“Cutter! Betrayer!” Rotgoriel rose on his wings.

“Nothing to be done for it now!” Pat yelled. “Save the world, and it won't matter!”

And a shadow fell across Rotgoriel.

He turned and beheld a writhing colossus, a mockery of a human that dripped ropy worms as it stretched a writhing hand toward him.

But it was the name above it that drove him from shock and disgust to rage.

Tankitaway.

“Tail Slap!” he roared and took out its knee, whirling and slashing his scaled tail through the thing's leg with one clean sweep.

Your Tail Slap skill is now level 6!

The thing staggered, and the blow that was aimed for Rotgoriel's head slapped the ground instead, prevented it from falling over. The hunched form angled its mask, staring down at him, and Rotgoriel blew sand into its eyeholes.

“Sandblast!”

Your Sandblast skill is now level 6!

Then he scrambled back as the creature dissolved into writhing worms, falling into the place where he'd been like a fleshy avalanche, carrying great tent-sized pockets of yellow cloth with it.

But disturbingly, the numbers that rose from the region of its head were low. Very low.

His attacks had barely been an inconvenience to it.

“Go!” came a simultaneous shout from multiple throats. Rotgoriel looked up to find a flight of terracotta men falling from the sky, legs pumping as they arrowed downward, arcing toward the mass of worms that was reforming into a giant shape, surging upwards in a terrible swarm. “You have other tasks to complete!” shouted the seven Terracotta Emperors, as they descended upon the monster.

But Rotgoriel's frustration and anger was on him fully now, and above all he was a dragon, a dragon with a viable target for his revenge.

“Burninate!” he roared, taking wing into the sky. These things seemed ground bound, so it seemed a good idea. Ascending, he hosed his foe down with flames, and to his satisfaction that seemed to have more effect. Numbers rose from multiple spots along the creature's form, and tatters of its yellow robe blazed up into flames.

Critical Hit!

Luck+1

Your Burninate skill is now level 29!

The terracotta warriors spun and darted away from the flames, but they needn't have bothered. Rotgoriel had taken care to aim away from them, into the center of the beast.

For a second he took joy in watching parts of it writhe. But only a second.

“DARK BOLT,” the thing rumbled, in a voice like bone grinding inexorably through stone, and the air was filled with purple lightning.

Rotgoriel's world became pain and lightning, and his wings spasmed as he hurtled back. For a second, for a terrible second the blackness filled his vision—

Father Nosebest has healed you 623 HP!

Vision returned, and with it the pain, but then he was out of it and crashing through the walls of a porcelain pagoda.

“Greater Healing,” he whispered as he picked himself from the ruins, feeling more injuries close and the pain go down to a dull roar.

Your Greater Healing skill is now level 25!

That got through his rage, just a bit. The skill ups were coming fast and furious, and that meant that he was up against something incredibly dangerous.

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And it wasn't what he had come here to do, was it? Though... he was uncertain as to what exactly he was here to do.

Rich had those memories. He was coming in blind, had spent an hour, perhaps more dealing with Legion and Cutter... or failing to deal with them, and that thought made him growl to himself.

Well.

He would not fail here. He just had to figure out what he needed to do.

There was one person here who knew that.

Flying out again, he kept towers and buildings between him and the colossus. There were three more of the things in the distance, but their attention seemed to be on the swarms of Emperors that were keeping them busy.

“Midian!” Rotgoriel roared, dropping beneath another sizzling bolt of dark lightning. “Midian!”

Your Dodge skill is now level 19!

“Over here!” The Chronomancer called, waving from the highest tower of an overly large palace, towards the center of it all. “Land on the roof and get ready to get inside!”

Rotgoriel frowned at the hatch leading down into the palace proper. “I'm too big!”

Another dark bolt caught him, and he seized, fell for a horrible moment... then recovered, after it had passed him, snapping and crackling like fireworks in the sky. He'd been at the edge of the range, thankfully.

“Do it!” Midian bellowed up, after he could hear again.

At some point you had to trust your friends. Rotgoriel landed as gracefully as he could...

...and Agnezsharron's voice cut through the air. “Share Shape.”

“Gh,” Rotgoriel said, feeling cold as he lost his scales, ninety percent of his size, and most of his muscles. “Please tell me you have pants.”

“Damn the pants, move that ass!” Midian commanded, racing for the hatch down. “Whoops! Wall of Force!”

A bluish wall snapped into existence between the palace tower and sheets of crackling dark lightning, as the colossus lumbered closer. “Go go go!” Agnezsharron yelled.

Rotgoriel went.

Through gilded halls they ran, past lacquered inlays and banners of the finest silk. And as they ran, Rotgoriel had a chance to take stock of his party screen. Nerguin was on there, and he frowned to see it. But Father Nosebest and Sir Gideon were on there too, yet he didn't see them. “Where are Pat and Greg and LivingDeadGrrl?” he asked.

Agnezsharron bit her lip and shot a glance at Midian.

“Understand we don't have time for this. But you deserve to know,” Midian sighed. “Come on.”

“Come on where?” Rotgoriel asked, but the elf didn't respond, merely altering course.

They found them in the throne room.

Greg sat on the floor, armored form shaking, helmet off as he cried.

And in front of him, Pat stood still, so very still, frozen mid stride with one foot raised.

Above his head a skull flashed, alternating with his character name. Flashed like a glowing heartbeat.

Rotgoriel had seen this once before.

Patrick was dead in his world.

“If you see Nerguin, kill him,” Rotgoriel rumbled. “He did this.”

“That fucker,” Greg whispered. “God damn it.”

He stood, glaring back at Rotgoriel with such force that the dragon found himself hesitating.

“I'm out,” Greg said simply. “You guys have got this... whatever this bullshit is. I'm going to go kill that son of a bitch.”

Sir Gideon has left your party!

And then he was gone.

Midian grunted and waved her hand forward again, just as the palace shuddered. From the distance came the sound of breaking pottery. “Come on,” she said. “There's no time.”

A few more turns, and they were behind the throne room, in the centermost part of the palace. The ruins of a small building sat beside a pond, and an old man sat on a simple chair, holding a charred wooden statue. He looked up as they approached, and his name gave Rotgoriel pause.

Terracotta Emperor 84

Across from him, LivingDeadGrrl squatted on her haunches, skull mask up and blowing steam from a cup of tea. “Yo,” she said, waving with her free hand.

“And so, you return to my home. With some uninvited guests,” said the Emperor.

“I greet you. You met my brother, but this is our first encounter,” said Rotgoriel.

“Unfortunately, there's no time for formalities,” said Midian. “Can you do the thing?”

“I said I would if you had a plan,” the Emperor said, unruffled. “Do you?”

Rotgoriel was tempted to lie.

But something in the man's unwavering gaze told him that would be a bad idea. “I do not,” he confessed. “But I will lose everything if I do not try.”

The Emperor nodded. Then he looked at the statue in his hands and held it up.

It was a dragon. A small, serpentine form, one of the eastern types like So Dam Long. “Do you know who this is?”

“I do not,” Rotgoriel confessed.

“We do not have time for—” Midian started, but Agnezsharron grabbed her shoulder and whispered in her ear. Midian turned white and shut up.

“When the demons walked the lands freely, one was born who was a dragon,” said the Emperor, turning the carving over in his gentle hands. “And he was my friend.”

“Oh. Oh!” Midian said, eyes going wide. “He was...” she looked from the carving to Rotgoriel, and the Emperor nodded.

“He had two souls as well. And Konol tasked him with a sacred duty. But he failed. And the demons were bound to hell forever.” The Emperor put the carving down. “And later the djinn would come, but that is beyond my time. Though I expect they had a two-souled dragon as well.”

“Where is he now? Your friend, I mean?” Rotgoriel asked. The idea that there had been others before him was both disturbing and comforting.

“In whose dream do you think my heaven lies?” the Emperor said with a gentle laugh.

Rotgoriel inhaled sharply.

“There was no one to sing him to his next form. Perhaps someday there shall be.” The Emperor sighed. “I would dearly like to see him again.”

Then he rose and cut his hands through the air, slicing in a pattern that was too fast to follow but suggested the trigrams that they had just struggled through.

And the pond in the center of the courtyard turned into stars, stars and void.

“Go then,” said the Emperor, turning and folding his hands behind his back as he left the courtyard. “And do not fret if you fail. There are other worlds than these.”