Rich nodded. “I’ve had a long day so I’ll make this simple. You want to know about the city. I want my little buddy there back unharmed and to walk out of here. Sound fair?”

The rogue hesitated, squinting. “You’re a Cultist? What the fuck?”

“He was only a High Dragon Hatchling before,” Doctorhealgood said from behind Captainstabyn. He wore white robes with gold lettering and held a glowing metal staff with birds made of energy fluttering around it. “What did you do, noob?”

Rich angled his head down to stare at the priest. “I learned to play. You should try it some time.”

“Shut up, asshole!”

“Guys...” a female voice broke in, as Boombabe spoke up from behind Tankitaway. She was smoking hot, a pointy-eared elf wearing a rune-covered bikini and a cape. She had fiery birds rotating around her head too, in a way that was probably meant to be impressive but just reminded Rich of old cartoons where people and ducks and other things got pounded on the head with hammers.

Still, she did fill out that bikini pretty well, and he took a snapshot before he glanced her way. “Let’s not bicker over this, guys. He’s willing to bargain. It sounds fair to me.”

“I don’t trust him,” Tankitaway said. He was in black armor from head to toe, with gold runes worked into it. Both sword and shield glowed blue, and Rich knew from personal experience that the sword had icy enchantments.

They were all level twenty-five. They were all badasses. The only thing saving him from pain was the fact that his PK switch wasn’t on... but it wouldn’t save Geebo. Geebo’s name was bright red. He’d been in Rich’s party when he’d attacked them earlier.

Fighting was pointless. He was wounded, and even though he was finally getting enough levels to be powerful, they were strong enough to kill Geebo without hesitation. So talking was the only option, and Rich chose his words carefully.

“You don’t trust me? I don’t trust you!” he said, settling into the churned mud before the doorway. “You killed off my mentor the minute I got into game, tried to kill my tutorial NPC, chased me out of my starting zone, and you’ve been grinding your way through the only halfway-friendly settlement around here. You’ve been a nonstop train of assholes since I logged in. Why should I trust you?”

“Cry me a river—” Doctorhealgood started, but Captainstabyn turned and shot him a look. Then he cleared his throat and glanced back to Rich.

“Okay. I can see how we got off on the wrong foot here. But you know about the city?”

“I know that the only clues to it around here are back in that hut. Through me,” Rich said, settling in so he blocked the doorway completely. “That hut that’s in its own pocket dimension. That hut that you can only get into and out of through one way.”

There was silence as they considered it.

“You’ve obviously heard of us if you know we’re looking for New Hali,” Tankitaway said. “We’re just trying to unlock guilds. I’m sorry about the misunderstanding; we don’t normally set out to ruin people’s days.”

“And yet you’ve still got a knife to Geebo’s throat,” Rich said. “Look, I understand. That’s why I offered you the bargain.”

“No tricks?” Tankitaway said. “The clues we’re looking for are in there?”

“That’s the only place they could be,” Rich shrugged. “I tossed it after I fought the Icon and didn’t find anything, but then I don’t read Arabic and there’s a lot of stuff written all over those walls.”

“Arabic!” Boombabe perked up. “That’s got to be something! That matches the Gnukotic manuscripts we found!”

“Dude, this is obviously a trick!” Doctorhealgood whined. “We should just kill the draggit and wait until douchefag here logs out!”

“I’ve got nothing else planned today,” Rich said, smiling. “And I could easily go back in there and burn the entire fucking place to the ground. I did burn up a lot of it. What’s a little more fire?”

“Guys,” Tankitaway said, “Huddle.” The group grabbed Geebo, pulled back to the edge of the village, and argued.

Rich closed his eye and waited. He tried to ignore the gore slowly oozing down his muzzle from the gaping hole that was his left eye socket.

Finally they came back. With a flash of his knife, CaptainStabyn cut Geebo’s ropes. “Okay, you’ve got a deal. But if you try any tricks, or we don’t find any clues, we’ll come after you. We’ll make you our fucking hobby. Got that? You think you’ve been griefed now, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

“Got it,” Rich said. “Scaly Wings. Come here, Geebo.”

“You have saved me! Thank you thank you thank you!” Geebo ran forward. Rich gathered him into his arms and flew upward.

His ears were good enough to catch snippets of conversation from the group down below as he went.

“...never cut a deal with a dragon. This is gonna backfire...”

“...probably have to hunt his ass down anyway. Can’t trust a Cultist...”

“I get dibs on his hide!”

Rich nodded. An idea had come to him, he just had to check something. “Geebo?” he asked his friend as he flew behind the mountain. “Can you tell when something is in your bag of holding?”

“Technically it is a Merchant’s Pack, great one. But yes, with Merchant’s Eye I can get an accounting of my own pack just by touching it. Why?”

“Good. Here’s the plan...”

And so it was when LivingDeadGrrl trudged back to the village, bloody and beaten to hell and back and a level higher than she had been when she set out, she found Rich holding one of the half-destroyed tents up against the entrance to the Icon’s hut.

“Hey!” she called. “You aren’t answering your messages!”

“Sorry,” he called back. “My network’s, uh, weird right now. What happened to you?”

“The Icon set me up! I broke the glass ball at the sacrificial altar like the quest told me to and lost all faction with the village. Then pretty much everyone from the village jumped my ass.”

“I wondered why I wasn’t getting ambushed,” Rich replied.

“Dude, your eye... shit, that looks horrible.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t fun.”

She was silent for a bit, sitting on a nearby log, and staring from him to the bag. “What are you doing?”

“Going back on a promise. But then, they were gonna find a way to bone me, too. So fuck it.”

“That’s an answer, but it still doesn’t tell me shit.”

“Let me answer a question with a question instead. Want some easy experience?”

“Who doesn’t?”

He invited her to his party and took the opportunity to check out her levels. There was a new thing in there that made him do a double-take. “You’re a water elementalist now? What the fuck?”

“I unlocked it when I killed one of them with an icicle.”

“An icicle?”

“My spear was stuck in somebody else, okay? Yeah, I know, I’m not set up for a mage build but what the hell.”

A few more minutes passed. “Seriously, what’s with the tent—”

Geebo cut her off. “Master! The objects you told me about have entered my inventory!”

“All of them?” Rich asked.

“All of them!”

“Good. Let’s move fast. They shouldn’t have a way to teleport, but I don’t want to take any chances. You two get on my back, I’m big enough now to carry both of you at once.”

It was a long flight down into the caves. LivingDeadGrrl pestered him along the way, pestered him until he finally told her his plan. She laughed so hard she almost fell off his back once she heard it.

Finally, they were back at the room full of bridges, the one with lava at the very bottom.

“You’re sure of this?” She asked.

“Yeah. They’re assholes. Geebo, hand me the pack.”

Geebo handed over the half-destroyed tent, that he had painstakingly sewn into a pack.

“Ah, almost forgot,” Rich said, and flipped his PK switch on. “Just in case.”

Then he threw the pack into the lava below.

You have killed player: Boombabe!

You have killed player: CaptainStabyn!

You have killed player: Doctorhealgood!

You have killed player: Tankitaway!

You are now a level 8 High Dragon Hatchling!

CON+25

PER+25

STR+25

WILL+25

Armor+15

Cool+15

Mental Fortitude+15

You are now a level 9 High Dragon Hatchling!

CON+25

PER+25

STR+25

WILL+25

Armor+15

Cool+15

Mental Fortitude+15

You are now a level 10 High Dragon Hatchling!

CON+25

PER+25

STR+25

WILL+25

Armor+15

Cool+15

Mental Fortitude+15

You have learned the Rank Up skill!

Nothing to Cultist this time? But this wasn’t killing a Cultist or using Cultist skills, so I guess it put all that into the only other option, Rich thought.

Next to him, LivingDeadGrrl gasped. “Level twenty-five! Shiiiiiitt! I should do more PVP.”

“We just took out an entire high-level party,” Rich said. “We got lucky, and they got stupid.”

“Yeah, I’m just saying... I didn’t know progression was this fast, here! I’ve gotten more levels in the last twenty-four hours than I have in all the weeks up to this point.”

“That’s because you were approaching it like a regular game. Playing it safe, just doing the quests that didn’t risk anything.”

“No, it was because I was stuck soloing. But then I hook up with you, and oh ho ho, it’s goddamn Christmas up in here!”

Rich laughed. “Come on. Let’s get gone before the bats come out.”

“Bats?”

“You don’t wanna know.”

When they were back in a safer part of the caves, both of them sat down and read through their new skills.

The Cultist ones were interesting, no doubt useful, but it was the High Dragon Hatchling’s “Rank Up,” that made Rich’s heart stutter.

Rank Up!

Cost: N/A Duration: 2-4 years

It is time to grow up, young dragon.

Find a safe lair and sleep. Grow into your new form and emerge as a youth.

The following elements are available to you, based upon your life until now.

--FLAME

--SHADOW

--STONE

--WATER

The following forms are available to you, based upon your actions until now.

--COUATL

--DRAGON

--WYRM

Two to four years? Years?

This game’s time didn’t line up with real time, not exactly, but still... but still...

Stalling, thinking things over, he read over the entries for the various options.

The elemental choices would affect his breath and resistance and hinted at skill options later on. They were pretty straightforward, no real surprises.

The three forms had more significant effects. Choosing Dragon meant he’d keep the same shape he had now more or less, he’d just gain some size and a bit of endurance. Couatls lost their forelegs and gained stupid big wings, picking up much better agility and getting some flight boons. Wyrms went the other direction, losing most of their flight capability but getting way sturdier and serpentlike. They got serious endurance and raw physical power but at a significant mobility loss.

It was a tough call.

“So, what now?” asked LivingDeadGrrl.

“I don’t know. There’s no way those guys couldn’t afford tokens, though, so they’ll be back. It might take them a while, but they’ll come after us,” Rich said. “We don’t want to be around here when that happens.”

“Not much point in sticking around anyway. My village is toast. But now that I’m max level, it shouldn’t be hard to get to another settlement. I think there’s a few south. And since I lost all faction with the old tribe, I don’t think I’ll be attacked on sight. So, you wanna come with?”

It was tempting. But...

...he had a life to get back to. The fact that he hadn’t died in the last couple of hours meant that somehow, against the odds, the Haskeens hadn’t killed him yet.

Something was going on. Things were stable here, relatively. And there was that Rank Up to consider. Did he want to kick it off now? Would it really take years, actual years?

“No,” he decided. “We’re better off splitting up. They want me dead, but not you, not so much. I’m the one who lied to them; they’ll take that personally.”

“If you say so.” She didn’t seem convinced. “If they catch me then they’ll try to grief me because of what we did, so we might as well stick together regardless.”

“Except that I’m a big damn dragon and he’s a draggit, and we’re both really distinctive,” he said, pointing at Geebo. And Rich was a big damn dragon now. Ten levels in the racial job had put him up to about eight feet of height, not counting his neck. “You’ll be harder to find without me.”

“Yeah...” she said, after a minute. “All right. But look, you’ve got my friend info, right? Let’s hook up after this.”

Rich flushed. “Uh...”

“Ha! Not that way. You’re still a kid, remember?”

“Yeah...”

“And I’m not into dragons. No offense. Too scaly.”

“All good,” he said, and offered her a fistbump. “Good luck. I’ll message you once things are stable.”

He flew her back up and out of the caves, taking it slow because of his limited vision. Once out he made a show of flapping in the other direction...

...and after he’d given it about an hour, he circled back, flying low to the earth, and returned to the caves.

“You are not leaving?” Aunarox said, fading into view beside him.

“Not just yet,” Rich said. “I thought maybe you had left.”

“No, but I did not feel like revealing myself to the girl. Her presence does something to my mind, it is harder to think around her. I learned that on the trip up, when I was stuck in my lesser form.”

Rich grunted, but his mind was working. “I have a big choice to make. But it’s not my choice, not really. Do you know a safe place down here? Where someone could maybe vanish for a few years?”

“I do, actually. Particularly if they have a beautiful and talented djinn watching over them!” Her smile was brilliant white against her blue skin.

God, she was lovely. Rich was glad he’d held out as long as he did with the whole pact thing.

The chamber she led him to was deep, deep in the heart of the mountain, and Rich settled in. “Geebo, I’m going to switch over to the other guy now. Okay?”

“Of course, it is okay, Little Great One.” Geebo smiled broadly. “Geebo thinks he knows the choice you contemplate. May he tell you a secret?”

Rich shot Aunarox a look, and she laughed before clapping her hands over her ears.

“Whatcha got, Geebo?” he asked.

“Geebo has a Rank Up choice, too.”

Rich’s eyes went wide.

Of course.

The little guy HAD been in the party when they dunked on the griefers. He’d gotten a full share of experience too.

“Cool,” Rich breathed. “All right. See you later, hopefully,” he said, and shut his eyes, before he triggered the options one last time.

BEGINNING LOG OUT.

30...

29...

28...

RUTGER'S CHARACTER SHEET

Spoiler: Spoiler

Name: Rutger Royal

Age: 2 Days

Jobs:

Cultist (Anjuuta) 7, High Dragon Hatchling 10

Attributes Pools Defenses

Strength: 306 Constitution: 303 Hit Points: 609 Armor: 165

Intelligence: 60 Wisdom: 40 Sanity: 100 Mental Fortitude: 165

Dexterity: 15 Agility: 40 Stamina: 55 Endurance: 0

Charisma: 55 Willpower: 301 Moxie: 356 Cool: 165

Perception: 301 Luck: 52 Fortune: 353 Fate: 17

General Skills

Brawling – Level 15

Dodge – Level 13

Fly – Level 14

Ride – Level 1

Stealth – Level 2

Swim – Level 2

High Dragon Hatchling Skills

Burninate – Level 13

Chomp – Level 8

Draconic Tongue – Level N/A

Dragonseye – Level 15

Flameborn – Level N/A

Hoarder – Level 1

Limited Equipment – Level N/A

No Thumbs – Level N/A

Scaly Wings – Level N/A

Slow to Age – Level N/A

Tail Slap – Level 2

Cultist Skills

Conceal Status – Level 1

Curses – Level 1

Dark Chant – Level 1

Darkspell: Fool's Gold – Level 1

Enhance Pain – Level 1

Occult Eye – Level N/A

Servant of Darkness – Level N/A

Transfer Wounds – Level 1

Unhinged Mind – Level N/A

Unlocked Jobs

Cleric, Conjuror, Fire Elementalist, Grifter, Knight

Gear: