My heart sank. What was I supposed to tell her? I saw no point in lying about it… but I also wasn’t going to tell the truth. “I can’t tell you that, Cuby.”

“You should,” she said. Her voice sounded free of judgment: it was as plain a statement as if she’d pointed out the color of the sky.

I sighed. “I know, Cuby. And I would if I could.”

“Only the taxin el become chosen,” she said. “But I don’t believe you’re a taxin el. It’s the only explanation that makes any sense, but I still don’t believe it.”

I said nothing.

“I told you I was a high-ranked administrative phrenodine, Alatar—isn’t that enough? You know I can keep secrets, or you should.”

“If we get through the dungeon, I’ll know enough,” I said. “I can tell you then.”

Cuby laughed. “You’re lucky I want to get through the dungeon anyway—because that’s terribly unconvincing.”

I frowned. Truthfully, I had no idea if I’d be ready to trust Cuby after I found whatever entity had written the Helpful Hint that had warned me. But I needed her help.

“I really hope this is all game stuff,” Cuby added, sounding amused. “Because I’m supposed to be done with the Hierarchy, you hear? And if it is game stuff… it had better work to my advantage.”

I said nothing. Instead my eyes were fixed on the town below us, where people were beginning to emerge from their houses—and grief-stricken cries had begun to emanate from the battlefield.

“As for the dungeon,” Cuby said, “I doubt it’ll be easy. They’re supposed to take a lot of players when they’re free, but I don’t know how many that is.”

“You weren’t against it when we were level 3,” I said pointedly.

“I’m not against it now,” said Cuby. “But now I want to go there because I think it might be where Haroshi is headed, still.”

“Really?”

“Sure!” she said, smiling. “By my guess, he lost about half his people—maybe more. But the other half might still be enough. It will at least be worth it for him to check the dungeon out, given that he needs to find a way to get ahead somehow now that his attack has mostly failed.”

“And if we find him there….”

“We assassinate him!” Cuby said cheerily. “Our deal is still on, right? I did help defend the town….”

“Yes, Cuby. The card is yours.”

“Free dungeons give legendary boons too, if you care—and you should care.”

“So there’s a way to get them without just killing the chosen.”

“Yup! You can gain more boons as you level. Say, I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me how you’re one of the chosen?”

“I told you. I think something malfunctioned, but I’m not sure. If we’re chasing Haroshi, should we leave now? And aren’t you worried he won’t leave the side of his crew?”

She shrugged. “We’ll have to think of something—attacking from ambush when they’re camped, attacking when they engage a powerful monster, I don’t know. We can hit and run, maybe. As for leaving now… warriors and shifters can’t learn Charm of Gliding. I can only learn it because I’m a rogue, and we can learn certain spells as techniques.”

“Psychic has something similar.”

“His group won’t have our mobility. We should loot, stock up, then go after him with as many potions, bombs, and power cells as we can get our hands on. And spend—”

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

She was interrupted by a system message:

Quest Completed – Defend Oromar’s Bastion

“Oh,” said Cuby. “There it is. I was going to say ‘spend our skill points,’ by the way.”

“Good idea.”

There was a brief pause as both of us opened our quest log to accept our reward.

You receive:

Iron Diadem of the Perfect

Uncommon Equipment – Iron Diadem of the Perfect

This wrought-iron circlet is set with a plain, polished stone, and enchanted to improve its wearer’s combat abilities.

+ 2 Celerity

+ 2 Power

I equipped this and looked over at Cuby. “Does yours grant Haste and Might?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Does yours grant Celerity and Power?”

“Yeah. They must auto-adjust to their wearer.”

“Well that’s nice,” said Cuby, standing. “Look, I want to go down and loot, but… your potion is going to wear off soon. And you were very bothered by what happened down in the mines….”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah… I don’t know what’s going to happen.” I looked down at the town, which was now filled with people and noise. The entrance to the mines was clearly visible, with many dwarves, humans, and gnomes openly wailing in the street over the bodies of their loved ones. A few people had just started carrying them to the town square, where some of the dead lay in a growing line, each covered with a sheet.

“Do you want me to do the looting?” Cuby asked. “You can wait here, or at our tents. It’s just that obviously I could—”

“It’s fine, Cuby,” I said. “Go. I’ll meet you back in the square, and if I’m not there I’ll be at our tents.”

“All right,” Cuby said. A moment later I got the same system-prompt I had in the mines, asking if I was okay with the group leader retroactively claiming my loot, which I accepted. Cuby jumped down from the tower and glided into the streets.

I took a deep breath and looked at my potion buff. It had more than 40 minutes left. In my present state of clarity, I could see that I was very likely to be troubled by the act of killing, by the mangled bodies that I had created, and perhaps by the fact that I’d been so satisfied by the whole thing.

Not excited or happy. Just… satisfied. The more time I spent thinking about it, the more I struggled to put myself in my own shoes: how could I, minus the effect of the potion, reasonably argue against wanting those people dead? The wails of the grieving below me were enough to show that Cuby and I had been entirely in the right.

Still, Implosive Missile made for some extremely mangled bodies, as if my targets had been suddenly crushed by a giant fist. Those sights wouldn’t be kind to my normal mental state.

It was bringing up a difficult dilemma. I needed another potion, or a whole stack of potions, to make sure that I was performing well when combat came; I had little doubt that I’d have been much less effective tonight if Cuby hadn’t had the foresight to bring me one. But if I did that… what would I become? Some broken, traumatized shell of a person, dragging himself from one encounter to the next so that he could cease being himself and do the killing necessary?

“Not good,” I said, glancing at the timer on the focus potion. It was a strange thing, using transhumanist technology to turn myself into a person who was so capable of murder. I had no easy solution for the problem ahead of me.

I sat and watched them gather bodies in the town square for a bit, dividing attackers from defenders. I saw Karrol Stir, the karox beastfolk who I’d traded with earlier, and decided to go and talk to him—but first, I recast my False Identity to show myself as a level 10, hoping no-one below was watching as it happened. Then I leapt from the tower and glided down to where he was seated at the lip of the central fountain.

He looked up. Blinked. “Alatar,” he said. “I have overheard conversations. They say you and your companion helped in the defense—many saw you fight at the mine. They say that only two of you killed a half-dozen.”

He regarded me with dark eyes, and I couldn’t tell from his lizard features whether he was suspicious or not. I noticed that he was wearing the same iron headpiece that I now sported—despite being level 4.

“You helped with the defense?” I asked, surprised he was still alive.

“In what way that I could,” he said. “One cannot trade with a defender unless they are one—and I had, in one of my moments of better judgment, made many Potions of Primeval Resistance in case Haroshi chose to do as he did.”

“So you had to become a defender to distribute your goods.”

“I tried,” he said. “I supplied the East Gate, but the runner I sent to the south was killed.”

“We bought potions from you too,” I said. “So, thanks.”

He frowned, shaking his head. “You cannot thank me if you paid me.”

“Ah—sorry, Karrol Stir.”

He smiled, an expression that still made me want to step away from him, given that he was an alligator now baring his teeth. “I accept your apology without reservations.”

“Great,” I said, worried that he’d be bothered if I thanked him for forgiving me. “I also wanted to ask—”

“Our deal,” he said, nodding. “You want to ask your confidential questions.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve got a little time, If you’re free.”

He nodded again. “Ask away.”