Lunar plains of Desolation, depth 5
* *
Robert cursed this bloody realm for the tenth time. Flight was restricted in this place and the Moon Beasts had reflective fur.
A desolate, moonlit expanse of white, powdery dust and jagged rocks surrounded him. The sky was dominated by a large, looming moon that never set. The realm's surface imitated a moon (or was a real moon, who knew?) and had these roving packs of Moon Beasts. White wolves with silver fur that reflected essence. Not even his debuffs worked on the wolves. He had to resort to "glorious" melee combat. In the name of the Em... press.
He had to put his spear and footwork skills to the test. Stabbing was out of the question. He swung the spear and nicked a throat, severed a paw's tendon. Moving around, keeping the wolves from encircling him. And they barked, snarled, and pounced at the invader. Their talent was personal gravity manipulation. When a wolf jumped, it sailed a dozen meters before landing and moving on. Robert learned early on not to attack these moonwalking wolves. They could shift their gravity mid-jump to land before the spear caught to them.
The packs didn't call upon one another but the fight often wandered into another group's territory, causing the adds to pile up. Robert would use a burst of Haste to circle around the dwindling pack, putting the fresh wolves behind the tired ones. Then he followed the blood trail to avoid wandering into a third pack's territory. It was the third time he went back and forth along this way. Dead and dying wolves littered the way.
But the wolf corpses attracted more wolves. Robert often found stragglers ahead of the way, forcing him to burn through more essence to reach and dispatch them before he was caught in a pincer attack.
They all had the Light affinity but didn't fire lasers like most Light Archs. Instead, they used an innate spell to cover their claws and fangs with Light essence, creating something not as clumsy or random as keratin or dentine; an elegant and clean solution for a more civilized canine.
He reached the end of the bloody path near the passage and surveyed the area. The realm had an accentuated curvature and the horizon was just a mile and a half away. But no wolves seemed to be near the passage. His spatial senses told him he had fifteen monsters chasing him. He swapped the spear for twin swords, hopped onto the liminal void to recharge, and returned with all buffs activated. Haste and accelerate thought were empowered by his two stars.
Robert charged and shouted, giving second thoughts to some of the wolves. The bolder, stronger ones dashed past the hesitating wolves and jumped at Robert. He dashed forward at the slow-motion wolves. He had to pace himself. At the speed his mind was running, his own body felt unresponsive. He moved as if he was executing a slow weapon kata. Cut a throat, move the blade away from the wolf that suddenly weighed ten times as much, lean, stab another wolf through the eye, wait for the tip of the blade to touch bone, and remove the weapon carefully so it won't get stuck in the bone, reposition the right sword, lunge for the next wolf, stab it at the bottom of the jaw, pierce through the palate, do a little twist to scramble the brains. Remove the sword fast as he crouched, making sure he wasn't under the first wolf.
To the wolves, it was like a storm of steel passed through them, poking or slashing each one of the monsters ahead of them once, and then reaching out and causing heinous pain.
Robert's muscles felt like lead when he finished killing all the wolves. He cycled lavi flows, jade mind, and vitae infusion, letting the tempering techniques restore his body and mind.
With a sigh, he checked. No wolves in sight or otherwise. He swapped his trusted swords with a skinning knife and set to work. The wolves' pelts were worth a small fortune because of their sheen and, if he got lucky, the defensive properties. Moon Beast armor was a must in some reams where the monsters fought with Essence attacks. Like the elemental realm.
But damn. The gorgeous fur was as soft as baby hair. Robert skinned the wolves and stacked the pelts in his slowed time ring. Now, to find the boss.
*
*
Robert stared at the Moon Fenrir with awe. Nine feet tall from the ground to shoulder, two feet of head above that, it was a majestic and deadly beast. Surrounded by two dozen normal moon beasts and with a rumored power to draw even more wolves to him, it wasn't a fight he wanted to have. Worse, Robert could see the Ice essence being drawn into the monster.
None of the records on the Moon Fenrir told of a second affinity. That beast was a deviant. Robert could think of one way to defeat it. He tried to drag the beast to the liminal void and leave it there. Instead, he found himself alone. The wolf's fur didn't count as physical contact.
Next, he tried to sneak attack it. The wolf reacted the moment he appeared. Robert's prescience told him how bad a bath in liquid nitrogen was as the Moon Fenrir released a powerful freezing aura powered by its three stars.
Robert decided that one failed quest out of twenty wasn't so bad. He cut his losses short and withdrew.
*
*
Laying on his fairy bed in his fairy mansion floating above the abandoned city in the Puffbloom Islands in the liminal void, Fairy-Robert pondered. He could kill the Moon Fenrir. Why did he decide to retreat, then?
Despite all his resilience, he was suffering from mental burnout. All the stress from the assassins, the excitement of visiting new and deadly realms, the anxiety he felt whenever someone approached him... it was wearing him down. Even someone with a mental fortitude enhanced by a fuck-ton of magic could break. Even if he had all the time in the universe.
Wait. That's it. He knew how to repay Titania's debt in full and maybe get his heart in the right place all at once.
Robert slept and lazed around for the remainder of the time he had in the liminal void, setting an alarm for five minutes before his return. When his time was up, he sank into the true void and reappeared in the public lobby to Titania's private office. He put on the Samson Security dress uniform.
The receptionist was startled by his sudden appearance but recomposed herself pretty fast. "Good morning, Mr. Blaze, how may I help you?"
"I need to talk to Mrs. Samson about a deal we made. I have good news for her."
"Mrs. Samson is traveling abroad right now. Do you wish to leave a message?"
"Tell her that I can quit my debt in just a few minutes if she's available for that long."
The receptionist looked at something on her terminal. "Mr. Blaze, if you can wait for a few minutes, Mr. Gerome is coming to talk to you."
"Okay."
Gerome arrived and led Robert to a private meeting room on the same floor. Robert explained his idea; Gerome did a double take. When he explained every detail, the butler was impressed. He used a crystal device and a bubble of soundlessness surrounded his head. He talked into the device, nodded, and then dispelled the bubble.
"Mrs. Samson says that she agrees to your terms. Would later tonight be okay to do that? She needs to get clearance from the involved parties."
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
"Sure. I'm going to raid one or two Realms in the meantime," Robert said. "At what hour should I be here?"
"Seven PM," Gerome answered.
"Okay. See you at seven. Bye," Robert said and went to the liminal void.
*
*
Lunar plains of Desolation, depth 5
* *
Robert stood two hundred feet away from the Moon Fenrir. The monster snarled and growled at him but it didn't attack. Robert aimed his bow. In the last few days, he absorbed the skills he took from that Archer in London. It was time to cement them with some target practice. He fired arrow after arrow from the infinite cornucopia quiver the archer had. So long he provided essence to the quiver, it would create perfectly good perfectly mundane Ether construct arrows for him. These arrows vanished after six hours, though.
He struck the wolf and then the monster darted toward him. Robert changed his angle and kept shooting. As he started to feel the chill of the Moon Fenrir's aura, he used his primary talent and reappeared to the side of the wolf pack. He shot more arrows, aiming at the wolves in the Fenrir pack.
Archery proved to be a good skill to have, especially because he didn't need to spend the decade-plus that guy had. It felt like learning Kung Fu in a computer simulation (Robert only knew what that was from books) in a single instant.
Though the wolves' fur deflected energy, the solid constructs apparently didn't count as that despite being made out of Ether. Perhaps, the wolves' fur only deflected Essence. But talents weren't made of essence, were they? That's where the terminology humans used fell short. Everything was Ether but they had these dozen or so names when Ether was in this or that particular form. Essence, aura, dross essence, primal Ether, and so on.
He only moved to reposition himself in the liminal void. When he was with his two feet on real ground, it was time to shoot arrows. It took him some time but he had plenty of time to kill before his meeting with Titania. In the meanwhile, he got a feeling for his new magical bow and for the art of shooting death from afar, that didn't bounce back in your face or veered off harmlessly, curse these wolves.
Being a third star, Moon Fenrir was a tough boy. The arrows that hit him only scratched its fur. But the silver was now being marred by streaks of red as each wound bled for a while. Robert found frozen droplets of blood in places the Moon Fenrir stood before in their death from afar minuet.
Bored, Robert tried trick shots. He aimed at the eyes, nostrils, and even the tongue when it poked out. At the knee joints and paws. One out of every fifty arrows landed a critical, or so he thought. Robert wanted a weapon with a bigger threat range but they weren't playing 3.5e, one of the few games that survived the rift cataclysm because the preppers who hunkered down in their SHTF bunkers were also huge nerds.
Serendipity decided to help for once and he fired one arrow at almost point-blank that struck an eye straight through the pupil, sinking to the feathers. Robert vanished because he didn't want fifty tons of neither wolf nor coal number nine hitting him.
Moon Fenrir howled in pain. All around the moon, barks and howls rang. Was Robert going to make the moon beasts extinct just because of a pelt? Most likely not. This moon didn't have the resources to sustain such a huge wolf population. No moon hares, or whatever moon beasts ate. He saw no pups either, only adult wolves. That meant this realm spawned its monsters instead of letting them make more of themselves the dirty and fun way.
He counted more than fifty wolves coming his way. Robert decided that, instead of clearing these adds, he should finish the boss. He kept shooting at the Moon Fenrir. When the boss was right upon him, he'd go to the other side and use his swords to whittle the canine horde. A few hours later, the horde was down to just a handful of tired wolves.
The boss was also showing signs of exhaustion. It had two arrows lodged in one nostril, and the blood loss was definitely taking its toll. Robert aimed at the other eye. His arrow flew true and bounced off the eyelid. The wolf decided to blink at the wrong (for Robert) moment. Serendipity's tempering ticked up by 3 points. It was close to evolving.
Two dozen more arrows and the Moon Fenrir collapsed. The wolves he summoned failed their morale check and scattered to the winds. Robert approached carefully but stopped outside its cold aura range. He then shot an arrow at the eye that was glaring at him and blinded the monster. Another five arrows at the nose and he was pretty sure the wolf couldn't smell him, with all the blood that sprayed every time it exhaled. Finally, Robert blinked close with his sword ready and delivered a downward slash at the Fenrir's throat, finishing it and earning a bath of cold blood.
*
*
Pittersville, Empire of America. District 25, Monstrous Taxidermy LLC. 7 PM.
* *
This taxidermy shop specialized in treating monster parts for preservation. And it had a good reputation for keeping their customer's information private.
Robert entered.
"Hello, good sir," A young lady greeted. "How may we help you?"
"I have some furs I want treated and preserved."
"How fresh are they? Were the monsters skinned by a professional?"
"Less than a few hours, and they are in a slowed time ring. And no. I expect some furs to have defects."
"If the furs are this fresh, they still have some lifeforce in them. Our taxidermist is a Life Arch, she can fix those defects."
"Great. Then I want to hire her services."
"That's fine, sir. We charge thirty thousand dollars per square meter of fur or three percent of the finished pelt's value. If we can't agree on a pelt's value, we will ask you to allow us to put one up for anonymous auction with the ATA to gauge the value."
"Can you give a bulk discount?" Robert asked. He wasn't worried about the price but the three percent rule with the auction was crap if he intended to sell the pelts as he had many. He was pretty sure a Moon Beast pelt would score very high because it was a rarity. But after he started to sell his stock, things would change drastically. He would need to pace his sales to avoid dumping the price and he really didn't want to hold onto them forever. "I also dislike the auction, as the stock I brought will surely cause deflationary pressure and lower the prices."
"How many pelts do you have?"
"More than a hundred."
She looked impressed. "That's quite the haul."
"I spent months hunting these monsters."
"What monsters, if I may ask."
"Moon Beasts, from the Lunar Plains of Desolation."
The young woman consulted a chart or a tablet behind the counter. "We don't have that monster on our list."
Someone came from the back. It was an excited older woman appearing to be in her late thirties or early forties. "Did you say Moon Beasts? Did you get the Moon Fenrir's pelt?" She blurted.
"No comments. I have more than a hundred Moon Beast pelts to get treated. I have no Moon Fenrir pelt that requires your services right now."
The woman smirked. "Moon Fenrir is a bitch to treat because they only take Essence from the back. I assume you want to keep their reflective properties."
"Yes, that would be desirable."
"If you have more than a hundred, I'll charge you fifty thousand per pelt."
"Thirty. You will earn millions for this service."
"Sorry. I have other clients and this job will take too much time. I'm not hurting for work. I like you. Forty-five."
"What if I have more than two hundred pelts? Would more than seven million dollars be more your alley?"
"Forty, we meet in the middle."
"Deal."
"Now, about that Wolf Fenrir?"
"Commission. You can ask Aethericheart for another one if you like."
"Ugh. No, thank you. Too expensive."
Robert knew. But he dared anyone else to go there and kill another big bad wolf. Maybe if he wore a red riding hood, the wolf would get weaker. Who knew? He dumped his Moon Beast pelts with the woman and left ten million dollars poorer. The worse-off pelts he gave them as a tip.
*
*
When he arrived ten minutes earlier for his meeting, Gerome just nodded and opened the private elevator for him. They went straight to Titania's suite. Amanda was not present.
"I can't believe it! What did you do to Bosstown, kid?" The pruney woman berated.
"Except for raiding their Dungeon on cooldown for the aura, nothing."
"Yeah, I heard you were visiting a big share of Dungeons. London, Florida, where else?"
"I've been around," Robert smirked. "So, what about our business?"
"Here. The deed for the clockwork Dungeon in Cairo. As well as a ten-year contract with Samson Security to defend that passage."
"Thanks," Robert took the documents. "Shall we go?"
"Sure. The security team is ready."
They went to a gate facility that opened long-range portals. Each use cost more than ten million dollars but it could teleport large amounts of people almost everywhere on Earth. Its use was considered a strategic resource and it was only deployed in emergency or official business. Establishing an outpost in Cairo fitted the latter.
The portal opened and they crossed. Robert believed he could emulate the effect now that he saw the magic at work. But it was something he'd only try when he was back to three stars.
The Nubian government handed over the facility to Samson security forces. They deployed a portable passage shield, similar to the ones used on Mt. Etna's passages.
Robert held Titania's hand and the two entered the clockwork realm. If nobody else crossed the portal, they would appear right outside the shield in less than a second. He carried a spatial shipping crate full of food and supplies.
Inside, the two of them spent one year. They spent the real day in the realm, then went to the liminal void for ninety-nine to work on their mind palaces. One hundred and one days of subjective time, most of it spent in meditation. Titania was in high spirits. She even engaged in conversation sometimes.
Robert asked why she had Amanda do all these marriage meetings and got the most sensible answer he ever thought of.
When their year was up, Robert used the true void to slip outside and return to the facility. They reappeared next to the guards.
"Status!" Titania shouted as they snapped and saluted. "How long?"
"Three seconds," the guard answered.
Robert suspected that was so only because the guard was so stupefied he forgot to press the stopwatch.