When I came to, I was surrounded by complete and utter darkness. I was lying on the ground, with something uneven and uncomfortable pressing into my back. Hesitantly, I propped myself up with my arms, then slowly, unsteadily, I rose to my feet. I turned my head this way and that, but there was no visible way to tell which was forward or backward, upwards or downwards.

Until the light appeared.

It was a tiny yellowish dot off in the distance, and since I had nowhere else to look, I watched as it slowly grew, wavering rhythmically up and down. The light grew continuously, and I could eventually make out that it was a torch, being carried towards me by a pair of murky silhouettes. As they came closer, the light became bright enough to illuminate the ground, and I could see that we were standing in a rocky tunnel with a set of train tracks running through the center. The figure holding the torch was large and imposing, while the other was shorter and slight. My chest tightened in apprehension.

What do they want with me? Should I run?

I couldn’t decide whether to fight or flee, so I just stood there, frozen in indecision, until the figures stopped right in front of me, the torchlight revealing their faces at last.

I knew them. How could I not know them? They were my parents.

Mom? Dad?

They gazed at me neutrally, betraying no discernible emotion at being reunited with their prodigal son. Or maybe, if I grasped at straws, I could just detect a hint of stoicism carved into their stony expressions.

Without speaking, my dad reached out, offering me the torch.

I didn’t want it.

But it didn’t look like I had a choice. Reluctantly, I took hold of it, watching a few aimless sparks fly as the wood burned.

The hell am I supposed to do with this thing, anyway?

My parents turned away and retreated into the gloom, in the same direction that they had come. Their leg of the relay was complete. It was all on me now. I took another look at the torch. I still didn’t want it. I really, really didn’t want it.

I should just stand here until this thing burns out.

I could certainly do that.

I stared down the tunnel where they had disappeared. I had nothing to give me bearings other than the train track, and the already receding memory of my parents. I turned to face the other direction. I didn’t think I would ever live to see the end of the tunnel, but I got the feeling that if I started walking, there was a chance I’d find somebody else to pass the torch to.

I just couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. So I stood there, frozen.

---

 

“Urgggghhh.”

Did that sound really come from me?

No way. Not unless I was a zombie.

I was lying down again, but this time there weren’t any damn train tracks digging into me.

I tried to prop myself up, but my elbow quickly informed me that that wouldn’t be a possibility.

Looking around…

No way.

The Ground Dragon’s nest was right there, off to my side. I was back to wearing my battered armor. The cavern was just as I remembered it, except… now, it was full of light. Soft shades of blue, orange, purple, and red glowed from hundreds of mushrooms that grew in great clusters, springing up from the rocky floor itself.

How???

Then I looked to my left, and I saw her - the woman kneeling over me. If I had to describe her, I’d say she was indescribably beautiful, with long, flowing purple hair that complimented her golden irises. She seemed to be a bit older than me, roughly middle-aged. Her lithe, powerful frame was covered in intricately detailed mythril battle armor, though I couldn’t see a weapon. A dark gloved hand was placed tenderly on my chest, with dark, purple static emanating from it.

It was healing magic alright, but nothing like Sylvana’s. This new woman’s spell wasn’t making me roll around in euphoria, it just made me feel… numb. Like the stuff your dentist shoots you full of to give you a temporary case of Bell’s palsy. The numbness covered me like a blanket, but it stopped just below my neck, so with a great effort I was able to speak.

“Y-you.” I grunted.

The woman looked at me and gave me a small, purple-lipped smile.

“Was it you?” I coughed bloodlessly. “Did you- bring me… to this world?”

The smile disappeared, and the woman gave a quick shake of her head.

“Do you… know who did?”

The smile returned, and the woman nodded.

I breathed out and laid my head back.

Thank god. Finally somebody with some fucking answers.

I’ll just take a quick rest first…

I’m so tired…

…and we’ll get everything straightened out…

…once I’m awake.

---

 

I took a deep drink from my Guinness. I was at the same bar I’d met my boy Derek at, the night of my disappearance.

I checked my watch.

Late as always…

Then the doors opened. It was Stella - but in her usual Alterran body, with the blue hair and the horns. And she’d brought company: three little tots trailed after her, like baby ducklings after their mama. Two little boys and a little girl. All with Burt’s face.

“Please, Bradley, I need your help. I need you.” Stella begged.

“I can tell.” I answered. Stella looked old and haggard, her face filled with drooping wrinkles and deep lines of sorrow. The wall comes for all.

“I love you.” she offered. “I always did. You just… I didn’t try hard enough. It’s all my fault.”

“Finally left you, huh? Sorry Stella, but I’ve got a date with my right hand this evening. There’s nothing you can offer me that I want. Not any more, anyway.”

Stella sobbed. The little girl tugged impatiently at her sleeve.

“Mommy, I’m hungry. You said he was going to feed us.”

“No, I’m sorry sweetie. Let’s go.” Stella turned away, half-dragging two of her angry children with her.

“Wait.” I said.

Stella turned around hopefully.

I held out a large silver coin for her - the same one that I got for shoveling snow.

“Thank you, Bradley. Goddess bless you.”

As she reached out a trembling hand, I flicked the coin into the air. But before it landed in her hand, I deftly caught it, slapped it on my wrist, and covered it.

“Heads or tails?” I asked.

Stella’s face shriveled even further. She looked like an old crone now, with streaks of grey running through her once proud mane.

“Tails.” she decided.

I peeked at the coin. It was tails.

“Better luck next time.” I shrugged, pocketing it.

---

 

I lapsed back into consciousness on the cavern floor.

I hadn’t known what to do in the tunnel, but after that nightmare, I’d made up my mind.

I wanted to die.

I was just gonna lay right there on the cavern floor until I starved. The world would be better off without me. I was an awful person. And it was time to go on a hunger strike against whatever miserable entity conceived of me.

The problem was, I was bored.

I held out for as long as I could, but the truth was, I wasn’t even sure I could starve any more.

Would it take three weeks like a normal person? Or would I be down here for years like Angus fucking Barbieri?

The purple lady was gone, so I guessed I wasn’t gonna get any more answers.

And by the way, why isn’t my heart in my fucking chest?

I stared at the cavern ceiling. It was considerably darker now, so I could barely even conjure up any lewd images in the tapestry of cracks.

I sighed regretfully.

Guess I’ll have to live, then.

I turkish-get-upped my way to a standing position. Surprisingly, my limbs were spry. My head was clear. Whatever that woman had done… worked wonders.

After twisting and stretching a bit to get the kinks and death out of my system, my attention gravitated naturally towards the only source of light in the cavern: one solitary, orange mushroom remained, right in the middle of the Dragon’s nest. I climbed carefully into the mess of twisted branches and plucked it. It sure as hell wasn’t a torch, but did I have any other options?

The body of the Dragon was missing. Burt and the others must have found it and dragged it home with them. But not old Bradley Razzetti, though.

Can’t have anybody wondering about all those stab wounds…

Oh… Bradley?

He got burned to a crisp. A tragedy worthy of Shakespeare, truly.

Anyway, drink up!

And then the entire Adventurer’s Guild cheered, and glargged, and made merry.

“Two birds with one stone!” Stella remarked.

In my head at least. And what an awful place that was.

I walked out the cavern, into the main chasm. I couldn’t bring myself to look behind me. If I’d turned towards the ruined passage and seen a pair of wide, yellow eyes staring at me, I think I would’ve had a complete nervous breakdown. Not that I would’ve seen anything, anyway. My state-of-the-art light source had about the power of a glow stick, and I had to wave it around methodically to get a good picture of the ground before slowly moving forward, one hand on the chasm wall.

I advanced up the ledge without looking back, and nothing violently interrupted me.

I made my way past the rickety bridge and continued up the ledge until I reached the landing where we’d caught our first glimpse of the true expanse of these depths. Then I turned into the tunnel, twisting and turning my way slowly upwards, past the damp patches and beheaded stalagmites and the occasional pile of bones.

Finally, I arrived at the cave entrance. It was a quiet starry night, with a perfect, gentle breeze blowing to welcome me back to the land of the living. The gigamoon was nearly full, so I didn’t need to hold my mushroom out in front of me to navigate any more. I quickly located the path that traced through the pockmarked landscape back to the forward base and set off. The occasional rustle of leaves or howl off in the distance arrested my progress, but at that point I was fairly certain that if I was supposed to die tonight, it would have happened already. When I reached the palisade wall of the base, I leaned against the outer wall of the gate and lowered myself wearily to the ground.

It took a couple of hours, but the gates finally opened and a horse-drawn carriage emerged, off to Castella to pick up the first load of adventurers of the day. The sun wasn’t up yet, but the eastern side of the sky had gone from inky black to navy blue.

The driver was startled to see somebody outside the palisades at this time, but he nodded and let me have a seat. There were a couple of veterans in the cart as well, but nobody I recognized. Nobody who recognized me.

Good.

As the cart trundled along through the dark forest, I relaxed and allowed my thoughts to diffuse. Yet every time I just about thought I’d cleared my head, the same question came back, over and over again, forcing me to ponder it for a moment, give up, and try to let it go. But I couldn’t.

Just what the hell happened that night in the forest of Certain Death?

Was it really… real? Entirely or just partially?

Do I want to know what happened?

Does it matter anymore?

Every question spawned more questions, and nothing quite added up. Stella must have been in on it somehow. Or was she? I turned the glowing mushroom over in my hand.

Tell me everything you know right now, or I’ll eat your whole family!

Of course, the little fucker didn’t want to talk. Fine.

When the cart arrived at the Castellan gates, I hurried inside and made a beeline for the torture chamber. The sun still wasn’t up, so the darkness hadn’t quite lifted. I’d never wandered the streets this early in the morning, and from the looks of things I hadn’t missed much - the roads were all but deserted, except for a few hardy shopkeepers getting an early start setting up in the market squares.

As I headed down the staircase into the chamber, I stopped just before opening the door. Through the thin cracks in the doorframe, I could see light pouring through from the other side!

Somebody’s in there… but who?

…probably just Dunkan.

Hesitantly, I opened the door…

There was a pretty young girl, short and thin, doing squats in the middle of the chamber, holding one of my metal lumps to her chest.

Who taught her how to goblet squat?

She had long brown hair that was tied back into a ponytail, and wore a pair of skimpy garments that exposed her toned midsection. The door made a loud squeak as I opened it, so she immediately turned and noticed me.

“Hi, Bradley!” she said with a smile and a wave, dropping the weight she was carrying.

“Uhmm… Hi.” I said, once I remembered how to speak. “Who… are you, again?”

“I’m Ursa.”

I drew a blank.

“Uhhhh… hmm…. Where do I know you from?”

“My brother is your roommate.”

“Roommate? You mean like….”

My eyes widened.

“Not Gurden?!”

“Yup, that’s him.”

Now wait a minute… didn’t you weigh, like

“I used to be really fat, but don’t tell anybody.” Ursa said, leaning in and miming a whisper. Then she giggled at my flabbergasted expression.

“Yeah… you look really good now.” I said, giving her fit body a fifth once-over just to be sure. “How did you do it?”

“It all started when- oh!” Ursa began, but then stopped when she noticed the mushroom I was holding. “It was that thing! It all started when I ate one of those!”

“What did you see?”

“Some old, creepy stuff.” she explained vaguely, “But the weird thing was - the next day, and every day after that, my appetite disappeared! I ate a little bit, but every bite of food after that tasted like poison! I realized that it wasn’t truly nourishing me.”

“Like that one morning?”

“Exactly!” Ursa perked up. “Thank you so much for helping me that day! Gurden got really mean when I started losing weight, but after a while he just accepted that he couldn’t change me.”

“Nah, I didn’t do anything” I said, blushing.

“You did! And so I went to Dunkan and asked him more about you, and he said that you trained down here, so I decided to start — ehh!” she covered her mouth when she realized what she’d just said, but the damage was done.

I couldn’t help but grin. “Well, you’ve found my lair. Too bad we never grunted together.”

I groaned and slapped my forehead. “Too bad we never worked out together. Sorry, I’m… anyway-”

Ursa laughed cheerfully at my embarrassment. “Yeah, it’s a bummer - I wanted to know what kinds of exercises you do. And the year’s almost over now.”

“For you…” I replied. “My year ends today.”

I crossed the chamber, setting the mushroom on a bench, and uncovered the secret cubbyhole. I picked up the contents - a sack containing the miscellaneous coins from when I first awoke, my unlocked mythril shackle, and my key of the kingdom - and replaced the lid.

Ursa regarded me with great curiosity, but didn’t ask any questions.

“Well… bye, Ursa. I don’t think I’ll see you again.” I said, standing back up.

“Oh, don’t say that!” this strange new girl said. She stepped forward, and we embraced.

“You’re doing really well. Don’t let your family or anyone else ruin your progress…” I said as we held each other.

“They won’t.” Ursa answered. “They just want me to be attractive enough to get a man. And I am, now! I’ll be fine.”

Finally, we let go, and I turned to leave the chamber.

“You know…” I wondered aloud, turning back to get one last eyeful of her for the road. “You know who Jerith is?”

“Sure, most people know him.”

“You should make him some apple pie. I bet he could use some right about now. Tell him that I sent you. But don’t tell anybody else about me… they all think I’m dead.”

“Where are you going?” Ursa asked, her eyes wide.

I tapped my remaining wrist shackle.

“Everywhere.”

Then I left.

Dawn had officially cracked, and the usual throngs of merchants were starting to bustle. I slung my sack over one shoulder and crossed town one last time, through the eastern market square, with the fountain and the adventurer’s guild, across the bridge over the river, to the western market square, where there were thankfully no bloody festivities planned that day, all the way to my destination: the transportation hub.

I knocked on the door of the office building, and just as I’d hoped, Wilhelm answered.

“Bradley! What can I do for you?” he asked.

I held up the shackle, and he understood. After a bit of haggling, we settled on a price, and I found myself several gold pieces richer. Then, Wilhelm unlocked the Staff of Aetheria from its spot above his desk, and we walked out into the yard. There was already a line forming at the entrance, though the transportation mages clearly hadn’t started their shift yet - they were leaning against anything that could be leaned against, chit-chatting idly.

I yawned.

When I get settled, the first thing I’m gonna do is take a few days off.

But then, just when my nerves had finally started to recede... my gut clenched. The gold coins in my bag were heavier than I expected. I'd never had this much money before. And now that I did... there was a debt I needed to repay.

"I'll be right back!" I told Wilhelm as I hurried down the street - I wasn't going far. I quickly found the main road that connected the castle to the western market square, and darted along it until I finally caught sight of it - the small, humble outline of the Church of Life. There was a nun out front, making conversation with passerby.

"Excuse me!" I said with a wave. "Where do you take collections?"

The nun pointed at a small wooden box by the entrance. I thanked her and dropped one of my shiny gold coins in the slot.

Then I rushed back to the transportation hub, where Wilhelm awaited me.

I picked a spot and stood stock still while Wilhelm brought the staff up across his shoulders. Then, in one smooth motion, he bent his knees and exploded upwards. It normally took several mages to execute a successful teleportation, even with the help of the staff. But Wilhelm was the best.

Swirling pink bands appeared all around me, but before I could attempt to decipher the cryptic markings swirling around within them…

I was gone.

 

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THE END

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