"So, who was the second champion you met?" I asked, remembering that she'd claimed to have met two.

"Her name was Francine," Ania said, a wistful tone to her voice. "Francine DuBois."

"Ah, French chicks," Jon said, nodding. "Say no more."

"French Canadian, actually," I replied. "She was before your time."

I knew Francine Dubois in a, 'we shared coffee a few times in the break room' sort of way. She was an actual writer on the Dark Undermaster games. Francine had played Women's College Basketball, was a bit on the butch side, and was one of the nicest people I'd ever met. Francine had her desk cleaned out a few years ago and everyone assumed she'd been fired. The popular theory was she'd attempted to argue microtransactions and live service were terrible ideas, so they should focus on story instead. Try and get a positive single player experience going. You know, career suicide.

"Needless to say, given she was a woman, it was ridiculous that people treated her as Garland," Ania said. "But I came to believe she was a hero in her own right."

It was the first sign that Ania didn't hold all the champions in contempt. "I take it the romance path wasn't involved."

Okay, that was more a hope on my part.

"You'd be surprised," Ania said.

"Yeah, all companions are player sexual," Jon said. "Which is totally against the books. On the other hand, it's good marketing. Fenris is the best Dragon Age 2 companion. I was always disappointed they didn't let you romance Kate Mulgrew's Flemeth. Ooo, Captain Janeway, you naughty-naughty swamp witch GILF."

I needed to clean my brain out with arcane fire.

Ania's stance hardened. "In the end, Francine proved to be just as rotten as the rest of them."

"Really," I said.

We reached the main hall and the broken door to Crossroad Village. "Yeah, she ended up choosing to support the Dragon Queen's attempt to conquer the Southern Kingdoms and reunite the Old Kingdom of Ledziana. Basically, she got so obsessed with the political bullshit and intrigue that she forgot we were trying to prevent the end of the world."

I managed to keep myself from pointing out that was one of the biggest divides in the fandom. There were people vastly more interested in the Mad Queen vs. Dragon Queen plot as well as all the feuding houses over the giant zombie hordes. Same in reverse. Personally, I thought the two plots interwove well and were why the Dark Undermaster books had such a wide fanbase. But just try to share that kind of opinion on DarkUndermaster.Org or Reddit.

"A reunited Ledziana would be pretty good for fighting hordes of the undead," Jon said, surprising me by showing actual interest in the world's story. "Whether it had a weredragon and her army of peasants on it or the Mad Queen and her Imperial lightning knights. Which, oh my god, I just now got were a reference to stormtroopers."

"Uh huh," I said. "Also, the blitzkrieg, yes."

"I mean, just because I ignored most of the plot of the games doesn't mean I was completely ignorant," Jon said, a little too defensively. "I was doing the Dragon Queen plot when I was killed! God, the animations on her outfit with all the jiggle physics..."

"The Mad Queen slaughtered my family," Ania said, shaking her head. "My father believed that Princess Celestyne was the true heir even though Apollonia was born like a minute after her. His honor and integrity brought nothing but misery to our house. The Dragon Queen has been waging war on the rest of the Southern Kingdoms ever since, fighting for her rights while the rest of the world burns."

"Plus, Garland was porking her," Jon said, nodding.

"He was porking half of the women in the Southern Kingdoms," Ania muttered, not at all bitter. "But I loved him despite his flaws. It's going to break Agata's heart when she finds out he's truly dead."

"How's she going to do that?" I asked, wondering just how far off script we were potentially going.

Hopefully a lot.

Agata Rose had almost as tragic a backstory as Ania but had been hated by much of the fandom for her behavior in the first book. She'd constantly bullied and insulted Garland growing up due to the latter's bastardry. She'd also been the Mad Queen's handmaiden, albeit under duress. A series of terrible marriages, abuse, and almost comical tragedy had softened the fandom's opinion toward Agata but a lot of readers would still have been happy to see her dead. The ones who didn't confuse insults with sexual tension, at least. The last Agata had been seen was before the five-year time skip when she’d been spirited away to a Sisters of Mokosh abbey. Everyone was expecting she'd return as a religious fanatic or something worse.

"With this," Ania said, producing another bracelet. This one was red hued but recognizably a Mark of the Champion.

"Where did you get that?" I asked, stunned.

"Valentin's body," Ania said. "Veles may resurrect him or not but he won't have the Rheingold. He won't be able to gain any more power through this 'leveling' system."

"That cheating bastard!" Jon said, disgusted. "No wonder he was unbeatable! He was team killing the whole time."

I wasn't so sure since Jon clearly had survived an encounter with Valentin during his run. If Valentin had 'free will' for lack of a better term and was from our world, he should have just been able to kill every champion at the starting level. It would have been pragmatic behavior for a player character gone evil (Christ, I was falling into the same habit of referring to everything in RPG terms as Jon). Instead, he'd apparently just beaten them up and gone off to do whatever. It didn't make sense and implied something more was going on here than met the eye. You know, beyond being transported to a magical fairy land that ran on discount D&D rules.

"How do you think she'll react?" I asked.

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"To the idea we're playthings for the gods and our brother is dead but you're walking around with his identity? Probably badly," Ania said.

Great.

"Do you know where your sister is?" I asked, uncertainly.

"Yep," Ania said, not elaborating. "At least if events hold to how they usually go down."

That wasn't reassuring.

Crossroad Village was a place that didn't look much better in the daytime than it did at night but at least the fires had been put out and the bodies had been collected. There were several pyres in the distance, and I had the strong suspicion that the locals had taken to cremation with the advent of the rising dead. Still, despite all the damage, the place was quite nice to look upon from a purely aesthetic point of view. Its stone and thatched buildings spread out in a way that invoked the kind of idealized Medieval ambiance that had inspired so many RPGs over the decades. About the only thing that wasn't picturesque, aside from the burned or collapsed parts, was the smell. There was no sewer system in the town, and I was now aware as to why everyone I saw wore boots. People just threw their crap out the window.

Literally.

Crossroad wasn't a small village either and probably was bordering on the size of a town, even with the deaths from the night before and previous cycles. There were vast golden fields stretched out around the village as well as a small river that served as a barrier between them. Crossroad Village was a farming community, alright, and I could see multiple roads leading out of its corners in every point of the compass. This was probably where the place had gotten its name. There were a few more permanent looking buildings than the straw roofed houses of the locals and I noted them as we walked. There was the blacksmith, the stables, the church (or temple since Christianity didn't exist in this world), and one two story mansion that pretty much dominated the North side of the community.

"Is that the Black Cat?" I asked, staring at it.

"Yep," Ania said.

"Sex and booze seem to be very profitable around these parts," I said, blinking. It would have been considered an extremely nice home in my world.

"It usually is," Ania said. "But the Black Cat was built to cater to the Dark Undermasters after my family was driven out. It was also constructed by a retired adventurer with his fortune. Some people have interesting ways of spending their retirement."

Strangely, Jon didn't have any comment on that one.

"Maelor the Black," I said, remembering a name she said earlier.

"Got it in one," Ania said.

Maelor the Black was a character in the books but for the life of me I couldn't remember what his deal was. He only showed up in the third book in the Ania parts of the series I'd kind of skimmed past. He had some sort of secret that fans had speculated on and seemed to be set up for a larger role down the line. One thing I did note was that female readers really loved him, and he was the primary source of slash fiction as well as fan art. His being left out of the television show had caused a near-boycott of the FANT network among certain groups, at least according to Nightchilde.

"Maybe he's the companion we're supposed to find," I replied.

"Not from what I recall," Jon said. "He's a vendor and quest giver instead. Be glad, if you recruited him, you'd never get laid again. Unless you're more open minded about these things than you come off. No offense but you have serious vanilla energy."

I sighed. "Why did I have to get Charlie Sheen as my spirit animal?"

"Eurasian Charlie Sheen, which is like 2% cooler due to having a Japanese granddad," Jon said. "Just because I'm all black and feathery now doesn't mean I've forgotten where I come from! Modesto, California! Home of George Lucas and absolutely jack shit else."

"I remember what you look like, Jon," I said, thinking back to the handsome but awkward man who’d worked two cubicles down. The guy who absolutely insisted that he looked like a young Keanu Reeves but didn't in the slightest.

"Good," Jon muttered before lowering his voice, "One of us has to. It gets harder and harder to remember the longer I spend like this."

I made a mental vow to find a way to help Jon. Much to my surprise, that resulted in another ping from my bracelet.

HELP JON SNOWAN

Recommended Level: Any

Rewards: Familiar Upgrade

"Huh," Jon said, surprised.

"Neat," I said, staring at it. "I guess there's hope after all."

"I qualify as a familiar?" Jon asked. "Weis, you rotten bastard."

We passed through the town square on our way to the Black Cat and I saw there was a crowd gathered around a man in stocks. He was huge, at least seven feet tall, with skin the shade of tanned leather and a pair of horns sticking out of his head like he was a bull. His body was decorated in thick furs, and he looked like some fantasy artist's conception of a barbarian. The crowd was throwing vegetables, cow pies, and worse at him while a crier spoke an almost indescribably foul litany of insults toward him.

The peasants of Crossroad didn't dress like I'd think Medieval people would but more like Puritans or maybe Puritans dressed like Medieval Fantasy Polish people. Either way, there was a lot of bonnets, blacks, browns, and heavy clothing that lacked anything resembling style. One thing they all seemed to share was a look of shared outrage and joy at humiliating their prisoner. There were even children among them.

"Who the hell is that?" I asked, uncomfortable with such public mob violence.

"Kragen Bloodstorm," Ania said, shaking her head. "He's a Rus berserker and a mercenary for hire. The townsfolk hired him to defend the village only for him to end up looting a merchant's home after slaughtering both him as well as his children."

"Ah," I said, losing most of my sympathy. I didn't remember such a character from the books and wondered if he was an invention for Lords of Dragon Keep or just one of the people that lived in this world. Then I decided it didn't matter.

"I actually recruited him as a companion," Jon said, surprising me. "He's a Warrior and good at tanking damage. His DPS isn't bad either. I mean, yeah, he suffers violent psychotic murder episodes but that's just part of his story. Plus, he's a demigod like you."

Ania looked over my shoulder. "Who is his godly parent?"

"The Crone," Jon said, as if afraid to say Baba Yaga. "Apparently, the old witch gets horny every few decades and takes a comely—"

"She's not a goddess," Ania said. "She's the mother of all hags, ogres, and other monsters, though."

I waited for the bracelet to ping and say to recruit him as a companion, but it didn't. Apparently, I'd have to make the effort to get him and wasn't sure I wanted to. I already had a Black alignment companion and one who might as well have been. I was pretty sure I wanted to do a White alignment run here, well, as much as I could if it managed to get me out of this place.

"Maybe we should ask if we could take him into our custody," I said, uncomfortable with the prospect but knowing we weren't exactly high on resources at this moment. Indeed, as Jon had pointed out, we were a Rogue and a Sorcerer (and a familiar). We were a Warrior short. You needed all three for a well-balanced party and probably a healing focused sorcerer too.

"Do what you want," Ania said. "I'm planning to make as many arrangements as we can to travel to Kalizov next."

"Kalizov?" I asked, wondering when that was decided.

"We need to complete these missions if we're going to stop Veles so we might as well try to recruit the Dragon Queen or Queen Apollonia first," Ania said. "If they can't tell you're Garland, then that might be something we can leverage. I don't know what we could offer the Jarls of the Rus or the Elves. You may have to sleep with one or both of them, though."

I stopped in mid-step. "What?"

"Clearly, I underestimated you as a companion, Ania," Jon said, sounding impressed. "I am so sorry that I drove you off by not paying attention to your approval score."

"I'm glad I don't remember you, Jon," Ania said, not bothering to stop as we passed out of the town square.

"No offense intended?" Jon asked.

"I didn't say that," Ania said, smirking.

"I'm not comfortable with that," I replied, thinking I would never want to be with someone who thought I was someone else.

I wouldn't do it.

"Yes, because your comfort is what matters," Ania muttered. "We're all going to have to make sacrifices, Imposter, if we're to save the world."

"He won't be able to pull it off," Jon said. "Believe me."

"Thank you, I think."

"I mean, I wasn't able to seduce the queen. What chance do you have?"

I shook my head.