382 days until the Arkon Shield falls

1 day, 17 hours until Dungeon Purge

Dear Wysterl,

You know as well as I there are no resources to be had. We are stretched to the breaking point as it is. Excellent news about the unique dungeon! Dispatch a team immediately. —Guildmaster Curalox de Merocn.

It took Regna longer to sift through the corpses and recover my arrows than it had taken me to slay the worms. While he worked, I chewed on a food ration and attended to the awaiting Trials message.

You have gained in experience and are now a: level 43 Trainee.

I had advanced only a single level from slaying two packs of the worms. My lips turned down. Killing the damnable creatures was more effort than it was worth, but I didn’t see how we had much choice.

Regna strode back to me, his hands full of bloodied arrows. I took the proffered items gingerly. “How many are still useable?”

“Nearly all of them,” the dwarf replied. “The worms’ shells didn’t damage the arrowheads.”

I sighed in relief. “That’s good.” While I had two full quivers to play with, I would quickly run out if too many became damaged.

“You’ve searched the room?” I asked after stowing away the arrows.

Regna grimaced. “I have. And the foyer too. No luck.”

“Damn,” I muttered. Although I hadn’t really been hopeful we’d find the key to the gilded doors in the first room we searched, it would have been nice if we had. “Let’s move on.”

✽✽✽

The upper floor proved to be a maze of corridors and small rooms. All the chambers were richly furnished. Some were offices with expensive-looking desks, artwork, and lamps. Others were sleeping chambers containing four-poster beds, chandeliers, and plush carpets.

But one and all, they were full of mindworms.

It took me and Regna hours to work our way through the rooms. After a while, I no longer bothered with warding the doorways beforehand or slowing the worms with sinking mud. By that point, I’d grown confident—but not much better—in my archery. When the worms advanced, we withdrew, pausing every so often for me to thin their numbers.

We fell into an easy routine. Yank open the door, pepper the worms while retreating, then go back and search the room. Distressingly, we failed to find the key or anything else of use for that matter.

Most of the chambers contained gaudy objects that, while expensive-looking, were not of much practical use. I had little enough space in my backpack and judged the zelium in the basement to be of more immediate value to Sierra than the trinkets from the upper floor, so I didn’t bother looting any of it.

Eventually, we reached what we both judged to be the floor’s last chamber. Standing in the small lobby outside the room, I studied the white double doors leading into the chamber. Delicate gold filigrees decorated the doors, and the handles were large and gem-encrusted.

“You think the key is in there?” I asked, wearily leaning on my staff for support.

Regna bobbed his head. “It has to be.” He jerked his chin towards the closed doors. “Shall we?”

I hesitated, then shook my head. The day’s exertions had claimed a heavy toll from me, and despite periodic stops and food to restore my ailing stamina, I was bone tired.

I glanced at Regna. He hadn’t complained once the entire day, nor had he asked for a break. Given his recent ordeal, the dwarf had to be exhausted as well. “Let’s stop for a bit first,” I suggested. “You must need it too.”

“I could do with a bit of a rest,” he admitted. Lowering himself to the floor, he leaned against one of the lobby’s walls.

I sank down next to the dwarf and handed him a ration and for a time, we both sat in companionable silence while we ate.

The day had grown late, and I judged night had to be falling outside. It had taken us much longer than I’d expected to clear the floor. Still, I had managed to conserve my mana. Assuming we encountered nothing untoward in the floor’s final chamber, we’d be able to tackle the guardian-prime after this.

I turned to Regna. He had been a dependable companion throughout our slaughter of the floor’s denizens, and in many ways, he’d surprised me.

By and large, the dwarf had followed my orders, even though at times, I’d sensed his disagreement, and he’d neither mocked me for my ignorance nor hoarded his own knowledge. I’d expected to bargain for every morsel of information and for the dwarf to be too proud to follow my lead.

Regna, I decided, was quite like the other non-human players I’d seen, although admittedly, that group didn’t number very many.

Maybe humanity will find allies amongst the overworlders. Perhaps not all will be as cold and calculating in their dealings as the orcs and elves; perhaps some will simply be warm and friendly.

I chuckled, amused by my own foolish optimism.

“What’s so funny?” Regna asked.

I looked at him. “You haven’t told me your story, you know.”

“What do you mean?” the dwarf asked. “I told you how I came to be here.”

“You have,” I agreed. “But you haven’t explained who your family is or why it would have such powerful enemies.”

Regna’s brows crinkled in confusion.

Stolen story; please report.

“I imagine it’s not easy to kidnap a player or to hold him in a warded cell like the one I found you,” I added. “Why did your enemies go to all that trouble?”

“Ah,” Regna breathed. “That is a long and somewhat complicated tale. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

“If nothing else, it will pass the time,” I said with a smile.

Regna laughed. “That’s true.” He gathered his thoughts. “My family is a prominent member of our clan’s merchant caste. Some dwarven clans—mine especially—are quite rigid in their ways. Many frown on those who seek to break with tradition or follow paths not tread by their forefathers.”

Regna’s humor faded, and sadness shadowed his face. “You can probably guess what comes next. I wanted to be a warrior. The family business—trading—was not for me. I came to that decision almost before I could walk. The clan elders were against it, of course. It was not done, they told me. A son’s place was beside his father, they insisted. Over and over, I heard the same refrain: ‘A merchant lad is fit only to be a merchant, nothing else.’”

“I didn’t listen.” The dwarf sighed. “Neither did my father,” he added with a note of pride. “The old codger made sure I was trained and outfitted in only the best. Zelium-forged armor is not easily come by, you know.” Regna gestured at his hammer. “And this weapon alone is worth a fortune. Many clan warriors would kill for it.” The dwarf fell silent for a moment. “And in the end, I suppose that’s why they did it,” he whispered.

Studying Regna’s morose face, I realized what he meant. “Your own clan’s warriors kidnapped you? For your gear?”

He smiled humorlessly. “Partly. Not only for that, of course, but it certainly factored in their decision-making.” His expression grew more pained. “Before they left me in that cage to rot, I heard the bastards arguing over who got to keep my things.”

I patted the dwarf on the shoulder, sensing his anger at the betrayal. “I’m sorry, Regna.”

He nodded mutely, and for a moment, the conversation lapsed.

“Why else did they do it?” I asked eventually.

Regna sighed again. “To punish me mostly, I think. For the temerity of believing I could join the warrior caste. Envy too. Most of the warrior-caste are poor, and many of the warriors—the young ones especially—were jealous of my family’s wealth. They felt my gear gave me advantages that they had been cheated off. By dwarven standards, I’m considered quite young, and before my kidnapping, I was destined to be the youngest clan warrior to reach the rank of Seasoned player.” His mouth twisted. “No more, I guess.”

I chewed over the dwarf’s words. Humanity, it seemed, was not the only species with prejudices. People will be people, no matter their world or circumstances, I guess. “How did you survive so long in that cage? You must have been there for days.”

Regna laughed bitterly. “Not days, weeks! And the bastards left me food. An odd kindness, don’t you think?” He shook his head in disgust and glanced at me. “But enough of my woes. How did you come to be in Overworld?”

I closed my eyes. “Believe me, you don’t want to know.”

“I do,” he insisted.

I sighed and met the dwarf’s gaze. “You’re sure?”

“Tell me,” he said.

So I did.

I told Regna of the orcs, Duskar’s ultimatum, and finally about Ma… The dwarf was the first person to whom I told the tale in full. To my surprise, I didn’t have to force the words out. They fell off my tongue quickly.

Regna was easy to talk to. Perhaps it was because enough time had passed, perhaps it was because the dwarf was still virtually a stranger, or maybe it was because the reality I was in now was so strangely different. Whatever the case, the dwarf was a good listener. He heard me out in silence, only speaking up when I was done. “Overworld can be cruel and uncaring,” he said softly.

I laughed blackly. “Truly, Earth was no better. I only wish…” I gulped. “I only wish Ma hadn’t been one of those made to suffer.”

Regna seemed to understand what I was trying to get at and didn’t say anything.

“I imagine the dwarves’ own entry in Overworld was just as unpleasant,” I said, changing the topic.

He nodded solemnly. “Dwarves have been in this world for centuries, but you’re right. Our own induction into the Trials was just as tumultuous as humanity’s. If clan lore is to be believed, we barely escaped extinction.”

His response piqued my interest, and my grief receded further. “How did the dwarves manage it?”

“A large part of it was luck. The clans entered Overworld at a time of conflict when the major Dominions were at war with one another.” Regna shrugged. “Our entrance went largely unnoticed. That, more than anything else, accounted for our survival. Even so, the early years were brutal. Entire clans were wiped out, and others lost many of their traditions and history.

“That’s when our caste system came into being. And to be honest, it served a real purpose then. Without the castes, we would never have survived those first few decades.”

I bit back my disappointment. I had been hoping to find some clue in the dwarves’ story about how humanity could survive its own introduction to the Trials. “What do you know about the Elders?” I asked after a while.

Regna frowned. “The Elders? You mean the dragons?”

I nodded.

The dwarf shrugged. “Nothing much. Occasionally, one of our miners will unearth their bones and make a small fortune selling the remains to collectors or scholars. But other than that, the dwarves have never interested themselves much with the Trials creators.”

I bit my lip, considering. “What about the term, Eldaluk? Have you heard of it before?”

“No, why?”

I shrugged. “Just something I heard recently.” I was curious about the title by which the Trials had addressed me during our brief conversation, but I was hesitant to reveal to Regna how I’d come across the term.

Nothing in the Infopedia had suggested the Trials could be communicated with. In fact, the wiki had gone to great length to describe the Trials as an all-knowing but distant and disinterested observer, and deep down, I knew that nothing should have come from my own attempt to speak to it.

The fact that I had succeeded worried me.

Like my dragon magic, my interaction with the Trials was an anomaly. Something—call it intuition—made me suspect the two were connected. What it boded, I wasn’t sure yet, but I knew I had to keep the information to myself.

Regna was speaking again.

Distracted by my musings, I missed most of what he said, but my ears latched on the word, ‘orcs.’ “Sorry, I missed that. What did you say?”

“I said you should avoid the orcs,” Regna repeated.

“Oh?”

“They are the most powerful species on Overworld right now and have been so for some time. Even experienced players shy well clear of them. Your people will not survive their attention.” He held my gaze. “You will not survive their attention. When we finish the dungeon, you should leave the Human Dominion.”

I pursed my lips. “Leave? But the Arkon Shield—”

“The Arkon Shield only stops other races from entering your domain. It will not stop humans from departing.”

I stared at him. “How?”

“Each of the sponsored cities will have a gate, a two-way gate. My advice? Gather your closest allies and flee through one of them. Find another Dominion, somewhere the orcs will not think to look, and rebuild.”

I bowed my head, disturbed by Regna’s words. Flee? The possibility had never occurred to me and made me strangely uncomfortable. I didn’t like the thought of backing down from the orcs, but I couldn’t deny that there was sense in what the dwarf suggested. “I will think on it,” I said at last.

“Sacrifice is never easy,” Regna said softly. “But sometimes it is necessary. If you—”

The dwarf broke off suddenly, and his head whipped upwards. Frowning, I followed his gaze. Openings had appeared in the ceiling, and squirming silently through were dozens of mindworms. My face turned ashen.

We only had seconds—if that—before they fell into our midst.