I waited in a cavernous chamber that roared with the sound of tides, working Elora’s bracelet between my fingers like prayer beads. The walls and ceiling were carved by the ocean outside, the high tide line under my boots. I kicked at dried seaweed and paced.

  The hollow echo around me made my ears thrum. My blood trilled through my body as I poked around, while hypervigilance made every hair I had tingle. Tom Petty was right. Usually was. Waiting was the hardest part.

  I stroked the metal chain, glancing around, the charm dangling until it crossed under the pad of my thumb. The cavern had a few different access and exit points. Underwater was the smallest, but the locals had plugged it up for us. The tunnel that led to the ocean was the one I used, accessed by a small skiff. The sheriff watched the last, the one that would be a tight fit for anyone other than Elora or a sprite.

  Pip waited in the dark with me, sitting on a rocky ledge. He’d been the only one of the fae to volunteer to help us; probably thought he owed me something for saving him. As much as sprites annoyed me, I appreciated it.

  Beyond the mouth of the cave, spurs of crystal jutted from the water, hauntingly beautiful and singing soft, eerie notes as waves lapped their aquamarine pillars. Akilah said that all the people of Silica came from the remains of that one giant, dead behemoth.

  The crystal charm passed under my thumb, and I paused. I shot Pip a glance, wiggling the bracelet. He covered his mouth with both hands and climbed towards the crack that led upwards. Water lapped, rippling further down the tunnel. The skiff I’d borrowed creaked, shifted by the disturbance.

  I did my best to look unaware, poking around the piles of debris like I was looking for something. The scent of ozone cut across my sinuses, and I casually glanced out to the water. Droplets fell pattering to the ground. I struggled not to express the annoyance I felt.

  Now, when I had to stay still, the damn asshat was easy to track. I knew exactly where it was, right up to the point where its blade-like appendage slipped towards my throat, spiked tip catching under my chin, drawing blood.

  “Where did you get it?” The creature’s whisper was like the tinkling wind chimes in Verdance, but in words I understood, thanks to Elora’s bracelet.

  “Pip!” I shouted, grabbing at the cold stone of the PKers blade arm. I twisted, whipping my secret weapon out of inventory—forked tines swung to rap against the now-visible crystalline blade.

  A resonant sound rang from the crystal limb, and it shrieked, its voice piercing as glass. The PKer’s weird, spidery figure appeared. My HUD alert flickered: Lightbend Cloak dismissed.

  The buzz of Pip’s wings told me he’d flown up the hole. A split second later, ropes splashed upwards, hauling a net up from the ocean floor. Suddenly, the water outside was swarming with the reptilian people of the Shardshore, working to secure the net against the cave mouth.

  Not just any net. Akilah said it was some ultra-high molecular weight… stuff that she requested. Allegedly uncuttable. Sciencey.

  I took a few quick steps back, away from it. The resonance faded, and the PKer’s momentary shock with it. Before it recovered enough to kill me, I held up a hand. “Maybe talk first, gank later, Sparkles. Who are you, and why are you randomly killing people?”

  Usually, it was a waste of time to talk to a player killer. They were so full of vitriol and powerlessness in their own lives that they couldn’t hear a different perspective. I hoped this one would be different. The cold glow of its eyes pinned me. Under the surface of the interface, I sensed the struggle between us, numbers crunched by our respective stats and the System that linked us. For once I paid attention to the intentions calculated, threats parsed, stats compared.

  I extended my other hand, another tuning fork appearing in it, summoned from inventory.

  “We could keep fighting. Maybe you’ll kill me, but I’ll respawn. Will you?” [Persuasion Check Initiated +8]

  The glare eased, just a tick down from the hostility it held. Weighing its options. It dropped to its four thick legs, the blade arms folding to its back. Its face was flat, turned toward me as it stood still.

  “I am Shivrith the Outcast.”

  My HUD butted in, HP and a basic status suddenly appearing for the PKer. Oh, now it wanted to give me answers? Cute. [Unique Entity: Shivrith the Outcast|Class: Reaper|Status: Unbound]. What in the cheat code was Unbound?

  “Answer my question. Where did you get that?” It hummed, the tuning forks in my hands vibrating gently to its voice.

  “As soon as you answer this one. Why do you kill people who’ve done nothing to you?” I had to hold my only good card as long as I could.

  The breeze blew through the net, chilling my skin. Tan’Fukshan, I wanted the touch of the sun, but it wouldn’t be a trap if we were in the open. I stared down the crystalline menace as it stood there like just another stone in the cave. Immobile. Silent.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Then, a tinkling chuckle shivered down my spine.

  “Only teaching the weak their place, meat sack. Tell me. Now—or I will kill you for it,” it chimed, the threat evident in the sharpness of its ringing voice.

  Another question left my lips before I stopped to think about it. “Have you ever been outside the city?”

  “You want to leave, little meat sack?” The hum in its voice was almost purring. Teasing me.

  Elora’s bracelet dangled from one of my tuning forks, clenched there by a few fingers. I was still ready, crouched in a stance that should launch a special move if I got angry enough. Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling anger.

  A wave of desperation crashed through me, needing to know. The city was large enough to keep me busy, but it wasn’t the home I remembered; a memory that was fading faster than I cared to entertain. Like data in the process of corruption.

  “Yes,” I whispered, not daring to take my eyes off my enemy. Much as I wanted to.

  “There are ways, meat sack. The walls around the city are solid, but you can go beneath, or over if you can find ways to get there,” it chuckled in its tinkling way. “But you won’t live to see it.”

  It kept calling me meat sack to annoy me. Childish taunts from a PKer. Unoriginal. Boring. If it had called me honey, that would have charged me up. I hated that one.

  “You gonna kill me over and over until I’m dead?” I smirked. At any second its tough guy talk could get lethal. I had the scars to prove its viciousness. I studied the color of its nameplate, which I could finally see. Thanks, System. Jerk.

  [Battle Instinct triggered]

  Colorless globes shot from the slender arms that unfurled from its back. I dodged, felt the breeze of one passing me. I knew what came next and clenched my teeth against the sting of silica shrapnel that peppered my back. My anger flared, and the pain brought the message I was waiting for on my HUD. [Fury Guard +25 STR]

  I lunged forward, swinging a tuning fork in a feint, using the other to block one of the blades that inevitably went to cut my arm off. It wanted Elora’s bracelet. Shivrith may have been smart, but the object of its desire was right in front of its eyes. The resonance rang up its limb. It shrieked but didn’t relent.

  Its other crystal blade swung at the same arm, angled for my wrist. It was easy to read this time. It relied on its ambush skills, not its martial skills. I stepped close, where its blades would be less effective, and swung for its head. It skittered back towards the water, crab crawling without much more effort than on land. I kept swinging, driving it it back, swiping at it until it finally submerged.

  “Now!” I bellowed, following it, dropping to my knees in the lapping water to tap the forks together. I submerged them. I wasn’t sure if it would work at a distance, but I knew vibration traveled through water.

  I could barely see it on the floor of the cave, skittering along the bottom, heading for the netted entrance. Silt lifted away in a grid-like pattern as those outside pulled the ropes, the net rising around the Silica, tangling it.

  I smiled trumphantly, then winced at the stinging needles that had pierced through my shirt and pants.

  I glanced over my shoulder, plucking a needle from my side with a low growl. I didn’t relish pulling shrapnel out of my ass. All hail the heroic pincushion.

  “Next time,” I grumbled to myself, “Someone else is playing the damsel in distress.”

  [Party Sync Bonus 10% XP] Oh? Interesting. I read the fight log, kinda proud of myself for actually using some of my skills and abilities properly, for once. I’d always half-assed the numbers. Instead of learning the class, I’d read tutorials and followed those. Who had the time to bother? I did now. All the time in the world. I had to learn.

  Shivrith thrashed in the nets, but once it was caught, the fishers knew how to bind their prey. A gurgling cheer went up from the reptilians outside. A splash against my knees drew my attention, and I looked up to see the district lord swimming in.

  Queen Hythsaa rose lithely to a stand, reaching webbed hands out to me. I took her hands and got up from my kneel, each spine shifting in my flesh when I moved. She said—words. I didn’t know what she was talking about. I assumed that she was telling me good job, or something. I grinned and nodded at her.

  That was a lifetime thing for me. When you missed what people were talking about, you grin and nod. Say sure, but hesitantly, since you’ve got no clue but don’t care enough to have them repeat themselves. Social interaction stuff.

  She dipped her blunt chin down, wide yellow eyes nictitating. She had inner eyelids. Not the weirdest thing I’ve seen since I’d been in Convergent City. Her slit nostrils flared, and she pulled me towards the water. Oh. Salt water. Mmm. The stinging on my backside increased as she basically yoinked me over to where my skiff had drifted and put her hand on my butt to give me a boost onto it.

  I breathed through the pain. Her palms must have been pretty tough to not feel those spines. My ass wasn’t, that was for sure.

  I flopped on my stomach and let her drag the skiff out to the open ocean, where a gaggle of fishing boats had gathered. Far above, I spotted Sheriff Zayan, perched on the cliffs over the cave, watching everything with sharp eyes. The reptilians hauled Shivrith along through the water, dragging it to shore. Once it was there, the dozen or so people took to its netbound form with driftwood cudgels until a booming word from Zayan halted them.

  Jake bounded across the sand; his long-legged gait brought him to the water’s edge before anyone else. He helped the Queen haul me in and gently patted the back of my head, brushing shrapnel from my hair.

  “There ya go, buddy. You did it!” Jake said, then pulled his med kit from the air.

  So Jake would be plucking the spines out. We’d won, but I didn’t feel like a winner. I’d just been the bait that caught something meaner than itself. Still, it felt good that Shivrith would no longer be a threat anymore. I hoped.

  Zayan flew down to argue with the Queen over custody of the prisoner. They stood on the shore, a proud sphinx with Zeke translating for him, while the Queen gurgled her anger. Thankfully, none of that was my business.

  Jake started cutting my clothes away to get at the spines he couldn’t pull from the outside of the lizard skin hides. I sighed, feeling the effects of the sun. It was a beautiful day, after all, and the wounds weren’t serious. I’d just started to relax when the sound of footsteps on the sand made me glance over.

  Elora ran up, a concerned look on her face. She dropped to her knees beside the beached skiff where I lay and asked, “Did you really agree to marry the Queen?”

  Did I what now?

  -ARCHIVE-

  The art of runesmithing died long ago. Once legendary runeswords have been reduced to mere decorations, their powers made irrelevant by the discovery of ethereal spirits. Techniques were forgotten, and any remaining runesmiths were ridiculed and shunned.

  Vivian is one such runesmith. Born as an orphan and adopted into a smithy, she and her adoptive grandpa persist with a dream. They wish to prove that runeswords are once again worthy of fighting monsters in the lands below.

  What Vivian never expected was for herself to be the one fighting. Alone in the underground with a crazed spirit that seeks to profit and grow from every monster in their wake. Below the earth awaits a subterranean labyrinth of monsters and demons, where ethereal storms ensure nothing stays dead for long…