After a period of recovery, we had affixed my right arm in a sling. Campfire out to dry me off. We each sat in chairs to hear my tall tale. Not usually one for public displays of affection other than the occasional hand-holding, Ren had given me a tight hug as soon as I was able to stand on my own two feet. Possibly the best hug I’d ever had. In sitting around the fire, she had placed her chair directly beside mine.
As much as it softened my insides to have someone so enraptured with my presence, it might be unwise for her to tether her happiness to my continued existence. Yet… I felt the same way about her, and I didn’t want to be a hypocrite.
It was, as it turned out, not the most believable story I’d ever told. A mixture of disbelief and concern across their faces - especially at the mention of my own Domain somehow springing into existence, despite the System not giving me that as a skill.
“Never heard of a smart monster before,” Quinn said, idly looking up at the cavern ceiling.
Tanya had her brow furrowed. “There was some… lore I remember reading. Can’t think of where. Ten Guardians were mentioned.”
“Oh?” I tilted my head, even as my neck protested the movement.
“Left to watch over this world in the creator's absence.” The weaver pulled a face, still uncertain where she was drawing this from.
I went to rub my chin before remembering I couldn’t move my arm. “She said two had already been killed. Possibly they are embodiments of certain facets of the System.”
“Or something put in place to keep certain Players in check,” Ren added.
It was neither here nor there. If I was targeted because I was powerful, I also won because I had all this unchecked strength. That said, I was self-aware enough to know an ass-pull when I saw one, and without my Domain suddenly appearing, I was sure to have fallen once the fingers had been able to lay a blow or two on me. I’d ignored the fact that I had a Domain up until now…
“So you are part demon, then.” Ren stated, reading through my inner monologue as if it was hanging out of my skull. Which wasn’t that unlikely.
“I’m afraid so.”
Tanya and Quinn looked more apprehensive about the prospect than Wolf and Ren. The elf looked more disappointed that she wasn’t present and part of the process. Expectations had to be laid out on the table.
“It is a small part of me,” I admitted, “and how I get my power. To forewarn you all; there may be an instance where you are drawn into my Domain.”
Quinn grimaced. “What are we to do if that happens?”
With a smile, I raised an eyebrow. “Why, just help me put on a good show. Just as you do every day.”
Well, ‘every day’ was a stretch given how long I’d known each of them, but they’d already settled into the roles that they’d play on stage. If anything, the System was tying everything off into a nice package. The right people at the right time. An inevitability that we didn’t have a say in, yet suited us just as well.
“Can you make it happen again?” Ren asked.
I turned my gaze to see the amount of curiosity in her bright blue eyes. Despite being holy-adjacent and having means to apparently end me, she was constantly enamored by the demonic side of things. Or at least, the me who had accepted my true being in this world.
“It’s not… overtly accessible, like my other skills.” I shrugged and gave her a glum smile. It would be nice to think that I just pop it out on occasion, even if it was limited to once a day or something. “Let me go through my System menus again.”
She nodded, before moving from her chair to go make coffee. Or, that’s what I assumed she was doing, as she had brought the kettle into her hands. The possibility that she was about to brain me danced about, but the likelihood that someone close wanted to off me was growing slimmer by the day. While a potential betrayer wouldn’t want to deal with the rest of the Party, laying amongst the bloody sand was the second weakest and vulnerable I had ever been.
I furrowed my brow. Immediately something jumped out as wrong.
“Say, what color are your names in your STAR?”
They each checked, and even Wolf seemed to humor me. Silver-white came their agreed response.
“Strange, mine is gold. I don’t think it was before.”
The revelation was met with a mixture of blank confusion, except for Tanya, who had more of a scowl across her face.
Before I decided to prod her for her thoughts, I narrowed my eyes at what appeared to be a third bar beneath my name. It was empty, whereas the other two were mostly full and much more familiar. My glare revealed labels, as if they could hold no secrets under scrutiny. Red one at the top was Health, although the abstract gauge of how dead I was seemed rather moot in a world that still abided by real life physics and injuries. Second was blue and labeled Mana. I had an even stranger relationship with this one.
Third now said Power, although it was written in demonic rather than the common System language.
Tanya couldn’t handle the silence any longer, and filled it with her thoughts. “I knew someone else with a gold name, but I thought it was because she was a guild leader or something…”
“The Lady.” Ren shook her head, as if the answer couldn’t be any more obvious.
I frowned. Not usually one to jump to conclusions, I found myself leaping to something that tied all the facts together. “She killed a Guardian, either on the starter island or in the first area.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
More conflicted silence radiated through the group. While Tanya had taken to this like a duck to water, Quinn looked to be reconsidering tying his destiny to my own. I wasn’t sure I even believed most of what I was saying. We had missed out on some important lore, perhaps.
My eyes went back through my menus to see if anything else had changed. The System didn’t care to explain what my demonic Power did or represented - and there were no new skills on my list. I had a feel for it, though. The more bullshit I performed, the greater bullshit I could perform. In putting the cart before the horse, I had truly clicked my demonic nature into place and become something even worse.
For our enemies, at least.
“I used to know someone who is neck deep in the world’s lore,” Tanya began, filling the silence once more. “We aren’t on speaking terms… due to the whole joining Crimson Shadow thing, but I can see if he’ll give us information?”
I nodded and went straight back to my STAR. Mostly everything was normal, except… I felt at my jacket pocket with my left hand. No card deck there, as I had moved it to my belt. Looking at my Equipment, the box that held my weapon still had the picture of the deck but was grayed out and had a padlock in the bottom corner. Did that mean I couldn’t equip it anymore? No… it meant I couldn’t get rid of it, surely.
Tanya sent messages out to her contact and Ren poured the coffee, while I held my left hand out. From the air above it, cards zipped from my belt holster to appear and drop into my grasp, one after another. Under the intrigued gazes of my Party, a pile filled up to fifty-two, and then I gripped it and the case appeared around them, swtiching from where it had been stored.
“Everything okay?” Ren asked, bringing a mug over to me last. She sat down, her eyes still tired from the tears shed over my trauma experienced.
That said - I didn’t have the Trauma status, which was a miracle given the state of my arm. “Not everything, but the majority of things.” I gave her a smile, but it seemed to just have the effect of bringing lethargy over me instead.
“You lost a lot of blood and used a lot of energy,” she replied. “Take as long as you need.”
Without two hands, I couldn’t take my cup of coffee from her while holding my deck. I leaned forward, groaning against how my right arm flared with pain at being jostled. Placed the deck on the ground, standing up. As I sighed and sat back, I clicked my fingers together.
The top of the deck popped open, and the cards began spilling out like a reverse waterfall, back into my open hand. As the last one settled into the perfect pile, I made a fist. Opened up to reveal an empty palm, the deck now visibly back in my belt.
“Are you going to take this or not?” Ren narrowed her eyes and tried to push the coffee toward me. Why she was sitting on my right side when I couldn’t use that arm, I wasn’t sure.
“Sorry.” I smiled and took the cup carefully. While my life as a magician had increased the dexterity of my hands, I was still a few shakes away from being ambidextrous.
“Looks like you have greater control of your deck, Max.” Quinn tilted his head.
Almost spilled my hot drink over my legs as his accent made that sentence parse differently.
“Deck control is very important,” Ren added.
“Seems so,” I said through clenched teeth, avoiding looking at the elf.
Tanya took us away from the playground antics. “No reply yet. He’s joined some group in the southwest, so all else fails then we could find him there.”
A date with destiny. “The Eternal Wardens.” I raised an eyebrow. The group that had left me a note in the clearing with the scarecrows, their help offered if I could remove the necromancer from this world. I relayed this information to the weaver.
“Interesting.” She rubbed at her face and sighed. “Are all your days this fucking exhausting?”
I exchanged a glance with the elf, then looked between the bear and fixer, before returning to look at Tanya. “No,” I lied.
Quinn shook his head. “So brazen.”
Other than the vague notion that I had possibly killed some demi-god or otherworldly beast that lurked within this world, and apparently gained even further power to head the fight against the Lady in Red who had perhaps done the same…
Oh, I forgot where I was going with that thought.
I downed the last of the coffee, only the tinge of potential burning radiating through my throat. “Right, let’s get back to the dungeon. Day is still young.”
They didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm.
“You sure you’re up for it, Max?” Ren stood beside me, putting her chair away but giving me a piercing glare. As if she could determine if I was about to crack and break in half.
“The show must go on.” I smiled, but she was less enthused. “I will take it easy and let my summons do most of the work. If you think I’m doing myself some damage, I will cease at your command.”
She cooled off as I relinquished some of my fate into her hands. We were both adults and didn’t need the other to babysit our capabilities, but being in love muddied the water. It actually hurt her when I became injured, and unfortunately I was fated to brush with death on regular occasion. Allowing her to move me away from potential malady kept us both happier - or at least would attempt to.
With her nodding acceptance, it looked as though that was enough permission for the rest of the Party to be on board with the act continuing.
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Tanya offered. “You need to focus on your shots for the next Boss fight, and my abilities have more downtime between uses.”
“It’s quite ranged focused,” Quin agreed. “I can brief you while we walk, Ren?”
The elf nodded again and gave me a quick glare before walking off. I much preferred it when she was undressing me with those eyes, rather than putting me in my place… but perhaps I needed it.
Wolf stepped up beside me, my top hat in his mouth.
“Thanks, Wolf. I can always rely on you. How are you finding the dungeon?”
“Not a great fan of seafood, but at least I get to eat.” He huffed and turned to join the others, clearly unimpressed we had stopped for coffee but hadn’t eaten.
I went to withdraw some food to hand him and a pain shot down my right arm - forgetting that I couldn’t use it still.
Tanya moved up beside me as we joined the group. “How is the arm?”
“An odd mix of numb and agony.”
She ran her tongue across her teeth. “Still too early to judge. Take Ren’s insistence that you take it easy to heart. We do not need our headliner blunted.”
I gave her a soft smile. “The lingo is appreciated, but not necessary.”
The weaver shrugged and looked ahead. “Been… years since I was in service. Yet I still feel most comfortable when I can fit into a role or unit. Both at work and in my home life.” She sighed. “Being organized into Parties of five here felt right. Allowed me to make do and accept some things.”
“I’m only surviving because I am the mixture of two… maybe three people. The normal me would have cracked and broken long ago.”
“You’re resilient, Max.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “It takes a lot to weather the amount of hits you have and still rise above it, and to lead others.”
I grimaced. “I wouldn’t consider myself a leader.”
“A star has five points,” she said. “Sometimes a leader is just the driving force to move throughout the sky. Even if your arm doesn’t recover, I know that won’t slow your momentum. Look at Quinn, for example.”
She was right, of course. I trusted the System to give me a little wink and fix my arm back to full health, but it couldn’t do everything. Dismemberment seemed to be permanent - at least at this stage. Losing an eye hadn’t stopped Quinn from being his overt self, or traveling the dangerous path we trod. The show would go on, whatever came our way.
I did note that her gaze lingered on the fixer for a few moments longer than expected, before she snapped her eyes back to me. “If you want to soar as high as you can, you need to learn how to use those wings. Not just flap about wildly.”
We were aiming for the pinnacle. I couldn’t deny that. To stand atop a mountain of all our detractors and enemies, successful and safe.
As we reached the edge of the next Boss chamber, I caught the brief smile of the elf, before we looked at what lay before us.
Something to grind into dust.
My mood cooled as the magic deck of cards vibrated in my pocket.