This world is attended to by a five-member council. The Master of Dungeons, Final Arbiter, Supreme Treasurer, High Facilitator, and Last Judge each play a role in maintaining balance and fairness. Any adventurer should consider themselves lucky if they meet one of these great beings.

The Adventurer’s Guild

Checking for the town’s tooltip from his status screen’s map, Nash remembered that he was in unexplored territory. What the folk in this world often referred to as the fog of war covered over ninety percent of the area. The rest had only recently been opened up; the deep dungeon entrance and a small distance along the road leading away.

Thanks to actual maps that could be found all around the realm, Nash knew the basic lay of the land. The road they were on would lead to Gravenport. He couldn’t remember the distance but knew it would have to be close. All deep dungeons and below were within a day’s walk of a town or city center. Only Ancient Ruins and parts of the Underworld required further travel.

The pair traveled in silence, the wind whipping past them as the panther languidly jogged along the dirt road that lay flat across rocky flat terrain. The land looked barren, with only the hardiest scrub hanging on to life in the unforgiving place. An orange sun beat down upon them, countering the cold bite of the wind. There was a faint scent of sulfur and rot that hung in the air. Nash could just make out a couple of bat-winged creatures circling in the distance. Nash seriously hoped that all of the Dark lands weren’t like this. It was depressing and only made his already sour mood worse.

“So, I couldn’t help but notice how dejected you seem to be,” said Tamsyn. “What’s up with that?”

They had been traveling for nearly an hour when Tamsyn finally broke the silence. Nash had been wallowing in self-pity for most of the way and hadn’t bothered trying to converse with the nixie girl. She had been patient, but her patience was wearing thin. Nash smiled weakly.

“Heh, I was betrayed,” he replied.

“Okay... betrayed how?” pressed Tamsyn.

“Well... okay, here’s the abridged version,” said Nash. “About seventeen months ago, near when the anomalies first started – that’s what our world called the random portals, my class and I were brought here through one of the bigger ones of that time. I was teaching Paleontology at a community college. Myself, my T.A., and thirty-two students arrived in the Light territory. It wasn’t long before we acclimated to this new reality, but we lost my T.A. and seven students in the process. I vowed to protect the rest of my students and became a guardian, tanking the dungeons we’re required to clear each month.”

Nash took a deep breath before continuing. He still didn’t understand what they were thinking by effectively trying to murder him or what he may have done wrong to provoke such a vicious and cowardly act by his entire class. Clearing his mind, he looked sideways at the cute little dark fey pixie sitting on his shoulder.

“For the next sixteen months, things went okay. Students had the occasional mental breakdown from the traumatic experiences we were subjected to or from missing their friends and family, but they all recovered. I didn’t lose a single student to the dungeons, though one boy died in an accident in town and I lost another when he went to explore Arenfell Forest.”

“Now, since my age here was about the same as my students, it took some time to establish some control over the class, but they eventually went along. I even started dating the smartest girl in the class. She was beautiful... and kind, well... I thought. I could tell things had changed in the past month. Not just with her, but with everyone. Nothing overt, just small things. Whispers, snippets of conversations I wasn’t privy to, odd looks,” he said, shaking his head at his naivety for dismissing all the signs that things were terribly wrong in his party.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” replied the night pixie, gently placing her hand on his cheek. “No one ever expects to be betrayed by those closest to them.”

“True,” replied Nash. “But something or someone had to make them turn on me. I guess I no longer had the control that I thought. Maybe I pushed them too hard, or maybe they didn’t like getting bossed around by someone their own age. Whatever the case, I was just trying to protect them, to keep us all alive.”

“Well,” said Tamsyn. “It sounds like your heart was in the right place, and you did manage to survive their betrayal. So, I guess that there’s nowhere to go but up!”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Nash, thankful for the nixie’s kind words. “I think, deep down... I knew I needed to protect myself from something bad happening just over the horizon. Marcus, my off-tank was charismatic and had a bad attitude, especially when it came to my leadership. He was never the type who liked following orders, or rules for that matter. So, anyway... halfway through the last boss fight, they kicked me from the group. My now ex-girlfriend had also removed all of my elixirs, potions, and a few other things when I wasn’t paying attention. They meant for me to die in there. All of them.”

Nash tried to shake the awful thoughts from his mind. Dwelling on the past wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Turning back to Tamsyn, he considered her situation for a moment. “So, what happened to you to have you end up in a deep dungeon?”

“Like you, I was also betrayed,” said Tamsyn, frowning. “I was the youngest of seven. My parents made a deal and sold me off to a traveling adventurer. He found a mage to bind me to him. When he died in the dungeon, I was part of the loot that the dungeon collected from his corpse. You know the rest.”

“So then, you were born here as a night pixie?” asked Nash.

“Yeah, I was... but, many came from elsewhere,” she answered. “Perhaps some came from your world, but most came from another reality where instead of Light and Dark, there were the Seelie and Unseelie courts. Oh, and like I said before, I’m not a regular pixie. I’m a night pixie or nixie for short.”

“I know, but that reminds me. I thought nixies were aquatic?”

“When you first summoned me, did I seem aquatic to you?” asked Tamsyn testily.

“Heh, I suppose not,” chuckled Nash, remembering the nixie coughing and sputtering when he had first summoned her underwater during the boss fight.

“However, you’re not entirely wrong. In some realms, yes… nixie are aquatic” answered Tamsyn. “But not here. Aquatic fey are called nereids.”

“I think I understand. Huh, despite our differences, I guess you and I aren’t so diff...”

Suddenly, Nash couldn’t move a muscle. Tamsyn let out a shriek just before she was knocked from his shoulder, a thick gooey substance encasing her body. She landed on the dirt road with a splat. Nash’s immobile body slowly slid from his mount. While lying on the dirt road, he heard footsteps approaching followed soon after by laughter. Then everything went black.

Nash awoke to stiffness, cold, and pain. Opening his eyes, he was glad for his new dark vision, a gift from the Dark. The sun had long ago set and his body was wedged between two rocks a short distance from the road. All of his equipped items were gone, including the panther mount. He saw no sign of Tamsyn anywhere around. Anger grew as he realized he had been ambushed by bandits or worse.

He noticed a timer in the upper field of his vision and concentrated on it. It was an immortality buff that had a few seconds left on it; a typical effect after resurrection. Looking closer, he saw that it was the result of a Flaming Phoenix Feather. Nash immediately understood. The bandits or whoever hadn’t spared him. They had murdered him and taken his stuff. But he had used the Flaming Feather in the dungeon and the effect hadn’t worn off. It has brought him back from the dead.

Muttering under his breath, Nash rose to his feet and patted dirt and sand from his half-naked body. A quick check of his inventory told him that he still had his twin axes and everything else stored there, but all of his armor and his new mount had been taken. Nash hadn’t had time to unequip them before he died so his killers were able to loot them from his body. Now he had a nixie to rescue, no mount or armor, and a long walk to the nearest town to regroup and resupply. The only silver lining seemed to be that he wasn’t dead... yet.

Nash could already hear creatures moving around in the darkness, just out of sight of his dark vision. Being caught out here at night was often a death sentence. With no armor that he could use, Nash used another dose of war paint to buff him up. Being shirtless, he noticed that the war paint didn’t just cover his face and arms but his torso as well. Readying both of his axes, he strode back to the road and continued towards the elusive town. He could just make out a faint glow on the horizon. It had to be coming from the numerous lights of the town. Now... he just had to get there.

Nash started to jog down the dirt road, his head on a swivel. He heard noises coming from all around the road and he was sure they were closing in on his location. He began to pick up a whiff of rot and death in the air. Still, he ran on. There wasn’t much else he could do.

It was a quarter-hour before he caught a glimpse of the first of them. He almost wished he hadn’t. Pale skin stretched over emaciated flesh contrasted against the black of their eyes, five-inch claws, and long greasy hair. They were Barrow-wights, human-like creatures that were neither alive nor dead. Their only desire seemed to be the flesh of the living. Nash took a rather dim view of that. He was still using his.

Five minutes later, things came to a head. Four of the creatures stood in front of him, right on the road. He could hear more behind and to either side. They had him surrounded and were closing in on him. The status magic that came from this world told him that they were a low threat... individually. Unarmored like he was, he took no chances.

Activating one of his new abilities, Blade Barrier, Nash charged into the four he could see. He threw his momentum behind a sweeping attack which decapitated two of the four gaunt figures instantly. Spinning around the other two, he caught each of them in the back of the head with an ax. They dropped instantly, their collapsing bodies pulling free from his axes.

By this time, the next nearest wight had reached him. Nash had to go on the defensive, using his axes to fend off attacks. He continually backpedaled, making sure none of them were able to flank him. Luckily, they were weak and dropped quickly. He could feel the war paint flowing throughout his body and lending strength to each attack.

While they went down quickly, more joined the frenzy and Nash began to worry. Then he got angry. Several were moving in behind him, making his situation much more dangerous. Nash spun on his heel and charged the farthest one, lopping off its head. He turned back towards the incoming mob of Barrow-wights and smacked his two axes together, activating their Crescent Wave ability, Moonfire. Nash had been hoping he wouldn’t need to use it so soon. It had a long reset timer. Still, it was his best option at the moment.

Sweeping his axes out in front of him, Nash released the axes’ Moonfire in a wave. The blue-white fire spread before him in a wide arc and washed over all of the creatures within fifty paces. Unnatural screams and wails filled the night before falling silent again, the creatures falling into piles of burning flesh. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he saw more moving around in the distance.

His anger finally overtook him. The hunted became the hunter. Nash jogged ahead and charged into the closest Barrow-wight he could see, killing it instantly. More came in to attack and he hacked them apart too. He could feel his rage giving him added strength and endurance.

Congratulations! New Ability Unlocked: Dark Rage

Nash ignored the tooltip, the ability’s effects overtaking his mind. He lashed out at the incoming monsters and they dropped like wheat before a scythe. Following their collective footprints, he left the road, encountering more of the creatures. He killed them all.

His rage still wasn’t sated. He continued to follow the creature’s footprints, his dark vision making the prints in the dirt easy to see. Before long, he came to the Barrow mound and an alert popped up again. Nash merely frowned. He had a single-minded focus and wasn’t in the mood.

Congratulations! New Ability Unlocked: Track

After dismissing the annoying alert, he didn’t hesitate. These things had just tried to kill him. They would probably do the same with the next traveler along the road... and the next. Nash was going to end it right here. He waded into the mound and attacked everything that moved. There were dozens of the creatures, but they were caught off-guard and unprepared for the vicious assault that Nash brought past their doorstep. It only lasted minutes, the slaughter, and at the end of it, not a single wight remained alive.

Stepping out from the mound, more notifications popped up, finally breaking him out of his rage. His blood cooled while he quickly read the messages and dismissed them in turn.

Quest Complete: Destroy the Barrow-Mound

Reward: 15,000 bonus experience

Ragged Cloak of Whispers – Back – Light Armor

Material Harvesting: Wight Skulls (x46)

Congratulations: You’ve Leveled Up! Dark Paladin - Level 21

Nash chuckled darkly. He was finding solo leveling much more lucrative, if also more dangerous than group leveling. He hadn’t even been aware that the barrow mound was a quest objective. He added the wight skulls to his inventory. Nash knew he’d be able to sell or trade them to one of the many crafters that frequented most towns and cities. He wasn’t sure what they could use wight skulls for, but he didn’t care.

Nash also added the cloak to his inventory. Since he had just lost his good cloak to whoever ambushed him, he put it on. The new cloak was dark, tattered, and darkly stained, but held strong stealth magic. It wasn’t extremely useful for Nash, but it was better than nothing. He let out a resigned sigh. Shaking off the foul mood, Nash trudged back to the road and continued towards Gravenport, a town he was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to reach.