Theo screamed at the pain of Kal’ech’s claws digging into his new-forged gills. Kal’ech had turned in a flash, so quickly that Theo barely registered it. His other hand — the one not holding Theo by the throat — had dropped the lightning staff and was holding his knife hand. Kal’ech sneered, and for the first time Theo could see the monstrosity of his face: wide black eyes, nostrils without a nose, thin blue lips covering teeth like a shark’s. Kal’ech spoke, and Theo could see the black ichor that coated each tooth, see bits of flesh rotting between them. But his face was expressive, intelligent, and at the moment, full of unbridled hatred. He said something in a language Theo could not understand.

“Vaub ekrek ma’anach triasteth,” Kal’ech hissed. He squeezed Theo’s hand and pain flashed up his arm; he dropped the knife to the ground, bone clattering on the stone of the pyramid. He screamed as he felt the bones in his wrist begin to crack. So not a total glass cannon, then, Theo thought.

He felt Kal’ech’s claws digging deeper into his gills, a pain like none he’d ever known, like broken glass in his lungs. He dangled like he was a fresh-caught fish in a trophy photograph, kicking his feet. His vision began to black out, starts weaving at the edges. He tried breathing, but it felt like the air wouldn’t come. In a last ditch effort, he brought up his other hand and began pouring mana into it. Thorns began to coalesce around the edges…

Kal’ech squeezed his throat harder, making pain shoot through Theo’s body. The spell dissipated, thorns falling away into dust. He grasped at Kal’ech’s hand, trying to pry the claw from his gills. No luck — he was too strong.

Okay, Theo thought, here goes nothing.

He reached into himself for what mana he had left. It wasn’t much, after the fight with the fishfolk, but he had enough for one more big spell…

He drew the mana not to his hands, but to his stomach. The bile-like flavor of squid ink began to rise in his throat, bubbling up like acid. He swallowed once, burped, and then vomited.

Vomited a pure stream of black ink, right into Kal’ech’s face.

It wasn’t the volume or pressure of ordinary vomit. It was more like a fire hose, releasing and endless torrent of black ichor directly into Kal’ech’s face. The fish-man closed his eyes, turned his head against the spray, but it simply kept coming. It was far too much liquid to actually be held in the human body, and soon the whole top of the pyramid was black with ink. It mixed with the water cascading down the pyramid’s sides, sending rivulets of shadowy ink into the pool below.

The ink surged out of him, uncontrollable, and then, just as it began, it ended. The flow slowed, then stopped, the firehouse cinched off at the source. He burped up one last mouthful onto Kal’ech’s face, who just stood there, dumbfounded.

The chamber was silent for a moment, only the drip-drip of ink from Kal’ech’s face making sound. Kal’ech blinked his eyes open, their sclera somehow even darker than the ink itself, and spat out a glob of ink from his mouth.

Then he gasped. Theo watched as something silvery ejected from his mouth, its sheen covered in green blood. It pushed further and further out of the fish-lord’s mouth, until Theo realized: it was a blade.

The sword jutted from Kal’ech’s open mouth, his lips resting on it. The surprise of it seemed apparent on Kal’ech’s face, his eyes wide. But then, still gasping for air, trying to breathe around the sword in his head, Kal’ech began to slip. First he dropped Theo, his hands moving to his face instead of Theo’s gills. Theo dropped painfully to the floor, gasping for air. He looked up at Kal’ech, who stood frozen, sword keeping him pinned in place.

Then the sword vanished. It sucked back through Kal’ech’s head with a sickening slippery sound, and the fish lord wobbled, losing balance. He dropped to his knees, right in front of Theo, and that’s when Theo saw Blake. He stood behind Kal’ech, sword in hand, panting and looking furiously down at his victim. He was coated in green blood, so much so that it looked like war paint.

Blake let out a furious howl, then swung his sword at Kal’ech’s neck. In a flash, the sword split through the scales, sending green blood cascading across Theo’s face. Kal’ech’s head fell to the stone, bounced once, and then rolled to the edge of the pyramid. It stalled for a moment, teetering on the edge, before plummeting over the side. For a moment, there was only the sound of its soft thunking as it plodded down the steps of the pyramid. Finally, Theo heard a splash.

He looked at Kal’ech’s corpse, still kneeling, hovering for a moment, before he fell and lay still, headless in a pool of blood and ink.

All was silent for a moment. Blake breathed heavily, looking unhinged, a wild glare in his eyes. His shoulders heaved up and down, and he wiped the blood from his lips.

“You okay?” he said.

Theo nodded, then coughed out: “Yeah. Fine.”

In a moment, Alice and Tiberius ran up the final steps of the pyramid. Alice looked from Blake, to Theo, to Kal’ech’s corpse. She grinned wide, then pumped a fist in the air.

“Hell yeah!” she screamed, “we fucking did it!”

Theo and Blake met eyes. Then Theo looked down, off the pyramid, at the line of corpses that they’d left behind.

“I’m so fucking lost,” Theo said, “did we… did we just commit genocide?”

Alice blinked. “What are you talking about? We won!”

Theo stood up, rage suddenly flooding him. “Look around you! Look at those people! What have we done!”

Blake grit his teeth. “We survived. We won the game.”

“It’s not a fucking game!” Theo screamed.

“That’s exactly what it is!” Blake shouted back, “it’s a game. A Great Game. You win, or you die. We didn’t choose this, but I’m not fucking dying here. If you want to kill yourself, or get yourself killed because you’re guilty about it, that’s on you. But you have two choices: live or die. I intend to live.”

He shook his head and moved to Kal’ech’s corpse. He knelt down and picked up the lightning staff. As he held it, electricity crackled around it, making Blake’s hair stand on end.

Alice eyed Theo as she moved to Kal’ech’s corpse. “He’s right, you know,” she said. Then she began rifling through Kal’ech’s pockets.

Theo closed his eyes. Were they right? Was any of this even real?

Tiberius came up and nuzzled his hand. He looked down and saw his dog’s muzzle soaked in blood. He closed his eyes. This is reality now, Theo, he told himself, you need to get used to it.

People could get used to anything.

That was the terrifying part.

-

You have defeated Kal’ech, God-Priest of the Deep Ones. Some of his universal power has been transferred to you.

Your Path of Evolution ability has been activated. You have learned the ability Warp Water (Minor)

You have defeated the Dungeon Core Being: Kal’ech, God Priest of the Deep Ones (Projection). The Dungeon Core’s power is no longer holding you here. The dungeon core will regenerate in approximately: Fifty Five Multiversal Standard Years.

Theo frowned. They’d killed Kal’ech. He could see the priest’s headless corpse. Why did it say that he was going to regenerate?

He filed away the notification that he’d learned Warp Water to check out the skill later. That seemed actually useful, unlike some of the others. Then again, Silent Swim — and even Ink Squirt — had been instrumental in killing Kal’ech.

Alice and Blake looted Kal’ech’s corpse together, pleased to find a number of useful items. First was the lightning staff:

Staff of Lightning Over the Endless Sea: A powerful staff carved from driftwood, etched with Aquarian runes. This staff allows the user to cast the spell “Lightning Bolt.” The power of the bolt is dependent on the user’s spell casting Essence.

The staff went to Blake. One, because he was better with elemental magic than Theo, and two, because he claimed it first. Theo didn’t feel like arguing. There was something different about Blake. He tried to imagine his friend killing anything, even fish folk, before the Great Game, and couldn’t. He was changing. They all were. Whether it was shock, or PTSD, or just cruel necessity, Theo couldn’t say.

The next useful thing was Kal’ech’s robes. Theo cast identify on them.

Robes of the Weightlessness of Water: Allows the user to greatly reduce their weight, allowing them to leap higher, run farther, carry more, and even levitate. This ability increases based on the user’s speed and agility.

These, naturally, went to Alice. Her speed was far greater than either Blake’s or Theo’s. She equipped them over her leather armor, and the gauzy robes floated around her like they had Kal’ech. She was able to leap and hover in the air for a moment, and spent the next few minutes practicing.

Blake took the rest of what was in Kal’ech’s corpse: potions, mostly. But then, swirling from Kal’ech’s inventory, a book appeared. It was bound in black scales, embossed with green copper letters. Theo cast identify.

Grimoire of Kal’ech, God-Priest of the Deep Ones: This appears to be a Grimoire of some kind, written in a mixture of Aquarian and Deepspeak. Grimoires are books in which wizards, witches, and other spell casters record their arcane knowledge.

“Don’t suppose you speak Aquarian?” Blake said.

Theo shook his head. He’d wiped off as much blood as he could, but his face was still caked in it. He was shaken up, hardly able to focus on anything.

“Me neither,” Blake said, “here. Maybe it will be good for something.”

He passed the book to Theo. It was heavy, the pages made of something other that paper — skin, maybe, something waterproof. He didn’t mind getting the worst loot. He had, after all, gotten his fish scale armor and nearly killed them all.

He flipped through the pages, trying to puzzle out the tightly packed scribbles and diagrams. Giving up, he absorbed it into his inventory.

After they’d looted Kal’ech’s corpse, the headless portion still near them dissolved in a flash of green light, like sparks dying in water. It faded away, until there was only a burn mark and smear of blood. It didn’t surprise Theo. He guessed that wasn’t the real Kal’ech. If Kal’ech really was a God-Priest, he wouldn’t die to a single sword. No, he recalled the information given to him earlier: dungeons formed around powerful beings like a pearl around a grain of sand. They’d defeated this version of Kal’ech, but his dungeon still existed. Kal’ech would bide his time and return. To what end, Theo didn’t know.

The three of them sat for a while, pouring through notifications and allowing skill points. The final battle had taken them all well into Level Four.

“We should go,” Theo said. “We have the levels. We need to find Jessica.”

Alice and Blake nodded. The began to pack up the loot they were sorting, gearing up for battle. They’d washed off as best they could too, but still looked weary and traumatized.

From the top of the pyramid, getting to the back gate wasn’t too difficult. They found a lever that released the drawbridge, making the way out move more quickly than Theo expected. They found a back set of stairs that lead into a long hall. On either side, empty chambers seemed surprisingly residential: kitchens and bedrooms and meeting halls. He supposed that they were for Kal’echs followers, when they awoke. Those that Theo hadn’t killed.

Finally, they came to a single door in a large atrium. It was marked with the face of Kal’ech. Theo raised a hand and cast identify.

You have reached the Exit of this dungeon! Exit?

Theo accepted, and the stone door broke open. Sunlight poured through, and they stepped out…

Into an icy forest Theo didn’t recognize. Snow covered the ground, a light frosting of late fall.

Theo blinked. “Where the fuck are we?”