<>(Zack)><

"You… killed it?" Bryce asks. "How?"

"I'll fill you in," I tell him. "But as we go back to where it shot candy at me. I want to see if it's edible."

Bryce laughs, then I locate my knife and return it to its sheath, then do the same with my sword. Then, we follow the trail the Spook Master and I made on our way to locate the area it shot candy at. Bryce giggles when I tell him about that part of it, asking what it was like to be taken out by candy.

I shove him, but chuckle.

We locate the spot and the candy. They're not wrapped, so we ignore the pieces that have my blood on them and try to find the cleaner pieces, which is hard, since it shot them with enough speed that they dug through the snow and into the ground, and embedded themselves deep in the trees.

We manage to locate six total pieces of candy that we can brush off and try, and damn are they delicious. Bryce practically steals the rest of them from me as soon as he tries one.

I let him.

The candy sampled, Bryce and I make our way back to the City, then to our home. Bryce goes straight to bed, but I take a bath, soaking and letting the hot water relax my muscles and soothe the soreness in me.

Even though I've healed from everything, I'm going to hurt like hell when I wake up. Of that, I am sure.

Once I finish bathing and soaking, I dry, change, then look at my coat and clothes. They aren't salvageable – the Spook Master's projectiles did more than add rips or tears, they tore massive holes into it. Not only that, but the clothes are soaked-through with blood.

I'll need to replace them once I wake.

I burn the clothes, then head to the room with the fire pit, add some more wood to it, then wrap myself in my blanket, allowing myself to sleep.

For the first time since arriving in the Boundary, I wake without having dreamed a single time. That, and to the smell of cooking meat. Sniffing, I determine it's sausage.

I wiggle out of my cocoon, then enter the yard to find Bryce cooking sausages and eggs.

"You didn't have any food," I approach him, stretching my stiff body. Holy fuck am I sore. "Or money. Where'd you get those?"

"Jackson," he answers. "He stopped by on his way to work this morning and saw you passed-out in there, and asked if I had food. I told him no, and gave him a brief summary – minus you saying you killed it – of my end of things and finding you, and he gave me food. How did he know I hadn't eaten yet?"

"He could probably smell the lack of cooking," I answer. "That comes with me being awake and having cooked. As powerful as he is, his Perception is probably pretty decent."

"Ah."

I sit down and let him serve me breakfast. He burned it, but I don't complain. His face is enough to tell me I don't need to, so it'd only be rubbing it in.

"Thanks for coming back last night," I tell as him as we finish and start washing our dishes. "It was stupid, but appreciated."

"Yeah," he blushes. "It was pretty stupid, you're right about that."

I get changed, then we head into town. My first stop is to the alchemist's shop. Blaine, I think the old man's name was.

"Hey, Zack," the alchemist looks at me. "Why aren't you wearing a coat?"

"It got destroyed last night," I answer. "And my other one's a bit too tight on me, now. It's uncomfortable to move around in."

It is. I've grown two inches since arriving here in the Boundary, and while I still have a lean build, there's a new layer of muscle on my body. The jacket was loose, but not too loose, and with my recent growth, I've outgrown it.

I'm saving it, though, for when I get new teammates. If they're younger or smaller, they could make use of it.

"I'll be getting a new one after we leave here," I tell him. "I was wondering – has Nik and his party returned yet? It's almost noon, and they should be back today."

"No, they haven't," he tells me. "And their estimate says tomorrow."

"What's the Curse of the Fallen?" I ask, and he pales.

"You had a vision, didn't you?"

"Yes, but no."

"How did you hear about the Curse of the Fallen?"

"What is it?" I ask.

"A dangerous curse," he answers. "It takes a powerful Adventurer to die and not be cremated to become a Fallen Adventurer capable of inflicting it, and its only cure is a potion that requires Level 25 Alchemist to make. I always keep a few on-hand. I have a batch brewing right now, as the Dark Knights bought up the ten I had."

"How long before it finishes?" I ask.

"If I let it brew silently?" He asks. "Four hours. If I were to go and be active about it? Probably twenty minutes. Why?"

"What is the Curse of the Fallen?"

"Injuries won't heal at the System-granted speed," he answers. "Instead, healing as if we weren't a part of it, much like with Monsters, Beastborn, and likely how we did, before we died and entered the Boundary. If, after exactly seventy-two hours, it hasn't been cured, the Adventurer immediately becomes a Fallen Adventurer. If they die before then, they immediately become a Fallen Adventurer."

Fuck.

"Why don't you get back there," I tell him. "And finish it up?"

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"Why?" Blaine asks, then looks past me, at something outside.

The door opens, ringing the bell, and several heavier footsteps enter. I turn to find Nik, Theodore, and the other Dark Knight standing there. Nik's not wearing his armor, just black and red clothes. He's also somewhat pale.

"Blaine," Nik says. "I need a Faetomis Elixir."

"What happened to the ones you bought?" Blaine asks.

"Smashed by damn Fallen Adventurers," he answers. "We need one ASAP – I have less than half an hour left."

"Can I say," I look at Blaine. "'I told you so'?"

"How long do you have left?" Blaine asks.

"Twenty-four minutes," Nik answers.

"You bought all of the ones I had," Blaine tells him. "I have another batch brewing. I can finish it in twenty-one. Hang in there."

Blaine disappears into the back of the shop, and I look back at Nik.

"Hello, Zack," I can tell he wants to ask if I knew because of a vision.

"This is Bryce," I introduce my teammate. "He's my new teammate. He's also a Dark Knight, like me."

"I can see that," Nik smiles. "Hello, Bryce."

"Bryce," I say. "This is Nik, the resident Dark Knight. The one to his right is Theodore, and the blond… I don't know him."

"Isaac," Nik introduces him. "He came to assist us. Does he know?"

"That I can see the future?" I ask. "Yeah, he does."

"You had one of me being affected by this?"

"Sort of," I answer. "I forced a vision to see how you were doing yesterday, and saw you discussing it. If you become a Fallen Adventurer, can I have Kulkul?"

Nik laughs, shaking his head, then walks to the counter, leaning into it.

"All we can do now," he says. "Is wait and hope that Blaine can finish it properly. Speeding it up, even for a Master Alchemist, increases the chances of a failure, and you can only brew one potion of this at a time. He might have several cauldrons brewing, though I doubt he could speed them all up."

"So you're the Nik that Zack talks about?" Bryce asks.

"What did he tell you?" Nik asks.

"That you have a cuddly demon."

Isaac roars with laughter when Bryce says that, and Nik just shakes his head again.

As we wait for Blaine to finish the potion, Bryce and I tell Nik everything that happened since Bryce arrived, up until the events of last night. Nik and the other two Dark Knights listen intently to everything, even commenting about it being good that we know how to properly care for our weapons.

Blaine returns as we finish telling everything up to last night, but not including our hunt for the Spook Master. In his hand is a potion bottle with a glowing green liquid within it. He hands it to Nik, who downs the entire thing, grimacing.

"Thanks," he tells Blaine, who nods. "Alright, boys. You look like there's more to the tale."

We nod.

Bryce tells his side of what happened last night, up until he found my lying in the snow, in what he thought to be a state of death. Then, I tell about my side of events, and Nik listens intently to every word of it, interrupting me when I get to running.

"You were right," he tells me. "In that you were not able to beat it. Unfortunately, it did attack, and that meant it wouldn't give up unless you managed to escape its sphere of darkness. And as you noticed, it could keep up with you."

"How come stronger Adventurers didn't go after it?" I ask. "The static five hundred percent Experience is a huge reward, especially at higher Levels."

"Probably because," he says. "The reward gets split evenly – rounded down to the whole number – between everyone who attacked it, even once. There are probably only a dozen teams in the entire Boundary that could manage it on their own, mine being one of them. It would've taken probably twenty Adventurers to handle that thing, especially since every time it changes its form, its Health restored."

It did? Damn! I wasn't paying close enough attention, I was too focused on finding a way to escape it. Its forms' Health was likely based off of Mana spent or something, considering its real Health and that absurd amount of Mana.

"Who told you about the bonus?" Theodore asks.

"What?" I ask.

"The bonus," Nik says. "You know that there's a five hundred percent bonus. I want to know who told you, so I can smack them. I know that's the reason you went after it."

"Uh, actually," I pull up my Status silently, activating my Title. "I wasn't quite done telling you about the fight."

He stares at me, reading the Title, probably several times. Then, he gestures for me to continue, so I do, explaining about how I realized that the darkness was likely a form of illusion that drew away light to work, and that if that was an illusion, maybe the Spook Master itself was one.

And that, when I closed my eyes, it broke the illusion. I describe the Spook Master's true form, the floating glow in the air, then how it began to absorb the light around it, the darkness returning, and how its Health was so much lower than it was before.

Then, I tell him of how I kept my eyes shut and hit it with Fireball after Fireball, eventually killing it and earning the rewards.

"Speaking of them," I say. "I now have three Subclasses available. How many of them can you have?"

"Three," he answers. "What's your third one?"

"Chef."

"It's a good one," he nods. "Especially for if you plan on long trips out of a City. Only one of the thirty-some of us didn't have it."

He grimaces when he says that, likely thinking of the death toll they had.

"How many died?" Blaine asks.

"Thirteen survived," Nik answers. "Thirty-eight went in, thirteen survived. Only a third. Without the powers of the three of us, no one would have."

"Most of it was you," Theodore says. "The powers of a Dark One exceed ours, and you took far more hits than we did."

Dark One?

"And yet," Nik says. "We nearly lost our own lives as well. Without the Crimson Wall, we all would have lost."

Crimson Wall?

"Excuse me," I interject. "Novices here."

"Dark One," Nik looks at me. "Is a Rank 2 Class. It's unlocked by bringing Dark Knight and Blood Priest to Tier V, that is, Level 41 for the overall Classline. The version for Priests and Paladins is Holy One.

"Crimson Wall," he continues. "Is a Rank 4 Skill usable only by Dark Ones. I worked towards unlocking it just a few weeks ago, just in case it was needed."

"And if you hadn't," Isaac says. "We would all be dead. Is there any word on Normar's location? Had he been there-"

"No," Nik answers. "We still don't know where Normar is. I told them we should have waited until we could contact him and get him to join us for the battle. With him present, our injuries wouldn't have been anything."

"Who?" I ask.

"His name is Nathan Normar," Nik answers. "He's a Holy One, though he appears to be only ten. His mental state matches it at times as well, due to that being when he stopped aging. He performed a great feat when he was that age, more than a century ago, and it caused his air affiliation to grow strong enough to halt his aging then. A great feat, but at a great cost. He's currently past Kraemar, the City to the west, at the other end of the valley. He's found a way to slip through into the other pass without notice. We're not sure if whether he is going through Kraemar, or if he is somehow able to go around it, but regardless, we can't contact him.

"His healing power," Nik continues. "Is the most powerful the Boundary has ever known – only twice before him has a Holy One been born, and twice, they have found themselves dead before reaching Tier II. Normar sat at Tier III, last we spoke. He was the healer on my team, before we split to train in different ways. Had they allowed us to wait until he returned to a range of contact, we could have survived that damn fight without losing a soul. He can bring anyone back from the brink of death, his heals as quick as lightning, able to restore Health from an instant-kill in the moment just before it hits zero, and he can do it from dozens of yards away."

In other words, someone else forced them to go early. I don't have a doubt in my mind the Dark Knights spoke heavily against doing so, but their words fell on deaf ears. So they went with the team, in an attempt to preserve as many people as possible. They were confident they would succeed, until my warning came.

That is likely when they resisted going. They even likely reminded whoever it was that there were Fallen Adventurers down there, and were probably told that the team could handle it.

They couldn't.

"Fuck whoever gave those orders," I say. "But not literally, because that'd be bad. And gross. And probably rape. You did what you could. Now. I have questions."

"Okay?" He looks at me.

"What do you think of there being two of us?"

The four adults burst into laughter.