They stepped out of the portal and into a large, empty room. Though it was more a pit than a room. The ceiling was several stories high, and a spiraling enclosed walkway ran up the perimeter. Every few meters, there were giant open-air windows that let viewers see through.

  The Bitter Brothers—a good enough name for the strange trio—immediately went to work scrounging around the place for anything edible, or expensive looking, that they could steal. Elijah rolled his eyes. This place was dustier than even the armory had been. He highly doubted that there was anything worthwhile—his train of thought was interrupted when a large muscular version of the bat people jumped down from one of the high up windows and landed just a few feet in front of him.

  The creature landed with a rumble and spray of dirt, nearly knocking Elijah over. He was the same bat-like creature, but his muscles stacked on muscle as if he had been lifting weights and fighting bears for centuries. It was almost absurd the amount of muscle this creature had.

  [TARGET INFO]

  Dragontooth Pit Boss (Level 99)

  HP: 500 / 500

  “Holy crap!” Elijah shouted as the tag came into view. He wasn’t aware that NPCs could even get to such high levels. It did, however, inform him exactly what this room was—a fighting pit. And if he had to fight this NPC, he was dead. Even with the help of his familiars, there was no way he could take on a near-Celestial opponent.

  “Welcome to the Dragontooth Fighting Pits, my liege.” The Pit Boss bowed low. It was almost disturbing, such a powerful creature bowing down to his relatively low-levelled self.

  “The pits here will test you on your way to cleansing your throne,” the enormous creature said as it righted itself. There was no hostility in its voice, but the sheer scope of power was unsettling by itself. “Here you will face your greatest fear in a life or death match. Win, and you will gain access to the throne room.”

  Elijah nodded. Everything he’d done to this point had been reasonable, even if it was difficult. This dungeon showed up as a low-tier one on their map after all, so what was the worst the Pit Boss could throw at him?

  The Bitter Brothers stepped up behind Elijah. They could sense that something was about to happen and, to their credit, had gotten serious.

  Elijah almost expected the room to flood—that was his greatest fear after all—but the Pit Boss had said fight. He ran through all the different mobs he’d taken on during his time in-game. He didn’t fear any of them, even though the fight against the dryad version of himself had been brutal. His answer came as the Pit Boss stepped to the side to reveal a glowing orb. It was shifting and forming into the shape of a human.

  And an empty player tag floated above its head.

  “Fuck!” Elijah swore loudly, turning to run. “Go, run! Get out of here!” he shouted to his familiars as he took off running. He felt a heavy weight hit his back and goblin claws grip into his skin. Bitter Root had jumped onto him and attached himself. That was fair; the goblin didn’t have any way to escape.

  Not against Arturus.

  “Batsy go poof, bark-head slip in ground,” Bitter Root relayed to him.

  A thought struck Elijah as he took off up the ramp, fleeing upwards towards the top of the pit. “Y-you have a stealth skill. Why didn’t you just hide?”

  “Boss say run, not hide.”

  That was fair; the goblin had taken his words literally. Besides, it would have surprised Elijah if the Celestial-tier player wouldn’t be able to see through a level eleven goblin’s stealth. Several levels separated Elijah from the ground floor before the low humming of the energy ceased. He hid himself the best he could and whispered for the goblin to activate stealth.

  Three bats sprang forth from his sleeve. He kept one on his arm while mentally commanding the other two to fly away from his position, up and down the ramp and then get eyes on the new target.

  The one who had gone up was the first to relay visuals into his mind. He heard the man’s voice at the same time he saw him.

  “Ooh, Elijah? Where are you hiding? My scythe is hungry for your blood.” He knew that voice; it wasn’t Arturus.

  It was Tom.

  [Player]

  Name: Tom

  Class: Flesh Reaver | Level: 71

  HP: 155 / 155

  This was the first time he’d clearly seen Tom’s health bar, other than when it had drained rapidly after Mara struck him. Depending on his gear, three or four strikes from the Batwing Blade could take him out. His constitution had to be relatively low, but that just meant that his other stats were going to be higher.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Come out, come out. Wherever you are,” he purred, swinging his scythe loosely in his hand while taking in the pit. “We’ve got your little friends cornered in the glade dungeon. Why did you run away? Or were you trying to pull me away so that the army would be leaderless?”

  The glade. That meant that the Reapers had arrived; he had to finish this so he could get back to them.

  The man turned and threw his scythe, cutting down the bat that Elijah had been viewing him from. Elijah flinched slightly as he saw the blade coming for him, right at his face. He was lucky that he hadn’t made a sound. He switched to the other bat, which sat in a shadowy alcove a few floors down, hidden from Tom’s view.

  Elijah had to think. This wasn’t as bad as it would be if the game had spawned in Arturus, but it was still terrible. There would be no escaping into a city full of guards, or Celestials dropping from the sky to save him this time. He had to do this on his own.

  The truth was, Elijah wasn’t sure he could do it. He wasn’t a fighter, and wouldn’t stand a chance against the much higher level player even if he had been. He—

  No!

  He wasn’t a fighter, but he was a Reality Warper. He thought back to the words he’d spoken to Bitter Root on his very first day in-game.

  ‘Turns out I have to grab it by the throat.’

  That was truer now more than ever. He was tired of being a punching bag, of living in fear of these high-level players. His mind drifted back to Roderick, the Guardian he’d humiliated while out on a ‘date’ with Sasha in Nethy. He’d grown so much since then. Two sub-classes, more than a dozen levels, and a burning need to make it to Celestial. The fight with his dryad counterpart had shown him he needed to let his class skills work in unison. He remembered telling himself that back then, but hadn’t properly internalized it.

  It was time to stop acting like a noob, and live by his words. He was going to grab his victory by the throat. It was time to be the saviour his friends needed him to be.

  He felt his connection to his familiars. Dryad was several floors up doing his best to hide, and Bat was at the very top. That gave Elijah an idea.

  “Go grab Dryad and get to the top. Follow my lead, and you’ll understand when it happens.” He tapped Bitter Root’s arm and let the last remaining scout sit on his shoulder. “Don’t eat the bat. I need it for my plan.”

  Bitter Root nodded, even though his stomach made a growling sound. He’d have to pray that the familiar wouldn’t get too hungry. A mental command passed through his mind into the scout’s mind as he took a step forward towards the window.

  “Tom!” he shouted down at the other player. “I’ve had enough running. Let’s finish this.”

  He jumped down to the ground floor. It wasn’t terribly high up, just a dozen meters or so, but his knees and hips still rang with pain as he landed. The jump had taken several hit points, health he couldn’t really afford to lose, but it looked cool and set the scene for what was to come. A climactic boss battle the bards would sing of for generations—if this were real life, anyway.

  Tom turned to face him and grinned, his sharpened teeth glinting in the light. “Well, well. My prey is coming to me without having to search it out. It really is my lucky day.”

  “We can end this, right here and right now, Tom. All of us are trapped in the game, we have to find a way out together.” Elijah told him. The worst part about this whole situation was that Tom wouldn’t be present when his party ended the threat of the Reapers once and for all, but if he could get through to the man, then maybe Elijah could reason with him.

  “No, don’t you see? This is perfect. You’re all trapped in here with me. Can’t run away, can’t log out. And if I get a little too violent and diabolical here, well, I can just claim insanity from being trapped.”

  Elijah realized that this man wasn’t playing a character; he wasn’t playing a game anymore. He killed because he enjoyed it, and this world gave him the opportunity without the fear of legal repercussions. Tom was the kind of man who would have become a serial killer in the real world before the advent of FIVR pods.

  He had to keep the man talking just a little longer. Root had grabbed Dryad, and they were almost at the top. Just another minute. The scout bat had already touched Bitter Dryad and was now flying ahead to do the same to Bitter Bat.

  “You’re sick, Tom.” The scout landed on Bat’s shoulder. “These are real people you’re inflicting pain on.”

  Tom laughed and pointed his scythe at Elijah. “So stupid. You don’t get it, do you? It’s simple: I don’t care.”

  Tom lunged, faster than Elijah expected, almost faster than Arturus he’d seen Arturus move in the dev room. He lifted his hand, splitting his will to activate the debug menus at the same time he cast ‘Dragontooth Swarm’.

  Tom fought against the funnel of bats, growling loudly over the sound of the swarm. The Bitter Brothers took Elijah’s lead, luckily understanding his intent.

  Three more cones of bats slammed into Tom from above as three more Elijahs dropped from the top of the room.

  Elijah had gotten this idea from his dryad facsimile. The game had duplicated Elijah for that battle, and he had done the same for this one.

  It wasn’t that great of an attack spell on its own, but when four times as many bats as normal attacked Tom, his health dropped.

  Tom screamed in rage, his scythe disappearing into his inventory. Elijah wasn’t sure how his skills worked and hoped the man had to be moving to activate his ultimate ability.

  Elijah was wrong. From a dead stop, Tom began to spin. The sound of a blender overpowered everything else, and Tom’s dervish spun towards Elijah.

  The first time Elijah had come face to face with this skill was in the Reaper’s Lair. He’d been so afraid during that encounter that nightmares had plagued his sleep for days. His overwhelming need to protect his friends had lessened the fear during their encounter in the dev room. This time, there wasn’t any fear. There was only anger.

  This was his domain, and he would not let Tom or anyone else impede on his domain. He waited until the last moment, then smashed down on his ability. He’d almost left it too late and felt the Dervish tear at the outer layer of bats as he teleported away. Down below, the other three versions kept up the pressure until their swarm spells ran out. Then, the three of them teleported away as well.