I appeared in an empty room, dazed. It was the bottom floor alright. The aesthetic resembled the first area, but a little darker with some obsidian and red banners mixed in. Welcome to hell. I looked at Coppernose.

“Well, here we are. I’d best get moving. You know what to do.”

“Hey, wait!” she interjected. “This place reeks of springs! No way am I leaving you to this alone!”

I bobbed my head. “I appreciate the help, but won’t that hurt the evacuation timeline?”

Coppernose huffed. “Come on. You already talked it out with Ettrel. Everything is set! You’re worth spending some time and effort with.”

“Aww, that’s cute.”

……

As it turns out, Coppernose is a lifesaver. Not only is floor 50 rife with traps, but many of them are beyond my skill set! Despite the part where she licks everything, she was the perfect backup. She sussed out basically every trap over time, which we had to do because a bunch of them were motion-activated, removing her ability to fly past them with the UFO.

And we really had to just explore SO much space. Why you might wonder? Well, the boss door was a hallway over from where we started… but it was made of pure sterlite. That stuff is almost good enough to qualify as adamantium. NOT. MELTABLE. We were stuck with searching for the key after Coppernose almost lost an arm in the locking mechanism.

So we went step by step. She found the tiles that could move, then I either marked them with chalk or super glued them in place. Simple as hell, and never boring cuz you don’t know when something might go off. After about an hour and a half of slowly progressing through the area, we found the conspicuous miniboss door. It wasn’t locked, so I worked the latch.

The all-too-familiar mechanism inside started up, then stopped and started beeping slowly. Coppernose looked through the keyhole.

“Ohhh, it needs to be loaded. Give me a minute, and don’t touch anything until I’m back.”

She zipped off and, for once, I actually touched nothing when told to do so. Not even a single rebellious poke. A few minutes later and there was a zap, ending the beeping. I waited a bit longer until Coppernose returned, then we worked the door. It swung open to reveal…

A chicken.

I snorted as we stepped carefully inside. No traps in the miniboss room, thank god. The whole floor was already plenty ripping off a certain castle in Mechanicsburg. We explored the room, ignoring the foe most fowl. That was, until we realized the key was locked behind a ‘beat the boss’ trigger. I turned to the bird and drew my sword.

“The colonel sends his regards.”

ZWIPF

……

I held the comically-large key to the humongous lock, shrugged, then shoved it in. With a turn, the doors made sounds I would associate with a bank vault, then popped apart slightly to swing open. We shared a look, then stepped inside. Or, I did; Coppernose bounced. The runes built into the doorframe became evident. The long and the short of it was 'Gods’ Chosen only'. Man, if a Nassur native got to floor 50 they fucking deserved a shot at the reward. That shit’s… isek-ist? Fuck it, isekist it is.

After confirming that no, we couldn’t remove the runes, I was forced to accept that the solo life was for me. I waved goodbye and stepped into the unnatural inky blackness beyond. I hope I didn’t miss a 1-shot boss killer on floor 45 or something.

At the tenth step in, the door behind me shut and the lights turned on. It… was actually a bit smaller than the dragon arena. There were four statues, one on each wall, each depicting one of the four gods. Grunnus was striking a pose with his plate armor and flaming hammer; Leika held her staff and honestly looked as lazy as the day she briefed me; Chemat was trying to look cool, posing with his bow, but he was too lanky for the look… he tried. Lastly was Tian, grasping a clump of earth from which sprouted a sapling. She was still boring.

There were some banners and stuff as well, but my gaze inevitably fell on the glowing sigil in the center of the room. I approached and gave it a read with the translation guide. Fear, think, imagine, create, perfect… foe… I looked again and scratched my head. Hang on a minute… this seems familiar… the cazador thingy again? The shape was generally a match, which would point to a similar end effect. However, the one before me seemed slightly more… advanced.

I looked up to the sterlite door across the way. It was shut tight with a big skull painted on, depicted with an X across the forehead. I could take a hint. With detonating/melting the door out of the question, I sighed, loaded armor-piercing in all my guns, stuck grenades everywhere I could, and stepped forward into the ring of glowing white runes.

The sigil tingled as it reached out, searching for anyone else in the room. Finding none, I felt it burrow into my mind. I knew from experience what it felt like to be mentally intruded upon, and there was no slowing this little scan down. The room grew dark as images flashed through my mind faster and faster. Monsters of all types from every fiction I ever knew, weapons both real and imaginary, concepts that would strike fear or guarantee destruction.

And then it stopped.

The light of the sigil faded to the intensity of a candle as a growl sounded in the darkness. It was deep, thrumming with powerful bass. Then it grew in intensity into a howl as two glowing red eyes cut through the inky blackness. The lights came back in a flash and I was staring down the barrel of a 125mm gun. In front of me was a Russian tank with red eyes on the front.

My hand shot down to the time grenade as the machine guns opened up on me. I threw it at the tank with all my might as two sharp impacts struck my chest, and a third in my arm sprayed red blood. Two blinding flashes coincided. One of the main gun firing, and another of the grenade going off. My eyes adjusted with a blink and I saw the massive projectile full of explosives hurdling at me like a baseball, with machinegun rounds gliding at me menacingly. I dodged to the side and made a run for it.

The high explosive shell sailed over my shoulder as I rolled, escaping the hail of bullets in the process. Everything was so slow, except the incredible pain in my arm as my sleeve was slowly saturating with blood. I charged the tank, seizing the opportunity with the bullet time. The remote-controlled machine gun on top of the tank swiveled slowly in an attempt to track me down, sweeping me with the muzzle and forcing me to duck and weave between the shots.

Then the HE shell detonated on the wall. I felt shrapnel pelt me, but it bounced off, seeming to interpret the laws of physics in my favor for once. I did a baseball slide, coming to a stop beside the track. I raised the .50 and put a SLAP round through the roof MG and it seized up. With that threat dispatched I reloaded and jumped up to climb the tank. Then, there was another flash of light.

Time returned to normal and the tank floored it. I clung to the broken roof MG for dear life as the driver hit the brakes and slung me forward. I landed on the barrel and the coaxial MG fired, grazing my kneecap. I dodged to the side and scrambled as the tank started to accelerate again. Rather than hold on, I rolled along the roof, bonking various limbs against the metal until my golden opportunity arrived.

I used a little bit of the gods’ chosen trademarked fast reactions to pull the trigger right as I came off the back of the turret, pointing my .50 straight down at the engine deck. With one last KADOOM I put a hole right into the engine before hitting the ground muzzle-first, jamming the gun into my shoulder like landing on a crutch. I scrambled up, no thanks to my damaged left arm and left knee. The tank was reversing at me menacingly, but not quickly.

I snatched up the .50 and ducked by the track to avoid the turret. Black smoke was coming out of the engine and there was a distinct knocking sound as I loaded another SLAP round. When I tried to shut the breech, it sprang open. Three attempts later and no dice, I dropped the gun and changed plans. I kept either at the tank’s side, or behind it, exploiting the terrible mobility I had induced. If it didn’t move, I was safe, and the only way to make distance was to drive forward, which made the engine whine louder and louder each time. Their only hope was to shoot a wall with an HE round and hope the shapnel would strike me, which was not possible so long as I kept on the other side of the turret. Smoke was filling the room as—on the third attempt to get away from me—the engine blew out and shut off.

The turret still swiveled threateningly, but I avoided it. I was done with this shit. Step 1: Get on the other side of the turret. Step 2: Climb on top of the turret roof. Step 3: Stick a thermate grenade in the center. After hopelessly spinning the turret in an attempt to throw it off, the hatches popped open and the crew tried to point little AKs at me. I shot them both with the Val, then repeated the same on the driver’s hatch. He died screaming Russian expletives at me before vanishing in a puff of smoke like the first two.

With the first quiet moment in far too long, my adrenaline began to crash and my vision tunneled hard. I glanced around the room in a daze, seeing way, way too much blood strewn about the place. Hands shaking, I reached into my bag and grabbed the singular super healing potion, popped the cork, and downed half before the darkness took me.

……

I woke with a start, gasping for air and feeling completely sick. I rolled over just fast enough to vomit a pool of red, but it didn’t taste like blood. The pool grew into a little humanoid with their tiny finger in my face.

“How dumb are you, drinking me that late? It took me an hour just to sponge up all your blood, clean out the nasties, de-coagulate it, and stick it back in your body. You almost died thrice you sucker. One star, don’t utilize my services ever again.”

With its piece said, it crawled back into its bottle and corked itself in, causing the bottle to vanish. I blinked, then decided to set that little dressing down aside and sat up. I felt… well, comparatively better. I checked my arm and knee to find odd, crimson bindings over the wounds. No bleeding, so that’s good. Next, I lifted up my shirt to find two massive bruises. Further investigation found a pair of bullets flattened against dented true-mithril scales. Jury’s back on that claim! After all that, I checked my watch. I’d been out for two hours.

The exit was still shut, so I looked at the rather intact tank… along with the ashy outlines of the 3 dead crewmembers. I pulled out a catch orb and tinked it off the metal monster. Nothing happened.

“Aww,” I whined disappointedly as I prepped the last brick of C4.

……

One epic, turret-launching ammo rack detonation later, the door opened and I was in the treasure room. There were four pools of gold divided by stone walkways, and in the center of the high-ceilinged room was a small ziggurat. I gazed upon the hoards of glistening gold, gems, and assorted valuables with a small sense of longing. On the other hand, I’d seen what happened to Captain Barbossa. No thanks. I climbed the stairs.

At the peak of the fancy pile of rocks was an altar. On that altar, a tube. It was about a foot tall and slightly wider that would be easy to grasp. It was capped on the top and bottom with metal, and absolutely covered with engraved runes. There wasn’t much of a shiny attractiveness to it like most treasures, but the importance was communicated by the architecture. I had a good long look at the pedestal, sizing it up for mechanisms.

I got out a can of soup, opened it up, ate the contents, then stacked some spare .50s in it. (What was I going to do, fire them out of a broken gun?) I held my approximated imitation in one hand and warmed my fingers on the other. In one deft motion, I pulled an Indiana Jones and swapped them. There was a spark of electricity between the tube and the altar as I exchanged items. After a moment of tense silence, the building started to rumble. It worked about as well for me as it did for Indy.

A door opened at the back of the treasury, showing a long bridge over a void of darkness. At the end of which was a warp gate of sorts. I beat feet. Didn’t have to tell me twice. As I ran, a little black square in the sea of gold caught my attention. It was my old phone, sitting there taunting me with its cracked screen. My jaw hung agape as I held my course for the exit.

I crossed the long bridge as gigantic bricks of stone began to fall from the ceiling. Pillars lost their integrity and toppled, dust fell in little waterfalls, and the rumbling only grew louder. I closed in on the gate, pushing the boots of speed to their limit in an all-out sprint. A soapy, shimmering barrier of energy was before me. I wasted no time diving straight through it.

The next thing I saw was a massive, hairy leg. I careened headlong into it, landing flat on my ass in the bright light.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!” yelled a giant, trying to pick me out in the small crowd I’d poofed into. “Oh, human! Where did you come from? Ettrel said you were in the depths.”

I looked around, seeing I had appeared outside the tomb in a small throng of escapees. I hopped to my feet and stuffed the artifact/tube/map case thing in the bag and ran toward the tomb. The earth quaked as I saw three UFOs exiting out the ruined towers. It seemed I stood out as one stopped beside me to zap out 5 passengers. It was Coppernose. She came to my side.

“How did you get here? What happened?” she asked in a panic.

“I beat the boss and the whole place started coming down shortly after! Is everyone out?”

Coppernose shook her head. “No! There’s still another thirty that we’re supposed to get!” She gazed back, seeing the towers collapsing. “I guess they’ll have to go with the gatemaster’s crowd. Faery jail is better than being crushed.”

We watched as the structure came apart at the seams until, rather abruptly, there was a large explosion that sent geysers of smoke out of what little openings remained in the towers. Coppernose pumped her fist.

“YES! They made it out.” She took a deep breath, finally letting the tension fade. Then she looked at me with a new flavor of worry. “What now?”

I looked her in the eye, then reached into my bag and pulled out the blue compass. I held it up to her and she saw the hand. With a shared nod of understanding, I went back to the giant with a me-shaped indent in his leg hair. On the way, I saw a pancai tunneler. I passed him the red compass.

“This points to a crystal shallowly buried nearby, would you please dig it up and bring it to me?”

“Yeth mathta Dennith,” he hissed through those mole-man teeth.

Happy with that, I jogged over to the giant. “Hey, fella, can I borrow your shoulder for a soapbox?”

“What? No, I have stage fright!” he blurted defensively.

“Look, I just need to get the gang on the same page, two minutes tops. I busted you out, can’tcha do this one thing for me?”

He made the classic cat-butt-face, then agreed and hoisted me onto his shoulders. I checked the compass and cleared my throat for some yelling.

“LADIES, GENTLEMEN, GENDERLESS SHAPESHIFTERS! WE ARE OUT OF THE DUNGEON, BUT NOT OUT OF TROUBLE! THERE IS A RIVERSIDE VILLAGE A DAY AND A HALF THAT WAY!” I bellowed, pointing toward the horizon.

“AFTER THAT IS A SWAMP AND SOME FLATLANDS, A TEN-DAY WALK OUT OF THE SHIMMERLANDS AT MOST! IF WE WORK TOGETHER, WE ESCAPE TOGETHER! OUR COMMON GOAL REMAINS THE SAME AND WE CAN PART WITH THOSE WE DISDAIN AT THE END OF THE ROAD! UNTIL THEN, WE WATCH EACH OTHER’S BACKS, MAKE EACH OTHER'S BEDS, AND COOK EACH OTHER’S FOOD, DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?”

The response was discordant but generally affirmative. I bellowed a few more words, then got down to collect the red gemstone so kindly provided by mr. mole man. Next, I had a certain vacationing shoggoth to track down.

……

I rode along, praying that nobody would notice the… bony staples holding my mule’s skin together. Hopefully I could find some sewing equipment or whatever we’d need to fix his costume up back home. That was the future, however, as I was currently leading a convoy about 1,000 strong. The angel was already being a little shithead, bringing me this close to giving him a good righteous denunciation, but it’d have to wait; I didn’t want to be too explosive too quickly. Besides, Ettrel was making a beeline for him.

It was going to be a long few days.

……

“The vampires are requesting actual coffins, rather than being transported in the big sand elemental. Also, Aludagriel came to blows with Salassa.”

I finished washing out my helmet in the river water. “Who?”

Ettrel looked up from his good cold-water soak. “He’s the ang–”

“No, I know him. I mean Salassa,” I corrected as I washed the accumulated grime off my feet, so as to not immediately ruin the next pair of socks.

“Oh, her, she’s the… seventh succubus. The one who worked at the clinic, I think? She didn’t instigate if you’re wondering.”

I dried my feet with a dirty shirt and got my footwear back on. “Well, chalk another incident up to Aludagriel being an asshole. I’ll figure out how to deal with him after we pass through town. How are the guideposts coming?”

“We have a few so far, enough to start the idea. I’ll let you know when we have more. Good luck with the village, I’ll ensure nobody kills each other while you’re gone.”

“Thanks, bud.”

I whistled my mule and saddled up to join the slowly-assembling group of 50 preparing for the first crossing.

……

I looked at the small mob of orcs assembling in the hazy distance. They were ready for a fight, but hoping for better. We closed the gap casually until I raised a hand to signal convoy stop and rode ahead. Coppernose followed me closely until I sent her to round up the ace for my sleeve. The orcs visibly relaxed when they saw it was me. I rode up nice and close to address them.

“Is the chieftain here?”

“I am,” he stated, stepping forward. “What strange mob have you brought here?”

“Well, you see, I finished my quest, but in the process, I attracted a following. I freed a bunch of people and monsters from enslavement; anything capable of communicating and cooperating. I’m currently leading about a thousand out of the Shimmerlands, but I’m retracing my steps to keep safe.”

There were some shocked gasps at the number. The village was about 700, so I actually outnumbered them… with a lot of stronger creatures too. The chief looked tentative at best.

“What would you ask of us? That is far too many to feed or house.”

“Safe passage through town, beds for some of the sick, and maybe a meal or two for the starving. I won’t lie, there will be incidents with this many, I can’t change that. While there is only so much one can do, I promise I will resolve whatever I can. And, as a token of goodwill…” I whistled.

Coppernose came up, leading three orcs from the first crossing party. They quickly broke out into a run and collided with the formation, holding tightly onto family members or friends. And with that, our passage was secured.

……

I sat on the deck in front of the biggest building on the main street, snacking on a rice krispy treat and watching the convoy trickle by 2 or 3 at a time. Ettrel and Coppernose joined me, the former absolutely destroying some salmon he'd caught, and the latter doing some sort of maintenance on her UFO while eating a single sweet potato fry.

Ettrel was filling me in on the coffins and other stuff between gulping down whole fish when an orc smith approached me.

“Dennis. There is a living glob of magma sleeping in my forge! How can this be fixed?”

I scratched my chin for a second, then waved him into whispering distance. After a moment of that, he stood bolt upright.

“I must ask if it can remain immediately!” he spouted before running off.

“What did you tell him?” Ettrel asked.

“You overfeed them iron ore and they shit out refined steel.”

……

On the road again… I led the great exodus once more, followed closely by the giant. We were on the edge of the gigantic swamp, which would be the biggest problem yet. I had 3 plans going at once, all of which needed to find some degree of success if we weren’t going to lose anyone else (there were 20 dead already due to reasons beyond control). The time had come for the tip of the spear: Auseta (the dryad), Coppernose, the giant (didn’t ask his name), and I made our way into the mist.

Big boi had an armful of posts decorated with orange. (I didn’t ask where we got neon-orange dye.) He'd plant them every few hundred yards. Between each post, Auseta would grow a line of colorful flowers (she was clearly more interested in maintaining proximity with me, however). Meanwhile, Coppernose and I were on the lookout for the local problem children. Unlike before, we couldn’t exactly be stealthy. Fortunately, when a wasp pixie inevitably smacked herself into the giant, Coppernose went into full verbal attack mode.

A lot of sylvan expletives flew about as the brassblood established dominance over the trio of scouts. She laid down the law, not offering a compromise, but stating what would be done. We would pass through—all of us—unmolested. In exchange, we would tithe a 4-ton eel that’d been kept zapped up in a UFO. No casualties, lots of food. Coppernose then wisely led them way far off to deposit the fishy feast. She found her way back quickly, undeterred by thick fog as fae always were.

“A deals’ a deal!” she announced with a big (small) thumbs up.

……

We’d made it through with only 11 stings and counting. Apparently, magdotra are really scary to small flying creatures when they inflate and start spewing flaming gas everywhere while waving tentacles of molten rock. Well, that’s actually just scary in general. Whatever. The important part is, we were out of the danger zone and the guidepost/flower path strat was a winner. We hacked up some wood from stray trees and deadfall for the smoke beacons. Home stretch baby!

The next few days was a leapfrogging of campsites, focusing on starting up slow-burning fires that would billow smoke thick enough to be seen through the shimmers. Food was scarce, and water was thinly rationed, as we didn’t have a lot of good containers for it. Folks were miserable, but we pushed on. The few creatures we encountered were quite simple to kill or just relocate with a UFO.

After so long, we were all but spent on energy and supplies, but Coppernose came back with the best damn news ever. She could see the edge of the Shimmerlands!* (From high altitude.) Well, that gave everyone the last kick in the pants needed to make it the rest of the way. No more spats occurred for that last stretch as we hit the edge by sundown.

Everyone who knew teleportation, portaling, or gateway magic quickly opened something homeward, usually to share. Meanwhile, I dug up the loot stash and dusted off the calling stones. I rang the League of Conspicuous Evil. A rescue operation quickly gated in after that.

Once the monsters and such were whisked away, I called up HQ for the Holy Expeditionary Forces (very important to call them second to avoid righteous tantrums). They opened a gate for everyone else in good standing, including Ettrel. We had a nice little goodbye. He was one of the few I actually told how to find me (too much publicity if everyone knew, I didn’t need a legendary hero status).

That swiftly left only Coppernose, myself, and a handful of others who didn’t fall into a societal category. She sat on her figuratively-spluttering UFO, looking a bit lost.

“What now? Do we just… part ways? There’s so much more I could learn from you!”

I shook my head and clutched my gun a little tighter. “Ehh, I’ve done enough damage. None of these folks are too bad, so you can lead them to a nearby town for me, yeah?”

She messed with her hair of oxidized copper strips. “I wouldn’t have done anything like this before, but yeah, for the guy that saved my life? I’ll do it without question. But… I don’t want this to be the last time we speak…”

I smacked my lips, then decided she was plenty alright. “Well I didn’t bring a business card, but my shop is called Golden Point Pest Extermination. Give ‘em a call and ask for Dennis, you’ll find me eventually.”

Coppernose seemed to understand, then her brain did a hard reboot as her face quivered with shocked confusion. “YOU’RE A PEST EXTERMINATOR?” she shrieked in disbelief.

……

Finally alone, I had the formerly-buried equipment stash to sort out. Regretfully, I slowly transferred all the illegal electronics, explosives, and firearms into the three extradimensional sacks, retrieving the teleportation beacon at the same time. I gave the four guns a salute as I shut the box on them, then only armed with a knife and vorpal-ish beam sword. The lot was buried with the blue homing stone. Then I moved a ways over and similarly buried the red homing stone, the compass for which was left with those still recovering in the orc village.

I sighed, looking all around to see if anyone was watching. The moon was high, peeking through a gap in the cloudy sky. I looked at my mule, completely done with all the shit life threw at us.

"Now, I know you hate it, but I need you compact for a bit. I'm gonna put you in a catch-orb, and you're not gonna complain one bit, alright?"

He lowered his head and flicked his ears. One fell off, trailing a string of black, sludgy goo. I put it back on him and applied an orb, which indicated no resistance. Then, I produced and activated the teleportation beacon... and nothing happened. Should have asked for a real recall button instead of this request garbage. I rang the figurative doorbell again. Wake up, Dro!

I poofed into the aether. Second time’s the charm.

……

With a dramatic krakoom I appeared back in Dro’s no-peek bunker. I extended a hand.

“Hit me”

A greater potion of cure disease landed in my hand with a satisfying smack. I promptly chugged it as the room came into focus. It was a mess of… dishes. Seemed that Drominnus had not left the bunker since my departure. I spotted him in the slowly aligning blurriness. He looked like shit, big dark circles, newly-emphasized worry lines, and a paler complexion than before.

“Jesus, Dro, you sleep a wink since I left?”

He didn’t answer at first, instead keeping his focus on the barrier holding me and anything attached to or inside of me right there. Only after a minute or two of cleansing spells and decontamination magic did he respond.

“I… rested when I could. Did you… did you do it? The original prophetical mural crumbled a week ago,” he explained as he finished the magic and dropped the barrier.

We walked to his table, where he sat and I stood. “Mission accomplished. I got all the way down and snatched the one treasure rigged to collapse the whole dungeon when collected.”

He produced a bottle of zippy-mix, or, po-caine as most call it, downing it and energizing in a second flat. “How did you do it?” he inquired excitedly.

I opened my mouth, then paused to consider what to say. “I… umm… incited a proletariat uprising.”

“Say again?”

I scratched my cheek. “Well, you see, I…”

……

“Then I finally ran into a steel door and…”

……

“I decided that it was justified to apply some C4, which…”

……

“After that, we’d hit a critical mass and I could let them do the work for me so I…”

……

“And then we finally got the key to the big door and… boom, final boss fight.”

He looked impressed… and horrified. “W– where are all these people now? Please tell me they aren’t spreading the word…”

I took a deep breath. “I led them out of the Shimmerlands, then called rescue operations. Some went with the fae, tons went with the league, and most the remainder got picked up by the Holy Expeditionaries, with a few walking to civilization as we speak.”

Drominnus balled his hands into stressed fists. “A thousand witnesses to the Tomb of Instability—the most spoken-of dungeon among the best of the best—being conquered and you LED THEM HOME WHILE THEY KNEW YOUR NAME? NOT ONLY THAT, BUT YOU TURNED MOST OVER TO ORGANIZATIONS THAT WOULD HOLD MAJOR INTERESTS IN THIS EVENT?”

“So I didn’t entirely think it through, ok, I’ll admit to that. My conscience kicked up a fuss, alright? I didn’t tell them the who or the why, they just know I did it. Besides, I spread the word that I didn’t want notoriety, which… will help.”

He held his head and sighed. “At least they don’t know I hired you. Now, the treasure.”

“Ah, yes,” I answered, reaching into the bag.

I pulled out the… tube and placed it on the table with a mix of care and dramatic delivery. In good light, it seemed halfway between leather and wood in the middle, with metal caps. On closer inspection, the runes adorned the entire exterior except the top and bottom, the runes looked odd but I didn't look too close before facing Dro once more. He reached for it excitedly, but I slapped his hand away.

“Uh-uh. You’re not touching this until I’m far away. I know you’re excited and all, but I’m not sticking around for whatever is in there. In fact, I don’t even want to hear about this. The less I know, the better, and I’m two pages short of an encyclopedia.” I took a breath. “I wanna go, so, got the package for me?”

A little glum, he snapped his fingers and a parcel flew to my hands. “Everything I know about Sunblazer, a list of steps that should recharge it, contact information for wizards who can provide services needed to do so, and signed notes absolving them of favors owed to me if they should help you.”

I made the Obama ‘not bad’ frown while nodding. “Above and beyond. Respect. I’ll get outta your hair. Enjoy your new macguffin.”

As I turned to leave, I got a feeling. Something small and indescribable, yet you alone know exactly what it means. I turned on my heel and marched right back over to sit across from my old friend.

“What is it now?” he asked with a confused tone.

“I’m… having the come to Jesus talk with you. While I still can.”

He blinked, but I continued. “Listen, when you told me about all this bullshit, I was… considering how I would get out of it. You know what I tried, but… what about the anti-magic zone pellet?” Dro’s mouth opened, then quivered slightly as he shut it. “That’s right. I was genuinely considering using it, and there is only one way that I could have made that scenario into you not coming back to pressure me into the mission… and I’m one of your best friends, man.”

Drominnus looked nauseous as he rubbed his forehead. “Top three, easily. Did you… really consider…?”

“Yes. Quite close to acting on the thought. I didn’t, and—in the end—I’m glad that’s the case, but you have to be aware of that: You backed a good friend so far into a corner that they considered murder. And for what? A little brown tube and some ammunition for the 'I have the most expensive artifact' dick measuring contest? You are living life on the brink in your pursuit of the next bigger, better, badder thing.

“You should give it a rest before… before you catch lady luck in a bad mood. Burnt as our bridge is, I don’t wanna see you wind up dead. Consider a vacation, or maybe a new hobby. Your tower could use a bit of feng shui or something, ANYTHING, as long as you stop pushing your luck. Otherwise… it’s gonna give out on you someday, man.”

With that, I’d put the ball in his court. I left him there, not waiting to see if he was in the game. Besides, he had a while to think before choosing to hit it back or not, because it's not actually tennis and the analogy sucks.

……

I appeared in the Ratcave™ and stretched. I decided the sword and +speed boots could stay, but the stylish new E-D shoulder bag was coming with me. I got to keep the magic stuff as part of the agreement, which was a nice little perk. I took the ascending rope up to the main floor and stepped out of my office door, only to come face-to-face with Pokle.

“Oh, Boss!” she blurted in surprise.

I stifled a yawn. “Hey, I’m back, how’s Grif? And what time is it?”

“It’s four in the morning, and Grif is sound asleep in your guest room bed. His eyes are open now, by the way.”

I patted her shoulder affectionately. “Heyyy, that’s great. Thanks for taking care of the fam while I was away. You get things opened up; I don’t think I’ll be in for a few days.”

She snapped off another facetious salute. “You got it, Boss. Have a good sleep!”

I walked out into the cool morning air. I stretched, glancing skyward. Then, in an instant, my perception of time slowed as a bolt of lightning screamed right for my face. I barely started to flinch as it slammed headlong into me.

Clang

The bolt of lightning bounced off my nose, landing on the ground some feet away and leaving a slight tingling sensation. A second bolt came immediately after but stopped in the air an inch from my face. It hovered there a second before blinking out of existence. A small burst of flame appeared in the air instead and a note drifted down from where the flame was. I snatched it and… didn’t really want to read it, but I had to.

Dennis

We’re having a small disagreement up here, but don’t worry yourself.

I am sorting it out. Nothing further should happen to you.

Grunnus O’deilan

“What was that?” Pokle asked, peeking out the front door.

I looked around, seeing no witnesses on the streets. Then I faced her. “I think I just got smote.” I pulled out my stat card. “It didn’t work, though, still full health and level three-twel– seventeen. Damn, I gained five levels?”

I haven’t earned five at a time since the double-digits, I thought. I flipped the card over to see the status effects and… I had two new ones. They were in some sort of hieroglyphs that I had never seen before, drawn in actual, honest-to-god glowing gold ink, and their listed durations were... infinity. Oh, god, what is this crap?

Pokle snapped me out of my thoughts with her next alarmed questions. “The– the gods bounced an attack off you? How? Why? What are you gonna do about it?”

I stood up straight and looked at the sky, then back down. “I’m gonna go home, put my mule in his stable, pet my cat, take a bath, snuggle my ferret, get some sleep, order a pizza… then…

“I’m gonna call my lawyer.”