Mount Doom. Probably the most famous fantasy volcano there is.

However, in this case, the volcano was never actually named that, and it’s also hardly the end of my adventure to return a piece of jewelry.

All that being said, there’s a reason that I always remember it as that…

---

After my run-in with the fey, it was smooth sailing… err… swimming until I reached land.

I didn’t really know where the heck I was in the grand scheme of things, but I assumed I was somewhere north of elven territory. However, I didn’t really need to know much more than “go east until you find a giant freaking volcano,” so I wasn’t too worried.

From there, my travels went about like they did right after the dragonlands. Run through zones, and kill off enemies once I got free.

There were a few differences, however.

First, I decided to keep up my [Flash Step] practice. It took a while to dial in how fast I could run and not empty my stamina bar, but I got it figured out and was able to mostly go back to zoning out.

Second, I saw a mountain, and I just noped around it. If I didn’t have to deal with climbing, mountain trolls, or those budget gargoyles again until the day I died, it would still be too soon.

Third, I made sure to loot each of the bodies that I killed so that I didn’t have to worry about accidentally spawning any undead.

That led to its own complication.

I had just exited a zone back into the wilderness, and I decided that it would be a good time to take care of the dozens of snarling dark wolves, two alphas, and the bear that were chasing me.

You know. The usual.

I stood in one place and beat down each of the normal wolves as they came for me. To make it more efficient, I even looted them as I landed the killing blow since it apparently only required physical contact.

Then the two alphas finally charged. The first one got a dave to the face, and I prepared to jump out of the way of the second one.

Preparation was as far as I got. My legs didn’t respond.

As I was panicking and wondering what was going on, the System helpfully chimed in.

System: You are over-encumbered and cannot move

The split-second warning wasn’t enough, and the alpha took me to the ground.

I grunted in pain as it bit me on the shoulder, but I punched it repeatedly in the face with [Fire Strikes] until its body went limp and disappeared.

Yes, the body disappeared. Why? I looted it, even though I was already dealing with an overfull inventory.

Curse you, muscle memory.

Anyway, the bear had finally decided that it was his turn, so it roared and charged at me too.

I tried to stand up to meet it or dodge when I again got the helpful message from the System.

System: You are over-encumbered and cannot move

“I can’t even stand up?!” I yelled.

I frantically opened my inventory and started dumping stuff out. Wolf, alpha, and bear pelts and meat of both the standard and northern variety tumbled around me.

That actually bought me a moment as the bear stared at me in what I can only assume was horror.

Before it could recover, I’d finished emptying my inventory of everything except a torch, a health potion, Megan’s necklace, my gold, and… a bunch of wolf teeth and bear claws?

Anyway, I hadn’t realized how much junk I’d accumulated, but it was enough that I had to dig my way out as I stood up to face the bear… that was running away from me at maximum speed.

“Victory?” I asked myself. I went over and looted the alpha wolf that my dave took down and then looked back at the pile of junk.

If this was a normal game, leaving items out like this would just have them despawn after a set amount of time. I shook my head. But regular games also usually do the same thing with enemy bodies. They don’t cause those bodies to stitch themselves together into an unholy abomination that raises zombies near it.

“I thought having an inventory was supposed to solve this problem,” I grumbled. Then I looked over at my dave. Oh. Maybe that still works?

I gave the dave orders to destroy all of the items, stuck around for a minute to make sure that it actually could, and then I was back on the road again.

The only thing of note that happened for quite some time was that [Flash Step] finally hit level 3. I could go 4 feet with it, which was actually starting to seem worthwhile, and the cooldown was also reduced down to 45 seconds instead of a minute. Unfortunately, it still cost 10 SP to use, so I had to slow down my running a pinch more to make sure I could keep practicing it whenever it came back up.

I was initially worried about slowing down, but I convinced myself it was no big deal. I have a massive lead on the party. There’s no way that they can beat me to the fire dungeon.

Wait. If I have that much of a lead, I’ll need to kill time when I get to the fire dungeon… Should I try to find a town and get some gear then? I puzzled over that for a bit. I may have puzzled a bit too hard because I accidentally stopped running after doing a [Flash Step], and I got bit by a few wolves.

After taking them out and getting back on my way, I got back to my ruminating. While paying a bit more attention to my surroundings, of course.

Being able to use weapons and armor doesn’t help much unless I actually get some. That also raised another question. I imagine for armor, I just want something like most of the party got. That leather armor didn’t seem like a bad idea. But are weapons even useful? It’s not like I want to challenge the [Hero] to a sword fight…

I remembered back to my attempt to punch his sword and how poorly that went. Then I frowned and thought, Wait. What happens if two blades hit each other? Can I block his attack even if I’m doing way less damage?

I couldn’t imagine a world where a high-level swordsman’s sword would just go through a lower-level one’s because that would mean attacks from both sides were unblockable.

It was definitely something I wanted to test, and weapons were seeming more and more like a good idea. There was just one problem…

I have no idea where the closest town is.

I sighed. While I was confident in the lead I had on the party, I wasn’t confident enough to spend possibly months wandering around off-course trying to find an elf town. So, at the end of the day, I had to just keep going towards the fire dungeon.

After days and weeks of running, I watched the leaves fall in the forest biomes… Which was terrifying. In Placeholder, they apparently all fall at once.

A bit after that, I came across a huge river similar to the other two I had seen sectioning off the nations. The only difference was that it was running north instead of east like I expected.

I could only assume that the river must branch off or otherwise turn and head north into the sea. Since that was the case, I guessed I had probably gone far enough south for the time being, so I switched to a more eastern heading.

After a few more days of running, I ran into a completely new biome.

A desert.

I looked across the sand dunes stretching as far as I could see. Then I said in mock horror, “A desert! Oh no! I might get heatstroke! Or die of thirst! Or maybe I’ll see a mirage!” I paused after that last one. “I wonder if mirages happen here, or if it just counts as an illusion?”

I shrugged and took off across the sand. It was actually an interesting break from my usual running since my footing was so different, but it turned out that I could still [Flash Step] and still get SP back, so nothing really changed.

When I heard some more wolf howls, I sighed. Really? Wolves in the desert?

However, there was something a little off about them. The howls were a bit airy, like if you tried to hear them through a strong breeze.

Either way, I didn’t really notice that, so I just kept running. I figured I’d just outrun them like normal and then clear them out if there got to be too many.

However, after about a minute of running, I still didn’t see a single enemy.

“What the frick?” I asked as I stopped. There’s no way I outran them that quickly, right?

The sand jumped at my face.

I screamed a… uhh… very manly scream and batted at the sand ineffectually.

The sand blasted through me, and I felt the unmistakable pain of taking damage. That was finally enough to snap me out of my panic and get me to dodge the next blob of sand that hurled at me.

That finally gave me a clue as to what was going on, so I waited for the third attack. As soon as the mound of sand rose up from the ground, I hardly needed the spell to confirm it, but I cast anyway. “[Identify].”

I dodged the level 10 dark sand wolf’s leap and couldn’t help but mutter. “Wolves. It’s always frickin wolves. Why?”

They were a lot trickier to keep track of than normal wolves since they could meld into the ground, but there seemed to be only four or five of them, so I was able to avoid taking another hit. That was definitely a good thing because the single one I had taken had dealt 55 damage to me.

After dodging for a minute or two to get a feel for them, I also started lashing out at them with [Fire Strikes]. Then I realized that I was an idiot.

Yeah. Hit the desert mob with a [Fire Strike]. They definitely don’t have heat resistance.

I decided to cycle through the other ones since I hoped they would work better.

[Ice Strike] slowed them like normal, but only very briefly. It turns out that it was a bit too hot out for them to be chilled. Also, if it was doing any extra damage, it wasn’t enough for me to tell.

[Earth Strike] was next on the list because I thought that maybe sand wolves were cousins of the earth wolves I had fought back during the Faroff Forest boss fight. I actually killed two of them after I switched, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of the damage type. It could have also been the case that I just finally depleted their HP.

Either way, there were now two sand wolf bodies littering the dunes, and I finally got a good look at them. While just saying “a wolf made out of sand” does them justice, something had been bothering me about them, and I finally figured it out.

They don’t have eyes. Which was a mostly accurate thought. They at least had a spot where eyes were supposed to go, but the sockets were empty. It was kind of a creepy look, but I was worried about something else.

How the heck do they know where I am? Dang. If only I had that [Link Sight] spell that fairy [Queen] had. I dodged another lunge. “Okay, back to clearing you out,” I addressed the new enemies.

I went back to [Elemental Strike], and [Air Strike] was next on the list. I was a little curious to see how the knockback interacted with beings made entirely of sand.

The next sand wolf jumped me, and I decked it in the face.

I was expecting the knockback to send it back a few feet, but I was also prepared to dodge if they were immune instead.

I was not prepared for the wolf to practically disintegrate into sandy bits that rained down on the dunes in front of me.

I stood there staring at my hand in shock for about a second and a half and had to awkwardly dive to dodge the next wolf’s attack. After rolling to avoid its follow-up attack, I managed to regain my feet. I hit that wolf with an [Air Strike] too and watched with a little bit less amazement as the same thing happened.

So… Air’s a huge weakness?

I looted the two wolves I’d killed with [Earth Strikes] and only got a bit of gold, but there wasn’t even anything left to loot for the other two. I guess that saves me some time on cleanup, then. Right?

I continued my eastward travels and confirmed in the very next fight that [Air Strike] was the way to go. Even on the full-health wolves, I took them down in a single hit and felt like One Punch Man[1].

I had to slow my running speed down even more, though. It turns out that when you burn through SP with [Air Strikes] every fight and also waste even more practicing [Flash Step], that it’s pretty hard to break even. The easy solution would have been to just give up on [Flash Step], but I really wanted it up to level 4 in case I ran into the party again. Which, in my mind, was almost guaranteed since I would be waiting at the fire dungeon for them.

However, all that I had faced had been the level 10 sand wolves up to that point. I was getting a bit paranoid about what the stronger monster was going to be.

In Faroff forest, we had level 1 wolves, level 5 alphas, and level… I paused and tried to remember. What level were the bears again? Oh, right. Level 7. Then, we got into other biomes that had stronger stuff. The swamp had level 5 stranglevines and level 10 crocs. Mountains had level 7 gargoyles and level 12 trolls. The arctic had level 5 wolves and level 10 alphas, but those weren’t actually the strongest since they also had level 16 bears. I frowned. Following that pattern… What kind of monstrosity would be paired with sand wolves that are the weak, common monster and are level 10?

I didn’t have to wait too long to find out. I encountered one that very night.

I had been dealing with the increased nighttime spawn rates easily enough. However, I ran into a lull in the attacks that lasted several minutes, and I got worried.

My concern was well-founded.

A giant black pincer burst forth from the sand in front of me and latched onto my leg.

I grunted in pain and tried to pull away as the System notified me.

System: You are grappled and cannot move

My panicked attempts to get away from the unburrowing massive black scorpion left me open to the huge stinger that it swung my way.

It went through my chest.

“Ow,” I muttered and looked down at the blurred stinger sticking into my torso. That hurts a lot less than I thought it would.

I quickly found out why.

System: You are stunned and are unable to act

Frick, a stun-

System: You are no longer stunned

Oh, that was short.

I gave silent thanks for [Status Effect Resistance] and tried to wrench myself free before the next stinger attack landed.

I wasn’t successful, and the stinger jabbed into my chest again.

I looked down at the blow that would have been 100% fatal back on Earth.

Okay, I’ve been here a year. Still don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.

Fortunately, there was no stun from the second attack.

Since the scorpion’s grip seemed too strong to break, I decided to meet the third attack head-on with an [Elemental Strike].

I punched the stinger with an [Air Strike] because the sand wolves had gotten me used to using it. I expected the stinger and my hand to bounce off each other. However, the fact that we were launched a few feet forward meant that my attack must have won out.

One of these days, I’ll remember how grapples work with knockback, was all I could think as we both went tumbling down the sand dune.

It ended up working out in my favor because the scorpion let go of me during the tumble. That, in turn, gave me the time to back away from it and try to come up with a plan.

First things first. “[Identify]!” I cast. I breathed a sigh of relief because the “giant dark scorpion” I was fighting was only level 14. I was expecting 18 at least. This might be easier than I thought.

Meanwhile, the scorpion finally righted itself and hissed at me.

Since it was a ways away, I decided to open up the fight with my only ranged attack.

“[Summon Dave]!” I cast as I [Air Strike] punched the poor slimeball directly at the enemy’s mouth.

The scorpion completely freaked out. It frantically swung its stinger at the dave but couldn’t hit it. Its claws were also useless. They couldn’t reach.

I literally sat down and watched as the dave slowly took down the enemy that was 9 levels above it.

When it was done, I went over and looted the body. I got some gold and some scorpion chitin.

“Huh,” I looked out at the desert and then back at my dave. “I wish I’d come here first. This would have been some easy levels.”

I carried a dave with me at all times after that so that I could immediately throw it into the face of any other giant scorpions I came across, and it was about as anticlimactic as it sounds. Scorpion pops up and grabs me. Scorpion gets a dave to the face. Scorpion freaks out and dies.

All in all, the desert felt like… easy mode.

Is this what it feels like to be the [Hero]? I mused as I one-shot another sand wolf.

Of course, the god of irony wasn’t going to let that thought process slide. Several days into my travels, the weather took a turn for the worse, and I was faced with heavy wind.

“A sandstorm? That’s rude.” I paused. “Heh. Darude Sandstorm.”

Only the wind was around to hear me, and I had to deal with a brief bout of loneliness after that.

Sam would’ve thought it was funny. I thought to myself. And Megan… I pulled out her necklace and just looked at it for a bit. She would’ve called me an idiot, but with a smirk on her face.

I put the necklace back because it was too painful to keep out, and I turned my thoughts to the current situation.

Well, at least I learned my lesson from the blizzard. Extreme weather event hits? Stay put.

If I hadn’t figured out that [Air Strike] one-shot sand wolves, the couple of days that the sandstorm raged on would have been absolutely terrifying. Instead, they were only upgraded to “moderately dicy.”

The reason for that? It turned out that the sand wolves’ ability to meld into sand also worked on sand that was flying around in the air. I only figured that out after the second sand wolf dropped on me from above.

Either way, I rode it out without even going into wrath form, so I call that a win.

After that, I kept running and finally found my destination. Or at least somewhere that was close to my destination.

I saw several volcanoes off in the distance, and the desert sand transitioned to blackened rock.

The System also decided to confirm that I was in the right place.

System: Zone entered, Great Eastern Volcanoes. Faction - Neutral

“Fire dungeon, here I come,” I muttered. But which one has the dungeon? I remembered that it was supposed to be in the biggest one, but they all looked pretty big to me.

“Probably the one in the middle?... But which one’s in the middle?”

I spent a few hours walking around and staring at volcanoes that all looked mostly the same before I realized something.

“Wait… Are there no mob spawns here?” I frowned. Part of the reason I was able to get out cleanly from the ice dungeon was that I had that army of monsters to back me up. If I don’t have that… I’ll just have to rely on [Flash Step] and running like mad, I guess.

That did at least remind me to keep practicing [Flash Step] since I had forgotten about it once I had gotten into the new zone.

Either way, I did eventually find one volcano that was noticeably bigger than the others.

Remembering what the prophecy said about it being inside the largest volcano, I made the trek up to the top and then looked down into it in confusion.

It was nearly full to the brim with bubbling lava.

I guess… I can take a look around inside?

With no other ideas, I dove into the lava just like I’d done in the tutorial. I looked around for any dungeon entrances, but I didn’t see a single thing.

Eventually, I climbed out by [Earth Striking] my way up the inside of the volcano.

It said in the volcano, though. Why isn’t it in there? My climb had brought me up on the eastern side of the volcano, and I looked down and saw giant double doors that were obviously a dungeon entrance.

I facepalmed. Right. Of course. The [Hero] wouldn’t have been able to go in if it was literally inside the volcano anyway. I started my way down towards the doors and grumbled. But why isn’t the dungeon entrance on the western side? That’s where everyone will be coming from.

My internal complaints were cut off when I heard voices echoing off in the distance.

It had been deathly quiet up to that point aside from the bubbling lava, so my ears picked up on them easily. However, I thought I had to be hearing things.

It can’t be them, right? What would they be doing here?

I made my way back around to the western side of the volcano, and sure enough, I saw four figures approaching.

“Yo! Perfume Jubilee! What are you guys doing here!?” I shouted out to them.

“It’s Doom Fury!” Richard shouted back. “And you know… We’re just seeing the sights.”

We both looked around at the barren wasteland. Sure. I slowly walked towards them, and we stopped about 50 feet away.

“You want to tell me why you’re really here?” I asked.

The [Warrior] sighed. “Jake told us everything. So we’re here to try to stop you from doing something stupid.”

I snorted. “I’m surprised the [Hero] would send you four when his own party tried and couldn’t stop me.”

“Well, Jake’s party isn’t-“

“Isn’t going to make it to this dungeon before you,” Ethan said as he cut Richard off with a sharp jab with his elbow. “We at least had a shot at it since we were a bit closer and didn’t have to clear out a super long monster-infested dungeon.” The elf [Wizard] paused. “They absolutely hated what you did with the place, by the way.”

“No one died, right?” I asked. Ethan shook his head. “And did they level from it?”

“Maybe? Their [Message] didn’t say.”

“Then I’d say it was a resounding success,” I said with a shrug. We paused and stared at each other for a second before I continued. “So, congrats. You arrived at the dungeon about the same time as me. What’s your plan now?”

“I don’t suppose there’s any way we could talk you down?” Samuel asked. When I just gave him a look, he sighed. “Figures. But I guess I don’t get it. Why are you so deadset on going back? There’s still so much of this world that’s better than the one we left behind! There are adventures to go on! People to help! Even if you’re the [Demon Lord], there has to be something here that you want!”

I laughed. “The only things worth keeping me here died months ago.” My voice turned to a whisper. “At my own hand.” I opened my inventory and pulled out Megan’s necklace. “I killed the woman I love, and even if I wanted to adventure the [Hero] and his party will never be able to look me in the eye again.”

“Then, I have an offer for you,” Richard said. He walked closer, and I eyed him warily. “Join our party instead,” he said as he held out his hand.

“You’d be willing to take me?” I asked softly.

“You saved our lives, so we owe you one. Why not?”

“I literally just told you that I killed someone.” My eyes narrowed. “This is a trick.”

Rich shook his head. “It’s not a trick. Jake told us about your other form. You weren’t in control of yourself. We won’t hold that against you.”

I looked him in the eye. I wasn’t a good judge of such things, but he looked sincere.

I looked down at his hand, and a million thoughts raced through my mind.

Take his hand. A part of me said. Go on more adventures.

Join his party. Another part of me agreed. Then you won’t face this crushing loneliness anymore.

Give up the quest. A final part of me said. So that you won’t have to deal with the weight of what completing it will bring.

I hesitantly reached my hand out to take his.

Then I remembered the necklace I was holding in it. More thoughts joined the first.

Take his hand… And you will never see home again.

Join his party… And you will watch them all die just like her.

Give up the quest… And let AltSys get away with everything he’s done.

My hand paused, and I pulled the necklace back into my inventory.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

Then I opened them, looked directly at Rich, and said, “I’m sorry, but the answer’s no.”

Rich frowned and drew his hand back. “Then it looks like-“

I interrupted him with a [Disrupt] aimed at his [Enhanced Party] perk. Seconds are precious in a fight, and that’s doubly true when you’re outnumbered.

I swung at him with [Earth Strikes], but he managed to dodge all but one as he pulled out his sword and yelled to the rest of his party. “Water rifle! Quote unquote, support! 60-second timer on [Disrupt]!”

What the frick is he saying?

However, the rest of his party must have understood. Nick and Ethan moved in front of Samuel, who began casting, “Power of light restore health to my ally-“

Meanwhile, Rich had pulled out his sword and took a swing at me.

No time like the present. I wanted to press the attack, and I didn’t have a good angle to dodge anyway, so I punched his sword with a [Fire Strike].

Our attacks bounced off each other.

“Did you just punch my sword?” he asked in shock.

I hit him with two back-to-back [Earth Strikes] as I smirked and said, “Maybe.”

However, Samuel was finally done. “[Cure]!” he cast.

There had been several reasons I’d attacked Richard first instead of going for the [Cleric]. First, Richard was right there, and I didn’t want to give him an opening. Second, unlike Jake, Richard didn’t have [Survivalist Party]. If I knocked someone down below 0 HP, there was a very real chance that they wouldn’t be able to bring them back up, especially if I took out their healer. Third, none of the other three had moved to attack me, so there wasn’t a need to go to them just yet.

That all changed when I watched the brilliant light of Samuel’s spell glide past Richard, and I finally realized the true target. Me.

I growled in pain and barely managed to roll out of the way as Rich followed up with a heavy swing and a yell, “[Power Strike]!”

The sword clanged into the ground mere inches beside me, and I had to duck under an [Air Bolt] as soon as I regained my feet.

Meanwhile, Samuel wasn’t done either, and a [Heal] reduced my HP even more.

Frick. They’re using their [Cleric] for DPS. I had to dodge another coordinated attack by Ethan and Richard right after that too. And they aren’t falling to pieces like the [Hero’s] party!

I swiftly came to the conclusion that I should have reached at the beginning. Sorry, Samuel. You’re going down first.

I rolled past Rich and then sprinted towards their backline.

Rich called out after me, “[Duelist’s Challenge]!”

However, whatever the skill was supposed to do must not have worked on me as I just kept running.

“Lost dog!” Rich shouted.

Ethan and Nick moved forward to intercept me, but I just smirked. I planted my foot right in front of their bodily blockade and [Flash Stepped] right passed both of them.

I started laying into Samuel with [Fire Strikes]. However, he kept his composure leagues better than Andrew had done in the same situation.

He continued casting [Heal] on cooldown, dodged my wilder strikes, and even landed some pitiful attacks on me with his mace.

To help with my efforts, I summoned a dave and launched it into his leg.

“Chain lettered!” Samuel called.

The rest of the party sprang back into action. Ethan kept casting bolt spells at me, Richard closed the gap and hacked the dave to pieces, and Nick even tried to [Sneak] and then [Backstab] me.

The last one was the least effective. [Detect] meant that I saw the [Rogue] coming from a mile away, and I kicked him away from me with an [Air Strike]. I then hit Rich with a similar [Air Strike] to get back to my main target.

I landed a few hits on the [Cleric] when he called out, “HP is Ben Franklin and dropping!”

“Xpeke!” Rich shouted. “Go!”

I still had no idea what any of them were saying, but I hit Samuel two more times, and he dropped to the ground.

I expected them to give up after that. Their healer, who was also their primary source of damage, was down.

“Stop the ports!” Richard yelled, and he kept swinging at me. If anything, his attacks seemed wilder than before.

I had several openings, and I hit him with [Ice Strikes] to slow him down while also meeting the occasional attack from him head-on to keep him off-balance.

Meanwhile, even Ethan closed the gap and was firing his bolt spells at me from short range, and I had no idea what their play was.

That continued for a bit more until I finally took Richard down too.

“Surrender!” I called to Ethan. “Surrender, and I’ll let you all walk away.”

Ethan held up his hands. “Okay. I surrender. Just… Let me get Samuel back up, okay?”

[Disrupt] had come back up off cooldown, so I was willing to let him use a health potion to get the [Cleric] up on his feet.

“We’re going to let Samuel [Cure] Rich, okay?” Ethan said.

I moved away from Rich and watched as Samuel prepared his [Cure] spell. I tensed for a moment but relaxed when it headed towards Rich.

“Four versus one, and we still couldn’t even force you into your other form, eh?” Richard said as soon as he was back on his feet.

“You guys put up one heck of a fight. Way better than the other party,” I replied. “Not that I’m quite sure how when you’re only level 10.”

“Level 10?” Richard asked. “You need your eyes checked?”

I raised an eyebrow and then cast, “[Identify]… Level 16. How the frick did your party pass up the [Hero’s]?” I asked.

He shrugged. “We farmed the wolf boss in the Faroff Forest Dungeon. It was a bit sketchy since Ethan was our only elemental damage, but we made it work. It turns out that torches deal fire damage, so we just had to make sure to save summer for last.”

Huh. I guess that would make the last wave sketchy but doable. My eyes roamed over their party, and I wondered what I should do with them when Ethan looked slightly panicked.

“I bet you’re also wondering why we didn’t fall apart when you [Disrupted] us, aren’t you?” he asked a bit hastily.

I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I’m a bit curious. That and what the heck you were saying during combat. Ben Franklin? Chain lettered?”

“Should we really tell him about any of that?” Rich muttered.

Ethan glared at him, and I was increasingly feeling like I was missing something, but that train of thought was cut off as Ethan said, “Yeah. I don’t see why not. I mean, it’s not like we’re going to fight him again, so there’s no reason to keep it a secret, right? We should tell him all about it.”

“Oh,” Rich said and nodded in recognition. “Uhh yeah, of course. My very first callout was water rifle. AKA a stream sniper[2].”

“Stream sniper? Like when you’re streaming a game?” I asked.

“Yeah, like that.”

I nodded along, and Samuel quickly added, “Rich used to do a lot of streaming for different games, and we got tired of people listening in on our comms. So, we made our own code for it.”

“Using mostly memes and inside jokes,” Ethan said. “So, when Rich said ‘water rifle,’ we knew to switch to code because an enemy was listening in.”

“Gotcha,” I replied.

Ethan was apparently eager to explain them and made broad gestures with his hands.

“Next was quote-unquote, support,” he quickly said. “By that, he was saying that our support was actually going to be taking on the carry role for this engagement.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that.”

“And the call of lost dog was saying that he had lost aggro. We called it that because there was one raid a long time ago when Samuel mentioned that aggro kinda sounded like a dog’s name.”

“And you never let me live that down, do you?” Samuel grumbled.

“I think that’s enough of an explana-“ I started.

“Chain lettered was also something that Sam came up with. Why don’t you explain it to him, Sam?” Ethan cut me off and said.

Samuel quickly replied. “Well, I thought it was clever. You know how there were all of those chain letters that were like ‘send this to 10 people or you’ll die?’ Well, I figured that meant that you were both cced[3] on the email and that you were going to die. So, that’s what chain letter meant. I was grappled and losing HP.”

“I get it-“

“Then there was Ben Franklin,” Rich added in. “Nick had a stupid moment when he thought Ben Franklin was on the quarter, so that became our callout for only having a quarter left of somethings.”

“Guys. I get it. You don’t need to explain anymore.“

“But what about Xpeke-“ Samuel started and then immediately clammed up.

Richard and Ethan glared at him, but the damage was done.

That name tickled something in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t figure out what.

“What about Xpeke?” I asked.

Richard didn’t look me in the eye. “Oh. He’s just a… League of Legends player.”

That name still sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. “And stop the ports? What did that callout mean?”

Richard, Ethan, and Samuel looked back and forth at each other.

It finally dawned on me.

“Frick!” I shouted as I turned and sprinted for the dungeon.

Xpeke. Apparently, that name was in my memory, but it wasn’t something at the forefront. Xpeke was a League of Legends player who is famous for a backdoor play.

Nick had been missing that entire time, but the other three had done their absolute best to hold my attention by any means possible. Which was what the other call had been. Stop the ports. Don’t let the enemy teleport back to base.

When I made it to the large dungeon doors, one of them was already ajar.

No, no, no!

I went past the door and ran down the steps into a dimly lit cavern with molten rock and magma.

System: Demon Lord perk verified. Performing first-time elemental dungeon setup!

I ignored the prompt and frantically looked for the [Rogue]. When I finally found him, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Nick had his hand on the obelisk, and he was frantically screaming at it. “Claim! Deactivate! Let me do something, you useless piece of rock!”

Crisis averted, I slowly stalked over to him.

He watched me come over and then said nervously, “Hey uhh, Titus. Didn’t see you there. Did you know there just so happens to be an unguarded obelisk here?”

“Step away from it,” I said flatly.

He took a few steps away from it. I reached him, looked at the obelisk, and then back at the [Rogue].

He almost ruined everything.

I saw red, and before I knew it, my hand lashed out into his gut with an [Earth Strike]. When he doubled over, I hit him in the back with an [Air Strike] that slammed him into the ground.

I picked him up bodily by his shirt and lifted him off his feet. “Did you really think I would let you get away with trying to steal this from me, [Thief]?”

[Thief]. That also reminded me of even more unpleasant memories to add to the fire.

My rage grew.

System: Attempting to activate Wrath Form

“Titus!” I heard a shout from the dungeon entrance. I looked over and saw Rich and the rest of his party running towards us. “You already won! Let him go!”

It wasn’t the best thing to say to me in that situation, but it was… good enough. The little bit of sanity I had left prevailed, and I used [Disrupt] before unceremoniously dropping Nick to the ground.

System: Cancelling

Samuel and Rich helped the unsteady Nick to his feet, and Rich whispered. “Was Jake wrong about claiming it?”

Nick shook his head. “No, that wasn’t it. Jake guessed right. You can claim the dungeon even before it’s set up.” He frowned. “Turns out that you have to be in the [Hero’s] party to do that, though.”

“Good, so even though you guys almost ruined it, the plan’s still the same,” I said. “I sit here and wait for them to come and then claim it right before they get here.”

Nick smirked. “Yup. Sounds like a great plan to me.”

My opinion of Nick was rather low at that point, and I could tell the feeling was mutual. That’s how I knew something was off.

Then I remembered what Rich had been starting to say about the [Hero’s] party before Ethan cut him off.

“No,” I whispered. “He wouldn’t be that reckless. I told him what happens if I have a zone claimed too long.” I could feel the panic building up inside me as I came to an inescapable conclusion. But he definitely did.

But what about the prophecy! Didn’t it say he had to clear them in order!? I paused as I only vaguely remembered the wording, but when I did, I wished I hadn’t. No… It only said the order that I would try to activate them in! And he probably doesn’t trust it anymore anyway since it said that I was a [Half-Demon]!

I spouted several words that were immediately censored as I frantically tried to get the dungeon “setup” and get out of there. I shooed Rich and Co out and tried to just activate the dungeon.

System: Dungeon obelisk is claimed by the Demon Lord faction but inactive. Activate?

“Yes.”

System: Zone, The Great Eastern Volcanoes, has been claimed by the Demon Lord Faction

I barely even paid attention to the fiery red beam of light that shot off into the sky.

System: The fire dungeon has been claimed by the Demon Lord! Only 1 elemental dungeon remains!

I ignored that prompt, too, as I was just trying to get it to accept my empty dungeon so I could get out of there.

It didn’t take.

It turned out that I needed a boss room and some monsters at the very minimum and that the dungeon wouldn’t accept setup until that was done.

I slapped a rough room together for the boss room. Then I assigned a couple of fire elementals as the monsters. Then it complained again because I needed at least 2 types of monsters, so I just threw some random daves in there as well.

After that, I was finally able to get to the next prompt.

System: Please design dungeon boss

“Fire elemental matriarch,” I said. Hey, it worked for the ice dungeon, and I was in a time crunch. I gave it the same unique trait as the ice elemental one and moved on.

System: Dungeon boss assigned. Teleport to entrance?

I went into upgrade for a second to quickly snap up [Status Display]. I could have also picked up [Skills, Normal], but 1, I didn’t have any skill points, and 2, I was in a hurry.

Then I finally teleported out to the entrance and took off at a dead sprint towards the west.

The roles were reversed, and it was now my turn to frantically hope they couldn’t make it there before I could catch up.

[1] One Punch Man – If you cannot tell what this anime superhero does just by the name, then I’m sorry. I can’t help you.

[2] Stream Sniper – Stream sniping is the act of watching and/or listening to someone who is streaming a game, but is on the other team from you in order to get an unfair information advantage (e.g. where enemies are, what they are planning, etc.)

[3] CC – This is a pun on the fact that CCed can mean both Carbon CopiED (included on an email) and Crowd ControlED (having a deabilitating status condition applied to you)