Well, I wasn’t being hostile, so there was no need for me to cease anything. My primary complaint was that though Kyofu was dead, the heat that he had generated was slow to dissipate. I’d swapped my camouflage for Echolocation, so I was preternaturally aware of my surroundings, my sonic sense extending around corners and through joints that would have blocked normal sight. The deeper I crawled, the hotter it got, and I was beginning to take damage.

>>

(You take 15 Heat Damage)

(You take 12 Heat Damage)

(You take …)

>>

It wasn’t much, just a steady ping that would add up to me being slowly cooked alive if I didn’t get out in the next few minutes. If it wasn’t for my resistance, I doubted I would be able to make it in and out at all. There was a route along his spine that I could barely manage to use to worm forward, skin searing, and I only made it to his chest cavity by exchanging my Chameleon ability for increased flexibility. Eyes squeezed shut, I couldn’t go any farther with my body, but my squid arms were able to grope for the jewels in the claustrophobic region while I tried not to ink anything in my distress. I thought the gems would burn me when I found them, but they were actually pleasantly cool, alleviating my discomfort as I took them in my suckers. Then it was a matter of wiggling out backwards.

Outside Kyofu, I could hear how the moderator’s announcement was taken. Queen Jo-O, being an NPC, was certain to comply with whatever the mod wanted, and would only respond defensively to any further attacks. As for Lawlimi and the gang, I wasn’t so sure. Would Silva be cocky enough to try and take on a moderator? Did she even have a reason to? If anything, having a mod take care of the Disciples was a best-case scenario for everyone present but JammyJams. It was hard to hear distinct voices in my iron coffin, and harder to understand the words. The moderator was shouting, then screaming. Then JammyJams’s voice boomed so loud my environment vibrated. I think it was something like “I’M ALL OUT OF BUBBLEGUM!” which couldn’t be accurate.

I made it back to the pelvis, where I could turn around, then gave one of the gems to Shippo to take out ahead of me. I reasoned we’d be more likely to be able to keep at least one of them if we split them up. We crawled out of the ruptured ankle, and there was no way to hide what we were doing, as an outpouring of light accompanied us. Holding the gems didn’t make them any less blinding, and though I could echolocate, Shippo was getting out by feel. When we had both crawled back into the open, I took his hand and tried to lead him off of the plateau, but we were stopped in seconds.

“Those belong to the King,” Queen Jo-O said, appearing as a shade in front of us. “Give them to me now, and I will reward you for your service to Yamatoei. Resist, and you will be branded as thieves and assassins.”

“Why don’t we compromise?” I said. “You can have these two if you allow us to leave with one.”

>>

(Persuasion: Failed)

>>

It had been long odds, I admit. In the background, I registered the moderator’s voice. She was still screaming, which was a bad sign. If a moderator found herself outgunned, she could always warp to safety and bring back reinforcements, but something was preventing her from doing so. The Disciples were holding her down, and JammyJams, who had ripped himself free of his various fetters, was leaning over her and vomiting a stream of insects onto her face. None of that was good.

“He’s coming with us,” Lawlimi said, and from the way he was pointing the X-Cannon I could tell the light was no longer an issue. Potions of Blindsight had put his party back into the competition. Sashimibandit and Damwise were edging closer, preparing to snatch me and Shippo, and I knew I wasn’t strong enough to stop them. Silva smashed into the Queen axe first, taking them both out of the equation for the moment.

(Orobos is not our friend.) I messaged Lawlimi directly.

(I can explain,) he responded, (but you should come with me now before this scene gets any more complicated.)

They didn’t have a chance to grab us, as Charmlet and her remaining Invisibles dropped in from above. Sashimibandit was suddenly locked in a duel with a pair of knife-wielding assassins, and Damwise was being chased off by another pair. Lawlimi fired.

>>

(Precise Shot — Headshot! — Vital Strike — X-Cannon deals 4,300 Force Damage)

>>

His target went flat on his back, but there was another one flanking for a sneak attack, and it seemed for a moment that Shippo and I had been given the opportunity to flee. We made it all of four paces, just far enough to be out of the melee, before a lasso snagged Shippo around the neck and another found my leg. I went face-first into the scorched earth, and Shippo fell back, gagging.

Charmlet landed and snatched the gem out of Shippo’s paws with something that looked like a yo-yo, and she was only prevented from doing the same to mine because they were trapped underneath me.

“I don’t know who or what you are,” she said, “but I’m taking the jewels.” A sudden tug on my captured leg lifted me up and flipped me over, but the gems were tucked deep in my beard of squid arms, giving me seconds more. I watched her winding another loop among her fingers, preparing to snatch the remaining jewels and possibly a few of my tentacles along with them. Karcharoth’s Tooth was suddenly in my hand, and I twisted to slice the line she had around my leg, rolling to my feet. I kept forgetting I wasn’t defenseless anymore.

“Behind you!” I used my Distraction Combat Maneuver, hoping to set up the possibility of a Sneak Attack. She resisted, frowning at me and preparing a kind of cat’s cradle between her hands for whatever her next move was. Unfortunate, because there actually was someone behind her. Charmlet’s head twisted around like an owl, only she wasn’t one, so with a terrible crack, she died.

>>

(Sneak Attack — Death Attack — 1000% Damage — Hands of the Unforgiven deals 230,425 Fracture Damage)

(Grapple: Successful)

>>

The man behind her looked like he had been inked into existence, a two-dimensional cutout from the sketchbook of a tortured artist. His limbs were too long, his fingers like daggers, and though his eyes were of the same perfect blackness as the rest of him, I could nevertheless distinguish their presence and their obvious displeasure.

>>

Kurayami, Radiant King of Yamatoei

Celestial 4

Zenith — Water — Black

>>

He had a speech prepared.

“Small Mortal, you do not yet understand the fullness of your folly. There will be no freedom in death for you, for you will join the others I have buried in the void of my heart, unable to die, unable to live, trapped forever in the hateful black. I am the king of these islands, the greatest Fae to ever walk the soils of Mythopoeia, and the sole rightful bearer of the Jewels of Vallorn. Long have I known how the jealousy of others gathered against me, and long have I awaited these pathetic flailings so that I could end them for all time.” As he gave his speech, Kurayami opened his palm so that the gem Charmlet had taken could float up into his grasp. Then he set it upon his brow, and it settled there, impossible to look upon. All the other heroes and villains were occupied, struggling against each other, so it was like the King and I were alone for a long trapped moment before I shoved one of the gems past my beak, past my radula, and swallowed.

It had worked for Kyofu.

Nothing happened, but a coolness settled in my belly and slowly began to spread.

“Worthless wretch.” Kurayami drew back his hand, ready to thrust it into my belly and take back what was his, but Falcor intervened. The Emerald Dragon appeared between us, his camouflage so much better than mine that it apparently extended to senses other than sight, clamped his teeth around the King’s forearm, then shook his oversized head, trying to rip the arm off.

Kurayami grabbed Falcor’s upper jaw with his free hand and yanked upward so hard he ripped off the top of my companion’s skull.

>>

(Falcor has died.)

>>

The notification came with a silent ping, and the cold in my belly spread into my limbs.

>>

[Quest Completed — Sing for the King]

Your performance was a disaster, which means it was a success! You created an opportunity for the Jewels of Vallorn to be stolen, and Kyofu has separated the gems. He failed to honor his side of the agreement, but his honor has become a moot point.

(Wa Lim Li gains 2,000 experience.)

(Shippo gains 2,000 experience.)

>>

(New component Detected. Augmentation Complete)

New Discovery — Achievement

You have discovered a mythic rare ingredient and successfully incorporated it into your construct. Even the most experienced alchemists and artificers can go most of their careers without reaching this stage in their work.

(Wa Lim Li gains 500 XP)

>>

[Quest Update — Apotheosis Now]

When you were creating your body-to-be, you struggled to find the best ingredients and had to make do with what was at hand. Fortunately, a Soul Trap can be a work in progress, continually modified with the addition of sufficient alchemical additives and mana. Ingesting a JEWEL OF VALLORN has made multiple augmentations available; please check your adytum.

(Wa Lim Li gains 1,100 XP)

>>

Like advancing in level, permanently augmenting one’s body wasn’t an operation meant to be completed on the fly. An NPC wouldn’t attack a player who was in their adytum, because being killed while you were unconscious wasn’t enjoyable gameplay. Even assassins woke you up first, usually by knocking over a lamp or giving you a good poke. Any player who tried to fall asleep in the middle of combat as a defensive maneuver would be pinged with an alert telling them it wasn’t possible to rest at the moment. Fortunately, I was not a normal player, and I had the god-like ability to become unconscious whenever I wanted.

Kurayami saw me eat the jewel, and he was going to rip it out of me. I closed my eyes and opened them on the command deck of Eternity, or my version of it. There were changes, but I didn’t have the luxury of time to explore them. I was presented with a build screen that was probably similar to what developers used when they were generating monster variants.

When I had created my original body through ritual, I hadn’t been able to pick out its abilities this way. Though I had sculpted the physical shape, the results of my work had been generated automatically based on the quality of the ingredients I’d used. The Vallorn Jewel had so much energy that it was able to substitute for virtually any ingredient, and when that combined with the already very open access I had to my own code, it meant I could modify myself even further than I had already been doing by manually manipulating my affinities. But the build screen didn’t work exactly the same way as affinities, which were all raised on a one-for-one basis as you advanced in level. Some of these abilities cost more to raise than others, or the costs varied as you increased your ranks. This was the first time I’d been able to access this screen, and I noticed that my body was already ranked in a few abilities.

>>

Elasticity (1): Your body is capable of stretching and extending like rubber regardless of your bone structure. Increased elasticity with each additional rank.

Extra Arms (4): You have ten additional limbs.

Size Change (1): You are one size category smaller than normal.

Water Speed (1): You gain a swim speed equal to your normal movement speed on land. Additional ranks result in increased speed and maneuverability.

>>

Extra Arms were cheap, and when the extra limbs were as ineffective as the tentacles hanging from my face you could purchase a lot of them. Size Change would only cost a single Build Point to make me as tall as a normal human, but after that it became cost prohibitive. Kyofu had spent most of his extra points to become a giant, and that wasn’t what I was going for. Even if Kyofu’s programming meant he would refrain from killing an unconscious player, events were doubtlessly still in motion outside my quiescent body, so I made a few selections as quickly as I could and surged back up into consciousness.