Tessa fell, the air around her burning as she passed from a mystical land high above the world, to the [Sunless Deeps] far below it. Her day wasn’t going quite how she’d expected it to, but it was still better than the one most of the rest of the world was experiencing.

“Are you goddamn insane!” Lisa didn’t limit her question to their private channel. She didn’t even limit it to the party only channel.

“The plasma sheath around me suggests the answer is probably yes,” Tessa said. She had to respond on their party’s channel since speaking aloud was effectively impossible with the wind whipping by her at mach speeds.

Shouldn’t we be, you know, incinerated by this? she wondered to herself.

The pit we leapt into seems to have been a transit portal, Pillowcase replied. I don’t think we’re passing through this space in a purely physical manner.

Then why are we covered in fire? Tessa asked, finding that she wasn’t as emotionally invested in the question as she’d imagined she would be.

“What the hell! We can’t see your health bar while you’re zoning. What is happening!” Lisa sounded ready to leap into the pit after Tessa but cooler heads were likely holding her back.

“I’m ok,” Tessa said. “There’s some kind of energy field around me, so the fire’s not roasting me. If this was still the game, I’d say the devs had setup a really nice light show for the return to the regular zones, but I think this might be something new. I mean, normally we can’t talk while zoning right?”

“You had better survive this so I can kill you myself,” Lisa said.

“Thanks, I love you too,” Tessa said. She’d meant the words as a sarcastic quip but instantly regretted letting them tumble out of her lips. 

They weren’t true of course. 

She just had a little crush.

And, the sarcasm would make it clear it was a joke.

Wouldn’t it?

Wasn’t it?

Tessa crashed into a lake of lava and then into something mercifully hard and unyielding.

***

Lisa had to check that she wasn’t breathing literal streams of fire when she exhaled.

Of all the stupid…

Splitting up the party was monumentally idiotic. Nothing was more likely to guarantee a total party kill than that, except, maybe, for jumping into a part of the dungeon that contained enemies of unknown level, ability, and aggressiveness.

How the hell could she!

People were edging slowly away from her. It didn’t bother Lisa. People should move away from bombs that were ready to explode.

Though if she was being fair – which she did not at all feel like being – she could kind of see what Tessa had been thinking.

“What has your leader done?” Yawlorna asked, rising to her full demonic height in concern.

“Jumped into the pit,” Rip said, pointing out the obvious, and buying time for Lisa to put her head together.

“She is suicidal?” Yawlorna asked.

Probably! Lisa thought but kept that observation to herself.

“She’s doing reconnaissance,” she answered as Lost Alice. “It’s risky but less so for her than if we all went.”

Less risky. The words felt like poison in her mouth. She could die. For real. Her heart felt like a ball of barbwire emotions. How could she leave?

Lisa forced herself to breathe. Technically as a vampire she didn’t need to. Sort of. She couldn’t remember all of the lore on [Broken Horizons] various species of vampire, but the act of forcing air in and out of her lungs in slow, deliberate breaths, seemed to produce the same calming effect that it did with her human body.

“We have not agreed to anything yet though,” Yawlorna said, the tension around her eyes radiating down into stiff shoulders and clenched fists.

“She knows you don’t trust us,” Obby said. “This is her giving you a reason to.”

“Proof by deeds not words,” Matt said, nodding in agreement.

“Maybe we should join her?” Rip asked.

“No,” Lisa said. “If we all went and what’s down there is too high level for us, we’d have even less chance to escaping without being noticed.”

“So, we’re just going to sit around here and wait for her to get back?” Rip asked, and for a moment Lisa wanted to smack her.

Then she noticed how Rip was almost hovering over her chair, muscles tensed with barely restrained nervous energy, eyes locked on the pit in the center of the room. She was ready, eager even, to follow Pillowcase to hell. Matt was ready too. One word and the two of them would be over the side. Just like Lisa would be. They were in this together.

“We can do better than that,” Lisa said and turned her gaze to Yawlorna. “You’ve got monster problems up here too, right? We’ll clean those up while Pillowcase scouts.”

“Why would you do this?” Yawlorna asked, not hiding her look of bafflement.

“Because Pillowcase is right,” Lisa said, hating that it was true, but knowing that if they didn’t commit to the plan fully it could all fall apart. “We’re better off if we work together. The Consortium has attacked this world once already, but that was just a small taste of what they’re going to send against us.”

“It was?” Rip asked on the private party channel.

“The attack in the opening cinematic for the expansion? That was a teaser for the new events that were supposed to come along,” Lisa said.

“Didn’t the GM we talked to say they’d turned off the game events though?” Matt asked.

“That’s probably not going to stop the Consortium who are here from launching attacks on their own,” Obby said.

“Why wouldn’t they get rid of the Consortium entirely if they were turning off the events?” Lady Midnight asked.

“Probably for the same reason they didn’t remove the rest of the mobs from the game,” Rip said. “Didn’t they lose a GM when he tried to use his admin powers?”

“This is so messed up,” Lady Midnight said.

“Welcome to life, virtual or otherwise,” Lisa said.

“We can’t fight the Consortium for you,” Yawlorna said. “We couldn’t before we came here and there are even fewer of us now.”

“We don’t need you to fight the Consortium,” Starchild said. “Not directly.”

“Depending what sort of troops they send, we probably can’t fight them either,” Matt said and looked over to Rip. “Remember the [Wraithwings]?”

“Yeah, we’ve already run into an attack that we couldn’t begin to handle,” Rip said.

“Then what do you want from us?” Yawlorna said.

“Intelligence,” Lisa said. “Tell us what you know about the [Ruins of Heaven’s Grave]. Share what you learn going forward, and let us know if you do see any Consortium forces dropping in. No one said they’ll attack openly again. They could just as easily send in secret strike teams to take out the adventuring parties who opposed them last time.”

Lisa knew they’d be better off integrating the demons in with the adventurers who were based out of [Sky’s Edge] but that would take a leap of faith neither side seemed ready to make.

Yawlorna turned to confer with Balegritz, Hermeziz and Illuthiz. 

“Doing some monster clearing here may be good for us,” Pete said on the private team chat. “We can get back to leveling while we wait for Pillowcase to return.”

“That’s true,” Obby said. “The creatures here shouldn’t be too dangerous for us. Not if the demons are able to hold them off.”

Lisa had volunteered the idea mostly because it was what they’d talked about earlier. The more she thought about it though, the less she wanted to try fighting without her tank. As a bigger group they had more firepower to take down monsters with, and Obby was, in theory at least, a stronger tank than Pillowcase, but in practice those factors tended to matter less than having teammates you could rely on, and the party, as it stood, was split 50/50 between people she knew and people she hadn’t fought with yet.

She was just about to suggest they split into two smaller teams when Illuthiz broke away from the huddled conference the senior demons were in.

“So they’re still debating but I’m guessing we’re out of time for that,” she said, moving to stand in front of Lost Alice as though Lisa was the new leader of the party.

“What’s happened?” Lisa asked, her cold, undead stomache turning at the thought of Tessa having been eaten by some new horror that would rise up and consume them all.

“Your town,” Illuthiz said. “It’s under attack.”

Lisa’s thoughts whipped around hard enough to give her a moment of mental whiplash.

My town? The Earth’s under attack now too? What the hell am I supposed to do about that?

“[Sky’s Edge]?” Obby asked, and the dominoes began to fall into place for Lisa as her thoughts shifted in the correct direction.

“Yes. There’s fighting there now. It looks like the town threw up some barricades and there’s some people like you there,” Illuthiz said.

“Who or what are they fighting?” Lisa asked, cursing because she was sure she could guess the answer.

“We’re not sure,” Illuthiz said. “Our [Far Seer] can scry the town, but whatever’s attacking it is shield from their remote eyes.”

“It’s the Consortium,” Matt said without a hint of uncertainty.

“Their troops have cloaking devices?” Rip asked.

“Sort of,” Matt said. “Each [Squad Leader] carries an [Uplink Beacon]. It allows the Consortium’s [Central Command] to monitor the status of the units in real time and it broadcasts a disruption wave to make remote tracking of them by others impossible.”

“Not impossible,” Obby said. “That’s the propaganda they feed to their grunts. It’s just more difficult. There’s plenty of [Seers] in the [Fallen Kingdoms] who can see them remotely just fine.”

“How do you know this?” Yawlorna asked.

“Matt Painting, this body, it was manufactured by the Consortium,” Matt said. “When I claimed it, I got all the data they built into it.”

Illuthiz looked confused.

“I know what this unit used to know,” Matt said.

“Even its loyalty to its masters?” Illuthiz asked.

“I remember that clearly,” Matt said. “Fun fact, the spirit that originally used to animate this body? They absolutely hated their ‘masters’. The Consortium had to rope them in with chains of lightning to ensure the spirit did what they wanted. The spirit was in more or less constant pain, which is why [Metal Mechanoids] are so willing to serve as shock troops and fight to the death. So, yeah, I remember hating the Consortium with ever tiny fiber of my being, and I’m pretty sure if I don’t try real hard, I’m going to spell-murder every last one of them I see, even though I’ve never met one them before.”

Lisa heard the passionate sincerity in Matt’s words and felt her heart freeze in a new direction. Dragging kids into a situation where violence was the only answer wasn’t going to do anything good for them, no matter how justified it might be. She knew she should do everything she could to make sure Matt never came near the Consortium’s troops. Except that wasn’t going to be an option.

The people in [Sky’s Edge] needed them. 

“Urrrggh!” Lisa stiffled the curse she want to release, sublimating it into a groan of pure frustration. “We need to get them out of there.”

“We do?” Lady Midnight asked.

“Yeah, we do,” Matt said. “They’re all low level, I mean even lower than us.”

“Oh yeah, and some of them haven’t been sucked in here yet,” Rip said. “Wait, is the [Heart Fire] chapel safe from an invasion?”

“Not necessarily,” Obby said. “It’s warded against hostile spirits, so the [Hounds of Fate] can’t bother people or spirits near it, but on a physical level it only has whatever defenses the people around it can muster.”

“Dammit. That’s why they’re attacking [Sky’s Edge] first. It’s the one [Heart Fire] that shows up on the map by default,” Lisa said.

“They are trying to cut off our ability to respawn,” Starchild said. “Which means they will eventually come for all of the cities where [Heart Fire] chapels can be found.”

“I don’t know if we can help the other cities here in the [High Beyond], we haven’t managed to make it to any of them yet,” Lady Midnight said.

“If the Consortium is attacking, they won’t be safe either,” Matt said. “But there is a place the Consortium won’t think to look.”

He gestured to the area around them.

“You will bring the Consortium to us if you lead the overland people here,” Yawlorna said.

“We don’t have to lead them here,” Lisa said. “We can bring them into the dungeon we’ve already cleared. If the Consortium tries to chase us into it, they’ll either be fighting on our terms or they’ll be fighting the monsters we avoided.”

“If the Consortium is already attacking the town, it’s going to be a fight to get anyone out of there,” Obby said, a hopeful note rising in her voice.

“Matt, what kind of troops would the Consortium send after a small town like [Sky’s Edge] and, Illuthiz is it?, are the defenders holding out or have they been overrun already?” Lisa asked.

“I don’t know exactly what troops would be there,” Matt said. “Standard Consortium doctrine is to send in troops one to three grades above the rank of suspect hostiles based on the value of the target.”

“What does that translate to in levels?” Rip asked.

“Five to fifteen levels above the defenders,” Obby said. “Usually with a two to one number advantage and long range support if possible. Some [Commanders] will go below that to save costs though.”

“From what our [Far Seer] said, it looked like things had stalemated but there are whispers in the air which suggest more forces are inbound,” Illuthiz said.

Lisa sighed. She cast a glance to the pit.

If we leave…what happens if…

She couldn’t think about that.

But she’s all alone.

“If we’re going to go, it must be now,” Starchild said.

“I’m ready,” Rip said.

“Same here,” Matt said.

“We can climb back up to the farm, unless there’s a faster exit you can show us?” Lisa asked.

“We can do this,” Yawlorna said. “And we will send someone with you to determine if it truly is the Consortium who is attacking.”

“Good,” said Rip. “But we’re not all going.”

“What do you mean?” Yawlorna asked.

“She’s staying,” Rip said, pointing to Lost Alice.

“No. I can’t,” Lisa said, looking around for support but everyone else in her party seemed to be nodding along with Rip.

“You have to,” Rip said, reaching out for Alice’s hand. “You need to make sure she comes back to us.”

[Doom Crag] had fallen, [Highroost] was burning, but Niminay was not going to let [Eastrun] suffer their fates. [Eastrun] would hold.

“[Starfire Heartseeker Arrow]”, she said, as she had been saying every 10.2 seconds since the battle was joined.

From her bow leapt an arrow crafted from the hottest fire in the sun. It punched through the plate armor of the [Metal Mechanoid] [Guardian] who was leading the squad before her. On the side facing her, the starfire bolt made a hole the size of her fist. On the squad leader’s back, it exited and took the entire rear portion of the torso with it.

“[Hellfire Rain]”, she called, conjuring rather than shooting arrows too numerous to count, to burn through the squad of Consortium soldiers who were advancing on the temporary hospital [Eastrun’s] defenders had set up.

“We have more portals opening in the River Gate quarter,” Penny said. “I’m dispatching the Frozen Cabal to deal with it, but they won’t be able to hold.”

“How long can they buy us?” Niminay asked, trying to recall the levels of the adventurers who made up thew Frozen Cabal.

“If the portals release regular forces? They should be able to hold for fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty,” Penny said. “If the portals bring in [Boss] gangs? We’ll be lucky if they last for two minutes.”

“I can be there in five,” Niminay said. “Without using a portal. Should I go?”

Thanks to the magical transportation networks which had been constructed throughout the [Fallen Kingdoms] moving from point to point was faster than it had ever been, but in the face of worldwide warfare, those networks were being strained to the breaking point. Niminay was willing to strain them further but they were a resource and she was loath to spend any of the resources she had unless the need was great enough.

“No, hold off,” Penny said. “If the Consortium sends a [Boss] gang in I’ll need you to coordinate with one of the other teams. We’ll stop them at the wall to the Traveler’s quarter. Until  then, can you link up with the Revengers of Midgard Company and clear out the Granary district?”

“I thought we had the granaries emptied?” Niminay asked. She was moving across the roof tops as she spoke, soaring in long flying leaps towards the southeastern edge of the city where the giant granaries stood, trusting Penny’s wisdom implicitly.

“We got the grain out,” Penny said. “Then I had the store houses packed full of [Abyss Salamanders]. I’d like to keep that a surprise for as long as we can.”

“Uh, last I checked [Abyss Salamanders] only lived in the [Brimstone Deeps], how did you get them here?” Niminay asked, leaving the more pressing question of ‘why would you bring in a horde of creatures who could burn this entire country to ash’ unstated. 

Some questions had obvious answers when the world itself was under siege.

“I asked nicely,” Penny said. “If you could please make sure none of the forces inside the district make it to the granaries or make it out alive, that should send exactly the message that needs to be sent.”

Niminay chuckled as she landed on the top of a five story merchant house.

“They are going to send one hell of a force to capture our precious, precious grain aren’t they?” she asked.

“They’re going to send one hell of a force to capture the secret weapon which we hid in our precious, precious grain stores,” Penny said. “Whoever is commanding this invasion is smart. They’re striking low value targets with weaker forces, and hammering us with heavy units in areas that we have no choice but to defend.”

“Can we use that predictability against them?” Niminay asked.

“Hopefully. That’s what the salamanders are for,” Penny said. “This war isn’t going to turn on a single battle or one good trick though. The Consortium commander is definitely going to be prepared for things like this and have resources to cover the losses they’ll take.”

“It almost sounds like you admire them,” Niminay teased.

“That’s concern and fear, not admiration,” Penny said. “Mostly fear. I hate opponents who are this well provisioned and are clever enough to use what they have well.”

“We’ll get through this,” Niminay said. “I’ll clear the granary district myself if I have to.”

“I know,” Penny said, her voice over their private channel tinged with sadness. “Really though Nim, this could get bad. We’re going to need to take the fight to them and I don’t know if that’s a fight we can win.”

“We’ve seen bad,” Niminsay said. “More often than we’ve seen good. We’ll win the fight, beat the head boss and we’ll get through this.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Penny said. “If I run out of ideas, you need to wave a magic wand and make it all better, right?”

“Does my bow count as a magic wand?” Niminay asked.

Penny gave a chuckle of forced mirth.

“With all the enchantments you have on it? Sure, that’ll work just fine,” Penny said.

“Almost at the granary district,” Niminay said. “I think I see the Revengers too. I’ll let you know if the Consortium troops here are packing any special tricks. Just give me a heads up when reinforcements start to arrive, and let me know if you need me to move over to the River Quarter.”

Penny didn’t reply. She could see Niminay drop from the air into streets which were painted red with blood. Niminay knew Penny wouldn’t want to distract her, but hearing her voice would have been nice anyways. 

“[Hellfire Rain]”, Niminay called out as she fell, obliterating the three squads of [Skeleton Wrath Chargers] that raced up towards the defenders of the gate into the Granary district.

“You’re here!”

“Oh thank god!”

“Keep it together and stay on defense!” 

The cacophony of voices that rose at Niminay’s appearance was both flattering and somewhat disturbing. So many of the adventurer’s knew her, and yet she was certain she’d never met more than few of them.

Worse they had the most amazing expectations of her – as though she could single handedly drive back the tens of thousands of enemies who were assailing [Eastrun]. Or magic up a shield to keep them all safe and secure. And even the ones who had more reasonable expectations of her were still immediately willing to turn to her for guidance.

Niminay felt like shaking them all and shouting “what do you think I can do that you can’t?”

She was only an adventurer too, just like the rest of them. She had a lot of experience, but so did the people she stood shoulder to shoulder with. They’d fought many of the same terrible beasts that she’d fought. They’d ventured into many of the same deep and deadly forgotten corners of the world and come back with the same sort of treasures which had been lost for ages. She was not the mightiest of them, or the wisest.

So why were they looking to her for leadership?

Why did they seem like all their hard won skill and experience had been washed away and nothing but fledglings surrounded her?

It wasn’t a question Niminay could answer. It wasn’t one she could even ask. In the face of Armageddon, if they needed her to lead the charge, then at the front of the charge was where she was going to be.

***

Azma was winning, her forces were where they needed to be, holding the targets they needed to hold and harrying the ones they needed to distract, and she wasn’t happy.

“This is wrong,” she said, inspecting the projected globe and the points of conflict represented on it.

“Wrong how, sir?” [Commander] Grenslaw asked.

Azma blinked. Her command staff crew rarely interrupted her musings. They were content to execute her orders and leave her to do the thinking for the fleet.

Grenslaw and Ryschild were different though. They’d been quiet during the initial stage of the invasion, but Azma had noticed the keen interest they’d taken in the fine details of the invasion. 

“We’re winning,” she said.

“Are the locals reserving some of their forces against a later wave of the invasion?” Ryschild asked.

Azma smiled. It was a delight to work with someone sharp enough to make at least simple leaps of logic. The rest of her staff would have made some inane comment wondering how winning could be a bad thing, or, if they were struck by a complete lack of self-preservation would have objected to their [Supreme Commander] sabotaging the fleet with plans of failure.

It wasn’t a wise or sensible accusation to make, but still it happened. Over and over it happened. So many bodies jettisoned out of so many airlocks. At first it had been cathartic to throw the offenders to the merciless void of space, but after enough repetitions even the charm of that wore thin.

“No, the local forces are fully committed,” Azma said. “Even more so than they were against our original assault. In the intervening time they’ve had the chance to prepare their defenses as well. We’re sending our troops into heavily fortified positions defended by enemies with unpredictable and, in some cases, uncounterable abilities.”

“And we’re winning,” Grenslaw said, clearly seeing the problem as well. “Did our initial strike cut off their communications, or capture a key leader?”

“We have taps into the general communication network,” Azma said. “From those we can tell that the defenders are still being organized and none of the leaders we saw on the field of the first battle have been reported taken or dispatched.”

“Are they trying to lure us in further?” Ryschild asked. “Perhaps baiting a trap?”

“If so then the bait they are using is more valuable than the prize they hope to catch,” Azma said. “They’ve suffered losses of areas which will be vital to any counter-offensive they try to muster. Look at these cities here,” she gestured to the globe where the dot representing [Doom Crag] flipped color to show it had fallen wholly under the control of the Consortium’s forces. As they watched, builder troops where dispatched by the thousands to refortify the city and cement the Consortium’s hold over it.

“Could they be planning a different counter-assault?” Grenslaw asked.

“A direct assault on our ships?” Azma asked. “Doubtlessly they are.”

“Perhaps they’ve reserved their best forces for that?” Ryschild asked.

“They’re gathering some forces,” Azma said. “You can tell from the battles which are being abandoned. That doesn’t explain their overall level of performance though. If I didn’t know better I would say we’re facing very well equipped troops who are nevertheless quite unused to mass scale combat.”

“Is that possible? Could these be new recruits given mass produced relics? Perhaps that’s how they managed to swell their ranks beyond what we encountered on the first sorte?” Ryschild asked.

“That is what the evidence would suggest, but I mistrust that evaluation too,” Azma said. “There is real strategy in their response to our attacks, and some of the battles we have lost are turning against us on unlikely chances. It’s a puzzle.”

She ran her hand through her hair and suppressed a wolf-ish smile. Part of her was delighted at the prospect of a real challenge or a true surprise. Another part, a very tiny part, was concerned that the surprise might, however improbable it sounded, be something she wasn’t prepared to deal with.

She’d sunk a fair bit of her capital into gaining uncontested command of this operation. Even a fraction of the potential payoff from victory would see her investment rewarded many times over but defeat would be costly far beyond the loss of the money and political influence she’d sunk into the venture. Anything beside victory would show a chink in her otherwise flawless armor and there were so many enemies who had waited so very long to find that.

“Sir, the heavy reinforcements sent to [Eastrun] are reporting 97% casualties in the Granary district,” one of her comm’s techs reported, drawing her attention of the one of the urgent dispatches on her screen.

“Lava monsters ate our reinforcements? Very nice,” she said, reviewing the report from her obliterated troops. “That’s more in keeping with what I expected. Helm, alter trajectory, I want to make it seem like we’re going to bombard that city once we’re in range.”

“We are staying out of range though, right sir?” Grenslaw asked.

“Yes. Out of our apparent weapon range that is,” Azma said. “We’ll drift just within the range of their long range teleportation circles. Let’s see if we can catch some live subjects with a little bait of our own.”

 Glimmerglass had been given command of one hundred adventurers and she was going to get each and every one of them killed. It wasn’t what she wanted, but it also wasn’t what scared her.

“Portals are opening within the city. Hundreds of them,” Damnazon said. The half-giant tank and her team were among the adventurers who had been assigned to Glimmerglass and she’d chosen them as a sort of personal guard. 

It was extravagant having a full team acting as her support when she was standing in one of the most heavily shielded rooms within the city of [Doom Crag]. Together the nine adventurers could have turned the tide of any of the battles being fought in the city. Glimmerglass had to hope they would be enough to hold the [Central Command Station], though a part of her was sure they wouldn’t be.

“Get the Chaos Incorporated team to the forges. We have five portals opening there,” Glimmerglass said, watching as a real time holographic map updated with the intel from over a dozen adventuring teams who were stationed along the city’s outer walls.

“They’ll need backup,” Mellisandra said. “From the reports, each portal is dispensing multiple [Boss] class enemies.”

“Call [Eastrun] and [Highroost], we can portal in reinforcements of our own,” Glimmerglass said. She wasn’t officially a [Tactician] but when she’d been active she’d been one of the main planners for the raids her guild attempted. 

Watching the invasion play out before her in miniature shifted Glimmerglass deep into her healer mentality. Unlike what others might have guessed though, that made her neither more compassionate, nor more merciful.

A healer’s job was to help the party win at any cost. Ideally, they did so by keeping everyone on their feet since a party with everyone still standing was far more functional that one with a bunch of corpses who weren’t doing any work. Sometimes however letting people drop so others could stay in the fight was the only option available.

As the Consortium’s forces spread out from their points of arrival, Glimmerglass could see that exact situation developing in front of her.

“The Society of Enlightenment is engaging with the invaders in the palace district,” Mellisandra said, tapping the display to highlight the green dots which represented the eight defenders who stood between the two portals which had opened already.

“What are they seeing?” Glimmerglass asked.

“Light troops,” Mellisandra said, zooming in the view of the Palace district so that the dots of the Consortium’s forces resolved into individual combatants.”

“[Clothwork], [Metal Mechanoids], and [Human] [Pyromancers]?” Glimmerglass asked, identifying each of the troops as her gaze swept the battle field. “There are no [Boss] class mobs in this group at all?”

“Maybe they need something from the forges so they concentrated their better forces there?” Damnazon asked.

“All of the other groups are coming into engagement range now as well,” Mellisandra said. “Reports are scattered of what they’re seeing though.”

“This is strange,” Glimmerglass said. “The last time they attacked it was as a single force and their troops were segregated by function.”

“Maybe they learned from us?” Damnazon suggested. “Split their forces into teams like we did with the adventurers?”

“They’re the first to do so if that’s true,” Mellisandra said. “None of the other invasions have been heterogeneous. It’s always waves of basically identical foes with more serious threats showing up late in the battle.”

“Yeah, that’s what they tried the first time they showed up,” Damnazon said. 

“They’ve apparently decided to try  some new tricks,” Glimmerglass said as the analytical part of her mind chewed away at the idea.

The “wave of faceless minions, all alike, with giant bruisers to finish things off” was a strategy which made the coordination of huge forces practical. When the tools an army had to work with were interchangeable, tactical questions could be boiled down to simple equations of raw might applied to crush the defender’s forces. 

Saving the specialized troops for later in the battle was also tactically sound. Faceless minions were by definition expendable and if used properly could draw out the defenders more devastating attacks. With the defenders’ forces diminished by initial horde, the high value units could be deployed to greatest effect. 

Glimmerglass considered how that held true on a smaller scale on some teams she’d run with, where a lower level or less well geared member would be allowed to soak up a boss’s special attack, getting obliterated in the process, in order to ensure that the stronger adventures would survive to be able to keep fighting.

Looking at the city map of [Doom Crag] before her, she tried to peer past the dots and numbers, past the movement of the figures, and past the avalanche of cries for help which were pouring into the [Central Command Station].

“Who are you?” she asked, trying to visualize the one behind the attack. She saw only waves of chaos everywhere she looked, as though as madman’s folly had set the battle’s pieces against her. From the efficacy of the attack though, it was a terribly effective folly, if any part of it was truly mad.

“We’re getting reports in from [Eastrun] and [Highroost],” Mellisandra said. “Well, not reports. Calls for aid. They’re being hit as hard as we are.”

“It’s more than just them,” Damnazon said. “The major cities are being hit too. All of them.”

“Some of those have to be illusions,” she said. “When they assaulted us the first time, they brought close to a hundred thousand troops. If everywhere is being hit like we are they would need over two million soldiers to deploy.”

“Probably closer to three million,” Penwise said as she finished teleporting into the room. “For this wave.”

A series of containment bands solidified around her before a trio of magical scans confirmed who she was. Given the enemy’s capabilities, the Coalition wasn’t taking chances with look-alikes or forged orders, which was why Penwise had to appear in person to deliver major directives.

Glimmerglass felt a sinking pit form in her stomach at the thought of what Penny’s ‘major directive was likely to be.

“What do you mean?” Mellisandra asked.

“Our deep scrying has turned up the source of the portals. There are ships the size of small moons above us, out farther than the [High Beyond]. We can’t see inside them from this distance, but we can see the weapons which cover their hull.They don’t seem to be in range to use those weapons yet, but they are approaching, slowly. We expect they’ll be within range to begin bombardment within twenty four hours.”

“Why launch a ground attack ahead of that?” Damnazon asked.

“To soften up our defenses first and keep the ship’s safe,” Glimmerglass said, the awful scope of the enemy’s plan unrolling in front of her.

The events were following the standard invasion protocol, just on a far broader scope than she was used to. The difference was that the “expendable minions” weren’t being treated as expendable, and the more powerful fighters who were being kept in reserve until later in the battle were behemoth warships which had to be closer in difficulty to entire raid dungeons rather than individual bosses.

“How are we going to hold against that?” Glimmerglass asked, turning to Penwise, hoping the coalition’s chief strategist had some brilliance which would turn the tide.

“We’re not,” Penwise said. “Start packing up here and call your teams in. The regular forces will have to hold the city’s for now. We need the adventurers to coordinate an attack on those warships once they’re in range.”

“They’re not going to be able to hold out,” Glimmerglass said, whirling around to face Penwise.

“I know,” Penny said. “They’re going to have to buy time though.”

“We can help with that,” Glimmerglass said. “We can tie down the invaders a lot better than they can.”

“That seems to be the invaders plan,” Penny said. “They’ve ensured that we’re scattered and pinned down fighting a thousand battles at once. We need to come together, and rally against those ships before they burn the [Fallen Kingdoms] to ash.”

“But their ground assault is going to take everything if we do that,” Glimmerglass said.

“Yes. They will,” Penwise said. “Get your forces together and meet at the [Astrologos Observatory].”

And then she was gone teleporting to the next command center.

“Are we going to give up just like that?” Damnazon asked.

“Not just like that,” Glimmerglass said. “We can still fight as we withdraw. Bring civilians with us out of the line of fire.”

“Good! We’re ready to go!” Damnazon said, gesturing to the rest of her team who were already on high alert.

The wall beside the half-giant exploded inwards, spell wards arcing and screaming in alarm as an irresistible physical force shattered them.

“[Greater Shield Empowerment],” Glimmerglass said, mentally verifying that all of the friendly targets around her were within range and still breathing. “[Casting spell: Aegis Wall]”

Mystic barriers several thousand times stronger that steel enwrapped each member of her alliance as they regrouped calling out skills and spells to bring the battlefield back under the control.

The monsters facing them didn’t rest after their grand entrance though. 

“[Casting spell: Annihilation Cloud],” one of the hulking brutes said and Glimmerglass swore.

“Enemy casters!” she yelled before using an unvoiced skill to [Slip Step] to the other end of the ruined [Central Command Station], away from the health and mana draining cloud that rolled from the brute’s out stretched hands.

The center of the room became a zone of chaos, barrier spells and barrier bursters crashing together while other attacks flew and began shearing off disturbingly large chunks of her party’s health.

“Petrified”, Damnazon called out as one of the enemy’s spells converted her flesh into unliving stone. 

Glimmerglass reversed the effect with a low level status curing spell, but was otherwise focused feverishly on keeping her troops in the fight long enough for them to regain control of the battle.

“Burning,” another party member called out.

“Doom,” from another.

“Petrified.” from another.

The status effects and damage rolled in as fast as Glimmerglass could process them.

That wasn’t a problem. Mad chaos and problems rolling in faster than the eye could follow were typical for high end raids.

Not that Glimmerglass had planned to be in a high end raid, but the possibility of things going horribly awry had occurred to her. 

“Mark Prime,” Damnazon called out, placing a targeting mark over the head of one of the casting brutes.

“Mark Prime,” one of the brutes replied, placing a target over Glimmerglass’s head.

The rest of the party closed ranks around her, but Glimmerglass still watched her own health plummet as range attacks and spells found their mark. 

“This is like PvPing,” Mellisandra said as she physically dodged a fireball and replied in kind with a bolt of lightning. 

Glimmerglass didn’t have time to think about that, despite how correct the words felt.

The Brutes were huge and well armored, but where that usually indicated they would be little more than giant punching bags, these fought with the same cunning and tenacity which the adventurers brought to the melee.

On her left, the party’s [Archer] splattered over the ground in a pile of gore, a spiked club having caved in her torso.

“[Casting spell: Rise in Valor]”, Glimmerglass said, and watched as they elf floated back to her feet, her eyes blazing with divine power.

The [Archer’s] shots blasted the far end of the room with enough force that the building vaporized around them, changing the battlefield from a constrained fight inside a protective structure to one which began to roam over the ruins of the city the adventurer’s had been fighting to protect.

That gave the adventurers more room to move and the ability to use stronger spells without fear of backlash but it also allowed their opponents to do the same.

“[Casting spell: Cerberus Inferno],” one of the Brutes called out and a monster of primordial flame roared onto the battlefield.

Glimmerglass wanted to object. [Cerberus Inferno] was an [Incarnate] level ability, meaning one which only belonged to people like raid bosses. Even the strongest players couldn’t cast spells like that.

Her objections were silenced by flame as the beast of fire raked a trio of claws through her, shattering the shields she’d recast and incinerating her body with a touch.

As a ghost she ran. She didn’t have time to stop and evaluate the battlefield. With so many dead, the [Hounds of Fate] were out in force and the nearest safe [Heart Fire] wasn’t going to be found anywhere within the burning ruins of [Doom Crag].

Azma expected the defenders of the world below her to fall, but she knew they weren’t going to fall easily.

“It seems to me that this plan of yours exposes us to undo risk over the course of an unacceptably long time frame,” [Commander] Melsworth said. “It’s like it was concocted by a junior program manager, eager to show off all the little cleverness they always think they have.

Azma leaned back in her chair in smiled. She didn’t often look forward to meetings with the [Commanders] who had been placed under her. Typically they were the useless flotsam of nepotism and personal conceits from those above her in the Consortium’s organizational structure. Such flotsam generally fell into one of two categories; either they were sycophants who brought no new ideas to the table or, like Melsworth, they lacked an understanding of their role and believed themselves to be by some measure her equal.

Meetings were tiresome to Azma, but educational opportunities? Those were always entertaining.

“Tell me, [Commander] Melsworth. Did I request your opinion?” It wasn’t a question despite the phrasing.

To Melsworth’s side, [Commander] Ryshild paled and began measuring the distance between himself and Melsworth with his eyes. Evidently deciding it was insufficient, he leaned back in his seat and tried to slide it away from the doomed man beside him.

“A good [Commander]…” Melsworth began.

“Uh uh uh,” Azma said, silencing the man with a gesture. With any reasonable sapient being, the gesture would have sufficed on its own, but Azma knew who she was dealing with so the gesture also included the [Command] to Melsworth’s air passageways to fuse shut. “Your opinion. Did I request it?”

Melsworth tried to gasp for breath but with nose, mouth, and throat sealed shut, no options were open to him.

“You may nod or shake your head,” Azma informed him.

He stared at her, anger and confusion warring behind his eyes. The rest of the room, meanwhile, had gone sensibly silent.

Good, Azma thought. Perhaps the rest will pay attention this time.

“I can see you wish to say a great many things.” She stared into Melsworth’s eyes as his face flushed red with his struggle. “You doubtless wish to know how I dare to assault someone of your rank. You are perplexed perhaps on how so simple a [Command] could have penetrated your formidable defenses. You are possibly even thinking of those who back you and how you can call on them to bring me into line. ‘This will not be tolerated’, ‘do you know how important I am’, ‘you cannot do this’. Several phrases along those lines I’d wager?”

She looked at him and watched as the red flush began to shade over to purple.

“Now it is occurring to you to ask ‘how much air do I have left’, and ‘how far is she going to take this’, and ‘doesn’t she know she can’t do this’.”

She tilted her head and opened her eyes slightly wider, a questioning look to test if her guesses were on the mark. The panic on Melsworth face was confirmation enough for her to continue.

“The answer is simple. Your rank means nothing, and I can do this because I am charged with absolute authority over the prosecution of the initiative before us. In short, my decisions hold the lives of everyone on all of our ships in the balance, and that includes yours.”

Azma looked around to make sure each of her subordinate officers was grasping the simple message she was attempting to convey. Brevity was a valuable tool for successful communication, but the object lesson who had current shaded completely over to purple was more likely to drive the point home. Or so she hoped.

“As you began to say, a good [Commander] recognizes the value of construction feedback. No plan is ever perfect and they can all be improved. Where you went amiss however Melsworth was in presuming that your feedback offered any value whatsoever.”

Melsworth jerked up, his eyes pleading as his body started to thrash.

“You wish to make a case for leniency? Or perhaps you have other feedback? More useful feedback to provide?”

Melsworth began nodding his head vigorously and pounding on the table with one hand while gesturing to his mouth with the other.

“You labor under a misapprehension still,” Azma informed Melsworth, fixing her eyes upon him. “Did I ask for your opinion?”

Melsworth raged pounding the table with both hands as his knees began to sag.

“I believe this is important to understand,” Amza said, turning to the rest of her staff. “[Commander] Ryshild, what do you believe is happening here?”

Ryshild straightened up and focus his gaze directly ahead onto a patch of empty air over the middle of the table, perpendicular to where Azma was.

“Disciplinary action,” he said, his voice as firm and crisp as he could make it.

“Correct,” Azma said, allowing a small smile to flicker across her lips. 

Ryshild had been with her on a previous operation. He was as much the waste product of a nepotistic appointment as any of the others, but he had been tempered to some extent by his time under her command. A half dozen more such operations and he might rise to a level of at least bearable incompetence.

“And what is he being disciplined for?” Azma asked. It was too much to hope that one of the slack jawed fools before her might properly understand what Melsworth had done wrong, but history had shown that it was the perfect opportunity to weed out additional issues.

“He spoke back to a woman.” [Commander] Falcrest had whispered it sidewise to the woman sitting next to him. His next words would be something orbiting the idea that he was only joking.

Except his next words would never arrive.

Azma snapped her fingers and Falcrest froze into motionlessness in the wake of a wave of agony which erupted from his chest. Slowly, ever so slowly, the edges of his fingers began to crumble away to dust.

“Would anyone else care to guess?” Azma asked pleasantly.

Ryshild raised his hand, drawing a surprised and genuine smile from Azma. She nodded to him, intensely curious what answer the young man was willing to risk his life on.

“Was it Insubordination in Battle, sir?” he asked.

“Very good [Senior Commander] Ryshild,” Azma said, replacing the rank insignia on his lapels with [Senior Commander Wings] with a small wave of her hand.

Another hand rose.

“Yes [Commander] Grenslaw?” Azma asked, shocked and delighted at the unprecedented learning being displayed during the impromptu educational seminar she’d convened.

“Do all planning sessions count as battle conditions or is it because we’re inside the arcanosphere of a uncontracted global power?” Grenslaw asked.

“That is an excellent question [Commander],” Azma said with an appreciative nod. She felt like she should fan herself. Two intelligent responses in a single meeting? She didn’t remember choking out a Luck God recently, but such good fortune could result from little else. “In general planning sessions are not considered battle conditions, though special rules do apply regarding information security. Being within a hostile powers arcanosphere counts as being on [Full Alert] which carries less restrictions than [Battle Conditions].”

Two seats up from Grenslaw, [Commander] Falcrest was continuing to disintegrate slowly. Each mote of dust that fell from him carried a scream of pure crystallized agony. Azma filed a note to remind herself to have the air scrubbers cleaned and the dust collected from them. There were plenty of places that sort of thing could be sold for a tidy profit.

“So we’re not at [Battle Conditions] and you killed them anyways?” [Commander] Camden said.

Azma sighed and stared at him. The streak of intelligence had been so pleasant. It was really her own fault for thinking it could continue.

She tapped a finger on the table, waiting to see what Camden would do next. Grenslaw and Ryshild had brightened her day. She could give Camden one chance to save himself certainly.

“Well? Did you? I mean that’s pretty unprofessional isn’t it?” Camden said.

Azma looked across the room at the rest of the [Commanders]. Some were looking intently at her, as though eager to hear a serious response to the charge. Some were looking studiously at nothing whatsoever, likely wishing they could be anywhere else at all. Grenslaw and Ryshild were the only two shaking their heads with with their eyes closed.

“[Commander],” Azma began and gestured at him. Flames enveloped Camden and he leapt from his seat. “Were you under the belief that we were somehow equals?”

Camden ran screaming into the hallway, but Azma’s next gesture dragged him back to his seat where he continued to burn.

“Open question to the room,” Azma said. “Does it seem wise in light of what you’ve seen today to address the [Supreme Commander] of this operation with even the barest trace of disrespect?”

“No, sir!” several voices answered at once, and a tiny measure of Azma’s good mood returned. Killing them all might have saved time and aggravation, but it was nice to have at least a few potential candidates to mold into more permanent underlings.

Melsworth, still voiceless and breathless, thrashed, banging on the table to get her attention, before a great shudder went through him and he collapsed to the ground, consciousness finally fleeing.

“Excellent,” Azma said. “Now are there any questions?”

Usually the room was dead silent by this stage of the educational seminar. Once again though Azma was surprised as Grenslaw raised a hand.

“What is the current status of the fleet sir?”

“We are at [Battle Conditions],” Azma said. “The official notification was delivered to the fleet at the start of this meeting.”

“Shouldn’t we be out there leading our troops?” [Commander] Baris asked.

It was borderline, but Azma was feeling generous. Baris could live. At least until he decided to speak next.

“No,” Azma said. “You are, all of you, entirely unsuited to command. I have spoken with your command staff. They have their orders and are executing them as we speak. Frankly I should be monitoring their progress more directly, but the most valuable use of my time at the moment is keeping you all from interfering with their efforts.

“Aren’t our troops our responsibility though?” [Commander] Young asked.

Azma inhaled. It was a reasonable question, and it suggested a good mindset. It could have been phrased better, but she could work on that. Young had not intended it as an insult and so Azma would take the question for what it was.

“No,” she said. “They are my responsibility. Your commissions are as meaningless as your rank. The last thing this operation needs is someone striving for personal glory and promotion by changing a plan they don’t understand or are incapable of following.”

Grenslaw raised her hand and Azma nodded to acknowledge her.

“Is there a station from which we can watch the battle operations unfold?” Grenslaw asked.

“Yes, for those who care to,” Azma said. “Or you may return to your private quarters. Food and entertainment have been provided and are waiting for you there.”

Most of the [Commanders] looked all too eager to retreat to their rooms, but both Grenslaw and Ryshild waited behind as the others left. Apart from the three corpses, they were the only ones in the meeting room within a minute of Azma signaling that the other [Commanders] could leave.

“Only three deaths,” Azma said. “I seem to be getting soft in my old age.”

“Will there be any trouble relating to those sir?” Ryshild asked.

“No. They died under [Battle Conditions], so there will be a substantial payout to their surviving heirs, and their patrons within the ranks could not have thought very highly of them or they wouldn’t have been assigned to me.”

“Is there any special story we should use in explaining their absence to the troops?” Grenslaw asked.

“Only be sure to make it clear that I was the one who killed them,” Azma said. “In-fighting among [Commanders] is as common as it is terrible for the morale and discipline of the troops underneath them. I’ll fold the troops assigned to our three fallen comrades into the ones assigned to each of you. Please understand that this is a test. The other [Commanders] may object to the enlargement of your commands. Resolve it without sowing discord between the troops and you will receive a passing mark on the test.”

Neither one asked what the price of failure would be. 

As the troops began to descend onto the surface of the [Fallen Kingdoms] both Ryshild and Grenslaw could see that failure was not an option.

When faced with an impossible task, normal people look for a more practical alternative. Over the years, Tessa had observed that players were definitely not normal people.

“If the area at the bottom of that pit is a a standard raid zone for the [Sunless Deeps], we might be able to have my guild clear it for us,” Alice said to her team and the demons.

“They won’t be able to get there,” Obby said. “At least assuming it’s still similar to what the beta-testers reported. According to them it’s a stand-alone area, without any active connections to the rest of the [Sunless Deeps] yet.”

“They also said it was empty though, didn’t they?” Lady Midnight said, leaning back and resting her chin in her hand as she nibbled on her lip.

“Something has clearly changed,” Starchild said.

“Even if it hasn’t, we do have another option. Possibly,” Alice said.

Tessa was pretty sure she could guess where Lisa’s thoughts were turning.

“You’re thinking we could [Recall] them into the area with us?” she asked.

“Yeah. Maybe. We’d have to see how removed that area is,” Alice said. She looked paler than Tessa remembered but there was a vitality in her eyes that could have been [Vampiric Mesmerism] if Tessa didn’t know that she’d always had a weakness for that look.

“What is this [Recall] thing?” Balegritz asked.

“One of the abilities we can learn is a teleportation effect,” Tessa said. “It’s got a whole bunch of limitations, but if someone is in the same zone, and they’re in our party, and the other conditions are right, we can pull them from where they are right to our side.”

“I don’t think any of us know that one yet though, do we?” Lady Midnight asked.

“Not yet,” Obby said. “If we level a bit we should be able to pick it up pretty quick though.”

“We can’t level here though,” Rip said. “Can we?”

“I’m betting there’s plenty of monsters our new friend have to contend with down here,” Alice said, looking over to Yawlorna who had been watching the conversation between Tessa’s party with calm, calculating ease.

“We do, but I’m curious how you know that?” Yawlorna asked.

“Deduction,” Alice said. “The first of your people we met was a patrol. People don’t tend to patrol inside their homes unless they expect to find problems fairly often. Or the problems they find are severe enough that they can’t let things linger or build nests. Also, dungeons like this tend have a medley of monsters in them.”

“How do you know so much about dungeons?” Hermeziz asked. “I thought you people were ‘low level’ and that most dungeons were too high for you?”

“Because I’m usually much higher level,” Alice said.

“You can change your levels?” Yawlorna asked.

“Not at will,” Tessa said. “Not anymore anyways.”

“We used to interact with this world remotely,” Starchild said, though Tessa guessed it was Pete who was speaking. “Since we were drawn into it, we can’t do some of the things we used to be able to. Like change to different characters.”

“Your ‘character’ is the body you wear in this world, correct?” Yawlorna asked. “What happened to the bodies you are no longer able to access?”

“We don’t know,” Tessa said. “They may not be here at all. Or they may be sleeping somewhere in a coma until we can reanimate them.”

“It sounds like you should be careful,” Illuthiz said. “Those extraneous bodies could be a liability. They would doubtless provide an excellent channel for curses and ensorcellments to be cast on you.”

It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but Tessa couldn’t deny that it sounded reasonable. If, in the real world, body parts like hair and fingernail clippings had the reputation for being ‘magical conduits’, then, clearly, having an entire body, bones, blood and all should be even more effective.

Tessa thought about Glimmerglass and imagined her poor, long unplayed character tied down to some evil wizard’s experimentation table like a scene out of Frankenstein. Maybe she should head back to where she’d last logged Glimmerglass out once her team got to older zones? If Glimmerglass was still there Tessa could figure out what to do with her.

Burn the body maybe? It was probably the smart move, but even the thought made Tessa’s stomache roll. She couldn’t do that, no matter what the risk was. Glimmerglass had meant too much to her for too long.

“That’s a problem we’ll tackle if it ever becomes an issue,” she said. “For all we know, our other characters, those ‘extra bodies’, they might be entirely virtual.”

“Virtual?” Balegritz asked.

“Imaginary,” Obby suggested.

“You lead very strange lives,” Yawlorna said.

For some reason, being told that by an eight foot tall, fire skinned, massive horned demon woman struck Tessa as hilarious. Pillowcase had the sense not to burst out laughing though.

“We have a couple of bigger problems than not having [Recall] yet,” Lady Midnight said. “First, we have no idea what level the stuff is down there, so we could be asking your guild to walk right into a meat grinder.”

“That’s possible,” Alice said. “Which is why we’d need to scout it first.”

“That will be extremely dangerous,” Starchild said. “If the area below is cut-off from the rest of the [Sunless Deeps] then it may not have access to a [Heart Fire] either.”

“We can always climb back up if we need to,” Obby said,

“That would be a long climb wouldn’t it?” Matt asked.

Tessa pictured trying to climb from the depths of planet to the aerial realm of the [High Beyond] with the baying of the [Hounds of Fate] getting closer every moment. 

We can’t let Rip and Matt go on this, she said to Lisa on their private line. Going down there is legit dangerous.

Yeah, I’m thinking, if we go at all, we send down just a scout or two first, Lisa said. And I’m not one hundred percent convinced we should go. Up till now the risks we’ve been taking have all been ones we can back away from. This one might not be.

Do you think we can win the demons over if we refuse to look for this ship? Tessa asked. And for that matter, do you think it’s worth winning them over in the first place? There could be problems with that too.

What, you mean being friendly with demons hasn’t worked out for people in the past? Lisa’s playfully teasing tone wrapped around her words like a hug.

You know, I’m not even sure ‘demon’ is a good name for them, Tessa said. They’re not acting like any classical demon I can think of, or the demon-ish things we run into in other parts of the game. I bet they have a name for themselves that we should be using instead.

We should, but it’s not going to change the conclusions other people jump to when they see us rolling around with an eight foot demon lady on our team.

I’ve got an idea for that, Tessa said. But it is contingent on Yawlorna’s group actually being on our side.

I think we can get them there, Lisa said. I mean, they’re talking with us, which is a lot more than I expected when we came in here. I thought they were going to be self-delivered fast food that had some loot drops in place of a toy surprise.

Some variant of that is probably how everyone here sees them, Tessa said. I think the only way around that is to take some of them with us back to [Sky’s Edge].

Huh, Lisa said and paused for a moment, considering the idea. I’m in. It could go bad, but you know what? Who cares. Yawlorna seems pretty reasonable. If people have a problem with her being who she is, then they’ll have to through me to get to her.

And nobody gets to you unless they go through me first, Tessa said. It’s the Number One Rule for tanks.

She cast a quick smile over to Lisa and turned her ear back to the conversation.

Yawlorna, Obby, Rip, and Starchild had been discussing how dead people could be hauled up from the [Sunless Deeps] the easiest. The demons had switched from their language to an accented version of what sounded like English to Tessa’s ears, which allowed the other members of her team to join in the conversation. 

“The portal to the [Sunless Deeps] probably isn’t as far down as it appears,” Obby said. “Those things mess with your perception all the time. It’s supposed to make them look cooler.”

“If the [Heart Fire] is just over in that room, then we wouldn’t have far to run once we hit the top,” Rip said. Her eagerness sent a pang through Tessa’s heart.

She’d pictured being a Mom from time to time. It was weird concept, something which she had a sense she was supposed to be, but which always felt too distant and removed to really apply to her. Rip and Matt should have been far too old to appear as her children too, and they certainly weren’t asking her to take care of them.

So why could she picture breaking heaven and earth if that’s what it took to keep them safe?

She’d known them for a few hours? A half a day at most? Why was she unable to think of them as anything but ‘her kids’?

We are meant to protect people and keep them safe, Pillowcase said. 

The words rattled around in Tessa’s mind awakening old memories in confirmation. She hadn’t felt safe as a kid. How much of her personality had grown out that? How much of who she’d become was a rejection of the examples other people had set for her?

We need to take a break just so I can get my head in order, Tessa said, though since she was addressing Pillowcase the words were, in multiple senses, only for her own benefit.

“Ok, leaving our safety aside for the moment, there’s another reason we may want to hold off on traveling down that pit,” Lady Midnight said and waited until she had everyone’s attention before continuing. “Notice how many entrances there are to the [Sunless Deeps] from here?”

“There’s only one,” Yawlorna said. “If there were others we would have been attacked through them already.”

“Right. And what have you done with the one entrance that’s available?” Lady Midnight asked.

Tessa rolled her eyes, feeling foolish for not having considered the point Lady Midnight had made.

“We’ve sealed it,” Yawlorna said. “The seal can be broken though.”

“It would have to be,” Lady Midnight said. “And even if you can remake it, you won’t be able to while we’re down there. So if we run into anything that’s beyond us – or if something just sneaks behind us – everyone here could come under attack again.”

“And if the creatures from the Deeps attack, it’s going to be more than snatch and grab raid,” Alice said. “They’ve seen your layout and they know what your troops are like. They’ll be ready for the fortifications this time.”

“Be that as it may,” Yawlorna said. “We need our ship back, and the longer we delay the less likely we are to be able to recover it.”

“Ah, they’re just stalling,” Hermeziz said. “They’re not able to help us. Or they just don’t want to.”

It was tempting to hear only the insult in Hermeziz’s words, but when Tessa pushed that aside and studied the ‘demon’, she saw something else before her.

He was afraid. Afraid and too desperate to allow even the hint of hope inside.

She could see it in how he held Illuthiz and Balegritz. She could see it in all the ‘demons’.

They were just as lost as she was, except for them the [Fallen Kingdoms] was an opaque and endlessly hostile mystery. 

And they only had one chance at surviving it.

“We do want to help you,” Tessa said, rising to her feet as certainty swept through. “Sometimes we talk too much, and sometimes we’re scared of what we have to do, but that doesn’t mean we’ll leave anyone behind, or to fend for themselves.”

She turned and began walking, and for a moment everyone was too confused and surprised to say anything.

Then her course became clear.

Where are you going? Lisa asked.

Where we need someone to go, Tessa said. Not the full team. Just a scout or two, right?

I didn’t mean you alone! Lisa said.

“Don’t follow me,” Pillowcase said. “More people means more risk and I can either tell you what I’m seeing or what’s down there isn’t anything we want any part of.”

Wait! Lisa shouted in their channel.

I can’t, Tessa said. They need to see who we are.

And with that she stepped over the edge of the pit and crashed through the wards holding it closed.

It was a truth universally acknowledged, that an adventuring party in possession of far better things to do must be in want of a quest to squander their time, and resources upon. 

“And what, exactly, might your quest entail?” Tessa asked, mentally crossing her fingers that it wasn’t going to be some variation of an escort quest.

“We need to reclaim our ship,” Yawlorna said. “If we can do that, we can repair it and get the hell out of here.”

The other demons began murmuring among themselves at Yawlorna’s words but none of them took their eyes off Tessa or her party.

“Where does it need to be reclaimed from?” Tessa asked. There were more bad answers to that question than she could count and, given her party’s low level, almost no good ones.

“We do not know,” Yawlorna said.

Of course they don’t, Tessa grumbled on her private line with Lisa.

Don’t what? Lisa asked.

Quest with no known objective point, Tessa said. Those weren’t common anymore, but at one point early on they’d been a tactic the developers experimented with to improve immersion. Some players absolutely loved it, and were virulently against adding quests which offered any actual directions on how to do them. The majority of the playerbase seemed to disagree though.

“Our ship was damaged in the crash and we didn’t have the supplies to repair it,” Yawlorna explained. “Before we could collect what we needed, a raid from what you called the [Sunless Deeps] attacked us. We believe the raiders captured it as it disappeared some time during the battle.”

“How do you lose a whole ship?” Matt asked. “And where could they have taken it?”

“This word you use, ship, it is not exactly right,” Yawlorna said.

“But that’s what you called it?” Matt said.

“No. I said it was a ship,” Yawlorna said.

Uh, what is happening here? Tessa asked.

Translation limitation, Pillowcase said. We are thinking in English, and ‘ship’ is the closest match to the two different words being spoken in Nezzparin, their language.

It sounds like its a bad translation then, Tessa said.

If we focus on the word, the translation threads in our ears will perform a deeper analysis.

Tessa didn’t need to ask Pillowcase for an explanation of what she meant by ‘focus’ or how the deeper analysis would be performed. That knowledge already lived in her head, she just had to remember to recall it.

Pausing for a moment, she replayed Yawlorna’s words and heard, instead of English, the actual tones and syllables Yawlorna had spoken.

‘Ship’ was indeed close, but the word Yawlorna used was closer to ‘Portable Sphere Ship’ and referred to a particular class of vessel which, when traveling, looked like a steampunked up sailing vessel from Tessa’s world, and when at rest collapsed into something that resembled a crystal ball wrapped in bronze.

“I think I understand,” Tessa said. “You meant a ‘ship’, correct?” She was careful to use the more specific variant of the word and saw various people opposite her smile at her use of the proper word.

“Exactly,” Yawlorna said. “We had it guarded of course, but the things that came out of that pit…we barely survived where we had fortifications already installed.”

Tessa, Matt, and Obby explained Yawlorna’s story to the others quickly.

“That might be why they sealed the portal,” Rip said in their party channel.

Alice gave a short laugh.

“That’s probably why they had blood to spare.”

How are you holding up on that front? Tessa asked privately.

It’s not getting worse, Lisa said. It is so tempting to nibble on one of them a bit though.

Probably not the best idea under the circumstances.

I know. I’ll be good. For now anyways, Lisa said, forcing some levity into her voice.

“The forces that took our ship are beyond our ability to pursue, but if you truly cannot be killed, it should be simple for you to face them and recover our ship, no?”

“It depends,” Tessa said.

She weighed the costs and benefits of telling the demons specific details about how adventurers worked. She also weighed how much she could trust that what she knew from the game was still true in this ‘real’ version of the [Fallen Kingdoms].

“You want to charge us some fee? Negotiate a reward up front?” Yawlorna asked, her eyes narrowing at that to pick out whatever subtle trick Tessa might be planning and throw it back at her.

“No fees, no rewards,” Tessa said. “Quest rewards always suck. No, I said it depends, because there are a number of factors which could complicate things.” She continued on quickly as the mood of the assembled demons turned sour. “Factors such as did the people who stole the ship keep it or did they pass it on to someone else? Has it been moved to an area which is only accessible via travel abilities we do not possess yet such as being able to walk through solid stone? Or, worst of all, has it been destroyed, or did the person who took it make the repairs it needed and then pilot it away to another world themselves?”

“You say those as though the search for our ship will be impossible,” Yawlorna said.

“Not impossible. Far from it in fact,” Tessa said. “Just not particularly trivial. Also, there’s the very likely complication that the creatures who stole your ship are more powerful than all of us put together.”

“That’s not possible, you just don’t want to do it,” Hameziz said.

“They are only seven,” Yawlorna said. “If they faced a raid such as we did, they would not be able to withstand it any better than our warriors managed to.”

The demons gave a collective shrug of agreement at that, and some part of Tessa warned her that she should let their misunderstanding of what she’d meant linger.

Another part of her warned her that building any relationship on misunderstandings was a catastrophically bad idea.

And a third part felt like someone, somewhere, was watching her. She glanced around the room, but aside from the demons, only the other members of her party had their eyes on her.

“Your pardon,” she said. “I didn’t mean that the seven of us would be unable to handle some of the things which live in the [Sunless Deeps]. I meant everyone in this room, with fortifications, and the element of surprise, wouldn’t even come close to being able to handle some of things down there.”

“That’s not…” Hameziz began to say but Obby cut him off.

“I think we need to establish a baseline for our capabilities,” she said. “What do you say we do a quick spar? That should demonstrate things clearly enough.”

Hameziz raised an eyebrow and frowned, looking over to Yawlorna for direction.

“If you wish,” she said, directing the comment to Hameziz.

“So, you and me?” Hameziz asked. “What are the rules?”

“Hmm, how about no fatal or disabling blows from me, you’re free to do whatever you want,” Obby said. “We go for a minute, or until one of us gives up? We should know by then about how tough we each are.”

“Weapons?” Hameziz asked.

“Anything you want,” Obby said. “I’ll stick with my gauntlets though. If I use a sword I’ll have to put too much energy into not chopping you up to have any fun with it.”

“You’re serious?” Hameziz said, glancing again to Yawlorna, who nodded once more.

“Not usually,” Obby said. “But this seems fun, and it should cut through a lot of back and forth.”

“Well then, gimme my spear,” Hameziz said. “We’ll test out that immortality thing you’ve got going on.”

“Not likely,” Obby said, rising from her chair.

You sure about this? Tessa asked Obby privately.

Yeah, Obby said, They’re not that high level.

Tessa wasn’t sure how Obby could tell that since none of the demons were showing level indicators near their names, but long term players had a sense for things sometimes.

The first round of the fight was so brief that it barely qualified as a sparring match. Hameziz and Obby approached one another in a cleared out space in the main hall, Hameziz tried to lunge unexpectedly at Obby. Obby caught his spear, pulled him in and hit him so hard in the face that he did a complete summersalt before landing flat on his back.

“That…that was a cheap shot,” he said as Illuthiz and Balegritz helped him to his feet.

“It was, but points for trying it,” Obby said. “If you’re going to fight higher level foes, keep thinking like that, just don’t over commit so much.”

“I didn’t…” Hameziz started to say before Illuthiz poked him. “Well, we’re not done.”

“I hope not!” Obby said and raised her hands in relaxed fists.

The next exchange was more drawn out than the first, though Pillowcase suspected that was largely because Obby wasn’t particularly interested in ending it quickly.

Hameziz thrust with his spear and slid the attack into a nimble parry the moment Obby deflected it and moved it to launch her own attack. They clashed back and forth like that for several passes, with Obby offer commentary as they did.

“Don’t cross your legs when you retreat.”

“Watch for low strikes too.”

“Shove and jump back if you want to create distance.”

They were basic tips for spear fighting and despite Hameziz’s ability to engulf his weapon with the [Flames of Avarice] which suggested mastery of the weapon, he seemed to be benefiting from the instruction.

“Is this really a sparring match?” Yawlorna asked.

“Yes!” Hameziz said, as he corrected his stance as Obby had suggested.

“Not exactly,” Obby admitted.

“I think you’ve made your point,” Yawlorna said.

“I’m not sure about that,” Obby said. “Tell you what. One more round, but this time let’s bring in some more people.”

“You wish to fight with your friends?” Yawlorna said.

“Oh, no! Not on my side,” Obby said. “I mean more to stand with Hameziz.”

“They will likely kill you,” Yawlorna said.

“They won’t which is why I think you need to see this,” Obby said. “And, I’ve got gems to rez with if I’m wrong.”

“As you will then,” Yawlorna said. “Let’s see how you fare against three at once.”

“Make it six,” Obby said, gesturing to the nearest five demons and Hameziz.

The demons stepped forward, each smirking and eager to wipe away the arrogant calm they saw in the [Guardian] before them.

The fight wasn’t as quick as the first round, but it was less than a minute later when all six demons were laying on the ground, groaning in pain.

The rest had taken more than a couple steps back.

“That was quite the display,” Yawlorna said, calculations and analysis ticking away in the background of her eyes.

“Thank you,” Obby said. “I could probably handle twice as many before things got dicey. Three or four times as many and I’d go down without significant support. But to be fair, I’m only in a level 15 body at the moment and wearing level 15 gear. Once I level up a bit those numbers will change fairly drastically.”

“How so?” Yawlorna asked.

“At level 20, your troops will be down to a 2% chance to hit me and will be doing only about 10% of their usual damage. By level 25 I could be completely surrounded by as many of your troops as would fit in the space and they wouldn’t be able to damage me faster than my health can naturally recover.”

“So level 25 means you’re undefeatable?” Yawlorna asked.

“Undefeatable by your troops as they are now,” Obby said. “If you were helping them though, it would take more levels for me to reach ‘undefeatable’.”

“There are levels above 25?” Yawlorna asked.

“For adventurers? Yeah, we can go up to level 99,” Obby said.

“And the monsters in the [Sunless Deeps] are even stronger than that,” Tessa said. “Some of them, the most powerful bosses there, go up to level 150.”

“We have truly landed in hell,” Yawlorna said, sinking back into her chair.

Tessa wanted to reassure her, but on reflection she wasn’t sure Yawlorna was necessarily wrong.

Tessa had a theory, but it wasn’t a theory she was particularly happy with, even if it promised to be the answer to one of the problems facing them.

Call up a map of this place please, she asked Lisa on their private channel.

I tried already, Lisa said. It says ‘no map found’.

In the game version of the [Fallen Kingdoms] which Tessa was familiar with, various areas existed without the in-game maps which the players could call up to get a reference to where they were. In some cases it was because the locations were tiny and no map was needed, in others it was because they were considered to be under a “fog of war” (though that mostly applied to specialized PvP zones), and then there were the places where the developers denied the players in-game maps to create a sense of ‘mysterious’ and provide ‘immersion’.

In theory the latter case was there to encourage exploration and discovery. It was meant to draw the players in and force them to navigate through a dungeon (typically) as their characters had to. Because the developers were sadists at heart, the locations without maps would also typically include such things are randomly reconfiguring mazes or series of isolated sub areas with interacting and random teleporters.

Tessa had never found that sort of thing fun, especially when she was faced with the potential of a running battle through new terrain against an enemy of unknown capabilities.

The lead demon just said this place is called the [Ruins of Heaven’s Grace], Tessa said.

Wait, we were just in there, Lisa said. It’s a low level dungeon. It can’t be this sprawling.

The devs did promise a ‘deep lore dive’ for the [World Shift] expansion, Tessa said. What if they meant that literally?

Lisa cursed and Tessa could only agree.

“We can stand here talking if you like,” she said, turning her attention back to the demons in front of her, “or we can go chat with your commanders, or we can head out, or we can fight. I’d rather not do the last one since it gains neither of us anything, and if you can talk then you’re not the xps we’re looking for.”

“XPs?” Illuthiz asked. Pillowcase was heartened to see that she’d shifted to a more casual stance, even if Hermeziz was still on high alert.

“Wow, you are from a different world,” Obby said.

“Adventurers in this world grow stronger through winning battles,” Tessa said. “There’s a point system related to how strong the foes are.”

“And you have points for us?” Hermeziz asked, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

“There are points for everything here,” Obby said.

“Monsters,” Hermeziz said. “You’re a bunch of blood thirsty killers.”

“Yeah, most of us,” Obby said. “You can take Pillowcase at her word though. We don’t want to fight you.”

“Or anyone who we can talk to instead,” Tessa said. “We need to be stronger because there are threats in this world which are far greater than anything we can survive now, and because it might be the only way for us to get home.”

“What do you mean?” Balegritz asked.

“We’re lost here too,” Matt said.

“You want to go back to the Consortium?” Illuthiz asked.

“No. Our world isn’t one where the Consortium has ever been. Or maybe even ever can be,” Tessa said.

“You’re a Consortium soldier!” Hermeziz shouted. “One of their elites. How could you come from a world where they’ve never been?”

“We’re each more than we appear to be,” Obby said. “And you should probably call your commanders in for the rest. They’ll want to hear it too.”

“And what will you do if we don’t?” Balegritz asked.

“Wait here until you do I suppose,” Obby said.

“Or just leave,” Tessa said. “Chatting like this is nice, and if we can form a working relationship it would be better for both of us, but we’re not the only adventurers out there, and they’ll get too far ahead of us if wait forever.”

“And what if we try to stop you from leaving?: Balegritz asked.

“Then we’ll fight, and no matter how things turn out, neither of us will win,” Tessa said.

“You think you can beat us?” Hemeziz asked.

“There’s seven of us, and three of you,” Matt said. “And we seem to know how this world works better than you do.”

“You have miscounted,” a new demon said.

It was good that the room they were speaking in had a high ceiling. When the new demon appeared behind Pillowcase, her invisibility melted away to reveal someone who’s horns could easily scrape the top of the tall room.

[Elite Boss] class, was Pillowcase’s analysis. Significant threat. Durable and hard hitting. Also resistant to most crowd control effects and will possess a minimum of two special moves. Standard tactical response; engage with a full squad and expect casualties.

The presence of a major foe was almost enough to distract Tessa from the dozen other demons who appeared flying outside the giant opera box they were standing in.

“Drop your weapons,” the Elite demon said.

It was a tempting command. Tessa wasn’t sure that the seven people in her party put together would be enough to take on an Elite, who were typically level 20 and higher, much less an Elite backed by more than twice her team’s number in support troops.

“No,” Pillowcase said.

“You are in a poor bargaining position,” the Elite said.

“That’s not a problem. We’re not bargaining,” Pillowcase said. 

“Curious. We will destroy you, you realize that do you not?” the Elite said.

“You may try to destroy us,” Pillowcase said. “As I said though, it’s not in your best interests.”

“You think you can tell tell [Commander] Yawlorna  where our interests lie?” Balegritz said.

“Yes. I do.” Pillowcase nodded. “You are ignorant of who we are and the goals we seek. As are we of you. It’s in no one’s interest for this to turn to bloodshed, least of all yours. If you slay us, we will recover. If we slay you, you will, apparently, stay dead.”

“Maybe we should test that idea,” Hermeziz said.

“No,” the demon [Commander] said, carefully scrutinizing Pillowcase. “I don’t think that would be wise.”

Finally! Tesa said, venting her frustration to Lisa.

Finally? Lisa asked.

The big one seems to be ready to talk. I mean really talk, Tessa said.

That’s good, Lisa said, concern etching into her voice. When the small army back there showed up I thought things weren’t going so well.

They could be going better, Tessa said. I take it you’ve been keeping things under control with Rip, Starchild and Lady Midnight?

Sort of, Lisa said. Lady Midnight’s been giving commentary on how tough the demons are and assuring Rip that we’re fine. Pete and Starchild have been pretty quiet. I think they’re talking things over between themselves.

“We cannot leave this passageway open though,” [Commander] Yawlorna said and turned to one of the flying demons. “Hazgromonde, fetch a crew. We need structural work done here. I want the top and bottom of that hole sealed within a half hour.”

“We are going to need to leave at some point,” Obby said.

“There are other exits,” Yawlorna said. “When we are done, you will be escorted out one of the minor ones. You have my word on that.”

Tessa wasn’t sure how much the word of a demon was worth, and Pillowcase had no solid suggestions, aside from noting that they didn’t have much room to protest if they still wished to avoid a fight.

“Before we go, one question,” Pillowcase said. “It was mentioned that the name of this place is the [Ruins of Heaven’s Grave]. How do you know that?”

“There’s a library a few levels down. Most of it is ruined but we’ve managed to piece together a few maps of the area from what was left,” Yawlorna said. “Why do you ask?”

“We came here from what we thought was an entirely different set of caverns and they bore the same name,” Tessa said.

“Is it common to reuse names on this world?” Yawlorna asked.

“No. Not at all,” Tessa said. “In fact it strongly suggests that the caverns we were in are connected to this area somehow.”

“Maybe that’s where the pit leads?” Illuthiz said.

“I don’t think so,” Obby said. “That pit leads to the [Sunless Deeps].”

There was a collective intake of breath among the demons.

“How do you know that?” Yawlorna asked. “Have you been there?”

Obby seemed at a loss for words for moment, and Tessa thought she could guess why.

“We have access to fairly broad information about the world,” Tessa said. “It’s not complete, but it does cover most things that any other adventurer has discovered.”

“Sounds like a Consortium hive mind,” Hermeziz muttered loud enough for everyone to hear.

“A Consortium hive mind would never be willing to give information freely,” Pillowcase said. “At best they would sell it to you.”

That brought another pause, followed by a few nods and shrugs of agreement. The demons hadn’t exactly warmed to the adventurers but they seemed to at least accept that the adventurers were behaving too out of character to be affiliated with that particularly enemy.

“Come,” Yawlorna said. “We will gather so that all may question you equally.”

Tessa wasn’t sure what to expect from that but it turned out to be exactly what it sounded like.

Yawlorna lead the group of demons and adventurers down into the central hall, passing word as they traveled to various smaller demons to alert those who were not presently on duty to join them.

By the time they got to the central hall, it looked like several hundred demons had assembled there.

“I think there are more demons here than I have arrows in my quiver,” Rip said on the party channel.

“Isn’t your quiver endless?” Matt asked.

“Yeah, so?” Rip asked.

A squad of demons emerged from one of the side rooms, carrying thirty or so chairs. They arranged them in two groups in the center of the hall but well removed from the barricaded pit in the middle of the hall’s length.

The first group of chairs were plain seats, comfortable enough but without adornment. Those were placed in a group of seven and set to face the remaining chairs which were placed haphazardly in a half circle in front of the seven. 

Tessa and the others in her group were escorted to the seven chairs.

“Starchild and Obby, take the outer edges, Pillow, you take the center, Midnight and I will flank you and Rip and Matt can take the wing seats,” Alice said, solving the problem of who would sit where before they could stumble around looking foolish.

Pillowcase liked the arrangement from a tactical standpoint, but Tessa was praying that tactical concerns weren’t going to be an issue.

Opposite them, the demons seemed to take a much more free approach to seating with two or more demons sprawling together on the same chairs, while others stood empty. Yawlorna and Balegritz either by station or inclination, had chairs to themselves, while Hermeziz and Illuthiz shared one near them.

“You spoke of a working relationship between us,” Yawlorna began. “What do you envision that to mean.”

“As much or as little as each side is comfortable with,” Tessa said. 

It puzzled her how speaking to a eight foot tall demon woman with horns like a bull and muscles as solid as a semi-truck could seem natural.

Why aren’t I freaking out here? she wondered. How is this natural? Shouldn’t my heart be beating out of my chest?

[Clothwork] hearts are designed better than that, Pillowcase replied.

“We’d be comfortable if you weren’t here,” Hermeziz said. 

Illuthiz ground a knuckle into his cheek.

“Questions now,” she said. “Whining never.”

“He’s not wrong to worry,” Pillowcase said. “This isn’t a safe world. We mean you harm, but you don’t know us yet, and trust can only be earned through time.”

“You would be willing to earn our trust then?” Yawlorna said.

“Possibly,” Tessa said. “What did you have in mind?”

“You said you have wide knowledge of this world?” Yawlorna said. “If so then perhaps you can aid us in our quest to leave this world.”

Fights don’t always go to the one who attacks first, but hesitating when the enemy is right in front of you was a fantastic method for getting yourself killed in Pillowcase’s experience.

“Wait!” Tessa called out as both her group and the demons in front of her moved to unleash their weapons and spells.

Oblivion’s Daughter was faster than Pillowcase but, to her credit, was also able to check her initial swing the moment Tessa called out.

Rip, Matt, and Starchild had been intending to hold their attacks until given leave to join the fray, but that didn’t stop Rip from letting out a confused “What?” in response.

The demons, who Tessa was certain hadn’t been speaking English when they came into the room, also paused, though in their case that involved pointing their spears at the two nearest targets and bursting into flames.

“Wait,” Pillowcase said aloud, again, for everyone to hear. “We don’t have to fight.”

“Who in Hezzlmin’s Charred Nethers are you then?” Balegritz, the nearest demon asked.

Balegritz was taller than either Pillowcase or Obby and seemed to out mass both of the put together. The flames which burned in his eyes were a soft shade of purple which blended nicely with the nimbus of blue flames which danced around his heavily armored form.

[Bruiser] class, Pillowcase thought. Enhanced toughness and durability with a focus on physical damage. Best slain with non-elemental magic damage. Physical weaknesses include navel, heart, and decapitation. Standard tactical response; hold and allow casters to finish off.

“I’m Pillowcase,” Tessa said, the name feeling at the same time silly and contrived as well as proper and well worn. “Ca you understand me?”

“Course we can understand you,” Hermeziz, the demon on Balegritz’s left, said. “Wait, you speak Nezzparrin?”

Inability to understand one’s enemies is a strategic weakness, Pillowcase said.

Am I omni-lingual now? Tessa asked.

My linguistics threads were designed to render my speech comprehensible to anyone who spoke a language the Consortium had documented. Some concepts may not translate well, and I will not sound like a native speaker in many cases but basic orders are a well tested area.

“We’re not speaking Nezzparrin,” Obby said. “We do have translation magic though.”

We do? Lisa asked. I’m can’t make out anything they’re saying.

It’s part of the [Artifax] lore, Tessa said. I’m guessing Obby picked up some other translation effect somehow.

“What are you doing here then?” Balegritz asked.

“The floor in the farmhouse above this room collapsed,” Obby said, wisely in Tessa’s view omitting the part about their party’s intent to hunt up some demon blood.

“The farmhouse?” Hermeziz asked.

Tessa gestured upwards to the hole in the roof. “Yeah, up there.”

“Flark,” Balegritz said. “That wasn’t there last time.”

“Did you run into any [Chaos Centipedes] lately? There are a few hundred up there on a fast respawn timer,” Pillowcase said.

“[Chaos Centipedes]? That’s were those things are coming from!” Illuthiz, the last demon, said, indignation stoking the green flames around her to noticeably brighter hue.

[Skirmisher] class, Pillowcase noted. Evasive and durable. Primarily a physical damage dealer, but with special movement and status inflicting abilities. Best fought with immobilization techniques. Weak points include legs, eyes, and decapitation. Standard tactical response; constrain and exploit opening if their focus deviates while other front line fighters dispatch.

“Yeah, we’ve seen a few of those things,” Balegritz said. “You don’t look like you fell down the hole though. How long have you been here?”

“A few minutes,” Matt said. “Didn’t you hear me hit the ground? It wasn’t quite.”

Tessa saw the game Matt was playing, trying to turn his earlier mistake to their advantage, but she worried that the demons might have noticed that his fall was a lot quieter than it should have been thanks to the vines Starchild conjured.

“See! I told you I heard something!” Illuthiz said. 

“Ok, you’re right,” Balegritz said. “Question is, what do we do with all of them?”

“We could have them climb up those ropes they’ve got there,” Hermeziz said. “How’d you get those setup if you fell?”

It was a reasonable question but the tone Hermeziz asked it in suggested he was feeling anything but reasonable.

“Magic,” Obby said, pointing to the remains of the vines from Starchild’s earlier spell as though that explained everything.

“We were going to check out this place a bit before we left,” Pillowcase said. “It’s not everyday that you fall into a brand new dungeon.”

“It’s not exactly ‘brand new’,” Balegritz said. “We’ve been here for years now. Ever since we crashed on this miserable rock.”

“Crashed?” Tessa asked. “You’re not from here?”

“Do we look like we’re from here?” Balegritz asked.

“Yeah,” Obby said.

“Pretty much,” Matt said.

“You’re not the strangest thing I’ve seen today,” Pillowcase said. “Probably not even in the top five.”

“I know, right?” Obby said. “At least these folks have a sense of style in their armor.”

Tessa thought she saw Balegritz beam at that, but Hermeziz narrowed his eyes while Illuthiz remained as calm and blank faced as Pillowcase was.

“So maybe we have them leave like they were planning to?” Illuthiz asked.

“Sure, that seems smart,” Hermeziz said. “It’s not like they’ll go and tell everyone and everything that we’re here.”

“Would that be a bad thing?” Pillowcase asked.

“Are you new here?” Balegritz asked. “Or have you not noticed that people like you are universally aggressive to people like me?”

How are negotiations going? Lisa asked.

They don’t trust us, Tessa said. Sounds like they think everyone else is universally aggressive towards them.

Decent odds they’re correct, Lisa said.

“There haven’t been many people like me around here until very recently,” Pillowcase said, removing her helmet so the demons could see that they were talking to an [Clothwork] rather than the human Tessa guessed they’d mistaken her for.

“Consortium!” Hermeziz yelled and charged his spear with a nimbus of green flames that Pillowcase instinctively braced against.

[Flames of Avarice]. Reduces healing capacity of the targets. Punctures through basic defenses. Best supplemental defense; destroy wielder before it can be deployed. I hate that stuff.

“Ex-Consortium,” Pillowcase said.

“Ex-Consortium?” Balgritz asking, putting a hand on Hemeziz’s shoulder to delay the impending attack. “How is that possible?”

“I was abandoned after a failed assault,” Pillowcase said. “My new animating force is unconnected to the [Consortium of Pain], and so I am no longer bound to them in any manner.”

“Still programmed for loyalty though I bet,” Hermeziz said.

“No more so than you’re programmed for evil,” Matt said, he’d stepped forward to join Obby and Pillowcase since he was the only other member of their party who could understand the demons.

“That’s an easy claim to make,” Illuthiz said. “Hard to prove though.”

“Not necessarily,” Pillowcase said. “If you have any [Master Enchanters] in your ranks, they should be able to examine my thread weave and see that the command compulsion enchantments are gone. In fact, if you talk to them, they’ll tell you that destruction of a constructs animating enchantment causes a complete erasure of binding spells on them, usually requiring a full recreation ritual to safely bring the construct back online.”

“How do you know we have ranks?” Hermeziz asked.

“Because you look like the people down there,” Matt said, pointing to the back of the room where overlook of the grand hall was.

Pillowcase wanted to put her helmet back on. It was nicer to have her hands free, but since the gesture was likely to heighten the demon’s suspicions, she opted to leave it off.

“Going back to your original point though,” Pillowcase said before the conversation drifted too far from where she wanted it to be. “You’re concerned with keeping this location a secret? It’s understandable, but likely no longer practical. The farmhouse we discovered is swarmed with low level monsters. They’ll draw other adventurers in and if there’s one thing adventurers do, it’s poke their noses into any strange thing they find.”

“Even if they get them bitten off?” Hermeziz said.

“Especially if they get bitten off,” Obby said. “If we disappear here, that’ll create a mystery which other people will definitely follow up on. If more people disappear after that, this will become a hub for higher and higher level players to test themselves against.”

“Also, if you kill us, we won’t have as much reason to be talkative the next time, after we respawn,” Matt said.

“Respawn?” Illuthiz asked.

“Yeah,” Matt said. “You know? How we come back after we die?”

“You do what?” Balegritz asked, though it was clear than all three of the demons were incredulous at the idea.

“When we die, we can come back again,” Matt said. “It just takes a while, especially if we don’t have the stuff to come back right where we fell.”

“You’re lying,” Hermeziz said. “Nobody comes back from being dead. Dead is dead.”

“Not for us,” Pillowcase said. “Though it is seriously inconvenient, so we’re not going to try prove it if you ask.”

Getting back to a [Heart Fire] would be difficult enough, but dodging the [Hounds of Fate] for the whole run might be impossible and Tessa was absolutely not willing to risk any of her new friends on the attempt when diplomacy was a much better answer.

“We could force the issue,” Illuthiz said, her tone light and casual, without the menace her words should have carried.

“You could try,” Obby said.

“But you don’t want to,” Pillowcase quickly added. “Like I said, your base’s location is too close to a village which has become a major land in the last day or so. Dealing with outsiders is going to be a thing whether you like it or not.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Hermeziz said. “If anybody else finds us, they definitely won’t like it.”

“Does it help you to lose members of your troop like that?” Pillowcase asked. “Do you gain anything from an unworkable isolation?”

“Yeah, we do. We stay safe from you and all the other ridiculous monsters out there that want to eat us, or drink our blood, or whatever you sick things do,” Hermeziz said.

Ouch. They’re worried we want to drink their blood, Tessa said to Lisa on their private channel.

Because of me? Lisa asked.

I don’t think so, Tessa said. It was part of a list of exaggerated worries.

Good. I’ll keep my mouth shut then, Lisa said. Hopefully my robes will keep me hidden too. I think they’re big enough that the demons haven’t gotten a good look at me yet.

I’ll be sure to warn them of who and what we all area, Tessa said. They already freaked out a bit when they saw what I was.

They don’t like plushies?

They don’t like the [Consortium of Pain]. Apparently they’ve met Pillowcase’s creators before.

“That’s interesting that we look like monsters to you,” Obby said. “You’re from another world entirely aren’t you?”

“I said we crashed here, didn’t I?” Balegritz said.

“Yes, but you don’t crash here from a world we could see in the sky above this land,” Obby said. “You’re from another reality. And somehow you slipped through to here.”

“I guess?” Balegritz said. “I don’t really know what that means, but I do know that this place is nothing like home. Everything is wrong here. Even the name of it.”

“What’s wrong with the [High Beyond]?” Tessa asked.

“Apart from the otherworlds reverb in your voice when you say those words?” Illuthiz asked.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Balegriz said. “I mean, this dungeon like you called it. [The Ruins of Heaven’s Grave]? What kind of name is that for a place?”

Tessa stiffened. 

It was the same name as the dungeon her team had been in when Starchild called for help. 

But the developers wouldn’t have named two different dungeons the same thing.

So either they were in truly unwritten territory, or the dungeon they’d fallen into was bigger than any Tessa had heard of before.

Tessa descended one hand hold at a time into darkness, keenly aware of the dangers which lurked below her and blissfully ignorant of the far greater forces moving across the two worlds she was a part of.

“Couldn’t we just fall to the bottom?” Rip asked. “I mean, we have healers with us right?”

“Apart from not enjoying the idea of breaking my legs, we also need to test the ropes in case we need to use them to exit quickly,” Tessa said.

“Obby didn’t break anything though,” Rip said. She was climbing down the same rope Tessa was on, and was strangely eager to reach the bottom and start fighting again.

Good call there on going down before Rip, Lisa said on their private channel. It was still tempting for Tessa to call her Lost Alice, but that was only force of habit. Strangely, once they’d announced their real names to each other, the text chat that appeared in the corner of Tessa’s vision had updated to reflect “Lisa” as the speaker when they were communicating privately, though it still showed “Lost Alice” when she spoke aloud.

 I think she’d leap from where she is if she thought it was a straight fall to the bottom. Lisa added.

You don’t think her arms are getting tired do you? Tessa asked.

She looks like she’s doing fine from here, Lisa said. Can you catch her if she loses her grip?

I think so. Pillowcase was built pretty strong from someone made of cloth and stuffing. How are you doing though?

Turns out Vampires are pretty strong too, Lisa said with a note of pride in her voice.

“If you folks want to jump, we can catch you,” Obby said.

“That seems like a great idea for breaking two people instead of one,” Lost Alice said.

“We won’t know unless we try!” Rip said.

Tessa was correct that Pillowcase was strong enough to catch and hold a falling elf. Where Pillowcase fell short though was in being just a bit too slow get a handhold on Rip before she fell out of arm’s reach..

“Wheee!” Rip yelled, though only on their group channel. In terms of externally audible qualities, her fall was more silent than a whisper.

“[Lesser Impact Absorption],” Obby said, invoking a [Guardian] skill which was more traditionally used as a damage shield while fighting tough opponents.

“Oof,” Rip gasped into the party channel and added “it worked!” after catching her breath.

“Well, that’ll save time,” Matt said and let go of his rope as well. 

This time Tessa didn’t even try to grab him. As a [Metal Mechanoid], Matt was a lot heavier than Rip and also a lot more inherently durable. In battle, Rip might have the edge in survivability due to her better armor and evasiveness, but for random environmental damage being a walking suit of plate armor was something of an advantage. Which was good because Tessa was pretty sure the [Lesser Impact Absorption] which Oblivion’s Daughter had used had been exhausted soaking the damage from Rip’s fall.

“[Grasping Vines],” Starchild called out as she shoved Obby and Rip aside.

Even with the insulation provided by six feet of vines sprouting up to cushion his fall, Matt still hit the ground fairly hard. Fortunately not hard enough to break anything but Matt did let out a small “oww” before getting to his feet.

“Ok, that was kind of…not bright,” he said. “I think I fell a hundred feet there.”

“Yeah! And walked away from it without a scratch!” Rip said. “I kind of want to climb up and do it again.”

“I will literally bite you if you come back up here,” Alice said as she and Tessa continued to descend.

Tessa was reasonably sure she was joking, but [Tabbywiles] like Rip were full of yummy blood to a vampire and Lisa had complained about feeling hungry several times already.

“I said ‘I kind of want to’, I’m not going to do it,” Rip said. “I know we’re on a time crunch here.”

‘Time crunches’ gave Tessa a brief flashback to her workplace. According to the clock in her heads up display, she should have been at work hours ago. Had anyone noticed she wasn’t in yet? Were they calling to find out where she was? Had they fired her already?

Losing her job shouldn’t have been able to crack the Top 500 list of Tessa’s primary worries given the situation she was in but it managed to hit home nonetheless. For as believable as everything around her felt, and looked, and sounded, the sense of being cast out and abandoned by her employers was too real for her to ignore.

Wait, that’s not me is it? Tessa probed the edges of her fear while lowering herself down the rope. I’m not worried about losing my job. It sucks. If they fire me and I have all this to work with instead that’s my dream come true.

Correct. This is your dream. Your memory merely touched on my nightmare, Pillowcase said. When my unit lost, when I fell after the battle, all of the meaning I’d been give crumbled. I was no longer what I was supposed to be. I was nothing.

Tessa felt the existential dread Pillowcase spoke of. She remembered it. Knew it as her own. Pillowcase’s despair and fading light was unique to her life as a construct for the [Consortium of Pain] but it spoke in the same voice as the emptiness and misery in Tessa’s memories.

You ok? Lisa asked.

Tessa had paused her descent as she wrestled with the overlapping sensations from two lives. 

Yeah, she said, taking a slow breath to center herself. Just a bit of work related stress catching up to me.

You do a lot of rope climbing at work? Lisa asked.

Well, I do now it seems, Tessa said. I was just thinking about being fired.

You know you’re weird right? Lisa asked.

It’s been noted before, Tessa said.

But it’s a cute kind of weird, Lisa said which made Tessa’s heart do all sorts of wrong fluttering.

They finished their climb to find the others had drawn up a small map on the ground using bits of the vines which Starchild had summoned.

“I took a look outside the door after the last patrol went by,” Obby said. “It looks like the hallway outside leads off in these directions.  She pointing to a curving length of vine with a four way intersection to the left of the room they were in and a single side corridor to the right.

“Which way did the patrol go?” Alice asked.

“Towards the intersection,” Obby said. “From the sound of it, they turned right and went down some stairs or whatever’s over there.”

“Were they patrolling like an organized unit or just walking from one place to another?” Tessa asked.

“It was a patrol,” Starchild said. “They had weapons ready and they were being quiet and observant.”

“That’s a shame,” Tessa said. “This would have been a lot easier if the demons were mindless. Getting the drop on wary and alert mobs is a pain.”

“I think I see why you mentioned blood being a valuable piece of loot,” Lady Midnight said, getting a clear look at Lost Alice for the first time.

“It’s not my first choice of meal, believe me,” Alice said.

“[Demon blood] should be pretty filling, I’m hoping,” Tessa said. “It’s used in a ton of alchemy recipes and the lore has it as being saturated with magic, which is what vampires here are supposedly subsisting on primarily.”

“Wait, so vampires don’t need blood? They need magic?” Rip asked.

“Unfortunately the blood’s an important part of it,” Alice said.

“Think of it like you needing ‘carbon’ for food. Fundamentally that’s what most food is but it has to be in a very specific configuration. You can’t just chow down on a diamond,” Tessa said.

“That makes sense,” Rip said. “So how we do get their blood then? I mean apart from the whole hit them till they stop moving thing.”

“That’s pretty much how it’s done,” Tessa said. “The key it going to be working out how to hit them while not giving them the chance to hit us back very much.”

“We could use the side passages against them,” Obby said and went on to diagram her suggestion, putting small markers for each of them at various points along the vine.

With a map before them, everyone got in on the planning, one creative thought spurring another. It was Tessa’s favorite part of any dungeon run. 

At least when the dungeon run had been a purely recreational activity. 

With the outcome of their plans having potentially life threatening consequences, Tessa found the exercise a few degrees more stressful than usual. She took those feelings though, wrapped them up in a ball, and stuffed them down into the depths of her psyche. The last thing her team needed was someone taking away their optimism and confidence.

In what felt like a blink, they had a plan put together.

“So we don’t know exactly how strong these demons are, or what sort of special abilities they might have,” Alice said, going over the plan one final time. “Obby and Pillow will be the ones to engage with Lady M and me providing backup. You other three are going to start back at the ropes. If Obby or Pillow calls it out, you start climbing.”

“But they’ll only call for a retreat if they’re sure we can’t beat the demons right?” Rip asked.

“How will they get away if they’re holding the demons off though?” Matt asked.

“We can slow them,” Tessa said. “Then when we climb, we’ll pull the ropes up with us. No ropes, no demons following us.”

“And if we can take them?” Rip asked.

“Starchild will take lead on target selection, since she needs to get into melee anyways,” Tessa said.

“I’ll move to support whichever of you seems to have the tougher foe,” Starchild said. “Eliminate the biggest threat as fast as possible  and our healers won’t run their magic dry trying to keep you two on your feet.”

“We appreciate that,” Lady Midnight said. “If we wind up with more mobs than the tanks can handle though we may need you to off tank any that get through.”

“With two tanks we should be fine, but good to have a third backup anyways. The demons are smart enough to peel off and try to wipe Lady M and me out first,” Alice said.

“If they’re that smart, can we talk to them?” Matt asked.

“Demons don’t speak,” Alice said. “At least in the game.”

“From the lore, most of them aren’t from the [Fallen Kingdoms],” Lady Midnight said. “So there’s no shared language there, and demons are always aggressive.”

“Yes. It’s hard to speak with a foe who tries to stab you the moment they lay eyes on you,” Starchild said.

“They’re supposed to be soulless monsters without any personality,” Tessa said. “That’s what makes them perfect for our needs.”

“I hope we’re ready for them then,” Rip said. “Because we’ve got another patrol headed down the hall outside.”

It was always tempting to take more time to plan, to consider more options, but Tessa knew that was a trap. At a certain point you just had to take the chance and the plan you have into motion.

“We’ll let them pass and engage them when they’re not facing us,” Tessa said.

“Yeah, the extra second or two should give us time to get aggro on the whole group,” Obby said, readying her sword.

“How many of them are there?” Tessa asked.

“Looked like three,” Rip said. “But I had to pull back from the door quick, so there might be more.”

“Three’s good,” Tessa said. “More’s doable too, so long as it’s not too many more.”

“They’re not going to know what hit ‘em,” Obby said.

Tessa prayed that would be true and went preternaturally still.

“We gonna check the overlooks?” a deep, and somewhat bored voice asked.

“Probably should,” another replied. “I haven’t looked in for a few days and the last thing we need is another nest of [Plague Rats] using them as a spawning den.”

Tessa’s mind whirled, wondering who she could be hearing. Demons didn’t speak English. 

Except, apparently, for the ones who came strolling into the room with their axes and spears at the ready. The smallest of them was easily seven feet tall and they all looked just as built for war, and as deeply confused, as Pillowcase.

Interlude – Hailey MacGilfoyle / GM Burnt Toast

As riots went, the defection of the EE staff wasn’t as bloody as it could have been. Michael Kimmler, the company’s Vice President of Sales received a broken nose for trying to order the staff back to the seats when they rose en mass to prevent the server shutdown, and Craig Scott, the VP of Business Relations, was tossed through a glass door when he threatened to lock them all into the cafeteria.

In Kimmler’s case, the response had been a instant and visceral one. He said the wrong thing, to the wrong person, in the wrong tone and that person had a few dozen people who agreed with the position that Kimmler deserved a punch to the face. When Kimmler’s butt hit the floor and he stayed down, out of the crowd’s path, the matter was essentially settled.

Scott on the other hand had been the one to argue several times for “lowering head count” so the anger he received had been simmering for significantly longer than the current crisis. As the glass door in question was not made of candy glass like many movie doors were, Scott’s injuries were significantly more extensive than Kimmler’s, though none were especially life threatening, to the dismay of at least a hand full of the staff.

Hailey wasn’t concerned about either Kimmler or Scott’s predicament though. Nor did she join those of her coworkers who went to the IT labs to ensure the server monkeys didn’t follow the orders they’d been given. In her mind the real threat lay outside.

The FBI was bound to arrive in minutes.

“This isn’t going to go well,” Marcus said, staring out the ruined front door with Hailey.

“What? Like it’s going well now?” She wanted to punch him. A little violent release of her own seemed justified given the day and night and day she was having.

But Marcus was a poor target for her anger. She could see it in the tremble at the corner of his lips. He didn’t want this either.

“No, but all this? Calling in the FBI? The staff doing whatever they just did? It’s all going to make things worse.”

He wasn’t wrong. Hailey knew that. By framing it as a case of “mass disappearances”, the FBI was going to read it as “mass kidnappings” and that wasn’t going to engender anything like a calm, measured response. The EE staff’s action would be fuel for that fire, but the alternative was unthinkable.

“I’m going into the game,” Hailey said. She’d made the decision hours ago but the words tumbling from her lips were the first time she was consciously aware of it.

“Don’t even joke about that,” Marcus said. “You know we haven’t seen either of the GMs that we lost.”

“I’m not joking. I’m not going in on my GM account. I’m going in on my main. She’s all ready to log in.”

“What? Why would you do that? We cleared out all the pending logins! We made sure you all were safe!”

“Yeah. We’re safe. But everyone we ever played with? They’re not.”

Interlude – Azma

Azma beheld the gathered might of her empire and saw the destruction and ruin which it was about to unleash. It put bubbles of joy on her tongue.

Or maybe that was the fizzy liquor?

She took another swig to be sure.

It was half from the liquor.

Which was fair. The troops she had assembled weren’t exactly her empire. Technically they were property of the Consortium. For the duration of the coming conflict though she could use and expend them as she fit. In theory she could request additional resources if they were needed as well. The Consortium was concerned with results and, to an extent, they were willing to invest what it took to get those results.

Azma would never call on more troops or materiel though. Even operating under the strange and unfamiliar rules of the [Fallen Kingdoms], including the odd resonant echo whenever she thought or said certain words, Azma had no doubt that she would be victorious. The defenders might be able to match her troops, they might be able to overcome her engines of war, they might even be able to anticipate her battle strategies, but they were still laboring under an insurmountable disadvantage.

None of them were her.

“Sir! All bays report ready. Portals are locked and targeted. We can begin the operation at your command.”

“Excellent. We’ll start as soon as I finish this bottle,” Azma said, taking another short pull of whatever it was that had wound up in her hand. The fizzy part was pleasant but it was the firey kick that was managing to hold Azma’s interest.

“Sir?”

After Azma’s rather violent insistence that she be allowed to begin the invasion, she couldn’t blame her subordinates for being confused by her decision to delay when everything was at last in place.

All things have their proper time though, and as Azma watched the remote scans of the defenders marshalling throughout the [Fallen Kingdoms] she saw the positioning, readiness and mood of the pieces shifting inexorably into just the arrangement she desired.

“It’s good…wine? Harlac juice? Brandy? No. It’s something else,” Azma said. “But good stuff. Don’t want to rush it. There are moment you simply need to savor after all.”

“Is there anything you want to say to the troops? Anything they can do to prepare?”

“Yes. Tell them to picture what they want me to say about each one of them in the final battle report,” Azma said. “They know their part in the plan. They know why what they’re doing is essential. Tell them to envision how things will go wrong and how they, personally, are are going to rise to the challenge and make it all work out anyways.”

“Even the Artifax Sir?”

“Especially the Artifax. They’re crafted to think of themselves as elites. The best of the best, made to a perfect design by the finest builders the Consortium has to offer. I want them to think of themselves as something more than that. They need to understand that they’re not just the perfect troops. They’re my perfect troops.”

Interlude – Niminay

Niminay hated speeches. Giving them, listening to them, it didn’t matter. Words mattered but she’d always been one better suited to taking action.

“You’ve all heard this tale before,” she began, deviating from the script that had been prepared for her from word one. “The world stands in peril. A new threat has emerged, more dangerous than any which has been seen before. Blah, blah, blah.”

The convocation of adventurers gave a hearty chuckle at that. Somehow in the last decade there had been more world-ending crises than in the last ten millenia of recorded history. That the [Fallen Kingdoms] still remained as anything other than ash stains on a barren plain was due in no small part to the adventurers who were gathered before Niminay. 

“I’m not going to tell you that you stand between the end of the world and all we hold dear,” Niminay said. “You know that already. It’s where you always stand. What I will tell you is that you do not stand alone.”

The crowd didn’t chuckle at that. A gravity settled over the adventurers and Niminay felt the weight of their regard and expectations focus on her.

“We fought this foe before,” she said. “We rallied an army to hold them back and met them with a force unmatched in speed or might. We claimed victory that day and drove them back through their portals. We shattered their army and brought ruin to their vessels.”

A cheer went up which was carried by the crowd, but not for long. Everyone felt more was coming.

“We beat them but they are returning, and we all know what that means.”

“That we’ll beat them again!” one of the adventurer’s shouted, which drew another cheer from the crowds.

“Of course we will,” Niminay said, allowing a little of her own pride to shine through. “We don’t have a choice.” She let the smile fade from her lips as she continued though. “We know it won’t be easy though. The [Consortium of Pain] brought powerful troops to bear last time and they wouldn’t be returning if they didn’t have something better to hit us with.”

From Penny’s estimations, Niminay knew they could expect the next force to be at least 20% stronger than the previous one, with a more plausible chance of it being twice to three times as powerful. Niminay didn’t like those odds, and wasn’t overly eager to share them with the adventurers. Crushing people’s spirits was a terrible idea on the eve of a battle.

“The good news is that they aren’t the only ones who’ve been able to marshall a bigger army. I know that you are spread out, scattered around the world, but if you can hear my voice, then you are fighting with me, and I with you.”

Niminay gathered herself up, feeling the warmth of conviction burning in her chest.

“We have long been divided, playing games against one another, but for every squabble which separates us there is a deeper bond which holds us together. We are the children of those who fell, and though we fall and fall again, still we rise. Whether it be for love of this world of ours, or spite at those who would take it from us, or sheer stubbornness, we rise. Adventurers, soldiers, civilians, in this cause we fight with one heart which will never falter and never despair, no matter what may come.”

Interlude – Brendan Reingold / Mellisandra

Brendan’s eyes felt like they were lidded with lead sheets. Despite Niminay’s rousing speech and the effect it seemed to have on the assembled adventurers, he could feel the merciless claws of fatigue dragging him under.

“I think I have to catch some zzz’s,” he said to Mellisandra. He’d heard noises earlier indicating him roommates had been up and making breakfast. From the silence which had returned to the apartment, he guessed they were off to work already, the same as he should have been hours ago. “Are you going to be ok without me for a few hours?”

“I think I should be,” Mellisandra said. “Damnazon and I are going to see if we can find a bigger group to partner up with.”

“Safety in numbers? I like it,” Brendan said. “I’ll send in an email to take a sick day today and tomorrow if we need. And I think I should be fine with just a few hours of sleep, so I shouldn’t be away too long.”

“Get as much sleep as you need,” Mellisandra said. “If we are linked in some manner, your rest may benefit me as well.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to miss anything.”

“We’re still setting up,” Mellisandra said. “If anything happens while you’re away, it’ll be because the Consortium made their move early.”

“That’s more or less exactly what I’m worried about,” Brendan said. “If your world is influenced by how the game developers in my world set things up, I’m willing to bet there’ll be the first big event with the Consortium kicking off soon. The developers would want to introduce that sort of thing as early as possible.”

“If so, it’s surprising one hasn’t happened already,” Mellisandra said. “You’re already far beyond the normal length of time you would have been connected for, isn’t that true?”

“Yeah, but it’s for a good cause.” He smiled, and felt stupid a moment later when he remembered that while he could see Mellisandra (or at least an animated rendition of her), she couldn’t see him at all anymore.

On the screen, he watched as Mellisandra and her half-giant companion met up with a group of adventurers that seemed to include a goblin in their ranks.

“Rest and reclaim your strength then,” Mellisandra said as Damnazon began chatting with the other team. “It’s almost the first rule of adventuring – recover resources at every possible opportunity. Like you said, this is a good cause, and we’ll need to fight for it with everything we have.”