Rudo's face was a mask of intense thought; he crossed his arms, looking down at the decapitated figure before them. "This seems improbable. How could this be? Did he travel through time?"

"No," sighed Topher. "He didn't have to. We're traveling through time -- sixty to one ratio, remember?" He looked back to the corpse. "What I don't understand is where -- and when -- he came from. I thought you guys were the second Summoning, and the first was a hundred years ago."

"The first Summoning of which we have knowledge," Rudo pointed out, still looking disturbed. "From the Archmage's comments, there is much that is unknown or secret regarding the world's past."

Topher blinked, then groaned. "Right. Right, because the hits are contractually obligated to keep on coming."

"I hope you will pardon the interruption," Zanasha ventured, "but if he was a kinsman of yours, should we then not search the remains?"

Hana shook her head. "No, Zee, we should." Steeling herself, she cut off the half-orc's protest and began to go through the body's garments, beginning by slipping a golden bracer off his right wrist. "I'm not a little girl anymore. I can..."

With a start, her questing hand found something in the man's pocket; quickly, she withdrew it, holding a battered leather wallet. "What is this? Identification?"

"Maybe." Topher took it from her, examining it. "It sure doesn't look a thousand years old." Opening the wallet, he glimpsed an identification card and groaned again. "Cyrillic. I can't read this, but it means this guy was Russian or Eastern European."

Zanasha shook her head, uncomprehending; but Rudo and Hana nodded. "Another foreigner," Hana mumbled to herself thoughtfully. "What could it mean...?"

Slipping her hand back into the man's other pocket, she resumed her search; then her eyes widened as her hand disappeared up to her elbow, then up to her shoulder. "Bailey-sama, his other pocket...!"

Rudo nodded. "An extradimensional enchantment, it seems. The guardian's treasures may be concealed there."

Hana's eyes clouded; she fished around for a while, then retrieved her arm with a sigh. "There is too much room. It may work similarly to my hip pouch; wearing it allows one an unconscious awareness of the contents." She made a tentative motion towards the fly and buttons, then stopped, blushing furiously. "I..." Abruptly, she laughed at herself, then stood and stepped back from the corpse. "It seems... not as brave as I had hoped," she murmured, then whirled away, covering her face; Topher rolled his eyes.

Coolly, Zanasha stepped in to take her place; "The aftermath of battle is not always blood," she commented with a wry smile. The half-orc's expression relaxed into a placid stolidness as she quickly unbuttoned and unzipped the corpse's jeans and slid them off; Topher was very relieved to see that Vashyarl had been wearing boxers.

Meanwhile, Rudo had slipped the wallet from Topher's hand and was studying it intently; Topher cursed the older man's Minor Deception Skill. That coulda been my wallet, if I'd had it with me. "There is an expiration date on this," he commented, showing it to the group. "2009. Does that match with your estimate of the difference in time?"

Topher paused, doing a quick mental calculation, then nodded. "Yeah. A thousand years divided by sixty is a little under twenty years; his license or whatever probably had a year to go before it expired." Snatching the wallet back from Rudo, he dug through it, hoping for more information, but there were only a few illegible business cards and faded photos. "No money. Guess he knew he didn't need it here."

"Friend Topher," Zanasha interrupted, "what do you make of this?" Lifting up the corpse's shirt and rolling it slightly to one side, she pointed at a large, dark marking. "Is it an injury?"

Topher groaned, then laughed miserably. "No." Conjuring a Light, he drifted it closer to the corpse so that the fighter could see more clearly. "Recognize it now?"

The half-orc recoiled slightly in confusion. "A... depiction of a Stone Elf? But why?"

"That," sighed Topher, trying very hard not to throw up, "is a tattoo. Of a character from a story in our world." Disgustedly, he turned away from the image -- a dark-skinned elf with long white hair bearing two scimitars -- and kicked at a rock with repressed fury. "Makes me sick."

Like you never fantasized about anything reprehensible, murmured the distant part of his mind; Topher snarled mentally and shut it out. Turning back to the others, he watched as Zanasha finished searching the corpse, then shook her head. "Nothing else, huh?"

"As Master Muchenje suggested, one of us may have to don the garment," Zanasha agreed. "I would volunteer, but I do not believe they would fit me."

The others looked at the corpse; as a human, Vashyarl had been slight and on the shorter side, with a vaguely boyish build. Hana threw up her hands. "Gross. You want me to put on a dead guy's pants?!"

"At least he didn't shit himself when he died," pointed out Topher. Pausing, he turned back to Zanasha. "That reminds me. Do you have a knife?"

"What a thing to ask a lady," the half-orc murmured with pleasure; she reached down to her right boot and produced a sizable dagger. "What do you require?"

Topher winced, but it was too late to back out now. "I think we should open this guy up," he responded, finally. "Otherworlders have Magic Stones where their stomachs should be; for a guy as old and powerful as he seemed, it might be pretty big."

Zanasha nodded, then plunged the dagger into the body's stomach without hesitation; Topher squeezed his eyes shut, Makoto's scream reverberating through his memory. We're not like him. We're doing it because we have to.

You came here to kill Vashyarl, the distant part of his mind pointed out mercilessly. He never did anything to you. We can't really pretend we're not culpable. This is murder, whether he looked like a dragon or not.

Yeah, well, Makoto never used an entire race of people to enact her gross harem breeder fantasies, growled Topher into the depths of his own mind. Besides, he attacked first. Self-defense at worst, and go fuck yourself.

He was distracted from his self-recrimination by the clink of metal striking something solid; turning back to Zanasha, he watched with grim satisfaction as she extracted a Magic Stone the size of a softball from the corpse's abdomen. "That had to be uncomfortable," he commented, trying to lighten the mood.

Fetching a canteen from her belt with her other hand, Zanasha carefully unscrewed the top with her teeth and poured some water over her hand and the stone; as the blood washed away, its pearlescent radiance was revealed. It was infinitely, fractally shot through with veins of glowing light which shifted though thousands of luminous colors; the three of them watched it, entranced, for several seconds.

"I bet," said Topher into the silence, "we could make something really cool with that."

"Would it be proper?" asked Rudo, a trifle hesitantly. "Using a monster's Magic Stone is one thing, but..."

"Trust me," Topher cut in grimly, "he was definitely a monster. Maybe not the same kind you're talking about, but still." Stepping forward, he reached out and took the stone gently from Zanasha; as he did so, a little window popped up above it.

Essence: Vashyarl The Black

Topher snorted. Fucking emo tryhard. Carefully, he stowed the Magic Stone in his Magic Bag; pretty sure I can find a use for it. Probably make one hell of a magic staff.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

A noise behind him captured his attention; turning, he spied Hana coming out from behind the privacy of a shattered mezzanine. The black pants fit her as snugly as a glove, accentuating her figure even more than her previous outfit had; Topher looked away rapidly in discomfort. "Well? Did it work?"

"I believe so, Bailey-sama." The young Japanese woman stepped over to Zanasha, holding out her old hip pouch. "Zee, would you find use in this? I don't need it anymore."

The half-orc smiled, accepting the pouch with her dry hand. "Cha'Tuk. You honor me, Hana-chan." Here, take my superfluous garbage, peasant, thought Topher uncharitably, but kept it to himself.

Impatiently, he crossed his arms and waited until they were done, then made a get-on-with-it motion to Hana. "And? What'd he have?"

The young woman nodded, then slipped a hand into her left pocket (Topher belatedly remembered that the wallet had been in the right). The effect was mesmerizing to watch; it was as if her hand simply disappeared into the curvature of the fabric, then emerged holding an object. "There appear to only be a few items. The first was a sketchbook with... drawings... which I did not keep; the next was this." The item looked like a dark blue sphere, perfectly round and shot through with twinkling light; Topher reached out his hand and took it as well.

Essence: Irineth The Blue

Topher wrapped his hands around the orb in disgust. "He killed his sex party pal, then kept his Magic Stone. Nasty." Feeling as though his hands were unclean, he shoved the orb into his Magic Bag along with Vashyarl's. "What else?"

Slowly, Hana withdrew more items: a robe, a jagged brown stone, and a spellbook, as well as the golden bracer she'd taken off Vashyarl's corpse earlier. "I believe these are all that remain, Bailey-sama. Are they valuable?" Topher bent down to the objects, examining each in turn:

Enchanted Clothing: Robe of Secret Steps

Accessory: Stone of Sustenance

Accessory: Bracer of Sacred Blood

Unlike the other three, the spellbook had no Status; Topher snorted. Guess not every great treasure gets an impressive name. "Robe of Secret Steps, Stone of Sustenance, and Bracer of Sacred Blood," he announced, looking back at the others. "But I don't know how powerful they would be if Vashyarl wasn't using 'em himself. Other than the bracer, I mean."

"The Stone, I suspect, merely sustains one without food or drink," Rudo murmured, peering at it speculatively. "As for the robe, it is possible he could not; some items require a specific Class. Alternatively, there may be drawbacks or side effects to which he preferred not to be subjected, or it is merely situational in nature." Removing his own jacket, he donned the robe and smirked; "this, however, I can confirm to be a case of the former; Vashyarl was clearly a spellcaster, and this robe is meant for a Rogue Class."

"Since when is Innkeeper a Rogue Class?" asked Hana in confusion; Topher chuckled and shook his head.

"Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to," he cautioned, then turned back to Rudo. "How can you tell? When I put on a Priest robe for the first time, I didn't feel any different; I had to check my Status to know it was made for my Class."

"The more powerful the item, the stronger the binding," the older man replied, shifting the robe about his shoulders for a better fit. "For artifacts such as these, the effect can be felt almost immediately and with great accuracy. I do not know if it is a function of the item's power, or a trick of enchanting which has since been lost; I suspect it is unknowable unless one studies item-crafting."

Topher shorted. "Well, I've crafted an item or two, and they didn't do anything like that. Mostly just 'plug tab A into slot B'." His gaze fell back to the other two items. "Guess we should finish divvying these up, though."

Turning, he offered the bracer back to Hana; she shook her head. "Too heavy for me. And the trousers are powerfully enchanted in their own right in addition to the extradimensional enchantment; my skin feels almost impenetrable." Drawing her Flux Blade, she prodded her forearm gently with the tip; Topher heard a slight metallic tink in response. "Coupled with the rings Muchenje-san gave me, my Defense is likely now extremely high; I wouldn't feel right accepting anything else." She proffered the bracer back to Topher.

With a shrug, Topher slipped it on, but immediately he could feel that he'd made a mistake; his body roiled and began to shudder, as though he'd been a lake someone had thrown a rock into. Gasping with revulsion, he took it off and resisted the powerful urge to hurl it into the distance. "Fuck that. I think it might have been the thing that made him take a dragon's shape."

"May I try?" Zanasha, having finished with the corpse, appeared from behind Hana; Topher bit his tongue and nodded as he handed the bracer over. The half-orc regarded it for a moment, then began to undress; Rudo and Hana averted their eyes, but Topher had to shake himself a little before he did the same. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on one's perspective), she stopped at removing her armor; slipping the bracer on, she closed her eyes as the enchantment washed over her.

Like Topher's, her body quickly began to waver and ripple, as though she were made of smoke through which a strong breeze were blowing; but, almost as quickly as the effect had begun, it subsided, and the half-orc woman opened her eyes and smiled fiercely. "We are fortunate. Vashyarl did not know what he possessed."

"It is a Warrior item, then?" Rudo inquired, looking interested. "I had thought such an artifact would be unusable for one of the incorrect Class."

"Partly," Zanasha replied, tilting her head as she explored the feelings within herself. "And, partly, he misunderstood it. It awakens the wearer's..." -- she struggled to put it into words -- "...inner flame. Uncontrolled, such power could change the body, but that is not its primary function."

She turned to a large block of twisted metal nearby, then bent to slide her hand under the base; as the others watched in awe, she pressed it over her head one-handed in complete defiance of both logic and physics. "I suspect the effect is different for each wielder; but for me, it is very straightforward. My Strength now displays as 'Rank S' with a 'plus ten thousand' after it."

Topher whistled. Don't say something lewd. Don't say something lewd. Don't say something lewd. "That's pretty strong," he managed after a moment. He hefted the Stone of Sustenance in his hand. "What about this? Anybody want it?"

The others shook their heads; after a while, Topher shrugged and slipped it into his Magic Bag with the other stones; we can always find a use for it later. "Now what, then?"

"We still have the spellbook," Rudo pointed out. "Might it not contain further clues, or notes?"

Topher opened the spellbook, wincing; it was clearly not Vashyarl's, printed in a prim and feminine hand with a soft pink cover and looping, spiraling runes that looked like the runic version of cursive. "Gross. I hate to think who he got this from." He browsed through the spells, frowning as he tried to decipher the unfamiliar conventions and calculations; but after a few minutes, he was able to determine that most of the early section contained only spells he already knew. Frustrated, he flipped to the later sections of the book.

As with his Ledger and grimoire, the spells took up more pages as they became higher-Level; the entire back half of the book was taken up by two spells. However, both were new spells Topher had never seen and didn't recognize: one was called Tempus Thumos (requiring Level 75), and the other was Tempus Lepsis (requiring Level 90). He tried to analyze the runes to see if he could extract the Jhu-Palz-Mij transform, but the calculations and visualizations were so complex they might as well have been encoded; he shook his head. "Two new spells, but I can't cast them. I'm not sure Vashyarl was high enough Level to cast these."

"Curious," Rudo murmured. "From whom might he have obtained the spellbook, then?"

"Perhaps the Infinite King of which he spoke," guessed Zanasha. "I know nothing of such legends. Is it possible that Vashyarl was among the first to be Summoned here?"

"Maybe," Topher hedged. "But how did he wind up serving this Infinite King guy, then? Most Otherworlders I know are decidedly anti-servitude."

Hana looked contemplative. "It might be cultural, Bailey-sama. Something to do with communism, maybe?"

"Who knows?" Topher shrugged. "We're just guessing again. And we're wasting time that the Demon Lord is probably using to catch up with us." He turned back to Rudo. "You said there was a way out from here, yeah? How do we find it?"

The older man chuckled and spread his hands. "I have only the supposition that it exists; let us begin searching, if we are ready to do so."

The four of them split up, canvassing the area methodically; Vashyarl's prison was roughly cubical, and nearly a half-mile on a side. Topher's mind boggled at the physics of it all as he gazed upwards to a titanic ceiling impossibly far away. "It's almost like being outside. How the fuck are we going to search all this?"

"The same way one accomplishes anything, Mister Bailey," replied Rudo imperturbably as he poked at the nonfunctional entrance to a replica skyscraper, "one step at a time."

"Yeah, well, this is dumb," Topher growled. "I'm going to see if I can save us some time."

Annoyed, he stomped to the center of the cube; the stone dais on which Vashyarl had been imprisoned was still there, though most of the runes had now faded. Looks like a good enough spot, he thought to himself in satisfaction, then opened his Ledger and started searching for a relevant spell. There's got to be something here that's useful. Maybe a wide-range Mage Hand to push on stuff? Or --

He swore as his eyes fell upon the page for Find Traps And Secret Doors. "Jesus Christ. I have got to start taking better notes."