<>(Zack)<>

"How did a kid get Dark Squire?" A voice asks. "Wait, is that the kid that you were talking about?"

I glance over to see a knight, a magician, a priest, and a rogue sitting at a nearby table, thinking I can't hear them. It was the knight who spoke.

"Yes," the priest answers. "I'm surprised you haven't seen him yet, since he goes on a run every morning."

"How did he get Dark Squire, though?" The knight asks. "To be able to get Intimidate and Taunt-"

"You need to effectively intimidate and taunt things," the magician says, sipping his drink. "It isn't that difficult against lesser creatures, but a child with a darker mind could succeed easily. That boy probably has other issues."

"Regardless," the knight says. "I doubt he'll be able to reach the Second Tier of his Class for at least five or six years. If we're all still around then."

"Make you deal," I walk over to them, and the four of them look at me. "You and me, Sir Shiny – I make it to Dark Warrior within three months, you owe me a full gold. I don't… I'll move back into the deeper territory."

"You should move anyway," he says. "No one advances a Class that quickly, either. That's an easy win for me."

"So you're taking the deal?"

"Indeed," he says. "I look forward to you moving back and being safer a little bit longer."

"I look forward to the gold you owe me," I grin at him. "See you."

I finish my trip to the Trading Post.

"Hey, Pervert!" I say when I enter.

"Zacky!"

I will pluck out your eyeballs and feed them to a Rat.

"I-"

"You got Dark Squire!" He interrupts me.

"Shut up, Pervert," I say.

He gasps, putting a hand over his mouth and the other on his heart. I roll my eyes as I approach the counter.

"Do you have a map of the forest?" I ask.

"Thirty silver!"

"Five."

"I'm not going to give in to your haggling, Zacky!"

"Fifty copper."

"Thirty silver!"

"I'll find someone who can sell me parchment and pen," I say. "I don't want to deal with your nastiness, Pervert. Plus, your price is way too high."

"That's the discounted price for Silver Adventurers!"

"Yeah, well, you're disgusting," I say. "And your prices are absurd. Go die in a hole."

Jesse fake-cries as I leave and head down the path. I'm making a mental map of it for myself, but I mostly want to have a map as well. Getting a map from them will help me compare how much of it they have accurately and how much they don't.

Not that I'll really explore that much of the forest, since winter's setting in and I'm only one person. It probably won't be until after the battle.

The battle…

If a horde of monsters comes through the valley, they'll end up destroying the forest, won't they? The landscape will be changed by the war that comes.

Just how much past the valley is now an unknown, despite the maps they surely have of those areas?

I deftly catch the Stone Spike aimed at me and glare at the Slime, which freezes in its place.

"I have no love of your kind," I snarl.

Your Target Has Been Stunned for 5 Seconds!

"Fireball!"

I blast the Stone Slime with the spell, melting its ooze, but not enough to kill it. My magic did expose the monster's core, though, so I draw my sword.

"Dash!"

I lunge forward at a rapid speed, my sword slicing into the core before the Slime could cover it with more ooze.

That Slime dead, I decide to expend a few more Fireballs and claim some more Experience before making my way into the forest. Once I've used up my Mana, I sneak my way through the forest, using the actual Skill for it when I can and actually need to.

I spot a quartet of Level 2 Goblins, and sigh. I wish I could take them on, because that would probably be a decent amount of Experience.

Erm…

Maybe if I used my sword…

I chuckle quietly to myself and put my knife away, drawing my sword. I don't know why I haven't been using it against the Goblins. I keep using my knife, which might explain some of my issues.

With my sword in hand, I charge forward, the Goblins seeing me, then charging towards me, their own weapons ready. I deflect a short sword, then cut into the arm that held it. Then, I block a club before bringing my blade down into the shoulder of another Goblin.

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It wails as blood gushes out of the wound. Hit an artery. Good to know one's located there.

Another Goblin whacks me in the back of my head, dealing two damage to my Health, and I spin, stabbing my knife into its eye. I pull it out, turn around, dislodge my sword, and get back to work.

That was the first and only injury I took, and once I'm done, I make sure my blades are clean, then sheathe the sword before cutting what I can sell off the Goblins and looting their bodies.

That was some good work, if I say so myself.

Once I'm cleaned-up, I begin looking through the woods again, locating a lone Level 3 Goblin. A dash and a sword to the back later, I'm a few nails and a couple of Goblin ears richer.

I drive my sword into the Goblin a few times, annoyed that it didn't have any loot for me other than the cheap parts of its body. Once its body has been properly abused, I clean my blade, inspect it for nicks, then return to hunting.

The next set of Goblins I come across are eating dinner… because it's that damn hard to find them, even though there's no one to keep their populations down.

They die easily, and yield me a Level for Dark Knight.

The Goblins slain, I loot their bodies, then make my way back to Maelnor, selling my loot to Jesse for a single silver before making my way to the sole restaurant-slash-tavern open in the City.

By the time I sit, the sun's long-since asleep, and I probably should be heading to bed as well, but I want to eat a 'professional' meal for once, since my arrival here, so I'm not.

The busty waitress serves me a plate of meat, potatoes, and some other vegetables cooked together. I eat it and down the ale. That stuff's nasty, but it's what they serve. That, or other alcohols.

Once the food's gone, I pay her the half-silver for the meal, then make my way back to my house, where I wash up, clean my clothes, mend the rip from a Goblin's knife, then head to bed.

The warrior stands before the altar to Big Flame. So he's either got a Dark Knight Class, or was granted permission by a high-ranking Dark Knight.

He stares at the empty altar before him, an altar devoid of flames, signifying the lack of Big Flame's presence within this Dark Temple. No… without his flames, according to Nik, only those with a Dark Knight Class may enter.

So he's not just a mage.

Beside him, bound by tendrils of darkness, struggles a wolf nearly as tall as he is.

The mage runs his hand over the altar, eyes closed, and lets out a sigh.

"It is a shame," he says. "That so many of your Temples were forced to be abandoned, Big Flame. Don't worry. I will restore this one as well."

The mage grabs the wolf and lifts it as if the massive beast weighs nothing, then drops it onto the altar, more tendrils of darkness holding it down. The mage removes his tunic, his wings extending out of his back, and he flaps once, twice, then flies straight up, a sword appearing in his hands.

"O Temple of the Darkest Flames," he intones, his voice echoing through the hall. "Accept my offering, and return to life."

He descends, driving his powerful sword into the wolf's chest, burying it up to the hilt. A moment later, violet flames spread from his hands to the hilt, then to the wolf, quickly consuming the beast, turning it first to ash, then to nothing, the mage holding his sword in the air, watching as the flames – once the size of the wolf – shrink to their normal size upon the altar, turning from violet to red, becoming the ordinary Sacred Flames of Big Flame.

The mage flaps his wings, flying backwards for a moment, then dropping down, landing beside the altar. His wings vanish, along with his sword, and he pulls his tunic back on.

"Thank you," the voice of Big Flame fills the air, his power great, even through the dream.

"It is my duty," the mage says. "I am, first and foremost, a Champion of Darkness. For blood, by blood, the flame will burn and evil will die."

"There aren't many," Big Flame says, a Crystal matching Big C's in size, but with a crimson coloration, darker around the edges of it, forming in the air above the altar. "Who can restore my altars. At least, not consistently. Far too many of them rest in Fallen Cities. Without you and your team, the City Barriers would remain fallen, these altars, lost."

"Maybe," the mage says. No, the Dark Knight says, for he named himself as the Fifth Tier of it. "Maybe one would come along after me."

"Don't be foolish," Big Flame laughs. "As if anyone could be as impossible of an existence as you. If one did, somehow come along after you who could figure out how to perform what is needed to restore the City Barriers, they likely wouldn't live as long as you did while trying to. With your team's aid in restoring the City Barriers and yours in restoring Dark Temples, we are able to transport people through former Fallen Cities quickly, enabling us to begin to reestablish strongholds every few Cities."

"I should be returning to the team," the Dark Knight says. "Talk to you soon, Big Flame. Once I let them know it's restored, they should likely be here within a day, with the restoration crew here within a week or two."

"As usual," Big Flame says. "Thank you again. See you later, and don't forget to make plenty of sacrifices for me!"

"Shut up!" The Dark Knight laughs, and Big Flame's manifestation fades away.

The Dark Knight then turns his gaze to me, and the dream ends.

What… the hell? That's the second time he's looked right at me, then the vision faded. At least, I think it's at me, now, instead of through me.

I sit up, thinking about the dreams. These are definitely visions. No way they could be anything else.

But that one… that one told me who the mage – the Dark Knight – is.

I lift a hand up, staring at it.

"Fireball."

My version of a fireball appears. A blazing, brilliant, violet fireball.

Unless there's someone else out there who also has oddly-colored magic, the Dark Knight of my visions is me. If they're true… then I figure out how to restore City Barriers, and that boy that they told me about, the blond-haired healer who has yet to die in reality… he's going to be on my team when he arrives.

+1 Wisdom!

Shut up.

No, you.

"And you, too, Big S."

He giggles in my mind, and I sigh, then look out the window. Still the middle of the night.

I close my eyes, unable to sleep, my mind focusing on the dream, as well as on what I've realized. I didn't really care much when my flames turned out violet when I used Fireball, as it wasn't important to me, but now it is.

Focusing inward, I decide to see if I can sense the 'Sacred Crystal' within, if for any reason other than to get my mind off the dreams.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to sense, other than that it's called a Sacred Crystal, but as time passes, I begin to sense it, and it really does seem like a giant fucking Crystal within me.

I can also sense the four elements swirling around in the same space, yet not touching it. The Crystal itself is filled with light at its core, darkening into shadows around the edges, similar to Big Flame's manifestation.

Each of the four elements have a barely-perceptible merging into the Sacred Crystal, but it's so minute that it might as well not exist. I can sense their mergers well, each element touching both aspects of the Sacred Crystal – light and dark. For the most part, they are roughly the same amount, except for fire, which has a barely-perceptible amount more than the others merged in, with roughly that much more merged into the shadowy part of it.

If that makes sense at all.

As I sense the elements and Sacred Crystal, I think about how I could speed up the merging of them. It supposedly takes a long time, and from what I know, they probably don't have that much more than me for a long time. But they also don't possess the ability to sense their own Sacred Crystals, according to Nik.

Besides-

Wait a second…

Can I really do that?

No point in not trying. What's the worse that could happen? I die again?

Ha!

As if!

A moment later, I find success in my goal.

Well, Big Flame giggles. That was unexpected!