Fabulosa scrambled back into a concave, pulling her knees into a fetal pose. She stared into space, and I couldn’t tell if she read game alerts or if shock affected her. Even though the last seconds of Frozen Blood ticked away, I dismissed my game alerts without a glance.

  Instead of tasting victory, closure, or the rush of a tension release, I felt only weariness. Avenging Charitybelle wasn’t what I had expected. Disbelief and emptiness seemed to be my strongest feelings. Having avenged my girlfriend, I felt like a soul with no agenda. Without a purpose or emergency to deal with, I didn’t know how to feel or what to do next.

  Sleeping for a year seemed like a good way to adjust to an empty slate.

  Killing Winterbyte reminded me of fighting Tardee. Taking someone out of the contest forged a connection of mutual respect. The girl I sat with during the keynote address no longer played The Book of Dungeons. After being inside Miros for almost two years, her journey ended. No animosity lingered, and it formed a bond between us as if we were from a dysfunctional family of 64 people.

  I watched Winterbyte’s conspicuous bundle resting by the sarcophagus as if an 8-foot hyena woman might spring from her belongings.

  Fabulosa’s sniffles drew my attention, and I crawled over and put my arm around her.

  After she finished, I handed her a waterskin.

  Fabulosa wiped her eyes. “I’m so sorry she’s not here. She could have saved herself, and I don’t know why she didn’t. I hope you don’t resent me.”

  Of all the things she could have said, I never expected an apology for surviving. “Oh, Fab, no—of course not.”

  “Charitybelle ought to be here, not me. I don’t like to think that you might regret her spending the town’s favor on me and not herself.”

  Memories of Charitybelle spending favor to give Fabulosa Hot Air came to me. It had been her last move in the game.

  Her confession stabbed me in the heart. Fabulosa had been carrying around guilt since that night, and I’d been too focused on my own emptiness to notice.

  I softened my voice. “That was Charitybelle’s decision. Her sacrifice doesn’t belong to us. I don’t know if C-Belle felt responsible for your well-being or if she thought you could better protect Hawkhurst. Maybe she thought you had a better chance of winning. Or it could have been a gesture of friendship. Whatever the reason, you have to let her own it.”

  Fabulosa nodded.

  We drank water and rested. I felt so tired that I didn’t have the energy to leave this gloomy, alien reliquary. Besides, one last task remained.

  Winterbyte’s lanterns offered no hints about the hour. Fatigue made me forget the time of day, but my user interface informed me it stood around noon.

  Fabulosa almost dozed.

  Regaining my bearings, I regarded the pale, wavy surfaces of the tomb. The ceiling reached high enough to use the Dark Room. We could get some sleep in peace. I didn’t want to travel home without my cooldowns—certainly not with Kobold Nation up in arms.

  I tossed the rope up and helped Fabulosa to her feet.

  “Come on, kiddo. Your neck will get sore from sleeping like that. Let’s rest and get rid of this Exhaustion debuff. Are you still thinking about C-Belle?”

  She shrugged, then tilted her head. “No—I don’t know. When Winterbyte dragged me toward the coffin, I couldn’t stop her. It felt like being beneath the kobold net. Being helpless shook me up a little. But the contest feels weird with her gone now.”

  “I’ve had some things to think about, too. It’s funny how this game is like a lens for seeing yourself from a different perspective. The distance between Miros and my old life helps me see new things. Maybe it’s not a lens but a mirror.”

  Fabulosa grunted to herself, lost in thought. “It explains why people go on vacations. Whenever my family drove to the gulf, my mother used to tell us the ocean connects us to something big—something timeless. Or maybe that’s not what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m from a beach town. I know what you mean.”

  “Next time, it’s your job to wrestle with monsters.” Fabulosa gave me a wan smile, which I returned.

  “You want to go through Winterbyte’s things?”

  “Nah. I’m tuckered out. I need to sleep.”

  I picked up the silver cylinder, deactivated the aging aura, and grabbed Winterbyte’s belongings. “There’s no sense in taking unnecessary risks. I’m going to blow up this relic right now. There’s no telling how many kobolds and critters are creeping around, especially tonight. I don’t want to go through all this trouble to have some rat making off with the goods.”

  Fabulosa nodded her head. “Do you need anything from me?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know how noisy or violent my rune will be. In my practice runs, destroying items caused slight tremors. The rarer the object, the bigger the shake. I’m worried it might be too powerful. If it explodes, there’s no sense in both of us getting hit.”

  Fabulosa didn’t object to or offer suggestions. “That’s fine. I’ll go to the Dark Room. Be quick to Slipstream up to me if the ceiling collapses.” We shared a wan smile as if such a possibility created only a minor convenience. She hugged me before climbing the rope. “Thank you, Patch. You’re a good man, and you did C-Belle right today. She’s going to fall for you all over again after watching Crimson’s show.”

  “You think?”

  Fabulosa grinned and nodded, but her expression darkened after regarding Winterbyte’s backpack. “Can you pull this off with Exhaustion debuffs?”

  “I don’t need mana anymore. I already imbued it back in town and only need to activate it.”

  “Don’t forget your spear.” She pointed to Creeper. It lay on the ground by the sarcophagus, where Winterbyte had thrown it.

  I picked it up while she climbed into the Dark Room.

  Winterbyte’s cracked core topped her belongings like a cherry on a sundae. I brushed it aside and emptied Winterbyte’s backpack onto the floor. When the cursed crown spilled out, I avoided touching it.

  The crown held a blue, transparent pearl called the Artilith. Spell and item descriptions usually boiled down to usage and game mechanics. What was an Artilith?

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  When Winterbyte put it on, she didn’t change into a demon or speak in tongues. She said, “Greetings, master,” as if talking to the crown or perhaps the archdemon in her mind. She seemed to have the entire faculty of her senses and didn’t grimace or snarl as if possessed.

  I carefully pulled out the parchment. Wafer-thin metal glyphs, lines, and circles stiffened it with weight. I penned the rune’s conductive parts in silver and used lead lines to insulate its components.

  Being alone with the relic made its promise of power more tempting. The quandary reminded me of George Washington resisting the temptation of being a monarch. I couldn’t think of another historical instance when someone rejected power. Resting at my feet lay a crown that offered a similar apotheosis.

  If I ultimately served as a gladiator, why wouldn’t I take this relic to win the battle royale? Wasn’t that the point of the contest? Fabulosa would be the first to pay the price, and I wasn’t sure I could do that to her.

  I resisted the relic before, but the temptation felt stronger without friends by my side. As I internally debated taking it, I recalled the empty feeling when Charitybelle died. I’d gotten closer to her than anyone I’d ever known. Her memory of me would fade until she watched the playback video. But didn’t people sometimes remember their dreams? What would happen after Crimson’s wake-up protocols?

  If nothing in the game mattered, why couldn’t I double-cross Fabulosa and take this relic? We agreed on an armistice until we reached the final two, but would a truce hold over the years? I couldn’t decide. I mentally heaped so many pros and cons onto both sides of the scale that it felt like their inertia had stopped it from tipping either way.

  I remembered the Nietzsche quote again. “When you look into the abyss, the abyss looks into you.” Much can be learned about a person when they’re out of hope and desperate. The reverse also stood true. Give a person enough power to act without consequences, and they’ll reveal themselves.

  I pondered this when I first created my relic-destroying rune. Would I turn my back on power, like George Washington, or would I seize this winning lottery ticket?

  This relic could likely win me the game. If nothing in The Book of Dungeons mattered except winning The Great RPG Contest, I saw no reason not to capitalize on the opportunity. If the archdemon convinced me to backstab Fabulosa and crawl my way to the top, what kind of player did that make me?

  I had vowed to keep Hawkhurst going, but what kind of governor would I become if a demon possessed me? Could anyone hold me responsible if Danamoth compelled me to perform heinous acts? With Charitybelle gone, the relic offered a great temptation. Now, I only cared about winning this game—but I wanted to see her afterward, and endangering or perverting Hawkhurst would disappoint her deeply.

  If I became a villain, I could refuse to watch my playback video and not remember it. If Crimson’s reality show showed me double-crossing everyone, would it matter if I won?

  I rocked on my heels as I debated myself. What was my true character?

  At last, I came to a conclusion. Even though victory lay within my grasp, I didn’t want to do it this way. I pronounced the rune’s trigger words. “The hard way.”

  The Cursed Band of Arcane Ascendence folded in on itself as if an invisible fist crushed it. It balled into a twisted hunk of metal and shattered into dust.

  The thunderclap following its disappearance Deafened me, and a shockwave collapsed my lungs and threw me into the crypt’s far wall. When I regained my senses, the dungeon shook. Tectonic groans of smashing stone rumbled the surrounding mountaintop. White dust covered me as the opalescent crypt cracked and loosened. I squinted to see through the dusty fog hanging in the air, but the dungeon hadn’t collapsed—its integrity held as did my own moments before. Soon, everything quieted, and the Deafened debuff expired.

  A golf ball-sized core remained where the relic had been.

  The object’s name identified it as the gem inside the cursed band, but nothing in its description mentioned a curse. Picking it up involved a risk, but a gamer could resist temptation only so far. It made sense to take it. I’d rejected the relic—so why shouldn’t providence reward me with a purple core?

  Nothing happened when I seized it. I heard no voices, and I felt no tingling sensations, only a warm crystal in my palm.

  This core rated higher than the ward worm’s. My mind spun at the implications of having an object like this to myself. I could craft it into armor or a weapon. I could install it into a building, although I didn’t need to be that generous to Hawkhurst again. Perhaps this would help me compete with Fabulosa—if we ever reached the final two players, I needed an edge greater than higher combat ranks. I’d seen enough reality shows to know that hidden advantages played big roles in an endgame.

  Not telling her about the core seemed to be the wise play. She trusted me to destroy the relic, and I’d followed through. The core’s bonuses related to arcane magic, a school she didn’t know. My tenacity and research that had led us to this crypt. I didn’t have to share all the loot, did I?

  I spent power points on Move Object to win the battle. I always bought circumstantial powers to save our skins while Fabulosa splurged hers on combat abilities. She had better weapons, more or less, and claimed the last significant magic item, Odum’s Spectrometer.

  Taking this evened things out. Besides, I’d already shared the red core with the Hawkhurst settlement flag. It seemed fitting to take the best loot.

  The celestial core disappeared from my grasp as I mentally dropped it into my void bag’s inventory.

  With the core gone, I studied the ceiling. The dungeon had survived the quake. Californians might be used to earthquakes, but the tremors had frozen me into inaction.

  I coughed and squinted through the dusty air of the crypt. White particulate fogged the atmosphere, and I had to shield my eyes with my hands to avoid getting powder in them. I turned on Presence, but the illumination blinded me in the bloom of light, so I dismissed the spell. Feeling with my hands, I retrieved Winterbyte’s bundle of items and patted my side to make sure I carried Creeper.

  With my spear in hand, I closed my eyes and used its infravision to avoid tripping on the wavy floor. I spotted a long crack in the ground between the sarcophagus and the golem room. I approached and thrust my spear toward it for a better look.

  The dungeon’s integrity hadn’t entirely survived the runequake.

  The crack dropped dozens of yards into another space resembling a curved dirt hallway.

  I’d discovered another dungeon, but I felt in no shape for adventuring with my cooldowns gone. Fabulosa and I could sleep, regain our bearings, and throw ourselves into another adventure.

  Before turning into the Dark Room, I reviewed my game prompts since I could do it without opening my eyes.

  I hadn’t received a single experience point from the battle—I remained level 24. That wasn’t right. By combing through my combat log, I determined the engagement took less than ten minutes by tracking my debuffs.

  The combat log mentioned nothing about earning a $10,000 bounty for knocking out an opponent. It cited no money or rewards.

  The caboose of messages disgusted me.

  /Winterbyte dies of old age.

  /You leave combat.

  I couldn’t believe the game hadn’t given me credit for the knockout. No experience or bounty money—nothing. My opened combat log prevented me from kicking at the white dust at my feet. With time and motion frozen, I could only growl in my mind. When the moment passed, I felt thankful that no one had witnessed a tantrum—even if I deserved one.

  I dismissed the pointless game prompts telling me I fell out of combat as if I hadn’t noticed.

  One last message caught my attention. I reread it to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.

  This prompt heralded the second update in the contest. The first happened when we’d reached 48 players.

  A new feature appeared in my interface, promising more information about the contest. Focusing on it opened the contest interface.

  Some of these names cracked me up. Wetbottomz? Toadkiller? I hope I don’t have to face off against someone named Treebiter. A few of the monikers sounded feminine. What kind of players stood behind these avatars? Did their names hint at their personality or play style? Were there any potential allies? Would they have made the same decision to pass on the relic? Even these cutesy names could represent deadly adversaries.

  I mused about the prospect of outlasting thirty-two players. It looked like a lot, but being listed among them reminded me that I’d not only made it to the halfway point, but we’d reached it by slaying Winterbyte. Everyone played to win. Having evened the score with her, I felt like moving on with the contest.

  Stamping the dust from my feet, I shook the white powder from my robe, climbed into the Dark Room, and slipped into a bunk. I took care not to wake Fabulosa, who lay with her back to me in what I hoped was a peaceful slumber.

  Wishing the same for myself, I closed my eyes. Weariness made me want to drift into nothingness. I’d grown tired of dwelling on my dysfunctional upbringing. Fatigue from worrying about being homeless and missing college had taken its toll. I wanted only to fall asleep and unburden myself from the haunts of Charitybelle, concerns about enemies, temptations of power, and other dark reflections.

  The story continues in The Book of Dungeons 4—Deadly Natures