"Ignis Ventus Sanguis!" Jack roared, shaping all his terror, all his fury to bend and twist the flow of his spell in ways he had never dared before. To channel the roaring super furnace blast, to direct power now equaling the discharging corona of the sun itself. An impossible feat he had forever shied from manipulating. Until the moment he had realized, so viscerally, as his interface chimed on about Elite tiers reached and perks chosen, how similar shaping the flow of plasma was to shaping the flow of mithril itself. A flow he now dared to direct with all his naked terror, his humiliation at having been so utterly bested, even if for just a handful of heartbeats. Yet it had been enough to feel like a violation of the highest order.

A violation that could only be repaid in blood and flame.

Elite Tier mastery allows for the manipulation of Windfire beyond standard parameters! You are attempting Major Alteration!

Your Arcane Manipulation skill is presently Elite Rank 1!

Skill check made. Elite skill rank allows for critical success! You have successfully tightened 60 degree cone to 10 degree Plasma Blast!

Spiritual component of Bloodflame successfully pierces Elder Lithid Beast Handler's Arcane Wards!

Elder Ilithid Beast Handler has been struck for Catastrophic Damage!

Elder Ilithid Beast Handler has been vaporized!

Elite Shadow Bear has been critically hit! One Elite Shadow Bear has been partially crippled!

Experience Earned!

5 Elite Shadow Bears remain.

Even as Jack soul flooded with sudden potency, he dared not waste time reveling in the savagery of his kill. For the instant his mind took to process the message was all the warning he would ever be given as to just how dire his true peril was as he stumbled back with a cry, heart pounding, the flood of essence filling his soul with potency and his reserves with mana he put to immediate use, desperately compelling the stone to flow back into the bulwark their lives depended now upon, save for a single narrow slit growing tighter and tighter as Jack spent another two seconds blasting forward with flame he now widened into a cone once more to force his foes back... just long enough to finish sealing up his wall then slamming a bloodied palm against it and imprinting the blood runes for Resilience and Permanence and Obfuscation for good measure, in the heartbeats it would take for his monstrous foes to lunge forward once more.

And the desperate hope he had that they would be happy enough to leave him alone with their connection to their master severed turned up to be just as futile a hope as he had known it would, the air suddenly ringing with the deadly pounds of monstrous horrors even now smashing the barrier before him.

Because he was all to aware of the qualifier their interface had branded them with.

Elite Shadow Bears.

And given how deadly the normal variant had been...

just how fucked were they?

Desperate thoughts flickering across his panicked skull as he raced back down the corridor, slipping through the opening once more after leaving a few changes and a certain liquid present behind, his spine tingling with nightmares claws of dread as he spent endless seconds making his changes... too many seconds, knowing just how fast and deadly the normal variant of Shadow Bears was, all but certain this elite brand would be even tougher.

Which he already knew was true in the worst possible way, as the beast's furious onslaught actually began cracking his Masterwork Blood Rune defenses.

Barlton's wide eyes locked with his own. "Jack?"

"Elite tier Shadow Bears and Mind Lords! We're fucked, my friends. Well and truly fucked!"

Elof paled, gazing down the now hundred yard long hallway with wide eyed horror, all the more so for Jack's tweeks. "Jack, what happened to all the walls between us and them? We're sitting ducks!"

Jack couldn't help but notice the anxious looks in Chu Hua and his sister's eyes. But the girl who held him so tightly in the depths of the night, trembling with tears she dared not show even her sisters, was giving Jack an approving nod. "Your plan is daring. But if it works..."

Aroust flashed a bleak smile. "If it works? Glory. If not? Death. And since these fuckers can smash through walls... All that would have been accomplished if Jack had kept a good dozen box cars sealed was buy us a few extra moments to appreciate our rapidly approaching deaths."

Drake nodded. "Glory or death, but no retreat since there is no real retreat, just getting boxed in and playing to the monster's strengths. I think Jack's right to take this approach!"

Elof's emotive eyes glanced Su Li's way.

"Su Li?"

The girl only spared a second to gaze Elof's way, all of their front line fighters readying themselves as best they could if Jack's plan was a disaster and the horrors charged them with such force they could only hope their Dread Blades could buy them at least a few extra seconds before they were ripped apart in the blink of an eye.

"Yes, Elof?"

"If we actually survive this... will you marry me?"

Everyone blinked in surprise at those words, Su Li gasping with disbelief and joy, serious expression filled with sudden wondrous hope, her sisters favoring Elof with looks of sweet bemusement.

Her solemn nod was belied by her brilliant, heartfelt smile. "Nothing would make me happier," she said, before snapping back to glare at the far distant tunnel entrance already beginning to rupture, Jack's emergency if all else fails barrier raising from floor to ceiling, now covered in crimson runes, not dipping so low as to block their vision, nor so high as to impair controlled chopping blows or any thrust, but a final defense his foes would have to fight to slip through as Jack continued whispering the words to his favorite artillery spell.

Elof's eyes widened, finally understanding what Jack had done. "Guys, the floor! It's all sharp length-wise ridges of stone and all of it is covered in Jack's--"

Words instantly cut off as the far sealed wall at last surrendered to the swarming death awaiting them, half a dozen vicious scythe-clawed Death Bears larger and wider than any others now roaring and charging forward as one.

Only to slide and trip and liquid so incredibly slick they could find no purchase... sliding across extremely narrow ridges of stone as sharp as obsidian saw blades, all of them reinforced with blood runes containing too much of Jack's potency as the howling monstrosities roared their fury for all that they slipped and slid on the impossibly slick stone razors, slicing the monsters open open as their blood hissed and they struggled through liquid more caustic than any mundane agent back on Earth had ever been.

And still, despite tearing open their feet as they were forced to walk on what amounted to incredibly slippery stone band-saws, they wobbled forward at an inhuman pace as Jack readied himself for their next step.

"Drake! Veti! Now!"

"Forsvaga! Brista!"

But his friends didn't even need to be told, the air ringing out with the Tier 4 curses Veti had finally bought up to the apprentice ranks, even as Drake roared words sounding so similar to those of Jack's favorite childhood game, the stone walls somehow carrying the echo of his voice as the monstrosities were sent tumbling like bowling pins, and Jack wanted to roar with triumph, before catching his friend's deathly pallor.

"Drake? What the hell!"

"Way too high level," he whispered. "And I dared a one-two punch of Weakening and Breaking. But force always has to flow, Jack. If not through them, then back through me. And with thirteen bloody points put into each my deadliest shouts..." Jack's eyes widened with disbelief at those words, his friend giving a rueful chuckle. "Yes, I specialized like hell. You don't even want to know what that Shout of a Power Word could do to mundanes. But those Shadow Bears have to be level fucking twenty!"

"Rusticitas Majors! Tarda Majoris! Sicco Impetus Majoris!"

Words that sent Jack reeling despite his friends considerably improved control. But he knew he had to stand strong. He had to stand ready. Under no circumstances was he allowed to puke on his feat as, much to his horror and wonder, Veti unleashed not one but three Tier 4 spells before following up with additional spells to cause dizziness, weakened bones, slowed time, and even blindness.

Jack wasn't sure if even half the spells had taken hold, but that, combined with Drake's pair of shouts that had nearly knocked his friend out of commission, had sent their foe's realing, shadow horror's leaking dark ichor for blood that hissed and sizzled as their flesh seemed to sag and their now bloody sliced up feet wobble... yet still they lurched forward. And as wrath and fury replaced the obvious disorientation, weakness, and pain they felt, their crumbling lurch turned to loping beastial strides, as all save the crippled Death Bear were now charging forward, paying no heed to spurts of blood and sizzling pieces of flesh and claws left behind on the acid covered obsidian sharp ridges Jack had futilly hoped would slow them down.

Yet much to his horror, the moment Veti and Drake's onslought of perfectly rehearsed spells and shouts had cut off with exhaustion and mild backlash, the hooked horrors were charging forward again, to frenzied to be bothered, it seemed, at how they wobbled from side to side, repeatedly smacking the tunnel sides also graced with several blade-like ridges, to better corral their foes more than anything else, though even with razor sharp rock kissed with Jack's gifts cut through Shadowy hides weakened only after a half dozen Shouts and Curses, still they pressed on.

"Jack! Focus!"

Aroust's panicked voiced washed over him. As did the choked whimpers of the girls who would dare hold the line, waiting for the right moment, praying for salvation.

Prayers answered with a thick crimson beam of deadly flame.

You have successfully modified your spell! Tier 1 Arcane Manipulation and repeated practice in the crucible of combat has allowed you better control than ever before!

Spread has been reduced to 3 degrees. Increasing air mastery allows you superior control over supportive air funnel. Congratulations! You have discovered a beam version of Windfire! (Note! This modified spell can only be cast as a level 3 variant with successful Arcane Manipulation skill checks!) - Masterwork spell, pressurized component. Modified variant is now equivalent to base Tier 5 spell.)

Even when he had first tested his rank 1 novice Fire Stream spell against the slavers who had nearly made off with multiple village girls trapped in their wagons, what now felt like a lifetime ago, Jack had been surprised at the difference in damage a direct hit point blank to the face would cause, as opposed to when his flames could do from a distance, spread out considerably, targeting hunched over foes a handful of yards back. The difference in damage potential when the flame jets first left his hand compared to scorching opponents some distance away had been night and day. Now, his highly modified Tier 3 spell, boosted by multiple perks that now gave what was nearly a hundred and fifty fold damage increase compared to his first experiments with that level 1 version of the spell, would allow him to do hyper concentrated damage along the entire length of that deadly beam.

At that moment, Jack wanted nothing more than to howl with triumph or cry out for pain as he squeezed tight to the wild storm of fire blazing through his soul, hammering it into a tight beam of impossibly hot plasma, shot out in a thick foot wide beam that didn't just wash over his monstrous foes, but blazed right through their hexed, cursed, and weakened frames.

And he didn't need to hear Veti's awed curse to know just how beyond the pale his spell now was, compared to what any third or even fourth Tier spell had any right to be.

Two Elite Death Bears were caught point blank, gazing at Jack with alien eyes filled with whatever passed for horror in their monstrous existance before their chests were seared through like an industrial torch on full blast eating through a block of wood. A third showing no expression at all as Jack near instantly obliterated its skull as the stump caught ablaze and it too began to collapse, Jack snarling with the sudden ache of incipient mana loss, yet pushing himself to splash a fourth, then a fifth, before abruptly cutting off the feed, a blaring headache and crippling dizziness replaced by an unexpected message as he rapidly downed one of Drake's precious blue potions.

You have successfully slain multiple Elite Shadow Bears! You have crippled multiple Elite Shadow bears! Now channeling the potency of multiple Elite kills!

You have channeled excess potency to your party and saved versus sudden explosive growth!

Windfire is now Elite Rank 2!

Arcane Manipulation is now Elite Rank 2!

For pushing yourself to the brink of collapse repeatedly, you have achieved Rank 2 of High Intensity Training! +20 to Maximum Mana Pool.

But Jack paid the message no mind, his eyes locked upon the slowly collapsing corpses even as his friends discipline roars washed over him as they harnessed their Battle Feats, the warriors among them lunging and slashing foward in eerily perfect unison, so well coordinated that even inhumanly fast Death Bears were no match for 6 Level 13 warriors moving in perfect concert, as hide, flesh and bone weakened by multiple Shouts and Tier 4 curses parting like meat before a cleaver as multiple Vorpal blades cleaved through massive Elite tier beast limbs with the ease of performers tearing through bladders of wine, washing them all in sprays of ichor and hot blood.

And despite their planning and discipline and weeks turning into months of brutal survival and pristine meshing of tactics, still, none of that saved their smallest member from the inhuman speed of their foes, as an impossibly fast claws tore through the air even as their owner stumbled back minus a head... but not before he had collected his pound of flesh in the form of ruptured flesh and a torn eye, the massive claw slipping and jerking into Su Li's open faced helm just a heartbeat too fast for her to fall completely away.

The youngest of the three sisters, a blossom brutally mangled, fell to the ground with a cry as Elof screamed, his naginata tearing into their enemy's ranks... but somehow, by some miracle, they were all already dead.

Jack was stunned anew to see how quickly savage violence resolved to cold resolution, where the calculus of warfare, of minutes, hours, or days of planning, can an often did came to just a handful of seconds.

And how easily the tables could have turned.

if Jack had been just a tad bit slower, or had a smaller potency pool.

If he had not covered the obsidian sharp ridges he had lined the tunnel floor with near frictionless lubricant using a mixture of both Acid Spray and Dissolution Orbs at a ratio that just barely prevented disaster.

And even with all that, Su Li had come so close to death.

"Jack, your healing artifact!"

"Take it."

"Holy Hands!" her sisters cried.

Yet for all that Jack's chest lurched with dread, the girl's mangled faced twisted back to true as she cried out in desperate pain, shuddering in Drakes arms, as the potency of their kills and the magics used by her sisters blazed through her soul.

From mangled near-corpse to fully healed, in a handful of agonizing, gut clenching seconds. Such was the miracle of adventuring in this world where nearly anything was possible... and death just a single miscalculation away.

For long moments the breathless party was just grateful to be alive,

Even as An Li sobbed in Elof's arms, the young man glaring at the Shadow Bears they had slain as if hoping he could kill them again. "Fucking bastards!"

"No one disagrees with you there," Drake said, gently patting his friend's shoulders as his too knowing eyes glanced Jack's way.

"Bloody sweet. But how the hell did you keep the whole damn chamber from setting ablaze and filling the whole with toxic fumes that would have trapped us behind yet another wall, and made it a bitch to actually get out of here with our lungs intact?"

"I mixed the enhancer's Dissolution Orbs with my Elementalist Acid spray," Jack explained. "The two together have the same super slippery properties as my Orbs, and sizzle like anything against flesh or stone that is not warded. But best of all, in the right ratio, they won't necessarily burst into flame with a bit too much exposure to heat."

Aroust scowled. "But if it had actually caught ablaze, and your familiar hadn't been able to handle it..."

"She can."

"Drake's right. You could have poisoned this whole area, for who knows how long, and we could only hope to find another way out of here!"

Jack glared at his friend. "Or you can just say thanks for slowing them down long enough for our plan to actually work."

Drake just chuckled, giving both their shoulders a friendly clap. "Well, it worked, and you can't argue with success."

Aroust shook his head, chuckling softly. "That it sure as hell did. I take it we're pressing forward as soon as Su Li is feeling better, and our elementalist here covers up the caustic foot slicing death trap?"

Jack held the man's gaze. "That's not all we have to do."

This earned a number of frowns.

"What the hell are you talking about, Jack?" The duelist frowned, aquiline nostrils flaring with impatience. "We have to survive. That's all we have to do."

Jack slowly shook his head at their growing impatience. "I don't know if you got a good look, but Death Bears aren't the only thing we're facing. Don't you remember that silvery tendril from the cloaked figure in back that ruptured Veti's seeing eye like it was nothing?"

Slowly, haltingly, he revealed secrets then that he normally kept close to his heart, worded in ways that conveyed much truth without leaving himself completely bare, and all the while everyone save Drake and Elof were gazing at him oddly.

Aroust blinked at that. "Wait, let me get this straight. Your original party took on a Dark Master, one of those monsters who can control both the living and dead, and actually won?"

Jack flashed a bleak smile. "Only because I had an ace up my sleeve he had no way of spotting... until it was too late." His gaze hardened. "But what were facing now is worse. Far worse than a couple low level corrupt nobles with a family gift. These creatures up ahead aren't even human."

His friends exchanged solemn glances, Drake's eyes gazing intently into his own. "Jack, can you give us a better sense of what we're facing?"

Jack took a deep breath, knowing he was about to dive off the deep end. Because what he was about to show them next could never be taken back. "I can do you better. I can show you exactly what I saw and felt when that monster first struck... but only if you're willing." His cheeks flushed with sudden unexpected shame. "Only if you won't hate me for what I can well... do."

Words that only served to pique his friends' curiosity. He took a deep steadying breath, hoping he wouldn't regret what he was about to say later. "Let's just say we can use our interface to do more than just silently communicate. We can show images as well."

Chu Hua gazed at Jack for long moments before giving a decisive nod. She flashed a brilliant smile as Jack completely sealed the barrier behind them. So that in their moment of rare vulnerability... they would be safe, unless more of those horrors came this way.

"Alright," she said, giving Jack his hand. "Show me what our enemy showed you." She exchanged solemn nods with her sisters before meeting her lover's gaze once more. "show us all what our enemy showed you."

Solemnly, the entire group then grabbed each other's palms as if getting ready for a massive group cheer.

Instead they took Jack's que and closed his eyes, no one noticing the sudden thread of Silver now piercing their palms, spiritually connecting them, as they sprung into the violent terrifying memory of a hideous octopoidal nightmare hissing laughter, its mouth cilia twitching with cephalopoidic mirth as Jack's limbs were no longer his own.

Jack's heart hammered at the memory, those few terrifying seconds of absolutely helpless despair, before yet more of his mother's lessons had flooded his soul. Recalling only then that exaggerating commands, triggering reflexive over-compensatory cascades embedded in most command algorithms was the easiest and safest way to snap free, much like yanking a turn on slick roads to force a skid, or toppling over a spinning gyro.

Yet in the handful of seconds his foe had gloried in having caught yet another human who dared the deeps as a future puppet for its clan, Jack had gleaned flashes of borrowed memory, bitter hate, and inhuman desires... sensing for just a second the ancient orange tier portal entrance with its talisman locking the gate precisely in place as the group that had so recently dared the wild pustule of Shadow infecting their realm had had the misfortune to stumble into the Mind Lord's midst in the very first room of their delve.

All of them now hearing so clearly the desperate startled screams of unsuspecting delvers, having somehow been enticed into daring this horror of a dungeon, as one eager band of adventurers after another were bound body and soul, forced to serve their new masters, those who weren't consumed outright, flashes of nightmare feasts the final impetus Jack had needed to lurch his arms free and snap free the chains that bound with flashing silver sheers and the furious gift of flame.

Even as Jack sensed his friends reeling at the awful blood-soaked memories of cracked open skulls, pulsating brains, and twisted faces filled with the horrific ecstasy of their own submission, their own destruction, Jack did his best to lock on to the fleeting impression of the eldritch gate somehow forced open with crackling dangerous magics unlike anything Jack had ever seen before, forever keeping the pathway to this pustle between Nightmare and Mundus occupied by this vile layer of Squid-Faced Puppeteers forever open.

"Jack! those monsters, they've actually forced a connection between Nightmare and Mundus. Monsters of the abyss given true form, preying on the local populace!" Drake's panicked cry, boosted perhaps by his own odd synergized class that straddled the gulf between Bard, True Mage, and Mentalist, earned winces from his friends. It was as if they were on group chat, and his speakers were always on max volume with feedback.

"Yes, we know, and turn down your thoughts. Don't shout at us, Drake!" Aroust hissed. "We've found an exit from darkest dream, and it happens to be the farthest thing from the expected entrance under the Arcane Academy. Instead we're at the entrance point of a wild pustule of a dungeon given far too much time to stabilize and belch horrors into the environment at large."

"And it's their own rotten luck, and ours, that the beasties flooding forth are Squid-Faced Horrors!" Said an outraged Barlton. "Scourge and hated foe of all sentient folks who dare call the underrealm their home! Dwarves and Dark Elves and Shadow Gnomes alike!"

Veti, however, wasn't one to let secrets revealed slip from her inquisitive fingers so easily, glittering eyes now as much mithril silver as brown gazing at Jack with a sort of horrified awe. "Yes, but don't you all realize what this means?"

"Why don't you tell us, luv?" said Barlton, intent bushy eyebrows saying so much as he looked a blushing Veti's way.

Veti flushed. "These creatures. Not simple Trolls, or Ogres, horrible as they are, but actual Mind Lords! Horrific creatures of nightmare that can make emperors and kings their puppets, creatures all the surface kingdoms make common cause in putting down. Because they are so insidious! Like gangrene they are a rot that once takes hold, is almost impossible to cure without severing entire limbs of arcane or administrative branches, as flocks of men are enslaved or duped by those horrible puppet masters, eager to eat whatever brains they can't control outright!"

Her look was an odd mixture of awe and disbelief. "And as any scholar knows, what makes those creatures so fearsome is that no matter how strong a mage's defenses are, no matter how warded his body from the elements, almost no magic can ward their minds from a Mind Lord's caress!"

Barlton nodded. "Tis true. Tis why any under-realm kingdom will offer safe passage to any party daring to take on those horrors, no matter their political allegiances or race, with a base bounty of a hundred gold per head besides!"

"That's not the point!" she hissed, diplomacy and tact taking a back burner to her excitement. "How is it that beasts that even an arch magister would fear actually fell to Jack's...what... silver scissors?"

But Chu Hua's intense gaze flickered between Veti and an increasingly red-faced Jack. Yet far from accusatory, her look was one of genuine concern. "She's right. And more to the point, that nightmare actually had his hooks in your mind, Jack. And yet somehow... somehow you broke free?"

Jack flushed, realizing there had been a cost to showing them a fast-forward clip of the entire nightmare scene as it played out... endless moments in the blink of an eye.

He locked gazes with Drake, who flashed him a sympathetic smile.

"Um... yeah. About that. I can vouch for the fact that Jack has a knack of dealing with assholes who like to fuck with other people's minds." Drake swallowed, getting the slightest of nods from Jack before continuing. "Not too long before our first Delve, a certain asshole of a lord who was just a bit too savvy of an investor, too sharp at knowing his opponent's political and financial weaknesses, a bit too good at going for the kill and turning financial princes into paupers, finally revealed the secret behind his success... while doing all he could to seize all my father's assets right out from under him even as he tried to have Jack and I killed, right before our own father's eyes."

Drake eyes took on an almost worshipful reverence. "That was the day Jack shown his true colors, and the day I declared him a brother for life."

Jack smirked. "A good thing too. Back home, all I have is sisters."

But Chu Hau's wondering gaze wouldn't leave his own. "But how?"

Jack felt his cheeks blaze. "You already know that secret, Chu."

He held her gaze, willing her to remember all the times her awed fingers would stroke the subtle points to his ears, so well hidden by his locks and the darkness and helms of mithril and bloodmagic and just surviving their ordeal.

"Oh," she softly said.

But Veti's eyes were still burning into Jack's own. "Is it true?"

"Is what true?" but instantly he knew what she was referring to, earlier references regarding Grey Elves and The Four Horsemen, and the true origins of the Sovereign Duchy that was there home.

He swallowed, finding his own chin nodding just a fraction, denying it no longer.

Veti's look was one of awe. "So it's true. Your are a descendant of the Four Horsemen. One of them, anyway. Only it's not Yohan Silvercrest at all."

Jack shook his head. "He was my original teacher of a single night. Not my sire."

Veti frowned. "But I thought..."

Jack sighed, shaking his head with something close to despair. Knowing what they would see would change everything. But if they were to have even a chance of survival...

Heart in throat, he tried to ignore the weight of their gazes as he slumped against the stone passage, earning worried glances sent his way. "Jack?" Barlton's worried voice washed over him.

Jack flushed but refused even to look their way as he whispered words to Drake. "I think maybe you better explain exactly what happened. You know... before. There's something I have to take care of." His cheeks flushed with shame. "Something I should have taken care of long before we nearly died right here."

Veti furrowed her now graceful brows, unearthly vitality of a level 13 hero just a kiss away from 14, a monumental feat, radiating a charismatic potency all of them now possessed... save for Jack himself, of course. "Jack? What are you doing?"

Jack swallowed, jaw clenching and unclenching, knowing the time for secrets had past.

Forcing himself to hold her gaze, he pulled free silken fabric that rippled in waves of dream and horror and tortured sentience. The girl before him instantly paled. Lurching back.

Because somehow, she already knew.

As Jack felt his mother's gifts shaped by his own will and the absolute flood of intensity that had evolved his gift as the power and potency of a Prime Eldritch Horror had fed his mother's blessings like fecund loam, gentle showers, and a warm summer would any seedling hungry for growth. As Jack used the silken gloves and silvery crochet needles that were as much his soul given physical form as any object that could be taken from him, to knit the skein of his enemy's soul into not one, but half a dozen skull caps that shimmered and glittered before he glued the silken fabric to a second, far more mundane silken undercap with glue comprised of his own blood.

Jack's expert eyes seeing so much, understanding so many of a tailor's secrets as countless hours of his mother's whispered instruction he had absorbed in a state of trance over countless nights and countless years finally manifested in full. He took full advantage of his friend's stupefied gazes to pluck free their helmets from unresisting skulls before fitting the skullcaps snuggly as extra lining for each of their open faced helms before solemnly handing them back to companions gazing at him with looks ranging from awed disbelief to horrified dread.

Yet Jack didn't stop, despite their horrified gazes, with a full third of them still unprotected. He then plucked free a second claimed soul from his pouch, using the twitching thing fluttering on unseen winds to forge three more indestructible skull caps with the last of his fabric, all fantasies of weaving a tunic no duelist's blade could pierce giving way before the needs of survival, their desperate desire to see the end of this terrible day.

No matter how he had secretly hoped to never need make use of his mother's darkest gifts, use them he did, despite the waves of horror, disgust, and awe sent his way, for the sake of his friends.

Friends that need only whisper his secret to one hostile pair of ears, and Jack was as good as dead.

Only then did he dare acknowledge the hated messages pouring inside his head.

You have successfully quantized the potency of your kills and forged 9 Artifact Tier Soul-caps! Snip, Pinch, & Spool are now Journeyman Rank 1!

Fabricate is now Adept Rank 1.

Shear is now Adept Rank 1.

You may now evolve your weapon!

"There," he said at last, suppressing the shiver of awe and dread he felt at the massive boon to his mother's most sacred skills, his soul's natural affinity showing forth in ways not even he could deny, as much as he dreaded the class fate was so eager for him to claim.

Jack swallowing his parched throat. "You now know a secret that will get me hounded by unseen enemies across the whole damned continent... so I prey you will never tell it."

His heart pounded at his own confession. Yet curiously... it had been exactly what was needed to calm barely controlled panic is some... realizing that, in fact, he had never been more vulnerable, that he was, in fact, trusting them with his life. And that faith, that metaphoric baring of his own throat, reminded them all that the monster before them was, in fact, their beloved friend who had saved more than a few of their lives multiple times, during their journey so far.

Thoughts Jack hated being able to sense so well, wondering if there was really any difference at all between Grey Witches and mentalists...save how damned well the former was at killing the latter, did their foes dare overextend when lunging forth with their minds.

Both could sense the thoughts of their friends and foes in the right circumstances, and Jack had no doubt he could learn the mentalists art as well as anyone, taking the class or no.

It was simply revulsion at the thought of leaving his soul open that made him loath the class so, and not his mother's ingrained hatred of all those who had tried to destroy her elven tribe.

"Wear these under your helmets in the fight to come." Hard green eyes that had now held a corona of brilliant mithril held each of their own. "And wear them still, even in times of piece, with top hats, shawls, or bonnets, or even under a scarf or wimple. For the rest of your life, curious slaves to fashion as we will all no doubt find ourselves to be, I'd recommend you always find a reason to cover your head."

Veti stared for long moments at the gift Jack had given her, hands trembling, even as the rest wordlessly donned their newly improved helms that Jack handed back to them, a bit of mundane adhesive insuring it would stick firm, whatever helmet or hat or head covering they might one day wear.

"Jack, what is this you have wrought?"

Jack flashed Veti a bleak smile. "I think you already know."

Her hands began to shake. "Jack..."

"Do you wish to be one of those abomination's puppets?" His voice had turned harsh and cold. "Walking forward with a deliriously happy smile into the caress of those monsters before their octopedal mouth limbs slip inside your skull and devour your brain, savoring your last haunted moments as your thoughts turn to mush, your memories, hopes, dreams, and skills devoured as you're left a mass of ruptured neurons and spasming flesh? Forced to appreciate with your final gasps your own absolute and utter destruction as you slip into a catatonic state before your body is used as an egg incubator, your final delirious nightmares of endless horror and pain, too damaged to even think a coherent thought, but certainly alive enough to feel agony that only ends when squid spawn bursts from the husk of your flesh after consuming you from within?"

The look of horror on Veti's face sent a surge of horrified disgust churning in his gut. But the odd look of Approval Barlton sent him, Chu Hua's solemn gaze meeting his own as she deliberately donned Jack's gift, served as the tiniest of reassuring balms as he said the words that made even those two pause.

"it's exactly what you think it is, Veti. The souls of my enemies. Foes who dared try to enslave me and my friends with their minds." He clenched his jaw. "Foes who paid the ultimate price, daring to cross a child of those horsemen that you seem to fear so much."

"The Grey Witch. That's your mother."

Jack held Veti's gaze, denying nothing.

"But she's a..."

Jack lifted the locks of his hair, revealing well-hidden ears, even as she blanched.

"Oh."

Jack smirked. "Exactly."

"What exactly will the skull caps do, Jack?" asked Chu Hua, her intent gaze showing no trace of the disgust and fear he had so dreaded seeing.

Jack took a deep shuddering breath. "If my hunch is right... if my memories of my mother's... lessons ring true to my mind, there is no better defenses against unwanted psionic probing then the soul of another psionicist woven about your head. The stronger, the better."

This earned solemn nods, gazes an odd mixture of horror mixed with gratitude, knowing they were donning the most blasphemous and darkest of artifacts. Yet no one knew better than Drake just how foul his foes had been, and how fitting a punishment that the souls of Lord Hecklebart and his eldest son would now be used to protect their minds from predators who also favored psionic enslavement.

And the way Drake deliberately donned skull cap and helm, giving a tight smile and a "Damn good fit, Jack," was all the encouragement Jack's Greyspeak friends needed to uniformly do the same, Chu Hua and her sisters having hesitated even less than they.

Then Drake frowned, gaze suddenly troubled.

"What's wrong, Drake?"

Drake gave a slight shake of his head. "It's not you, or this artifact, and damned glad I am that you actually had the resources to forge the only defense from those horrors that there probably is, a defense princes and kings and high magisters alike would kill for, if they had a lick of common sense, whatever our enemies would say to shame you, or put you at a disadvantage, Jack."

Jack flashed a somewhat relieved smile. "Good to hear at least some people have the common sense to consider the virtue of my prize, not condemn me for the sin of its forging. So, what's the problem?"

Drake sighed. "It's what you said."

"What I said?"

His friend nodded. "These soul caps, let's call them..."

"Let's just call them perfectly ordinary skull caps, shall we?"

Drake smirked. "Sure. Anyway, these... perfectly ordinary skull caps, made from the souls of a certain nasty bastard who nearly killed my father and I, long may he burn in hell, well... it occurs to me that if the protection it offers is only as good as the original soul. How will defending our minds with the souls of mortal mentalists compare to octopoid-faced horrors living in the depths of nightmare?"

Jack winced as his friend pointed out the glaring hole in his defensive strategy. "You just had to point that out, didn't you?"

Barlton smirked. "Our dear Drake has a point, Jack. It is a wee bit important we know just how safe we are, before darin' the layer of a mind-suckin' swarm."

Jack locked eyes with his anxious friends. "Honestly, I don't know. I can tell you one thing for certain, however."

"And what would that be, Jack?" asked a coolly smiling Aroust.

"We're a damned sight better off than if we had no soul-forged skull caps at all."

Barlton and Aroust shared a bemused nod. "Can't argue with that logic."

The dwarf chuckled. "No, ya most certainly cannot!" His mirth instantly cooled, hard steel grey eyes focused upon Jack once more. "So ya more than any of us have a sense o' these horrors and the end o this maze. Any ideas on how we break free?"

Jack slowly nodded. "Sure. When we're ready, we slip back down the hallway, I open our sealed passage once more and we proceed to the rune door I caught a glimpse of, just glowing with traps and wards. Then, after we seal up the half dozen tunnels the Mind Lords were using to funnel horrors like a river current to flow upstream along this tunnel, no doubt to keep even bigger trouble further in away from their nest, we melt a hole right next to their warded door, slip down the passageway, take two right turns, and we're by an exit carefully guarded by a pair of Mind Lords and their Death Bear slaves."

Jack flashed a cold smile. "We then take out that clusterfuck of four from behind, perfect ambush and kill time, and we get the fuck out of here for good."

Those words earned an impromptu ragged cheer of relief.

"Or," Jack quickly continued, "We go for plan B."

"Plan B?" asked a frowning Chu Hua.

Jack nodded. "Yes. Should we decide that we're actually crazy and foolish enough to truly play the heroes, not just cowards in way over their heads." He paused for effect. "Heroes brave enough to actually rescue the trapped captives the Abomination I slew revealed when he dared stare into my mind as I glared right back into his own."

His friends blinked, more than a few giving slow, approving nods. Jack's smile widened. "Or perhaps even heroes bold and daring enough to take out this whole damned operation altogether, after surviving so many weeks facing Death Bears, calamari worms, centipedoil horrors, slimes, phase spiders, and everything else we've been forced to endure. Heroes willing to bet that after surviving all that, we can take out a handful of uppity squid seeking to rule an entire kingdom from this pustulent boil of Shadow, that should have been popped long ago."

Barlton snorted, folding his powerful arms over his chest. "I take it ya have a plan o some sort, if yer so keen on riskin' our necks?"

Jack swallowed, forced to appreciate once more how absolute the stakes were, the madness of risking lives he had done all he could to keep safe for endless weeks. "The last thing I want to do is risk the lives of people I love like my closest kin," he said, heart swelling with relief when Chu Hua didn't hesitate to stand by his side and squeeze his hand, even after being coaxed to don a helm now reinforced with his enemy's soul.

"But if my admittedly brief glimpse into my enemy's mind was any indication, this damn pustule has successfully held off any attempt at clearing it for over a year, cost countless adventurers their lives, and the bastards have already infiltrated... infected... the nearby kingdom. A kingdom these monsters care so little for that the ones still in the nest don't even know, or care to know, its name."

Veti frowned. "But if they've already infected the nearby city and towns... it's already too late! Let's just flee and get the hell out of here and find our way back home, and warn your uncle and father then, Drake." She shuddered and lowered her head, shamed by her own fear. "I'm sorry. I know you want to play the hero, Jack, it's just that..." she swallowed, tears running freely down her cheeks. "The images you shared with us were so awful, so visceral that..."

Jack nodded. "I understand. It is beyond fucked up. That we might actually be compelled to do this, that there is absolutely no one else, that so much is riding on this." His gentle gaze hardened. "Because make no mistake, Veti, whether or not a handful have escaped the nest, this is the seat of their power. Should we actually manage to close this rift... it will cut off their nesting sight, for good." He flashed a bleak smile. "We all saw the horrors of what that monster showed me. They need sentient humanoids to seed with their eggs, and they need the thick effluvia of nightmare to do so. And somehow I seriously doubt those abominations will dare any pit of Shadow that they don't already control like this one."

Barlton nodded, holding his trembling girl close. "Jack's right, luv. If we truly want to live up to our own dreams of honor and glory, if we truly want to be anything more than yellow-bellied cowards runnin' at the first spot o trouble Jack's walls can't completely close off, if we ever dreamed o bein' the heroes in the story books... I can think o no better way than claimin' whatever dungeon core allows these horrors to remain, and fleein' this pit o purgatory for good and finally makin' our way home and me makin' an honest women o ye."

Veti blinked in surprise, terror replaced by flushed cheeks and joy. "Barlon, are you serious?"

He beamed, holding her close as she kissed him fierce and deep.

Not for the first time, Drake exchanged a bemused glace Jack's way, as he had from the day their petite Veti had happily claimed the powerfully built Dwarf as her mate, way back when they had first been mining for mithril... his friend winked. "The virtues of a dwarf obsessed with thoroughly lubricating all his weapons so not a speck of rust can form, ever. And Veti's made it damned clear that she's been investing in Vitality nearly every level, because a sweet Health pool is everything for survival. Among other investments she's made."

Jack flushed and shook his head. Sure, his friend's ability to send interface messages was second only to his own... but did he actually have to say it? The important thing, Jack thought, is that they were obviously happy. And, Jack was guessing, Veti was a girl who loved nothing more than a fulfilling relationship.

Aroust caught Jack's eye, as did Chu Hua. "Why don't you show us what precisely you saw, Jack? said the former duelist, the strategists of the group now focused only on what mattered.

Quickly pushing away his own pointless musings, Jack squatted down and quickly sketched out his basic recollection of the final handful of rooms the Mind Lords had cordoned off from the rest of the dungeon, his admittedly imperfect sense of whatever horrors would be waiting for them, and maybe, just maybe, a way to play the hero without paying for it with their lives.

If they were lucky.

And truly willing to risk it all.