“You’ll suffer hard now, as you bury your loved ones.

  That’s the way it goes when you’re down here with the rest of us.”

  - M. Ness, Down Here

  APOSTLE

  It might not look like it at this very moment, but Apostle was a hero.

  Maybe she wasn’t as powerful as everyone else down here in the Void Burrow, but she was a hero nonetheless. After all, she was being chased by an actual villain, a real life monster that these arrogant high level gamers could never possibly understand.

  But she was increasingly becoming an anxious hero as she watched the marrow crabs close in.

  Silverdawn faithfully recreated a full array of sensations: smell, sound, touch, pleasure, and, most relevant to this particular moment, pain. It was a violent game, and characters died all the time, especially at lower levels; so to some extent, she’d gotten used to being killed. But there was dying, and there was having your body pulled apart by doll-faced scorpions.

  It was her own fault for trying to impress the others, but come on—Char and Mammon in the same place, fighting together? She hadn’t been playing Silverdawn nearly as long as the hard cores, but even she knew this was a big deal.

  And if she logged out now, they’d all remember her as the quitter who bailed before she even reached the Guardian. Which would be embarrassing, but that wasn’t why she was anxious.

  She was anxious because whether she logged out or got eaten by marrow crabs, the result would be the same: she’d be all alone.

  And alone was dangerous.

  Fortunately, a level 99 player had come over to help. Sort of.

  The crimson-robed mage—Quartz, according to her ID block—yelled again. “I said slit your wrists!”

  She sounded mad, but Apostle had seen her teleporting around the Field of Sorrows, which seemed like a useful trick to pull off now.

  “Just portal us!” Apostle called back.

  Quartz sighed and kicked a marrow crab that had gotten too close. A thorn on her foot pinned the creature to the floor. “Just fucking do what I say!”

  “Is that a plant spell?” Apostle asked. “I thought those were for druid specializations.”

  “Learned it from a book.” The mage squished the crab’s doll face with her other boot. “Any other questions before we both get eaten?”

  Ignoring the mean lady’s tone, Apostle spread her arms. “Toxic Aura.”

  Her skin took on a sickly green hue as a nearby marrow crab curled up and began to convulse. Chunky foam leaked from its lidless eyes.

  “Super impressive,” Quartz said with enough sarcastic venom that she might as well have been a snake herself. “Of course, you’ll run out of Spirit long before this place runs out of bugs.”

  “So your solution is me giving my Spirit to you?”

  Sanguine sculptors were among the more unusual specializations in Silverdawn, with a lot of strange branches running up their skill tree. The best example of that was their ability to Blood Bond with another player, allowing them to share Spirit and Health.

  All Apostle had to do was slit her own wrists.

  That was bad enough, but the real kicker was the sculptor got to decide which way the points flowed. It was an awfully vulnerable position for the wrist-slitter, especially with a complete stranger.

  “I don’t need your Spirit.” With a wide swing of her thorny arm, Quartz swept away another marrow crab. “I get the hesitation. You don’t know me. But if you want to catch up with the others, you’re going to have to trust me.”

  Continuing to argue was pointless. Every dead crab was immediately replaced by the next in line. The monstrosities blanketed the floor and walls. They crawled over their own aura-poisoned siblings, curled up and died, and became stepping stones for the next wave. It never stopped.

  From the distant dark, more lip smacking could be heard.

  “This place sucks,” Apostle observed.

  “Yep. Of course, most of us don’t try it at level fifty.”

  “Don’t love your tone,” she said.

  “Do you love having your eyes eaten by crying doll faces?”

  Apostle’s temples were throbbing too much to answer. Simulating a headache was how the game let a player know they were running low on Spirit, which meant Quartz was right, despite her condescending attitude. The Toxic Aura would run out long before the marrow crabs.

  “Fine.” She slid a dagger across her wrist in a clean line and then drove its blade into the nearest bug. Holding her bloody forearm in the air, she faced the mage. “Do it.”

  Quartz’s eyes became crimson orbs. Her veins pulsed and Apostle felt their hearts beating in synchronized unison. It was actually kind of hot.

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  “It’s done.” The mage’s ID block rewrote itself above her head.

  “Bonded” was a scary word to see attached to haughty mage with glowing veins. Underscoring that thought, her legs became jelly, quivering beneath her. Her pulse slowed.

  Quartz had told the truth. She wasn’t draining Apostle’s Spirit.

  She was draining her Health.

  “Stop.” Apostle gasped. “You’re killing me.”

  “I’m saving you,” Quartz responded. The crimson spheres that had been her eyes pulsed with dim light. When she spoke again, the words were heavy with power. “HemoGoblins.”

  The mage vomited.

  Blood poured from her mouth like an open fire hydrant, splashing the bones beneath their feet and spraying onto Apostle. The tunnel reeked of bile.

  From the depths of that purged mass, thin arms emerged. Just a few at first, needle-sharp talons at the tip of each finger, then a dozen. Then a hundred.

  In seconds, the tunnel was swarming with syrupy gargoyles, mouths lined with rows of shark teeth, heads topped with jet black horns. None stood taller than Apostle’s knee, but they were fast. And vicious.

  They were legion.

  The tunnel became an orgy of crabs and devils, tearing each other to shreds.

  Quartz slipped out of her flowing red robes like a cocoon. “I’m coming back for you.” She lightly touched the abandoned cloth as if it might be listening. This was Silverdawn, though, so maybe it was.

  Whistling, Apostle looked at the carnage around her. Quartz’s arrogance was backed up by results. The power gap between their levels was exponential. “What now?”

  “Three things, in precisely this order.” Quartz drew close, the red stain draining from her eyes. “First, I portal us to the middle of the line so we can hide between the meatheads who are supposed to handle this kind of grunt work. Second, we beat the shit out of a Leyline Guardian.”

  “And third?”

  The sanguine sculptor offered an odd smile. “Third, you never say a single word about what you see me do in that throne room for as long as you live.”

  MAMMON

  It was a secret that could never be shared, but Mammon was a hero.

  Even if he did share the truth, few in Silverdawn would believe it. More than a few considered him a villain. But a thing could be true even if no one saw it. Much like how he didn’t have to look back to know most of the group was dead.

  What had begun as a steady blend of excited whispers and occasional grunts of combat was now utter silence, underscored by the crunch of marching boots.

  And the moaning. Always the moaning.

  His undead worm had served its purpose, carving a clear path for first half of their journey, but between the constant onslaught of marrow crabs and the sharp crystal hands clawing from the walls, all that remained of his creation was dry strips of rotten flesh throughout the tunnel behind him.

  Just as well; his minion had already served a purpose far more important than a mere battering ram. It had pointed him directly toward Bask’s lair.

  Undead servants came in many shapes and sizes, but they all shared one common attribute: a longing for oblivion. Their pleas for a return to the peace of eternal slumber echoed in his head from the moment he brought them into existence until their inevitable demise.

  Mammon didn’t know if it was their longing for self-destruction that subconsciously compelled them to move toward Bask or if their unerring direction sense was simply a bug in the game’s code, and frankly he didn’t care.

  All he knew is the worm had picked a direction, and he’d followed.

  “Do you think there’s enough time left?” Someone behind him asked. Mammon recognized the voice as Orion, a starfallen warlock whose increasingly nervous inquiries had begun to grate on his nerves.

  He closed his eyes.

  >> AWAITING INSTRUCTION [MAMMON]

  “Time until reboot.”

  >> FIFTEEN MINUTES FIFTY-TWO SECONDS

  “No,” he answered honestly. “Feel free to logout if you want.”

  Every time Mammon had made it into Bask’s throne room, he’d been forced to bail. But the fights where he’d gotten close to victory had been drawn out affairs, easily half an hour of grueling combat. So fifteen minutes wasn’t going to cut it.

  Frankly, it really didn’t matter to him if Orion stayed or not. Compared to what was waiting for Dario at home, this was a cake walk.

  There was a bend up ahead, and when Mammon rounded it, a golem stood in his path. The sentinel had six arms, a rooster’s beak, and was made of the same crystal as the grasping hands that lined the tunnel. Its stats filled Mammon’s vision, although he knew them by heart:

  Behind the golem, a pair of plain white doors promised an audience with Silverdawn’s most infamous Leyline Guardian.

  “Heart or head?” it asked.

  It was a question Mammon had answered a dozen times before. But since this had become a fool’s errand, he might as well let the others have some fun.

  For the first time since the group’s werewolf had died howling, her esophagus rudely extracted by a marrow crab’s claw, Mammon turned to his companions.

  There were six left, including himself:

  Quartz, a sanguine sculptor who Mammon had fought alongside before. Oddly, she was no longer wearing her Robes of Nephilim; a bold choice considering their opponent. Nevertheless, she was a great player and if by some miracle they managed to defeat Bask, Quartz would be a key part of it.

  Apostle, a snake charmer completely in over her head. It was astonishing she’d made it this far. She kept sneaking nervous glances at Quartz.

  Gallup, an aerial barbarian who had proven to be a formidable warrior in these tunnels, despite the cramped space limiting his mobility skills.

  Orion, a starfallen warlock only slightly more experienced than Apostle, and equally useless.

  And, finally, Char. Fucking Char. An absolute dick who used his position as New Le Guinn’s Royal Champion to mount raids into every surrounding Kingdom. He seemed to especially enjoy marching across the Cthon Empire border, on some personal crusade to terrorize Mammon’s home Kingdom.

  The constant attacks were particularly egregious in light of the fact that all Eleven Kingdoms, including New Le Guinn, were dealing with a grimlin infestation. The nasty little critters had first appeared in Silverdawn a few months ago and quickly began devastating livestock and lower level characters. More disconcertingly, they were getting bigger.

  Territorial pissings and mystery monsters were a problem for another day, though. Right now, there was a choice to make.

  “Any opinions?” Mammon asked.

  “Head,” Char said immediately.

  No surprise there. The options were simple: the players could lose half their Spirit by saying “head” or half their Health by saying “heart.” But a single decision had to be made for the whole group.

  If you happened to be an over-muscled storm guard, losing Spirit was the obvious preference. Char’s response reeked of arrogance and selfishness, which was certainly on-brand for the well-armored bully. Yet for some reason, he was the prom king of New Le Guin.

  Whatever. Mammon didn’t need fanboys to prop him up. He’d made it to level 100 entirely on his own.

  And since the others weren’t offering any competing answers to his question, Mammon turned back to the golem. “Heart.”

  Char cursed. Good. Fuck that guy.

  Bask’s personal bodyguard spread his arms. “Your path is chosen. There is, however, one final decision to make.”

  Mammon readied himself. He was well aware of what came next.

  “Defeat me or die,” Mammon said the words along with the golem.

  He smiled. He loved this part.