The Once King

by Rachel Aaron

The players pulled with all their might, and the doors of the lab ripped free with an ear-splitting screech. Everyone scattered as the huge sheets of metal crashed to the ground, rattling back and forth on their bent, uneven surfaces. When the dust cleared, James broke into a huge grin.

  “They’re alive!”

  King Gregory stood in the open entranceway with his two captains beside him, the source of the pounding they’d heard earlier. Behind them, a ragtag army of knights, gnolls, jubatus, and a large number of players huddled in the huge room that had once been the lich’s workshop. Gregory’s golden armor bore dozens of deep slashes and was still covered in his dried blood, but the giant red-headed king looked overjoyed, his face bursting into a huge smile when he saw them.

  “By the Sun!” he cried, rushing forward to clap James’s shoulders. “It is you!”

  He said more, but even the king’s booming voice was drowned out then by a flood of cheers from the army behind him. Weapons were dropped as all their terrified discipline dissolved into hugs, tossing each other around, and crying in joy. A few of the soldiers ran deeper into the lab, bringing out the women, children, and wounded to join in the joy. James spotted Gray Fang in the back next to a bandaged Rends. His adopted father spotted him at the same time, bursting into a grin even his injured face couldn’t hide.

  “We are saved!”

  The cry grew into a roar as the others joined in, thousands of jubilant voices blending together as the survivors of the Savanna burst forth from the dark room they’d been holed up in for what must have been days now.

  “Did you destroy the Once King?” Gregory yelled over the chaos. “The pounding on the doors stopped a day ago, but we didn’t dare hope.” He looked around at the still corpses of the undead, his eyes going especially wide when he spotted the body of Sanguilar. “You must have done it!”

  Tina and James shared a look. “We did it,” James said. “But it’s sort of…complicated.”

  “Then you shall tell me over dinner,” Gregory said happily, pulling them both toward the exit.

  Several days later…

  In the end, everyone agreed that the battle of the Savanna was one of the bloodiest ever fought. It took days to burn all the corpses and still more to mourn the fallen. When all the ceremonies were done, King Gregory announced that he and his people would be returning to Bastion.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” James asked. “The city’s a smoking ruin.”

  “And it will be that way forever if we don’t go home,” the king said grimly. “But there’s more to Bastion than just one city. We have many principalities and territories, all of whom will be looking for guidance. I am their king, too, which means I must go back. The world must know that the Bastion still stands. But I do have one question for you.”

  “Shoot,” James said.

  The king looked nervous. “Will you stay with us?” he asked, looking at James and Tina. “I know you have a way home now, but many players are staying, and frankly, we don’t know how to handle them. There are also many dangers left over from the Nightmare that have yet to be addressed. Even with the undead defeated, whole zones are still overrun, and I no longer have an army to help them.”

  “That’s fine,” Tina said, smiling her best mercenary smile. “The Roughnecks are always available for the right price. We’d be happy to stomp some lowbie quest zones in your name in exchange for, say, tracts of land and good pay?”

  “Quite fair,” the king said. “It shall be done.”

  Then he looked at James.

  “I’m staying,” James assured him.

  The king’s instant smile was the best compliment anyone had ever paid him.

  “We have much to do,” Gregory told them both happily. “But there’s no one I’d rather do it with! With your help, I am sure we can rebuild this world to be what it was once again.”

  “We’ll do it better,” Tina said proudly. “There’s so much knowledge from our world that we can share. Now that this is our home too, I’m hoping people will actually listen.”

  “Cheers to that,” James said, lifting his tin cup of water. “It’s not every day you get a chance to rebuild a world. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “I’m looking forward to peace,” Gregory said, his shoulders slumping. “But even with the Once King gone, I fear it will not be easy.”

  “Nothing worth doing ever is,” Tina said. “But we’ve got this.”

  “We’ve got this,” James agreed, wrapping an arm around his little sister’s armored shoulders. “Together.”

  Epilogue

  There were many things that happened in the world once called Forever Fantasy Online after the Once King’s defeat. But while there are more victories and defeats in the long life of a living world than can be recorded in any history, here are the stories of the figures who stood tallest.

  After much cajoling, Tina Anderson finally accepts a noble title from King Gregory to make the accounting easier in her new role as Bastion’s field general. Due to the many, many conflicts left behind by the Nightmare, Baroness Anderson and her husband SilentBlayde spend their first several years together in their wedding present from James, a yurt, leading the Roughnecks on a worldwide campaign of pacification. When every last raid dungeon and quest hub has been dealt with, SilentBlayde puts his foot down and insists they move back to Bastion and raise a family.

  Living in peace with his wife at last, SilentBlayde commissions an “elven Ikea”–style apartment in Bastion right next to his second passion project, Bastion’s only ramen noodle shop. He and Tina retire from their lives as generals and use the funds from the publication of the world’s first collectible card game to found the Public Library of Bastion. Somewhere in the midst of all this, they have their first daughter, an elf named Hanabi. She is the light of SilentBlayde’s life, and Tina is forced to intervene on a regular basis to ensure that her feet occasionally touch the floor.

  James Anderson stays in the Savanna to help rebuild. When Rends’s marriage plots grow too dire to ignore, he allows himself to be “kidnapped” by his mother Acacia when she returns to her diplomatic post in Bastion. Desperate for competent help, King Gregory snatches him up at once and makes him the kingdom’s foreign affairs adviser. James eventually goes on to actually use his political science classes, founding and leading the first Diplomatic Corps of Bastion.

  Fangs in the Grass eventually succeeds his father as the head of the Claw Born clan. Despite his protests, James insists on giving him full credit for the jubatus’ treaty with the gnolls, a deed that earns him the title Ar’Bati, He Whose Fangs Brought Peace Instead of War. It takes Fangs a full year to forgive his brother for this indignity.

  After six months of drumming up work, ZeroDarkness goes home loaded down with a giant bag full of letters, James’s payoff gold, and a very hefty commission. After much media attention and an uncomfortable stint in a government facility, he is reunited with his family at long last. He goes on to be quite internet famous, as intended, but the real winners are his kids, who think it’s the coolest thing ever that their dad is now a “super cat ninja.”

  Killbox stays with the Roughnecks for a few years until he gets bored doing “lowbie quests” and returns to Bastion to open an Ax Gym, which promises to give wealthy patrons the “player body.” It’s modestly successful, though most of his clients are actually other players looking to keep their game-given physiques. Not one to be modest in anything, Killbox gives up on the gym and opens a brewery instead, eventually winning a Royal Warrant for his amazingly smooth lagers.

  Leylia seduces her Red Sands bodyguards during their escape from the Battle for the Savanna and runs off with them, never to be heard from again.

  Anders joins the priesthood, going on to earn even Raffestain’s grudging respect through his humility and hard work. His career as a priest is marked by always taking assignments in the most run-down and disadvantaged areas, particularly those inhabited by players. When the statue honoring the
Roughnecks is finally built in Bastion’s new Founder’s Square, he makes sure that NekoBaby’s figure is right up front with her name in huge letters so that not even the smallest schoolchild can miss it.

  Rashid “NekoBaby” Patel is the first player to wake up from the “Forever Fantasy Online Incident.” He goes on to be mega-famous, starting with talk shows and eventually building an entire lifestyle brand around himself. He later writes a best-selling fantasy series retelling the events that happened to the players trapped in FFO—moderately embellished, of course. When not on tour, Rashid spends a great deal of his time and money championing LGBTQ+ rights and causes around the world. He also captains the FFO survivors’ reunion once every two years. He is still the best healer in the game.

  Frank successfully guilts the Grand Schtump into giving him all of DarkKnight’s gold so that he can found an orphanage for children who lost their parents in the post-Nightmare chaos. He later teams up with Baroness Anderson to found the world’s first free public school. ‘Cause kids need to go to school, dang it.

  Zen stays in the world of FFO and has a very different life than she expected. All of her cats back home are fine.

  The Once King uses his newfound freedom to actually explore the world he once considered his prison. He is occasionally sighted flying in the blue sky by excitable peasants, but for the most part, no one knows what he does or where he goes. He dies peacefully a year after the last of the ghostfire is extinguished. James only discovers this when he is invited to attend Ar’Kan’s sun-drenched royal funeral by the Bedrock Kings, along with King Gregory and Commander Garrond. The Great Birds Zthr and Xthr also show up to pay their respects, causing a great deal of panic.

  After the death of the Once King, Commander Garrond devotes the Order of the Golden Sun to the task of restoring the Deadlands to life. He dies of old age shortly after reopening the Grand Sun Temple at the top of the (formerly) Dead Mountain.

  The End

  Book 3 of 3

  Thank you for reading The Once King! If you enjoyed the book, or even if you didn’t, we hope you’ll consider leaving a review. Reviews, good or bad, are vital to every author’s career, and Travis and I would be extremely grateful if you’d consider writing one for us.

  What a ride it’s been, huh? Thank you so much for reading all the way through our FFO trilogy! Endings are sad, but we’ve got tons of new projects in the pipe. If you want to be the first to know when new stuff is available, sign up for our New Release Mailing List! List members are the first to hear about any new projects plus you get bonus content such as the list-exclusive Heartstrikers short story, Mother of the Year! The list is free, and we promise never to spam you or give your information to anyone else, so sign up and join the fun! You can also follow us on Twitter @Rachel_Aaron and @TravBach or like Rachel’s Facebook page, facebook.com/RachelAaronAuthor.

  Need something new to read right now? Check out one of Rachel’s other completed series! Just click over to the “Want More Books?” page in your eReader’s table of contents or visit www.rachelaaron.net for the full list of Rachel’s novels complete with their beautiful covers, links to reviews, and free sample chapters!

  Thank you again for reading, and we hope you’ll be back soon!

  Yours sincerely,

  Rachel Aaron and Travis Bach

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  Minimum Wage Magic

  Return to the DFZ in Rachel’s newest series!

  The DFZ, the metropolis formerly known as Detroit, is the world’s most magical city with a population of nine million and zero public safety laws. That’s a lot of mages, cybernetically enhanced chrome heads, and mythical beasties who die, get into debt, and otherwise fail to pay their rent. When they can’t pay their bills, their stuff gets sold to the highest bidder to cover the tab.

  That’s when they call me. My name is Opal Yong-ae, and I’m a Cleaner: a freelance mage with an art history degree who’s employed by the DFZ to sort through the mountains of magical junk people leave behind. It’s not a pretty job, or a safe one—there’s a reason I wear bite-proof gloves—but when you’re deep in debt in a lawless city where gods are real, dragons are traffic hazards, and buildings move around on their own, you don’t get to be picky about where your money comes from. You just have to make it work, even when the only thing of value in your latest repossessed apartment is the dead body of the mage who used to live there.

  "A catchy title, a plucky protagonist and a maximum effort by the author, honestly readers can't ask for more in the urban fantasy genre."- Fantasy Book Critic

  "I love what Rachel Aaron has done with this novel to expand her stories within this unique world of her creation. I have developed a trust in her ability to write engaging stories of great characters which I feel most comfortable and eager to spend time with, and this book is no exception." - TS Chan

  Want to read more? We’ve included a free sample of Minimum Wage Magic in the back of this book!

  Just keep paging forward to read more or click here to see it in ebook and audio!

  The Heartstrikers Series

  As the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: stay quiet, don't cause trouble, and keep out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn't cut it in a family of ambitious predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience.

  Now, sealed in human form and banished to the DFZ--a vertical metropolis built on the ruins of Old Detroit--Julius has one month to prove to his mother that he can be a ruthless dragon or lose his true shape forever. But in a city of modern mages and vengeful spirits where dragons are seen as monsters to be exterminated, he's going to need some serious help to survive this test.

  He just hopes humans are more trustworthy than dragons.

  "Super fun, fast paced, urban fantasy full of heart, and plenty of magic, charm and humor to spare, this self published gem was one of my favorite discoveries this year!" - The Midnight Garden

  "A deliriously smart and funny beginning to a new urban fantasy series about dragons in the ruins of Detroit...inventive, uproariously clever, and completely un-put-down-able!" - SF Signal

  Want to read more? Click here to learn more about all 5 books in the award-winning Heartstrikers series!

  The whole series is also available in audio from Audible.com!

  The Legend of Eli Monpress

  Eli Monpress is talented. He's charming. And he's the greatest thief in the world.

  He’s also a wizard, and with the help of his partners in crime—a swordsman with the world’s most powerful magic sword (but no magical ability of his own) and a demonseed who can step through shadows and punch through walls—he's getting ready to pull off the heist of his career. To start, though, he'll just steal something small. Something no one will miss.

  Something like… a king.

  "I cannot be less than 110% in love with this book. I loved it. I love it still. Already I sort of want to read it again. Considering my fairly epic Godzilla-sized To Read list, that's just about the highest compliment I can give a book" - CSI: Librarian

  "Fast and fun, The Spirit Thief introduces a fascinating new world and a complex magical system based on cooperation with the spirits who reside in all living objects. Aaron’s characters are fully fleshed and possess complex personalities, motivations, and backstories that are only gradually revealed. Fans of Scott Lynch’s Lies of Locke Lamora (2006) will be thrilled with Eli Monpress. Highly recommended for all fantasy readers." - Booklist, Starred Review

  Click here to read more about The Legend of Eli Monpress, Rachel’s debut Fantasy series, complete at 5 books!

  The Paradox Trilogy

  (
written as Rachel Bach)

  Devi Morris isn't your average mercenary. She has plans. Big ones. And a ton of ambition. It's a combination that's going to get her killed one day - but not just yet.

  That is, until she just gets a job on a tiny trade ship with a nasty reputation for surprises. The Glorious Fool isn't misnamed: it likes to get into trouble, so much so that one year of security work under its captain is equal to five years everywhere else. With odds like that, Devi knows she's found the perfect way to get the jump on the next part of her Plan. But the Fool doesn't give up its secrets without a fight, and one year on this ship might be more than even Devi can handle.

  "Firefly-esque in its concept of a rogue-ish spaceship family... The narrative never quite goes where you expect it to, in a good way... Devi is a badass with a heart." - Locus Magazine

  "If you liked Star Wars, if you like our books, and if you are waiting for Guardians of the Galaxy to hit the theaters, this is your book." - Ilona Andrews

  "I JUST LOVED IT! Perfect light sci-fi. If you like space stuff that isn't that complicated but highly entertaining, I give two thumbs up!" - Felicia Day

  Click here to read more about the Paradox trilogy, now complete!

  Enjoyed FFO? You’ll love