by James Hunter
“Noon today?” Lakshya’s voice was much quieter than the marketing VP’s. Then again, most were. “I thought the cutoff was five p.m. tomorrow.”
“For the shirt place, yeah,” Danny said. “But I got lunch with the playas on the board today, then I’m headed straight into PTO with my bros at the lake. Brews, brats, bros—know what I’m sayin’?”
“You’re going to be too drunk to send a simple T-shirt order?”
“Laksie, I don’t plan to see straight again until it’s time to drive home Sunday morning.”
All the air whooshed out of Randy’s lungs and he dropped into his ergonomic rolling chair, weak with relief. He didn’t have to go invisible and zip down the hall at top speed to get this done before Danny finished his cake. All he had to do was wait until Danny left for that lunch, and he would have the whole rest of the day to scour the marketing VP’s workstation.
Randy glanced at the clock.
One hour and twenty-one minutes until time to be a hero.
Jungles of Eternal Night
THE TREK FROM THE CRUEL Citadel to the edge of the Jungles of Eternal Night took Roark, Kaz, Zyra, Mac, PwnrBwner, and Ick most of a day without the convenience of portal magic. If their party hadn’t been so large and they’d had more human-esque faces to copy than just PwnrBwner’s, they could have used their Polymorph masks to take a portal through the closest town to Nocturnus territory, but Randy hadn’t been able to join them for the journey, and Mai flat-out refused to touch the quicksilver masks.
The silver lining was that PwnrBwner leveled his Ranger-Cleric to 14 solely on free-roaming mobs. As the rest of them couldn’t gain any Experience from killing other Hearthworld chimera, they gladly let the Cleric handle the majority of that task, only stepping in when it seemed as if he would be killed by something much more powerful.
The last leg of their journey took them through the Sea of Flowing Grass, the coarse brown stalks of the flora waving around their waists. From time to time, off in the distance, flocks of Prairie Doves burst from their hiding places, followed by a massive shimmer in the shape of an Adolescent Turtle Dragon. Mac would croak and waddle after them, cutting through the tall sun-bleached grass, but the birds always quickly outdistanced him. When Mac grew truly frustrated, a bolt of lightning sizzled through the air from one of the spikes on his shell and burnt escaping Doves to ashes midflap.
When the maps Kaz had drawn up for them showed that they were less than an hour from the Jungles of Eternal Night, Ick called for a stop.
“Now would be the prudent time to don your disguises, while we are still well out of range,” the Nocturnus said, picking grass seed from his dark blue Witchdoctor robes. “Sentries watch over the borders of the Jungles at all times, vigilant for any who would approach from the lighted world.”
“Sounds good to me, bro,” PwnrBwner said, taking a long drink from his blued steel flask. “I need to check the Wikis on a couple of these abilities before I pick one anyway. Do mine last. I’ll be ready by then.”
Roark glanced over at him. “Did you invest in—”
“You freaking kidding me, dude? If you ask again, I’m going to remove it from my abilities.” PwnrBwner shook his head and muttered a word Roark wasn’t familiar with, though it sounded like a curse—“Micromanager.”
Roark rolled his eyes and turned back to his Inventory, pulling out Quicksilver Polymorph masks to begin the transformation process.
Zyra nudged him and held up a flask matching PwnrBwner’s.
“Drink up, Griefer. Everybody.”
“And Mrs. Micromanager,” PwnrBwner muttered, tipping back another swallow.
Ignoring the Cleric, Roark and the others took deep drinks from the blued steel flasks the Septic Brewmaster had provided them with before leaving the Troll Nation. The liquid inside was one of the stranger ones Roark had tasted since arriving in Hearthworld, sweet and spicy at the same time, and it left a cold burning sensation trailing down the back of his throat.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Icy Hot Draught of Fire and Ice Resistance
Item Type: Rare Brew
Effect 1: Grants drinker resistance to 15 pts Fire Damage, stackable.
Effect 2: Grants drinker resistance to 15 pts Ice Damage, stackable.
╠═╦╬╧╪
True to her word, Zyra had equipped each of them with as many of the Icy Hot Draughts as they could carry. Unlike most potions, which worked for a defined length of time after being consumed, the strength of these draughts stacked infinitely, building up layer after layer of resistance that remained in effect until enough total Fire or Ice damage was done to the drinker to negate the accumulated protection of the draught.
Finishing off the flask, Roark turned back to the Polymorph Masks.
“Ick, if you’re ready.”
The Nocturnus nodded.
Kaz, Zyra, and PwnrBwner took their masks in hand without hesitation, but when he held out his mask to Ick to begin the Polymorph process, the Nocturnus faltered.
“Does Ick fear the quicksilver?” Kaz asked. “Kaz thought Nocturnuses were immune to Impulse Control damage.”
“Resistant, not immune, Mighty Gourmet,” Ick corrected politely, the legs on his back curling and uncurling in apparent agitation.
Roark had never feared spiders the way some people did—in truth, he found them fascinating in the right light—but even he had to admit Ick’s nervous motion made him shudder a little inside. It was like the moment one crushed an eight-legged intruder in your bed and it curled up, only repeated over and over again.
Seemingly unaware of the unsettling effect of his fidgeting, Ick turned his many eyes toward the southern horizon, where the Jungles of Eternal Night lay. “Above all else, Nocturnuses value restraint, careful consideration, and stoicism. In a society of conquest, these principles are key to survival, both for the individual and as a people, and so we abhor that which takes even the smallest amount of self-control from our grasp.”
“Don’t worry, Ick,” Zyra said. “You’ll see the effects in the Griefer and the loudmouth long before anyone else. Though I don’t know how we’ll tell the difference between it and their everyday recklessness.”
Roark scowled at her, and PwnrBwner held up one finger in what Roark suspected was supposed to be an offensive gesture.
Chuckling his insectile laugh, the Witchdoctor took the first mask from Roark and began the Polymorph process. All four were finished in short order. One by one, they put on their disguises and became a party of Icks.
“Gross.” PwnrBwner’s arachnoid arms squirmed with revulsion, his multitude of sapphire eyes squinting as he surveyed his new form. His voice was his own, though carried the slight droning buzz of the Nocturnus.
“I rather like it,” Zyra said, moving the limbs independently of one another. “With this many arms, I could brew a dozen more poisons at once. Can you build webs, Ick?”
The true Nocturnus shook his head, tentacled hair sliding over his shoulders.
“Spinning is an honor for the Conquistador class,” he said. “Support casters like myself may create spell webs, but we cannot spin physical ones.”
“Pity,” she said.
Nearby, Kaz clapped his tiny insectile hands and twitched his extra legs.
“Look at how small Kaz has become!” He grabbed his middle body section with two pairs of arms and laughed heartily. “So tiny!”
“And fragile,” Roark warned him. “Let’s get going. If we hurry, we can be well into Nocturnus territory before this first Polymorph wears off. The fewer times we have to re-morph, the less chance we’ll be discovered.”
Disguises settled, they forged ahead. The closer they drew to the Jungles, the darker the sky became, first darkening to a gloomy gray as if to threaten rain, then fading to a deep midnight blue as dark as Zyra’s natural skin. In the distance, a vast tree line stretched for as far as the eye could see in either direction.
Ick’s mood changed as they approached the J
ungles as well, becoming darker and more withdrawn. When the trees became visible, the Witchdoctor quit speaking to the rest of them altogether. His expression had shifted, and Roark couldn’t tell whether Ick’s mandibles and multiple eyes were showing a deep-seated fear or a resolute determination.
“All right, Ick?” he asked in a low tone so the others wouldn’t hear.
The Witchdoctor didn’t respond immediately.
“In truth, Dungeon Lord, I don’t know,” he said after several moments, staring at the looming shadowy forest. “It has been so long since I was banished. In these jungles, my honor was stolen, and my name destroyed among my people. Yet it is my home, and I can’t suppress the warmth that the sight of it stirs in my thorax.”
Roark felt a wry smile twist his lips. He knew that feeling all too well. He wanted to tell Ick that maybe one day he would be free to roam the Jungles of Eternal Night again, but they would both see that for the pretty lie it was. Ick couldn’t return home any more than Roark could move back into von Graf Manor. That was the way time and history worked. The past was forever fixed in a cocoon of rose-colored glass—visible, but ultimately untouchable.
“This way,” Ick said, heading for a towering camphor tree near the edge of the woods.
As they approached, a silken bridge became visible leading from the knotted roots up into the lowest branches.
“The few Nocturnuses who venture into the lighted world use this route. Perhaps if we do as well, the sentries overhead will believe we are simply a party of merchants returning laden with spices and delicacies.”
Keeping his head level as if he walked this path every day, Roark used the topmost eyes of his arachnoid Polymorph to search the treetops. He didn’t see any spidery legs or glittering eyes in the branches, but for just a moment, a barely there strand of shining thread caught the light near the highest level of the canopy.
“Is that...”
Ick followed his gaze. “A line of communication,” he explained quietly. “There will be several thousand, stretching between sentry posts and back through the Jungles to my lady—apologies—to Isara’s Overweb. If we are discovered, word of our intrusion will be carried to her in moments.”
“So head down, mouths shut,” PwnrBwner said. “Got it.”
The silken bridge dipped and swayed beneath their boots, but Ick showed them how to steady their steps with their back limbs as they walked, gripping onto the intricately woven rails on either side. With one set of eyes, Roark caught Zyra studying the glossy spiderline with fascination, while the other set showed him PwnrBwner trying to touch it as little as possible, revulsion etched into his borrowed face. Kaz, on the other hand, seemed to be having the time of his life with the bouncy properties of the bridge. Roark found it exceedingly difficult to smile with the Nocturnus mandibles, but Kaz was somehow managing the feat with ease.
Soon, other bridges joined theirs, crisscrossing beneath or overhead, connecting trees and branches, until Roark could hardly see the ground below. Thick, tunneled webs had been spun inside holes in trees and in the crooks of branches.
Roark’s heart nearly stopped when he saw a deep brown spider trundling along the silky bridge beneath them. He swallowed hard and turned to Ick, not surprised to see his friends doing the same.
Ick shook his head.
“We have nothing to fear,” he said reassuringly. “That Recluse is on the Builder’s Route.”
“But what if he switches to our route?” Zyra growled, reaching for her weapons.
Ick stopped her extra limbs before she could pull out her Cursed Longknives.
“That is not done,” he said. “Builders take only the Builder’s Route. It is the way. They would never cross to the Merchant’s Route any more than merchants would cross to the Creche-Nurse’s Route and Creche-nurses would never cross to the Conquistador’s and Conquistadors would never cross to the Builder’s. Why even have routes at all if one can just walk wherever one pleases?” His tone was a bit more heated with every passing second. “Why not just leave society to dissolve into chaos?”
“Your people must get on really well with the Olm’s Legion of Order,” Zyra said, releasing her weapons.
Roark agreed. The Nocturnuses’ system was a good deal more organized than anything Roark had seen from the Trolls of the Cruel Citadel. In fact, now that he was looking, he could easily make out patterns in the placement of the holes and webs lying at the edges of the silken bridges Ick called routes. Every inch of the Jungles settlement was meticulously planned and neat.
“At one time,” Ick said, inclining his head a fraction. “But no more. My Lady Isara does not share power nor does she compromise. She rules all, or she destroys. This is the Way of Conquest, the highest ideal of our society, and she embodies it.”
“Is that why she kicked you to the curb?” PwnrBwner asked. “Because you got tired of her shit and wanted a piece of the action, too?”
“Power was never something I craved,” Ick said. “My longing was always for a greater treasure. You see, when I was young, my lady chose me out of millions of creche-mates to become her personal Witchdoctor. She claimed it was for my skill as a caster, and I was bound to her in the way of all Conquistador-Witchdoctor pairs, though I must be forgiven if I thought our bond was stronger than any that had come before. Bit by bit, however, she used me to take apart the old regime. I realized the depths of my lady’s manipulations too late, and by the time I came to my senses and stepped in to stop her, she had seduced our former Overweaver, the powerful but fair Imihn the Lacemaker, and torn his head from his corpse, taking the Overweb from him.”
“Man.” PwnrBwner shook his head. “What a bitch.”
“Your bond,” Zyra said in a gentle tone Roark had never heard her use before. “When Isara seduced the previous Overweaver, she broke it, didn’t she?”
For a moment, a pained grimace warped the Witchdoctor’s features, but he smoothed it away quickly and looked to the bridge ahead.
“The entrance to the Underworld Cairns is not far,” he said. “Let us not fill our cups with distractions when we are so close.”
They carried on in silence, following Ick along the Merchant’s Route through a labyrinth of silken stairs and sharp turns.
As they came around the bole of a colossal oak, however, Ick stopped suddenly, his multitude of sapphire eyes going wide.
Roark fell in alongside him. “What is it?”
“That is the entrance,” Ick said, jutting his mandibles toward a towering chimney of spiderweb that stretched up into the shadows of the dark canopy, seemingly disappearing into infinity. “Below the funnel lies the entrance to the Underworld Cairns.”
“We’ve made it?” Zyra asked.
“Ick has brought us safely through the Jungles of Eternal Night,” Kaz said happily.
But Ick shook his head. “No, honored Gourmet. I have brought you to the greatest danger yet. For that,” he said, indicating the towering web, “is the Overweb, the throne of power belonging to My Lady Isara the Spinner, the mightiest and most cunning in all of Nocturnus Territory, and as you can see, she has rebuilt it so that there is no way down to the Underworld Cairns but through her.”
“But Kaz does not see Isara,” the Feral Hellstrike Knight said, craning his neck to search the elaborate network of spider silk. “Perhaps she is somewhere else. Roark is rarely in his throne room, either. He is always somewhere else taking care of Dungeon Lord business.”
Ick shook his head. “That is not the way of the Overweaver. Do not be fooled by her seeming absence, friends, for she is here, and she is watching. The moment we touch her web, she will know not only that we are here, but she will sense through your vibrations that you are not Nocturnuses but something else. Something far larger.”
Roark’s mind raced through possible solutions, but kept coming back to the same conclusion.
“Trying to blunder through will only get us killed,” he said, “and if Isara’s worth her salt as Dungeon Lord, then she�
��ll have contingencies set up for attacks not only from heroes, but from other dungeons as well. Our best bet is to use her preparations against her.” He locked eyes with PwnrBwner. “We’re going to need bait.”
“Don’t even play like that, dickbrain,” the Ranger-Cleric growled. “It’s not funny.”
“You’re the only hero here,” Roark said.
PwnrBwner threw up his hands. “So I’m the expendable one?!”
“No, you’re the misdirection.” Roark pulled out a blued steel flask of Icy Hot Draught and shot the contents in a few long gulps. “This is where you finally get to use that new Ranger ability.”
Isara the Spinner
“JUST WANNA MAKE SURE for the last time that everybody in the party knows I think this is bullshit,” PwnrBwner muttered.
“It’s been noted, mate.” Roark shoved a blazing torch into the hero’s gauntleted fist. “Now get out there.”
In the safety of a spot far below the silken bridges of spiderweb, hidden in the shadow of the funnel covering the Underworld Cairns, the Ranger Cleric’s Quicksilver Polymorph Mask had been removed, and he had returned to his regular human form. He looked no different from any other hero who would invade the Jungles of Eternal Night, save for a few levels.
PwnrBwner equipped his Shelob’s Bane Shortsword in his free hand, took a deep breath, then strutted out onto the merchant’s bridge, waving the torch around wildly.
“Who wants barbeque?” the Ranger-Cleric called at the top of his lungs. “I’m getting hangry out here! Fried spider leg, extra crispy, sounds pretty damn good right now!”
Across the intricate network of bridges, Nocturnuses of every classification and Evolution froze, multitudes of eyes locked on the flickering torch. According to the WikiLore and Ick, there was nothing Nocturnuses feared so much as fire. Their delicate bodies were critically weak to Burning damage.
“Come on, you stupid bugs,” Pwnr yelled, swirling in a tight circle, torch and shortsword held wide. “I’m about to light this motherfucker up. What’re you gonna do about it?”