Polynya

“Where did you pick that up?” Enway asks, her eyes narrowing at the partial skull.

“A Proxima world known as Steam,” FeeTwix says after he hands it to her. “Specifically, in a contraband shop in the prison city known as Akrasia.”

“Interesting.” Enway runs her fingers along the jagged edges of the skull. She brings its single eye up, takes a look and nods. She places it on a table and moves to a back room. After rummaging around for a moment, she returns with a small wooden box.

Enway opens the box to reveal another piece of a Reaper’s skull, this portion a cracked frontal bone that is connected to a parietal bone with a reinforced hole drilled in it. “It’s not the full piece,” Enway says, “and you’d still be missing an eye and the other side of the skull, but I think if we connect yours to this one and get a leather strap made, it’ll be more usable. Actually, I already have a strap that will work.”

“Sure! Let me know what I owe you.”

“Consider it a gift to your guild,” she says, “for helping me back in Aramis.”

FeeTwix and Enway work on the skull for the next thirty minutes. They use a bottle of Gorilla glue that the Swede procures from his list to attach the two skull portions and as it hardens, Enway works on adding some holes to the short leather strap she found to use as the headband. Once it is finished, FeeTwix places the half-skull over his face.

“Pretty fickin’ cool, eh, Ryuk?” he says, bowing to Ryuk.

“It looks pretty creepy.”

“What are you talking about? It looks fierce! And boy, do you look crazy through this thing!”

The skull mask now covers the left side of his face, à la the Phantom of the Opera. His overcoat completes the look, especially if he ever decides to pop his collar. “What do you think, babe?”

“Please, no skull masks in the house.”

“I’m just testing it … ” He leaps back. “Holy shit! You were just about to slap me with your ghost limb, weren’t you?”

Zaena looks away. “Maybe.”

“I can … I can see them with this on! Ryuk, check this out!”

Ryuk glances at Zaena, whose stone-cold visage isn’t very hard to decipher. “I believe you.”

“I need some air.” Zaena storms out of the room and FeeTwix follows after her, his mask suddenly off his head.

“Wait, babe. Don’t get offended!”

Yangu, who now rests in a basket provided by Enway, rolls over and comes alive. The baby dragon yawns and exhales a big cloud of blue smoke.

“Let’s take him outside to go potty,” Enway says, “while those two finish their discussion in private.”

(0)__(x)

Yangu, or Snowballs as Hiccup has started calling him, rummages around in Enway’s small backyard. The cute baby dragon flaps his wings, goes after a small mountain beetle and freezes it solid.

Instakill!

“Wow!” Ryuk says, picking up the beetle.

“Just wait,” says Enway. “He’ll be a big dragon sooner than later, then he’ll be able to freeze an entire army solid. I’d say he’ll be speaking in a week, and then you’ll know more about his personality. A dragon’s youth is short-lived in Tritania, mostly because of player impatience. Imagine having to have a dragon for three real world years as it matures into an adult.”

“That’d be a while.”

Cold air blows over her yard. Ryuk shivers and Enway places a friendly hand on his shoulder. “You want a jacket?”

“Me?” He kicks at the ground. “No, no, I’m fine. No worries. Just wasn’t expecting the coldness.”

“The mountains get very cold at night,” she says, turning away.

Ryuk changes the subject away from his sudden display of weakness. “Are you sure that the city elders will allow us entry to the catacombs if we kill the wolf?”

“I never said I was sure, but a few of the elders owe me a favor, so yeah, I wouldn’t worry about getting permission. That wolf has been terrorizing us for three weeks now and there’s nothing anyone has been able to do about it. But let’s make it official.” Enway reaches into a pouch on her belt and unfolds a piece of parchment. “Here.”

The words take shape on the piece of parchment, drying as soon as they appear.

Quest: Will you drive the wolf from the city of Katiyana in exchange for access to the catacombs?

Rewards: A back way into the city of Porthos.

Risks: Being mauled to death by a wolf.

“That’s one way to put it,” Ryuk mumbles.

“Well, do you accept?”

“Definitely, we need this.”

“What is it your guild is up to anyway?” she asks. “You haven’t been very clear about that, only that you want to get to Porthos.”

“Well, I can’t really quite answer that question. Just trust me, we need to get there.”

Yangu’s stomach grumbles.

“Have you fed the dragon?” she asks suddenly.

“Ummm … ” Ryuk shrugs. “It’s the first dragon I’ve had; I was unaware I was supposed to feed it or what I was supposed to feed it exactly. You’d think someone would have reminded me to feed it.” He suddenly feels incredibly stupid. “Yeah, I probably should have figured that out on my own.”

She laughs. “You’re cute, you know that? I’ll make him something.”

Cute?

As Enway reenters her home, Zaena exits, still a little peeved about FeeTwix’s Reaper mask.

“I just don’t like it,” she tells Ryuk. “All this alien technology is … ”

“It’s helpful,” he tells her. “Usually.”

She sighs, somewhat defeated. “I know it is.”

Ryuk glances over her shoulder and sees FeeTwix inside doing an ad read.

“What’s he advertising now?” Ryuk asks.

“I don’t think it is an ad this time. Something about a TwitchTube Red subscription winner. Your world,” Zaena’s slitted orange eyes widen, “sounds like it would be very, very crazy to visit.”

Ryuk half-smiles at her. “Not as fun as this world.”

FeeTwix is interrupted by a knock at the door, and lo and behold, Hiccup enters, his belly looking a good forty centimeters girthier than it normally is. FeeTwix greets him with open arms and the goblin bats him away. The Swede points out a barbeque smudge on the goblin’s cheek and Hiccup uses the end of FeeTwix’s overcoat to wipe it off.

“That damn goblin,” Zaena says as she takes a few steps in front of Ryuk. “I don’t know what it is I like about him.”

“I don’t think any of us do.”

The Thulean walks like a tigress, slinking her shoulders as she moves. She drops to her haunches in front of Yangu and coos at the baby dragon for a moment. “Do you remember what happened yesterday,” she asks, “at that Player Killer guildhall?”

“You mean when you were poisoned by that old mage?”

“Yes,” she says, not taking her eyes off the baby dragon. “Are you sure I didn’t say anything to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did I say anything about, um, anything about my life?”

Ryuk thinks back, skipping over the painful memory of Tamana slaying him. He rewinds all the action, from the fight with the ninjas on the rooftop to leaping between the two walls separating the guildhalls and being caught by Zaena’s ghost limbs. He arrives at poisoned Zaena just before Hiccup appeared and rescued her.

“Nothing,” he says. “All you said was ‘there are things about me you don’t know,’ or something to that effect.”

“Good.”

He cracks a half-grin. “Are you, um, trying to tell me something?”

“Let’s go inside and pester the goblin.” She picks up Yangu and cradles the baby dragon in her arms.

As Ryuk turns to the back entrance to the house, he receives a message from Hajime.

Hajime: First, you were supposed to log out to meet with me.

Ryuk: It’s been a longish day. Got into some things.

Hajime: That’s fine. I will wait for you to log out tonight to speak with you. Satomi contacted me.

My mother’s assistant? Ryuk stops dead in his tracks.

Hajime: Your mother would like to meet you and your brother for lunch tomorrow.

Chapter 10: Someone’s Little Blow-up Doll

“Fick no, Twixy, I’m not dressing up like a fickin’ sheep.” The goblin points his brass finger at the Swede. “I don’t know why the Mitherfickers keep getting the idea that I’m someone’s little blow-up doll that they can dress however they’d fickin’ like. I already wore a fickin’ tutu yesterday!”

FeeTwix laughs. “I don’t think you know what a blow-up doll is.”

“Like fick I do!” Hiccup plops down onto the couch, evacuates his colon, widens his eyes as he scoots around to see if he made a mess in his britches, realizes he didn’t, and equips a dog-eared copy of The Well of Loneliness. “This conversation is over.” A pair of reading glasses appears over the bridge of his nose and he focuses on the book.

“Fine, fine.” FeeTwix looks around for a place to lay out his weapons. Enway’s home is cluttered, full of books and small boxes covered in a layer of dust. He wipes away the surface of a side table and equips two shooting irons, one of which Ryuk has seen before. “Remember this one, babe?”

He places his bolonet rifle on the table. The blunderbuss fires a net made of diamond razor wire, which they used back in Sotla to pin Zaena down before she joined up.

“How could I forget the time you netted me?”

“Is that like ‘you had me at hello?’” FeeTwix asks. He smiles at her, and she returns his smile.

The next weapon is shaped like a primitive arcade gun. It’s orange, appears to be made of plastic, and as FeeTwix loads the magazine in, a circular light above the grip flashes blue.

“And that is?” Ryuk asks.

“This something I had custom made in Dead City. It’s supposed to look like the Duck Hunter gun. It fires a bullet that imbeds a GPS tracker in the assaultee’s body. Then you run your finger over the blue light to track it. Hiccup, care to test this out with me?”

“I swear on the Empress and her oversized mammaries,” Hiccup grits, “if you shoot me with that thing, we’ll have real problems, Twixy.” He looks at the Swede over the rim of his reading glasses. “I’ll split your chalupa with my tomahawk while you sleep.”

“Chalupas are already split,” Enway says as she enters the room. “I’ve fed Yangu–”

“Snowballs!”

“And he fell asleep next to his food bowl.”

“Young dragons always need more sleep than older ones.” FeeTwix’s bolonet lifts into the air, seemingly of its own volition.

“Careful!” he tells Zaena as she aims the muzzle at Hiccup.

“Liz, same thing I told Twixy applies to you,” the goblin growls without looking up from his book. “Now quit distracting me, I’m trying to read about lesbians. Everyone in this guild needs to get woke.” He waves his copy of the Well of Loneliness at her.

Get woke? Ryuk shakes his head. The damn goblin is always rattling off about something.

“What about the gun you had that shoots automatically?” Zaena asks.

“Ah, my remote sentry weapon.” FeeTwix shrugs. “I’d love to use that, but there could be friendlies in the area, sheep too. So we’re going to go old school!” A pizza box-sized electronic device materializes in front of him. It features a single unit in the middle anchored by four downward facing propellers. “A drone from the 2030s!”

“That is old school,” Ryuk says as he approaches the drone.

FeeTwix sets it on the ground and produces his remote control and presses a big red button labeled “auto.” The auto-drone lifts, accompanied by a buzzing sound. “The Eye in the Sky will help us spot and track the wolf. And you can be our other eye in the sky, Ryuk, by going to one of the terraces that surround the farms and using that Extreme Focus skill of yours. I’ll stay more or less in the center and when we see the wolf, I’ll try to bolo it. If that doesn’t work, I’ll peg it with a GPS bullet. Then we’ll follow it back to its lair and slaughter it.”

“What about us?” Zaena asks.

“I’m good here,” Hiccup says.

“He’s right. You two stay here for now, as soon as I net the wolf or peg it, spawn at my location and help me take it down.”

Zaena’s face hardens. “I want to be part of the hunting party.”

“You are, dear, trust me, but too many chefs spoil the soup.”

“He has a point.” Hiccup closes his book and yanks a healing potion out of thin air. He pops the top off the generic healing potion, takes his first sip, and cringes. “Oh yeah, that’s right, these ones ain’t half bad. Not Hopkins’, but what the fick can you do? Gotta save the good stuff for later. And don’t you say shit about me wasting a potion, Marbles, it’s prophylactic.”

The goblin guzzles the potion, jams his tongue inside to pick up any leftover residue, and once he’s finished, drops the potion onto the couch and returns his focus to his erotic novel. “Love me some lesbians,” he says as he licks his lips.

“We’ll be ready to spawn as soon as you give the signal,” Zaena nods. “I look forward to it.”

“Speak for yourself, Liz, although wolf meat ain’t half bad. You have to cure it right, but that’s a cinch.”

Enway clears her throat. “I’ll come with them as well – this sounds like it will be interesting!”

“Last thing.” FeeTwix equips a spray can called No Odor and gives himself a thorough spritzing. He tosses the can to Ryuk and tells him to do the same. “Before you ask, this eliminates our scent. Used it all the fucking time in Dead City. The damn zombie dogs there retain their sense of smell; this stuff works like a charm.”

“Um.” Ryuk points the spray nozzle at his body and gives himself a good coating. The spray, not surprisingly, doesn’t smell like anything.

“Between the legs too,” Hiccup comments, not taking his eyes off his text. “Nobody likes swamp ass.”

“Last thing, I swear!” Night vision goggles attached to an elaborate geared head mount form over FeeTwix’s eyes.

“You a jeweler now?” asks Hiccup.

“A jeweler? No, no, my troubled goblin amigo. These NVDs are a replica of the ones used by the United States Marines!”

“NVDs?” Zaena asks.

“Night vision device, or better, an optoelectronic device, which produces a monochrome green image in even the darkest of dark situations. Cool, huh?”

“So you are like an elf then?” She nods to Enway. “Elves can see in the dark.”

“That’s one way to look at it, babe. I’m like an elf, which reminds me … ” He pops the goggles up, equips his little mirror, and his eyes flash black. “And we’re back, people! Hello America and all the ships at sea! Are you clean enough? Are you moist enough?”

Hiccup shoots FeeTwix a suspicious glance.

“Well, if you aren’t, and hell, even if you are, Unilever & Gamble’s moisturizing aloe berry crisp hand sanitizer with added vitamin E kills 99.99% of germs in less than ten seconds and adds moisture to your skin in a fresh and revitalizing way. You’re gonna love it! Mention #FeeTwixRox at checkout to get a bonus pack of Clean Me Up and Wipe Me Down sanitary wipes! Hiccup the goblin is hooked on these wipes! Just ask him!” He swivels to Hiccup and the goblin gives FeeTwix the finger.

“Just imagine how clean that filthy goblin finger would be if he used some moisturizing aloe berry crisp hand sanitizer and followed it up with a Clean Me Up and Wipe Me Down sanitary wipe! Don’t miss out on this special offer today. Love you guys.” He blows kisses at the mirror in his hand. “Now let’s go catch us a big, bad wolf!”

(0)__(0)

Ryuk gets into position on one of the lower terraces. The night is cool, the moon barely visible. The grains are high, and out of respect for the farmers, he tries his best not to trample any of their handiwork.

FeeTwix’s auto-drone buzzes over a flock of sheep to the south.

After a deep breath to settle his nerves, Ryuk’s Extreme Focus skill kicks in. With his skill’s tunnel vision effect, he can see the Swede creeping around, his bolonet rifle at the ready and his GPS gun at his hip.

Remembering Hajime’s oblique quote, the most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten – breathe, Ryuk hones in on the movement of air in his body until he can feel the breath move from his lungs to his blood, and from there, to his appendages.

His focus pulses with each breath in. Minute details become increasingly apparent, from a ladybug crawling on a stem of wheat five meters away to the plinking sound of a droplet of water from a leaky pipe two fields over.

There.

His ears twitch slightly at the sound of an animal moving through the wheat on the northern terrace.

He readies his marble gun.

Ryuk: The wolf is approaching from the northern terrace. I’m out of range.

FeeTwix: Copy that. I’ll get him with the GPS bullet first, just in case I can’t get him with the net.

Ryuk focuses on FeeTwix for a moment.

The Swede has taken a position behind a barrel, using the barrel to steady his arms as he waits for the wolf to approach. The night vision goggles are on his head, and he’s as still as a frozen cactus as the canine slowly makes his way to a pen filled with sheep.

The sheep bleat and a few shuffle around, but other than that, they seem completely oblivious to the predator.

Ryuk: Damn, the wolf is big.

Hiccup: That’s what she said.

Ryuk: I thought you were reading.

Hiccup: Goblins excel at multitasking.

FeeTwix: How big?

Zaena: Do you need us yet?

Ryuk: The wolf is the size of a donkey, at least that size.

FeeTwix: Roger.

Hiccup: Who the fick is Roger?

Ryuk ignores the ensuing conversation as something red catches his eyes. He looks up at the approaching red outline. A dragon?

Ryuk: A dragon is approaching.

Zaena: We’re coming to you!

FeeTwix: Everyone stay cool just for a moment longer.

Shit, Ryuk thinks as two other forms appear on the dragon. He can’t make out the details of the riders yet, but there are definitely two.

~~POP!~~

The mahoosive wolf yelps and scurries away as FeeTwix pegs him with his GPS bullet.

Just in time, too.

The dragon is now directly over the Swede’s head, and before the man with the near limitless inventory list can equip another weapon, two armed warriors drop from the dragon.

Ryuk: Zaena, Hiccup, get here now! NOW!

Chapter 11: Surprise Attack

It can’t be, Ryuk thinks as he scrambles to get closer to the action. The Mitherfickers have spawned, Enway too, and they are currently going toe-to-toe with the two warriors, whose dragon circles in the air above them. He hears the clank of swords meeting as Tamana and Zaena go at it, the Thulean in her death dance and Tamana the betrayer using her buster sword to block each incoming attack.

Tamana Nakamura Level 15 White Warrior

HP: 410/410

MANA: 389/389

ATK: 117

DEF: 134

MATK: 149

MDF: 108

LUCK: 6

She wears a type of red armor he’s never seen before and a skull-shaped helmet. It’s clearly her, from her ironing board of a sword to the way she swings her weapon at Zaena.

Ryuk swallows the emotions coursing through him, hits another terrace, and drops and rolls.

He comes up with his triggerless Marble Gun aimed and ready. He’s almost in range, and as he scissors towards the final terrace, he changes his trajectory to the other fighter, the one currently engaging FeeTwix and Enway.

Tomas Romero Level 51 Shield Warrior

HP: 2167/2167

ATK: 593

MATK: 10

DEF: 740

MDF: 555

LUCK: 21

The Shield Warrior has a weapon that looks like a cross between a trident and a double-bitted ax.

Where do I know that name? Ryuk stops dead in his tracks. Isn’t that …

“Fick you, Tammy!” Hiccup runs at Tamana with his spiked club. While blocking the latest attack from Zaena, she manages to fire off a white magic missile at Hiccup. His shield takes the brunt of it, but the gaseous goblin is tossed backwards into a well, where he cracks his lower back, and nearly falls in.

“Yeooooooy!” He balls up like a baby and jams a healing potion in his mouth.

The mirrored dragon screeches and comes in to lay down some fire. It suddenly jerks up, spitting a mirror-like substance to the right, where it melts through FeeTwix’s hovering auto-drone and also melts a single black sheep too foolish to run to the other side of the pen like its brethren.

What the hell? Ryuk notices a collar around the dragon’s neck, a collar akin to the handcuffs Tamana had when they went for her at the guild. Knowing that he’ll get a better shot with his slingshot, he holsters his Marble Gun, comes up with his slingshot, and makes the split second decision to go with his molten marble over an explosive or sword marble.

Steadying his breath, Ryuk tracks the mirrored dragon as it circles overhead. A red reticle appears, he takes a short breath in, steadies the reticle just a bit longer and …

The dragon flinches and dips towards the ground as the molten marble strikes the collar around its neck. The lava spreads instantly and the collar snaps off and crash-lands in the midst of FeeTwix’s battle.

Free of its restraints, the dragon rears back up just in time, releases a burst of silvery fire, and flaps its wings, whipping dust and debris around the battlefield. Once the mirrored dragon has steadied itself, it spirals higher into the air and gets the fuck out of Dodge.

New skill learned!

LUCK +1!

Skill: One in a Million

Level One: Use your slingshot and any marble of your choosing to take an impossible shot. Odds of connecting increase with each point you gain in LUCK.

Requirements: Level 10 Mage, LUCK > 10.

“Wait a fickin’ minute! Mirror!” Hiccup uses his arms to press himself up. “That’s the dragon, Marbles! The one we sent that bitch Tammy’s handcuffs to! Mirror! Shit, she’s gone. Wait … You don’t think we sold her out, do you? Well, if we did, she’ll be pissed. Better to have her fly off, in that case,” he says under his breath. “Okay, back to nursing my healing potion. Fick you, Tammy!”

Ryuk glances from the goblin to FeeTwix and Enway. The Swede has equipped an ax made of machine parts that is easily the size of Tamana’s buster sword. He uses all his might to swing it at Tomas, and even though his eyes are black, Ryuk can tell by the look on his face that he doesn’t know what to think. Tomas was the reason FeeTwix logged into Tritania in the first place.

And to face him like this …

FeeTwix swings again and cracks his machine ax against the ground, sending more dirt into the air.

For her part, Enway stands back as white magic ripples around her hands.

As soon as Tomas lands a strike on FeeTwix, Enway heals him. Seeing an opportunity here, the Swede with the damn near infinite list of killer toys brandishes two Uzis and unloads a wall of metal fury at Tomas, who narrowly blocks them with a red scutum that matches his armor.

“I’ve got this!” Ryuk fires his entire mag of molten and black marbles at Tomas. He starts high and brings his trajectory down a couple of centimeters, the results of which create a solid line of fiery unhappiness that throws the Shield Warrior off his feet.

-39 HP!

That’s it? Ryuk pops the clip out and loads another. He turns his head as he hears Zaena release a war cry as she charges Tamana, bends her slender body backwards, and uses her ghost limbs to whip her over Tamana’s form, where she stabs the turncoat White Warrior with two blades from behind.

+79 HP! +84 HP!

Ryuk stares in horror as Zaena stabs Tamana again, this too adding to her hit points.

Crack!

Tamana uses both hands to baseball swing the broad side of her blade into Zaena, who is tossed into a patch of wine apples. She brings her ironing board of a sword down onto the ground and the Thulean just barely manages to get out of the way in time.

Ryuk lowers his Marble Gun for a moment as the thought dawns on him. He’s seen this very thing before, in a foe that Tamana and he encountered outside of a city known as New Gotha. He quickly fires off a message to the guild.

Ryuk: Her armor is enchanted! FeeTwix and Hiccup, take Tomas! Zaena distract Tamana and I’ll try to remove the enchantment.

Hiccup: Who died and made you boss?

Ryuk: Move your ass, Hiccup!

To encourage the goblin, Ryuk, before holstering his Marble Gun, fires a shot one meter away from Hiccup’s feet. The goblin launches into the air, propelled by both flatulence and the explosion, and in a twist that Ryuk couldn’t have even seen coming, the portly goblin bounces once off the ground, equips a shield midair, and brings it and his sizeable goblin girth down onto Tomas.

-45 HP!

Zaena has turned up her slice and dice attack, completely engaging Tamana. Her blades spinning around her body, she occasionally tries to get a lick in, which Tamana blocks. The ones she misses are instantly returned to Tamana in healing points.

Ryuk holsters his gun and again goes for his magic slingshot.

He pockets a clear marble and walks towards the two blade mistresses, ready to cast A Simple Request. His Extreme Focus kicks in and he becomes completely oblivious to what’s happening on FeeTwix, Enway, and Hiccup’s side of the equation.

His slingshot aimed, he waits for the moment in which Zaena is far enough away for him to get a clear shot, waits a moment longer, and lets loose the clear marble.

“Remove enchantment!” he bellows.

The clear marble strikes Tamana and her arms begin to bulge.

A large bubble forms under her alien armor and begins moving around her body, growing every body part it comes into contact with. Her arms go to four times their size, her legs, her torso, her skull-helmed head, and finally, her buster sword.

(0)__(0)

“Dragon ficks! Marbles, you fickered fick-laden fickbag! What the hell did you just do!?” Hiccup uses a heater shield with an image of a nude mermaid inlaid on its front to block a thrust from Tomas’ double-bitted ax trident.

Tamana, now five times her normal size, brings her buster sword back and takes out a farmhouse. Wood and debris spray into the air. With a grunt, she brings her sword down, cuts through the fence penning in the sheep, kills a few sheep in the process, and those that aren’t killed by her blade quickly scramble out, bleating as they ram into each other and add a fluffy white visual of chaos to the battle.

A white magic surrounds Enway and she lifts into the air. The magic spirals around her, forming a vortex between her floating body and the ground. She claps her hands together and the vortex whips towards giant Tamana, where it takes her off balance.

Tamana falls to one knee, her blade jabbing into the ground, and Zaena comes in for more swordplay. With her giant hand, Tamana bitch-slaps the living shit out of the Thulean, sending her flying into the air.

Zaena’s ghost limbs react just in time, saving her from crashing into a shed outside of the now defunct sheep pen.

Taking a deep breath in, Ryuk pulls back the clear marble and issues his command.

“Remove enchantment!”

Remove enchantment!

LUCK +1!

Ryuk pumps his fist in the air. “It worked!” he yells to Zaena. “The enchantment is removed!”

While she still may be giant-sized, Tamana’s ability to heal with each attack is gone.

“Everyone focus on Tamana,” FeeTwix shouts. “I’ll take care of Tomas!”

As much as it pains him to do so, Ryuk unholsters his Marble Gun and begins firing black and molten marbles at Tamana’s giant feet as she tries, and fails, to squish Hiccup.

-15 HP! -23 HP! -24 HP!

Just as she’s taken off balance, Enway pegs Tamana with a translucent cube made of white magic. The cube anchors itself over Tamana’s chest as lightning bolts ping from corner to corner inside the cube.

-81 HP!

Tamana’s hand comes up to heal herself and Ryuk takes aim at it. He fires at the back of her hand, just as Zaena uses her ghost limbs to hoist herself onto Tamana’s big arm.

Unable to finish her healing, Tamana tries to swat Zaena off; the Thulean leaps over Tamana’s incoming hand, scurries up the armor covering her upper arm, and arrives at her shoulder.

Meanwhile, Hiccup has taken to beating his spiked club against Tamana’s armored ankle. Hit after hit, he takes big sips from a healing potion to keep himself going.

Ryuk pops his spent mag out, loads another, and continues firing at Tamana’s free hand. In the blink of an eye, Zaena throws two of her blades forward, grabs them with her konoshlo mid-flip, and drives them into the side of Tamana’s thick neck.

-130 HP!

She uses her forward momentum to bring her body even closer to Tamana’s neck, where she stabs her repeatedly with all four blades.

Instakill!

“Fickin’ kill that giant bitch, Liz!”

Tamana drops her ginormous buster sword, which ruins what’s left of the sheep pen. She falls to her knees, her neck bubbling with blood as she sucks in air.

“Everybody out of the way!” Zaena takes a running leap off Tamana and propels herself to a rooftop.

“Fick!” Hiccup shrieks, his little goblin legs carrying him as fast as they can. He gets his leg caught under a piece of fence, flies forward and faceplants hard.

Tamana follows suit, landing with her head on her arm just a few meters shy of Hiccup, who screams, pisses himself, realizes he’s safe, gets to his feet, and runs towards Tamana’s face with his spiked club.

“This ends now!” the Swede bellows.

Ryuk glances right to see a battered and bruised FeeTwix holding a rather large Bowie knife. Tomas comes in for an attack and the knife starts to bubble up FeeTwix’s arm.

His mutant hack!

Symbiose overlaps itself as the mutant hack increases in size, portions of the biomatter lifting off and slapping back onto the outer shell to increase its girth.

A watermelon-sized barrel forms on the other end of the weapon; FeeTwix uses his other hand to hold the bottom of the barrel and takes a step back, waiting for the weapon to charge.

Just as he gets within striking distance, Tomas is met with a blast that tears the top half of his body off.

The blazing, concentrated beam of vibrant green energy keeps spewing out of the weapon long after Tomas has been separated from his body.

As soon as the mutant hack stops firing, the Swede collapses backwards, his chest moving up and down as he sucks in air.

(0)__(x)

“Stop kicking Tamana’s face!” Ryuk is next to FeeTwix now, watching as Zaena comforts her man. Enway stands to their right, ready to heal at a moment’s notice. What’s left of Tomas’ body isn’t too far away either.

“I’ll keep kicking her face until her avatar disappears.” Hiccup produces a healing potion, guzzles it for a minute, burps, beats his chest at the sudden heartburn, and returns to kicking Tamana.

Ryuk looks away. It’s easier to ignore her giant dead avatar than to come to grips with the fact that just a few days ago, everything was normal. They were friends and there was the hope for something more.

But now …

He swallows hard. Zaena looks at him with her slitted orange eyes and they soften. “I am very glad you have those clear marbles,” she says. “Even if they do things like turn our enemy into a giant.”

“A giant bitch!”

“Goblin, stop harassing the dead or I will see to it that you join her!”

“Fick you, Lizzy!”

“We’re just lucky that it worked the second time,” says Ryuk. “It usually takes a few shots to get it right. Maybe once it levels up, I’ll be able to get it every time.”

“That’d make you god-like,” FeeTwix says, still out of breath. “Which has its advantages.”

Ryuk switches to the messaging system to keep things private.

Ryuk: How many viewers?

FeeTwix: Approaching 3.5 million. Giant warrior women sell, but I need to take a break. I still need to unpack what happened with Tomas. That was hard.

Hiccup: Boo-hoo. Why don’t you get Liz to let you use her pocket spa for a safe space?

FeeTwix: My work here isn’t finished!

FeeTwix equips his mirror and gives it a grin, his teeth a bit bloody. “I’ll heal up after this, guys, don’t worry. Now that all of you are here, I want to say that I’m so very glad for you to be part of what just happened! The intrigue! A giant Tamana! Be sure to share the video with your friends and neighbors and neighbors’ neighbors! And don’t forget to tell them about McStarbucks’ latest offer. You guessed it, the Twonicorn Frappuccinos and Twonicorn Big Mac are back! Holy Howard Schultz in a boner cap with a stick up his ass!”

FeeTwix wipes sweat from his brow.

“Ever had a genetically modified blue burger with a pink bun with sesame seeds that changes colors and fizzles as it reacts with your saliva? Well, if you haven’t, now’s your chance! And did I mention the Frappuccino has 100% of your daily recommended intake of vitamins and minerals, plus, and this is a big plus, it comes with the limited edition McStarbucks’ Mermaid in front of the Golden Arches self-applicated barcode tattoo that gets you a 3% discount for life. For life!”

“What in the fick is he going on about? Why do I hate him so much right now?” Hiccup asks as he walks over to the group. “Did he say self-applicated tattoo? I liked the twonicorn part, though, that’s good eating. A unicorn? Yeah, one horn, we get it. But two? Fick me, that’s dinner! Great for gnawing on.”

“... So mention #FeeTwixRox at checkout to get a small Twonicorn McNuggets free with your purchase of the Twonicorn Frap and the Twonicorn Big Mac. Don’t forget, you’ll get the McStarbucks’ logo tattoo free with purchase, and just think, you’ll save, save, save!”

FeeTwix drops his mirror, his eyes flash blue, and he collapses again.

Chapter 12: Wolf Trap

Ryuk waits for the sine waves to stop rippling. That familiar tone chimes, and after letting the static settle, he takes off his NV Visor and removes his haptic gloves.

His eyes dart to the corner of his room. No digital spider, which is reassuring, but also troubling seeing as his hallucinations seem to come and go. Thus far, they’ve only been in his room, but if they were ever to come to him in public …

The heater kicks on above and as he relaxes into the body of his ‘real world avatar’ – as he’s heard it called before – his thoughts circle around Tamana and seeing her turn into a giant. Somehow this image, and the mayhem that resulted, does little to quell the pain he felt watching her fight against them. She would have been a great member in the Mitherfickers, was a great member, and it’ll be a long time before he gets used to seeing her fight against them.

And as a giant …

He bottles the thought as an advertisement for Doutor Coffee flashes on his iNet screen. In the ad, Ryuk is told of a new Super Special Set,スーパースペシャルセット, that comes with a hot dog, a green tea latte, and a red bean biscotti all for under a thousand yen.

He mentally swipes the ad away and it appears again, flashing this time.

“Come to get some rest?”

Ryuk nearly flops out of his bed, so startled is he by Hajime’s voice.

I’ve got to remember he does that!

“Relax.” Hajime sits seiza with his back to the door. Ryuk can barely make him out in the dark, and as he considers this, he glances back to that far corner of the room just in case.

Lights.

Just thinking the word causes a dim orange light to come on overhead. Nope, nothing in the corner, but Hajime has changed into a red robe that Ryuk hasn’t seen before.

“So, how goes the ultimate quest?”

Ryuk rolls out of bed and takes his Somnium Skip Box from his desk drawer. He attaches the DHDM interface to the crescent-shaped Proxima tower as he considers the best way to answer this.

“I see you’re breathing.”

“I’m thinking.”

Hajime nods. “That works too.”

“The ‘ultimate quest,’ as you put it, is off yet again to a rough start.”

Giant Tamana, seeing his guildmates attack her, attacking her himself– none of it was easy.

“Oh?”

“Tamana and a guy named Tomas attacked us.”

“Who is Tomas?”

“Tomas is the reason FeeTwix logged into Tritania in the first place. He was one of FeeTwix’s earliest fans.”

“I thought he logged in to make money.”

Ryuk smiles. “Well, that too, and it seems like he makes a ton.” He finishes setting up the Skip Box, returns to his bed and grabs his NV Visor. “Anyway, to give you some backstory, we arrived in Polynya, the second floating continent, after meeting an Elf named Enway.”

“Okay.”

“She took us to her hometown because Polynya’s capital city is locked down.”

“You mentioned that earlier. Why is the city locked down?”

“There was an attack last night, so no outsiders are allowed in. Luckily, Enway’s hometown, known as Katiyana, is connected to the catacombs beneath Porthos.”

“An easy way in.”

“Not exactly, they don’t just grant access to those catacombs to anyone, so to gain access, we planned to rid the city of a wolf that had been attacking livestock.”

“And did you?”

“We were in the process of doing so when Tamana and Tomas attacked us. So I’m logging back in right now to go after the wolf.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“FeeTwix shot it with a ‘GPS bullet.’ I believe that’s what he called it.”

“That’ll do the trick.” Hajime takes a deep breath. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m fine, but I’ll be hungry in the morning.”

“Good. I’ll make you something at that time. It’s better to see your mom and brother with a full stomach.”

Ryuk places the NV Visor over his head. It’s still warm from wearing it just moments ago. “Thanks for understanding, Hajime.”

(0)__(0)

The first thing Ryuk hears after his avatar has taken form is a squeaky mouse fart from Hiccup. The goblin has his golden helm under his arm and a healing potion in his brass hand. An empty, grenade-shaped Hopkins’ Holistic Healing Nostrum is at his feet, and not far from him, FeeTwix is using a primitive AppleSoft iWatch to track the wolf’s movement.

“You ready?” the Swede asks, his eyes two little black coals.

“Let’s do this.”

He glances back to Enway, who now wears a glimmering shawl, and from there to Zaena, who has an indecipherable look on her face. Ryuk wouldn’t describe it as thoroughly pissed, but there’s definitely some edge to it and he’s pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that she wasn’t granted a fair battle with Tamana.

“Finally your ass is back,” Hiccup says. “I was just telling everyone how I was friends with that mirrored dragon, who, coincidentally, is named Mirror. Too bad she flew off. Anyfick, thanks for making us wait.”

“I was only logged out for a moment.”

“Yeah, yeah, well when you were gone, Liz over here made a big stink about not having an honorable battle. Ha! This from the lady that went along with FeeTwix’s automatic gun thingamajiggy at the Shit-agami’s – see what I did there? – guildhall back in Aramis. Fick. Do we really have to track the wolf now? I mean, it is practically the Hour of the fickin’ Llama. Let’s get some rest.”

FeeTwix approaches him and laughs. “You sure are a grumpy goblin sometimes, you know that?”

“Yeah? Well, the minute you stop shilling to your tweeny snowflake followers, I’ll stop grumbling.”

“How many healing potions are you going to drink?” Zaena asks, narrowing her eyes at the goblin’s gut, the bottom of which sticks out of his chainmail armor.

“You know, we got a word for fat shamers in the goblin universe,” he says, turning his back to her.

If there is a word for ‘fat shamers,’ he doesn’t say what it is.

“Everyone is a little pissed off after that last fight,” FeeTwix says as he throws his hands in the air, “I get it, but we can’t forget, there’s a wolf to be captured! And to answer your question, Hiccup, I’m afraid if we wait until morning, the wolf may be able to get the tracking bullet out.”

“How the fick is he supposed to do that? You see an arm and a hand sticking out of his belly? You think he has a fickin’ grip’n’grab reach tool?”

“Dogs are clever!”

“Which way?” Ryuk asks, putting an end to the banter. “Let’s get this over with.”

Without another word, FeeTwix takes off towards one of the terraces. He walks fast, excited to finally be getting back into the action. If he’s experiencing any feelings regarding battling Tomas, he’s hiding it.

Typical, Ryuk think as he watches the Swede in action. He has a role to play.

As they follow him, Ryuk gets in line next to Enway to confirm with her that there is an actual reason they’re going after the wolf. “Just to make sure: you’re certain that the city officials will allow us access to the catacombs if we catch the wolf?” he asks.

“I’ve already told you. Outsiders aren’t usually allowed in, but outsiders don’t normally help us rid ourselves of our little canine problem. So you all will get in.”

“It seems to me, and correct me if I’ve mentioned this before,” Hiccup says after he’s scrambled up one of the terraces, “that someone in this town could have taken out the wolf on their own. Are you telling me you aren’t able to light a wolf that big on fire with your wowsie wow magical powers? Give me a fickin’ break.”

Another healing potion appears in his hand and he pops the top.

“Where do you keep getting those?” Enway asks, a grin spreading on her face.

She really is lighthearted, Ryuk thinks as he listens to Hiccup lay into her.

He mostly ignores the goblin, especially after he gets in a heated discussion in Thulean with Zaena. At least it sounds heated.

The mountain air is cool on his skin as they move from the terrace to a path cut into the rock face. From there, they scale a short slope, which proves challenging for Hiccup. Once they arrive at a winding mountain pass, they follow it until the goblin announces a discovery.

“Hold up, Mitherfickers!” They turn just in time to see Hiccup stick a bloody finger in his mouth. He nods, licks his lips, and drops to his haunches to have another taste. “That’s not like any wolf blood I’ve ever tasted.”

“Ewwww,” Enway starts to comment.

“Yeah, Elfy? Well fick you too. Here I am trying to be useful and you have to go and turn up the racism.”

“She wasn’t being racist,” Ryuk says. “Tasting dog’s blood isn’t really, um, something people do.”

“Something people do. You hear yourself?” Hiccup asks as they continue along the dark path. “Well, no way I’m going to educate you fickers, so I might as well tell you about my other cousin, Spew George.”

“I thought it was Spew Gorge.”

“Listen, Marbles, I know it’s hard to pay attention to the words of a handsome goblin with an equally healthy amount of pink hair and a vocabulary that would make me perfect for public office, but if you had paid attention, you would have heard me say George, not Gorge.”

“So you have cousins named both Spew Gorge and Spew George?” FeeTwix asks over his shoulder. He now wears a headlamp illuminating their path. Ryuk steps a little too close to the wrong side of the walkway and some pebbles fall.

“Spew is a common goblin name, for your information.” Hiccup stops, beats his chest for a moment, swallows, and scrunches up his face. No sound this time, but anyone standing behind him, including Ryuk and Zaena, instantly suffer.

Ryuk swallows the urge to vomit, and moves to the front of Hiccup, so he is no longer downwind. Zaena whops the goblin on the back of the head, causing him to stumble forward and shout ‘Yooooy!’ when he trips on a rock.

“Son of a ficklord, Liz! Keep your fickin’ konoshlo to yourself. Fick! I thought it was a ghost!” Worry spreads across his face and Enway laughs.

“Tell us more about Spew Gorge, or was it George?” FeeTwix asks, entirely focused on tracking the wolf with his watch.

“George, rhymes with norge.”

“Norge?” Ryuk asks. “Is that a Thulean word?”

“No, Marbles, it’s the Norwegian word for Norway.”

“How do you even know that?”

“I drink healing potions and I know things, is that what you want me to say?”

“Sweden, my home country, is next to Norway,” FeeTwix adds.

“Are you guys enemies or something? I’ll tell you what, if anyone named Norge says anything funny to me, I’d fickin’ cut their balls and their chalupa, fry them up, and feed them to a troll.”

“Churro,” Enway giggles.

Hiccup tenses, takes a deep breath, and continues his story about Spew George. “Anyway, Spewy– ”

“I thought you called Spew Gorge ‘Spewy?’” Zaena inserts.

“For fick’s sake, people, let me finish my goddamn story. I swear to the Empress’ milk-filled fun bags of epic proportions that babysitting the four of you is going to be the death of me. Now where the fick was I? Marbles, I need you to start taking notes … ”

“Quiet!” FeeTwix hisses. “We’re getting closer.”

“So,” Hiccup whispers, “Spew George came across this ink shadow in Tlapa, on the far western side of Hyperborea. Tlapa is far from the Goblin Riviera, but Spewy was always a traveler and he loved adventure, unlike yours truly.”

“Spew Gorge, right?” Zaena snickers.

“Ignore her,” Hiccup tells Enway and Ryuk, both of whom are definitely not listening. “Spewy had this bright idea of challenging the ink shadow to a game of punch chest. Now sure, an orc, even a big orc– I’d challenge that ficker to a game of punch chest. But an ink shadow? Fick that. Speaking of which, you know who I’d really like to play punch chest with? Ryuk’s little fickboy doppelgänger.”

“Quiet!” FeeTwix says again.

“Anyway, like a real ficktard, Spewy swung at the ink shadow and passed right through the no good fick-faced jizz farming son of a boar turd. So then it was the ink shadow’s turn. He swung at Spewy and knocked the living goblin out of him. So now he’s dead. George, not Gorge. Funny, that. Spew George was killed by an ink shadow. The ficker not only made a necklace out of his nails, he also made a pair of cowboy boots out of his skin. I’m telling you, they’re sickos, real sickos.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Ryuk asks, suspicious of the story.

Hiccup rolls his eyes. “You never asked me.”

“Let me see,” FeeTwix whispers, still tracking the wolf. “You’ve mentioned that an ink shadow took someone’s chalupa, I think that was Spew Gorge, and you mentioned that he cursed another relative and I believe a dyck byter snake got to him.”

“Yeah.” After scratching his ass, Hiccup starts counting. “One, two … you’ve mentioned two stories I’ve told you about ink shadows and goblins related to me. Now I’ve told you three. What the fick do you want from me, Twixy, the children’s book? Do I need to add subtitles? Ink shadows are bad news, people. I don’t want to sound racist like Liz over here, but fick each and every one of them sideways. If ever there were a reason for eugenics, ink shadows would be one of them.”

“So this is about ink shadows being bad news?” Ryuk asks. “This whole story?”

“Oh come on, you act like I don’t have to listen to you whine about how you almost got to first base with Tammy back there in the Mondegreen or how you once saw a little sideboob.”

“I never said that!” Ryuk says too loudly.

“Shhhh!” FeeTwix turns to Ryuk. “We’re close,” he whispers. “Shut the fuck up, Hiccup.”

“He’s right, goblin, there is no point nor moral to your story and it’s probably made up. I think all goblin stories are made up, or at the very least, hyperbolized to an extreme degree.”

“The fick you say!?” Hiccup starts to growl.

“Here! Weapons up!” FeeTwix has out just about the biggest gun in seconds flat. “Spitfire LMG,” he tells Ryuk before he can ask. “From a mech world called, well, Mecha XXE. No short bursts here,” he grunts as he pops the mag in the weapon. “High recoil reduced by fifteen percent every 1/9th of a shot … best for long bursts.”

The Swede aims the gun in front of him. “Let’s fuck this wolf up.”

Hiccup shoulders past him. “You and your damn guns. You know, if you want to really kill a wolf, all you need … ” The goblin yelps as a man leaps down from a higher rock.

The warrior, his body covered in scars and mud, brandishes a huge sword splintered into three distinct peaks. He takes a step forward and drops to a knee, lifts himself, and tries to hold steady again.

“It’s … you!” Ryuk says, after he sees a glimpse of the Unigaean tattoo on the man’s chest.

Chapter 13: The Takeover

Kodai swivels his haptic chair so he can get a sparkling view of nighttime Tokyo. He takes a deep breath, places his NV Visor over his head, and after the familiar tone, he waits for the sine waves to start up. A message from Sarah the Aussie piques his interest.

Sarah: You want me to come over tonight?

He thinks about this for a moment as he watches the twinkling lights of the city. It would be interesting to see her reaction to Tesla …

Kodai: Yes, in an hour.

Sarah: I won’t be off until one.

Kodai: You’ll be off in an hour.

With a deep breath in, he settles into his haptic chair and chooses a spawning point, the rented guildhall in Aramis, and after a few moments, he steps out into the large banquet room.

His stats appear and away they go.

Kodai Matsuzaki Level 15 Ballistics Mage

HP: 830/830

ATK: 213

MATK: 176

DEF: 98

MDF: 105

LUCK: 7

“You’ve both failed,” he tells Tamana, who stands before him with her head bowed. Next to her is Tomas, who looks equally troubled. “And at your levels and with the armor we’ve given you, this is totally unacceptable.”

Kodai takes his magic slingshot from its holster and pouches two knife marbles. He adds a black marble on top, pulls back, and fires the three marbles directly into Tomas’ neck and face.

-321 HP! Critical hit!

Skill level up!

Tomas is blown back a good five feet. With his body now smoking, he tries to pick one of Kodai’s blades from his cheek.

A skill level up?

Skill: Explosive Blades

Level Four: Use two knife marbles and one black marble to cause confusion and pain through an additional shrapnel bonus.

Damage: 25% if enemy is less than level 30; 9% if enemy is greater than level 30.

Odds of instakill: 3%

Requirements for instakill: LUCK > 8

“Good,” he says as he walks past Tamana, who still stands facing him with her head bowed. He approaches Tomas, and after equipping a knife marble, brings his slingshot up to the side of the RPC’s head.

Instakill!

Kodai turns back to Tamana just in time to hear Tomas’ body slap against the floor. He slowly walks towards her from behind, a new knife marble in his pouch.

Kodai.

The voice rings out in his head and he pauses. Even though the woman behind the door has spoken to him like this several times before, it still takes him off guard.

“Yes?”

Come to me.

With a grunt, he slowly lowers his slingshot. Not done yet with Tamana, Kodai brings his foot down on the back of her knee, sending her sprawling to the floor.

“Failure is not an option.”

“Yes, Kodai,” she says as she scrambles back to her feet. “It won’t happen again.”

Once he reaches the door at the far end of the room, Kodai takes the stairs down to the basement. While the room upstairs has been repaired, the basement is still in disarray. Shards of broken tiles litter the ground, portions of the wall have been ripped apart and the front door lies flat on the floor, its hinges broken.

The golden door in the center of the room, however, is in as perfect condition as ever, and as Kodai approaches it, the door cracks open revealing the galaxy inside.

Kodai.

The serpent woman stands before him, her image the clearest he’s ever seen.

She has dark hair with hints of purple, orange eyes, and faded Thulean tattoos along the side of her neck. She’s nude from the waist up; the scales from her lower half form a point at her sternum. Her scales are a deep shade of blue and dark green, the ventral scales a dark shade of yellow.

Kodai takes a knee before her and bows his head.

You’re angry.

“I am,” he grits. “They failed.”

I am aware, but it was you yourself who suggested sending Tamana and Tomas, and while they did little to stop your brother’s guild, they were able to add some psychological damage to the equation. Too bad we lost the dragon, though.

“Yes, you’re right. I’m sure my brother wasn’t happy.”

And his unhappiness will only grow with what I have planned next.

“Oh?” Kodai stands and raises an eyebrow at the serpent woman. “What is it you have planned? I’m aware of what we discussed, the larger plan.” He can’t help but grin. “The takeover.”

It will be glorious, but we cannot and have not yet been able to fully take over a person’s life chip.

Kodai nods.

This isn’t the first time he’s heard the woman mention ‘we.’ She has told him some of what she, or better, they, are trying to do. It seems easiest with RPCs, as their D-NAS has already been registered in Tritania’s system and when they take an avatar, small slivers of their original avatar remain with them, which is how the infection seeds.

But all they’ve been able to do with this infection is briefly modify a person’s iNet display. They still haven’t worked the kinks out in actually controlling the person, and for the most part, people that don’t immediately die after they see Tritania play out on their real world feed seem to recover. Well, sort of. They generally end up going insane, which doesn’t help to build an army at all.

An army of people who are controlled from within the game.

The thought only increases the size of Kodai’s grin.

They will work the kinks out. Kodai knows this, and he has already begun to plan how to control this army of mind-zapped denizens in the world out there. When they first met, it only took the serpent woman thirty minutes of explaining how it would work to completely sell him on the idea.

Still, he had questions, and for the most part, she deflected any question that dealt with specifics or reasons as to why he was chosen for this task.

“What is your plan?” he asks. “Should we attack them again?” A sinister grin spreads across his face. “I’d love, love, to lead an attack.”

Come here.

Kodai takes a step towards the open doorway in the center of the room. He reaches his arms in, moves closer, and breaches the game-time continuum.

His body and lower torso are still firmly planted outside the golden door, but his upper body is now inside.

He blinks as he takes in the starry galaxy in which the serpent woman stands.

She moves closer to him and a forked tongue extends from her mouth. It touches the bottom of his chin and pulls him just a bit closer to her.

The woman kisses him, as she did before, and as they kiss, images flash in front of his mind’s eye.

He sees a man in a robe; a white mage floating in the air with her nose upturned; a clean cut guy pursuing him around a circular hallway; a man in a life vest with arms that have turned into two grotesque weapons surrounded by throngs of screaming people; a war viewed from a perch in the sky; a faun flying through the air with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth as he unloads an ungodly amount of bullets; a black man pleading with her in the very space in which they currently stand.

Kodai just barely manages to pull away.

I believe you will really enjoy our next move.

“Sure, but,” he tries to recall the images as they slowly burn out, “but … what was that? What did you just show me?”

My past. Once you leave here, you will spawn in Porthos. Her eyes soften as she takes in Kodai’s face. You will mask your handle, and you will wreak havoc.

So transfixed is he by her gaze, Kodai doesn’t see the tendril of green magic moving to his temple.

“And the authorities will think it’s Ryuk,” he says.

And you will continue to disrupt his guild, preventing him from furthering his endeavors.

“What makes you think he’s going to Porthos?” Kodai asks. “He’s way out of the way.”

Your brother may not be as smart as you, but I’m assuming he’s smart enough to know when he is in over his head. I believe he is hoping to contact The Knights of Non Compos Mentis, specifically Sophia.

“Then we can bring the battle to them.”

The serpent woman smiles. The knights are the most powerful guild Tritania has ever seen. Bringing the battle to them, as you have suggested, will not only result in the Shinigami being destroyed, it will also tip them off to our plan.

“How would they know?”

They’ll know. In Porthos, you must make it so no one trusts Ryuk and his guildmates so that even if they’re telling the truth, the Empress and Sophia will find it hard to believe. Of course, after you’ve caused some havoc, you can continue leveling up and building our group. You’ll get your chance to battle, but first, the psychological warfare continues. Their confusion is our victory.

“How did you get in here?” Kodai asks suddenly. “Who are you really?”

We will speak soon.

Kodai tries to fight a force that pushes him back out of the open door. As soon as he’s out, the door pops shut, and to the right of it, a blip of light that he recognizes as a spawning point appears.

Kodai reaches out for it, and everything time warps.

(0)__(0)

Kodai’s avatar forms on the top floor of a building near a great dock.

The sky is dark, but he can see the faint outline of a magic half-sphere covering the city of Porthos, the capital of Polynya. The serpent woman’s magic still dissipates off him as he takes a step forward, and he instantly senses a few others around him.

He sees the two NPCs, the Berserker Mage and his Dark Mage companion. He also sees Tomas, who has respawned quickly, and Tamana, her head still bowed in his direction. The NPC owner of the establishment has been stretched out over a table with his arms and legs tied to the table’s legs.

A rag is stuffed in his mouth.

The man’s eyes go wide as Kodai approaches him. Curious as to how he’ll react, Kodai takes a small blade from his inventory list and runs it along the man’s jawline. The man tries to squirm, but is prevented from doing much more than shifting his body ever-so-slightly.

Kodai grows bored quickly and stabs the blade into the man’s open palm.

-82 HP!

The man screams a muffled shriek, pisses himself, and passes out.

The Berserker Mage lowers the hood covering his head and steps forward. He takes a knee in front of Kodai. “Empress Thun is having a procession tomorrow at noon. It would be a great place to be disruptive,” he says with a grin. Kodai has seen the mage do this before; the only time he speaks is when the serpent woman speaks through him, same with the other mage.

“Then that settles it. Each of you draft up a plan. In the afternoon, we will see that Empress Thun hears from Ryuk and his band of fucking losers.” Kodai lifts his finger and the logout button appears. “I have to go,” he says hastily, “I’m expecting someone.”

Chapter 14: Extreme Vetting (For Fick’s Sake)

The warrior is muscular, with dark eyes and long, brown hair. He holds a huge sword that is splintered into three distinct peaks. A Unigaean tattoo is etched across his chest, visible due to the way his armor is cut.

Ryuk recognizes the man at once. He saw him once before, at a distance, while he was near the Mines of Rotlana with Tamana. It feels like ages ago now, and he doesn’t remember seeing a giant black wolf with the man.

The man’s stats appear:

Oric Rune Level 58 Warrior Berserker

HP: 104/3,104

ATK: 554

MATK: 11

DEF: 467

MDF: 389

LUCK: 31

Oric Rune points his Splintered Sword at the group and drops to a knee. Ryuk notices a scar on his neck, a bite mark, but he quickly returns his attention to the black wolf that snarls next to him, ready to pounce.

“All right, sheeples,” says the gaseous goblin with a hint of caution in his voice, “Twixy and Liz take Conan with his broken-ass sword; the rest of us, you too, Elfy, take the green-eyed wolf. Marbles, see if you can’t fire a shot right in his ass, like you did that bearadillo. Right in the pocket.”

Hiccup’s face morphs from serious to comical as he imagines the bearadillo crying out in pain after Ryuk popped him in the sphincter with an explosive marble. “Fick that was funny! Let’s get ‘em!”

“I’ll kill you first, goblin.” Oric stands and lifts his sword, only to fall to a knee again. The veins on his arms bulge, and even in the dim light, Ryuk can see that the warrior’s skin has a green tint to it.

“Like fick you will!”

“I think he’s been poisoned,” Enway says, but no one really pays attention to her.

Hiccup smacks his spiked club against his shield. The wolf bolts forward, nips at the goblin, and returns to Oric’s side after the warrior whistles for him.

“Fick!” The goblin lets loose a squeaker that instantly befouls the air. The wolf’s nose twitches at the smell, but it isn’t long before he quickly returns to his aggressive stance.

“You won’t like him when he’s angry,” Oric coughs. The Unigaean warrior is back on his feet now, just barely, and it takes him longer than expected to lift his sword.

Ryuk’s eyes return to the wolf’s stats.

Tagvornin Wolf Level 38

HP: 2296/2296

ATK: 679

MATK: 0

DEF: 521

MDF: 236

LUCK: 19

The wolf will be difficult, Ryuk thinks, but this guy only has 100 HP left.

Zaena steps to the front of the group with two of her four swords drawn. The wolf growls at her and she ignores him. “I respect a warrior who will fight to the end,” she says, and just as Ryuk is thinking Zaena has turned over a new leaf, the Thulean asks, “How would you like us to bury you and your dog?”

“Fick yeah!” Hiccup calls out from the back of the group. Somehow, the goblin has managed to weasel his way behind Enway, so he is the last person in line, furthest away from the action.

“Easy, babe.” FeeTwix places a hand on her shoulder and she bristles. “Let’s not handle this that way.”

His weapon zips away and a bag of Purina Taste of the Wild Lamb, Buffalo and Rice formula appears in his hand. He steps around Zaena, rips open the package, and proceeds to pour it out in front of the Mitherfickers.

“Is this a fickin’ ad read or something?” Hiccup asks.

“Are you hungry?” FeeTwix asks the big wolf. The beast looks from his owner to the Swede.

(0)__(0)

“His name is Wolf,” Oric says, as the pony-sized canine goes to work on the pile of dog food that FeeTwix has laid out.

“That’s like Liz’s mom naming her Liz!” Hiccup snorts. “Fick me, I’m funny. Hey!” He swats at the air, hoping to catch Zaena’s ghost limbs in the act. “Enough with the konoshlo, Lizzy, it’s late and I’m already creeped out.” He shivers, looks around, and eyes a particular shrub suspiciously for a moment. “Better not be any ghosts up here.”

“Wolf loves the food,” FeeTwix says, “but most dogs do. I, um, need to get my GPS bullet out of him. Unless you want to.”

Oric gives him a funny look. “You shot my dog?”

“Well, yeah. But it’s pretty easy to get this particular bullet out. Painless really, you just have to flash this little device I have … ” FeeTwix rummages around in the pocket of his overcoat. “Ah! Here it is. Flash this over it and the bullet will release its barbs. Then you just push it out. I can do it, but you probably should, seeing how you’re his owner and whatnot.”

Oric limps forward and takes the small device, which is about the size of a credit card.

“Know where you shot him?”

“In the hind leg – right leg, I believe.”

Oric presses a button and red light appears. He runs it over his wolf’s right leg as it eats, and sure enough, a beeping sound lets him know he’s found the bullet. Once the barbs have retracted, he smooths his hand over Wolf’s fur and the bullet drops out.

“You want the bullet back?”

“Um, sure.”

Ryuk switches to instant messaging.

Ryuk: He’s level 58. Everyone saw that, right?

FeeTwix: Noted.

Zaena: He is very powerful.

Hiccup: That’s what she said. Fick me, I’m funny.

Ryuk: This may be a little presumptious, but what if we ask him to join us? I mean, he needs to heal up, obviously, but you saw what we just went up against back there. Tomas was in the fifties, and I’m guessing the next enemy the Shinigami throw at us will be equally leveled. Tamana is leveling up too.

Hiccup: The fick you just say?

Zaena: We’ll need to be careful, but I don’t see any problem with improving the strength of …

Hiccup: The Mitherfickers. We have a name and if I’m not mistaken, I’ve never heard you use it.

FeeTwix: Not a bad plan at all. Plus I like dogs.

Ryuk: Is that why you had dog food in your list?

FeeTwix: Damn skippy. I had a dog named Rex in Dead City. He was one killer Pomeranian!

Ryuk feels someone tug on his hand. He turns back to see Hiccup scowling at him.

“Marbles, I swear to the Empress, kid, I like you, I really do, especially after your balls dropped a few days back, and sure, you need to visit a whorehouse with me to keep those nuts hanging, but that’s beside the point. Where was I?”

Ryuk starts to sigh and Hiccup cuts him off.

“No, don’t remind me. I remember– extreme vetting. Whatever happened to extreme vetting? Remember the ban? I’m calling it a ban, there, I said it, and don’t for a minute think that a mangy wolf the size of a Chiup hog and fickin’ He-Man over there with his dumbass sword of doom are going to pass the test.”

“Test?” Ryuk shoos Hiccup away.

“I’m not finished! After what your bride-to-be Tammy did back at the Shinigami’s guild quarters, we need a test to vet, extremely vet, anyone that we offer membership to.”

Ryuk raises an eyebrow at him. “What if one of your cousins asks to join?”

“Why would we need to vet one of them? They’re good people. Except Spew Gorge. He’s a real little ficker. He’s possibly my son too, but you didn’t hear that from me. But yeah, fick Tarzan over here and the wolf he rode in on.”

“Your goblin is a real asshole,” Oric says after he’s heard Hiccup say all this.

Ryuk’s face flushes red, embarrassment writ large. “Don’t listen to him,” he tells the poisoned warrior. “He can be … ”

“I can be what?” Hiccup presses past Ryuk and points his mechanical finger at Oric. “And for fick’s sake, what is with all the racism in this guild? I’m nobody’s goblin, I have a name. What’s with you people?”

“You people?” Zaena asks.

Ryuk interjects, “Hiccup, relax, ‘goblin’ is not a racial term.”

“Yeah, when we use it, but if others use it … you know what? Fick all of you, especially Liz.” He shoulders his way to the back of the group again.

“Fick you too, goblin!” Zaena laughs.

“Hey!”

“Is he always like this?” Oric asks.

“Not always,” says FeeTwix, “but usually. Anyway, ignore him. It’s late, and if he’s not gambling or visiting the hen house, Hiccup likes to get to bed early.”

“Damn straight, Twixy!”

“We may not seem like we get along,” Zaena says, “but we all generally like each other, some more than others.”

Enway chuckles. “Don’t look at me. I’m not part of the group yet. I haven’t been vetted either.”

Hiccup throws his hands in the air. “Fick it, he can join the guild. I give up. Not on Elfy though, she’s still getting vetted.”

“Baka!” Ryuk whispers under his breath.

“Join your guild?” Oric’s expression turns dark. “Not interested.”

“Good for me. Fick you and your dirty mutt. Twixy, got another headlamp?”

FeeTwix nods and the headlamp appears in his hand. The goblin waddles over to him, swipes it out of his hand, and once it is secured and he has made sure his pink hair doesn’t look bad, Hiccup goes over to the cliffside, finds a perch, and pulls a copy of the Tritanian Times out of thin air.

He makes a point to open to the jobs section and starts perusing the “Help Wanted” page.

A sudden realization flashes across Enway’s face. “You … you have Emil’s Sickness, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” says Oric. “I’m not familiar with many of the sicknesses of this world.”

“Do you mind if I examine you?”

Hiccup laughs from his perch. “Hell no he doesn’t!”

“Um, sure.” Wolf looks up at Enway as she circles around the pile of dog food and over to his master. “Relax, boy,” the warrior says under his breath.

“Let me see your arm.”

Oric shows her his exposed arm. Healing magic sprinkles from her fingertips as she touches him, and as she predicted, her healing power has no effect on him.

“I’m sorry,” she finally says, her eyes filling with concern, “I don’t know how to cure this.”

“Look no further!” FeeTwix points a finger in the air. “First person to tell me a cure for Emil’s Sickness gets an exclusive selfie of me and a one hundred dollar gift certificate to McStarbucks!” His eyes flash as he begins reading messages. “I see! Interesting. Ooo, risqué – can’t do that one! Uh-huh … uh-huh … that’s not too hard! Boom, done! All right, everybody, it looks like the Mitherfickers are heading to Lake Klattenhoff!”

“Lake Klattenhoff?” Ryuk asks.

“It’s where we’ll find the cure to Emil’s Sickness, according to, oh, about two thousand of my fans.”

“What? Are you out of your mind, Twixy? We’re helping this fickin’ jabroni?”

“That’s just the kind of Mitherfickers we are!” FeeTwix offers Oric his biggest, most sincere, shit-eating grin. “Give me a moment as I consult with my colleagues.”

“By all means,” Oric says, still hunched over. Ryuk senses that he’s still ready to pounce if need be, but he also appears relatively happy that he won’t be forced to fight.

“Ryuk. Babe.” FeeTwix waves the two over to Hiccup.

Meanwhile, Enway stays near Oric, still examining his illness. Ryuk stops and admires her for a moment, appreciating that she’s trying even though she knows all hope is lost.

Tamana is like that.

‘Was’ like that, he reminds himself bitterly.

“What the fick, Twixy?” Hiccup asks as soon as the Swede nears him. “Back me up here, Marbles, the Mitherfickers got places to go and people to see. We’re not taking on charity cases. If we were, hell, there’s a lot of work we could do in Jatla.”

“My goblin friend,” FeeTwix says, taking a seat on the rock next to Hiccup. He places his arm around his shoulders.

“It’s Hiccup and, well actually, I don’t mind when you say it like that. All right, Twixy, you fickin’ charmed me over. I’ll give you my wallet and a handie if you’re nice. Joking, Liz, don’t get pouty. I’m not touching his chalupa. Give me the lowdown, Twixy.”

“So it’s like this,” FeeTwix explains. “That man’s wolf–”

“The wolf’s name is Wolf,” Ryuk reminds everyone.

“Wolf is going to keep attacking Katiyana if we don’t do something about his injured owner. So even if he won’t join us, and I have a sneaking suspicion that he will, we’ll still be handling the town’s affair and then we’ll be granted access to the catacombs, and then we’ll get to Porthos, get the Knight’s attention, and save this world and our world.”

“Just like that?” Hiccup asks.

“Just like that.”

“I like the plan.” Zaena uses a ghost limb to fondly lift FeeTwix’s face up. She smiles down at him for a moment, before they’re interrupted by Hiccup’s belch.

“Fick, sorry, guys. DD’s BBQ is burning a hole in my gut.”

With his eyes burning, Ryuk waves the rancid, peppery stench away. “FeeTwix is right,” he says, once it is safe to breathe again. “It seems like the only way forward. If we cure him, we’ll stop Wolf from raiding the town. Everyone wins.”

“Cool, cool, cool,” rattles off the goblin, “you three go, and Enway and I’ll stay back here. Someone has to watch Snowballs, that’ll be Enway. And there’s a little room above DD’s BBQ, a perfect place to take in the sights and smells, if you get my drift.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” says the Swede. “If you come with us, a fan of yours, one of the Fickers, is promising you a specially delivered box of Hopkins’.”

“What size box?”

“A big box. How does that sound?”

Hiccup grabs FeeTwix by the cheeks with his grubby hands and stares into his jet black eyes. “Are you telling me that I can barter with these fickers?”

The Swede nods.

“In that case, fick yeah I’m going! Also, Marbles, I still want my eight percent cut of the final loot.”

“It’s one percent, just like we agreed.”

“No, that’s the people who benefit most from the Empress’ most recent tax cuts. Ha! See what I did there. Fick rich people, that is, until I become one. Then fick the poor.”

Ryuk sighs audibly. “Two percent.”

“Three.”

“Fine.”

“Then it’s a deal! Glad I put all this together.” There’s suddenly pep in the goblin’s walk as he struts his way back over to Oric and Enway. “Good news, kiddos, the Mitherfickers have reached a compromise! Gladiator, expect to have your ass healed by morning.”

Chapter 15: Doing Oric a Solid

Rather than take Marty’s crazy ride again, the Mitherfickers decide to brave the night and walk to Lake Klattenhoff, which is a couple of hours north. As they walk, Hiccup and Zaena get into a heated debate on what racism is and how, while he accuses everyone else of being a racist, Hiccup is the most racist of them all.

“What? Just because I don’t like elves? I mean, Enway is okay, but most are shady magic wielding poofty little kiddy fickers. They have dumb ears too.”

“See? Racist.”

“Don’t like Thuleans neither, although you’re not bad either, at least when you’re not messing with my hair. And seriously, Liz, there was a fickin’ hotbody back at DD’s BBQ who was all over me because of my good features, so don’t go saying I’m some sort of chubby little fickbag because I got the looks, the attitude, and the know-how to land a number of babes.” Hiccup grins at FeeTwix. “Boy fick, Twixy, you should have seen the mammaries on that one! Mamtacular!”

“A female liked you?” Zaena asks, skeptically.

“Why is that so hard to believe? Yeah, she was a bit of a porker, not my kind of halfling. I’ll be honest, for halflings, I like them thin. Orcs? Jelly rolls, at least six. Elves? Don’t like them, especially their ears, but I already said that. Humans? Depends on if they’re commoners or not. Also, I don’t like immiNPCs, but I do like Dirty Dave, because what the fick can I say? He’s a high-quality guy.”

The goblin stops, scratches his ass, and continues.

“Who else don’t I like? Beastkins? Fick no. I hate women with furry tails. Drows? Refer back to my opinion of elves. Dwarves? If they’re not too short. No one likes a shorty. Gnomes? If they don’t have hats. Thuleans, yeah, no. Sorry. Too hoity toity. Too tall. Too green. Kind of hot, actually,” he licks his lips, “but way too dangerous. Commies? Fick them. Ink shadows? Fickin’ ghost face killers if you ask me, fick them to hell.”

“And that, goblin, is why I believe you are the most racist of the Mitherfickers.”

“Whatever, Liz, there are people I like too. Like that halfling back at DD’s BBQ I was telling Twixy about. If this were any other night, I’d be knee deep in–”

Ryuk tunes Hiccup out at just the right time.

Instead, he focuses on the path that lies ahead, noticing little flickers of green magic lifting from the grass into the air. The entire place is magical, he thinks. With a deep breath in, he recalls Hajime’s oblique quote about forgetting his breath.

He turns to Hiccup and notices that the goblin is red in the face from so much talking. Talking, talking, talking – it seems that Hiccup speaks just so there’s someone speaking; that, or he’s uncomfortable with silence.

I wonder what would happen if I showed Hiccup what Hajime showed me? he thinks, remembering the way Hajime told him to visualize his breath. Breath in, bring in the color green. Breath out, exhale red.

Of course, Ryuk can hardly focus long enough to even visualize the color, but he did feel better after the breathing exercise, and he will definitely be doing a breathing exercise before he meets his brother and his mother tomorrow.

He shudders.

It’s going to be an awkward meeting that will likely revolve around what happened in the apartment. Their mother doesn’t normally put her fingers in their day-to-day affairs, but when she does, she has a habit of quickly taking over and crushing any opposition that stands in her way.

“So anyfick, like I said, Lizzy, I’m not a racist.”

“You just spent five minutes telling me all the types of people you hate for a variety of petty reasons such as the color of their skin or their general height, yet you say you aren’t racist.”

Ryuk fires off a private message to Zaena.

Ryuk: It is impossible to argue with a goblin. You’ve been warned.

Zaena: Let me try this then.

She snaps her fingers in the air. “You know what, Hiccup, you’re right. You aren’t racist. I was wrong. Everyone else is racist,” she says in a way that actually sounds sincere.

“Pfft!” Hiccup laughs long and hard. “You’re an idiot, Liz, everyone knows I’m racist. Did you hear all that shit I just said? ‘I don’t like giants because they are big and the color of their skin reminds me of the diarrhea that happens after a night of guzzling drorikh?’ I hate to break it to you, but that’s racist!”

FeeTwix turns to Hiccup and his eyes flash blue. “Enough, Hiccup. You’ve really set off a huge discussion about race on my feed and if you didn’t already know, when any online discussion of race comes out, there’s bound to be a troll lurking.”

“You guys have trolls too?” Hiccup’s eyes go wide. “Fick those guys. All of them are lazy, and most have poor personal hygiene.”

“Yes, we do have trolls, but not in the way that you think.”

The goblin continues. “Are your trolls greasy little-minded fickers that like to fick with people just to see their reactions and actually do this under the guise that they are being serious yet on some levels, they are being serious? Are they fat? Generally less educated? Of questionable hygiene?”

FeeTwix considers this. “Well, I don’t know if all of them are, but that’s definitely a subset.”

Hiccup pauses to consider this. “Damn, everything I learn about your world up there makes me hate it more. At least trolls here are pretty easy to kill.”

He goes from a conversation about trolls, killing trolls, best torture practices for trolls, to a conversation about the various ways he’d cook Oric’s big black wolf if he were allowed to kill it. By the time the goblin reaches this topic, Ryuk has long since tuned him out.

Breathe, he thinks.

It’s a nice night, cold and breezy, and after he’s lifted his brown hood over his head to block the wind, Ryuk slows his pace so the three can walk ahead a bit.

His Extreme Focus kicks in, and he keeps his eyes on their surroundings just in case.

(0)__(0)

The four Mitherfickers arrive at Lake Klattenhoff, which is smaller than the lakes Ryuk is used to seeing in the real world. Lake Okutama, Suwa Lake, Lake Kitaura – the lakes in Japan are large and plentiful, places to spend vacations or to take short weekend trips.

Ryuk has taken a few of those, mostly when he was younger, when his family actually traveled together. He recalls biking around Suwa Lake with his brother, tailed by two of his father’s hired muscle. Not until he was older did he realize how odd it was to have security everywhere he went.

But that’s a different life, a life far removed from where he currently stands, in front of quaint Lake Klattenhoff surrounded by sand dunes licked with frost.

It’s noticeably colder here, and Ryuk comes up with the clever idea of palming a pair of molten marbles to keep his hands warm. It works, and he keeps the marbles gripped tightly as he approaches the lake and looks to the northern shore.

A series of tents lit with lanterns are pressed up against the shoreline. A few herders sit around a campfire warming their hands. On the far side of their camp are several griffins, their feathers reflecting the light from the lanterns.

Griffin herders, he thinks.

In the spring, once the frost melts, griffin herders hold an epic race that spans from the top to the bottom of the floating continent. The winner gets an audience with Empress Thun and rare sponsored items. Last year, it was a Wendy’s Hut stuffed crust bacon burger helm that gave the wearer plus fifty defense and also allowed them access to exclusive eateries all across Tritania, famed for their food which permanently increases HP.

“So where are the herbs?” Hiccup yawns. “I’m ready to cure Conan’s ass so we can get this show on the road.” A devious grin spreads across his face. “Plus, there’s still the issue of that halfling back at DD’s BBQ.”

FeeTwix’s eyes flash as he scans messages from his followers. “Ah! Here it is. We’re not looking for herbs, we’re looking for lily pads. Apparently, these lily pads are baked and then beaten to a fine powder. Then we mix it with some food and BOOM! We have ourselves a cured warrior that can take care of his pooch. Strange guy, by the way. Something different about him.”

“That’s because he’s not from here,” Ryuk says as he takes a few steps closer to the water. His Extreme Focus kicks in and it takes all of three seconds for him to catch some of the lily pads in question.

“Not from here?” Hiccup asks. “Like one of you fickin’ commoners? I knew I smelt something funny about the guy!”

“From another world?” Zaena asks. The Thulean has moved to the edge of the water and in a swift gesture, plucks one of the lily pads from the surface. She flips it up and over, and it lands square on Hiccup’s head.

“Fick me, Liz, careful with the goods!” he growls, and the way he fixes his pink topknot tells Ryuk that the goblin is referring to his hair, not the plants to be collected.

“Oric is from Unigaea,” Ryuk explains. “It was a fantasy world popular in the 2060s, so he’s a Player Character and, in a way, an immiNPC.”

“That would explain the tattoo on his chest,” says the Swede.

“Unigaea was a special fantasy world because of its mechanics, which made it quite frustrating. If you died in Unigaea, you died. That was it. You had to start over with a different avatar.”

Zaena turns to Ryuk and eyes him curiously. “I’m guessing that doesn’t apply to my kind.”

He shrugs. “I don’t know how it applied to NPCs, but anyway, to finish the story. Something happened, a source code bomb, and some people from Unigaea came here. Remember those two gnomes back in Kayi?”

“No,” she says.

“That’s cause you and Twixy were too busy killing zombies while Tammy – fick her by the way – and Marbles and I were busy looting. That’s how you got your necklace. The gnomes gave it to us. I forgot their names. Anus and Chippie. That might have been it. You’re wearing your necklace, right?”

“Arun and Chantrea. They were married,” Ryuk interjects.

“Close enough, and that’s their damn fault.”

Zaena pulls it out from the front of her armor. “I’ve been wearing the necklace since it was given to me.”

“We should see what Oric says about it,” Ryuk suggests. “He may be able to read it or tell us if it has some type of power. There’s no telling.”

“Good idea.” Zaena lifts another lily pad from the water and flings it over her head. As she does so, a great beast, easily the size of a city bus, pulls out of the center of the lake, flapping its enormous wings.

“Holy fick!” Hiccup shrieks, and lets loose a squealer.

The great beast cries out, shakes more water from its gigantic wings, and lifts into the air.

“What the hell is that thing!?” FeeTwix shouts, his eyes black orbs. “A what?” he asks his fans.

“Charochakcha!”

“WE’RE FICKED!” Hiccup dives for cover just as the great bird-like creature swoops down and grabs the goblin with its talons.

It screeches and the crimson wattle beneath its neck expands in size as it lifts back into the air.

(0)__(x)

“It has Hiccup!” Ryuk charges after the giant bird and as he does so, its stats appear before him.

Charochakcha Level ??

HP: 2000/2000

ATK: 348

MATK: 0

DEF: 407

MDF: 386

LUCK: 25

Her ghost limbs propelling her forward, Zaena hurls herself into the air and latches on to the feathered creature.

She hits the dirt as she’s dragged forward, and she collides with a thick bramble that definitely gives her some nicks and scrapes. From there, she’s airborne, propelling herself closer to the flying monstrosity in her mad dash to save Hiccup.

Save Hiccup? Even Ryuk takes a split second to consider this and its implications. They may be a motley group, half NPC and half commoner, but the Mitherfickers are the best damn guild he’s ever been part of, well, sort of. Well, at least for entertainment value, Ryuk thinks, and while they bicker and disagree, everyone has each other’s back.

Case in point: FeeTwix, who has equipped the bazooka he forced Ryuk to use against the Cherry Blossom Ninjas. With a squeeze of the trigger, the rocket whips into the air and collides with the great flying beast’s tail.

-110 HP!

“Fiiiiiiiicccckkk yoooooouuuu, Twixxxxxxyyyyyyy!” Ryuk hears Hiccup shout, as the bird drops towards the ground. Soon, it’s trying to again pick up speed, forcing the goblin to run like a madman through a patch of prickly bushes. “Fick, fick, fick!” he cries, running and simultaneously trying to wiggle out of the bird’s grip.

Ryuk leaps over a bush, nearly trips, gets his footing, and keeps his marble gun trained on the bird’s ass. He’ll take any shot, but his Cherry Poppin’ Daddy Skill would definitely leave the bird begging for mercy.

He keeps his Marble Gun trained on the bird, and he’s just about to fire off a round of molten marbles when the creature turns, pulls back, and screeches, sending a tunnel of wind in Ryuk’s direction.

Whack!

-69 HP!

He hits the ground hard after colliding with a tree branch. Another rocket sails over his head. Ryuk looks up just in time to see it pass right next to the bird, who has veered off to the left, Hiccup in its grip and Zaena trying desperately to climb up to its neck.

“I’m going with a hack!” FeeTwix announces.

Ryuk stands, rubs his temples for a moment, and takes off the other way once the bird has swooped back around.

“Shit!” He pops his molten mag out and replaces it with sword marbles. He keeps running, aimed directly at the shore of the lake. He glances over his shoulder, back to his path, and over his shoulder again.

The bird is gaining on him.

If I can just …

Ryuk takes a deep breath and increases his speed. The bird chases and just as it is about to snap at him with its ginormous beak, Ryuk drops onto his back, slides forward, and with his marble gun aimed over his head, fires all eight sword marbles at the approaching bird.

-85 HP! -106 HP! -32 HP! -66 HP!

The bird lifts and drops Hiccup, who lands on Ryuk and for once doesn’t let loose a cloud of putrid fecal fumes.

“Get off me, Hiccup!”

“Shit, Marbles! Fick this! Fick this! I’m going back to Jatla!” The goblin pushes himself off Ryuk and accidently stumbles over him again as he tries to flee. This time he does remind Ryuk what DD’s BBQ must have tasted like, and it takes all of Ryuk’s willpower not to pistol-whip the living shit out of the gaseous goblin.

Zaena flips off the flailing bird and superhero lands next to Hiccup.

The charochakcha hits the ground, scrambles to its feet and …

Schoooom!

A bolt of green energy at least two meters tall rips through the soil. It connects with the large bird, rips its head and shoulders off in a spray of blood, and continues past the now dead creature, where it eventually takes out a large oak tree.

Instakill!

Level up! LUCK +1

Ryuk Matsuzaki Level 16 Ballistics Mage

HP: 426/495

ATK: 103

MATK: 134

DEF: 81

MDF: 56

LUCK: 14

Ryuk feels a pouch form on his belt and a prompt appears.

New marble acquired! Gravity marbles change the gravitational pull of the object it connects with. It will pull a flying object to the ground, and move a semi-stationary object to the nearest surface. It can also be used to hurl an enemy into an object.

A new marble?

“Hey, I got a new marble,” Ryuk informs his guildmates.

“What kind?” Zaena stands near him now, brushing off her armor. There are a few scrapes and nicks on her, but the huge smile on her face tells Ryuk that she lives for this kind of action.

“A gravity marble.”

“We’ll have to test that out.”

“Fick!” Hiccup says as he watches the bird’s body continue to burn with a green fire. The goblin looks down the line at FeeTwix, whose mutant hack crossbow has already returned to its original shape. From there, he looks back at the bird, nodding as he takes in the Swede’s handiwork.

“Not fickin’ bad, Twixy,” he says as a large knife appears in his hand. “Liz, set up camp by the water. Marbles, get out my sleeping bag. We can fick with your new marble later. Let’s carve this bitch up while the meat is still smoking.”

“I don’t have your sleeping bag,” Ryuk says, still unsure if it is a good idea to breathe after the foul stench that the goblin just bequeathed onto the digital world.

“FeeTwix does. That reminds me.” Hiccup takes a cherry-flavored, generic healing potion out of thin air and downs it. “Fick me, that’s the good stuff.” He reviews the label. “Cherry Apollos, huh? Fick, this is a good potion. I’ll have to write this one down.”

He burps, and tosses the bottle over his shoulder. Another potion appears and he savors this one, doing his best to clean inside the bottle with his boily tongue. “Yeah, it’ll give me heartburn later, and if this doesn’t, this oversized pigeon over here definitely will. But them’s the ropes. Come on, Mitherfickers, let’s camp.”

“I’m not eating that.”

“You know what, Liz? Normally, I’d argue with you, but Uncle Goblin is tired right now and all I really want to do is eat something, drink something, relax under the stars, think about some of my past loves and see what arises if you get my hint, and sleep in tomorrow. So, just to show you how big of a gentleman I am, I won’t respond to your clear and bigoted hatred towards good eating.”

The two lock eyes.

“And one other thing,” says the goblin, “um, thanks for saving me back there.”

“It was my pleasure, Hiccup.”

“Although it was actually Marbles and Twixy who saved me, but you were the first to go for it.”

“You’re pushing your luck. And seriously, I’m not eating charochakcha.”

Hiccup snorts, “Fine, fine, Your Highness, the kid and I will catch some fickin’ fish for you. Ain’t that right, Marbles?”

“Um … sure.”

“Fickin’ fish – that has a ring to it!”

Chapter 16: Poisoned by a Seagull

After waking at the crack of dawn, Ryuk looks up at the ceiling of their yurt, something FeeTwix apparently had stuffed in his inventory list, and from there, he glances around the circular tent to find the Swede and Zaena cuddled up under a blanket. A glance to the door and he sees the goblin with his back pressed against the wall, snoring loudly.

Hiccup wears a soiled bathrobe and a pair of, oddly enough, Japanese clogs, called geta. Where the goblin gets his odd clothing is beyond Ryuk. Further adding to Hiccup’s general air of bodily excretions is an actual snot bubble expanding and contracting as he snores.

Ryuk chuckles. He’s only seen that before in manga and anime, never in real life.

Real life? Ha!

He gets out of the small bed and makes his way to the front door of FeeTwix’s yurt. The cool morning air greets his face as he steps past a pile of discarded fish bones. He remembers catching the “fickin’ fish” by firing an explosive marble into the water. It was, of course, Hiccup’s idea, and it worked brilliantly.

After stretching his arms overhead, Ryuk walks down to the water and sits on a flat rock with some Thulean writing etched into it. There’s a sweet scent to the air, and while the chill is there, it shows clear signs of disappearing in the next hour or so.

As he stares out over the misty water at the herders on the other side of the lake, he runs his finger along the etching. A deep breath in and he notices the smell of the lake, and with it, a sweet smell that reminds him of watermelons.

Ryuk takes his slingshot off his belt and pouches one of his new gravity marbles. He was so distracted last night that he forgot to give the marble a test. With everyone sleeping, he now has the time and quiet to see what it is the marble actually does.

The gravity marble is clear with a cream swirl running through it. It is slightly warm to the touch, and even as he holds it in the pouch of his Magic Slingshot, he notices that it adds an odd weight to his wrist. He aims at the water, pulls back and …

“Hi.”

He hops off his rock at Zaena’s voice and nearly lets the marble fly. The Thulean takes a few steps in front of him, her orange hair disheveled.

“You scared me,” he says, a bit too late.

She shrugs. “I figured squeezing your shoulder with my konoshlo would have scared you even more. Let’s see it.”

“My new marble?”

“Please, you said it was a gravity marble, did you not?”

“Yep.”

“Fire it.”

Ryuk aims at the water and zings the marble away. As soon as it touches the surface, a large scoop of water lifts several feet into the air and hovers there.

“Whoa,” Zaena says. “How long will it last?”

Ryuk palms another marble. “No idea; that’s the first one I’ve shot.” He glances around for a moving object. “I need to test something in motion.”

“Test me,” Zaena volunteers.

He hesitates. “You sure?”

“I’m sure. Let’s see what it does.”

They both watch as the floating scoop of water loses its shape. Droplets form on its underbelly and plink onto the surface of Lake Klattenhoff.

“I don’t want it to hurt you.”

“Come on.” Zaena leads Ryuk to a clearing. The Thulean runs a few paces away from him and drops to a battle stance. “Do it.”

“Um … ” Ryuk aims his magic slingshot at her. He doesn’t like the idea of firing on Zaena and is in the process of lowering his weapon when she shouts out to him.

“Do it, Ryuk! Don’t be a little bitch!”

Fwwhip!

The gravity marble strikes her in the sternum and sends her flying backwards, not by explosion, but by something that reminds Ryuk of a clear bubble.

“Shit, Zaena!”

The Thulean zips backwards until she smacks into a tree.

“Damn!” she shouts out, baring her teeth as she laughs. “That was crazy!” Zaena tries to squirm out of her pinned position. The tree branches above shake as she attempts to use her ghost limbs to pull herself up. “It’s like glue!” she says, once she realizes she’s unable to move.

Ryuk looks down at the gravity marble in his hand. He turns to see that the scoop of water hovering over the lake has dissipated.

It doesn’t last very long …

He approaches Zaena, and as he does, she starts to shake her shoulders loose. “It’s freeing up!”

So like thirty seconds?

She drops and quickly moves over to him. “Wow! Your new marble is very, very interesting. Just think of what you will be able to do!”

“Do you think … ?” Ryuk places the marble in his mouth and feels gravity tug at his stomach.

“Amazing!”

New skill learned!

Skill: Levitate

Level One: By placing a marble in your mouth, you can levitate for thirty seconds. Higher levels allow for longer levitation.

Requirements: Level 15 Mage, LUCK > 12.

Ryuk now floats about a meter off the ground. He looks down at Zaena with a huge grin on his face.

“Do something!” she calls up to him.

“What do you mean?” he asks, the marble still in his mouth. He notices that it has started to dissolve. It fizzles on the back of his tongue and is completely flavorless.

“Um, fly or something!”

“I’m not flying, I’m floating!”

“Then float.” She moves her hand in a swimming gesture. “Like this.”

“It’s not like that, it’s like … ” He thinks of the best way to describe it. “It’s like I’m on solid ground.” He takes a step forward to demonstrate. “An invisible plane.”

“Can you go higher?”

Ryuk falls back to the ground. “No idea,” he says as he pops another marble in his mouth. He resumes his floating position and places his hands before him. As he does, he feels what seems to be an invisible ledge. He scrambles up onto it, and now he’s about two meters up. “Apparently, I can!”

“Let me try!”

Once he’s back on the ground, he hands Zaena a gravity marble. She places it in her mouth, holds it there and ... nothing happens.

“Well, it was worth a try.” She spits the marble into her hand, and rather than give it back to Ryuk, she uses her ghost limb to pop open the pouch on his belt.

“That’s the wrong one.” He says as a tingling sensation comes over him.

“Well, which is the right one?”

“This one,” he says, pointing at the new pouch on the left. He awkwardly waits for Zaena to finish putting the marble in. Once she’s done, they turn back to the water.

“It really is a pretty lake,” he says. Secretly, he’d like to test out a few more gravity marbles, but now that Zaena’s around, he feels a bit self-conscious about it.

Why? he asks himself in his head. Humans have the weirdest emotions. He’s pretty sure she wouldn’t mind watching him lift things into the air and play with gravity for the next hour, but to be polite, he lets her take control of the conversation.

As if on cue, Zaena sighs, her eyes transfixed by the water. “This reminds me of a small pond near my home in Athos, back in Ultima Thule,” she finally says, her mood suddenly the polar opposite of what it was just moments ago.

“Oh?”

“My tutor, Clemon, would instruct me along the shoreline during the warm months. We’d start with Thulean texts, then mathematics, then combat, then lunch, and we’d usually dedicate the afternoons to studying your world.”

“He taught you all that?” Ryuk tries to remember if he’s ever had a professor who taught such a wide variety of subjects. He comes up flat.

“He was an RPC who held several doctorate degrees and studied at all the great universities across the three floating continents. He’d won awards, given lectures, had been asked to run for various offices but always declined, and in retirement, he taught me. My siblings too.”

“In combat?” Ryuk imagines an old man teaching Zaena how to swing her blades.

“Can the elderly kill just as easily as the young?” she asks.

“It sounds like it.”

Zaena’s face hardens. “But that was then, and this is now.”

“Okay?” Ryuk looks up at her, not sure of what she means by her statement.

“But he did teach me a lot about your world. Still, there are many things I don’t understand. It is odd to think we were created by your kind, yet your kind comes here to escape there. I’d love to see it, though, your world.” The smile returns to her face. “I can only imagine what it’d be like driving in an aeros, shopping, visiting other countries, using crazy technology that most of you seem to barely understand … ”

“It is definitely something else.”

Silence grows between them for the next few minutes, and Ryuk, rather than try to awkwardly force a conversation, allows the moment to happen.

“Shall we wake the others? I would keep your levitation act from the goblin for the time being. It may be useful in scaring him later on.” She grins wickedly. “I can think of a pretty funny prank we could play with a white bed sheet.”

“Yeah, that’d be good.” Ryuk laughs as one of the herders across the way mounts his griffin. The griffin flaps its wings and soon the herder is airborne.

“Let’s wake them; I’d like to be in Porthos by this afternoon if we can manage it.”

As they approach the yurt, the strong smell of coffee meets their noses. They enter to find FeeTwix in an apron with a box of cereal across the front that reads, ‘Cereal Killer.’ He points to a tray of pastries now sitting on a foldable table and a French Press filled with boiling hot coffee.

“Breakfast is served!”

“Where did you get the pastries?” Zaena asks as a small croissant floats into the air.

“Just something I keep in my list,” he says.

“And they stay fresh?” asks Ryuk.

“You tell me.”

Zaena takes a bite and nods. “This is so good!” she says with her mouth full.

“For fick’s sake, people, it’s not even the Hour of the fickin’ Faun.” The goblin stirs and once he’s able, he slips into his Japanese clogs.

“Wow, Hiccup!” FeeTwix moves over to him. “I didn’t even see those sweet shoes, buddy! Why in the hell are you wearing those?”

“They help with my posture, Twixy!” Hiccup turns and gives the Swede a side view. “They’re supposed to help me get taller too. Anyfick, gotta take a piss and we’ll see what else comes up. Ha! Back in a jiffy, fickers. One more thing, if you’re making breakfast, Twixy, try to boil me up any of the parts you can find from the big ass bird we killed last night. There’s got to be some organ meat left over. That’s good eating!”

With that, the goblin clomps out of the yurt, and for once, doesn’t do so with a parting poot.

(0)__(0)

It takes a little over two hours for the four Mitherfickers to reach the place they left Oric, Enway, and Wolf. The walk over is nice, even with Hiccup and Liz arguing this time about Dirty Dave’s innocence, the best way to skin a cat, discrimination in the goblin community, the uppityness of Thuleans, and a bunch of other topics that Ryuk tunes out.

“Finally,” Hiccup says as they see Wolf in the distance.

“He’s actually waving his tail this time,” FeeTwix comments as the big black canine comes towards them. “I don’t know what has come over him, but somehow, I think it has to do with food.”

Wolf merrily leads them along the path and Ryuk quickly sees why. Up ahead, Enway stands before a fire, grilling a Chiup hog on a rotisserie.

“Get in my belly!” Hiccup licks his lips and practically joins Wolf in the mad dash back to the side of the grill. “Gimme, gimme, gimme,” he says to Enway.

The elf laughs and pats him on his head. “Soon, Hiccup, and you can thank DD’s BBQ for setting this up. Funniest thing happened,” she says as she tilts her head to the right. “I was sitting in my living room minding Yangu ... ”

“Snowballs,” Hiccup corrects her. “The name ‘Yangu’ means nothing to me.”

“... And I heard a knock at the door. The manager from DD’s BBQ was there with a whole crew, telling me that someone had booked the rotisserie and a hog for our breakfast meeting. They even carried it up here! Talk about getting hooked up!”

Enway turns and Ryuk spots Yangu in her backpack. The baby dragon locks eyes with him and yawns.

The goblin pumps his mechanical arm in the air. “Shit, fickers, we got a mysterious sponsor!”

“It may have been one of my fans,” FeeTwix says as a mirror takes shape in his hand. “If you’re the person who oh-so-generously hooked us up, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” He bows at the mirror.

“Fick them,” Hiccup says, inching closer to the spinning hunk of pork, “it was probably Dirty Dave. I had a feeling he’s a fan. See, Lizzy, I keep telling you he’s a high-quality guy.”

“It’s not ready yet,” Enway tells him.

“I like my pork rare!”

Oric Rune leans against the rockface, his long brown hair covering the side of his face. He smiles at the bunch and takes a few hobbling steps towards them. “Were you able to get it?” he coughs.

“We certainly were,” Zaena says. Once she’s pulled it out of her list, she places the lily pads on a flat rock.

“Keep an eye on the pig,” Enway tells FeeTwix, who immediately gets the double-meaning of her statement. The Swede looks from Wolf to the goblin as a flyswatter materializes in his hand.

“Hands off, Hiccup!” He swats away Hiccup’s mechanical fingers, allowing Enway to move over to the lily pads.

Enway takes off her bag and hands it to Ryuk. Yangu coos as his red eyes spot his master. “Do you mind holding him for a moment?”

“Sure.” Ryuk steps away from the group, not sure of how he should be interacting with the baby ice dragon. He’s never been around babies, human or animal, and he’s anxious for the dragon to grow larger and start to communicate with him.

But just staring into the dragon’s deep red eyes softens his heart. The creature makes a soft sound with its throat, parts its lips, and blows a curl of icy cold air at Ryuk.

“You’re not too bad, you know that?” He pats the dragon on the head and smiles. “I have a feeling you aren’t going to be so cute when you get older, though.”

Zaena joins him. “He won’t be cuter, but he will be fiercer,” she says. “He will also be large enough for us to ride, which will give us great mobility. And he can aid us in battle, if it ever comes to that.”

“That reminds me …” Ryuk puts the backpack on, signals for Zaena to follow him, and moves back over to Oric. “Since you are from Unigaea,” he tells the muscular warrior, “I was wondering if you could look at her necklace and possibly tell us what it means.”

Oric’s eyes go wide as soon as he sees Zaena pull the necklace out from her armor. “I’ll help you in any way I can,” he says suddenly, his face white.

“You recognize it?” She removes the necklace with her ghost limbs and lifts it up into the air and over to Oric.

He holds it in his palm for a moment, closes his eyes and sighs deeply. “Another time,” he mumbles, “another place.” He dangles it in the air and she takes it back. “I have one just like it, but its powers don’t work here in Tritania. It used to modify speed, now it just looks pretty.”

A matching necklace appears in his trembling hand.

“It looks almost the exact same,” Ryuk says as he comes forward to examine it.

“Both were made by Olivas, a famous poet and jewelry smith from Unigaea, my world.” Sadness paints across his face. “Ah, but that was then, and Tritania is a great world too, if one isn’t sick.” He hands Zaena’s necklace back to her. “My offer still stands – I’ll help you in any way I can.”

“Not anytime soon you won’t.” Enway has begun laying out the lily pads to dry them. “Emil’s Sickness will take at least a day, if not more, to go away.”

“I can make the medicine myself,” he tells her. “I used to be an herbalist.”

“I used to be a fickin’ male model,” Hiccup calls over, “but you don’t hear me rattling off about my glory days.”

“Ignore him,” Zaena says, her eyes suddenly orange slits.

“You can hardly stand,” Enway tells Oric as she flattens out another lily pad. “Like I said, it’ll take up to two days for the medicine to completely heal you. Until that time, you should rest. Emil’s Sickness poisons the blood, which in your case directly affects your D-NAS. It prevents a player from ever regaining their stamina.”

“So he has an STD.” Hiccup laughs and gives FeeTwix a conspiratorial look. “Big fickin’ whoop. Shit, if we goblins gave up after getting an STD, we’d never get anything done!”

Oric glances from Ryuk to the goblin. Ryuk gives him the face the whole family makes when grandpa is drunk again.

“It’s not an STD,” Enway says, “but he did come into contact with something, likely in these mountains. It could have been something he ate. Did you eat anything odd?”

Oric glances over to his big wolf. “We eat whatever we can find.”

“I realize that, but anything out of the ordinary?”

He thinks for a moment. “We recently ate seagull.”

Hiccup snorts. “Macho Man over here can’t even afford to go down to DD’s BBQ and get himself some choice bits!” He looks to FeeTwix for support. “Can you believe this ficker?”

Wolf approaches Hiccup and the goblin suddenly shuts up. The towering canine paces around to the other side of the hog and licks his lips, in an action that could be interpreted as being either directed at Hiccup or meant for the pig.

“A seagull up here?” Enway asks.

“We thought it was odd, too,” says Oric, “but it was a fat seagull and we were hungry. So, two days, right? And you’re certain it can’t be any sooner?”

“I wouldn’t go anywhere if I were you. You need rest, Oric.”

He presses his back to the rock wall and slides down to the ground. “Then Wolf can go with you.”

“Your wolf?” Ryuk asks.

“His full name is Wolf Ruffian. He can be helpful, and I’m sure he’ll help you in the catacombs. Enway here told me about your trip to Porthos, and I don’t know exactly what you are up to, but I would at least like to offer you something. And as I stated earlier, I would like to join you when I am well.”

“Sounds good,” says Ryuk. FeeTwix and Zaena nod in agreement.

Hiccup glances from the rotating hog, to Oric, to Ryuk, to FeeTwix, and back to Ryuk. “Nope. No way I’m adding dog-sitting to my resume. And besides that, this fickin’ mutt won’t be let into the city limits of Porthos. Hell, we’re stretching it just by bringing Liz in.” He points his brass finger at Ryuk. “Marbles, you and I, we go way back, but trust me on this one, the pup stays.”

“He wouldn’t be going with you all the way to Porthos, just escorting you through the catacombs,” Oric says firmly.

“He’d be more helpful than you, goblin.”

“Fick me to the moon and back, Liz, how many times do I have to tell you … ” Hiccup takes a deep breath, turns away from the Thulean, and scratches the back of his head with his middle finger.

“Of course we’ll let Wolf come with us!” FeeTwix announces as his eyes flash blue. “I only have a few seconds here so I’ll make this quick: views are surging at the moment, and adding a wolf and an elf to our group will surely, surely give my viewers something they’ve never seen before! I swear we’ll end up on an episode of Flight Feet if we keep this up!”

His eyes flash black again.

“Hello, everybody! I talked to the gang – by the way, Hiccup says ‘hi’ to all you Fickers – and we’ve all agreed to allow the big bad wolf from Unigaea to accompany us! Now that I have your attention, have you ever found yourself in need of some epically good choons? Well, look no further!”

Oric raises an eyebrow as FeeTwix launches into his spiel.

“DJ Ride the Lightning is teaming up with the holo-Beatles to bring you a Proxima concert the likes of which you have never experienced before! The Proxima Company has actually built a custom world with a concert venue that can hold up to thirty million avatars. Tickets are on two-fer if you mention #FeeTwixRox at checkout or purchase redemption codes at any 7-11 or McStarbucks in the world. They’ll take any currency, in-game, crypto, or actual money, and the only stipulation is you won’t be able to bring or equip weapons. I’ll be there, the rest of the Mitherfickers too!”

“What the fick did he just say?” Hiccup asks.

“That’s right! The Mitherfickers will be there on the Tritania platform!” FeeTwix brings his mirror back and forth from his face. “Hopefully I’ll see you guys tonight!”

His eyes flash blue and he speaks twice as fast as he normally does.

“Sorry, guys, there’s a concert we kind of have to go to tonight. I knew I was forgetting to tell you something! It’ll be a quick appearance, don’t worry. We can head through the catacombs, and once we reach the exit point, we can head to the concert. It’ll only take thirty minutes to an hour, then it’s back to the quest!”

“A concert on another world?” Zaena asks. “Is it possible?”

FeeTwix laughs. “Of course it’s possible, babe, the Proxima Company has already provided me with a port. It’s kind of like your Sotlian Spa Ring – we’ll go there, and come immediately back.”

“Will there be girls?” Hiccup asks.

Wolf barks and wags his tail at Hiccup.

“We’re not bringing you, pooch, but I like your thinking. If there are girls, there’s room for a goblin!”

“So many ladies, Hiccup,” FeeTwix says, “and I’m sure the Fickers will be there as well! What do you think, Ryuk? Can we carve out a little time tonight for a quick gala?”

Ryuk glances at Oric, who has a look on his chiseled face that screams ‘I don’t do galas,’ to Zaena, who is nodding in excitement. “Sure, let’s do it, after we get through the catacombs. And Wolf is welcome to join us in the catacombs. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

Skill level up!

Skill: Inspire Others

Level Three: By inspiring others, you induce them to follow your orders. Higher levels allow for manipulation of enemies and random strangers.

Requirements: LUCK > 10

Ryuk ignores the prompt for a moment as Oric says, “Good, I’ll be better in two days. I expect you four to come back here.”

“We will,” Ryuk assures him, “I have to get Yangu.”

“And me,” Enway says proudly. “I want to join the Mitherfickers.”

“Bandwagon fickgirl!” Hiccup coughs into his hand.

“Two days should be plenty of time for you to perform your extreme vetting,” she teases Hiccup. “I have nothing to hide.”

“You just want to join us so you can come to the concert tonight, admit it, Elfy!”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m already going to the concert tonight.” She produces a single ticket. “Need any more proof?”

“Then you just want to come to the fickin’ VIP section. I know your type.”

“Enough,” Ryuk cuts the goblin off. “Please eat for the second time this morning and then get to the entrance of the catacombs. I’ll need to log out for a bit, maybe an hour and a half. We can hit the catacombs after that.”

“Why’s that?” FeeTwix asks.

“I have to meet my mother.”

Chapter 17: The Empress Speaks

Kodai stands in the shadows of a monument to the Sage of Gotha. Jutting off from one of the branches of the tree monument is a cherub holding a book with Cyrillic scrawled across it. Kodai has no idea what it means, or who the figure is, and he really doesn’t give a shit.

His eyes are trained on the procession about to take place.

Hundreds of people have gathered in a small square on the side of Valhalla closer to downtown Porthos. Security is tight, and the Empress’ guards, known as the Knights in White Satin because of their white capes, stand at every corner with broadswords and stern looks on their faces.

Those gathered range from big half-orcs with pig faces to well-dressed maidens with golden locks. There are elves, dwarves, elven dwarves, commoners, NPCs, RPCs, goblins, and even a few Thuleans who occupy the upper right quadrant of the crowd and sit in nicely carved chairs on a raised platform.

The doors of an expansive balcony open up and the crowd grows quiet.

Two attendants come out with two baby griffins perched on white pillows. The attendants wear white robes with a thick black line down the middle. This black line extends onto their faces via a four-inch-wide strip of black paint. The sides of their heads have been shaved, and they wear dangly earrings shaped like crescent moons.

The attendants place the pillows on raised columns and the griffins stay put, oblivious to the crowd below. Next out of the doors are two male Thuleans in equally impressive white robes. They don’t have the black stripe painted on their faces, but they do have purple ponytails and sharp widow’s peaks.

Kodai smirks at the symmetry of it all. He does appreciate things like that, and order and balance is important, but all of the pageantry is utter bullshit.

His hood over his head, he steps out of the shadow of the tree statue and makes his way to the back of the crowd. He sees Tamana and Tomas on his left, the two mages on his right. Each has fanned out and blended in to the crowd.

A flash catches his eyes and he looks to the balcony to see four attendants completely in head-to-toe gold. The only part of their bodies not covered in gold are the two circles around their eyes, which are white.

The four step up to the balcony, open their mouths, and their tongues spill out.

People in the crowd gasp and murmur as their four tongues elongate. The attendants’ tongues start to expand in size, keeping their thinness. It doesn’t take them long to form a large, golden curtain descending from the balcony all the way down. The four get on their knees and bend forward to rest their chins on the balcony.

Kodai pushes further into the crowd.

He takes a place directly in front of where he assumes the Empress will emerge. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the Shinigami get into place, their handles flashing over their heads.

Now, we wait, he thinks as a grin spreads across his face.

Trumpets sound as six men exit the balcony’s double doors.

They carry a vantablack palanquin with beaded tassels hanging from its bottom, and each bearer wears a sleek set of charcoal robes that match their black face paint. A four-inch strip of white down the middle of their faces is the only contrast with the black.

They turn, lower the palanquin, and after a moment of abject silence from all in attendance, Empress Thun steps out.

Interesting, Kodai thinks, watching the woman walk up to a crystal dais that wasn’t there just moments ago.

In contrast with her dark skin, white dots are painted above her eyebrows. Her eyelashes are long and white, and her lipstick is a soft shade of gray. The Empress wears an open-fronted gray robe with a V that dips all the way down to her waist and is tied off with a long, gray sash.

She raises her hand, and all in attendance bow their heads. Once they’ve done so, she begins speaking. “As many of you witnessed,” she says, her voice amplified by magic, “there was an attack yesterday in Porthos.”

She glares at the crowd.

“Let it be known, by the power invested in me by the Sage of Gotha, I will protect the three floating continents of Tritania. Working in conjunction with the Thulean Elders, and the government of Aramis, we will see to it that these types of attacks, against the very freedom granted to us by the Sage, will be crushed. All opposition will be crushed, and those that have any ties to these attacks will learn very quickly the extent of my power.”

Empress Thun scans the crowd, and for a moment, Kodai gets the sense that she’s looking right at him. His nerve is suddenly shattered; the Empress locks eyes with him and he swears, for that single moment, they are alone, just the Empress standing at the top of the balcony and Kodai below her.

His breath cut short, he exhales audibly when she turns to another quadrant of the crowd. After she’s finished acknowledging all in attendance, Empress Thun parts her lips into a half smile.

“Nearly two decades ago commoner time, we came together to stave off a terrible infection that would have taken all Proxima worlds had it not been dealt with. There were many a guild involved, and as all of you know, the Knights of Non Compos Mentis led the attack. I’m afraid to say that this force is back. It isn’t the same force as before; no, the Reapers of old have long been vanquished. This is something entirely new, but its ties to the past threaten Tritania, other Proxima Worlds, and the world of the commoners.”

Kodai slowly places his hand on the pouches attached to his belt. He palms two knife marbles, and an explosive marble.

Only one chance, he reminds himself, and as he does, he feels a force come into his body.

I’m here, the serpent woman whispers in his ear. I will guide you.

Good, he thinks. Thank you.

Empress Thun raises her finger and begins to make her final point, and as she does, Kodai fires off all three marbles at her.

His explosive blades tear into the front of Empress Thun’s chest, her body disintegrates, and her robes drop.

Run! the serpent woman shouts in his head.

His four henchmen kick it into high gear as Kodai races through the crowd, the masses swelling around him, shouting, terror-stricken.

One of the Empress’ knights appears in front of him with a lance and goes to peg him. He stays just long enough for the knight to get a glance at him.

A sudden flash and Kodai is in a darkened galaxy, the place behind the golden door.

He takes a few slow-motion steps, control of his feet no longer his own, and as he does he steps back into the guild quarters they are secretly staying in near the Port of Porthos.

That fast, he thinks, marveling at the serpent woman’s teleportation powers.

He hears the cries in the distance, senses the chaos, and knows without a shadow of a doubt that when Ryuk does get to Porthos, he’ll be hunted down.

Tamana spawns first, badly bruised, but still at decent enough health. The two mages come second and third is Tomas, who has an utterly wicked grin on his face.

“Good,” Kodai tells the group. He takes a deep, satisfying breath, already regretting the fact that he’ll miss most of the chaos. “Now I have some things to attend to in the world up there.” His finger comes up and the logout button appears.

(0)__(x)

Kodai waits for the sine waves to settle on his NV Visor. It’s morning and he can hear Sarah rummaging about in the kitchen. A beeping sound tells him she’s made herself an espresso; the trickle that follows from the machine soothes him in some way.

He smiles, his visor still over his head.

He’s sure the Empress will recover but the shock of what he’s done, and the fact that so many people saw him do it, will be something the holy bitch will have to deal with for quite some time.

So much pageantry, he thinks, and for what? To celebrate that you’re a fucking NPC?

Kodai shakes his head bitterly. The autonomy of NPCs is something he’ll always find idiotic. They are created for our enjoyment and our usage, he thinks as he removes his visor, nothing else.

“You finished yet?” Sarah asks from the kitchen. He waves his hand over his shoulder to silence her. She laughs, and he hears her footsteps as she comes closer to him.

Tokyo, when viewed from his penthouse, is a city of towering scale and grandiosity that continues to capture the imagination, no matter what he sees in digital worlds. He doesn’t take his eyes off the rising sun over the massive city until Sarah steps in front of him.

“You’re blocking my view,” he tells the lingerie-clad Australian.

“I’m sorry.” Sarah glances across the room at Tesla, who stands near the door with her arms crossed over her chest.

That’s right, Kodai thinks, seeing the sudden flash of fear in Sarah’s eyes.

There’s something completely intoxicating about fear when viewed in others. It has become one of Kodai’s favorite fetishes, something he looks forward to every time he has to exercise his force.

Sarah gulps and steps aside.

“Go get ready for work,” he tells her. “I need to speak to Tesla alone.”

“Um.” Sarah clears her throat, and opens her mouth to say something but stops herself.

“Anything else?” Kodai asks.

She bows her head and returns to the room he’s assigned to her. Tesla approaches him once Sarah has gone. He admires her for a moment, and suddenly finds himself curious about what is under her blue MercSecure field outfit.

I wonder if …

Just the thought sends a bolt of electricity to his lower half. He pushes it down, tells himself he can explore it later, and smiles up at Tesla.

“How are you?” he asks, standing. “Did you rest well?”

She smirks. “As well as an artificial being can. I spent most of the time reviewing some of my training videos.”

“Exciting,” Kodai says as he steps towards the kitchen. “I’d offer you an espresso, but, well, you know.”

“You should drink two then, one for me.”

“I’ll be sure to. About today … ” His eyes narrow on the humandroid. “I want you to size up my brother’s humandroid, Hajime. I want you to really watch, to find out the best way.”

“The best way to what?”

Kodai locks eyes with her. “To end his existence.”

Chapter 18: Cave --> in

As soon as Ryuk logs out, he gets a prompt from Hajime asking what he’d like for a late breakfast.

Eggs or a smoothie?

He chooses the smoothie, mostly because it looks like it’ll be sweet and after being logged in for so long, he’s craving something sugary. Plus it’s the color of a Chocobo, which seems fun.

He yawns, and an icon appears on his iNet screen updating him on a few Googleface messages he still has yet to respond to. One is from an acquaintance at Waseda University, asking him if he’s planning to enroll for the summer. Another is from the Proxima Company telling him that he’s been given an exclusive ticket to tonight’s collaborative performance between DJ Ride the Lightning and the holo-Beatles.

FeeTwix is well connected, he thinks as he slowly gets out of bed.

After grabbing his towel, which is folded and placed on his desk thanks to Hajime, Ryuk heads to the bathroom. He barely pays attention to taking a shower, so busy is he playing a game of pong with someone else in the building.

Part of him wants to know who he always plays against; the other part of him is perfectly happy remaining anonymous. It could be anyone, really. Well, not anyone, it definitely isn’t a salaryman – he’d already be on his way to work.

Maybe it’s a housewife, he thinks as the player yet again hands him his ass.

Once he’s toweled off, Ryuk heads to the kitchen just in time to hear the blender roar to life. He can smell a bit of pineapple in the air as soon as he enters the space. Hajime stands before it, his hand on top of the blender as it pulverizes fruits and vegetables. In front of him is a cutting board with gooey residue on it.

Ryuk’s eyes jump from Hajime to the drawer that he stored the weapons in – a humstunner and a gun, taken off his brother and his thug. Curiosity tells him to check the stuff out, but he’s also afraid of the weapons.

“Sleep well?” Hajime asks after he’s finished blending the concoction.

“Is that a joke?” Ryuk sits at the table, well aware that there is likely an oblique quote beneath his placemat.

“Using your Skip Box is a form of sleep, so no, it’s not a joke. How’d it go?”

“We’ll get to Porthos later today, and from there, we’ll try to get in touch with the Knights, my old guild. We also have a concert to go to.”

“Sounds like you have a fun day ahead. How did you kill the wolf?”

“We didn’t. Instead, we cured its owner. The wolf’s our friend now, sort of.”

“So the ultimate quest has become canine friendly?”

“Um … ” Ryuk considers this. “Something like that. Sure.”

“And what’s up next?”

“We have to make our way through the catacombs to Porthos.” Ryuk yawns as Hajime sets the smoothie in front of him. “It should be fun and we’ll definitely be leveling along the way.” He takes a big sip from the shake. “Wow! What flavor is this? I thought it was pineapple.”

“Passion fruit, pineapple, half a banana, an apple, strawberries, a little spinach, yogurt and three peaches.”

Ryuk nods, impressed. He takes another sip from the smoothie, feeling good as it slides down his throat.

“So before we get ready to meet your mother, I think it’d be best for you to read your oblique quote for the day.”

Ryuk takes another slurp. “At least let me finish my smoothie first.”

“By all means, finish.”

Ryuk takes his sweet time finishing the smoothie, and once he’s done, he sets the beverage aside and lifts his placemat to find the new message: Repetition is a form of change.

“Repetition is a form of change … ”

“I want you to stare deeply at me for a moment,” Hajime says.

“Stare at you?”

“Yes.”

“Um, okay.” Ryuk settles his gaze on Hajime, taking in his perfectly formed features, from his sharp nose to his dark eyes to the single strand of hair that isn’t tied back into his manbun. Hajime’s eyes dilate, akin to the way FeeTwix looks when he goes live.

“Now center yourself, focus on your breathing. Really focus on it. Don’t take the shallow breaths you normally take, the breaths that most humans live on. Take a deep breath, a breath that moves past your lungs, see that breath move all the way down to your stomach. Now hold it.”

Ryuk stops the air from going out.

“Hold the breath in. Longer … longer … ”

Ryuk does as instructed.

“Now I want you to let it out slowly and then tighten your stomach, completely squeezing all the air out. Now do it again, without my instructions this time.”

With a nod, Ryuk takes another long breath, holds it, keeps it there, and tightens his stomach as he lets it out.

“Do four more,” Hajime says, his eyes still dilated. “If you break your focus, start over.”

To his surprise, and likely to the surprise of the humandroid, Ryuk does exactly as instructed. Something about it reminds him of his Extreme Focus skill in Tritania. He doesn’t get the tunnel vision, nor can he see colored outlines, but there is something about it that feels the same as Extreme Focus.

“Good, you did well. It’s a breathing exercise that I’ve created based on Kundalini yogic texts, which I translated myself, and a practice done by Milarepa. Heard of him?”

Ryuk shakes his head.

“He was a Tibetan buddhist, a direct disciple of Marpa Lotsawa, who is considered the founder of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Milarepa used a similar technique for a spell in which he existed only on tea made from nettle leaves, which is why there are many depictions of him with a green skin tone. Alongside the tea leaves, he also subsisted on air, deep breaths to ignore the hunger pangs.”

“Air and tea, huh?”

[Accept image from Hajime?]

Ryuk selects yes and an image of a green Buddhist appears in the lower right hand corner of his vision. He’s seen similar images before, but the image has always been of a female, Tara Bosatsu, or Green Tara.

“What’s he listening to?”

“He was an advocate for the teaching of Buddhism through song. As you know, most music, at least memorable music, plays into repetition heavily.”

“So what are you trying to say? And what was the breathing practice for?”

“A minute of breathing could hardly be considered a practice, but my reason for having you do it, and my hope that you will continue to do it for longer stints, is for you to realize the meaning of your oblique quote for today: repetition is a form of change. Can you think of any other way this could apply?”

“Leveling,” Ryuk says almost immediately. “I mean, there are variations, but leveling can be repetitive, especially if you are doing something such as casting a necromantic spell on a certain creature that gives out EXP, killing it, casting it again. I guess the quote is more about the long game, like writing a novel maybe. You just keep doing the same thing, which may bore many, but there is reward in the end and that reward is change in, um, the thing you originally started.”

“Good, go on, explore that a little more. Tell me of a time in your life not game-related that you grew through repetition.”

“Coming home from Waseda University, I always logged in right away, before doing anything else, you know, to see Tamana.” He swallows the memory down. “We did this every day for the first semester, even if we had a test the next day, even if it was just to do some bullshit in Tritania, like going fishing or going to a drama in Porthos. I liked that repetition.”

“And was it a form of change?”

“I don’t know, well, yes, sure, it was. It increased our closeness.”

“So then, do you agree with the phrase?”

Ryuk considers this for a moment. “I agree with the aftereffects of repetition, the change that comes over time. Repetition itself isn’t a form of change, it is an, um, instrument of change, but I guess referring to it as a ‘form’ works too.”

Hajime lifts an eyebrow. “Good, Ryuk! Repetition can inspire the most profound change known to man. Just think of the social changes and the repeated behaviors that led to them, and think about those oppressed people, the many that there have been, and how iniquitous repetition led them to sudden, often violent, change both to their betterment, and sometimes, their detriment. Many find repetition the epitome of boredom, but I find it fascinating.”

The humandroid smiles, completely enthralled by the subject. “But we can discuss this later. We should leave soon. We’d better not leave your mother and brother waiting.”

(0)__(0)

Ryuk can barely focus on the way to his mother’s office located in Ikebukuro, Tokyo’s famous commercial and entertainment district that has grown up around the fourth-busiest transit station in the world. Outside the sprawling entrance to the station, one can find everything from department stores to Nishi-Ikebukuro, a pleasure district well-known in Tokyo’s water trade.

But none of these things are on Ryuk’s mind as he rides in the backseat of an Uberyota aeros.

He pays little attention to the Bic Camera electronic megastore across from his mother’s building as they land, a place he frequented as a child, nor does he notice the towering height of the Sunshine 60 building, which looms over the Toshima Ward.

His thoughts circle around what his mother may say – that, and seeing his brother again.

“We have to be careful,” he whispers to Hajime.

The humandroid responds with a low grunt.

“I don’t know what Kodai is planning,” Ryuk continues, “or why mother wanted to see us both.”

“It seems that Cain and Abel have reversed roles, or are at least in the process of doing so,” Hajime muses, “although I don’t see you killing Kodai.”

“I’d never,” Ryuk says, shocked Hajime would even mention that.

Silence permeates the cabin of the Uberyota as it lowers onto a clean rooftop.

There’s an arcade to the northeast, a place he frequented as a child with the hopes of winning prizes, and later, a place he visited on occasion with Tamana. They’d play combative games – Takio: Drum Master, Dance Dance – the archaic arcade games were fun, plus they were a great way to get exercise. He recalls a particular time in which she won him an Empress Thun doll in a claw machine, which he subsequently regifted to her.

“Kodai’s already here,” Hajime says as the doors unlock.

Ryuk sees his brother’s aerosSUV, which is black with sleek chrome features. Already inside, he thinks as he walks towards a door on the rooftop. A man steps out, nearly the size of Gorira with the center of his hair slicked back and the sides shaved.

This gets Ryuk wondering, where exactly is Gorira?

Whenever he’s seen his brother’s aerosSUV at his mother’s office before, Gorira would wait outside, keeping the vehicle running. The man nods and Hajime nods back.

Ryuk doesn’t have much time to consider where Gorira is, as they take a flight of stairs down to the top floor.

After Ryuk’s retina is scanned, a door slides open and he’s greeted by a remote sentry attached to the ceiling. The red light on a clear lens between two short barrels blinks as it takes in Ryuk and Hajime.

As the two pass under it, the barrels swivel and follow them towards the reception area, which definitely makes Ryuk uneasy, as it has in the past.

What if it malfunctioned … ?

Up ahead, they see his mother’s personal assistant, Satomi. She’s a clean-cut Japanese woman with impeccable skin, her bangs cut at a sharp angle. She nods for Hajime to move to the reception area, and instructs Ryuk to enter.

It’s then that Ryuk sees a woman sitting in reception, a beautiful brunette with high cheekbones and a dark bodysuit. Hajime steps in front of Ryuk as messages appear on Ryuk’s iNet screen.

Hajime: She’s a MercSecure humandroid, like me. This must be the reason for the absence of Gorira.

Ryuk: Are you saying Kodai got a humandroid?

Hajime: That appears to be the case.

Ryuk takes a step back and peeks over Hajime’s shoulder at the droid. Her eyes flash as a curt smile paints across her face.

“Go in,” Hajime says, “I’ll keep my eye on her.”

“You can sit in reception,” Satomi tells Hajime.

“I’ll stand.”

The tension in the room palpable, Ryuk slips past Kodai and stops before a large door made of bulletproof motoglass. After a decompression sound, the door opens, and after one more sidelong glance at the mysterious female humandroid, Ryuk steps in.

“You’re late,” his mother says instead of hello.

Ryuk gets the sense that she’s had some work done. He doesn’t remember his mother’s eyes being so wide, nor does he recall her ever having a large chest. The next emotion is one of shame – did I just check out my own mom? He chastises himself, but then again, she’s wearing a low-cut blouse and clear, clearly, she’s had work done.

Kodai turns to him, and when his face is clearly out of his mother’s pane of vision, he gives Ryuk a sinister grin.

“Yeah? Fuck you too,” Ryuk says, surprising even himself. He feels adrenaline burst through him and quickly subside once Kodai doesn’t say anything back.

“Ryuk!” His mother snaps her fingers, something she did when he was a child that always got his attention. “What is going on between you and your brother?”

“He attacked me,” Kodai says as Ryuk approaches them. “He pushed me through a glass table.”

Their mother narrows her eyes at Ryuk as he steps up to her big mahogany desk. “You did what?”

“He came over to intimidate me,” Ryuk explains, “and I did what I had to do.”

His mother looks in horror from her youngest to her oldest son. Her face hardens. “Kodai, you weak, stupid boy.”

Kodai gulps, and runs his hands along the front of his suit.

“You let your brother, practically ten years younger than you, push you through a table? You’ve had training! Your father paid for that training and to hear that you’re … ” She steels herself. “I can’t believe that you are as weak as you are. I have one son who is an utter failure, one who is a weakling, and I don’t know which is which at times!”

She returns her focus to Ryuk. Next to him, Kodai fumes, his head bowed and his fists clenched tightly together. “Why would you push your brother through a glass coffee table?”

“Like I said, he attacked me first. He beat me up outside the hostess bar in Shinjuku. Hajime saved me.”

“Oh, that,” she says flatly. “I’m aware that he roughed you up a bit. I told him to beat some sense into you and, apparently, he took this literally.”

“You told him that was okay!?”

Their mother ignores him. “But now that you’ve both gotten your revenge, petty as it is, it is time for you to bury your aggression towards each other. What is done is done. There is no need for this matter to continue any longer and what I need you both to do, Kodai, Ryuk, is to realize that this family business hinges on three people, you,” she points to Kodai, “me and you,” she nods to Ryuk.

“I don’t want any part in it,” Ryuk grits.

She exhales audibly. “You’ve told me that before, and I’ve told you before that it isn’t really a choice. But I believe you’ll understand this with time. For now, I need to make it crystal clear to you that you will enroll in university this summer.”

“No.” Ryuk stands defiant, his chest slightly puffed out.

Kodai glances at him out of the corner of his eyes. He tries to contain his shock by clearing his throat.

“What … did you just say?” Their mother narrows her perfectly manicured eyebrows at him.

“I’m enrolling in a Proxima trade school. I’m going to tell you the same thing I told him.” He nods to his brother. “I want you both to leave me alone. I want nothing to do with what our family does business-wise. And if you cut me off, I’ll just apply to the JUBI program. That’ll cover the costs of me being permalogged in.”

“JUBI?” Kodai scowls at his younger brother.

The Japanese Universal Basic Income program is partially run by the Proxima Company. It keeps people logged in permanently and performs various tests on their bodies as they’re logged in. They can log out if they’d like, but the funds for the program are set so they just barely cover the cost of domicile at one of the Proxima facilities.

“You heard me! I want to be left alone,” Ryuk seethes. “This, all of this,” he says, waving his hand around the room, “has come from blood money or money built on the backs of … backs of other people, mostly women! It is not a business!”

His mother lets him finish huffing. Finally, she says, “You poor, stupid boy. Were you always this daft? Was there ever a time that you sounded less educated than you sound now? I cannot remember you ever speaking to your brother or me in such a way.”

Ryuk starts to bow his head but stops. No, he thinks, be a man.

“This little fantasy of yours, that you’ll live your life in a make believe game world and that you will be of no concern to society will end as you get older.” Her voice thins. “I am highly disappointed in you, Ryuk, and you will do as I say. Understand? This isn’t a negotiation. Summer. If summer comes and you aren’t enrolled at Waseda … ”

“What will you do? You can’t kill me! You can’t intimidate me like you do your business partners. There is nothing you can do!” He carefully enunciates the next words, even though his voice quivers: “You have no power over me. None. I will live my life my way and there’s nothing that you,” he points at Kodai, “or you,” he turns the finger to his mother, “will do about it.”

She stares him down for a moment and as he keeps his finger in the air, pointed right at her, he suddenly feels like she’s looking through him, and from that feeling, he gets the notion that she’s actually proud of how he is misbehaving.

Proud? Even lightly acknowledging the way he’s reading her visage throws him off guard. How could she be proud after what I’ve just said? He swallows hard as he lowers his finger.

“If you aren’t enrolled by the summer, I’ll take Hajime away from you.”

“Hajime?”

But how does she know? he wonders. How does she know about our relationship?

Kodai grins cheek to cheek. He starts to say something, but stops and waits for his mother to speak.

“You enjoy Hajime’s company, do you not?”

“Yes,” Ryuk says softly.

“He’s your only friend, admit it!” Kodai blurts out. “Especially now that your girlfriend is dead.”

“Enough,” their mother tells him, not at all concerned by the death part of Kodai’s statement.

“Fuck you,” Ryuk hisses.

“You’ll need to learn a better way to tell me off than that,” his older brother says out of the corner of his mouth.

Their mother folds her hands together on her desk. “Ryuk, you may go now. Remember what I’ve said: enroll, or lose Hajime’s services. I could use a humandroid; it seems everyone is getting one,” she says, again focusing on Kodai.

Ryuk turns and he’d slam the door on the way out if it were the type of door that slams. Instead, he waits for it to open, turns, and kicks it once it has closed behind him.

Chapter 19: Imp Melee

Ryuk can’t log in fast enough.

He’s so consumed by anger on the way home that he hardly says anything to Hajime, who seems to be in a very reflective mood as he stares out the window at the city below. The city is suddenly dead to him, suddenly empty of its millions upon millions of inhabitants, all going about their lives oblivious to his own personal drama.

Ryuk smirks at this thought. How is it that so many things can be happening all at once, most of which will never affect the person one room over, or walking across the street, or in a different booth at the same coffee shop.

It’s amazing we keep it all together, he thinks, as the vehicle lowers into a different airlane. In the aeros immediately to their right, a woman in a little sailor hat sits in the back seat using her reflected image on the seat in front of her to put on makeup.

To the left of their aeros, two teens dressed as characters from a popular anime make a beeline to Harajuku, famous as a place where anyone can dress in any way and not be judged for it.

Harajuku. Ryuk wishes he could simply step out of his apartment, take the subway, and arrive at Harajuku Station. What a day that would be! He’d have some coffee, walk the back alleys that lead to Omotesando, have some okonomiyaki at Sakuratei, head to Yoyogi Park, and hell, walk a mile south to Shibuya and take in all the sights and sounds.

But for someone like him, someone that can barely get out of the house without security – and for what? Why all the security, especially as of late? – the best Ryuk can do is park his ass in his bed and log in.

Some life, he thinks bitterly.

Hajime finally speaks up as the Uberyota lands. “I will assume that the meeting went poorly.” He clears his throat, a very human gesture for an android that has no reason to do such an act.

“I hate them both.”

“Hate? What did they say that made you hate them?”

“She threatened to take you away if I don’t enroll in university.” Ryuk swallows hard. “She threatened to take you!”

Hajime considers this for a moment. As he does so, the vehicle informs them that they are now clear to exit the cabin. “Well, is university that hard?”

“It’s not that; it’s that I’m not interested in going there, it’s not me, it’s not who I am. I told you what I want to do.”

“What if you enroll and don’t go to any classes and fail? What would happen then?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Did she say what you needed to study?”

“She didn’t, but I assume it’s business, like before.”

“We’ll continue this discussion in a moment.” Hajime exits the vehicle. Once he’s checked the surroundings, he opens the door for Ryuk. They both ignore the thugs in the lobby as they make their way up to the top floor.

“If I were you, I’d enroll,” says Hajime, “and this isn’t about job security for me. To me, higher education is something that I can get in an instant, yet a human takes years to fully appreciate and comprehend. That said, if it weren’t for those years of comprehension, and the subsequent writings that came from them, I wouldn’t be able to enlighten myself as quickly as I’m able to. It’s important that you go. There’s a reason to get smarter and you are looking at one of the many reasons.”

Ryuk shakes his head. He’s not in the mood for riddles, or double entendres, if that is indeed what Hajime is hinting at.

“Anyway, we can discuss this later. My guess is you are interested in logging in. Before you do so, are you hungry?”

“Not in the least bit,” Ryuk says.

“Good, eat anyway.” Hajime’s eyes flash black. “It’ll make you feel better.”

They enter the apartment, Ryuk slips into his house shoes, and after he’s done so, he immediately moves to the kitchen, where he toasts himself a piece of bread with a slice of cheese on top. “I forgot to ask you … ”

“What’s that?” Hajime’s eyes dilate and return to their normal color.

“What happened between you and Kodai’s humandroid?” The toaster oven dings and Ryuk slides the bread out onto a plate.

If the look on Hajime’s face is generally indecipherable, it becomes more so after Ryuk asks his question.

“What is it?” Ryuk asks as he chews the toast.

“Her name is Tesla and I believe that your little conundrum with university enrollment may be solved by her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it is clear that your brother has hired her to see to it that I am eliminated.” Hajime says this in a calm way, a way that is totally at odds with the implications of the statement. “So you may not have to choose between university and me.”

“She can’t … ” Ryuk shakes his head. “She can’t take you out. You’re the best humandroid there is!”

Hajime’s face softens. “There is no way for you to actually know that.”

“You’re the most enlightened one I’ve ever met.”

“I was designed by the creator of humandroids, Richard Hewman. The others are replicas of me, but many, especially newer models, have been highly tweaked. She is faster than me, deadlier, and stronger.”

“She can’t be stronger.”

“Yes, she can be.” Hajime takes a seat at the table. “But don’t worry about that for now. If she comes for me, I will meet her with extreme force. If she attempts to disable me permanently, I will make sure that it is the last thing she does.”

Ryuk swallows hard. “Did … did you two say anything to each other?”

“Not verbally, but there are other ways to communicate, especially for my kind.”

(0)__(0)

When in doubt, escape.

Ryuk’s avatar takes shape at the entrance to a large cave. Hiccup is reclining on a lawn chair, which could have only come from FeeTwix’s list. Across his chest is a copy of House of Holes, and two empty healing potions aren’t far away.

Across from him, Zaena talks with Enway, while FeeTwix stands near them, petting Wolf. The pony-sized beast has taken a liking to FeeTwix, evident in the way he wags his tail.

As if on cue, Hiccup lets out a low rumble from his nether-cheeks that forces him awake. “Shit!” he says, looking around angrily. “Keep the racket down, Marbles.”

“I didn’t make any noise. It was you,” he says sternly, “you woke yourself up, again.”

“Like fick I did!” The goblin yawns. “It’s about goddamn time you showed up. We’ve been sitting at the entrance to the catacombs for like three hours now. Fick, am I glad DD’s BBQ delivers.” He tosses his finger at a series of greasy sacks. “Good eating. Twixy can attest.”

“It didn’t give me any buffs, but it wasn’t bad!”

“Twixy here wouldn’t try the deep fried cat tail, but I won’t hold it against him. Fick if cats aren’t good eating. Kittens are better though, and don’t tell me you need to go to your safe place after hearing that.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Ryuk turns away from the goblin, hoping that will shut him up.

“Hey! I’m not done telling you about eating cats. Fick, I bet Lassie over there would love himself a nicely marinated slab of feline meat.”

FeeTwix approaches Ryuk and puts his hand around his shoulder. “Everything all right in the real world up there?”

“You two are some real poofters,” Hiccup chortles. Wolf approaches the goblin and they both growl at each other for a moment.

“It was … fine.” Ryuk smiles briskly.

“Well, you’re developing quite a good number of fans.” FeeTwix points at his black eyes. “Say something to them!”

“Hi.”

“Fick me, Marbles, you really need to figure out how to turn up the charisma. I used to have a copy of How to Make Friends and Influence People, but I loaned it to Spewy. Anyfick, it’s no wonder Tammy never let you get past first base.”

“Leave him alone,” Zaena says, interrupting her conversation with Enway.

“You’ll have a chance to see some of your fans tonight at the concert,” FeeTwix says. “And from what I heard, there will be close to a thousand Fickers there.”

“How many people are going again?” Hiccup asks.

“Usually these concerts have up to thirty million people in attendance.”

“Well, it sounds more like there will be up to thirty million fickers there. Ha! See what I did there?”

“No, Fickers,” the Swede says, “your fan club. Lots of people are coming out!”

“Do they have drugs?”

“Maybe?”

“Good, come on over here, Twixy, so I can give them a piece of my mind.”

“Okay, but after this it’s time to head to the catacombs and kick some ass! One more thing–”

“Twixy, let me say my piece before you start doing an ad read.”

FeeTwix stops in front of Hiccup, giving his viewers a nice, downward looking view of the chubby goblin sprawled out on a lawn chair. Hiccup points a dirty finger at FeeTwix’s blackened eyes. “Listen, Fickers, all thousands of you that are coming. Drugs and booze, capiche? Not necessarily in that fickin’ order, but bring what you got and pay tithe to your favorite cantankerous goblin. I’ll bring the Wizardous, ouch!”

Hiccup dives for cover as Zaena whops him again on the head with her konoshlo.

“Don’t encourage people to do drugs,” she says as she approaches.

“What the fick are you, the T-DEA or something? Fickin’ shit, Liz, nothing wrong with experimenting!”

Enway laughs. She has Yangu in the backpack slung over her shoulder. The dragon sleeps, as always, and Ryuk wonders if the dragon will be this somnolent when he’s older.

As Hiccup and Zaena bicker, Ryuk approaches Enway and thanks her for looking after the baby dragon.

“Ahem!” FeeTwix announces, but everyone's too busy holding their own conversations to hear him.

“Really, thank you,” Ryuk says, bowing his head. “And thank you for looking after Oric. I believe he will be a great addition to our group.”

“What makes you think that?” she asks.

“Just something I’m intuiting, I don’t know, we were pretty badly betrayed, like I sort of explained on the way to Katiyana, but we can’t let that stop us from adding new members.”

“Hiccup had me fill out a stack of forms, by the way, so extreme vetting is apparently in full effect.”

“He did?” Ryuk shakes his head. That damn goblin.

“It’s fine,” she giggles. “The questions were pretty easy, stupid too.”

“Like?”

“Um, let me think. Okay, there was one about your opinion on Thuleans.”

“But we have a Thulean in our guild.”

She winks. “I excel at test taking, so I wrote what he wanted to hear. There was also a question on who you voted for during the last Tritanian election. I played it safe there and said I sat that one out. Let me see … oh yes! There was another question about my opinion of goblins, harems, and a question about my opinions on healthy heads of hair. That one was odd.”

“He actually made you fill all that out?”

She touches Ryuk lightly on the shoulder, sending a spark down his arm. “It’s fine, I did it so I could join you guys and he can’t claim that I wasn’t vetted.”

“I’m sure he’ll figure out another way to hate you.”

She shrugs. “Maybe, but I think he means well. He really seems to like you.”

“Like me?” Ryuk starts to shake his head.

“Yeah, I think he just gives you a hard time.”

Ryuk hits the deck at the sound of machine gun fire. He glances to see FeeTwix standing with one of his shooting irons, the receiving end smoking. “Sorry, everyone! Just needed to get your attention.”

“Fick me, Twixy, you do that shit again and you’ll be sorry!” Hiccup shouts from behind a rock.

Wolf barks wildly.

“The mutt agrees!”

“Mitherfickers gather ‘round, I have a gift from a fan.” As they gather, FeeTwix produces a small medicine bottle. “This, my friends, is a bottle of Fat Tony’s Go Juice!”

“Fat Tony’s what?” The goblin looks from the Swede to Ryuk.

“It was delivered to me by an EBAYmazon dragon.”

“When?” Hiccup asks. “I haven’t seen any dragons!”

“You were snoozing when it came. Anyway, this stuff will give us times 1.5 EXP for the next six hours, plenty of time to get through the catacombs.” FeeTwix takes a small quaff from the bottle. A green light slithers up his arms and legs, forms a halo over his head, and disappears. “So drink up!” He tosses the little bottle to Ryuk. “It’s time to kick some ass!”

To prove his point, FeeTwix charges forward, the first one into the catacombs.

(0)__(x)

The catacombs are surprisingly damp. Cold too, Ryuk thinks after they’ve been inside for a few minutes. They’ve already moved from a cave to a large clearing big enough for a land dragon to nap.

Hiccup is at the back of the group, Wolf and Zaena at the front, and Ryuk is keenly aware that the goblin is close enough to him to jump into his arms if need be.

“It could be a ghost,” Zaena says.

“Gee fick, Liz, you know that’s my trigger word.” Hiccup steels himself. “Not scared – hungry as a fickin’ tardigrade, though.”

“You just ate,” she tells him.

“Yeah, but that was more of an appetizer.”

“I believe we were delivered three kilos of meat and you ate two,” FeeTwix adds.

“Like I said, appetizer.” The goblin looks around at the large, open space before them. “You know, this place wouldn’t be too bad for the upcoming Cave Edition of Wet Goblin Holes. I should write to the editor.”

A bat flies past and Hiccup shrieks.

“Easy,” FeeTwix says. “It won’t take us long to get there now that we have a handy dandy map!” A backlit map appears in the air and twinkles out of existence. “Thanks goes out to Jack S. for his stunning cartographer prowess! If you need a map of a cave, dungeon – or hell, some of the flea markets in Hyperborea – look no further than Jack!”

Hiccup groans and Wolf makes a noise that sounds like a groan.

“Is he fickin’ mocking me?”

Ryuk laughs. “It sounds like it.”

Wolf starts sniffing the path up ahead. Once he’s sniffed off into the wall of the catacomb, he lifts his legs and takes a long, splashy piss.

“You think he could have done that back there,” Hiccup says with a cringe.

“Since when did you start hating the smell of piss?” Zaena asks. “I thought goblin mothers bathed their babies in piss to ward off ticks.”

“They do, and goblin piss smells way fickin’ nicer than Wolf piss, believe you me, Liz-tard. If you want proof, next time I need to drain the chalupa I can do so in your general direction.”

“I like you, goblin, I do, but if you value your chalupa, you will never, and I mean never, pull it out in any way that I could see it, even if by accident. If you haven’t already noticed, I’m very fast with my swords.”

Wolf barks and runs ahead into a room with a low ceiling. He emerges seconds later, an imp gripped tightly in his jaw. He snaps the creature’s neck, Instakill!, and shakes what’s left of the life out of it.

“Fick yeah!” A shield shaped like a triangle appears in Hiccup’s brass hand, his spiked club in his other. “It’s imp-killing time!” he shouts as dozens of tiny, devilish creatures crawl out of holes at the top of the big opening.

-169 HP! Critical hit!

Ryuk pings one of the imps with an explosive marble, sending a chunk of its shoulder and wing flipping into the air. More imps pour out of holes in the ceiling, cackling and screeching as they dance around. There are too many to tell their levels, but seeing how easy it is to kill them dead, Ryuk assumes they’re all around level seven.

Phwwoom!

FeeTwix’s double-bladed sword is already off its hilt, the rotating blades slicing through the imps and spritzing the air with blackened blood. Zaena is his back up act, her blades a flurry of metal death as she minces, stabs, and filets anything with wings, a devil’s tail, and a scowl on its face.

Damn! Ryuk thinks as he watches Wolf leap through the air, take out two imps just by landing on them, and lunge for another.

Insta-Instakill!

Hiccup is clobbering imps likes he’s auditioning for a part as The Thing; he pauses once, just in time to bash an imp with his triangle shield. Ryuk sees an imp coming at the goblin from behind and his Extreme Focus skill takes over.

Instakill!

He pegs the imp between the eyes with a molten marble and it falls backwards, dead before it hits the ground.

Hiccup shoots Ryuk a thumbs up, winks in a way that makes him feel a bit uncomfortable, licks his lips, and gets back to fighting imps. Once he clears a few out, his shield momentarily disappears and a healing potion takes shape in his grubby paw.

He throws it back, finishes it, wipes his lips, and tosses the empty bottle at an incoming imp. The goblin uses the non-spiky end of his club to scratch his ass and then charges back into the fight.

A big black form moves in front of Ryuk as Wolf leaps to take out another imp.

Ryuk again realizes the problem with his weapon – range – and the fact that it’s easier for him to be further back if he really wants to get a shot off. To accomplish this, he moves through the fight, his Extreme Focus turned up to eleven, and gets into a position south of where the main fighting is taking place.

He aims his Marble Gun, focuses his breath, and starts popping explosive and molten marbles at the imps raining down from the ceiling. The fuckers are everywhere, giggling, crying out, lashing their tails at the Mitherfickers as they try to scratch them with their sharp claws.

-166 HP! Critical hit!

FeeTwix’s blades whirl around in the air overhead, taking out anything that makes the unfortunate mistake of getting in their trajectory.

After growing bored with this attack, the famous Swedish gamer equips a golf club and tees off at the nearest imp. He bashes, bangs, and once he finishes his double eagle, he tosses the club over his head and goes for his Glock, which was conveniently tucked into the back of his pants. The ends of his overcoat flicker in the air as the Swede does the patented dive and shoot.

Insta-Insta-Instakill!

Spent shells zip through the air as he lands with a sweet, clearly mastered, roll. Once he’s up, FeeTwix pistol-whips the living shit out of a purple imp with a white Thulean tattoo across its back, and sends the little bastard flying into Zaena’s waiting blades. Instakill! Bifurcated, the top of the imp flies left, the bottom flies to the right.

“Level up!” FeeTwix announces. “Fuck yeah, people, up to two million! Gotta do this … ” He shoots another imp and the bullet passes through the little monster into the wing of another. “Okay, everyone, now that I have your attention. You won’t believe the sale that EBAYmazon is having right now on adult novelty toys! Now, I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty of what they have … Fuck you, imp!”

FeeTwix elbows an imp in the face, sending its teeth flying. He doubles back with a pair of brass knuckles, takes the imp to the ground, and finishes the job MMA style. “Whew!” He wipes his brow. “Where was I? Ha! I practically have early Goblinheimer’s, am I right?”

“Fick you, Twixy!” Hiccup bashes an imp with his spiked club.

“Ah yes, novelty toys!” The Swede’s slice bang appears in his hand and he comes up and takes an imp’s head off. Instakill! “Damn right that’s an instakill!” he says, slightly out of breath. “So, adult novelty toys. People, you know you want them, and hell, if you need them, you need them. No shame! Don’t let oppressive laws stop you from putting whatever you’d like in your ass!”

“What the fick are you going on about?” Hiccup shouts. Ryuk pegs another imp, but is now keen to hear FeeTwix finish his adult-themed ad read.

“All I’m saying is everything is somebody’s something, if you get my drift! And right now on EBAYmazon, all adult novelty toys are a whopping twenty percent off with the promo code #FeeTwixRox! Get it delivered by drone in an unmarked package and have some fun with your sigother! Hell, go at it alone if you have to, but do not let anyone tell you how to live your sex life!”

“Give me a fickin’ break!” Hiccup shouts.

FeeTwix tosses his slice bang away, equips a mirror, and points to it, his eyes as black as the holes that will soon be filled by discounted sex toys. “You do you,” he says in all seriousness, and with that, a baseball cap appears on the Swedish huckster’s head. Not seconds later, a baseball bat materializes in his hands, and after a practice swing, he gets to Babe Ruthing the imps that have surrounded him.

Hiccup rolls his eyes, slams another healing potion, uses the bottle to beat in the face of an imp that has jumped onto his back, and after he’s thrown the imp off, Zaena gives it the Cuisinart treatment.

“That was a strange advertisement!” she calls over to FeeTwix.

He laughs like a madman. “All in a day’s work, babe! Now get out there, people, and get your jollies!”

Ryuk goes for his slingshot and zings one of his new gravity marbles at an imp descending from a hole up top. Suddenly, the imp’s body is flung backwards and it sticks to the ceiling.

Interesting. He pings another one dancing around Hiccup and the imp flies to the side wall, taking out a couple of dancing devils like they’re pinballs.

“Fick yeah, Marbles!” Propelled by a blistering blast of barbecue afterthought, Hiccup springs forward and knocks the socks off a hopping imp.

-144 HP! Critical hit!

Ryuk recalls the skill he learned leveling up in Port of Protla and jams a molten marble in his mouth.

Spit fire!

He sprays an incoming troupe of little winged fuckers and accidently singes Hiccup in the process.

“Yeeeoooooy!” The goblin hightails it, trying to bat out the fire raging on his lower back that is now being fueled by his near limitless stream of natural gas. The fire spreads, and as soon as he gets his wits about him, he drops to the ground and starts rolling.

“I’ve got you, Hiccup!” His recently equipped baseball cap now on backwards, FeeTwix yanks a fire extinguisher from his list and hoses the goblin off. It doesn’t take much longer for the Mitherfickers and the big bad wolf to clean up what’s left of the imps.

As the battle finishes, and Zaena starts moving all the dead imps to one side of the chamber, Hiccup equips Frank’s Toe Knife and marches right over to Ryuk.

“Look … ” he says, tears in his eyes as he points his knife at Ryuk. “Look what you did to my fickin’ hair!”

Sure enough, the goblin’s pink topknot has been singed to a nearly nonexistent state. It’s still there, but the parts that are visible are now black. “Fix it, goddammit!”

“Um … ?” Ryuk looks to FeeTwix, whose black eyes are taking in all the goblin action. From there he looks to Wolf, who has started gnawing on one of the imps’ legs, and from there to Zaena, who is still, oddly enough, stacking bodies. “You want me to shoot you with a marble?”

“No, I want you to stick a marble up my ass.”

Ryuk gives him an uncertain look.

“Yes, dammit, shoot me! Do your little wish spell thing and get my fickin’ hair back. I swear to the Empress’ liquid-gold-producing mammaries that if you have somehow ficked up my hair, I’m going to make my grievances known, bigly.”

FeeTwix equips a towel and uses it to wipe some of the black imp blood off his body. “You already air your grievances bigly. I can let you borrow my hat.”

He tosses the hat over at Hiccup and the goblin kicks it. “Fick no!”

“Babe, you want?”

Zaena takes the towel, spot wipes her armor, and finishes up on her blades. Once she’s done, she hands it back to FeeTwix and the towel disappears.

“Whatever, Twixy. Marbles, I’m warning you … you’d better not fick this up!” Hiccup turns, his ass now facing Ryuk. “Do it. Peg me.”

FeeTwix cracks up again. “This will be good!”

“Um … ”

“Less umming and more shooting, Marbles.”

“I’m just trying to think of what I should say.”

“How about ‘repair hair?’” Hiccup lifts his right hip slightly and lets out a squeaker. “Fick, that barbeque has come back to haunt me. You see me launch myself into the air earlier propelled solely by flatulence?” he asks over his shoulder. “Not gonna lie, that was cool as fick.”

Damn goblin.

Ryuk pouches a clear marble, pulls back on his slingshot, takes a few big steps back, and fires it at Hiccup’s lower back. “Repair hair!”

“Yooooy!” Hiccup hops into the air, his hands on his lower back. “That fickin’ hurt!” He immediately pats his head. “What … what the fick!?” he asks as what’s left of his topknot disappears and two side curls take shape, curling even more as they extend in length. They’re yellow, and once they’re done growing, they hang well past the goblin’s double chin.

“Payot!” FeeTwix cracks up. “How orthodox of you, Hiccup!”

“Twick you, Fixy! Fick, you know what I mean!” The panicked goblin looks at Wolf, who has sat down on his haunches and is watching him with his head twisted to the right. “You too, Scooby!”

Scooby? Ryuk thinks.

Sometimes it seems like Hiccup has taken bits and pieces from what he assumes is the world up there and put them into usage having little or no knowledge of what the word means, how it is used, or who uses it. Then again, Ryuk has no idea what “scooby” means either. “I’ll try again.”

“Fick yes you will!” Hiccup growls. He tightens his grip around his toe knife. “You’d better not fick this up, Marbles.”

Ryuk places another clear marble in the slingshot, pulls back and … “Hey, what kind of hair do you actually want?” he asks, lowering his weapon.

Hiccup’s about to mouth off at him, but then he realizes the question is actually something he needs to consider.

“Same style as before?”

“Give him a faux hawk,” Zaena laughs. “A real douchey looking one.”

“Pfft, everyone knows faux hawks are cool,” Hiccup replies. “I’d be so lucky for Marbles here to give me one – talk about pootie tiz-ang out the wazoo next time I hit the club scene in Jatla – but he’s an amateur and it’s amateur hour so I’ll take what I can get. Same as before.”

“So a dollop of pink hair?” Ryuk asks.

“Did I stutter?” Hiccup nods and raises his nose. “And for the record, Marbles, ‘dollop’ is the pooftiest word you’ve said all day.”

“Fine,” he says under his breath. “Pink hair!” Annoyed with the goblin, Ryuk pulls back as far as he can and zings the marble right at the back of his head.

A Simple Request!

Hiccup screams like a hairy man getting a Brazilian wax as long, lustrous pink locks sprout out of the back of his head and thicken. By the time his hair is done growing, and the goblin is done bitching, he has a fabulous full head of pink hair which hangs well past his shoulders.

By this point, Zaena is rolling on the ground laughing, FeeTwix can barely stand he’s laughing so hard, and Ryuk is laughing harder than he’s laughed in weeks. Even Wolf has joined in; he now gives the goblin the queerest look he can muster.

“It was supposed to be a fickin’ dollop!”

“You told me that word was … how did put it?” Ryuk asks.

“Pooftiest,” FeeTwix says, still trying to stop laughing. “Don’t worry, Hiccup, we’ll get your hair fixed right up.” The Swede grabs a pair of clippers from his inventory list. “If it’s a topknot you want, it’s a topknot you’ll get!”

Chapter 20: Mark of the Beast

“Fickery, why do we always get caught up in fickery?” Hiccup laments as they continue down a narrow passage lit by torches. FeeTwix has given him what he wants – a topknot – and he’s even shaved a lightning bolt on the side of his head, just to give the goblin a little more flare than a goblin with pink hair and a mechanical hand could possibly need.

“Relax, Hiccup, I think we’re a pretty good group to be in, am I right, guys?”

“Yes,” Ryuk says.

“Fick me, Marbles, you have about as much personality as a blow-up doll, and those are at least useful. I’m not one to get Goblinholm’s Syndrome like Twixy over here. I’m a free thinker, a big league type of guy.”

Zaena chuckles. “Play nice, Hiccup. You’d be an ugly, bald goblin without Ryuk and you’d look like a poofter, as you say, if you had kept your pink hair long. Now you’re just an ugly goblin.”

Hiccup equips a healing potion, pops the top, and starts chugging. “Damn, love these Cherry Apollos.”

“You need to conserve those,” FeeTwix reminds him.

The goblin belches and throws the bottle over his shoulder. “They help me deal with stress, the kind that lizards and wolves give me. Fick.” He beats his chest, hiccups. “Give me heartburn too. Shit, is that big mutt pissing again? I haven’t seen him drink something yet. Where the fick do dogs get so much urine?”

“He’s marking his territory,” FeeTwix explains as Wolf catches up to them. “Haven’t you ever seen a dog do that?”

“I’ve seen a goblin do it. Fick, most of the dogs in Jatla become dinner before they have the time to properly piss on anything.”

Ryuk notices a wall up ahead at least five meters high. He walks ahead, letting Hiccup explain more in depth his knowledge of goblin vs. canine micturition, his Marble Gun at the ready. To the left of the wall is another pathway that he assumes wraps around to the top.

Without saying anything to the others, he pops a gravity marble into his mouth and floats into the air.

He takes a step up to the next invisible ledge and pops another marble in his mouth just to sustain his power. The marbles fastly dissolving, Ryuk takes a few more steps up until he reaches the top of the wall. From there, he hops over and sits, his feet dangling over the ledge.

“Fick, Marbles, since when could you fly?” Hiccup calls up to him.

“Gravity marble,” he shouts down.

“Hell yeah, toss me one!”

“Doesn’t work like that, Hiccup.”

“He’s right,” Zaena tells him, “I tried.”

“Ah, fick.”

Not one to be overshadowed by a guildmate’s power, FeeTwix equips a pair of heavy boots each with canisters latched above the heel. “DisNike steam boots,” he says, “straight from Steampunk Santa’s shop in Morlock.” He bends over to make sure they’re properly attached. “Akrasia to be exact, the prison city, but that’s a story for another day! Okay, hop into my arms, Hiccup, and I’ll carry you up.”

“No fickin’ way, Twixy, I’m not your little stuffed trash panda!”

Zaena chuckles and uses her ghost limbs to lift herself up. Once she’s next to Ryuk, she calls down to the gassy goblin. “I can give you a lift, if you want, goblin.”

“I don’t fick with konoshlo, Liz, so no. Fido and I will go the long way,” he says, pointing at the alternative path. “Come on, pooch.”

Hiccup makes a kissing sound with his fat lips and Wolf gets the hint that he should follow. Meanwhile, FeeTwix has finished strapping his DisNike steamboots on and is gearing to go. He bends, presses two buttons on either side of the boots, and takes to the air like a bat out of Hades. “Shit!”

-56 HP!

FeeTwix slams into the chamber’s ceiling, a cloud of steam trailing after him. He’s tossed backwards, and just when he’s about to lose it all, he shoots forward and smacks into Ryuk.

“Sorry!” he says as he scrambles to his feet.

Ryuk rubs the back of his head. He didn’t lose any HP, but suddenly he feels like he’s been shaken like a can of soda. “No problem,” he says as he pushes himself off the ground. He dusts his Dream Armor off and smiles at the Swede, who looks genuinely concerned. “No really, I’m fine.”

He turns in the other direction to see a hallway lit only by the room on the other side. The hallway is narrow enough that they’ll have to go through it in a line, and the larger members of the group, Hiccup and Wolf, will definitely have trouble squeezing through.

FeeTwix’s eyes flash. “There are lots and lots of tunnels attached to this main path,” he says. “Good map, Jay!” He gives his own face a thumbs up. “People, I’m serious here, this isn’t a paid endorsement. Buy Proxima Maps from Jack S. if you get the chance. He has a shop in Ertla, but he also delivers via EBAYmazon dragons. Not a paid endorsement, either!”

“Let’s go,” Zaena says, stepping forward. “I would like to be done with this damp, dark place.”

“Same here! I’m ready to dance my ass off.” FeeTwix raises his hands in the air and shakes his hips. “What about you, babe? Got any sweet Thulean moves to show me?”

She laughs nervously. “I don’t know about that.”

“But you’re excited, right?”

“A little.” Zaena narrows her orange eyes at Ryuk. “What about you? Are you excited to come?”

“I don’t really know if I should … ”

“You have to come,” FeeTwix says, “Enway will be there.”

“So?” Ryuk looks away, just in case his face has turned red.

“She’s pretty cute for an elf,” Zaena comments. “Much better than that bitch Tamana.”

Ryuk swallows hard. Remember, he thinks, the Tamana in here is an RPC that betrayed you. The Tamana up there was … different. Even with this thought, he still finds it troubling to hear his teammates talk ill of Tamana.

“Now where has that goblin run off to?” FeeTwix asks, looking down the adjacent hallway. “It shouldn’t be taking him this long.”

“Do you think he ran into trouble?” Ryuk asks the Swede.

“I think if he did, we’d hear him scream, fart, the clink of weapons, or at the very least, we’d hear Wolf bark.”

“He may have stopped to drink yet another potion. Who is keeping track of his potion consumption? He’s lucky we don’t need those!”

“Don’t worry, babe, the Fickers have been donating tons of potions. I’m just slowly giving them to him, almost as rewards.”

The three stand there quietly for a moment, listening for any indication that Hiccup has got into some shit. What they hear, after about a minute of listening, is the increasingly loud patter of paws.

“Is that … ?” FeeTwix steps back just in time.

Wolf bursts out of the opening, a smug look on his face. Sitting on top with his legs clamped around the wolf’s body is the cantankerous goblin.

“What?” he asks as he scratches Wolf behind the ear. “That fickin’ pathway was practically vertical. So I took a ride. Why are you all looking at me like that? He doesn’t mind, hell, if anyone else wants to hop up, you’re more than welcome too. But I get to sit in front. I’m nobody’s little lap bitch.”

FeeTwix nods, clearly impressed. “Now I can add ‘seeing a goblin riding a giant wolf’ to the list of things I never thought I’d see. Bad news, though, that path ahead looks really thin. I don’t think you can both get through there in your current form.”

“Fine, fine.” Hiccup pats Wolf on the head. He lowers his body, and the goblin hops off. “But I got first dibs on the canine taxi once we’re in the clear again.”

(0)__(0)

“This place is practically bristling with treasure!” FeeTwix announces, his finger raised in the air. “Seriously, guys, if we didn’t have a mission to handle, or a concert to get to, I’d say we hang back here and get as much damn treasure as our lists can carry.”

“I’m with Twixy,” Hiccup says at the back of the line. “Fick the Shinigami, fick Tamana, Marbles the Second, and the Knights for that matter. Fick the concert too. With money, all our problems will be solved. Hell, we can just rent a place in Jatla, you know, one of those high end apartments on the upper west side of the city, and have our own concert!”

“Those apartments?” Ryuk asks, imagining the run-down, two-story buildings on the upper west side of Jatla. Most of the places, from what he could tell, were missing walls and ceilings. A few were without doors and the public urinals that surrounded each building only added to the eyesore.

“What? Fick, Marbles, not all of us can afford the nicer things in life, but if we get that treasure, these four fickers – notice I said four, I’m not done vetting the elf – would be living high on the hog. Or horse. Is it high on the horse? Fick, you know what I mean. Damn, it’s bright ahead. Howzabout one of you bend a little so Uncle Goblin can take a peeksee? Fick, why am I at the back of the group again?”

“Because you were too scared to be the first,” Zaena calls back to him. “Now shut up for once; your constant rambling is driving me insane.”

“It looks like some sort of … of statue room,” FeeTwix says. “Yes! A room dedicated to the goddesses. This should be interesting! Everyone get ready for screenshots!”

The four Mitherfickers and their big bad wolf enter a chamber with impossibly high ceilings.

Light from outside comes in through slits in the ceiling revealing eight female statues, each chiseled into the rockface. The gothic statues fall somewhere between beautiful craftsmanship and horror, especially the statue of a woman with her arm outstretched holding her fist through a skull.

Hiccup immediately moves to a statue of a woman with piles of rupees around her feet. He places his mechanical hand on the rupees, bows his head, and starts to pray in Thulean.

“Don’t mind him,” Zaena tells Ryuk after she catches his confused glance. “That’s the Goddess of Luck.”

“Zip it, Liz, I’m trying to pray,” Hiccup says before launching back in. “Boom nana boom rana boom lana boom pokhla; boom nana boom rana boom lana boom poklha.”

The air on Wolf’s neck stands to attention.

“What do you see, boy?” FeeTwix asks, but before he can say anything else, Wolf takes off down another hallway.

“Boom nana boom rana … all dogs have a mind of their own, Twixy, parsing matters … boom lana boom pokhla … ”

Ryuk steps in front of a statue of a naked woman, her belly cut open and a dragon’s tail slipping into it. “This one is very interesting.”

“I like this one.” FeeTwix stands before a statue of a woman with a giant hammer slung over her shoulder. She’s muscular, buxom, and she wears a crop top and a pair of tight shorts, the only one of the statues not in some sort of dress.

“That’s the Goddess of Tradeskills. She’s popular, especially amongst the various smiths across the continents. Let me see your Marble Gun, Ryuk.”

Ryuk unholsters it, pops the mag out for safety reasons, and hands it to the Thulean, the business end of the gun pointing downward.

“See here?” she says, touching the Thulean carved into his weapon. As she does so, the words light up green. “That’s her name there, and this part is asking for her blessing.” Her ears twitch. “Do you hear that?”

Wolf’s yelps ricochet down the long tunnel ahead.

“Heads up!” FeeTwix shouts.

“Goblin, right; FeeTwix, left; Ryuk, back as far as possible!” Zaena calls out. The Thulean quickly hands Ryuk’s gun back to him and positions herself in the center of the chamber. She rises into the air, suspended by her ghost limbs.

The rest of the Mitherfickers take their position, Hiccup grumbling at Zaena’s perceived racism. They hear Wolf’s yelps growing louder, accompanied by the patter of hooves against the stone floor.

“Whatever it is, it’s fucking big!” FeeTwix, in his element, has one of the largest weapons Ryuk has ever seen in his hands. It’s silver, with a Kevlar tipped base handle attached to the central power unit and a plasma shell counter flashing red on its side. “BFG 9000-S12B,” the Swede tells his audience as it powers up. “Don’t leave home without one!”

“Fickin’ hell, Twixy!” Hiccup calls over the rumble coming from the tunnel. “That thing is going to fick up your life bar, tactical vest or not!”

A healing potion appears in the Swede’s semi-gloved hand. He quickly stuffs it in the pocket of his overcoat. “That’s what this is for!”

Wolf blasts out of the hole with true fear in his eyes. He blazes past Ryuk, and as he does, Ryuk sees the horns of a dark-skinned bovine.

Underground Auroch Level 20

HP: 666/666

ATK: 221

MATK: 0

DEF: 342

MDF: 119

LUCK: 1

Hiccup screams like a sissy as the muscled auroch tears into the chamber. The beast immediately tosses FeeTwix off his feet, who just so happens to squeeze the trigger of his futuristic weapon, blasting the Goddess of Luck statue to kibbles and bits and leaving a hole in the wall big enough to fit a dumpster.

“For fick’s sake, Twixy, get something less destructive!” Hiccup shouts as a large piece of the ceiling falls between him and the auroch.

The beast snorts smoke, scratches its hoof against the ground, and takes aim at Ryuk.