With a hiss, Eric lurched back to his back feet as fears he thought finally put to rest flared to new life, recalling in that moment that there were no less than three orc controlled territories in close proximity to his sister’s final bastion.

One was the territory just before Greystone, Pilmsburg, with a massive citadel he just couldn’t crack with high level gunners sniping at him from well over a mile away. Two others were red territories to the east that he had yet to enter.

Should those three territories be successfully claimed, then this entire section of the map would be owned by Blue corp or the Sylvan alliance, and he was 90% sure that the Redfang alliance would be no more.

Thoughts quickly pushed to the back of his mind as a far more alarming development revealed itself when he tried to quickly check his assumption, finding himself completely unable to access his Character Sheet Interface in any way.

“Jeezus effing… what the hell is this?”

Eric shook his head in dismay, finally thinking to pull up his Extradimensional Storage Space, eyes widening at the surge of blinking reds slowly approaching his sister’s so recently broken fortifications, having just crossed the barrier between territories.

It wasn’t that the numbers were vast.

It was that even on his interface, a handful were glaring a brilliant fiery red.

Unlike anything he had ever seen before.

“What the hell?”

“Eric! You’re back! Thank god! Can you hear me!?”

Eric flinched at the unexpected panic he heard in his sister’s mind, deciding that blatant telepathy was the least of the weirdness he had been through lately. If anything, would be a damn nice edge over sending what amounted to system interface e-mails. Slow, clumsy, and, he feared, perhaps just as interceptable as digital e-mails had once been.

“Eric, please!”

“Yeah, I hear you! I just got back”

The sense of his sister’s relief was both palpable and alarming. A second’s concentration, however, and the tinny sound in his mind’s ear sounded just like his sister would, if he were chatting with her over dinner or their favorite role playing game.

“Thank god! You were gone so long that I was terrified something had gone wrong!”

Eric froze with those words, body stiffening with sudden tension.

There was so much he wanted to ask his sister, but one question demanded an answer right away.

“Fuck. How long was I gone?”

“A month, Eric.”

Eric blinked in disbelief. Surprised to find that he felt only the faintest tinge of thirst, though he could certainly use a good night’s sleep. Then he winced, shaking his head. “Shit, shit, shit! Rica! She’s been stuck in that awful metal cage, under the yolk of goblins and fuck knows what else for who knows how many weeks… or months! And what about her baby? What about little Ria? Or fuck, poor Caliban?”

“Eric! I know how much you care for Rica… I do too. She and her daughter both. And I will do my part, whatever I can, to help you, to help them, as soon as I can, I promise you.”

“Good,” Eric whispered. “Because if I run fast enough, maybe I can make it to—“

“Eric, please! Listen to me!”

“Elonia, I have to go!”

“They have level fifty mercenaries invading our territory right this instant!”

Elonia said, voice trembling with desperate urgency. “Level fifty stone giants and just as bad, Elder Shamans! Elder Shamans that have blocked all access to our storage spaces! Shamans that have invoked ritual curses guaranteeing the disruption of almost any spell I can cast!”

Eric furrowed his brow. “Fuck, fuck! How the hell? I thought level 30 was the cap!”

“So did I,” Elonia whispered. “Even Mother hadn’t expected it… but the look in her eyes when she consulted with her counselors… apparently, there is a way. If you’ve been reduced below a certain strength, if you’re at risk of losing it all, and we damn well were intending on wiping them out… and if you have the right resources, like goblins with billions of credits at their disposal who are determined to make an example of our entire clan… then yes. You can bend that rule, and hire advanced white tier mercenaries. But then you only have a month to eliminate one race with which you are at war. IF you can do that, then congratulations, you get to keep level 50 pawns on your board.”

Eric cursed, long and loud. “Fucking hell! That’s bullshit! They’ve had you outnumbered and outgunned for months, and even now you’re down to just two territories. Two! They still outnumber you in territories and, I’m guessing, numbers!”

“I know.” His sister’s voice was clipped and bitter. “It’s messed up and beyond twisted. No matter what’s been promised, with goblins using high tier lawfare, and with so many corrupt Administrators in their pocket, the only way we can possibly have a fair shake against those bastards, ever, is if we wipe them completely off the board! No neutral cities, no treaties, no compromises, no mercy! Because any inch we give them will be all the razor wire they need to rip open our throats!”

Eric felt chills at the bitter intensity of her voice. Before nodding, in complete and utter agreement. “You’re right. Those fuckers thrive on malice. Contracts are just tools they use to manipulate their enemies. Orcs might wield the muskets, cannon, and axes… But goblins are integral to the orc strategy, buffing their allies from the rear with credits, and hindering their opponents with sniping assassins and twisted contracts, their goal clearly being to enslave and steal whatever orcs don’t butcher and consume. Both tribes are equally vile, no matter that one uses legality for camouflage and the other relies of force of arms alone. Both tribes must be purged from our world. There can be no more compromises with those bastards. Not ever.”

Eric squeezed his fist, his plans for Freetown shifting in an instant, a bastion of equanimity and understanding turning crimson and black as he forced himself to game out exactly what he’d have to do to eliminate the threat to him and his family, once and for all.

Eric clenched the hilt of his sword, flashing a fierce smile. “First, let’s see just how strong the lock on my ES Space truly is!”

Eric had confidence in his ability, clenching his fist and his will as he visualize bursting open his ES Space to the accompaniment of the panicked shouts and cries of whatever shaman had dared to bind a space that was an extension of his very soul.

Eric’s smile widened, sensing his treasures so close he could all but touch them, knowing it would be, should be, effortless to pull them out.

Yet somehow, no matter how he tried, slippery fingers just couldn’t quite grasp a hold of his prizes, and Eric found himself stumbling to the ground, fists clenched so tight they were cramping, unable to grasp a single thing.

“What the fuck!” Eric grit his teeth, forcing a hard grin as his eyes blazed with furious embers too long banked. “You assholes wanna play hardball? Fine! Let’s see what you think of thirteen thousand revenants clawing through your goddamned asses!”

Eric raised his clenched fist, silver serpentine ring glowing with an eldritch flame a mundane might mistake for the brilliant light of the moon glittering off it as Eric whispered the words binding so many thousands to his eternal service.

“Surge, centuria! Imperator imperat tibi!”

For long moments he stared at the empty field of grass rustling in the forlorn breeze.

Alone save for the fierce surge of frustration he felt, sensing countless thousands of soldiers just a single impermeable membrane away from marching by his side.

And oh yes, the smug laughter of orc shamans and the cackling glee of countless goblins cursing his name. He most definitely sensed that.

“Elonia?”

“Yes, brother?”

“We have a fucking problem.”

He sensed her bitter laughter. “No shit.”

Eric smirked. “Right now I came to, buck naked on the battlefields I fought and killed so many of those bastards on, and now I can’t raise a single one. All locked inside this ancient pristine artifact that my spirit somehow slips right off of, making it impossible for me to pull any of my legions through, any more than I can even summon a set of clothes, or armor that should be bound to my soul.”

“Shit. Eric, I’m sorry.” He sensed her anxious pause. “Eric… I know I probably shouldn’t ask but… are you sure you don’t want to join us? We really could use you. Working together, with your skills and powers, even hindered as we both are right now...”

Eric smiled, making sure his sister could sense both his sympathy, appreciation, and compassion, even as he shook his head. “No can do, sis. Tell you a secret?”

“Always.”

“let’s just say, I really, really benefit from solo play right now. And as long as that’s consistently the case, I’ll do us both a hell of a lot more good playing just as I am now… for as long as I can.”

He sensed her muted frustration, transforming to bemused acceptance. “Eric… the few moments that I got to see you were a weight off my heart, but… I could see it.”

Eric furrowed his brow. “See what?”

She sighed. “Your potency. Shining so bright it was almost blinding. There was no way you could hide it.”

Eric smirked. “Any chance you can have someone bring me some clothes, maybe some armor or javelins? Or a fire wand. Hell, pretty much anything.” His rapid jog slowed down to a walk, Eric smiling with relief to find that the ruined barricade protecting the Sylvan fortifications within had been absolutely transformed since the marble-faced wall had been destroyed just a month ago. It was now a fifty foot high bulwark of grand proportions no doubt forged in part with the work of one or perhaps multiple earth mages, and it filled Eric with pure happiness to see no less than twenty of those massive 24-pounder cannons mounted in reinforced batteries along the wall.

“No problem, brother. You see the young woman racing toward you right now with way too big a smile?”

Eric winced, instantly recognizing the strikingly beautiful girl rapidly approaching, and understanding why his sister could sense her and her state of mind so well. Because Annika, Lord Drevyn’s daughter, was herself a former diplomat and now, apparently, had accepted the mantel of Champion, along with her father and Lady Velonia, which meant that she could access the tactical interface and hold and claim territories in Elonia’s name.

“She just got here,” he thought to his sister as a brightly grinning Annika slowed down, flashing Eric a teasing smile.

“I see our hero has returned a bit under-dressed for another dance with our favorite partners,” Elonia said with a teasing smile, though she was gracious enough to stop at ten paces and slowly put down a packet of clothes which were of course a Sylvan officer’s uniform that fit his frame just a bit too tightly, at risk of ripping at the biceps and shoulders. Eric couldn’t help but smirk at the way the poor girl bit her lip, heart rate spiking as Eric caught her gaze with his own.

“Thanks, Annika,” he said, carefully taking a moment to scrawl ‘free agent’ in crimson upon the commander’s insignia sewn into the attire. Not that it was necessary… but just in case lawfare masters, corrupt Administrators, or anyone else would use any excuse to declare him a tool of the Sylvan faction just to further mess with him, he thought it best to cover his bases.

It was paranoid to the point of absurdity, he knew, but considering that he was even now having to get dressed in front of a girl goggling at him with something close to awe, with zero access to not only his own supplies but his own undead, because his enemies were that well versed in his abilities, or had paid off god knew how many millions of credits to seers or other information gatherers in their efforts to learn his abilities and counter him… best leave no vulnerabilities visible that enemies could exploit any more than they already had.

He frowned down at the belted sheath he had secured over his mail hauberk, happy that the chain suspension was actually decent, sufficient to balance even his fifty pound mithril blade. But he seriously doubted it would last long at all before his blade eventually sawed through. He frowned, finally settling on a backsheath arrangement, such that the weight would rest on his pommel and wouldn’t be at quite so much risk of slicing right through the sheath.

Bottom line, he thought, carefully checking the weight and feel of the bundle of pilum a wide-eyed Annika solemnly handed him, was that after throwing his load, it was mithril blade time until the battle was done.

“Thank you, Annika,” he said, after spending what he thought were too many minutes burning time with the basics, but had, in fact, been less than fifteen, and now he had water in his belly and a canteen secured on his opposite hip, though feeling a bit too tense with upcoming battle to worry about filling his belly.

He tilted his head, flashing the breathless and completely flustered looking Annika a bemused smile. “Are you okay? You seem a bit out of sorts.”

Annika blinked, then flushed, quickly shaking her head. “What? No it’s just that you...” She licked her lips, slowly shaking her head. “By the goddess, you really don’t know, do you?”

Eric blinked, tilting his head in confusion. “I don’t understand. Know what?”

“Just how goddamned handsome you are. Like a champion from the storybooks brought to life, to live among us mortals.” She bit her lip, cheeks flushing prettily as Elonia’s musical laughter washed over both their interfaces. “Wait, what? Why the hell did I say that out loud?”

Her cheeks grew all the brighter as she flushed and looked away. “I… um… yeah. Eric, honestly, you’re now beyond good looking.” She chuckled ruefully. “If I had ever doubted that you and your sister were the mortal offspring of a Silver Goddess, I do no longer. You, Eric, look just as divinely beautiful as she does. Only… different. More masculine. Maybe even more… intense?”

Annika shook her head in confusion. “I don’t exactly know the word I’m looking for,” she said, breath hitching in her throat as she stepped closer to him, voice turning husky as soft brown eyes gazed into blazing orbs of sapphire blue. “I just know that I want to taste you more than I ever wanted anything in my...”

And for all that his Quickness and Finesse were beyond the pale, Eric truly hadn’t expected the soft warm taste of her lips against his own.

His heart began to pound.

It was all he could do not to surrender to the hunger of those lips, or the tongue questing, probing, desperate for more as strong sensual hands began to quest for other prizes as well.

“Are you two fucking serious? Now, of all times? Eric, level fifties are coming! We might have 40 cannon at the ready, thanks to you saving our asses, but with those greater curse shamans in play, I won’t count on that gunpowder not blowing up in our faces!”

Eric froze at the angry sharp sound of his sister’s voice. His cheeks blazed as he stepped back. Not having done any thing, really, save stand there in a daze. And now Annika was flushing and twisting her fingers, unable to even meet his gaze.

“I… I gotta get back. Just… thank you.” Hungry brown eyes dared to gaze into his own once more. “You really should join us, Eric. Formally. We need you.” She licked her lips. “I’ll make sure you never regret it,” she whispered, before turning around and sprinting back for the keep on the far side of the bulwark as fast as her insanely quick pace could take her, leaving a bemused Eric shaking his head.

What the hell had just happened?

“Eric!”

His sister’s growing panic instantly jolted him out of his momentary bemusement. He shook his head, turning east, his jog rapidly turning to a ground-eating sprint. And how delightful it was to feel the wind whipping his hair back, as if he were riding his motorbike on an empty stretch of highway. Only now, it was nothing but the exhilarating rush of pumping his legs back and forth as fast as he could, never having felt lighter, or stronger, than he had at that moment, somehow not surprised to find that his Quickness really had shot up to 200. Best of all, it fell like it was all him, the fruit of his own efforts, even if his rate of growth and improvement was nothing short of absurd.

“Fucking yes! Okay sis, lay it out for me. What am I up against?”

“Jeezus, Eric! How fast are you… my tactical interface is clocking you at well above 100 MPH!”

Eric couldn’t quite hold back his snarky smile as he leaped over a hillock, somersaulting through the air with a rebel yell. “That’s the beauty of Strength, Vitality, and Quickness all beyond the fucking pale, with a decent Finesse to back it up, so I’m not sent flying like a fool over every dip in the ground. Because rolling fields aren’t exactly the highway.” Eric frowned. “And maybe I should be using the remnants of whatever roads are around here?”

Her sister was silent for too many seconds.

Eric frowned. “Elonia?”

“What the fuck do you even mean by beyond the pale?”

Eric shrugged. “180 and above?”

“180? Are you fucking serious? I have one stat around 170. Count it. One. Because I specialized to an absolutely absurd degree. Orc assassins can still easily kill me, as you well know, and I’ve already hit level 40!”

Eric winced, having no idea what to say to that.

At least his sister’s rueful chuckle broke the awkward tension. “Honestly, Eric, you really are beyond the pale.” He could sense her teasing smile. “And you always were one for breaking the rules in any PvP game.”

Eric smirked. “Damn right. I’d Wallhack my ass off right now, if I could. Since this is real life, and no bullshit gentlemen’s honor game, it’s about using any and every advantage we possibly can. Because if we don’t...”

“Our enemies will wipe us completely off the map.” The tension in his sister’s mind was back in full force, instantly killing Eric’s bemusement. “Thank god you’re as strong as you are, Eric. We’re going to need it. The army heading our way consists of at least 3, maybe 4 high White Tier curse mages, all of them at least level 50, and a full quartet of Stone Giants. From what mother let slip, those bastards have unlimited ammo, and can throw those boulders forever.”

Eric frowned. “Four curse mages, four boulder tossing stone giants. Anything else?”

“Yes. Two thousand orcs and half a dozen bronze cannon. No gunners, though. None we spotted, anyway.” He sensed her shrug. “It’s pretty much everything our enemy has left, since they already claimed the maximum number of recruits with the territories they had. Honestly, they must be literally billions of credits in the hole with the goblins with all the resources they managed to pull on us since you first saved our asses. 80 fucking 24-pounders? 13,000 troops? And now, in the final hour, pulling another two quartets of level 50 opponents from an unauthorized teleport point? Fucking absurd.”

Eric winced. “And I have no access to any of my toys, or even the legion in my ring. Fucking hell.”

Elonia chuckled bitterly. “Funny how that all worked out. That they knew just what specialists to hire to cause maximum havoc amongst us and our key ally.”

Eric’s lips pressed in a hard line. “They’re a race of vicious money-grubbing little fucks with momentary flashes of genius because they have people who can parse secrets from the literal ether.”

“Goblin Seers,” Elonia hissed. “Our absolute bane.”

Eric nodded. “Any idea what their range is?”

“I’ve heard varying accounts. Anywhere from a mile range to planet-wide for those who ascend past White tier. Though whether that’s Bronze or Silver, I have no idea.”

“Good. So it’s not System-wide?”

Elonia snorted. “If they were that powerful… we’d either all be wearing their collars already, or countless other races would have been purged them from the System long ago.”

“Fair point,” Eric said with a grim smile. “Okay. Assuming we survive this… you know what our next step absolutely has to be.”

He could sense his sister’s bleak smile, the mirror of his own. “Damn right I do. And for once, we’re in luck. You know the goblins invested in two Freetowns, right?”

Eric furrowed his brow. “Yes, but I’m not entirely sure what that means.”

“It means cities where treaties are signed by multiple parties, where none may aggress the other, all for the purposes of trade.”

Eric nodded, before he nearly stumbled to a halt, cursing and shaking his head, forced to give credit where it was due. “Those clever little fucks. So long as they have Freetowns set up that way, warring races can’t actually go to war with them there. Is that what you’re saying? They can just snipe at you from a distance, duck into the towns they effectively own through slavery and debt traps, and just laugh in your face and give you the finger?”

“Precisely, brother!” Elonia said with a smirk in her voice. “If there’s a single silver lining its that despite them being set up to cause us maximum grief, not too many other races like them either. You’ll note they’ve claimed zero other territories, despite offering any adventurer who qualifies as a Contender a 40% profit share with no strings, for any territory said adventurers throw the goblin’s way. I suspect they’re trying to keep relevant as Contenders, not just profiteers already winning the economic game with so much wealth now getting funneled through their bank, by claiming an ever larger piece of the orcish pie.”

Eric grit his teeth, feeling his anger start to spike once more as he picked up his pace, sprinting as fast as he could in an effort to distract himself and focus his ire. “So the goblins are protected by Freetowns where their sages can shelter with impunity and get the dirt on all of us, while using their money, assassins, and connections to enhance their allies with utter impunity. And that will still be in play, even if we survive their latest attempts to crush us to dust.”

“Pretty much,” Elonia chuckled bitterly. “When mother said the deck would be stacked against us the minute she recognized the names of some of those politicians elected to Administrator status… she wasn’t kidding.”

Eric snarled. It was all he could do to clench the tight surge of caustic fury boiling in his gut.

He needed to focus. To carefully plan his next move. To react not with fire but killing ice, measuring his foe’s every strength and weakness. And it was only when he calmed his hot fury to chilly focus that it finally clicked, the backdoor past even the goblin’s most obnoxious defense.

“Vendetta.”

A single word, whispered in the spirit link that perhaps all twins shared in this brave new world. Or perhaps only he and his sister. Either way, he could only hope she understood.

Because he would say no more than that.

Just in case.

“Eric, you didn’t!”

His eyes twinkled with darkest mirth his sister couldn’t see, but could certainly sense. “Oh, but I did. The moment I found out what our enemies were planning on doing, and had done to you… and everyone fighting under your banner.” He snorted. “Imagine my surprise when the goblin and orc factions happily accepted, and I found out that it was more than just declaring my hate. It meant the goblins, and the orcs, were no longer bound by any third party contracts or treaties not to come after me or mine. It meant that it was now a free-for-all genocide between our groups, and only when one faction or the was completely wiped from the face of Earth would it end.”

Elonia was silent for endless moments before the ether rang with her laughter. “Oh that’s perfect. Perfect! Those fuckers refused to declare Vendetta against the Sylvan Alliance. Refused! Saying a just an honorable war was all that was needed. But after you fucked with all their efforts to claim our brother’s holdings in Freetown, then squeezed them so hard that they were forced to surrender rights to their banking monopoly? Made to let you in on all that action with a smile? Fuck, Eric. No wonder they’re more than happy to accept your declaration! They’ll do everything they can to make an example of you, hit you hard in every way that they can think of!”

Eric clenched his jaw, jerking a nod. “What those fuckers failed to realize is that it works both ways.”

Elonia snorted. “Or maybe they do. And that’s why you don’t have access to any of your troops or toys. Because at least now they know enough to fear you.”

Eric’s lips widened in a feral grin as his eyes alit upon the vague outline of troops, some looming so high Eric momentarily thought he was far closer to the invading army than he actually was. Eric swallowed against the sudden tension, somehow sensing the curses binding shut his ability to access his ES Interface or Summoning Ring growing impossibly tight and restrictive as he managed line-of-sight upon the shamans in question.

And his heart all but froze in his chest when he sensed their questing Purple eyes suddenly peering his way.

Fuck!

Their power, the weight of their souls… was immense.

At that moment, like never before, Eric felt like a bumbling half-trained fool. Because strength aside, his actual arcane arts consisted of no more than a handful of runes he had only begun to understand, let alone master. And even from here, he could feel the odd pressure of discordance. Even the chain mail links of his hauberk were rattling oddly. And how grateful he was that the most popular armor for over two thousand years was the farthest thing from being easily manipulated into being a hindrance… but the links now jangled. Audibly, discordantly, in a way they hadn’t, just five seconds before.

And that, more than anything else, clued Eric in to the shaman’s devastating power.

He counted it a miracle that his mithril blade, and the sheath he had finally given in to the necessity of soul-binding after infusing it with his blood and the Essene of Dominion and the rune of Resilience, seemed to be utterly immune to the distant shaman’s manipulation.

Yet the relief he felt was short-lived when the pair of emaciated-looking orcs raised their staves and began chanting in unison, the skies above growing black and thick with unexpected clouds.

Eric’s eyes widened in sudden panic, not knowing exactly what the bastards were going to pull. but as they had range on him and he had nothing but his sword and two thousand musket-wielding troops between him and the shamans, he had no choice but to retreat, the ground exploding in lightning as he darted away for all he was worth.

Quickness check made. You have successfully dodged lightning blast!

Quickness check made. You have partially dodged lightning blast! Arcane resistance absorbs 2 Tiers worth of damage! You have suffered 75 Damage and one Medium Wound.

Unified Restoration in effect!

You have begun to heal!

You have avoided being stunned!

“Fuck!” Eric screamed once more, his exquisite hearing effortlessly picking up the orcs’ distant raucous laughter in between thunderous booms as he was forced to flee for all he was worth… with bolts of lightning continuously striking his ass.