They approached the fortress the Gamers were hiding in. Liam had seen it half an hour before, after climbing up a massive tree—the agility his [Scout] Class provided had many different uses.

  “I can see Johan’s tagline inside it, but nothing else; it’s still too far away,” Liam had shouted from above the tree, while Emily worried about him at the base of the trunk.

  The massive stone fortress stood on a rocky hill. It had tall, thick walls with narrow slits for archers to shoot arrows through, and a single entrance—a big wooden gate reinforced with iron, currently completely open. The fortress felt old, strong, and a little grim—like it was ready for a fight but hadn’t seen one in a very long time.

  They had discussed it for some minutes, with some of them worried that maybe Johan was a captive there. But Johan was still in the nightly ranking in the sky—currently in the sixth position, his stupid face smiling down upon them. So it seemed unlikely he had been captured by anybody.

  This was confirmed when they approached the rocky hill the fortress stood upon. They could see some Gamers playing soccer against a painted goalpost on a side of the fortress, using some torches for light.

  How had Johan and the others managed to secure such a great defensive position? They had no idea.

  People from the fortress finally noticed the approaching caravan, and somebody gave the cry of alarm. The soccer players—with somewhat misguided priorities—quickly organized a series of penalties to decide the winner of their game before running back into the fortress.

  “If that guy gained a Class as a [Goalie], I’ll kill him slowly,” Arthur announced after the goalie made a pretty impressive save just before running into the fortress, taking the ball with him.

  Mark ignored all the commotion and focused on dragging the tied Tobias behind his horse.

  Tobias was naked from the waist up. His broken-up pants barely hid his intimate parts. He had wanted to go completely naked, but everyone had agreed that it was better to leave something to the imagination. His hands were tied with rope in front of him, and his head was held low, like a broken prisoner not daring to look at anybody.

  Mark took the end of the rope and forced Tobias toward the fortress.

  “This is going to be awesome,” Mark said.

  “Totally!” Tobias muttered, keeping his head down.

  Arthur scoffed, walking and guiding his horse by its reins. He had refused to be part of their plan. Apparently, he felt this kind of spectacle was beneath him.

  “Why don’t you want to help?” Mark asked. “When we killed the Mongols on the first day, you loved riding one of their horses, waving your bloodied sword around.”

  Arthur smiled at the memory.

  “Yeah, but that was elegant. Poetic, almost. It was a metaphor, you know?”

  Mark remembered the first day in this world—when Arthur rode towards the rest of the Gamers, mounted on the horse of the Mongol he had killed, waving his sword around while people cheered him on.

  “How the fuck was that a metaphor?”

  “The sword represented his dick, obviously,” Emily said.

  “Exactly!” Arthur agreed. “The sword represented my massive dick, and when I waved it, I was metaphorically swinging my massive dick around.”

  Emily was also walking in front of her horse, gently guiding it with the reins. She snorted when she heard Arthur’s answer. Her horse snorted too, as if in agreement. Emily smiled and caressed the horse, which she loved to spoil.

  Mark chuckled.

  “Okay, sure. Do whatever you want. But don’t interrupt. This is going to be great. You in, Emily? It will be more impressive with you in it.”

  Emily seemed offended by the question.

  “Yeah, of course I’m in. It’s gonna be awesome. But please, when you stab Tobias, try to be gentle; don’t go too deep. Stab him lovingly.”

  “Nah. Go all in,” Tobias said, keeping his head low. “Let’s make this a real spectacle.”

  They walked the narrow path up the hill. Halfway there, somebody recognized them, and the Gamers stopped closing the massive gate to the fortress. A guy keeping watch over one of the towers of the fortress asked them where they had been and stopped talking when he noticed Tobias’s state.

  The Gamers and Vikings entered the fortress in complete silence, reaching a big training field in the middle of the structure, open to the sky. Word of their arrival traveled fast, and people appeared from behind every door, looking from every window, muttering about what must have happened for Tobias to arrive in absolute disgrace, tied like a broken prisoner.

  Johan “ILoveFurries007” appeared from a narrow corridor, completely confused. Eric and a few of his Zealots walked behind him—they must have been in some sort of war council. When Eric noticed the Vikings, he ordered a few of his Zealots away.

  “What happened?” Johan asked, approaching Mark and the others. He started asking frantically, every question opening the path for the next. “I saw the nightly ranking, we’re even higher than before. Did you get the book? How did you get your face burned? Why is Tobias tied?”

  Mark ignored his Swedish friend.

  “All your questions will be answered soon,” he said while he kept guiding his horse and pulling behind him the captive Tobias.

  The Gamer-Viking procession reached a small wooden platform in the middle of the training field—it was probably so the officers could see their soldiers training.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Mark forced Tobias up the platform and hit him on the back of his legs, making him fall to his knees. Then he summoned his inner televangelist and shouted for all to hear.

  “LISTEN UP, EVERYBODY! FOUR DAYS AGO, OUR GREAT GENERAL GAVE US A MISSION. THE MOST GLORIOUS MISSION! HE SENT US TO RECOVER A MAGIC BOOK. A BOOK THAT WOULD UNLOCK THE SECRETS OF THIS STRANGE NEW LAND WE FIND OURSELVES IN! A BOOK THAT WOULD PROVIDE US POWER AND STRENGTH… AND WE RECOVERED THE BOOK! WE WERE GOING TO BRING THE BOOK BACK TO YOU. AND THEN THIS FILTHY ANIMAL…”

  Mark grabbed Tobias by the hair, making the Gamer look at him. On his other hand, he had drawn his dagger—a girl looking from a window cried in panic, fearing Mark might slit the throat of the Gamer right there. Johan almost jumped onto the wooden platform to stop him, but one of the Vikings stopped him, getting in his path.

  Mark winked at Tobias, who was having a hard time hiding his smile.

  Mark dropped the Gamer’s head, acting disgusted. Then he walked again through the wooden platform, looking at his public. He pointed toward the kneeling Tobias again.

  “This filthy animal… HE LEARNED FUCKING MAGIC!!!”

  Tobias activated his basic fire spell, covering his hands in flames and destroying the rope tying him. He got up, his fiery arms extended as if he were some old god of destruction. This was the reason they had waited for night to fall before they entered the fortress—this kind of spectacle had to be seen in the darkness.

  Mark took a step back—after suffering the agony of getting burned alive, he had some newfound respect for fire.

  Not everybody shared his feelings. The very confused Vikings at the bottom of the wooden platform acted as bouncers, stopping many Gamers from jumping up the platform to get closer to the magic show.

  Their general, Johan, was laughing like a maniac, jumping and raising his hands in the air as if he were at a concert.

  Tobias threw a couple of fireballs into the air.

  [FIREBALL]! [FIREBALL]!

  And Johan started shouting and hugging everyone around him.

  “YEAH! YEAH!”

  He took Eric the Zealot in a bear hug and raised him toward the sky as if they had just scored the winning touchdown in the World Cup.

  Mark looked at the crowd with the satisfaction of a good showman seeing people enjoy his spectacle. He noticed a couple of men in their late thirties whom he hadn’t seen before—they were not part of the Gamer Battalion; they were too old.

  Who the fuck are they? he wondered.

  He also noticed Arthur disappearing with a woman through one of the doors into the fortress. Arthur noticed Mark looking and gave a cursory thumbs-up before disappearing through the door—very much like a father faking interest in his brat’s school recital.

  Asshole… you couldn’t wait for the end of the show?

  Tobias started the next part of the spectacle. He fell to the ground, increasing the intensity of the flames on his hands, shouting in pain as if he were losing control.

  And then he used the special Skill he had earned after killing tens of Mongols with the cannons.

  He could only use it once a day. But it was worth it:

  [CANNONBALL]!

  If his normal [Fireballs] had the size of a baseball and needed a few to kill a man, Tobias’s latest Skill had the size of a cannonball and, true to its name, it had the power of one. One single hit was deadly.

  He had tried it against the small hill next to their camp, and it had made a decent hole in the rock.

  He threw the [CANNONBALL] upwards, toward the open sky, but he calculated poorly and hit the edge of a tower, throwing a few stones to the ground.

  Mark didn’t need much effort to look alarmed—hitting part of the fortress wasn’t part of the plan. Emily faked a terrified shriek.

  “Oh no! He’s lost control! Somebody stop him!” she shouted.

  This part could go very wrong… Mark thought, getting his dagger ready. But Tobias had insisted on making a full exhibition.

  And Mark respected the showmanship.

  So he slashed with his dagger across Tobias’s chest. Deep enough for blood to start spurting around. Deep enough for Tobias’ face to blanch, and for the Gamer to fall to his knees, grabbing his injured chest, before he collapsed to the ground.

  Silence. Shouts of fear. Of terror.

  So this is how Oprah must have felt… Mark wondered. Then he almost slipped on the blood on the wooden platform. More or less. There’s clearly some difference in style.

  But he kind of understood why she did what she did. It felt good to give good stuff to people—to give them hope. He looked at his audience.

  “AND THERE’S EVEN MORE! WHEN WE RECOVERED THE MAGIC BOOK, SOMEBODY ELSE LEARNED SOMETHING VERY, VERY SPECIAL…!”

  The frightened crowd began to hush. For a few seconds, Mark enjoyed the silence, the expectation. Then he shouted with all his strength:

  “EMILY LEARNT HOW TO FUCKING HEAL WITH MAGIC!!

  The crowd kept silent, unbelieving.

  Emily jumped on the little wooden platform and made a small reverence to the public. She seemed very nervous. She approached Tobias, who made an effort to kneel on the ground, smiling like a maniac, with fire in one hand and the other trying to keep together the pretty massive injury he had on the chest—Mark had gone deep, probably deeper than reasonable.

  Emily started her “incantation”:

  “Oh, mighty gods of this world, listen to—no, obey my command and [Heal] this injury. [Heal] it right now! I command you with the great power granted by the very gods who command you!”

  Confused whispers spread through the crowd as they tried to understand what she had said. Mark hid a smile when he saw how blushed Emily got after messing up her lines—she was likely begging for the healing to hurry up so she could escape from the spotlight. Tobias tried to add a little spectacle by shaking on the ground like a fish gasping for water.

  "Heal, goddammit, heal," she muttered, desperate to finish.

  Luckily for Emily, her Skill was amazing enough to cover for her decidedly poor acting performance.

  The injury started to close itself in front of the astonished audience…

  And the crowd went wild.

  The Gamers were happy. Excited. Shouting to the sky. And the happiest of them all was Johan. He could have fallen right there, with an apoplexy.

  Dying as the happiest man in the world.

  Maybe the ranking in the sky would declare him the winner? “He found true happiness, and died with a smile on his face,”, Mark thought.

  Johan jumped onto the wooden platform, approaching Mark, a mad smile on his face, and asked:

  “And you? What can you do?”

  Some people will never be satisfied with anything, Mark thought, before answering:

  “Me? I discovered a power even more incredible and amazing than theirs…”

  “Yes?” Johan asked, and he may have peed himself a little, right then and there.

  “Yes,” Mark answered. He passed one arm around Tobias’s shoulders, and the other around Emily’s. “I discovered the Power of Friendship.”

  Johan’s smile lasted for a few seconds more while he processed Mark’s statement. Then it started to slip. And to his credit, a few seconds later he smiled again, laughed, and added:

  “So not everybody can learn magic, right? No matter, no matter,” he dismissed it all, waving a hand. “This is the greatest of news. The plan goes on!”

  “Trust the plan, everybody!” shouted Eric the Zealot. In those few days, it seemed to have become his rallying cry. “Trust the motherfucking plan!”

  Johan cheered with everybody else, pumping his arms into the air, trying to get everybody excited. Then he got serious for a moment, sneaking a look towards the six Vikings who were keeping away from everybody else. He lowered his voice, covering his mouth with a hand.

  “Ah… Mark? I’m receiving some weird reports… Did you really bring some Vikings with you?”

  “Yeah. Sure. They’re cool people. I’ll introduce you to their leader.”

  Mark made a gesture toward the Viking king, and Erik Bloodaxe approached with his massive battle axe on his back. He walked with dignity, ignoring the dancing teenagers who cheered about magic and going to “Hogwarts.” Harald and Bjorn followed closely behind.

  Mark noticed that Eric the Zealot had organized a few of his men to keep watch over the Vikings from the windows. They seemed to be carrying bows, their fingers twitching near the quivers, ready for violence.

  Yeah, this will go great, Mark thought.

  Johan and Erik Bloodaxe faced each other, and the first ever Gamer-Viking summit began.