by James Hunter
When his head finally stopped spinning, he sat up and surveyed the magnificent beast now dead before him. Everyone had said he was mad, and maybe for a moment there, they had all been right. But it was only madness if you lost—and this time, at least, he had won.
Feeling a flicker of smug satisfaction, he stood and limped over to the beast, opening Aczol’s Inventory.
It was filled with Unique and Legendary Items, Rare and Singular scrolls and potions, and just under 400,000 gold, but Roark transferred all of it with hardly a glance. There would be time to survey the extent of this windfall once he was tucked safely back inside the walls of the Cruel Citadel. Besides, the true prize sat waiting for him at the bottom. A deadly looking black stone that pulsed twining blue and orange light from its center like a dying heartbeat.
[Artifact Arch-NecroDragon Transmutation Core]
Roark scooped it up, a victorious smile tugging at his lips.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Arch-NecroDragon Transmutation Core
Rarity: Tier 9, Artifact
Creature Core Level: 99
Durability: Stable State
Half-life: N/A
Notice: Because the Arch-NecroDragon Transmutation Core is Artifact level, it has a Stable durability and will not deteriorate over time.
Notice: Once implanted in a compatible host, the Arch-NecroDragon Transmutation Core cannot be removed without destroying the Transmutation Core.
It’s what’s on the inside that counts... but sometimes what’s on the inside can significantly alter the outside...
╠═╦╬╧╪
Without warning, Aczol’s corpse shifted. Roark closed out of the item description and leapt back just as the NecroDragon’s body turned to ash and collapsed back into Daemonhold Deep, vanishing into the lair far below.
“You were a tough one,” Roark said, begrudging admiration in his voice. If the creature could speak, it hadn’t. Hadn’t bargained. Hadn’t pleaded for mercy. Hadn’t even uttered a threat. A formidable foe to be sure. “And you deserved every bit of that hoard.” He gave the beast a final salute. “I hope we never meet again.”
Feeling the weight of a thousand worlds slough from his shoulders, Roark opened his grimoire and selected the Transmutation Preview.
[Error! Incompatible Core: Discrepancy is too large between Host’s current level (40) and Core Creature’s level at time of death (99). The discrepancy between the levels of the Host and Core Creature must not be more than 2n, where n is the Host’s current level.]
“Damnation!” Roark scowled as he read over the message. “Damn it all to the pit of the Seventh Hell!” Why hadn’t he thought about the level discrepancy? He’d known about it after his experimentation with the Hellstrike Jackal Cores, yet it had never crossed his mind that he would be incompatible. A fool’s mistake, one that could cost him dearly. He would have to be level 50 before he could hope to use the NecroDragon’s Core. He dragged a hand through his shaggy hair, then cursed again.
Zyra’s dusky chuckle sounded in his head, and he knew immediately that she would say that this was what he got for being so bloody impulsive.
Unfortunately, there was simply nothing for it but to get back to the Citadel and begin the grind to level 50.
Roark was about to trade his grimoire for a portal scroll when a message appeared. It was from Griff and marked URGENT in thick black letters.
There’s a Herald army outside the Citadel, and I’m pretty damn sure it’s that Lowen fella leading the pack. The specialty forces ain’t answering me or Grozka. Get back here as fast as you can.
“Seven bloody damnations!” It was too soon. All too soon. He was still just a bloody level 40, and to top it all off, every one of his friends was dead.
He couldn’t fight Lowen in this condition.
But he couldn’t leave Griff and the rest of the Citadel to be killed or taken alive, either.
With a snarl, Roark slammed the grimoire closed and tore open a portal scroll. If he survived this, he would make bloody damned sure that the allied Dungeon Lords knew their troops answered to whoever the hells he put in charge.
Bleeding, out of Health potions, and alone, he stepped into the shimmering violet light of the portal.
The Final Straw
“GET OUT OF MY WAY,” Randy said, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “I’m leaving, Danny. If you touch me again, there are going to be some very real repercussions.”
“Oh, I’m so scared,” the douchebag sneered. “I do Krav three times a week, bud.” He slapped his flat stomach. “Abs of steel. Body fat of less than three percent. I go to the gym every. Fucking. Day while you’re sitting around tap-tap-tapping on your keyboard.” He threw his hands open wide, a big ugly grin on his face. “Take a swing, Rando. I dare you. Try it. I’ll knock your teeth into your brain stem.”
Rage like Randy had never felt before flared to life inside his chest. Righteous indignation. Because this wasn’t just about him getting fired. It wasn’t even about jerks dumping on him behind his back or plotting to frame him for breaking Hearthworld.
There were lives on the line. Real people depending on Randy to save them. Two whole dimensions’ worth of sentient beings. And guys like Danny and Silva probably wouldn’t care even if they knew.
“Come on,” Danny said, beckoning to him with both hands, pro-wrestler style. “Come at me if you think you’re man enough.”
Even knowing that there was almost no chance he could hurt Danny, it was tempting to take the marketing VP up on his offer. But Randy couldn’t save anyone if he was behind bars. Sure, Danny had socked him in the stomach first, but then they’d broken contact, taken a step back, and, arguably, stopped the initial confrontation. If he hit Danny now, any lawyer with half a brain could make the case that Randy had initiated a secondary confrontation—and with what Silva and the others had planned for him, they would leap at the opportunity to prosecute. His best option now was to get out of there and get to work on a solution to their Hearthworld shutdown protocols.
Gritting his teeth, Randy turned toward the door and started walking, giving Danny plenty of space on his way past.
His foot had just crossed the threshold into the hall when he felt a buzzing inside his head, just behind his left ear. Warnings fired through his synapses. He knew that buzzing, but he’d never felt it outside of Hearthworld before. Animal Precognition—what everybody on H-boards called “the spidey-sense.” It was one of his Arboreal passives, a spell that let him know when a mob or player of less than half his Intelligence was about to attack him.
Randy spun around just in time to see Danny’s fist crashing toward his face like a wrecking ball.
Suddenly, everything became startlingly clear. Without even thinking about it, he activated Clever Dodge. Danny’s fist swished through the air where his face had been, dragging the marketing douchebag off balance, and Randy countered with a shove that sent Danny sprawling into the hallway. No thought, just actions.
The words “mind of no mind” from some old kung fu movie flashed through Randy’s head, followed by “six-time winner of Most Intuitive Combat Mechanics in a VRMMO.” He was doing it. Fighting IRL. And it was all coming to him just as easily as it did in Hearthworld.
In the hallway, Danny shoved himself to his feet, popping his thick neck. His face was as red as a blood texture pack.
“Okay. All right.” The douchebag bounced around on his toes, shaking out his fists like a combatant from an old Street Fighter game. His eyes were wide and crazy and locked on Randy. “You want to play, Rando? You want to mess with the best? Okay, then, let’s do this. Let’s go.” They were starting to draw a crowd, and that only seemed to further embolden the marketing VP.
Danny lunged toward him and threw his weight behind a huge haymaker.
Still unable to get over how calm he felt, Randy let Clever Dodge take over again. This time for his counterattack, he triggered Arboreal Vine Fist. Thorny vines shot down his arms, covering his closed
fists in gauntlets of tangled brambles. His punch landed smack in Danny’s gut.
Unlike Randy, however, Danny didn’t immediately drop to his knees and puke up ALD cake.
The marketing VP pulled his arms in and his head down as if he were actually taking this fight seriously now. Before Randy could get past him, Danny lunged in and started throwing tight, controlled punches to his head and body. They weren’t as powerful as the wrecking balls Danny had thrown earlier, but Randy couldn’t Clever Dodge all of them, and the ones that landed still hurt like heck.
“Holy crap!” somebody shouted. “Guys, Danny’s killing Randy!”
“Oh my gosh.”
“Someone call security!”
The voices were all blending together into a dull roar.
“Are those Vine Fist 3D models? How’d Randy get them?”
“Hell yeah, work the body, Danny boy! Get in there!”
People were pouring out of the employee lounge to watch the fight. Including, Randy realized just before his glasses went flying, Helen Rose. He’d already been humiliated in front of the gorgeous social influencer; he didn’t want to get his butt handed to him by this moron with her watching.
As if things hadn’t gone quite insane enough, Hearthworld’s filigreed Health vial appeared in the corner of his vision. This was unreal. Impossible. Yet he saw the filigreed Health vial as surely as he saw the clock hanging on the nearby wall. Danny landed a serious punch to the ribs that slammed Randy backward into the wall. It hurt for sure, but it hardly touched his overall Health.
Lightbulbs went off in Randy’s head. Danny couldn’t kill him. The worst Danny could do was beat the crap out of him.
And maybe, Randy realized, if he got his head back in the game, Danny might not even be able to do that.
Since he’d leveled his Arboreal Herald past 20, Randy had hardly used any of his lowbie Feral spells, but with his back to the wall and a stronger, faster opponent trying to tear him apart, he knew exactly which one would be perfect.
Intuitively, he triggered Cornered.
Everything he could see became tinged with green, and he knew his eyes were glowing with raw Feral Arboreal energy. Someone down the hall gasped. Renewed vitality flowed through Randy’s muscles as the spell doubled his speed and dampened the pain from Danny’s blows. Time seemed to come to a creeping halt, and he watched Danny launch a jab at his face in slow motion. Randy knocked the punch away easily—effortlessly, even—then countered with a Vine Fist to Danny’s jaw.
The marketing VP’s teeth snapped together, and he stumbled back a step, eyes wide with shock.
Before Danny could recover, Randy pressed the attack, throwing a flurry of punches and elbows. Arboreal Heralds weren’t known for their Con or Strength, but they could kick all the ass with their Dex, especially when they poured on the Feral sauce. Pretty soon, he’d backed Danny up against the other wall. The marketing VP was trying to duck and cover and throw out sloppy punches all at the same time, but he was badly winded, and the Cornered enhancements were too much for him.
“Dang, dawg! Get it, Randall!”
“Seriously, did anyone call security yet?”
“Who knew Randy was such a badass?”
The thin silver countdown bar for Cornered flashed once, then ran out, and time seemed to even out again. Danny’s foot shot out, but Randy Clever Dodged, kicking the douchebag’s leg out from under him in a decisive counterattack.
Danny hit the floor flat on his back, the air woofing out of his lungs. Randy pulled back a Vine Fist, layering on Forest Fire with a flash of power. The words Finish him! rang through his head.
“What the hell! Did he just cast Forest Fire?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Then how the hell did he just do that?”
“He must’ve added fire gel to the models to give them verisimilitude.”
“Then what did he light it with, genius? I know a cast when I see it, and that was a fucking cast. It looks just like the fucking game. Exactly like it—I should know; I helped design that mechanic.”
“Everyone get back!” an authoritative voice shouted. “You! Put your hands on the back of your head!”
Randy glanced down the hall to find uniformed security officers pushing through the awestruck crowd.
“I mean now!” the lead guard yelled.
Chest and shoulders heaving and sweat pouring down his face, Randy let the Vine Fist and Forest Fire spells dissipate, then put his empty hands in the air.
“What the actual fuck? Did you see that?”
“Can’t do that with fire gel,” someone muttered.
“Then it was some kind of lighting trick.”
“The hell it was.”
Animal Precognition went off. Randy dropped to one knee and slammed Danny’s fist against the floor, stopping the VP from punching him in the balls when he wasn’t looking.
Without his glasses, the faces of his coworkers were nothing more than a blur, but Randy heard their impressed murmuring. A grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. That last move had probably looked pretty badass. Like he’d pulled it straight out of Enter the Dragon.
“I said stop, shithead!” the security guard bellowed, dragging his Taser out of its holster. “Next one who moves gets Tased!”
Randy raised his hands over his head and took a deep breath to compose himself.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he panted. “I was just trying to leave and Danny attacked me. The security footage will show that I was defending myself.”
“We’ll get that sorted out.” The guard stalked down the hall with the Taser trained on him. “For now, no one moves. I’m not warning you again.”
“Understood,” Randy said.
“You are so fucking dead,” Danny growled up at him. Little flecks of bloody saliva flew when he pronounced the Ss and Fs. One of those elbows must’ve cut up the inside of his mouth. “So fucking dead.”
“I knew that a long time ago, Danny,” Randy said just loud enough for the two of them to hear.
His job had been toast when he first agreed to help the Griefer. What was insane was how little he cared now. At this moment he finally had a little perspective. This job was not him, it was just a stupid job. He was so much more than a programmer, and now—thanks to the Griefer’s magic—he was maybe even more than simply human. Randy had to stop himself from letting out an excited giggle. Euphoria was rushing in to fill the empty space all the adrenaline had left behind.
Also, he had kicked Danny’s ass!
No matter what Frontflip tried to throw at him now, he could deal with it.
As the security guards led him and Danny to the elevator lobby, Randy mentally prepared his defense. Once security saw the CC footage, they would have to let him go. He would explain away being in Danny’s office in the first place with some mumbo jumbo about necessary updates and IT issues. Stuff it would take time to confirm. Maybe HR would still use today as an excuse to fire him—then he could drop a bomb about suing for wrongful termination. Get out ahead of Frontflip’s attempts to frame him by discrediting them first. For now, though, he just needed to get home and get back in Danny’s station, save those incriminating messages, and figure out how to stop the shutdown.
“Wait!” Helen Rose’s blurry form jogged into the elevator lobby. Randy recognized her by the square-framed glasses and magenta underdye in her blonde hair. “He needs these.”
She handed Randy his glasses.
“Oh, uh, wow, thank you.” He slipped the lenses on, and her face came into focus.
She was smiling at him. Not the mean-girl, scornful type smile meant to remind Randy just how out of his league she was. Helen Rose, the Helen Rose, was smiling at him like she was impressed.
“No big deal,” she said, twisting a strand of blonde and magenta hair around her finger. “Your lenses are almost as thick as mine, so I figured you’re blind without them.”
“I am.” He nodded. “Thank you so much.”
Sh
e grinned. “You said that. Randy, right?”
“Yeah.” His heart was pounding so hard that he couldn’t believe he didn’t pass out. “Randy Shoemaker.”
“Helen Rose Douglas. I work upstairs in Social Influencing—”
The elevator announced its arrival with a loud ding.
“All right, let’s go.” The security guards herded Randy and Danny onto the lift.
Randy craned his neck to look back into the lobby.
Just before the doors closed, Helen Rose tucked her hair behind her ear and gave him a little wave. Him, no one else. Then she mouthed the words he’d dreamed of hearing for ages, Call me.
As the car started to move, Randy grinned and leaned back against the wall. This was the single greatest day of his life. Nothing would ever be the same, and that was okay. He was tired of the same. This was so much better.
He smiled. Time to go save the world. More than one.
Bargaining Chip
A MOMENT LATER, ROARK stepped into the gloom of the Cruel Citadel’s keep. Wearily, he dropped into the seat of the obsidian throne, wincing at the pain in his wings, then turned to the remote viewing page of his Dungeon Lord’s Grimoire.
The crumbling walls of the inner bailey were surrounded on all sides by an army of golden-skinned, winged Malaika Heralds, two hundred deep. A quick scan of their levels showed none below the level 70 respawn cap, and precious few that low. Most were at the full 99.
At their head stood Lowen, a smug smirk plastered across his face.
Since Roark had just finished tangling with a level 99 Dungeon Lord—albeit one much larger than the Heralds arrayed before him—he knew exactly how outclassed and outmanned he was. At his current level and in his current state he would never be able to kill even a single one of the level 99 Divine creatures, much less all of them. This was a losing battle. It was possible he could weather the invasion or that his portal plates would turn away most of these invaders, but chances were high that at least a handful would slip through the cracks. And if they managed to capture him—the way Randy and PwnrBwner had done not so long before—Roark would be doomed and damned in equal measure.