Becky, vine-bow in hand, made her way down the stairs with a resolute look on her face.

She could make her own arrows. That’s part of Mana Bow. But activating Mana Bow was a constant mana drain without making arrows out of mana too, so she had one of the exhibit quivers tied around her waist.

She drew and nocked arrows strangely. She was fast nocking them from her waist. She had the motion down and was quick with it, but it wasn’t the usual way pros did it. She did this little flip thing that’s hard to explain.

As she turned down the last flight of stairs, a g’mork flew into the stairwell. It was moving too fast to stop and slammed into the wall. Arrow after arrow sprouted out of its hide until it fell dead.

Becky continued her descent. A new g’mork entered the stairwell. As she loosed arrows, she said, “Hey, Mike, I love you, baby. I love you so much. Always and forever. I ain’t as tough as you were, but it turns out your wife ain’t too bad at this sort of shit. I’m fine. You go watch over our baby girl now.”

She finished descending the stairs as a third g’mork died with an arrow through its eye.

She peaked around the corner. A pack of g’morks were eating some of the corpses. She invoked Volley at the bulk of the group and got off two more arrows before sprinting back up the stairs.

Most of the g’morks ran too quickly into the stairwell and banged into the wall. She invoked Volley once more, bringing her core too low to invoke it again. Then it was a fight for her life, plucking and loosing as fast as she could.

She got the very last one with an arrow in the mouth as it was pouncing at her. She carefully crawled around her enemy’s corpses as she made her way back down the stairs.

Two more g’morks were left feasting on the dead, and she got them both before either reached the stairwell.

She heard some noises. I assume she didn’t want to take any risks. She wanted to be certain she wouldn’t lead anything back to the children.

As she quietly snuck out of the castle to check around, other creatures were making their way to her, and with those two Volleys and the normal mana-draw of Mana Bow, she was getting really low.

As soon as she stepped outside, she noticed four creatures rushing towards the castle. Her bow sung a few times before she sprinted back to the stairwell.

One of the creatures chasing her, a grig, was very loud when it attacked. It liked to shriek, and that shriek was drawing more creatures to the castle.

Those initial four creatures died. As did a few more.

At the end, she killed something I had never seen before by stabbing it over and over with arrows she held in both hands.

She then climbed out the small window about midway up the first flight of steps as newly arrived monsters clawed at her.

She landed on her ass, rolled, hopped to her feet and yelled out as loudly as she could, “Come get me, you sons of bitches! Over here! I’m over here!”

I assume she was trying to draw the monsters away from her punk-ass child and that asshole Austin, but who can tell what nonsense truly goes on in the head of one of these dumb broads?

She gave those beasts an impressive chase. She ended up grabbing a small shield and a large dagger off a corpse during her flight.

She put up quite a fight on that chase, yelling the whole time, drawing what she could away from the castle and the kids.

She lasted far longer than Bob, Az’ga or I thought she’d be capable of. She had almost made it halfway to the Trial of Skill before she fell to her knees, the tongue of a lasher piercing through her back and stomach.

She turned and cut through the tongue. A g’mork pounced and met only her shield. As it recovered and went to pounce again, she prepared to stab it. But it never got to pounce. An arrow and then a thrown knife cut into it. Then the lasher and everything else chasing her was cut down.

Three other participants were running over to her. She didn’t know it, but if she had just stayed around the castle, those three would’ve made it to her much sooner.

Behind those three were five others. Nick was leaning on one, badly injured, but alive. Two others were carrying the great bulk of a severely injured but stabilized Dotty.

As Nick was fighting his group near the Trial of Power, Bill, Quiet, Kurt, Mandy, Rob, and Kara exited the Trial. They saw the pickle Nick was in and rushed over to help him out.

Mandy and Rob had been mentioned before. Not in a significant way, but the same is true for Bill, Quiet, and Kurt, but not Kara. I won’t waste time describing every one of these idiots or we’d be here for years. Suffice it to say, these guys were all solidly mediocre.

Once saved, Nick told them to go east. They barely made it in time to save Dotty. She was about to be donezo. That’s Earth slang. It means done in. It was that or say the lunch lady was about to be lunch meat, and donezo seemed less cringy.

Everyone suffered some significant injuries, such as Kara who lost an arm in the battle to save Dotty.

After saving Dotty, they went to the castle but saw Becky leading the monsters in a running battle away from it. It was too risky to yell out loudly and attract more monsters, so they quickly followed.

And they finally caught up to her. And here we are. Becky as injured as Nick, but in much better shape than Dotty.

Becky yelled out, “The kids! The kids are hiding in the castle! We got to go back now!”

Mandy had Heal slotted but was out of mana, so Becky was shit out of luck there. Becky didn’t care. She began limping her way back to her child as quickly as she could, determination plastered all over her face.

Bill, Quiet, and Mandy all ran ahead. Becky had told them where the kids were. They got there pretty quickly since only one monster attacked those three on their way back to the castle.

I won’t keep you in suspense. When Becky had yelled out to get the monsters to follow her, Austin left his hiding spot to run and look out one of the windows. Some stingerwings flying by the other side of the castle spotted him.

Ida Mae hadn’t slunk off. She was near the kids. Austin didn’t notice the stingerwings, but Ida Mae did.

Why she was hiding and hadn’t told anyone she was there is anyone’s guess. As I said, I can’t tell what any of these dumb broads are thinking.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Ida Mae left stealth as she killed the first stingerwing and told Austin to go back and hide with Bonnie. Then she got to work.

To keep the stingerwings out, she had to stand right in the doorway. Not one passed. Not while she was alive. But she didn’t get them all.

Austin knew there was no way he could kill the rest of the stingerwings. He didn’t hesitate. He kept his word to Becky and covered Bonnie with his body. He got stung to death protecting the toddler.

Remember how hysterically I said Leena had been yelling earlier?

[Yes.]

When Becky saw Austin’s little corpse, it was like she was trying to outshine Leena and set a new world record for most hysterical broad ever.

I think everyone was happy that Dotty was unconscious. No one wanted another dumb broad screaming and crying like a maniac. Becky and Bonnie had that department completely covered.

Becky held her daughter to her chest tightly and screamed and cried, and her daughter screamed and cried along with her.

I wondered if Becky blamed herself for Austin’s death. If she made a few different decisions, that little asshole would still be alive.

Just think how differently things could’ve gone if all these idiots had stayed with Nick near the Trial of Power.

That’s how battle goes. You make the best decisions you can in the moment, amid all the chaos. Those that survive always look back with regret, thinking, ‘If only I…’

Becky smiled a lot less after that day, I’ll tell you that much. Ha!

So did Nick. He was finally starting to understand.

I wished we had the Veil to waste on ghosts for these shitheads. Austin’s ghost would’ve been perfect for Becky. I hoped Dotty’s tech was smart enough to do the right thing and keep Austin in her sight saying terrible and hurtful things.

And, anyway, all these fools were only alive due to dumb luck and our side messing up. I shouldn’t say our side. Just Hector. I can’t count him as fully on our side since he’s a mortal.

What was posted on the forum was that Hector made his way through the Boneyard killing all the participants he could along the way.

Upon entering the Castle area, while killing some losers, he accidentally hit a few creatures of both the wave and Sortileges.

He inadvertently pulled a shitload of creatures to himself. Thankfully, that was after most of the participants had been killed.

Mystozagan told Hector’s tech to tell him to pull back and not go after the survivors. He wanted Dan to waste as much of his resources as possible healing up all those he felt responsible for. And most survivors were very badly injured.

If this day affected Dan as we hoped, this new strategy would be our strategy.

We would take all we could from him. If not these friends this day, then another. If not these resources this day, then another.

And Dan didn’t take the events of this day well. Not at all.

When he finally exited the Sanctuary of Revelations and saw piles of corpses and the ruin that was once Sanctuary Town, he knew he had failed. Again. Big time.

Let’s see how many people still believed anything the guy with all this strange knowledge had to say after he got something so important so wrong. And not just a little wrong. Wrong enough to result in all this death and destruction.

We updated the scripts of some of his ghosts. For Amanda, we added the line, “You failed again, Daddy. How many kids did you kill this time? Did they love you like I did?” We added Austin to his group of ghosts too.

You could say that Dan wasn’t a fan. We were finally seeing real movement to his mentals. What was deep red was going deeper.

We were winning! Finally!

[So, I assume this is the brilliant move you pulled off yesterday?]

What? No. Great Kobal, no. What I did was far more brilliant and a direct result of only my brilliance. This all happened about three months ago.

I guess Mystozagan could claim to be the most responsible and take the most credit for that day, but I choose to see it as a solid team effort.

Dan went on the hunt for Hector. He offered a huge reward of fragments and Orbments for information leading him to the man. Search teams made up of survivors were sent out looking everywhere for the new fugitive.

A lot of grievance tickets were submitted. Dan tried making Chet become a Game rules expert. Anything odd got a grievance ticket.

Chet was smart, but he wasn’t depraved enough to think as a lawyer does. All the tickets were adjudicated with no serious repercussions to us. We were basically told to halt with the funny business. We maintained that there was no funny business to halt. And that was that.

Hector was never found. Not until we wanted him to be. All those participants we had working for us just put their nose to the grindstone preparing for what we had planned for the Boss area.

And that covers that day pretty well. A lot of losers died. And I mean a lot.

Okay. Ready to hear my prison story now? My Earth prison story? I don’t think there’s a prison on my layer. Unless you count the whole layer as a prison for souls damned to Hell. And the demons of my layer too.

[Before we move on, I’d like to make note of the heroic sacrifices made that day. Many mortals rose above their base instincts and saved their companions-in-arms. You can say or think what you want, but such bravery is lauded in the demon legions of even your layer.]

Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree there, Boss. I only recognize that a ton of stupid losers died.

Are you prepared to have your mind blown by my prison story?

[No, I am not. Who cleared the Boneyard of creatures? How many mortals survived? What was said? How did Leena deal with her inverted Trait bonuses? How much standing did Dan lose due to incorrectly predicting when the first wave would initiate?]

Well, it wasn’t just Dan that got the date wrong. The Profile Reader also stated the same date.

But Dan said the wave would come at night. The wave didn’t just come two days early, it came in the morning, so he got that part super wrong. Like a stupid fat idiot.

When he looked to be at his lowest, though it was becoming dangerous to do so since my Veil was getting really low, I appeared to him.

I wanted to just really twist the knife in as much as I could, maybe tip him over the edge he was clearly teetering on.

I said, “Oh, man, you really failed this time, you stupid fat idiot. Guess what? Your genitals are very tiny.”

He didn’t respond or even look at me. He just sat there with his head bowed in defeat.

“How many dead kids can you have on your conscience before you snap, fatso?”

He still just stood there and said nothing.

I said, “Let me tell you about the time I was imprisoned during my two-year Ethnological Observation on Earth. I was very, very popular in prison, and not just with my own people in the ‘other’ car.

“All the cars only saw me as a lowly piece of meat without feelings, autonomy, or dreams of my own, even the peckerwoods. It was extremely dehumanizing. They all called me ‘Bitch-ass Asian Al Roker looking mother…’”

[Enough. I don’t care about your prison story.]

Okay, but it’s inspiring. The prisons of California are so racist. Everything’s race, race, race, race. It’s crazy. They’re not even different like us demons are. It’s just skin hue. It means nothing. Wait, do you find a horrendous amount of terrible rape day in and day out for months inspiring?

[I do not.]

Well, maybe it’s better I don’t tell the story then. Suffice it to say, it’s not easy to amass vast quantities of crack in prison while being such a bitch as I was forced to be, but the legendary Acesso LaBlacky was still able to prevail and do so.

[Honestly, I can’t help but be curious as to why you were imprisoned.]

Oh, that? That’s not that interesting, but Acesso LaBlacky hears and obeys.

I lived in a luxurious apartment within the Jefferson Houses of East Harlem for most of my stay. Just a wonderful place. Truly magnificent. So much better than my place back in my layer.

One of my neighbors was an old and a crazy. I believe she said she was a Brazilian. They’re a truly awful people. I only met the one, but I feel that’s plenty enough to judge them all by, and I strongly believe they should all be holocausted.

For some reason, this old hag got it in her stupid head I was a demon. That’s just crazy. I wasn’t a demon. Well, I was, but she had no way of knowing that while I wore my mortal skinsuit.

She wouldn’t stop harassing me, and not in a good way such as sexually. No way I was ending my Ethnological Observation without killing that dumb broad.

So, I did. In a truly horrific manner too. It was delightful. Then I hocked all her stuff to fund a trip to Los Angeles. I was hoping to meet the cast and crew of ‘Over the Top.’

Much to my dismay, I was arrested soon after arriving in California so never got the chance to do so.

Well, it turned out no one believed I was innocent. Probably due to the act being caught on multiple security cameras and my prints being all over the murder weapon. Hindsight being 20/20 and all, I could’ve planned that out better.

The full confession I gave with such detail and gusto probably didn’t help my case much either. I just thought since I wanted to kill her so badly, they’d be far more sympathetic to my needs.

I was certain they’d give me a high-five and a standing slow-clap once I explained everything, but that’s not what happened at all.

My sincerely held belief that all Brazilians should be completely eradicated fell on deaf ears too, no matter how many times I explained what a terrible busybody that old and crazy broad was.

Because of her actions, clearly all her people should be murdered. That’s just science. But, as Leena continues to prove, the people of Earth despise science.

Just FYI, my skinsuit looked nothing like an Asian Al Roker. I don’t know where they got that from.