“Die, witch!”

The goblin’s screech was an irritating drill in Milly’s ear. Lazily dodging the goblin’s knife with an agile sidestep, Milly drove her fist into its stomach. Its ribs shattered as it rocketed into the air and splattered into the side of the mountain. Its corpse slid down the rocks and left a thick trail of blood behind.

Did these things talk before? Luna must have added that feature. I liked it better when they didn’t say anything.

A spark of magic flowed from her fists into her magic reserves as the goblin died.

These Obsidian Fists are pretty good. That magic absorption was enough for a blast of fire or two. Now, where are those other two?

The goblin’s companions came at her from behind, their rusted spears thrust forward. Leaping six feet into the air, Milly jumped over the two goblins, clearing their heads by a foot. They stumbled as their spears passed through the empty space where Milly once been. She landed behind them and smashed their heads together before they had time to recover.

Two more sparks of magical energy flowed into her.

They move so slowly, as if they were trudging through molasses. Or are they moving at a normal pace, and I’ve grown accustomed to my new strength and speed?

The goblin’s leader shrieked in anger as it charged at Milly, its bone club raised above its head to strike.

“The last time I fought one of you goblin leaders, you hit me in the head with a rock,” Milly accused as she waited for the goblin to reach her. It felt agonizingly slow, and Milly found herself distracted by the knee-high wooden chest in the middle of their camp, as if the goblin leader were unimportant.

I hope that chest contains better stuff than the last one. I swear, Luna, if I get one more goblin loincloth as a reward, I’m going to dump them all over your bed once I find a backdoor. Then you can deal with that stench.

The goblin finally arrived, and Milly blocked the club mid-swing with one palm. There was a sharp slap as the club struck, but Milly didn’t feel any pain. It was as if she had caught a foam pool noodle swung by a toddler.

Grabbing the goblin by its tunic and yanking it off its feet, she hurled it against the mountain beside its splattered companion. By the time she heard the sharp crack of its neck, she was already kneeling beside the wooden chest.

Congratulations! You have defeated Goblin Patrol.

You have been awarded 4 experience points.

Items Received: Soiled Goblin Loincloth x 4

Gold: 20

“God damn it, Luna,” Milly swore, but she couldn’t stop a small smile from forming she pictured the child in her control room, giggling with childhood mischief.

Milly opened the chest, tilting her head slightly to avoid the poisoned dart that shot from the latch. Even the dart felt like it moved slowly.

These monsters around the Castle aren’t a challenge anymore, and Luna doesn’t seem to be rewarding players whose levels far outstrip their enemies. I need to get further away if I want this to be worth my while. Cally and I can start this afternoon.

Milly peeked inside the chest and sighed.

“Yay,” she said with heavy sarcastically. “Another one.”

She held up the small brass ring and read its description.

Pitiful Grock’s Even More Pitiful Ring

Grock’s status in goblin society is about as low as one can get. Even the local rats get more respect than Grock. At least they can be impaled on a stick and slowly roasted over an open fire as a quick snack. All Grock can do is craft a single item – a ring that raises the player’s strength by one. He crafts it over and over again, hoping beyond hope that he’ll finally get the recognition he deserves, before his fellow goblins realize he too can be impaled on a stick.

“Sorry, Grock,” Milly sighed as she added the ring to her inventory alongside the six identical rings she had found that morning. “No recognition today. When I first got here, that ring would have raised my strength by fifty percent, but that’s feels like a lifetime ago.”

So much has changed in three weeks. Am I even the same person I was back then?

She picked up the chest and turned it upside down over her inventory screen. The thirty gold coins inside cascaded into her screen and were added to her total gold.

“Huh, no loincloths this time,” she said. She carefully sniffed the inside of the chest, which smelled of cedar and metal.

“Finally! One that doesn’t smell like goblin nether regions,” Milly beamed as she dropped the entire chest into her inventory. “Cally will love this. It’ll fit perfectly at the foot of our bed.”

Look at me, picking out stuff for my home. Our home. With my girlfriend. Three weeks ago, I was just drifting through life, with a dead-end job and a dilapidated apartment filled with recycled furniture I’d found in dumpsters. Trapped, without love and without purpose. Now? I… I think I’m actually enjoying my life.

“Although,” Milly laughed as she left the goblin’s campsite and continued down the canyon. “I guess now I’m still finding furniture on the street, in a way. Some habits are hard to break. It is a nice chest.”

The mid-morning sun had just crested above the eastern mountain, its light flooding the mountain to the west and down into the canyon below. She had left at first light, through the Arena of Choice Waypoint Pillar, and headed north into the mountains to explore. She had spent the morning crisscrossing through canyons and valleys and along animal trails that led through thick pine forest.

She could cover the distance much faster than she could when they had first defeated the Arena of Choice, but the paths beyond the Arena were so meandering that it was hard to keep track of where she had been. Even after all the exploration of the morning, she knew she was no more than half an hour from the pillar.

“I need to push further out if I want better than these shitty items and experience,” she mused, thinking on the collection of useless rings, boots, tunics, and an absolute heap of goblin loincloths that had found their way to her inventory that morning. There were goblin encampments and patrols all over the mountains, though none had proven to be a challenge for the Witch of the Castle of Glass.

The items she collected were completely useless, save to give to those players who still, after three weeks, had not ventured beyond the Castle of Glass. She had hoped the items could fuel her Oracle’s Divination, but she quickly learned the talent’s effectiveness was proportional to the strength of the item she sacrificed. She had tried to divine the location of the closest back door with one of Grock’s Pitiful Rings, but all it had told her was that it was not beneath her feet.

At least I can sell them at the Emporia for some gold. We… oh, for fuck sakes!

She reached the end of the canyon, where a tiny waterfall trickled down the cliff. It was her fifth dead end that morning.

These mountains are a maze. No wonder no one has explored more than an hour beyond Pillar yet. It’s just dead end after dead end!

The early section of the mountain terrain – the forested land between the Castle of Glass and the Waypoint Pillar, had been easy to traverse, as if it had been a normal mountain range. However, beyond the Pillar, it became far more complex. A natural – or unnatural – range of mountains stretched from east to west, so tall that the mountains’ tree line only reached a fifth of the way up their slopes. Their summits, which pierced the clouds, were covered with thick, icy blue glaciers. Avalanches crashed in the distance as fragments of glacier cracked off and hurled down the steep mountain slopes.

Milly had tried to climb over one of the mountains to avoid the maze of passageways altogether, but as she moved past the tree line, an unnatural storm had come out of nowhere to drive her back. Her magic had been useless against it, and she had been forced back the forest – back into the maze.

“I hope that means there’s something good beyond those mountains, Luna,” Milly mumbled as she stared up at the high cliffs. “Unless Hephaestus designed it just to fuck around with the players.”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Or perhaps it was Cizen. Shit, how much of this world did the decayed god create? We need to find more of Oracle’s memory orbs. We need to know the story, so we can find out how to win this contest. And what awaits us in the wilds.

Milly pressed her palm to the stone wall of the canyon and used her magic to shape the stone into a series of handholds. Pulling herself up the cliff like a master rock climber, she hauled herself onto to the top of the canyon and looked around for another way forward. She spotted an animal path heading north through the forest and decided to follow it.

“I’ve got time for one more before I meet up with Cally,” she said, undeterred. “Maybe this will take me where I want to go.”

* * *

It was high noon when Milly appeared beneath the Castle of Glass Waypoint Pillar, having used a waypoint crystal to return after reaching yet another dead end. She was in a grumpy mood and famished, and anxious to meet up with Calista so they could explore further into the wilds.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

“Let me go! I didn’t do anything wrong. Please!”

Passiflora’s frightened protests reached Milly’s ear only moments after she arrived through the Pillar. The little fairy girl had been thrown to the sand outside the lobby’s beach entrance, and she was surrounded by Judy Brass’ assistant Hana and the Carthage twins.

“You are trespassing in our home,” Edna Carthage sneered, her hateful eyes fixed on the child. “You monsters were to remain in your camp, where we kindly allow you to live, unless you are summoned. Isn’t that right, Hana?”

“Yes… um… yes, ma’am,” Hana replied with a squeak. The timid woman with the tight blond ponytail looked like she hadn’t stepped foot into the wilds since they arrived. Her clothes were disheveled and torn, and the only piece of equipment she wore was a small ring on her finger that Milly recognized as another Grock’s Pitiful Ring. “No… no attending the Castle of Glass without permission. Ms. Brass’ orders.”

“I... I have permission,” protested Passiflora, as she frantically searched for a way to escape the tight circle the three women had formed around here. “Whitewing sent me to see Ying… I’m to be her apprentice. I have a note…”

“Hana, is Ying one of the faction leaders?” smirked Edna as she snatched the note from the child’s hand and shredded it without reading. “Does she have authority to grant such permission to a filthy monster?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I don’t like trespassers,” added Cynthia Carthage, Edna’s twin sister. “Monster, let me show you what we do to trespassers.”

Cynthia held her hand over the sand and a swirl of black energy cascade down from her palm. The sand shifted and an animal leg comprised of packed sand erupted out of the ground. A muzzle appeared next, its teeth composed of sharp stones, and soon the entire summoned creature had torn itself from the beach.

The sand wolf growled at Passiflora, loose pellets striking the small girl as she cowered on the beach. Passiflora hid her head beneath her arms and screamed in utter terror.

Milly dashed across the sand and reached out with her telekinesis. Passiflora flew high into the air above the three women and sped straight towards Milly. The women barked their surprise at the interference from the witch, though Milly caught a sly smile at the corner of Edna’s mouth, as if they had been waiting for her.

The sand wolf charged straight towards Milly as Milly caught the flailing Passiflora in her arms.

“Woah, it’s okay, Passi. It’s okay. It’s Milly. I’ve got you, honey,” Milly said, trying to soothe the panicked girl. The child’s eyes were filled with terror as she clung tightly to Milly’s dress. She shook like a leaf caught in a storm.

Cradling Passiflora with one arm, Milly extended her palm towards the sand wolf.

“Cover your ears, Passi,” Milly whispered to the girl.

Milly mixed fire and air, and the sand wolf disintegrated as Milly’s lightning tore through it, her magic’s thunderous boom audible to everyone within the Castle of Glass. The sounds of activity all around the tower suddenly ceased, and Milly felt a hundred eyes upon her.

Cynthia was livid.

“How dare you, witch,” she screamed as she spat blood into the sand. The creature had been magically linked to Cynthia, and Milly had injured the woman when she had dispatched her summoned wolf.

Milly tightened her grip on Passiflora and headed for the entrance to the Castle of Glass to take the girl to safety. She hoped the Carthage twins would give up.

They did not.

Edna cast her shadow magic, and suddenly Milly was engulfed in a cloud of intense darkness as Cynthia summoned three more wolves from the sand.

Fine. You want to play this game? Let’s see how you like it.

“Hold onto me, Passi,” Milly instructed the orphan girl. “I’ll make this quick.”

Passiflora’s tiny fingers tightened on Milly’s gown as her Salem’s Fury activated. Milly felt its power and emotional numbing settle over her as she listened to Cynthia’s summoned beast approach.

“I know how to deal with wolves,” Milly murmured. “You chose the wrong animal, Cynthia.”

Milly’s eyes flashed icy blue, and the entire beach was swiftly covered in an intense fog that rolled in from the ocean and obscured the vision of everyone within.

Everyone, that is, except for Milly. Not only did her advanced water magic improve the range, speed, and density of her fog, but Milly was able to carve out a small window within that allowed her to see her immediate surroundings. Further, she could create tiny ice crystals at regular intervals within the fog, and any disruption of those crystals would signal the movement of enemies within. It was a costly spell, but it gave Milly a significant advantage in a fight.

If this is the power of advanced water magic, I need to upgrade my air, fire, and earth as soon as possible. Advanced magic is leagues above beginner level.

Milly felt the movement of the wolves as they sped through the fog and disrupted her ice crystals. Dashing quickly out of from Edna’s cloud of darkness, Milly headed straight for the first wolf. Her fist found its skull and it collapsed back to sand and rock. A satisfying cry of pain arose from Cynthia as the creature fell and Milly gained back a small amount of magic. A moment later, Cynthia’s second and third wolves fell to her blows, and Cynthia collapsed to her knees and vomited blood.

“Where are you at, you fucking witch?” screeched Edna, twin, spiked shadow orbs nestled in her palms. “I’m going to…”

Wham!

Milly’s palm crashed into the woman’s chest. Edna was hurled thirty feet across the sand and struck the wall of the Castle of Glass, her head bouncing off the concrete. A swift backhand to the back of the kneeling Cynthia’s head knocked the vomiting woman face-first into the sand.

As the twin Carthage were rendered unconscious, Milly suddenly felt her fog being syphoned towards the Castle of Glass, as if it were being sucked into a vacuum. Milly tried to pull the fog back, but the more magic she poured into the spell, the faster the fog flowed towards the Castle. Ten seconds later, the last of her fog had disappeared and visibility had been restored on the beach.

Jacob Stone, decked out in his ivory medieval armor, stood his ground at the entrance of the Castle of Glass, his great tower shield held out before him. Milly saw the last of her fog become absorbed into the shield, and the shield shimmered as if it had just been fed by her magic.

“That’s quite enough, Ms. Brown,” Stone bellowed across the beach. He spoke not to her, but to the crowd that had been drawn by the fight. Hana stood white-faced and wide-eyed on the beach, as she let loose a terrified scream and ran towards Stone.

Stone grabbed Hana by the waist as she arrived at his side and held her close, as if protecting the woman from the wickedness from which she fled. Milly knew it to be little more than theatre, but the crowd ate it up.

“Do you see, Alison?” Stone hollered into the crowd as the leader of the Farmer’s appeared at Stone’s side. “The witch is dangerous. We declared her an enemy of the tower for a reason, and this is why. She cannot be allowed to accost innocent employees who were simply doing their jobs. She is a loose cannon, and she puts us all at risk. This is why we need system of justice for our new community – to deal with menaces like her.”

I’ll show you justice, you pompous asshat.

Milly’s palms crackled with energy, her eyes filled with loathing for her former boss. Around her, whispers and gasps echoed across the crowd as the sparks from her lightning arched into the sand around her.

Alison exited the lobby and ran towards Milly, her face a mix of concern and reprimand.

“Are you or the fairy girl hurt, Milly?” Alison asked, her eyes on the crowd.

“No, we’re fine. But it was the Carthage sisters that started this! They…” Milly started to explain, but Alison interrupted her.

“I don’t want to hear it right now, Milly. This couldn’t have come at a worse time. Stone has been looking for an excuse to install Brass as the head of some sort of puppet justice system, and you have just given him the ammunition he needs to push it through.”

Stone planned this! I don’t know how, but he set me up!

“Edna and Cynthia were working for Brass! They were terrorizing Passiflora on her orders,” protested Milly. “I couldn’t just let them do it. Passiflora and her people have already been through so much. They don’t need to deal with that… that man’s bullshit!”

Alison studied Milly with a calculated gaze. “You need to understand something, Ms. Brown. Stone and Brass – they’re not wrong about you. You are dangerous. Look, I need you to make yourself scarce for a while. Take the fairy girl up to the medical clinic. You have my permission to take her.”

“But Stone…”

“Stone is not your concern. He’s mine. Go. You’ll find Calista up there,” ordered Alison with all the authority of a faction leader.

“Calista? What is… is she alright?” Milly asked, suddenly filled with worry that her girlfriend had been hurt and was lying in a hospital bed.

“What? Yes, Ms. Gale is fine. Your friend – Rain – woke up a few minutes ago. Calista is there with her now.”

Milly let Salem’s Fury fade as she dashed into the Castle of Glass cradling Passiflora, past Stone and into Freelancer Tower.

“We need to deal with her, Alison,” Stone declare to the crowd as Milly passed him by and headed into the stairwell. “She’s a threat.”

Alison sighed.

“Fine, Stone. Let’s talk.”

* * *

“Cally, is Rain alright? I heard she…” Milly began as she arrived at the medical clinic, until Calista wrapped her in a tight embrace.

“Are you hurt, my love? I heard your thunder. What did… Passi!” Calista exclaimed as she saw the trembling fairy in Milly’s arms.

Milly set the fairy child down, and Ying headed over to collect her new apprentice, but Passiflora clung tightly to Milly’s leg and was unwilling to let go. Milly, without thought, placed a gently hand on Passiflora’s head and stroked the child’s hair to comfort her.

“Passi and I are fine, though I can’t say the same for the Carthage sisters. But I think that was all part of their plan. Stone and Brass set me up, Cally. I don’t know how, but they did. Only right now, I don’t care. I just want to know about Rain. Is she awake?” Milly asked desperately.

Calista released her girlfriend from the embrace and pointed towards the cot in the corner, where an exhausted and weaken Rain sat up and smiled at her friends.

“Hey, Milly,” Rain said softly. “I’m back.”

Milly beamed with joy. She nudged Passiflora off her leg and held the fairy child’s hand as they headed to Rain’s bedside.

She began to speak, until she heard a soft, rumbling purr from the blankets around Rain’s legs. There, curled up protectively on Rain’s lap, was a grey housecat with intelligent golden eyes. Rain stroked its fur gently as the cat studied the strangers.

“A… cat?” Milly asked. “Where did you get a cat?”

Passiflora reached tentatively for the feline, who sniffed the fairy child’s fingers, deemed her safe, and leaned into her tiny scratches.

“It was an eventful sleep,” Rain chuckled softly. “Sit, and I’ll tell you about it.”

Milly and Calista sat on the floor next to Rain, and Rain began to tell her story.