Zarian found his party in the woods away from the soldiers. They had their own campfire going.

Gilbert still looked despondent after not getting any coffee. Bianca, Naomi, and Hannah were sitting close, being surprisingly girly.

Zarian even caught a flash of Naomi’s smile as they gossiped quickly in hushed voices. The ladies paused when they saw him step out of the darkness of the woods to join them.

The campfire was set in a small stone ruin with no roof, only some lonesome arched doorways covered in vines. They’d picked a crater in the stone floor for the campfire and had extra blankets and bedrolls stuffed behind them for comfort.

Now that Zarian thought about it, the soldiers would have extra gear laying about after losing so many of their own.

“Good evening, sir,” Naomi greeted, and the other girls followed her example.

“Evening,” Gilbert muttered.

Zarian nodded back.

“We saved you some.” Naomi held up a mug of dark coffee. It was warm after waiting by the campfire.

Zarian used a parasite tendril to take it from Naomi’s hand and transfer it to his. He took a sip and felt the familiar buzz of caffeine.

Wow, this was good. It hit the spot. Even Para felt it.

With a small swagger, he walked over to Gilbert and offered the mug.

“I’m not supposed to get any,” the healer muttered.

“I don’t care. I won’t let you suffer alone.” Zarian gave the girls’ a curious glance. “That was screwed up, doing that to Gilbert.”

The girls chuckled. Hannah hid her smile behind her hand. Bianca beamed light from her face with her grin. Naomi smirked.

“It’s safer when you do it,” Naomi said. “We can’t predict how an evil goddess would feel if any of us do it. But if it’s you, it’s most likely okay.”

“Why’s that?” Zarian asked, arching a brow.

Bianca answered: “Other than she approved of you first, it all boiled down to this. The goddess is a big girl. We’re down-to-earth girls. And you’re a guy. You have more leeway than us girls.”

Zarian felt more confused. None of them were ‘down-to-earth.’

“With time, you’ll understand,” Gilbert said, taking the mug shakily. He took a loud sip, nearly moaning, before sipping again and again until he finally handed it back. “Thank you, chief, thank you.”

Zarian looked up and waited. No lightning bolts. No angry thunder. Nothing but the dark night and hooting beasts.

The blocky cloud cover was heavy tonight, which Zarian found comfortable. Hence him having his hood down while wearing loose-fitted clothing he’d taken from the soldiers.

“Ariana … is from this world,” Zarian said. “My little sister manipulated the events for me to be here. She’s no ghost. She actually exists. She’s from here, from the Infinita Star System.”

“How?” Hannah asked. She was the best at drilling him with the right questions.

“Dreams. She made me dream of the portal. And she reached out to me in another dream when we left the cave and reached the surface.”

“Why?”

“To see what I would do, which I think is her being honest. Maybe to an extent. Maybe there’s more involved than she had revealed.”

“If she’d lied once, twice, thrice, she’s likely to lie again and again,” Gilbert said.

“Agreed,” Naomi added.

“Would you still love her despite that?” Bianca asked.

“I can’t help but love her. She’s my little sister. The bane of my existence. But the one that’s been there the longest.” Zarian smiled at the fire. “And because I love her, I’m going to find her regardless of how truly powerful she is and give her a scolding. She’s been a bad girl. Her actions, my actions, they’ve led to serious consequences. So, yeah, I’ll scold her.”

“That’s it? Scold her?” Gilbert asked.

“That’s the start of it. I can’t say what else I’ll do from there. I do believe she’s highly powerful. She orchestrated a lot for this to happen.”

“Could she be working for Shadowfell?” Hannah asked.

“That would explain why we ended up in Shadowfell territory and why the evil goddess approves of me so quickly,” Zarian answered. “Huh, that gives me more of a reason to accept Shadowfell as a benefactor. It’s honestly the quickest way to get more info about my sister.”

There was, of course, another possibility. Ariana could be the Shadowfell Goddess. Zarian was sure that some of the people in his party might be considering that.

He didn’t say it aloud because he wasn’t sure himself. Having a big evil goddess as a little sister was ludicrous.

More importantly … Ariana wasn’t a big crier. She’d always cheered him on, mainly. It didn’t seem to fit her personality for Zarain, but he could be wrong.

Drifting from his thoughts to the present moment, Zarian noticed that the campfire chat fell silent.

It was easy to see they all had mixed feelings about acting in ‘service’ or as a ‘partner’ of an evil goddess. Zarian pulled out the divine note Shadowfell had written for him and passed it around for everyone to read and feel.

When they returned it back to him, he saw their mostly predictable reactions

Hannah was fascinated.

Naomi looked ambitious.

Bianca was holding back her good +3 and being sensible.

Gilbert looked distraught.

Zarian smiled softly. “We’re not hitched up with her yet. Bianca wants to have her pick of the good gods and goddesses. So far, it looks like Lovewar is leading. With that said, the gods have meddled a lot, and I’m not too happy about that. I don’t even know the lore behind any of them.”

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“We have a decent idea behind the good gods from what Roland and his soldiers’ said, at least,” Hannah admitted.

“They’re tight lipped about the evil gods, all scared that they’ll get cursed or bring ruin,” Naomi added.

“Well, I take what information you guys dug up. Then we can consolidate what we know about our gains. Stats. Traits. Runes. Advancements. I have a whole new grimoire, in fact. I don’t think we have to build from the ground up, but with so many fast changes we need to get used to the dynamics again.”

“I still want to support you all!” Bianca said quickly. “With the option to hit something nasty with a laser when we need it.”

“Okay, Miss ‘Be Not Afraid,’” Naomi threw in Bianca’s direction.

“I thought it fit!” Bianca wailed.

Hannah chuckled. “We haven’t been idle ourselves, especially Naomi. She’s gained three new stat points and a trait, while I’ve gained one for willpower and learned some new enchantments.”

There was an awkward pause where Gilbert’s chance to mention his gains came up. When nothing came around, Naomi quickly covered for Gilbert, which was surprisingly nice of her.

“High Intimidation,” Naomi said. “Uncommon. That’s my new trait.”

Zarian looked at Naomi.

She looked back.

Their eyes held each other for a long time.

Zarian cracked a grin and was about to roar with laughter. Naomi grouched, “Don’t you dare,” and the threat of her words had little prickly sensations crawl over his brain and give his primal flight-or-fight reactions a kick.

“Before we get into in-depth ability talks and optimization, I have to admit the enchantments on that dress have me slightly stumped.” Hannah nodded toward Bianca. “The elven enchantments are strange and more, how do I say, flowery in a sense. It’s harder to scan.”

Zarian smiled grimly. “I have to remember whole short stories from the Grimoire of the Dread Mire Gator. With each short story is a facet to one continuous spell combo.”

“Continuous spell combo?” Hannah and the others perked up, even Gilbert.

“Yeah, the entire grimoire is based on one multi-spell sequence. It even says so in the forward. When all is said and done, I’ll have a complete swampy gator.”

There was a long silence filled by the crackling flames.

“You’re telling me, out of all the wazoo magic and rewards, you got a book on making a magic gator,” Gilbert said. “I thought we entered fantasy land to be in fantasy, but you just can’t let old Florida go, can you?”

Zarian shrugged. “We’re a princess, an evil guy, and foreigners from the World of Swamps and Princesses. We got the princess. Now we have to bring the swamp.”

With that said, the party hunkered down. Zarian had some spectral spiders turn solid and dance around the campfire as a mild entertainment.

Hannah started things off by going over what she, Naomi, and Gilbert had learned about the Eternal Garden Kingdom, Bramblevale, and the issues with the nation. There were plenty:

Powerful bandits were running amok in Bramblevale. Deadly tensions with nobles in their capital city were boiling over. Fortress villages were getting ravaged by a powerful wolf dragon. The economy in Bramblevale and the communities surrounding it had suffered a recent crash.

Basically, they were going into a sticky situation. Ironically, that made Zarian chuckle. The evil +2 hummed sweetly, more obediently, whispering how there was an opportunity in misfortune. There was also an opportunity to have fun.

He kept a close watch on his evil +2, but he wouldn’t deny that the instability was better for him.

After all that political and problematic mumbo jumbo, Hannah talked about the good gods, which Zarian filed away to review for later. In return, he ran through the list of evil gods he saw when they gave their approvals and disapprovals, starting with Shadowfell and stopping at … The Dragon.

For some reason, even thinking of … The Dragon … gave a foreboding feeling. The atmosphere around the campfire felt uneasy.

All at once, they all decided not to mention … The Dragon … for now at least. Moving on, they discussed the strange gnoll situation and how Zarian had to train their rising gnolls, like the Force Monk he’d fought.

At the very least, he both started and solved a war. And now they had a potential fighting force to pit against Castle Grimrock. Who would’ve thought Zarian could make a bunch of savage hyena-like humanoids fight for him?

Nobody.

Nobody would’ve thought that.

The night grew late when they finally reached the part they were more or less excited for, insights into their magic abilities with new facets or realizations on how they could work together in layers or in separate parts.

This was the fun part for all of them, which placed Zarian mostly in the center. Other times, he shared the center with Bianca because of her new status as the second most powerful.

Still, she assured the others she was interested in supporting. They tossed around theories, even the ones that changed up the status quo, which was engaging for everybody even if some of their theories were ludicrous.

Like who would expect to see Zarian serve as a dedicated tank?

That was downright silly.

Gilbert even laughed at that idea.

The past couple of days had seen them split up. They might split up again, depending on how Bramblevale treated them. But they were a party with one overpowered wizard leading them, and despite their different levels of growth, they were becoming a strong enough party to hang with the wizard.

It took them hours before they finished and went to bed. Zarian stayed up a little later than the rest, getting in some quick study time with his grimoire.

The stories were thick and complicated, using highly archaic English. It was going to take some rereads to get the folktale spells down perfectly.

“Sir?” Naomi called softly from her bedroll.

“Yes?” Zarian replied.

“Nothing ….”

Zarian smiled. “You’re doing fine, Naomi. Keep it up. You won’t fall behind. I won’t allow it.”

Naomi was the only one with a rare class among adventurers with epic classes. Zarian didn’t blame her for feeling concerned with her progress, despite all of her hard work and consistent stat growth.

Naomi didn’t reply, but Zarian sensed she was more at ease, falling asleep for sure now. He closed the grimoire and traced his fingers over its thick, scaled cover. He touched the gator teeth running down the spine.

It was a hideous and monstrous thing. He loved it.

Bramblevale, here we come.

Zarian went to sleep. Then his eyes snapped open, and he found himself in a room he’d never seen before.

It had to be the room of a major geek, because there were anime figurines, video game posters, and nerdy references everywhere. Whoever owned the room had a full rack of gaming consoles and a built-up PC.

He found Ariana sitting on the bed. The blanket featured one of the greatest characters in action animation: Goku.

Ariana smiled at him. “You’re full of surprises, Big Bro. How you handled the gnoll elders was so unexpected, it disturbed many of the gods. That was awesome!”

Zarian smirked a little. “Yeah, sure, I guess nobody should underestimate me.”

“Indeed, that’s true. If only that stellar moment wasn’t dimmed by the gods’ actions and the trappings of the current alignments.”

“You’re speaking in a mature tone, Ariana. That makes me think you’re scheming.” Zarian squinted at her, still smiling. “Give it to me straight. What’s in that little crooked noggin’ of yours?”

“You alone are the Honored Outsider.” Ariana bounced up and down on the bed. “Almost everyone must play by the rules, especially those at the bottom. Even the gods play by the rules. They all rise. They all fall. Then they get replaced, and the cycle renews. And when the cycle becomes too overburdened, too old, then the slate is wiped clean. Nothing truly changes. Everything is aligned to play the game as per routine. Yet, you alone are the Honored Outsider.”

Zarian watched her bounce up and down. Instead of speaking, he took in what she was saying. The more he thought about it with his Fractured Mind, the more he wondered why he was truly called that.

Why was he the Honored Outsider?

He knew his strange start in the Infinita Star System had something to do with his origins. He remembered how the System had to request authorization or access above the universe. Then he was told not to die an unworthy death or to avoid death altogether.

Perhaps he really was the child of something big and major. Maybe he was created by some powerful entity as a weird experiment. Or maybe he was in a padded room, his sanity gone from the world, his mind replacing reality with multifaceted fantasy.

Zarian chuckled, doubting that last part. Instead, he challenged his mature little sister.

“Maybe it has nothing to do with me,” Zarian said, “and everything to do with what came before me.”

Ariana stopped bouncing and looked directly at him. Her eyes darkened. The geeky room darkened. Even her voice came out darkened, with a hint of something ferocious.

“You alone are the Honored Outsider.”

The dream ended.