Cicadas are loud, all the more so in the close environment of the catacombs. JammyJams had spewed them out in a swarm that spread to search every inch of the basilica and lead him down into the tunnels beneath. It was a funeral pace, as he could proceed no faster than the insects surveyed, and he stopped to obliterate every obstacle in his path. The cicadas found the laboratory, along with all its scrolls and scripts. JammyJams was briefly crowing victory, and when he realized the book wasn't there, he smashed every piece of equipment as surely as if he had put them to the mortar and pestle.

Next came the library, and his expectations were already lowered. The cicadas showed him the gap on a shelf where the Annunomicon had been. JammyJams slammed his fist down, shattering the entire bookshelf and creating a geyser of ancient paper and papyrus. The arthropods continued to search.

Lawlimi mixed the second batch of paste and used it to finish cutting a half-circle of brick free from the blocked passage large enough to crawl through. When he was on the other side, he dragged it back into place, though it would be obvious to anyone who got close that the wall was compromised. Lone cicadas were already finding their way into the section of the catacombs Lawlimi was leaving, filling the tunnels with their persistent drone.

The sewer had a walkway beside a still river of wet sludge. There was little business done here in the land of the dead, and many passages led nowhere or had collapsed over the centuries.

"Down this channel, then left at the junction," I told him.

Lawlimi followed my instruction, then tried to jump across the channel to the other walkway. He didn't make it and sank up to his knees in undead sewage.

"EFF!" he climbed out of the channel. "This is the least heroic game I have ever played."

He continued to complain until he noticed the incoming threat. There was a scraggly rat squeezing out of a hole in the brickwork.

Lawlimi picked up a rock, breathing hard. The rat saw him and chittered, unafraid, though it was scarcely larger than his foot. They faced each other in the darkness beneath the city of the dead, two opponents bound by fate and circumstance such that neither could continue to live while the other survived.

"One shall stand," Lawlimi said, "and one shall fall."

He crouched down, guarding his unprotected feet and swinging the rock to establish distance. The rat approached him warily, eyes flashing with an abrupt dash forward, nipping at his hands. The rock was too sturdy for the rat’s teeth, and Lawlimi tried to crush his opponent with it, but only succeeded in scraping the floor. He nearly suffered a bite to his forearm, which would have ended him, jerking back at the terminal instant.

Lawlimi swept out, pushing the rat away (KNOCKBACK Combat Maneuver Successful), then crab-walked past the rodent so that they had reversed their original positions. He had to defend himself again, gasping from the exertion. There are no benefits to being dead, only hardships. The rat gnashed its teeth, clearly in the prime of its rapacious rattiness, an alpha predator in a region with no other predators. Lawlimi held his blades forward, and the rat dashed under them, aiming for his opponent’s exposed feet.

By sheer reflex, Lawlimi jumped and came down on the rat.

>>

(Lucky Move! – Stomp – 8 Bludgeoning Damage)

>>

The rat squeaked its last and lay still.

>>

(Lawlimi is too advanced to gain experience from this Challenge.)

>>

"Are you serious?"

"You're level three, the rat was level one."

"But I'm handicapped!"

"The ADI responsible for combat XP accounts for handicaps. Apparently, this didn't count as a significant Challenge."

"Whatever," Lawlimi huffed. It was another eleven minutes of hustling through the sewer before he arrived at the access stair. It led to a narrow door that hadn't been locked in decades, barely hanging on its last hinge, and he pressed through to the open air and charred grey cloudscape. Fallow was on a war footing, and busier than Lawlimi had ever seen it.

Vampires in hybrid bat form crisscrossed the sky, and skeletons in armor much finer than Lawlimi's marched down the street in lockstep. JammJams’s activities had hardly been discreet. The murder of Anubis, and the desecration of the sepulcher, would not be allowed to stand even if the Lord's angels were unwilling to intervene. Even Madrid, the horsey salesman, was in battle regalia, holding a slash hook aloft as he clip-clopped down the boulevard. Organs played dour hymns in the Temples of the Damned, and discordant voices were lifted in praises to the Unnamed god.

"Okay," Lawlimi said, "now what?"

"You need to buy passage on the Dawn Traitor, the only ship that sails out of Fallow. The dock is on the north end of the city. There are flags there denoting all the Twelve and their representatives."

"Fine by me." Lawlimi stuck close to the buildings to avoid being caught up in the chaos of the street. Most of the would-be defenders had no idea where to go nor what they were fighting, only that something big and scary had nailed Mona to the altar with his own mace. The general hubbub allowed Lawlimi to pass unnoticed, so he was within sight of the dock, really a landing platform, as there was no water, when the tone of the crowds changed.

The cicadas were rising out of interstices in the ground, singing their eerie songs. There was an intelligence to their search, or at least an extra spiritual sense that allowed them to trace the path of the book. They hadn't caught Lawlimi yet, but they were narrowing the field. JammyJams came up in the middle of a street, a cataract of cobbles and ruby aura. Violence followed, and the angels looked on.

The Dawn Traitor was a ferry, a raft with floats out to the sides and a crank mechanism to drag it along a line across a river. In this case, the river was a dim grey infinity, and the line was a humming opalescent cord that gradually inclined until it vanished into the atmosphere. Beside the ferry's platform, a man cloaked in luminous white robes was sitting at a desk eating from a bowl of soup. Lawlimi approached close enough to see the soup was finger bones floating in blood and stopped.

"I need passage back to the world of the living," Lawlimi said.

"I'm on break," said the ferryman, Karen. The finger bones crunched loudly as he chewed. He was an exceptionally beautiful man, appearing at most, mildly deceased.

"I have the coin." Lawlimi produced the bag of platinum I had led him to, a hundred platinum eagles were worth a thousand lions. He set it on the table, where it was ignored by the man.

"This is my lunch. I'm entitled to it, same as anyone."

"There isn't time! Can't you hear the fighting?"

"You got a problem," Karen spoke with deliberate slowness, "you take it up with my supervisor."

"Godzilla is destroying the city!" Lawlimi waved his arms in the direction of the warzone.

"You can go wait on the bench. That's the last I'll say about it."

There was a short bench at the other corner of the platform, and another player sitting there.

>>

Sashimibandit

Heroic Level 1

West — Wood — Blue

>>

He was also dead, wearing a dingy breastplate and carrying a steel shield on his back. A sword in a wooden sheath was laying across his lap.

Lawlimi sat beside him.

"Bullshit, right?" Sashimibandit said. "This game really goes out of its way to stick it to you when you die."

"You're at heroic levels. Shouldn't it be easier for you?"

"Sure, I Vault money every time I go into a safe zone. Paying is no problem, but I still have to wait on this dick of a ferry."

"How long does this take?" Lawlimi was watching the streets for explosions. There was a cluster of winged horrors in the air over the city, signaling the location of JammyJams.

"The trip out is an hour, so as soon as I get on the ferry, I'm gonna log." Sashimibandit patted his sword. "I can barely swing this thing in this place. He's been on break for like twenty minutes, so it should be over soon. I'm reviewing my build right now."

Lawlimi didn't say anything, he continued watching the sky.

00000000

JammyJams enjoyed being invincible. Again and again, his grotesquely enlarged body endured hideous wounds, only to regenerate in moments. Most of the creatures he faced were nuisances, mere Mortals, whom he could dispatch with great sweeps of his arms and flares of his aura.

>>

Skeleton Guard — Mortal 5 (120/120)

Zombie Task Driver — Mortal 8 (880/880)

Vampire — Heroic 6 (21,290/21,290)

>>

The vampires could at least harry him. He enjoyed catching them and pulling off their wings as if they were the insects that swept through Fallow at his behest. They could taste the passage of the Annunomicon, and they were drawing closer to the source. What they knew he knew, as if they were a seamless extension of his body and will, the highest blessing of Jang. His immortality was a blessing from someone else.

JammyJams was not a sensitive being by nature or design, his character and his Celestial Hue did not allow for much advanced awareness. His red, Mog red, was an ocean of rage that he swam in as easily as a shark, breathing it. If not for the cicadas, he would not have noticed the Vampire Lord at all. He ducked in the same instant that the lord swooped over him, claws like sickles slashing where his neck had been. Space cleared for the Lord to land, so it could be the two of them alone.

>>

Count Vitae — Vampire Lord

Celestial Level 3 (320,000/320,000)

South — Flesh — Yellow

>>

Count Vitae wore his hybrid form, a humanoid bat with exaggerated talons and beady eyes that blazed like pinpricks through a shade blocking the sun. His wings stretched, their tips touching buildings on either side of the street, and he gave an ugly laugh.

This is what he lived for. JammyJams kicked off the cobbles, shattering them, and led with his shoulder to use his Crash maneuver and start the duel out strong. Count Vitae went straight up and kicked down with his taloned feet as Jams passed under him.

>>

(Jaunty Blow – Claws deal 10,500 Slashing Damage + Spirit Bonus)

>>

The red hulk reacted instantly, slamming his foot down for a pivot turn and grabbing one of the Count's legs. His forearm was raked by the other foot (5,125 Slashing Damage), but his grip was firm. Jams jerked Vitae down and slammed him into the cobbles.

>>

(Supplex Slam deals 13,047 Impact Damage to Count Vitae)

(Vitae is PRONE)

>>

The count shrieked and battered at Jams with his wings. Jams straddled Vitae and prepared to bring both his fists down on the vampire's skull, but yellow light flashed from those pinprick eyes, triggering a deep and atavistic instinct in JammyJams's brain.

>>

(VAMPIRIC GAZE Successful — JammyJams is HELD)

>>

Count Vitae's claws snapped as they distended, the fingers of his right hand fusing into a single fleshy instrument, extending into a heavy keratin blade. JammyJams was blinking back into awareness just as Vitae thrust that hand between the hulk's rib cage and into his heart. There the blade claw cracked back into fingers that wrapped around the still-beating organ. Then he ripped it out.

>>

(Aztec Special — DEATH ATTACK — 164,760 Avulsion Damage)

(JammyJams has lost heart.)

>>

Jams got up, took two steps back, and sat back down. Count Vitae rose and took a bite out of the heart, activating his own regenerative abilities. A lone cicada crawled down his hand, chirping solemnly. Avarice lightened his eyes as he ate, savoring the blood and flesh of one so touched by the divine.

Crimson power surged through JammyJams once more, and he roared, trying to stand. Failing. He crumpled, and the aura bled away from him until he was no longer a giant, but only a disfigured man.

"I don't ..." he panted. "You bitch ..."

"Few understand the power of the blood," Count Vitae mused. "Without your heart, your spirit cannot circulate properly, and you will not regenerate. However, your Celestial blessing will also not allow you to die without being more thoroughly destroyed. You are trapped, my friend."

"No ..." Jams was too weak to raise his fists in protest. The undead crowds howled and shrieked approval, until the dusky skies dimmed further. A maelstrom of cicadas circled overhead, their clamor drowning out all other noise. They descended over Count Vitae, swallowing him completely in their gyre.

Karen swallowed the last of his knucklebones and drank the blood like soup broth from his bowl. He was aware of the hubbub in the city, but it was not his concern. He had a job to do, and he did it in a certain way, at a certain hour, as he had done for centuries.

"All aboard!" he called, ascending the platform and unmooring his ferry, which floated inches above the stone, beneath the flaccid flags of the Twelve. There were seven passengers, Lawlimi and Sashimibandit and five others that had wanted to get out of Fallow as quickly as possible under the circumstances. Karen didn't care about any of them except as paying customers, his duty was his sole concern. Money was exchanged as the cicada swarm was descending on Count Vitae, and the passengers stood or sat on the flat planks. There were no seats.

Lawlimi was one of those standing, tapping a foot as Fallow fell to chaos and Karen manned the crank that would pull them out into the void between worlds. The other heroes were all in better shape than him. They hadn't died at first level, so they'd had a chance to Bind items to respawn with them and Vault money as savings. There was a third Mortal, Realhentaifan, apparently working on a rogue build, and the rest were heroic.

>>

Damwise Ramgy — Heroic Level 3

North — Water — White

Alucard Laer — Heroic Level 5

East — Wood — Brown

Thomas Colonic— Heroic Level 3

East — Air — Green

Silva Ravenwolf — Heroic Level 8

Nadir — Fire — Red

>>

They didn't take notice of Lawlimi, third-level Mortal that he was, but everyone was talking about the events in the city.

"Was that a player?"

"It had to be a player; they don't spawn high-end mobs to randomly attack the metropolis. It's not Tokyo."

"If he was a player, why didn't the angels do shit?"

"Maybe they didn't need to. Count Vitae was in the air when I ran by."

"It was only one guy?"

"What about the bugs? Were they a mob?"

"No way. Bees, spiders, locusts, and ants are the only swarms in the game."

He was almost correct. They are the only swarming insects. Snakes, jellyfish, and artificer drones would complete the list.

"Those weren't bees. They were beetles."

"Cicadas, I love them."

"Cicadas aren't aggressive."

"They weren't attacking anyone."

"Big red was the attacker.”

The ferry left the dock behind, being slowly drawn along the rainbow bridge by the ferryman's winch and crank. As soon as they were no longer physically over the city, Lawlimi experienced a strange sensation in his limbs, and his mouth dried dramatically.

Some of the heroes cheered and high-fived, then broke out rations from their packs. Lawlimi was ravenously hungry, not the niggling hunger and thirst of undeath. This was a fist in his gut and sand in his throat.

Sashimibandit offered Lawlimi his canteen, and he took it gratefully.

"Sucks, right?" Sashimibandit said.

"It's my first time," Lawlimi passed the water back.

Sashimibandit nodded sagely. "I know how it is, jump in the game and feel like you can be anything. Then the fucking Skree get you, or a scorpion, or you get thrown off a horse and break your neck. That's the bullshit."

"Did that all happen to you?"

"Well, it wasn't a horse." He didn't seem willing to explain any further.

The heroic players were exclaiming and pointing at the city. While the ferry had picked up speed, it was still well within sight of the shore. Count Vitae was there, and he was huge, twice the size that Jams had been, his outstretched wings were like the sails of a ship. His color aura was visible without spiritual sight, a sickly yellow that dripped like liquid.

The cicada cloud was gone, and he wasn't giving chase. Instead, one of his claws had deformed into a sledge, and he struck at the stone platform where it connected to the rainbow bridge.

At first, there was no effect. Their progress was steady and smooth, if slow. Then the ferry shuddered. Karen glanced back, frowned, and picked up his pace.