That fat prick looked like he was in real trouble now! I had no idea what the flower thing was, but it looked like it was shocking the shit out of Dan. I saw it the last time Dan was there, but it was slow moving and hadn’t reached the battle before Dan cheated and portaled away.

Every time he was shocked, he’d convulse like a huge sissy. And he was getting shocked over and over. A lot of discharge was leaking out of his mouth orifice. He hadn’t covered himself with lava, so the locusts were chewing him up but good.

I know those locust bites hurt terribly. Molten Armor wasn’t providing nearly enough protection to save him. Sure, with every bite, the damage return component was hurting the locusts, but not enough to really be of help.

Okay, let me switch over to the Ace and Leena fight. The one where soon-to-be-dead Luke dies.

[What? No. Finish up with Dan.]

You know he’ll live, Boss. It’s fine.

[Just finish this part with Dan first.]

The next time I ask, do you promise to make a guess?

[No. Look, I’ve treated you very kindly and have been extremely patient with you. Don’t push it. I’d rather our talk needn’t turn unpleasant.]

I, too, would rather our talk needn’t turn unpleasant. That’s a real weird way of saying it though. What a power move, putting me in my place with such a strangely phrased threat. I have no choice but to respect it.

Okay, so Dan’s situation wasn’t looking so good. Know how his permanent Enraged status effect hadn’t been doing much?

[Yes.]

Well, it started doing much. He went buck wild.

Wow, saying that out loud, how it just hit my ears, sounds positively delightful. Buck wild. That’d be a fabulous name. I can’t believe I just said fabulous. I’ve been hanging around with Bob way too much.

Anyway, buck wild. Someone must’ve thought of that for a name already, right?

You don’t have to say it. I’ll continue. I’m putting buck wild in my back pocket though. I’m saving it to mull over for later. And, yes, I know I don’t have pockets since I’m not some clothing-wearing prude. It’s just a figure of speech.

Where was I? Dan went buck wild. He just lost it. A big circle of mana just, like, burst out of him in a really strange way. It took out those flower-cords and killed a shitload of locusts.

Once free, Dan was kneeling, propping himself up with one fist on the ground, covered in a thin layer of lava. His brows were all furrowed and his eyes were smoking. He looked so cool.

I don’t have the body or the joints to recreate the pose, but Bob does, and it’s hilarious when he does it. Az’ga and I crack up laughing every single time.

The flower thing was the first recipient of Dan’s wrath. He turned that thing into kindling. Except what was left was way too moist with its strange blood to be used as kindling.

Did you know that my layer has no trees? Not one. If we did get one, it would probably burn up in two seconds flat. And that’s the most likely explanation as to why we don’t have any. I wonder if higher layers have trees?

Honestly, I can’t even really describe this fight. It was just rage and madness. He still had the sense of mind to use his invocations, but he also showed an impressive knowledge of advanced mana techniques, and that’s while going buck wild.

Advanced mana techniques usually require a calm and focused mind. Batshit crazy isn’t a good mindset to utilize them with. Usually. In this instance, it was working for him.

And more than working. In your opinion, how possible would it be for someone with the magma mana-type to blink around like they had the Blink Orbment without having it slotted or provided as a Slot Bonus?

[Not possible at all.]

Well, guess what? I was only figuratively asking. Dan somehow blinked. Not once, not twice, but three times.

[Maybe magma could reproduce some form of Dodge, but the difference between the two Orbments is obvious. Why did you specifically name the Blink Orbment?]

Because I’ve seen participants use Blink a gazillion times. It’s just an Uncommon Orbment. No doubt about it - it was Blink.

Dan was somehow able to blink around and did so three times. They said it was an advanced mana technique again. Sure, and I’m Baphomet.

Dan ended up slaughtering about two thirds of the remaining Sortilege spawns. For some crazy reason he tried fist fighting an abaddon. That went just about as poorly as you’d expect.

He was able to hang in there and bob and weave a couple of blows before the abaddon backhanded him and sent him flying.

Right before he would’ve splattered against a tree, he did his bullshit cheating and portaled back inside the Trial of the Scouring, creating a whole new Boneyard instance again.

Same routine as last time. Refill mana and heal, go outside, summon Ashen Ruin, go back inside, refill mana, you know the drill.

Except when he was outside waiting for the Trial to reset, he blinked around a couple times. It looked like he spent some time trying to invoke something else too. No idea what. Whatever it was, it didn’t work.

Instead of going to the tutorial and reentering the Boneyard, Dan went right to the Castle, and straight on to the Court and Crucible without stopping.

He actually did stop and talk to two people for a couple minutes, but they were just nobodies who never pop back up again. I cut a lot of parts like that out since they don’t matter.

I won’t bore you with the minutiae of how the next battle in the Crucible area went. In his usual way of fighting, you know, without going full-on crazy, he killed the rest of everything there. He kited the abaddon around and killed it safely like a sissy coward, all that.

It took a while to collect the loot. A POCKET HEALER Foundation dropped. Some other good stuff too.

He seemed distracted as he collected it all. He usually sorts things and puts some stuff in his backpack and some in his belt. Everything went in his belt.

He seemed tired as he collected the beast cores. And fat. Fatter than usual, anyway. But maybe that was just the lighting.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Okay, that wraps up Dan and leaves him in a safe spot. Now, let me...

[Was a trap set for him in the fourth area?]

The Court? We’ll get back to that. Let me catch up on a few things first so I don’t get too out of sync.

Actually, I got a message I need to reply to. Any chance I could get a couple minutes to take care of some business before we continue?

[As long as it’s truly work related and not nonsense such as antagonizing your supervisor.]

Nope. Strictly business. Important business.

[Go ahead.]

Now, Let’s see here…

.

.

.

All set. Oh, since you agreed that my glorious name having an exclamation point made it so I couldn’t use it as much as it should be used, I went ahead and updated it.

I thought the capital letters were a nice touch since they so clearly indicated my legendary status, but I removed that too.

Acesso LaBlacky is glorious enough to stand on its own without needing all the extra bells and whistles.

[Whom were you messaging?]

Bob and Az’ga. They both sent me multiple messages. And what is that? Whom? Is that a real thing?

[Huh?]

Whom. The word. I always assumed it was just a prudish way to say who. It just means ‘who,’ right?

[Its usage is dependent on subject and object. ‘Who were you messaging,’ would imply the subject of the question is being asked.]

Huh? I’m both an object and a subject. Right? Yeah, I’m both of those things. Everyone is.

[What did your coworkers have to tell you?]

One second. Unless you tell me otherwise, I have no choice but to continue believing whom is just a prudish way of saying who.

[I can live with that.]

Your call, Boss. The messages were about what Dan’s been up to this morning. I can’t really give more specifics though. Not without spoilers.

Okay, now we catch up with the other losers on my team. I’m not going to spend too much time on this. We’re still on day 11 of the story. I won’t leave out anything important, but the pace needs to be picked up.

As I previously stated, I really stuck it to Dan yesterday and I’d like to witness the fruit of my labor before focusing my wrath on Zixy and Gabrodyl.

Well, that depends on certain factors. If Gabrodyl’s way too high of a tier for me to handle now, that just means I really need a good reward from you to get stronger and have a shot at murdering her one day. My whore mother never thought I’d ever ascend high enough to murder her, but I did. See? Dreams really do come true.

[This would go much faster if you stopped speaking so much on irrelevancies such as your mother and your desire to kill your supervisors.]

I won’t lie. Telling me my major ambitions and life goals are irrelevant kind of hurts. But it also moistened a few of my orifices and caused three of my mighty tentacles to semi-thaw. The sexual tension in this room is now so thick it could be cut with a knife.

[It is not. I assure you. Continue.]

Acesso LaBlacky hears and obeys. Wow, removing that exclamation point was a great decision. I can just use my glorious name whenever I so choose, to whomever I so want.

Okay. Let’s see. I already told you whom was going to the soon-to-be-dead Luke’s tutorial area. Or should I tell you what my other team members had been up to first? Yeah, let’s focus on those other losers first.

Know how Leena and Becky nearly slid out of their seats when they saw Hector?

[No. Why would they slide out of their seats?]

Not literally. It’s just a saying. It means the girls found Hector attractive. The saying doesn’t make much sense to me either.

Anyway, all the males were sliding out of their seats looking at Becky and Leena since all the other females whom were in Sanctuary Town were uglies and smellies,

And I’m not just saying that just to be mean as I usually do. I can’t really tell if a mortal female is an attractive. I rely on social cues.

If anything, the females whom most mortals find to be the most disgusting and unattractive are the only ones whom I find slightly appealing at all. Luke’s a good example. The extra stupid one, not the soon-to-be-dead one. And I know he’s male, but you know what I’m saying.

My point is that Leena and Becky were getting a lot of looks.

Of course, only Becky should’ve been the recipient of all those googly eyes, not that old bag Leena. I was very disappointed that so few of these mortals believed in science. I was hoping that it was only my team whom were defective.

Things were fine while everyone was working on recreating the book. After the new party formed and the two main reasons Sanctuary Town was mostly peaceful left with the soon-to-be-dead Luke, things changed.

Nick, Becky, not-soon-be-dead Luke, Carlos, Chet, and Austin were all supposed to be inside the Sanctuary of Revelations working on improving their Spirit Nexus. They were all having too much fun meeting new people and all that kind of shit to do what they were supposed to be doing.

With Leena gone, Becky was the sole superstar. All the guys whom slid out of their seats were falling all over themselves to talk to her.

[Why do you keep saying whom?]

To help me fit in with and ingratiate myself with you. It shows I’m high class and can speak all fancy and prudish too.

[Use whom correctly or not at all.]

I thought I was.

[You mostly aren’t. You sound foolish.]

Were not the subjects to which I was referring to also objects?

[Just…please, talk normally. I’ll not use whom if you don’t.]

You got yourself a deal, Boss. Acesso LaBlacky, as always, hears and obeys.

Okay, as I was saying, Becky was receiving a lot of attention.

Everyone loved the smiling, always-kind Becky. Some loved her a little too much, if you know what I mean. A guy was coming on to her hard when Nick decided to be a white-knight tough guy.

[White knight? I’m unfamiliar with this term.]

It means a dope that wants to be a savior.

[Do mortals not like that? You said it with a negative connotation.]

Generally, mortals don’t see white knighting in a positive light. It’s a little more complicated than a dope trying to be a savior but explaining it in full would take too long.

The short version is that Earth culture isn’t the same as other mortal worlds. If you haven’t picked up on it yet, let me give you a big spoiler – they’re really weird.

I have a theory…I mean a hypothesis about that.

Most worlds never advance enough between Games to understand or utilize our tech. The mortals of Earth did. For centuries, the hotshots of the high pantheon have been making deals with them in exchange for our tech.

This is the first world still subject to the Game utilizing advanced tech that I’ve ever heard of. And they took the tech in some strange directions too. I miss smartphones and giving everything terrible ratings on Yelp. I do it so well.

Anyway, I think that’s what made Earth mortals so weird.

Okay, so, Becky was handling getting hit on just fine. She was deescalating the situation and placating the guy.

Was he getting really handsy and trying to force her to kiss him while grabbing her ass? Of course, but that’s just the best way to let these dumb broads know you’re interested.

Nick, being a stupid, thought differently. Things blew up when he stepped in. He ended up throwing a punch at the guy like self-cultivation, Classes, and Orbments weren’t a thing.

Since they are, and since Nick’s opponent was aware of this fact, and since he was less stupid than Nick, he drew his sword and invoked Second Rank Cut. The guy couldn’t have been higher than Copper, so he must’ve had the Orbment Master Trait like Austin.

Nick jumped back, but not far enough. He was barely in range of the area of effect. He still got hit on the face. Cut right into the bone too. The slice went from his left cheek near his ear all the way down and over to his mouth. Half his lip and a big part of his face-skin was hanging off his face.

For some reason, Becky thought screaming hysterically would help the situation. FYI, it didn’t. Five steel missiles blowing the guy’s chest open did though.

Chet couldn’t take his eyes off the corpse of the guy he had just murdered. Not until he emptied his belly onto the ground.

The little wussy got sick just from murdering someone! Can you even imagine that? What a sissy! Ha!

Becky had Nick sit on the ground so she could see to his new face flap. Austin, not-soon-to-be-dead Luke, and Carlos were crowded around Becky and Nick. Chet continued staring at the corpse he just made.

Little Bonnie was left alone in Dotty’s tent napping. I was really hoping someone would kidnap and murder her, but I had no such luck.

If only those idiots Austin and not-soon-to-be-dead Luke had some way of helping. Like with an Orbment or some such. Oh, they did? Then why wouldn’t they immediately do so instead of watching Becky incompetently try sticking Nick’s new face flap back in place?

That was a figurative question again and not a real one. In case it wasn’t clear, I was being facetious.

[It was.]

Good. I love it when my intentions are clear.

After some healing, Nick was fine, but he and Chet were arrested. Andrew’s rule stated no fighting and no invocations within camp. No exceptions. He was a very black-and-white kind of guy.

Well, there were some exceptions. Those empowered with guard duty and keeping the peace were allowed to fight and invoke in camp, but no others.

Usually when anyone broke the rules, they were either killed or banned from Sanctuary Town, but since Nick and Chet had powerful friends, they were just arrested.

It’s good to have powerful friends. I consider us to be friends, Boss. I do hope you feel the same way.