Deep inside, Hirrus had never contemplated the possibility that he would ever feel bad about an adventurer meeting a grisly fate. It was true that he grieved the loss of Alric, but his death had a certain nobility to it.

Alric had chosen his death, sacrificing himself for his friend.

That was a very un-adventurer thing to do.

Holding a man up by the throat to obliterate him with Bloodrake’s tremendous damage output was another matter entirely. This adventurer didn’t choose this fate. He hadn’t even done anything wrong. He’d simply been in the wrong place in the wrong time, making the critical mistake of taking a shortcut down the narrow alleyway Hirrus had been lurking in.

“GM Dave,” Hirrus said into the choking man’s face. “Ask for GM Dave. I need to reach him.”

Even without a single buff active, Bloodrake ripped fourteen thousand hit points out of the adventurer.

This man wasn’t one of the elite raiders he’d been fighting.

It showed.

The blast of red energy reduced the man to ash and bone instantly, letting his gear fall in a pile at Hirrus’s feet.

He waited for a moment before moving on. If someone saw him, they would make themselves known, and he could add them to his body count. But if he had gone unseen, he could keep moving deeper into the city, where the adventurers would be more densely packed. Hirrus had tried to search for adventurers being needlessly cruel or callous towards the normal folk of Denstad, but he didn’t have the time to spare watching and evaluating. Whenever he could find an adventurer isolated enough to kill them without starting a brawl or drawing other public interference, he had to take them.

He felt monstrous, lunging and murdering people who were otherwise innocent. Those he’d killed in the streets of Inoha - trying to uncover the location of Last of the Strong - had been protecting the ghoulish masterminds who had perpetrated the destruction of Yenon. And those he’d killed since were either monsters in their own way, or were complicit in their cruelty. Their deaths had been either vengeance or justice.

But these adventurers were just a means to an end. Neither vengeance nor justice. Simply destruction.

The only thing their deaths served was as a means to reach GM Dave, or just to cool his frustrations. Even the monster within him could not revel at these deaths.

Hirrus felt like an adventurer.

It made him feel sick.

Fortunately, before he could find another victim a hand clapped down on his shoulder, where previously no one had been.

“Dude,” GM Dave said. He sounded exhausted. “I know it’s a dick move on my part to beg you to violently murder people, and then be surprised when you keep violently murdering people. But for five minutes, can you knock it the fuck off? Just five minutes?”

“How else am I supposed to reach you?” Hirrus asked.

GM Dave opened his mouth, stopped, and furrowed his brow for a moment. “Okay, wait. Give me a minute.”

“Alric is dead,” Hirrus said. “The only way I ever got you to appear in Inoha was by killing adventurers. So…” He waved a hand down over the pile of gear, bones, and ash at his feet.

“Okay, so, literally speaking, there isn’t a way,” GM Dave said. “I would have linked you up to the chat system if there was any way of doing that, I promise. But you don’t have… You don’t have a text output to link, man. I can’t hook it to your keyboard input because you don’t have one.”

“None of that means anything to me,” Hirrus said with a grimace, shaking his head. “Besides to say that we are where we are. If you don’t want me reaching you through violence, come up with something.”

“Okay.” GM Dave reached up and rubbed at his temple. “I can’t even think right now. I’ve been putting together something that… I guess it might work for what you want, too? But between trying to keep you alive and hooking up this other deal… I’m fucking dying, man. I haven’t slept since… Oof.” The man in red armor sagged against the brick wall of the alleyway. “I shouldn’t think about that anymore. That’s definitely not healthy.”

“What are you putting together?” Hirrus asked. He felt a pang of sympathy for the man and the burden he was shouldering, but he couldn’t let that get in the way of what he needed here.

“Long story,” GM Dave said, struggling for a moment to straighten up and stand under his own power. “Too much to explain. Just imagine having a few hundred eyes right over your shoulder, watching what you’re doing. Seeing where you are, what you’re fighting, and… well, seeing who you are.” He finally got his feet properly under him, and stood up straight. “I want to show the world that you’re a person. That all of you are people. And, technically, if you say you need my attention, then… Well… Someone will be able to throw up a flag and get me here without you needing to resort to wanton destruction.”

Hirrus furrowed his brow. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of being put under so much scrutiny. But exposure to him had made both Alric and GM Dave change their minds about what he was. If a few hundred more adventurers could see what he was - and by extension, what everyone in this world was - perhaps any future attempt to reform the Shadow Council’s hold over Hari would be met with resistance from other adventurers, even if Hirrus and Nidra could no longer violate their decision trees to stand against them.

“It’s going to take… a little while to get it in order,” GM Dave continued. “But I hope whatever you need from me can wait until then.”

“I have you here now, though, and Nidra and I need some information.”

“Alright,” GM Dave said wearily. “No promises, but I’ll hear you out before I go.”

“The final member of the shadow council,” Hirrus began, “is a mystery to us. Nidra has only seen him in the castle at the beginning of every week. He isn’t connected to any guild, either.”

“Right, okay,” GM Dave said, nodding. “The fuck do you want me to do about it? Just magic up a location? I thought I told you that I can’t do that.”

“I understand,” Hirrus sighed, trying to remind himself that GM Dave had just complained about a dangerous lack of sleep on his part. “But when I slew Cerberus, she let slip something that seemed important. It was just adventurer nonsense to my ears, and neither Nidra nor any of our other allies could shed any light on it.” He reached out, tentatively putting a hand on GM Dave’s shoulder. “You’re the only one we can trust who understands adventurer nonsense.”

GM Dave took a deep breath and nodded again. “Alright. No promises, but go ahead. I’ll try and make sense of it.”

“She said he wasn’t a normal player,” Hirrus explained. “It doesn’t mean anything to me, but it has to be something.”

“Sorry, what?” GM Dave said, his tone transforming instantly. It was as if he’d gone from exhaustion drunk to stone sober in an instant. “He’s not a player?”

“What does that mean?” Hirrus asked.

“No, wait. Wait, wait,” GM Dave said, suddenly deadly serious. “What did she say exactly. Search your memory and read it back to me word for word. This is important.”

Hirrus felt a little vindicated that he’d been right about this being important, but he was suddenly slightly intimidated by how important it apparently was. It took him just a second to recall Cerberus’s words, hearing them in his mind as he recited them.

“‘No, I mean, you’ll never get him,’” Hirrus repeated. “‘You can’t get him to log in. You can’t make him. You’ll never find him. He doesn’t even have a sleeping body in-world for you to hunt down. He’s not a regular player character.’”

GM Dave’s eyes went wide as saucers. He gestured for Hirrus to stop before he continued, repeating Cerberus’s threats.

“What the fuck,” GM Dave whispered, his voice tense. “What the actual fuck!”

“What can you tell us?” Hirrus demanded. “What does it mean?”

“Fucking shit heel asshole,” GM Dave cursed, turning away and starting to pace furiously up and down the alleyway. “That’s how they’re doing it! For two fucking years I’ve tried to find the source for that fucking debuff and it was so fucking obvious! The only way was- and they were! He is! Fuck!”

“GM Dave,” Hirrus snapped, “focus. What does it mean?” He reached out to grab the man to shake him out of whatever he was doing, but the GM’s physically indomitable form couldn’t be stopped or shaken by even Hirrus’s prodigious BUR.

“He’s one of us,” GM Dave snapped. “An alt, maybe. But he’s one of us. Or was. The exploit is coming from inside the house. Holy shit.”

“Please,” Hirrus demanded, struggling to break the man out of his little tantrum. “Give us something. Anything. Any information you can offer us to help us find him.”

“Um.” GM Dave looked over at Hirrus, as though noticing him for the first time. “Okay. Well. The thing is. I can’t. There’s nothing you can do. This is on me. Another ball in my fucking court. Sorry.”

GM Dave vanished right out from under Hirrus’s hands.