Jace’s crew materialized at the entrance to his stronghold and trudged in wearily. Even though it had only been a few hours since they had eaten breakfast, Jace had adjusted his home to align with global time. The late hour, combined with the strenuous mission, let everyone know it was time to rest.
Esther led Draya to their room. Trixna emerged from her quarters to greet the returning characters, took one look at Draya’s bedraggled features and the black streak running through her hair, and turned her eyes to regard Jace. The shaman shook his head toward the orc priestess, and the female knew not to ask questions now. Instead, she followed Esther to see if she could aid in healing the distressed mage.
Psycho retired to his quarters, and Gromphy moved across the circular hall toward his lab and private room beyond. Jace followed the goblin.
“I don’t care what master project you are working on,” the player said once he and the crafter were out of earshot of the rest of the crew. “I have too much to worry about right now to keep track of your special projects, and I’m sure it will be beneficial if it ever works out.”
Gromphy moved to stand on the opposite side of his crafting table. The floor rose so he could look back at the orc close to eye level. He said nothing.
“But our mission,” he paused, “my mission must take priority. You can’t jeopardize the success of what we are trying to do as a group to follow your own personal endeavor. You especially can’t endanger the lives of our team members. Despite your stern goblin demeanor, I know you care for Draya, and her almost dying hurts you as much as it does me. I won’t press that point, but your passion for crafting often blinds you to what is happening around us.”
Gromphy continued to say nothing and only returned Jace’s look.
“Do you understand?” Jace asked.
He nodded. “I do.”
“Good,” Jace replied. “I hope whatever you are crafting is worth it.” With that, Jace turned on his heel and left the room.
“So do I,” Gromphy said under his breath. He drank a potion to restore his stamina and got to work.
Jace retired to his room and sat in his favorite chair.
{You sure told him,} Gracie said.
“Do you know what he is working on?” he asked his operator, ignoring her sarcastic tone.
{I have no idea,} she replied. {I can’t observe your NPCs when you aren’t logged in, but we both know they’ve been active. Allowing him a level of independence is a good thing. Hopefully, it doesn’t derail your plans.}
Jace couldn’t have agreed more. “Now, let’s get leveling up. It doesn’t seem like I do this very often anymore.”
{The problems of being a high level,} Gracie said. {I know some players love leveling up so much that they go on suicide quests once they reach level 15 so they can do it all over again.}
Jace knew he didn’t technically own his character and figured the CIA would frown on that technique. He pulled up his character sheet. At Level 18, there weren’t too many choices to make. He added points to most of his abilities and checked his HP, now at 738, while his Mana Pool was at 828. For the feat, he scrolled through several choices without seeing one he liked.
{Most of the Wisdom feats focus on healing, crafting, or nature and divine blessings,} Gracie advised. {None of those fit you very well. I’d go with Magic Defense training. It only gives +2 at this stage but ramps up to +15 if you take it three more times.}
Jace agreed and made the changes. As usual, he was more interested in his companion’s character sheets. Esther was next. He distributed the points along her standard character design, focusing on attack, stealth, and defense. Her HP was up to 468, and her Mana Pool was 720. Recently, Jace saw her casting more spells, taking advantage of the web and acid combo. The high mana would allow her to jack up the difficulty for those spells since her intelligence was low, and she didn’t get vampiric or escort bonuses to her magic as she did to her Enthrall and Grappling abilities. Her feat was obvious, and he took Athletic Master, boosting her bonus to +15 and raising her total Athletic ability to 40. Gracie assured him she was monk-level athletic and continued to be one of the most broken characters she had ever seen.
Draya was next. Jace was happy to see her health at full and her level safely up to 18. A quick search didn’t show any new conditions or alterations from her demonic encounter, and he hoped desperately there wouldn’t be any lingering effects to worry about. After assigning her skill points, he saw her HP at 360. He hated how low it was but didn’t know what else to do about it. Hopefully, in two more levels, she would be able to transform into a dragon and not have to worry about health as much. Her mana pool was at 864, the highest in his group. With her Dragon Spirit active, it was almost 1,200. However, he understood that something might be wrong with her dress now, and its ability to prolong her dragon abilities by applying 100 points of fire damage to her each round could be at an end—all the more reason to get her to level 20.
Jace didn’t bother leaving his settings screen and navigated to his character sheet so he could select the “Rest Until Dawn” option.
[Rest Until Dawn is disabled while other characters are active around you.]
Jace hadn’t seen that message before. He assumed all his NPCs were in their rooms by now. He had been awakened from sleep once when Trixna decided to share his bed and wondered what this intrusion might be. Jace rolled his eyes out of his head and found Esther standing before him. She had changed out of her armor and wore a simple black nightgown. Her beauty was stunning. At first, he thought she had amorous intentions, and as she leaned dramatically forward and kissed him on the forehead, those thoughts persisted. However, she stepped back quickly and stood upright.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her face scrunched up as her mind searched for the right words. “I know the authorities in your realm restrict your actions in ours. So, what you are doing for me and my sisters means a lot. I just wanted you to know.”
Jace was speechless, and the rogue didn’t give him a chance to respond as she spun about and scampered out of his room.
{Well,} Gracie said. {That was different.}
Jace smiled as warmth filled his body, happy that his upcoming sleep would be dreamless. He didn’t need further images of Esther prancing about in a tiny nightgown to distract him. He selected his preferred sleep option, and the game allowed it this time.
With all the healing and priestly restoration Draya had received, her sleep didn’t last till dawn, and she stirred several hours before sunrise. The young woman’s memories of what had happened were still a jumbled mess, and she hoped her companions could give her more information in the morning. She left her small sleeping quarters next to Esther’s much larger room and saw the rogue sleeping soundly, moonlight streaming in through the open window and caressing her still form under the thin sheets of her bed.
Draya moved as silently as she could, finding a half-full basin and quietly splashing water on her face. After activating the illumination ward in the mirror that hung over the sink to its lowest setting, she examined her new appearance. A streak of black started halfway between her right temple and the top of her forehead, cascading back through her thick red hair like a tiger stripe. It gave her an exotic look. The boys at school already teased her about her darker skin and fiery locks. This wouldn’t help.
Discarding that minor issue to the back of her mind, Draya turned from the mirror and left the room. The main hall was still, but she heard sound from the far end leading toward Gromphy’s lab. All her trauma in the last mission had been from the goblin’s crafting efforts, and she needed to know the results. As she entered the lab, she almost cried out in shock, clamping a hand over her mouth to prevent her scream.
Gromphy stood above his main crafting table as usual, but he was elbow-deep in the body of a nearly naked male orc. Movement to her right alerted Draya to someone else, and she turned to see Trixna standing along the edge of the lab, looking on pensively. She wore a tiny translucent negligee, and the delicate attire over the rough, powerful orc body created a shocking juxtaposition. Eventually, Draya dragged her eyes away from the priestess and understood what was happening.
The orc on the table must be Trixna’s lover, Zorn. He rarely left the priestess’s room and was under strict orders not to harm anyone else in the cavern. Jace had used his Convict ability to turn the typically Guile character Honest and made him swear to follow all of Trixna’s orders. So far, there hadn’t been a problem. Gromphy must have visited them during the night and asked to borrow the massive male’s body.
Draya focused on the primitive surgery taking place in the middle of the room. Zorn’s chest was cut wide open, but there was very little blood. Gromphy was obviously using copious amounts of magic to facilitate the procedure, and she hoped the orc’s life wasn’t in danger. The goblin’s short arms fit entirely within the prone character’s massive chest, and, at times, his head went inside too. Draya kept her questions in check, not wanting to distract the crafter and possibly jeopardize the orc’s life.
After a few minutes, Gromphy stood up and wiped his brow with the back of his left hand while his right removed a large, glowing object from the open wound. At first, Draya thought it was Zorn’s heart or some other vital organ, but upon closer examination, she saw it was the Armanacore. She had only seen the artifact briefly after the Frosthold had sucked out all the heat, since she had been distracted by wrestling the freezing vortex. As she thought back to that time, images of demon fire filled her mind, and she shook her head free of the memories.
Instead, Draya focused on the transformed stone object. Before, the 20-sided item had glowed with a pulsing orange, signifying its molten, fiery center. Now, it produced a blue light, the standard color for raw mana. Each face was a triangle chiseled from quartz with a glowing center. The edges were highly polished obsidian, no longer looking like cooled lava but with a mirror onyx finish.
“Does it fit?” Draya asked finally, once Gromphy had laid the Armanacore on the table and magically closed his patient’s chest.
The crafter looked up, startled, having not heard Draya enter. “Aye, it does,” he replied. “Twas never my concern. But how wouldst I connect it to his mana core, so it is not just a lump of coal in his chest? That is rightly the question.”
“And did you answer it?”
Gromphy shrugged. “I can have him draw power from it, but without a connection to the essence of stone, it will only boost his mana generation. To rightly have it transform his person, he requireth a . . .” he searched for the phrasing Draya had used a few days ago, “bianthropic transmutation alteration.”
She nodded. Druids could naturally change their shape with the animal to which they were joined, while were-creatures did so because of a curse. As a stone shaman, Jace could use the power of the surrounding rock, but without a transmutation spell, he couldn’t fully utilize the artifact.
Draya paused in thought as Zorn woke up. Trixna moved forward to help him off the table and ushered him quietly out of the lab. “Where will you get a spell like that?” she asked, trying not to stare at Zorn’s tiny loin cloth. “The same place you cursed my dress?”
Gromphy shrugged. “I hath no knowledge of such a spell. Yet I have faith the Maker will provide.” He paused. “And what of thy dress? The curse I placed there no longer persists?”
Draya wore her sleeping attire, a loose-fitting shirt and pants. She removed the mage dress from her inventory and approached the crafting table to hand it to the goblin. “It doesn’t work anymore,” she said. “When I inject mana, the original protections activate. That could be useful, but I can no longer sustain my dragon abilities with it. The curse is gone.”
Gromphy shook his head as he turned the garment over in his hands. “Shouldst not be possible. We bound the demon to this dress with the life of a powerful character—a demon herself. Breaking such a bond shouldst bring dire consequences.”
“You mean Ignis might be in trouble?”
Gromphy crossed his eyes at the mage. “Who?”
“Ignis Ardeat,” Draya clarified. “The demon you bound to the dress.”
“Thou knewest him?”
She shrugged. “We could talk to each other. He could offer me additional firepower occasionally, and I could . . . well, he liked it when I burned things.”
“Ah,” Gromphy replied, a light going on in his head. “The trees thou wast burning.” Draya blushed. He ignored it. “And did this Ignis Ardeat provide thee with demon fire?”
The mage shook her head. “No. He didn’t have it. I went past him and found another source.”
“Thou stolest demon fire from Hades without a proper link?” Gromphy nearly shouted. “Thou reckless child. Thou shouldst have been . . .”
“Killed,” she finished for him. “I believe I nearly was.”
Gromphy calmed at the poignant observation. “Indeed. But why wast thou spared? If thy demon friend valued thy life, he mightst have severed the bond, violating the oath.”
“Is that bad?” Draya asked.
Gromphy shrugged. “Good for thy life, bad for him. He hast a debit now, and payment will neither be cheap nor pleasant.”
Draya understood that violating a powerful spell would have consequences. “To whom does he owe that debt?” she asked. “You cast the spell. Shouldn’t he owe you for going back on his word?”
Gromphy chuckled. “I hath not the power to bind a demon to his oath. Nay, the life wast given to Hades itself, and the power to establish the bond camest from the demon realm. Ignis is now indebted to the Lord of Hades.” He offered the dress back to Draya, and she took it tentatively. “Thou wilt not encounter him again.” After seeing the pain on her face, he added, “I am sorry.”
Draya nodded and left the room.
Ignis Ardeat cowered in his tiny cavern, curled up in a ball. He was cold.
It would have been impossible for the demon to imagine what cold could have felt like a few hours ago before he had severed his bond with the dragon mage’s dress, but now the powers of hell that had sustained him and provided limitless fire were no more. Even the surrounding atmosphere’s elevated temperature, which would roast the skin of any human that dared enter the underworld without protection, wasn’t enough to ward off the deep chill within his soul. He had gone back on a sacred oath sealed with a mortal life. The consequences were dire.
Ignis expected a confrontation with Lord Cindava immediately after he had severed his connection with the dragon mage, but the massive demon had made him wait, and the encounter’s anticipation was already worse than anything he could have imagined. When the demon lord’s hand finally shot into his home, he almost welcomed the intrusion.
The opening to his cavern was a six-foot arched doorway. Once Cindava’s enormous arm entered far enough, his bulging bicep fractured the rounded frame, the ancient stone easily giving way to the demon’s strength. The devil’s fingers were each as long as Ignis’ body and seemed to have eyes of their own as they quickly found his huddled form and locked him in a vice grip, the knuckles and claws nearly crushing him to death. Like a kid with his hand stuck in a cookie jar, Cindava’s balled fist, with his prey caught inside, was too large to exit the cavern cleanly through the narrow doorway. The already cracked stone exploded outward as the demon lord wrenched Ignis from his home and lofted him up into the steaming, acrid air of the hellish landscape.
Pools of churning lava and sulfuric steam vents covered the ground under a blanket of dark clouds, through which winged hellspawn flew and screeched. Few beasts scrambled on the surface, especially in the presence of the massive demon lord, who had emerged from the lake of fire where he stayed submerged most of the time. Cindava had gotten to one knee to reach into Ignis’ home, the other foot planted knee-deep in a pit of bubbling mud. Even though he wasn’t standing, his head rose thirty feet above the barren landscape, and he hoisted Ignis to a similar altitude to gaze at his underling.
Cindava looked as one would expect from a demon lord: red skin stretched tightly over a muscled torso, a canine mouth beneath fiery eyes, and two horns extending several feet above his thick skull.
“Who is she?”
The demon’s voice rumbled through the air, and Ignis saw ripples in the pools beneath him. It was as if each syllable of the question was made by the pounding gate of an approaching titan.
“Where do I find her?” he asked again, only now slackening his grip on the tiny demon so Ignis could speak.
The helpless captive thought about playing dumb, but not for long. It wasn’t worth the torture he would get in response, and he would do nothing to protect the young woman in question, as Cindava had powers of the mind that Ignis could never resist, especially now that he was indebted to this demon lord because of his broken oath.
“She used my power,” Cindava continued. “I tasted her for only a moment before you severed the connection, but it was . . .” the demon paused as his forked tongue flicked over his upper lip. If a being could experience ecstasy in hell, Ignis saw it played out on Cindava’s face as he rolled his eyes and relived the moment. “It was exquisite.” He regained focus and increased his scrutiny of the minor demon. “I must have her. I must own her!”
“Her name is Draeklynn Ember,” Ignis wheezed through his constricted chest. He hated even thinking about the names of his realm-bound links, as names were power, but he had no choice in this situation.
“And is she . . . a dragon?” Cindava asked, drawing his prey close enough so his hot breath ruffled the patch of hair between Ignis’ horns.
“She has a dragon mana core,” he replied. “Once she reaches level 20, she can transform into a red dragon.”
“You can find her?” Cindava asked. “You know where she is?”
“She works for Jace Thorne,” Ignis said. “He travels all over the realms.”
“I know this name,” the demon lord said, relaxing the grip on his captive.
Ignis knew where Draya’s stronghold was, on a mountain north of Crestfall, but he hoped mentioning Jace’s name would redirect Cindava’s questions. It worked.
“He has many enemies. Some of whom serve my minions.” An idea grew in the demon lord’s mind, and his scrutiny of Ignis increased. “Do you maintain your other links to the realms despite your violation?”
The smaller demon shook his head as the elevated attention accompanied increased pressure around his chest, and he couldn’t talk, much less breathe. Cindava interpreted his response and closed his eyes for a moment. Power surged down his right arm, exploding into a fireball around Ignis. Warmth rushed back into him as the demon lord’s magic restored all his links, including his connection with the volcano. The curse on Draya’s dress was still lost to him. Ignis didn’t have time to revel in this change as Cindava’s fingers tightened around him.
“Someone else will require your unique services soon,” the giant said, “and when they do, I will be alerted to it. You are now mine. You will do as I tell you when I tell you. If you fail me in this next mission, you will be banished to an arctic glacier. Is that understood?”
Ignis nodded furiously, still unable to speak.
“Good. Come with me. I must prepare.”
The smaller demon had no choice, as Cindava did not release him. Instead, the demon lord hoisted his left leg out of the mud pit, rising to his full height, and marched toward his personal corner of hell.
