Chuck groaned and rubbed at his forehead. His blue wireframe body wavered slightly as he looked back over at Dent.

  The swordsman shrugged in return. “They arrived on the planet safely, right? That’s a win.”

  “That’s a start,” the Architect corrected him. “This is supposed to be one of the most important and future-defining world-hops to date, and it hasn’t gone to plan at all.”

  “Sure, splitting up is a problem…”

  “Dent. Have you even looked at their status report?” Chuck waved his hand in the air and brought across a monitor screen with rows of data on it.

  [Sally: Asleep, Satiated]

  [Humphrey: Hallucinating]

  [Jackie: Wounded, Inebriated]

  [Edward: Blind, Wounded]

  [Bully: Exhausted]

  “Not great,” Dent admitted. “I mean, considering this was a diplomatic mission looking to defend those living on the planet, it’s a lot… worse than intended.”

  “I should have known it would end up being Outsiders doing Outsiders things.” Chuck sighed and swiped away the screen. “There’s not much we can do at this point, however.”

  The swordsman nodded along, chewing through some of his own thoughts. After a few moments, he furrowed his brow. “Edward being blinded. Is that a blindfold or some skill keeping him from seeing?”

  Chuck tilted his head to the side, a dull expression on his face. “No.”

  Edward patted his hands on the warm puddle on the floor in front of his knees. Most likely his own blood, given the context clues. Those clues being that the locals had decided to throw him in a pit and explode his eyeballs from his head.

  “I’m not sure how this helps the situation,” he called out to the crowd up above.

  “Truth is blind!” someone replied.

  “Pretty sure that’s ‘justice’,” he murmured to himself. Despite spending most of his life acting sinister and troublesome, now that there were people who actually didn’t trust him… well, it kind of hurt.

  Slightly less than having his eyeballs ruptured from his skull, but that was neither here nor there.

  He pushed himself back up to his feet and brushed his suit down. “How uncouth. I expect an apology before I say anything more. What was the name of your leader again?”

  “I am Ghirlain the Wise, monster, and I will offer you no apology.”

  Edward turned on the spot so that he was facing the direction the voice had come from. He grinned, exposing his sharp teeth, and looked up to where the woman would be. “Shame, hopefully Sally will forgive me.”

  He wiped some of the blood from his cheek. [Demonic Sight] activated, allowing him to see the pink shade of souls for those present in the room, while everything else was in muted dark purples. He held out his finger as a scroll of paper unfurled in front of him. Using his blood, he wrote the name Ghirlain the Wise on the [Infernal Contract].

  “See how the invader has unnatural eyesight,” a voice screeched from the side. “They are here to kill us!”

  Demonic Sight caused sparks of glowing purple light to hang in his empty sockets, which probably looked rather intimidating. Edward continued grinning as the contract turned to ash.

  “You want the truth?” he asked, as his shadow extended unnaturally, growing larger the further from his body it went. “I am much worse than any invader you have been imagining.”

  The woman opened her mouth to speak, but only blood came out. Edward stepped out from behind her, withdrawing his rapier from her neck, as the crowd screamed and panicked.

  Jackie swore under her breath as another magical explosion rocked the pillar she was hiding behind.

  It was all going so well. The daft bastards had seemed well-meaning—even giving her some decent booze—up until the point they revealed the reason why they had been doing that.

  Ritual sacrifice to appease the gods.

  She rolled her eyes as Betty continued to reload fresh bolts. Now both of her legs were injured and half of one of her best suits had burned away from the barrage of magical bolts they kept throwing her way.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  It was a small blessing she had some range and cover. The initial falling-out was dicey, with only some self-inflicted explosive damage earning her the current no-man's-land. The only trouble was… this temple didn’t seem to have an easy way to escape.

  She downed a health regeneration potion and glared around. A few pillars, an engraved circle of granite and inlaid gold at the center, and a beam of sunlight illuminating it all from high above. It was the least impressive temple and sacrificial pit she had ever seen.

  A chunk of her pillar burst, and she winced away from the brief cloud of dust.

  Not that it seemed to matter much - her blood might be spilled on it after all. With a grim smile, the mobster spun the drum of her repeating crossbow. Going out guns blazing wasn’t so bad. Jackie pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Just for old time’s sake.

  Just as she was about to move from her position and fire on the oppressive force keeping her pinned, a hideous groan echoed around the stone chamber. She pulled a face as the wall opposite blew open, stone shards sent clattering across the smooth flooring.

  As the cloud of powdered debris cleared, a familiar plated figure stepped forward, wielding a dark greatsword.

  “Tin-can?” Jackie asked, narrowing her eyes.

  There was something off about him. Some sort of green ichor covered his feet and lower legs, and the flame behind his helmet occasionally flickered with foul light. Before she could get a response out of him, a radiant magic bolt sped through the temple and struck the Death Knight.

  He turned his gaze to the outside, where groups of the lunatics were gathered… although his eyes weren’t quite normal either.

  “Seven, you think I wouldn’t notice your return?” Humphrey boomed.

  Shimmers of gray and blue rolled over his black plated armor as he tensed and then ran past Jackie and out into the fray.

  [Jackie: I’ve met up with Humphrey. He seems… nutso.]

  [Jackie: Any of you jerkoffs havin’ a better time of this?]

  Theo raised an eyebrow and look away from the town board. “Sorry, Dee. What did you say?”

  “I asked if you thought your friends were doing okay on their mission.” The gnome crossed her arms.

  “Ah. Of course, no issues whatsoever. They’re very competent, very…” The vampire returned to looking at the wooden signage with notices posted on it.

  Dee tapped her foot and scowled at him. “We have enough quests already. Do you really have to consider these?”

  Theo shook his head and pointed, pressing a finger against the paper on the left side of the board. “This isn’t a System created quest. It has been put here by Players.”

  “Oh.” She squinted, trying to look past his arm at the text. “Some warning about a gang called the Crimson Shadow? Haven’t heard of them.”

  It was definitely unusual. He narrowed his eyes as he removed his finger. It had been on the board for a couple of weeks, maybe. Not especially fresh. Theo looked over at the rest of the seaside town. There didn’t appear to be anything immediately threatening the populace here - neither Player nor System-created.

  His conclusion? The trio of heroes must have dealt with the gang. Whether that had anything to do with the fate of the world, or was just a minor stepping stone… he wasn’t sure.

  “We’ll ask about it in the tavern tonight. Someone must know.” He grinned at the gnome, the sunlight picking up his long fangs. “For now, I want to get some leveling under my belt. There’s a Dungeon we need to get through.”

  Dee rolled her eyes. “Do you ever stop?”

  “59% of your day is spent under-optimized. Think about how that translates into missed opportunities for gear drops, level ups, and consumable duration cooldowns.”

  “I’d rather gargle the business end of a broadsword.” The gnome shook her head. “Alright, you maniac, the sooner we can get you to the next area, the sooner you’ll be out of my hair.”

  Theo put his hands in his pockets and started walking off to the village center. He was almost jealous of the rest of the Outsiders potentially having more fun together.

  A second explosion rocked the canopy, and a tree groaned before falling over to the ground with a crash of broken branches and shaking leaves.

  Bully was not having fun.

  He entirely blamed the cat for giving him the false sense of security that things would be fine - yet as soon as he dropped out of the tree, his pursuers were immediately on his tail.

  While making volatile and explosive potions went against his ethos, so did being captured and eaten by cannibals. The lesser of two evils was pelting the attackers with grenade vials. He was almost certain Sally would forgive him for it.

  Perhaps the worse crime, out of all of this, was that he didn’t have time to pick some interesting-looking ingredients along the way. In fact, some of them were now either a charred mess or covered with cannibal gore.

  Bully brought out one purple potion and then a red one in his other hand. Pulling the corks out with his mouth, he then poured them together on the ground by his feet.

  The mixture let off a brief hiss before emitting a deep red smoke. By the second, the cloud grew in density and started to obscure the area he had been lobbing explosives from. With two quick hops, he dropped down a hill and scurried further into the woods.

  While he had basic directions to find the zombie, he wasn’t entirely sure he was following them correctly.

  Leaping further into the shade of the canopy, he couldn’t wait till he could get some rest.

  Sally was sound asleep.

  With a smile on her face caked with dried gore, she snoozed on the soft grass. Several bodies littered the clearing, each with their skulls open or throats torn out. She hadn’t even bothered telling them to rise as zombies, as the glut of food had her pass out almost immediately.

  System Sickness required rest, anyway.

  Small footsteps approached her from the side as Archie surveyed the scene. His tail flicked back and forth as he approached the dozing zombie.

  “What a mess this has all become,” he said to himself, a small smile on his face.

  He walked up beside her and laid down, curling up against her side. As he slowly closed his eyes to rest alongside her, he let out a long, contented sigh.

  After all, it felt good to be back home, finally.