When faced with the possibility of perma-death, Liam found that he was not as frightened as he would have expected. At the moment when twelve powerful enemies rushed towards him, he felt only resignation. Now that the crisis was over, he found his body was trembling. It valued the integrity of his head, torso, and limbs. Moreover, Liam could imagine the voices of his parents in his head, shouting at him for having led Aengus into such danger. How could he have done so?

‘Come on!’ Aengus was running down the hill, swerving as he did in order to collect soul stones from the dead.

‘Wait! What are you doing?’

‘Rescuing Patricia and Daniel.’

‘We can’t.’

‘Yes, we can!’ Aengus stopped and turned. ‘You made a mistake pulling with Magic Missile. Once we’d done damage, we couldn’t shake the aggro. If I peel mobs off the back without harming them, we can reduce that train.’

Before Liam could even voice his reservations and objections, his young brother was bounding down towards the beach.

‘He’s right,’ Kate’s blue eyes were blazing with excitement and she too began to run off before Liam could stop her.

All Liam wanted to do was rest. To curl up and recover from his recent proximity to extreme danger.

Let them go. They are probably going to fail and die. If not, it will make no difference for us to be present.

You never had a brother, I take it.

I had a hundred and twenty-seven. I had to kill a hundred and twenty-six of them to secure my rule.

What happened to the other one? The question came to mind, even as Liam found that he was hurrying after Kate and Aengus.

On the death of our father, he, the youngest and weakest of them all, came to my court and made obeisance to me. I considered it expedient to reward him with a lordship and followers, as an incentive to my other brothers to do the same. He remained loyal to me even when they besieged his castle and impaled him on a holy lance.

Interesting as this was, Liam’s attention was mostly on the large rocks that would cause him to twist or break an ankle if he mis-stepped. Lord Azanth, I have to thank you. When those twelve monsters came for us, I felt paralysed. I only expected to face one or two. The fact we survived is down to you. As soon as you started giving orders, I recovered my self-belief. You’re a demon lord who has fought in lots of battles and just having you at my side – so to speak – gave me confidence.

You speak as though grateful, yet here you are once more ignoring my instruction and carrying me into danger. Were it not for the fact that I would likely become food for the birds, I would ask you to leave me here. If you could only view my true visage, you would not see a featureless circle of fried potato but a fanged demon, with ferocious rage in his unmerciful eyes.

Think of Aengus as your loyal younger brother.

To what end?

To motivate yourself to save him.

My brother was expendable in the cause of my eventual triumph. As is yours.

Emerging from a treeline of palms near the beach with the bothy, Liam caught up with Kate and his brother. In the distance, near the glittering sea, was a cloud of sand and dust where Patricia and Daniel were staying ahead of their pursuers. It was evident from a shallow but wide trench in the sand that the chase was now taking place around a large circuit of the beach.

‘When they come around again, stay well back,’ said Aengus, ‘I’ll advance until triggering a response and then we can see what we face. Worst case, we’ll just let the mobs I pull re-join the train.’

Liam could not believe how complacent his brother was. ‘Worst case is you aggro a caster who hits you with some terrible skill before you can use Still Heart and you get stomped in a matter of seconds.’

‘Well, all right. That’s worse. But it’s not very likely.’

‘Listen to yourself.’

‘I heard myself.’

Liam sighed. ‘Place a value on “not very likely”.’

‘One in a hundred?’

‘Fine. Although I’d say one in twenty. Now, if you are betting one Euro against those odds and you lose, that’s an acceptable risk. Your life, however, is worth an infinite amount and so it is not an acceptable risk. QED.’

‘Dear brother, if my life were worth infinity, then there would be no odds at all that would make it worth the risk.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Why did you ask me to place a value on “not very likely” then?’

Another sigh. A tension in his chest. ‘It was a rhetorical manoeuvre to get you to appreciate the folly of your plan. Let me put it another way. What would mum and dad say?’

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

‘They’d blame you for bringing me here. I should be in school.’ His brother was grinning, insufferably.

Thus does the younger sibling always reckon: that no misfortune will fall upon them. All is mockery and mirth; sober calculation is for the first of birth.

‘Look, something’s changed.’ Kate had her hand up to shade her vision.

The monsters had stopped moving.

‘Are Patricia and Daniel dead?’ wondered Liam aloud, feeling slightly guilty that he was more relieved his brother would no longer be taking a life-or-death risk than upset for the death of the two strangers.

I sense them still, though far away and beneath the waves.

‘Lord Azanth says they are alive and in the sea.’

For several minutes the army of monsters waited as waves ran up to them and slid back into the sea with a sigh. Seagulls cried on the wing. A light breeze stirred the long leaves of the palms. Insects flitted past, their wings glistening with green and silver when they caught the sunlight. Then one, soon another, of the forty or so monsters gathered at the shore turned away. Within a minute, the entire body of mobs were heading back inland, with the ebony golems the last to leave.

The monsters were so far away, there was probably no chance of attracting any aggro, nevertheless, Liam crouched behind the fronds of a fern, Kate and Aengus immediately doing the same until the mobs had passed the bothy and gone out of sight beyond palms trees and bushes.

‘Is it safe?’ wondered Aengus.

‘Let’s wait a bit,’ said Liam.

Long after the last of the monsters had left the beach, Patricia and Daniel walked out of the sea.

‘Come on,’ said Kate and she ran towards the two Adventurers, waving. ‘We thought you were dead!’

Curious but refusing to hurry, Liam walked across the sand to where the two high-level Adventurers were taking off their armour and weapons and placing them on the sand to dry.

‘How did you stay underwater so long?’ asked Aengus.

‘Potions of Water Breathing,’ said Daniel. ‘Although I was sorry to waste them.’

Untying her shoulder-length brown hair so that she could shake it loose, Patricia said, ‘There was no other way.’

‘I was going to try to pull some mobs off you, with Still Heart.’

Patricia smiled at his brother. ‘That would have been brave of you. It might have worked too. But we didn’t know where you all were. We just hoped you’d be clear of the train.’

‘We were clear, but then we attacked the back of it.’ Kate sounded proud.

‘Did you?’ Daniel was clearly surprised.

Liam gave him a nod, ‘I used Magic Missile to pull, which was probably a mistake as twelve of them came after us.’

‘There’s more to your group than meets the eye,’ said Patricia, no longer smiling. ‘There’s no way two mages and a monk defeat twelve of those mobs. You don’t even have your Level Fifteen skills.’ After a moment, she shrugged. ‘But fair play for trying to help.’

‘What happened?’ Kate asked.

‘We were looking for the pool in the garden of…’ Patricia began.

Daniel straightened and shook his head, droplets falling from his dark eyebrows. ‘No don’t.’

‘It’s only fair. They risked their lives for us.’

From the tight-lipped expression of the cleric, he did not approve, but he said nothing more.

‘There’s a ruined palace,’ Patricia continued, 'we wanted to go into the pool there because we’ve reason to think it leads to an underwater complex.’

‘With the treasure!’ exclaimed Kate.

While Daniel grunted disapprovingly, Patricia smiled. ‘Maybe. Certainly, it’s worth exploring. No one else ever has, despite the fact that Orlak Bloodaxe was a merperson. We stocked up on potions of Water Breathing for that reason. Only there were those two black monsters in the courtyard of the palace. We took a battering from them and I kept going blind. We had to leg it the moment I could see again.’

‘Ebony golems,’ stated Liam and he enjoyed the look of curiosity in Daniel’s heavy face. ‘They need magic weapons or skills to damage them and a hit from their swords triggers the Blindness skill.’

‘Well, I couldn’t cure her fast enough,’ Daniel said. ‘So we ran and had to train a load of mobs on our way out. There wasn’t time to skirt them.

‘We can get you to the pool,’ said Aengus excitedly and Liam’s heart sank.

‘No, we can’t,’ he said, even though he knew it was hopeless. Looking at Kate for support, he saw only eagerness in her bright blue eyes.

‘We can. I can pull them away and drop their aggro with Still Heart.’

‘What level is your Still Heart?’ asked Daniel.

‘Three.’

‘It might not be enough.’

‘I’m nearly at four. I’ve enough soul stones for my second star, I just need to go back and trade in greens for light blues.’

‘How many light blues do you need?’

‘Two.’

Daniel’s face went blank. It was the look of someone delving into their inventory and sure enough, two spheres of swirling pale blue soon appeared, one in each hand.

‘Here you go.’

‘That’s so pog! Thank you. Here, let me give you my spare dark greens.’

‘It’s fine; just take them.’

‘Really?’ Aengus looked reverential.

‘Go ahead.’

Reaching out with both hands, Aengus took the stones. They disappeared and soon after he grinned widely. ‘That’s my second star. Ki Shock Wave and Still Heart went to level four. Physical Attack is up ten; Natural Armour is up ten.’

Of course Liam was delighted for his brother; two stars before his sixteenth birthday! But he also felt a twitch of something else.

Jealousy is a common human failing.

I’m not jealous. I’m just getting used to seeing Aengus as a serious Adventurer.

And when he becomes more powerful than you?

Fair play to him.

It is better to be envied than patronised.

I’m not envious and I’m not patronising him. I’m glad of his progress. And if he overtakes me, so much the better for our family.

Thus you say. Hatred is active displeasure, envy passive. We need not wonder that envy turns too soon to hatred.

I don’t envy him. I’m happy for him. We agreed this didn’t we? To give him all our soul stones. This is what we want. A monk with a powerful Still Heart skill.

‘What level are you?’ Daniel asked.

‘Twelve,’ said Kate, with a look toward the cleric that was almost reverential.

‘Thirteen,’ said Liam.

Fourteen, though only reveal me if we may join them in their enterprise. Success and achievement are typically matters of long range. In my case, the prize of a new skill is at hand. Another day or two of hard fighting and it will be here.

Daniel shook his head, a flicker of impatience on his heavy face. ‘Not you, the monk.’

‘Eleven.’

‘All right. Here’s the plan. We power level you to fifteen. You’ll take Burst of Speed as your new skill. Then you come with us to the underwater entrance and pull those ebony golems away so we can get in.’

‘Do you have any idea of what’s in the underwater complex?’

Daniel glanced at Patricia and she shook her head.

‘I’ve a better plan, so,’ Aengus folded his arms. ‘We all go inside as a group. If there are boss fights, you’ll need us.’

The sneer in Daniel’s voice was unmistakeable. ‘You’ll be a liability.’

‘You intend to tank and heal?’ said Liam.

‘Naturally.’

‘Well, then you’ll want Thornskin. We have this,’ he produced the Hazel Wand of Syceus. ‘And for buffs and crowd control on the adds, we have this…’ Liam tapped the Tupperware case hanging from his neck.

‘What’s that?’ Daniel leaned forward, peering closely. ‘It looks like a big crisp.’

‘Prawn cocktail flavour,’ said Aengus proudly.