The Dragon of Endless Shadows’ glowing red eyes pierced the infectious darkness that spread across the sky. Crawling its way out of the rift with leathery wings and powerful legs, it released a tremendous roar that soaked up the screams of the players far below. Utter silence fell over the Castle of Glass, and not even the wind dared to challenge the dominion of the beast.

With a final kick of its hind legs, the monstrosity shot out of the rift. The snap of its long, forked tail as it flew free shattered the silence like a cannon shatters the calm before a battle.

The beast dove towards the Castle of Glass from the darkening sky above. Its scales consumed the light around it, leaving only shadows in its wake.

The gathered players below did not move. They stared up in uncomprehending terror as winged death came for them.

“Get moving! Run! Run!” shouted Calista as she and Rain weaved through the crowd. “Rain, they aren’t moving. Shit, shit, shit!”

Calista activated Pinga’s Redeeming Protector. Her terror was as visceral as it had been on that first night in the wilds, when the Dragon of Endless Shadows had flown overhead and blotted out the light of the moon and stars.

They couldn’t fight it. They might as well try to dig through a mountain with a spoon.

Calista glanced back at the stage. Judy Brass was the only one who had not fled. She clutched her gavel tightly in her hands, unmoving, her face frozen between outrage and absolute terror. Stone and abandoned her there as he fled with Edna and Cynthia towards the lobby.

“Rain, these people need to start moving,” Calista said, desperately trying to cobble together a plan. “You got anything?”

Rain’s palms lit with fire magic. She thrust her arm in the air, and a donut of flame erupted thirty feet around her and over the heads of nearby players. The sudden blast of light roused them from fear-induced stupors.

“Get out of here! Spread out! Find shelter” Calista shouted into the crowd, grateful for Rain’s quick thinking. It worked. The crowd, after a precious second, suddenly switched from frozen to flight, and took off in all directions. It spread throughout the crowd, one person triggering another.

The shadow dragon pulled out from its dive above the Castle of Glass. The hurricane-force winds from the beat of its wings as it slowed its descent shattered the windows of Freelancer Tower and peppered the inside with shards of fractured glass.

The winds careened along the tower and blasted across the beach. Players were picked off the ground and thrown into the air. They tumbled as if they were no more than leaves in a storm.

“Fuck!” Calista shouted as the gust flung her and Rain into the air. Grasping hold of Rain’s tailcoat and pulling her into a tight embrace, Calista activated her Talaria of Mercury for a half-second of flight to soften their landing.

They were amongst the few who landed on their feet. The once tightly packed players were scattered along the beach, and only those with higher levels of agility were able to come out of it ready to react to what came next.

Inhaling with the force of a jet engine, the dragon targeted the stage.

Judy Brass stared up at the creature as it opened its maw. Shadowy fire danced within, an impossibly deep darkness that hungered for the souls of those below.

Brass’ gavel fell from her hand. The thump as it struck the stage jarred her from her stupor.

Brass ran to the edge of the stage and leapt off, just as the dragon belched forth a stream of dense shadow fire that covered the stage and engulfed it in a darkness so absolute that the structure seemed to disappear from the world.

The shadow fire licked Brass’s feet as she dove off the stage. As the flames contacted her skin, the life in her legs turned to ash. Her feet and shins faded to the deceased grey of the dead, rendered useless before she landed on the sand.

Her scream, a frantic mix of terror and outrage, could be heard by every player on the beach.

She did not scream alone. The billowed shadow fire broke over the stage and rolled across the beach like a tidal wave, carving a path the width of the stage through the crowd. When the fire touched sand, the sand turned to glass. As the wave fell across the players in its wake, their screams joined Brass’ as the life was torn from their bodies and hollowed them out from the inside.

Calista watched in helpless horror as a hundred players were engulfed in death. She saw Priyanka, Mr. Fredrickson’s mistress, reach out towards her lover in desperation before the wave swept over her. Mr. Fredrickson could only stare in soul-crushing sorrow as she screamed.

When the wave rolled out to sea, all that was left in its wake were grey, lifeless corpses lying prone on a sheet of black glass.

They had just witnessed a sixth of their remaining coworkers wiped out in an instant.

“Oh god,” Elmer whispered as he, Lucy, Alison, and Minerva caught up to the Huntress and the Alchemist. Calista instinctively extended her Pinga’s Redeeming Protector to them. “What… can we do?”

They were at a loss, desperately trying to keep hold of their senses through heart-pounding fear.

Calista tore her eyes away from the destruction the beast had wrought and forced logic and reason into her mind. She was the Battlefield Commander. It was time to act like it.

“Elmer and Lucy, get as many players as you can out through the jungle gate,” Calista ordered, her eyes darting about the battlefield to take it all in. “The trees will provide cover. Don’t try to fight this thing. It’s beyond us.”

Calista focused on building an army in her mind that consisted of those around her and everyone else she could think of, regardless of faction. Rain. Elmer and Alison. Lucy and Minerva. Stone, Brass, Edna and Cynthia, Mr. Fredrickson, and a hundred more that popped into her head.

As her army came together, her Soldier’s Morale talent kicked in, and everyone within suddenly felt their attributes boosted by twenty percent.

They would be retreating, and she knew her Coward’s Folly penalty would temporarily decrease everyone’s attributes by twenty percent when the battle was over, but it was a sacrifice she needed to make.

Elmer clenched his hand, feeling the power flow within him. “We’re on it, Calista,” he promised, and they began to round up players and direct them to the gate.

“Minerva, you go with them,” Calista said. “You’re still low level, and even with my boost, your attributes aren’t high enough to do any good here.”

“My… my friends,” Minerva stammered, her eyes filled with utter sorrow.

“I’ll keep an eye out for them,” Calista promised.

“No… no, they were… they were in that blast. I saw them. I saw the shadows swallow them. I need to find… I need…” Minerva stammered without thought.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Minerva. They’re… they’re dead now. Don’t let yourself join them. Get yourself to safety. Elmer?” Calista called. Elmer dashed over and scooped Minerva into his arms and headed towards the jungle gate.

“Huntress, don’t go getting yourself killed,” Elmer shouted back as he ran, Alison tight at his side. “You’ve got a witch and an alchemist to look after.”

Calista gave him a sad smile, then turned to Rain. “Rain, we need to… shit!”

As the last wisps of shadow fire faded, the dragon landed with a tremendous crash on the south side of the Castle of Glass. Its weight caused the ground to shutter, as if a fifth tower had just been dropped from above. Calista and Rain stumbled, but their enhanced agility kept them on their feet.

The Dragon of Endless Shadows rose up on its four legs, stretching its neck until its head level with the sixteen-story towers.

Calista thoughts she caught a glimmer of amusement in its dark eyes as it surveyed the players trying to flee into the jungle. It leaned its head towards the sky and roared. Countless black tendrils spewed forth and arched in a wide circle around the Castle of Glass. The tendrils slammed to the ground, one-by-one, just inside the barricade of tightly-packed logs that the players had erected to keep the wild at bay.

The tendrils stiffened and set, with no more than half a foot gap between each. It formed a cage, and the players found themselves trapped inside with the beast as darkness consumed midday sun.

“So much for escaping to the jungle,” Rain said matter-of-factly as she withdrew her dagger from her inventory, its gem already filled with poison. “What about the Waypoint Pillar?”

“Let’s hope it works,” Calista agreed. “You head there and see if it’s active. If it is, start getting everyone out. If the dragon targets you, use that pillar to get yourself to the meadow. Don’t even think about coming back.”

“Okay,” Rain agreed, already scanning the crowd for the closest players. “What’ll you do?”

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Calista glanced up at the shattered windows of Freelancer Tower, the dragon’s head disturbingly close to their home and the little fairy girl within. “I’ll do what I promised Milly I would do. Protect Passi with my life.”

* * *

Passiflora was no longer in their home.

As the rift appeared above the Castle of Glass and darkness began to spread over the sky, Passiflora grabbed the dagger she had stolen from Rain and descended down the stairwell.

She didn’t know what the rift was. All she knew was it gave her what she needed.

A distraction.

“He’s not going to hurt anyone ever again,” Passiflora whispered to herself, her little heart pounding as she hid around the third-floor stairwell corner and watched the medics stream out of the clinic, headed for the beach. As the last one left, she eased open the stairwell door stepped inside.

The floor was empty save for the infuriated man who sat on his cot, shouting at the ring on his finger.

In his anger, Xavier had re-opened his injuries. Blood soaked into his bandages, though he hardly seemed to notice. Cerberus hid under the cot, whimpering as she stared at his master.

In her few days with Xavier, Passiflora had heard the man talk to that ring before, always at night when Xavier believed her to be asleep. He had spoken to the object as if it were a living being, as she had known she was in the clutches of a madman.

Xavier had always had a certain level of agitation at the ring – and at her, and, it seemed, at the world at large – as if he held a deeply seeded belief that everyone was against him and his agitation was all that kept it at bay.

This was not like those other times. This time, he was filled with uncontained rage. The kind of white-hot anger reserved for those whom you dared to trust, only to have them stab you in the back.

“You knew! You told me they were monsters, but you knew they were real. I slaughtered them all. Real creatures. Real… people,” Xavier shouted at his ring, and with each word he grew more frantic. “You wanted me to kill them.”

Xavier grew silent, listening to a response only he could hear.

“No, its not the same thing. The monsters aren’t real. Monsters are just bags of experience, no different than a video game. But these fairies are not that. Milly said they are as real as I am.”

A few seconds of silence passed, and Xavier’s face contorted in absolute fury.

“What do you mean it was necessary? I am not a monster! I wouldn’t have killed them if I had known. That’s not… that’s not who I am. Look, I… will… will you just shut up! Just shut up!”

Passiflora flapped her wings and lifted an inch of the floor, careful not to let the sound give away her presence. She grew closer to her target, inch by inch, as Xavier grew more frantic. She clutched her dagger tighter.

“Your plans? What the fuck to I care about your plans? Cizen, you motherfucker! You used me, didn’t you? No, this isn’t part of who I am, you sadistic asshole. I’m not evil. What have you done to me? The blade… the cravings… did you… Cizen? Cizen! We’re not done here! Cizen! Get your ass back here!”

The God of Death went silent in Xavier’s mind just as the shadow dragon’s roar reverberated across the beach and filled the clinic with a bellow soaked in darkness and hate.

The shock of the roar caused Passiflora to cover her ears reflexively. The dagger fell from her hand, and it landed on the carpet with a soft thump.

Xavier whirled and spotted the little fairy girl. His face dropped.

“You?” Xavier said, shocked at her presence. “What the fuck do you want, girl? What the fuck was that roar?”

“You killed my clan!” Passi shouted at the top of her lungs, her voice filled with absolute hatred for the man only a few feet away from her. She was so close, and the dagger was just an inch away from her feet. She could still finish this. “You… you are a monster!”

“Yah… well…,” Xavier stammered, his usual defensive confidence shattered.

He had thought the fairies were monsters. They weren’t, and he had killed them.

He had thought the ring was just another powerful object. It wasn’t. Cizen had manipulated him.

He had thought himself healthy. He wasn’t. Even now, he could feel the addiction of the black blade – the addiction of power – cry out. It whispered to him to kill the child and sate its thirst.

Xavier tried to suppress it all. “So what do you want? An apology? I don’t…”

Passiflora bent down and grabbed the dagger in her tiny hand. She rushed towards the man with a feral scream.

“Die, murderer!”

She swung as hard as she could for Xavier’s heart.

Xavier caught her wrist in his hand with little effort, his enhanced strength and agility easily stopping the blow.

Cerberus poked his head out from beneath the cot and bit onto the hem of Passiflora’s dress and gave a tiny, threatening growl.

“Stupid,” Xavier spat. His hand clenched around Passi’s wrist, and she screamed in pain. “What’d you think you’d accomplish? You’re weak. Pathetic. A loser. You’re all alone in this world, and you always will be.”

The words flowed from the angry man, though his anger and his words were not directed at the child, but at himself.

“I don’t care!” answered Passi through gritted teeth. “And you’re wrong. I have a family. I have my mom.”

“Your mom?” asked Xavier, loosening his grip on the child’s wrist.

“Milly. My mom. And she’s stronger than you’ll ever be,”

Xavier was stunned. The notion that his former friend – the mousy, pathetic girl abandoned by the world – would have adopted the fairy child as her own was as foreign of a concept to him as anything he had encountered in this world.

“So that’s why she was so protective of you,” Xavier muttered. “Well, you don’t need to kill me, girl. I’m not staying at the Castle of Glass. It’s been made clear I’m not welcome here.”

Xavier glanced at the fairy girl, and, despite his efforts to suppress what he had done, he felt an immense guilt bubble up within him.

He blamed Cizen for what had happened to her clan. He was lied to and manipulated by the death god. The blade had imparted upon him an addiction that had changed him and made him desperate.

It wasn’t his fault.

It couldn’t be.

Even if it was, he’d made up for it at the Arena of Protection.

Right?

Xavier tried to swallow his pride, and wished he could start all over. “Look, girl – Passiflora – for what it’s worth… I’m… I’m sor…”

At that moment, the windows of the Castle of Glass exploded inward as hurricane force winds erupted from the wings of the shadow dragon. Shattered shards of glass rained down upon them, and Xavier held his hands out to protect himself.

He let go of Passi’s wrist.

Passi didn’t hesitate. As shards of glass sliced across her face, arms, and chest, leaving deep, bloody gashes, she finished what she had started.

She struck Xavier just below his heart. Rain’s blade sunk deep into his flesh between the ribs.

Xavier gasped in utter shock as he stared down at the hate-fueled fairy girl.

The dagger had been one of five that Rain had enchanted with fire. Passiflora didn’t know which one she had grabbed.

A heartbeat after it entered Xavier’s flesh, the explosion-enchanted throwing dagger erupted into eight different fragments that shot out at all angles.

Six fragments embedded themselves into Xavier’s fresh and sliced through his insides like a hot knife slices through butter. Xavier spasmed and coughed, and blood erupted from his mouth as his insides were ripped apart.

One fragment struck Cerberus in the leg. Xavier’s familiar yelped in pain and released Passi’s dress. The puppy hid beneath the cot with a pathetic whimper, its leg bloody.

The final fragment struck Passi just below her ribs. The child screamed in agony as the fragment of blade shot into her and out her back like a bullet, narrowly missing her spine.

Passi reached down and touched her stomach. Her fingers came back bloody.

She backed away from Xavier in a panic.

“You… you…” Xavier said in utter disbelief as blood tricked from his mouth. “I… I didn’t know… you were real. I’m…”

He collapsed onto the floor, his body failing.

Outside, the shadow dragon released its breath weapon across the beach, snuffling out the lives of a hundred of his former coworkers.

Passi stumbled away, her hand clutched against her stomach. Her hands glowed with healing blue as she desperately tried to stem the bleeding.

“I’m sorry mom,” Passi pleaded weakly as she entered the staircase and headed for the lobby. “I… I couldn’t let him get away with it. I couldn’t let him hurt you too.”

The stairway door closed behind her, a trail of blood marking her passage.

* * *

“Milly, no! You can’t go,” Luna shouted desperately as she clung to Milly’s gown. “It’s a system bug. I have no control over what’s happening. The Dragon of Endless Shadows will kill you! It’s an end-game challenge!”

The Tutorias had gathered around the pair and formed a tight circle to trap the interloper in their midst. They leveled accusations at both Milly and the AI Director that had allowed the player into their sanctuary.

“I have to go Luna,” Milly answered, her voice filled with a fear deeper than any she had ever known. She pushed that feeling down into the pit of her stomach, wishing that Salem’s Fury would activate to deaden the sensation that threatened to overwhelm her. “Cally is there. My daughter is there. My best friend. I can’t just abandon them.”

“Yes, you can,” protested Luna, all semblance of the neutral AI Director submerged beneath the six-year-old child. “Stay with me. If you don’t die, the God Contest will never end. It can be just the two of us. Luna and Milly, forever.”

“Director, the very suggestion goes against the purpose for which your Oracle designed you,” Tutoria #00788 scolded. “You place the very fabric of the God Contest in jeopardy by even uttering such words.”

“Isn’t it bad enough you have allowed player Milly Brown to breach your sanctum,” Tutoria #0109 added. “That act alone could skew the contest beyond the limits of flexibility. It…”

“Shut up! Just shut up, all of you!” screamed Luna, growing more frantic by the moment. “I am this contest! I determine its limits. Its flexibility. Its parameters. You are just my helpers. You answer to me.”

The Tutoria’s stayed silent, but they did not break their circle around Milly and Luna.

I don’t think they answer to you, Luna. I fear they answer to another master.

Behind them, the monitors tuned to the Castle of Glass showed the shadow dragon crushing the stage beneath its massive, clawed foot. Judy Brass crawled desperately across the sand, her legs useless, trying to reach the lobby.

Milly found herself without sympathy for the woman.

Mohammad, the Freelancer’s best archer, was the first to recover his senses. He drew his bow and shot at the creature, but his enchanted arrow simply bounced off its thick, black scales. The Dragon of Endless Shadows didn’t even register the attack, as it released a second jet of shadow fire across the beach that engulfed another twenty players.

Milly knelt in front of the child and pulled her into a tight embrace.

“I have to go,” she whispered in Luna’s ear, trying to sound brave. “You know that. I’m your Inquisitor, remember? You gave me these glasses to scan the bugs so you can fix them. We – you and I – can still save all those people. We can still save my family.”

Luna gazed at Milly with wide, tear-filled eyes, and gave her a small, reluctant nod.

The child within Luna was submerged, and the AI Director took her place.

“Everyone to your stations!” Luna shouted, her voice filled with authority. The Tutorias abruptly stood at attention.

“Yes, Director Cutiepie,” they answered in unison, as they scattered across the complex of monitors to find still-functional control panels.

The AI Director tapped the rim of Milly’s spectacles with her finger. “I will need a close-up scan for this one, Milly. It’s too powerful – too big of an error – to get what I need from a distance. Do you think you can do that?”

Milly glanced at the monitor, the dragon’s head nearly level with the roof of Freelancer Tower. Her stomach sank.

“I… I think I have an idea,” Milly uttered. She pulled her last waypoint crystal from her inventory and held it in her hand.

Luna waved her hand, and an infinitely complex control panel descended from the ceiling. It resembled a motherboard, only instead of circuits, it contained millions of tiny switches marked with incomprehensible hieroglyphics. More panels descended around her, until the AI Director was at the center of a spherical control booth. Every aspect of the God Contest within her control was at her fingertips.

“Get me that scan, Milly,” said the AI Director. “Once I have it, I can fix the bug from here. Now go, or there won’t be anyone left to save.”

Milly lifted the waypoint crystal above her head and took a deep breath to calm her heart.

“Milly,” Luna added, as the child returned for a fleeting moment. “Don’t… don’t die. Please don’t leave me all alone.”

“I…,” Milly tried to promise, but the words caught her in her throat. “Take care, Luna.”

Milly crushed the crystal in her hands.

“The Castle of Glass!”

She vanished, and Luna sat alone once more, with only the whispers of her Tutorias to fill the silence.