The next day, the party met up in the common room of the Nethy mansion. The weight of the safe return to reality of every player in the game rested heavily on Elijah’s shoulders. He tried not to let it bother him as they ate what meager rations they had left. All of their supplies, armor, and weapons had been in their possession when they’d died, which meant it was all scattered about the floor of the dev room.

  “We could head back there, try to pick it back up.” Benjamin suggested, but Bo shook his head.

  “I have no doubt in my mind that Arturus will have Reapers stationed in that cemetery waiting for us to try that.”

  Elijah agreed with Bo, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t try. He could feel his new merged class reaching out to that dungeon’s core. To every dungeon core.

  “We’ll need gold to resupply then.” Nicholas said, gently nudging Elijah’s shoulder, breaking him from his thoughts.

  “Oh! Right! Bitter Root still has the gold.” He felt a pang of worry for a moment, realizing he hadn’t noticed whether the connection to his familiar remained intact. He reached out and felt for the string of energy that linked them. It was still there.

  He reached out and severed it, cancelling the summon before holding out his hand and re-summoning the goblin. The creature appeared, crouched over as if hiding under a table. He let out an ear-piercing screech, scrambling to hide under the table.

  “Bitter Root!” Elijah yelled over the sound of the goblin screaming. The creature seemed to relax at his master’s voice, turning to face him.

  “Ah, Boss! Bad thing, bad thing. Meanies inside house, trash up place. Me just finish cleaning too.”

  Elijah shot a look at Nicholas, who nodded. “Okay, that’s not good. If they were able to invade our property, that means that their connection to the realtor guild is a sure thing.”

  Bo growled. “None of that should be possible, even if they had replaced the NPCs with players. A house or mansion has a special type of safe zone around it. It’s specifically set up to stop anyone who isn’t on the realtor agreement from entering.”

  “Sounds to me like they’re changing those agreements. If that’s the case, then it’s a good thing Elijah didn’t teleport back there.” Sasha shrugged her shoulders immediately understanding the issue.

  Bo slammed his fist on the table. “They shouldn’t be able to do any of this. The control of the city, adjusting NPC contracts — none of it should be possible.”

  Elijah had never seen Bo so angry as he was now. Sasha put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed; his face relaxed, but his hands stayed balled.

  “Bo,” her voice was soft as she spoke to him. It was almost enough to make Elijah jealous. “I’m not sure what’s going on or how they’re doing those things. None of it matters right now, though.”

  Bo looked up at her, his voice still angry. “How can you say it doesn’t matter, Sasha? I’ve put so much work into this game, and someone is ruining it.”

  “Because,” Benjamin broke in. “Right now, everyone is stuck in this game until we can level Elijah up to Celestial. That’s the bigger picture issue.”

  Bo looked like he wanted to snap at Benjamin, but screwed his eyes shut and took a deep breath instead. “You’re right, Benny.”

  Elijah had Bitter Root transfer the guild’s gold back to Nicholas before he cancelled the spell again. He didn’t know why Arturus had been so interested in meeting the goblin, but he didn’t want to risk finding out.

  “Alright, we need a plan. Sitting here and stewing over things we can’t change won’t change anything.” Nicholas reminded the party.

  “What about your brother?” Benjamin asked Nicholas.

  Nicholas gave a slow shake of his head. “His entire party was offline during the event. He can’t help us this time.”

  “Damn,” Benjamin swore. “What about Elijah’s new friend Mara?”

  Elijah frowned. “First of all, she’s not my friend just because she rescued me.” He looked at the faces of his friends and took note that there seemed to be a hint of jealousy, or at least he hoped it was jealousy, on Sasha’s face. “Second, it all happened too quickly. I didn’t get a chance to add her to my list. I don’t know whether or not she was online.”

  “She’s still our best bet. Or any of the other Celestials.” Nicholas said, moving towards one of the windows and peering outside.

  “We should move towards them for protection from Arturus, but I don’t think we can let them in on what’s going on.” Bo answered, surprising Elijah.

  “What?” Nicholas turned quickly towards Bo. “Why wouldn’t we tell them what’s going on, or that Elijah is our ticket out of here?”

  Bo had a grim look on his face. “Think about it, Nicholas. Really think about it.”

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  The gravitas of his voice seemed to draw Elijah’s attention entirely. He could sense that everyone else also was paying close attention to Bo.

  “We screwed something up when we fought in the dev room. It’s our fault that the game broke and trapped everyone here.”

  Elijah’s heart sank. It wasn’t their fault; it was his. He’d messed with the game; it was his fault, and he needed to tell his friends. To take that weight off of them. He was about to speak up when Bo shot him a look. It told him to keep his mouth shut.

  “At least one Celestial tier player is a madman. If we go to one that we think is a friend, and they decide that they want to set up their own little fiefdom in this world without worrying about being interrupted. Who could stop them?”

  The room went silent for several minutes as they all processed what Bo had said.

  Sasha was the one who finally spoke. “So we keep what we did quiet, and that we have the solution quiet? People are going to lose hope of ever getting out.” Elijah’s stomach churned violently at Sasha’s words. She blamed herself. He could silence that blame, but Bo’s look, though wordless, had told him to keep quiet. He didn’t know what the rogue had up his sleeve, but he felt compelled to trust the man.

  Benjamin scoffed. “Please, Sasha, have you seen how many isekai genre books are out there? People love the idea of getting trapped in a magical fantasy world.”

  Sasha eyed him angrily. “Not when it’s their actual life!” Her shout broke everyone out of their melancholy. Elijah could see the hurt on Benjamin’s face, but he covered it quickly. Sasha noticed though and hugged him. “I’m sorry, Benny, I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

  “Enough,” came Nicholas’ whisper. Just loud enough to get their attention. He’d shaken off whatever dread was sticking to them now, and he stood tall and proud like a leader. Their leader. “Raystown and the house Elijah purchased for us are a lost cause.”

  He strode over to the table where the guild map lay open. They’d been lucky they’d left it here before going on their expedition to Raystown. If not, it would have fallen to the floor of the dev room with the rest of their loot.

  “We’re too strong for Nethy and the surrounding areas, plus I’m sure Arturus knows where we are. We need to get moving. First order of business is to gear up, then get on the move. We’ll head west.”

  Elijah walked over to him and looked down at the map. There was an uncleared level 2 dungeon a half day’s travel from the city.

  “Nicholas, I need to test something out, and I need Bo with me. Can you, Sasha and Benjamin, handle gearing up and meet us there?” His finger pointed at the dungeon on the map.

  Nicholas looked at him, then over to Bo, who nodded his head. “Alright, we’ll meet you there by nightfall. Whatever you are doing. Be safe.”

  Elijah backed away from him and nodded his head. “Of course. We’ll see you guys there.”

  He gave one last look at Sasha and Benjamin before grabbing Bo’s shoulder and activating his ‘Dragontooth Teleport’.

  “You know? That spell is even freakier on the inside than it is to watch.” Bo snarled as the bats deposited them in an open field.

  Elijah checked how far the teleport had gotten them. Just far enough for his plan to work. He grabbed Bo’s shoulder again and activated a second teleport.

  Then a third.

  Before Elijah could activate the fourth and final teleport, Bo broke free from his grip. “Knock it off! Where the hell are we going?”

  Elijah kneeled down, breathing heavy. He hadn’t realized how much energy it cost him to activate his teleport so many times in a row in quick succession.

  “Yeah.” He inhaled slowly as he tried to get his breathing back under control. “The next one is going to be a doozy, so we should probably talk before then.”

  Bo, thankfully, gave him a few minutes to get his breathing together. When Elijah was finally ready to talk, he sat on a large boulder and stared at the rogue. “Why won’t you let me tell the others?”

  Bo looked startled. “You brought me all the way out here for that?”

  “No, but I want to know before I let you in on the plan.”

  Bo flopped down into a sitting position on the ground and looked up at Elijah. “Right now? They don’t need to know.”

  Elijah was about to argue, but Bo continued before Elijah could get started. “Right now, it’s a shared burden. The team sees you as the potential saviour for something we screwed up. If they find out that you are both the solution and the cause.”

  “So what? We’re keeping it a secret to protect me?”

  “Yes, and no. Look, Elijah, we have a killer team right now. Together we can get you to Celestial, but if even one part of that team breaks off…”

  Elijah let out a heavy sigh. “Alright. We’ll keep it a secret for now.”

  “Good, but what I need you not to keep a secret is what you and I are doing out here?”

  “When I touched the dungeon core, I saw a lot of janky, messed up code, but it also did something. My base class, Reality Warper, allows me to merge other classes into it.”

  He held up his hand and summoned a trio of scout bats. The three fluffy creatures hopped around on his arm for a few seconds before taking flight. “That’s where my bat spells come from. I absorbed a rare class after our second fight with the Undead Acolyte.”

  Bo nodded his head, even as he watched the scouts circle overhead. “So you unlocked a class related to dungeon cores?”

  Elijah blinked at how quickly the man had caught on. “Yes. I want to link with a core again. I think I should have more control over it this time thanks to my class.”

  Bo’s face lowered to stare at him. “So you want to go mucking about with another core and potentially screw something up even more?”

  “For good reason.”

  Bo just looked him up and down a few times. “You’re insane?”

  Elijah couldn’t help but chuckle. “No, Bo, see, I think I know of a core that’s already had someone mess with it. In a way a lot worse than I think I can mess with them.”

  “Why me?” Bo’s hands were up as if he were trying to catch the train of thought that Elijah was using.

  “Well,” This whole plan hinged on Bo’s willingness to work with him. “Because I have no idea whatsoever how to track down a dungeon core within an active dungeon. I figure that as a former developer you might be able to guide me in figuring out where it is.”

  Bo pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, fine, but where are we going?”

  “I think the Reaper’s Hideout, the one they’re storing a player prisoner in, is a repurposed dungeon.”

  “I was worried you were going to say that.” Bo groaned, burying his face in his hands.

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