The loot from the Catacombs Wurm was shared out by Felix like before. Everyone was happy with their rewards and a decent portion of coins. Anika received a set of bracers with a higher armour rating than any of her other items put together.

Wurm Scale Bracers:

45+ armour

After everyone had finished equipping their new items, there was an awkward silence. The next question would be whether they would continue, or if they had had enough and would go their separate ways. Anika had levelled up again when the worm died, and with the success they had been having so far, she was keen to continue. There would not be a better way for her to gain experience points without these guys, and she was worried that once the group had split up, she might not find another one that would be so willing for her to tag along.

"We've come this far. What does everyone say we continue?" Felix looked like he was ready to proceed, and he directed his question at Lilia in particular.

Lilia looked at them and smiled. "Well, I know I've been hesitant about doing this run, but considering our luck so far and the level of the gear that has been dropping, I'm keen to keep going. We've got nothing to lose right?" She looked around at them, almost apologetically.

"I'm game if you guys are. What about you Anika, had enough yet?" Hamish said.

Anika didn't think she needed to be asked, but she nodded in agreement and waited for Felix to give his approval.

"That's settled them," Felix said, "but it doesn't get any easier from here. I hope you realise that guys."

He explained what they would be up against next, mostly for the benefit of Anika and Beth. The last boss they would face was the Skeleton King. But before reaching him, they would have to make their way up through a series of corridors and rooms. Their opponents would be hard to deal with because they were a mixture of skeleton Warriors and Mages. Beth would have to tank the Warriors and Felix wanted her to have a go at silencing the Mages. For this to work out, Beth would be a very busy girl. Other than that it was just important that they took it easy and remained in control. The Warriors could hit very hard, and the Mages had many spells available that would incapacitate them or disable some of their abilities.

When they set off, Anika took time to have a look at her new stats and skill points. She still had points to allocate and wanted to have a look at her options as they were making their way up a set of narrow stairs. This was when she noticed that her fatigue levels had reached 80%. This got her worried. She didn't intend to play at such high levels and knew she would be feeling rough on the other side if she pushed it any further. The most sensible thing to do would be to log out right now. She just couldn't get herself to do it. These guys had let her come along to take advantage of the experience points she was getting, and Felix had been more than fair in distributing out the rewards from their efforts. Logging out now would let these guys down, so she kept going, although it was against her better judgement.

The first few rooms they had to clear were not as challenging as she had feared. Beth figured out what she had to do with the Mages, putting her Bash ability to good use. Once they were comfortable with their new opponents, and it felt they were making good progress, the real challenge became the sheer number of targets they had to deal with. Before long, Beth didn't have any time to silence the Mages. This meant that they were not only taking damage from the Warriors but occasionally both Lilia and Hamish could not cast any spells themselves.

Anika was responsible for killing the Mages, and she was getting a sense of why they were so dangerous. Their attention was primarily focused on Hamish, and they would cast a spell that disabled the majority of his healing powers. So although they didn't do as much direct damage, the consequence of their actions meant that the entire group lost a great deal more health than they would have. Things got close a couple of times. Felix would shout out in anger he needed healing, and Beth would get dangerously close to dying on a couple of occasions.

Although it didn't seem like Anika was a target of any of their spells, she had a feeling that they were affecting her. It was as if they were infecting her with some fear or doubt, and the only reason she noticed this, was because of the sense of relief she felt every time the last Mage in a room had died. Once they entered another room, and she was targeting one of them, she got this incredible sense of anxiety and figured that it was some kind of effect from the Mages. She made a mental note to look through the combat logs for this effect if such a thing was even recorded.

When the group arrived on the threshold of what would be their last encounter, Felix stopped everyone outside a large wooden door for a briefing.

"This is the last bit guys, behind those doors there is a massive library and a ridiculous amount of Mages to take care of. This fight was broken down into two phases. In the first one, we have to kill all the Mages while Beth is tanking the Skeleton King. Once they are gone, he will summon a couple of Warriors to fight for him. These guys are much harder than the ones we have taken care of so far. When he summons the special Warriors, Beth needs to tank them, and one of us has to move the King away from the primary fight. There is no point in dealing any real damage to the King until we have him alone because he will gain health as long as his minions are alive."

Anika could tell that Beth understood the instructions. When Felix had finished, she locked eyes with Anika and rubbed herself against her leg. It was so comforting to know Beth was there, and that she was ready to take on the task at hand.

"She's a bright girl," Hamish said, "I think she knows what the plan is. Remember guys, Beth is my first priority. If she dies we all die, so don't be offended if I can't help you out when things turn sour."

"Understood. Is everyone ready to give this a shot?" Felix locked eyes with everyone, checking that they were willing to proceed.

Anika looked at her fatigue levels, they were at 91% now. She already felt that she had committed to the group, so she hoped that she wouldn't get logged out when she hit maximum fatigue. She supposed that the risk was worth it. She was looking at gaining another level after this fight, and there was no way she thought it was possible to achieve three levels in a day without being part of this group.

When they entered through the large wooden door, a massive room opened up in front of them. Although it was a library, it was nothing like the bright spaces of neatly ordered books Anika was used to. This place was dark and musty, despite being lit by candles along the columns and pillars running from the back of the room to the front. There were books and bookshelves scattered everywhere. It was a complete mess.

They took their time and wandered down the middle aisle, with a raised platform in their sights at the end of the room. Anika checked her sides, and she could see small doorways along the walls on either side of her.

The skeleton King appeared from behind a large desk in the corner of the room. They all stopped and waited for the action to begin. The King got up from his seat, and they could hear the clinking of two giant swords hanging by his side. He was twice the size of Hamish, who was the tallest of the group. His armour was made of what looked like old-fashioned chain-mail, but it had lots of dents and dust on it and no shine to it.

"You are here to disturb my studies?"

The voice of the skeleton King was dark and hollow, it gave Anika a chill down her spine.

"For this, you will pay with your lives."

The skeleton King drew both of his swords and swung them by his side while stretching his back and shoulder blades. He then moved to the centre of the room, tilted his head to the side and crunched the bones in his spine. The sound of his bones cracking echoed throughout the library.

Beth looked back, unsure if she had missed a cue to attack. Felix just shook his head, signalling to her she should wait, while he looked around the room for another target.

At that moment they heard the creaking of hinges from a door to their right. A skeletal mage appeared behind the door, and the Mage was already in the middle of casting a spell.

"Beth! Go!"

Felix was halfway across the room to where the Mage was when it unleashed a spell at him. It didn't seem to do any damage, but it locked him in place, and Anika could hear a faint chuckle as the mage was ready to cast a second spell. Lilia had seen what was going on and got herself into position. It looked like she was getting ready to cast her barrier again. Hamish and Anika both spotted this and moved into position, while Beth was taking care of the Skeleton King.

As with the previous fights, it took two minutes for them to get into their stride, but before long they had worked out a sequence that enabled them to get the better of their opponents. Lilia warned them she wouldn't be able to create many barriers, so they had to suffer some of the spells from the other Mages without protection. It didn't take long for Anika to realise that her arrows were not doing any damage like before, but instead of standing around like a spare wheel again, she made herself the target of their enemies a couple of times and let herself become incapacitated so that the others could focus on dealing damage.

When the first phase was over, and the Mages had been tricked and defeated, the Skeleton King summoned three large Warriors to fight for him. With no need for instructions, Beth did what was expected of her. She grabbed their attention and brought them into the centre of the room for her and Felix to take care of. Neither Lilia nor Hamish looked like they knew what to do about the Skeleton King, so Anika volunteered in the same way she had done with the Mages. The only way she could think of to get the Skeleton King to attack her was to pick up the old books from the floor, light them on fire from the candles and throw them at him. He didn't like that very much and moved towards her with a raised sword. To her surprise, he wasn't quick, it was nothing like the Wurm in the Catacombs they had just faced. She realised that she could draw him out into the corners of the library and she would have enough time to prepare another burning book before he would reach her. She could then throw the book at him to keep him focused on her and then run to the other corner of the library. When Hamish and Lilia saw what she was doing, they put all of their efforts into the Warriors that Beth and Felix were fighting.

It felt as if everything was going well, Anika could see they were getting close to taking down the first of the Warriors, so she knew all she had to do was keep up her little trick and wait for the others to die. However, the Skeleton King was getting frustrated. He was not happy that nobody was putting up a fair fight. At first, he tried to cut her off as she was making her way from one corner to the next, he took a large swing at her and even tossed his sword in her direction out of sheer frustration. This bought her a little more time, but she was getting worried about what he would do next.

"Keep it up Anika, we'll come and take him off you soon," Felix shouted.

The Skeleton King had pushed large bookshelves over and had cornered Anika in one side of the room. He had figured out that if she could continue running around like this, he would get nowhere. When Anika realised that she had nowhere to go, she called out.

"Guys! I'm stuck here, I need help."

There was nothing they could do in time, so she took a massive hit to the chest and was pinned to the floor with her back against a mess of books and broken shelving. By the time they got to her with the two remaining Warriors in tow, she had taken another hit and was getting close to 0%. Hamish did his best to top her up again, but Beth was now taking damage from both of the Warriors and the King himself, so he decided to just focus on Beth.

Everything that happened next was a blur. Anika had been disorientated from the attack by the King, and as she got back to her feet, her entire vision was flashing, and the borders of her vision were pulsing with a red warning light.

Health Warning: Fatigue Level 97%

Shit, she thought to herself. She would have to take it easy just to survive until the end of the fight, and that would be very optimistic. She wondered if there was any special penalty, other than being logged out when she reached 100% fatigue. Then she got images in her mind of waking up back in the real world with a massive mess in her suit and looking like the scrawny young man she had seen in the news a while ago. There was no other option though, she had to wait it out and hope for the best. Quitting now was not an option, come what may.

When the last two Warriors were taken care of, and the ultimate fight against the Skeleton King began, Anika felt that her movements were much slower and she was struggling to think. Hopefully, the other guys would understand that she couldn't join in the fight. Luckily, Beth didn't appear to be affected and continued fighting like a champion.

When the Skeleton King died, Anika felt the rush she was expecting from levelling up. She was about to explain her situation, but before she could say or do anything, her entire vision blacked out and she lost her connection with the virtual world.