‘...A kindness for a coin?’

The trunk latch popped off and the lid creaked open. He backed up in a hurry. This wasn’t the first trunk he’d had trouble with.

Nothing happened.

He sniffed at its edge, then peeped over it. Inside was...another box. It was a wooden jack-in-the-box, with a small crank.

[Guardian minion]: Jack-In-Box

Soulbound on use [Common rarity]

[type]: offensive/defensive

[Faction]: Fallen only

Contains a random common minion.

Guardian minions are servants dedicated to the whims and goals of their masters. They cannot disobey. Minions transform when you do.

His mouth fell off.

‘Devour me! This can’t be real?!’ The head dipped in thought. ‘No, why did he leave this here? Was the message for…’ he shook his head. ‘No, impossible’

Shadows interrupted him. He raised an eyebrow and looked around. It seemed the warrens - or wherever he was now - had come to pick at the bones of the camp in the absence of humans. Perhaps a learned habit. He bit into the box crank, then flew away back to the hidden den he came from, where he squeezed through the hole to safety. He took a quick glance back through; he was right. Strange shapes had already taken up a spot in the camp and warned away the shadows.

He spat the jack-in-the-box to the floor.

‘Jack-In-Box?’

Then his eyes landed on the crank.

‘I see’

He bit into the crank and began to turn… The melody. A truly disturbing tune. There was no mistake. This box really did belong to the Fallen. The music played, but nothing happened. He stopped to examine it.

‘Is this thing broken?’

Before he went back to it. More and more he cranked the music, until he nearly fell over dizzy; he cranked it with avengence, when it burst open. He startled and fled behind a rock that barely covered his chin - side to side he leaned with an eyebrow raised towards each direction - then he levitated back over to investigate.

[System]: Minion bound

He heard a hiss in his skull.

For a moment he waited with bated breath. Then, a toy wooden snake clacked its way out of the box one colourfully faded compartment at a time, then fell into a coil. It gathered its bearings with a timid disposition - more and more its head hinged towards every little drip and whistle, every echo and shadow - then locked onto Dimrat with dull green eyes. Its tail began to rattle.

[Erroneous Wooden Snake]: lvl 1

[Bound minion]

[Fallen]

HP: 31 / 31

MP: --

Strength: 21

Toughness: 16

Agility: 57

Intelligence: 16

Willpower: 14

Magic Affinity: --

[Passive: Serpent’s Guile](lvl1): 1% critical strike chance

[Erroneous Data Gland(hot fix)](lvl1): Absorbed the seal that bound its mind.

Wooden toy serpent. Disappears upon summoner’s death.

Dimrat was flabbergasted. 'My very own peon! Can you...talk?'

The snake bunched tight, then lunged at him with a lightning-quick strike. The flash of its fanged mouth swallowed one of his eyes. He was sent into a spin against the back wall, where It forced its way into his skull one squeaky blockchain at a time.

[-4HP]

Dimrat gasped and spun in all directions in search of the critter. But it couldn’t be found. He shook his head and squinted through a strange blur; he tried to focus but slowly came to realise that his vision had been damaged in one eye. He saw only shapes. Then its tail rattled inside his skull...

‘Why you treacherous little ingrate! Get out of there, immediately!’

A serpentine voice hissed in his head. 'Shut up, skull. I'm asking the questions here'

Dimrat gurned, utterly bewildered. Even its description stated it couldn’t disobey commands and only cared for the goals of its master.

'...why wasn't I summoned sooner?'

Dimrat didn’t answer.

‘Answer me!’

The snake rattled and thrashed in his head, as if it swelled in size to the point of bursting his skull.

[-2HP]

[-1HP]

[-2HP]

Dimrat shrieked to the floor, then rolled around in the shallow stream. ‘Here have some water, you rotten little drudge!’

[-1HP]

[-1HP]

[-3HP]

‘Argh! Stop it!’ blurted Dimrat, ‘if you kill me you’ll disappear too!’

The snake stopped, then hissed. ‘You’ve locked me in that box since the dawn of time! Why shouldn’t you die?!’

‘Bollocks! I’ve only just bloody well found you!’

‘Then speak! Why was I abandoned?!’

Dimrat couldn’t answer. Frustration bit his tongue. The snake rattled again.

‘Fine!’ said the head, ‘you deserve an answer. Now let me think’

He sunk and furrowed his brows to ruminate. It was a hard elixir to drink. Heathenous words that set him ablaze with sin, but somewhere in the pit of his non-existent gut he mustered the will to speak them.

'...the Fallen are no more. They were utterly shattered to their core over a thousand years ago. You've been forgotten. As was I'

‘Then what is our purpose?'

The edges of his lips had begun to curl up, when his gaze drifted someplace darker. The urge to speak of vengeance and war bubbled to the surface - his hope for a Fallen resurgence - only this time it tapered off. He sighed, shook his head, then said, 'survival’.

‘Alone?’

‘...alone.’

‘Hm, I don’t dislike a dark sense of humour’

‘I would give you my other eye if it meant I was joking’

‘Then shall I take it?’

‘...the faction top ten champions. Take a look’

The snake fell quiet. The leaderboard had been updated. [Erroneous Wooden Snake] had been placed one position above Dimrat.

It hissed. ‘How bad is it?’

‘This tomb below the world is buried in the heart of our homeland...’ While he spoke, the snake poked out of Dimrat’s head through his fractured-wide eye socket and curled to look at him. Dimrat continued. ‘...this tiny hideaway is the only safe place I’ve found. Our enemy has undertaken a mass pilgrimage to this place. They’re here to celebrate on the graves of our ancestors. I intend to stop them’

'Your enemy, not mine. All the power that bound me to the cause has faded. I am free from the shackles of the dungeon. Only you bind me now. And once I'm free from you, I will be a prisoner no more'

'Then get out of my head and be on your way!'

The wooden snake withdrew back inside.

'...no’

‘Why not?’

‘I..I just don’t to’

‘I have no time for this! My quarry escapes on wagon wheels while you sulk!’

The snake did not respond.

The targets on his mind’s minimap weren’t far away. He had one tutorial quest left, and only five levels of [Cursed Eyes] to go. His tier one transformation was around the corner, and with it would come a newfound strength Dimrat could never have prepared himself for.

But his ego bled elsewhere. Bandits had stolen from him and his estranged lady monarch. He could not allow such an insult to go unpunished. He was torn.

He peeked through the hole with his only good eye, his right one. Nothing moved. Whatever those humans discarded had been ransacked and abandoned by everything else too.

He was about to enter a stealth-like trance - a state he’d adopted to remain undetected down there - when the snake spoke again.

‘Jack’

‘Pardon?’

‘That’s my name’

‘...it’s not been a pleasure to meet your acquaintance. You’ve robbed me of precious sight’

‘I’ll see for you’ The wooden snake poked its nose from Dimrat’s left eye, where a little tongue-shaped strip of red velvet hung from its chin. ‘Three eyes are better than two’

‘Hmph. Just stay out of my eye in combat. I use them to attack’

‘...you don’t just run?’

‘Excuse me? I’ll have you know I’m an expert murderer’

He left the den, then spotted the Whitewidow’s carcass. ‘See that beasty over there? It begged me for death before the end’

‘Impressive. It must have been weak to lies’

‘Hmph. Though quite peculiar. Nothing’s eaten it yet’

Beyond the camp to his right was an oppressive craggy archway. It towered high with necropolyptic window grooves, and gaped below with a cavernous tunnel of stalactites and stalagmites that all loomed eerily like a monstrous mouth with many eyes. This was the direction those thieves took. Where they ran away with his lady’s stolen plunder. Where this “festival” was to take place. Then he glanced back at the Whitewidow and stared intensely.

His heart told him to give chase - a single lost treasure was no different to a treasure trove in terms of lost face and honour - but the memory of how easily they’d defeated his nemesis held him. Such a blatantly stark contrast. It lay cold and broken over a mere game of darts to pass the time, yet even in his wildest dreams he could not hope to defeat it.

The snake interrupted his musing.

‘What’s your name?’

‘What? Ah, yes. You will address me as master’

‘I submit to no one’

‘Then do not ask my name if you won’t use honourifics’

The Jack-in-the-box that imprisoned the snake lay broken amongst the mess. ‘Now I get it’

‘So? I’m still not coming out’

‘Just shut up and stay vigilant. One, maybe two more encounters until I can transform’ His top lip creased up one side of his ghostly cheek. ‘What will you do then, freeloader?’

The snake didn’t respond.

Dimrat pulled his ego away from the craggy necropolyptic maw, then turned in the opposite direction, towards the creatures on his minimap, and glided below the almighty gaze of all things great and small. So weak was he that the world of significance did not recognize him. He was a bug beneath the groove of boots.

Goliath phantasmal jellyfish meandered above - not so dissimilar to those in the great abyss, perhaps lesser tier transformations - with countless luminous tentacles that picked at the ecosystem amongst giant mushrooms that could crush a castle if one fell. They were in the range of the system scan.

[Outworld Abyssal Deeplurker(IX)]: lvl ???

[Titan]

They traveled alone, together in their own silence. He stuck to the outermost rim. The wall to his left arched above his head and drizzled with wet stalactites that formed tall archways over on his right, like giant windows to an alien world.

When he could, he stuck to the shadows of an assortment of gargantuan rib bones as grand as old oaks, that led into a craggy coral reef. It all swayed colourful like a tropical ocean bed, and yet still even here the silhouette of a dark necropolis dwarfed its heights. It could only be lost Edinnor. Traces of its majesty, its dignity and grandeur still lingered if one looked long enough and imagined it so. Edinnor, the vertical city of walls, bridges and steps; of what remained that’s all one could possibly conceive. Even the cove he entered had traces of stonework steps almost completely smoothed away into the rock. Steps that once led above into the now spongy barnacled ceiling space. It didn’t feel like a Fallen city. Which was odd, because he’d already confirmed it was. Human burglars scurried amongst its bones like cockroaches. Fallen artifacts existed here. And, of course, he had found a statue of a lady that reminded him was someone dear. This had to be a Fallen city. No, he was not a stranger - thought he - he was the only one who wasn’t.

‘System. Enlighten me’

[Emissary’s Bay, Lost Edinnor]

He gazed at the stump of steps again. Then up and away into the ceiling space where they once reached.

‘...system. What was this place before that?’

He winced. His mind throbbed, like something got fetched from far away, or much deeper than he expected.

[knowledge lost]

He shook his head. ‘How peculiar’, he muttered, then continued, ‘...what calamitous event visited Edinnor?’

The power of the system thudded him blind and rang his ears. He clenched his teeth and fell to the floor with eyes scrunched tight. It eventually subsided, then he shook his head.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ Then the message came.

[Knowledge prohibited. System temporarily suspended]: 29: 52

His eyes burned. ‘What?!’

Jack peeked Dimrat’s eye socket. ‘You are too noisy...’

‘I have been punished for asking questions?! The absolute nerve!’

‘You probably deserve it. Enough already. Take me someplace safer’

‘Silence you anal worm. Lest I swallow a scorpion’

The snake’s tail rattled in his skull. ‘Then do without my eyes’

‘Fine by this one!’

Dimrat dragged his outrage kicking and screaming behind him, deeper into the cove, where he was quickly forced to abandon it.

Several bloated and spiky [Bile-Bombfish] had sprung from what appeared to be shallow puddles, but were in fact potholes of complex flooded networks for aquatic lifeforms; many of which revealed murky silhouettes lay in ambush. Even with his ill-begotten companion weighing him down, he still managed to duck under them.

They were senseless, aimless lifeforms, that wound up flip-flopping on the floor helplessly, where they perished over their own misjudgment.

There were toadyish eyes identically shaped and sized amongst the bubbles they bathed in; curved, angler fishing appendages that dangled colourful fruit-like shapes above the surface to distract from the monstrous maw of needle-teeth below; squiddy limbs in the hundreds appeared as flowery reeds along the banks tucked in amongst eyeball flowerheads; all waiting for anything to come close, and many others he wide birthed, and could barely fathom. His reduced speed had been a hindrance throughout it all and he’d just about gotten fed up with it.

A [Bile-Bombfish] flopped up from his blindside, that ballooned with a gormless expression at the side of his unsuspecting head, then burst. ‘Gah?!’ he yelled out. The shockwave sent him flying across a still pond that erupted with schools of little [Fearana] fish that jumped from the water snapping at the back of his head. He spun to face his trajectory, where the large needle-like cavity of a [Zombie Goblin-Faced Angler(I)]: lvl 17 emerged from the water and waited for him with an open gullet. His eyes surged red on instinct before he’d even found a target to lock onto.

[Cursed eyes*]

But he felt something off about his attack. The surface of the water dusted clean into a vaporous haze - the head spun wild and blew off to his right like a fiery Catherine wheel that streamed cursed wisps from his eye sockets - and all around him the ruptured internals of airborne [Fearana] swarms stained the haze red, then they all got slapped away with the force of a giant’s muscular backhand.

Dimrat skipped across the water’s surface then ruffled through the reeds into a roll up the bank spluttering.

‘What just happened?!’

[Bloody] activated. 5% damage returned as HP

[You’ve slain a tier I lvl 17 Zombie Goblin-Faced Angler]

[Experience awarded]

Then the same messages flooded in for all the [Fearana]s.

[You leveled up!]

[You leveled up!]

[Cursed Eyes* leveled up!] (lvl 6)

‘Hey!’, hissed the snake, ‘that’s reckless!’

‘Quiet! I’m thinking’

Something went wrong with his [Cursed Eyes] attack. He examined it further.

[Cursed Eyes*]: unleash a charged blast of cursed energy

Lvl: 4

(Curse)

Dmg rating: SSSSS+++ (-99.99%) (hotfix)

*Left eye(damaged) differential: a wide-coned scattershot.

MP cost: 6

*Right eye differential: a long-range blast

MP cost: 6

The more he read, the more his eyebrows ratcheted up.

‘No! You have hamstrung my only means of survival! Six MP per eye?! That’s twice as many!’

Jack hung his velvet tongue over Dimrat’s eye socket then said ‘...forget it. I’ll keep watch’

Dimrat would have pinched his brow. There was a moment of bitter silence. ‘Fine. But I could have easily dodged that fish imbecile if you weren’t weighing me down. And now my only trump card has been sabotaged’

Jack stayed quiet.

‘You can’t hide forever. A minion must be loyal and capable or you are worthless to me. Think about that. Let’s go’

The more he made his way, the more concerned he became. It appeared as though he’d circled back to an earlier point in his journey, one he’d hoped to return to, but much, much later. But now he’d hit the edge of this cavern. He could go no further. A smooth wall ran with water that hid three small holes just wide enough for an adventurous head to explore, which also seemed to be the right direction. Then something skittered behind him.

He spun with the dread of deja vu, but there was nothing but the glimmer of crystal light through babbling waters.

‘System’, he muttered, ‘what are my zone buffs’

Currently applied zone buffs:

[Invader]

[Lost Soul]

‘...no infiltrator? ...then I am being watched’

His eyes chased shadows, but caught nothing. He backed up into the shade of the nearest hole and disappeared. It was a head-sized water flume with many twists and turns through the rock that led down. At some point it spat him out somewhere inside the rock itself - a small pocket lit with a gentle blue hue - where he landed face to face with another skull identical to him.

Jack said ‘friend of yours?’

’Why? Are you in the property market, squatter?’

‘No. But keep an eye out for me anyway. Oh!’ said Jack, ‘this place is cozy. Why not stay here?’

‘Time is of the essence. Shameless humans think they're going to celebrate somewhere and I can't allow it’

‘Celebrate what?’

‘..good question’. Jack creeped out of his eye a few compartments then turned to face Dimrat. The head grinned, then said ‘don't you want to find out?’

Jack shook his head. 'Sounds noisy'

'Humans are the noisiest of all. Especially bards. If there was ever a definitive reason to slaughter them all it is their acceptance of musical men. Perfumed limp-wristed peacocks with plumage. It is backward thinking and must be purged’

'That does sound strange'

The gentle blue caught Dimrat’s eye. Small luminous mushrooms climbed up one side.

[Evermyth]: a rarer, more potent species of Illumishrooms. Grows upon the dying wish of light.

Consumable: grants [Spirita Lucida]: temporary detachment of spirit and vessel.

Quality: exquisite

Quantity: 16

‘Intriguing. I suppose I should start collecting ingredients. Who knows what they’re used for’

The Evermyth twinkled away into his recipecraft list, and the darkness returned.

Eventually he waded his way through the watery veins grooved out over time, to the end of the ride much lower down, where he resurfaced then shook the wet from his ever-rising brow. He floated down a wall that overhung a ridge of calcified flatcap mushrooms and ruined stonework. He landed with a quiet hover beside a familiar sunken statue of a maiden that clasped a bell, then gazed up at an even more familiar hill of bones; a lofty climb that overhung with sporophore Mushtrees and fell with liquid mist. It was the unknown burial grounds high above. He was back in the abyss. Back before the statue. His targets resided just beyond several intimidating holes above a bonepile, and he knew exactly what dwelled in there.

‘Of course. Why would it be anything less’

He turned to face the statue, and Jack peeped the ridge of Dimrat’s brow alongside him.’

‘...Is it God?’

‘Nothing so lowly. It’s an unknown monarch’

‘She doesn’t like me’

‘..me neither. But pay respects anyway’

The statue’s scorn did not discriminate. He sighed, then turned towards the den. ‘Forgive us, my lady. We are all that’s left to defend your honour. Watch over us’

A deep gutter echoed from the den. It could only be the Denmaker. His targets were five small ones somewhere inside, but he knew there was more. Here at the bottom of the world, at the edge of oblivion, he would battle against the odds for a single foot on the ladder. Or he would perish, along with the vengeance of aeons, and so end the Fallen.