“Icon, stop!”

The thing... the man, perhaps, paused at LivingDeadGrrl's shout.

“I am the hero of this village!”

It looked at her then, metal mask turning.

Rich stood frozen. The figure was standing up now, from where it had been hunched over. Its hands were at the level of his head, and he watched as they shook, as bandaged fingers clenched and drove yellowed nails into bloody palms. The lightning was gone now, and the figure trembled like a leaf as the mask stared at LivingDeadGrrl.

“Ah yes... the... hero...” the thing's voice ground out as it shook. “Hail and well met. I have no quests for you at this time. Walk the path of the Cultist to—”

“—gain true enlightenment and the forbidden lore of the Thing in Yellow,” LivingDeadGrrl finished. “I'm not here for me, I'm here for him. He is walking the path of the Cultist, so do your voodoo dude.”

The mask turned back to Rich, and now he could see eyes in it, bloodshot and cataract-laced eyes that made him take a step back. The loathing in those eyes was palpable...

...and then they hesitated. They shifted slightly, staring over Rich's head.

And when they traced back down to meet his gaze, they were no longer filled with anger, but with confusion.

“You are a seeker of darkness,” the figure spoke, as if it couldn't believe its own words. “But you are not yet worthy of great Haskell's secrets. Become exalted beyond all others with the Children of the Yellow Icon, and learn the shuddering secrets of a world of lies.”

“What? Seriously?” LivingDeadGrrl belted out. “Come on Rutger, this isn't gonna work.”

“Yeah, okay,” Rich said, backing away from the figure. It was still shaking, still clenching its fists, and he wondered if the guy was having a seizure. If it was a guy, even.

But the figure didn't stop him as LivingDeadGrrl grabbed a wing and pulled him out of the hut. Space snapped back to normal, and he went from staring at a massive, mausoleum-like dark room to a crude and paint-splattered hovel.

“That guy,” he said, turning to look at his party leader. “There's something going on there.”

“Yeah, he's the Icon,” LivingDeadGrrl sighed. “And that exalted beyond all others thing? That takes stupid amounts of faction. I could maybe get to it from where I'm at right now, if I spent weeks grinding every quest from here that I could find. But you? You just hit neutral. No way you can do it in time to get what you need.”

“What I need is the power to stop the griefers,” Rich said. “There's a guy in the caves I can try and pact with, but I don't want to. The one time I met him it was weird. And it's obviously one of those setups where if I let it loose something horrible happens, and I spend a long time regretting it. That thing back in the caves is... there's no way I can trust it, you know?”

LivingDeadGrrl nodded. “Yeah. Yeah I do know.” she flicked one of his horns, and he startled at the touch.

“Hey!”

“You're all right, kid. Think I'll keep you around.”

LivingDeadGrrl has sent you a friend request!

Accept? Y/N

“Yes,” Rich said, and awkwardly lifted a hand, giving her boot a quick punch.

“There you are, great one! I am ready to serve!”

It was Geebo's voice, but there was that 'I' again. Rich turned to see the draggit hurrying up, neck frills flapping. He had a wide grin, and a sack in his hands. He offered to to Rich, and Rich looked from his face to the sack and back again. “What's this?”

“Your inventory, great one! Would you like to place or withdraw anything inside?”

“Um...” Rich looked down at the arrowhead that he still held tight in one hand. His scales prevented the sharp flint from cutting him, but it was still uncomfy. That 'No Thumbs' skill was going to make him drop it sooner than later. “Sure, here you go.”

“Dude, you get an inventory?” LivingDeadGrrl watched Geebo stow the arrowhead. “Lucky. There's only a few jobs that get that. I'd try to unlock Burglar just to get Lootbag, but there's no houses to rob around here. Can't really burgle people who do subsistance living, y'know?”

“Yeah. Lucky,” Rich said, and looked Geebo over again. “Are you okay? The hounds didn't mess you up too badly?”

“I am a draggit! We serve dragons!”

“Npc's, man. No point in socializing, unless they're important ones.” LivingDeadGrrl punched his horn again. “Come on. We've got time to eat before they start up the throat singing.”

“The what?”

“Can't do it justice with words. You have to hear it yourself.”

Lunch was more dead guy, and Rich tried to put it out of his mind. It tasted fine. And he was a dragon after all.

It was honestly more disturbing to watch his friends tuck into boiled chunks of leg.

LivingDeadGrrl caught his eye as he stared at her tearing into a particularly hairy chunk. “Yeah, I know,” she said, turning her back a bit. “Took me a few days to get used to it, too. But it's the easiest food to find around here, and they don't mind. Dead is dead. Meat is meat.”

But she faced the other way from him, and he appreciated it.

CHA+1

Geebo was oblivious, but his meal was gone so quickly that it didn't matter.

“Speaking of meat, I think we need to add a little padding for your rep,” LivingDeadGrrl spoke, rummaging around in her pack. She pulled out a brown-stained skin, and Rich recognized it as the bundle she'd packed the meat from the snow links into.

“Padding?”

“There's a recurring quest to hunt for the village. We'll go and grab it for you then turn it in.”

That took only a few minutes, and raised Rich's faction level from “barely tolerated,” to a whopping “grudgingly tolerated.” The old woman he turned the meat into had a straggly horn on the bottom of her chin, and a face that looked half-melted. The all-black darkspawn eyes watched him go, and he suppressed a shudder as he followed LivingDeadGrrl to the central firepit.

“Now what?” Rich asked, finding a few comfy logs to settle his weight onto. The fire was warm, and it wasn't until he was curled up next to it that he realized how cold he had been. The fire felt good, and his belly was full, and he was very impressed that they'd managed to code this level of sensation into the game.

Sex has to be mind-blowing, he thought, and his eyes strayed to LivingDeadGrrl. But she had her layers of hide and leather on, and her body was shapeless under all that clothing. She had said she was out of his league, and yeah she probably was, but... well, she was one of the few girls who had ever been nice to him, and that made him want her.

Geebo followed them. “A warm fire on a cold night!” He sat down next to Rich. “I am sworn to carry your burdens. Do you want to access my inventory?”

“No thank you,” Rich declined, jerking his eyes away from the other player, and focusing on the draggit. His smile seemed oddly empty, and his eyes were staring far away. “Are you okay, Geebo?”

“My health is at full!”

“That's... good.” It was a little disappointing that his scripting was so lackluster out here. In the cave he had seemed like a real person. That was gone now. Maybe it was because Rich's prologue wasn't coded yet. Geebo must have been part of the dragon tutorial, and he wouldn't be finished until the rest was done.

“Here they come,” LivingDeadGrrl said as one by one, the villagers looked over to the setting sun, set aside the tasks they were working on, and drifted over to the firepit.

The first couple of dozen formed a circle, sitting in among the logs and rocks around Rich and his friends. Then another circle formed behind, and another circle behind that.

And the farthest circle sang.

They sang in weird, buzzing deep voices, even the women. They sang in unison, and it was like the song had layers, different pitches that his ears couldn't quite focus on.

Then the next circle started up. Now the song reverberated, and filled every part of the air. It seemed to ripple through the sky, bounce off the mountain, and reach out across the desolate snowy tundra. The fire rose higher as the sun sank...

...and now the circle around Rich gave voice to the song, and he tried to sing along, even though he didn't know the words.

But he stopped, as the fire flickered and turned yellow. Images rose above it and split into a myriad of colors, and he startled it resolved into pillars of stone and a great hall of a castle. Robed figures wearing elaborate masks swayed and danced, and he recognized the Icon's mask as it turned and shot him a glare.

Rich started to backpedal, but LivingDeadGrrl grabbed one of his wings. “Hold up there, scalypants,” she muttered. “This is all scripted. It never changes.”

There was something in the way that mask stared at him, though...

The figures whirled and danced, until a towering figure entered the hall, clad in vibrant, almost shimmering gold. It danced, and the other figures tried to as well, but eventually they backed away from it, one by one. Then the figure reached up to remove its mask.

The pillars fell. The waters rushed in. And doors, very like the one Richard had found hanging in the air below the mountain, appeared. The figures, now writhing, their masks now similar to the one on the towering figure, dashed toward the doors. Not all of them made it.

The water rose over all, and the images faded to a single door, and a figure escaping through it. It was a woman in a really sheer dress, and Rich quietly kicked his Echo into recording mode. As he did so, symbols flickered above her head. It followed along, hovering like a halo, and Rich figured that was her name.

The door vanished. She walked forth into a land of snowy mountains. The singing rose to a roaring hum, and she traveled forth, until she found a village.

Images flickered past then, as words in an alien script flickered up letter by letter, to form winding chains around her. It was hard to tell exactly what was going on, but some of it involved fucking so Rich leaned in to get a good look. The gist of it seemed to be that the woman rose to power through mighty magics, had a lot of children, and built a great city.

The scene showed her sitting on a throne, holding a scepter and being regal and stuff. Then the image shifted.

The fire below the image switched from gold to black, and the woman rose, looking alarmed.

Around her, her court put their hands to their heads. Then they turned to glare at her. Out came the knives.

More symbols floated up from the fire, arranging themselves into shapes that suggested code. Rich was glad he was recording it, he could pick this to pieces later. The city crumbled, pillars and towers falling. The woman, now wounded, fled through the gates with a small band of followers behind her.

Back she went, back among the snowy mountains. Back to the remote places, where she rested, and her followers got to work building a camp.

And then, scaly wings. Claws in the darkness, and fire, and Rich caught his breath as a great white dragon scooped up the woman and flew away. Her followers mourned and wailed and beat their chests. There was a big council, and the images seemed to be arguing, as the song slowed to a mournful dirge.

Eventually the council seemed to come to an agreement, and the camp became a village. But food was scarce here, and life was hard, and other people wearing skins would raid them now and again. Then, a figure came walking out of the darkness one night, as stars blazed above, and a yellow comet whirled through the sky. The figure bore a mask in its hands, and it had no face. The woman's followers took it, weeping, and the figure crumbled to dust...

...as did the rest of the images.

And when Rich looked up, the Icon was standing across the fire. Golden energy seeped from his hands, almost as if it were drawing the images back into them. The words winked out one by one. The Icon stared directly at Rich, then turned his back, and limped back towards his hut. Slowly, one by one, the throat singers ceased their song.

“Dude,” Rich said, blinking at the show. “That was a lot of lore.”

“Yeah,” LivingDeadGrrl nodded his way, then turned her gaze back to the Icon. “Pretty sure he's an illusionist, as well as a Cultist. No, not an illusionist. What do they call them? Sensates?”

“They have illusionists here?” Rich looked surprised. Neverquest had tried to implement an illusionist class a few years ago, but limited art assets made it impractical. All the illusions were formulaic and decent enough against NPC's, but useless in PVP. The forum blowback had been legendary.

“Yeah, and they rock,” LivingDeadGrrl told him. “If you can imagine it, you can make an illusion of it. And you can do things like make people taste shit on their tongue, so they throw up.”

“Wow...” Rich sighed. “And I get stuck with a useless job.”

“Nah, Cultist can pull off some pretty wicked shit,” she said, shifting her spear on her back. “But the Icon wants stupid faction from you before he'll help you out with that. And that's assuming we can get you anywhere near there before the griefers finally get to him.”

“I might have to go back into the tunnels,” Rich said, looking over at the mountain. “I guess I could talk to that chalk-outline thing on the door. Or maybe go looking for something else. Which sucks, because I think his magic works like coding and I'm really good at coding.”

“Yeah? You a hacker? That how you got your dragon race?”

“No!” Rich shook his head frantically. “Don't even joke about that. It's like me asking you about buying followers.”

“Right, right, sorry,” she smiled. Then she yawned, showing a lot of pointed and stained teeth. “Anyway, it's late. I need to get up in the morning. The coffee won't make itself.”

“Aw,” Rich said, but he knew they'd been on a long time. If he hadn't caught a nap earlier he'd probably be tired too.

“Relax. I'll be back tomorrow.” Then she grimaced. “The griefers will probably be around then, too, so be careful. We're about due for an attack.”

“Couldn't we just, y'know, move? Find another village?”

“I've thought about it,” she admitted, tugging on her antlers. “But this place is really far out there, and the few times I've run into other hunters out on the tundra they've attacked me on sight. It's probably the cannibalism thing. Or maybe the evil cult thing. Or maybe everyone else around here is an asshole, I don't know.”

“So it's here or nothing.”

“Pretty much,” she confessed. Then another yawn stretched her mouth wide. “Okay. I'm beat. See you tomorrow.” Her eyes crossed, and she poked at something in front of her face.

“Hey,” Rich asked, alarmed. “Don't you want to park your character someplace safe? Won't she wander while you're offline?”

LivingDeadGrrl blinked at him. “What are you talking about, kid?”

“Well it's just that the last two times I've logged in I haven't been where—”

She was gone.

LivingDeadGrrl has left your party!

You are now the party leader!

“Uh...” he waited a second to see if her character would reappear.

She didn't. The fire popped and crackled, and slowly the villagers started to disperse.

“Master?” Geebo whimpered. “Little great one? What is happening? Geebo's head is fuzzy.”

He's calling himself Geebo again, instead of 'I', Rich thought as he shot his little buddy a look. The draggit was frantically polishing his spectacles, then raising them to his face and blinking.

“Nothing much,” Rich told Geebo. “I'm just gonna go look around for stuff and maybe buy a few things before the vendors go to sleep, then—”

“Mash'ram! Mash'ram!”

Someone yelled directly behind him, and Rich jumped, actually jumped a foot in the air as he whirled around. His tail hit a sitting rock and it rolled a few feet as he corrected, staring at the villager who was pointing back at him and yelling his fool head off. He looked frightened, black eyes wide and gleaming in the firelight, and Rich whipped his head from side to side as the departing villagers suddenly turned, and started pointing and muttering.

They weren't pointing at him, Rich realized. They were pointing at Geebo.

Geebo who obviously hadn't turned in any faction quests.

Rich backed away from the fire ring.

And now the spears and hatchets started coming out. Geebo scrambled behind him, huddling close to his side. Rich could feel the little guy shaking.

“Whoa now,” he told the gathering mob. “I gave you guys meat, remember?”

CHA+1

The tension eased a little, but they were still muttering, and shooting him evil looks. The guy who had yelled originally spat to one side, and considered his spear. Then he pointed to the nearest hole in the wall.

“Seriously?” Rich asked. They didn't look like they were joking.

“Shit. Ah...” Rich glanced behind him, and found his path clear. Not daring to turn his back, he spread a wing out to cover Geebo, then backed up towards the wall. It took a while... dragons weren't made for speed. But nobody attacked and he counted that a win. Once they were through the hole Rich turned, and nodded to Geebo. “Let's put some miles between us and them.”

“Geebo is very okay with that. How did we end up there, anyway?”

Rich considered him as they walked, turning his long neck away every few seconds to check and make sure they wouldn't catch arrows from sneaky villagers as they went. “You don't remember?”

“Vaguely,” Geebo said. “We came out of the hole, and there was a woman there... a friend, who—” his scaly brow furrowed. “It is like a dream. Everything from then is as a dream. Huts and strange humans and dancing fires.”

“You were talking very strangely,” Rich told him. “Saying I. Like 'I can carry your inventory,' and stuff like that.”

“Oh no!” Geebo's spectacles flashed against the light of the rising moon. “Did... did Geebo still address you as Little Great One?”

“Yeah,” Rich told him.

Geebo's frills drooped a bit. Then he tucked his arms around himself and shivered. “It is very cold out here.”

“Yeah. It's night now,” Rich said. Then he blinked as a yellow '2' rose up from Geebo's head. “Dude! Are you okay?”

“Geebo is chilled and losing stamina,” the draggit said. “It is nothing. Geebo is well rested and will do whatever you wish.”

“Um, no?” Rich said. “We need to find you shelter. I could start a fire... except no, all the wood and burnable stuff is back at the village.”

“Geebo could go inside his merchant's pack,” the draggit suggested.

Rich shook his head. “No. No, I have a better idea.”

“Yes, Little Great One?”

“I need power, and I won't find it in the village. The caves have more dark things sealed away in them, don't they?”

“Yes, but...” Geebo swallowed his words.

“They're dangerous, I know,” Rich said. “But if we want our revenge, the only way out is through.”

RUTGER'S CHARACTER SHEET

Spoiler: Spoiler

Name: Rutger Royal

Age: 18 Hours

Jobs:

Cultist 1, High Dragon Hatchling 3

Attributes Pools Defenses

Strength: 130 Constitution: 127 Hit Points: 257 Armor: 60

Intelligence: 37 Wisdom: 33 Sanity: 70 Mental Fortitude: 60

Dexterity: 13 Agility: 29 Stamina: 42 Endurance: 0

Charisma: 33 Willpower: 126 Moxie: 159 Cool: 60

Perception: 126 Luck: 32 Fortune: 158 Fate: 3

General Skills

Brawling – Level 11

Dodge – Level 4

Fly – Level 3

Ride – Level 1

Stealth – Level 2

Swim – Level 1

High Dragon Hatchling Skills

Burninate – Level 6

Chomp – Level 4

Draconic Tongue – Level N/A

Dragonseye – Level 13

Limited Equipment – Level N/A

No Thumbs – Level N/A

Scaly Wings – Level N/A

Slow to Age – Level N/A

Cultist Skills

Unlocked Jobs

Conjuror