"Where are you going?"

Esmelda was worried. It was the only time her face showed any hint of her true age. The slight crease in her brow, the faintest lines around her eyes. Lillits aged slowly, but they weren't immortal. She was a few years older than me. I hadn't pushed her for an exact number and she hadn't offered one. Not that it mattered, but I did sometimes wonder what that meant for our future together. Boffin was well over a hundred and he could have passed for someone in his fifties. Was I going to be decrepit when she was only middle-aged?

I didn't even know if I would get older. Maybe I was immortal. Kevin had been around for centuries, but was that a feature of our shared System or the result of some other magic? He worked with demons. They might have given him eternal youth in exchange for him joining the forces of darkness.

Esmelda could always remarry. And it would all be moot if I couldn't do something about Kevin. There had to be a way to stop Survivors from coming back, otherwise, the previous heroes would still be around to fight him themselves. If there was no limit to respawns, then imprisonment was the only other option.

I'd thought about it. Defeating Kevin once wouldn't be enough if he came back to life every morning. We'd have to find his respawn point and box it in with a material he couldn't harvest by hand. That, or drown it in lava.

He would have something along those lines prepared for dealing with me as well.

We were home, and I was going from room to room collecting the materials and tools I thought I might need. Esmelda was trailing behind me.

"I want to see what's coming I said. A little scouting, that's all."

Esmelda slipped in front of me as I went for a chest full of wood coins. Her hands went to her hips, and she frowned, hard.

"That's what you said last time."

"This is different." I knew I was in too much of a hurry, and my preoccupation was stressing her out. A few minutes was not too much to spare for her peace of mind. "The harpies can do a few flyovers to get us a better estimate of what we're up against, but I want to go back to my point of origin."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to dig a shelter there. A secret one. That way, if something happens to the town, and Drom isn't safe anymore, you'll have a place to go."

Her face softened, but the worry was still there. She was too lovely for words.

"You think we're going to be separated?"

"It's possible. We need a backup in case we can't defend the town, and if I die, I want equipment to be handy when I wake back up. It's important for there to be a place we can always find each other, and right now, my starting zone is just an empty field."

"I should go with you."

"The town needs you to help prepare. You're a lot better at that sort of thing than I am. Send messages to Godwod. You're the Baroness, and you need to fill in for me while I'm off digging holes." I smiled at her, trying to pretend this wasn't as serious as it was. We weren't ready. Why couldn't we have had more time?

Celaeno's explanation of what was coming over the mountain had sounded like a fever dream. Fire and smoke and a boxy monster that was eating the mountain, widening a pass large enough for an army to pass through. My assumption was that Kevin had thrown together a machine that could do some of the harvesting for him.

Esmelda didn't return my smile.

"Promise me you won't try to face him alone if it is the Dark Lord. Promise me you won't risk yourself against a demon, or try to sabotage an army. You will build a shelter, see what there is to see, and come back to me. Then we can go together to make sure Godwod does his duty as the Margrave."

She was really covering all the bases, but it hadn't been my intention to wage a one-man campaign.

"I promise I won't do any of those things. I promise I'm coming back." God, I shouldn't have said that. What a jinx. It seemed to do Esmelda some good though. She allowed me to finish collecting supplies, but stopped me before I could leave.

Her hand was cool around my wrist.

"Go in the morning," she said, her gray eyes holding mine. "You can take Fuzzu. We may not have many restful nights ahead of us, and if you stop sleeping now, you won't be of any use when the fighting starts."

A part of me was desperate to be moving, to act. I felt like I'd already wasted so much time that would have been better spent building defenses. Carving figurines, harvesting crops. What was the Artisan skill going to do for me when the next demon arrived? Sure, it would be allow me to craft more complicated items in the future, but would we live that long?

Still, I couldn't bring myself to tell her no. I wasn't even sure if going immediately was the right choice, or if I was just panicking. It was hard to sleep that night, but holding her as we lay together, I was more certain than I had ever been about anything. I would do whatever was necessary to keep her safe.

***

The Fortune enchantment worked as advertised. My orichalcum pick gravitated toward the diamond coffin like they were magnets, even from across the room. The range wasn't incredible. If I went back into the central chamber of the underground base where the Stargate rested upon its dais, I couldn't even feel a tug. In the hall leading to the treasure room, it just felt like the pickaxe was a little lighter when it pointed toward the diamonds.

The range would increase if I got my hands on a higher level version of the enchantment. As it was, it would still be useful. Resources in the real world were a lot more spread out than they were in computer games. A dowsing rod for gems would be an enormous advantage.

Diamond blocks had so far resisted all my harvest attempts, regardless of what tool I used, but that had been before my Miner skill reached level thirty. The orichalcum full-plate rested within a clear crystal box, composed of the same metal as Kevin's tools. Iron armor was good, but if I could get my hands on the orichalcum, it would be a game-changer.

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

I hesitated over the diamond coffin, contemplating the treasure it contained. The artistry was otherworldly. As a set, it fit together in the same fashion as what I crafted, but the cool factor was times a million. Sleek, golden-white. It looked more like a miniature Gundam than a set of armor. This was a power suit.

Raising the pickaxe, I took a deep breath and sent a prayer off to Mizu. Why not? I swung down as hard as I could, and a tiny crack appeared where the tip struck the crystal.

My heart skipped a beat. It had worked. I could harvest diamonds now. But my celebratory feelings were short-lived.

The crack disappeared quickly. In itself, that wasn't a problem. Materials recovered if I didn't finish mining them. But runes like those that protected the chests on the back wall of the treasure room had appeared all along the edges of the showcase.

It wasn't just a diamond box; it was an enchanted diamond box.

I tried anyway.

With a few swings, I could get a single block about halfway to shattering, but that was as far as it went. With every blow, the runes glowed brighter, and the material recovery quickened. Worse, it was damaging my pick.

Pulling up the System screens, I saw that Pickle Rick had lost five points of durability from thirty seconds of attempted mining. Even with a maxed skill and a meta-material tool, it would break before the box did.

The pick would mend itself if I used it to mine valuable materials, but if I kept flailing away at the diamond box, I would lose it. So close. There had to be a way to deal with the runes, but it was out of my skill set. A mentor would have been nice. Even a kindly old wizard that only came on screen for a single episode to give some cryptic advice would have been something. For all the gifts my System had given me, it was still stingy with explanations.

So the armor wouldn't be a part of my next adventure. I could still try the Stargate.

Esmelda and I had come back to town at first light. She was handling Boffin and the others for now, and I was grateful to her for that. They all had questions I couldn't answer.

When would the enemy arrive? How many monsters were there? Was Kevin leading them, a demon, or both?

Hopefully, the lillits keeping watch near the mountain would arrive with more information soon. Unless scouts had captured them. Eaten by zombies. There were a lot of ways that could go wrong. I would see for myself soon enough.

The pale glowstones dimly illuminated the aquamarine stone of the Stargate room on each corner of the dais. Their light played across the glossy black exterior of the gate, which was unsettling, because their glow was too steady to play across anything. The reflected light was too mobile, shifting along the circular obsidian arch, making it seem alive.

Flint and steel in hand, I stepped up onto the dais and approached the base of the gate. Striking a spark against the obsidian, I jumped back in case the activation of the portal came with a suction effect.

Nothing happened. On my second and third attempts, I was less cautious, but no amount of sparks turned this thing on. It was almost a relief. Now wasn't the time to go on my first adventure in Bedlam, but it would have been good to know I had the option.

The Stargate was like the other treasures, right in front of me and out of my reach.

…

I got out of town without having to deal with anybody. Boffin and the other influential lillits were holding a meeting in the longhouse. It would have been proper for me to attend, but I wasn't ready to address the villagers yet. News of the impending invasion hadn't spread yet, so no one tried to stop me as I rode out of Williamsburg. It was just the Baron on a day trip.

Lillits waved, and I waved back. Nothing the matter.

Fuzzu wasn't happy to have me as a rider. Esmelda's horse was accustomed to a significantly lighter burden, but she was going to have to make do. Though it wasn’t a gallop, we kept up a good pace and left the town behind us. Traveling was another example of a waste of time, considering how much else there was for me to do. But no one could build the bunker for me.

It was something I'd meant to put together for a while, but getting the lillits settled and the farm running had kept me too busy to sacrifice a day or two of progress revisiting my spawn point. Following Whiskywend was like working backward in time. We passed the patch of forest where I'd harvested my first rock, then the site of the house I'd lost to a troll's rampage.

My stone box was there, both the sleep coffin I'd made for myself and the cube that contained a very special zombie. Soil covered most of the cube, and the original basement had partially filled in, but one wall was still visible. Pulling Fuzzu to a stop, I went down and spent a few minutes looking to see if there was any sign that Bill had escaped.

Tapping didn't elicit a response, or else I couldn't hear him through the stone. There were no breaks or gaps that I could see. Trapping him called into question whether the zombies needed to eat to survive or if they could persist forever living on spite alone. Bill hadn't reappeared, so I assumed he was still inside. Cutting out a hole to check on him was a temptation, but I didn't want to spare the time or the risk of doing so.

If he was gone, I wouldn't see him again until he came for me.

The river branched, and I followed the lesser of the two streams. The wind felt good, and the air was clean, but there was smoke over the mountains. At first, it appeared to be a few low clouds over the peaks, but they were too dark and too loose to be a storm. Thin columns rose among the passes, mingling in a dour mass above. It gave me a general idea of where they were crossing, a different point from the pass Gastard and I had taken to reach the Wastes.

Why bother with mining out a section of the mountain when there was nothing to stop soldiers from marching over in single file? Pigeons were already flying to Henterfell to warn Godwod of what the harpies had seen. But from what we'd experienced last time, the nobles of Drom would be slow to respond. Though my town wasn't far from Henterfell, Eerb was on its own.

The other lillit village was farther north along the mountains. The Dargothians could pass them by or wipe them out just as easily. If they followed the same track as before, they would miss Eerb entirely, but it was unlikely they would be so fortunate twice. One of Dongle’s messenger pigeons was already flying there. Would it be better to warn them myself?

On the way to spawn, I half-expected to see the lillits who had volunteered to keep watch by the mountains headed back to Williamsburg with a warning on their own, but there was no one. They could have gone to Eerb first. They could have been taken. There was no way for me to know for sure yet.

My original shelter was still intact, though it was barely more than a pair of walls with planks strung between them for a cover. Finding it gave me the relative position of origin, and after Fuzzu had a drink from the stream, we headed for where I remembered leaving a marker.

The vegetation was surprisingly thick. Not just the grass, which was a foot taller than it should have been in a large swath and as tight-packed as a snowbank, there we trees as well. Fuzzu had trouble placing her hooves among the stalks, so I slid down to lead her and harvested my way through it.

The grass wasn't a special species. It was simply overgrown. The trees looked like they had been maturing for decades, though I was sure they hadn’t been there a few months ago. It would have taken me what little remained of the day to find the obsidian block, but the stone marker I had left was still in place and inscribed with a message every bit as inscrutable as the one left for me.

In answer to "You are not alone," I had carved, "Who dis?"

As of yet, this conversation of competing monuments appeared to be finished. No other Survivors had wandered by and added to the dialogue.

There was another reason than what I'd explained to Esmelda for coming back here. A previous survivor had left the obsidian block behind for a reason, and it might have been more than a simple greeting. Digging underneath it had never occurred to me while I was still busy trying to survive the night.

We'd found one underground base already. What if whoever had intended to help me find my place in this world had left behind supplies?

They hadn't. At least not here. Clearing grass was the work of moments, and my shovel bit squares out of the surrounding dirt faster than an excavator. The obsidian was three blocks deep, so it may have sat higher at some period in its history, but it didn’t lead to any new secret cache of artifacts. You could only get lucky so many times.

Mildly disappointed, I continued to dig. Fuzzu and I both needed a place to sleep for the night.