Rogue Dungeon: Troll Nation (Chapters 28 - 30)

Twenty-Eight 

Caged Animals

Roark huddled in the corner of a massive cage, disguised as a bent little kobold in a sea of larger creatures. They were below ground, beneath the arena. Griff’s contact had led Roark down and locked him in just before sunrise that morning. Now only the smallest strips of sunlight shined through cracks in the ceiling above. The iron bars of the cage rattled constantly, trembling beneath the stomping of feet and the roaring of the raucous crowd.

It was dark. It stunk of offal, gamey animal sweat, and unwashed bodies. His fellow mobs paced the cage, scared and angry, lashing out at one another or railing against the bars. Beasts with claws and fangs, others with fur or feathers. Some walked upright like men, while others prowled on all fours, tails lashing as they moved. According to Griff, most of the mobs who were captured for sport came from the wilds, and had been found roaming free, unaffiliated with any particular dungeon. Most appeared to be mid to high level creatures, ranging from levels 10 to 20, but relatively unintelligent, only a step or two above wild animals. Nothing like the Dungeon-based mobs Roark was used to.

Another tidbit that he had learned from Griff was that mobs who spawned in Dungeons tended to show higher-levels of humanity since they lived and Evolved in community. Something about being a lone wolf seemed to strip the mobs from the wilds of their higher mental faculties. 

One creature, however, stood out. A frail-looking individual in flowing blue-black robes called a Nocturnus. It had eight sparkling sapphire eyes, a pair of curved mandibles sprouting in place of a proper mouth, and masses of segmented tentacles hanging around its face like hair. Four arachnoid legs sprouted from its back, moving independently of one another or reaching over his shoulder to aid his humanoid hands, and covered in black chitin like the rest of him.

Like Roark, the Nocturnus didn’t pace the cage or snap at his fellow captured mobs. Instead, he sat quietly studying each of the creatures in turn, his canny, eight-eyed gaze landing finally on Roark.

Roark shifted uncomfortably. The Nocturnus’s gaze seemed too intelligent, as if it saw straight through Roark’s Transmutation, though that couldn’t be possible. Unlike Illusion magick, which could be pierced with high level spells or dispelled altogether with certain magical items, the Transmutation was a real, physical change; to any onlooker, he would be indistinguishable from a typical kobold. Though, Roark supposed, it was possible that his personality and overall disposition might mark him in some way.

After several minutes’ uninterrupted staring, the Nocturnus scooted across the cage and sat beside Roark.

“You are not what you seem, kobold.” The creature’s voice was low and rasping, like insect legs being rubbed together. The Nocturnus leaned in closer, forcing Roark to lean back. “Who are you really? What are you really?”

“Don’t know what you mean,” Roark said, playing stupid. He tried to remember the odd dialect that the kobolds he’d met had used. The dictation had been stilted, broken, but he couldn’t recall it well enough to mimic with any sort of accuracy. He decided not to bother. “I am nothing more than I appear to be. Now, if you’ll give me some space.” 

“Hmm… Ick understands well the need for secrecy,” he rasped, nodding his tentacled head, completely ignoring Roark’s request. “I was once of a mighty dungeon, until my mistress cast me out…” One of his spider legs reached over his shoulder and scratched the weak chin below his fangs. “We are fated to fight Bad_Karma, you know. Chosen to die. You seeming as a lowly kobold, me as the humble and dejected Nocturnus that I am. Yet your secrecy, your speech, and most of all your lack of surprise that we will face the greatest hero in Hearthword… It makes me wonder. Makes me wish to fight alongside you. I doubt it will be enough to save us, but perhaps working together we can accomplish the impossible. And if not?” He shrugged narrow shoulders, as though it were of little concern.

Roark supposed it wasn’t, not really. When these creatures died, it would not be forever death. They would simply be sent for respawn, scattered to the expansive plains, dark caverns, and tangled jungles of Hearthworld.

Bright sunlight lanced through the dark, drawing Roark from his thoughts. At the end of the sloping tunnel connected to the cave, a pair of doors was opening. A pair of heavily armored guards stalked down, setting off a flurry of snarls and growls. Some of the wilder mobs even threw themselves against the bars in attempt to break out and rip apart their captors.

“Yeah, yeah,” one of the guards yelled. “Keep barking little doggies.”

The guards stopped at a bank of levers several feet from the cage.

“Is it this one or the third one?” 

Ick the Nocturnus leaned closer to Roark and whispered, “It is the second one. Two for up, four for down.”

“This one,” the other guard answered, throwing the second lever. “Remember? Two for up, four for down, same as the number of letters in the word.”

Roark raised an eyebrow at Ick. With the mandibles it was hard to tell, but from the twinkle in the Nocturnus’s eyes, he thought Ick might be smiling.

Before Roark could accuse the Nocturnus of being more than he let on, metal clanged and chains began to clink. The floor lurched beneath Roark’s feet, and the cage began to move. They were rising. The thin crack bisecting the ceiling grew wider and wider, pouring in sunlight, until the expanse of cloudless blue sky was all that lay above them.

The cage rose up into a dirt-floored arena, surrounded on all sides by stone walls and a colosseum packed with bodies. They cheered and the whole arena shook.

“Aaaaand here comes your champion,” a melodious voice called out, carried around the arena by some sort of amplifying magic, “Baaaaaaaad_Karmaaaaaaaaa!”

The screaming and cheering rose to a fevered pitch. Several of the spectators leapt onto their seats, howling and clapping and stomping their feet until Roark feared they would bring the arena down.

The grinding sound of wood against stone undercut the roaring crowd as a gate opened on the far side of the arena. Out into the sunshine strode a living carnation of death, a level 50 Ascended Blood Sentinel.

The sun glinted off horned plate armor so deep crimson that it was nearly black. In his right hand, the Sentinel carried a malignant-looking Billhook Polearm of Lifeblood the same bloody red color as his eyes.

Bad_Karma raised the Billhook over his head and turned in a slow circle, pumping his arm at the screaming crowd, whipping them into a frenzy.

“Lllllllllet’s get ready to baaaaaattllllllllle!” the amplified voice yelled, the sound reverberating off the stadium seating and high stone walls.

Suddenly the iron bars surrounding the mobs dropped, a bit of dusty sand whirling up at their disappearance. The cage-mad mobs roared, lowering their heads and charging at the only hero they could reach. No plan, no strategy, just pure animal fury bent on murder. A very energetic start, Roark had to admit, though a terrible strategy overall. If they truly worked together, perhaps they would stand some chance against this “unkillable” hero, but alone as they were, they would be little more than cannon fodder. 

Calmly, almost leisurely, Bad_Karma set his feet and jutted the billhook out in front of himself, bracing it for the first impact. A wall of muscle and horns—a level 11 Bullbear—slammed into the Blood Sentinel, impaling itself on the billhook. Bad_Karma used the creature’s momentum to toss it over his shoulder like a fork of hay into a wagon. A cloud of blood flowed from the Bullbear’s wound and into Bad_Karma as he turned back toward the wall of beasts charging him.

A trio of rampaging Saber Boars yowled as they pounded across the dirt to kill the Blood Sentinel, but Bad_Karma whipped his billhook in a complicated pattern drawing out a sigil Roark didn’t recognize. The crimson symbol hung in the air like a cloud, burning with unnatural light. With a roar, he stabbed the blade at the oncoming Saber Boars. The beast in the center simply exploded, blood gushing through the air toward Bad Karma. Rather than absorbing it, the Sentinel made another quick motion with his billhook, and the blood boiled and rolled, forming a massive [Summoned Blood Golem].

The Blood Golem collided with the remaining two Saber Boars, crushing bones and ripping limb from body until the creatures were nothing more than a gory pile of twitching body parts scattered around the dirt.

The carnage only escalated from there. Roark hung back with Ick and watched as Bad_Karma and his Summoned Blood Golem slaughtered that first unthinking wave of mobs outright.

Roark had to admit he’d underestimated the hero. Dozens of monstrous creatures lay in pieces at Bad_Karma’s feet, and yet the hero hardly seemed winded. He turned to the second wave with a grin on his face.

The Sentinel seemed to use all blood-based magic, Roark observed. The golem, the life blasts that blew apart creatures with lower Constitutions, Health absorption from his kills, and blood fortifications for his armor strength.

Roark had come prepared with a full stock of cursed exploding heads, his usual slew of nasty prewritten spells, as well as his slender rapier and kaiken dagger—though he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. His blades couldn’t hope to overcome Bad_Karma’s Billhook for reach, leverage, or strength. In open physical combat, Roark was certain to lose. He’d wanted to bring Ample Health Potions by the score, but Griff had let him know the guards would search him beforehand and take away anything that broke the rules of the arena—recovery potions and stat-boosting food. Roark had tried to smuggle some in anyway, but the guards had found it.

Luckily, Roark had brought a ready-made escape route along just in case everything else failed him. A Gauntlet of Fast Travel, close cousin to the portal plates he had installed around the Citadel.

He had learned his lesson from his last tangle with Marek—always have an exit plan. 

As the second wave of mobs attacked, Roark stayed well out of reach and studied Bad_Karma’s strategy. If he couldn’t cheat his way to victory, then he would have to outsmart his opponent.

Unfortunately, Bad_Karma seemed to have more than just overpowered strength and spells at his disposal. The hero was a calculating, intelligent fighter. When waves of mobs attacked as one, the Ascended Blood Sentinel used his ranged Life Blasts to blow up the weakest and thin the crowd, while sending his Summoned Blood Golem after the strongest. Of the remaining mobs, Bad_Karma drained the Lifeblood from the fastest beasts, both slowing them down and using it to boost his own armor and energy. Finally, Bad_Karma took the charge of any mobs that managed to get within striking distance on his Billhook, using their own headlong rush to run them through, then tossing them aside quickly and efficiently, soaking up their Health to boot.

It was a frustratingly well-planned strategy, hardly a motion or spell wasted, and Bad_Karma executed it without a flaw. In next to no time, every captured mob from the cage lay in pieces around the hero and his Summoned Blood Golem except for Roark and the Nocturnus Ick.

Bad_Karma wrenched his Billhook Polearm of Lifeblood from the corpse of a level 18 Glacial Griffin Coastbreaker. Crackling, steaming blue blood poured from the wound and soaked into the hero’s chest. 

Slowly, Bad_Karma turned to face Roark and Ick. He braced his billhook against his boot, a lopsided grin pulling at his features, and he beckoned them forward with one red-black gauntlet.

In the stands, the spectators went wild for the overconfident gesture, once more shaking the entire arena to its foundation.

“Let’s go, ladies,” Bad_Karma said, feeding off their adoration like a parasite. “Step up and take your turn.”

Roark laughed. “Careful what you wish for, mate.”

The crowd gasped, then fell silent as Roark released his Transmutation, sloughing off the guise of the bent, scared little kobold to reveal the deadly winged Jotnar Infernali beneath.

 

Twenty-Nine

Arena Ambush

Bad_Karma jerked his chin at Roark. “Who the balls are you supposed to be?”

“Based on the insults I’ve heard since coming to this world, I believe the appropriate answer is, your mother.” Roark pulled the nose ring from a Cursed head and launched it at the hero’s feet.

The moment the head touched the dirt, it detonated, setting off a modified version of the Curse Chain Storm of Fire and Ice. From nowhere, an Icy Torrential Downpour crashed down on the Ascended Blood Sentinel while the air within a fifteen-foot radius around him imploded and caught fire. The curtain of flame and rain completely obscured Bad_Karma.

His Summoned Blood Golem splattered to the ground, killed instantly by the splash damage from the explosion.

The crowd fell silent. Roark pulled out another Cursed head and shifted to the balls of his feet, ready and waiting.

Bad_Karma strode out of the fire and ice storm without a scorch mark, his red-black armor gleaming and wet. The Health bar over his helmet looked untouched.

The stadium erupted in howls of adulation, fans leaping to their feet by the scores, fists pumping madly in the air.

The Blood Sentinel gave a complicated twist and thrust of his Billhook Polearm of Lifeblood, then whirled it in a circle over his shoulder.

Blood flowed out of the piles of dismembered mobs, spinning into a ruby orb the size of a Behemoth in the air, which promptly split into three Summoned Blood Golems.

“Seven hells,” Roark growled. The Icy Torrential Downpour portion of the Curse Chain should have sapped the hero’s Magick, but that seemed completely unaffected as well.

The Summoned Blood Golems broke into a lumbering run on a straight path for Roark.

Roark cast a prewritten level 4 Immunity on himself, then a level 4 Sucking Mud at his feet. A bog of gooey muck thirty feet across opened beneath the soles of his leather boots, though he walked across the surface as though it were solid ground. 

Two of the three Blood Golems were sucked into the pit up to their waists. The mindless creatures still slogged and fought toward him, but the mud had reduced their movement speed by 45%. 

The third was too far outside the radius of the spell to be caught in the mud. Roark aimed a palm at it and cast Infernal Torment. Plum-colored flames flared up along the surface, sending up wisps of oily black smoke; unfortunately, burning from the inside out didn’t slow the hulking creature’s charge.

Roark backpedaled, this time casting his final prewritten level 4, an Ice Javelin. The frozen spear slammed into the chest of the oncoming Blood Golem, clots of red spraying out its back and over the sandy arena floor. The creature’s red body flashed momentarily blue, then frosted over.

Immediately, its movement slowed to a crawl. Roark pulled his Slender Rapier of the Diving Falcon and Kaiken Dagger and darted toward it, using the Whirling Off-Hand Combo he’d learned from Griff. The blades bit into the frozen blood with a sound like shattering glass, carving away at the Blood Golem’s health until it lost all ability to hold itself together and splattered to the dirt.

Bad_Karma smirked and waved him on. “Bro, that’s all you got? Let me show you how it’s really done. Bring it.”

“Gladly.” Roark broke into a sprint, his long legs eating up the distance between them.

With a wordless shout, Bad_Karma stepped forward and stabbed the billhook at Roark like a spear.

Though the weapon didin’t connect, lava raced through Roark’s veins. In places his skin blistered and cracked, and he stumbled, struggling to keep his feet. The red liquid in his filigreed Health vial dipped, but thankfully he didn’t outright explode like the Saber Boar had.

Bad_Karma braced the billhook’s butt against his boot, lowering it into a charge defense position. 

Directly in front of the hero, a red up arrow appeared.

[Updraft: Winged creatures may utilize updrafts for lift during takeoff and flight, but beware of blue downdrafts!]

Roark threw his wings wide and leapt into the air, pumping with all his might. The hot breeze snapped the leathery folds of his wings taut, and he soared over a dumbfounded Bad_Karma.

Grinning, Roark banked and lobbed another cursed head at the Ascended Blood Sentinel. Bad_Karma slapped it aside with his billhook, the head flying into the stands and sending several rows of spectators diving away. It exploded, sending tiny ice javelins in every direction.

Roark caught another red-tinged updraft and rode it higher. On the ground, the Ascended Blood Sentinel was up to something. Roark swept around to get a better look, and pulled a few more heads from his inventory, chucking them down, though they seemed to have no tangible effect on Bad_Karma. Hopefully they would buy Roark a little time to think and reevaluate. As the plumes of smoke and dust finally settled, Roark caught sight of the hero. Sweeping the billhook in a wide arc, Bad_Karma spun and thrust it at the piles of dismembered mobs. Fountains of blood gushed from the remains and flowed in intricate patterns around the hero’s chest and arms.

Vast crimson wings sprouted from Bad_Karma’s back.

Bad_Karma chuckled at Roark’s disbelief.

“What’s the matter, dickweed? Thought you were the only one who could fly?” He pumped his blood-wings and leapt into the air, riding an updraft skyward to meet Roark.

Roark pulled his rapier and dagger. He certainly hadn’t wanted to fight the Ascended Blood Sentinel hand-to-hand, but it didn’t look as if he would have a choice.

From below, a deep, buzzing rumble filled the courtyard. The sound was so low that it vibrated inside Roark’s bones, and the wavering pitch made him a touch dizzy. 

A metallic black aura oozed over his body, and with it came a rush of power and strength. Roark felt his muscles growing larger, bulging beneath his dark leather armor. In his hands, the Slender Rapier of the Diving Falcon and Kaiken Dagger each darkened to that same shining black and doubled in size.

[You have been temporarily Fortified! Dexterity and strength increased by 50% for 26 seconds.]

Down below, still within a few yards of the cage the mobs had been released from, Roark caught a glimpse of Ick. The Nocturnus stood with hands upraised and mandibles open wide, bellowing out the throat-singing fortification spell.

Interesting. Apparently, Ick’s talk hadn’t just been talk after all. Perhaps that one could make a handy ally.

Roark turned back to the hastily climbing Bad_Karma. With a twitch of his muscles, Roark pinned his leathery wings to his back and dove at the hero. They clashed together with the ring of metal on metal, billhook on rapier. 

Bad_Karma cursed as Roark’s head bashed against his red-black helmet; his curling horns crushed the noseguard inward, laying open the hero’s cheek and shaving off a tiny fraction of his health bar. They bounced off one another, then darted in again. Roark put his fortified Dexterity to good use, pulling his body out of line at the last second and narrowly missing Bad_Karma’s attempts to hook him with the billhook blade of his polearm. Roark planted the kaiken dagger in the hero’s kidney as he passed, driving the blade home then twisting to inflict maximum damage. Bad_Karma ripped the dagger from his back and launched it at the ground, his Health bar dipping by a handful of points.

At the same time, Roark’s filigreed Health vial lost twice that. Bad_Karma’s armor must have been Enchanted to rebound damage onto the dealer. Cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner, Roark cast Hex-Aura on himself.

                                                                                  ╠═╦╬╧╪ 

Hex-Aura

Those who would dare lash out at the Hexorcist best be ready to taste the sting of Cursed! retribution. The caster emits a 30-foot radius aura, which moves with them for the duration of the spell and effects all allies in the area. Enemies take .5n Damage (where n equals Character Level of the Attacker) when they deal physical melee damage to those protected by Hex-Aura. Hex-Aura is a Level Two Spell and can only be inscribed in Level Two Spell Slots; Duration, 2 minutes.

                                                                                 ╠═╦╬╧╪

With the level 50 Ascended Blood Sentinel’s Health-regen, it would hardly do enough to kill Bad_Karma, but Roark would take every little bit of help carving this hero up that he could.

Bad_Karma whipped his billhook around and shot toward Roark’s gut like a loosed arrow, ready to skewer him on the polearm.

Roark pulled angled his body, narrowly avoiding the thrust, and knocked the billhook up with a parry from his rapier, the blade tearing open his shoulder rather than running him through. A cloud of Roark’s blood misted up from the wound and flew to Bad_Karma, restoring the small amount of Health lost to the Hex-Aura’s curse.

As the Ascended Blood Sentinel banked on his huge crimson wings, Roark traded his rapier for his Initiate’s Spellbook and a pen. He couldn’t win this fight blade-to-blade, not since Bad_Karma could fly, too.

In an empty level six spell slot, he inscribed a hasty Ice Storm, then immediately cast it at the oncoming Ascended Blood Sentinel. A gust of frozen, snow-filled air slammed into Bad_Karma, slowing the beat of his crimson wings, but not stopping him outright. Bright blue Downdrafts appeared hard on the heels of Roark’s attack. Bad_Karma dropped a few feet, but the endless flapping of his blood-wings kept him aloft.

Determined to get the bastard out of the sky, Roark followed with an Ice Javelin. The frozen lance speared through Bad_Karma’s shoulder and left wing, the blood of the wing flashing blue before freezing altogether. The Ascended Blood Sentinel flapped fruitlessly and tumbled like an injured bird.

Roark darted in, pulling his slender rapier once more, ready to shatter the frozen wing as he’d done with the Summoned Blood Golem. Once he drew within striking distance, however, Bad_Karma’s struggle stopped. 

The hero grinned.

“Gotcha, loser.” With a flick of his wings, the icy frost covering the left one exploded off in a spray of icy shrapnel, revealing a perfectly unaffected appendage. Seven hells, he’d been baited.

Roark wheeled hard right, fighting to gain some distance, but the Ascended Blood Sentinel hooked him around his own wing and shoulder with the Billhook Lifeblood Polearm. Roark tried to slice and cut at Bad_Karma, but the hero batted his rapier away easily. It was as if the Blood Sentinel had been toying with him all along; now Bad_Karma had grown bored of the game and intended to finish it. The hero folded in his wings, letting their combined weight drive them toward the ground at lethal speed.

Roark braced himself for the impact, already anticipating the shattered bones and punctured organs that were sure to follow.

Below, Ick’s buzzing throat singing changed pitch. A sphere of that metallic black light surrounded Roark. A moment later, they slammed into the dirt, sending up a cloud of dust. But the impact only stole away a cupful of the red liquid in Roark’s Health vial, far less than he’d expected from the breakneck plunge. Ick’s shield sphere had saved him from death on impact. Even with that save, however, he was teetering below 30% Health.

Still on top, Bad_Karma threw his weight behind his polearm, pinning Roark to the ground and tearing a shout of pain from him. His Health dropped to 25%.

“Welp, that was fun for about five minutes,” the Ascended Blood Sentinel said, climbing to his feet. “Now it’s time for night-night.”

He yanked the polearm out, the billhook on the blade tearing a good chunk of Roark’s flesh and bone with it and knocking off another ten percent of his Health. Bad_Karma raised the weapon for another blow—

Suddenly the sun went black and a blast of pale, silvery moonlight shot across the arena. It engulfed the Ascended Blood Sentinel in silvery flames that ate away his crimson wings and a quarter of his red Health bar.

“You little ho-bag!” Bad_Karma leapt off Roark, wheeling around to face Ick. “You want in on this? Fine, it’s all yours.”

Bad_Karma spun and thrust his billhook at the Nocturnus. Ick opened his mandibles, roaring out another ear-thrumming, throat-singing spell. A metallic black bubble appeared around him, but not before the spell sliced off the Nocturnus’s left ear and a few tentacles.

The Ascended Blood Sentinel advanced on Ick, launching thrust after magical thrust with his billhook. The metallic shield held for the first few attacks, but quickly began to weaken, cracks spreading along the surface, leaking out watery silver light like captured moonbeams.

Roark rolled onto one hand and both knees, his other hand busy holding in his entrails which kept trying to escape through the hole Bad_Karma had carved in his gut. He could certainly have used a Sufficient Health Potion right then. His Health was regenerating, but too slowly to do any good—there also seemed to be some sort of malevolent blood magick at work against him, actively draining his health and working against his advanced Regen rate.

When Roark finally staggered to his feet and looked up, Bad_Karma had backed Ick up against a wall of the arena. The shield had failed, and several of Ick’s back arms had been hacked off. The humanoid ones, which were still attached to his body, were thrown up in a defensive gesture. 

The Ascended Blood Sentinel was winding up for a killing blow.

“Damn it all,” Roark groaned, knowing he couldn’t just leave the Nocturnus who’d helped him to die at Bad_Karma’s mercy. The creature had proved to be a deadly spellcaster in his own right, and quite loyal to boot. If Ick’s story held true, that he had indeed been cast out from his own dungeon, then it was possible the spellcaster could be swayed to Roark’s cause. An asset like that was too valuable to pass up. 

He pulled his Bow of the Fleet-Fingered Hunter and fired off an exploding arrow. It thunked neatly into the hero’s throat and detonated. It didn’t kill Bad_Karma, but it did take out another handful of his Health and knock him from his feet.

While Bad_Karma was distracted, Roark sprinted across the arena floor to Ick and slammed the Gauntlet of Fast Travel onto Ick’s upraised hand. The moment it locked into place, a violet shimmer covered the Nocturnus from head to foot. In a heartbeat, it was gone, taking Ick with it, teleporting him to the safety of the Cruel Citadel. Hopefully.

A sickening roar of pain exploded through Roark’s back and legs as Bad_Karma’s billhook plunged into his kidney. He’d saved Ick, but now he was going to die.

Nothing for it but to go down fighting. Roark pulled his rapier once more and spun around.

“Eat billhook, a-hole,” Bad_Karma said, slashing at his face.

Roark ducked the first slice clumsily, his arms and legs numb from the lost blood and Health. He lunged distesa with his right foot and made a last-ditch tondo at Bad_Karma’s throat, but the Ascended Blood Sentinel countered this easily and chopped through Roark’s neck.

With detached fascination, Roark alternated between flashes of churned-up dirt and the sight of his headless body as it dropped to its knees, blood gushing from the ragged place on his neck where his head used to sit. The last of his Health drained from his vial as his head came to a rest at Bad_Karma’s feet, and Roark the Griefer died. Again.

Thirty 

Crossover

“Welcome, Randy Shoemaker!” The Hearthworld announcer’s voiceover boomed. “The battle awaits! Which character would you like to—”

Before the voiceover got its last word out, Randy scrolled over to his Arboreal Herald and selected it. He didn’t have time to wait around for the full script. The clock was running.

Luckily, Randy had a plan.

It was strange. This whole week he’d been observing, waiting and watching, an invisible spectator, but now that he’d decided it was time for action, he just jumped right into it. He could never do something so impulsive IRL. He’d need data, a backup plan, a risk assessment, and built-in contingencies for his contingencies. In Hearthworld, though, Randy could do anything he wanted. Even when he didn’t have access to the Admin perks, his Herald was a level 40—the coolest of the cool and baddest of the bad. He was a boss, not some underpaid, overworked underling.

That was where he had gone wrong before, he realized. Trying to solve a Hearthworld problem like it was a real world problem. Utilizing caution instead of charging in sword drawn and chopping the head off the hydra.

So his admin abilities wouldn’t work on Roark the Griefer or the affected anomalies. So what? His Arboreal Herald’s special attacks and abilities sure as heck would. Maybe he couldn’t get the answers he needed from the shadows, but in a one-on-one confrontation he could pummel Roark into the ground—no matter what tricks the modder had up his sleeves. If he went with the one-two punch of Admin invisibility and his class specialty’s Razor Leaf Whirlwind plus the bonus Deep Wounds damage his Scion Blades dealt, he could easily kill the modder before Roark even knew what hit him. But what purpose would that serve? It wouldn’t get him any closer to understanding how or why Roark had done any of this, and it wouldn’t tell him how to fix the corrupted code.

In spite of the violent metaphor, head-chopping wasn’t the fastest way to defeat this hydra. No, what Randy was going to do was even crazier. He was going to capture the Griefer.

Randy giggled, letting off a little of the excess nervous excitement as he input the coordinates for his spawning location. Normally, he started in the estate he’d built on the Whispering Steppes, but today he had other places to be.

It was the perfect plan, and nobody was better equipped to do it. He’d been following Roark for the past week, observing his movements, unknowingly casing the Cruel Citadel as he shadowed the Griefer. If anybody could capture the modder, it was Randy Shoemaker.

He couldn’t do it alone, though. And he couldn’t go to Frontflip and requisition players to help him; he was already on thin ice with them, as evidenced by his three day time limit.

Luckily, he knew just the player. A guy who had more experience with the Griefer than anyone else… and the most outstanding complaints against the Griefer.

Randy dropped into the game in Averi City’s fountain court. Rather than going invisible, he stayed out in the open and headed down a side street. Before this whole Griefer debacle, Randy hadn’t come to Averi City often, but when he did, he tended to frequent the Sulky Selkie, a tavern he’d helped name but never gotten any credit for.

Today, however, he was headed for the One-Eyed Unicorn, named for a joke Randy had always found childish by a dev who had gotten credit.

But as Randy stalked through the streets, the bitterness and frustration of day to day life melted away. He was on the hunt and, he had to admit, already having fun.

                                                                                       ***

Scott Bayani sat in the One-Eyed Unicorn drinking a beer after a hard day killing Merfolk and holding hands with that little dickweed Bro_Fo, escorting him through dungeons too big for him, power levelling the douchenozzle because his stupid big brother had decreed it so. It’d been a long one, and all he really wanted was to get in-game hammered before he had to log out for his next shift at the Bell back IRL.

The tavern door opened, and a dude with some crazy weird specialty character came in. Scott checked out his stats—a level 40 Arboreal Herald. His armor was seemingly made entirely of leaves, vines, and branches, all worked together into a living tapestry of elaborate loops and swirls. Pretty badass for somebody with little bird wings.

But as the guy crossed the floor, he started to veer toward Scott’s table. He didn’t turn away at the last second and join another group of people or head to the bar and order a drink. Nope, he just walked over and sat right down at Scott’s table like he belonged there.

“The hell do you want?” Scott snapped. The last time some stranger had bothered him here, it had been that Griefer asshole in disguise.

“Can I buy you a drink?” the guy asked.

“I don’t swing that way,” Scott said. “Not even in RPG mode. Flutter off, little butterfly.”

The guy rolled his eyes. “I just want to talk to you about someone named Roark the Griefer.”

Scott drained the last of his beer.

“You can want whatever you want.” He let out a belch. “But I’m done with that asshole. I’m not talking about him, thinking about him, screwing with him, nothing. Done. Finito.”

“Of course,” the guy said, reaching into his Inventory and producing and Admin Badge. “You couldn’t have dropped the issue before I had to read all eight hundred ninety-five messages you spammed Customer Service with.”

That, at least, made Scott chuckle. With all the pissed-off frustration of the last month or so, knowing that somebody had had to go through every one of the complaints he’d set his InfiniTab to send every hour was exactly as satisfying as he thought it would be.

“So you guys are finally getting off your asses and doing something about the Griefer?” Scott snorted. “Took your sweet time. Fine, keep me in beers and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“You’ve got it. I’m Randy, by the way.” The guy held out his hand to shake.

Scott ignored it. “And I’m thirsty.”

“Oh, right.” The guy, Randy, hustled off to the bar. When he came back he had two flagons of beer. He set them both in front of Scott. 

Despite the fact that this guy was both an Admin and a player with a much higher level, the dude caught on quick who the real alpha dog was.

Scott took a long pull off the first beer, then sat back in his chair.

“So, what’re you people going to do about this dickhole?” he asked, wiping foam from his upper lip with the back of one hand.

“I’ve been investigating him,” Randy said. “You’ve logged the most complaints against Roark the Griefer since he appeared. You’ve also had the most single-player encounters against him and the record high number of deaths at his hands. My ultimate goal is to put a stop to what he’s doing, but I can’t do that alone. You’re the one player with enough face-to-face experience with the Griefer to help me.” He faltered, the slew of words winding down. “So, uh, will you?” he finished lamely.

Scott grinned. Maybe he wasn’t done with that fake-pirate turd after all.

“All right,” he said. “I’m in. What’s the plan?”