Before I could stop myself, I blurted out “You!”

“You!” Cassara shouted, looking directly at me, eyes wide with shock. I’d been so surprised that I’d broken my own stealth and failed to conceal myself in the shadows.

Arven chose that moment to burst in through the front door, sliding to a stop as he took in the scene. “You!” he said, staring at the mysterious Malconvoker.

“You…” the man practically hissed, taking a quick step behind his strange companion, which I assumed must be a daemon of some sort.

Lucus, entering right behind Arven, just looked confused, but then Dawn and Dorian entered, and Dawn drew up, gaping at Cassara, eyes going wide. “What are you doing here!?”

“Who?” Dorian asked, looking as confused as Lucus.

Under normal circumstances, this would have been hilarious. Now it was just baffling. “What the fuck is going on here?” I yelled, hopping down from my perch on the wall and making my way over to where everyone was gathering.

Cassara looked back and forth between me and Dawn in obvious confusion. She eventually settled on Dawn. “What are you doing here? You have no part in The Ordeal,” she spat.

Dawn’s eyes went even wider, and she took a step back, then looked at me in horror. “Tavi… I, this is the devil I summoned. The one I got imprisoned for. She’s the Host of the Ordeal… I can’t fight her.”

“You’re Rhel’s sister, right?” I asked, just in case I was mistaken, or the cashier had deceived me for some reason.

Dorian blurted out, “You’re Rhelrya’s sister?! But she said you had the head of a pig and… oh.”

Cassara screamed in fury, but to my surprise didn’t move. Then I realized she was still concentrating on whatever Nemesis was doing to The Unholy. I had to mentally back up a step and reassess the situation.

“Wait, you have Nemesis?” I said, several things clicking into place. Gods, Sam had tried to warn me, hadn’t he? I’d completely missed it. “You fucking idiot! That thing kills everyone that uses it. Every single one. Why would you do that?”

Cassara didn’t respond except to growl, her eyes remaining fixed on Nemesis, but after a moment her companion spoke up. His tone was oddly dispassionate, as if I’d asked them about the weather.

“It’s fairly obvious, isn’t it? We’re binding this creature’s will,” He glanced up at the chained monstrosity above us, speaking thoughtfully. “Nemesis is a rather remarkable artifact, attracted to life yet possessing absolute power over death. It can bind even the most powerful undead to its wielder’s will. Most bosses are all but immune to effects which dominate the mind or spirit, let alone raid bosses, but Nemesis seems to ignore such limitations.”

I blinked at him, momentarily at a loss for words. “I’m sorry, but who the fuck are you?” I eventually managed to ask.

“He’s Randal Licane, the Duke’s court wizard. The one who cursed me,” Arven said, stepping forward with both blades glowing with their ghostly blue light.

Licane shook his head in quiet disappointment. “It was nothing personal, Arven. I’m sure the marquess deserved every inch of your steel, but I wasn’t about to compromise my position in court on your behalf. The Lord Adversary asked that I study this oddity of a dungeon, and that required remaining in the good grace of Altria’s nobility.”

“Sure, and it will be nothing personal when I toss what’s left of you into the sky,” Arven told him, clearly unmoved. As they spoke, he continued his slow advance on the other man.

I held out a hand, causing Arven to pause. “Hold up, I get you two have a history, but I need to understand what’s happening here.” I turned back to Licane and Cassara. “What’s the point of this? Are you trying to close the dungeon? What’s The Adversary get out of this?”

Tavi’s memories had mostly clued me in on what was happening here. Ordeals were what The Adversary called his tests of the mortal world, and there was always one person charged with enacting his plan. There wasn’t an Astran alive that didn’t know what it meant to encounter someone with the title “Host of the Ordeal,” it was a mandatory title just like prisoner, but unlike most such titles it granted benefits rather than penalties.

Possessing the title was a penalty of its own, as it told everyone who saw it that you were actively planning to commit an atrocity. Just having it was enough to earn a death sentence in any country, no trial required. Tavi hadn’t known what benefits the title conveyed, but she had been aware that it worked in a similar way to my Revolutionary title, providing more benefits when in a primary slot.

Normally people chosen to host an Ordeal wouldn’t display the title publicly until they needed to, or when hiding it was no longer required. Cassara hadn’t been wearing the title in a primary slot when I’d encountered her in Crucible, but undoubtably she hadn’t been expecting to be interrupted here and wanted whatever benefits it conveyed. Now though, it removed any possible doubt we could have had about their intentions.

That’s why, when I asked what the point of all this was, everyone understood I wasn’t asking if their intentions were good. I was asking how what they were doing was going to lead to a disaster the likes of which The Adversary would bother with.

Licane glanced at Dawn, who was biting her nails in nervous indecision. Then he shrugged and said, “Most dungeon creatures are bound to the cycle of their dungeons, but raid bosses are not, and there is precedent for them escaping their dungeons. I have been studying this one through scrying for quite some time, and we believe it can be compelled to produce more of its lesser kin. Once Cassara has it dominated, we’ll spend some time building up a force of such creatures, then bring them into Altria.”

He paused and took in our expressions of disgust. Dorian had looked sick ever since entering the room and seeing The Unholy, but hearing this plan described so casually and dispassionately had caused a tinge of madness to enter his expression, and I began to worry he might throw himself at Licane before Arven could. Lucus just looked grim, and Savas… where was Savas? I didn’t see the orc anywhere. Had he not come in yet?

“You know, I’m sure The Lord Adversary would gladly reward the lot of you for simply agreeing to forget you saw this. We could have your prison debts paid off and you could be out of Altria long before the next phase of the plan begins. I can even arrange to have your friends and loved ones spirited away on some pretense, and the lot of you can live lives of wealth and luxury,” Licane said.

“Arven, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind seeing the Strumald family line snuffed out, and you surely know you’ll never be allowed to leave the prison alive. Not while the Duke still lives at least. I hear he’s even started offering to shower wealth on any prisoners that manage to come back from the dungeon without you. No questions asked. How long will it be before you can no longer trust your companions not to stick a knife in your back?”

Quest Updated: The Devil in the Bleak City

New Optional Objective: Flee Altria without revealing The Adversary’s Ordeal

“Daddy, I’m bored…” said the thing with the voice of a child and the face of a plastic figurine that had been left out to melt in the sun. “Can I play with the big bug?” It gestured at The Unholy on the ceiling, still wrapped in chains that were sinking into its flesh at a slow but steady pace.

“Not now Telvarn, daddy is speaking. Be a good boy and I’ll let you play later,” Licane said, distractedly reaching down to pat the thing’s head even as he continued to hide behind it.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose in frustration. “We’re not going to join you, and we’re not going to let this go. Seriously, what the fuck are you thinking here? Have you seen what those things do to people? You want to set them loose in our world? You live in Altria, don’t you? How can you even consider doing that?”

I shuddered, remembering Dorian’s soul rending screams. In the moment I’d been insulated from the horror of most of it thanks to being temporarily undead, but in some ways that made the memory of it worse. I could remember enjoying those screams.

Rationally I had always known that this sort of thing was the true purpose of The Adversary and his followers, but I couldn’t fit that together in my mind with the jovial devil that always treated me so kindly and respectfully. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that Sam, Bea, Rhelrya and even Dawn were all complicit in this insane plan to some degree. They couldn’t possibly be expecting to actually succeed in this, could they?

“Come on,” I said. “The game is up, we caught you, and we’re not going to back down, and we have you outnumbered. Do we really have to fight this out, or can we just punch our timecards and call it a day? I’m fucking sick of this dungeon, and I haven’t seen the sun in days. Your boss can write this one off as a bad idea and we can all live to fight another day, alright?”

If anything, the chains binding The Unholy began to move faster as Cassara’s anger seemed to increase with my every word. “I will kill you and eat your fucking heart.” she growled.

“Bitch, you know I can take you on my own!” I told her. “Give up and I won't have to humiliate you in front of your coworkers.”

Arven reached down and patted me on the head in a gesture weirdly reminiscent of what Licane had just done, but then he stepped past me, bringing up his swords again. “That’s not how this works, Tavi. They aren’t going to back down.”

“I’m afraid Arven is correct. Canceling the Ordeal is not an option,” Licane sighed. “This could have been your chance at freedom, Arven. The Lord Adversary would value your service far more than the nobility of this petty kingdom ever have. Such a pity. Cassara, focus on your work. I’ll deal with these intruders.”

“You can’t possibly hope to fight us all,” Lucus said. Then he looked at Arven. “Can he?”

“I don’t know. It depends on how prepared he is. He’s very powerful, and I didn’t even know he was a Malconvoker before today. His visible class has always just been Court Wizard,” said Arven, glancing at the daemon by Licane’s side. “That daemon might be a problem. You can never tell what they can do.”

“Havarati, protect Cassara please,” said Licane, then he knelt down and turned the small daemon towards him so that he was looking into what passed for its eyes. “Telvarn, did you know it’s my birthday today? It would please me ever so much if you’d bring me the head of Arven Wyse.”

Several things happened all at once.

From the ceiling a strange creature descended from a thick spider-silk rope. It was another daemon I realized, and it landed beside Cassara, flipping itself over and displaying a “Halt” gesture with its one hand and arm. The very next moment, Arven ran into an invisible barrier face first as he moved on Licane with all his blinding speed. He grunted and shook his head as he staggered back.

The childlike daemon looked over at Arven, then back to the wizard. “Oh! I see one daddy!” It said happily.

Lucus started moving forward, shouting out commands, Dorian began chanting a fast-paced song that increased our Agility and Intelligence, making us all move and think faster. Dawn wrung her hands together and looked terribly conflicted, but she took several steps back from both sides to observe.

I dropped my consciousness into my soul gem for a moment, using the calming and logical nature of the stone to organize my thoughts and plan my next actions.

Only when I had done so did I realize I had been furious. Not at anyone or anything in particular, but at the whole situation. It had snuck up on me, and I hadn’t even seen it until suddenly it felt like a distant memory as I stopped thinking with Tavi’s brain. I was going to have to examine that emotion later, but for now it was time to act.

I decided that regardless of anything else, two things were true. First was that Cassara was the real target here. This plan of theirs literally couldn’t work without Nemesis, and if she died it would be pulled back into its containment at Sam’s. He’d told me as much. Second, we weren’t getting out of this without fighting The Unholy, one way or another. The thing had wings and could probably fly, and last time I’d been here it had followed me back into our dungeon instance, if only briefly. Running wasn’t an option now that it knew we were here.

That made my first course of action simple at least. I activated Devour Essence and became fire. As I did so, both daemons immediately stopped and turned to look at me, then shrank back. Licane obviously noticed their odd behavior but didn’t seem to understand what had caused it. I was cloaked in darkness, but that darkness now danced and writhed like flame.

I dropped out of my soul gem and a maniacal grin cut through the shadows as it split my face, lit from within by a tongue of flame. I followed this up by raising my three-fingered hands in the air and activating Blades of Twilight and Burning Bolts with each hand, sending six bolts of fiery darkness up at The Unholy in what might have been the first ever use of jazz hands as a somatic component for spellcasting.

As the huge wormlike creature caught fire it let loose another of its keening wails and fruitlessly thrashed against the chains binding it. Cassara winced and then frowned in concentration as the chains momentarily ceased their advance.

When I’d tapped into my Reality Shard, the hand-spider-thing - Havarati, Licane had called it - had spread its fingers in a gesture of surprise. That had somehow caused the invisible wall blocking Arven to fail, and he was suddenly able to move again. Arven rushed Licane with blinding speed and power, blades leaving blue streaks of light in the air as he brought them forward to cut down the wizard where he stood.

He was stopped cold as the little daemon standing in front of Licane caught both blades mid-swing, as effortlessly as plucking a feather from the air.

The twin blades sank slightly into the daemon’s tiny misshapen hands, but he didn’t seem harmed by the attack. Arven on the other hand stood there trying with obvious effort to free his swords. Licane seized the moment and gestured at Arven, blasting him backwards with some skill that delivered massive concussive force.

I glanced at Arven’s health bar, but it had barely moved. Whatever Licane’s level was it wasn’t enough to do serious damage to Arven on his own, but the daemon’s had both been able to stop him cold. That told me the daemons were the real threat here, and that Arven didn’t have the tools to deal with them. I thought that maybe I did.

The little daemon was still holding Arven’s swords. “Look daddy.” It said, waving them happily by the blades. “I found toys!”

That was going to have to wait for a moment. Now that I had my DoT’s up, I turned to Cassara. “Last chance. Surrender now or I’ll be forced to kill you. You’re as good as dead with that necklace on anyway, but at least you’ll have a chance to become undead if you give up now. It’s the best deal I can offer you at this point.”

The burning hatred in her eyes was all I needed for an answer, but I was still surprised when she suddenly shifted Nemesis, causing it to fly at me with no small speed. I hadn’t been expecting that. I didn’t think she could move it while it was attached to the chains, but she could and did.

I barely managed to dive out of the way, feeling the chill of its passage over my head. I didn’t hesitate, after diving away I rolled twice and then jumped to my feet, looking for the orb. I found it slamming into the ground by where I’d just been, so I kept moving, letting my shadows expand to hide my exact location.

I’d ended up nearer to Licane and his daemon, and the childlike thing shied away from me, holding up Arvens swords between us as if to hide behind them. I used Null to help steady me as I readied to dodge again. If she kept sending Nemesis after me, I wanted her to worry she’d hit the wizard. I had a solution for this, and I toggled on Mythcaller as I prepared to act.

Unfortunately, she either didn’t want to risk hitting her friend or decided binding The Unholy was more important. Instead of pursuing me further, Nemesis returned to her and continued producing its black chains.

“Daddy, that lady is scary!” the little daemon said, pulling on the leg of Licane’s pants with one hand as he pointed at me with the other.

Licane looked down at his daemon child with no small amount of exasperation. Then he simply pointed a finger at me and said, “Die.”

Randal Licane’s spell (Slay Lesser Foe) has failed!

Licane blinked down at this finger, obviously confused. “What do you mean not a valid target…? It’s a goblin, and not even level 50.”

From behind me I heard the sound of a horn being blown. It was low and haunting, and as the sound swelled a mist coalesced in the air around us. From that mist strode an entire pack of ghostly wolves. They gathered around Arven as he pulled himself to his feet from the mess of broken pews where he landed after Licane’s spell sent him flying.

“Look daddy! Puppies!” said the little daemon, happily pointing with one of Arven’s swords. “Can I have a puppy? Please please please!”

It concerned me a bit that Arven had felt like he’d needed to use that item. Five wolves all at level 173 was a hell of a force multiplier. Still, it also gave me an idea…

“Hey Arven!” I shouted, looking at the daemon. “The kid wants a dog to play with, let him have one?”

Arven quickly issued some orders and two wolves peeled away from the pack, running up and biting the daemon on the arms, then dragging the creepy little thing off as it giggled happily.

Licane glanced over at where the two wolves were now pulling at the childlike daemon like a rag doll in a tug of war, then he looked back to me. “Clever, but it won’t save you,” he said. Then he raised his hand towards me again.

Before he could use whatever skill he was readying, Arven hit him from the side like a freight train. I watched as a whole host of magical defenses activated and then shattered under the weight of nothing but his fist. It left both men shaken, and Arven’s fist a burnt and broken mess, but Licane was sent staggering away, barely able to stay on his feet.

“Deal with the devil, I can’t get close to her.” Arven said, reaching down with his other hand and breaking off a piece of wood from a fallen pew to use as a club. He’d set two of the other wolves to guarding Dawn and Dorian, while the other was circling wide around the room, obviously trying to get behind either Licane or Cassara.

Lucus was sort of already doing that, but it was going poorly. The weird hand daemon was doing its mime impression to keep anyone from advancing on Cassara, but it couldn’t quite stop the Bastion. Lucus was using the shield to push through whatever the daemon was doing, but unlike every other time he’d used the shield it wasn’t moving with effortless ease. Instead, it was more like he was having to push it through thick tar.

I solved the problem by activating Unrestrained and simply walking through the daemon’s barrier. I felt it trying to stop me, but Limitless’ skill proved stronger than whatever the little daemon was doing.

I also had to wonder if my elite status was giving me some protection against daemonic effects as well. Daemons were supposed to be the opposite of reality, and elites were supposed to be somehow more real than other things. Did they cancel out? If so, how did that mesh with daemons literally eating pieces of reality?

The description of the shield had mentioned that it was warded against daemons. That made me think that the only reason it was having trouble now was that its function as an unstoppable force had always been a bit of an exploit of its nature as an immovable object. It was also having to push back the daemon’s entire effect, whatever it was, but I didn’t have that problem. I just walked through it like the Kool-aid man walking through a wall.

The daemon twisted its palm to point up and splayed its fingers in a very clear gesture of “what the fuck is that?” Then it went back to pushing against Lucus, apparently just done with my bullshit.

Even as I broke through the final link of the chain emerged from within Nemesis, and Cassara gave me a savage grin. “Too late!” Then she screamed up at The Unholy, “Kill my enemies!”

I glanced up, but the raid boss wasn’t yet moving. The chains were still sinking into its flesh, and it looked to me like we had another minute or so before it became active.

“Nah,” I told Cassara, “Not too late. I was pretty much just waiting for you to finish so it’d be weakened by whatever you were doing to it. Didn’t want Nemesis to poof on us and set it loose.” Then I wrapped myself in burning shadows and rushed the succubus.

Cassara reacted to this predictably.

She sent Nemesis at me, and I paused just long enough to catch the black orb in one hand. Her eyes went wide as I held the little orb of death, completely unharmed by it. In her shock she only managed a single word before I swung it around in an arc and touched it against the hand she’d stretched out in panicked response.

“How?”

New Achievement! “Or…not?”

The word hung in the air as she crumpled to the ground in front of me.

Nemesis disappeared with a quiet pop, and I brushed off my hands. I hesitated for a moment, then deactivated Mythcaller, losing the benefits of the Undeath skill in the process. I wanted to get the cooldown started in case I needed to use a different skill later, and I’d gotten what I wanted out of that skill.

I looked down at the devil girl and shook my head. She’d been dead since the moment she bonded to Nemesis, but she was so obviously a stupid angry child that I was angry at whoever had convinced her to do this. She’d been fodder and hadn’t even had the sense to realize it.

I owed Sam big time here. If he hadn’t showed me Nemesis and explained everything it could do, I might be dead right now. He’d mentioned that Nemesis couldn’t be used by undead, but that they used animated skeletons to move it around. That had told me both how to protect myself and how I could easily use it against her.

Of course, if Cassara had realized I had the Undeath skill she likely could have used it to control me, but I didn’t think she’d have been able to before I could activate Unrestrained again and escape. It had been a small gamble, but it had paid off.

Havarati the daemon threw up his single hand in exasperation, then simply walked off towards a corner of the room gesticulating wildly. Lucus watched him go for a moment, then shook his head and ran off in the direction of Arven and Licane. Dorian stepped up beside me, swapping to his recovery song and giving us all a second wind.

Dawn also stepped forward. “Tavi, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t…”

I waved her off. “It’s fine. I get it. You’re good now though, right? Can you heal up Arven? We’re going to need him at full strength in a minute.”

She nodded. “Just get him over to me.”

There was a cry and I looked over to see a crossbow bolt sticking out of Licane’s shoulder, Arven standing over him, club raised. Savas had finally made his move, and it looked like Arven was about to beat the man to death with a broken chair.

“Stop hurting my daddy!” Screamed a voice that deepened and grew even as it spoke. Telvarn, suddenly the size of a moose, appeared from nowhere and sent Arven flying with a backhanded swipe that effortlessly tossed the man aside. The daemon’s hand then reached out on a grotesquely elongated arm, scooping up the fallen Arven and bringing him in close. The two wolves Arven had sent to distract the strange child were nowhere to be seen.

That was my queue to intervene.

“Tavi, that’s a Greater Daemon!” Dawn yelled after me as I moved toward Arven. “You can’t fight it! You can only distract it!”

Well, fuck. I’d seen lesser daemons do some pretty messed up stuff. What could a greater one do? Arven was struggling in its grip, but even his insane strength didn’t seem to phase it.

I quickly scanned my options, but just didn’t have anything that seemed like it’d work against a daemon. They were supposed to be the opposite of reality, some sort of incarnated nothingness a demonologist had tricked into thinking it existed. What was I supposed to do about that exactly? I had Demonology skills unlocked, but they were all for lesser daemons.

This thing did seem to act like a small child, and the thing with the wolves had worked earlier… Maybe skills weren’t the answer here. I’d recently realized I was a manipulative little shit, and well, maybe it was time to lean into that a bit.

“Hey kid!” I shouted. “Put him down! That’s my Arven Wyse, I didn’t say you could play with him.”

The daemon hesitated, looking down at me. “Nuh uh, my daddy said I could play with him.”

“Well he’s mine and I said you can’t. Isn’t that right Arven?”

Arven squeaked out a “Yep!” from where he was being squeezed half to death.

“See? Now be a good boy and put him down, you can find your own Arven,” I told him.

The daemon reluctantly sat Arven down, but Licane interjected even as Arven backed away from the childlike daemon. “You don’t have to listen to her son! Go ahead and play with him. Remember I’d very much like his head for my birthday.”

Telvarn looked over at Licane and whispered so loudly everyone in the room could hear it. “But she’s really scary daddy… she might hurt me.”

“Don’t worry my boy, I’ll protect you. Watch,” he said, raising a hand again. The other one this time as he still had a crossbow bolt stuck in his shoulder.

I patiently waited to see what he’d try. I was holding Null, its blade between me and him. I didn’t think he knew what it was capable of, and if this daemon was afraid of me I planned to solidify that fear.

Except that I’d forgotten about The Unholy.

I noticed the elderly face out of the corner of my eye just before it was too late. The creature’s long tubular body had uncoiled from its place on the ceiling. It was still on fire, and the old man’s long stringy hair had burned away, leaving it bald and marked by reddish burns.

Like all the other Un-creatures and the river itself, The Unholy seemed to obey gravity as if the world were right-side up. Its body was long enough to stretch from floor to ceiling, and it used its massive insectile wings to lift and steady its bulk, so it had no trouble getting on eye level with me.

I dodged the first blow through shear instinct, or possibly just because I was so startled I jumped reflexively. One of The Unholy’s mantis-like legs plowed into the cathedral ceiling beneath my feet, barely catching my leg in the process and leaving a bloody line of pain down my calf before punching right through the floor.

The Unholy’s skill (Pierce the Heavens) has dealt you Ascendant damage.

You have been afflicted with Bleeding (Tier 1, Bane)

My health had only dropped a few percentage points, but I knew that was deceptive. Tavi was no expert on System mechanics, but she’d known what Ascendant damage meant. That was what happened when you were so outclassed by whatever you were fighting that your defenses were meaningless. I was in big fucking trouble.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Lucus was suddenly there, shield raised above my head. There was a horrific scraping sound and then another leg smashed into the ground beside me. Lucus had managed to catch it on the shield and deflect the blow away from us. Licane’s eyebrows rose in surprise, he’d obviously expected me to be a goblin kebab about now.

I needed to end this, I hadn’t been planning on fighting Licane and the daemon and The Unholy all at once.

I spun Null, taking a swipe at The Unholy’s hovering face, hoping to drive it back for a moment. It didn’t even bother to dodge, and when the blade connected the old man’s face twisted into a pained snarl as my attack drew a thin line of black blood across its cheek. It obviously hadn’t expected that to hurt.

It hissed, then jerked its face upwards and away. Lucus blocked yet another lancing attack from its legs, then another as it seemed to get mad at him for denying it. It was only using one leg at the moment, but it had two of them that could easily reach us, so sooner or later it was going to hit Lucus from more than one direction and that would be it.

“Is that the Bastion of the Dwarven Lords?” Licane asked, looking shocked. “How in the world did you ever acquire it?”

My answer was to teleport directly behind him, into his own shadow, Null already positioned for a devastating blow. Telefrags couldn’t be an unknown concept in this world, so I was expecting some resistance. What I got wasn’t what either of us had expected.

Licane no doubt believed his magical protections, which had so far kept him alive against even Arven, would protect him from anything I could do. In that he was wrong.

Null sliced through his shields and defenses like they weren’t even there, tearing them apart in the process. He was unarmored, and the god-forged blade sliced through his simple cloth tunic and undershirt like scissors cutting paper, only to hit his skin and find it as unyielding as stone.

Both of us reacted in shock. I had a moment to register that I had actually cut him, barely. Then Licane spun to face me. Before I could stab him again and find out if he just had an unusually tough backside, a torrent of fire washed over me. It was so powerful and so widespread that Null couldn’t even eat it all.

I gave it a second, considering, then stabbed Null straight through the center of the flames.

The torrent of fire cut off with a yelp of pain as I stabbed Licane through the palm of his open hand. He yanked his hand away and staggered back. This time I saw that not only had I drawn blood, but some of the color in his skin had been drained out of it by my hungry blade. It returned even as we both paused to stare at his bloodied palm in morbid facination.

I was completely unharmed. In fact, I’d managed to recover some mana from Null. While Boundless Inferno was active, I had complete immunity to fire and heat-based effects, so I hadn’t even felt the flames. I wasn’t sure if that immunity could be overcome, but if so Licane hadn’t managed it.

“Man, you really don’t know your type advantages, do you?” I said, advancing on him again.

Licane scowled. “This is absurd, you should be dead four times over. What is this? You’re not a goblin… what are you really? How did you hurt me?” As he spoke Licane used Greater Identify on me, his frown changing to a look of confusion. “You’re an elite? Are you a dungeon monster? No, that’s not possible, you aren’t undead. Are you a summoned creature?”

I took advantage of the man’s confusion to let my shadows expand, then activated Hide and darted to the left. The skill gave me a sort of sixth sense as to how observed I was, and I used that to judge the right time to strike. The moment it felt right, I spun with Null and brought the blade down on the bastard’s hamstring putting what little weight I had behind the blow.

For whatever reason, I was having trouble damaging Licane. He seemed to think I shouldn’t be damaging him at all, but from my perspective the guy’s skin might as well have been made of Kevlar. I wasn’t sure what to do next. From where I was standing, I could see my friends, and they had their hands full. Arven had managed to get healing from Dawn, but now he and Lucus were in a one-sided fight with The Unholy, doing very little more than blocking and dodging as it continued to punch holes in the floor.

What that meant was that I was on my own against Licane. At least Telvarn didn’t seem inclined to interfere. He seemed scared of me for some reason. The formerly tiny daemon had his hands in front of his face and was peaking between his fingers has he watched the two of us fight. Idly, I noted that one of his hands had melted into his face.

My blow landed on the back of Licane’s ankle with an audible crack, and I sawed the blade against his iron flesh, trying to do as much damage as possible. He cried out in pain and staggered, and I managed to stab him twice more before, spamming Shank as I did so and praying for a critical hit. In that I was disappointed, and when I brought the blade down a third time Licane caught the shaft with the hand I’d cut earlier, a look of disdain on his face.

***

“Fight me!” Lucus yelled at the raid boss on the ceiling.

Almost immediately he was struck by a flurry of lancing strikes from its chitinous legs as his taunt skill took effect. He was barely able to interpose his shield as the thing’s attention fell entirely upon him for a moment. Only the ridiculous power of the Bastion was keeping him alive, and it was a near thing.

Though Lucus could move the massive shield as fast as he could move his arm, The Unholy had begun to attack him in earnest when he’d proven able to withstand its blows. It had reared up on its back legs and begun weaving around him like a snake, looking for openings. Lucus had been forced to retreat into a corner of the room just to limit the angles he could be attacked from.

Even so, the walls and floor around him now had holes and gashes where the monstrous undead’s legs had punctured stone after being deflected by the Bastion. Lucus was having to use his sense of the stability of stone to monitor and reinforce the floor so he wouldn’t fall into the sky beneath them.

Both of Lucus’ species skills were off cooldown, but he hadn’t activated either yet. They were incredibly strong skills, but Lucus didn’t think he had a way to actually attack the raid boss. With what the thing was doing to the stone around him he rather thought that coating himself in stone armor wouldn’t do much to protect him.

The taunt skill wore off, and The Unholy began to turn away from Lucus. It was frustrated with him, but there were easier targets for it to focus on. He’d had to taunt it in the first place because it kept trying to go after Tavi. She’d set it on fire and it hadn’t liked that at all.

Lucus didn’t have any other method to get its attention, and he prepared to run back and interpose himself between it and Tavi once more.

Arven had other ideas.

The former captain had recovered one of his swords and coated its edge in a pale blue light. He’d done this several times in their time in the dungeon, but now he swung the sword through the air in the direction of The Unholy, and for a moment the light seemed to hang in the air along the arc of his swing before it suddenly crossed the distance between Arven and the boss with a crash of force.

The Unholy was propped up by its back legs, and its distended sausage-like body was still partially coiled around the altar in the ceiling. The force of Arven’s attack caused its legs to buckle and it was driven into the ceiling even as cracks spread out from it in every direction. Black blood spewed from the creature, raining down across the cathedral in oily chunks.

Then Lucus realized they had a new problem.

The Unholy’s spilled blood was moving. Some of it was on fire, but all of it was undulating of its own accord. Like the creature it had come from, the blood fell upwards, pooling on the ceiling. Black insectile creatures crawled out of the pooling blood and began swarming above them. Then they began to climb down the walls.

Dorian’s reaction to seeing these was instant and instinctual. He leapt away from the nearest wall, looking panicked. Then he activated Mythcaller and took to the air on a pair of draconic wings, unwilling to be near any solid surface.

This put the bard closer to The Unholy, but it ignored him for the moment, turning its attention toward Arven instead. Lucus watched as blows rained down around Arven. The man had always been as fast and graceful as the wind itself, but since being freed from his curse he’d also become far stronger than anyone else in their party. Even when Tavi had used her Heroic Might skill she hadn’t been in the same league as Arven was now.

Arven dodged most of the blows directed at him and parried others, sometimes striking at the massive legs when they became lodged in the floor nearby. His sword had lost its glow, and Lucus guessed that the skill he’d used earlier must have consumed whatever effect Arven used to empower his blades.

Suddenly The Unholy changed tactics. The mouth on its elderly face opened and distended as things began to crawl out of it. A second face appeared from within the gaping maw, and as it fell insectile wings caught the air as one by one winged Unmakers began to circle the room, their wails sent a shiver down Lucus’ spine as Dorian landed beside him, looking ill.

A crossbow bolt skewered one of the circling creatures, pinning it to a wall, and Lucus caught sight of Savas slipping away behind one of the support pillars that extended floor to ceiling in this room. Dawn was also hiding behind such a pillar. She’d healed Arven’s hand and then hidden to stay out of danger.

Now that proved to be a mistake. The Unholy swiped one of its razorlike legs at Arven. He ducked out of the way, and the massive limb crashed into the pillar Dawn was hiding behind, causing it to collapse.

Heavy stones crashed to the ground around the priestess, and she brought up a shield of force similar to what Licane had used to defend himself against Arven. Her shield was less effective than his, but she managed to prevent the majority of the rubble from hitting her.

What she wasn’t able to prevent was the floor cracking and breaking around her as the weakened structure finally began to fall away beneath them.

Lucus knew stone in a way few people could. He’d studied what he could of architecture and had even been given the start of a real education in the subject before his parents had died. He’d turned that knowledge to aid in thievery more recently, but ever since entering this dungeon he’d been unable to ignore just how impossible it was that a building like this could exist in an upside-down state.

It made no sense. Beams and supports were facing the wrong direction. Arches had nothing holding them together. Even things that were sealed or mortared together should have simply torn themselves from the ground and fallen into the sky wholesale. All these thoughts and more flooded Lucus’ mind, as if to lodge a complaint that now, finally, the dungeon had decided the roof they stood on was no longer structurally sound. As if that made any sense at all. It was completely unbelievable.

Lucus looked on in horror as Dawn fell through the crumbling floor and into the empty sky. For a moment their eyes met as she was briefly able to cling to the edge of the ever-expanding hole.

And then she was gone.

Lucus found himself running towards where he’d seen her vanish. He finally activated Might of Mountains, and with every step he sent waves of reinforcing magic through the broken floor at his feet, stopping the spread of cracks even as he dove through the hole in pursuit of the fallen priestess.

***

For at least the fifth time that week, Arven Wyse wondered if he might be dreaming. The last few days had sure felt like a dream. Nothing made sense and everything seemed to keep going both horribly wrong and terribly right.

After escaping from the terrifying childlike daemon he’d had his cracked ribs and mangled hand healed by Dawn, then gotten to work trying to keep Lucus alive… only for the both of them to fall into the sky. Arven wanted to laugh and cry. Who did the boy think he was, going after her like that? Did that old badger make a habit of raising idiots or heroes? He couldn’t tell.

As he’d done so often recently, when in doubt Arven fell back to the thing he knew best, and what a joy it was now too. With the grace of a dancer Arven spun across the broken floor even as spiked limbs the size of lances rained down around him.

This had once been an arched ceiling, and he remembered how it had looked the last time he’d been here in the real world. Then he’d been chained and cursed and watched as Astraea’s own Bishop gave false testimony against him.

That was another reason this felt like a dream. Had the man who’d made this dungeon somehow known that one day Arven would need to come here and kill his mortal enemies by proxy? Was this dungeon intended to be a practice ground for eliminating every major figure in Altria? That wasn’t possible, surely.

When last he’d been here warm sunlight had lit the room though stained glass windows, and colorful mosaics had told stories of just deeds and fair trials. Now all of that was gone, and pale grey light from a black sun cast everything in stark grey uniformity. Somehow, he felt like it should be the other way around.

Arven had some limited long-range attacks, though with only one weapon he couldn’t use all of them as effectively. He’d used his finisher already as a way of getting the creature’s attention, but that meant he wasn’t going to be able to use Thousand Cuts nor Killing Wind for another minute. He was going to need to get close.

Arven Wyse had once been a captain of the Blades of the Zephyr, and before that he’d been a Whirlwind Skirmisher of Cantergate. You didn’t get to the point of having two classes related to the wind and still have a fear of heights.

This time, instead of slashing at the monster’s leg as tried to impale him, Arven reached out and grabbed it, letting the boss pull him up to its level. At the apex of his ascent, he let go, allowing his momentum to carry him for a moment. Then, using a skill he’d been unable to activate in over three years, he kicked off in mid-air, sending him higher, then again, and then a third time.

Grotesque mouths opened all along the side of the wormlike abomination, and its bulk shifted towards him as strangely human teeth bit and gnashed. Its flesh was burned and blackened, flames burned like lanterns where the skin had cracked, and black ichor had begun to leak out only to catch flame.

This close, Arven could see the swarming multitudes beneath the creature’s skin. Only now he could also see that they were clawing and biting at it from the inside, trying to escape the flames that had begun to cook them in their blasphemous womb.

He decided to give them a hand.

Arven reversed his grip on his sword and stabbed it into one of the gaping mouths as it quested for him. Carried By the Wind didn’t only give him a few air jumps, it also granted a slow fall effect. Now, with a mental effort Arven canceled that boon, using his weight and the sword in his hand to leave a huge black cut down the length of its body.

Foul fluids and viscera sprayed across the walls and floor as The Unholy bellowed in pain and fury, wrenching its body away from Arven’s sword by reflex even as he landed lightly on the ground.

He used the moment of distraction to check on the others. The wolves he’d left to guard Dawn and Dorian were still alive and doing their best now to defend the bard from The Unholy’s hideous spawn. It took him a second, but he finally located a third wolf hunkered down in the shadows where a pew had fallen and snapped in half. It was perfectly still, waiting.

Arven cut two of the flying monstrosities out of the air as they got too close. Then he looked up, activating Size Up on The Unholy to see how much damage he’d done. Ninety-five percent. It was at ninety-five percent after all of that. As he watched, the creature’s sundered flesh began to knit itself back together. Of course, it could regenerate. Fantastic.

Arven had only ever fought one raid boss in the past, and he’d done that with a full five groups. Granted those groups had been much lower level than he was now, but he should have known this was a doomed encounter. He’d let the euphoria of being free of his curse go to his head, and now all their lives were at risk.

Arven shot a glance over at where Tavi and Licane were still fighting, then almost immediately had to dodge once more as The Unholy began raining blows down around him with a new fury. If the crazy goblin didn’t come up with something to end this quickly then Lucus and Dawn weren’t the only ones that would be falling into the sky.

Soon they wouldn’t have a choice other than to try and retreat, and Arven was certain that would end in disaster. They couldn’t fight this thing and its winged kin in the air. They needed to kill it here, or die trying.

***

The look of disgust on Licane’s face quickly morphed into concern, and then a queasy sort of fascination. He held Null’s hardened mooq haft in a bloody hand, and we both watched as it drank eagerly from his open wound. The wound on my leg stopped bleeding.

Randal Licane used Greater Identify on Null.

Licane yanked his hand away from the weapon, in just the few seconds he’d been in contact with it, his entire hand had gone grey and lifeless. There was a look of almost manic disbelief in his eyes as he looked between me and my strange weapon.

I took that opportunity to launch three Blades of Twilight at his face, two missed, and the third barely seemed to phase him, but I had anticipated that and used the moment of blindness it caused as he flinched. I slashed Null at Licane’s still-bleached hand, gambling that it had been weakened by whatever Null had done to it.

This time I was rewarded by Licane’s first scream of genuine pain, as Null severed the first two fingers of his left hand.

Suddenly, Telvarn was between us, “Y-y-you q-q-quit hurting my daddy! Y-y-you big meanie!”

He didn’t make any move to attack me, in fact he still seemed afraid of me. Under other circumstances it would have been heartbreaking. Now it was just frustrating.

“Move it kid!” I growled, eyes on Licane. Telvarn might be strong, but if he wasn’t going to attack me then he was just in my way.

As distracted as I was by the hulking dark giant in front of me, I didn’t fail to notice when Licane suddenly vanished. I only had time to blink and then he was back, looking fresh, and no longer sporting a crossbow bolt in his arm. He was also already using a new spell. I barely managed to get Null in the way as a beam of horrifically bright light shot between Telvarn’s legs and nearly hit me right in the head.

At the last moment the beam curved, drawn away by Null, but it hadn’t been quite close enough to absorb it. Instead, the beam cut through my shadows with physical force and tore a burning gash along my shoulder that was incredibly disorienting as all my instincts were telling me I couldn’t be burned in my current state.

I recognized what had happened instantly. This bastard had just popped over to the Exchange and recharged, just like I’d done while fleeing from the ghouls and unmakers the previous day. He’d just used an exploit against me, and worse it was one I had reported! What the fuck!

I’d been wondering why I hadn’t heard anything about that report. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t even gotten a confirmation message. The Adversary must have already fucking known about it because his people were using it. I was gonna have some words for him later.

I thought about pulling the same trick but decided against it. For one, I didn’t want to give The Adversary an out by saying I’d done the same thing and so it was just an even playing field. Second, I wasn’t a fucking cheater. I had to admit, it was tempting though, I was starting to get low on mana even with Dorian’s song to bolster me.

Licane somehow didn’t seem surprised I had managed to avoid the brunt of his attack. He’d obviously taken the time to compose himself and think through everything he’d learned about me while he was in the Exchange. Now he just shook his head in annoyance and looked up at his abomination of a son.

“This is ridiculous. Telvarn, please be a good boy and eat her for daddy?”

Telvarn looked absolutely distraught, “I can’t daddy, she’s too big!”

“What do you mean she’s too big? She’s a goblin. She’s tiny!”

We didn’t get to hear Telvarn’s response because Savas took that moment to shoot Licane in the shoulder again. I swore he had managed to hit the exact same spot as last time. Licane doubled over, cursing, and I used that moment of distraction to ruin his day.

Acting quickly, I sent out a tendril of shadow, right between Telvarn’s legs. When my shadow connected with Licane’s I once again brought Gratuitous Violence of the Inferno out of my soul-space and shoved it right up Licane’s ass.

The nearly eight-foot-long sword appeared right beneath Licane, pointed up. I hadn’t been sure what to expect here, but I’d been hoping it would just impale him like a kebab. That didn’t happen unfortunately, but the result was pretty good nonetheless. Licane was briefly lifted up by the flaming sword as it popped out of the shadow beneath him. I had no idea if that hurt him, but it did cause him to do a backflip and land face down on the ground about a meter away.

Almost instantly there was a grey blur of movement from a nearby pile of rubble and suddenly a wolf was on Licane like downed prey. The only thing that saved the wizard from instant death was the fact that he’d taken the time to redo his magical protections while in the Exchange, so the wolf didn’t immediately rip his head off.

Despite that, the wizard screamed in real terror and tried to crawl away from the terrible jaws straining to get at his neck.

Telvarn screamed. “Daddy! I’ll save you!”

Then the daemon brought his massive hand down, crushing the wolf like a bug. The wolf that was straddling Licane’s back, tearing at his neck.

I blinked several times in shock. Telvarn seemed equally shocked, raising a hand dripping with gore up to his face. There was nothing left of Licane or the wolf but viscera. I held my breath, wondering how the dice would roll on this one.

I found out a moment later when Telvarn howled in rage and pain, turning to face me.

I had a choice now. It was a nuanced choice, with several variables involved, and I’d been considering it for pretty much the entire fight. I’d been hoping not to need to make it.

What it came down to was basically a gamble on if The Adversary was as clever as I thought, and more importantly if he was actually on my side. I had been given reason to doubt this in the past few minutes… but I was literally out of any other ideas. I only had one Demonologist skill, so I might as well try it.

Telvarn raised his bloody fist again, screaming in his unearthly voice. “Bring back daddy!”

In response I dumped twenty points into Devil in the Details, bringing it to rank three, and activated it immediately. I chose the log entry from when the daemon had killed Licane moments before.

***

Lucus fell like a stone. He pulled his arms and legs in tight, holding the Bastion close to reduce air resistance. He willed the shield to fall as fast as it was able.

Beneath him, the dark sun hung in the empty gray sky. Dawn was outlined against its dark aspect by the strange pale light that illuminated this world. She was staring up at him in a mix of horror and hope, one hand still held towards him as she fell.

As the inverted city fell away above them, Lucus’ hand closed around hers. Then, when he was sure he had a solid grip, he activated Strength of Stone and braced himself as he brought the Bastion to a slow halt in mid air.

The two of them hung in the air for a long moment. There was no wind in this dead world, and so Lucus heard it perfectly clearly when Dawn said, “and I thought Tavi was the recklessly brave one…”

“She sometimes wears off on me,” he told her, pulling her up and allowing her to hang onto him by putting her arms around his neck. Under other circumstances this would have been very distracting, but Lucus prided himself on his discipline and self-control in stressful situations.

“How are we supposed to get back?” she asked. “Do we just wait for Dorian to come get us with that flight song?”

Lucus shook his head, “Look how far down we are. Can you imagine trying to fly back up there with wings while singing? With no wind to push against? No, we’d never make it.”

Above them Altria’s dark reflection hung from a landscape that could only be described as a wasteland. From this perspective Lucus saw that the great forest had been replaced by a tangled black mass of something that only vaguely resembled vegetation. The outer city walls on that side had been overrun with the stuff.

“How do we get back then?” Dawn asked.

“I’m going to try something, but if it doesn’t work then we’ll just have to wait here until Tavi comes up with a solution. We should be able to sit on the shield at least.”

Might of Mountains was still active, and while it normally required him to be in contact with the ground one of the Bastion’s properties was that it counted as natural terrain. This made his species skills significantly more reliable, and even usable while hanging in mid-air.

As a Scion of Stone Lucus had been born with the ability to manipulate rock, and he’d invested heavily in the skills that allowed him to do so. These past few days in the dungeon had been phenomenal for gaining levels, and he’d never felt stronger. There was no reason he could think of that he shouldn’t be able to do this, other than normally it would have been hideously mana intensive.

“Hold on,” he said to Dawn, giving her a strength Stratagem in the process.

Then he began pushing on the Bastion itself with his Stone Shaping skill. With this skill he could cause stone to flow like water and move where he willed it. The Bastion was a stone shield the size of an adult dwarf, and it registered to his senses like any other stone. The Bastion couldn’t move itself, but it did want to be wherever he wanted it to be and couldn’t be moved by anyone or anything but him. Gravity had no power over it.

The dead air suddenly moving against his skin was the first sign it was working. Lucus allowed himself a grin. Tavi would be proud of him for this one. With the mana cost of his species skills currently set to zero from Might of Mountains Lucus activated and maintained his Stone Shaping skill dozens of times, using every instance to push the shield higher and faster.

The two of them flew through the air and Dawn laughed as she realized what was happening. Then he felt her stiffen against him and she cried out even as a shield flared around them.

“Look out!” Dawn cried, and Lucus saw a winged Unmaker shake itself as it recovered from its impact with her shield. This one had the face of an infant, and Lucus forced the Bastion to pull them away from it even as circular mouths lined with teeth opened up all along its sides and it attempted to lash itself around his arm.

“There are more of them,” Dawn said. “Behind you!”

Lucus gritted his teeth and kept ascending, pulling further away from the creatures as he did so. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a dozen of the winged creatures flying after them. The cathedral was mere meters away but he didn’t want to lead these things to an opening so he headed for an undamaged section of the roof.

“I’ll hold them off, you get inside and help the others,” he told Dawn.

“What? How?” Dawn asked.

In response, Lucus shoved her right through the stone roof, turning it to liquid even as he pushed her through it and out the other side. Then, using the shield for leverage he turned himself over and sank his feet into the running stone, causing it to hold him in place and allowing him to meet the oncoming undead with shield raised. A moment later, a mace made of solid stone fell into his other hand, and black blood sprayed across the rooftop as Lucus solved his problems with blunt force.

***

I was a very good boy, the best little boy in the whole world even! My daddy told me so all the time! We’d play games together and he’d always tell me what a good boy I was, and that I was the best son ever. I loved my daddy so much!

Now daddy was protecting me from the mean girl. I knew he wanted me to eat the mean girl but I couldn’t do that. That’d be like trying to eat an entire table’s worth of food all by yourself, and mommy would get angry at me when I tried to do stuff like that.

Thinking of mommy made me sad for a moment, but then I realized the mean girl could hear me thinking about mommy and that was really scary. I couldn’t let her know about mommy. Daddy had told me never even to think about mommy because it’d make me really sad, and since I was a good boy I never thought about her.

Oh, that was it! It wasn’t me thinking about mommy, it was the mean girl. She was here in my head thinking about why I thought I was Telvarn Licane, and why my daddy didn’t want me thinking about my mommy. It was really weird to be thinking her thoughts! Or was she thinking mine?

It seemed like the mean girl was more used to thinking other people’s thoughts than I was, but that was ok because daddy always said it was best not to think at all and just do what he said. Daddy was so smart, he must have had a really good reason for killing mommy and me like that. He was just the best, and I loved him so much, almost as much as I loved mommy.

Oh no! The mean girl had hurt daddy! She thought he deserved it for killing me and mommy, but she didn’t know it was ok because I was still here with daddy, and mommy had just gone to visit friends near the capitol when she died. It’d been just like when my dog Rex had gotten hit by that cart and mommy had told me he’d gone to live on a farm outside the city and that if I were very good I’d be able to go see him again someday.

That must have been why daddy killed me and mommy, so we could go see Rex on the farm outside the city where dogs went when they died. The mean girl had a dog and in just a second I was gonna squash it and daddy and then they’d both go to the farm together and be happy. I wanted to go to the farm too but I must not have been good enough because I was still here and they were on the farm.

That made me really sad and angry, but I was glad daddy had finally been good enough to go to the farm. He was the best daddy ever. The mean girl was really sad for me too for some reason, so maybe she wasn’t so mean after all. She did let me play with her dog before it went to the farm outside the city. She hadn’t let me play with her Arven Wyse but mommy had always told me to be respectful of other people's toys and I hadn’t asked first so maybe that’s why I wasn’t a good enough boy to go to the farm outside the city where Rex and the not-so-mean lady’s dog lived happily ever after.

I could tell not-so-mean lady was really worried about the bug on the ceiling. Mommy didn’t like bugs either, so I used to squash them for her before she’d gone to visit Rex on the farm outside the city, where her friends from the capital must live. They must be nice people to keep a farm with all the dogs and mommies and daddies who died on it.

Not-so-mean lady thought that maybe if I squashed the bug for her it’d make up for being rude and almost breaking her Arven Wyse. That was great. I was so happy. I was really good at squashing bugs, and the not-so-mean lady had even brought daddy back when I’d asked her too, even if it was just for a minute. I could definitely squash a bug for her before I went to see mommy and daddy and Rex on the farm outside the city.

I raised my hand and shouted “Bring back daddy!” because I hadn’t asked the not-so-mean lady to do it yet and daddy had always told me to respect causality when talking to others. I was a very good and very respectful boy who always did what daddy said and never thought about how he’d killed mommy, and I always respected causality.

***

For a few moments my perspective was split between my body and Telvarn as the duration of Devil in the Details extended into the present.

I watched as Telvarn’s raised fist kept raising, and raising, and raising. As it rose, it grew, and as it grew it increased in speed. When it hit The Unholy the entire building shook as the raid boss popped like an overfilled water balloon and the ceiling cracked as the massive daemon’s fist slammed into it with barely any resistance. Goo went absolutely everywhere.

Telvarn looked down at me, and I saw myself from his perspective. I was so small, but from his unnatural eyes I could see why he thought I was too big to eat. I looked into my own eyes looking into his, and for the first time I saw the thing that looked out at the world from the infinite darkness behind my eyes. I already knew what it was–what I was. I’d known for some time, but now I could see the mask for what it was.

The skill finally drew to an end as I contemplated the shape of my soul, and then I was just me again, looking up at the huge daemon.

“Did I do good?” Telvarn asked.

“You did the best, kid.” I told him, trying to hold on to my smile. “You’ve definitely earned that trip down to the farm outside the city. Do you know how to get there?”

He shook his huge head.

“Here, take my hand, and I’ll show you the way,” I said, holding a hand out to him.

He reached out and took my hand, and by the time his hand met mine he was back to being the size of a toddler.

The third rank of Devil in the Details allowed me to see an event from the perspective of anyone else listed in the log that triggered it. I also knew from experience that the skill was deceptive in how it worked. A few seconds in someone else’s head could tell you a lot about them.

I’d considered using it on Licane himself, hoping to find out how to defeat his creation. The fact that he’d been killed by a daemon had made me hesitate. I hadn’t wanted to be in his body when that happened, and I didn’t have time to search for a safe log. The death notification had been easy to spot even in the midst of combat.

I’d decided to relive the experience as Telvarn instead, because this was a Demonology skill after all, and if you weren’t supposed to use it on daemons then what was it even for?

When I’d been sharing my mind with the kid, I’d learned a lot, and also less than I’d been expecting. His thought patterns hadn’t been human, his entire perception was alien. The only thing I’d been able to clearly make out was the patter of circular arguments that kept him believing he was real–that kept him under control.

He was a good boy, the best boy, who always did what his father asked and never complained or talked back, and one day if he were very very good his daddy would reward him and take him to see his mommy and dog on the farm they’d gone to live on when they died.

He knew this because he was Telvarn Licane, and his daddy loved him very much. He knew this because Telvarn’s soul was still inside him, right where his daddy had put it, and a soul was what made you a specific person after all. Who else could he be other than Telvarn Licane?

I had been told not to allow a daemon anywhere near my soul, but I also knew that Telvarn didn’t believe he could eat me if he wanted to, and I knew he didn’t want to. So, when I took his hand, I began to draw him into my soul-space. It was the only thing I could think to do that might have an effect on a trapped soul.

I was terrified that if I broke the chain of circular logic that was keeping Telvarn thinking he actually was Telvarn, the part of him that was a daemon might finish eating the soul it had inside it. It might also unravel the daemon, but I couldn’t risk that.

I didn’t need to Identify him; I had been him. I understood him better than he understood himself, or at least I’d understood that part of him that had been Telvarn. “Come with me,” I said, drawing that part of him into me.

Then suddenly the dark form of the daemon was gone, winking out of existence like it had never been. For a moment I continued to hold hands with a little boy I couldn’t see but could just barely feel, and then he was gone to wherever souls go. Perhaps to a farm outside the city, with all the dogs a little boy could ever want to play with, and a loving mother who’d missed him.

Tears turned to mist in my burning eyes, and I suddenly wished with every fiber of my being that I had killed Randal Licane so that I could turn my soul into a personal hell for whatever remained of him.