the curved wall. “The curve is tighter here than a few steps ago, and it loosens up again down there.”

Eve gave Preston a sideways glance. “Are you hearing what I’m hearing?”

Preston rubbed the bridge of his nose and let out a groan. “Please no.”

But it was too late. “So, Wes, have you always been such a stickler for tightness?”

Wes rolled his eyes. “This stairway isn’t straight.”

“Neither are you.”

“Eve,” Preston said, placing a steady hand on Eve’s shoulder, “I think that’s enough.”

“Right, right,” Eve said, remembering where exactly they were. “What’s wrong with the stairs?”

“They’re not going straight down,” Wes explained, tracing a hand along the curvature of the stone wall. “The steps are spaced out all weirdly, but it looks like we’re walking down and to the right.”

Eve blinked. “Is that a problem?”

“Yes,” Wes spat. “It’s super uncomfortable to walk on.”

Preston scowled. “That’s it?”

“Right when I get into a rhythm, the next step is slightly off of where it should be, and it throws my whole stride out of whack. I hate it.”

“Interesting,” Preston mused aloud, “I wonder why they built it like this.”

“Maybe it’s a defensive feature,” Wes offered. “Someone who’s not used to these steps would probably fight worse on them than someone who is.”

“They’re not that bad,” Eve insisted, certain her relative comfort on the stairs had nothing to do with her multiple stability passives. “Could be the Burendians misaligned the top of the stairs with where they wanted the bottom to go. Or maybe they accidentally drilled the hole at an angle and had to build the stairs to accommodate it. Or maybe it’s built to dodge around some weakness in the stone or other room or any number of other things.”

Preston snorted. “I’m going to go ahead and not chalk this up to ‘Burendian incompetence.’”

“Hold up,” Eve called, stopping to focus and run Mana through her ears. “Do you hear that?”

Wes and Preston both nodded, leaning in to listen to the distant roar. The noise was muffled and tinny from bouncing around the many revolutions of the spiral stairway, but Eve recognized it all the same. She’d grown intimately familiar with that noise over the course of their adventures.

She grinned. “I think we found the leyline.”

“Makes sense,” Preston said. “Three most important places would be where the royals stay, where they hold court, and the actual source of their power. The last two ruins had important stuff near the leyline too, so if there is a control room, it’ll be down—what are you doing?”

“Just in case,” Eve explained, shoving her pack into Preston’s arms.

“In case of what?”

“In case I have to go for a swim,” Eve said, digging through her pockets to remove the chess piece and her two copper coins. “Last time I fell in a leyline, all my stuff dissolved.” She handed it all to Preston.

“Eve, gross,” Preston said as he looked down at the copper coins. Blood and soot stained their surface beyond recognizability. One even had a hole through the middle where a drop of acid had splashed against it. Preston held them far away from his nose. “Eve, you gotta throw these out. They’re disgusting.”

Eve glared at him. “No way. Those are the coins ma gave me to buy my loaf of bread. Whenever that happens, I’m gonna damn well use them.”

“I don’t think any baker is going to accept these,” Preston muttered as he put the coins away nonetheless.

“Why do you think you’re going for a swim in the leyline?” Wes asked.

Eve shrugged. “Don’t know. I’d prefer not to, but knowing my luck, some bullshit will happen and I’ll get knocked in.”

“And knowing your luck, you’ll come out again with a brand new set of powers,” Wes muttered.

Eve snapped her fingers. “Now you get it!”

With a laugh she continued on down the awkward stairs, leading the way closer and closer to the din of the raging torrent below. Deep as they already were, it only took a few minutes’ descent to reach the metal door.

It was more of an opaque portcullis than a door, looming as it did atop the open passage. Eve wouldn’t be surprised if this were the most robust piece of security the palace had, ready to slam shut on any who dared intrude upon the precious leyline. Once Art confirmed he didn’t sense anyone inside, Eve strode in.

The leylines roared. All three of them.

The space itself was a thirty-foot stone platform suspended barely above the spot where the three leylines met. A narrow walkway led from the entrance, over the empty space between two of the torrents, to the platform itself, upon which sat a built-in stone table and metal chair. Eve couldn’t help but squint at the precarious position of the desk, readily imagining someone getting up too quickly and sending the chair tumbling into the leyline.

Of course, every inch of the space was enchanted to the high hells, though the intense glow of the leylines below washed out any detail Eve might’ve hoped to make out. She stepped across the walkway.

She felt more than heard the motion behind her, the leylines drowning out any noise but failing to halt the shake of the platform as something landed on it. Eve had an idea of what it was before she even turned around.

“We need to talk!” Alex yelled over the din.

Eve spun around just in time to watch the remains of a black chess piece crumble from Alex’s hand and fall to the stone platform, disappearing. The Defender stood between her and the others, blocking Eve’s escape with her back turned to Wes, Preston, and Art. Eve glanced over at the latter.

Alex must’ve noticed the look, as she went on to touch a jade earring on her left ear. “Did you think I wouldn’t take precautions against telepathy?”

“What?” Eve shouted.

“I’m immune to telepathy!” Alex shouted back.

Eve’s eyes widened as, behind Alex’s back, Wes set his hand alight. “No fire! We’re not killing her!”

Alex didn’t even turn around. “You can’t kill me.”

“I wouldn’t press my luck if I were you,” Eve yelled. “I can hit pretty damn hard, and I don’t care how tanky you are or how many enchantments you’re wearing. If Wes gets you alight, you’re done.”

“She’s called her boss, Eve!” Wes shouted.

“What?” Eve called back as the roar of the leylines swallowed his words.

She didn’t need to hear him to see the curse on his lips.

He says she’s already called her boss, Art relayed. We need to get out of here before she arrives.

“Thank you, Art,” Eve muttered, knowing her words couldn’t pierce the din. The trellac wasn’t listening to them anyway. It’s the thought that counts, after all. “I’ll handle this. Tell him, no fire.”

On it!

“You wanna talk?” Eve shouted in the meantime. “Let’s talk. Let’s go somewhere quiet, okay? It’s loud as shit in here.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Alex yelled, standing firm between Eve and the only exit.

Wes says okay, Art sent. But we gotta go now. Hit her hard enough to knock her out and make a run for it. We’re faster than she is.

“Alex, this is the worst possible place to have this conversation!” Eve called.

“What?”

“Exactly!” Eve yelled. “C’mon, can we please go somewhere quiet?”

In lieu of a response, Alex tightened her grip on her spear and lowered her stance, making it very clear she had no intention of moving.

“Alright,” Eve muttered under her breath to give shape to her thoughts for Art. “I’m gonna make a move. Tell them to back up.”

She didn’t need Art’s confirmation to know he’d sent her message, as he, Wes, and Preston all took hesitant steps back. Alex didn’t react.

“Suit yourself,” Eve shouted. “Let’s see how Indomitable you really are!”

Alex raised her shield. “You’re not going anywhere!”

A smirk crossed Eve’s face. We’ll see about that, she thought. Holding still, she activated Mana Rush for the full forty thousand per second she could, knowing full well it would drain her dry by the second tick. That wouldn’t a problem. Not here.

Running Mana through her throat and diaphragm to enhance their power, Eve bellowed over the roar of the leylines. “This isn’t just the worst possible place for a conversation.” Power surged through her as she pulled upon the unceasing force of the torrents below her. “It’s also the worst possible place to fight me!”

Eve waited for the ninth second of Mana Rush to tick by—so she’d be able to cancel it before leaving the leylines behind—before she Charged in. She kept her club tied to her back, its force multiplier unnecessary with the amount of power at her disposal.

Alex braced herself.

Eve shot forward like out of a cannon, barreling down the walkway at frightening speeds. The sonic boom barely managed to overpower the roar of the leylines below.

Eve threw her punch.

Twelve million Strength coursed through her body and down her arm, the limb reinforced by thousands of spare Mana. Eve aimed squarely for the center of Alex’s shield, well aware that even that risked killing the Indomitable Defender outright. So it was that with unstoppable force, Eve’s blow struck true.

Upon the immovable object.

Distant as they were, the shockwave of the blow was more than enough to send Art, Wes, and Preston tumbling backwards onto the stairway. The entire suspended platform quaked. A head-sized chunk of stone on the back side cracked and fell away entirely. The metal chair fell into the leylines.

Alex didn’t budge.

Eve Jetted back before the Defender could think to make a counterstrike.

“Alright,” she yelled once she landed back by the stone table, “I’ll admit that you are pretty indomitable.”

“We don’t need to fight!”

“She said, trapping me here and summoning a high-level to kill me,” Eve snarked back.

“They need you out of the picture,” Alex shouted. “They don’t care how. If you stay here until it’s all over, they’ll let you live.”

“Run,” Eve whispered to Art and Art alone. “Get out of here.”

But what about—

“I can handle myself. You and the others need to go. Now.” Eve let out a quiet sigh of relief as she watched her friends disappear up the spiral steps through the corner of her eye. She casually paced around the table as she yelled to Alex. “They already lied to you about what I’m doing, why should I believe them now?”

“They didn’t lie, Eve! You’ve been working for him this entire time, whether you knew it or not.”

“While you betrayed me willingly,” Eve shot back. She hoped Alex didn’t catch her quick glance at the door behind her. She prayed it’d be enough. They’d chosen this place to trap her for a reason, and nobody was as good at escaping as the Defiant herself. True to her hope, when the ground opened up to admit a woman with obsidian skin, it did so just outside the control room.

Level ?? She Beneath the Earth

Unique Tier ?? Class

“Well done,” the high-level woman said as she stepped into the room. “Your trap worked.”

“Show her what you showed me,” Alex barked without looking away from Eve. “She’ll flip, I know it.”

“It’s too much of a risk,” the woman growled with a voice like sand against stone. “She stays here.”

Eve smiled and waved from across the platform. “You must be the boss lady,” she yelled with her Mana-enhanced voice. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

The obsidian woman glared.

“You did get something wrong, though,” Eve continued. She pressed her hand against the stone table, feeling the magic within reach out to touch her spirit before opening up. A dozen notifications flashed across her vision, but she dismissed them all.

All but one.

[Alert!] Long Live the Queen!

With a grin and a wink, Eve issued her first command as queen of Burendia. With a cacophonous crash, the metal door across the room slammed shut, the enchantments along it flaring to life. She smirked up at Alex and the mysterious woman.

“It’s not just me that’s gonna be staying here. You get to join me.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Long Live the Queen

A HORRIFIED LOOK spread across Alex’s face, though she didn’t direct it at the door trapping them inside. She directed it at Eve. “What have you done?”

“That’s it,” the obsidian woman growled, “I’m killing her.”

Eve snorted. “You can try.”

“No!” Alex shrieked, rounding on her boss. “Mila, you promised! If I could keep her here, you’d let her live.”

“That was before she trapped us too,” Mila snapped, tossing her gaze around to appraise the various enchantments. “Bandir’s blue balls, it’s gonna take a week to break through these enchantments.”

“Ooh, that’s a good one,” Eve said, filing away the expletive for later.

Mila glared at her. “And it’ll take even more time if I have her trying to kill me while I work. Time I don’t have.”

“Then flip her!” Alex pleaded, the desperation growing in her voice. “Talk to her. She can let us out, I know it.”

“She’s proven her allegiance,” Mila said tilting her head back and forth as if to crack her neck. “I’m ending her.”

Eve smirked. “Good luck.”

Even as Alex begged her to stop, Mila waved a hand through the air, and a massive slab of stone pulled away from the ceiling—the only un-enchanted surface in the room. At once it shattered into a million razor-sharp shards, each hanging menacingly in the air for a brief second. Mila grinned. “Say goodbye.”

Eve waved and laughed. “Goodbye!”

Mila clenched her first.

The cloud of stone stilettos shot through the air, crossing the short distance to Eve in under a second. She didn’t even try to dodge.

The high-level attack tore through her, ripping armor, cloth, and flesh alike to shreds. Of the three, only the former didn’t immediately knit itself back together. Eve flashed Mila a look of mischief. “You missed our earlier conversation, didn’t you? About choice of location. Isn’t there this rule about not fighting people within their domain? I think so, at least. Well this…” Eve pointed at the floor below her. “This is my domain.”

Again Mila pulled a few tons of stone from the ceiling, forming it all into a single, giant spike. She launched it at Eve. Again, Eve didn’t bother to dodge. The spike ripped through her, and she knit herself back together.

Eve laughed. “You see, the thing is, by certain definitions, I’m not technically alive.” She reached a hand up to grasp the bone club at her back. “I don’t actually have Health anymore. I haven’t for a while. My only resource is Mana, and as long as I have some, I’m good to go.” She gestured down at the three leylines raging beneath her. “Now guess who decided to attack me on top of an infinite supply of Mana.”

As she talked, Eve pulled more and more power from the leylines below her, until a quick glance at her Mana pool gave her pause.

Mana: 226,050/45,210

Her eyebrows shot up. “Well that’s new.” She’d been able to gather five times her normal cap. It must’ve had something to do with one of the notifications she hadn’t read yet. She’d have to go through those later.

“Eve, no!” Alex cried, trying to deescalate the situation. “This isn’t a fight you can win!”

“Maybe.” Eve shrugged. “But down here, it’s not exactly a fight I can lose either.” She Charged in.

Mila was fast. A veritable wall of granite dropped from above, blockading Eve’s advance.

Eve popped Mana Rush. To make sure she always had some extra to work with, she only spent the same forty-thousand Mana per second on the skill, but this was hardly the same ability as before. Because she’d Charged first this time, her Mana Rush counted the temporary Willpower bonus in its calculation.

As it turned out, three feet of solid granite didn’t prove much of a match for sixty million Strength.

For a brief moment, an Eve-shaped hole appeared in the stone before the entire wall exploded in a cloud of dust. The good news was that Eve came through unharmed. The bad news was that cloud obscured her vision just enough for Mila to slip away from Eve’s attack.

Eve Jetted away, disassociating and re-associating her eyes to clear the dust from them. She glanced up at the ceiling to see a web of enchantment running across it, revealed now that Mila had pulled away so much stone.

“Of course,” Eve laughed. “Of course they built the enchantments to stop someone from tunneling in.” As Eve spoke, Mila pulled away the last of the free stone and slammed it into the ground to fill the air with more dust. Eve didn’t mind. She could handle a bit of dust, and now Mila was out of stone to work with.

With a grin, Eve launched a weak Mana Burst in a wide cone before her, imbuing the spell with annihilation Mana. The dust, low density as it was, vanished. “No hiding now.”

Mila snarled.

Eve darted in, allowing the few projectiles Mila had left to rip right through her as she closed in. This time, her club struck true.

The obsidian woman exploded into a hundred shards of black glass. No kill notification appeared.

“Figures it’d take more than that,” Eve breathed as she watched pieces of Mila float through the air, each poising itself to strike from a different angle. “Good thing physical force isn’t my only option.”

Three shards at once shot through Eve’s neck. She let them, simply pulling more Mana from the leyline to mend the damage. Her dragonhide armor was little more than a pile of scraps on the floor by now, and she knew even that wouldn’t survive what came next. Instead of dodging, Eve dumped ten thousand Mana into an annihilation-imbued Mana Burst at three of the floating shards. The spell struck two of them, and those pieces of Mila were no more.

From there the fight devolved into something resembling a shooting gallery, as Eve leaned back against the stone table taking potshots at the various floating obsidian shards. It was almost fun. She knew, of course, that without the leylines she would’ve died in the opening salvo, but she never would’ve gotten herself into this fight otherwise. She almost drooled at how much exp She Beneath the Earth had to be worth.

Mila dodged as well as she could, slowing the fight down by spreading herself out, and never once did she give up trying to overcome Eve’s obscene Mana regeneration. She never came close.

It was while Eve had her back turned to take aim at a pair of shards floating behind the platform that Alex’s voice raised above the roar of the leylines.

“Eve!” she yelled with a ragged throat. “Stop!”

Eve whirled around to find Alex standing, wide-eyed, with a razor-sharp floating obsidian edge pressed against her throat. Eve froze.

The remaining shards slowly came together, coalescing to form a head and torso. Not enough material remained for a full body. “That’s enough,” Mila growled.

Eve cursed, holding up her hands peacefully. “Alright, alright. I’m stopping.”

Mila stared her down. “I see so much as a flash of Mana from you and she dies, understand?”

“Eve, listen to her,” Alex begged. “She’ll do whatever she thinks she has to.”

Eve nodded, biting tongue.

“Now, since you’ve been so kind as to trap me here, you get to sit and watch while I work my way out,” Mila snapped. “And don’t even think about laying a hand on that table. I don’t trust you not to kill us all.”

“You’re the one who attacked me, remember?” Eve said, regretting it immediately as the knife pressed harder into Alex’s throat. “Fine, fine, no table.”

The obsidian shard relaxed a bit.

“I think there’s one thing you’re missing, though,” Eve said, taking a slow and deliberate step back. “You seem to be under the impression that we’re all trapped here.” She slid her foot back, feeling for the edge of the platform. “And that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Mila glared at her, pressing the shard tighter against Alex’s neck. A drop of blood welled.

“Oh, and Alex?” Eve said, gesturing her head at the knife to the Defender’s throat. “You might want to reevaluate who the bad guys are in this whole mess.” She looked up at Mila and winked. “See you in a week, I guess.” Leaving no time for a reply, an attack, or any more threats, Eve took a casual step back, fell from the edge, and plummeted directly into the leyline.

* * *

As soon as he heard the entry slam shut, Wes raced back down the awkward stairway in the desperate hope Eve had made it through. She hadn’t. With a curse, he slammed his hand into the enchanted door. It felt like slapping an anvil.

“Wes, what are you doing?” Preston called from a few stairs up. “She told us to run.”

“And then she locked herself in with Alex and a high-level that wants her dead,” Wes snapped. “We have to help her.”

“Wes, I don’t think…”

He set his hand alight. “I can burn through this. I know it.”

“Wes!” Preston shouted, his voice sharp. “What’re you gonna do once you get that door open, fight the high-level yourself? Eve can handle herself.”

“It’s the fucking Mana wraith all over again. I’m not letting her sacrifice herself for us. Not again.”

“Wes…” Preston tried to step forward, but the earth quaked around them and he stumbled, colliding with the fire mage’s back. “Wes, she had a plan in mind then and she has a plan in mind now. If you burn through that door you’re just going to throw a wrench in it. We need to go.”

Wes shook his head. “I can’t lose her, Preston.”

“And I can’t lose you.”

Wes froze. Preston could see the muscles in his back tense. “We’re not abandoning Eve.”

“No,” Preston said. “We’re doing what she asked. We’re just going to have to trust she didn’t bite off more than she could chew.”

“This is Eve we’re talking about,” Wes replied. “Biting off more than she can chew is kind of her thing.”

“And so is coming out on top.” Preston reached out and grabbed Wes’s hand. “Now let’s go.”

With a sigh, Wes finally turned and allowed Preston to pull him up the spiral stairs. This time, he didn’t gripe about the uneven steps.

The mood was heavy as they first caught up to Art and then left the stairway to rejoin Reginald and Lumy in the main hall. The trellac had already informed the others of the situation.

As at last they turned to go, taking one last look at the open passage down to where Eve was fighting for her life, Art called them to a halt.

Wait! I feel something!

As if in reply, a chorus of trumpets blared their heraldry, recognizable even muted by the door between them. Preston gave Wes a sideways glance. “What the hells?”

Wes was the first to reach the entrance to the throne room. He tore the door open, ready to rain fire on whomever lurked within. Even with the lights dimmed and fanfare blaring, he had no trouble taking in the room’s contents.

There, upon the throne, Eve sat in her underclothes, leaning back and picking at her nails. Beneath her, a small, redirected portion of a leyline ran from one side of the throne to the other. She grinned. “What took you so long? I thought I told you to run.”

A smile spread across Wes’s face as he allowed the tension to drain from his shoulders. He laughed. “In our defense,” he said, scratching the back of his head, “those stairs are awkward as fuck.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Crown Jewels

EVE HOPPED OFF the throne just in time for the lights to come back on, starting the whole overdramatic ceremony all over again. Not bothering to try and speak over the deafening fanfare, she simply gestured the others back into the main hall. Shutting the door behind them only managed to muffle the heraldry enough for her to explain.

“Long story short,” Eve said once she’d relayed the encounter with Mila, “unless she thought it was worth lying to someone she was about to kill anyway, we’ve got about a week.”

“A week to get as far away as we can,” Wes muttered. “Sounds good to me.”

Eve held up a hand. “Not so fast. We’re not finished here yet.”

Preston furrowed his brow. “Eve, what? It’ll take more than a week to search this place. We really should—”

She walked right past him, making her way to one of the many side doors. “Don’t worry!” she called over her shoulder, “I know where the vault is.”

That got their attention.

Wes, Preston, and Art scurried after her as she approached the seventh door on the left. It swung open for her when she got close.

Eve proceeded to lead the party through a twisting maze of passages that reminded her all too much of the bowels of Dragonwrought Hold. Gods, it’d taken her so long to finally learn her way down there. She whispered a prayer of thanks for Burendian ingenuity as she once more checked the map of the city the enchantments had added to her status screen. Preston had been right, it would’ve taken far more than a week to fully explore this place.

Good thing they didn’t have to.

No longer concerned about constructs attacking them, Eve read through her notifications while she walked. The first few were from the enchantments.

[Alert!] Claimant Found!

[Alert!] Claim Accepted!

[Alert!] Life-Mana Hybrid Recognized!

[Rejoice!] The Great Work is Complete!

[Alert!] Long Live the Queen!

Eve could only assume that fourth message had something to do with the tooltip that’d come with her race change. It’d mentioned that the entire Burendian civilization had been striving to create some kind of living Mana, and that she, as a Manaheart, was their first success. It was almost sad seeing the notification to rejoice sent out millennia after the last Burendian had died. None of them would ever see their lives’ work complete.

At least there was some solace in the fact that it had, at last, been finished. The next notification reinforced that.

Secondary Quest Complete: Legacy of the Precursors

Rewards: New Ability, +1t exp

Eve only gave herself a second to drool at the concept of one trillion exp before the other piece of text fully registered. She let out a breath. She’d had an empty passive slot for months now, ever since Haste had combined with Defiant Body. She’d wondered why she’d never been able to fill it; perhaps this was why. Was it possible for the Questing Stones to hold out on you until you finished a particular quest? In the moment, Eve didn’t care.

Ability Unlocked!

Passive Ability - Queen of Lost Burendia

The queen of Burendia is the queen of magic itself, and as the culmination of the Great Work, you’re poised to be the greatest of them all. All Burendian remnants will recognize your authority. All enchantments, Burendian or otherwise, will bend to your will. Gain access to the Ley Travel feature. Wherever Mana can go, you can go. Gain access to the Commanding Presence feature. Gain access to the Overcharge feature. Gather up to five times your maximum Mana for a short period.

Rule with grace. Rule with strength. Rule with empathy.

Rule.

Eve blinked. “That’s a lot of text,” she muttered. It definitely took the cake for her longest skill description, though as she stared at it, it kind of felt like several skills in one. Ley Travel she’d already used to escape from the control room, though she did now consider just how far she could go with it. Similarly, she’d accidentally used Overcharge during the fight with Mila. She had no idea what Commanding Presence did, nor how to activate it, but Eve was certain she’d figure it out eventually.

The rest of the tooltip excited her even further. The bit about Burendian remnants she’d expected—sentries wouldn’t attack her now that the enchantments recognized her as queen. As far as manipulating enchantments… Eve couldn’t suppress her grin. It just sounded ripe for abuse.

Eve forced herself to close the skill description and move on to the next notification. At this rate, she wouldn’t get through them all before they reached the vault. If there was loot to be distributed, she wanted to know her full skillset before making any decisions. She also just liked getting upgrades. And levels. And stats. She liked it all, really.

Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: Confront She Beneath the Earth

+ 1.072t exp!

Her grin grew yet wider as she raked in another trillion and change exp. She wasn’t surprised to find the encounter had been worth a milestone, but Eve would always appreciate her doubling milestone rewards. Blinking the message shut, she continued to the notifications she’d been waiting for.

Level Up!

Level Up!

Two levels felt almost disappointing for two trillion exp, but Eve knew every inch she got closer to level one hundred, the slower things would get. All progress was forward progress, and if her math checked out, she only needed four more milestones to get there. She didn’t let disgruntlement take hold, choosing instead to read the next two notifications.

Statistic Growth Upgraded!

+5 Strength/Level

The boost brought her Strength per level up to the same sixty her Dexterity and Intelligence enjoyed. She liked when numbers matched up. Next came her reward for hitting level ninety-three.

Ability Upgraded!

Passive Ability - Ethereal Manifestation

When you completely reform, gain the ability to make minor changes to your corporeal form!

Eve blinked. That was the first upgrade Ethereal Manifestation had received since she’d unlocked the skill a year ago, and boy was it a doozy. Once they left the ruins, she’d have to perform all sorts of tests to determine what exactly did and didn’t qualify as a minor change, but shapeshifting—even severely limited, roundabout shapeshifting—could prove immensely useful the next time she found herself in a city.

The upgrade did leave her wondering if it’d been her ongoing secondary quest that had stopped Ethereal Manifestation and her other Manaheart-exclusive abilities from upgrading when she leveled up. Receiving such a change immediately after completing the quest felt like serendipitous timing.

Eve shut the last of the notifications as the hallway opened up to fit a broad stone door, glowing white with enchantment. She needed only step up to it and will it open for it to allow them through.

The vault sat surprisingly empty.

No heaps of gold crowded the corners, no Ar-silver coins or rare gems glimmered upon rows of shelves. Only three stone pedestals occupied the royal vault, each bearing a glass display case and a single, resplendent item.

The three treasures all shared a visual style. They were each wrought in gold that shined far brighter than metal had any right to. They each bore dozens of decorative gemstones that seemed to amplify the light of the enchantments to mirror that of a thousand distant stars. They each sat upon a velvet pillow, waiting for a soul brave enough to claim them.

And there Eve was.

Soft, reverential music hummed through the air as display cases lifted of their own accord, allowing the party access to the three items: A scepter, a necklace, and a crown.

“I was hoping for more Ar-silver,” Wes exhaled, “but I guess I’ll settle for the crown jewels.”

Preston smacked him on the arm.

Eve, not one to let ceremony stand between her and loot, made a beeline for the crown. It was a large and ostentatious affair, masterfully inscribed with depictions of historical moments she didn’t recognize. A series of spires ringed the headpiece, the one at the front in particular looked like it could be wielded as a weapon. Eve Appraised it.

Crown of Burendia

Rarity: Unique

Eve snorted. “I could’ve told you that.” In desperate need of more information, she reached out to grab the gorgeous crown. The moment her skin made contact, it vanished.

You have obtained 194 units of Ar-gold!

1.94 cubic feet of storage available!

“Bandir’s blue balls,” she swore. “It’s Ar-gold. It’s a shitload of Ar-gold.”

“Don’t kid around,” Preston said. “We all know Ar-gold isn’t rea—”

Eve turned around to show off her empty hands.

“Ayla’s tits,” Preston cursed. “You absorbed it, didn’t you?”

Eve nodded, her eyes wide. “It says it can store things.” With a thought, she rematerialized the crown atop her head.

You have lost 194 units of Ar-gold!

0 cubic feet of storage available!

“Though apparently not while I’m wearing it.”

Wes skipped right past asking the obvious question and went straight to the necklace, snatching it off the pedestal and holding it in the air. It didn’t disappear. “It’s like the opposite of Ar-silver,” he said. “It weighs almost nothing.” He sighed. “I can’t absorb it though. Must be a Manaheart thing.”

“Which would imply,” Preston said, leaning in towards the scepter, “that they have other effects.”

Knowing the skill gave more detail when used on currently equipped gear, Eve Appraised the crown again.

Crown of Burendia

Rarity: Unique

Effect: Quadruples the effectiveness of the Commanding Presence feature. Increases Mana capacity by 30%. Serves as proof of identity and station.

Eve’s eyes bulged. With how massive her Mana pool already was, an extra thirty percent meant just short of fifteen thousand Mana. She checked her supply to see it had indeed risen to over sixty-two thousand. She grinned.

As a test, Eve absorbed the crown again to find the thirty percent disappeared with it. She sighed. It seemed she could either have the two cubic feet of storage space or the enchantments. She couldn’t tell which was better, but if the storage allowed her to dissolve two cubic feet of stuff with her when she dissociated, it might’ve been that.

Preston’s voice pulled her from her thoughts. “It’s a Mana battery!” the healer exclaimed as he looked over the scepter. “It can hold almost a million Mana, but I have to charge it myself.” He held it out towards Eve. “Sounds like something you could use.”

Eve waved him off. “You keep it. Every enchantment is a Mana battery for me, and you can always give me Mana by healing me, remember?”

“The necklace is a shield,” Wes said. “It’s got a flat thirty-percent reduction to all damage taken.”

Preston blew air through his cheeks. “That’s obscene.”

Eve nodded. “The crown gives the same percentage in maximum Mana. For me the two are practically the same.”

Wes shrugged. “I’m not exactly a frontline fighter, but I’ll take it if you’re all happy with what you’ve got.”

Before Eve or Preston had an opportunity to decline his offer, Art stepped in.

Me, me! the trellac sent, jumping up and down and waving his arm in the air.

Wes grinned. “Sounds like we have a taker.” He kneeled down and ceremoniously draped the Ar-gold necklace around Art’s neck. “Here you go, little guy.”

Yes! Art chimed. Reg is gonna be so jealous! Without waiting for any sort of reply, he darted from the vault to go show off his prize to Reginald. Wes let out a charmed laugh.

“I’d question the wisdom of giving a priceless artifact to a ten-year-old, but honestly, I think Art could use the extra protection the most,” Preston eventually said.

“You know he’s been feeling left behind since Reginald got his wings,” Wes added. “And sure, the necklace is priceless, but so was the smile on his face. He’s earned it as much as we have.”

Eve could only grin and give him an approving pat on the back. “You’re a good dad, you know.”

Wes reddened. “Anyway, that’s everything, right? All in favor of getting the hells out of here?”

“Hold on,” Eve said, “there’s one last thing.” She turned back to the center pedestal, setting her gaze on the fist-sized orb that had once sat surrounded by the crown. It was much smaller and shined pure white instead of the familiar inky black, but Eve didn’t need to Appraise it to know it for what it was.

The notification appeared the moment her skin came into contact with the dungeon core.

You have cleared dungeon: Crown of Burendia: +1t exp!

Level Up!

Statistic Growth Upgraded!

+5 Willpower/Level

“Okay,” Eve said. “Now we can leave.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Getting the Hells Out of Here

THE PARTY TRAVELED through the night.

It was Wes’s idea, originally, to forego a night’s sleep or two for the sake of building distance between them and She Beneath the Earth on the off chance Mila had lied about or misevaluated how long she’d need to break out of the control room.

Of course, he’d made the suggestion as they first mounted one of the spiral roads up and out of the giant cylindrical pit that marked the lost city. It wasn’t until the party finally stepped out from under the griffin’s nest to find the orange of sunrise coloring the toxic mist that they realized they already had traveled through the night.

They kept moving.

While Eve and Reginald had the luxury of natural wakefulness—though the drake would likely sleep for a fortnight upon their return—and Lumy didn’t sleep at all, the others were not so lucky. Preston kept himself and Wes awake through liberal use of Stamina potions, a practice which conjured memories of their first foray into the Dead Fields, when Wes had to stay awake for almost a week straight to burn the poison out of the air around them. At least this time certain death didn’t await them if the fire mage passed out for a few seconds.

Taking a Stamina potion through a tragedian’s diving mask was an endeavor unto itself, requiring Wes burn away an area of smoke under Art’s watchful mind, remove the clown mask, and chug the green brew as fast as he could before the mist swept back in. It made for a nice bit of adrenaline to help keep everyone awake.

Art had it best. Small and well-balanced as he was, the young trellac slumbered happily on Reginald’s back as the party trekked on. Twice Wes tried to do the same, only to wake up rather uncomfortably after slipping off and landing hard on the ground below.

As if in an effort to further mirror their original trip through the Dead Fields, the party only called halt when they reached a familiar pool of water nestled against the mountainside. They had to pick up supplies they’d left at Drathis’s cave anyway, and the mist-free space made for the perfect spot for a well needed night’s sleep.

Reginald, no longer able to fit through the underwater entrance, napped outside with Lumy and Art on watch while the others ventured in.

Eve took the opportunity to play with her new toy.

She hadn’t tested it completely, but over the course of their travel she’d confirmed that any items she stored with the Ar-gold crown absorbed did indeed remain incorporeal whenever she dissociated. Even better, they remained with her as her cloud-of-Mana self drifted around. The entrance to Drathis’s cave proved her first chance to actually use that feature.

While Preston had long ago sprung for a waterproof pack to keep his potions and Wes’s cooking supplies safe, Eve decidedly hadn’t. Fortunately enough, if she packed and folded it over itself in just the right way, Eve’s bag would fit in her storage space. Stuffing it, her coins, and her chess piece inside, she just needed to dissolve into a cloud of Mana, float comfortably into the cave, and reform her body to make it inside perfectly dry.

Wes and Preston did it the easy way and simply dried themselves with a bit of fire magic. Eve’s method was more fun.

The first thing Eve noticed as she looked about the cave was the mound of dirt and simple gravestone where once had been the giant carnivorous plant that’d tried to kill her. The epitaph, carved with gorgeous care, simply read: R.I.P. Planty.

On the other side of the cave, as far away from Planty’s grave as physically possible, stood a series of wire racks where Eve expected to find the mistler hides Drathis had said he’d dry for them. He did a bit more. In fact, not a single hide hung from the racks.

A full suit of armor did.

All three of the adventurers took a moment to stand and stare in shock at the beautiful simplicity of the craftsmanship, the perfect symmetry of the cuirass and leggings, and the artful layering of the shoulder plates. Eve’s jaw dropped.

Preston furrowed his brow. “So um… since when is Drathis an armorer?”

“More importantly,” Eve said as she walked up to the display and ran a hand over the fine leggings, “if he’s capable of this kind of craftsmanship, why does he dress like he just left the sewer?”

Wes shrugged. “I’m just gonna follow my usual advice when it comes to Drathis and not question it. He does what he does.”

“Well it looks like he actually bothered to explain himself this time,” Eve said as she reached the breastplate to find a sheet of parchment stuck to it. “He left a note.”

“Ooh.” Preston blinked. “What’s it say?”

“Good question,” Eve replied as she scanned the missive. “His handwriting’s atrocious.” She flipped it over to find yet more illegible text on the back side.

Instead of getting the sleep they both so desperately needed, Wes and Preston spent the following hour sitting in a circle with Eve as they tried to decipher two full pages of the rough squiggles that Drathis apparently thought passed for handwriting. By Ayla he’d written a lot.

Most of it remained a mystery to the adventurers. Eve found a section she could’ve sworn said something about getting Planty as a way to fight the loneliness he’d felt after the party had escaped the Dead Fields, and that with Planty’s death he’d realized he needed to find his people, but Wes was adamant that exact paragraph was actually a recipe for stewed skyswallower. They agreed to disagree.

Of the long and tragically unreadable letter, only a single part proved understandable to those present, mostly because it’d been written larger than anything else. At the very end, a single sentence stood out.

One last thing. Before you ask: it was class knowledge.

The party got a good laugh out of that one.

Letter aside, before they could finally sleep, Eve enlisted Wes and Preston’s help figuring out the various straps and buckles involved in trying on her new armor. It fit perfectly, the hardened leather contouring to the curves of her body as if it had been made just for her. She realized it had.

Before she could think better of it, Eve voiced her question to the others. “So… how did Drathis get my measurements for all this?”

“Class knowledge,” Wes and Preston answered in unison, mischievous grins on their faces.

“I mean, sure,” Eve said, “but we all agree class knowledge isn’t a real thing, right? How did he know?”

“We did stay here for months,” Preston offered. “Maybe he got them then?”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “Without my knowledge?”

“Maybe he’s just really good at sizing people up,” Preston said.

“Or,” Wes followed up, “you might sleep less, but you did sleep some nights.”

Eve shuddered. “I’m going with Preston’s explanation,” she said flatly. “I’d rather not think about Drathis taking my measurements while I slept.”

Wes grimaced. “Actually, yeah. Good point. Forget I said anything. Maybe ‘class knowledge’ just is the best answer.”

With that wonderful thought on their minds, Wes and Preston settled in to sleep for the night while Eve, new armor and all, dissociated into a cloud of Mana and drifted out of the cave to give them some privacy. She joined Art and Reginald as they slumbered, leaning back against the cliffside in the same spot she used to during their prior stay. At least this time she had a sleepless Lumy to keep her company.

This particular night, Eve forwent her one-sided conversation with the phantasmal remnant to instead spend the time experimenting with her crown and new ability. First and foremost came the mechanics of the Ar-gold storage.

She’d already known, of course, that she only had access to the storage space while the Ar-gold was absorbed within her, thus forcing her to choose between storage and the powerful enchantments on the crown. Similarly, as she’d walked she’d found that the 1.94 cubic feet of storage meant a literal cube. Even if the total volume of her pack were smaller, while the straps were out it was considered too big to fit. It made adding her bag a huge pain.

On the more convenient side, she could slip in smaller items from anywhere on her person with only a thought. She’d spent a solid hour on their walk just mentally moving her copper pieces between the storage space and her pocket, never touching them directly in the process. She’d gotten pretty good at it.

For the first hour of the night, Eve tested various use cases for the storage space. The most immediate was figuring out what happened if she rematerialized the crown with items in her storage. The answer was rather convenient. Everything simply returned to her person in the same position it’d been stored in. If she stored her chess piece from her pocket, it returned to her pocket. If she stored her pack in a bundle in her arms, it and all the objects in it returned there—often to fall to the ground if her arms weren’t poised to catch it.

She tried storing some water from the pond, only to find that it left her soaking wet the moment she removed it again. Eve thought to store some of the toxic mist, but without a way to make it any denser, 1.94 cubic feet of the stuff wasn’t particularly useful.

Eve couldn’t quite tell if her final discovery with the crown was an inherent property of it or somehow linked to her recent upgrade to Ethereal Manifestation, but she found that if she dedicated a significant amount of focus as she rematerialized the Ar-gold atop her head, she could change its appearance.

Any onlooker might’ve been some combination of scared and remarkably entertained to watch her flip from an ostentatious bejeweled crown to a golden bucket hat to a top hat she managed to stretch to almost four feet tall. Lumy, her only audience, simply flickered purple.

In the end, Eve settled on a comparatively unassuming golden hair clip. Constrained by its apparent minimum size, the base of the clip actually stretched across a significant chunk of her scalp, but her mess of chestnut hair did an admirable job of hiding it. If anyone looked too closely, they might wonder why an adventurer in plain-looking leather armor wore a glimmering gold and ruby clip in her hair, but the whole glowing-eyes thing tended to draw attention away from such little details.

She spent the rest of the night messing around with Ethereal Manifestation, primarily testing the limits of what it considered a ‘minor change.’ Much to her chagrin, extra arms were right out. She could, if she focused very hard, grow a pair of white, feathery wings, but her class’s definition of minor limited them to about three inches long, not exactly flight-ready.

As far as actually useful applications for the skill upgrade, Eve found two. The first would almost certainly prove a boon when she next found herself in Pyrindel—she could disguise herself. As it turned it, it only took a few slight changes to the structure of one’s face to become nigh unrecognizable. It couldn’t stop her eyes from glowing, but that was a problem for another day.

The second use was pure vanity. From removing blemishes to styling and recoloring her hair, Ethereal Manifestation had become a cosmetic powerhouse. Better yet, because it actually changed the physical form of her body rather than covering it up with an illusion, she could effectively stop hair from growing or spur it longer. Eve grinned at that one. No more would she have to pester Preston for free haircuts.

Finally, and this one was entirely for fun, Eve found she could rearrange the lines of Mana that ran along her skin. They’d always shine bright while her pool was overloaded, and she did rather like the dragonscale pattern they’d taken on after she’d joined the Dragonwrought, but the freedom to change them showed promise. She could already think of a half dozen ways to make fun of Wes by scrawling messages and images into her skin with the Mana lines. She spent a whole hour practicing.

As sunrise once again colored the horizon, Eve sat back in comfort and let the couple sleep in. They’d earned it.

Only four hours after dawn had come and passed did Wes and Preston finally emerge from the pond, dry themselves off, and prepare to reembark on the journey home. The adventurers knew they weren’t far from the way out of the Dead Fields, and once they escaped the fog they’d be free to fly back to Dragonwrought Hold at high speed.

Eve trailed the party as they walked towards the pass, allowing a smile to cross her face as her thoughts meandered. All in all, the journey had been a profitable one. They’d earned new levels, new abilities, three immensely powerful Ar-gold artifacts, and, hopefully, a bit of information. She’d even picked up a badass new set of armor she could hardly wait to test out a bit more.

So, on she walked, a pack full of loot, a bar full of exp, and a mind full of possibilities.

One quest down, on to the next.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Every Day is a Gift

UPON THEIR SWIFT return to the safety of Dragonwrought Hold, the party unanimously voted to take something of a short break. Eve liked to think the decision motivated by important things like the need to train with the new items and abilities, Reginald’s need to make up for the sleep he lost on their trek back through the Dead Fields, or the fact two of her friends had just gotten engaged and could perhaps use a bit of time to themselves, but in truth she supported the break for selfish reasons.

Her bed was fucking awesome.

Now, a discerning outside observer might wonder why someone who only needed a night’s sleep every other week or so cared so deeply about cloudweft silk sheets and phoenix feather down and whispertouch enchanted boxsprings, but said outsider would be missing the point entirely. If Eve was only going to get one night’s sleep in a fortnight, by Ayla’s crooked left tit it was going to be a good one.

The downside, of course, of spending months of adventuring effort and literal hundreds of gold assembling the comfiest sleeping arrangements known to man, elf, or dragon, was how remarkably difficult it became to convince oneself to get up.

At her current level, if she activated Defiant Charge, Eve could reach a grand total of twenty-four thousand, six hundred and fifty-five Willpower, every single point of which she found truly necessary to accomplish the herculean task of getting out of bed that first morning.

The truly divine scent wafting from the plate of freshly baked scones Piskern had delivered helped a little.

Even when she’d long met her needs for sleep, Eve spent hours lying back or sitting up in the absurdly lavish bed, doing a mix of daydreaming, reading a book or two she’d borrowed form Valya, or trying—and failing—to break the cipher on the Burendian journal she’d found. A number of these activities Eve underwent not because they particularly interested her, but because they allowed her more time amidst the pillows and blankets.

That wasn’t to say she completely wasted her time.

Eve worked her usual long hours at the training yard each day, practicing all sorts of tricks with the crown and her new ability. Most importantly, however, she finally had armor that could dissociate with her. A new realm of possibilities had opened.

Between the mistlerhide armor, her Manaweave underclothes, and now the crown’s ability to store any miscellaneous items on her person, Eve could dissipate part or all of her body mid-combat without the fear of losing some vital piece of equipment. Day by day she practiced dodging all sorts of attacks by simply dissolving the area of her body that would otherwise be struck, working tirelessly to drive her reaction time lower and lower.

Most of this time she spent in what the Dragonwrought called the Evasion Training Chamber, but she affectionately referred to as the Slingshot Room. Several dozen enchanted slingshots fired off leather balls at random intervals, velocities, and directions, forcing Eve to remain constantly vigilant else she receive a rather nasty bruise.

Come to think of it, she did wonder how exactly she bruised without any blood coursing through her veins before chalking it up to her usual explanation: magic bullshit.

Of course, becoming incorporeal didn’t exclusively provide defensive utility. As it turned out, stopping a floating cloud of Mana from getting into melee range was a lot more difficult than stopping a person. Initially, Eve had dismissed the prospect of offensive dissociation due to the simple fact that clouds of Mana couldn’t cast abilities, but the game changed when she discovered that disembodied heads floating on top of a cloud of Mana could.

Similarly, while she floated almost agonizingly slowly, upon dissociation she maintained any velocity she’d already had, meaning she could Charge in, dissociate to get around defenses or counterattacks, then reassociate just in time to land a swing with her bone club. The maneuver was complex and difficult to time correctly, but if she managed it right it made for a brutally hard-to-stop attack.

With enough practice, Eve could always time it correctly.

She similarly devoted hours to various tricks and techniques built around keeping herself incorporeal and only materializing her head to throw a Mana Burst before dissipating once more, finding it a particularly effective tactic for dealing with flying, ranged opponents.

Her new ability to overfill her Mana pool also proved valuable. Of everything, it was definitively the most flexible of her new arsenal, allowing for everything from a massively buffered pool of effective health to the option for truly obscene Mana Bursts to ridiculous levels of Strength from Mana Rush if she found herself in another situation with vast quantities of Mana nearby to refill with. The skill also came with an interesting feature.

Being overloaded made the Mana lines on her body brighter. A lot brighter.

Eve couldn’t tell if it had something to do with an inherent property of mistler hide or if the stuff simply started dissociating when exposed to so much power, but at about three times her Mana cap, her armor faded out just enough for the lines upon her skin to shine through. Of course, at that point they were so bright that none of her actual body was visible, but Eve still made a point of redrawing some of the lines to avoid tracing too accurate an outline of her figure.

Truth be told, she thought it looked badass. She spent a good hour staring in a mirror, pool brimming with Mana, as she fiddled with the precise design. Come an actual fight, she’d look intimidating as hells when her entire body started glowing with the dragonscale pattern and jagged web around the core at her chest. That is, she’d look intimidating if she hadn’t forgotten to revert the changes after rerouting the Mana lines to make a joke.

Then again, some enemies might find it even scarier to go into battle against a Unique with a giant glowing arrow and the text ‘I’m with stupid’ scrawled upon her forehead. Maybe they’d laugh so hard at her comedic genius they’d surrender then and there.

It was as she was messing with the dragonscale pattern to reroute a line that awkwardly bent around her knee that Wes and Preston found her.

“So,” Wes greeted, “are you excited for the wedding tomorrow?”

Eve froze. “The what now?”

Preston scowled. “The wedding.”

“Guys, you’ve been engaged for like two weeks. Don’t you have more planning to—”

“Alvin’s wedding,” Wes interrupted to correct her. “You know, the one we rsvp’d to?”

Eve blinked. “That’s tomorrow?”

Preston rubbed the bridge of his nose. “How did you not know that? The date was literally on the invitation.”

“Of course I read the date!” Eve exclaimed. “I know exactly what day the wedding is on. I just may or may not know what day today is.”

Preston sighed. “Please tell me you at least have a gift prepared.”

“Um…” Eve stopped short. “Every day is a gift?”

Wes snorted.

Eve exhaled. “What did you get them?”

“I got a jar of phantasmal cake flour that Lumy helped me with,” Preston explained. “Apparently it makes baked goods supernaturally light and fluffy.”

Wes grinned a wicked grin. “I got Mrs. Yir’s strawberry scone recipe.”

Eve’s eyes bulged. “You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“How? People have been trying to get that recipe out of her for decades!”

Wes crossed his arms proudly. “You’d be surprised how much people will tell you when you offer them enough gold to buy a house.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “So you offered her one gold?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Wes nodded. “I know it’s a bit of a backwood, but I’ll never understand how the economy in Nowherested got so fucked up.”

“You have to give that recipe to Piskern,” Eve demanded. “Right now.”

“Not happening,” Wes said. “She only gave it to me because I told her it was a wedding gift. You know she’s a sucker for romance. I’m not going back on that now so you can have slightly better scones delivered to you daily.”

Eve glowered.

“Anyway,” Preston stepped in, “you need a gift. It’s bad form to go to a wedding without one. Even Reginald put together a lovely bracelet out of some old scales.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll find something,” she said, pushing herself to her feet. “I don’t have time to pull off the literal miracle Wes did, but there’s gotta be something around here that’ll make for a good wedding present. The vault’s got all sorts of weird shit in it.”

“Good luck with that,” Wes wished her as she made for the door.

“We’re flying to the lungeon at dawn tomorrow,” Preston called after her. “Make sure you’re dressed accordingly. This is a wedding, not a dungeon.”

“I mean, technically the lungeon is a dungeon,” Wes said.

Preston sighed.

Eve blinked at him. “Am I really the one you’re worried about dressing nicely?”

“No,” Preston said flatly. He jerked a thumb over at Wes. “But I can supervise him while he gets dressed.”

“Hey!” Wes protested.

Eve laughed. “Have fun. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”

Preston nodded after her. “Good luck with your search.”

“It’ll be fine,” she called over her shoulder as she stepped out into the hallway. “The Dragonwrought vault has to have something worth giving, right?”

* * *

Eve buried her head in her hands and let out a long and agonized groan.

She leaned forward, sitting crosslegged on the stone floor of the vault. She had a problem. For all her searching, the Dragonwrought’s collection didn’t have a single item that would make for a good wedding gift.

It had three dozen.

“What do you think?” Eve looked up at Lumy, the only one with nothing better to do at three in the morning than help Eve find a gift. “Would they prefer the Mana lamp that keeps fried food crispy or the ritual candles for summoning butter elementals?”

Lumy flashed orange.

“You’re right, you’re right,” Eve said. “What with the restaurant, they’re probably gonna be inundated with food-based gifts.” She grabbed something from the pile before her. “Maybe they’d like the bath salts enchanted to make you smell like whatever your partner likes the most.”

Lumy glowed an angry red.

“Right, right, Lina’s a rusalka. The whole drowning thing. That’s why I have the septum piercing of water-breathing set aside, but that feels too obvious. If nobody at that wedding gives them a water-breathing item, I’ll eat my boot. Besides, Alvin isn’t exactly the septum-piercing type.”

Lumy blinked a pleasant cool blue.

Eve let out an aggravated groan, throwing herself back lay against the pile of coins behind her. “I wish Preston were here. He’d know exactly what to give them. Stupid humans and their stupid need for eight hours of sleep.”

The phantasmal remnant flashed green, yellow, and brown at the same time.

“That’s a good point,” Eve said with no real idea what point Lumy had just made. “I don’t need to decide right now. I can just ask Preston before we leave tomorrow. Thanks, Lumy.”

Lumy flashed white.

With newfound confidence, Eve carefully scooped up all three dozen potential wedding gifts, stowing them all in her pack as she counted up the contribution point costs. She had more than enough for the lot, and would return all but the chosen present once the wedding was over.

That daunting task out of the way, at least for the time being, she did the vault vault back to castle proper and made her way back up to her room. The stress of finding a gift no longer weighing upon her, Eve found herself in a state of eager anticipation. It’d been some time since she’d last enjoyed a true celebration, and knowing Alvin and Lina, the whole affair would be a gorgeous experience surrounded by incredible food. And alcohol. Also alcohol.

So it was that Eve arrived at her suite, deposited her sack of goodies upon her bed, and turned to her closet with a grin as wide as any. With a quick glance at her standing mirror enchanted to show a rotating reflection, she dove right in.

There were only three more hours until dawn, and she still had so much to do.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Nothing Like a Wedding to Bring People Together

THE PARTY ARRIVED in style.

Eve grabbed the attention of everyone milling about outside the venue as she came plummeting out of the sky, shimmering sapphire dress billowing in the wind, only for her fall to stop short six inches from the ground, allowing her to land as if from a small hop. She patted down her dress just in time for Reginald to appear in the sky above the clearing.

The wedding guests didn’t need to be told to step back.

His phantasmal wings pushed no wind around, sparing Eve the effort of fixing her dress a second time. Judging from the looks of a few of the better-dressed guests around, she wasn’t the only one thankful for that.

Wes was the first to disembark, looking the spitting image of a noble courtier who absolutely did not want to be one. Art hopped off after, looking rather dapper in his little doublet. Preston followed, taking his job as officiant seriously enough to actually dress like a religious leader.

Upon receiving his letter, the Church of Ayla had been perfectly happy to send their new Paragon a truly ostentatious set of gold-trimmed white robes. From the way they hung loosely around his chest and hips, Eve got the impression they’d once belonged to someone else. She refrained from making the obvious jokes, certain that Wes had beaten her to them.

He handed something to Wes. “I need to go talk to Alvin. Why don’t you drop off our gifts at the table?”

At Wes’s nod, Preston turned on his heel and strode through a white wooden arch decorated with roses, maneuvering around the mostly empty chairs to slip into the tree that marked the entrance to the lungeon.

With a moment’s thought, Eve materialized the Ar-gold crown atop her head as a golden circlet with a single sapphire at the front, her choice of gem matching the rest of her outfit. As the crown appeared, a wrapped parcel popped into existence in front of her. She caught it.

Preston had taken one look at her pile of potential gifts and immediately selected a vase that generated fresh, seasonal flowers once a day. He hadn’t let her wrap it, recognizing that as a train wreck waiting to happen, and had instead taken the few minutes to do the job himself.

Eve looked over at Wes. “In we go?”

Wes shrugged. “In we go.”

A rather eclectic crowd milled around both the seating area and the open space to the left that held the table for gifts and the bar. About a third of them were human, including a few adventurers and a very frightened-looking group in their Sunday best that Eve recognized immediately as Alvin’s family. The resemblance was uncanny.

Lina’s friends and family made up the next third, the all-female gray-skinned rusalka dripped water upon the grass as they walked around and socialized with all present. Eve watched with a keen interest as two of them approached two of the older Alvin look-alikes, the former doing their best to be polite and friendly as the latter practically cowered.

Wes stopped her gawking in its tracks.

The final group represented among the guests consisted of every type of monster Eve had ever heard of, and a few she hadn’t. She waved at Yssifiroth the tentacle monster and his wife as they passed, though he seemed not to recognize her. She cringed.

Peeling her eyes from the endlessly fascinating set of attendees, Eve deposited her gift upon the growing heap on and around the table set out for them, and promptly led Wes to the bar. What were weddings for if not drinking at ten in the morning?

It was as she, Wes, Art, and Lumy stood—or floated in Lumy’s case—in line for drinks that Eve heard the voice behind her. She didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. She’d recognize that dialect anywhere.

“Well, wouldja look who it is. I didn’t think I’d be seeing you here.”

Wes was the first to greet the dark elf. “Hi, Brady. It’s good to see you. Where’s your brother?”

“Oh, he’s around here somewhere,” the lone Midden brother replied. “Probably getting into mischief.”

Eve shook his hand. “Glad to see you’re still around. How do you know the happy couple?”

“We’ve been making stops here for a while now,” Brady answered. “You’d be surprised what kind of hand-me-down gear high-levels will give ya in exchange for some of Alvin’s cooking.”

Eve grinned. “No, I don’t think I’d be surprised at all. I’ve had his cooking.”

“Well there ya go,” Brady said. He peered around the adventurers to watch the slow-moving queue. “It looks like we’ve got some time on our hands. What’ve you all been up to?”

“Oh, this and that,” Eve said, just in time for Wes to jump into retelling everything that’d happened since they’d helped the Midden brothers fix their cart in the snowy woods over a year ago.

In the half hour or so it took Wes to get through the tale—including brief breaks for Eve to make wisecracks—the drink line moved forward approximately eight feet. Apparently the giant mantis in a tuxedo they had serving drinks couldn’t do so particularly quickly, a trait Eve could understand given his lack of hands.

Funnily enough, by the end of Wes’s outlandish true story, Brady Midden expressed interest not in their priceless artifacts or dangerously cursed ring, but the encoded diary Eve had found in the ruins.

“Do ya think I could take a look at that book of yours? I’ve been practicing cryptography as a hobby for a bit now. Carl Midden keeps telling me it’s a waste of time, but I’ll show him, I will.”

Eve blinked, conjuring the ancient journal from a hidden pocket. “Yeah, of course. I’ve been beating my head against this cipher all week.” She handed it over.

Brady accepted it with two hands. “I’ll get this back to you soon as I can. Wouldn’t wantcha thinking I pulled a fast one on you.”

Eve smiled. “Thank you. I’m really dying to find out what’s in there.”

Wes rolled his eyes. “It’s a teenage girl’s diary. It’s probably full of nothing.”

“I’ll consider it a puzzle, then,” Brady chimed, secreting the book away.

Ooh, ooh, it’s our turn! Art’s message pulled Eve and Wes from the conversation as they turned to face the bar.

The giant mantis bowed his head to Wes then Eve. “Sir, your majesty, what can I get you?”

“I’ll take whatever that is,” Wes replied immediately, pointing at a pitcher of something fruity next to a collection of champagne flutes.

Eve blinked, still parsing through what the bartender had just called her. “Um, make that two, please,” she blurted out.

The mantis clutched the pitcher between his two segmented arms, moving slowly and carefully to avoid a spill. He handed them their drinks one at a time, following up with a glass of juice for Art. Once more he bowed his head.

Wes waved goodbye to Brady as the party moved on. Eve’s mind was elsewhere.

“You heard that, right? He called me majesty.”

Wes shrugged. “You are wearing a crown.”

“It’s a circlet!” Eve insisted. “Art’s wearing one too.”

Sure enough, the young trellac still wore the enchanted silver circlet he’d claimed from the Dragonwrought vault.

“Maybe he couldn’t see it over the counter?” Wes offered.

Or maybe he can tell you’re a queen! Art sent.

Eve scowled. “How? It’s not a title or a class, it’s just an ability. Besides, monsters don’t have access to Appraise.”

He might not have Appraise, Art responded, but there are all sorts of variations.

“Either way, I show up as an Emissary, remember?”

Wes’s eyes flashed blue. “Um… About that…”

Eve rounded on him. “You’re kidding.”

“See for yourself,” he said, leaning in so she could see the reflection of the blue screen in his eyes.

Level ?? Monarch Ascendent

Mythic Tier 4 Class

“Gods damnit,” she muttered, sinking back. “Emily’s not gonna like this.”

Wes blinked. “Emily? The queen of Leshk? The one we lied to and then got her entire city drunk to escape the prison of? That Emily?” He snorted. “I don’t think what you Appraise as is really your biggest problem on that front.”

Eve sighed. “That’s fair. Still, there goes any chance I had at avoiding attention whenever we step into a town.” As she looked around the crowd once more, she noticed that word of her station appeared to be spreading.

Monsters and humans alike gave her party a wide berth as those with access to Appraise or some other form of identification whispered in the ears of those without. About a quarter of the guests bowed their heads as she passed. Eve groaned. “I didn’t sign up for this. Can someone tell them I’m queen of a dead kingdom with zero subjects?”

“It’s okay,” Wes said, patronizingly patting her on the shoulder. “Just open your mouth and they’ll know you’re not real royalty anyway.”

Before Eve could respond with the devastatingly clever retort she absolutely, totally had prepared in the moment, a chord of organ music rang out through the grassy clearing, signaling the time had come for everyone to take their seats.

The song—performed by a black mass of tentacles in a dress that could only be Yssifiroth’s wife—played just loud enough to make conversation awkward without being overly intrusive, no doubt an artfully chosen volume to incentivize people to wrap up their socializing and sit the hells down. The party obeyed.

“Question,” Wes said as they stood at the back of the aisle trying to decide where to sit, “I understand the sentiment behind the ‘pick-a-seat-not-a-side’ sign, but did they really think it’d work when half the seats are underwater?”

Eve glanced over at the rows of white chairs submerged in a chest-high pool where Lina’s family gathered. She snorted. “That sign almost feels like a trap. Please everyone, sit in the water with all the rusalka. It’s perfectly safe.”

“Eve!” Wes hissed, slapping the side of her arm. “Don’t be racist.”

Art ushered them down the aisle to a collection of four seats in the sixth row, keeping a spot clear for Lumy even though the phantasmal remnant floated above them anyway. Reginald settled in the open space behind the seating along with a few other creatures that couldn’t use chairs or would otherwise block the view of anyone behind them.

Once all the stragglers had settled, the organ music transitioned to a slightly different tune, cuing Preston to enter from the lungeon. He climbed up onto the wooden platform up front, clutching a holy book Eve was absolutely certain he hadn’t owned forty minutes ago.

It was as he stood there, looking all official in his ill-fitting robe while he waved to the crowd of monsters and humans alike that Eve realized he really was the best choice for the job. Who better to formalize the union between a human and a monster than someone connected to both a human goddess and the goddess of beasts? Preston bridged the very gap that Alvin and Lina would that day.

“You know,” Wes muttered to her, his eyes fixed on the stage, “for all he complains about them and for all he tries to distance himself, you gotta admit, he makes a damn good priest.”

Eve snorted.

“Seriously, though,” Wes continued. “Look at him. He’s not holier than thou, he’s not trying to teach a lesson or preach some moral code. Hells, he’s literally up on a platform and he’s not looking down on anybody. He just wants to help people. That alone makes him twice the Priestess as anyone at that damned church.”

“Yeah,” Eve said as she smiled and watched Preston leaning down to chat with people in the crowd, “I suppose he is.”

With that she leaned back in her seat, took in a breath of the fresh forest air, and listened to the shift in the organ music.

The ceremony was about to begin.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Quest Hint

“MAWWIGE…” PRESTON COUGHED. “Excuse me. Dearly beloved, family, friends, we are gathered here today to join two peoples, two worlds, but just as importantly, two loves in the bond of marriage. Lina, you’ve overcome your basest of instincts, rejecting violence and choosing love in its place. Alvin, you’ve journeyed a great deal to make it here, escaping trauma, conquering those who would seek to control you, and only coming out nicer on the other side.”

A warm smile stuck on Preston’s face. “Every obstacle in the world stood between the two of you. Two years ago, Alvin, you were so lost and alone that you fell victim to a demonic cult, and yet here you stand. Two years ago, Lina, you would’ve dragged him to his watery death without a second thought, and yet here you stand. Two years ago, neither of these kind, wonderful, loving people could’ve imagined finding what they have.”

Preston looked out to the crowd, holding out an open palm in each direction to gesture to the bride and groom. He raised his voice.

“And yet here they stand.”

Wes sniffled at that, and Eve glanced sideways to catch a tear dripping down his cheek. She considered using Ethereal Manifestation to write the word ‘softy’ across her forehead with an arrow pointing at Wes, but from her current spot in the crowd, Preston would be the only one who could see it.

Tempted as she was, Eve ultimately decided the joke was too good, and Preston would have to stop the ceremony to fall over laughing. She couldn’t ruin Alvin’s big day like that. Yeah, that was why she didn’t do it.

From there Preston led the couple into the vows which, while beautifully composed and touchingly spoken, Eve largely tuned out as a sense of familiar unease began to creep up on her. She blinked. Really? Here of all places?

Trying her best not to draw too much attention to herself, Eve cast her eyes from side to side, searching for the hallmark sign of his presence. She found none.

Art! She screamed the thought in her mind, hoping the trellac would pick it up even with his attention elsewhere.

Jeez, Eve, you don’t have to yell, he replied. What is it?

I think he might be here, she focused her thoughts as much she could, relying on Art’s ability to read her mind while still trying to keep the conversation on track. Can you sense any strange minds? Anyone who’s closed off to you?

Yeah, of course, Art sent, his tone casual. Four of them.

Three images flashed into Eve’s mind, all from Art’s point of view. They were all of the slimy backs of the heads of some kind of humanoid fish creature. Zandiths all share a single mind, but it’s way back in the marshes, so I can’t touch them here, he explained.

And the fourth? Eve asked.

Art sent back an image of him shrugging. Somewhere outside the venue. I can’t see them. Probably another Zandith that showed up late.

Okay, thanks, Eve sent, before reverting back to private thought. “Lurking around outside,” she muttered to herself, “like the creep you are.”

Before she even had the chance to decide to make him wait rather than disrupt the ceremony, a wave of applause swept through the crowd and Eve found herself standing and clapping, completely unable to see the couple’s kiss as a particularly tall naga stood in front of her. Art stood up on his chair, and was kind enough to forward his view to Eve.

The happy couple climbed down from the platform to greet the guests, Lina with her gorgeous white dress dripping wet as always and Alvin with a damp spot covering the entire front of his suit. They held hands as they walked.

As the crowd all stood and the orderly rows of guests transformed into a mass of people looking to congratulate the newlyweds, Eve whispered to Wes that she’d be right back and took the opportunity to slip away from the throng. She’d barely made it away from the venue and into the woods before the mist enveloped her.

“This is an invite-only event,” she called into the fog.

“Relax,” a voice said from just behind her. “I’m not here to crash a wedding.”

Eve didn’t jump, simply casually turning around to face the shrouded form of the Man of the Mists. “Could have fooled me.”

“If I wanted to be inside, I would be,” the man said plainly. “But the lovebirds aren’t why I’m here.”

“No, you’re here to lurk around like an absolute creep and spout cryptic messages and chess metaphors.”

“Exactly.”

Eve sighed. “What do you want? You know our deal; we don’t work for you directly. You earned some good will when Mila attacked me and then Alex like that, but I’m not your pawn.”

“We’ve been over this,” the man said, referencing the white chess piece in Eve’s pocket. “You’re my queen.”

“I’m not your piece,” Eve snarled. “If you have a job for me, you can submit a commission to the Dragonwrought like any other employer.”

“Well it’s a good thing I’m not here to offer you a job,” the moist man replied. “I’m here to offer you a reward.”

Eve blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You managed to trap Mila underground for eight days. Eight valuable days. My partner and I were able to accomplish much in her absence.”

“Partner?” Eve scowled. “I thought you had a whole cabal working with you.”

“This conflict has proven bloodier than we expected.” The shrouded figure shook his head. “But again, that’s not why I’m here. You did good work, and I’ve come to reward you.”

“Um… okay?”

The man snorted. “If I recall correctly, one of your members has in his possession a certain ring, one that begs so desperately to be locked away where it cannot bring further harm.”

Eve nodded along, somewhat uncertain how the Man of the Mists had learned of their quest to destroy or hide the ring of the eldritch plaguebearer. “And?”

“I know a place,” he said. “A vault, deep underground and long forgotten. Sealed shut with an enchantment so potent, only your… very particular set of skills could conceivably open it. Hide the ring within, and you’ll surely complete your quest.”

Eve narrowed her gaze. “And what’s in it for you?” She might’ve trusted him a bit more now than she did before Mila had tried to kill her and held Alex hostage, but she still didn’t fully trust him.

“It’s a reward, not a deal,” the man said. “You’ve already given me what I wanted, eight glorious days without Mila’s meddling.” He exhaled. “But if you must know, every quest you complete is a victory for me. Every bit of personal power my allies attain only strengthens our position.”

“Alright.” Eve let out a sigh. “Where’s this vault of yours?”

“Here,” the dark figure said, holding out hand with what appeared to be a quill, “I’ll mark it on your map.”

“My map?” Eve snorted. “Why would I have a map?”

“All adventurers carry maps.”

Eve laughed. “Are you kidding? Maps are two things adventurers hate: fragile and expensive.” She waved a hand through all the fog in the air. “If I whipped out a map right here, half the ink would run from all this moisture you carry around.”

The man paused. “Then… how do you know your way around?”

“There’s this neat thing you can do called learning geography,” Eve snarked. “There’s a map on the wall in every guild hall in every major city; it takes, like, a couple hours tops to memorize it.”

The Man of the Mists let out a long, drawn-out sigh.

Eve turned up her palms. “Look, just tell me where the fucking vault is. I’ve got a reception to attend.”

“It sits beneath the Broken Marsh, in the shadow of the crystal willow. I’m sure you’ll have little trouble reaching it.”

“See, that wasn’t so hard,” Eve said before thinking better of being quite so snippy. “Thank you. I appreciate the hint.”

“You’re very welcome,” the man said. “Remember, you’re on my side. By helping you, I help myself.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eve waved him off. “I’m going back to the wedding. I’m sure you’ll have little trouble reaching somewhere the fuck else.”

The man laughed. “Very good. I’ll see you again when the time comes. Best of luck on your quest. Enjoy the reception; give the newlyweds my best.”

“I won’t,” Eve called over her shoulder as she turned to leave. Even as she made it out of the mist and back towards the lungeon, the man’s laughter followed her. She sighed. At least now they had some idea of what to do with that cursed ring, whether or not it was a good one. For the time being, though, that wasn’t her problem.

The door to the lungeon was open, the other guests had already made it inside, and Eve would be damned if she let anything else get between her and this meal.

She slipped through the door in the tree and walked down the stairs to find a seat between Wes and Art that Lumy had saved by flashing an angry red at any guest who thought to take it. By the time she sat, there was already a plate of gorgeously seared duck breast atop a bed of potatoes waiting for her. She dug in.

“What did he want?” Wes asked.

“To thank me,” Eve answered through a mouthful of potato. She swallowed. “Apparently we trapped She Beneath the Earth for eight days. Misty boy was thrilled.” Eve reached for her glass of wine, taking two large gulps before continuing. “He said he knows where we can get rid of that ring.”

Preston raised an eyebrow. “And you believe him?”

“Mostly,” Eve said. “After the fight with Mila, I’m more confident than ever we’re on the right side—if there is a right side. I think this lead is worth checking out, either way. If he’s telling the truth, it’s another secondary quest complete; if he’s lying and there’s some hidden purpose to all this, that isn’t strictly a bad thing. The only way heading out there and taking a look could go wrong is if it’s a trap, but I don’t think he’d do that. We just handed him a huge win.”

She went on to relay the entirety of their conversation, including the location he’d given her.

Wes groaned. “The Broken Marsh? Really? That’s just what we need, to cross the continent to spend a week trudging through the mud.”

“Wes, we can literally fly,” Preston pointed out.

“Yeah, it’ll be quick,” Eve said. “Just fly over, take a look around, maybe break into an ancient vault, then head back. Simple.”

“It’s never simple.”

“Maybe,” Eve countered. “But it’s always fun.”

Before Wes could either argue further or concede the point, a band at the back of the dining room strummed the opening chords of the first song. Alvin and Lina took to the dance floor.

By the time three notes had been played in the second song, half the attendees had joined them, twirling about the open space in grand celebration. Wes and Preston shared a look and stood to follow suit. Eve, too, pushed away from the table and made to stand, thinking to find either a dance partner of her own or another drink. She only made it three steps.

The music stopped.

The reception froze.

A soft whisper spread through the crowd.

The sound of the lungeon door closing echoed through the quiet space.

A voice, deep, masculine, and commanding, yet bearing the smoothness of maturity, spoke directly into the heads of all present.

Sorry I’m late, it said. Please, don’t stop on my behalf. Celebrate! Be merry!

Eve’s heart pounded. She may not have known that voice, but she sure as shit knew that method of communication. She didn’t have to turn around to guess at who it was.

Despite the clear command, the party didn’t get a chance to continue before another voice rang through everyone’s mind, this one young, familiar, and full of childish joy. In that moment, Art’s thought reached everyone as he cried out.

Papa!

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I Always Cry at Weddings

CONTRARY TO THE new arrival’s direct request, the air in lungeon stood still. The music stopped. The dancers froze. Human, rusalka, and dread beast alike all watched with bated breath.

Artemiev? Is that you?

Eve glanced sideways at Preston. “His name is Artemiev? Did you know that?”

Preston shook his head.

Wes exhaled. “No wonder he goes by Art.”

Art charged in, taking the steps two at a time to meet his father on the landing. He wrapped him in a great hug. It’s me, papa.

Eve looked up at the fully grown trellac, surprised to find he stood over eleven feet tall. He wore a black suit—this was a wedding, after all—but no shoes covered his taloned feet. The sleeves, similarly, had been removed to allow his wings space to fully open. The brilliant amber feathers of his wings extended nearly two feet past his clawed hands, which left them still far too small to reasonably lift a creature so large.

Then again, Reginald’s wings lifted him without moving any air, so who was she to judge?

The trellac returned the hug, the width of his wings seeming to swallow Art up completely. He ran a hand along Art’s feathered head. Artemiev, what are you doing here? Where is your mother?

Wes paled. “Oh no.”

Eve looked to him.

Wes swallowed. “He doesn’t know.”

Ma’s gone, papa. The hunters got her.

The wave of grief hit Eve like a ton of bricks. It hit everyone. Her heart seized. Her throat tightened. Her stomach curled up into a knot. For a moment, for a brief, horrifying moment, Eve felt something even the death of her father hadn’t evoked.

Eve knew despair.

She could only imagine how hard it struck those in the room without the protection of Defiant Mind.

And then it was gone. For barely a second the emotion had stuck around, not enough time to truly sink in, but the memory stayed. Throughout the dining room, tears still fell.

My apologies, Art’s father addressed the crowd, the sadness clear in his tone yet his emotions once again under tight control. This is meant to be a happy occasion. Please, return to your festivities. With that, he placed a hand on Art’s back, ushering the young trellac up and out of the lungeon to find some privacy in the woods above.

A chorus of whispers spread throughout the reception as guests dried their eyes and tried to push past the weight of the grief and its sudden disappearance to return to their merrymaking.

Eve turned to the others. “Should we follow them?”

Preston shook his head. “Let them have their privacy. Art will let us know when he wants to introduce us.”

“Okay,” Eve said, sitting back down at their table. “I don’t see a quest complete notification, so we’re clearly not done yet.”

“We still gotta meet the guy,” Preston replied, similarly returning to his seat. “Besides, quest complete means reward in hand, and I have a pretty good idea from whom we’ll be getting that reward.”

Wes simply nodded, his expression blank. He too sat back down.

All around them, the party slowly got back on its feet. The music returned, happy and joyful as it was before yet lacking some of the energy that the melody had once carried. Many guests got right back to the festivities, but the dance floor stayed sparse as many more poured themselves another drink. Eve, Wes, and Preston, of course, were in no mood for dancing.

The reception powered through. It took some minutes for the assembled guests to fully recover from the blast of emotion, but recover they did. Soon enough, Alvin and Lina returned to making the rounds, stopping at each and every table to greet guests and thank them for coming. It escaped nobody’s notice that they did so together now, clutching each other’s hands that much tighter than they had before.

When they reached Eve’s table, Preston was the first to stand and hug them both. Wes and Eve followed suit, readily accepting that their embrace with Lina would leave them a bit wet for wear.

“Congratulations, you two,” Eve said. “Seriously. You deserve so much happiness.”

“And… um…” Preston scratched the back of his head. “Sorry about… that. We’ve been searching for Art’s dad for almost two years now, and this was… probably the worst place to finally find him.”

“We really didn’t mean to kill your party,” Wes added.

Alvin nodded. “It’s okay. A bummer, sure, but I can’t really blame him for it. Feeling like that…” He blew air through his cheeks. “It only hit us for a second. He’s still feeling like that.” He squeezed Lina’s hand tighter. “I can’t imagine what he’s going through.”

Lina pulled him closer. “I think it’s kind of reassuring, actually. He hasn’t seen his wife in years and still feels like that when he hears the news. That’s as much a show of love as we’ve managed today.”

Preston smiled. “That’s a good way of looking at it. I like that.” He stepped forward, placing a hand on each of the couple’s arms. “Still, try not to let them take up too much of your attention. This is your day.”

The newlyweds exchanged a few more pleasantries with the adventurers before they inevitably found themselves pulled on to the next set of people to greet. As Lina stepped away to chat with the next table in line, Alvin paused to give Preston some parting words.

“I wanted to thank you,” he said. “Not just for being amazing at the ceremony today, but for everything. I never would’ve made it here without you.” He chuckled. “Everything I love, my job, this restaurant, Lina most of all… I can trace it all back to that day I threw you over my shoulder and tied you to an altar.”

Alvin held out a hand as if to shake, but instead grasped Preston’s hand with both of his. “I owe you my life. Not in the I’d-be-dead, way, but… you know.” He gestured with his head at their surroundings, the hundred well-wishing guests, the loving wife, the lungeon as a whole. “You gave me this life, and now I’ve had it, it’s the only one I’d ever want. So, thank you.”

Preston smiled at him. “I just gave you a little push. You built this. And if that isn’t worth celebrating, I don’t know what is. Congratulations.”

With a final goodbye, Alvin left to join his wife continuing the greetings and heartfelt—if quick—exchanges of congratulations and thanks with the wedding’s many guests. Eve, Wes, Preston, and Lumy only got to wistfully watch them go for a few precious moments before Art’s mind reached them.

You can come up now.

Eve and Preston both flashed a nervous glance at Wes, failing horrendously at hiding their concern. The Vessel kept his face stony.

“Welp,” Eve said as she took the first steps towards the stairway out, “here goes nothing.”

They found the trellacs in a clearing a short walk away from the venue itself, standing together with a certain winged drake. Reginald, by the virtues both of being too large to fit inside the lungeon and being Art’s bestest friend in the whole entire world, had gotten to meet the boy’s father first.

I understand you’re the ones responsible for watching over my Artemiev these past years. I owe you a great debt. He held out his right wing, talons open to offer a handshake. I’m Victor. It’s a pleasure to meet you.

One by one the adventurers shook his hand and introduced themselves. Eve asked the question on everyone’s minds.

“How did you get separated? When we found him, Art said you were lost.”

Victor lowered his head. Those hunters, the ones who claimed my Anya, they were after me. I left to lure them away, but it seems they didn’t follow. Apparently their leader had a quest to defeat one of my kind; they didn’t care which one.

Eve clenched her jaw, opting not to think of the implications of that little tidbit.

Victor continued. Artemiev tells me you saved his life. I could never repay you for such a service, but perhaps this could be some thanks. He reached towards Eve, ever so gently touching the tip of a single talon to her forehead. A message popped into view.

Secondary Quest Complete: Lost and Afraid

Rewards: Gift of the Trellac, +2t exp

Ability Upgraded!

Passive Ability - Defiant Mind

Grants the Telepathic Communication feature.

Eve blinked, dismissing the other two notifications for another time. As Victor withdrew his claw, she paused for a moment, focusing her mind towards Wes. With a thought she sent her first message. Can you hear me?

The voice that replied was not Wes’s. It wasn’t Art’s. It wasn’t Victor’s. It was a new voice, one unfamiliar to her yet definitely coming from Wes’s mind.

We can.

Eve slammed the connection shut. “Ayla’s tits, was that…”

Wes paled. “So now you two’ve finally met.”

A new voice popped into Eve’s head. Can you two shut your mouths for five minutes?

Eve’s face stretched into a wide, openmouthed grin. Reginald! I can hear you!

Of course you can, the drake replied telepathically. The party leader always gets the reward first.

Eve scowled. You think you’re the party leader?

Reginald didn’t respond.

Once he’d repeated the gesture with Preston, Victor turned to face Wes, solemnity on his face. I can’t help you. I’m sorry.

Wes shut his eyes, swallowed back the knot in his throat, and nodded.

Eve didn’t take it so easy. “Why not? Art’s been able to keep it under control.”

By putting himself at great risk and taking direct control, Victor snapped. It is a dangerous thing you’ve been doing, and granting him my gift would only prove more dangerous. That thing inside his head cannot be allowed to go free.

“But without Art’s help he can’t—”

“Eve,” Wes interrupted. “It’s okay.”

She rounded on him. “It’s not okay. We need you. Maybe Art can—

I’m going with papa, Art cut in. He needs me more right now.

Victor pulled him in close.

“No,” Eve said. She looked to Wes. “You can’t just give up. We’ll find something. We always do. Some crazy bullshit that’ll fix everything.”

Wes exhaled. “Eve, it’s time. Art was always a stopgap. Trying to keep adventuring without him is a recipe for disaster.”

“But what about the blightmaw dragon? What about protecting the questing stones?”

He shrugged. “They’ll just have to sort themselves out. As I am right now, I’m more of a danger than a protector. It’s best I find someplace quiet and without fire and put adventuring behind me.”

Eve sniffled, her eyes reddening. “Wes, you can’t—”

Preston placed a comforting hand on her arm. He didn’t speak. He simply nodded, sharing for a moment in Eve’s anguish, accepting it for what it was, and helping to ease its passage.

Art walked up and gave her a hug. Hey, he sent to her and her alone, it’s gonna be okay. Trellax, remember?

“I remember.” Even as the tears cascaded down her cheek, Eve smiled at the stupid joke. It was the same one she’d used to cheer up Art when they’d first met, a joke Wes had made earlier that day. She held him tight.

They lingered there for some time, saying their silent goodbyes before Art pulled away to hug Preston next. Eve was not privy to their exchange. Next he paused with Lumy, unable to embrace the incorporeal being yet still sharing a moment with the party’s newest member.

When he got to Wes, the tall fire mage knelt down to meet Art on his level. Once they’d hugged and said their farewells, Art stepped back. In a single motion, he pulled the Burendian royal amulet free and stood up on his toes to drape it over Wes’s head and around the mage’s neck. Wes sniffled and grinned, a tear falling from his face to the forest floor as he stood.

Art didn’t include Wes in his next message. You know he’s been feeling left behind since he got his class.

Eve smiled and cried at the sweet sadness of it all, at the goodness of Art’s heart and the purity of his outlook. She watched with teary eyes as he saved the final goodbye for Reginald.

Theirs was a quick and simple farewell, the kind only strangers or the absolute closest of friends could ever share. Neither Art nor Reginald needed to be told how much they meant to one another. It was understood. How well they knew they each carried a part of the other within them, and no question dared even appear in either’s mind when or whether they’d see each other again. They would, and that was that.

They said their goodbyes like two schoolboys parting on a Wednesday afternoon, sure as the sunrise they’d meet again at nine o’clock sharp come Thursday. Between those two, that was all there could ever be.

When at last he pulled away, Art addressed them all.

You guys are the best. I can’t think of anyone in the whole world I’d rather have found me. It’s been so much fun hanging out with all of you, and I promise I’ll visit! Papa says he wants some time just the two of us, but after that, I promise! He looked to Wes. I wanna see that cool house you’re gonna build!

Wes smiled.

Anyway, Art continued, I just wanted to say thanks. It was so cool getting to be an adventurer for a bit. He stepped over to his father, who draped a wing over his son’s shoulder. But I think I’m ready to just be a kid again. At least for a while. He waved a taloned hand. I’ll see you soon!

He turned, wrapping his arms around his papa’s waist and holding tight.

With a flap of his mighty wings, Victor lifted from the ground, hovering in the air for one final, brief moment before soaring up and away. Eve, Wes, Preston, Reginald, and Lumy could only stand, watch, smile, and cry as father and son, reunited at last, disappeared beyond the canopy of the forest.

Eve hadn’t had to take down an entire thieves’ guild. She hadn’t had to fight a foot elemental or clear three dungeons or fall into a leyline. Nonetheless, as Eve stood and stared at the empty sky, tears streaming down her face with every ragged breath, she knew without a doubt she’d just completed the hardest quest of her life.

And even worse, the artificially neon-red cherry atop this bittersweet shit sundae of emotions, was a simple, agonizing question.

What happens now?

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

What Happens Now?

RETURNING TO THE wedding reception was never going to be in the cards, not after everything that had just happened. They’d already spoken with those they’d needed to at the event, and the prospect of celebrating felt so outlandish as to be not worth considering. Instead, Wes and Preston climbed onto Reginald’s back, Eve absorbed the crown and stowed any loose items within its storage, and the party took off towards Dragonwrought Hold.

Eve read her notifications as she flew, comfortable enough with the repeated forty-five-degree Jets she called flight that she could keep them up while reading.

Level Up!

Ability Upgraded!

Passive Ability - Ethereal Manifestation

Gain limited control over elemental Mana you absorb!

Eve blinked. “Again with the Ethereal Manifestation upgrades. They’ve gotta only be available now that I’ve finished the Burendian quest line.” Of course, over the roar of the wind around her as she hurtled through the sky at high speeds, not a single word came out of her mouth remotely audibly.

The upgrade seemed powerful. Ethereal Manifestation had always allowed her to drain Mana from external sources, but because her body was made up of a combination of pure Mana from the leylines and annihilation Mana from the whole reforged-in-dragonfire thing, any other element of Mana couldn’t stay in her pool for very long.

In practice, this all meant she couldn’t use somebody else’s spell to heal herself or replenish her pool, but she could fizzle their cast and throw their Mana back at them in the form of a Mana Burst. For the past year, she’d been satisfied draining pure Mana from the various enchantments that used it. Not anymore.

Of course, she’d have to test just how limited the control was, but in theory she could copy an opponent’s spell, or better yet, do something else with the elemental Mana because her use of it wasn’t constricted to the skill description of an individual ability. Then again, for that same reason whatever she did with stolen Mana would probably be a bit less powerful, but she’d take that in favor of flexibility. Sheer power wasn’t something she lacked.

It made for a neat upgrade, nothing particularly life changing, but certainly a bit of utility that might prove useful in the future. Almost as exciting was the increase in her level itself. She knew from an exp cost perspective, she had a very long way to go, but seeing that little Level 95 next to her name made her feel that much closer to hitting a hundred. Eve still had no idea what happened to Unique classes that tiered up—a class change didn’t make much sense—but it had to be something powerful. She couldn’t wait to find out.

The party arrived back at the keep in silence. Reginald dropped Wes and Preston off at the front door before returning himself to one of the various elevated openings meant for dragons that just so happened to also accommodate drakes with wings. The three adventurers advanced through the hold together, not stopping to chat with any of its geriatric residents on their way to their rooms.

Once alone, Eve numbly went through the motions of changing out of her dress, washing up, and putting on some more comfortable, casual clothing. She whiled away a few hours laying back in her bed, simply processing the events of the day, before she heard a knock on her door.

Preston greeted her. “We’re gonna eat together tonight, down in one of the roosts so Reginald can join us. Wes is organizing it with Piskern right now.”

Eve nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you down there.” Exhausted as the wedding and ensuing drama had left her, all she really wanted was to eat scones for dinner and go to sleep, but if the others wanted to be together that night, she’d join them.

An hour later saw her stepping out into an open chamber, walled on three sides while the fourth opened up to a spectacular view of the sun setting over the valley of dragons. It would’ve been terribly drafty had the elderly owners of Dragonwrought Hold not kept the place horrendously hot throughout the year. Instead, Eve found the evening air rather refreshing.

She joined Wes and Preston at a table large enough for the three of them plus the giant hunk of charred meat—cooked the way a dragon might blast its prey—for Reginald. She smiled at them.

The meal itself went comfortably enough, all parties too drained to engage in much conversation. It wasn’t until the first stars glimmered in the night sky and the adventurers sat back in their seats, bowls of sorbetto empty and glasses refilled with port, that Wes spoke the terrible words.

“We’re leaving in the morning.”

Eve’s eyes widened. “So soon?”

“It isn’t exactly safe here,” Preston explained. “Obviously nobody’s going to attack us, but we’re surrounded by dragons. Without Art, all it’ll take is one breathing fire a little too close and we’re done. The sooner we leave, the better.”

I’ve decided it’s high time we leave this droll place behind and begin construction on my true palace, Reginald sent. Dragons aren’t guests.

Eve raised an eyebrow at him. “Did you now?”

Wes shook his head. “He didn’t. We’re going back to Nowherested, or at least somewhere in the wilds nearby so I can be close to my Da. I can’t help him in the forge for obvious reasons, but at least he’ll be able to visit.”

Preston nodded. “Out there, there’s nothing high-level enough that Reginald couldn’t easily handle it on his own. We stay out of towns to avoid manmade fires, and keep out of combat to avoid magical ones.”

“I figured all that.” Eve exhaled. “Just thought you’d stick around a bit longer.”

Wes sighed. “It’s for the best.”

“Yeah,” Eve said.

Preston raised his glass. “I thought we could take tonight to reminisce. It’s been an absolutely absurd few years, and I can think of no better way to spend my last night as an adventurer remembering all of it. Besides, when was the last time we all got good and plastered?”

Eve laughed, holding up her glass of port. “I’ll toast to that!”

Wes clinked glasses then proceeded to down his in a single gulp. “If our goal is to get Eve drunk, we’re going to need more than a few glasses of dessert wine.”

Preston winked, reaching down for something under his chair. He set a bottle on the table. “That’s what the whiskey’s for.”

Eve and Preston slowly made their way through the last of the port as Piskern came by to clear the table and provide a set of rocks glasses and ice for those so inclined. Preston poured.

“To the three greatest adventurers who ever lived,” the healer toasted. “May the world never forget their legendary hijinks!”

Eve took a sip, disabling her ability to metabolize poisons with a simple thought. She wasn’t drinking whiskey to replenish her Mana.

They started at the beginning, the very first time Eve had failed to buy a loaf of bread because she’d had to stop to save Wes’s life from a pack of wolves on the road. The bakery had been closed by the time they’d made it to town.

“I have to wonder, though,” Wes said, “what would’ve happened if you’d left me to recover on my own?”

“I’ll tell you what wouldn’t have happened,” Eve answered. “I wouldn’t have bought a fucking loaf of bread. I give it fifty percent odds they would’ve already sold out for the day, and fifty percent odds of something else going horribly wrong.”

“You mean like a bunch of thugs deciding my sword was stolen and chasing us out of town?” Wes laughed.

“Exactly like that.” Eve grinned.

They spoke of their fight with the field hydra, Eve running around wildly with Wes thrown over her shoulder shooting fire darts at the thing. Preston still couldn’t believe that tactic had actually worked.

Wes made a few more Priestess jokes when they got to finally meeting Preston and fighting Alex’s ex-boyfriend Steven the Necromancer, while Eve shook her fist at how rude the clerk at the adventurer’s guild had been to her. They talked of clearing their first dungeon—the Burendian outpost—and how much of an absolute shit show that’d been. Between exploding her sword on the sentry construct, collapsing the roof, and spilling the volatile compound all over herself and Alex, Eve had almost killed herself at least three times in that place. She’d come out stronger for it.

The conversation grew dim when they got to the Temple of Garaxia, the highlight of meeting Alvin clashing with the low of Alex sacrificing herself to save them.

“Except you did the exact same thing in the Dead Fields,” Preston commented. “Alex tried to sacrifice herself to stop the lithodemons, and ended up surviving because of a quest completion and the exp windfall upgrading her class. Then you tried to sacrifice yourself to kill that griffin, only to survive because the exp windfall upgraded your class.”

“Holy shit,” Wes breathed. “He’s right.”

“What? No.” Eve took a sip of her whiskey.

“No, totally,” Wes slurred. “You’re like the same person.”

“Except she’s a defender and you’re an attacker,” Preston stipulated. “And she’s all dead serious while you’re all fun.”

“And she’s taller than you,” Wes added as if it were the most important distinction.

They laughed at Eve’s retelling of her mini adventure with Archibald the goat, only for Preston to remind them all how stupid they were for impersonating a visiting Emissary when they got to Pyrindel. Eve wondered how Roric—the berserker besieged by fangirls—was doing.

Eve teased them both mercilessly for their behavior during their drunken escape from Pyrindel, especially Wes’s improvised song about breaking out of jail, but Wes fired right back at her encounter with the foot elemental. By the time the conversation reached Avendreth Manor, the whiskey had firmly taken hold.

“I still can’t believe you were trying on hats while I had to deal with that fucking riddler imp,” Wes said. “He didn’t even have any riddles! Just kept rhyming at me and stalling for time.”

“Hey,” Preston countered, “I at least helped you fight that ghost thing. The fuck were you all?”

“I had gargoyles to fight!” Eve scowled. “And also a chicken sandwich to eat.”

Some of us were busy actually finishing the dungeon, Reginald sent. Lacking the physiology for proper intoxication, the drake didn’t take much part in their drunken reminiscing except to correct details he felt they remembered incorrectly. Mostly he framed every one of the party’s victories as his own doing.

“All you did was talk to the guy,” Wes argued.

And I’ll have you know I did a fabulous job of it, the drake sent.

Preston furrowed his brow. “Didn’t Art do all the talking?”

He channeled my conversational prowess, came Reginald’s reply.

Eve snorted. “Sure he did.”

In time, the hour grew late and early again, the bottle grew empty, and as all things must, the evening came to an end. Eve spoke the words she’d been holding in all night.

“I’m going to miss you guys.”

“You could always come with us,” Wes slurred. “I’m telling you, we’re gonna build the most kickass manor you’ve ever seen.”

Eve smiled. “I’ve thought about it, but there’s too much I still gotta do.” She patted her pocket, where the eldritch plaguebearer’s ring sat wrapped in a thick bundle of cloth. “Maybe I’ll stop by once I’ve ditched this ring you’ve saddled me with. You’re not the only one with family in Nowherested.”

“Yeah,” Preston said. “You should totally come visit.”

“I will,” Eve said. “On my own, I can travel pretty fucking fast. As long as you stay in one place, I’m never too far away.”

“Good.” Preston sat back in his chair. “That’s good.”

Wes leaned in, grabbing Eve’s hand with both of his. Across the table, he looked her in the eye and spoke with the kind of emotional honesty only possible after two glasses of wine, one of port, and six of whiskey.

“Eve, I just wanna say,” the words slurred together as he said them, “it’s been an honor adventuring with you. Really. These past years have been the absolute highlight of my life, and while I’ve come to terms with settling down, I want you to know that you didn’t just save my life like a bajillion times. You made me who I am. You left us in the dust years ago, but you never let us fall behind.”

“You’re like a sister to me, Eve,” Wes continued his drunken speech. “And even though I’m retiring, I cannot fucking wait to see what crazy bullshit you manage to pull off now you don’t have us holding you back.”

Eve returned his intense gaze. “Before you go, I wanna be clear about one thing. None of you ever held me back. Not once. I’d be dead like eighty times without you.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Wes slurred, sitting back in his seat. “I guess-uh… I guess that’s all I wanted to say.”

Preston cleared his throat.

“Oh right!” Wes leaned in again. “Will you be my best man?”

A wide grin spread across Eve’s face. “I think I can manage that. Might have to see about changing the title, though.”

Wes clumsily waved her off. “Details, details. We’ll figure it out later.”

“Then yes,” Eve said. “I’d love to.”

Wes clapped his hands together. “Good.” With that, he scooted his chair back and unsteadily pushed himself to his feet. “I think, on that note, it might be time for bed. This was fun. We should do this again sometime.”

Eve stood too. “We will. Give me a couple weeks and I’ll stop by.”

Preston walked over to hug her. “In case I don’t see you in the morning,” he said. “Good luck out there. Show those quests who’s the real badass.”

That last sentence only made sense to Eve in her current state of intoxication. “I will. Have fun planning your wedding.” She nodded over towards Wes. “He’s not gonna make it easy.”

Preston laughed. “Of course not, but I love him, so… what can you do?”

Eve stopped over at Reginald for a moment, patting the drake on his scaly head. “It’s been fun, Reginald, all twenty words you’ve spoken to me. Enjoy your palace.” Reginald snored at her.

She’d barely turned around before Wes engulfed her in a massive bear hug. For over a minute they stayed there, passing no words between them.

Eve broke the silence. “Enjoy your retirement. You earned it.”

“I sure as hells did. I counted. Preston and I have got over thirty thousand gold between us.”

“Good,” Eve said. “If you ever need anything, anything at all, just send me a shadowgram. I’ll be there.”

Wes pulled back and pointed at her. “I’m gonna hold you to that.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

With that, Wes walked around the table to join Preston, grabbing the Paragon’s hand and clutching it tight. “Goodnight, Eve,” Preston said. “We’ll see you soon.”

“Goodnight, guys,” Eve replied.

“Goodnight,” Wes said. “And keep being Legendary.”

With that, they turned and vanished back into the bowels of Dragonwrought Hold, leaving Eve alone in the large room with a slumbering Reginald. She spent some time there, sitting with her legs dangling off the edge of the open side as she gazed out at the starry sky and the moonlit valley below. It was a good night, a peaceful night. She smiled.

Only once she’d taken the time to fully process the day she’d had, to fully accept this wonderful night for what it was, did she finally rise.

So it was that Eve left the roost behind in the early hours of the morning, climbed the steps back into the keep proper, and made her way back to her room and to her bed alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Forgetting Someone?

BY THE TIME she awoke the following morning, Eve knew the others had already left. Her reasoning had nothing to do with any confidence in Wes or Preston’s ability to wake up earlier than she, but everything to do with the hideously blue box floating before her eyes as she blinked them open.

Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: Go Solo!

+ 2.144t exp!

Level Up!

Statistic Growth Upgraded!

+5 Willpower/Level

Eve sighed. Two trillion exp would always be welcome, especially in the form of her increasingly valuable milestones, but she could’ve done without waking up to see a giant glowing billboard of her new solo status shining into her eyes. She dismissed the notifications.

Taking a few moments to let out a tired groan and groggily force herself out of bed, Eve went about the task of washing up and donning her mistler hide armor, stopping to down a glass of water in the hopes of aiding her aching head.

She did wonder how a manifestation of pure Mana could get hungover without the necessary chemical functions for such, but the same question applied to getting drunk in the first place. It probably had something to do with the fact her body was wrought by her consciousness, making her hungover because she felt she should’ve been. It certainly fit with the general shittiness of the morning so far.

Her armor donned and griffin bone club tied to her back, Eve slung her pack over her shoulder and moved to leave, thinking she’d stop at the kitchen to grab some food for the road before starting her long run across the continent. The cursed ring weighed heavy in her pocket, and she was eager to finally be rid of it.

Any thoughts of breakfast, however, stopped short when Eve swung open the door to her suite to find three glowing lights floating just outside. She blinked.

“Lumy? You’re still here?”

Believe me, I’m not happy about it either, but somebody has to make sure you don’t get yourself killed.

Eve scowled. “That’s not very nice of—wait. I can hear you!”

Oh no.

“Fuck yes,” Eve cheered. “After all that time I’ve spent chatting at you, you can finally reply!”

Yeah, about that, Lumy sent, you do realize I’m not an accredited psychiatrist, right? Cause you really need one.

Eve laughed. “Classic Lumy.” She clapped her hands together. “Does this mean you’re coming with me to the Broken Marsh?”

That wasn’t a… Lumy sighed. Yes, I’ll be coming with you. It wouldn’t be wise to let you adventure without adult supervision.

Lumy’s tone was starting to bother Eve. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

You have a tendency not to take things seriously, especially when your life is in danger.

“No I don’t. I’m plenty serious.”

I watched you spend two hours using Ethereal Manifestation to draw dicks on your skin. Two hours, Eve.

“Right.” Eve reddened. “You, um… you were awake for that, weren’t you?”

Yep.

“In my defense,” she argued, “we weren’t actually in danger then.”

Lumy changed the subject. I spent the night in the keep’s library doing some reading on this crystal willow you mentioned. Apparently it’s—

“Wait, reading? How can you even turn the pages?”

Well, I can’t, but there’s nothing stopping me from passing through the book. I can sense everything that’s within the few feet my lights take up, so I just need the book to go through me and I can perceive all the text on it.

Eve raised an eyebrow. “You can do that? But how do you see? If the book is closed there’s no light on any of the pages.”

I don’t have eyes, Eve.

“Right. Right. Sorry. It’s early. You were saying?” As she prompted Lumy to continue, Eve took off down the hallway, listening telepathically to Lumy’s explanation as she led the way to the kitchen.

Do you remember those fish people that were at Alvin’s wedding? The Zandith?

Eve scowled. “The hive-minded ones?”

Lumy flashed blue. Yeah, them. Apparently the crystal willow isn’t just some tree; it’s their capital city.

“They have a city? Interesting.”

The hive mind has gotta be located somewhere, Lumy sent.

Eve nodded. “Makes sense. So you think the Zandith have this vault?”

Assuming your employer wasn’t lying, it’s definitely there. Whether or not the Zandith know it’s there is another question.

“Mister Moist did say the vault was underground and long forgotten,” Eve reasoned. “They probably don’t know about it.”

Most likely, Lumy replied. Though I did find something interesting in my reading. One of our books had a map of the crystal willow in it, and right on the ground floor is this.

An image flashed into Eve’s head, one of old parchment with fading ink. It showed a city block—or what passed for one under Zandith city-planning standards—occupied by a single structure with a curious label.

“They have a bank?” Eve’s eyebrows shot up. “Why does a hive mind need a bank?”

That’s what I want to find out. We’ll obviously learn more when we’re there, but if we’re looking for a vault, a bank seems like the best first stop.

“Alright.” Eve smiled. “How about the Zandith? Are they hostile? I imagine they can’t be too mean if they were invited to the wedding.”

Well, some human was able to get in to draw that map, so presumably? Lumy sent. Nothing in the books mentioned any conflict with the Zandith, but there’s no indication they’ll be particularly welcoming either.

“So we don’t know,” Eve said, stopping as she reached the entrance to the kitchen.

We know some.

“I’ll take some. Some is more than I had twenty minutes ago.” She stepped inside, pausing her conversation with the phantasmal remnant to ask the kobold within for the morning’s batch of scones and whatever dry rations she had on hand. Three minutes later, she returned to the hallway with a pack full of goodies.

Ready?

“Ready as it gets,” Eve replied. “We running or flying?”

Lumy flashed a dull yellow. Whatever’s faster.

Eve looked up at her. “Can you keep up with me?”

I’m a ghost, Eve, Lumy sent. I have no surface area to collide with the air, and no mass to provide inertia. I’m only tangentially attached to this plane of reality in the first place; where exactly I am is more a matter of opinion. I think I can damn well keep up with you.

“You know, I’m sensing some pent-up frustration right now,” Eve said. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Try spending a year following you around and being completely unable to interact with anything. Frustrating is an understatement.

“Well, it’s a good thing I can hear you now, huh?” Eve instinctively went to pat Lumy on the back before remembering the phantasmal remnant didn’t have one. She lowered her hand awkwardly. “We haven’t even left yet and you’ve already been a big help.”

Only because without me you would’ve charged right into a city full of monsters you weren’t expecting to be there.

Eve grinned. “Exactly.” She stopped at the double doors leading out of Dragonwrought Hold, pulling one open and holding it for Lumy. “After you.”

Lumy floated directly through the still-closed other door.

“Right. Ghost. Duh.” Eve stepped outside, shutting the door behind her. “To the Broken Marsh, then.” She pulled her pack off her shoulder, bundling it up so it would fit within her crown’s storage space. She kept the cursed ring wrapped up in her pocket, not daring to stow it. Eldritch magic had a bad habit of doing weird shit, and Eve didn’t want to begin to think about what it might do in her storage space. It’d probably have been fine, but it also might’ve corrupted the crown, or worse—since she absorbed the Ar-gold to access the storage—her.

Supplies gathered and packed, Eve set her sights on the southward path down the mountain, and took off at a run. She kept slow at first, wanting to confirm that Lumy could indeed keep up, but as she watched the remnant float effortlessly along at whichever pace Eve set, she felt comfortable hastening a bit.

She didn’t bother Charging, the running-speed boost on Defiant Body enough to keep her moving at a solid two hundred miles per hour as she weaved around the trees of the northern woods. While her enhanced reaction time and traction made the journey possible, the latter especially reached its absolute limits against the forest floor. Even magically empowered, moist dirt didn’t hold up well to someone turning on a dime at two hundred miles per hour.

Any adventurers who wandered upon Eve’s path after she passed might’ve wondered what great beast had passed as to leave such violent footprints.

It was as she ran that Eve came across another advantage of telepathic communication. It worked at high speed.

Without opening her mouth to be dried out by the roaring wind around her, Eve could continue her conversation with Lumy as they traveled. Better still, for the first time in their year of nightly one-sided conversations, Eve listened.

And that’s when I told Preston, “I know I said you needed to stop worrying about the little stuff to focus on the big things, but Wes’s big thing isn’t what I meant.”

Eve laughed so hard she crashed into a tree. The ancient pine exploded as she slammed right through it, taking ten thousand Mana’s worth of damage in the process as various chunks of wood and bark flew off in all directions. She slowed down a bit to let herself finish giggling.

Lumy, that’s hilarious, Eve sent. So you’re why Preston went all red in the middle of that high-stakes tic-tac-toe game.

I still don’t know what that gambler imp was thinking, Lumy replied. The whole drawing issue aside, tic-tac-toe isn’t even a betting game.

Eve shrugged. I’ve found it’s best not to question these things. Wacky shit is a given in this line of work.

You don’t question them, Lumy sent. Sane people do.

Well, they’re not gonna stay sane long if they keep doing that.

Lumy flashed dull blue in defeat. Fair point.

They journeyed together for a few hours before finally turning north towards the mountains. Eve had made the obvious choice to run through the woods rather than crossing early and having to traverse the Dead Fields, but that did leave them with the issue of getting over Xandria’s Teeth without a convenient mountain pass.

Good thing Eve could fly.

Thirty minutes and a few Jets later, she and Lumy stood atop a ridge, looking down upon the brown and green landscape of the Broken Marsh. Ancient bits of stone and metal framing peeked up from various bogs where buildings had long sunk into the swamp, the whole place a graveyard of civilization. Where once had been cities and mills and farmland and lumber yards, now only untamable marsh remained.

Except, in the distance, one city remained. Eve had to squint and dump hundreds of Mana into enhancing her sight, but there, on the horizon, something glimmered in the afternoon sun. On foundations kept stable by roots, shaded from the hot sun by leaves, the Zandith capital stood steadfast amidst the wild landscape.

It was with a grin that Eve and Lumy stood there, gazing out from the very top of Xandria’s Teeth, and laid eyes for the very first time upon the brilliance of the crystal willow.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Where There’s a Willow

THE CRYSTAL WILLOW towered over the wetlands, a glimmering beacon guiding Eve towards her destination. She couldn’t even fathom attempting to gauge its full size, its vastness playing tricks on her eyes at such a distance. She could already tell that before she got close, it would more than fill her vision. As Eve ran, she absolutely believed one could fit a city beneath it.

She and Lumy shot across the marsh like from a cannon, the sunken ruins of a forgotten civilization flying past on either side. Come to think of it, there did seem to be a surplus of ancient, dead civilizations around, but that was beside the point. At such speeds, nothing short of two feet of granite could stop Eve from continuing in a straight line as she blasted through underbrush, trampled cattails, and ran across the surface of the various bogs between her and the tree ahead.

The dangling branches of the willow hung like a crystal curtain around the city, the pale blue gems it grew in place of leaves forming a veritable wall of razor-sharp edges. Eve pitied any poor creature that fell into its bladed arms. It wasn’t a wall per se, given the flexible nature of the hanging branches, but forcing one’s way through without an opening did not seem like a fun time.

It reminded Eve of a barbed wire fence, only significantly sharper, prettier, way more dense, and much less likely to give you tetanus. She circled the bank of the vast lake that surrounded the tree, only to find her entrance on the northern side. No bridge allowed easy passage across the water, but there the branches of the willow had been tied back like the opening of a curtain.

Eve took the more Mana efficient route of launching herself across the lake with a great Jet, making an impressively dramatic entrance to the strange city as she landed with poise and intensity just outside. Or at least, that’s what would’ve happened if she’d calculated the Mana cost correctly and actually managed to land where she’d wanted.

On the bright side, she did make a splash, just a tad more literally than she’d intended.

By the time she climbed out of the water, the four Zandiths on guard already had their spears pointed at her.

They had three spiny fins running along their green-scaled scalps from brow to back, but the rest of their faces held little in the way of features. They each had a set of horizontally moving membranes over their eyes, two small slits in lieu of a nose, and flat, lipless mouths filled with long, sharp teeth. Sky blue, crystalline armor covered their humanoid bodies, made of a material Eve had a pretty good idea where they’d gotten.

One of them growled at her. “No humans.”

Eve blinked, making a show of twisting her head left and right to look all around her. “I don’t see any humans.”

“No quests,” the guard said.

A crowd of about two dozen plainclothes Zandiths had gathered around to get a glimpse of the new arrival, behavior Eve felt was odd for a hive mind but didn’t have the time to question at the moment.

She addressed the guard, holding up both hands in a deflationary gesture. “I come in peace. I’d just like to—”

“Your majesty?” a voice from the crowd interrupted.

Eve blinked. “Um… yes?”

A figure emerged, a Zandith in plain brown clothes. “I knew it was you!”

Before Eve could wonder how this Zandith knew she was royalty when she wasn’t wearing her crown, he stepped up to the head guard and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“She’s a friend of Alvin’s.”

Right, Eve realized. I saw them at the wedding, of course they saw me too.

As if by magic the guards relaxed, lowering their spears and bowing their heads deferentially. “Your majesty. Any friend of Alvin’s is welcome beneath the crystal willow.”

Eve smiled and nodded back.

The simply dressed Zandith who’d recognized her gestured her forward. “Please, come with me.”

As she walked through the crowd, she caught one of the onlookers whispering to another, “Do you think she brought some of his pancakes?”

“If she could travel this far with Alvin’s pancakes on her person and not devour them all, she is truly a being worthy of a crown.”

The brief exchange raised more questions than it answered in Eve’s mind, but the mention of pancakes did explain how the Zandith knew Alvin. His Interdungeonal House of Pancakes must’ve popped up nearby. Still, the conversation seemed out of place for a hive mind.

Her guide spoke as they walked. “I’ve informed the others of your arrival and your status as royalty and a friend of Alvin’s.”

Much as Eve loved that of those two titles, the latter held more weight, the sentence gave her the opportunity to ask the main question on her mind. “Others?”

“Ah, yes.” The Zandith nodded. “There are ninety-seven individual gestalt consciousnesses residing within the crystal willow.”

That explains the need for a bank, Lumy sent. The Zandith aren’t one hive mind; they’re a city of hive minds.

“And um,” Eve said, “who am I talking to now?”

“I’m Dave.”

Eve blinked. “Dave. Okay. And uh… are you…”

“Allow me to clarify,” the Zandith said. “My name is Dave. I am speaking to you through drone number seven-seven-eight-one.”

“Ah,” Eve replied. “And you were at the wedding?”

“Not this particular drone, but, yes, I was,” Dave answered. “As were Liam and our current prime, Emry.”

Before she could even ask, he went on to explain how every decade, the ninety-seven hive minds came together to vote on who would lead them for the next decade, with the caveat that a given mind could only be the prime once per century. As a result, any gestalt that put a bit of effort into campaigning got to be the prime at some point.

Eve took the opportunity to survey the city as they walked, her gaze lingering upon its many oddities. At the surface, it appeared almost identical to any other bustling hub. Sure, the buildings were made of marsh clay rather than stone or wood like the human cities she knew, but the layouts felt familiar.

Market squares and narrow alleys and busy thoroughfares abounded, each cluttered with Zandiths going about their daily business of buying and selling their various wares. It wasn’t until Eve managed to get close enough to catch a bit of conversation between one such buyer and a woman behind a cobbler’s stall that she noted the major difference.

The exchange between the two seemed to jump back and forth between a dozen different topics, only some of which were tangentially related to the actual purchase of shoes. Eve realized those two particular hive minds were probably in contact with each other in several places throughout the city, and she’d overheard a small fraction of the many ongoing conversations they held simultaneously.

It was weird.

Every Zandith she passed bowed his or her head, all in exactly the same manner for exactly the same duration. Dave hadn’t lied when he’d said he’d already told the others about her. Funnily enough, the fish people paid Lumy absolutely no heed, completely ignoring the phantasmal remnant as if she weren’t there. Eve wondered if they could perceive her at all, or just thought the three glowing lights were some spell of Eve’s.

The air in the city was stifling. The crystal leaves of the willow above and all around formed a greenhouse around the place, trapping heat and moisture alike. The oppressive heat and high humidity reminded Eve of the overheated mountaintop outside Dragonwrought Hold, but without the constant breeze providing fresh air. At times it felt like if she tried hard enough, she could swim through all the water in the air.

At least she didn’t get all gross and sweaty. Being an entity of Mana and not truly alive had its perks.

Eve noted, as she walked, the distinct lack of the taverns or brothels that normally populated cities this size, which made sense once she thought about it. Such establishments sold individualistic pleasures, things in which a hive mind couldn’t necessarily partake. Could a gestalt consciousness even get drunk? What would that look like?

Eve wanted to find out.

In contrast, a number of restaurants, patisseries, and tea shops littered the streets, demonstrating the apparent affinity the hive minds had for flavor if not for the more human vices. She supposed it made sense given their idolization of Alvin’s pancakes.

Dave led her to a clay structure with a dangling red curtain in place of a door. Warm red Mana lights illuminated the open space, which housed nine beds, a bathroom, and little else. The complete lack of privacy the room’s nine residents must’ve lived with almost disturbed Eve until she remembered that if they all shared a mind, it wasn’t really nine residents so much as one resident with nine bodies. This hive mind thing would take some getting used to.

As Eve stepped inside, a group of Zandiths worked to clear out some of the extra furniture.

“I’m emptying this domicile for your use during your stay,” Dave explained.

Eve looked at the workers. “Where will they stay?”

“Arnold has agreed to help out. He and I are shuffling our sleeping arrangements a bit, but there’s space for everybody.”

Eve nodded, refraining from further questions. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.” Truth be told, she’d expected to find lodging in an inn somewhere, only then realizing that hive minds didn’t need inns.

Dave, or rather, the drone Dave had chosen to guide her around, nodded. “I’ll leave you to wash up and rest from your journey in privacy. You’re welcome to stop an any of the various restaurants, though I’ll warn you our tastes may be different than yours. First though, might I enquire as to the purpose of your visit?”

Eve was ready for that one. “I’ve come into possession of a certain valuable that necessitates a place to keep safe. I was hoping you could help me with that.”

Dave smiled. “You’ll want to speak with Annie, then. She runs the bank. One moment.” A few seconds passed as the drone stood silent, his eyes blinking sideways. “She’s agreed to give you a tour of her facility, but requests the night to clean and prepare.”

Well that was easy. “Yeah, that’s great,” Eve said. “In the morning then?”

“Excellent,” Dave said. “I’ll leave you your privacy. If you need anything, simply step outside and speak to any passing drone. Whichever mind they belong to will know to direct you to me.”

“Thank you,” Eve replied. “Really. I never could’ve hoped for such great hospitality.”

“Of course, your majesty,” the Zandith said. “Any friend of Alvin’s is a friend of mine. Welcome to the crystal willow.” With that he turned, swiping the curtain out of the way to step back into the busy street.

Eve looked around the barren living area. The Dave-drones had left two of the original nine beds, pushing them together to give Eve that much more space. It and the washbasin made up almost the entirety of the room’s furnishings.

She took the time to wash away the various bits of dirt, lake water, dead leaves, and other debris from all the plants she’d trampled and-or run clean through on her journey there, before re-donning her armor and turning to face the glowing lights in the corner of the room. The orange glow of the setting sun shined in from outside.

“Looks like we’ve got some time to kill,” Eve said.

We should take a look around, Lumy sent. The more info we have before stepping foot in that bank, the better. For all we know, this vault of yours isn’t even under the bank.

“True,” Eve said, flashing an eye towards her half empty Mana pool. “But there’s some other info I want to gather first.”

Lumy flashed pastel green. And that would be?

“Only the most important piece of intel.” A mischievous grin crossed Eve’s face. “I wanna know what Zandith food tastes like.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

There's a Wayo

ARE YOU SURE this is a good idea? Lumy asked as Eve walked with purpose to the closest restaurant.

“Of course it is,” Eve replied. “All my ideas are good ideas.”

The fact that you think that explains so many things, Lumy sent, but as I mentioned earlier, I’m not an accredited psychiatrist. She flashed red. My point is that Dave warned us their tastes might be different than yours. These same hundred minds have been cooking for each other for centuries. To keep things interesting enough to be worth having restaurants in the first place, their food has probably gotten weird.

“All the more reason to try it. Worst case scenario I have an unsatisfactory meal.”

Worst case scenario you offend one of the hive minds.

“I’ll be nice,” Eve said, pushing open the door to an eatery called Lake’s Bounty. Given the nature of their usual clientele, there was no host stand or maitre d’ waiting to show them to a table. Instead a Zandith dressed as a waiter waved them over and sat them down. Moments later he returned with a dish hidden under a metal cloche.

“Your majesty,” he greeted her. “I’m Ricky, and it’s an honor to host you at my humble establishment.” He placed the covered dish in front of her. “I have for you today a more rustic take on the traditional trotia tartare, served in its purest form to allow the exquisite flavor I’ve built over two hundred generations of selective breeding to shine through unblemished. My subaquatic farm enchantments filter any toxins or contaminants out of the water before the animal can even smell them, creating my uniquely pristine profile. I hope you enjoy.” In a single motion, he whipped off the cloche and twirled away, leave Eve and Lumy alone at the table.

Eve looked down at the dish before her.

Lumy twinkled blue in a fit of laughter that rang through Eve’s mind.

Eve bit her lip. “It’s a dead fish.”

Lumy was laughing too hard to reply.

Eve blinked. “It’s literally just… a dead fish on a plate.” She ran a finger along the ceramic dish, bringing the clear liquid that came off up to her nose. “It’s still got lake water on it.”

Trotia—a type of fish apparently either only native to that particular lake or created entirely by those two hundred years of selective breeding Ricky had mentioned—were about nine inches long, four across, and bursting at the seams with fat and muscle. The thing’s scales glimmered in the candlelight of the restaurant. Its eye seemed to stare at her.

Lumy finally managed to collect herself enough to say something. At least you know it’s fresh.

Five minutes ago it was flopping around! Eve sent back, moving her half of the conversation to telepathy to avoid being too rude.

I guess this explains those weird teeth they have, Lumy sent. Long and thin is perfect for getting in between the fish bones.

Not helpful, Eve snapped. What do I do?

You eat it, Lumy replied. Remember, you signed up for this.

I signed up for a cooked meal, maybe something weird and esoteric, but not an unseasoned, uncooked, literal dead fish on a plate.

It’s not gonna hurt you, Lumy sent. It could be literally poisoned and it wouldn’t hurt you. Just eat it.

Eve grit her teeth, raised her fork and knife, and stared down at the fish. The fish stared back at her. She glanced left. She glanced right.

In a quick, jerky motion, Eve placed a hand on the dead trotia and stored it in the Ar-gold crown.

That’s not eating it, Lumy sent.

I’ll deal with it later, Eve replied, fishing a gold coin from her pocket to drastically overpay for the meal. Nobody saw me.

And you think they’re not going to question that you ate the entire thing, bones and all?

Eve shrugged, pushing herself to her feet and walked across the restaurant towards the exit. They might wonder, but I doubt they’ll ask. It’d be rude. Besides, they don’t know how I eat. I doubt they’ve met any other physical manifestations of pure Mana, and honestly, I probably could digest that whole thing, bones and all. I just don’t want to.

Lumy flashed an aggravated red and replied with her best approximation of a long-suffering sigh.

Eve considered that a victory.

From there, the pair whiled away the next several hours wandering the twisting streets beneath the crystal willow. Azure lines climbed up the tree’s massive trunk in spiral patterns, reemitting some of the light the crystal leaves had absorbed over the course of the day. As a result, the city at night glowed a cool blue, a calm if alien atmosphere that fit rather well with the strange nature of its denizens.

The barest sliver of sunrise had just crested the horizon when a male Zandith approached Eve with a friendly smile.

“Good morning, your majesty. I’m Annie. I understand you’re interested in a tour of my bank?”

It took Eve a moment to parse the masculine voice introducing itself as ‘Annie’ before realizing that of course each hive mind would have both male and female drones. “Yes,” she eventually said. “I’d love to.”

The Zandith clapped his hands together. “Excellent. Please, come with me.”

* * *

“The protective enchantments were originally placed to stop creatures from the cave system below from entering the city,” Annie explained as they stopped outside an unassuming two-story brick structure. Above the door it read ‘First Bank of The Crystal Willow’ in brown paint. “In exchange for taking over custodianship of the building, Edgar—its previous manager—agreed to let me experiment a bit with the enchantments themselves. Adapting them to include a locking section was all it took to establish my first vault. I’ve built three so far.”

As the drone guided them into the building itself, Annie explained the process the hive minds used to store their money or other valuables in the bank, paying a flat fee for deposit boxes or generating interest on loanable funds. She offered Eve free storage of whatever valuable item she came to stash if she kept an active account balance of a hundred gold. Eve simply smiled and said she’d consider it. She already knew a safe deposit box wouldn’t satisfy her quest to hide the eldritch ring.

She had a different idea.

“Tell me about this cave system.”

“I don’t know much,” Annie explained. “The caves themselves predate the first drone to arrive under the willow, and the defensive enchantments have been here since before I developed my autonomy.”

Eve nodded. “But the enchantments are powerful enough to build a bank around?”

“Absolutely,” Annie said. “Some of the creatures down there are dangerously powerful, and those are just the one’s I’ve seen. The enchantments have proven more than capable of keeping them out.”

Eve blinked. “You haven’t explored the caves?”

“I’ve lost over a hundred drones over the past century or so trying. The monsters within are far beyond my level.”

“What kind of monsters are they? Do you know what level they are?”

The drone shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know the exact level. Anything above fifty is beyond me. As for their kind… the form varies, but they’re all undead. Skeletal, zombified, desiccated, you name it. Just last week a wight of a giant rock worm rammed into the enchantments for an hour before giving up.”

Ugh, I hate undead, Lumy sent. They’re always so greedy with their phantasm.

Eve furrowed her brow. “Where are they coming from? I mean, corpses, obviously, but what’s reanimating them?”

Annie shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Likely better, given your experience.”

“Probably a necromancer down there somewhere,” Eve reasoned. “Think I can take a look? Could probably clear him out for you.” Truth be told, Eve had no idea if she could clear out whatever was raising those undead, necromancer or otherwise, but she wasn’t about to tell Annie that.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” came the reply. “The caves are sealed off for good reason, and I can’t permit any sort of breach.”

Eve scowled. “Can I at least see it? I might be able to pick up on a clue that you missed, what with my expertise in the field and all.”

Really playing the ‘adventurer’ card heavy here, aren’t you? Lumy sent.

It’s working, isn’t it? Eve sent back.

Annie paused for a moment as she considered Eve’s request. Eve could tell the hive mind didn’t want to let the tour derail any more than it already had. She could only hope Annie valued appeasing a potential customer more than her meticulously planned sales pitch.

“I apologize,” Annie eventually said, “but the lower level is off limits to visitors. Now, if you’ll please follow me towards our main vault…” She gestured Eve forward, walking at her side as if to keep an eye on her as she led the Defiant through the bank’s upper level. As well as the hive mind watched Eve, however, she seemed to miss the strange floating lights that followed her around as they passed right through the floor.

I’ll be right back, Lumy sent.

Eve simply smiled.

She played the part of the discerning customer as Annie guided her through the three-foot-thick steel vault door, explaining the various security measures as she went. Acting engaged came easy.

While the details of how Annie had coopted some of the cave enchantments to run her bank vaults didn’t interest Eve in the slightest, the concept of what types of things the Zandith kept in safe deposit boxes kept her mind running wild. Apparently daydreaming about what hive minds found valuable looked an awful lot like weighing the merits of one particular pick-resistant lock design over another.

The tour came to an end back in the lobby, an open room with only a single clerk. Since the various hive minds were all constantly communicating with each other anyway, one drone was all Annie needed to make sure any potential visitor had a point of contact.

“You’re welcome to stay beneath the willow as long as you’d like,” Annie wrapped things up. “I hope you’ve found my facilities here as grand as our great city.”

Eve nodded. “You’ve certainly given me a lot to think about,” she said, keeping her reply as vague as she could. “Thank you for taking the time to show me around. I have to say, I was concerned about the security hole an open unexplored cave system represents, but if your enchantments are as powerful as they seem, I’m sure it’s fine.”

The drone smiled. “Rest assured, in the centuries we’ve inhabited the crystal willow, nothing has ever breached the seal on those caves, not without my express intent.”

“Good.” Eve extended a hand. “I think we’ll be seeing each other again soon.”

They shook. The Zandith’s hand felt moist to the touch. “We certainly will. I have over eight hundred drones around the city. If you ever have any questions, don’t hesitate to approach any of them.”

With a final thanks, Eve turned and departed the bank, leaving Annie’s drone to watch her go. It wasn’t until she’d turned the corner onto a side street that a certain phantasmal remnant rose up through the ground.

“Did you find it?” Eve asked.

I did, Lumy answered. It’s two levels down. You’ll have to get past two sets of steel doors and a secondary enchantment before you can even see the cave entrance.

“The doors will be a problem,” Eve muttered. “Not to get past,” she corrected, “I’d just hoped to get in and out without any property damage.”

Are you sure you wanna do this? I can think of eight ways this can go wrong just off the top of my head.

“It’ll be fine,” Eve insisted. “We’ll take the rest of the day to plan, then go once it’s dark.”

Lumy sighed.

Eve flashed a shit-eating grin.

“I’ve always wanted to rob a bank.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Do Hive Minds Commit Grand Larceny?

YOU REALIZE WE’RE not actually robbing this place, right? Lumy asked as she hovered above Eve’s hand-drawn map of Annie’s bank.

“Not even a little?”

Eve, no. How does one rob someplace a little?

“You leave stuff behind, obviously,” Eve answered. “Instead of robbing them a lot, you’re robbing them a little.”

I’m not robbing anybody, Lumy replied. And neither are you.

“That’s no fun.”

We’re not here to have fun.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Eve snapped her fingers. “Everywhere I go, I go to have fun. It turns out, you can have fun anywhere.”

Lumy flashed yellow. Now think about how much easier things would be if you stopped having fun and took things seriously for five minutes.

“This is serious,” Eve insisted. “Burnout’s a serious problem, and the best way to combat it is to have some serious fun.”

We’re not robbing the bank.

“Of course not,” Eve said. “We’re robbing the safe deposit boxes.”

No.

“C’mon, don’t tell me you’re not at least a little curious what they keep in there. What do hive minds find valuable enough to store like that? How secure do things need to be in a city with less than a hundred unique consciousnesses? Are they afraid another hive mind is going to rob them? Do hive minds commit grand larceny?”

Clearly they should be concerned someone is going to rob them, because someone is apparently planning on it.

“Only a little,” Eve murmured.

A little robbery is still robbery! Lumy sent. If you really wanna know what’s in those safe deposit boxes, I can phase through one and tell you. Or, alternatively, have you considered just asking?

Eve stopped short. “You think that would work?”

Lumy sent an image of a human shrugging. Potentially. I have no idea if hive minds keep secrets, but a simple question seems like a good first step before jumping straight to larceny.

“Hold that thought.” Eve darted from the emptied-out domicile Dave had lent her to step out into the sunny street. She walked up to the first drone she saw. “Hi, I’m sorry if this is a weird question, but I took a tour of Annie’s bank this morning and I was wondering what sorts of things Zandith minds keep in safe deposit boxes.”

The drone turned up her scaly palms. “I can’t speak for the others, but mine’s got my recipe books in it. If one of the others got their hands on those, my restaurants would go under in a week.”

Eve blinked. “Huh. And the bank is more secure than a building you own?”

“There’s not much any of us own that anyone else would consider worth stealing,” the drone explained. “It’s more efficient to have one secure place we all store our valuables than a hundred different buildings that each mind has to secure on their own.”

“I guess that makes sense. Thanks!”

The drone smiled and bowed her head. “Glad to be of help, your majesty. When you next see him, tell Alvin that Gerald says hi.”

“Will do!” Eve promised before returning to her dimly lit room and the three floating lights within.

That wasn’t so hard, was it?

“You win,” Eve conceded. “One point for asking first.”

Wonderful, Lumy sent. So we can eliminate this silly stop at the safe deposit boxes?

“Yeah, yeah,” Eve said, scratching off that part of the line she’d drawn on her map. “That leaves four sets of defensive enchantments and two steel doors. The enchantments will be easy enough, but the doors are an issue. I’d really rather nobody know we were there. If there’s any hint someone came through, they’ll figure out it was us real quickly.”

She said, minutes after deciding she actually wasn’t going to rob the place, Lumy snarked.

Eve sighed. “This would be so much easier if I could put the ring in storage. Just turn into a cloud of Mana, travel through the same pathways the enchantments do, and we’re in.”

I’d rather piss off a few hive minds than risk absorbing that ring into your Mana pool.

“Yeah, yeah,” Eve waved her off. “I’ll figure something out. Worst case I can just knock the doors down. I doubt they’ll follow us into the cave, and once we’re in we theoretically don’t need to come back through here. If there’s no other entrance to the caves, I’ll be surprised.”

You’ll be surprised and trapped, Lumy corrected.

“No, I’ll be surprised and blasting a hole through the ceiling,” Eve replied.

Fun.

Eve laughed, “Now you’re getting it!”

Lumy sighed.

“Actually, now that I think about it,” Eve said, staring down at her poorly drawn map, “which way do those doors lock? Are they to stop people from going down to the cave entrance, or to stop monsters from coming up?”

I don’t know, Lumy sent. I didn’t stop to analyze the inner workings of the locks.

“Cause if they’re locked from the outside, we can just open them,” Eve explained, “and if they’re locked from the inside… I think I have an idea how to get around that.”

Oh no.

Eve grinned, grabbing her map off the table and disintegrating it with a burst of annihilation Mana. “Oh yes.”

* * *

Let it be known for all foolhardy delinquents, criminal masterminds, and particularly driven adventurers, that the optimal time to rob a hive mind is at night. The number of would-be thieves who fuck this up would astound even the most observant of onlookers.

Eve, of course, didn’t necessarily realize that with most of her drones asleep, Annie only had access to the mental capacity of those few who remained awake rather than the combined brains of hundreds of drones. She only chose to break in under cover of dark because night felt like the right time for these sorts of things. It felt like that because it was.

Few enough drones walked the streets that Eve had no trouble evading them, while Lumy traveled through the ground beneath her feet to avoid attracting attention with her lights.

Getting into the bank was easy enough. The gap under the front door stretched wide enough that Eve could simply kick the ring through, cloth wrapping and all, and then float through herself as a cloud of Mana. The first true line of defense was a simple alarm enchantment, which Eve simply commanded not to sound.

Being the queen of Burendia had its perks.

The light of Eve’s eyes cast long shadows across the dark lobby as Lumy rose up through the floor to join her. There wasn’t a Zandith in sight.

Eve wasted no time turning left and slipping through an unlocked side door into a narrow stairway. Before she set foot upon the wooden steps, she commanded this second set of enchantments to ignore the pressure from her feet.

The stair creaked under her weight as she descended to the lowest floor, dodging under the odd bit of willow-root that’d grown straight through the tunnel. Apparently the Zandith preferred these random obstructions to pruning their crystal tree.

Her eyes cast two beams like those from a flashlight across the hallway she stepped out into. Eve wasted no time. Her soft-soled mistlerhide boots strode silently across the cut stone floor as she walked past empty offices, restrooms, and storage closets to the first of the imposing steel security doors. Cutting out her visit to the vault saved her a lot of breaking-in effort, but Annie was no slouch. Eve tried the handle.

It didn’t budge.

Locked, Eve silently communicated to Lumy. On to plan B.

Unlike the front door, these left no gap Eve could fit the cursed ring through. She had to get it open. Kneeling down in front of the keyhole, Eve dissociated her right arm into a cloud of Mana and willed it through. On the other side, she reformed some of the Mana into a hand and tried the handle. It too held fast.

Shit, Eve cursed. This side’s locked too. Feels like a combination lock.

Can you open it?

Give me a moment, Eve said. Part of me is inside the locking mechanism right now. I just need to figure it out and I can get the passcode.

Tense seconds passed as Eve analyzed the lock. Lacking anything resembling experience in locksmithing, it was slow work. Still, she progressed. She’d already managed to figure out the first two numbers in the combination when Lumy proved her usefulness as a lookout.

Guard! Lumy practically shouted into Eve’s head. Coming down the hall.

I’m almost done, Eve sent back. Distract her.

On it.

Lumy flew off, darting around the corner and flashing as bright as she could to pull the drone’s attention away from where Eve worked.

It’s not working! the phantasmal remnant sent frantically. Guard’s not reacting at all! It’s like she can’t even see me.

That’d explain why they’ve never mentioned you, Eve thought back. How much time do I have? I’ve got the numbers, just need to enter the combination on the wheel.

You gotta go now. She’s coming.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, Eve cursed. She’d really hoped to avoid pissing off the hive minds. She spent a precious second frantically searching her person for an idea, some way to avoid notice, when something in her storage space caught her notice. In but a moment, she deployed it, then dissociated and passed through the door entirely.

The guard turned the corner to find a dead fish sitting on the floor.

This is your plan? Lumy asked.

Just tell me when she’s gone, Eve replied. Broken doors will lead them to me. Random fish appearing out of nowhere might not.

She watched through Lumy’s perception as the Zandith stooped over to grab the raw trotia, staring down at it as she held it in her scaled hands. Eve could practically feel the confusion coming off of her.

Seconds passed.

Eve held her breath.

Annie’s drone scowled.

And then, still gazing down at the dead fish in discombobulation, the Zandith turned and left.

Eve exhaled.

Once Lumy confirmed the coast was clear, Eve entered the passcode on her side of the door and swung it open just long enough to pick up the cloth-bundled ring off the hallway floor. Sure enough, the fish, visible and weird as it was, had served as the perfect distraction from the actual piece of evidence Eve had left sitting a dozen feet behind it. She stuffed the ring into her pocket and continued on her way.

I can’t believe that worked, Lumy sent as the two traversed the narrow passage behind the steel door.

And you said trying Zandith food was a bad idea, Eve replied.

You didn’t try it though. You just stored it then dropped it on the floor.

I’d consider that a very successful meal, Eve sent back.

If Wes were here, Lumy sent, how many red herring jokes do you think he’d be making right now?

Exactly enough that a guard would hear and we’d all get caught.

Lumy laughed. That sounds about right.

Now that she’d done it once, deducing the combination for the second door proved much easier, especially since this one locked from the outside. Eve didn’t even have to reach an arm through it.

The cave entrance was less of an imposing archway with arcane runes carved into it than a hole in the floor with a shimmering magic barrier over it. Eve glanced down at it. Welp, here we are.

Let’s hope there’s an actual vault down there, Lumy replied.

Eve grinned. Only one way to find out. With a simple exertion of her will, the enchantments flickered out, and the way down opened. Stopping to turn and wink at her phantasmal companion, Eve stepped forward and hopped down into the dark hole. Before she even hit the soft dirt floor of the cave, the notification popped into view.

You have entered the dungeon: Forgotten Caverns! Fight well.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

What Do Undead Do All Day?

AS EVE CAST the light of her eyes around the dark tunnel, four more notifications blazed into view.

Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: Break Into a Bank!

+ 4.288t exp!

Level Up!

Ability Upgraded!

Active Ability - Mana Burst

X Mana

Fire external Mana within your area of influence without directly absorbing it!

The first three made Eve blink. She’d expected a milestone and level-up—the bank job was exactly the sort of shenanigan that generally turned into a quest milestone—but the ability upgrade was an interesting one. She wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.

Eve assumed it had something to do with the distinction between Mana she’d absorbed and Mana she had the ability to absorb if she wanted to, but the vagueness of the description and her inability to discern any actual use for the upgrade made her question it. She’d have to play with it later. Either way, the fourth and final notification that crossed her vision took her full attention.

You have entered a field of the accursed. Upon death, any formerly living body with sufficient integrity will rise as an undead of comparable strength.

Eve relayed the message to Lumy.

Well that explains all those undead Annie mentioned, the phantasmal remnant replied. Somebody’s cursed them.

“But who?” Eve asked aloud, no longer worried about alerting the guards now that they’d made it into the cave. Asking the defensive enchantments to block out sound too had been trivial. “I thought these field curses were meant for battlefields, why is there one underground?”

Maybe this place was a battlefield once, Lumy offered. Or maybe someone just really didn’t want people to come down here.

“That makes more sense,” Eve said. “Maybe whoever built the vault placed this field down to keep people away.”

Fat lot of good it did them, Lumy replied. Without all the undead, the Zandith never would’ve put in those defensive enchantments, which means they never would’ve built the bank here, which means we never would’ve found this place.

Eve nodded. “Hordes of angry undead do tend to attract attention.”

Without further ado, Eve glanced left, then right, then set off.

The tunnel they’d landed in stretched out in both directions, but considering one of those directions came to an abrupt end at a giant willow root nineteen feet away, Eve’s choice was easy.

The worst kind of dirt lined the ground, soft and loose and dry enough to kick up dust with every step as the solid structure of the bank above prevented water from seeping down. The stuff had practically coated the entire lower half of Eve’s armor by the time she’d walked far enough to get out from under the impermeable floor of the bank and onto moister ground.

The unlit passage stretched eight feet in diameter, its entire surface arched as if it had been bored by some great drill. It curved this way and that, bending left and right with seemingly no regard for any intended destination other than down. Lumy’s first instinct was to question it.

Annie did say this was a cave system, right?

“She did,” Eve said. “And the dungeon notification agreed. We’re in the forgotten caverns.”

Except this isn’t a cave, it’s a tunnel something dug, Lumy argued.

“It’s not exactly forgotten, either,” Eve added. “The Man of the Mists remembered it was here, and the Zandiths certainly know about it.”

Maybe your Questing Stones are just terrible at naming things.

“Oh, they are. Before I replaced it, I used to have an ability called Fate-al Blow.”

Wes told me, Lumy replied. He’s still mad you replaced an ability with such a great name.

“Wes’s definition of ‘great’ is… unique.”

Lumy laughed. That’s one way of putting it.

Almost an hour of careful exploring in, the two came across their first monster of the dungeon, a level eight vengeful mole, according to Appraise. Despite the vast size and level difference, the thing screeched and charged at Eve, trying and failing to sink its decaying teeth into the leather of her boots. She kicked it off.

You have defeated Level 8 Vengeful Mole: +0 exp!

“Not exactly the most deterring of defenders,” Eve commented, “but I guess when that field of the accursed says everything, it means everything.”

She went on to fight zombified earth worms, skeletal bats, and even a vampiric weasel, all of which were low level enough to be worth no exp to the level ninety-seven Defiant. Still, the promise of greater threats lingered. Annie had mentioned that over a hundred Zandith had died in these caves, and from the look of it, something had dug this tunnel.

“You know,” Eve said as they walked on, “I always wondered what dungeon monsters do.”

What?

Eve shrugged. “I mean, the ones that are animals just do animal things I suppose, searching for food, finding mates, all that, and the intelligent ones do society things like the Alvin’s former cult or those vampires at Avendreth Manor, but what about everything else? I guess, the Burendian constructs just sit on standby. Outside of that, though. Things like undead. Unnatural enough not to have instincts, but not intelligent enough to really socialize.”

What are you talking about? Lumy asked.

“What do undead do all day?”

I’d imagine most of them sleep.

Eve rolled her eyes. “Sure. Nocturnal. What do they do all night, then?”

Spooky things? Go bump in the night? Eve, I don’t know.

Eve snapped her fingers and pointed up at the phantasmal remnant. “But now you’re curious.”

A silent moment passed before Lumy sent back an aggravated sigh. Okay, fine. I’m a little curious. But don’t get disappointed if we find out they just sleep until some passing adventurer disturbs them.

“That can’t be right,” Eve said. “Annie said they see undead on the other side of the enchantments all the time. Unless there are adventurers wandering around regularly in these so-called ‘forgotten’ caverns, clearly they move around, at least.”

I thought we’ve already established that what we’ve seen so far is neither forgotten nor a cavern.

“Good point.”

Another half hour passed in relative silence before Eve’s sharp ears caught the high-pitched sound of lightweight items colliding into each other in the distance. She stopped short. A minute later, the noise repeated. She glanced up at Lumy. “Any idea?”

No, but I can take a look.

Eve nodded. “Go ahead,” she whispered. “Don’t be seen.”

Without reply Lumy floated off down the tunnel, dimming her lights to beneath the brightness of a candle. Eve waited patiently where she stood, keeping a careful eye on the way forward. The crashing sound repeated twice more before Lumy reached out.

You’re gonna want to see this.

Show me, Eve replied.

It’ll be better if you see it for yourself, Lumy sent, a rare hint of humor in her tone. Trust me on this. They won’t be able to see you from here.

Unwilling to hold back her curiosity for long enough to argue the matter with Lumy—and not one to let basic safety stop her from exploring—Eve crept along the passage, rounding two bends before stopping at the tunnel’s end. She found Lumy floating there, where the tunnel opened up into a cavern vast enough that what little light the phantasmal remnant gave off failed to breech its distant shadows.

The base of the opening was nearly forty feet above the floor of cavern, leaving Eve and Lumy with the perfect position to gaze down unseen at the goings on below, and by Ayla were things going on.

As she lay on her stomach to avoid notice, Eve’s gaze didn’t linger on the passage to the cavern’s left from which a distinctive white glow and familiar roar of a leyline emanated, nor did she pay much heed to the ten-foot-tall circular vault door built sturdily into the far wall. Something far more interesting than a quick and easy means of egress and near limitless power and her secondary quest objective put together took place at the cavern’s center.

A snakelike skeleton suspiciously the same width as the tunnel in which Eve lay sat straight along the ground, its arced ribs forming the walls within which a group of humanoid zombies and skeletons stood. Other than a single skeleton on the opposite side, the entire group stood beneath the rock worm’s head.

Before Eve’s eyes, the lone skeleton pulled its head free, tossed it to the group, then allowed its bones to fall upright into a very particular, triangular pattern. One of the zombies then proceeded to roll the aforementioned skull down the length of the rock worm skeleton until it collided with the upright bones, knocking some number of them over. Once everything had settled, the lone skeleton would reform, toss its head back, and repeat the process.

Eve couldn’t believe it.

“Are… are they bowling?”

It would appear so, Lumy replied.

Eve stared slack-jawed as another skeleton took its turn rolling the skull down the makeshift bowling lane, only for it to miss the carefully laid bone-pins by several feet. “They’re not very good at it.”

To be fair, Lumy sent, skulls don’t exactly roll straight.

Sure enough, the next zombie to go launched the skull almost forty-five degrees off target, only for it to awkwardly bounce around and land dead on. The assembled undead let out a chorus of happy groans and chattering bones at the strike.

“Okay, maybe they’re pretty good at it.”

I guess this answers your question, Lumy sent. What do undead do all day? Apparently, they go bowling.

Eve blinked. “That… is a way better answer than anything I could’ve hoped for.”

Yes, Lumy put plainly. Yes it is.

Not strictly in a hurry, the two spent the better part of an hour up there watching the zombies bowl. For fairness’s sake, the skeletons took turns playing the part of ball and pins, a task that, for obvious reasons, the zombies were spared. Of course, their set up made actually bowling a spare impossible, because having a second undead on the other side to return the skull without its owner reassembling itself and thus resetting the pins seemed beyond them.

About ten minutes in, Eve and Lumy started placing bets.

“Alright, on dangling-eye’s next turn, what’re the odds he gets at least seven pins?”

I’ll give you five gold if he hits five.

“Done.” They couldn’t shake hands, of course, so Eve instead telepathically sent the image of an extended hand, to which Lumy replied with one of another hand shaking it.

The zombie missed the pins entirely.

Pay up.

“How? You can’t carry gold.”

Doesn’t matter. Pay up.

“Double or nothing?”

Name your bet.

“Ummm,” Eve paused to think. “One arm-ed skeleton hits at least 6 pins?”

You’re on.

An unrealized sum of gold owed one way or the other shifted up and down as the betting game continued. Bowl after bowl, Eve found herself growing more and more invested in the success of particular zombies over others, continuing to develop a sense for their individual skill levels. An hour in, she found herself quietly cheering them on. Two hours in, she found herself not so quietly cheering them on.

That’s what got her.

As the skull collided with the pins in a clean strike, Eve let out a cheer audible enough to echo down into the open cavern. The game stopped. Two dozen skeletons and zombies turned to gaze up at the opening in the wall where Eve and Lumy hid.

The massive rock worm reared up, snarling as it raised its circular mouth at the spying adventurers.

“Well, shit,” Eve cursed.

Shit is right.

“Guess I forgot about the other thing undead do all day.”

And what would that be?

“Resent the living.”

Ah. Yes. That’d be it, Lumy sent.

A rusty iron arrow shot from a skeleton’s bow buried itself the in wall to Eve’s left. She sighed. “Alright, alright. No more fun and games.” Eve stood, untying her bone club from her back.

“Time for some violence.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Harvester

EVE STARTED BY doing the sensible thing.

Level ?? Skeletal Rock Worm

Following up with her out-of-character trend of doing the sensible thing, Eve didn’t stop to wonder why it was called a worm when the thing clearly had bones and a spine. She didn’t waste a moment considering the fact that worms were supposed to be invertebrates, and despite its circular mouth, the thing’s skeletal structure would’ve made it more like a snake than a worm. Nope. Eve didn’t give any sort of shit about those semantics. She only cared how much exp it was worth.

So, naturally, she Jetted right at it.

The Defiant rocketed through the air towards the top of the thing’s mouth, aiming to avoid its gnashing teeth as she struck the hopefully important bone structure around it. Her blow never hit.

While the worm completely failed to react in time to the puny adventurer attacking it, one of the skeletons below managed to raise an obsidian wand and summon a wall of inky darkness between Eve and the rock worm. As her club struck the obstruction, it stuck.

Jet still on cooldown for the moment, Eve collided with the tarry blockade with a sticky thump. Instinctively she tried to wrench herself away, but the force simply buried her deeper into oozing barrier. While she struggled, an arrow slammed into a left rib, sending icy pain racing down her side and white Mana wafting into the air.

Pushing past the injury, Eve collected herself and did what she should’ve done from the get go. She drained the spell.

Darkness Mana cascaded through her, turning her eyes and the lines along her skin inky black for the brief moments she could hold onto it. With a thought, she launched it at the archer, shearing its head clean off.

No defeat message popped into view.

Without the sticky wall to hold her up, Eve plummeted to the cavern floor, landing in a nimble shoulder roll. As she stood, she tore the arrow from her rib, allowing her body to expend yet more Mana repairing the injury. She Charged for the mage, but a round loop of stone arose from the ground below, catching her foot. With the Strength of Mana Rush running through her, her foot passed clean through the hindrance, but not without ruining her balance and sending her careening to the left.

The worm dove for her.

Eve Jetted to the side.

She landed hard against the back wall, her right shoulder taking a dent out of the stone. She didn’t stop to catch her breath.

Kicking off against the wall, Eve launched herself at the nearest of the nine mages, stealing the Mana from its spell before it even finish the cast. Against the force of her club, it exploded into a million pieces.

That appeared to actually kill it.

You have defeated Level 102 Skeletal Earth Mage: +1.6m exp!

Eve blinked the message away just in time to dodge a flaming arrow from the newly headless zombie archer. She whirled about to send a burst of annihilation Mana at it, earning herself a second kill notification for her efforts.

You have defeated Level 104 Zombie Archer: +1.7m exp!

Eve let out a breath. Two down, way too many to go.

The rock worm lunged for her position, forcing Eve to dodge away once more, this time directly into the waiting arms of another zombie. As she came in too close for its sword to be any use, the thing clawed and bit at her as she and it crashed into floor. With a Mana Rush-empowered head butt, she ended it too.

You have defeated Level 102 Zombie Swordsman: +1.6m exp!

Eve didn’t have time to wonder how such a simple undead had reached such a high level, or why a being as famously clumsy as a zombie would wield a weapon so characterized by finesse. She still had a veritable horde to deal with.

She rolled left off the dead zombie in time to watch two arrows bury themselves cleanly in its corpse, and leapt to her feet to face her remaining opponents. The rock worm screeched.

Eve panted, taking in the scene before her as her mind scrambled for a plan of action. The mages had to be her first priority. While the massive skeletal worm posed more of a threat to her life, she’d never win a fight with the mages constantly peppering her with crowd control. Sure, they could never hope to hold her in place, but all they needed was to keep her reacting to them.

But as Eve cast her eyes about the cavern, the eight surviving mages were nowhere to be seen.

It took a blast of fire roaring towards her from above for Eve to spot them.

As the rock worm twisted itself to strike once more, the skeletal mages had stepped inside it, climbing its ribcage like a ladder. They clung to the bare bones at the thing’s center, twenty feet in the air and well protected by the worm they rode. Eve cursed.

A volley of spells flew her way, bolts of darkness, shards of ice, the shimmering air of pure heat. Eve didn’t bother trying to absorb them all. She Jetted out of the way.

Two of the spells, an arc of lightning and some kind of tissue-dissolving curse, managed to hit the zombies around her, resulting in two more combatants out of the fight, even if Eve received no credit for their defeat.

As she dodged, Eve did take the moment to slam her club through another of the floor-bound zombies, ignoring the kill notification that popped up. She took a precious second to distance herself from the zombies. They mostly bore melee weapons, which marked them as distinctively less of a problem than the giant worm full of mages. A smart adventurer had to have her priorities in order, after all.

Eve Charged in.

Another wall of sticky darkness materialized in front of her, but she was ready this time. In the second before she hit it, Eve claimed its Mana as her own, launching it away in the form a shadow bolt directly at the cluster of mages. A barrier of golden light deflected the projectile.

“Since when can undead wield light magic?” Eve shouted.

Light mages can die too, you know, Lumy responded.

Eve sighed.

In a decidedly unrehearsed motion, the rock worm decided the best way to stop her advance was to swipe its tail at her, a maneuver which dislodged three of the skeletons from its ribs. They fell to the ground with a clatter, collapsing into piles of unattached bones for the few seconds it took them to reassemble.

That was all Eve needed.

In the same second as she Jetted up and over the rock worm’s tail swipe, the Defiant launched a wide-coned Mana Burst at the momentarily incapacitated skeletal mages, annihilating all three in a single spell. She grinned as the kill notifications came in.

One of the zombie archers loosed another arrow her way as she landed, but Eve managed to dissociate her lower abdomen in time for the projectile to pass harmlessly through. Her only ranged attack on cooldown, she retaliated not with physical warfare, but with mental warfare, which is to say she flashed it a rude gesture.

Eve didn’t dare leap for the worm while her only way to reposition mid-air—Jet—remained on cooldown, so instead she backed off, darting away from worm and mage alike to clear out the last of the zombie archers. As she drew near, however, the mages threw hindrance after hindrance at her.

The Defiant absorbed walls of darkness, kicked through grasping roots, skidded across conjured oil slicks, and burst through nets—not magic, just normal, rope nets—as she tried to cross the cavern towards her chosen target. By the time she actually managed to reach it, both Jet and Mana Burst were available once more.

The battle dragged on. The skeletal mages slowed Eve down with their barrage of inconveniences, forcing her to over-depend on Jet to force her way through or Mana Burst to strike opponents at range. The whole affair would be easier if she could fully dissociate to get around the blockages, but she didn’t dare leave the cursed ring sitting around for some zombie to pick up. That sounded like a great way to set an eldritch plague loose.

Still, Eve made inexorable progress. By the time her Mana pool fell to half, she’d already taken out all but a few of the zombies, and half the mages. The rock worm itself still raged, but her various Mana Bursts had managed to knock out a number of its ribs, leaving it to wriggle awkwardly without the support of those particular bones. Eve took a breath.

The fight was a slog, plain and simple, but a winning slog nonetheless. At least, it was until Lumy’s mind reached out to Eve’s.

This is taking too long, she sent.

Eve paused. “What?”

Before she could press further, though, every undead in the chamber collapsed all at once, each leaving a small ball of silver light floating above their corpse. As if at the snap of a finger, the lights all arced through the air, meeting at a single point where a certain phantasm hung above the cavern floor. Eve received no kill notifications, but the monsters clearly lived no more.

Eve froze. “Lumy, what the hells was that?”

You were taking too long, so I harvested them, Lumy explained as if she hadn’t just killed an entire party of level one-hundred undead on her own.

“You did what? How?”

I harvested their phantasm, came the reply. Undead like to make it difficult, but it’s still pretty simple, really.

“And that kills them?”

It kills everything, really. Well, not everything, Lumy clarified. It probably wouldn’t kill you, but that’s because you’re not technically alive.

Eve stared wide eyed at her companion. “Since when can you do that?”

Oh, I’ve always been doing it, Lumy sent. Usually you kill things faster though, so I wait until after things are dead. How else did you think I was leveling up?

Eve blinked. Truth be told, she hadn’t thought Lumy was leveling up. She’d always known monsters grew by eating rather than fighting or questing, but she supposed it didn’t surprise her to find Lumy wasn’t like most monsters. She didn’t eat, for one.

For the first time since she’d first met the phantasm, Eve Appraised Lumy.

Level 94 Phantasmal Harvester

“Ayla’s tits, Lumy,” Eve cursed. “How’d you get so high level?”

You guys kill a lot of things, Lumy sent.

Eve blew air through her cheeks. “That’s absurd. And this whole time you could’ve just… killed shit. Just like that?”

It depends. Anything too much higher level than me tends to keep a stronger hold on its phantasm than I can break. Similarly, things that don’t need phantasm to bind them to the mortal plane—constructs, elementals, you—I can’t harvest at all.

Eve shook her head. “I can’t believe it,” she muttered to herself. “I’ve been walking around with a floating one-shot machine all this time.”

And I’ve been floating around with a walking one-shot machine, Lumy sent back.

“Fair point,” Eve said. “But why am I just finding this out now?”

Lumy sent back the concept of shrugging. I’ve never had a reason to show off. Besides, I know how touchy you get about your precious exp. It’s easier for everyone if I just wait until after you’ve killed things to claim the phantasm.

Eve froze, realizing that no kill notifications meant no exp. “Hold the fuck up. Are you telling me you stole my exp?”

Anyway, Lumy hastily changed the subject, that looks like our vault right there. Think you can get it open?

Eve opened her mouth to complain further about the grievous misdeed Lumy had just carried out, before stopping as she realized the end of her secondary quest represented a windfall of exp far beyond anything the rock worm could’ve been worth. She swallowed back the witty retort she totally had planned that absolutely was not just calling Lumy an asshole, and diverted her focus to the cavern around her.

The way was clear. All that remained was to claim her prize.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Getting Rid of the Damned Thing

“FOR SAFETY’S SAKE, I want to check the leyline first,” Eve said as she turned away from the vault door and towards the side passage from which echoed the familiar roar of rushing Mana.

Lumy flashed confused purple. What? Putting off the immediate reward in favor of doing things carefully? That doesn’t sound like you.

“Always check the exits, or whatever,” Eve replied. “Mostly I just think this field of the accursed thing that’s making all those undead is based around the leyline. I need to get close enough to influence the enchantment’s nexus if I want to shut it down.” She paused and glanced down at her Mana pool, sitting below a third after the drawn-out fight with the rock worm and friends. “And I could use a top-up.”

There it is, Lumy sent. The only thing that’ll keep you from immediate exp is an empty Mana bar.

“And not even that most of the time,” Eve said. “I just don’t want to be blindsided and out of Mana when we find out whoever built this place left more defenses behind than we thought.”

Thinking ahead. Will wonders never cease?

Eve smirked. “Told you I can be serious. Ooh! Check out this rock.” She stepped up to a nearby stalagmite with a very… particular shape and proceeded to grasp it in a manner many might’ve found inappropriate.

Lumy sighed.

Eve laughed at the harvester’s exasperation, removing her hand from the phallic stalagmite, wiping it on her pants, and continuing down the passage. It wasn’t long before the white light coming up from the path ahead overwhelmed that of Eve’s eyes. A few steps after that, the cave grew bright enough that anyone else would’ve found themselves squinting.

Having been forged inside one, Eve’s eyes didn’t particularly care about the blinding light of the leyline. She walked on.

Unlike all the Burendian-built leyline access points she’d come across, here the floor didn’t open up to reveal a torrent of Mana below. Rather, Eve rounded a bend to find the leyline raging directly in front of her, a veritable wall of flowing Mana marking the end of the passage.

In under a second, Eve’s Mana pool capped out.

Looks accessible to me, Lumy commented.

Eve nodded. “Getting out of here in a hurry won’t be a problem. I wonder about the…” She paused, directing her focus to the area around her, feeling as delicately as she could for the enchantment behind the field of the accursed. “There it is.” She grinned.

Found the field enchantment?

“Oh, better than that,” Eve answered, raising her hand and snapping her fingers for effect as she issued the mental command.

You have left a field of the accursed.

“I’m sure Annie will appreciate us solving her undead problem.”

Except to find out it was us who solved her undead problem, she’d have to find out it was us who broke into the bank and left a fish on the floor, Lumy rained on Eve’s parade.

“Maybe we can tell her we found another entrance to the…” Eve sighed. “She wouldn’t believe that, would she?”

Not at all.

Eve shrugged. “That’s fine. Having done a good thing is all the reward I need.”

Lumy laughed.

“Speaking of rewards,” Eve said as she leaned in to peer closely at the leyline before her. “I think I might’ve found one.”

Indeed, something sat at the bottom of the torrent, little more than a dark shape amidst the blinding glow of the leyline, but visible nonetheless. At about the size of her head and seemingly perfectly spherical, Eve didn’t need Appraise to figure out what it might’ve been.

“Right at the anchor spot for the enchantment that makes the place dangerous,” Eve muttered to herself, “sounds about right.” She dug into her pocket, removing the cloth bundle containing the eldritch ring and setting it carefully on the ground next to her. “Be right back.”

Lumy sighed. Even as she stops for due diligence, she still manages to find a way to put exp first.

Eve didn’t bother replying to the snark, simply stepping forward and letting the leyline take her. She dissociated the moment the Mana touched her, the lines between what was Eve and what was leyline blurring beyond discernibility. Her consciousness willed itself forth, traveling further into the line until it reached the dark shape. The moment her will brushed against it, a notification appeared.

You have cleared the dungeon: Forgotten Caverns: +2t exp!

If Eve had had a mouth at that particular moment, she would’ve grinned. Instead, she tried to carefully nudge the dungeon core back with her. It didn’t budge.

As it turned out, moving physical objects while personally incorporeal wasn’t, in the most technical sense, possible. Considering all of Eve from her flesh to her armor dissolved on contact with the leyline, it made for quite the conundrum.

Fortunately, the Defiant had something in her possession sturdy enough to withstand the force of all that Mana: a certain griffin-bone club.

What followed was a particularly awkward exercise in forming the bone club, Jetting it in the rough direction of the dungeon core in the half second it was considered still in contact with her, and reabsorbing it once it’d hopefully set the core rolling in the right direction. Lumy, presumably, spent the entire time laughing at Eve’s efforts.

It’s just a dungeon core, Lumy sent after Eve missed for the fourth time. You can leave it.

A high-level dungeon core, Eve corrected, using telepathy in place of the mouth she temporarily didn’t have. It’ll be worth a pretty penny when we get back.

Right! Lumy sent with revelation in her tone. How could I forget? Mana isn’t the only way to distract you from exp. Money works too.

And scones, Eve added. Don’t forget scones.

And scones, Lumy sent.

Actually, Eve realized, scratch that. I think it’d be more accurate to say exp is distracting me from my scones.

Lumy sighed.

It took another ten minutes for Eve’s awkward cross between golf and billiards to successfully roll the dungeon core to a place she could pick it up. With a flare for the dramatic, she reformed her body as she stepped out of the leyline, crafting the appearance of stepping out of a portal. Lumy telepathically sent the concept of slow clapping.

Once the core was successfully secured in her pack and the cursed ring returned to her pocket, Eve led the way back to the main cavern, stopping to give the phallic stalagmite an affectionate pat on the way.

“So,” Eve said as she and Lumy approached the circular vault door, “thoughts on opening this thing?”

Get as much info as we can before cracking it open, Lumy replied immediately. There could be traps hidden in the enchantments that’ll attack, or worse, seal the door permanently. On top of that, any clue as to what’s inside will be valuable. Remember, we came here to investigate. We don’t have to open it.

“Yes, but I want to open it,” Eve replied. She patted the outside of her pocket. “Besides, the sooner we get rid of this cursed-ass ring, the better.”

Just be careful. Whatever’s inside could be dangerous.

Eve shook her head. “We can take dangerous. Misty boy wouldn’t have sent me here if he thought I couldn’t handle whatever’s inside. Also, it’s a vault, not a jail cell. It’s meant to keep people out, not in.”

Maybe he sent you here to die.

“Nah. If he wanted me dead, he could’ve just killed me at the wedding. I was unarmed, unarmored, alone, and way lower level than him.” Eve exhaled. “Either he was telling the truth and he just wants me to get stronger, or he wants whatever’s in this vault. If it’s the latter…” Eve grinned. “It’s gotta be valuable, right?”

And we’re back to the money thing.

“I’m a simple woman,” Eve said. “I like exp because it’s a way to get money. I like money because it’s a way to get scones.”

Just be careful, Lumy repeated herself.

Eve winked. “I topped off my Mana for a reason.” With that she turned away from the phantasmal harvester to focus her attention on the vault itself.

It was an impressive thing. The door glimmered with enchantment that seemed almost Burendian in nature, yet somehow well beyond anything she’d seen at the capital in terms of complexity. As her consciousness ran along the various channels and mechanisms within, Eve developed the growing suspicion that even a professional enchanter would’ve struggled to fully grasp it. Eve was no professional enchanter.

Eve was a queen.

Burendian, pre-Burendian, or something else entirely, the tangled web of magic unfolded before her, bit by bit unbinding the metal door from its frame.

As the entire structure groaned with its first motion in untold years, Eve wondered exactly what alloy could handle such complex and powerful enchantment, concluding that Ar-iron—or even Ar-silver—had to be involved. If only she could pick up the whole vault door and bring it back with her. It’d probably be worth a lot of money, but taking the door away would somewhat defeat the purpose of storing the ring there. Vaults without doors tended to be less secure.

With a screech of metal on metal the likes of which had never before tormented Eve’s poor ears, the vault jerked open. Only a pair of inches stretched between the frame and the ajar door, only a narrow opening revealed the inky black space within, but it was enough.

Eve stood at the ready, prepared for anything from a blaring alarm to a burst of flame to some tentacled monstrosity ripping free and trying its level best to devour her. She wasn’t expecting the fog.

White mist spilled from the hole, floating up to pool on the cavern ceiling before managing to pass through it and vacate the cave entirely. It only took a moment. Eve had no opportunity to blast it with annihilation, no chance to try and steal its Mana, no time to slam the vault shut.

She stared up at the ceiling where the mist had vanished, and cursed. “Loia’s bloody middle finger, that asshole lied to me.”

You think the mist is his?

“It’s gotta be,” Eve answered. “He sent us here.”

Well, it didn’t try to kill us or anything, Lumy replied. I don’t like him keeping information from us, but it doesn’t look like the end of the world.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Eve acknowledged. She leaned in, shining the light of her eyes through the opening of the vault. It was empty. With a shrug, she dug the eldritch ring from her pocket, tossed it inside, and shut the door.

Secondary Quest Complete: The World’s Most Cursed Piece of Loot

Rewards: The Mistlings go free, +3t exp

Level Up!

Statistic Growth Upgraded!

+5 Intelligence/Level

“Welp, that counted for the quest,” Eve said, relaying the contents of the notifications telepathically. “I don’t like the bit about Mistlings going free.”

If it’s considered as a quest reward, it has to be a good thing, right? Lumy asked.

Eve shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Either way, they’re gone, Lumy sent. We’re finished here. Ready to go?

“I guess so,” Eve said, staring off towards the leyline. “I wanna see how much progress Wes and Preston have made on their new house while we were—” She cut off as a crackling sound echoed to her left.

She turned to find a ring of purple light the size of an apple floating at eye level. A slender hand with familiar dark gray skin reached through it, opening up to reveal a folded piece of paper. As Eve grabbed it, the hand gave a friendly wave and vanished back through the miniature portal. A second later, said portal blinked out. Eve unfolded the note.

I finished with your diary. Most of it was a bit pointless, but one bit near the end seemed important. I had to put my Long Range Hand Portal on a three week cooldown to get it to you, but Carl and I figured you’d want to see this.

-Brady Midden

Eve scanned through the included excerpt from the decoded Burendian diary, her eyes widening further and further the more she read. Her heart pounded. Her breath hitched. The entire world seemed to narrow in on the words before her. “Shit shit shit shit shit.”

What is it? Lumy asked. What’s wrong?

Eve mentally beckoned her forward, turning the paper around so Lumy could read for herself. She didn’t wait for the harvester’s own reaction before voicing her conclusion.

“The Man of the Mists wiped out the Burendians, and I think humanity’s next.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

No More Side Quests

DADDY SAYS IT’S all Uncle Calibax’s fault. He keeps saying if Uncle Cal hadn’t researched the all-cleansing Mana, the mist-man wouldn’t be coming for us. Uncle Cal thinks he was plenty careful—he even set up those extra dimens-whatever incursion warnings in the enchantments. Daddy says that wasn’t enough.

I’m scared.

Uncle Cal left three weeks ago with some plan to trap the mist-man’s army, but daddy says that hasn’t stopped him. Uncle Cal is like, the smartest, cleverest person in the world, so if he can’t stop the mist-man, I don’t know who can.

At least the palace is secure. Even better, since Daddy’s evacuated the city, Milio is staying in the palace! His eyes are just the dreamiest thing I…

The excerpt justifiably ended there.

This doesn’t even confirm he wiped out the Burendians, Lumy sent.

“Somebody did,” Eve replied.

And what makes you think humanity’s next.

“Well for one, according to this he went after the Burendians because they were getting close to letting an extra-dimensional entity into our reality. Who else do we know who’s triggered those same extra-dimensional incursion alarms?”

You think he’s after Wes?

“He didn’t just kill Calibax, he killed all the Burendians.”

Which would make him thousands of years old, Lumy argued. You don’t even know it’s the same person. Besides, we don’t have any evidence he wants to wipe out human civilization.

“Actually.” Eve gulped. “We do.” With that she telepathically shared the notification she’d received the moment she’d read the diary passage.

Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: Doom Humanity!

+ 8.576t exp!

Shit.

“We have to stop him.”

How? Lumy asked. We don’t know where he is or what his plan is.

“We know where the humans are, though,” Eve said, already jogging off towards the leyline.

So let’s warn them.

“We’ll get there.” Eve stopped just in front of the leyline. “First, I’m going to need to call in some help. They’ll probably want to kill me even more after today, but Alex’s boss has exactly the kind of firepower we need.”

And how do you intend to find them? Lumy asked. Last time, it took a whole dungeon crawl to a shared quest objective where Alex had chosen to set a trap.

“I just need to meet them,” Eve explained. “I just need to get the message out. It’ll probably take him a while, but I think I know a guy who can handle it. Follow me.” She stored her pack and other valuables in the Burendian crown and stepped into the leyline, allowing the force of its current to disintegrate her body, weapon, and armor. In a blink she emerged, reforming on a railed-off ledge just above a different line. She kicked down the steel door behind her.

The Burendian stronghold where she’d first unlocked Ethereal Manifestation and found the map to the crown was the closest exposed leyline to her destination. Without the need to search for loot or battle any incorporeal Mana wraiths, Eve made it back to the surface in record time.

For a moment she lingered at the cave entrance on the mountainside, considering stopping at the nearby lungeon to warn anyone there, before remembering Alvin and Lina were off on their honeymoon, and nobody else who’d be at the lungeon was likely to care about humanity’s fate. Monsters didn’t exactly have a reputation for saving humans.

So, instead, Eve ran. She blasted down the mountain trail, leaves and grass twirling in the wind as she passed. In the few minutes she had before arriving, the Defiant forced her racing mind to a halt by distracting it with the other two notifications she’d received courtesy of her most recent milestone.

Level Up!

Ability Upgraded!

Active Ability - Jet

X Mana/Sec

Can now be channeled for continuous momentum control!

It was a good upgrade. It was a damn good upgrade. She’d have to test out exactly how much Mana it cost, but the skill offered flight—true flight, not the jerky series of angled launches she’d used thus far. The milestone that granted the ability hadn’t been a happy one, but at this point, Eve would take every advantage she could get.

Perhaps worse, the windfall of exp had placed her at an absolutely tantalizing level ninety-nine. Even four and a half trillion exp away, she could practically taste the level one hundred upgrade. She could only hope she’d make it that long.

Eve slammed the notifications shut and cordoned off thoughts of advancement to the back of her mind as she skidded to a halt outside the entrance to Dragonwrought Hold. She had a half dozen things she needed to do and no idea how long it’d be before the Man of the Mists made his move. She had to act fast.

The first step was to leave a note for Valya. Eve didn’t dare risk awakening any of the aging Dragonwrought, but they deserved to know what was happening. She scribbled a quick missive and left it atop the geriatric guild leader’s latest romance novel. Her next stop was upstairs.

Eve stopped in a small room atop one of the keep’s many spires, sitting at a sparse writing desk within and penning her first message.

Alex,

You were right. I don’t know how much your organization knows, but I can say with confidence the Man of the Mists intends to wipe out humanity just like he did the Burendians. We have to stop him. I don’t know when or how he intends to move, but I’m hoping your people will. The Mistlings are free. I was wrong. I’m sorry.

-Eve

With a heavy hand, Eve folded the message and slipped it into one of the many envelopes sitting in a loose stack at the Dragonwrought missive station. She looked over to the bell that would summon the delivery man, but opted to draft her other messages first.

Preston,

I need your help. Misty boy killed the Burendians, and he’s gunning for humanity now. It may or may not have something to do with Wes. I’m wagering he’ll target Pyrindel first, so head there until I have more info. I don’t need to tell you Wes needs to stay behind. There’ll be fire in the city. Sorry to interrupt your retirement, but humanity’s at stake and all that. See you soon.

-Eve

Folding, enveloping, and sealing it, Eve moved on to the next missive. She drafted two dozen in all, sending the news out to everyone with any amount of power that might prove useful. She spent an hour writing to local leaders of every large human settlement, representatives of all the major mercenary companies, and adventurer’s guilds across the kingdom.

In each, the message was the same. She detailed the nature of the threat, what little she knew about the Man of the Mists and his history, and where she expected he’d strike first. Eve sealed them all with wax impressed with the Burendian royal seal from the base of the Ar-iron letter-opener she’d found. She could only hope it would be enough to catch the attention of those recipients she didn’t know personally. Eve prayed they’d believe her. They had to believe her.

She stopped for a moment to stare at the pile of letters in front of her, eyes falling out of focus as Eve contemplated using the message room for the one purpose she’d used it for the most over the past year. With a knot in her throat, Eve slid over a fresh piece of paper and wrote the words Dear Ma atop.

Eve spent some time gazing down at the blank paper, mind spinning as she scrambled for something to say. Nothing quite fit. ‘Hey, ma, I may or may not have inadvertently caused the downfall of humanity’ didn’t exactly feel like a letter worth sending. Did Martha Greene need to know what was happening? Strictly speaking, no. Informing her of the danger would only make her worry.

But maybe she had a right to know. Maybe everyone did. It irked Eve, realizing that any given person may or may not wish to know of humanity’s potential end, and she couldn’t ask their preference without revealing the truth. One could say the letter she ended up writing was selfish, that it put her own desire not to make her mother worry over Martha’s best interests, or even those of the citizens of Nowherested. One could also call it a mercy.

Dear Ma,

I wanted to let you know that I’m doing well. I hit level ninety-nine today—one hundred is so close! Unfortunately, Art’s da wasn’t able to help Wes, so he and Preston had to retire. By the time you get this letter, you may have already seen him. Don’t believe anything he says about me. They’re lies. All lies.

Luckily, I’m not alone. Lumy stayed back with me. Oh, I can talk to her now! Telepathy is pretty neat. We’ve already had one adventure together, and there’ll be at least one more. I’ll come visit once it’s over. I promise.

Anyway, I hope things are going well back home. Has Mr. Honsan finally stopped bothering you about the hole in his socks? I can have a chat with him when I get back if you want me to.

I love you, and I’ll see you soon.

-Eve

It felt wrong, acting like everything was okay, but Eve couldn’t bring herself to write anything else. Maybe, at the moment, everything wasn’t okay, but it would be. She could still fix this.

Once she’d individually addressed her oversized stack of letters, Eve grabbed the silver bell off the writing desk and gave it a single ring.

“You again,” growled the familiar voice.

Eve smiled at the shadowy form. “It’s a lot, I know, but these are urgent. Extremely urgent.” She shoved the messages towards him. “Just short of thirty shadowgrams in there. Rounding up and adding fifty percent to make sure these get out now, I’m counting a hundred gold.” Eve pulled ten inscribed, ten-gold plates from her pack. She handed them over.

The man grunted, not trying to negotiate above the already outlandishly large sum of money she’d just given him. “What’s so urgent?”

“The potential end of humanity?”

The figure nodded. “That’d do it.”

Falling for the same trick for the eighteenth time, Eve opened her mouth to say thanks only to find the figure, letters, gold, and all, had already vanished from the shadowy corner. She exhaled.

Stepping back out from the shadowgram office, Eve found Lumy floating in the air above the stairway.

Done?

Eve nodded. “The word is out. All that’s left is to hope Alex’s people and the other black pieces have more info for us. They’ve been worse than misty boy about hiding shit. I mean, seriously, they could’ve at least told me he wanted to end humanity.”

They might not have known, Lumy offered. And if they had, would you have believed them? On the face of it, it sounds like an obvious lie.

Eve sighed. “It explains why Mila was willing to hold Alex hostage to stop me. I’d go to extremes to save humanity too.”

Well, now you know, Lumy sent, trying to include a sense of comfort in her tone. You’ve done what you can here, and it’s not too late to stop this.

“You’re right,” Eve said. “We’re finished here. If they respond with a shadowgram, he’ll be able to find me anywhere, and if they come looking for me… it’d be best we meet where misty boy is most likely to attack first. We can even spend any downtime helping bolster the defenses.”

A wise choice, Lumy replied. There’s always more we can be doing, and at least for now, there’s a clear place to be doing it.

Eve nodded, her jaw setting in a look of determination as she led the way through the bowels of Dragonwrought Hold towards the exit.

It was time to return to Pyrindel.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Commanding Presence

EVE AND LUMY hovered in the air above the city of Pyrindel, appearing, incorporeal as they were, to be no more than a particularly bright cloud to anyone below. I missed this place, Eve sent.

It smells like shit, Lumy replied.

You don’t have a nose, Eve snapped back. Besides you’re thinking of Lynthia. Lynthia smells like shit. Pyrindel smells like piss.

Ah. Of course. How could poor old me without my nose ever hope to distinguish between two such important smells. As if her tone wasn’t enough, Lumy sent the message alongside an image of a bright flashing sign that read ‘sarcasm.’

So, how do we go about this? Eve asked. I’ve never done the whole fugitive-returns-to-save-them-all thing before.

That’s an oddly specific thing for anyone to have done before, Lumy replied. But might I suggest just walking in? You know, the way a normal human being would?

But I’m not a normal human being, Eve sent.

We both know you’re not normal, Lumy sent.

Hey!

But, the phantasm continued, big, dramatic entrances are the kind of thing people who are hiding shit do.

That’s not entirely true, Eve argued. They’re also the kind of thing people with style do.

Lumy sighed.

Fine, fine, I’ll walk in through the front gate, Eve sent, floating slowly towards the northern edge of the city. The last time she’d walked through those gates, it’d been as the only sober person in Pyrindel, desperately trying to shepherd a drunken party out of jail. She hoped a year later, the people didn’t hold that against her.

So it was that with a rising sense of trepidation and a disappointing lack of anything happening, Eve reformed her body in the outskirts and stepped into the line of travelers awaiting admission into the grand capital of Leshk.

A few of the various peasants, merchants, and local adventurers gave her curious looks, but given Appraise’s inability to distinguish between a level fifty and a level ninety-nine, nobody in the queue was strong enough to truly realize Eve’s strength. Most probably assumed she was just another newly minted tier 4 come to apply for the mercenary companies for the first time.

Those few that did glean her class seemed not to comment on it, though Eve was sure that would change by the time the guards saw her. As per usual, people surpassed her expectations.

“There’s an Emissary behind us!” Eve overheard a man whisper up ahead.

“She doesn’t look like an Emissary,” a woman replied.

“You mean like that spy who fought in the tournament last year?” a second man asked.

Eve cursed.

Lumy laughed. I guess they remember you.

To be fair, I did make a splash. Something about having style, Eve sent back.

The whispers continued. More and more, Eve caught people in line failing to hide the craning of their necks and blue light in their eyes. She exhaled. So much for not making a dramatic entrance. What do I do?

They’re Appraising you as an Emissary, right? Lumy asked. Maybe you should change that.

Eve snapped her fingers. Right. I’m getting attention anyway, may as well be for something else than what I did a year ago.

With a thought, Eve materialized the crown of Burendia upon her head, allowing it to take its naturally bulky, spiky, and overly ostentatious form. Her pack fell out of thin air directly into her arms. She slipped it over her shoulder.

The change in the crowd came quickly.

“I thought you said she was an Emissary,” a man three places down in line said.

“She is!”

“No, she’s…”

From her spot near the back of the queue, Eve couldn’t tell who was the first to fall to their knees. She could only watch the wave of people following suit.

Behind her plastered-on smile, Eve groaned. Bad idea, Lumy, she sent. Now the line’s not moving.

Then make it move, Lumy sent back. You’re not their queen, but you are a queen. You’re also triple their level, not that they know that.

Doing her best Emily-being-imperious impression, Eve channeled Mana through her throat to amplify her voice as she called out to the queue of bowing people. “Rise.”

Her command boomed across the open field, bouncing off the nearby farmhouses and the city wall ahead to echo back with just as much vigor as it had come. The forcefulness of the word surprised Eve—she had more experience with unearned overconfidence than the cool comfort of true dominion, but another event surprised her even more.

The people obeyed.

In a single, fluid motion, the mass of merchants, farmers, visitors, and tourists came to their feet, heads still bowed as if to avoid looking Eve straight in the eye. As one, the queue parted down the middle, hand carts and ox-pulled wagons and horse-drawn carriages alike shifting to the side to make way, make way.

Make way for the queen.

Eve blinked. Is it just me, or did that work a little too well?

We can discuss this later, Lumy replied back, urgency in her voice. You’re playing a part now, remember?

Right, right, Eve sent, forcefully stopping herself from nodding her head. She didn’t want to know how the mass of over-eager commoners would react to that. Truth be told, she had no idea how they’d react to anything she did, but doing anything other than walking down the path they’d made her felt wrong.

So, walk she did.

Mutters of “your majesty” and “welcome to Pyrindel” reached her ears as Eve strode down the dirt road towards the city gates. She kept her face cool and soft, forcing herself to keep her eyes forward rather than staring at the people around her. Ahead, the gates stood open, the watchmen standing guard bustling about in preparation for her arrival. None of them bowed.

It wasn’t until she set foot on the cobblestone beneath the portcullis that Eve saw her first familiar face.

Pyrindel’s Minister of Internal Defense stared her down. “Evelia Greene, you’re under arrest for crimes including, but not limited to, impersonating a foreign dignitary, criminal espionage, and telepathic assault upon the people of Pyrindel.”

Eve exhaled sharply through her nose. “Nice to see you too, Lestrad. You got here quick.”

“Getting here quick is my job,” Lestrad said. Without turning his eyes away from Eve, he raised a hand and snapped his fingers. “Bind her.”

Eve snorted. “Good luck with that. I need to speak with Emily. This city is in danger.”

“Of course the city is in danger. You’re here.”

“Not from me, dumbass,” Eve replied with the absolute height of wit. “Somebody’s coming, somebody powerful and backed by an army. The city needs to prepare.”

“Petty insults already,” Lestrad commented. “I see you’re no better at impersonating a Monarch than you were an Emissary.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t have to impersonate being a queen, then.”

“Where are those bindings?” Lestrad snapped at the men behind him.

“Don’t bother,” Eve commanded them over his shoulder. “They won’t hold me.”

“They’ll hold anyone,” Lestrad growled, jerking his hand forward in a gesture to his men. “These cuffs are enchanted Ar-iron, built to suppress tier fives. Unless you’re faking that too, you’re still tier four.”

“Barely,” Eve huffed, still a bit disgruntled to be stuck at level ninety-nine. She rolled her eyes. “This is a waste of time. You’re holding up traffic through the city gates.”

Lestrad displayed no intention of moving.

Eve sighed. “Alright,” she said, holding out her arms to be bound. “Let’s get this over with.”

Two queensguards, uncertainty in their eyes, stepped forth to wrap the Ar-iron cuffs around Eve’s wrists. They clicked shut.

You have been suppressed!

Eve had to stop herself from smirking as she mentally commanded the enchantments on the Ar-iron to ignore her.

You are no longer being suppressed!

Lestrad failed to realize his precious suppression enchantments had already lost. “Very good. Now, come with me. Our enchanters have been hard at work ever since you pulled your little stunt. You won’t be escaping this time.”

Don’t laugh, Eve repeated to herself. Don’t laugh.

This is the guy who captured you before? Lumy sent. He’s a bit of a buffoon, isn’t he?

To be fair, he already had the others locked up when he came for me, Eve sent back. I couldn’t just leave them there.

As Lestrad and his contingent of queensguards led Eve through the streets of Pyrindel, she mentally debated the merits of taking the cuffs off immediately or waiting until they arrived. She didn’t like letting the people of Pyrindel see her in chains, but Lestrad was so confident in his enchantments he was taking her straight to the palace. Letting him think he had her seemed to be working out so far.

Besides, Eve’s dramatic streak screamed that now wasn’t the time to slip her bounds.

So, um, Lumy sent, what exactly is your plan here?

What’s a plan? Eve replied. I’ve never heard that word in my life.

Lumy blinked irritated red.

Eve chuckled at her own joke. I don’t know. Playing along with this whole prisoner thing seems to be working so far. With any luck, he’ll take me straight to Emily.

I thought you said he didn’t last time.

True, but last time I couldn’t just walk away whenever I wanted to, Eve sent back. She shrugged. We’ll see where he takes us and play it by ear.

That doesn’t make any sense, Lumy said. If your plan is to see where he takes us, wouldn’t we be playing it by eye?

Well, considering you have neither ears nor eyes, you’d be what… playing it by extrasensory perception? I’m sticking with my version.

Eve allowed the telepathic conversation to come to an end as Lestrad and his men led them through increasingly familiar streets. To her left, Eve spotted the coliseum she’d spent so much time fighting in, to her right, a tavern with particularly tasty spiced wine. The two were equally important as far as she was concerned.

A number of passersby stopped to gawk at the procession, but unless they were a great deal taller than the average human, Eve’s five-foot-nothing form somewhat disappeared behind the wall of bulky queensguards surrounding her. Eve supposed that was a good thing. As far as most of the citizenry would know, she’d had a royal escort rather than an arrest.

True to expectation, Lestrad had built his super special prison cell somewhere in the bowels of the royal palace, no doubt directly below wherever he and his men worked. Guards saluted and stepped aside as he approached, opening any and all doors for him and his procession.

He led them in through a side door, escorting Eve down a narrow hallway with gilded baseboards, lusciously red carpeting, and priceless works of art upon the walls—a particularly spartan passage by royal palace standards.

Eve stopped for a moment to smile and appreciate the ambience, taking in everything from the warm glow of Mana lights to the subtle smell of the morning’s fresh pastries in the air. She’d missed this, the luxury.

Unlike her previous stay at the royal palace, this time Eve noticed something else: the enchantments. The place was crawling with them, everything from defensive enchantments to halt an incursion to an especially complicated weave of magic for protecting the paint on the walls from sun damage.

A million passageways opened themselves up to Eve, every inch of the palace ran with Mana, and everywhere the Mana ran, so too could Eve. With any luck, she wouldn’t need it.

Before she’d even set foot in the place, Eve had cast her consciousness out as far as it would, carefully cataloguing every mind she came into contact with. Of course, she lacked anything remotely resembling the range or influence Art could exert, but she didn’t need to control anybody. She just needed to find the right person.

About ten minutes into her guided walk through the palace backrooms, she finally came into range.

Long time, no see.

Eve? a familiar voice replied over the stretched telepathic connection.

This time Eve couldn’t fathom keeping the grin from her face as she sent her answer.

Hello, Emily. We need to talk.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Making an Entrance

I GOT YOUR shadowgram, Emily sent, taking to telepathic communication surprisingly easily. How much danger are we in? Where are you?

A shitload of danger, Eve replied. We’re in a shitload of danger. As for where I am… your buddy Lestrad is giving me a guided tour of his brand new secret prison cell. I’m excited to see it.

Godsdamnit, Emily cursed. I specifically instructed him to let me know if you showed up. He probably thinks he’s going above and beyond delivering you already locked up.

Do you wanna free him from that delusion? I’ve got this whole dramatic moment planned that won’t work if I have to break out of jail first.

I’ve already sent someone to talk to him, Emily replied. In the meantime, don’t break out of jail.

Easy words to say for someone who’s not about to be put in jail, Eve sent.

Emily exhaled. Just try and commit as few crimes as possible between now and when I see you, okay? I want to have a chance to throw you in prison myself.

I’ll try, Eve sent, but no promises. I keep imagining the look on Lestrad’s face when I slip his precious enchantments.

Emily shut the connection herself.

“Damn royals and their defenses against telepathy,” Eve muttered to herself. “I had like three more jokes I wanted to tell.”

I think you’ll get your chance soon enough, Lumy replied.

“It’s not the same,” Eve lamented. “They require context.”

No, look. Someone’s coming.

Sure enough, a young page clad in royal colors that he’d outgrown some months ago raced up to Lestrad and stood on his toes to whisper in the minister’s ear. Lestrad cursed.

Their procession came to a halt. “It would seem,” Lestrad said through clenched teeth, “that her majesty has become aware of your presence.”

“Oh, really?” Eve asked, her voice sickeningly sweet. “I wonder how that might’ve happened.”

Lestrad took a deep and tense breath. “It seems the rest of your life rotting in prison will have to wait while the queen satisfies her curiosity. Follow me.”

Eve didn’t even try to stop herself from smiling at Lestrad’s displeasure, playing up the grin to taunt him further with her glee. He angrily twirled on his heel and stomped off down the hall, signaling Eve and his guards to follow.

Follow, they did.

Lestrad practically threw open a pair of grandiose mahogany doors to reveal a wide-open chamber beyond, complete with vaulted ceilings, grand marble pillars, and noblemen and petitioners milling about. That last bit all stopped, of course, when Eve stepped in.

She recognized the throne room when she saw it. Apparently, in all her comedic good luck, Eve had managed to catch Emily in the middle of holding court. Eve grinned.

It was perfect.

The crowd of courtiers parted as Lestrad led her down the center of the cavernous chamber. Nobles and dignitaries alike stared wide-eyed at both the crown on Eve’s head and the shackles around her wrists. A number of blue-flashing eyes confirmed her status as monarch.

Queen Emily Elric sat atop a marble throne, her back straight as an arrow and her feet planted on the dais beneath her as she gazed imperiously at the proceedings below.

Lestrad bowed. His men bowed. The page who’d delivered Emily’s message bowed.

Eve smiled and waved through her manacles.

Lumy sighed.

Eve liked to think she caught the slightest upturn at the corner of Emily’s mouth. She could work with that. Whatever everybody else in this room might’ve thought about her, she only had to convince one person. Luckily enough, it was the one person she used to be close friends with.

After the tense silence had been allowed to sit in the air for a good forty seconds or so, Emily finally addressed her court. “Late last night, I received a rather troubling shadowgram. This morning, I’m unsurprised to find its sender standing before me in chains. I am surprised to find her in a crown as well. It remains to be seen if the latter is as well deserved as the former.”

“Gods, I should hope so,” Eve blurted out. “Do you have any idea how many dungeons I had to clear for this thing?”

A wave of whispers spread throughout the court.

Emily exhaled. “I’ll have to hear that story. Regardless of how it came to be in your possession, it is clear your title is as real as my own.”

That set Eve blinking. She’d entirely expected everyone to think she’d faked her Appraisal as Monarch Ascendent in the same way she’d faked being an Emissary. For a moment, her mind reeled at the idea it had been this easy, before remembering a bit of text she’d overlooked when she’d first found the Burendian crown.

Serves as proof of identity and station.

Eve grinned.

“If I may speak, your majesty,” Lestrad pleaded, head still bowed but eyes looking up. At Emily’s nod, he continued. “Evelia Greene is a known spy and enemy of Leshk. Just fourteen months ago she and her companions undertook a telepathic attack that cost the city of Pyrindel hundreds of thousands of gold in lost commerce and property damage, let alone the emotional toll on the populace. Cryptic shadowgrams and ancient relics aside, this criminal cannot be unchained in…” He trailed off as he noticed a slight smile stretch across Emily’s face. She wasn’t looking at him.

In a furor, Lestrad whirled around to find Eve’s crown had grown a single, particularly long spire, around which his precious Ar-iron manacles currently spun like a propeller.

“What?” At last he lost his decorum. “How?”

Eve flashed a wide smile as she tilted her head back and forth to keep the shackles spinning. “It’s magic.” Honestly, she also sent to Lumy. I have no idea how any of these people thought I was an Emissary for so long. I mean, look at me!

Lumy groaned. You’re not exactly acting very queenlike either.

That’s the trick, Eve replied. Queens act however they damn well please.

The court, not privy to Eve and Lumy’s exchange, didn’t know what to do. Some nobles backed away in a panic now that Lestrad’s dangerous prisoner had escaped, while others leaned in with curiosity. Some stared aghast at the childishness of it all, while others placed their hands over their mouths to politely cover their laughter. Eve decided she liked them the most.

Emily openly chuckled. That’s why she was Eve’s favorite.

“I see you’ve been busy this past year,” the queen finally said. “I take it we lack the enchanting prowess to ever dream of containing you.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it.” Eve winked at Lestrad. “Nobody has, has ever had, or ever will have the enchanting prowess to ever contain me. Your subjects are humans. Mine are enchantments.”

Emily nodded, connecting the made-up nation Eve had once claimed to be Emissary of with her comment about clearing dungeons to find the crown. “Burendia.”

Eve snapped her fingers. “Got it in one.”

Well past the point in the conversation where it was necessary, Emily launched into the formal greeting reserved for visiting Monarchs. “Queen Evelia Greene of the great nation of Burendia, we welcome you to Leshk with open arms. May our kingdoms lift each other up to heights unknown and find harmony in our differences.”

“Yeah, that,” Eve replied, only half paying attention to the flowery greeting. “Can we get onto the important shit now?”

Eve! Lumy sent. You’re in court! You can’t swear in court!

What part of ‘queens act however they damn well please’ did you not get? Eve sent back.

“Ah, yes, your shadowgram,” Emily said. “A disturbing piece of news if it’s to be believed. Perhaps you could fill the court in on your discovery.”

“Sure,” Eve said, making a distinct point to act as casually as she could. She pointed up to her crown. “This should probably aid my credibility when I say I found out what happened to the Burendians. He calls himself The Man of the Mists, he’s higher level than I am, at least a few thousand years old, and he’s got his sights set on humanity.”

She went on to provide a bit of background information to the courtiers, including how she’d first come to know misty boy—a nickname she didn’t use in front of the court—how she’d tracked down the ancient Burendian capital, and the decoded diary she’d found there. She did mention that his army had escaped its prison underground, but tactically left out where it was or that she’d been the one to let it out.

When she finished, the throne room sat quiet.

Courtiers stared. Some paled. Some grit their teeth.

Only Emily could break this silence. “After all the lies you’ve told in this very palace, why should we believe you now? A crown may grant weight to one’s words, but it itself carries no credibility.”

Eve sighed. “Believe me, I wish this weren’t true either. As I hope you’ve seen…” She paused to tilt her head around, causing the manacles that had come to rest to spin around once more. “I’m powerful enough to take pretty much anything I want from you. But I can’t take your help. The Man of the Mists… I can’t fight him alone. The organization working against him can’t fight him alone. The Burendians were better than us at a lot of things by a country mile, and they couldn’t fight him alone. This is gonna take all of us.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Lestrad snarled. “Or lying, like you usually do? This city can’t afford another incident like your attack last year.”

“It can’t afford being wiped off the map by a high-level asshole, either,” Eve snapped. She waved Lestrad away, directing her focus towards the only person who mattered. “Emily. Look into my eyes.”

Emily squinted.

“Okay,” Eve corrected, “look into the bright lights where my eyes should be. I know I’ve lied to you before, and I’m really, truthfully sorry about that, but I wouldn’t be here if this weren’t important. I don’t know if we can win this, but we don’t stand a chance if you don’t listen to me.”

The words hung in the air for some time, the silence only dented by the shuffling of feet and the odd whisper here and there. Eve’s sharp ears caught it all, but truth be told she didn’t care about the courtiers’ indecisiveness. She stared up at Emily, hope and desperation clashing on her face.

At last, the queen of Leshk spoke.

“General Mollick,” she said to the aging man in resplendent armor to her right, “draft a battle plan for defending the city from this Man of the Mists. Minister Oglian, evacuate the countryside. Get every noncombatant you can inside the city walls as soon as possible.”

Lestrad opened his mouth to protest, but Emily beat him to it.

“Minister Lestrad, I think you’ve done enough. I know that mind of yours didn’t forget my direct order to bring Queen Evelia directly to me upon her arrival this morning. Take the rest of the day to reflect on who rules in Pyrindel.”

Lestrad reddened, but remained silent. He had enough self-control to manage that.

A chorus of hushed tones took the throne room by storm as the assembled nobles and petitioners reeled over Emily’s decision. It fell silent when she opened her mouth once more.

“Your majesty,” Emily said to the only other person in the room worthy of the title, “please accept our formal apology for the way Minister Lestrad has treated you. Burendia is and will always be a friend to Leshk.”

Eve winked. “No worries. I get excited to play with new toys too.”

Emily exhaled, but otherwise blew past Eve’s overly casual reply. “If you would be so kind, it would be a great help if you could fill General Mollick in on everything you know about the threat we face. Every detail could make the difference.”

“Of course.” Eve nodded.

“And once you’re finished,” Emily said, a hint of a smile stretching across her otherwise stony face, “I’d like you to fill me in on everything else that’s happened in the past year. It sounds like you’ve quite the story to tell.”

Eve didn’t hint at a smile. She beamed brightly up at the queen on her throne. “I think that can be arranged.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Like Old Times

EVE AWOKE TO the intensely familiar experience of a throbbing hangover and the noise of somebody pounding on her door.

You have a visitor.

“Lumy,” Eve groaned, “I can hear that. Why are you in my room?”

Well, like I said, where exactly I am is more a matter of opinion.

“Well right now it’s my opinion that I never invited you in here.”

Alright, alright, Lumy sent. The pounding at the door continued. I just figured someone should make sure you actually answer that before he wakes up the whole wing.

“Wait,” Eve said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Who did you say it was?”

Some steward, Lumy replied. Whatever he wants, it seems to be urgent.

By the time Lumy had finished the thought, Eve was already halfway across the room. Without a thought for her impressive bedhead or half-undressed state, she swung the door open to reveal a face she knew well.

“Charles!” Eve greeted the Steward. “How’ve you been?”

“Your majesty,” the poor man fell into one of his classically way-too-deep bows at Eve’s arrival. “I have been doing well, however, I have an urgent message for—”

“Ooh, what’s that?” Eve cut him off, pointing down at a gilded pin in his lapel. “Did you make second Steward? Congratulations!”

“My thanks, your majesty,” Charles said, head still bowed. “I fear at the moment, however, there’s a bit of chaos down at—”

Eve waved him off. “There’s always a bit of chaos somewhere. That’s how this works. What’ve you been up to?”

“Apologies, majesty,” the Steward said, finally straightening his neck and looking Eve in the eye. “I would be honored to regale you with the details of my unexciting life, but at the moment the palace gate is under assault.”

“What?” Eve froze. “Already? How did he get to the palace? What happened to the city?”

“It would appear they flew over the city,” Charles said. “The—um… the man says he knows you, but the dragon won’t let anybody escort him away.”

Eve blinked. “The drag—oh!” She let out a laugh. “You almost had me there. It’s not a dragon, it’s a drake. His wings are these weird phantasmal constru—wait. Preston’s here!” She rushed past the flustered Steward into the hallway beyond, taking off across the velvet carpet as Charles scurried after her. Lumy floated along overhead, snickering at something.

“What’s so funny?”

Charles frowned. “Nothing, your majesty.”

“Not you,” Eve said, looking up at Lumy. “Her.”

Charles blinked at the three floating lights. “That’s alive?”

“Strictly speaking, no,” Eve answered. “But then again, neither am I.” She stopped at juncture in the hallway. “Which gate are they at?”

“Northeast,” Charles answered succinctly, wise enough not to ask any further questions.

Eve strode onward, wondering as she caught a glimpse of herself how she’d ended up sleeping in her boots and leg armor while her cuirass was nowhere to be seen. She hastily tucked her wrinkled undershirt back in. Preston and Reginald had, of course, seen her far, far worse—she shuddered at the thought—but the royal guards and anyone else who might’ve awaited out front hadn’t. She did need them to take her seriously.

When Eve finally reached the northeast exit, she stepped through the unlocked door to find the courtyard occupied by three regiments of queensguards, each pointing their spears towards the locked gates. Preston stood on the other side, his hands raised in a deescalating position. Reginald towered over it all, worsening the situation by doing his best to look as intimidating as possible.

They don’t recognize me! the drake complained the moment Eve stepped outside. How do they not recognize me? He jerked his snout in the general direction of one of the guards. I used to play cards with that guy!

Eve snorted. “It’s probably because you’re six times the size and have wings now,” she answered audibly, pulling the attention of the guards.

“Your majesty,” a woman dressed in a marginally fancier uniform addressed her, “you know them?”

“Yeah, of course,” Eve said. “They stayed here with me for like three months.” She cast her eyes from side to side, catching a series of suppressed snickers among the guards, a number of which covered their mouths as if to try and stop themselves from laughing. At the moment, Eve didn’t care enough to try and figure out why.

The guard captain managed to maintain her decorum. “Alright, men!” she barked. “Her majesty’s vouched for ‘em. Open the gates and get back to your posts!”

It took a second for the guards to jump into action, but the intensity of the order snapped them back to seriousness well enough. By the time the gates were open, all but a few had vanished from the courtyard. Eve paid them no mind.

She ran up to the open gate, wrapping Preston in a great hug when she reached him. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s been like a week,” Preston replied, returning her embrace nonetheless. “A busy week, judging by your shadowgram.”

“You have no idea,” Eve said, pulling away. “We broke into a hive mind bank, watched some zombies go bowling, I may or may not have doomed humanity, and Lumy stole my exp.”

I feel like one of those things is a lot worse than the others, Lumy sent.

“Yeah,” Eve snapped. “Exp theft is no joke.”

Preston laughed. “I—um… I see you had a good time last night.”

“In my defense, I didn’t have a chance to get dressed before Charles dragged me out here to defuse this situation,” Eve said. “Emily and I got into some apple brandy while we caught up. We were up a bit late, and when I finally did make it to bed it was the first time I’d slept since you and Wes left so I slept in and…” She trailed off. “You’re not talking about my outfit, are you?”

Preston snorted. Lumy laughed.

Reginald, of them all, was the one to actually tell her.

You’ve got a penis on your forehead.

Eve’s eyes shot open as she slapped a hand across her forehead to cover the marking up. “Shit.”

That was enough to send Preston and Reginald into the same fit of laughter that had consumed Lumy already, the former doubling over as Eve’s face grew increasingly redder.

With a thought, the Defiant dissociated her entire head and reformed it with the Mana lines back where they should be, just to be certain drunk Eve hadn’t left sober Eve any more surprises. “Okay,” she breathed, “I may have been showing off my minor shapeshifting to Emily a bit last night.” Eve exhaled. “Gods, I walked through the entire palace like that. There were forty guards out here!”

“Forty-six,” Preston corrected. “Don’t worry about it. Honestly after the news you’ve given them, the people probably needed something silly to happen.”

Eve sighed. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

“Here’s another,” Preston offered. “At least now they’ll be talking about this rather than spreading rumors about you and Emily hooking up.”

Eve shrugged. “What kind of good friends don’t make people think they’re a little gay?”

Preston chuckled. “Good point. Everyone thinks my best friend and I are gay. I mean… we’re getting married, but still. Weird of them to assume.”

Eve laughed, placing a hand on Preston’s arm. “It is good to see you,” she said. “I wish it were under better circumstances.”

“The world always needs saving,” Preston replied. “It’s part of the job description.”

“I just wish we had more information. He could come tomorrow; he could come next year. He might not even come for Pyrindel. We could be wasting our time here only to get the news that Lynthia’s fallen.”

Preston nodded. “We’re doing everything we can. The good news is, fog isn’t known for rolling in particularly quickly. That diary passage you mentioned seemed to imply the Burendians knew he was coming for some time. If he sets his sights somewhere else, you’ll have time to run there.”

“I hope so,” Eve said. “I spent yesterday afternoon with General Mollick, going through what we can expect from the Man of the Mists and what the local forces can do about it. It’s not much. If that mist that escaped from the vault is an army, it’s possible that the army and any adventurers we can recall can fight it, but you can’t stab a cloud of mist.”

“There are other ways to stop it, though,” Preston said.

Eve nodded. “There are enchantments encircling the entire city, but I don’t have much faith in them. If the Burendians couldn’t stop him, any enchantment we make doesn’t have a chance.”

“Is there something you could do?”

“I already am,” Eve said. “This afternoon I’m supposed to meet with the enchanters’ guild. They have more expertise than I do, but theoretically I can command the city’s enchantments to be better focused on the Man of the Mists. Mollick doesn’t want me to, though. Says it’d leave the city too undefended from other threats.”

“There aren’t any other threats,” Preston countered. “Not that all the forces gathered here can’t handle.”

“We don’t know that. When I spoke with him at the wedding, misty boy mentioned a partner. I don’t know anything about them, but I’ll bet they don’t use mist magic. Every bit of extra defense against the enemy we know is less defense against the enemy we don’t.”

“Sounds like a headache.”

“It is,” Eve said plainly. “Mollick put the word out to watch for any strangely behaving fog; with any luck, some of the adventurers still in the field will run into him. He hides well, but the giant cloud of mist he uses to do it isn’t exactly inconspicuous.”

“That’s something,” Preston said. “In the meantime… what can I help with?”

“Honestly, just having you here is a help,” Eve said. “Obviously you’ll be useful when it comes to the fight. Even if it’s just me and a few other high-levels fighting misty boy, healing is always needed.”

“I can do that.”

“Before then…” Eve exhaled. “You’re not gonna like it.”

“You want me to talk to the church.” Preston knew her request before she voiced it.

“I know you’re not fond of them,” Eve said, “but you’ve got a better chance of getting them to take this threat seriously than I do. Than anyone, really. You’re one of maybe three people alive who’ve actually met Ayla.”

Preston sighed. “Alright, I’ll talk to them. But if they try to rope me into any weird religious ceremonies, I’m letting the Man of the Mists wipe them out.”

Eve laughed. “No you aren’t.”

“No.” Preston shook his head. “But a man can dream.”

As if to punctuate his point, the cobblestone courtyard quaked beneath their feet. A shout rang out from the other side of the palace, and guards all around took off at a run towards the source of the commotion. Eve glanced up at Lumy.

Alright, alright, I’ll take a look. With that, Lumy shot straight through the walls of the palace so quick that her image seemed to linger in the air for a moment after she disappeared. An image of two women climbing out of a hole in the ground flashed into Eve’s head.

Preston blinked, clearing having received Lumy’s message as well. “Is that…”

“Oh good,” Eve said. “Perfect timing, really.” She held out an open hand to Preston, gesturing him forward. “Shall we?”

“Do we have a choice?”

“Not really,” Eve said, already taking off towards the courtyard in question. “Besides, I came out here to greet you, didn’t I? It’d be rude if I didn’t do the same for Alex.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The Same Side

EVE HAD EXPECTED all sorts of responses to Alex and Mila popping out of a hole in the ground in the middle of a palace courtyard. After seeing the guards react to Reginald’s appearance, a circle of spears leveled at the new arrivals would’ve made sense. Since, by nature of their arrival point, Alex and Mila had already made it past the gates, Eve would’ve understood if the queensguards had established some sort of defensive perimeter around them. Alternatively, for the same reason, she might’ve expected the guards to attack outright.

Eve hadn’t even imagined that she, Preston, Reginald, and Lumy would round the corner to find row after row of palace guards on their knees before She Beneath the Earth.

What the hells? Eve silently asked the others. They dragged me in in chains and they kneel for her? She’s not even a queen!

She’s also not a wanted criminal, Lumy rattled back.

“Evelia Greene,” Mila’s gravel voice scraped through the courtyard, “explain to me why I shouldn’t kill you where you stand.”

Eve cracked a lopsided smile. “Because we both know I’d escape.”

“I don’t see a leyline.”

“I said escape, not kill you,” Eve clarified.

Mila glared at her, the dark holes in her obsidian flesh where eyes should’ve been conveying more than enough disdain. She growled.

“What happened, Eve?” Alex asked. “Why are we here?”

Eve shrugged. “I basically told you everything in my shadowgram. His army’s out, he’s coming for humanity, I don’t know if we can stop him.”

“We will.” The confidence in Mila’s voice spread through the kneeling queensguards. “We’ve stopped him before, we’ll do it again.”

Preston stepped forward. “What I want to know, actually, is why you never deigned to tell us what the Man of the Mists wanted. This all could’ve been so much easier if you’d fucking talked to us.”

“We didn’t know,” Alex breathed.

Mila sighed. “Every century or so, he tries to pull something. His goal is different every time—usually with the end result of destabilizing my organization—but without fail his plans end in mass casualties. We keep memory crystals from witnesses of all his attacks, show them to all new recruits so they know exactly what we’re up against. Alex wanted to show you.”

Eve blinked. “But you wouldn’t let her.”

“I would have if you hadn’t trapped us in that ruin,” Mila growled. “Good people died while I was stuck down there.”

“To be fair,” Eve pointed out, “you did try and trap me first.”

“We’re getting nowhere,” Alex snapped. “You wouldn’t have believed anything we said without the memory crystals, and you never would’ve come with us to see them of your own will.”

“Well maybe if you hadn’t skipped straight to putting a collar around my neck, I would have.”

The courtyard went quiet.

Eve’s heart pounded. A cocktail of emotions fueled by rage and adrenaline coursed through her. This was all Alex’s fault. This entire, gods-damned, apocalyptic mess never would’ve happened if Alex had just fucking talked to her.

“I know,” Alex exhaled. “I’m sorry. When I saw those memories, when I saw what he’d done and that you were working for him and hadn’t told me, I felt…” She let out a breath. “I guess I felt the same way you feel right now. You were the first person I trusted after what happened to my old team, and you turned right around and betrayed that trust.”

Alex shut her eyes, shook her head, and took in a deep breath. “I know I should’ve told you about Mila, about the black rook, about the memory crystals, everything, the moment I found you at the lungeon. I was just so angry, and now everything’s fucked, and I just… I want you to know that even if we manage to survive what’s coming, I’m never going to live down the part I had in it.”

Eve swallowed back the knot in her throat, blinking back the first moisture of a tear that had yet to form. “Me neither.”

The crisp snap of someone taking a bite from a fresh, juicy apple shattered the tense silence. A familiar voice spoke up from behind Eve. “Now that we’re done talking about our feelings, you think we can move on to the looming threat of mass extinction?”

Eve whirled around to find her old nemesis leaning casually against the palace wall, half-eaten apple in hand. She sighed. “Of course you’re with them.”

The woman, for once away from her usual spot behind the desk at somehow every adventurer’s guild office in every city, winked at Eve. “I do like living, yes.”

Eve glanced back at Alex. “How is it that every asshole I’ve ever met ended up on your side?”

“We’re on the same side,” Alex said.

“I’m the asshole?” the guild clerk asked. “Last I checked, you’re the one who let his army out of its prison.”

Eve blinked. She hadn’t included that tidbit in her shadowgram.

The clerk read her expression. “It wasn’t exactly hard to figure out. I had a little conversation with a hive mind named Dave and worked it out from there. You’re not as sneaky as you think you are.”

Eve grit her teeth, biting back any further snarky comments. She took a breath. “Alex is right. We’re on the same side now.”

“Are we?” the receptionist asked. “Or is this another one of his tricks? Maybe she’s still working for him, and we’ve walked right into a trap.”

“That’s enough, Rel.” The command in Mila’s voice stilled the air itself. “The point is immaterial. We don’t stand a chance without Miss Greene’s help. Not accepting it brings about the same result as her betraying us: our failure. We have no viable alternative to taking her at her word.”

Rel bristled, but said nothing.

Introductions complete, Eve turned her gaze away from Rel to return her focus to She Beneath the Earth. “So, how much do you know? I can say with confidence he’s got his sights set on ending humanity, but when or how is still up in the air. I’d wager he’ll hit Pyrindel first, but I wouldn’t wager much.”

Mila nodded. “We know he has a lair in the mountains north of the dragons’ valley; he’s been gathering his strength there. This morning I received confirmation that the fog has started rolling south.”

Eve gulped. “He’s on his way here.”

“He is,” Mila confirmed. “The good news is, as quick as he can move alone, his army is slow. We should have a week before he arrives.”

“That’s good,” Eve exhaled, sharing a relieved look with Preston. “We have time to prepare.”

“For all the good it will do us,” Rel snapped. “If your theory about Burendia is right—”

“It is.”

“—then any magical defenses we can put up will be of little use. You saw the vault. You know what it takes to stop him.”

Eve nodded. “That vault was likely the greatest work of the best enchanter to ever live. Even if we could match his prowess, he only had to lock up a small room, not an entire city, and that’s not to mention the fact he had a leyline convenient to power the whole thing. We don’t.”

“Every bit helps,” Mila said. “We have a week, surely we can put something together that can at least slow him down.”

Preston nodded. “The extra time also means more civilians can make it behind the safety of the city walls before the fighting starts.”

Rel rolled her eyes. “And that won’t matter if the city falls.”

“But civilians won’t be the only ones coming,” Eve said. “The guild and the mercenary companies have sent out word. Every adventurer in Leshk is on their way here. A week is a lot of time for them to make it in.”

The conversation derailed as the palace door swung open, revealing yet another contingent of queensguards following a particularly flustered-looking Emily. She smiled at the sight of the high-levels gathered in the courtyard. “Mila! You came!”

“Of course, your majesty,” Mila replied without any semblance of a bow. “I would never ignore your call, not for this threat.”

Eve blinked. “Wait, you came for Emily? What about my shadowgram?”

Alex stared at her. “Um… Eve, your shadowgram never said where we could find you.”

Eve froze, summoning the mental image of the message she’d written to Alex. “Huh.”

Emily laughed, reaching into her pocket to pull something out. She flipped a black chess king into the air and caught it again. “It’s a good thing mine did.”

Eve furrowed her brow. “Hold on, why is your piece a king? You’re the only one who’s literally a queen.”

“It’s a metaphor, you idiot,” Rel said.

Emily let out a brief laugh. “The queen is a fighter.” She looked pointedly across the courtyard at Alex. “I’m a ruler.”

“Actually, I have a question,” Preston spoke up. “What’s with the chess metaphor, anyway? It seems like the one thing you and the Man of the Mists can agree on is that this whole thing is like a game of chess.”

“One of my abilities allows me to create totems through which people can communicate to me,” Mila explained. “I chose chess pieces because they’re distinct enough to be memorable, small enough to conceal, and mundane-looking enough not to raise questions. Our adversary caught wind of them and decided he liked the idea enough to replicate it. How he managed it, I’ve yet to discover.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “And you chose to be black? Even with all the good versus evil, light versus dark parallels? I mean, I get it with the whole obsidian-is-black-and-mist-is-white thing, but still, it’s not a good look.”

Rel rolled her eyes.

Preston glanced sideways at Eve. “Have… have you ever played chess?”

“Um… no? But I know white goes first.”

“In chess,” Mila said, “white attacks, and black defends.”

Eve stared across the courtyard, meeting not Mila’s gaze, but Alex’s.

The Indomitable Defender held up her black queen and winked.

Emily cleared her throat, somehow bringing her authority to bear over the assembled crowd with such a simple gesture. The courtyard fell silent. “I believe this conversation has gone sufficiently off the rails. Mila, Rel, I would speak with you in private. We have much to plan.”

Eve opened her mouth to object to her exclusion, but Emily flashed her a sideways look and focused her mind hard enough on a single word that Eve’s telepathy picked it up. Later.

Eve subtly nodded back.

In moments the gathered queensguards had vacated the courtyard to return to their posts, Mila had resealed the tunnel she’d dug to travel there, and she, Emily, and Rel had vanished into the halls of the palace.

Eve, Reginald, Lumy, Preston, and Alex were alone.

“Okay,” Preston said, clapping his hands together to refocus everyone. “We have a week to prepare. What do we do?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Eve said. “A week should be plenty of time for what I have planned.”

Oh no, Lumy sent. She has a plan.

Preston sighed. “What’s your plan?”

“Well,” Eve said, “Rel is right that building up defenses can only help so much. This’ll come down to a fight, so we should be focusing on making sure we’re as strong as possible when the time comes, and I just so happen to be level ninety-nine.”

Alex stared at her. “You want to hit a hundred.”

“So, what?” Preston asked. “Your plan is to grind monsters to level up one last time before the Man of the Mists gets here?”

“Not quite,” Eve answered. “I can’t grind five trillion exp in a week. I need a quest milestone.”

“So you want to pull a quest milestone out of thin air?” Preston exhaled. “You have an idea, don’t you?”

“I’m gonna do the same thing everybody else does when they want to reach a milestone. I’m gonna try and complete my life quest.”

Preston paled. Alex stared. Lumy flashed anxious red.

A maniacal grin spread across Eve’s face as she turned to the nearest guard. “Excuse me,” she got his attention. “Could you tell me where the nearest bakery is?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Okay, Maybe One More Side Quest

AS EVE CAUTIOUSLY swung the door open to the Maple St. Bakery, she braced herself for anything. Preston stayed close, ready to blast her with healing should the need arise. Alex stood guard out on the street, her shield raised and ready to repel the forces of the third hell itself should they come to stop them.

Lumy floated above it all, glowing an amused pink.

The bakery’s one patron—a well-dressed man sitting at a table with a muffin and a mug of tea—glanced curiously up at the strangely tense adventurers before returning to his book. Eve stepped past him up to the counter.

She kept one hand at her side and one on the hilt of her club, glancing suspiciously left and right for any signs of incoming foul play. Nobody jumped out at her. The building didn’t spontaneously combust. The Baker didn’t mysteriously vanish. He simply spoke. “Hi, what can I get you?”

Eve’s jaw tensed. Her grip tightened. Her heart sped as adrenaline coursed through her. There could be no telling what was about to happen. Prepared to do anything from Jetting out of the place at Mach two to Defying an eldritch ritual, Eve spoke the most dangerous words to ever escape her mouth.

“I’d like a loaf of bread, please.”

The man hissed. “Rotten luck, that. I take it you don’t know, then?”

Eve blinked. “Know what?”

“The flour shortage,” the Baker explained. “You can’t get your hands on the stuff.”

Eve scowled, glancing down at the display case full of pastries before her. “What about all this stuff? Pastry dough has flour in it.”

“Not these, they don’t,” the man said. “There’re some flour substitutes the alchemist’s guild has come up with, but they don’t hold their shape the same. Only works for flat pastries and frying, and even then the taste’s not the same. Rotten for business,” he nodded over to the singular customer in the large bakery.

As Eve glanced back at the man, a thought struck. “What about the muffins?” She nodded her head towards the basket of fresh muffins atop the counter. “Those don’t look flat or fried, and clearly someone’s enjoying them.”

The Baker cast a furtive glance to his customer before leaning in and beckoning Eve to do the same. “I didn’t bake ‘em,” he whispered. “I know a guy who sells ‘em, and I’ve been reselling them at cost to try and keep my customer base alive until this shortage ends.”

Having decided that the moment’s danger had passed, Preston stepped around Eve to join her at the counter. “What’s causing this shortage?”

The man shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. You just can’t get the stuff.”

“What about the muffin seller?” Eve asked. “Whoever’s making the muffins clearly has access to flour.”

“I suppose he does,” the Baker said. “The guy I know sells ‘em out of a stall a few blocks down. Business has been booming for him since this flour shortage started. Only trouble is, what with me and others like me buying up his inventory before the city wakes up, he usually sells out before dawn. You go looking now, you won’t find him.”

“Alright,” Preston said. “Thanks for the help.” As he turned to go, Eve lingered at the counter.

“Let me get one of those muffins.” She pulled a gold piece from her pocket. “No poppyseeds. And keep the change.” She winked at the man. “To carry you over until this shortage ends. One way or another.”

Eve took a great bite of the blueberry treat as she, Preston, and Lumy rejoined Alex out on the street. Once they relayed the story the Baker had told them, Alex spoke.

“So are we going to keep looking or wait until he opens up shop tomorrow morning?”

“May as well keep looking,” Preston said. “If this muffin guy’s got flour, it’s possible one of the other bakeries does.”

And if none of them do, whoever’s making these muffins gets a lot more interesting, Lumy sent.

“Basically,” Preston agreed. “Either way, it’s worth asking around. Which way’s the next closest bakery?”

As the party turned to go, Alex glanced over to Eve. “How’s the muffin?”

Eve shrugged. “Nothing special. No enchantments, no abnormal ingredients—at least nothing my body doesn’t consider food—and it tastes spectacularly mediocre.”

“So… it’s just a muffin.”

Eve smiled at her. “Yep.” She finished the treat, tossing the wrapper in a nearby bin. She gestured down the road ahead. “Shall we?”

The gang hit up four bakeries on the east side of Pyrindel, hearing the same story over and over again. Each and every one had been completely unable to procure flour for the past couple weeks, and each only limped by reselling muffins they picked up from a street vendor that closed up shop before the sun even reached the horizon. It seemed, as far as Eve could tell, that these four Bakers all purchased from the same seller. She’d have to visit a different part of town to learn more.

In the Westwind Heights, where street vendors faced much stricter regulation, the Bakers reported taking daily deliveries from a Courier. Each thought they were the only one receiving such a deal, but the more Eve and her companions asked around, the clearer it became that in all the vast capital city of Pyrindel, the only baked goods anyone could get their hands on were these exact muffins.

Conspiracy was afoot.

“Tell me about this Courier,” Eve said to the eighth Baker she’d spoken to that day. “Is it the same one every day? Does he come alone? In a cart? Where can I find him?”

The woman across the counter shrugged. “Just him and his cart every day. I don’t know where you’d find him right now, but if you wanted to come back tomorrow, say, an hour before sunrise, you could find him here.”

Eve sighed. “We’d rather solve this today if we can. Got lots of um… other things to worry about. What about this cart? What’s it look like? If this Courier is making deliveries to every Baker in the district, it’s gotta be big enough to hold a lot of muffins, right?”

“I noticed something, actually,” the woman said. “For a Courier delivering muffins, his cart seemed rather nice. Like it was brand new. Two wheels, pulled by a donkey, but the wood was clean enough I would’ve bet it’d never been outside the city.”

That’s a clue, Lumy sent. Either they’re making the muffins somewhere in the city, or they’re shipping them in on a larger scale than these smaller delivery carts.

“I’d bet on the former,” Eve said, “but that’s something we can check.” She turned back to the Baker. “Thanks for the help. If we come up short today, I’ll definitely stop by tomorrow morning. If I don’t show up, assume—”

“Something happened to you?” the woman interrupted. “Are… are you worried the muffin organization is going to try something?”

Eve blinked. “What? No. That would be ridiculous. If I don’t show up tomorrow, assume it’s because I already figured out what’s happening.”

“Oh. Right.” The Baker nodded. “I appreciate that someone’s looking into this.”

With a smile, Eve bought her eighth muffin of the day, confirming with a quick taste that it was at least made by the same recipe as the others. She waited until she’d made it back out onto the street to address her friends. “Okay, it looks like we have two leads. We should check with the guards at the city gate to see if any flour is making it into the city. If it is, our muffin bakery is somewhere in Pyrindel. Maybe we can trace the flour to it.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “And the other lead?”

“The cart,” Preston explained. “There’re only so many places you can stable donkey-pulled carts like that in the city. Since we know the carts don’t leave town, they’ve gotta be somewhere.”

Alex glanced back and forth between Eve and Preston. “You want to split up, don’t you?”

“The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can help Reginald with the evacuation,” Preston put plainly. “Not to mention the sooner she gets there, the more time Eve will have to practice with whatever new abilities she unlocks at level a hundred.”

“I’ll go to the gate,” Eve said, materializing the Burendian crown atop her head. She pointed to it. “Thanks to this, I should have an easier time with the guards.”

Alex nodded. “I’ll search the stables then. Best to make sure each team has a fighter on it.”

“We’re investigating muffin crime,” Preston said. “I don’t think we’re going to need violence.”

No, no, she’s got a point, Lumy sent. Knowing you lot, there’s probably a level two hundred muffin elemental behind this, and we’re going to need all the firepower we’ve got.

Eve smiled. “Lumy can come with me since she can’t communicate with Alex.”

“Which means I’m with you,” Preston followed up, looking towards the Defender.

“Perfect,” Alex said. “We’ve got a tank-healer combo and a…” She waved a hand wildly at Eve and Lumy. “Whatever the hells you are combo.”

“Sounds good to me,” Eve said.

“Meet back at the palace in two hours?” Alex offered.

“I have a better idea,” Eve countered. “First team to solve the mystery wins?”

Preston snorted. Alex rolled her eyes.

I see we’re back to not taking things seriously, Lumy sent.

“What?” Eve asked. “I’m great at taking serious things seriously. I just resolutely refuse to take anything having to do with muffin crime seriously.”

Fair point.

Alex smirked. “Guess I’ll see you at the muffin bakery, then.”

“No you won’t,” Eve replied, already turning to walk towards the northern gate. “I’ll be long finished there by the time you arrive.”

Eve walked at a casual pace down the cobblestone street, waiting until she’d turned the corner and thus stepped out of view before Charging down the street. She kept her speed under tight control to keep from disrupting too many people with the burst of wind in her wake, but paid little mind to the concept of speed limits.

Theoretically, the crown atop her head put her well outside the jurisdiction of any local enforcers. In practice, three different sets of city guards tried to stop her short with their stasis enchantments, only to find the tools mysteriously failed to work against the queen of Burendia.

When she arrived at the guard station and spoke with the woman in charge, Eve didn’t need to ask twice. Lumy looked through the ledger for her.

A shipment of flour did come in this morning, the harvester sent. A whole wagon full, actually. Ledger was signed by one Arnold Truskalian, with an official destination listed as someplace in Drury.

Eve blinked, turning to the guard captain. “Is that a real place?”

“Not in Pyrindel it isn’t,” the guard replied. She pointed at another line in the ledger. “But that street name is real. Riverwest Avenue runs just south of here. Mostly warehouses for loading and unloading goods from the riverboats.”

It’s a start, Lumy sent, floating away from the ledger.

Eve closed the large book. “Thanks for the help. I think we’ve got what we’re looking for.”

“Of course, your majesty,” the woman bowed as Eve stepped away from the guard post.

“You noted the street number, right?” Eve asked of Lumy as they followed the road south towards Riverwest Avenue.

Seven-seven-oh-nine, Lumy rattled off. Someone has to actually pay attention.

“I’m paying attention!” Eve insisted. “And hey, we’ve got the lead we’re looking for, right? You’re free to complain I’m not taking this seriously if we lose to Alex and Preston and not a moment before, alright?”

I still think this contest is silly, but fine. As long as it doesn’t get in the way, you can take this as seriously as you want.

Eve grinned. “Good,” she said, cracking her knuckles. “Now let’s have a talk with Mr. Arnold whatever-his-name-is.”

Truskalian.

“Yeah, that,” Eve said. “I’m sure Mr. Tuskalio has quite the story to tell.”

Lumy only flashed red, sent an aggravated sigh, and followed Eve down the winding road to Riverwest Avenue. They had a muffin crime to solve.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

If You Didn’t See This Joke Coming, You Haven’t Been Paying Attention

RIVERWEST WAS QUIET.

No wagons carried cargo along the bumpy cobblestones, no laborers loaded crates into the warehouses that lined the street, no merchants hawked their wares to the few passersby that went about their business.

The warm glow of the afternoon sun fell comfortably on the side of Eve’s face as she and Lumy made their way down the empty street. Faded paint labeled each building they passed, assigning each no more than a number. Who owned any given warehouse would remain a mystery to anyone who didn’t put forth the effort to look a little deeper. Most people were smart enough not to.

Eve was not most people.

Number seven-seven-oh-nine was a newer building, sitting to Eve’s left, on the side of the street where it wouldn’t have direct river access. The construction was cheap and poorly maintained—anyone who couldn’t afford a riverside lot didn’t bother paying for a high-quality structure. Warehouse seven-seven-oh-nine, at least to Eve’s eyes, served two purposes: to be inexpensive, and unassuming.

By the time she reached for the handle on the wooden front door, Eve was assuming quite a bit.

The door was locked, but that hadn’t stopped Eve before, and it surely wouldn’t stop her any time soon. She floated under it, a cloud of glowing Mana pouring through the gaps in the frame. Anyone with a curious mind might’ve stared in awe at the mysterious sight. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would’ve run.

As things were, Eve reformed her body to find an empty room, an office space with a door leading out into the warehouse proper. Lumy stopped at the desk to search for anything useful.

“Find the ledger?” Eve spoke in hushed tones.

If you don’t want to be heard, don’t speak aloud, Lumy chided her. If you don’t care enough to use telepathy, why do you care enough to whisper?

“Alright then,” Eve replied at full volume. “Did you find the ledger?”

No, Lumy sent, floating up and out of the desk. At least, not the real one. Ledger in here says the last delivery was a cartful of potatoes last week.

“And we know from the gate guards flour arrived here today,” Eve reasoned.

Lumy flashed blue. Let’s check the warehouse. Maybe the flour’s still there.

“Or maybe the flour was never here,” Eve replied as she stepped towards the inner door. “It’s entirely possible they gave a fake address to the guards.” She reached for the handle.

I suppose it could be, Lumy replied. Next to the address for this place, there was that other place that doesn’t exi— Lumy trailed off as Eve pulled the warehouse door open only for a blade to reach through and press against her neck.

Eve swallowed, the movement scraping her skin against the sharp edge of the dagger to her throat. She smiled confidently at the man holding it. “Arnold Tuskalio, I presume?”

It’s Truskalian, Lumy corrected.

“Right,” Eve said. She turned her gaze back to the man with the knife at her throat. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

* * *

Preston shielded his eyes from the harsh sunlight as he peered across the road into the stable on the other side. “This might be the most on-brand thing we’ve ever done.”

Alex didn’t turn away from her search. “Looking through stables for a particular cart?”

“Stopping to investigate illegal muffins when for all we know humanity is about to end.”

Alex paused, blinking several times. “Certainly qualifies as one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. Is that what your brand is? Stupid things?”

“I think less stupid and more ridiculous,” Preston said. “That’s an important difference. This muffin crime is ridiculous, but it isn’t stupid. Controlling the entire city’s flour supply has gotta be worth a lot of money. Using it all for muffins is a bit of a weird choice, but I guess it takes a certain type.”

“No, I meant us solving this case when a foggy psychopath is on his way to end human civilization,” Alex said. “We could be evacuating the villages, building up the defenses, training, what have you. And instead we’re solving muffin crime.”

“You know as well as I do that none of that stuff is going to make as big a difference as getting Eve to level one hundred,” Preston argued. “And this is our best shot at doing that.”

“I know, I know, it’s just…” Alex sighed. “This isn’t exactly how I expected I’d spend my last days alive.”

“Well it’s a good thing these aren’t your last days alive then,” Preston said. “We’ve still got a week before misty boy comes, and even then I kind of like our odds.”

“Why do you call him that?”

“Misty boy?” Preston blinked. “Eve started it. She starts… a lot of the weirder things we do. With this it’s mostly because The Man of the Mists is kind of a mouthful.”

“So you went with misty boy?”

Preston snorted. “Something like that. It makes him seem less intimidating when you call him something silly. You know how he tries so hard to be all spooky and mysterious. The Man of the Mists is spooky and mysterious. Misty boy is just some weirdo.”

Alex exhaled sharply through her nose. “I like that. Rob him of the gravitas he’s put so much effort into building.”

“Yeah, it’s like—wait.” Preston froze. “There’s someone in there.” They watched from across the street as a woman led a donkey and cart through the stable. “I think that might be our cart.”

They looked on as the woman unhitched the ass and stabled it, pulling the empty cart back into the depths of the structure. She didn’t return. Minutes passed. Nothing happened.

Preston scowled and turned to Alex. “Is there another exit?”

“Not unless she got on a boat,” Alex answered, nodding towards the river on the other side of the stable. “Why, you think she’s left?”

“If she were standing guard, she wouldn’t have left her post to unhitch that donkey,” Preston reasoned. “And if she were just the driver, she should’ve left by now.”

“That’s enough for me,” Alex said, not waiting for a reply before stepping out into the street towards the stable. Preston scurried after her.

Alex burst into the stable shield first, her body glimmering with defensive magic. Preston crept close behind her, hand on her right shoulder, ready to channel Ayla’s light into the Defender at the first sign of trouble. They found none.

The pale glow of the Mana lines on Alex’s hand cast long shadows up and down the stalls. A horse whinnied as they passed. Nobody spoke a word to calm it.

Alex peeked into each individual stall, peering around every bend and shining light through every nook and cranny, taking the time to be absolutely certain before she lowered her shield. “There’s no one here.”

Preston lowered his hand. “I didn’t see a back exit.”

“Which means there’s something we’re missing.” Alex looked to the floor, kicking straw out of the way to see the planks below. “Check the stalls. She had to get out of here somehow.”

They found it in the second stall from the back, one of three unoccupied. Alex had little trouble pulling the trapdoor off its rusty hinges, bypassing the lock. A ladder revealed itself, leading down into a dark tunnel from which only a fetid stench escaped.

Alex crinkled her nose. “The sewers. Why is it always the sewers?”

Preston’s stomach churned. “They’re making muffins in the sewers? That can’t be sanitary.”

“At the very least they’re transporting them through the sewers. The fact the muffins don’t stink at least shows they took good care of them.”

“Still,” Preston argued, “I don’t think Eve will be happy to learn she’s been eating sewer muffins this whole time.”

“I think Eve will be distracted reading a pageful of notifications soon enough,” Alex countered. She mounted the ladder. “Now let’s go. The faster we solve this thing, the less time we have to spend in the sewers.”

“And the more likely it is you beat Eve in your little competition.”

“Please, I don’t care about her competition,” Alex insisted, pulling ahead of Preston as she took the rungs three at a time.

“Uh-huh,” Preston said, nodding his head as he watched her hasten into the dark passage. “Sure you don’t.”

* * *

Eve paced around the empty warehouse, circling the kneeling form of Arnold Truskalian. According to Appraise, the man was just a low-level Courier, but Fate-torn Gaze flagged him as being somehow important. Considering his entire job seemed somehow connected to her inability to buy bread, the angry red aura around him made some amount of sense. Only some.

“Here’s how this is going to work.” Eve let her voice echo around the big empty space, lending gravity to her words. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about the flour coming into the city and muffins it’s turning into, and I’m going to let you live.”

Arnold tugged against the Ar-iron manacles around his wrists. The priceless chains were an absurd level of overkill for a level nineteen, but they had been burning a hole in Eve’s pack. She’d decided to get some use out of Lestrad’s precious shackles before selling them.

“I’m just a Courier,” Arnold said. “I don’t know anything, I swear.”

Eve kneeled down to look him in the eye. “Well that’s not entirely true. You knew to take the flour here. You knew to write ‘Drury’ as your destination, even though there is no such place in Pyrindel, and I’d bet you knew you were the only one bringing flour into the city at all. The thing is…” Eve stepped back, standing upright and spreading her arms out in both directions. “I don’t see any flour here. So where’d it go, Arnold?”

The man looked up at her with defiance. He didn’t speak.

“Bad choice, Arnold,” Eve said, leaning in once more. She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Cause now I’m going to let my friend have a taste of you.”

Lumy floated high above the two, glowing a menacing red.

“You see,” Eve explained, “my ghostly friend there is something called a phantasmal harvester. There’s this… energy, all living things have—called phantasm—that ties them to the mortal plane. Lumy, up there, feeds on it.”

Arnold flinched.

Eve reached out for the man telepathically, sending ideas, concepts, and images all pertaining to inevitable death. A rotting corpse. A sense of doom. A black void. She knew she was nowhere near powerful enough to read his idle thoughts or manipulate his emotions directly, but to someone unexperienced in telepathy, just receiving external thoughts could be frightening. Receiving unbidden images of death would be outright terrifying.

“Do you feel it?” Eve asked, implying her telepathic slideshow had something to do with Lumy. “Do you feel your connection to the world of the living slipping away?”

“Please,” Arnold begged. “If I tell you, he’ll kill me.”

“Who’ll kill you?” Eve pressed. “The man behind this? Is he the one who’s making the muffins?”

Arnold whimpered.

“Arnold, listen to me,” Eve growled. “This is important. I need you to tell me who’s behind this muffin conspiracy.”

“Please… I can’t…”

Eve pressed harder, devoting the full force of her considerable will towards intensifying the barrage of images. For added effect, she allowed the Ar-gold crown to appear on her head, lending the full weight of her Commanding Presence to her next words.

“Arnold, I’m going to ask you one last time, and I need you to think long and hard before you even imagine telling me no again.” She leaned in, her face mere inches from his. With gritted teeth and violence in her voice, she spoke her question. “Do you know the muffin man?”

“Yes!” Arnold practically shouted the word, tears streaming down his face. “Yes, I know the muffin man.”

Eve put an end to her telepathic assault. “Where can I find him?”

“There’s a passage,” Arnold squealed, pointing towards a large cart, “a trapdoor hidden under that wagon. It’ll take you to him.”

Eve grinned. “Well that wasn’t so bad.” She patted him on the back. “Thanks for your help.” With a thought, she commanded the enchantment on the Ar-iron shackles to open, collecting her valuable bindings and stowing them in her pack.

“You’re… you’re not going to kill me?” Arnold stuttered.

“Of course not,” Eve said. “You’re harmless. In fact—” She dug a gold coin from her pocket, flipping it through the air. It landed between his knees. “I think you’ve earned yourself a nice vacation. Go home. Have a beer. Wait for this muffin business to blow over.”

Eve paid the Courier no mind as she shoved the wagon out of the way and tore open the trap door to reveal a wooden ladder leading down into a rather foul-smelling tunnel. “Come on, Lumy,” she called into the air. “Let’s put an end to this muffin weirdness once and for all.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

A Quick Muffin and Muffout

THE STENCH OF sewage assaulted Eve’s nose as the narrow tunnel spat them out into a cylindrical passage. Unlike the Lynthia sewers Eve remembered all too unfortunately, the Pyrindel sewers actually functioned. A stone walkway lined each side of the space, leaving Eve plenty of room to walk without having to wade through the river of waste below.

“There’s no way this is sanitary,” she complained as the smell sent another wave of nausea running through her.

It’s a sewer. Of course it’s unsanitary.

“I meant the muffins,” Eve snapped. “If they’re making them down here…” She shuddered.

You tasted eight of them, Lumy countered. You didn’t notice anything off then.

“Don’t remind me. Sewer muffins are not on my list of foods to try.”

Lumy blinked a curious green. What is?

“Breads, mostly,” Eve exhaled. “Someday.”

Wait. Lumy stopped short. Do you smell that?

Before she could realize her mistake, Eve channeled Mana through her nose to try and catch whatever clue Lumy had found. She gagged. “Gods damnit, Lumy. That was cruel.”

Lumy was too busy laughing to care. Wow, having a nose sucks.

“Sometimes,” Eve replied once she’d somewhat recovered from gathering a nose full of sewage smell. “Sometimes it’s awesome though. For all the times you smell something rotten, you also get to smell sweet vanilla, or flowers, or freshly baked…” She trailed off as a second scent hiding beneath the oppressive stench of sewage reached her nose. “Muffins.”

Before Lumy could respond, Eve darted down the tunnel, rounding a bend before stopping short at a rusty iron door. Despite its terrible shape, it swung open without so much as a squeak.

A wave of warm air blasted her, carrying with it the divine scent of pastries in the oven.

Eve stepped inside.

The room was pristine. Gone was any indication of the sewer outside, the stench and grime and decay giving way to a meticulously upkept cross between a bakery and a laboratory. Ovens lined the entire back wall, each equipped with a timer ticking away at whatever baked within.

A steel table dominated the center of the room, its flour-coated surface covered with everything from rolling pins to test tubes. Behind it stood a man, his lower half concealed by the workbench.

The muffin man had short, black hair with sheens of silver running through it, revealing the age his wrinkle-free face concealed. He looked up from his work as Eve and Lumy came in, leaning forward with the palms of his hands on the table. “How did you get in here?”

“I think you have a bit more to worry about than the secrecy of your hiding place.” Eve kept her voice casual, the blue glow of her Appraise masked by the light of her eyes.

Level 82 The Muffin Man

Unique Tier 4 Class

Eve blinked. It was a class? She’d expected him to be some high-level version of a Baker, not a Unique. More questions arose in the back of her mind.

The man tilted his head. “Do I, now? Rather brazen of you to stride in here and make threats. Into my abode. I thought adventurers these days knew better.”

Yeah, Eve, Lumy sent. I thought adventurers these days knew better.

Eve snorted, replying to them both at once. “I don’t think I’ve ever known better in my life.” She winked at Lumy. “Anyway, I’m here to tell you your little muffin scheme is over. It’s clever, really, buying up all the flour in the city so yours are the only baked goods available, but I think it’s run its course.”

“Is that what you think this is?” the man asked. “A money-making scheme?” He shook his head, a patronizing smile across his face. “Go home, before somebody gets hurt.”

“Ooh, intimidation. Nice try.”

The muffin man leaned in, looking Eve directly in the eye. “I’d like to urge you to reconsider before you do anything rash. Leave this place, continue on with your lives thinking this was all just a bit of market manipulation that you let slide. You don’t want to see where this leads.”

“No, I think I do.”

“You don’t,” the muffin man insisted. “I’m somewhat of an expert on the subject, so you’ll have to believe me when I say that the one thing you don’t want to get to the bottom of, is a muffin.”

Eve blinked. “What?”

Oh, I get it, Lumy sent. It’s because the bottom is the worst part of the muffin.

Eve stared at him. “You wouldn’t happen to be related to a friend of mine, would you? Big, bulky blacksmith’s son—likes setting things on fire?”

The muffin man raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

Eve shook her head. “Nevermind. Can we just skip to the part where you try and kill me?”

“If you’re so desperate to learn the truth about what it is I do here, I’m happy to oblige. But don’t pretend I didn’t warn you.” With that he moved slowly and suspiciously evenly along the other side of the table, speaking as he walked. “You see, the muffins I sell aren’t simply baked goods, they’re the byproducts of my research. I only sell them and risk exposing my operation to raise the necessary funds to continue.”

Eve scowled at him. “Your research into what?”

Before he replied, the man finally stepped out from behind his worktable, revealing his lower half for all to see. It wasn’t human.

Five spider-like legs stretched down from his abdomen, each formed not of flesh and bone or chitin, but of a thousand muffins. Bits of blueberry, cranberry, chocolate chips, and macadamia nuts delineated each leg as they moved in tandem to make the man seem to glide across the floor. It was grotesque. It was hideous.

The unholy melding of flesh and muffin spoke. “Human muffin hybridization,” he explained as if that made any sort of sense. “Two decades ago, I created my magnum opus: the perfect muffin. Ever since I have toiled day and night to find that same perfection within myself. I, of course, came to the obvious conclusion: to be as perfect as my muffin, I had to become one.”

Eve, look, Lumy sent. He’s got a muffin bottom of his own.

Eve held back the groan. “Okay, I’m going to pretend, for a moment, that the words that just came out of your mouth aren’t the most batshit insane thing I’ve ever heard, and ask a simple question. Why muffins?”

The muffin-man shrugged. “It’s my quest.”

That gave Eve pause. She didn’t question that the Questing Stones had handed this man a muffin-related life quest—she had more than enough experience with absurd quests—but the fact that his quest had led to this encounter struck her as suspicious. This was a link, a direct connection between the Questing Stones and her inability to buy a loaf of bread. If the Stones hadn’t started the muffin man down this path, he’d never have cornered the flour market and bread would’ve been readily available in the bakeries of Pyrindel.

Eve blinked. Had the Stones been orchestrating this from the beginning? Were they actively stopping her from buying bread? She exhaled. There had to be some purpose to it, and if Preston’s overheard conversation between the goddesses Ayla and Raelin was to be believed, the Questing Stones were in danger.

Eve supposed of all people, the Man of the Mists could probably destroy them if he wanted. Or, she reasoned, maybe the Stones counted the threat to humanity as a threat to them. Whichever it was, whatever reason the Questing Stones had for sending her on such a convoluted quest, one fact stood paramount.

The Stones had purposefully put this muffin-man-hybrid in her way, and now somebody was going to die. She resented them for that.

“I hope you’ll understand,” the Muffin Man said, “but I can’t have anyone revealing my true nature to the authorities. Bad for business.” He swung his hand forward in a sharp gesture, and the wall of ovens behind him all flung open at once. Muffins began to flow from each of them.

Do you want me to—

“I swear to Ayla, Bandir, and any other god that will listen if you steal my exp I will end you,” Eve cut her off.

Okay. You’re on your own, Lumy sent.

“You fool!” the Muffin Man bellowed. “You dare challenge me here, at the seat of my power?” A hurricane of muffins swept from the ovens, whirling through the air around the mad researcher. “Soon, they’ll all know the incomparable beauty of my muffins! They’ll see the frailty of the human form, and understand that the only way to overcome our inherent weakness, is to embrace the muffin! Now—” He paused, the muffins coming together midair in the form of two massive arms ready to strike. “Prepare to meet your muff-end!”

Eve snorted. “Muff-end? Are you sure you and Wes aren’t related?”

“Who?”

“Nevermind.” Eve exhaled. “Let’s get this over with.”

“If by ‘this’ you mean your life, then certainly!” the Muffin Man continued his monologuing. “Those fools at the academy were always so shortsighted. They never believed that muffins would be the key to ultimate power. I’ll show them. Once I’ve killed you, there’ll be nobody to stand in my way! Nobody to stop me from bringing muffiny doom to those wretches above! This city shall be—”

Eve smashed his head in with a single swing of her club.

You have defeated Level 82 The Muffin Man: +1.2m exp!

Lumy flashed purple. Well, that was anticlimactic.

Eve set her long list of notifications aside long enough to reply. “There’s no telling how long he was going to prattle before actually attacking us. For all we know, he was stalling while he gathered strength. Better to wrap things up quickly.”

“Gods damnit!” a voice from behind Eve shouted. She turned to find Alex standing in the entryway, Preston close behind her.

And killing him quickly just so happened to mean you finished before the others could arrive, Lumy sent.

“Fair’s fair,” Eve said, gloating over the fallen Muffin Man. “I won, now pay up.”

Preston scratched his head. “Pay up what? We never agreed on a prize.”

Eve smiled innocently. “I guess you’ll just have to come up with something.”

Alex exhaled. “You want scones, don’t you?”

Eve said nothing.

Alex rolled her eyes. “You realize this flour shortage doesn’t just affect bread, right? There probably isn’t a single scone in all of Pyrindel.”

Eve’s eyes shot open. “Shit. It’s a good thing I put an end to this muffin bullshit then. Everybody knows scones are the superior pastry.”

Preston raised an eyebrow at her. “Didn’t you eat eight muffins today?”

“That was research! I had to make sure there was nothing special about them and that they all came from the same place!”

Alex sighed. “Tell me you at least got the milestone. I don’t think I have it in me to go down another one of your bread rabbit holes.”

Eve flashed a wicked grin as she bought up the first of her notifications.

Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: Free Pyrindel From The Muffin Man’s Tyranny!

+ 17.152t exp!

Level Up!

“Mission accomplished,” Eve said, stepping away from the Muffin Man’s corpse towards the exit. “Now let’s get someplace marginally less disgusting and we can talk about plans.” She did a quick scan of her notifications before stopping and turning to the others.

“Looks like I’ve got some decisions to make.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

One Last Upgrade

EVE DIDN’T WAIT to fully catch up Alex and Preston. She didn’t pause for a moment to explain the fight with the Muffin Man nor the strange nefarious plot they’d interrupted. She didn’t even bother to loot the room, leaving that task to the others.

Eve dove straight into her notifications.

Unique Upgrade Available: Aspect of Rebellion

Unique Tier 5 Aspect

Requirements: The Defiant Unique class. Reject authority. Serve no master but your own will. Stand steadfast against great power from long before your time.

The Aspect of Rebellion embodies the indomitable spirit of all who have suffered under the rule of another. Whether working in the shadows to undermine a tyrant’s reign or organizing the masses under a banner of change, Rebellion leads the charge against oppression in all its forms.

+1000 Willpower

+100 Willpower/Level

Unlock The People’s Voice Aspect Ability

Unlock Immortal Ideology Aspect Ability

Eve blinked. “Hey guys?” she called to the open room. “What are aspects?”

“A myth,” Preston answered without looking up from the pile of muffins he searched. “Just another way to make the legendary heroes from those romanticized old stories sound even more powerful and important. The legends attribute all sorts of crazy abilities to them, but nobody’s ever proved any of it.”

“More like everyone’s kept them a secret,” Eve muttered.

“They’re real,” Alex spoke up, certainty in her voice. “Mila has one, Aspect of the Keeper. I’m not sure how she got it, but some of her most powerful abilities come from it.”

Preston paused, looking first at Alex then up at Eve. “You’ve got one, haven’t you?”

Eve quickly scrolled through her notifications. “From the looks of it, I have my choice of six.”

“Gods below,” Preston cursed. “So that’s what happens when you upgrade a Unique class.”

“Looks like it,” Eve said. “I guess in theory it’d be possible to have multiple aspects if you leveled up enough.”

“Good luck with that.” Alex shook her head. “Mila’s hundreds of years old and nowhere near the next tier. Exponential exp costs are a bitch. You only got as far as you did because your milestones are insanely broken, but that well’s gonna dry up sooner or later. You gotta finish your quest eventually.”

Eve nodded. “Unless I miss my guess, it’ll happen sooner rather than later. I can’t think of anything more worthy of a Legendary quest than saving humanity from extinction.” She reread the description on the Aspect of Rebellion. “How much has Mila told you about her aspect? It looks like they might be a way around the ability cap.”

Alex shrugged. “No idea.”

“Here’s hoping,” Eve sighed. “No matter how powerful these aspect abilities are, I’d hate to have to part with any of my class abilities.” She shook her head. “Anyway, back to reading.”

Alex and Preston returned to their looting as Eve pulled up the next notification.

Unique Upgrade Available: Aspect of the Unstoppable

Unique Tier 5 Aspect

Requirements: Unique class. Reach over ten million Strength. Overpower a suppression enchantment. Let nothing stand in your way.

The Aspect of the Unstoppable brings overwhelming force to bear against any and all that would seek to obstruct it. There is no barrier too thick, no magic too ineffable, no defense too impenetrable to keep the Unstoppable down.

+1000 Willpower

+1000 Strength

+100 Willpower/Level

+100 Strength/Level

Unlock Overwhelming Force Aspect Ability

Eve raised an eyebrow. The Aspect of the Unstoppable came with twice as many stats as Rebellion, an absurd upside given the number. The trade-off, it seemed, came in the form of one less ability. Of course, without tooltips and copious amounts of testing, Eve had no way to judge if the extra ability was worth a thousand Strength and another hundred per level. She only had the descriptions themselves to go off of.

The good news—or bad news from an indecision standpoint—was that each aspect seemed to be tabled as Unique tier 5, unlike her various class upgrade options which had come in a variety of rarities. They should all be at roughly the same power level. Eve figured she should focus on a specialization that would help in her fight with the Man of the Mists, but in theory, none of the aspects would be a bad choice.

That theory proved wrong the moment she opened the next notification.

Unique Upgrade Available: Aspect of the Muffin

Unique Tier 5 Aspect

Requirements: Unique class. Eat over two thousand calories of muffins in a single day. Find and defeat the Muffin Man. Glimpse into the unknowable power of the perfect muffin.

The Aspect of the Muffin turns what seems at a glance to be a simple breakfast pastry into a weapon of strange and sugary power. While flawed, the Muffin Man’s research opens the door into a bizarre world of human-muffin hybridization, a place where all laws of physics give way to the eternal might of the muffin.

+1000 Willpower

+1000 Intelligence

+100 Willpower/Level

+100 Intelligence/Level

Unlock Muffin Manifestation Aspect Ability

“That’s gonna be a definite no,” Eve muttered, not even bothering to wonder how one might wield a muffin against a force so apocalyptic as the Man of the Mists. The only thing more disgusting, she thought, than the concept of human-muffin hybridization, was the realization she’d eaten over two thousand calories of muffins that day. Her stomach churned in anger at being filled with so much inferior pastry.

In an effort to distract herself from muffin-related thoughts, Eve pulled up the next notification.

Unique Upgrade Available: Aspect of Celerity

Unique Tier 5 Aspect

Requirements: Unique class. Run faster than the speed of sound. Travel faster than the speed of light.

The Aspect of Celerity embodies not just the ability to move quickly, but the concept of speed itself. At the highest level, there is no distinction between one’s speed of travel and one’s total mass. The Aspect of Celerity exploits that fundamental law to extreme ends.

+1000 Willpower

+100 Willpower/Level

Unlock Inertia Unbound Aspect Ability

Unlock Gravity Well Aspect Ability

Everything about the Aspect of Celerity sounded absurdly powerful. If Eve had to guess, she figured her trip through the leylines had fulfilled the condition for traveling faster than the speed of light, but truth be told she really didn’t understand what was so special about that.

Interestingly enough, Celerity’s description almost made it sound better from a raw force standpoint than the Unstoppable, though she was sure that comparison fell apart under the lightest of scrutiny. Celerity was a mystery. Everything about the tooltip hinted at a hitherto unknown level of brokenness, but it fell under the same tier and rarity as the Aspect of the Muffin.

She flagged it for further consideration. If she functioned under the belief that some aspects were stronger than others, Celerity made for an early front runner. On the other hand, if she made the dangerous assumption that any given aspect in a vacuum was comparable to any other, then the focus on raw force that Celerity seemed to have wouldn’t be much use against someone as incorporeal as mist.

By similar logic, Eve had speed and raw power to spare. Neither would help if the misty boy provided her nothing solid enough to hit.

The next option held a bit more promise on that front.

Unique Upgrade Available: Aspect of Magic

Unique Tier 5 Aspect

Requirements: Unique class. Gather over one billion Mana. Use an opponent’s spell against them. Survive direct contact with a leyline.

The Aspect of Magic governs the very Mana that ties reality together. Ever since the first mages learned to tug at its strings, reality itself has danced on the whims of mortals. You are no mere mortal. The Aspect of Magic reads the threads themselves, transcending the limited nature of spells.

Unlock Free Cast Aspect Ability

Unlock Read the Threads Aspect Ability

Unlock Mana Prism Aspect Ability

“Now, that’s more like it,” Eve muttered. Missing out on the massive stat boost would be a shame, but three new abilities almost sounded too good to pass up. She wondered if aspect abilities could upgrade as she leveled up, or were somehow static, not that it would matter for her upcoming confrontation.

Either way, Eve got the impression her imminent fight would be fought with magic, not blades, and what better aspect could there be for such a battle?

In comparison, her final option felt lackluster.

Unique Upgrade Available: Aspect of Authority

Unique Tier 5 Aspect

Requirements: Unique class. Access to the Commanding Presence feature. The queen, executive, prime, or empress title. A crown.

The Aspect of Authority is the cornerstone of civilization. Wherever there are armies to be led, workers to be organized, people to be brought to one side or another, Authority rears its head. The Aspect of Authority is not a paragon of personal power, but of the collective. Only through its unity can the whole so surpass the sum of its parts.

+1000 Willpower

+100 Willpower/Level

Unlock Queen’s Command Aspect Ability

Unlock Might of the Masses Aspect Ability

Immediately, Eve thought of Emily. The Aspect of Authority would be perfect for her, the ideal way to empower the defenders of Pyrindel as their queen. For Eve, whose subjects included a few million long-decayed corpses, Authority held less promise. She did wonder if the abilities could apply to people she didn’t technically rule, but a risk like that seemed far too great to even consider given the circumstances.

Sure, buffing up all the adventurers who stood against the Man of the Mists felt like an exciting prospect, but the uncertainty of it all made it a tough sell.

Eve stopped to reread the six options before her. Out of hand she could dismiss the Aspect of Authority and the Aspect of the Muffin, the former due to uncertainty in who it could buff and how useful an army of low-levels would be against the Man of the Mists, and the latter for obvious reasons. She’d already seen the madness that lay at the end of the path of the muffin.

That left The Unstoppable, Rebellion, Celerity, and Magic as contenders. Obviously from a rarity standpoint, they were all equal, but that didn’t stop Eve from comparing the relative difficulty of their requirements.

Rebellion was the only one that required her specific class, implying that Aspect was unique to her, but the other requirements seemed neither specific nor difficult.

The Unstoppable required hitting an absurd amount of Strength, which she’d accomplished several times using Mana Rush, an ability she’d had since tier 3. Magic similarly required a high stat, though Eve supposed one would need ten times as much Spirit to hit a billion Mana as one needed Strength to unlock The Unstoppable. She’d only managed that when she’d fallen into the leyline and had to remake her body entirely.

Celerity, in contrast, required breaking the speed of light, something she’d needed ley travel to accomplish. However, ley travel had come as a feature of her Queen of Lost Burendia ability, which implied the historical rulers of Burendia could accomplish the same feat.

Of them all, Magic and Rebellion seemed the most difficult to unlock, or at the very least the most particular. Eve wasn’t sure if that counted for anything, but it felt like it should’ve.

Magic seemed the most relevant for any future confrontation with The Man of the Mists. Rebellion didn’t feel right for defending an existing power structure, while Unstoppable and Celerity both left her feeling like she’d be trying to punch fog.

In the end, Eve wound up making the sensible decision, and stopped to ask her friends what they thought. It was a luxury she hadn’t had when faced with her last class upgrade, and hearing the others come up with their own reasoning brought a level of comfort she hadn’t expected.

Alex and Lumy both agreed that the Aspect of Magic was the way to go, in part because it felt the most applicable to their coming fight and in part because it seemed fundamentally the most flexible. Preston, in contrast, felt that flexibility would come at the cost of raw power, and that the Aspect of Authority would be the strongest in the particular situation of standing at the helm of an army against their misty adversary.

As the party finally left the laboratory of the Muffin Man behind, Eve had already come to her conclusion. She had, as everyone agreed, raw power to spare. If anything, it would be finesse and flexibility that would make the difference.

She waited until they’d returned to the palace, holding her impatience at bay for long enough to walk to her room, remove her sewer-stinking armor, and lay back in bed. Only once she’d reread every option for the umpteenth time, laid her head against the plush pillows, and taken a deep breath, that Eve finally hovered over the Aspect of Magic and hit accept.

* * *

Evelia Greene

Manaheart

Level 100 The Defiant

Unique Ability - Defy

Aspect of Magic

Aspect Ability - Free Cast

Aspect Ability - Read the Threads

Aspect Ability - Mana Prism

Exp: 12.662 Trillion /12.859 Trillion

Health: 0/0

Stamina: 0/0

Mana: 57,960/57,960

Constitution: 0

Willpower: 5791

Intelligence: 1772

Dexterity: 1848

Strength: 1801

Spirit: 0

Passive Ability - Queen of Lost Burendia

The queen of Burendia is the queen of magic itself, and as the culmination of the Great Work, you’re poised to be the greatest of them all. All Burendian remnants will recognize your authority. All enchantments, Burendian or otherwise, will bend to your will. Gain access to the Ley Travel feature. Wherever Mana can go, you can go. Gain access to the Commanding Presence feature. Gain access to the Overcharge feature. Gather up to five times your maximum Mana for a short period.

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. Gain [WPW/25] Dexterity. You run and swim [WPW/3]% faster.

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 and [WPW/25] Intelligence. Unlock access to the Fatetorn Gaze general skill. Grants the Telepathic Communication feature.

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. Gain temporary control over elemental Mana you absorb. Gain the ability to make minor changes whenever you reform your body.

Active Ability - Defiant Charge

100 Mana

Face your foes head on. None shall stand in your way. Quintuple your Willpower and maximum running speed and jumping height 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/15] 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. Can be cast with temporarily controlled elemental Mana.

Active Ability - Jet

X Mana/Sec

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 or held item. Can be channeled for continuous control.

CHAPTER FORTY

The Eleventh Hour

EVE AWOKE TO cool silence as the guest wing of the palace slumbered around her. If she ran Mana through her ears, she could pick up the ongoing bustle of the distant city streets as Pyrindel hastened to accommodate refugees from the surrounding area and bolster its defenses. She opened her eyes, expecting to see her suite dark and unlit.

The world came alight.

The room around her glowed in every color Eve could imagine and some she previously couldn’t have. A billion hair-thin strands stretched across every surface and through the air itself, weaving an abstract three-dimensional tapestry that seemed to depict Eve’s suite if she squinted at it the right way. Eve blinked, her still-groggy brain struggling to parse the information before her. A quick scan through her character sheet found the obvious culprit.

Aspect Ability - Read the Threads

Similarly to Defy, the aspect ability came with no description, simply a name. Also similarly to Defy, Eve instinctually knew how to activate it. With a mental press of a button, the world returned to normal.

Eve let out a sigh of relief, climbing out of bed and pacing across the room. She pulled a rope hanging on the wall near her door, and moments later an unfamiliar Steward peeked his head in from outside. “How may I help you, your majesty?”

“How long was I asleep?” Eve cut right to the chase. “How long do we have?”

“It’s been two days, your majesty,” the man replied. “Current estimates place the adversary’s arrival at three days from now.”

Eve swallowed. “He’s sped up, then.”

The Steward nodded. “Will there be anything else?”

“Some scones from the kitchen,” Eve said, already moving to where she’d left her armor. “Have them delivered to the training yard. I have work to do.”

With a second, deeper bow, the Steward left. Moments later, Eve followed him out into the hall, turning down a different direction towards the training yard she’d spent so much time in during the tournament. Three days wasn’t a long time to master three brand new abilities, especially ones without descriptions to aid in the process. Read the Threads on its own seemed complex enough to require years to fully comprehend.

She’d give it a day.

Already, as she stepped onto the practice field and reactivated the ability, the tapestry it weaved seemed clearer, less overwhelmingly busy. Eve realized as she cast her gaze from left to right that the relative simplicity was a result of stepping into clear air and away from the heavily enchanted corridors of the royal palace.

A thousand threads Eve couldn’t understand still swept about every which way, connecting objects, concepts, people from across the world in some way or another. It was all a tangled mess, one Eve could never hope to unwind. Then again, so was reality.

For lack of another spell that didn’t act upon her directly, Eve threw a weak Mana Burst in a narrow cone at a target dummy across the training yard, watching carefully as the Mana left her hand. It appeared, to her vision, as a cluster of dull white threads as it traveled through the air. Even as it moved away from her, a single strand connected the spell to her, seemingly denoting ownership of the attack. Eve wondered if that meant she could manipulate the Mana Burst after she’d cast it.

On the other side, from the moment she’d cast it, the spell had formed a second thread connecting with the target, and a dozen more to the wall behind it. As the spell struck, Eve watched it wreak havoc on the strings that made up the dummy, as the cluster that formed the spell broke open and scattered. A piece of it followed each of the threads connected to the original construct as Mana splashed harmlessly against the wall behind.

Eve’s takeaways were twofold.

First, as far as she could tell, all spells seemed to be constructs of different threads, presumably with different colors representing the various elements. Eve’s Mana Burst, being pure Mana, was white. Second, the spell formed a connection with everything it was going to affect before it even struck. Eve wasn’t quite sure what that meant. Either there was some concept of fate tying events together, or—more likely—in order for the spell to act, it had to somehow interact with the things it intended to affect.

Eve wondered if she could test that.

Selecting a new target, Eve launched another cheap Mana Burst across the training yard, extending her will to the thread connecting it to the target dummy and pulling as hard as she could.

Nothing happened.

She tried again, this time tugging at a random thread within the jumble that made up her spell. It came apart, the Mana within dissipating into the air. “Huh.” Eve let out a breath. Putting spells aside for the moment, she mentally reached for the thread connecting her to the floor—or something beneath the floor, Eve couldn’t tell the difference. She willed it to snap, leveling the full force of over five thousand Willpower against this single thread.

Again, nothing happened.

Eve paused as a Steward arrived to deliver her scones. She sat back for a few minutes, enjoying her breakfast as she thought over the situation. In that time, she tried everything. None of the threads through the air, those along the walls, nor even those connecting Eve to her delicious scones responded to her attempts to influence them. A pair running along the far wall seemed to shift as she tugged, but upon canceling Read the Threads, Eve found they simply corresponded to one of the palace’s many enchantments. She’d already been able to manipulate those.

It seemed, so far as affecting the tapestry of reality as revealed by her new aspect, Eve was limited only to those things she already had some control over: enchantments, and her own spells. She felt certain that with enough time to study and practice with the ability, she could find new ways to assert control over the multitude of threads, but time was a luxury Eve couldn’t afford.

Before committing what few days she had to one pursuit or another, Eve elected to investigate her other two aspect abilities.

Mana Prism almost felt designed explicitly for her, or at least for Burendians. She found, upon activating it, that it caused her Mana pool to slowly dwindle, a veritable rainbow of light coalescing within her core. As Eve examined it, she found a countless array of different elements swirling together, elements she couldn’t reabsorb until in a moment, they all snapped back together into pure Mana.

With a few hours of practice, Eve managed to isolate individual elements before they rejoined into pure Mana, expelling blasts of fire or ice directly with Mana Burst. Similarly, she could launch any combination of elements to create unique effects, everything from electrified molten steel to spikes of frozen acid granted her Mana Burst levels of flexibility she wouldn’t have dreamed of a month ago.

The downside of splitting her Mana with Mana Prism was that once she’d used some of the elemental Mana, she couldn’t reabsorb the rest. Forcing her to either come up with a use for the other thousands of elements or simply vent the extra energy in a second blast. The process, in all, seemed rather less efficient than her usual bursts of pure Mana, but Eve would never begrudge flexibility.

She was in the middle of further experiments with tugging on threads to disassemble Mana Bursts mid-flight when Preston and Lumy found her. The former, interestingly enough, had two distinct, blindingly bright threads connecting him to something deep underground. At Eve’s request, he cast a healing spell, the golden light of which didn’t connect with the Paragon at all, but to the same entity deep underground.

Eve mentally noted the color of the thread as belonging to Ayla.

Lumy, in contrast, had no threads. Nothing, as far as Eve could tell, attached the phantasmal harvester to anything at all, save when Eve or Preston reached out to her telepathically. Eve supposed that made sense, what with Lumy’s tenuous connection to reality.

The two were kind enough to while away a few hours helping Eve experiment, a task which, from their viewpoint, consisted exclusively of casting the same spell over and over again so Eve could study the threads that made them work.

It was for her third aspect ability that this research would pay the most dividends.

Free Cast, as the name implied, allowed Eve to control the threads of Mana within her influence directly rather than automatically shaping them into the form of a particular spell. Technically, she’d been using it the moment she first tried to pull on one of the threads within her Mana Burst, but dissipating her own spells only scratched the surface of what it could do.

In theory, between Mana Prism to break her pure Mana down into the various elements, Read the Threads to learn how spells were constructed and see what she was doing, and Free Cast to manipulate them, Eve could cast literally any spell. In practice, even Preston’s most basic heal was beyond her ability to understand, at least for the time being.

That was where the Intelligence stat came in. With roughly two thousand Intelligence after the passive boost from Defiant Mind, Eve’s brain could parse through the remarkably complex patterns far more adeptly than even the average mage. In a matter of hours she managed to isolate the particular threads within her Mana Burst that governed how quickly it flew, how wide of a cone it spread in, and even how far it would travel before dissipating entirely.

But that took hours, and only accounted for the variables she’d already had control over from the ability itself.

In time, Preston and Lumy went on their way to assist in the evacuation of civilians and construction of fortifications, leaving Eve to toil alone on the monumental task before her. She settled in with a vigor.

Eventually, day turned to night and night back to day as she labored, filling notebooks with sketches of patterns she’d found and the effects of slight variations. From what she remembered of Preston’s basic heal, Eve managed to deduce the type of connection needed to mark a target as friendly. Using Mana Prism to generate healing Mana—a poor substitute to the divine Mana Preston used, but all Eve could make herself—she even managed to mend a cut on the arm of a page who’d nervously volunteered to be her guinea pig.

Of course, with a health value of 0/0, healing herself would never be a viable strategy, but even a simple flash of healing could mean saving one of her friends’ lives. Eve would devote as many hours as it took to make sure that remained an option.

As their last days of calm before the storm passed, Preston, Lumy, Alex, Emily, and even Reginald came to visit Eve as she worked, each offering their own advice along with the well-needed respite of conversation amidst the fervor of her training.

Even Rorick, the berserker who’d first taught her how to fight during the Proving Grounds tournament managed to find her, turning down her offer of a sparring bout for the obvious power level differences. Once they’d exchanged greetings, he’d returned to directing his horde of fangirls in their task of shepherding in refugees.

It was just before sunrise, three days, seven hours, and twenty-two minutes after Eve had first awoken with her new aspect, that Lumy’s mind reached out to Eve’s from somewhere else in the palace. Her tone was strangely calm, detached in a way that didn’t match the phantasm’s usually dry humor, as if no emotion could possibly reach the gravity of the situation, so she hadn’t managed to feel any. The message struck Eve all the same.

He’s here.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The Battle of Pyrindel

EVE STOOD ATOP the city’s northern wall, staring across the empty fields and farmland at the wall of unnatural mist rolling in. It moved far faster than fog had any right to, which was to say a bit slower than a person’s normal walking pace. But it came.

The Man of the Mists didn’t show himself. He made no threats, no grand speeches, no declarations of their doom. His fog simply crept inexorably onward, death obscured in its opacity. Eve knew that even if the heartiest among them could survive within the mist, humanity could not. But they’d had time to prepare.

Their plan, at its core, hinged on a single person, the only person, as far as anyone could tell, that had any sort of hope of stemming the white tide.

Alex leapt off the wall.

Her face of stone, her actions smooth and resolute, the Indomitable Defender stepped into the field alone. One, two, three long strides away from the relative safety of the city and into the open, Alex stared down the coming fog. Her jaw set, she unbuckled the shield from her back.

Lowering her stance to brace herself on the loose earth, she raised her shield and slammed it into the ground.

All onlookers felt the shockwave.

It had only been a few weeks, but it felt like an eternity ago since Alex had “trapped” Eve underneath the Burendian capital. Of course, the leylines had always been there as a way to escape, but even empowered by such an overwhelming source of Mana, Eve hadn’t been able to get past Alex. She’d beaten Mila in single combat, but hadn’t made it past Alex.

After all, Eve wasn’t the only one with a Unique ability.

Alex’s Impenetrable came with as little description as Eve’s Defy, but testing proved it simple enough. The skill stopped a single thing in its tracks, no questions asked, for as long as Alex could hold her position.

A hundred feet in front of the Defender, the mist struck a wall. Its creeping base and forward tendrils came to a halt as an invisible barrier stopped its progression. Moments later, the body of the fog caught up, forming an arched outline with a hundred-foot radius.

One hundred feet, that was their wiggle room.

Tense seconds passed as those up on the wall held their breath. Nothing happened. The mist didn’t stir, the earth didn’t quake, Alex’s position held.

“Where is he?” Preston whispered.

“He’s coming,” Eve replied. “It can’t be this easy.”

“It isn’t,” Mila growled to her right. “The mistlings are coming.”

They burst from the fog all at once.

A thousand vaguely humanoid forms charged into the open field, their mist-formed bodies clad in scattered pieces of rusty iron armor, their hands clasping a myriad of simple weapons. They moved nigh silently, incorporeal feet not slamming against the earth, mouthless faces screaming no battle cry. The only noise they made was the soft clatter of iron against iron whenever two or more bumped into each other.

A hundred feet separated the wall of fog from Alex, a hundred feet the defenders of Pyrindel could not allow these mistlings to cross.

Eve Charged.

A terrible chorus of hope and rage rang out behind her as a thousand voices unleashed their battle cries. The air around Pyrindel quaked with the clamor, beautiful and horrible at once. Messages flew past Eve’s vision.

You have heard the song Last Hope!

+100 Willpower

+50 Strength

+50 Dexterity

+50 Intelligence

You have heard the Berserker’s Chant!

+10% Strength!

+10% Willpower!

You have heard the Packmaster’s Call!

+15% Strength!

+15% Dexterity!

+15% Intelligence!

Eve swiped away the dozens of other buffs and battle cries from her notification list, a slight grin crossing her face as she noticed Preston’s at the end, somehow more powerful than the rest.

The men and women of Leshk, guards, soldiers, mercenaries, and adventurers, raced forth to meet the coming tide. They spilled through the gates, leapt down from the walls, burst from beneath the earth, and fell from the sky above.

Evelia Greene, Queen of Burendia, Aspect of Magic, The Defiant, led the charge.

She took out three with the first swing of her club.

You have defeated Level 42 Mistling: +0 exp!

You have defeated Level 41 Mistling: +0 exp!

You have defeated Level 43 Mistling: +0 exp!

Eve let out a sigh of simultaneous disappointment and relief. In the low forties, the mistlings were worth no exp for her, but wouldn’t be too powerful for the city’s defenders to stand against. Better still, her club had killed them, meaning even with bodies of mist the things were susceptible to physical force.

Her brief half-second to think came to an end as four more mistlings came forth to replace the three she’d slain. All around her, the forces of Pyrindel collided with those of the mist, and the chaos of battle began.

To her left, a Spearmaster lanced two mistlings in a single lunge. To her right, a Bladecaster took an iron flail to the side of the head, his body falling limply to the soft grass. Another adventurer stepped over it to take his place.

Eve waded through the fray in a fury, taking out huge swaths of mistlings with every swing of her club and burst of annihilation Mana. She noticed, as each mistling died, that a thread of Mana seemed to leap from its corpse and return to the wall of fog from whence they’d come. With a bit of trial and effort, Eve discovered that she could steal it for herself, keeping her Mana bar topped off throughout the melee.

Others weren’t so lucky.

The alchemists’ guild, the medic corps, the entire church of Ayla, and dozens of unaffiliated healers stood back atop the city walls, lobbing spells and tinctures into the human side of the battle as quick as they could, but even they couldn’t heal a blade through the throat, a spear to the heart, a knife in the eye.

Preston flew above it all on Reginald’s back, bringing direct healing and a few swipes of the drake’s claws to wherever they were most needed.

Mila cut through mistlings by the score, weaving hundreds of razor-sharp obsidian shards through the air with impeccable precision. Thirty men and women who each looked suspiciously like Rel swept through the battle with one mind, working in flawless tandem to plunge identical mirror-blade knives into the necks of mistlings.

Rorick whirled through the fray with his dual axes, his exposed upper body littered with minor cuts and bruises that seemed to empower the Hewer of Bones more so than slow him down. Emily watched it all from up on the wall, her Inspiring Presence empowering the defenders of Pyrindel far more than any one fighter could.

All around Eve, familiar faces fought and died to hold the line, guards she’d seen a hundred times in passing, adventurers she’d shared a drink with at the guild hall, soldiers who’d watched her train for months under Rorick’s steady tutelage. A hundred names she knew and a thousand she didn’t all laid their lives on the line to defend what they held dear, and one by one were those lives snuffed out.

But the line held.

As Mana Burst came off cooldown again, Eve let out a particularly expensive and wide-angled blast to clear out the cluster of mistlings before her, opening a gap wide enough to buy her a bit of time. She took it to Jet into the air, channeling hundreds of Mana per second to suspend herself there as she looked over the battlefield.

Lumy, unable to harvest enemies that weren’t actually alive, played lookout. The moment Eve made herself available, the message came.

Sixty yards to your left, the phantasm sent. They’re gaining ground.

Eve didn’t question the instruction, launching herself immediately to the segment of the battlefield Lumy had mentioned. She landed hard, plugging the hole in their defenses with a few decisive swings of her club.

The battle raged.

Eve, Mila, Rel, Rorick, Reginald, and a thousand others cut through mistling after mistling, paying in blood for every foe they slayed, for every minute’s survival they purchased. Still the things came, pouring from the fog in an unceasing tide of enemies. The assault was unending.

The defenses were not.

Mages burned through their Mana. Archers emptied their quivers. Alchemists ran out their potion satchels. Healers downed the last of their Mana tinctures. Every mistling that fell came at a cost, in blood, in Mana, in supplies. One by one the defenders left the field, out of Mana, out of Stamina, mortally wounded, or dead. Still the mistlings came.

Eve filled the gaps where she could, Jetting back and forth across the battlefield in mounting desperation as the line faltered around her. Mila pulled out the big guns, burning thousands of Mana to tear open great chasms beneath the charging mistlings. Rel split themselves even further, multiplying into a small army in and of themself. Preston kept the defenders on their feet, channeling spell after spell from the vast sum of Mana stored in his Ar-gold scepter.

Together, the Uniques on the side of humanity stood stalwart, holding strong against the swarm of foes that would seek to slay Alex and allow the encroaching mist forward. For a time, it worked.

But no matter how many mistlings fell to Eve’s club, Rel’s clones, or Mila’s obsidian, more emerged from the fog.

“We can’t outlast him!” Mila’s gravelly voice scraped across the battlefield.

“Like hells we can’t!” Eve shouted back, drawing more Mana from the corpse of a mistling she’d slain.

“I’m running on fumes!” a Rel called as two more took down a mistling and a third took an axe to the temple.

“Lumy!” Eve yelled into the air. “Are they slowing down?”

A little, came the reply. But not as much as you are. Half your forces are already out of the fight.

Eve didn’t need to toss her gaze across the battlefield to know Lumy spoke the truth. She could feel it. More and more did she find herself the only barrier between the mistlings and Alex. More and more she found herself stepping on or over the corpses of her countrymen.

The forces of humanity had held valiantly, but they couldn’t hold much longer.

Eve gripped her club tighter. “We have to go on the offensive!”

“Are you crazy?” Rel shouted. “We’re barely holding on out here, and you wanna fight in the mist?”

“We won’t be holding on at all soon if we don’t do something!”

“Eve, no!” Preston called from above. “Whatever you’re planning, it’s not gonna work. You won’t even be able to find him in there, let alone kill him!”

Eve ignored him. “Lumy?”

Go, the phantasm sent. Your odds inside that fog aren’t good, but neither are your chances out here.

Eve paused to slam her club through another pack of mistlings before turning to shout at Mila. “How long can you hold without me?”

“Five minutes!” She Beneath the Earth growled back. “More if he withdraws some of his forces to deal with you.”

“Eve, this is a bad idea,” Preston tried once more to call her plan off.

“It is,” Eve admitted, a slight smile stretching across her face. “I kind of specialize in those.”

Before Lumy could urge her on, before Preston could argue her down, before Rel could shout disdain or Reginald make another silly comparison to dragons, Eve Charged forward.

She swung her club wildly ahead of her, sweeping mistlings from her path by the dozen as she bowled through them. On her own she couldn’t stop the ceaseless tide, but even outnumbering her a thousand to one, the mistlings couldn’t stop Eve either.

With a mighty leap, Eve Jetted from the ground, launching up and over the mistling army. As she flew, she spared one last thought for the men and women who had already fallen and those who still fought with all they had to stem the tide.

She didn’t have time to take a breath or shed a tear before she passed beyond Alex’s protection and the world went white.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The Man of the Mists

WARM MOISTURE BEADED and dripped down Eve’s face and the leather of her armor as she landed on soft grass. No mistlings attacked her. No monsters lurked in the fog. No high-level Unique started monologuing. She was alone.

A notification alerted her to the toxic nature of the mist around her, a characteristic all too reminiscent of the unending brown fog atop the dead fields. Eve wondered if the Man of the Mists planned to turn the lush farmland around Pyrindel into another wasteland. She wouldn’t let it com to that.

Taking a breath, Eve started by surveying her surroundings. There wasn’t much to see. She stood on a shallow hillside, though on which side or how far up the hill she couldn’t even begin to guess. Other than a few feet in front of her, there was only white.

If she ran Mana through her ears, Eve could just make out the sounds of the battle, muffled and distant as if she’d flown a mile away rather than a few hundred feet. The blanket of fog blocked more than light.

Eve took a moment to top up her Mana from the rich ambient supply, finding the fog neither dispersed nor became less toxic as she drained it. For a second she pondered examining it with Read the Threads to try and figure out exactly how the ability worked, but she didn’t have time for puzzles. The mistlings could overwhelm the defenders and get to Alex at any minute. Eve had to move.

Preston had been right about one thing—finding the Man of the Mists would prove difficult. As far as Eve knew, he didn’t even have to be there in order to send his assault at Pyrindel, but that seemed unlikely. He’d shown his hand, doing anything other than committing his full forces to this attack would’ve been a mistake. He was there, somewhere, hidden in the mist.

Luckily, Eve had a plan to find him.

She reached into her pocket, slipping her hand past the two copper coins her mother had given her to buy her loaf of bread to grab the other item she kept with them: a white chess piece. The Man of the Mists had given her the queen just after Alex’s betrayal, a token of his that she could crush into mist should she want to meet. From Mila’s description, it seemed the chess pieces worked as a beacon, showing their creator when and where they were destroyed. Eve had no such intent.

Throughout their relationship, it had always been the Man of the Mists finding her, not the other way around. The chess pieces were, after all, designed to give him her location, but Eve figured that information had to travel somehow, and she had an inkling how it did.

She activated Read the Threads, and the world became a tangled mess. Most of the threads around her shined what Eve first assumed was white before realizing it was actually an extremely pale blue. Mist Mana. In a few places, threads of it connected to her where she was close enough to drain some from what seemed to be a single, massive spell all around her. Eve didn’t concern herself with those.

She concerned herself with the two threads attached to the white queen, one leading to her, and one disappearing into the mist. Eve followed it.

Eve took off at a jog, daring move no faster for lack of visibility. She siphoned Mana from the fog as she moved, the limited amount she could claim from any one spot worrying her. If the Man of the Mists drew her into an extended fight, she’d have to keep it moving if she wanted a steady supply of Mana.

She kept Read the Threads active as she moved, its guidance more important than the additional layer of obscurity it added to her vision.

That choice saved her life.

Eve leapt aside as she caught a strange bundle of pale blue threads rocketing towards her. A blade of sharpened fog sliced clean through the space she’d occupied but a second before. Eve gulped. Without Read the Threads, the attack would’ve blended perfectly with the mist around her. She’d hadn’t even felt a gust of wind from its passage.

Her heart pounding harder than ever, Eve continued on her search, this time constantly tossing her gaze this way and that to watch for more attacks. She dodged three before she heard his voice.

“Evelia Greene, I was wondering when you would show up.”

“You tried to kill me.”

“So I did,” the Man of the Mists replied. “It seems baby’s unlocked their first aspect.”

The voice seemed to come from everywhere around her, but Eve tracked the thread from the chess piece as pointing slightly to her left. She stared forward, hoping to disguise her method of finding him. “I take it you’re the only person in the world with more than one.”

“Not quite. There are dragons.”

“But the dragons keep to themselves. They don’t go about trying to end civilizations.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” the Man of the Mists said. “But I digress. Stand aside, Evelia. This has to happen.”

“You’re right. It does.” Eve Jetted down the direction of the thread, a shockwave of air rippling through the mist as she shot towards her foe. A wall of solid fog materialized in front of her, but she burst clean through it at the cost of a few Mana worth of damage and a bit of speed.

Sure enough, the chess queen’s guidance proved accurate as a dark, humanoid shape materialized before her. Eve Charged and activated Mana Rush for a sustainable thousand Mana per second, skyrocketing her Strength to just under two billion. She swung.

The figure crumpled, sliding a dozen feet along the earth as it fell.

Eve gripped her club tighter. It couldn’t be that easy. The dark shape had to be a decoy, an illusion of some sort. She cast her gaze to both sides, searching for any sign of a second figure. She found none.

The first pushed itself to its feet. “That was rude,” the Man of the Mists said, moving as if to wipe dirt from his pants. “I thought we were having a conversation.”

“While your mistlings kill my friends?” Eve asked. “No.”

The man sighed. “It’s a shame, really. I thought you understood the many faults of humanity, seeing as you gave yours up years ago.”

Eve blinked. “You first approached me right after I started the Burendian quest line. The one that turned me into a Manaheart. Did you know it was going to?”

“I had my suspicions. That’s part of why I paid you a visit.”

“And did you also suspect that same quest would give me the ability to break your army out of that vault?”

“No, actually. That was a pleasant surprise.”

Eve Charged at him again, but he was ready this time. Four complex jumbles of threads appeared in the fog and shot towards her. Eve had to halt her charge and dissociate her entire lower body to avoid them.

“That’s a neat trick,” the man said. “Too bad it won’t save you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Eve turned his words back on him. She Jetted in again.

The blades of fog came for her once more, but she was ready this time. In a well-practiced maneuver, Eve dissipated her entire body into a cloud of Mana, maintaining her momentum towards the Man of the Mists as his attacks passed harmlessly through her. She let herself float forward for a bit, her dissolved state disabling her abilities and thus her only way to see the mist-blades coming.

Before she could reform to make an attack of her own, something grabbed hold of her.

A pair of vines from a strange plant she hadn’t noticed somehow wrapped around the cloud of Mana she’d dissolved into and pulled. If she’d had a heart at the time, it would’ve raced as adrenaline coursed through it. Instead, Eve’s consciousness barely staved off panic.

Immediately she tried to reform her head to regain access to her abilities, but the moment enough Mana coalesced in one spot to begin to form a solid appendage, the vines ripped through her, draining some of it. She tried twice more to no success.

Eve was trapped.

The Man of the Mists casually stepped forward. “You didn’t think I’d come here without a contingency plan to deal with you, did you?” He chuckled. “This is a Strethian Manavore, courtesy of an associate of mine. In case the name didn’t tip you off, it captures stray Mana from the environment and devours it. And you look an awful lot like stray Mana right now.”

Icy fear pierced Eve’s mind as she glanced to her Mana bar.

Mana: 14,439/75,348

Even with the extra thirty percent capacity from the Ar-gold crown, she’d already fallen dangerously low. In a few seconds it had dropped by several thousand. She wracked her mind for ideas, but anything she could come up with required access to her abilities. Even Defy, her absolute last resort, required some part of her to exist physically.

Mana: 12,864/75,348

At least the Mana drain seemed to slow down if she didn’t keep trying to materialize. Eve mentally cursed. She had to stall, give herself enough time to find a way out. Without a mouth, she couldn’t verbally egg the Man of the Mists into monologuing, but ever since she’d finished a certain quest, Eve hadn’t needed a mouth to communicate.

Why are you doing this? she sent the message loud and in every direction just in case her enemy wasn’t where he seemed.

The dark figure tilted its head. “You civilization builders are all the same. Ambitious enough to create great things and short-lived enough to abuse them. It happens every few millennia. Some servant race gets delusions of grandeur and starts building off the discoveries of their ancestors. It never takes longer than a thousand years before one of them starts looking for power in a place they shouldn’t. Eldritch cults, blood magic, dangerous research into forbidden entities… it’s always something.”

That doesn’t mean you have to wipe us out! Eve argued. If people knew they were putting the world at risk, they’d stop.

“They won’t. I’ve tried.” He shook his head. “This is the best way. The only sure way. Stop them before they get big enough to try rather than playing apocalypse whack-a-mole.”

Whack-a-what?

“Nevermind that. You won’t be alive long enough to try it. It’s not that fun anyway.”

The confidence in his words sent a fresh wave of fear through Eve’s mind. She checked her status.

Mana: 4,549/75,348

She cursed herself. Her distraction had worked too well, stalling her own attempt at escape as much as it stalled the Man of the Mists’ final attack. Panic set in.

Mana: 3,715/75,348

The drain accelerated as Eve’s will eroded. The manavore drank its fill of her and everything she was, stealing thousands of Mana as her time ran out.

Mana: 2,153/75,348

Shit shit shit shit shit. She had to do something, but what? She couldn’t Defy it, not without a body, and she couldn’t even try to form a body without speeding up her demise.

Mana: 1,914/75,348

Eve steeled her soul. She didn’t have time to convince the Man of the Mists to let her go, and she already knew such an attempt would fail. A plan began to form. It was suicide, she knew, but other options failed to appear.

Eve readied herself. She’d only get one shot at this. There had to be some limit, she reasoned, to the manavore’s ability to quash her attempts at reforming. If she could try to reform in several places at once, maybe one of them could slip by.

The math didn’t work out. Eve didn’t have enough Mana to survive trying to reform once, let alone a dozen times, but she was out of options. If she did noth—

Two distinct roars echoed through the fog. Eve recognized them both, one of a drake, and one of a human.

Mana: 895/75,348

The Mana drain came to an abrupt halt as a notification popped into view.

Packmaster’s Call makes you immune to Assert Dominance!

Eve didn’t wait. In under a second she materialized her head and fired as strong of an annihilation Mana Burst as she could manage towards the body of the plant. Her stolen Mana exploded into the air as the message appeared.

You have defeated Level 49 Strethian Manavore: +0 exp!

“Preston!” she shouted as she extended her will to reclaim the loose Mana, pushing her pool back into the thirty thousands. “How did you find me?”

Telepathically, Preston sent, his voice occupied growling at the Man of the Mists to keep Assert Dominance going. You were kind of shouting to the high hells.

Right. I wanted to make sure the misty boy heard me in case that’s a decoy.

That’s him, Preston sent back. And I’m about to—

The message cut at the same time as Preston’s growl came to an abrupt end.

Somewhere to Eve’s left, a terrible thump accompanied by an even worse crack echoed through the fog. In front of her, the Man of the Mists cracked his knuckles.

“It seems you can’t leave them behind even as you run to your death,” he said. “Ah well. I suppose you’ll get to watch them die.”

Two dozen knots of pale blue threads appeared in the fog, each leveled at the spot where Preston and Reginald had fallen. Eve’s eyes widened.

The man snapped his fingers.

No!

The threads unwound as Eve Defied his attack, fizzling the spell before it could go off.

“There it is,” the man said disconcertingly calmly. “It’s a shame you wasted it on someone else.”

Eve cursed as her gaze flashed to her status screen, confirming Defy had begun its thirty-hour cooldown. Her greatest weapon was spent.

She Charged forward in a fury, but another set of mist-blades forced her back. Eve snarled.

Mana: 29,014/75,348

Even after recovering most of her Mana from that plant, her supply was limited. She knew her opponent’s was too, but without an idea of how high level he really was, Eve couldn’t begin to guess how long he’d last. The fact his power was split between her and trying to overwhelm Mila, Rel, and Alex worked in her favor.

The trouble was, without Defy, Eve’s greatest abilities depended on her having huge excesses of Mana to spend, and right then, she didn’t.

Until Preston croaked her name.

Eve! he sent, healing his own shattered ribs as he called out to her. Catch.

Eve whirled her head in his direction, reaching out a hand just in time for a jeweled golden rod to land in her grasp.

Scepter of Burendia

Rarity: Unique

Mana: 642,006/997,628

It was no leyline, but it would do.

She Jetted forward at incredible speed, millions of Strength coursing through her. She burst through walls of mist, broke nets of fog, and tanked enough mist blades to kill just about anyone else.

To Eve, they barely made a dent in her Mana.

She swung her club for the dark figure before her, but with a wave of his hand a clump of sharpened mist cleaved clean through it. Eve’s club, crafted from the bone of an over level three hundred griffin and tempered in the torrent of a leyline, fell to the ground in two pieces.

But that didn’t matter. She had what she was after.

With her newly free hand, Eve grabbed the Man of the Mist around his forearm, clutching tight with insurmountable Strength. He tried to pull away, but Eve held strong.

Two dozen blades materialized in the fog and rent through Eve’s body, Mana from the scepter replaced it quickly enough. Eve looked the dark figure in the eyes, yanked him in close, reached out to him with her will, and began to pull.

Pale blue Mana surged into her, a torrent of stolen power from the adversary in her grasp. Eve redirected her Mana Rush to spend it instead of her pure Mana, keeping her effective health topped off from the scepter. She looked down at the Man of the Mists. “That plant of yours isn’t the only thing that eats Mana.”

She could feel the point where he started panicking. His pulse quickened beneath her viselike grip. His mind desperately scrambled to grab hold of his rapidly vanishing Mana.

But it was all for nought. However many thousands of years he’d lived, however many civilizations he’d ended or aspects he’d attained, the Man of the Mists was out of answers. For all his stats, for all his levels, for all his schemes, he’d fallen into the one fight he couldn’t win.

A battle of wills with Evelia Greene.

“You lied to me,” she growled at him. “You used me. Turned my friend against me. Tried to kill me and everyone that I love.”

“I’ve done a fair bit more than that, girl.”

Eve twisted his arm. “Not anymore you’re not. It’s over.”

He laughed. “It’s never over. Even now my partner is en route to your Questing Stones. Even without me, their loss will put an end to humanity eventually. At least the humanity that poses a threat.”

The flow of Mana came to an abrupt end as the man’s pool bottomed out. Eve switched her grasp from his arm to his throat. She couldn’t trust his words anyway. “That’s enough.”

The last gasp of desperate panic took over as he struggled, violently throwing himself about as his body screamed for air. Eve denied it.

It was alone, out of Mana, defenseless, and at the hand of one of the many subjects of his manipulations that the Man of the Mists finally followed the many civilizations he’d ended from this life into the next. Eve waited for the notification to appear before she let his corpse fall to the ground.

You have defeated Level 289 The Man of the Mists: +1.2qa exp!

Eve exhaled. Preston and Reginald stumbled over, hurt, but very much on their feet. The muffled sounds of battle in the distance faded away.

And the fog lifted.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

It’s Never Over

FOR THE FIRST time in gods knew how many millennia, the sun shone down upon the face of the Man of the Mists. He made for a sorry sight.

The corpse was blue in the face and bruised around the neck where Eve had choked the life out of it. His skin was unnaturally pale and scaly, his features distinctly humanoid yet so alien to Eve she couldn’t begin to guess at his race. No doubt his people had gone extinct long before her time. Mostly extinct, she realized. Until now.

Eve let out a heaving sigh as she turned back to gaze at the battlefield. Already healers and laborers toiled to treat the wounded and catalogue the dead. No sign remained of the mistlings.

A hand touched her shoulder.

“Eve, we did it,” Preston breathed. “It’s over.”

“It’s never over,” Eve muttered, a scowl crossing her face.

“What does that mean?”

Eve shook her head. “Something he said. It’s probably nothing—the desperate pleas of a dying man. I’ll need to talk to Emily about it when we get back.” She handed Preston his scepter back. “You came for me.”

Preston took the Ar-gold artifact. “I did. Not long after you left, Primal Instinct started screaming at me to go in after you.”

“I’m glad you did. You really made the difference there.” Eve stooped down to grab the misty boy’s corpse, tossing it over her shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get back.”

Preston glanced over at Reginald. “Want a ride?”

“I’ll walk,” Eve said patting the corpse she carried. “I think it’s better people see me returning with this.” Without waiting for a reply, she set off back towards Pyrindel and the battlefield in front of it. Wordlessly, Preston and Reginald fell in behind her.

They formed a funeral procession of sorts, the exhaustion of the battle taking its toll on any sense of victory. The Man of the Mists’ dying words nagged at her, but for the moment Eve couldn’t do anything about them. Whatever threat remained would have to wait until later, preferably until after her Defy came back off cooldown.

As she stepped foot back inside the perimeter Alex had kept, those few brave enough to approach her did.

Rel of all people got there first. “You did good, kid,” he—one of the male clones—said. “Of course, you’re the one who put us in this mess, but I’ll give you credit where credit’s due. I never thought anyone would actually kill that fucker.”

“We’re in your debt,” Mila growled, bowing her head respectfully. “For your heroics, and for the suspicion with which we treated you. I am sorry.”

Alex straight up knocked the corpse from Eve’s shoulder in the process of wrapping her in a great hug. “We did it,” she whispered in Eve’s ear. “You did it. I can’t believe it’s over.”

“Yeah,” Eve exhaled as she pulled away. She tilted her head down towards the man’s corpse. “Let’s get him back to the palace, then drinks are on me.”

“Deal,” Alex laughed, bending over to help bear the body. Eve let her. If anyone deserved to carry home the proof of their victory, it was Alex. Eve might’ve dealt the final blow, but it was Alex who’d kept the fog at bay, who’d kept humanity alive while Eve confronted the Man of the Mists.

They walked across the battlefield together.

Again the man’s dying threat echoed through Eve’s brain, and again she set it aside for the moment. She could afford one night to revel in her victory. To distract herself from any needless worrying, Eve dove into her notifications. Two of the early ones sparked her interest.

You have slain the Aspect of Mist: +500 Intelligence!

You have slain the Aspect of Extinction: +500 Willpower!

Eve swallowed. He’d had two aspects, no doubt one for level a hundred and one for level two hundred. At two-eighty-nine, he’d only been eleven levels short of unlocking a third. Eve didn’t want to think about how poorly that fight might’ve gone if he’d had the patience to wait for it.

By sheer coincidence, the over one quadrillion exp the Man of the Mists had dropped on death happened to bring Eve up those same eleven levels, from a hundred to one-eleven. Curiously enough, it seemed they’d all given her stat scaling boosts rather than alternating with ability upgrades. All except her reward for hitting one-ten.

Ability Upgraded!

Passive Ability - Ethereal Manifestation

Can now drain other resources and convert them to Mana once a target’s Mana is depleted.

The upgrade was interesting—it would’ve allowed her to kill the Man of the Mists just by draining him rather than having to resort to choking him out—but seemed of limited utility. Eve was just contemplating the potential use cases for such a skill when a gasp rang out behind her.

She turned to find Preston standing stock still, his face pale and his eyes shining blue with the reflection of a message screen. “Eve,” he managed, audibly short of breath. “You need to see this.”

Eve’s heart raced. “What’s wrong?” In under a second she’d dropped her half of the body and darted over to Preston. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. The words reflected in his eyes spoke volumes.

Life Quest Complete: Don’t Let Her Die.

“Preston!” Eve practically screamed as she lunged forward to give the man a hug. “Congratulations!”

He hugged her back. “I… I guess that’s it, then. I’m done.”

“You deserve it, Preston,” Eve told him, meaning every word. “I never would’ve made it remotely this far without you.”

“I know,” Preston laughed. “I have the milestones to prove it.”

“Guys…” Alex tapped Eve on the shoulder. “You might want to look around.”

Eve pulled away, casting her gaze around the battlefield to find hundreds of guards, soldiers, and adventurers standing deathly still, the same pale face, shocked expression, and blue-gleaming eyes upon them all. Channeling Mana through her eyes to enhance her vision, Eve caught a glimpse at a few of the closest ones.

Life Quest Complete: Protect Those You Love.

Life Quest Complete: Hold the Line.

Life Quest Complete: Defend Your Home.

Eve’s heart seized. All around her, hundreds of life quests reached their conclusion as the defenders of Pyrindel accomplished their greatest feat: helping defeat the Man of the Mists.

She spotted Rorick, body dripping with blood, sharing the same shocked expression. A grin stretched across Eve’s face as she looked about in awe. So many people, so many lives, had all come together to make this moment happen.

They’d done it. She let out a laugh as she took it all in. They were finished. They’d fought their fight, they’d held the line, they’d defended their home and protected those they loved with all the ferocity and fearlessness the world had ever seen.

And they’d been victorious.

But Eve’s quest continued. Somehow every man and woman who’d fought in the battle of Pyrindel had achieved their life’s purpose, but no Courier came running to deliver her a loaf of bread. In truth, Eve still knew for a fact the city’s bakers hadn’t yet recovered from the Muffin Man’s capture of the flour market.

All these people, Rorick, Mila, Rel, Preston, they’d played their parts, and now they were done.

But Eve wasn’t.

A sense of dread fell over her as the thought hit, and the Man of the Mists’ parting words struck her once more. Eve cursed.

With her mind she reached out to Emily, breaking the queen of Leshk from her own notification-fueled stupor as she sent the message, telepathically looping Preston, Alex, Reginald, and Lumy in on the conversation.

Emily! Where are the Questing Stones?

What? The confusion in Emily’s thought came through clearly. Why?

It’s something the mist-man said before Eve killed him, Preston explained. Where are the Questing Stones?

Emily paused, seemingly taking a moment to ask a nearby advisor for the information. A minute later, she replied. Out west, near the woods. Just north of some small farming village.

Eve could feel the panic in Preston’s message.

What village?

Not the one you and Wes are from, Emily sent. It’s a few days from there. Place called Ponsted. Why? What’s wrong?

Shit, Eve cursed to herself intensely enough for the others to get the message. Shit shit shit. I think I know who the Man of the Mists’ partner is.

“Eve, what is it?” Alex asked aloud. “What’s near Ponsted?”

“What isn’t the problem,” Preston breathed. “It’s who.”

I gotta go, Eve sent.

Eve, what’s going on? Emily asked one last time.

Someone’s on their way to try and destroy the Questing Stones, Eve replied. Which is a disaster in its own right, but there’s a much, much more immediate threat.

Eve spared Preston a sorry glance. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“Go,” he said, handing the half-charged Ar-gold scepter back to her. “I’ll explain.”

Eve turned west and Charged off, vanishing from view in a pair of seconds.

Whatever’s going after the Questing Stones is biting off more than it can chew, Preston filled in the others.

That’s where Wes is hiding.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

A Footrace with Apocalypse

EVE RAISED THE cup to her mouth, scowling and wrinkling her nose as the fiery liquid within crossed her tongue. She groaned.

“Why does Gregory buy this stuff, anyway?” she asked, glancing down at the cheap bottle of whiskey. “You’d think with how much money he made adventuring he’d be able to afford booze that doesn’t taste like a horse shat in a campfire.”

“Says he prefers it.” Wes clumsily leaned forward to snatch the bottle off the table between them. He glanced down at the label while he spoke. “Apparently he’s been drinking this stuff for half a century.”

Eve let out a laugh. “We need to buy him some better whiskey. This stuff is vile,” she said, taking another sip anyway.

Wes snorted. “I’ll toast to that.” He raised the bottle, seeming to forget he held a half full cup in his other hand. Eve clinked her glass against it, and they both took a sip.

Preston, especially exhausted after the day’s adventuring spent herding steelcats, had taken an early night, leaving Eve and Wes to raid Gregory’s liquor cabinet alone. That was Preston’s mistake.

Wes’s mistake was, at twice Eve’s size, thinking he could handle taking one sip for every two of hers. The trouble was, with Eve’s natural resistance to alcohol and the simple fact that Wes’s mouth accommodated far bigger sips than Eve’s, the man was absolutely sloshed.

As the evening progressed and the conversation waxed and waned, Wes seemed to grow quieter and quieter, a distant expression landing on his face as he seemed to stare through the floor. For her part, Eve was content to let him ponder whatever was on his mind in silence, at least up until the point she began to suspect he’d somehow passed out with his eyes open. It was only as she shifted in her seat to get a closer look that he finally spoke.

“I need to ask you a favor,” he said, his eyes not moving from their spot on the floor.

Eve sat back. “Is everything okay?”

“You… you can’t tell Preston I asked you this, okay? He doesn’t understand.”

“Wes, what’s wrong?”

Wes still stared with vacant eyes towards the ground. “If I lose control, and Art can’t stop me or he isn’t there or god forbid something happens to him, I need you to kill me.”

“Wes, I can’t—”

His gaze swung up to finally meet Eve’s. “Promise me, Eve.”

“Wes—”

“Promise.”

Eve gulped.

“Please, Eve,” Wes said. “You’re the only one I trust to do this. The only one who I know can. I need to know that if it comes down to killing me or letting the Devouring Flame go free, you’ll do the right thing.”

Eve snatched the bottle from his hand, forgoing her glass to pour altogether too much of the cheap liquor down her throat. It went down easier than the words came up. “If it comes to that. If we’ve tried everything and nothing works for some reason. If there’s no other way—”

“Eve.”

Eve exhaled, her shoulders sagging into the leather chair behind her. She glanced down at the floor, then forced her gaze back up. She’d look him in the eye when she said the words.

“I promise.”

* * *

Eve ran.

Such seemed to be a recurring theme in her adventure. Eve spent a lot of time running. Running from the hydra with Wes on her back, running in circles from a rapidly accelerating foot elemental, running headlong into traps, battles, and more walls than she’d care to admit. She’d run for her life. She’d run to save another’s. She’d run to buy scones before the bakery closed. She’d run with the wind in her face and the sun on her back, careless and free as any mortal had ever been.

But she’d never run like this.

Her heart stampeded in her chest as her feet pounded against the ground with incredible speed and force. Her stomach churned. Her brow dripped with sweat. An ear-bursting roar sounded out around her, like a rolling thunderstorm just beside her head. Eve knew anything with functional ears could hear her for miles. She didn’t care.

She ran.

All around her, Leshk passed in a blur. She skirted around villages and farmhouses. She plowed right through the Cherry Woods, trees falling and exploding into splinters as she obliterated them with the force of her passage. Whatever malevolent spirit controlled the woods didn’t even try to stop her.

She leapt over hills and dodged around boulders and ran directly across ponds and rivers. She avoided the Great Crossing at Ilvia, keeping south of the trading hub and not even sparing a glance for the towering monument in the distance. She ran over the Ilv like it was any other stretch of road.

She ran and she ran and she ran. The Songbird’s Hills where Preston had first found Reginald passed in a blur. The gleaming glass walls of Lynthia sparkled in the setting sun, Eve passing close enough to catch a whiff of the city’s stench.

She ran to Wes’s aid just as ferociously as she ran from her own thoughts, from the nagging reminder in the back of her mind that she had no plan. She had no strategy. She had no ideas. Her one tool, her one ability that she’d always hoped would work as a last resort to save Wes, ticked away on a thirty-hour cooldown. Without Defy, Eve had nothing. Less than nothing. She had a memory of a conversation she and Wes had once had, of a promise she’d made.

Gods alone knew if Wes even remembered it given how much he’d had to drink, but Eve did. Hells, she wished she didn’t.

Eve knew she was too late when she was still over a mile out.

The sky above Ponsted glowed red, a pillar of black smoke blotting out the setting sun. Eve clenched her jaw tight when the firestorm came into view.

She Jetted to a halt in the middle of the dirt road, where a large crowd of people stood and gawked at the distant firestorm, faces pale with shock. Even at the roar of her approach, only a few of them peeled their eyes away from the blaze. “What happened?”

“There was a dragon,” a man in an apron answered. “It came from the north. Then one of them high-level weirdos that moved in recently ran into town screaming that we needed to leave.”

Eve paused, relief from a worry she hadn’t realized she’d felt spreading through her. “He evacuated the town. Good job, Wes,” she breathed before returning her gaze to the helpful civilian. “Is everybody out?”

The man frantically cast his gaze from side to side, taking in the crowd. “I… I think so.”

Eve nodded. “And the dragon?”

A little girl silently pointed towards the firestorm.

Eve jumped into the air, running Mana through her eyes as she looked past the crowd. Sure enough, just outside the growing blaze sat a mass of black scales and singed bones, twisted and broken and eaten by the flames.

The blightmaw dragon was dead.

Eve gulped. “Okay,” she addressed the townsfolk, “here’s what you’re going to do.” She pointed behind her. “Your home is gone, and that firestorm is only going to grow. I’m going to do what I can to stop it, but I can’t guarantee I can or how big that blaze is going to be by the time I do. All of you need to get as far away from here as you can. Head towards Lynthia. You can find shelter there.”

“We can’t just leave,” a woman protested.

“You can and you will,” Eve insisted. “It’s not safe here. It might not be safe anywhere, but Lynthia’s your best bet. Maybe the enchantments on those walls can stop it.” She knew they couldn’t, but these people needed to leave. If a little false hope is what it took to get them moving, Eve would give it to them.

The little girl tugged at Eve’s belt to get her attention. “Are you gonna save us?”

“I will.” Eve looked down long enough to meet the girl’s frightened look and pat her on the head before returning her gaze to the raging inferno in the distance. She clenched her jaw. “Whatever it takes.”

With that she Charged forth, leaving the fleeing villagers behind as she crossed the open field. She materialized the Ar-gold scepter as she ran, emptying it of Mana to overcharge her pool to five times its normal capacity. From there she absorbed both the crown and the scepter, using them to store everything that couldn’t dissolve with her. She’d lose access to their powerful enchantments, but where she was going, enchanted gear wouldn’t last long.

The air itself seemed to singe her skin as she approached, parching and charring her throat and lungs with every breath. Eve pressed on.

The blaze dominated her field of view, a fiery curtain that obscured all within behind a blanket of destruction. Eve stepped up to it, whispered a prayer to any god, demon, or eldritch monstrosity that would listen, swallowed back the knot in her throat, and leapt into the fire.

* * *

Wes tried to scream, but his mouth refused to obey.

The fire raged around him. His fire. He’d failed. He couldn’t fight with the devouring flame. He couldn’t reason with it. He couldn’t even run from it. Somehow, fire had found him, carried directly to him on the breath of a dragon. He hadn’t even had a chance to reap the reward from completing his life quest before the voice took control.

At least he’d gotten the villagers to safety, for what little good that would do them now that the devouring flame was loose. Now, there was nothing he could do. All that was left for him was to ride along, a passenger in his own body, and silently match the flames with rage of his own. He raged at the unfairness of a world in which this could happen, at the Questing Stones for starting him down this path, at the devouring flame for its very nature.

Most of all he raged at himself, at allowing himself to fall down this rabbit hole, at refusing to leave adventuring behind until it was too late. Now the world would burn.

Look who it is, the whispers pulled Wes from his fury. More fuel for the flames.

Wes froze. He knew of exactly one person who would willingly step into the inferno, and his entire being agonized over her presence. Right there, for a brief moment amidst the apocalyptic firestorm he’d brought into being, not even the devouring flame could stop a tear from falling down Wes’s cheek as the thought crossed his mind.

Eve, I’m sorry.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Into the Fire

EVE’S BODY, ARMOR, and underclothes all disintegrated into a cloud of Mana the moment she came into contact with the firestorm. The blaze rushed to meet her. She fought to keep herself as tightly packed as possible, struggling to reduce the surface area at which the flames could chew. Still it tore through her.

The pain was agonizing, but nothing Eve couldn’t handle. Like this, she had no flesh to rend, no nerve endings to ravage, no brain to process the electrical signals as the maelstrom of torment it was. There was only the sensation of malevolent hunger tearing off bits and pieces of her to feed its ravenous nature.

She pushed forward, her overcharged Mana pool steadily dropping as she floated towards the center of the blaze. Towards Wes.

An inkling of a plan scratched at the back of Eve’s consciousness, a faint idea lurking behind the agony that sought to obscure it. Maybe, just maybe, if Eve could get to Wes, could drain his Mana in the same way she’d drained the Man of the Mists, he could wrench back control.

Eve already knew it wouldn’t work. She’d have to be corporeal to drain him, which would only hasten her demise, and even without Mana the flames that already burned would continue, and Wes’s Gift of the Devouring Flame would draw more Mana from them. Still Eve pushed forth, determined to try.

With every second the flames ate away at her, ripping her Mana away by the thousands. Were it not for the massive amount of fire resistance she’d gained when she’d reforged her body in dragonfire, she’d have already been dead.

Twice as she approached the eye of the firestorm did Eve try and recreate the technique she’d used against Carl’s flames. Twice she let the flames come, allowing them to burn away her Mana in exchange for a chance to exert her will upon it, capture its Mana for herself.

But this was no mere dragonfire.

Even after she brought the devouring flame’s Mana under her control, it raged on, burning hot and bright upon her Mana until she expelled it. There could be no holding such a thing.

Her Mana pool had fallen to half its overcharged capacity by the time Eve sensed Wes on the edge of her awareness. She reached out to him. Wes! Can you hear me?

Wes isn’t here right now.

Eve cursed, doubling down her effort to hasten through the blaze. She wanted nothing more than to Defy it then and there, but on cooldown the skill was useless to her. She could only hope against hope that draining Wes’s Mana would work. At the back of her mind, three reasons it wouldn’t popped up, but Eve refused to accept them. She could stop this.

She knew, as she finally reached him, that she’d have to materialize at least part of her body if she intended to use any abilities. She tried with just a hand upon his forehead, but the flames devoured it before it could fully form. The process cost her ten thousand Mana.

Eve needed more. She’d have to reassociate too much of her body for the devouring flame to destroy at once, flesh to burn, nerves to feel it and all.

She didn’t even pause to consider it.

She left her Ar-gold, armor, and underclothes as a cloud of Mana around her, knowing they’d do little good here. The rest of her materialized all at once, her hands cradling Wes’s cheeks.

Eve burned.

Her skin burned to ash and reformed with fresh Mana in a cycle of agony. Her lungs screamed in torment as she breathed in naught but fire. Her very soul wailed in protest as the flames pushed in.

But Eve didn’t relent.

She pushed her focus forward, towards Wes’s face within her hands, towards the inexplicable tear that dripped down her thumb.

Eve pulled.

The most obvious flaw in her plan reared its head immediately. Just as that she’d absorbed from the firestorm around her, the Mana she drained from Wes burned her from within. Even under her influence, a part of her Mana pool, its hunger never ceased. The more she pulled from Wes, the more she burned.

She could already feel herself losing this fight.

Eve’s mind raged against the dilemma before her. If she let this Mana into the environment or back into Wes, it would only fuel the firestorm. If she held onto it, it would burn through her instead. No matter what she did, the devouring flame would burn on.

But maybe she could give it something to burn.

Eve grit her teeth, her mind scrambling for an idea as it fought through the haze of agony. With Free Cast, she had more control over foreign elements of Mana than she’d ever had before. With Read the Threads, she could control exactly what her spell would and wouldn’t interact with.

Eve tried to swallow, but her parched throat returned only pain.

There was no telling what could happen. Her plan, if one could call it that, hinged upon three days’ understanding of how the threads worked and what the devouring flame could do. For all she knew, she was about to set her very soul ablaze.

But as Eve stood there, the world around her and her body itself burning from within and from without, she didn’t care. She had to try.

Once more she reached out to Wes, pulling strands of fiery torment from him and into herself. She let it burn, pulling more and more from the wellspring of inferno before her. She needed to make sure she’d have enough.

Her Mana plummeted as the fires fed.

Eve steeled her soul and kept pulling.

The last of her overcharge ran out, and Eve’s own personal Mana began to go up in smoke. Still she pulled. The dragon scale Mana lines along her body ran red with fire, glowing channels of molten magic that seared the flesh around them. Still she pulled.

She waited until her pool hit half capacity before she released her hold on Wes and turned her focus inward. She watched with her mind’s eye as his Mana ate away at her, burning the fuel she’d so willingly given it. No more.

It was less of a spell and more of a crude instruction, a single thread binding all the devouring flame Mana together, and another pointing it in the right direction. Eve attached it directly to another concept within her mind’s eye.

A timer, ticking down from twenty-nine hours and fourteen minutes.

The flames devoured it as readily as they did anything else, sinking their teeth into it and burning it away until no more remained of those hours than a black char mark where they’d once been. Eve extended her mind to Wes’s. I’m gonna fix this.

The devouring flame took the bait. You shall burn.

No.

The firestorm around her seemed to quake as she Defied it, pulling away especially from Eve as she held fast before it.

The inferno returned with a vengeance, tearing her flesh and Mana away in chunks, but Eve was just getting started. Even after reusing the Unique ability, no new cooldown appeared. There was only the black mark she’d burned upon her soul.

This world is mine.

No.

I am inevitable.

No.

All shall burn.

No.

Again and again and again she Defied it, beating back its every advance with the unmatchable force of her indomitable will. It fought back with a fury, flames flaring bright and hot around her, but try as it might, it could not break Eve’s spirit. It couldn’t quash her defiance.

She couldn’t see it from her vantage at its center, but the firestorm around her shrunk with every defiance, with every refusal to allow the world to be this cruel. Eve stood at the gates between realms, the only warden between life and the embodiment of destruction and hunger. She let it wash against her in waves, faced its rage and its torment, felt the unimaginable might of a being outside of reality bearing down upon her, and whispered soft defiance.

No.

Its claims grew weaker, smaller, and more focused as its grasp on Eve’s world grew more and more tenuous. Still she Defied it.

My way is paved.

No.

This realm is open to me.

No.

He is mine.

No.

I control him.

No.

The flames shall feed.

No.

Eve’s Mana dwindled. Her consciousness faded as her defiance took its toll. She held on as long as she could, unwilling to let the darkness take her until she knew her foe had been beaten.

The last things she remembered before she collapsed to blackened ground were the cool breeze on her neck and the pink light of sunset coloring the sky.

* * *

Eve awoke lying naked in the ruins of Ponsted, the glow of sunrise piercing her eyelids. She jerked upright, waving her notifications away to clear her vision for the one thing she cared about.

Wes lay to her left, his chest gently rising and falling in peaceful slumber.

He was okay.

A million questions remained to be answered, but the one above them all, the only one that really, truly mattered, sang as a song through Eve’s mind.

Wes was okay.

Eve paused to materialize her underclothes and armor onto her body and pull her pack and other items from storage before pushing herself to her feet and taking in her surroundings. Ponsted stood a village of ash.

A number of villagers milled about the wreckage, doubtless searching for any trace of their valuables that might’ve survived. They’d given the two sleeping adventurers a wide berth, too frightened to dare disturbing them after all they’d seen. Eve could understand that.

Other than the bare frames of a few ravaged buildings, nothing in Ponsted had survived the firestorm. Nothing other than the people Wes had evacuated. At least, that’s what Eve thought at first. That’s what she’d expected, after all. The devouring flame burned indiscriminately.

It was that reasoning that so blindsided Eve when she turned around to find a single structure still standing. Its walls were charred, its sign illegible, the two steps up to its front door reduced to ash, but it stood, tall and steadfast as if in open defiance of the flame’s destruction.

The building hit Eve like a slap in the face. “Huh,” she said, slowly, almost nervously making her way towards it.

The structure was familiar and unfamiliar at once. Its construction sparked no memory in Eve’s mind, but something about its location tugged at the edges of her consciousness. It wasn’t until she stood right before it that she remembered.

This building stood not because of some whim of fate or mercy in the devouring flame, but because two years before, just as a pair of fledgling adventurers made their way to town, it had abruptly caught fire in a baking accident and burnt to a crisp. Its owner had spared no expense in its rebuilding, including every safeguard against immolation he could get his hands on. His bakery had burned down once, and he wouldn’t let it burn down again.

Eve stepped inside.

The villagers who’d gathered in the only structure still standing parted as Eve appeared, nervously stepping aside to allow her clear passage up to the counter. The man behind it stared up at her frightfully. Eve stared back.

Numb, as if in a trance of trepidation and impossibility, Eve reached into her pocket and placed two copper pieces on the counter. They were rusted, singed, pocked with acid and coated in a layer of grime so thick it defied understanding. She slid them across the counter.

Eve stood there for a moment, mind in shock more than anything else, as she watched the baker’s gaze flick down to the two coins and back up to her. The words came all at once, words she’d said a hundred times over her life, and no doubt would say a hundred times again, and yet then, in that moment, they carried as much weight as any words ever spoken.

“One loaf of bread, please.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Life Quest Complete

EVE SAT BACK in her chair, taking a few moments to catch her breath and sip from her glass of vintage champagne as the party continued around her. She’d needed this. They’d all needed this. For all involved but for Eve, Wes, and Preston especially, the past week had been nothing short of an absolute nightmare.

But it was over. After all that work, all that preparation, all that unending stress, everything had turned out okay, and now, beneath an embroidered canopy outside Wes and Preston’s manor house, friends new and old had gathered to celebrate. If nothing else, Eve had come away from the ordeal with a newfound respect for Alvin and Lina.

Planning a wedding was hard enough when most of the guests were human.

Eve let out a contented sigh as she gazed across the reception at the happy couple, who even now refused to leave each other’s side. She smiled.

They deserve this, a stray thought reached Eve’s head, one she recognized as coming from a certain phantasmal harvester.

“They do,” Eve answered aloud, knowing only Lumy could hear her over the team of Bards performing to her left. “This and so much more.”

So, what happens next? Seems like now the wedding’s over, you’ve crossed off everything on your to-do list.

“Not quite everything,” Eve said. “But I’m not sure. I’ll probably spend some time in Nowherested, help ma out with the shop.” She glanced across the space at Martha, locked in a lively conversation with Art’s father on the topic of troublesome children. Eve grinned and gestured with her head towards Wes and Preston. “I’ll stay put at least long enough to let them enjoy their honeymoon.”

And then?

Eve shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll see what they want when the time comes. Maybe they’ll join me, maybe they’ll stay here and enjoy the married life for a bit.” After everything the couple had gone through, Eve couldn’t blame them either way.

She turned back to gazing softly across the reception at them. Preston looked exhausted and exuberant at once, his tuxedo topped off with the stylish hat that had come to be his signature, decorated with the prismatic feather he’d earned for completing his life’s quest. Its ability to open portals between him and any monster he’d formed a connection with had been how he’d delivered Art’s wedding invitation. He’d never again be separated from his friends.

Wes, in contrast, had received something a bit more necessary—a class upgrade that would have made a lot of things a lot easier if he’d managed to claim it before the devouring flame had taken control. Eve Appraised him for the umpteenth time since that day.

Level 96 Master of the Devouring Flame

Unique Tier 4 Class

Life quest or not, Eve had often wondered if Wes’s reward would’ve even been possible if she hadn’t Defied the devouring flame’s control over him, at least until Lumy’d reminded her that assuming she’d been necessary was a rather self-absorbed way of thinking about it.

But you’ve decided you’re going to go after it, Lumy sent, pulling Eve’s focus back to the conversation at hand.

“I think so,” she said, materializing her most prized possession in her right hand. The fist-sized Ar-gold sculpture of a scone rested heavy in her grasp. She’d already tried a dozen times to modify or experiment on the enchantments upon it, but any change she made always resulted in the device losing its function, something Eve absolutely could not have.

With a stray thought, she activated it, and a head-sized portal appeared right in front of her. Eve reached through and withdrew a cupcake—one of Alvin’s recipes.

Lumy sighed. You realize we’re at a wedding, right? The lungeon catered an entire dessert spread.

“But that’s all the way over there,” Eve laughed. “Besides, this is more fun.”

Personal Pastry Portal

Rarity: Legendary

Effect: Opens a portal to the pastry dimension, which can recreate any pastry it’s been shown.

Lumy flashed purple. I still think that’s a weird quest reward. It’s clearly absurdly powerful, but the being limited to pastries thing is a bit much.

“I love it,” Eve said, reabsorbing the Ar-gold artifact back into herself. “I’m already absurdly powerful. I don’t need something that helps me fight.”

But you need something that makes scones?

“Yes.” Eve didn’t bother trying to explain what really made the personal pastry portal so special. Lumy wouldn’t have gotten it.

Years ago, when she’d first been standing in line to visit the Questing Stones, Eve had wanted one thing more than anything else: to see the world. She’d since made pretty good progress on that, but there was always more to explore. Of course, with her myriad of dangerously fast methods of transportation, she hadn’t needed a quest reward to help her travel.

She’d needed one that gave her a reason to.

The Ar-gold scone, when she’d first touched it, had come with another reward, one Eve hadn’t even known was possible.

Secondary Quest assigned: Collect Them All

Complete the personal pastry portal’s collection of recipes.

Wes called it her Questing Scone. Eve liked the name more than she was willing to admit.

Eve finished her glass of champagne and pushed herself to her feet. “Alright,” she said, “it’s probably about time I rejoin the festivities.” She glanced over at Wes and Preston. “What’re the odds I can force one of them away from the other to make them dance with me?”

Moving from one Legendary quest to another, are we? Lumy joked.

“No,” Eve laughed. “No quests tonight. Only dancing.” With that she left the table behind to go join her friends.

She could worry about plotting the course of her next journey later. Now was not the time for grand plans or great mysteries or deadly fights. Now was the time for celebration. They’d made it. They’d run the gauntlet, faced the crucible of danger and hard times, and come out okay on the other side.

They’d also saved humanity and then the world, but compared to planning this wedding that felt like a piece of cake. Delicious, delicious, lungeon cake. Ayla’s tits did Alvin know what he was doing.

So, for the time being, Eve put her worries aside. She tabled her next quest, banished any apprehension towards the future, and let go of the tension that had snuck its way into her shoulders. Tonight, Eve was going to do exactly two things: drink, and dance.

And by the gods, the Stones, and the concept of fate about which Eve gave not one solitary shit, she did.

After all, there would always be time for another adventure.

THE END

STATUS

EVELIA GREENE

Manaheart

Level 127 The Defiant

Unique Ability - Defy

Aspect of Magic

Aspect Ability Free Cast

Aspect Ability Read the Threads

Aspect Ability Mana Prism

Exp: 918 Trillion /113 Quadrillion

Health: 0/0

Stamina: 0/0

Mana: 111,210/111,210

Constitution: 0

Willpower: 11,121

Intelligence: 4,867

Dexterity: 4,518

Strength: 4,401

Spirit: 0

Passive Ability - Queen of Lost Burendia

The queen of Burendia is the queen of magic itself, and as the culmination of the Great Work, you’re poised to be the greatest of them all. All Burendian remnants will recognize your authority. All enchantments, Burendian or otherwise, will bend to your will. Gain access to the Ley Travel feature. Wherever Mana can go, you can go. Gain access to the Commanding Presence feature. Gain access to the Overcharge feature. Gather up to five times your maximum Mana for a short period.

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. Gain [WPW/25] Dexterity. You run and swim [WPW/3]% faster.

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 and [WPW/25] Intelligence. Unlock access to the Fatetorn Gaze general skill. Grants the Telepathic Communication feature.

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. Can draw other resources and convert them to Mana if target is out of Mana. Gain immunity to annihilation magic. Imbue your spells with annihilation Mana. Transcend beyond the limitations of flesh. Gain temporary control over elemental Mana you absorb. Gain the ability to make minor changes whenever you reform your body.

Active Ability - Defiant Charge

100 Mana

Face your foes head on. None shall stand in your way. Quintuple your Willpower and maximum running speed and jumping height 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/15] 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. Can be cast with temporarily-controlled elemental Mana.

Active Ability - Jet

X Mana/Sec

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 or held item. Can be channeled for continuous control.

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And check out my serial-only project Dungeon Devotee, available now on Patreon! Coming to Royalroad and Redditserials for free in February!

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