Monster invasion or not, once all eight worms were defeated I took a brief nap. By the time I woke up, the giants outside the wall had been repelled and the City Watch was hunting down the roaming swellers.

Needless to say, Fortram was a mess.

It was the lower ring that weathered the entirety of the assault; none of the worms had managed to get past the second wall. I had only ever seen such devastation on television, so experiencing it up close hit me harder than expected—and I had already expected it to hit hard. I found dead people – or the remains of dead people – no matter where I went. The city was still reeling from the attack, and there weren’t enough people to recover the bodies from beneath the rubble. To make things worse, some of the rogue swellers had been busy; they attached themselves to the dead to reanimate them. The City Watch wasn’t able to be everywhere, so I helped with putting them down.

It didn’t make me feel any better about myself. Would hundreds of people be still alive if I had taken my Quests more seriously? It had been a mistake to expect Tengi’quinn and his men to clear the Dungeon, and then another mistake to ignore Imaya’s warnings. I hadn’t wanted it to be my problem, and so the city paid the price tonight. The Inspector’s message was loud and clear; I could refuse to play her Game, but it would not be without consequences.

I tried not to blame myself too much, though. Even if I was somewhat responsible for this disaster, it definitely wasn’t me who had sent those monsters to ravage the city.

“Randel!” one of the Thardos children called out, and I tore my gaze off the flattened building I had been inspecting. The kid shouting my name was Rimi, the girly dress she always wore making her easy to distinguish from the rest.

“Another undead?” I asked, teleporting Soul Eater to me.

“No!” Rimi said. “More stuck people. They need help. Come!”

She turned and ran down the broken road, leading me to a damaged house where a man and a woman lay beneath the collapsed rooftop. The only thing that had saved them was the man’s metallic arm; it was propping up one of the crossbeams and giving them just enough space to avoid getting crushed. The man twisted his head at the sound of my footsteps, his desperate eyes widening when he saw me.

“Please help,” he said, his voice hoarse. “My wife is—”

He fell silent when I placed Soul Eater next to his mechanical arm, expanding it to support the wooden beam. Although there were limits as to how much force I could apply by simply changing the black metal’s shape, the one thing I didn’t need to worry about was durability; I could shape the blade needle-thin and it would still be able to support the collapsed roof.

“Don’t worry! Randel can save ya,” Rimi told the man.

“Are any of your bones broken or crushed?” I asked, checking my collar to see how much mana I had recovered.

“N-No, I don’t think so,” the man said. “But my wife is bleeding from her shoulder. Please, if you could save her first—”

“Just a second,” I said, touching his dusty forehead to place a Mark on it. I did the same with the wife covering in his arms, then did my usual switcheroo trick with both of them—first with the wife, as per request, which resulted in the manliest hug I had gotten that day.

“Thank you,” the wife sobbed, appreciating the sight of two grown men hugging each other.

“No problem,” I replied, dusting my shirt off once all of us were safely out. It was the last of my clean clothes, so I had to be careful; I wasn’t sure whether Samantha’s laundry place would open tomorrow, now that half of the city was in ruins.

“I know you,” the man I had rescued stepped up to me. “You’re the one they call Mad Painter.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, pinching the bridge of my nose in frustration. Who the hell was spreading these rumors about me?

“My name is Randel, not Mad Painter,” I said. “I swear if I hear that nickname one more time, I’ll get mad for real.”

“Uh—alright,” the man said, visibly paling.

“That was a joke,” I said, sighing. “Anyway, I’m providing shelter for those who have lost their home. You’re welcome to my building, if you’d like. Rimi can take you there—right, Rimi?”

“Yes, sir!” the Thardos girl said with a weird salute, lifting both of her forearms to the sides of her furry face. I walked away without waiting to hear what the man and his wife said; I was pretty sure they wouldn’t take up the Mad Painter’s suspiciously generous offer. Their loss. My neatly painted building was going to get full anyway, so directing everyone there wasn’t a good long-term solution.

I wondered how much the prices of all of these destroyed properties would change in the wake of this disaster. I had quite a lot of money to throw around, so perhaps I could expand a bit. Or a lot—I wasn’t too sure. That was my biggest issue with this; in spite of my father’s best efforts, economics and management were not my forte. I would need some serious help if I was going to invest money in this city, but that help definitely wasn’t going to come from Stanley.

“Oi Randel, fancy meeting you here,” Stanley said as he landed next to me out of nowhere. “It seems like I got lucky at finding you again!”

“Stanley, you’re incredible,” I said in flattest tone this universe had witnessed.

“Thank you,” Stanley said with a winning smile. “You flatter me, Randel, but don’t worry—I’ll reciprocate it soon enough! I’m already composing the epic tale of the Mad Painter who killed three worms with a single brush stroke.”

“That’s wrong in so many ways that I’m not even going to argue,” I said, sighing.

“I might also include myself in that song,” Stanley continued. “You wouldn’t believe what happened to me, mate. One moment I was giving a sky tour to this cute little cat, then in the next I was suddenly hugging a giant worm! I’m a strong man, you know, but not that strong. I dropped the worm on top of those swellers outside. Bonked them on the head some real good!”

“That’s nice to hear,” I said. “So tell me, what brings you here on this terrible morning?”

“The Players in Fortram are getting together to form a raiding party,” Stanley replied readily. “We’re going to find the Dungeon Master and retaliate for attacking Fortram. I came here to ask whether the Mad Painter is willing to honor us with his presence…?”

It sounded like another dangerous Player-stuff, though this time it was perhaps not as pointless as usual. Now that the so-called Dungeon Master had spent the Dungeon’s resources, a decisive strike back was Fortram’s best chance in this situation. Normally I would have left this matter to the other Players – there was more than enough of them in my opinion – but this time we felt oddly excited about the prospect of the hunt.

“Yeah,” we said, our fingers clenching around Soul Eater. “Let’s do this.”

“Wonderful!” Stanley said, spinning in the air. “This way, then. They’re gathering around a worm-hole.”

I followed Stanley silently, trying to convince myself that this was indeed the right thing to do. Refusing to act was what led me here, wasn’t it? I had concluded this already. We had to right this wrong. At the same time, my instincts screamed that this was an unnecessary risk. I was nowhere near as powerful as the average Player, so it was more than likely they wouldn’t even need my help. No. We wanted to do this! We had to show that we were concerned for the city, right? To show them how good and caring we were. I didn’t particularly care about what others thought of me, though. If they believed that I was the evil Mad Painter—well, alright, maybe I did care a bit about how others perceived me.

Devi would want to come too, but I wasn’t going to wake her up for this. She would be pissed at me for going without her, even though she was too injured to come. It was petty vengeance on my part, and I found that I enjoyed it very much. If Devi could go around behind my back and do what she thought was the best for me, why couldn’t I do the same? She would not be able to complain after what she had done to me. Yeah, petty vengeance sounded alright.

By the time Stanley and I arrived to the site of the meeting, we had convinced ourselves that joining this raid was a good idea. Around twenty or so Players had already gathered, forming cliques around the worm’s tunnel. The Scarlet Hand I had seen earlier stood apart from everyone else, with his scarlet-tinted arms crossed over the his chest. He was eyeing the largest group present, which was unsurprisingly the Rangers of Fortram; they took up almost half of the Players present.

Jack nodded at me when he caught me looking, and I nodded back. Heda and Kim were right behind him, along with the Player who had been flying around with fiery wings during the battle. I noted with some surprise that the Rangers had also recruited Tamara in their ranks; I almost didn’t recognize her, with how gaunt she looked. She was clutching a simple spear with both hands, nervous but determined. She refused to look in my direction, which I kind of expected. We had never exactly been best buddies, and that was before I murdered Simon.

“Players can be so depressing,” Stanley said, fiddling with his lute. “You fit right in, Randel.”

“Thanks,” I absently replied, my eyes moving on to the rest of the Players. Next to the Rangers I saw a party of four with a fat cyborg-like Player as their leader, but what interested me even more was the pair of Players on their other side; this was the first time I had seen Players who were Avarii. The bird-people talked to each other with both cawing and clucking sounds, while they also kept changing the color of the feathers around their eyes. The change wasn’t immediate, and so I believed it was used for adding emphasis to their current mood—or to indicate the tone of their voice, so to speak. I was unable to guess what their current colors indicated, but if we listened closely we had a feeling that they were talking about their loss of business as a result of this catastrophe. Huh. That was a weirdly specific feeling.

I wondered what kind of Players these Avarii were. They wore more clothing than their kind usually did, though I didn’t see any traditional weapon on them. One of the Avarii had a pair of metallic tubes peeking out from under his skirt, while the other had protective scales of steel around her taloned feet. I supposed they were relying more on their legs than their hands. Strange. As far as I knew, the Avarii were incapable of flight and their hands were just as dexterous as a human’s—but to be fair, there were human martial arts based on kicks too. These two Avarii might not necessary represent their entire species.

I stopped gawking at the bird-people when Jack spoke up.

“I don’t think I need to explain why we’re here,” he said, his voice raised so that the Players on the other side of the hole could hear him too. “The Dungeon must be stopped, so that leaves us no choice but to find the Dungeon Master and kill him.”

“It will not work,” an accented voice cut in. Heads swiveled around, turning to the two Sylven Players approaching the group. Tengi’quinn wore his rich garments alongside his usual smirk, and Damoro’quinn stalked with his guns close behind.

“I believe I haven’t even told you the plan yet, Lord Quinn,” Jack coolly said.

“It matters not,” Tengi’quinn replied. His eyes lingered on me as he looked around, but the smile plastered to his face did not change at all. “It matters not, because you plan to kill the Dungeon Master. As a concerned citizen of Fortram, I came here to warn you that’s not going to work.”

“Why the hell not?” someone yelled.

“Because the Dungeon Master is a shade,” Tengi’quinn calmly said. His announcement elicited a series of murmurs and whispers—some of them were talking about unfair play, some of them outright called Tengi’quinn a liar. Personally, I just hoped that someone would explain what shades were. I remembered reading about them in Pell’s biography, but it had slipped my mind to look them up. It seemed like a big deal, though; all the Players were abuzz.

“I’m not lying,” Tengi’quinn talked over the others. “I’m warning you. I have fought the shade before, and it killed two of my men. It is very much in House Quinn’s interest that you do not come back out of that Dungeon with a shade in your head.”

“Why should we believe a word you say, Sylven?” a girl in some kind of mechanical suit called out.

“Because unlike Humans we do not lie,” Tengi’quinn retorted, “and because she was there too when the shade attacked.”

Tamara visibly flinched when Tengi’quinn pointed at her, shrinking back from the sudden attention. Heda stepped behind her protectively, clasping her shoulder.

“I—I don’t know what I saw,” Tamara said. “That thing … it looked like a black g-ghost. It flew into that Sylven man and—”

The end of her sentence was drowned out as several Players began talking at once, alarmed and angry, acting as if Tamara had just announced that Christmas would be canceled this year.

“Why is everyone so afraid of ghosts?” I asked from Stanley.

“Shades, not ghosts,” Stanley said, floating closer so that I could hear him. “Shades are violent, murderous wraiths that cannot be exorcised. They can pass through anything and possess any living being, mindlessly slaughtering and jumping from body to body. I think they are categorized as Tier S monsters, if you prefer that jargon. By comparison the giant worms were at Tier B or maybe bottom of Tier A.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “So you’re telling me that these shades are unstoppable? They don’t they have any weaknesses?”

“There’s only one that we know of,” Stanley said. “They can’t willingly leave someone they’ve possessed unless that person dies. The only way to defeat them is to trap them in a living body and prevent them from killing themselves.”

“Sounds awful.”

Now I could see what the big deal was; even if we trapped the shade, it might still be able to control the Dungeon. Since killing it wouldn’t work, the only way to take the Dungeon Core was if the shade willingly gave it up—which didn’t seem to be very likely. On a whim, we activated our collar and navigated to the Equipment tab to bring up Soul Eater’s description.

Soul Eater, demon’s fang

Description: As a powerful weapon created by legendary beings, Soul Eater is a living weapon made of an extremely rare and incredibly durable material. Although the weapon’s true capabilities are still a mystery, one thing is certain: it needs to be constantly fed. Take lives and consume their essence to sustain Soul Eater! Side effects may include hallucination, emotional instability, lowered inhibitions, schizophrenia, mental instability, loss of self.

Perk – Ever-consuming: level 5

Soul Eater grows as you feed it. This perk doesn’t have a level cap.

Perk – Free Form: level 7

You can change Soul Eater’s shape.

Perk – Autonomous: level 7

Being a living weapon, Soul Eater can make decisions on its own.

I barely had the time to read through the text before a loud clap made me jump, and a shockwave passed through everyone present, putting an end to the chatter. The Scarlet Hand crossed his arms and spoke into the resulting silence.

“Look at yourselves, squabbling like children. If you’re so afraid of the shade, stay here! No one forces you to come. As one of the Emperor’s chosen, I’m perfectly capable of capturing the shade myself. End of discussion.”

This was bad—we didn’t want the Scarlet Hand to capture the shade. It was risky, but we had to reveal our hand. We had to present ourselves as a better alternative.

“I have the means to trap the shade too,” we said, stepping forward. We raised Soul Eater above our head, changing its shape to a sword and making sure that we got everyone’s attention. “What I’m holding here is a living weapon. All we need to do is to stab the shade with this blade, and the creature will be forced to possess it. There would be no escape either, because the weapon cannot die.”

“Woah,” I heard Stanley whisper.

The Scarlet Hand was frowning at me, however. “I would not bet our safety on a relic of dubious origins.”

“And I would not bet on the Emperor’s hitman to keep our best interests in mind,” we said. “For all I know, you’re seeing us all as candidates for trapping the shade in.”

“That’s not—” the Scarlet Hand started to reply, but the gathered Players talked over him. A snap of his fingers shut them up again, but surprisingly it wasn’t the Hand who talked next.

“With each minute the Dungeon recovers more of its mana,” Jack said. “We can discuss the matter of containing the shade once we trapped it. We’re just wasting time till then.”

I stroke my chin, finding Jack’s reaction curiously strange; I had him pegged as a more calculating person. Why did he suggest going in without a plan? I didn’t think he would, unless … he already had a plan he didn’t want to share. Now that was a thought. Everyone here stood allegedly on the same side—but we weren’t necessarily allies, were we? Looking at the gathered Players that way painted them in a more sinister light. Did they all know that one of us would be used to trap the shade? Surely someone would speak up to advise caution.

“Hey,” Stanley said, nudging my shoulder. “Is it just me, or are those guys staring at you as if you’ve slept with their mothers?”

With all suspicious stares being thrown around, it took me moment to realize that Stanley was talking about the two Sylven men. I met Tengi’quinn’s eyes across the worm’s hole, frowning. He wouldn’t try anything here and now, not in front of the other Players, but his death glare was one of the best I had ever received. Part of me felt tempted to taunt him further, but—what would be the point? Although the Sylven Lord might never forgive me for whisking Devi away, I didn’t have to dig myself deeper as his enemy.

“She is safe and sound!” I called out before I could have changed my mind. Damoro’quinn jerked in surprise, but Tengi’quinn’s face was stiff and unreadable. He watched me for a second longer, then gave me a single nod and walked off the way he had come. Damoro’quinn hesitated only a moment before turning to go too. Huh. I had truly expected them to stay and try to backstab me when we were fighting the shade.

Not long after the Sylven men had left, the girl in the mecha-suit suddenly had enough and dropped down into the hole. The cyborg man and a guy with a superhero cape dove after her, and that was enough the incentive for the rest of the Players to set off. Some slid down on the side of the tunnel, others flew or floated down to the bottom, and then there were those like me who teleported. It looked disorganized and messy, with the exception of Jack’s team who all walked down together on invisible stairs with small wings around their ankles.

Unsurprisingly, the worm’s tunnel was large and quite empty. A mismatch of lights and colors from different Players illuminated our surroundings as we walked down toward the Dungeon. I felt underdressed for the occasion. Almost every Player around me wore something eye-catching such as an impressive armor, a dangerous weapon, or a ridiculous costume. Yet here I was in my simple shirt and pair of shorts, the very image of a new Player. Even that half-naked guy at the back looked better dressed than me, with those frost-covered hammers at his hip and the glowing tattoos on his muscular chest.

“There it is!” Stanley said, stating the obvious as we reached an enormous portal that blocked off the entire width of the tunnel. The Players at the lead walked through unceremoniously, and the rest of us followed.

You have entered the Dungeon: Swellers of the Deep

“Hopefully for the last time,” I said, turning around to take in my surroundings. I was standing in the corner of a small chamber with no sight of the other Players. Alarming, but at least I saw no monsters in the chamber either. Glowing murals covered the walls all around, except where a heavy stone door was cut into the wall. A large statue of a sweller hung from the ceiling high above, but otherwise the chamber was empty. That statue, though … I had learned not to trust sweller statues. I noticed that the tips of the sweller’s legs were touching each other, holding a large golden key in between them. The key for the stone door, perhaps?

The air next to me shimmered and Tamara stepped through, looking around with bewilderment. A moment later another girl arrived on my other side, wearing black clothes with piercings and dark makeup. She went stiff for a moment when she realized what happened, then groaned miserably.

“Great, just great,” she said, slamming the bottom of her gnarled staff to the ground. “Of course I had to get stuck with the two newbies.”

“It’s a riddle room,” Tamara said, ignoring the girl’s comment as she looked at the walls. “We need to solve a riddle to get the key.”

“No shit,” the red-headed girl replied. She looked at me, her eyes flicking to Soul Eater in my hand. “I’m Jessie, and I’m a necromancer—so basically useless against that stone door. What can you do?”

“I can draw and paint, but I’m also getting quite good at sculpting,” I replied truthfully. Jessie rolled her eyes at my answer, but before she could have voiced her opinion on drawing and painting a loud grinding noise filled the chamber. The three of us looked up as the ceiling started to slowly descend.

“Shit,” Jessie said, turning to the mural behind us. It consisted of familiar paintings of giant swellers and giant worms battling each other, with a short verse written in the space between the warring monsters.

One leg speaks for power,

One leg holds the might.

In the final hour,

You should be the knight.

“Ugh,” I said, noting that there were eight verses around the room. “That’s way too many riddles for one day.”

“Shut up and start reading them,” Jessie said. “You, girl, start at the other side!”

The ceiling was moving downward in a snail’s pace, so the situation didn’t actually feel too severe. Not to me, anyway. All I had to do was to teleport Soul Eater to Nosy back at home, then teleport myself to Soul Eater to escape this death trap. Really, my only real concern was about saving Tamara’s and Jessie’s lives.

I approached the stone door and poked the large keyhole in the middle. I could actually peek through it and see the swirling light of a portal on the other side. Cool! I might not even need to teleport back to Nosy; I could just shapeshift Soul Eater through the keyhole then teleport to the other side.

I walked back to the middle of the chamber, my eyes on the golden key this time. I could have perhaps touched the bit of the key if I jumped. The key itself was quite large – about the size of my forearm – and so the sweller statue could hold onto the key’s bow with all eight of its legs. I started the circle around the key to see it from every angle, shaping Soul Eater in the meanwhile.

“You’re doing it again,” I heard Tamara speak.

“What?” I asked without averting my eyes. Jessie must have done something, because one of the sweller’s legs suddenly straightened so that the key was now held by only seven legs.

“You’re cheating your way through the Dungeon’s challenge again.”

“I figured you didn’t want to die,” I said. “It’s the result that matters here, not the method.”

“I’m not afraid of dying anymore,” Tamara said. “But that’s irrelevant now. I just think that you’re annoying.”

“Tell me something I didn’t know.”

“What the hell, guys?!” Jessie said, shooting a concerned glance at us. The ceiling was already so close that I could have reached the key with an outstretched hand.

“I got this,” I assured Jessie, then walked to the door with Soul Eater. The key’s design wasn’t particularly intricate, so shaping Soul Eater into its perfect copy had been almost trivial. It felt so nostalgic to think back on the times I had trouble transforming it into a simple spoon! I fit Soul Eater into the keyhole and turned it to the side, and the stone door swung outward with a satisfying swishing sound.

+1 Feat

I found the portal’s harsh light still a horrible design in this gloomy place, but I supposed beggars couldn’t be choosers. I stepped out of the chamber and retrieved Soul Eater from the door, then shot a cheeky grin at the slack-jawed Jessie behind me.

“I told you I’m good at sculpting,” I said, waggling my black key at her. Tamara just frowned as usual, which kind of soured my boasting mood. If she felt any relief about leaving the riddle room, she certainly showed none of it. Well, whatever. I stepped through the portal, just to receive another punch to the gut; ahead of me was one of the eight bridges connecting to the floating arena—the place where I had murdered Simon.

I walked down to the stone platform with a sick feeling in my stomach, doing my best to focus on something else. A few Players were already waiting for us, including Jack and Kim. Once Tamara and Jessie arrived too, our portal went dark and only five portals around the platform remained lit.

“You solved the riddles quickly,” Jack said to me as I arrived. “Seems like Devi’s praises about your wits weren’t unfounded.”

“Yeah, I totally solved the riddles quickly,” I said. “You were the first out, I guess?”

Jack shrugged. “After a few hundred Dungeons, every riddle begins to look the same.”

One of the active portals flared in that moment and Stanley flew through it, playing on his lute.

“—out and ready to explore,

Thankful for the person,

Who forgot to lock the door!”

Stanley was followed by Heda and the guy with the superhero cape, both of them looking as if they had gone through hell. The three of them joined us and we waited patiently for the other Players to arrive, which they did—except for the last team. Long minutes passed while we stared at the last remaining portal, but it eventually closed without anyone having come through it.

“Where is the Scarlet Hand?” someone suddenly asked. The Emperor’s hitman was indeed nowhere to be seen.

“Damn—”

“What a loser!”

“Seriously? He didn’t make it?”

The chatter about the Scarlet Hand went on, but something else caught my attention; the lights beneath the floating arena were shifting. Sure enough, I didn’t have to wait long before a large shape emerged from the hole at the center of the arena; it was the same gigantic stone sweller that I had fought before. Glowing mushrooms and moss covered its bulbous body, as if it had been standing still for years. The Players fell silent as the elevator arrived, but the stone sweller remained suspiciously motionless.

“Let me handle this,” the girl in the mecha-suit said, striding forward. The others made space for her as the mechanical components of her suit shifted and a pair of miniature rockets popped out of her shoulder pads. The ends of the rockets lit up with an intense blue fire and they shot forward—slamming straight into a transparent blue bubble around the girl. The entire bubble went up in flames, the explosion quiet and contained, and all of us watched in shock as the girl was ripped apart by her own rockets. When the transparent bubble disappeared I was already turning, turning to the person who I knew had the same Ability—

“Perish,” Tamara said with a grin on her face, right before the Dungeon Core in her hand exploded into purple flames.