As they cross through a pleasant gladewood, Hero pumps his stats like he’s been doing non-stop. Tallying up in the high five thousands for all of his stats is good, but he admits he’s allowed himself to get distracted a few times. If he’s really serious about saving the world and aiding his goddess, he’ll have to try harder, he thinks.

It’s not long before the forest road opens outward as far as the eye can see. Before them is a great marsh, green with sunken grass and rife with wildlife.

“A swamp,” Hero says. Thanks, Hero.

“Aye, be on your guard.”

“What for?”

“I hear tell of a dark elf tribe in these parts, they guard a depraved wizard. They’re not the sort to ask questions, ya’ understand?” Gulrin ensures as they start down the watery path.

Hero nods. “But… do they act like… normal people?” He had some difficulty figuring out how to word that one; seems like there’s just some awkwardnesses that high CHA won’t fix.

The dwarf glances over to Hero with a raised brow.

“That is, dwarf-friend, as in do they act like people from our own world?”

“Ahh, aye, lad. At least what I know of ‘em.”

“Then at least the threat of violence will be effective,” Hero states plainly.

The dwarf, thoroughly weirded out already by today’s events, glances briefly to Bright-Solemn, who twists to the side a moment in the form of a shoulderless shrug. “True enough,” Gulrin says with an air of uncertainty.

The three travel across the cool shallows for a short time, periodically checking the horizon around them for any worthwhile threats. Before long, the myriad available trails reduce to only a few, and the group begins to spot large figures moving about the waters below. It’s always just for a second, and never when they’re looking, but they can certainly hear the movement of the water’s swell.

“P-pi?” Bright-Solemn asks pathetically as it spots a shadow only a few meters away in the water- a large shadow.

Gulrin sighs. “Course, I didn’t think t’ mention the swamp beasts. They shouldn’t be a problem so long as we don’t disturb them.”

“Pi,” Bright-Solemn says with completely drained enthusiasm, too horrified to think straight.

The group takes weary steps through the swamps, sometimes passing no more than a meter from one of the beasts in the murk below.

Before much longer, a great tower comes into sight, crooked and decrepit with great age and humming with magic.

Hero hums as he crosses his arms. “This must be that tower.”

Gulrin nods as his eyes shift over the swamplands. “Aye, and no elves yet. Best be on our guard all the same, even more so if that wizard’s still about.”

Hero nods back as he looks off to the great tower. He’d rather avoid confrontation if possible, the exp would be meaningless to him and the possibility of a fight would only prove to threaten him and his goals.

The group presses on for not even a minute more until Hero’s 6,492 INT pays its keep and notes him to something almost imperceptibly small: within the water channel to their right, there is a vague, small movement, the section of water raising only a centimeter higher than usual.

Hero never thought he’d become quite so keen, but neither did anyone else.

“Watch yourselves,” Hero warns as he slings out the Dragon Scythe with a single, swift movement. The group arms themselves just as, from the depths, fly a slew of what looks to be chemical-reaction bombs in all directions around them. The moment the explosives dry enough in the mid air to take up oxygen, they explode, propelling a heavy orange mist through the area. Hero has nothing against the attack, and is instantly struck with the influence of [High 3]. With a constitution of 6,835 and rising, the effect passes with only its lowest required time, three seconds. At once everything is “pixelly”, the in-game battle theme pulsing with chip tune flare, and just as quickly he’s back in the world with full control of his body, now fully immune to another attack like that for a full minute. He doesn’t waste his time in locating his target.

Clark is down only fifty meters, running along the surface of the water with his assassin magic while dodging strikes from Bright-Solemn’s laser.

“I had a feeling this wasn’t the end of you,” Hero says as Gulrin screams about his ex wife in euphoric confusion.

Clark just pulls from his jacket, now dense with knives, and throws weapon after blade Hero’s way.

Even during the short moment he was high, Hero could’ve dodged these, so it’s almost without effort that he avoids each passing tip as if they were moving in slow motion. Aside from the knives, though, Hero also hears, and feels the thin cutting of air from something softer, but pointed, like paper.

“You should give up, I’m fighting for our world; my will and reason are stronger than yours.”

Clark scowls as he continues tossing down knives. After a few more seconds of tossing and dodging, he speaks up. “Get a life, dude.”

“This is my life!”

Clark scoffs as he prepares his newest technique. “Then you’re gonna have to get a new one, you basement dwelling no-life. Check this one out!”

At once the bombs fly toward Hero again just as the paper airplane from before soars down. The message the wise and legendary Chaos had written on the paper was but one sentence. It reads: “Hero is in trouble”, and that’s all a certain someone needs to cheat his way into the narrative, so long as Hero is, in fact, in trouble.

As Hero is again put under [high 3], he sees the wavering image of a dozen Clarks, all manifesting at different angles and trajectories.

“Get wrecked, scrub!” Clark yells with his multitude of copies, all raising their knives for Hero.

In a flash, the paper airplane unfolds, and a familiar figure re-enters the story, if only to be a meat-shield.

Manifesting through the written word at Hero’s back, Kell takes on half of the knives, reducing him to a bloody, staticy pin-cushion. Hero takes on the other half of the knives, each a high critical and smashing him down to 40% immediately.

It’s clear to Hero that no matter how much he builds CON, Clark will do nothing but pile on more and more damage and critical bonuses.

“Missed me?” Kell scoffs just as takes in the blades. Kell smashes the true Clark square in the jaw, producing a childish “239” of damage the same moment Hero regains himself from [high 3]. This time Hero won’t play around. Even though he’s gravely wounded, Hero’s movements are unhindered as he sweeps his scythe across in a single motion, destroying all the copies in front of him before turning to the others.

Bright-Solemn targets its laser onto the Clark that Kell smacked, but he leaps aside just as the ethereal bolt lets fly.

Clark lands back in the water, and dives deep, disappearing from sight entirely, but Hero is not so easily deterred.

“Ten out of ten, would bang!” Hero cries as he heals himself the same moment he bolts into the water like a fishing crane.

“Wait, you fool!” Kell cries as he stumbles about from his wounds.

Hero disappears into the swampy murk, hot on Clark’s tail as they dodge the snapping jaws of the horrific reptilian dwellers from below. Hero realizes quickly that Clark has speed on par to his, and through this is keeping away admirably. For certain, this is the hardest chase Hero’s had to pursue in his short life. In a blink, Clark surfaces, uses his assassin passive skills to grab onto the surface of the water as if it were solid matter, and lift off. Hero surfaces just in time to see Clark land into the side of the wizard’s tower. Hero squints in thought. Clark will be readying another ambush, he’s certain of that, but he has to finish him off- he can’t risk being caught out.

The two race into the mystic wizard’s tower, groaning with age, stuffy as a grave, and covered throughout with moss.