Roark nodded to show that he was following, but remained silent. He didn’t want to interrupt the Nocturnus’s story now that Ick had begun to open up.
“It goes against the pride, to learn that you are nothing more than a puppet dancing to another’s strings when you believed you meant so much more,” Ick said bitterly. “I confronted her too late. The night I did, she tore the head off the Overlord, ate his corpse, and took the Web. Out of deference to our... bond... she cast me out rather than kill me and set a lifetime prohibition against my return to our Jungles.”
As the story came to a close, Roark stared down into his flagon. It was nearly empty, but he felt soberer than when he’d begun drinking. Ick’s story of his ambitious mistress had hit Roark a little too near the mark.
So often he held his own actions up against the horrors of the Tyrant King’s rule, excusing his own maneuvering and determination because it wasn’t as bad as the things Marek had done. But before coming to Hearthworld, he’d made no real friendships, only strategic alliances that could bring him one step closer to assassinating the despot. Anyone who had failed him or questioned his methods had been cast aside as callously as Ick. Everything, everyone was just a means to an end. And could he truly say he’d changed since coming to Hearthworld? Sure, he’d made friends he would lay down his life to protect, but when all of that decoration was boiled away, wasn’t all of this—and even them—still just more means to his ultimate end of killing Marek?
“Griefer,” snapped Griff sharply, banging his empty cup down on the table.
Roark jumped, startled from his brooding.
The grizzled old weapons trainer pierced him with a knowing look. “I see the wheels turning, and I know what direction your cart’s headed. There’s a time for self-examination, but this ain’t it. After a defeat like today, anything you take out and turn around right now’s going to look skewed and rotten. I suggest you put it away for the time being. Focus yourself on what you can change in the here and now, problems you can solve.”
The corner of Roark’s mouth turned up in a smirk. “Like how do I kill an unkillable hero.”
Griff raised his empty cup to Roark and blinked his one eye. It took a moment for Roark to realize it was the one-eyed man’s version of a wink.
“Excellent advice, as always.” Roark drained the dregs of his ale, then pushed back his chair and stood. Mac chirped angrily at being so rudely awoken, but a few hearty head-scratches soothed his ruffled spikes. “Thank you for sharing your history with us, Ick. Kaz is right, you’re a great asset to the Troll Nation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have a few minor Dungeon Lord tasks to attend to before I try to make another run at Bad_Karma.”
The Grand Inquisition
ROARK LEFT THE MARKET and headed for the fifth floor’s throne room with a mind to make the rounds of each floor to see how the portal plates were holding up. As nothing of the sort had been crafted in Hearthworld before, Roark wasn’t certain how many uses they could withstand before the Curse Chains began to degrade, but he wanted to stay ahead of it.
And, if he was honest, the wandering and potential for some physical labor held much appeal. Perhaps he could find Trolls with weapons in need of repair or armor that needed tailoring. Anything to keep his hands busy while his mind worked through the problem of how to kill a virtually unkillable hero.
The portal plate beside the river on the fifth floor was in good shape. He spent a few minutes talking to the griefing squad on duty, listening to their exploits and congratulating the newly Evolved Thursr Elemental in their group, before detouring for the Keep. He would check that plate, then maybe he could find Zyra and run some ideas for mass attacks on Bad_Karma by her.
Roark had just let himself into the Keep and was heading for the portal plate in the foyer when a shimmering violet portal opened. Not over the portal plate—which would have glowed blue when activated—but in the open air beside the wall. His mind fumbled for a solution, trying to understand just what he was seeing and why, but nothing would come. Like Bad_Karma, this seemed like an issue without any readily apparently solution. The griefing squad—a Jotnar Soul-Cursed, a pair of Thursr Elementals, and two Reaver Champions—stepped forward, weapons drawn and spells readied.
“Wait,” Roark said, raising a hand. “This isn’t a hero raiding party.”
He pulled his new Peerless Slender Rapier and Kaiken Dagger and raised them in a ready stance, facing the portal as uncertainty and a thread of fear roiled in his gut. Could this be Lowen’s doing? What if the slippery little eel had finally decided to make his play?
No one stepped out.
Roark cocked his head slightly. He heard the rasp of metal on metal less than a heartbeat before a cold steel band closed around his neck.
“Got him!”
Roark whirled, but found nobody to go with the disembodied voice. An invisibility spell? The griefing squad were searching the room and sniffing the air for the invisible assailant.
“Show yourself,” he growled, one hand tearing at the steel collar. He couldn’t break or bend it, and his clawed talons didn’t even scratch the surface. Angular ridges of script he didn’t recognize scraped against the pads of his fingers and palm of his hand. “Stop hiding like a coward.”
“Show him, Randy.”
Roark’s lip curled into a snarl. Now that was a grating voice he knew well, and it certainly didn’t belong to Lowen.
At once the invisibility dropped, revealing PwnrBwner_OG with a wide grin on his face.
“Boo, motherfucker.”
“You just don’t learn, do you, mate?” Roark raised his new rapier and tried to advance on the High Combat Cleric.
But the collar yanked him backward, choking him. Even with his arm extended, the tip of his blade barely scraped the surface of PwnrBwner’s breastplate.
“How you like that shit?” the High Combat Cleric sneered. “Admin privileges, boy!”
Roark lunged pie’ fermo, but the collar jerked him back again, clenching down on his throat like a mad titan’s fist. He strained against the metal band though it was strangling him. The imminent strangulation would be worth wiping that smug look off PwnrBwner_OG’s ugly face.
But another shimmer of violet light flared to life behind Roark. A new portal. Without warning, Roark found himself dragged backward into it.
An icy breeze blew across his skin and ruffled his shaggy hair. Goosebumps prickled down his back and arms, and he gave an involuntary shiver.
Then he fell backward onto his ass on a stone floor. He was in a windowless, doorless stone cell, less than ten feet across in any direction. And he wasn’t alone.
A gray-winged Arboreal Herald in a type of plant-based armor—curling vines, blooming flowers, and saw-toothed leaves edged in silver—with matching silver hair and eyes stood by, clutching a metal wand with a small, rune-etched skull perched on the end. Though Roark didn’t recognize the second man in the strange armor, the wings jutting from his back reinforced the idea that he was somehow associated with Lowen and the Vault of the Radiant Shield.
A moment later, PwnrBwner_OG stepped through the portal, and the shimmering tear in space closed behind him.
The High Combat Cleric grinned maliciously. “Welcome to hell, mate.”
“No thanks,” Roark said. “I’ve just been to the icy version, and it wasn’t for me.”
He traded his rapier for his dagger and raised it to his throat. He didn’t know how many cuts it would take to kill himself, but getting taken alive by the enemy wasn’t for him, either. Not by a Tyrant King who tortured as gladly as he breathed and not by a bellend like PwnrBwner_OG, who had obviously thrown in his lot with Lowen.
“Hang on,” the Herald said, taking a step forward, his chainmail clinking softly. “You don’t want to do that. See this?” He held up the wand. “It’s a specialty item called a Lightning Rod, part of a set with that collar. I tracked them down and confiscated them from a modder last year, using them to... Well, to
do some pretty bad stuff.”
The Herald jammed the wand into the wall. There was a flash of light, and it sank into the stone, the little skull on top seeming to grin mockingly at Roark.
“It’s called a Lightning Rod because it attracts the collar to it,” he said. “As long as you’re wearing the collar, you’ll respawn wherever the Lightning Rod is, and you can’t really move from the spot unless I move you. You can hex, curse, cut, and smash the collar as much as you want, but it’s indestructible. It’s magically locking, so there are no tumblers to pick. It’ll only come off if I say the right words.”
“So, no matter how many times you kill yourself, you’ll end up right back here, prick,” PwnrBwner said. He had produced a flanged mace and slapped it against his gauntleted palm. A smile stretched across his face when he saw Roark’s eyes following the motion. “Like this bad boy? It’s no Unique Rose Mace of Thorns, but we’ll see how much that matters to you when you’re spitting teeth out the side of your head.”
Roark’s grip tightened on the dagger until the leather bindings creaked. In all of his worst nightmares back in Traisbin, he had never imagined being trapped so badly that even death couldn’t save him. They had him, and that smug bastard PwnrBwner knew it.
“What did Lowen offer you, an hour with me chained up like a dog?” Roark smirked at the High Combat Cleric’s darkening expression. “Better enjoy it while it lasts, mate, because it’s the only way you’ll ever beat me. And when the Tyrant King—”
PwnrBwner’s mace flashed out, the razor-sharp flanges tearing into Roark’s face, pulverizing his jaw, and ripping off half his cheek. Stars exploded across his field of vision, pain lancing through his head. Blood poured in a river down the chest of his dark leather armor, and a few white slivers of broken teeth flowed with it.
“Hey! Don’t!” The Arboreal Herald had PwnrBwner by the mace arm and was dragging him back. “He was about to give us a name. That’s what we’re here for, remember? Information.”
PwnrBwner shook the Herald off. “Fine, who the hell is this Tyrant King douche? Another one of your modding friends?”
Roark spat in PwnrBwner’s eye, the bloody wad landing with a satisfying slap. “I’d see everyone he’s killed die again before I aligned myself with that despot!”
“Augh! You gross little shithead!” The High Combat Cleric swung the mace back for another blow.
Roark braced himself to lose another chunk of flesh, but the Arboreal Herald stepped in front of PwnrBwner before he could strike, gray wings twitching nervously as he pushed the Cleric back against the far wall.
“Stop letting him get to you,” the Herald insisted. “If he goads you into killing him, we’ll have to wait two hours for him to respawn. I recruited you to help me fix things, not make things worse, and I only have so much time.”
Roark chuckled. “So you’re on a deadline, too, eh?” His torn, bleeding face and broken teeth made speaking painful and garbled, but he forced the words out anyway. “How long did Lowen give you before he takes over and finishes the job?”
The Herald crouched in front of Roark, his chainmail clinking.
“Lowen, the other modder, right? From the Vault of the Radiant Shield.” His gray eyes searched Roark’s, alight with something more akin to curiosity than sadism. If Roark didn’t know any better, he’d say this man seemed genuinely uncomfortable with the idea of torture. “Are you guys having some kind of flag war or just seeing how much of Hearthworld you can take over or what?” he asked.
Like a gristmill grinding to life, Roark’s mind fought to process what the Herald was asking. It didn’t make any sense. If the Herald was one of the Tyrant King’s men sent through the portal to back Lowen, then he would already know why they were after him. The past few minutes ran through his head again. The questions about Marek, the strange accent that matched PwnrBwner’s...
“You’re not from Traisbin,” Roark said. “How did Lowen recruit you?”
“I kill modders, I don’t buddy up to them,” PwnrBwner scoffed.
The Herald, however, remained calm. “I work for Frontflip, part of the Hearthworld Admin staff, not Lowen.” He pulled out a platinum-and-copper badge and held it out as if Roark should recognize its significance. “I’ve been investigating your activity, trying to find a way to isolate the spread of the code you’re using. It’s corrupt, you know? If I can’t stop it, it could take down the whole game. Is that intentional? Are you trying to crash Hearthworld?”
Roark shook his head, the unfamiliar words rolling meaninglessly off. Frontflip? Admin staff? Corrupt code? None of this made any sense. But Roark was smart enough to piece together that whatever this Herald was about, it didn’t have anything to do with Lowen—at least not directly. It seemed, rather, that he was investigating Roark and Lowen’s presence in this world. But how to explain something as complicated as that? After mulling it over for a minute, he sighed and decided he might try some measure of the truth. What else could he do at this point?
“Listen, mate, I’m not even supposed to be here. Portal magic in Traisbin... where I’m from... is dangerous. It spat me out in Hearthworld at the Cruel Citadel”—he gestured at himself—“as a Troll.”
PwnrBwner rolled his eyes. “Drop the role-playing pirate bullshit already. It’s not funny and you’re not cool. Just tell the guy how to fix what you screwed up before you wreck the only good thing online.”
Roark leaned back against the stone wall and rubbed his eyes.
“You don’t believe me.”
“No duh, dickbrain.”
Seeing he wouldn’t make any headway with the High Combat Cleric, Roark turned to the Herald. That one, at least, seemed capable of reason.
“You heroes come from another dimension, correct? You’re not native to Hearthworld. Well, neither am I. Where we seem to be misunderstanding one another is that I’m not from your home world, either. I’m from a country called Traisbin on a planet called Earth. I didn’t know there was a Hearthworld—or any other dimensions at all—until I came through a faulty portal after my assassination attempt against the Tyrant King, Marek Konig Ustar, went awry. I suspect my untimely arrival here has something to do with a powerful artifact, called the World Stone, which I stole from Marek during my attack. I’ve been trying to get back home ever since, but Lowen, who works for Marek, somehow managed to follow me here along with several more of the Tyrant King’s lickspittles.”
“Cute story,” PwnrBwner said. “You make that up playing D’n’D in your mom’s basement?”
But the Herald didn’t dismiss it immediately. “A parallel Earth?” He tugged at his chin, then shook his head as he broke into a restless pacing, back and forth, back and forth. “Or another planet called Earth.” He was mumbling, more for himself than for anyone else’s benefit. “There’s no reason a similar race wouldn’t give a planet with similar life support systems the same name.”
“You’re actually buying this crap?”
The Herald put up a hand. “I’m just considering it from every angle. Occam’s razor says the simplest answer is the one that fits all the facts. You haven’t seen the code behind these anomalies, and you haven’t been following the Griefer around for the past week. I am very good at my job, and I can’t find any logical explanation for what is happening here. So, if there isn’t a natural explanation, perhaps the easiest explanation is a supernatural one.”
“You’ve been spying on me?” Roark asked, simultaneously impressed and disgusted. And a bit uncomfortable, considering the number of less-than-shining moments he’d had over the past seven days and nights.
“He hasn’t logged out or gone inactive once to write in the new stuff he and his infected NPCs keep creating,” the Herald continued, eyes unfocused as if he were talking to himself. “And that more than anything would be impossible if he was a modder. In more than a month, he hasn’t stopped playing to eat, sleep, or do anything, which would be impossible if he were a human in a headset or even a Deep Dive capsul
e. And that’s only one issue.” He ran a hand through his silver hair. “The code. The mechanics. The classes and changes to the game he’s managed to make. Literal magic may be the single best explanation I’ve heard so far.”
Roark nodded. None of those words made any sense to him, but he got the bent of the man’s thinking.
“Bullshit!” PwnrBwner said, throwing up his gauntleted hands. “Magic isn’t real. Taco Bell is real. The congestion on the 5 is real. But magic wizard pirates from a different dimension? That’s just fucking stupid. Just because you want his story to be true doesn’t mean it is.”
“What I want doesn’t matter,” the Herald said flatly. “Data doesn’t lie.”
“Best listen to your friend, mate,” Roark said to PwnrBwner. “Because what I’ve told you so far is only half the story. The second half goes like this—Lowen takes the World Stone Pendant from me and brings it back to his master, the Tyrant King. The Tyrant King finds out there’s not just one other dimension he can crush under his boot, but two, and he comes for Hearthworld first. The magic here is incredible, powerful, and unfortunately reliable. He’ll conquer it in a matter of weeks at the most. Then he’ll use Hearthworld’s inherent magic to find a way to your dimension and conquer it as well.”
Truthfully, Roark wasn’t certain Marek could find a way to a third dimension, but he had managed to send Lowen and an army of his loyal followers to Hearthworld, so he must have some way of ensuring safe travel through portals. Marek was a power-hungry tyrant. If he knew there was another world with people in it, he wouldn’t rest until he found a way to expand. Especially if it meant more magic and power. And if he could find a way to harness the magic and enslave the natives of this world, he wouldn’t just have more power, he’d have untold power.
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