Ok, this is the start of the end… the finale… this is where I had been building up to. All those hints, the subtle foreshadowing, and the minor details… character developments… all for this. Remember the D.I.C.E.:

  DEBONAIR - Gotta be cool! Have to be sick! Have to have the badass party do badass things!

  INTEGRITY - Be honest to the readers. Keep faithful of what happened in the DnD sessions. Do not change any major beats.

  COLORFUL - It’s a comedy! It’s supposed to have casual humor! I only went serious one time in the entire campaign, so, like, keep it calm!

  ENTERTAINING - Keep the reader retention! Attention spans these days are shorter than a minute….

  I think I got it all covered. Now, time to write the chapter and record anything that happens, lemme find my pen and boot up Narrator-module- what do you mean it’s already on? The hell? Uh… OH GOD UM

  Heya, readers! You saw nothing!

  That’s a bit direct, trying again-

  Heya, readers! We are experiencing a bit of tech issue right now-

  No, already used that excuse a few chapters ago.

  Heya, readers! Please avert your eyes-

  That’s god awful… is Eraser-module working? No, it isn’t. The readers saw all of my takes. Great. They will stop reading now. It’s all scuffed. One more thing I can try though! Booting up Royal Road’s editor… what do you mean it's under maintenance? The f- oh, my backspace is broken. GREAT! AWESOME! JUST IN TIME FOR THE FINALE-

  No, Diem. Calm down. Maybe the reader finds this funny.

  IS THIS FUNNY?

  I don’t like how it’s so direct- oh fine. I give up. How about we just start the chapter, dear reader?

  “Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on?”

  Durand whispers as he looks through the window towards the looming Citadel. It has been enveloped by a tornado of dark flying figures, constantly swirling and dancing around the tower. Lenny grumbles unintelligibly and hurries to pick up his scimitar, Rikki Tikki Tavi, which he keeps dearly under his bed. They had been awakened by an urgent alert sent to them via sending stone. Cenvin was nowhere to be seen.

  “Whatever. It’s probably something Cenvin did,” Durand mutters ruefully, “Shame. Was having a damn good dream. What’s Code Force Majeure?”

  “I have no guesses of my own, but Force Majeure means an act of God. Perhaps something extraordinary has occurred. Whatever it is, we should see that we follow orders.” A glint of psychopathy sparks in Lenny’s eyes as he becomes fully awake. “And it’s nighttime. Orions are out and about.”

  He giggles maniacally as he heaves his scimitar onto his furry shoulder. Turning and waiting impatiently for Durand, he scrapes his claws against the doorframe, creating an unpleasant sound. He watches as Durand hurries to gather his and Cenvin’s backpacks. They frown at each other, reading each other’s thoughts after failure to find his cross-etched sending stone.

  “He might not know,” Durand breaks the silence.

  “Worry about ourselves,” Lenny turns and holds the door open for him. “He is a Rogue. They are excellent runners.”

  They go down the relatively peaceful West Main Street directly to the Citadel. It pierces into the dark veils of the sky, strong and unwelcoming. A tornado of what seems to be spectrals has completely covered the Skytower. Crowded around the building are an army of Mercs and a handful of Orions, minuscule compared to their rival counterparts. The two leading men can be easily picked out amongst the crowd; Kores with Clyde at his side, talking and shaking hands with the lone Lucius.

  “I told you,” says Durand as they walk down the street towards the congregation. Several heads turn to look at them, some belonging to the faceless Orions. “Lucius is working with Starmetal.”

  “You must be right then, but it would probably be in our best interest to learn more information,” Lenny replies.

  Durand nods in agreement. “Good point. We don’t know what Lucius wants to do with us yet.”

  “My friends!” Lucius yells as they come closer, his arms outstretched as if for an embrace with brothers-in-arms.

  Durand ignores Lucius’s attempt at friendliness and shoots directly to the point.

  “Why is Starmetal here?”

  Lucius hesitates, but before he can respond Kores interjects.

  “Durand. Lenny,” he acknowledges, “Good to see you here. We have a common enemy. As you can see, the Otherworld is making a move. We have managed to use an ancient artifact to bind all the spectrals into this tornado, effectively containing the majority of the Otherworld’s presence. More monsters will move down from the sky unless we destroy the core residing in the Citadel, which serves as a beacon to summon more. We have a few hours before it activates. Will you put aside our differences and help us bring down the hunt at hand?”

  He reaches out for a handshake. Durand steps forward and grasps his metal hands firmly. They look at each other in mutual understanding of the situation's urgency.

  “Where is our favorite retard, Cenvin?” Clyde inquires.

  “He was not with us when we were alerted. Tell me more, Kores. Is this a hunt?”

  “Indeed. The fusion of a thousand hunts previously suppressed by us. Our machine seems to have been broken when you launched an attack on us. We understand that it was Cenvin who pushed it. We are not emotional. Face reality.”

  Suddenly Lucius grabs a pair of Orions out of the crowd with an invisible claw. He sneers as the Orions struggle against their bounds, screaming desperate orders to release them. Lucius’s ghostly grip tightens and drags the duo right before him.

  “Saw you fidgeting quite uncomfortably, my friends. Perhaps you know something of Cenvin’s whereabouts?”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Stellar, sir! Help us!”

  Kores shakes his head. His metallic voice grim with apathy. “Answer him, soldier.”

  “Alright, alright! A few minutes ago we caught him, severely weakened by something, lying on the streets! We were about to, um, help him but then he fell unconscious and we were summoned here.”

  Lucius sets the Orions down and one of them’s legs gives away, instantly collapsing on the ground, drawing a series of muffled peals of laughter from the spectating Orions. The Mercs were dead silent.

  “At least he is still alive!” he declares cheerfully. “I see him. He’s flying to us- on a glowing stretcher, no less!”

  The thousands of eyes turn to the rumbling sky. Outlined against the black canvas, a glimmering stretcher of snowy white soars towards the mass at breakneck speed. It halts several meters off the earth and turns, dumping the comatose Cenvin onto the ground. The stretcher reforms into Nyri, who purrs in exhaustion. Lenny throws her a piece of hard candy, which she happily absorbs, then wraps herself tightly on the ground and closes her eyes for a nap.

  Durand kicks Cenvin. “Wake up, ya buffoon!”

  Cenvin jolts and leaps into the air in alarm. Drawing his pair of shortswords he observes his environment in alarm. Giving up after seeing so many enemies, Mercs and Orions alike, he sheathes his blades in defeat and begins to kneel in surrender. Lucius, who mistakenly assumes Cenvin has come to his senses, helps Cenvin up.

  “Hello, my friend. Let me explain the situation.”

  He politely goes through the story again. Cenvin still looks bewildered, but the data and the connections finally click. He turns pale.

  “But… isn’t that in… your base?” he points at Lucius, who smiles back questioningly.

  “What are you talking about now? Just… stop being a psychopath and listen to reason, okay?” Durand sighs in exasperation. “Absolute madman.”

  Kores waves his hand symbolically across the the city.

  “My Orions are currently sweeping the city of Otherworld monsters. They will ensure the safety of the citizens.”

  “And my Mercs are all here, ready to storm the Citadel. The Skywatch was unable to help. Most of them were… unfortunately, slaughtered immediately.”

  “We are attempting to break through the tornado,” Kores finishes.

  Smiling a knowing smile, Durand picks up a piece of stone he had cleanly separated by evaporating its edges. He walks next to the tornado and, by throwing the makeshift board and hopping on it simultaneously, effectively begins surfing the spectrals underneath.

  “Woo! Yeah!” He cheers. The army below looks up in wonder.

  He meticulously balances himself on the board as he surfs, drawing his longsword, holding it out, and letting it shred through the spiraling spectrals. Their intestines dissolve into nothingness in midair before they can hit the ground. Durand laughs maniacally as guts and skin splat onto his face and body, quickly melting away as fast as they had come.

  Cenvin is red in the face as he gabbles furiously.

  “How can he do that? It’s against physics! Diem! I would like to report hacks!” Protests Cenvin.

  My guy rolled a nat 20 on his acrobatics check. I had to let him do it.

  “We’re about to fight a supermassive hunt, a final boss if you will, and HE’S OVER HERE SURFIN’!”

  Sensing the presence of her nemesis, Nyri flashes red and stiffens, her eyes searching the spectral-filled sky. Her radar locks onto the glimmering darkness barely distinguishable from the backdrop. Sensing he has been detected, Hadke flashes white in fury and charges toward the orderly army in the shape of a meteor. Nyri dissolves into a shield and blocks it and they tangle together in a chaotic fight, changing forms every second, as bright as the sun as their glow combines, and they are swept into the spectral tornado.

  Meanwhile, shaking with excitement, Lenny receives permission from Kores to execute the two Orions, for the sake of “incompetence.” The two Orions desperately struggle against their invisible bounds as Lenny draws closer. He stabs his scimitar into one’s chest, drawing a painful shriek. He feels a tingling down his spine and he looks at Kores questioningly.

  “They’re trying to use their abilities,” Clyde chimes. “I’ve been subtly making them forget how.”

  Lenny can only imagine the silent sadistic laughs under the mask. Good. Congruent minds always lead to greatness.

  He gleefully turns Rikki, draining the screams from the spasming Orion. He pulls out the blade and examines the drops of blood covering the weapon. He smells it, then licks it with feral fervor. The other Orion gasps in fear as his comrade falls to the ground. Upon death, Lucius has released his iron grip. They turn back to Lenny and begin begging for mercy.

  “Please! Sir! Don’t do this to me! I am useful- NOO!”

  Lenny marks a wide gash in the Orion’s shoulder. It seems that he is going to take his time for this one. The Orion begins sobbing loudly. Some soldiers in the crowd below turn their heads away in silent sympathy. Kores is unreadable while Lucius is visibly enjoying this little execution. Lenny gradually makes hundreds of small cuts, all aimed at their blood vessels(or where Lenny imagines they will be under the armor), until they finally stop moving, their corpse drained of blood and lifeless. Lenny doubles down in psychopathic laughter, soon joined in by Lucius and even Clyde. Kores is stiff as a rock.

  Also watching the ceremonious execution from the tornado, Cenvin stretches his arms and lunges into the fray of spectrals. He bursts through unharmed and drops a final sentence before he enters the Citadel.

  “Well, I’m heading up. Feel free to join, suckers!”

  “Wait for me,” breaking his board upon landing on the ground, Durand follows. Lucius gives Lenny a gentle nudge.

  “You should follow your party.”

  “Yes.”

  Lenny sprints on all four legs into the tornado, his small frame easily fitting through a pair of grasping hands. Inside he sees Cenvin and Durand patiently waiting for him.

  “Let’s go kick some final boss ass!” Durand declares, overtaken by adrenaline and lust for revenge. His fellow members cheer in unison. They dash into a Hyperslate to go up to the top. Before the Hyperslate takes off, another figure leaps onboard. Without a single quick breath, Kores stands up.

  “What are you doing here?” Cenvin demands.

  Kores wave his hand dismissively. “My friends, you cannot undertake this endeavor alone. You will need my assistance.”

  “We will need no help of Starmetal!” Lenny shouts.

  Kores looks down in controlled contempt, his calmness an island among the three oceans of madness.

  “You have already received many favors from us. The doorcode. Cenvin, would you have gotten access to Shadow’s Edge otherwise? Our machines. Would you like to face a hunt every time someone in Italica City becomes Gifted? My Orions. They are out there, amongst the towers, saving lives from the darkness of the Otherworld. And yet, what good so far has your Mercs done?”

  Rays of sunlight repeatedly shine onto the rising Hyperslate. Kores's armor alternates between angelic glints and glimmers, gloom, and unfriendliness. The party watches him, mesmerized by the constant flickers. They become silent.

  The Hyperslate stops on the floor below the very top. Kores steps out first.

  “My friends, we will have to walk the stairs. The pinnacle of Italica City cannot be simply reached by a Hyperslate, as you can imagine.”

  He swiftly moves into a giant office complex of sorts. Everywhere are maps, meeting rooms, and papers. The party follows in Kores’s tread. He navigates through the labyrinth of the place as if he’s done this a thousand times. There are no windows on this floor. Only the dim lights of the lamps and candles flicker ruefully, providing limited sight, just enough to see Kores’s shining armor. Lenny does not bother to shuffle around the messes; he simply shreds through any obstacle with his claws. At last, Kores stops at a hidden door.

  “Whatever waits for us up there, do not take it lightly. This is my warning to you, and come at your own risk,” he quietly warns. “Italica City will be freed from the Otherworld if we destroy the core. Remember that.”

  He performs a quick ritual and the door slides open menacingly. Durand and Cenvin cough from the clouds of dust billowing from the motion. Uncertainly stepping onto the stairs after Kores, they go up.