Chapter Seven: Mission Statement

Clackhissis was overwhelmed with something akin to déjà vu. Her current life as a composite spider started by entering a very similar structure. Kaali had summoned her when she was a mere spiderling. She’d found herself drawn to a tunnel that led deep underground. At the time, the spider-kin was barely the size of a man’s handspan. She recalled crawling along the walls and ceilings, hunting, feeding, and finally fighting for her life against an unspeakable foe. It was the impetus for her metamorphosis from a mundane spider into the creature she was now. If she had flesh, she would have said that hers had crawled at the thought of going inside. Fear did not matter. How was her life going to change upon entering this dungeon?

Her last foray had ended in such a place with her learning to hunt with stealth and cunning, and she had gained strengths that no other arachnid before her could have conceived of, but it had also taken something from her. Something fundamentally her had been lost and replaced with shadows and silk. It had unceremoniously been stripped from her; no, it had been ripped away. A part of her soul had been tossed into the ethereal winds with no regard for what it meant to her. That the stolen piece had been rewoven and returned to her didn’t matter, nor did she care that it had made her stronger. She’d had no choice in the matter when it all came down to fang and claw.

There was no denying that she had become a better predator, but there was still a hole in her core that no kill or hunt could ever hope to fill. There was a part of her that was as empty and open as the doorway that now loomed before her. She had become something more than a spider. As a hatchling, her world had been black and white. It was either predator/prey and kill or be killed. She had lost a simplicity that all spiders, including her mother, had. She was forced to see the world from an alien perspective. She was more bipedal in thought than she was of an arachnid.

Her eight lidless eyes studied the entrance, taking note of each crack and chip in the stone blocks forming the entryway. She didn’t notice, but every hair on her body was raised, like a dog’s hackles, in a subtle warning in regards to whatever lay inside. She was going in, and anything that stood in her way would learn how much the last dungeon she had been in had changed her.

Her focus shifted from the entrance to Tes. Her spidery eyes never moved, but Clackhissis noticed that the instant that her attention went from the door to the kobold, the wee creature hunkered down even more as if it could physically feel her eyes upon it. The pads in her feet could also feel the creature’s heartbeat increased at that moment. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, it felt her eyes upon it. If nothing else, Clackhissis could respect the awareness and alertness of the small monster. It was weak, but it was cautious. Sometimes, caution beat strength. Cunning could overcome a superior foe with the proper planning. Perhaps the little one wasn’t completely useless.

The man, Cushing, stood slack-jawed, still bleeding from the lesson she had taught him. He stared into the doorway as though he were before a great abyss. Sweat rolled down his face, and he was panting from the exertion of the chase. Tes, she noted, was not out of breath. It was more evidence that humanoids were weak and monsters were superior. Cushing was a disappointment. She had no other human to compare him to; by her evaluation, Cushing was little more than a child. In that comparison, he came up short in every possible way, and now it appeared that he had become her responsibility. He was but another stone around her neck, metaphorically speaking, since technically she had no neck to speak of, but he was a burden she did not need. She needed no one.

Clackhissis steadied herself and passed into the dungeon. Nothing was going to happen if they waited outside. She fit through the entrance snuggly but found the staircase that winded downward to be more than accommodating to her frame. Out of habit, and without even realizing she was going it, she stepped onto the wall and then made her way to the ceiling. CLackhissis would have done the same if she’d had time to think about it because she would have first trapped the stairs if she’d designed the place. As it was, she was more comfortable on the ceiling. Height gave her an advantage in battle, and she was always looking for every benefit she could glean from her environment.

That was a lesson that she would have to teach Cushing if she were going to be shackled to him. The man was practically clueless about how to use his surroundings against his enemies. Having watched him fight, she believed that he actively and just about intentionally used the area around him to hinder himself. He bumbled. He tripped. He paid no heed to obstacles in his way; things that might have been turned against his foes instead proved to be stumbling blocks for him.

Clackhissis suddenly realized that if the man had not been a Gamer, he would likely already be dead. It was such an unfair advantage that they had. Gamers could be as obtuse as they liked and suffer no consequences for their stupidity. Death was little more to them than taking a nap, she assumed. Monsters and non-gamers only ever had but one chance to get it right. One misstep, one accident, one overlooked opponent, and that was the end. Could she fault Cushing for being so ignorant and weak?

Clackhissis decided she could use normal spiders as her human yardstick with whom she could compare Cushing. Side by side, Cushing came up short in every way. From aptitude to attitude, the man did not come close to measuring up to the meekest arachnid, and Clackhissis’s opinion of the small hunters was not all that high either. Cushing was a human and would never have cut it as a spider.

Cushing would have to do a lot growing up if he were going to travel with her, and she decided that his status as a Gamer meant that she did not need to keep an eye out for his well-being. Ichthyoid weapons be damned. If she could die at any moment, then he could live under the same onus. He lived and died on his own merits. Tes? Tes was a waste. Aside from some flashes of cunning, she offered nothing and depended on Clackhissis for everything. The spider would think the creature was replaceable, but that would mean that she was accepting of yet another pest joining her party. She barely tolerated the human, and she could not stomach the kobold.

Clackhissis heard them enter behind her. Cushing came first with the tiny one right on his heels. She did not look but could tell that the kobold was holding tight to the manling’s leg. His steps were off, and he inhaled more deeply when lifting one leg. Again, she considered turning around and teaching him a lesson. He should not have let the scruffy monster cling to him like that. If they were attacked, he would be made all the more vulnerable, and that was the reason she did not turn around and bring him to task for his foolishness. If she did so, her back would be exposed to whatever awaited her in the darkness below. Clackhissis would be happy to let him fight hindered and handicapped. If he survived, then he might learn a lesson.

She had let the shadows envelop her, not minding the darkness at all, but as Cushing came, he’d begun lighting torches so that he could see, and in doing so, he announced their presence to whatever waited for them below. He might as well have been screaming, “Here we come!” She did her best to ignore him and moved on. Reconciling the fact that humans had weak eyes and the darkness was not their friend.

----

Cushing shook his left leg as he walked down the steps. Tes, the tiny kobold, was holding onto his upper thigh so tightly that if he hadn’t had armor on, he was certain she would have cut his circulation off. No matter what he did, she would not let go. To top that off, Clackhissis had vanished into the darkness. She hadn’t waited on him or even given him any instructions. She’d just strolled in like she owned the place and left him outside with Tes.

“I get it,” he moped, “You’re hardcore, and I have a creamy center, like a jelly donut.” Although he wouldn’t admit it, what upset him was that this was his first time in a dungeon. And he was walking down a staircase, and he couldn’t even do a Lugosi imitation because he had a torch rather than a candelabrum, and his Renfield was clinging to his leg. Screw it, he decided, I’m not gonna let this opportunity pass me by; under his breath, he muttered, "Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will!"

He took no small amount of satisfaction that his Hungarian accent imitation was spot on, but somehow, the words he said lacked the impact that he’d hoped they’d carry. He wore a suit comparable to Bela's; he even considered his armor and cloak more intimidating than the man’s tuxedo. Though tattered and torn at the bottom, his cape had more character than the pristine version that the 1931 Count wore. In spite of the superiority of his “costume” and having nailed the voice, he felt that it was a lackluster performance. Given what he had to work with, Cushing supposed that if the Count had greeted Harker while he had a chimp on straddling his leg, that iconic scene wouldn’t have carried much weight either.

He lit another sconce and vibrated his way down the stairs. The way she was shaking made him recall a couple of movies about giant worms that were attracted to motion and would burst from the ground and swallow you whole. One was a sci-fi space opera, and the other a throwback to the B-movies of the fifties. Both were awesome and had terrifying monsters. He wondered if similar creatures as those existed on Elgard and gulped. It would be just his luck that they did, so he decided to walk without rhythm. Even that Slim Fatguy musician knew that if you walked without rhythm, it wouldn’t attract the worms. He decided to give that a shot as images of Christoper Walken tap-danced through his head.

Cushing stared into the darkness ahead and squinted. He chided himself. Squinting into the darkness helped improve your vision as much as making a pair of binoculars with your hands lets you see further. Topping that stupidity off with him walking down the stairs in no sort of regular pattern made him look like a drunken Fred Astaire with a migraine. Brewster, he thought, you are soooo cool, and immediately began walking normally. He prayed that Clackhissis hadn’t seen him hoofing it down the stairs like a deranged Gene Kelly. He would never hear the end of it if she had.

Tes shivered with each step that took them deeper into the dungeon. Unable to take it any longer, Cushing stopped walking. The little Kobold was throwing his game off. He empathized with the tiny monster. She was not built to enter a dungeon alone; he wasn’t counting himself and the spider as being with her because, clearly, neither was she. Her people did everything en masse. A typical kobold dungeon diving party would have had thirty members at a minimum, and there would be a lot of attrition in that group. He was certain that she viewed entering the dungeon as a death sentence for her; not only was the sword of Damocles hanging over her head with its frayed thread on fire, but there was also a crossbow aimed at her heart and a pit of despair just under her feet.

“Tes,” he kept his voice low so as not to announce his presence to every monster with ears in the area, “Why are you so scared? This is the place we’re supposed to meet Korvath, isn’t it?”

“Indeed it is,” came a voice tinged with laughter from behind them. “By the way, Welcome to my house, and I hope you’ve entered freely and of your own free will.” The sound of snickering echoed off the walls of the stairway following those words.

----

The Ichthyoid that had arrived was not what Au Puch had been expecting. He had entered the camp without fanfare. He had stalked into the grassy field of stained and blood-soaked tents, surveying the numerous soldiers and mounts they were gearing up to use in a battle with the Crimson Alliance. The grass had been crushed and killed, so a brief but vigorous rainstorm had transformed the earth into a mud pit. The area was a mass of tree stumps and muck.

His lower legs were spattered with mud, and the monumental Icthyoid showed no sign of caring. He placed his hands on his hips and took stock of his troops. Not until the rest of his entourage caught up to him did anyone besides Au Puch notice his arrival. The commander noted the assassin’s observation and gave him a slight nod of respect.

His new commander did not look like the average Icthyoid warrior. Lanky, with a gunmetal gray skin tone, nose-less, and puckered fish mouths, the Stormtroopers were scary but did not stand out from one another. They weren’t meant to be individuals. They were replaceable fodder, and Au Puch was confident the system had a template for their type that carried minor variations to allow them to distinguish themselves from one another. His eyes were barely able to discern the variances. He could do it if pushed, but he didn’t care about them enough to try. It was his understanding that this was a different breed of Icthyoid. These were not the grunting and animalistic raw creatures that fought in the war.

No, these warriors were very different. They were highly intelligent. Some of them actually spoke, but most were barely verbal. The fact that the assassin could even communicate with them in a two-way conversation astounded him. He had never heard of such a thing. The creatures around him now were unprecedented. Each one was horrifying to behold. They all had a bloodlust in their eyes that would have made a starving vampire look sated.

There was one, the new lieutenant, who stood out. He was broad of chest and shoulders, not spindly armed like his underlings. He was built like a brick outhouse with biceps bigger than Au Puch’s head. While he didn’t have a nose, his mouth differed significantly from the other warriors. The commander virtually lacked a chin, making his mouth and nostrils look shark-like. His jaws were lined with multiple rows of serrated teeth, and his pupils filled his black, soulless eyes, adding to this correlation. His skin, too, was a lighter shade of gray.

If he had to guess, Au Puch would have called the color Gainsboro gray, although he had no idea where that knowledge came from. The Lieutenant lacked the numerous tattoos of his people and hair. He wore no helm and was clad in fine chainmail. His lack of a helmet was due to a set of abnormally large horns on his forehead. The other Icthyoid had either small protrusions or practically nubs. He wore a crown designating him as a king among his people.

Au Puch noted that his new boss carried only a single weapon. It was a spiked mace with a three-foot-long handle. It pulsed with malicious PK energy in Supay’s eyes. He appreciated a finely crafted instrument of death when he saw one, and what he saw now was like the caress of finely honed blade across a thin neck.

“I am Lieutenant Kludge Orinnel.” Au Puch realized that while inspecting the commander, he was also scrutinized, and by the look on the Icthyoid’s face, he wasn’t impressed by what he saw. “I am,” he said offhandedly, “The dungeon killer.”

His beady black eyes bore into the back of Au Puch’s skull, “Your job is to assist me in killing and converting dungeons. We will rip out their hearts and replace their cores with our own to honor the great Lord Dagon. We will then move on to the next oubliette and repeat the process until all dungeons are under the command of Aleixo Montagne, the right hand of Lord Dagon.” The imposing figure made a strange motion in the air; it carried the air of devotion and reverence and reminded him of watching Catholics making the sign of the cross back IRL. His new commander was a religious fanatic, it seemed.

Kludge stalked up to Au Puch and exhaled so hard through his small skull-like nares that it blew the hair back from his face.

“You,” he asked with a sneer of disdain on his face as he looked at Supay, “Are the Cultist assigned to me,” Au Puch noted that his superior was lightly fingering the hilt of his mace as if he were considering making an example out of him just to get the rest of his troops into line. He’d already seen enough sacrificial lambs in this war, and he was not ready to become one of them. What he did next was a calculated move.

He let his hand slip down to his blade and casually used his thumb to loosen it from the scabbard. His eyes never left those of the commander as he did so. He made sure not to blink. Tears would pour from his eyes unbidden before he allowed that to happen. He knew that the moment the Icthyoid Lieutenant stepped in front of him, things had swiftly escalated into a life-and-death decision. He was being tested, and if he were found to be wanting, then blades would fly. He had to simultaneously prove that while he was not weak, he was also not a threat to the commander. It was a delicate balancing act that he wasn’t certain wouldn’t end without bloodshed.

Among the Icthyoid weakness was a trigger. The strong led, and the rest were dead. They were like piranhas; one sniff of blood, and they turned on their comrade that exhibited the first sign of fear. As a Cultist, a gamer who had converted over to the side of Lord Dagon, he already had a strike against him in their eyes. While they appreciated the help of the converted Gamers, they viewed anyone who turned against their kind as cowards. Cowardice because they knew that there was no way to stop Lord Dagon, and so they changed sides in order to survive. In the eyes of the Ichthyoid, the Gamers should have fought to the last man to honor Lord Dagon and give him the tribute he deserved.

“Why are you here?” The question was barked out like an order, and Au Puch saw the trap for what it was; as far as Lt. Kludge was concerned, there was no correct answer, but Supay was prepared and was about to stop the extradimensional freak cold with his verbal maneuvering.

“I am here to kill Gamers. I killed them on my world, and I wanted to kill them here. The only way to do that was to get a PK weapon. I am a killer, and I give Lord Dagon his due out of respect. All I want to do is kill. The Ichthyoid are simply a means to my ends. We share a similar vision, and so long as our visions align, my blades are your blades.” He grabbed the hilt of his sword and slid it from its sheath. He did not level the weapon at the Icthyoid but made it clear that he was ready to fight if needed.

Orinnel’s lips shifted from a sneer into a slight smile, “Good, then you live until our visions are no longer harmonious.” He turned away as he gingerly fingered a necklace from his throat and began giving orders to the regular shock troopers. It was as if he had instantly forgotten the Cultist as he moved off. The human was nothing more than an afterthought. Au Puch released a long, slow breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. You could swim with sharks so long as they were adequately fed. He wasn’t sure how long that particular meal he’d just given the Lieutenant would last, but he was relatively safe for now. Relatively being the optimal word, one wrong move, and they would tear into him like a pack of rabid hyenas if he weren’t careful.

He gave one last sidelong glance at Kludge and started for his tent. They would be moving soon, and he wanted to be ready. He watched the Lieutenant as he waded into his men and vanished among their numbers. He would need to keep an eye on that one. Most likely, he would need to kill him eventually; he wasn’t sure if he would do so covertly or overtly. Both options had their drawbacks and benefits. He would have to think about it for a while. Killing took planning, and for Supay Au Puch, it was not something that was done in the heat of the moment. He knew without a doubt that the two of them would eventually come to a head. It was best to have a plan in place for when that time came. Au Puch was about to take a step when he felt a hand fall firmly onto his right shoulder.

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Without a thought, he grabbed the hand’s wrist and spun around, his free hand practically materializing his misericorde from thin air, driving it up to where he imagined his attacker’s throat would be. The blade’s point was met with nothingness before being swatted from his grip. Au Puch found himself going head over heels and landing on his back in the mud before he realized what happened. Confused, the assassin’s eyes rolled around, looking for his attacker. His heart stopped when he saw who it was that had put him down so quickly. He found himself looking up into the face of Aleixo Montagne.

“Is that any to treat your old employer,” he asked coldly.

----

“The dude totally stole my line,” Cushing whined to Clackhissis. There was no doubt in her mind that Korvath had just uttered some stupid line, as Cushing would put it, that the manling had wanted to say. Cushing vexed her to no end with his childishness.

Korvath, however, vexed the spider in an altogether different way. He disturbed Clackhissis below the depths of her exoskeleton. He was not human, and yet he was not a monster nor a god. He was something completely new and different to her senses, and in some ways, she sensed that he was more than a little connected to their location. It was as if part of him was a dungeon; part of him was the land on which it resided. A portion of him was from their realm of Ravenkist, and a part was from somewhere else. Something told her that he had a role in what was going on far beyond that of even her god, Kaali. Korvath was here, but not completely. It played havoc on her senses and her sensibilities.

She had heard his name before, although it had been more in the context of him being the son of Penthus, the god of grief. Now, though, she wasn’t so sure that could be possible.

She had to admit that he was an impressive sight. By her best guess, he was just over six feet in height; it was hard for her to judge bipeds metrics for size. The being, for it was clear he was beyond mortal, wore ragged brown robes that were shredded and torn. The cloth was molded and blood-stained in splotches. The tatters of the robe floated and swayed as if they were underwater. Korvath’s movements matched that aesthetic as the air around him seemed to push back against him in some sort of dimensional resistance. His body was utterly unseen, save for his hands. They were long, thin green digits that ended in four-inch black talons. His flesh was tinged a leathery green. It was dry and cracked, covered in blisters, bumps, and wrinkles. Carved into his horrid flesh were glowing red scars that could have been occult runes.

What struck the spider as odd wasn’t that Korvath’s face was hidden deep within the hood of his robes, but rather that the robes looked empty. An internal frame did not seem to be there, but more that it was floating in that nonexistent water. Clackhissis stared into that void for what felt like an eternity and could not discern a single display of life. Were it not for those gnarled hands, Korvath would have looked like little more than some discarded laundry. His amaranthine hood covered a stygian emptiness within the depths of its shadows. Clackhissis stared into that void for what felt like an eternity and could not discern one human feature therein. His only weapon was a silver scimitar whose blade looked like it could; she could determine from Cushing’s mumbled words that as he stared at the weapon, slice between the bonds of a molecule. She had no idea what that meant, but she had to admit it was a formidable-looking weapon.

After some quick introductions, he'd greeted them on the stairwell and led them into an alcove on the third sub-level. The flickering light of two torches lighted a massive map of Ravenkist behind him. Shadows danced across its surface as if in a war for territory against the light; neither side held their ground for long. Cushing found a stool and plopped down. Tess crouched on the floor, and Clackhissis stood in between them.

The room was dark and damp. Broken remnants of cobwebs dangled in the corners, and broken pieces of furniture were strewn around the room. The only thing intact aside from Cushing’s stool, which looked to be straining to hold him up, was a large desk that looked to be built from one and ivory. It gave off the air of an item that had been the center of much planning and scheming. Clackhissis had no doubt that many a battle had been planned for in this room. With that thought, an even more ominous feeling came over her, and she foresaw that history was about to repeat itself.

“I am Korvath,” he began, “And I serve the dark god Kaali. I also serve a different master, one who is not in this realm, nor does he reside in the world of the men called Gamers. My progenitor is dead, and I mourn his loss, for he was the one being that dared to stand up against this eldritch incursion from your world, Cushing.”

Cackhissis heard a loud gulp when Korvath finished his introduction. Her eyes studied the Game Warden and saw trepidation and fear reflected in his. She could see that he understood something that she did not.

“It’s gotten in, hasn’t it?” The manling’s words were all but a whisper, and their tone caused the kobold to whine in fear. She might not know what was happening, but she recognized danger when it invaded her space.

What approximated a nod came from Korvath’s hood, and Clackhissis began to wonder if what she was seeing wasn’t the otherworldly being’s actual body. She noted the rhythmic undulations of his tattered rags and could imagine them moving to an unseen heart. If there was one thing spiders could identify, it was circulatory systems. They were better at it than vampires and mosquitos. Rank amateurs.

“What,” Clackissis clicked, “has gotten in? And into what?”

“Some occult entity overran my world,” he explained, “Just seeing or hearing people who had been touched by it made you go insane and transform into those fishmen. Some were like octopi, with tentacled mouths and camouflaged skin.” He sighed and added, “At least that’s what the reports said. I don’t know. I never saw them and didn’t want to. If I had, I’d be one of them right now.”

Clackhissis gave him a slight bob up and down, indicating for him to continue. “I entered DKO with the intent to live a very long life. I sped the time rate up to its maximum setting. I could do that because I owned a nanite pod; if I rented it, I couldn’t change the speed.” He gave a churlish smile, realizing he was talking about things she couldn’t understand. “I made it the time in here so fast that thousands of years would pass in about two minutes. That way, when the monsters got me, I would have lived. Maybe find some purpose in life; possibly make some friends or find someone to love.”

“And you think those things are here now?” Clackhissis had to get the man back on point somehow. She could see he was becoming maudlin.

“It makes sense,” Cushing nodded, “The Ichthyoid are fish-like, and they don’t seem as if they belong here. There is something off about them, don’t you agree?”

Clackhissis considered his question. Up until recently, she had never heard of the fish-like men. They were new to her, but that didn’t mean they had just popped into existence. On the other leg, those creatures tasted abominable. She had never tasted anything like them before, and on some reflection, she did consider the flavor abnormal. She conceded that Cushing might be right and told him so.

“I can confirm that these are indeed alien invaders. Arcane energies have corrupted the world's foundation and are slowly remaking the land into a world where nothing in this realm can survive, save for the Ichthyoid people. Even their gods will rule here.” Korvath stated coldly. “This world is being eaten away piece by piece, and soon nothing will survive.”

“If Cushing’s people couldn’t stop this from happening in their world, what chance do we have?” Clackhissis surprised herself by asking the question. Typically, she was not so fatalistic. She took life one event at a time. There was no bigger picture, at least not for normal spiders. Her conversion, however, seemed to expand her mental horizons. Ever since she had returned from the Other Realm, she had begun to see a greater skein holding the world together. There was a bond between each creature, place, and thing that went beyond the moment. She could see now how one act rippled across the land and interacted and affected everything around it. Her world was no longer one hunt after another. It had changed into something else, but precisely what she could not, as yet, say.

“It can be stopped here and in Cushing’s homeland, too. If we act swiftly and decisively.” Korvath’s voice held the certainty and authority of Kaali himself.

“W-w-we kin stop ‘em? Stop th’ bad monsters?” words carried on an anorexic wind reached Clakhissis, and for the first time since meeting Korvath, she noticed Tess. The kobold was practically huddled into a ball and was shivering as if she lay in the path of a frosty wind.

“You can, Tess. That is why you were called here today. The three of you can stop them and save both worlds.”

“How?” Cushing croaked with a voice as dry as a desert wind.

“One of the men who helped shape this world,” Korvath began, but when he said the word “shape,” she heard Cushing say, “developer,” “Knew of the cult and what their plans were. He could do nothing to stop them, so he weaved a counterspell and ritual into Ravenkist.”

“What?!?” Cushing sounded dubious but was wise enough to let Korvath continue. The otherworldly speaker ignored the outburst and continued as if Cushing had said nothing. Clackhissis noted his wisdom and incorporated it into all of her interactions with the hu-man.

“Howard West belonged to a group called Religiontology, but he left it when he discovered that they planned to sacrifice Earth to the Elder Gods. He’d seen the ritual and the spells required to bring such a calamity into being.” Korvath raised a hand, and a green pentacle appeared floating in the air beside him. “West, alone, could not enact the counter ritual, nor could he stop the event. He could not get near their place of worship, and so, with limited options, he made Dark Knights online. DKO contains the workings of the counter to what is happening now.”

“I’ll bite. How do we reverse this creep show and send the elder number two’s packing?” Cushing slid to the edge of his seat.

“How?” Korvath pointed a finger at Cushing, “Somewhere, hidden away in a dungeon, there is an object called the Veilshatter Artifact. This object is required to complete the ritual of Apotheosis Annulment. The ritual will cleanse Ravenkist of the eldritch taint first, then cross over onto the earthly plane and dispel the ancient ones from your lands forever.”

“We’re going to divorce the Elder Gods? We’re gonna need more than O.J. Simpson’s attorneys to do that!” Cushing exclaimed.

Cushing’s outburst nonplused Korvath. “Annulment is the act of declaring something invalid. Apotheosis is the highest point in the development of something. Thus, the ritual of Apotheosis Annulment will unbind and eject the Old One’s presence.”

“That’s good,” Cushing responded. I think Johnny Cochran is dead.”

Korvath ignored the man, and again, Clackhissis’s respect for the being grew. “Unfortunately, West was killed before he could activate the spell, but he had the foresight to create a failsafe in case of his death.”

“He made you,” Clackhissis clattered, “You know about this world because he gave you the knowledge of the truth. But,” she continued, “Even you are not finished. You are incomplete and exist between this world and the system itself.” Kaali had given her knowledge that her world was made by beings greater than even her god and that her world was but a shadow when compared to the one Cushing came from. Had Kaali not mentally prepared her Clackhissis, she would most likely be losing her mind. Korvath, she noticed, hadn’t responded to her observation, but she took his silence as a taciturn agreement.

With that thought, she looked over to Tess, who was curled up on the floor asleep. Clackhissis let it go. The tiny creature would not last long; she did not need to live out her final moments in fear. The spider wondered if the kobold would outlive Cushing. That was highly probable, she reckoned. The biped was all rash talk and bravado.

“So, where the hell is this Annullifier at? I doubt we can just run down to the local corner store and buy one. My guess is it’s in the deadliest place possible, you know,” he shrugged, “So that the bad guys can’t get it. Meaning that we’ll have to slog through some heavy bush to get it.”

“Why,” Korvath asked, “Would he put it in a place like that?”

“You know,” Cushing replied, “This is a game. There have to be stakes. Otherwise, the game is boring.”

“Contrary to your belief, Cushing, This world is just as real and full of sapient life as your own.” The Empty hood paused and let out a little sigh, “West planned on performing the ritual in person, and so put it in a place he’d be able to access easily.”

Before the pair could continue bickering, Clackhissis interrupted them. “So, where is the object, what does it look like, and what do we do when we find it?”

Korvath returned to form instantly. “I don’t know. The most I have to work with is that he was going to put it in a dungeon. Beyond that I cannot answer your questions. I believe the phrase is you’ll have to “work it out as you go along.”

“Are you kidding? Do you kow how many dungeons there are in this world?”

“As you can see,” Korvath began, “This is Ravenkist.” He waved a hand in the general direction of the map behind him, “And these,” he said as he snapped his fingers, “Are all the dungeons in the realm.”

Clackhissis swore she could detect a tone of smugness in Korvath’s voice. He was quickly becoming one of her favorite people.

Bright white lights appeared all over the representation at the sound of Korvath’s fingers popping. “Obviously, there are a lot of them. About a metric shit-ton,” he said that last part with an empty hooded nod towards Cushing. Even Clackhissis could see that he was incorporating “Gamer” slang into his vocabulary to make the man feel a little better about the current situation, “And that, to be exact, is the problem.”

He waved his hand again; the small white dots changed colors this time. Some were purple, others blue, with some tainted black and numerous red ones rounding them out. “We are in a war of attrition, which we are rapidly losing.” He paused, clearly giving them time to let what he had just said sink in; the effect was lost on the spider that just wanted to know what she was supposed to do.

“The purple lights,” Korvath stated flatly as Clackhissis noted that those lights were the fewest in number, “Are dungeons that neither side has explored.”

Cushing interjected, not allowing the man to continue, “Pardon?”

The faceless hood nodded, “Yes. The Ichthyoid have learned what I am revealing to you here and now. Cushing,” Korvath rasped as he pointed a crooked finger at the man, “You fled your world to escape the foul taint of the Ichthyoids. It was a valid attempt to gain some measure of a life before the inevitability of your situation caught up to you. They followed, not you in particular, but the gamers with the same idea. Now they are searching every dungeon they can find to prevent our unmaking of their progress.”

Clackhissis shivered as Cushing interrupted Korvath, “Who is “we,” He asked while gesturing with both hands and wiggling two fingers on each one as he said the word we. The arachnid did not understand the motion, but clearly, Korvath did. He gave a soft chuckle and replied to Cushing.

“A small coalition of gods, demigods, myself, some beings you would refer to as monsters, and the ladies here,” Korvath said with a nod towards the spider and the kobold.

Korvath then pointed another finger at a different set of colored dots, “The blue ones are ones that we’ve managed to investigate. The red ones are currently completely owned by the Icthyoid menace. We know that they haven’t found a thing. If they had, you wouldn’t be here now.” Korvath let that sink in.

“Oh, one other thing,” he added cryptically, “Not all the existing dungeons are included in this map. There are lost, missing, and forgotten dungeons out there just waiting to be rediscovered. They are supposed to hold ancient secrets, devastating artifacts, or treasure troves that would make Smaug’s horde look like a five-year-old’s piggy bank.” He clearly waited for someone to laugh, and Cushing threw him a bone with a “Heh.”

Clackhissis stared at the tiny balls of light, taking her gaze away from the manling and refocused on the colored dots. There was something about them that tickled the back of her mind. It was something familiar but not something that she could easily describe. It was a nebulous feeling of recognition that nagged at her but was also easily ignored. Whatever it was would reveal itself later. Of that, she had no doubt. At the moment, she needed to focus on everything Korvath was telling her. She could not afford to daydream at such a vital time.

“Why are we here? What does Kaali expect of us?” Her chirps and chitters startled both of the men. Tes crawled under the nearby table with three legs and hunkered down in the darkness beneath it.

Korvath placed his fists on his hips, “You, my little Miss Sat Down Beside Her, have been drafted into the search for the artifact.” His voice was no longer jovial; it was one hundred percent business as far as she could tell. “Your mission is to locate the object, take it to the required place of power, and enact the ritual.”

Although it was practically impossible for her facial expression to change, her voice proclaimed her confusion, “Miss Sat Down Beside her?”

Cushing made a sound that emulated a snake hissing, “Pssst. Just call her Charlotte; she’ll understand that,” he said as he blocked his mouth from her view with one hand while simultaneously saying it loud enough for her to hear. She instantly understood that it was another fairy tale reference. If she could have, Clackhissis would have rolled her eyes. Instead, a few drops of venom oozed from her fangs. She hadn’t realized how extremely agitated she was, as that never happened to her normally.

Ignoring them both, the drifting dungeoneer said, “How you do it doesn’t matter, but just to let you know, Kaali and I all expect results. All I know is that it will take at least the three of you to do this; you’ve all been handpicked by the god of monsters. Refuse at your own risk. You are free to add anyone you trust to your party, but I would keep it small. We don’t want another army, especially one of monsters, added to the mix.” He dismissed the glowing lights with a wave and added, “Not yet, anyway.”

The spider drew her legs up tightly to her body, “I am reluctant to do this with them,” she waved a pedipalp in the direction of Tes and Cushing, “I would rather do this on my own. I am better alone.”

The purple hood shook in the negative, “No can do sweetheart. The three of you were all chosen for various reasons. Reasons that I assume only Kaali knows because he didn’t tell me, and honestly, I don’t care why you were hand-picked for this. All I can tell you is that when it comes to who is or isn’t in the party, well… that part is completely non-negotiable. This isn’t Thunderdome; three go out, and three come back. Got it?”

At that moment, Clackhissis had an alert light up before her, and she assumed by the way the others were reacting that both Cushing and Tes had received the same pop-up HUD alert that she had.

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Quest: Finders Keepers

Ravenkist is likely to lose one of its most precious commodities, itself. The Icthyoid are slowly but deliberately searching for the object known as the Apotheosis Annulment. You must first find the Annullmenter, keep it from enemy hands, and do it with alacrity.

Accept: Yes/No

<<< >>>

Clackhissis’s response was a low and slow hiss of frustration and anger. Her body shuddered and then went still as she accepted the demands. Kaali had, in essence, created her. He had forged her new body in the Realm of Monsters, which was most likely made with this mission in mind. No matter how unhappy she was, she could not disappoint her god. She had become a predator even greater than her mother by his hand. Were it not for him, she would have starved or died on some battlefield defending the spider-kin. She knew her mother’s feelings about the loss of her spiderlings. Fewer mouths to feed, less potential competition, and she could always rebuild her army with the birthing of several clutches. At least Clackhissis was her own spider. She went to raise her foreleg but stopped short of tapping the floating image, affirming her desire to do the quests in her mind. “I shall do as Kaali asks of me.”

Cushing then drew his sword, which crackled with energy, held it with both hands, cradled it close to his chest, and said, “I pledge to serve Kaali with my fiery blade and, if necessary, my life. In his service, I am a Game Warden and swear I shall not rest until our tasks are completed, or my corpse lies rotting on a forgotten field.” He, too, mentally hit the YES button.

Tes crawled out from beneath the table. She looked at the three of them. Her eyes sparkled in the torchlight like diamonds. Her face went from Korvath to Cushing and finally to Clackhissis. The spider noticed the smallest of shivers take over the kobold's body before she regained control. The tiny creature shrunk in upon herself, as if she could hide from them, and whispered, “Don’t wanna, but if for Ka-ka-Kaali, then I will go. He is nice. He protected me.”

Korvath threw up his hands, “Then, we’re done here. I’ll be leaving in just a moment.” The empty robe studied the three of them. He gave an apologetic shrug, “I wish that I could give you more to go on. Give you something to help protect you in your trial, but alas, I have nothing to give you besides goodwill.”

Then he was gone. The room dimmed instantly as the two torches responsible for keeping it lit had mostly burned down. Cushing slid his blade back into its sheath, and the room got even darker. He looked to Clackhissis, “So, now the question is, where do we start looking for something that we don’t even know what it looks like?”

Clackhissis had no idea how to answer. She did not want to be saddled with these two longer than needs dictated. By her estimation, it was best to start out seeming enthusiastic about their prospects. She could play along until the time came that she could run. When that time came, she would be ready and ditch the cowardly duo.