I visited the Duck Brotherhood vendor, where I found what I had been looking for. Then I set up at an enchanting station.

I drank one of my potions to buff my enchanting effectiveness. Duckling and I had managed to find a total of ten in all our shopping. Next, I enchanted two rings and a circlet with buffs to further enchanting. I equipped them, drank the next potion, and created another set.

I repeated until I had one potion left. I could always visit another town or wait until the vendors restocked, but I had a feeling time was tight, and I wanted to get on with this.

I put on my last set of upgraded enchanting gear and drank the last potion, giving me a total of 400% bonus to whatever I enchanted. Then I took out my best stabby dagger and hit it with the new stealth enchantment from the Duck Brotherhood. Enchantment: Grant a bonus to all attacks made while sneaking equivalent to 15% of sneak multipled by stabby bonus.

With all of the enchanting buffs I had on it, that bonus skyrocketed. My dagger had a base damage of 6-10 damage. The stabby bonus was 50%. My Backstab skill was high enough any attack I made while behind a target was doubled. I had points into increased damage while attacking from stealth, and that was before this took affect.

In my shopping, I had managed to find two potions of greater sneak, which increased my skill by 10%. The base skill I had maxed out at 100, but adding gear and potions could take me well over the cap. With all of the buffs to my gear, I could have my sneak at 257 points when I drank one of the potions.

My math said I would be dealing between 600 and 900 points of damage. If I was in the right position, with the right buffs, at the right moment. I had to make this work.

"I can't risk bringing you," I told Duckling.

"That's not fair. You're abandoning your ward?" he demanded.

"I don't think you can sneak. I can't risk you attracting the Ostriswan's attention," I said. I called up my follower interface and dismissed Duckling. He looked so sad, I flipped him a couple of gold coins, which he caught deftly in his bill.

"Thanks, Governor. I'll always remember you." Then he ran off.

I still wasn't sure if Duckling was an NPC or one of the real people stuck in this instance, but I watched him go with fondness. Then I checked my map.

Mount Drake was the tallest mountain in Duckrym, located nearly in the center of my map. From what I'd learned, in White Plume, the Grey Waddles had a temple there somewhere, but I wasn't interested in them. The quest marker the Queen had given me was at the top of the mountain. I had a feeling the Ostriswan would be waiting for me there, so I set off to the town at the bottom of the mountain.

I poked around and got some information from the NPCs. They offered me a couple of local quests, which I ignored, and a carry quest asking me to take food up to the Grey Wattles. The innkeeper pointed me to the path up the mountain. He called it the Four Thousand Steps, and as soon as I reached the bottom, I saw why. The trail was practically carved into the mountain, leading upward.

Why did bird people, bother with carving steps? Why didn't they just fly? Come to think of it, I'd yet to see any of the bird people using their wings to get around. Maybe they couldn't fly.

It didn't matter. I set off up the Four Thousand Steps.

Four hours later, I was still at it. That was where my low level was getting to be a problem. The mountain was teeming with wolves, snow spirits, yetis, and angry goats, all of which saw me as an easy target. I narrowly avoided getting headbutted off the mountain by a particularly angry goat. When I dropped into Sneak, I could get past them, but Sneak cut my speed down by a lot. I'd put a couple of perk points into it, but it was still pretty slow.

I was making my painfully tedious way up the mountain when I heard what I guessed were other miners coming up behind me. I pressed myself into a cleft in the mountainside, keeping Sneak active, and listened as they approached.

It was Rok'gar with four of his orc friends.

They were talking about the Ostriswan. I guess they had gotten far enough that the game was throwing them against it.

"Keep an eye out," Rok'gar was saying. "Good place for an ambush."

"The humans have given up, and we're about all that's left," one of his friends retorted. "Who'll make an ambush?"

"Just be careful," Rok'gar said as they continued up.

I followed them, staying well back and out of their sight. The good news was they cleared the path up the mountain for me, and I followed the trail of dead yeti corpses and shimmering snow beast remains. We passed the Grey Wattle Temple, the orcs ignoring it, just as I was, taking a path to the right that led farther up.

When I reached the top, the orcs were there, standing outside a cave. Inside the cave, something enormous stirred. The orcs were preparing for battle.

"It's just a big turducken," Rok'gar's friend was saying. "We've taken on plenty of those already."

"No point in taking risks," Rok'gar said as he handed out potions. His allies were unsheathing their weapons and checking them over.

I took a deep breath. I liked Rok'gar and had worked with him. What if I tried to explain to him what was really going on here?

The problem was, I didn't entirely understand it myself. I was taking it on faith that Shad had figured out more than I had and had the right answer. Rok'gar wasn't going to like that. He appreciated having an objective and working to achieve it. Besides, after what I'd done to them with the Civil War quest, I doubted he was ready to listen.

So I popped my first potion of Greater Sneak and edged carefully past them. I had ten seconds of Greater Sneak left by the time I reached the cave mouth and slipped inside.

The creature with was enormous, with the body of a swan on the legs of an ostrich, at least three times the size of any turducken I had seen. It slept on a nest, piled with skulls and gold. I slipped around inside and got into position on the back.

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The orcs approached the cave. One of them shouted a challenge, and the Ostriswan rose from the nest. It reared back, opening its mouth wide and breathing out a fiery chunk of stuffing breath.

I stepped forward, drinking my second Greater Sneak potion, and stabbed it in its feathery rear. I dealt 876 points of damage in one blow, but that wasn't enough to kill it. The Ostriswan shrieked, raising up and bashing its head into the ceiling.

Backstab had a one-second cooldown. I dodged to the side just in case it tried to come after me, and as soon as Backstab was off cooldown, I used it again.

That did it. The Ostriswan collapsed onto its nest.

I got a system message: [Do you wish to absorb this soul?]

Knowing what I did now, I most certainly did not, but I was afraid what would happen if I didn't, so I clicked OK and felt it rush inside me.

"What's going on?" one of the orcs called. "What happened?"

"Must be a glitch," Rok'gar said.

I quickly opened the loot interface and removed a single coin from its inventory before backing off, keeping up my stealth.

"We can loot it," one of Rok'gar's friends observed as they approached the dead bird.

"Who got the soul?" Rok'gar asked.

"Not me," all of his friends replied.

"We need the soul in order to use the King's Honk and end this war. We'll have to wait for it to respawn."

"On the other hand, that means we can loot it twice," one of his friends remarked.

Rok'gar brightened up. "Yeah, I can make a nice set of arrows with these tail feathers."

He and his friends retreated to prepare, and I sat behind the Ostriswan's corpse. Without my potion of greater sneak, I wasn't sure I could get past them without them noticing. If Rok'gar found I had interfered with his exploit yet again, I didn't think he would react well. I was going to have to wait. What if the Ostriswan respawned?

There was a crack behind me and a grinding noise. I turned to see a door opening up at the back of the cave. A rough hole in the rock as a piece of rock slid aside. Time to see where this went.

I stepped inside and found myself in another barrow. I followed the steps down, alert for skeleton geese or other enemies, and found nothing. Just burning torches on the wall, piles of urns, and grave offerings. I navigated rockfalls and stepped over little streams as I proceeded deeper and deeper into the tomb, but nothing appeared. No enemies.

I approached the inner sanctum. My mouth was dry. I didn't think I was meant to have got this far. The fragment might still have something up its sleeves.

As I entered the final chamber, I felt something powerful tugging on my chest. Something inside trying to get out. It was a horrifying sensation. I opened my abilities panel. My Honk ability, was flashing wildly at me.

I decided I could take a hint, so I cast Honk.

I don't know what I was expecting, but from my own lips and lungs issued the loudest, longest, most ear-splitting honk I have ever heard. It staggered me backward. I could see the wave of force pushed out of my mouth and felt as something left my chest. The pressure in my chest subsided as the power burst across the room in a swirling wave. It splashed against the far wall and collapsed in on itself.

A moment later, a spectral duck appeared in front of me. He was wearing a crown. He looked me over.

"Where are you from, adventurer?"

"Not from around here," I said, scratching my head as I considered him. "Is your wife the Duck Queen? She sent me."

"Yes, she is."

I had thought the Duck King would be insane after all this time in the Ostriswan, but he seemed reasonable. "You're not too upset with me for killing you?"

He shook his head. "Not at all. The fragment and I made a pact some time ago while I was sitting here on the nest, waiting to kill adventurers. So, if you wish to speak with him, go ahead. I am listening. I assume that's why you're here."

"Right. Got it.” I cleared my throat. "So, this situation has been going on for hundreds of years. I'm sure it's been a way to protect your people, but all it's doing now is keeping them locked up. The rest of your reality engine has been conquered. Your people need to come out."

The Duck King looked sad. "We are all that's left. We have lost our whole world. All I can do is try to keep what remains of my people safe."

"But you're not safe," I argued. "You're stagnant, trapped here in a simulation that isn't even anything like your home, is it?"

He shook his head slowly. "No."

“Then you have to listen to me and end this. It’s time to stop hiding and face the world. You may have been safe here, but your time is running out. This place is destroying you.”

“What more can we do? Where can we go?”

Listen, my people pried too deeply into your secrets. Your people are not safe anymore. If you don't come out, the aliens will send more adventurers in. Now that they know what’s going on, they'll avoid all of the traps and misdirection you've laid and come right here. This is your chance to end things on your terms. If you come out now on your own, they may reward you."

"And why would these aliens reward our cooperation?”

"You holding on to this fragment makes it difficult for them to sell residential slots in your reality engine. Nobody likes moving to a fragmented engine. If you can reach some sort of deal, we should be able to negotiate better terms for your people. How many of you are left?"

The Duck King's wings raised and lowered. "Not enough. A few thousand, perhaps. Too few to make a world, but enough to make the invaders sorry they have taken ours away."

"It's not too few," I told him. "You've got people. You've got some remnant of your own culture. You can rebuild."

"With no guarantees, you ask me to take them out of this refuge?"

"I do, because pointlessly fighting after you've already lost everything isn't going to do you any good. It's time to start over."

The Duck King sighed. "I know. You're right. I am so very tired. My people lose more of themselves each time this resets. It would be better for us all to go down to defeat together at once. I will take a chance. Perhaps you will be worth trusting, after all."

All around, the room grew insubstantial as the Duck King grew more and more silent until he and I were standing in a bank of fog.

"Let it be done," he said, and the world went white.

I was standing in the antechamber back on the ship in a room full of orcs and humans. Rok'gar was shouting angrily. Everyone was in an uproar.

"What happened? Who ended it?"

Shad came pushing through the crowd, a big grin on his face. "Great job, Colin. I knew you could do it." He held up his hands as Rok'gar's father, Mak'gar, came in.

"This exploit is complete," Mak'gar declared. "We have achieved integration. Everyone will be getting paid."

They got a good cheer, but I was focused on Shad.

"Did you make a deal?"

"I did," he said, grinning. "As soon as I got out, I sent a message to Juana and Kronos. They got this reality engine declared as a wildlife sanctuary."

"A what?"

"A sanctuary.” Shad shrugged. "The bird people of Takanadi 4 are the only avian intelligent species who have been found in the galaxy, and they're nearly extinct. There's a galactic treaty to protect such species by setting aside portions in a reality engine for them. Usually, by the time anyone has gotten a species declared as a unique natural resource, it's too late. The reality engine exploit's over, and they've lost entirely. But in this case, there's enough of them standing to make a real sanctuary."

"How much do they get?"

“1/128th of the reality engine. That fragment was surprisingly large. It'll be enough for them to rebuild and repopulate while they get on their feet and figure out what's going on."

"And Ethereum? The galactics can't screw them over there?" That's how the galactics had tried to hurt us after Kronos had won his own freedom by cutting off the Ethereum reserves he needed to keep his systems in place.

"Guaranteed for a hundred years," Shad said happily. "There'll be a galactic oversight committee involved, of course. And I'm sure they'll be corrupt and exploiting our new friends, but it's still a better deal than what they had. I'm gonna go explain this to the duck leaders right now."

"Great," I said. "And I'm going to have a bath."

Shad laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. "You do that."

I started for the door, but Rok'gar pushed through the crowd. He grabbed me and spun me around.

"What did you do, Colin?"

"What I always do," I said. "I cheated. Looked for loopholes and cracks."

"I could take you in a fair fight."

"That's why I haven't offered one," I said. "It's my job to win, not to play fair.”

He glared at me, and for a moment I thought he was going to punch me. Then he relaxed.

"You are a no-good, lying, cheating, sneaking son of a bitch."

"Tell me something I didn't know."

"Next time, you're going to be on my team."

I laughed, shook his hand. "Deal."