Lord Mandrake was annoyed. It seemed like the whole world was conspiring against his plans to conquer it. Initially, things had gone to a good start. The demon hearts had allowed him to procure the energy and free labor to construct vastly superior devices, which he had. In mere months he had achieved what had taken others decades. There had been setbacks, naturally. The demons he had summoned were clumsy and stupid, incapable of following even the simplest instructions that didn’t involve killing or destroying. The gnome had been forced to devote time and resources to creating airships capable of kidnapping people for the job. Of course, then he had to capture creatures capable of flying those airships. Thankfully, there were enough goblins at hand and in large numbers.

For a time, everything seemed to be going splendidly, when that dungeon appeared. Lord Mandrake gnashed his teeth just thinking about it.

The dungeon had been clever, oh so clever. It had created an avatar to infiltrate his base, and even used a heroine as cover. Everything knew that heroes and dungeons didn’t mix, so Lord Mandrake had lowered his guard, thinking that he was dealing with just another random adventure party. That was had proved to be a major mistake. As a result, his entire bas of operations—including all the meticulously created research labs—had been destroyed, along with one of the demon hearts.

“Lord Mandrake!” A demon in glowing red armor entered the command room. “I bring news from the field!”

The gnome sighed. The first time his demon minions addressed him, he’d startle to the point he needed minutes to calm down. Now they had become nothing more than a bothersome annoyance.

“Yes, yes,” he waved his hand. “What’s the news?”

“The local kingdom has sent a group of mages to challenge us. They’re protecting their main city, pushing some of our goblin carriers back. Permit me to lead the charge and reduce those arrogant—”

“Just ignore them,” the gnome said.

“But, my lord! This is an insult towards you and your power. We should—”

“If they could have done anything, they would have. Just ignore them. If they’re a pain, we’ll come back and wipe them out later.”

That was the problem with his demon soldiers. They were unmatched when it came to protecting him against enemies, but useless when it came to anything else. All attempts at getting them to see even a small part of the big picture ended in utter failure, to the point that it was better just to give them direct instructions and hope for the best.

“As you command, my lord!” the demon said.

“Anything else?” The gnome grabbed the parchment with the new designs he was working on. At the moment, it was little more than a system to preserve centrifugal energy—extremely intricate, extremely efficient, and yet the gnome had no idea what to use it for.

“Your goblin fleets have been destroyed.”

“What?!” Lord mandrake jumped into his share, effectively transforming it into a podium. “How? I sent three waves! The first, I understand, but all three…”

“It seems the city used some unknown spell, singing all goblins in the air with a massive chain lightning. Permit me to lead the next charge and destroy—”

“Just shut up!” the gnome hissed, then kicked the side of the chair from the inside.

That dungeon was proving to be a considerable danger. Lord Mandrake was correct to take the course of action he did. He had hoped that his goblins would have destroyed the threat long before he approached, though even at the time, he was aware that to be a pipedream. Dungeons were cunning, heatless entities that didn’t have an ounce of mercy. Their only goal was to grow as large as possible, consuming everything in their way. The gnome knew that firsthand. Back when he was a simple gnome worker, not even a chief engineer, the gnome had indentured himself to a dungeon. Things hadn’t been good at all. He still shivered, remembering the harsh conditions he had to go through. The dungeon wasn’t interested in elegance or development. All it wanted were tools with which to locate and gather rare resources with which to increase its rank. Lab mishaps were frequent. Whole research chambers would explore, only to be replaced by a new one—the energy cost added to the gnome’s debt.

Things had gotten so bad that the gnomes took advantage of an adventurer party entering the outer layers of the dungeon to stage a rebellion. The attempt was unsuccessful, but in the resulting chaos, several of them managed to escape. Lord Mandrake was among that number, and understandably, the last thing he wanted was to have a repeat of the situation.

“Spread out the fleet!” he ordered. “We’ll encircle the town.”

“Yes, Lord Mandrake!” the demon flew out of the command room, leaving the gnome alone with his automatons.

This was going to delay his plans a bit, but he had to play it safe. If the dungeon had already enslaved the town, he was going to destroy it brick from brick, layer by layer. And when the dungeon was erased from the face of the earth, he was going to build a new research base in its place, just for the sake of it. Then, he was going to take over the world, as planned.

Meanwhile, in the tunnels beneath Vinewood, the “cunning and calculating” dungeon avatar was having issues of his own.

Having seven people return from the dead-end tunnel, when seven had been sent, had created considerable confusion among the elves. Quite a few even assumed that an invasion was taking place. It was only thanks to Liandra’s quick wit that the worst was avoided. Although, once tempers had calmed down, a sense of awkwardness appeared.

It turned out that the five surviving heroes had been sent as the previous “chosen” quite a while back—over a century on one occasion. When the lich had said that he took good care of his collection, he wasn’t joking. The chrono spell used on them had kept them from aging for decades, even more. The oldest hero had been sent by the current prince’s grandfather with promises of glory and fortune upon succeeding. As it turned out, no such promise was kept. Technically, the elves weren’t obliged to, since the heroes prior to Theo and Liandra hadn’t succeeded in their quest. Anywhere else, the loophole would have been seen as a way out, but since these were elves, the heroes had taken it at face value and set off back in a world they knew nothing about. Dallion pitied them to a certain degree, though not as much as he pitied himself upon learning what his “reward” was going to be.

“You’re joking, right?” he glared at the prince.

“No, I’m very serious.”

“Look, I got the core. Here’s your ring. Can’t you use it yourself? Your seers have confirmed that it’s in there, so—”

“The prophecies say that only the chosen one will be able to remove the curse using the forest’s core. You’re the one that needs to say the words and perform the ritual.” The elf leaned forward on his throne. Having the means of breaking the curse had erased generations of mystical wisdom handed down from his ancestors, making him act like a little child. “We’ve kept your people well fed. We’ve even provided them with extra clothes and food that will last them several weeks. All you need to do is—”

“I get it!” the avatar snapped.

This wasn’t at all how he planned it. Originally, the core was supposed to be back in his main body now and he, along with Liandra and the rest, were supposed to be out of this forest and back on the airship. Frankly, he was somewhat disappointed that his dirty dozen hadn’t managed to overpower the elf guards and break the vines, keeping the airship stuck here.

“How long is this going to take?” the avatar asked.

“We don’t know,” an elf seer said, standing a few steps from the avatar. “All that the prophecy says is that the chosen one will put his hand on the core and say the words of the past. We’ve managed to collect the words, but we didn’t have the core.”

“Wait.” Dallion looked around. “You want me to summon the core here?”

The chamber he was in couldn’t compare to the one in which he had fought the lich. His dungeon special sense told him that the core’s orb could fit here, but only just. Although, now that he thought about it, it was somewhat suspicious that the hall was constructed in such a way; everything important was close to the wall, leaving the center quite empty, as if something was supposed to be placed there. Maybe there was something about this prophecy after all?

“Very well. Everyone stand back.”

The seer nodded and moved back. The elf nobles did the same, joining the guards at the edges of the hall.

“You too,” the avatar told Liandra.

“Are you sure about this? You might need some help?”

“Only the chosen one could do this, remember?” he smirked. Strictly speaking, he didn’t want to risk another calamity. If anything were to happen to him, he could explain it away with the effects of the core. Still, he preferred not to have a hero scrutinize his every action.

With a frown, the heroine went to the edge of the hall. Then, when he was pleased that everything was as it should be, the avatar summoned the core from the ring.

The glowing sphere emerged, pushing the avatar back with such force that he left tracks with his feet. If he were a normal person, he’d have his legs torn off, or worse. Slowly, he looked over his shoulder to find that the prince’s throne was suddenly a step away.

“So far, so good?” The avatar offered a somewhat guilty smile.

The elf didn’t react, mesmerized by the core.

“What are the words?” the avatar asked,

Still no reaction.

“Everessence, the words?”

That caused the prince to snap out of it. Standing up from his throne, the elf took one of the talismans around his neck and handed it to the avatar. There were probably a hundred words, carved in onto the jade in miniature letters.

“I have to read all that?!”

“Those are the words we’ve been able to collect after searching for generations. Some gave their lives for that task.”

“Not to be insensitive, but have you read this?”

“Part. Some of the words are too old for me to remember.”

That made sense. It also made the elf quite lucky considering the things that were actually written. Sometimes having the ability to know all languages could be a mini-curse of its own.

“So, I just place my hand on the core and recite that?” The avatar looked at the elf. The price nodded. “Well, here goes.”

The moment his fingers touched the core, the avatar’s entire body began to glow in golden light. There was no surge of energy that Theo could sense, no feeling of warmth, or cold, or anything. Rather, it was as if he had placed his hand on a sphere or air.

“The incandescently confused shall share the threads of their own mortality with the loom of nature,” he said. Maybe somewhere it the phrase sense, but definitely not to Theo. “With the winds of fate combined, the chosen prays for the crown to be removed and the ash swept away, revealing that which had been darkened.”

The golden light of the core turned mint green.

“Thrice purified, the light with shine, covering branch, and paw, and hand, until the sky shimmers blue in the endless embrace of the stars. The spilled ash will harden and gather in one to be case into the ground where it would be soaked in light, as the children emerge pure again once more.”

Only a prophecy could come up with such a chant, Theo thought. It was worse than karaoke. The only hope was that the language was indeed too old for elves or humans to understand a word of what he was saying.

“The sards of the chosen will mix with the air, and at that moment the one that was would join with the many bringing the point of eternity.” The avatar finished reading.

This was the point at which something truly tremendous and enchanting was supposed to happen. However, it didn’t. Seconds passed, one by one, and yet there was no change. Then, without any warning, the light coming from the avatar’s body flickered off, as if someone had flipped a switch. The avatar’s brows rose up in confusion as he glanced at the prince. No sooner had he done that than the core reverted to its golden state.

“Was that supposed to happen?” the avatar asked, knowing full well what the answer would be. “Maybe the curse has been lifted?”

The prince’s reaction said it all. The only thing that would make his heart-shattering sadness even more apparent was if his ear somehow managed to flop down.

“I’ll read it again. Maybe I pronounced something wrong.”

The avatar was just about to take a deep breath to get the incantation done in one go, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“There’s no need,” the elf seer said.

“I managed to lift the curse?”

“No. The curse is still here. Simply, you aren’t the chosen one.”

A day ago—or a few days considering the effects of the lich’s chrono spell—Theo would have liked nothing better to be told that. Now, though, after he had gone through all the trouble to obtain the Vinewood core and bring it back, he felt rejected.

“Let the airship go,” the prince said as he turned away. “And give them some reward.”

“Hey, t’s no problem for me to just read it again. Maybe twice is the charm and—”

“No.” The seer shook her head. “We’re thankful for everything you’ve done. Without you we wouldn’t have gotten the core. You aren’t the chosen one, though. We can only hope that one day the right one makes his way here and lifts the curse.”

Theo was so disappointed by the whole thing that he didn’t even bother to argue, having his avatar follow the seer like a wooden puppet. The only thing he obsessed at the moment was why he wasn’t good enough to be the chosen one. The prophecy didn’t say that the chosen one couldn’t be a dungeon, and even if it did, that was stupid. He was clearly prime chosen one material! After all, he was the one who had succeeded after a century of failures.

Maybe it’s some trait, he thought. That had to be it.

Liandra joined along as the avatar passed by. She was a bit conflicted about the whole thing. On the one hand, it was good that they had helped the elves get to the heart of the forest, as well as defeat a lich with a hobby of collecting heroes and sticking them in ice columns. On the other hand, they had failed to lift the curse, and that wasn’t something a hero took lightly, even if there was a prophecy involved.

“The prince is thankful as well,” the seer said. “He just needs some time to be alone. We have hoped for this moment for so long. You brought us closer than anyone before, but still not enough.”

“We’re sorry that it wasn’t,” Liandra apologized. “We’re just thankful for doing as little as we did.”

Why are you apologizing? Theo wondered.

The trip out of the elf tunnels was much quicker. There was no wandering about, just a direct walk through. Even so, the elves’ opinion hadn’t improved much. Theo could hear them commenting about him. Most often, it was that the prince had made a mistake trusting Theo at all. In other times, the comments were of a much more censored variety.

“What exactly is your curse?” the avatar asked.

“Theo!” Liandra shushed him.

“It’s alright,” the seer elf said. “We can share that much. After the demon lords were defeated, ages ago, each of the elf tribes was granted a boon. All asked what was pretty much expected of them: the ability to talk weave light, long life, magic that would grow and heal plants. The prince that was our ancestor, though, had other ideas.”

“What?” Curiosity made Theo forget his bitterness.

“The ability to increase our own life by draining that of others.”

At first, the dungeon was about to ask what was wrong so horrible about that, when he suddenly realized. The elf hadn’t said anything about it being voluntary. Knowing the way deities interpreted wishes, the Silvarians probably drained life all the time. The avatar quickly looked at Liandra. She looked unchanged, but given that’s he was a hero, it was possible she had some protection, or just had more vitality than the ordinary person.

“The deities were merciful enough not to have our power to act instantly. We sap slowly the life of others. Slowly, but constantly. Long ago, this place was full of fine forests and abundant fields, but after ten years, it had all withered away. Some of our champions went out seeking advice from allies and even the deities, but the deities were not to be found and everyone we sought advice from would get ill. Thus, we were shunned by the world and forced to hide underground, where we would affect no one.”

That was a nasty piece of magic. Being a vampire was all nice and good if it was done voluntarily, but in the elves’ case, it was inevitable they ran out of food no matter what they did.

“How did Vinewood survive?” the avatar asked.

“Vinewood was different. Our ancestors found a core seed, one created by the deities themselves. It couldn’t be affected by our curse, so it was buried deep underground and left to grow.”

That explained the temple structure underground. The whole thing seemed to complicated and majestic for the lich to create. Rather, he had stumbled onto it and made it his own.

“Gradually the forest became what it is now, and we remained beneath the ground. Now we have enough food to survive, but we can never leave here without destroying everyone around.” The elf paused for a moment. “The prophecy came later, speaking of one who would help remove the curse by using the core of the forest. By that time, it had grown too large to be taken out quickly and none of us dared approach it out of fear that we would affect it in some way.”

“So, you sent others to do it for you,” the avatar said. It was a good example of delegation, although Theo still didn’t like that he had gotten involved.

“It was the only way. If the chosen succeeded, we would be free and reward them. If not, we’d let them go with a minor token of our thanks.”

That wasn’t what happened. There was no telling how many heroes or adventurer wannabes had died in the process. Not to mention that they had created the lich in the first place. There were a lot of harsh words that could be said, but right now, Theo preferred not to get into an argument with a bunch of life-sapping elves. Maybe when he was back in Rosewind he’d send a strongly worded letter.

“Don’t worry,” the elf said, seeing the avatar’s frown. “Your people are safe. We kept them as far away from us as possible and only a handful of guards were guardian the vines.”

“Thanks… I would have been nice to have a reward, though.”

“You already were given a reward.”

“My life?” the avatar asked in the most sarcastic fashion it could muster.

“No,” the seer allowed herself a chuckle. It was quickly stifled, but it was still there. “It was left on your airship. You’ll see it when you get there. It’s not as much as we would have liked, but the large reward must remain intact for the chosen one, for when they lift our curse.”

This was adding insult to injury. Not only was he getting the scraps, but Theo had made the job far easier for someone else who’d take the whole lot without even a thank you. If there was any justice, he would be owed ten percent of the “large reward.”

“Let’s just get out of here,” he mumbled to himself.

Upon reaching the base of the vines, the elf and the rest parted ways. Offering some more thanks, she gave both of them a peck on the cheek, then turned around and headed back to her tunnels. The prophecy needed consulting, and the core was to be returned to its original spot to keep the forest alive until the next time a chosen one appeared.

Using his new spell, the avatar flew up to the top to his airship, carrying Liandra along with an aether bubble.

“You did a good thing,” the heroine said, sensing his disappointment. “We might now have broken the curse, but we killed a luck and freed five heroes.”

“Yeah… about that. Can you keep it between us?” Theo asked.

“But why? Rescuing a hero is a big deal. The reward alone—”

“I don’t want the credit. Let’s just say that you did it and forge about me? It might cause some complications…”

“I don’t see why it would, but alright. I won’t share the details, but I can’t do anything about the other heroes.”

That was alright. After what they had been through, none of them had inquired about Theo’s name or place of residence, and thankfully, no one had mentioned it in their presence. As long as Theo didn’t leave Rosewind chances of them crossing paths were extremely low. Besides, they had other things on their mind right now. Returning to a world after decades of absence was bound to cause a few complications.

“Thanks. Now let’s go back home.”

In order to remain safely hidden in Rosewind, Theo first had to ensure that Rosewind was safe. And the way thing were going that was not a given. His plan to use the Vinewood core to power up had failed, and he couldn’t rely on the earl’s treasury. Already he had consumed all cores and core-like objects that the noble had and still was only able to withstand goblin attacks. The real threat was on its way and approaching fast.

“Liandra,” the avatar began. “I’ll need you to navigate me again.”

“I thought you might say that,” the heroine said with a sigh. “Well, the heck with it. You went through all the trouble with the elves, so why not? Are you planning on flying like crazy again?”

“No. This time we’ll go faster.”

“Faster than before?!”

“Lord mandrake has reached the town. Right now, he’s surrounding the city with airships, preparing for the final assault.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I have my ways. I’ve been keeping an eye on everything going on back home and it isn’t good. If we don’t reach him on time, we’ll come back to a pile of rubble.”

“So, it’s that serious?”

“What can I say? The gnome really has it for me. He’s probably mad that I broke his heart and…” Theo stopped. Out of context, that sounded so wrong. “Anyway, we have to find him and destroy him for good. Him and all his troops.”

“And destroy the other demon lord heart.” Liandra nodded. “Do you have a plan?”

“Other than getting us back there, not in the slightest.”