The darkness swallowed the fountain whole. The center of what had once been Blucliffe’s town square was now a gaping, ebony maw that threatened to eat all light, all hope, all souls. Greg’s breath was still ragged, but his thoughts were clear. It wasn’t just a black hole. It was a portal.

  Everyone was still catching their breath, except for Doran. He remained as stoically unphased as the mountains he called ancestor, as was his way. Nars and Violet were still in the aftermath of an adrenaline rush; good, but shaky. Elowen seemed tired but the resolve in her face didn’t give an inch. They were all tired, but it was mostly mental. The Level Up had restored their Vitality and Essence, so technically, they were in prime shape, physically. Emotionally…

  Level Up!

  Doran – Subclass: DEMOLISHER

  ? Armor Bonus within 15ft of Allies

  ? Damage Bonus vs. Constructs and Fortifications

  ? New Ability: Fault Sense (identify structural weak points)

  Nars – Subclass: TRICKSHOT

  ? Ricochet Attacks, Line Shots, Curved Arrows

  ? Bonus Damage when Not in Melee (with friends like Greg…)

  ? New Ability: Thread the Needle (ignore most cover)

  Violet – Subclass: FIELD ALCHEMIST

  ? May Improvise New Spells from Monstrous Materials

  ? Reduced Brew Time, Increased Risk of Wild Effects

  ? New Ability: On-the-Fly (craft a single-use concoction mid-combat)

  Elowen – Major Boon: BLESSING OF TOTTH

  ? Sun Channel Capacity Greatly Increased

  ? Access to Higher Tier Radiant and Binding Effects

  ? New Role: Divine Instrument of the Sun

  Greg turned.

  Elowen looked… different.

  He lacked the vocabulary to describe it, but it reminded him of a power-up effect he’d seen in a magical girl anime one time. Thin lines of golden script had crept along her skin, curling at her temples and wrists like living tattoos. A faint, translucent sun-disc hovered at the back of her head, only visible when she moved. Her eyes caught the lantern light and held it too long, turning it into something brighter.

  “This is… unexpected,” she said softly.

  The system added, unhelpfully:

  [Elowen] – Status: Totth’s Chosen

  Relationship Status: Way More Complicated Now

  Greg looked at the hole in the square.

  Wind blew up out of it, cold and sickly damp, carrying the smell of old stone, river mud, and something older than the grave. Far below, somewhere in the churn of light and dark, something pulsed in a broken rhythm.

  Petar’l. Or what he’d become.

  Doran hefted his axe. “Down we go, then. Before anyone comes to their senses.”

  He stepped to the edge. The corruption stormed and hissed where Elowen’s light touched it, but there was a path: a curling ramp of radiant, coiled stone, spiraling down into the dark.

  “Stay with me,” Elowen said.

  She lifted her hand.

  Light flowed from her palm into the edge of the portal, hardening into a narrow, translucent walkway curling downward. Without waiting to see if anyone followed, she stepped on.

  Greg went after her. Doran, Nars, and Violet fell in behind. The villagers watched them go until the swirling dark and light closed overhead and Blucliffe vanished.

  They didn’t fall, exactly. The ramp under their feet had weight and texture, some kind of solid light or vitrified stone. But the space around them didn’t behave. Sometimes the walls were close, carved out of rock fused with the bones of the Vault. Sometimes there were no walls, just a funnel of spinning luminescence, stars of corruption floating in it like dust motes in a beam of sunlight.

  The ramp cracked once, a shallow fracture running ahead of them in a jagged line. Doran halted, eyes narrowing. He crouched, laid a hand against the surface, then thumped it lightly with his fist.

  “Load’s wrong,” he grunted. “Whole section’s going to shear off in a minute.”

  Greg looked down into the depths.

  “How far is ‘a minute’ in dwarf?” he asked.

  Doran stood. “Long enough for me to fix it. Back up.”

  He planted his feet and drew in a slow breath. The sigils that had appeared on his armor at the level-up glowed faintly, settling into place like old friends. When he swung his axe this time, it wasn’t at an enemy. He slammed it into the ramp itself, right at the edge of the fracture.

  Doran used Fault Sense

  Target: [Structural Flaw]

  Effect: Controlled Collapse

  The ramp shuddered. Instead of cracking away into the void, the loose section broke along Doran’s chosen line and slotted itself back into a more stable angle, like a Jenga tower collapsing into a smaller, more stable Jenga tower.

  “Demolisher, huh?” Greg said. “Seems more like repairs… with violence.”

  Doran scrunched his face. “I don’t feel the need to explain my art to you.”

  Shadows stirred, and so did Greg’s Rage.

  FURIOUS WARD AVAILABLE!

  Effect: Protect Allies, Attract Threats

  Murder shenanigans still possible, no longer guaranteed.

  He clicked [Y].

  The Rage rose, but it wasn’t a tidal wave anymore. More like a storm front, rolling like thunder behind his ribs. His muscles tightened, his senses sharpened, but there was a center to it now. A place to stand that wasn’t just gnashing teeth and screaming blood.

  Heat poured off him in a faint shimmer.

  Party Buff Applied: Furious Ward

  ? Allies gain Damage Resistance

  ? Enemies more likely to target [Greg]

  ? Anti-Bullshit Measures Active:

  Hostile Magical Fuckery Reduced (Moderate)

  The chamber at the base of the descent looked like similar to the Vault Heart they had just left behind; or maybe more like if the Vault Heart had a nightmare after watching Aliens. The space was roughly spherical, its walls a hodgepodge of ancient stone, newer brickwork, and raw crystal corruption. Bits of Blucliffe were embedded there: a section of the Gilded Gorge’s sign, an upside-down bit of townhouse facade, the melted upper half of the fountain statue, its heroic arm still raised in a gesture that now looked more like surrender than inspiration. And every now and then, a tentacle.

  In the center hung the node.

  It was smaller than the Heart they’d seen before, but denser. A twisted knot of crystal and metal, threaded through with bands of gold and silver, wrapped in a cocoon of viscous, slow-moving shadow. Conduit tentacles ran from it into the walls and up into the ceiling, disappearing into the rock above. Each pulse of its light made the threads tremble.

  And bound into it, like an insect in amber, was Petar’l—if you could really call him that anymore.

  His body was mostly intact. His armor had grown into him, plates and filigree sunk into his flesh, lines of Moonscript etched along his jaw and neck. One arm was still an arm. The other had come apart into a fan of blades, each one a strip of condensed Moonlight and shadow, flexing and folding with his fingers.

  Tendrils of corruption ran from his spine into the node behind him. His cloak spread out in radiating lines, becoming part of the cocoon, sigils shifting across it.

  His eyes opened as they stepped off the platform.

  Moonlight burned there, but there was still a person gazing out. A very smug, annoying little dipshit of a person. His new form looked grotesquely painful. Greg reached deep for one ounce of sympathy, but all that came back was Nah, fuck this guy.

  BOSS FIGHT: Petar’l Velyar

  [ASCENDANT AVATAR]

  Phase: 1 – Manifestation

  “Ah,” Petar’l said. “You made it. I thought you might’ve realized by now… no matter. It pleases me to learn you are even dumber than you look.”

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  Greg lifted his sword. The weight felt good in his hands. It would feel even better smashing down on this little prick’s little prick, but he stayed himself. “Hey, Petar’l. What’s up?”

  “What’s up? What’s up?!” Petar’l spat, corruption frothing on his lips and behind his eyes. “I’ll tell you what’s up! This world is about to be freed! And it will be the first of many.”

  “What’s the plan, exactly? Breaking the world to free it sounds like a bad plan for the people actually in that world… and you’re talking a lotta shit for a dude stuck in a crystal tumor, buddy.”

  Something sickly familiar flashed in the moon elf’s eyes. “I’m not your buddy, guy!”

  Greg was stunned. How did he know to say that? That was a quote from a cartoon back on Earth. It couldn’t just be a coincidence, could it?

  Petar’l seemed to read the confusion on his face with a wicked grin. He tilted his head and continued in a mocking, sing-song tone. “Did you truly never wonder why the rules here feel so familiar?” he asked. “The numbers. The prompts. The way the sky stutters when the system checks its work. I know you’ve seen it.”

  Something flared white-hot instead of Greg. Not the Rage with a capital R, just normal, everyday rage with a little r: like the kind you felt in the self-check-out lane or when a TikTok starts buffering halfway through and never starts again. This motherfucker knows something, Greg thought.

  “You know something, motherfucker,” Greg said as he leveled the Giant Fucking Sword at his stupid, mutated face.

  Before any of his companions could so much ask what the fuck, Petar’l struck out.

  A spear of Moonlight snapped from his outstretched blade-hand toward Greg. The Rage moved Greg before his conscious brain finished yelling. He brought his sword up, Furious Ward flaring.

  The beam hit the edge of the aura and diffused, turning into a spray of smaller bolts that scorched the platform instead of his face.

  Petar’l used Umbral Lance…(miss)

  Result: Deflected by Furious Ward

  Still, check out those particle effects!

  “Stay in my radius!” Greg shouted. “If it’s trying to kill me, it’s not killing you.”

  Doran already was. He charged to Greg’s right, shield up, axe cocked low. Nars fanned out left, taking cover behind a jag of fused stone. Violet ducked behind a protruding bit of the old foundation, satchel clinking.

  Elowen remained a half-step behind Greg, hands raised.

  Petar’l gestured and the environment obeyed.

  Stone bulges rose from the floor like boils. They snapped into more of those corrupted constructs, their limbs sharpened, eyes bright. Shadows peeled off the walls and hardened into knives, hanging in the air.

  “Adds,” Greg sighed. “Of course.”

  Nars loosed an arrow that ricocheted off one of the floating knives, pinged off a crystal, and buried itself in a glowing seam on the node behind Petar’l.

  Trickshot: Ricochet

  Weak Point Hit!

  Node Stability: –5%

  Petar’l winced, head jerking slightly.

  Doran wasn’t subtle. He barreled into the nearest construct and slammed his axe into its knee.

  Doran used Demolition Strike

  Construct Integrity: –35%

  Stance: Unstable

  The limb crumbled. The construct toppled, blocking a line of knives from reaching the backline.

  Violet popped the cork on a bottle of shadow-dust and clear liquid, sniffed once, and then hurled it at Petar’l’s chest.

  Violet used

  Corruption Reversal Tincture…(hit)

  Effect:

  Localized Moonburn → Radiant Backlash

  The vial shattered. A ring of white-gold fire flared across Petar’l’s armor. His face tightened as the flame sank in.

  “Pitiful,” he said through his teeth.

  Greg took advantage of his distraction to close the distance.

  He hit the edge of the node’s influence and felt the air thicken. The Rage pushed against it like a battering ram. Furious Ward threw sparks wherever his aura touched the corruption, burning it back to reveal the bare crystal beneath.

  He swung.

  Greg used Great Fucking Cleave!...(hit)

  Petar’l takes 52 slashing damage.

  Honestly, no notes. Goddamn.

  The blade connected with the armor over Petar’l’s ribs and bit in. Deep enough to get blood. Dark, viscous, and threaded with silver, Greg watched as Petar’l’s life bar dropped about 10%, roughly commensurate with the blood gushing out of the wound.

  “Better,” Petar’l said. “Crude, but effective.”

  He retaliated with a flick of his blade-hand. A wave of bent space rolled toward them, the platform rippling.

  Greg felt his stomach lurch as gravity tried to pick a new direction but never quite made up its mind.

  Elowen stepped in. She concentrated Totth’s light into one hand and brought it down like an anvil.

  Elowen used Sun Sign: Stabilize

  Effect: Removes shadow distortion and other moon-based bullshit.

  The platform under their feet steadied.

  Petar’l’s HP bar slid downward.

  Node Integrity: 60%… 52%… 45%…

  Cracks spidered across the core behind him. The conduits running up into the rock flickered. Petar’l didn’t look worried.

  That bothered Greg.

  The system offered a hint. For once, it sounded almost excited.

  STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY DETECTED

  Divine Instrument [Elowen] Can Overload [Boss Node]

  Suggested Action: Allow Full Sun Channel

  Warning: Stakes will raise dramatically; character death is possible.

  Elowen could feel it too, in the weight of the moment. The little sun-disc behind her burned brighter.

  “This is what Totth chose me for,” she said quietly.

  Greg gritted his teeth. “You sure about this? So far, he seems pretty receptive to stabbing. I think we can finish him off the traditional way.”

  She smiled without humor. “What is that saying of yours? That’s what she said.”

  Before he could respond, she stepped forward.

  She walked straight into the densest part of the node’s field, her hair lifting even in this airless chasm. Lines of golden script across her skin ignited, crawling down her arms and across her throat. The constructs that tried to bar her path dissolved in her presence, their bodies unraveling into shrieking steam.

  Petar’l’s expression finally shifted.

  “Don’t,” he said sharply. “Elowen, you can’t. You don’t even understand what you’re holding—"

  “I know exactly what I’m holding,” Elowen replied. “And you’re right to be worried.”

  She raised both hands and the sun exploded.

  First outward in a blinding flash, then inward with a searing whine that sounded like the world ripping apart. All that blinding radiance focused into a spear of light that drove straight into the node behind Petar’l, through the threads that bound him to it.

  Chains of pure gold snapped into existence along the conduits, racing up into the ceiling. The cracks in the node filled with heavenly white. Petar’l screamed as the light burned through the corruption, scorching Moonscript from his skin.

  Elowen used DIVINE CHANNEL: SUNLANCE

  Node Integrity: –30% (Massive)

  Petar’l HP: –25% (Significant)

  Your call is important to us. Totth is busy helping other clerics.

  Please enjoy this complimentary divine retribution against your foes.

  Greg threw an arm up against the glare. The platform shook. Fragmented images flickered around them: the Vault Heart as it once was, the river running clean, Blucliffe in sunlight, the sky over Aegis without the faint shimmer of invisible chains.

  For a moment, Greg thought they had it.

  Then Petar’l started laughing.

  It was not a sane sound.

  “You shit-sipping halfwits,” he choked, voice ragged. “You think… Totth’s leash… only works one way?”

  The gold chains Elowen had summoned shivered.

  Petar’l jerked his head back, eyes rolling white. His body arched against the cocoon of shadow. For a heartbeat, Greg saw something else behind him: a vast, burning mechanism in the sky, wheels within wheels, all of Aegis suspended from it like a weight on a hook.

  Petar’l grabbed the hook.

  “You’ve handed me his chain,” he hissed. “Let’s see what happens when I give it a tug.”

  He yanked.

  The backlash hit like a thunderclap.

  SUN CHANNEL FEEDBACK

  Source: Divine Instrument Overextension + Enemy Tampering

  Result: Catastrophic Discharge

  The light running through Elowen reversed. Gold turned white, then dark, pouring back into her faster than she could control it. The sun-disc behind her flared and shattered into fragments that rained down around her and winked out.

  She screamed.

  Greg lunged for her, Furious Ward straining, but the blast beat him there.

  The world went white and black at the same time.

  Everyone flew.

  Doran slammed into a chunk of floating masonry. Nars hit a wall and slid down, dazed. Violet tumbled across the platform, vials shattering around her, a cloud of half-reacted alchemy glittering in the air. Elowen was flung backward like a rag doll, skidding to a stop near the edge, where a sudden, translucent barrier snapped into place, penning her and the others in.

  Greg hit the center of the platform hard enough to shake his brain in his skull. [Furious Ward] flickered, then steadied. He rolled to his feet, ears ringing.

  Petar’l hung in front of the node, panting, smoking gently where Totth’s light had scarred him. The corruption around him had thickened, knitting into armor and a harness of shadow. The chains of gold had turned grey, wrapped into the same web.

  BOSS PHASE SHIFT: Petar’l Velyar

  [ASCENDANT AVATAR]

  PHASE 2: Wildcard, bitches!

  Warning:

  Party Cohesion: Not cohering.

  “Thank you,” Petar’l said. His voice was wrecked, but the hatred in it was clear. “Been a while since I worked for it. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go punch God to death.”

  He opened his blade-hand.

  The platform under Greg’s feet cracked in a perfect circle. The edges glowed, not with Elowen’s light, but with some hybrid of Sun and Moon that made Greg’s stomach lurch.

  “After I rid myself of this annoyance,” Petar’l said. “Stranger, let us speak without the NPCs.”

  The circle dropped.

  For a second Greg saw Elowen, Doran, Nars, Violet slamming against the shimmering barrier, faces distorted by the field. He saw Elowen’s hand slam flat against it, mouth forming his name.

  Sounds tore loose from the chamber as the disc of floor carrying Greg and Petar’l fell away into a shaft of nothing.

  NEW INSTANCE CREATED: [DUEL – Greg vs. Petar’l]

  Allies: Unavailable

  Escape: Unavailable

  Autosave: That would be cool, but also no.

  The node, the chamber, Blucliffe, the whole of Aegis smudged and stretched into streaks of light around them. Shapes flickered in the blur: a cramped apartment lit by a computer monitor, a game store table covered in character sheets and soda cans, a moonlit battlefield under a sky with no chains at all.

  Then the disc snapped to a halt in a place that wasn’t anywhere.

  The “ground” was a flat plane of glassy not-light, with lines of UI code scrolling deep beneath it like fish in a lake. Above, there was no ceiling, just a void filled with half-rendered menus and the faint echo of a patch note Greg half-remembered reading at three in the morning.

  Petar’l stood at the far edge of the disc, tethered to a hanging shard of the node by a single, pulsing cord.

  He lifted his blade-hand. Moonlight gathered.

  “Here,” he said. “Welcome to my Secret Developer Room. Where legends come to die.”

  ?※??//UNVERIFIED?※//?/ UNV??IFIED?※?

  Greg the Barbarian.

  Greg the Barbarian and The Quest For More Money will launch later this month, detailing the further adventures of Greg, [REDACTED] and [REDACTED].