While confusion continued to wrack at her face, the Lady had no clue what was about to happen. Somewhere in her torso, my demonic ace released five different concoctions of various poisons.
Maybe cruelty had been the point, and at the end of the day, I was no better than her ilk. I could have easily put a spell scroll or even a chair in there that might have killed her quicker. Instead, I watched as tens of new debuff icons appeared over her head.
She also dropped to her knees and immediately threw up. Her hands shook as she tried to withdraw something from her Inventory to counteract some of the damage. I didn’t have the strength to stop her—at least, not physically. I blinked slowly as I hit her with the upgraded
“How could you do this?” she asked between dry heaves.
I didn’t really have any words for her. My demonic ace and patron sword came and hovered either side of me. Wings and horns fell away as I dropped
Her hand slipped and the bottle she had taken out shattered against the floor. She was suffering and it would only get worse.
I sighed and found the strength to push myself up to my feet. Wavered slightly, feeling lightheaded from the loss of blood. “I’ll not gloat over your death, just as you did for those you killed. This is revenge, but I take no joy in it. Violence begets violence.” I shook my head and sighed again. “Any last words?”
“You’ll regret this,” she croaked, her eyes streaming. “I don’t know how you can live in a world like this.”
I withdrew my [Knife of the Trickster] and stepped over to her. “I guess seeing is believing.” Using what little strength I could muster, I stabbed down toward her, intending on piercing through her eye. The punchline missed, as she managed to gather the willpower to dodge slightly, my knife cutting along the side of her cheek instead. Her eyes widened in seeing my final trick.
In losing my arm, I had stolen the skill used by her dagger. The red glow faded from my weapon, but it was too late for her. The side of the Lady in Red's head exploded outwards, and she flopped onto the floor. I dropped my knife, and it vanished before hitting the ground. No elation. Just emptiness. Relief? No, now there was...
Pain wracked within my skull, my heartbeat thundering through my brain. The deed was done.
I felt the pulse of her Guardian powers circle around me like two marbles spiraling down toward a bottomless hole. Three was too much for one person to handle—I could tell. Painfully. Something else itched about the process, though. With all my magic knowledge, I could sense the whole greater than its parts. This close to coming undone, the picture started to clear. There was… another purpose for these powers. I closed my eyes and forced them away toward these lines of magic. Guided even my own power to follow these routes. I blinked my eyes back open after a short period as a chill ran through, the process not destroying me.
The Lady was dead. I left my demonic ace full of enough spells to incinerate her corpse once I left the room. Now that my wits were returning, delayed messages pinged through my chat.
[Fiona: West beacon down.]
[Fiona: We are heading towards keep now.]
[Fiona: City Guard are now on our side and assisting.]
[Fiona: Killed several groups of Monsters plus a basilisk.]
[Fiona: Keep beacon down, Ren is injured. Safe.]
[Fiona: Regrouped to assist Wolf.]
I practically ran from the room as my ace let it rip. It was no wonder neither of the others had joined me in the fight - and that last message was recent. I hit the staircase, my whole body complaining about every step.
The scene below was a massacre. Piles of dismembered Monsters lay scattered in piles, the whole floor below covered in blood and gore. In the center was Wolf laying down, soaked through in crimson as Ruby tended to his wounds. Laying up against him was Ren, while Fiona and Mangus kept watch over them.
“Holy shit, Max,” the fighter said, clocking me coming down in a hurry. “Did you… I mean, are you alright?”
I nodded, but my focus was entirely on the elf. At the risk of sliding over spilled innards and slick blood, I ran up to her. The left side of her face was bruised heavily, her golden hair matted with gore. Eyes closed, but as I stood in front of her in panic, they opened slightly.
“Your arm’s off,” she murmured.
“It’ll grow back, promise.” I gave her a glum smile. “What happened to you?”
“Fell off the fucking roof and broke my leg.” She nodded painfully at it. “Same fucking leg.”
“Hey, at least I didn’t split my head open on something,” I said, to which she raised a sluggish arm to prod at a surprisingly sensitive part of my skull.
Her finger withdrew to show me fresh blood. “Dickbag,” she managed, before pushing herself up and into my arms. Arm. “It was great,” she whispered. “Killed five Players using all sorts of bullshit magic and then disabled the beacon… which sent me falling off with Transposition on cooldown.”
“I wish I could have seen it.” The magical side of it, at least. Wolf’s actions were definitely more overt and visceral. It was hard to tell how many he had killed here… but it was a lot.
“Brother,” the bear grumbled.
I let go of the elf to kneel down beside him. He was quite the state, and despite Ruby giving me eyes about my stump of an arm, she seemed worried about him.
“You did well,” I told him, patting him on the shoulder. “I am proud, and we couldn’t have done this without you. What can I do for you?”
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He grunted, and his eyes lazily turned to me. “You can accept my apology.”
“For what?”
The bear let out a long sigh. “My time has come. I have felt it in my bones for days, but I needed to hold out for this.”
My mouth opened and closed, unable to find the words. “Perhaps you just need rest. This probably took a lot out of you.” The slowly shaken head of Ruby told me otherwise.
Ren kneeled down beside me, her eyes already wet. “What apology do we need to accept from you when you have given us your everything?”
His eyes went from me to her. “You accepted me as family. As an equal. When given the power to… have a wish granted… I went for something… selfish.” Wolf closed his eyes. “I never… did like… that… hat.”
The whole room fell into a deep silence. Ren pulled me closer and pressed her face against my shoulder. I looked at the useless floor and placed my hand up against him. With all the danger he put himself in for us all the time, who cared if he wished for something selfish? I didn’t even understand what that…
I blinked away the blur from my eyes to look at my hand. It felt warmer up against his unmoving form. At first, just more than normal body heat, but then I had to move away before I got burned. Ren looked at me with confusion, wiping away her tears as we stood.
Like a bonfire, Wolf’s body burst into flames from the intense heat, fire licking around his body. We were all too dumbfounded to do anything except step back away, dazzled by the bright flames. The fire ate his body away, reducing it down to nothing.
And almost as quickly as it started, the flames flickered and snuffed out. Wispy smoke hovered over the remains, which were surprisingly bright and brown. This shape of untouched fur unfurled out, and Ren gasped.
“Again, my apologies, brother and sister,” the younger voice of Wolf said.
“Like a phoenix,” I said, still unbelieving, as Ren launched herself down onto him. He had died and reborn as a younger version of himself. His wish had been to stay with us, have more years we could spend together. I stooped down to hug him as well.
“As much as I hate to break up a reunion,” Fiona called from the doorway. “Two things. Firstly, something has changed with the beacons. They’re bright like daylight now. Secondly, there were a few Crimson Shitshows still alive, and they’ve banded whatever Monsters were still around and are coming this way.”
I stood, trying to brush myself down with my absent hand. “To the first thing, I filled the beacons with the Guardian powers. Don’t ask me how or why. I’m very lightheaded.” With a more confident smile, I continued. “For the second, perhaps we should bring everyone out for an encore?”
I hit the [Guild Recall] request, and nobody declined. We were Unbreakable.
Mopping up the remnants of the Crimson Shadow went by in no time at all. With the full force of the Guild joined by the returning City Guard, we had little issue at all. The fact that the remaining gang stayed loyal to the Lady even past her death wasn't as comforting as I had hoped. Perhaps better than the alternative, but I was so far gone once the warmth of battle wore off that I barely registered much. Didn't really have the energy to celebrate.
I looked out at the woodlands, my feet wet from the fresh morning dew on the grass outside the cottage. It was a new morning, and things felt... surreal. After itching at my arm stump a little, I just continue to stare off at the horizon, the sun slowly rising. Off to the right, soft snoring came from Wolf's abode—which was little more than a large doghouse.
It wasn't long before the sound of the door behind me snapped me out of my trance, a few soft footsteps before Ren appeared by my side. She wrapped her arm around my right and held my hand, leaning her head on my shoulder.
"You feel out of place because we no longer have the pressure of conflict casting a shadow over our lives."
I nodded. "We are safe. The first day of the rest of our lives. What do we even do?"
"Well..." the elf stepped away from me and tilted her head. "Now that we have more time, perhaps you can teach me some real magic?" With a smile, she held out her hand to reveal a gold coin. "First though, how about a bath?"
Day 3 NE: I have decided to start curating a journal again. This time, instead of filling it with drab introspection, I am pasting my brighter outlook within. As the System is reluctant to give me a proper calendar, I deem the day we slew the Lady in Red as Day 1 of the New Era.
Much to my surprise, the Lady wasn’t the only one who could ‘fix’ the System-created in the world. Far from it—and we have learned in the last few days that putting the Guardian powers in the beacons has done just this. Now smarter and more realistic people roam the land and fill the towns, and I was able to convince Ren and Wolf to give up their powers to put in two other beacons in the first area and starter zone.
Thankfully, it didn’t take away our already given powers, which Ren is especially glad of.
Day 4 NE: My arm grew back.
Day 8 NE: The three of us have started putting on shows! While the audience of System-created is sometimes a little wooden, there is nothing that compares to sharing the warmth of the stage with those two. It feels good to use our skills for something other than violence for a change.
Day 11 NE: Wolf seems to be growing at the rate of one year per two days. Already well into adolescence and eating a barn full of food on the regular. Still his usually grumbling self, but it seems he’ll plateau in adulthood again before his lifespan goes back to normal speed.
Day 12 NE: Hell has frozen over! Or rather, they have finally managed to build up a sustainable and fair government system to run things down there—so I have become something more of a figurehead. I’d like to take credit for it, but it was really all their doing. One of Roger’s many sons is actually on the council now.
Day 14 NE: Part of me had worried that without the constant need to strive to survive, things would fall apart with Ren. A needless worry, really. Things are certainly more domestic now, but we are no less inseparable and in-tune with each other.
Day 23 NE: I found out today how rusty the easy life had gotten us today. Ren and I had been relaxing in the swing outside our cottage when a figure approached us from the woods.
Not a Player that we had seen before, but he didn’t seem threatening. In fact, he came to us with an offer. Apparently he came from a different world, and that there are a lot like our Othea out there suffering similar issues.
His offer was something simple on the surface. Safety. Not just for us, but everyone in Othea. A literal joining of our world with his - a place of broken communities becoming something greater. There we could live a life without conflict, or there were options for adventure, and even some striving against the odds. Ren and I shared a knowing glance at this.
I had to admit I liked the way his fangs caught the light seemed like a practiced technique. I respected the craftsmanship. The traveler asked if we had any knowledge of the way we got into Othea. As Ren described the portals, I dug around in my jacket and produced the folded page from that old book. After reading it, he pocketed it himself to give to someone more in the know and thanked me - assuring me it would be useful. We told him that—even if we believed him—it wasn’t something we could decide on the spot. While we took a few days to consider his offer, I had to my mind was already busy with the potential of my future.
The greatest showman on all worlds. At least, that’s what the posters would say.
Death of the Party, it is currently slow-rolling through book five. If you want something with more shotgun-arms, then is my current main fiction stepping toward the end of book two.
Amazon/Audible in February if you want to follow my author page to get updates on the releases. It's what Roger would have wanted.