Rogue Dungeon: Troll Nation (Chapters 25 - 27)

Chapter 25

Wheeling and Dealing

The dungeon lords ate everything Kaz and Mai laid out for them, their faces lighting up with amazement at every new taste and texture. They gulped down spiced meads, ales, and wines, smacking their lips and sighing with pleasure. Even Ko the Faceless somehow made her food and drink disappear, then sent satisfied and impressed messages to all of their minds.

“How is it possible that we have gone our entire lives without knowing we were hungry?” Drokara the Gullet croaked, tossing back a full Lemongrass-Stuffed Buzzfish.

Roark just smiled. He remembered the amazement and excitement that accompanied Kaz’s first taste of food. The inn might very well turn out to be the crowning jewel of the Troll Nation marketplace.

When at last even Drokara the Gullet was too stuffed to eat another bite, a somber hush fell over the table. The dungeon lords looked at Ko for several long seconds. 

Roark wondered whether the Mind Mantid was conversing with them telepathically. He drained the last of his flagon and waited.

Finally, the Void Djinn Rohibim spoke.

“We have seen many amazing things, I will admit. This place”—he waved around a smoky arm covered in hazy tattoos of Infernal power not unlike Roark’s own—“is grander than I would’ve imagined. I am among the oldest of the Dungeon Lords, and it is a thing I have never seen. Never envisioned. But there are issues, Roark the Griefer. To travel here from our dungeons is a very dangerous trek, even for ones so powerful as us,” he said, his misty gray-black body roiling indolently. “Our lowest-level mobs cannot even cross the threshold into the outside world. Though this might be a boon to us, it needs to be accessible by even the lowliest members of my dungeon. You mentioned portals, but this is magic I am unfamiliar with. How would this work, eh? Will the user have to infuse it with magick?”

“No, no. Not at all,” Roark replied. “This is another perk of our alliance. I will provide the magick required for you and your minions to access this place. My portal plates are a bit like portal scrolls, except they can be reused an infinite number of times,” Roark explained. “All the traveler has to do is step on the plate, and they’ll be transported to the corresponding plate here inside the marketplace walls. And because of my class as a Hexorcist, I can ensure that the marketplace is inaccessible to even the most intrepid heroes. It will be safe for every level of Infernal creature, from yourselves to the most vulnerable members of your Dungeons.”

The Void Djinn grunted and bobbed his head, a greedy gleam in his eyes. 

“Even ssso,” Shess said, drawing out the susurrate. “We Dungeon Lordsss know that nothing isss free. Not in thisss world. You take usss through your market. You tempt usss. Entice usss with potionsss and succulent foodsss. But to what end? Your messenger”—she bobbed her head toward Kaz, standing nearby, watching the feast with a critical eye—“he mentioned an alliance, but he conveniently forgot to mention who you would have usss ally against. I would know more. What would you gain from thisss, and what would we would pay for our allegiance to this strange new endeavor?” 

Roark offered her a tight-lipped smile. Apparently, Shess the Shrewd was aptly named; she’d seen right through his showmanship and to the crux of the real issue at hand. 

“Simple,” Roark replied, maintaining his confident tone. “There’s another dungeon out there, the Vault of the Radiant Shield, led by a man named Lowen. He’s building up his forces for an attack on the Troll Nation. In exchange for giving any dungeon who aligns themselves with us access to our skill trainers, merchants, and crafting, allies would have to agree to help us attack and defend ourselves against Lowen’s dungeon.”

“It will not require much defense,” the Beryl King ground out. “This Lowen would have to attack you alone. Dungeon Lords are the only beings who can travel outside their dungeons. I have heard rumors of the Vault and its formidable powers, but one rogue Dungeon Lord could not possibly threaten you here, in the seat of your power. Though you are only level 36, your Dungeon design is impressive for one so weak as you.”

“Not so weak as you might suppose,” Roark replied with a deadly grin as he pulled his spell tome from his inventory, allowing it to float above his outstretched palm. “I may be the lowest level dungeon lord at this table, but I have skills, abilities, and spells that none of you have ever seen. Magicks that you couldn’t dream of. There’s a reason my name is on the lips of every adventurer, Beryl King, and why the Cruel Citadel is advancing in rank faster than any other Dungeon in Hearthworld.” He stared the rocky golem down, refusing to drop his gaze. If he had learned anything dealing with Azibek it was that he needed to display strength here, not vulnerability. If he faltered, the other Dungeon Lords would likely turn on him like a pack of feral dogs.

Finally, the Beryl King dipped his head a fraction of an inch. “Point taken.” Not an apology for the slight, but as close to a concession as Roark was likely to get from him or any of the others.

“You say that only Dungeon Lords are able to cross the threshold out into the world,” Roark continued, not bothering to acknowledge his minor win, “but the underlings in the Vault aren’t the mobs like in your dungeons. They’re men and women brought here from another dimension, like the heroes. They can travel anywhere in Hearthworld they choose. So my battle will not be against Lowen alone, but against his sizeable forces.”

You want our help fighting another dungeon, Ko spoke to his mind, and by the nods around the table, the minds of the other dungeon lords. You cannot beat him because you are weaker than he is, so you wish to bolster yourself with our strength.

“You misunderstand,” Roark said. “None of us could beat him, not with the full force of his dungeon behind him. The Vault of the Radiant Shield is currently the top-ranked dungeon in Hearthworld, and Lowen and every one of his army is at the top of their Evolutionary Path.”

“Ko’s right,” Gevaudan growled, pulling a leaf of fresh Fangbane from his Inventory and breathing in its scent. “You talk big. Waving around your spell book. Boasting of unmatched power with one side of your mouth while admitting weakness out the other side.” He lifted his muzzle to the air, sniffing deeply, lips pulled back from deadly fangs. “I smell lies. Trickery in the air, barely concealed by the scent of meat. 

“You wish to impress us, to frighten us into submission, but everybody knows that Trolls are the least powerful of all the mobs. Baby heroes cut their teeth on your kind, yet you would demand our loyalty and seek to be the head of this alliance? Any one of us sitting at this table could shred you like prey in our teeth.” The wolfman cocked his head, ears laid back flat. “In fact, what is to stop me from challenging you here and taking this marketplace and Citadel for my own?” 

“The deadliest poisons in all of Hearthworld,” Zyra said, appearing next to the Gevaudan, a gleaming black-edged dagger pressed firmly into the side of his shaggy-furred throat. “One nick and you won’t go four paces before you’re dead.” 

Roark smiled at the hooded Reaver, then waved for her to put the blade away. “As you can see, my generals are loyal. But I have no fear of you. You’re welcome to try it.” Roark smirked. “Azibek thought he could crush me, too, and now I run his dungeon. I’ll be happy to introduce you to forever-death as well, mate.”

“Besting one of us in your own territory would prove little,” Ishri the Cunning said. “There is, however, a way you can prove much.” The Bloodleech paused, glancing at each of her fellow dungeon lords in turn. After a moment they all nodded. “We want you to kill a hero…”

The coordination. The baiting. The posturing. This whole thing had been a setup, designed to push Roark into action. And the impossible labor they wanted performed in return was a dead hero? Roark was almost disappointed.

He laughed. “Do you even know what ‘Griefer’ means?”

“You’ve killed small heroes,” Gevaudan growled. “Puny pups compared to the one we want you to kill. His name is Bad_Karma.”

The name touched off a spark of recognition in Roark’s mind, but he couldn’t remember where he’d heard it before.

Ko sent him a picture of a woman in low-quality chainmail carrying an armload of books out of Mogrifa & Mogrifa’s, the scene taken straight from his memory. “He’s only the number one player on the server,” the woman said to Roark as if he should already know.

“Bad_Karma isss the highessst-level hero in Hearthworld,” Shess said. “He has causssed more lossst levelsss than any other. You will never meet hisss equal. But he hasss the fatal flaw shared by all heroesss…”

“Hubris,” Rohibim finished for her. “He exists in Hearthworld under a special set of conditions that only allow him to die once. It is called Hardcore Mode. If he dies, he’ll be gone forever.”

“Simple, then,” Roark said, shrugging. “I’ll kill him, problem solved.”

“Not so simple,” Drokara crawked. “For he’s survived thus far without dying long enough to reach level 50.”

We want his head, Ko sent, showing Roark a picture of a severed head leaking blood onto a silver plate. You want our swords in battle, the strength of our arms, our magicks at your back? Show us you can use your sword. Show us you are worthy to lead, and worthy of following. If you can do this thing, kill the unkillable, we will give you what you want. 

“If you can bring down Bad_Karma, we’ll join you,” Gevaudan said, once more twirling that Fangbane leaf beneath his nose. “And not just us. Kill him and another half-dozen dungeons around the world will be knocking down your door to join, too.” He hooked a clawed thumb toward his chest. “I’ll personally make sure of it. You only got three days to prove your worth, though, fast talker.” 

“And if you fail after three days’ time,” the Beryl King said, “you’ll never have another chance. This is our only offer. Agree to it or we are finished here.”

                                                   ╠═╦╬╧╪

Karma’s Head

The Dungeon Lords have spoken. They won’t ally their dungeons with yours unless you kill Bad_Karma, the top-rated hero in Hearthworld, within three days.

Objective: Kill Bad_Karma and present the Dungeon Lords with his head within the time limit.

Reward: The Dungeon Lords will ally their dungeons with the Troll Nation, 70,000 Experience, and The Eternal Blessing of the Seven

Failure: Fail to kill Bad_Karma within the allotted three days or fail to return his head to the Dungeon Lords within the allotted three days.

Penalty: Alliance with the Seven Dungeon Lords permanently locked.

Restrictions: None

Accept quest? Yes / No

                                                    ╠═╦╬╧╪ 

Roark didn’t even have to consider it. There was no other way to gain their allegiance. Besides, he’d killed plenty of heroes beyond his level since coming to this world. What was one more?

“It’s a deal,” he said, selecting Yes.

Chapter 26

Battle Plan 

Once the dungeon lords had all returned to their own territories via a second single-use scroll, Roark called Kaz, Zyra, Griff, and Mai together in one of the upper rooms of the inn. Mac returned from his adventures as well and was busy rubbing phosphorescent spores from his beard and head onto the legs of Roark’s leathers. Apparently, he’d spent the night playing in a field of fungi.

“It seems fairly straightforward,” Roark said after he explained the dungeon lords’ quest. “Just kill this Bad_Karma bellend, then we can get on with preparing to fight Lowen.”

The agreements Roark expected never came. Instead, his friends looked from one to another with grim frowns.

After an uncomfortably long moment, Mai threw up her pink hands. “Sure, and none of you are going to tell him? You’re just going to let him walk into this?”

“Now, Mai,” Griff said, his tone appeasing. The grizzled old trainer took a breath and turned to Roark. “I don’t think ya understand, son. Bad_Karma is walkin’, talkin’ death. Unstoppable. No mob nor player has ever killed him.”

In spite of the fact that Mac clearly wouldn’t fit on the chair by himself, let alone behind Roark, he shoved his head in between Roark and the chair back, digging and pushing until Roark stood up and let him have the seat. The Young Turtle Dragon settled down with a sighing chirp of contentment, half his shell hanging off the front.

“I put down Pwnrbwner_OG like the dog he was twice,” Roark said, dusting the glowing spores from Mac’s shell. “I killed Azibek and half the Trolls in this damned Citadel on my way to Dungeon Lord. And that was all well before I hit my final evolution. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been, level 36, and a Jotnar Infernali and Hexorcist with skills no one has ever seen. And you lot are telling me, I’m supposed to be afraid of some hero just because nobody’s killed him yet?”

Griff raised a hand to stop him. “Say for a second that ya could him. Won’t matter, ’cause gettin’ to him’s the real problem. He’s a level 50, is Bad_Karma. I know the Citadel’s the talk of the town at the moment, but this kid would never set foot here. It’s a low-level dungeon for beginners, and no matter how big it gets, he’ll always see it as such.”

Roark shrugged. “So, I go to him.”

“Convenient,” Zyra said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Do you have silver platter to serve yourself on or are you going to smith one before you leave?”

The skepticism in his abilities was starting to annoy Roark. First from the other Dungeon Lords and now from his own mates, who should believe in him more than all others.

“I will kill him,” Roark insisted. “Doubt me if you want, but it’s going to happen. I just need to know where to find him.”

Griff sighed. “Well …” he trailed off, fiddling with the handle of his short sword. “Though I think it’s ill advised, I know how ya might get at him if yer determined. Bad_Karma has a standing appointment at the arena. Does battle once a week like the overconfident little jackdaw he is. With my connections, might be I could smuggle you in.”

“You’re going to help him with this … this suicide?” Mai asked. “Kaz, he’s your best friend. Aren’t you going to stop him?” she pleaded, eyes big, hands outthrust.

The Behemoth raised his huge chin and set his enormous fists on his hips. 

“If Roark says he can kill Bad_Karma, then Kaz believes him. Roark has done everything else he said he would. He defeated the first floor Overseer, Ugoraz, when no one thought he could. He won Zyra to our cause. Earned the trust of Trolls everywhere. Killed Azibek. Built a Troll Marketplace and founded the first mob settlement in all of Hearthworld. He even brought us the wonders of food! Kaz believes.”

“Do what you will, then,” Mai fumed, crossing her arms over her ample bosom. “I’ll not be crying when you’re off for respawn, Dungeon Lord. And don’t be expecting me to keep your meal warm, either. The Infernali take you all.”

“I’m on your side, Mai,” Zyra said. “I’m placing my bets on the Griefer respawning before dinner. Might see if I can’t get over to the arena and place a little gold on the match.”

Roark smirked nastily at the hooded Reaver, but she just shrugged as if the outcome of his faceoff with Bad_Karma was a foregone conclusion.

On the other side of the circle, Kaz tried to put his arm around Mai, but she shrugged his enormous arm off. The Behemoth’s eyes grew wide, and his lower lip quivered at the rejection.

“Mai darlin’, go easy now,” Griff said, patting her arm. “It ain’t gonna matter what we say, nobody’s gonna be able to talk the Griefer out of goin’ after Bad_Karma. Sometimes a young man just has to learn for himself.” The old arena hand trained his one piercing blue eye on Roark. “Not an old man, though. We don’t get old by ignorin’ common sense and runnin’ in to certain death, you ken?”

“Understood,” Roark said, nodding. “Now, how do we get to him?”

“Not we,” the weapons trainer said. “You. Getting’ everyone in will never happen. You’ll be on your own. Karma usually faces off against other heroes. Way I hear it told, there’s a waitin’ list as long as my arm of folks who want to fight him just for the pleasure of sayin’ they died by his hand. But it ain’t unheard of for him to warm up against scads of captured mobs. Usually low-level creatures taken in off the plains, but I’ve seen higher level creatures in there a time or two. If you could disguise yourself as something else, it’d be a big help. Can your illusion spell do that? Make you look like a different kind of mob? Because if so, I reckon I can get you thrown in with the other mobs.”

Roark nodded. It would be pushing the limits, but maybe with his new Skin Deep: The Art of Glamorous Makeovers Grimoire, he’d be able to arrange something. 

“Give me a few hours and I should be able to manage it. How soon can you get me in?”

Griff leaned back in his chair and cupped his chin in his scarred hand, staring off while he did the calculations.

“It’s only a shake of the kelpie’s tail to midnight. If we head over first thing in the morning, I reckon we can get you into the mob cages in time for the day’s fights.”

“Good,” Roark said. “Prepare to leave come first light. I’ll be handing this Bad_Karma bloke’s head to the Seven Dungeon Lords before sunset.” 

But first, he needed to find a suitable illusion to mask his appearance. 

                                                     ***

Roark stalked forward on silent feet, rounding a snaking bend in a shallow tunnel with rough earthen walls. Behind him, Zyra ghosted along, invisible though he could feel her presence like a reassuring hand clutched in the black of night. It had taken him hours of scouring the seemingly infinite pages marked with the “Wiki” ribbon in his Mystic Grimoire to find a creature suitable to Roark’s purpose. 

At first, he was sure that he would need to find a master of illusion for Griff’s plan to work, but research proved that to be rather problematic. His own Illusion Cloak, provided by the World Stone Pendant, allowed him to assume his human form, but he couldn’t tailor it at will, which meant he needed a chimera capable of casting such elaborate illusions. It turned out that there were a fair number of such creatures roaming Hearthworld’s cavern, tombs, and dungeons, but few had the specific type of effect he needed. Those who did have illusory spells or abilities powerful enough to achieve the desired effect, were creatures of enormous strength and renown. Dungeon Lords and Ladies who would be able to rip him apart with a thought or the twitch of a claw.

Ancient Dragons, it seemed, were the most likely source of illusion magick, followed in short order by various named demonic lords, undead liches, vampire monarchs, djinns, and rakshasa. It seemed the power of illusion was incredible deadly after all and hoarded by some of the fiercest monsters in Heartworld. Roark was already running low of goodwill with the other Dungeon Lords, so simply asking for a favor seemed unwise, especially since he was trying to prove he was powerful enough to govern without their aid. 

With that avenue of research thoroughly exhausted, they turned instead to creatures that didn’t rely on glamour or illusion to hide its form, but rather utilized bodily transmutation to survive and kill. A skill Roark could potentially learn since he had chosen the Change Yourself, Change Your Friends, Change the World: Transmutation Tricks Grimoire with his final Evolution. There were a number of these, most of them lower level—everything from Selkies and Barguest to Doppelgangers and Werewolves—but none were quite right. Not for this. But after a bit more digging and a helping hand from Griff, who was basically a compendium of monster lore thanks to his time in the arena, they found an acceptable alternative.

His query was an exceptionally odd creature known as a Grapple, a close relative to the Mimic. Mimics, it seemed were far more commonplace than their lesser known brethren, disguising themselves as treasure chests, tables, and even loot items such as swords or shields, only to transform into monsters of fangs and claws when heroes unwisely got too close. Genius, really. Roark had employed trapped treasure chests filled with spikes or acid to great effect, so he could admire the workmanship of a fellow hero-killer.

The Grapple, however, utilized a bit of a different strategy to kill its prey. 

By all accounts, they were far deadlier than mimics, though less intelligent and driven almost entirely by hunger. 

Finding one had not been easy, but if the eye-witness accounts from the Wiki pages of his Grimoire were to be believe, there was likely one in this rudimentary cave system, which was home to a group of creatures not so different from the Changelings that inhabited the first floor of the Cruel Citadel. 

The tunnel let out into a ragged, dome-shaped cavern, the ceiling above covered with long, dangling roots from some massive tree outside the cave system proper. A burbling creek carved its way through the center of the cavern, watering the patchy brown grass and stunted trees flanking either side of the slow-moving creek. Luminescent green mushrooms—smaller versions of the capped fungus found in the lower levels of Roark’s dungeon—sprouted from the walls, casting the whole scene in ghostly emerald light. Little huts of mud and sticks peppered the cavern’s interior, sheltering the dungeon’s inhabitants.

One of the chittering creatures spotted them and slipped from a squat home with no door. 

The creature was three or four feet tall at most, its skin a putrid green a shade darker than the fungus, its arms too long, its legs too short. It moved with a waddling hop, using its arms as often as not. It had a pinched reptilian face with cold beady eyes that seemed to catch everything. It wore crude leathers and carried a sharpened stick instead of any sort of proper weapon. According to the spidery text floating over its head, it was a [Kobold]. 

Having already talked his way past their lookouts on the first floor without inflicting any casualties, Roark knew that though these Kobolds were aggressive, as a good and proper mob should be, they weren’t unreasonable. Simple creatures, true, but not animals. And he felt a particular affinity toward them. He’d started out just as these poor souls, trapped in a scraggly, awkward little body and struggling to survive, and he would help them if he could. In fact, he fully intended to offer the Dungeon Lord—if they had one—a diplomatic olive branch.  

“Hello there,” Roark said, raising his claw tipped hands, showing he held no weapons. 

“Watcha want, huh?” the creature growled at him, his beady eyes narrowed, fangs protruding from his reptilian jaws. “You mob like us? Why you here? Challenge? We have no Lord. No ruler. No challenge. You, go away.” He shooed at Roark with a free hand. 

“No, mate,” Roark said. “I’m not here to challenge. I’m actually here to help you, I think. I’m looking for a creature … a thing that doesn’t belong. I have reason to believe it may have moved into your cave system. It’s a mob that might look like you but is not one of you.” He paused, edging closer. “I’ve heard that it might be hurting your people.”

The Kobold retreated a step cocking his head to one side as he considered Roark’s words, spidery fingers drumming on its stick. “The outsider? What you want with outsider, huh?” 

“I’m hunting it. If I manage to kill it, it will respawn away from your cave system. It will move on, find a new dungeon to hunt. You and your kinsmen will be safe. And then my companion and I will be out of your hair.” He eyed the Kobold’s scaly, bald head. “So to speak,” he added with a grin. 

The Kobold dithered, shifting uncertainty from foot to foot before finally nodding its assent. “Okay. I show you. But be careful. Dangerous.” The kobold turned, waved for them to follow, and hobbled off deeper into the cave system, past the rest of the little mud huts, and toward another branch, which ran away from the far side of the cavern proper. Distrustful eyes followed them, peeking from doorways. Kobolds watching the strange procession. 

Their guide led them for another five minutes down the winding tunnel until it finally came to a deep fissure in the cavern wall which connected to a wide, circular hollow twenty feet across. Inside, there were no quaint homes of mud and sticks, no campfires burning, no streams burbling. There were bones, though. Piles and piles of them strewn among other bits and pieces of debris. Many of those bones appeared to be from heroes, unlucky enough to stray this far into the tunnel system, but others were smaller, more reptilian. Kobold remains, at a guess.

In the center of the hollow, staring at them through the fissure with sunken, beady eyes was a Kobold, no different from the others Roark had seen. 

Their guide faltered outside the fissure; its inhuman face was hard to read, but Roark thought he saw fear etched into its scaly features. 

“Me will go no farther,” the Kobold grimaced, shook its head, then turned and left them to the timid-looking creature in the cave beyond.

“Have you ever fought a Grapple?” Zyra asked quietly, pulling her Cursed Longknives from dual sheaths. 

“No,” Roark replied. “The eyewitness reports weren’t very clear, but I’m sure we can take it. Though try not to kill it too fast—I need it to transform in front of me if I’m going to gain it’s special skill.” 

“Kill, but slowly,” she said in confirmation. “I can do that.” 

Together they padded through the fissure, Roark ducking his head to avoid scraping his horns on the craggy surface of the low ceiling. 

“Not sure if you understand me,” he said, raising his hands to show he meant no harm, just as he had with the other Kobolds. “But I don’t mean you any harm. I was hoping to talk with you. Maybe ask a small favor of you.” 

The lone Kobold didn’t shuffle forward, didn’t make any sort of aggressive movements. Instead, it hooted affably, offering Roark a toothy smile as it waved him on with one hand. He glanced at Zyra over one shoulder, shrugged, and edged a little closer, his boots crunching on chips of yellowed bone. The creature hooted more energetically, seemingly ecstatic about Roark’s approach. Roark faltered for a beat, one hand instinctively dropping to the pommel of his rapier. He licked his lips, deliberately pulled his hand away, and pressed on. He didn’t want to alarm this thing, not if he could avoid it—though as he got closer and closer, worry bloomed inside his gut like a rose on the high steppes.

This thing looked benign, but every survival instinct in him screamed that he should be running not drawing closer. There was nothing for it, however. If he wanted to see the creature’s transmutation in action, he would have to risk getting within striking distance.

He was five feet out when the odd Kobold stopped its energetic chirping, its arms falling limply by its sides. Its sinuous smile slipped from his face, replaced instead by a look that Roark could only describe as hungry. 

In an instant the creature surged forward on all fours, changing as he moved; growing and bubbling out, its arms and legs expanding by the second. 

Roark leapt back, scrambling for his rapier, but the Grapple was ungodly fast and ploughed into him before he could free his blade from its sheath. The creature, no longer a Kobold, but a blob of gray skin and black shifting light, hit him like a battering ram, blasting Roark from his feet and hurling him through the air. Zyra danced out of Roark’s way just the barest instant before he could sideswipe her. She darted in, her longknives flashing with deathly light. 

Roark slammed into the stone wall of the hollow. The breath rushed from his lungs all at once, and he crumpled to the floor in a heap, stars dancing at the edges of his vision. 

A message appeared as the white starbursts finally stared to wink out and die away. 

[You have witnessed the special Grapple ability Polymorph: Shape Form, Kobold, would you like to add this special ability to your Change Yourself, Change Your Friends, Change the World: Transmutation Tricks Grimoire? Yes/No?]

Roark grinned despite the pain in his chest and back. Success. 

He accepted and dismissed the parchment with a thought, then struggled to his feet. In front of him was the Grapple, now fully transformed. Roark had seen any number of odd creatures during his time in Heartworld, but this was among the strangest by far. 

A blob of translucent sludge, more or less man-shaped, though it had four arms instead of the customary two, and no two limbs were the same. One arm looked like it might’ve belonged to a wolfman while another had an enormous crab claw jutting from the end. A third had long, webbed, batlike fingers, and the final one kept shifting between the arm of a rog and the azure skin of a dark elf. One leg could’ve come from a Behemoth Thursr, while the other was the tail of a Naga. Patches of fur in various hues sprouted from random places, and a horde of bones floated inside its goopy torso without any real rhyme or reason. It boasted a tooth-filled maw located beneath a single ruby eye the size of Roark’s fist. Another entry for his nightmare vault. 

Zyra, though, seemed entirely unconcerned. 

She danced around the grotesque, slashing it with her blades and raking at it with poisoned claws, eating through its glowing Health vial with ease. The creature hit hard, but it was ponderously slow—at least in comparison to Zyra’s lithe movements and uncanny grace. Roark had simply been caught off guard, but now that he’d earned what he’d come for, it was time to put this thing down and get back to the Citadel. 

He summoned his Initiate’s Spell Tome, the pages flipping to his fifth level spells. He had the perfect spell, ready and waiting. Aiming an open palm at the creature, he unleashed Rain of Fire. A red thunderhead appeared above the Grapple, swirling and churning, crimson lightning arcing in the unnatural cloud. 

A pained howled ripped through the air as the molten rain’s fell and the creature burned.

Chapter 27 

Board Meeting from Hell

The alarm Randy Shoemaker set for himself began beeping in his ear just as Roark the Griefer was gathering up the five anomalies he spent the most time with. It seemed like one of those Gathering of the Team moments from movies, where everybody talks over the plan, then they all get geared up and go defeat the big bad. 

Randy would’ve liked to listen in. There was something so addictive about following around a group of friends. Listening to their banter and discussions. Sharing in their inside jokes—like the ongoing tension between Roark and Zyra or the friendly comradery between Kaz and Mac, Griff and Mai. It was almost like having friends yourself. 

But he had to tear himself away because today, he somewhere to be. That alarm was his two-hour warning before the board meeting. It had been a week. Now it was time to give an update to the board.

Randy logged out, then climbed out of the deep dive capsule, standing beside it for a few minutes with one hand on the console to steady himself. It always took him a little bit to readjust to the pull of gravity and get his equilibrium reacquainted with the real world.

When the floor finally stopped reeling uncertainty beneath him, he took a quick scan of the VIP lounge, searching for any new—and potentially unfriendly—faces. Thankfully, the room was empty. 

Not totally surprising, since this lounge was a special place, reserved only for the most important people: VPs, Executives, or high-profile clients the top brass hoped to woo.

Plush carpets in deep grays lined the floors, while the walls were immaculately white, accented with clean lines of gray, black, and chrome. The furniture was all white—posh and terribly uncomfortable looking, though undoubtedly expensive. The wall adjacent to the entryway door was one giant Vidscreen, though it was currently off since the room was unoccupied. A fireplace, lifeless and cold, was built into the left wall; in front of it were a pair of white-leather club chairs and a shaggy black rug as big as Randy’s living room. The right wall boasted a full bar along with a sleek chrome expresso machine, perfect for an afternoon pick me up. 

It was nothing even remotely similar to the employee lounge. They were planets apart.

Frankly, Randy didn’t care for the modern décor, nor the classy furniture. But the line of Deep Dive pods, like futuristic coffins, running off to the left of his pod, made this strange place a treasure more valuable than even the best loot Hearthworld had to offer.

When he could walk around without tripping, he hurried into the executive bathroom, equipped with a number of private showers. He slipped into a marble and glass monstrosity that was larger than his entire bathroom and tapped the button for the preprogrammed Shower Option 1, a quick, but thorough wash. When he was done, he stepped out of the shower cubicle, dried off, and dressed as quickly as he could in a spare set of cloths he’d brought with him from home. He dressed plainly. Dark, professional no-nonsense slacks, a cream button up, and brown penny loafers. He also sported a clear pocket-protector, crammed with pens and markers, but he’d been wearing it long before they were “ironically” hip. 

He stopped by the VIP bar and found a variety of snacks, ready and waiting. There were pre-sliced bagels, along with a black automatic toaster, some blueberry muffins, and several yogurt containers chilling in a white bowl full of ice.

He opted instead for a package of cold Pop Tarts, a request he’d made upon earning access to the Lounge. No better way to start the day than a Pop Tart.

He checked his watch, bolted the Pop Tarts down one right after another.

That last bit started to seem like a mistake as soon as he finished the second pastry. The sugary food sat like a stone in his gut as left the lounge and made his way back to his glass fronted office, where he should be gathering and compiling his notes for this morning’s meeting. Except, he didn’t really have notes to compile; there were statistics, yes, and data points worth touching on… but it was all raw information, with no conclusions. He had no idea what he was supposed to tell the board. They were going to expect concrete answers, but after a week observing and gathering information on the modders, Randy had more questions than ever.

He considered himself a man of logic and order. He was a huge fan of inductive reasoning. You gathered data, and that data led you to conclusions. That was how the world should always work. But Randy had gathered and gathered and gathered the pieces of this puzzle, both from a detective standpoint and the standpoint of a programmer, and still none of the pieces fit together.

There was something missing. Some bit of information which would complete the puzzle and make all the rest of the pieces fit together logically. He just had to find it. Once he had that missing piece, he could go about figuring out how to fix the anomaly.

Randy kept his head down, trying to avoid eye contact as he made his way past the staff lounge, directly adjacent to his office. Unlike the chic and sleek VIP lounge, the employee lounge housed the ping-pong table, an oversized leather couch, and seventy-inch vidwall where employees could come to “unwind.” A place to play video games. To “hang out.” Or “jam.” Frontflip Studios was one of those types of companies. A place where there was no formal dress policy. Where people wore blue jeans and flip flops to work. Frontflip insisted it “inspired an atmosphere of creativity.” 

At least, that was how it was pitched to the worker bees, like Randy. He didn’t expect to see a flipflop anywhere in sight during this morning’s brief—just expensive suits and angry scowls. 

He grabbed his coffee cup off his desk, filled it up and gulped the scalding hot liquid down while he logged into his InfiniTab Office Pro. Quickly, he scrolled through the notes he’d sent himself while in-game, searching for any connections he might have missed. But there was nothing. No smoking gun. No flash of brilliance or insight. He sighed, printed off a few pages so he at least had the appearance of preparedness, then headed out of his office. 

Danny, the sharp-dressed, ever-popular Marketing Director ambushed him as he stepped into the corridor. 

“Heyo, Rando!” he said, leaning out of his door and shooting him with a finger gun. “Lame board meeting today. Such a drag, amiright?”

“Whatever, Danny,” Randy mumbled under his breath.

Danny stepped out of his office, cocking an ear toward him. “What’d you say?”

Randy’s face flamed. “Nothing. Just clearing my throat.”

“Well, grab a lozenge, bud, it’s your party today,” Danny said, slapping him on the back too hard to be friendly. “Can’t have a frog in your throat for your big report.”

“Right,” Randy offered weakly, icy fingers of dread creeping through his system as he headed for the conference room and his almost certain doom.

“See you in there, buddy,” Danny called after him. “Save me a seat!”

The receptionist, a young man named Berkley with a haircut that cost more than the best suit in Randy’s closet, sent him in straight away. This was an emergency meeting with only one item on the agenda, so there wasn’t any chance he would overhear important stockholder information. 

Randy took a seat near the middle of the table, far enough back that he was certain he wasn’t taking any of the regulars’ seats, and went over his notes again one final time while the board filtered in. None of them spoke to Randy. He wasn’t important enough to attract their notice or ballsy enough to talk to them first like Danny, who came in and immediately went up to Mr. Silva, the CEO and majority shareholder of Frontflip Studios, shaking his hand and talking about a great golf game he’d had. 

Opposite Randy sat the company’s COO, Asif Kamal Totah, in quiet discussion with Paula Menchaca, their CFO. Eventually Danny took a seat next to the Head of HR, Susan Span, and started flirting with her.

The most powerful people in the company were all sitting in this room, waiting to hear from him. Randy swallowed hard. Right then, facing down a dungeon full of Final Evolution Bloodleeches seemed like a much less intimidating way to spend the morning.

At exactly 9:05 a.m., Mr. Silva rapped his knuckles on the table.

“I’ve got a flight to Hong Kong in two hours, so let’s get right into it.” He pointed down the table at Danny. “How are we sitting with the Hearthworld numbers?”

Danny clicked his pen and sat forward. “No change, sir. We haven’t started losing money—yet—but it looks like that initial spike of new subscriptions has hit the plateau. We’re expecting it to fall off the cliff any day now.”

Mr. Silva nodded. “Shoemaker. How close are we to eliminating these modders?”

“Uh, well, sir,” Randy started. “You see, the way the modders are interacting with the established code—”

“I don’t want to hear about the anomalies in the code,” Mr. Silva cut him off. “I want timeframes to fixes. Do you have a timeframe, Shoemaker?”

“I—without knowing exactly what the modders are—”

“So no timeframe,” Mr. Silva said. He grabbed up a piece of paper and checked something. “You logged a hundred and eleven hours this week, fifty-eight of them overtime. What the hell were you doing in there, Shoemaker? Playing on company time?”

“N-no, sir, I—”

“Because for a hundred and eleven hours—fifty-eight of which I’m paying you time and a half—I expect results, not—” He threw the paper back down. “—fuck-all.”

Randy swallowed past the sharp lump in his throat. “Sir, there is still the option of making the areas around the Troll Nation and the Vault of the Radiant Shield into restricted areas.”

The CFO sat forward, a shake of her head flipping shining brown hair over her shoulder. “Excuse me, but what is the Troll Nation? Your original report says that the Vault of the Radiant Shield and the Cruel Citadel were the locations of the prime anomalies.”

“They were, ma’am,” Randy said. “And the Citadel still is, but this Roark the Griefer changed it. He founded a settlement there for the Trolls whose code he’s infected and named it Troll Nation.”

Danny snorted. When he saw everyone looking at him, he straightened up. “It’s such an obvious gamer name. He’s trolling us, so he puts himself in the game as a literal troll and makes a settlement called Troll Nation.”

“He founded a settlement?” Mr. Silva said, his eyes like chips of diamond, cold and hard. “Why?”

Though he remembered what they said, Randy glanced down at his notes so he wouldn’t have to hold the CEO’s intense gaze.

“At first, I thought money or laundering Unique or Legendary weapons,” Randy said. “But for a modder of his skill, writing in his own would be much faster than waiting for them to come through a marketplace.” He scrolled down a bit. “The other possibility was so that he could spread his infected code even faster. From some of the things the Griefer has said, he and the prime anomaly in the Radiant Shield, the modder named Lowen, are in a sort of virtual arms race. I think things are about to come to a head soon. But so far, none of the NPCs or mobs who’ve gone through the Troll Nation marketplace have been infected.”

“So, what you’re saying is you’ve been following this Griefer around for a week, and in that time, you allowed him to take over the Cruel Citadel, change its name, found a settlement where he’d have access to an exponentially higher number of people and creatures, and turn my game into a virtual grudge match between himself and this Lowen character?”

Randy’s mouth opened and closed as his brain struggled to find a way to explain. Technically, everything Mr. Silva had just said was true.

“All of this on your watch,” Silva’s voice dropped to frigid, “And you want me to pay you for this.”

Randy’s throat went dry. “S-sir—”

“You’ve got three days to get me hard answers, Shoemaker. If you don’t, I’ll find someone else who can and you can find another job. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Randy whispered.

After the board dismissed, Randy left the conference room with his head down and steered straight for the bathroom. He just barely made it to a stall in time. Strawberry Pop Tart flavored vomit sprayed into the stripped-down, streamlined, hypermodern toilet. A few good heaves and the last of the breakfast pastry was floating in the funnel-shaped bowl, pinkish bubbles speckled with tiny yellow and blue sprinkles floating on a greasy, sticky sea of strawberry red.

Randy leaned back against the stall door and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. It was soaked with sweat. More slicked his limp hair to his forehead and plastered his shirt to his back and armpits. Felt like the thing was choking him. He undid the top button. Whether it was reality or psychosomatic, the change made it a little easier for him to breathe.

Randy flushed the toilet and left the stall. He went to the sinks, white basins jutting up out of black marble, and ran cold water over his wrists to cool himself off. Then he splashed some on his face and slurped a little from his hand, swishing it around to rinse the strawberry vomit taste from his mouth.

It wasn’t even the ass-chewing that bothered him the most. It was the prospect of being fired. He loved Hearthworld, and he loved his job. He as good at it, too. There was no Engineer at FrontFlip better than him. But most importantly, he wanted to figure out what was going on here. He’d never met a problem he couldn’t unravel given enough time and information. It was what he did. Finding answers was who he was. Everything else came in a distant second.

He needed to solve this, but Mr. Silva had just put him on a severely short deadline. Which meant he was going to have to step up and take more direct action.