"I don't want to stay behind." Leto balled his fists. "I want to go with you."

I'd converted a boulder into a hut with an iron door that could only open from a button on the inside. It wouldn't withstand a siege, but wandering bandits were rarer than monsters in lower Dargoth. No matter how many citizens were unhappy with the status quo, the empire didn't have an outlaw problem because it was impossible to live off the land. If you didn't starve, you'd eventually come across a patch of Bedlam wart and the spores would kill you.

The shelter was nothing more than a hollow in the rock lit by torches ringing the walls. The air was dry and dusty, which was a good sign. We'd looked for an area that was well clear of any fungal patches. Gastard was waiting by the door, his arms crossed over his chest, wearing a severe expression. He didn't like this any more than I did, but he wasn't a man for tearful goodbyes.

Leto would keep two horses, the last of our food, and my thermos of unlimited drinking water. If we didn't come back, he could return to Atlan. It would be easier than crossing the Wastes to get to the Free Kingdoms, and when I'd mentioned the idea to Torgudai, the orkhan had agreed to take him in if it came to that.

"It's too dangerous," I said.

"Everything since you found us has been dangerous!" He had a point there. But the anger on his face was a mask, covering the fear underneath. Aside from the last month or so, Leto had lived his entire life in a cottage with Esmelda and Gastard. They had never been apart. Now I wasn't just asking him to be separated, but to let us go knowing that there was a possibility we wouldn't return. Ideally, even death wouldn't stop us forever, but heroes could be bound.

Esmelda put her hand on his cheek and held it there.

"It's going to be hard on me, too. I can't think of a time when I've had you out of my sight for more than a few hours. But this has to be."

Leto stepped away from his mother's hand, looking back at me.

"You could make me armor like Gastard's." He said. "Then no one could hurt me."

"It wouldn't be enough to be sure you were safe," I told him. There were a hundred other reasons. Having to defend a non-combatant was always a problem, but in a mountain full of monsters with a demon waiting at the top, having him with us would be crippling. Leto had already been taken hostage once. With his magic, Bojack would barely have to make an effort to trap the boy and threaten his life.

"This isn't fair," tears were forming in the corners of his eyes, and he quickly wiped them away. "Mom is going."

"You know better," Gastard's voice was low and anything but soft, "we've spoken of this before. Even in the woods, there was always a risk that I or your mother would be taken from you. If not by Dargothians, then by a wild beast or sickness. It's time for you to be a man."

Leto stiffened at the words, and Esmelda shot Gastard a frown. He was being too harsh. Though I imagined the brief speech was in line with Gastard's upbringing, my son was a long way from being a man. I'd have to ask him about it sometime. I took a knee in front of Leto and embraced him.

For a moment, he held his back straight, resisting me, but I didn't let go. He relaxed, resting his head on my shoulder.

"I just met you." He said.

"Don't worry," I squeezed him tighter. "This won't take long. I love you, and we'll all be together again soon."

***

The clouds seemed more ill-tempered than ever, heaving and shifting in agitation as they assimilated the smoke spouting from the caldera of Mount Doom. The mountain was cast in shades of black relieved only by the torches of its defenders, pinprick highlights moving atop the walls of the fortress. It was a huddling hulk, its ridges and folds concealed in a cloak of shadow.

Night had lifted, but it was never bright in Dargoth, and the sunlight filtering through the storm was particularly lackluster today. We were following the tracks that our force had left behind on the way to the north, the ruts of wagons, and the marks left by the heavy feet of the trolls. Mostly, the ground looked uniform to me, in that it was cracked and marred equally in every direction, but Esmelda had been pointing out the trails as we went along. It was another aspect of her Woodcraft skill.

I felt as sluggish as if I'd taken a sedative. Any move I made came with resistance like I was submerged in a wading pool, and I'd taken to slumping over the back of my mount over the last day. If I tried to walk, it was at the speed of a zombie. The Atlan horses were short and stocky, with bushy manes and extra hair around their ankles that looked like socks. They'd been balky at first, but after several feedings, the animals had all been taken in by my Tamer skill. When the effect took hold, the animals developed a green ring around their irises, and they became extremely friendly. Obnoxiously so.

I hadn’t been able to tame horses before. It must have been a consequence of raising the skill, though why horses should be more difficult to tame than a wyvern I had no idea.

They followed me around unless I specifically told them not to, and when I did, gave me a comically mournful look. On the plus side, they had remained placid within the torch ring every night while monsters appeared and died around them. Mine was named Morin, and I patted him on his shaggy neck.

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We were close enough to the mountain to make out the main gate of the fortress on the lower slopes. The marks of the battle with Malphas were still in evidence across the plain before Mount Doom. The bodies were all long gone, fed to the mobs housed in the stables beneath the fortress, but stretches of the dry clay were still blackened from fire, and the ruined framework of a burnt out trebuchet stood as a lonely monument to what had transpired.

Arrows stuck up here and there from the rocky soil, never retrieved. And broken weapons, armor that had been mangled by a buster sword, brooded dully in the dust. It was an appropriate foreground to the seat of a dark empire. I tried to imagine the smoke clearing, and the sky opening to the sun. This land had never been green, as far as I knew, but I could plant a lot of grass.

The ding had come and gone to announce the dawn, and I finally checked my status page for the bad news.

Class Assignment: Survivor

Level: 11

Progress to next level: 23%

Attributes:

Might: F-

Speed: F-

Presence: F+

Curse of Weakness: While under the effects of this curse, your physical attributes will gradually decline. With every passing night, Might and Speed will incur a cumulative penalty.

Still nothing below F-, thankfully. My overall level had jumped up after the fight with the pebbleheart, though not as much as I would have expected, and I wondered what would happen if I hit thirty again. Unlocking my System and being assessed as an E-Rank entity reset me to level one. It hadn't been explicitly stated in the notifications, but I suspected that reaching thirty again would allow me to ascend to the next rank, or at least open up some new options. Accrued experience was a measure of how much essence I'd accumulated. Those levels had gone to creating my aetheric core, which would continue to develop as I killed more monsters and practiced my class abilities.

It was definitely taking me longer to level than it had originally.

"How bad is it?" Esmelda asked, casting a worried glance at my screen.

"Same as yesterday," I said. That wasn’t entirely true. My physical attributes had stayed the same, but my Presence had dropped for the first time. When it bottomed out, maybe that would be it for me. "I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or not."

Her brows drew down, and she seemed to shrink in her saddle at the news.

"Should I have taken White Mage? I've been thinking about it since the first night. Heir felt right to me, and I still think it will be the most useful for us in the long term, but what if I could have removed the curse?"

"I don't think you could have." Even with a healer specced class, reversing the effect of a System based penalty seemed like a tall order. "Maybe if you had months or years to train your skills, or after you complete the tutorial, you would have been able to do something to help, but not on day one."

"Still, I could have made a mistake. If we fail here, I'll never know if the outcome could have been different if I had made a different selection."

"That's the game," I said. "It's not like I've never questioned my own choice. I could have been a Pokemaster, but here I am stacking blocks. I don't think there was a wrong choice on the list. Every version of Hero has advantages and disadvantages. What matters is figuring out how to utilize the abilities you have."

"Can archery be that useful?"

"The arrows I gave you can hurt him. And so can Gastard's sword, now that he's upgraded it. Our best weapon here is that Bojack doesn't know you guys are a threat to him." During the previous night, I'd set up an enchanting table and added Shadowbane to every arrow we had, as well as the bow itself. Though my level wasn’t as high as I would have liked, beating the pebbleheart and killing a couple of demons had charged Kevin's essence stealing orb to its fullest, giving me plenty of room to enhance what equipment we had. It still had energy to spare.

"The past is the past," Gastard said, gazing solemnly up at the peak of the mountain. "We will do what we can, and Gotte will see our deeds. There is no more to be asked for."

We had a few options for getting in. What would work depended on Bojack's reaction to realizing that I'd broken my oath to him. Climbing up the side of the mountain and drilling into the fortress in secret was one possibility, but it would have been slower, and it would have made it obvious that I was there to fight.

As long as Kevin hadn’t reclaimed the throne, the soldiers here would still recognize me as their Dark Lord. Bojack knew exactly what the Curse of Weakening did, and would therefore be aware that I was far from top shape.

Though he was capable of great cruelty, the demon was even more pragmatic than I was. Bojack wouldn't act out of anger that I had gone against his will. If I made it seem like I was coming to him for expiation, he would allow me to do so, likely insisting on a few new marching orders for me to ensure that I followed his instructions more closely in the future. Whatever the situation, he acted in a manner that would further his own goals, and losing me would constitute a major setback for him.

Esmelda, Gastard, and I rode along the winding path that led to the gate of Mount Doom. They rose thirty feet into the air, twin doors of iron stained nearly black by soot and ash. They could only be opened by a pair of wheels behind the walls operated by trolls. As we approached, a horn sounded from the walls, its call winding through the darkness and echoing across the plain.

After the horn, we heard the cries of the guards heralding my return.

"The Dark Lord has come! All hail the throne!"

Bojack hadn't turned them against me. But as sure as I was that he would talk, I knew he would also be prepared to defend himself. We couldn't expect to find him alone. Though this was my castle, I had to treat it as enemy territory. The monsters would obey him, even if the men were on my side. And there was Gremory to consider as well.

Those gates groaned as the trolls worked to turn their wheels, chains clanking unseen behind them, and the way was opened to welcome us back to Mount Doom.