Adarin cursed and ground his teeth. He tried to move his body—but nearly half his original volume was as dead as rotten wood. Too many muscle strings had been severed. I need to extricate myself.

  He glanced around as the goblins’ vanguard came closer.

  Adarin frowned, a strange tension flitting across his face, as if he’d just remembered something. He thought a shadow moved behind the goblins. Is someone else in here with us?

  The twin axe wielder picked up the two-handed axe, raised it over his head, and prepared to bring it down on Adarin.

  Adarin scanned his environment, finalizing his plan.

  That was when he noticed the tattoo on the arm of the goblin shaman:

  Level 25 [E]

  Class: Error

  Adarin frowned, but he had already given the commands. His escape was in motion.

  But his nicely laid plan didn't even survive till contact with the enemy. Extending his tootwhip, he felt resistance.

  The whip couldn’t penetrate his own burned outer shell.

  He froze, exhaled, and closed his eyes.

  A weapon with a glittering corundum blade came down on him.

  He expected a lethal strike.

  But oddly, only the flat of the blade clattered against him.

  He opened his eyes, assessing what was going on.

  The goblin bodyguard stood over him—still, motionless.

  It was no longer staring at Adarin.

  In disbelief, it looked down at the stumps of its arms—cut off at the elbows.

  Again, Adarin caught a glimpse of a shadow—bone-pale hands in black gauntlets flashing between the goblins, moving with impossible silence.

  And then he noticed something else.

  Nearly a third of the goblins lay headless, their killers already melting back into the gloom. What is going on?

  The remaining two-thirds of the goblins stood frozen—faces twisted in abject terror.

  Finally, Adarin managed to wrest the whip free from his shell. It shot forward, wrapping around the throat of the goblin standing over him.

  The creature tried to grasp at the whip, struggling to rip it off his neck.

  Adarin chuckled at the futility of the attempt—considering the goblin’s arms had been cut off at the elbows. Serves you right, bastard!

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  He intensified the pressure and felt the creature’s windpipe begin to crack.

  Then a scream filled the room. “Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein! You bastard have ruined my trench coat!”

  Adarin looked up just in time to see Rüdiger push himself into a sitting position.

  He reached for what looked like a metal-reinforced bag on his side, pulled out a bottle—some metallic flask with a red label—and chugged it down.

  Adarin smirked darkly. Trust Rüdiger to swig schnapps in the middle of a massacre.

  The remaining goblins began to rally, weapons raised.

  Several more were cut down—by unseen attackers. Again, Adarin noticed the flickering shadows.

  Then Rüdiger waved his hand.

  A crescent wave of green and purple washed over the room.

  Adarin felt it—chilling cold and the prickling bite of decay crawling over his ravaged body.

  Most goblins were struck straight in the chest. A few managed to throw themselves to the ground—but it was futile.

  Even they began seizing, vomiting up their lungs. Puddles of pink goo spread across the floor, and the room filled with the sounds of choking and coughing.

  Rüdiger stood, brushed at his shredded coat with a grimace, then tugged a pair of spectacles onto his nose. “Ruined. Absolutely ruined,” he muttered, before finally turning his attention back to Adarin.

  Beside him appeared the two skeletons that had entered the room after him. Empty eye sockets met Adarin from behind black armor. Both wore two arm-long swords, slick with goblin blood.

  Adarin was exhausted with annoyance. Did he use a distraction spell on them?

  Then he refocused on Rüdiger’s muttering.

  Absentmindedly, he sent commands to his body—to reconstitute, to recover whatever biomass still survived. I need to get some wood.

  He looked around the room. Enough of it was here, at least.

  Rüdiger walked up to Adarin and knelt beside him. “Well, looks like something interesting happened here. Guess this awakening was a little more eventful than anticipated, right?”

  Adarin, having no way to speak, remained silent.

  Rüdiger nodded wisely and stroked his goatee. “Hmm. The strong and silent type. I can appreciate that.”

  Adarin growled faintly, but the mage simply healed his remaining wounds and continued. “Well, originally I wanted to put you in either Steve or Larry, but something… happened to you.” He pointed at the armor-clad skeletons by his side, then waved his hand over Adarin, and a gentle scent of ozone and a twinkle of magic flowed through him—just like it had filled Liora’s body when Rüdiger had examined her.

  “You’re born to Living Wood. And you’ve gotten spells. Let me see.”

  Rüdiger looked at his own arm—and as the ink eye opened, Adarin saw the familiar standard display:

  Level 25 [F]

  Class: [ERROR]

  Rüdiger froze and frowned.

  Then he just sighed and shook his head. “Oh well. I guess I would’ve died if I hadn’t done it.”

  He glanced down at Adarin, still lying motionless on the ground. Get on with helping me, you monologuing ass.

  “You know,” Rüdiger said, idly adjusting his spectacles while one skeleton scraped goblin gore off its blade, “I had to rip out my Divination and Necromantic cores just to survive this. Lost levels.”

  Rüdiger looked up at the ceiling and groaned. “If not everyone had acted like this...”

  Then his eyes went wide.

  “What happened to the elites? Ja, schei?e!”

  He shook his head and forced himself to refocus. Then he reached into a pocket and pulled out a white pearl—the same marble Adarin had seen before.

  It began to pulse with light. And the crystal at the center of the room, still covered in blood, pulsed in the same rhythm, like a crystalline heart. And then a shiver went down Adarin’s spine. His own computer core pulsed in perfect rhythm with the pearl and the crystal—each throb heavier, louder, until it felt like the heartbeat of something vast clawing its way back to life.

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