Something pulsed through the darkness, warmth. He was so cold. He could feel the life blood seeping out of him, death’s embrace welcoming him. The warmth chased away the cold, but it was still dark. So dark.

Something flickered through the blackness, a shaft of soft light. Azrael squinted, his eyes not yet adjusting to the light. He saw a figure move. Alena?

She was saying something, but Azrael’s head felt a little fuzzy. He raised a hand to his head. He’d overused magic again. Why? Azrael groaned. Even the memory was fuzzy.

Forcing his eyes open he finally managed to take in the room. Yellow brown sandstone greeted him instead of his usual white-grey stone walls. The voice was calling out again. He tried to listen.

“…ael. Azrael, can you hear me?”

He looked up. Not Alena, but an elf. Since when were there elves in his village? No, he focused on the walls again. They weren’t any walls like that in his village. Out of habit he opened his [Status], glancing through it. His mana was almost full again, but two things jolted him out of his stupor. {Void Touched} and {Trickster’s Blessing}.

He wasn’t in the village anymore. He… The Spider!

Azrael’s hand shot out, his left hand, gripping the elf, no – Amelia’s, wrist. She tried to pull back, startled. He barely even noticed his healed arm.

“The spider” Azrael asked. “What happened to the spider?”

“Dead” She said. “We killed it. You’re in the fort now. It’s ok. You’re safe”

He licked his dry lips, before noticing Amelia’s pained face. He looked down to her wrist. He was still holding it tightly. He let go.

“How did it die?” he asked.

She glared at him and nursed her wrist, before slipping into a professional mask and answering him nonetheless.

“After it started moving it stopped producing more spiders. When you pinned it in place Zen commanded all forces to attack. It died from loss of blood. Between your spike and Zen’s arrows it was weakened enough that the ordinary soldiers could attack. You had fainted when we managed to dig you out.”

“How…” He coughed “How long?”

“A little over nine hours?”

Azrael checked his [Status] again. 280 MP at 30MP/hr… it seemed he’d really been out for the last nine and a bit hours.

He touched his side, where he’d been pierced. It was healed. Evidently the healers had come around to him while he’d been out.

“Zen” he croaked. His throat was really dry. He needed to talk to the elf. The fight had raised some questions that needed answering.

Amelia left with a bow, sending in a nurse with some broth as she left. Azrael gulped down the broth eagerly, while he waited for Zen. They had been interrupted by the fight, but he had a lot of questions he needed to ask.

While waiting he noticed a waiting notification and pulled it up.

Congratulations!

For surviving a deadly experience you have gained END+1.

The system really knew how to cheer somebody up.

In the end it took about an hour before Zen actually walked into the room. The elf looked really weary.

“Sorry” Zen gave a weary chuckle “The reports took a lot longer than I thought they would.”

“Reports?”

“Damage reports, assessment reports, inventory, warning the other forts, alerting the elven council.” The man sighed as he sat down. “Paperwork. That was the biggest dungeon break to date and I’m not sure we would have managed to hold on if you hadn’t been there. You have my thanks.”

Azrael listened politely, until he heard a certain word.

“Dungeon?”

“Ah.. yes. A dungeon. The spider attacks have been coming quite often recently. From all the reports it’s the work of a dungeon. A dungeon overflow, if you will.”

Azrael looked at the elf, wondering if he wasn’t going to ask the obvious

“Why haven’t you subjugated it yet?”

Zen looked him, his features suddenly becoming more haggard, if that was possible. He only said one word, but it was enough for Azrael to understand.

“Bureaucracy.”

Azrael could see it. A dungeon was both a danger and an opportunity. It was a danger to any nearby civilisation, but also a chance at attaining materials. The spider dungeon was an unknown dungeon, outside of line outer forts.

It wasn’t a direct threat, which meant that funding for an expedition would not be granted. Neither would money for finding and conquering it, or building a guard station near it.

Even without finding the dungeon the spiders would arrive at the fort, delivering the materials right to their doorstep. If the waves had been smaller the last few times, then it was low cost for high rewards.

Azrael nodded in understanding.

“I see” he said “But now…?”

“I’ve filed a report. There’s been no raid boss before. Two maybe three waves. Nothing serious. The appearance of the boss means it’s now become a direct threat to the elven forests. The council will probably send a subjugation force. Maybe I’ll even get a promotion after all this.”

Zen chuckled wistfully at the thought.

Azrael cleared his throat. Though the information that dungeons existed was nice, that wasn’t what he’d wanted to ask for. Unfortunately, Amelia took that moment to enter the room. In her hand was a familiar artifact.

“A call for you” she said, handing him the communication artifact. Zen accepted it, rising from his seat. He turned to Azrael.

“I apologise, duty calls, but Amelia should be able to answer all of your questions. I noticed that you probably haven’t read the stuff on the forums, but you shouldn’t worry. Amelia knows enough about skills, magic and the lore, so you should be ok”. He winked.

For a moment Azrael didn’t get what he was talking about, before he realised. He checked the elf with [Soul Sense], a sinking feeling slowly creeping over him. There was a divine spark.

“You’re a player.” He said, subdued.

Zen just looked at Azrael and laughed.

“You didn’t know?”

Zen left the room, while Azrael could only look at the closing door. He’d been interacting with players? How many were there? Was everyone in this fort a player? He checked Amelia. She came up negative. A native then. What about the soldiers? The medics?

***

Outside the door Zen channelled a bit of mana into the communication device to activate it. He glanced back at the door to the room that he’d just left, making sure he was far enough away. Azrael’s aura was no longer palpable outside of the room. It had originally startled Zen, but once he’d gotten over his surprise it was nothing special.

Azrael’s weapon skills were also below average, but it was his magic that had interested him. After the battle he’d contacted a friend to try and find some information. He raised the communication artifact to his ear.

“Well,” he asked “Any news?”

A female voice on the other end, another player, answered him with a negative.

“No” she said. “I found nothing. None of my contacts found anything about a tri-elemental combat mage. There’s nothing on the grapevine. There was nothing on the forums either, no post, no image. Nothing, even on the OneWorldGaming Ranker board for the game. Are you sure you saw a player use wind, fire and earth magic to take on a boss? It’s ok even for the Sylphian Archer to make a mistake sometimes.”

Zen just stayed silent for a moment, thinking things through, ignoring her taunt with his Ranker name. Finally, he answered.

“Yes. I saw it. Wind augmentation, fire manifestation and earth manipulation. From the strength he displayed there was no weakening due to lack of affinity, unless water is his affinity. But why only use your weakest abilities? It doesn’t make sense. Still, I saw it. He exists. Keep your ears open.”

With that, he ended the conversation. It seemed Azrael wasn’t a Ranker. OneWorldGaming was usually spot on with any information on Rankers, past present and emerging. The fact that there was no news meant Azrael was new to the scene. He didn’t know who Azrael was, but he was sure that in the future he could become a powerful ally.