Today's Earth date: November 29, 1991

I found us a sidequest so we can stay in Vientuls a little bit longer. This is definitely different from Horcus' sidequest nonsense too. I think Wilmond is on to me, though.

Whatever. There's a cockatrice nest near enough to town that people have been going missing. Taking it down would be good for everyone in this village.

But now that I have an alternative to being a Chosen Hero… I honestly want to quit. I know that's terrible with how much everyone is counting on us, but I'm so tired, and we have three Temples to go.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

The Zeroes cut down the crayfish as they swarmed. Hector's shield blasting them back at regular intervals as they fell to swords, arrows, and spells.

The crayfish seemed to be dying, but how were there still so many?

New red dots popped to life on Wayne's HUD.

"They're respawning!"

"We're fine over here," Armond answered.

But for how long? Monsters in this world didn't spawn the way they did in video games. In an MMO, they reappeared when a set amount of time elapsed after the room was cleared. Spawning in this world meant the manual way–mating and babies.

Yet, these enemies continued to burst from the soil as if their numbers were unlimited. Endless enemies would always win through attrition. Understanding the mechanics had to wait, though.

The boss had to die first.

Hoping the knight didn't block, Wayne fired a cannonball. Gunnery steered the lead into the knight. Shrapnel bounced back at Wayne as the cannonball shattered against the boss's chestplate.

Wayne was running out of ideas.

It was risky, but Wayne cast Dum Dum on the knight. There was no visible reaction, but Wayne didn't feel his mental faculties drop to three IQ either. He was grateful for that much.

He ripped a claw off of one of the crayfish and struck the knight with it. The crayfish claw had no effect.

After that attempt, Wayne dodged the knight's claw with Easy Out, but he didn't expect the boss to be smart enough to lay a trap. As soon as Easy Out ended, the sword came at him from the side. The blade bit into Wayne's ribs. He felt the edge scrape against bone as it penetrated. Out of desperation, Wayne dropped his own sword and caught the knight's blade with his hands, slowing it as much as he could.

His hitpoints dipped to 17.

One more hit like that, and he was dead.

Fanbi wouldn't drain hitpoints from the knight, but it worked on the crayfish. Wayne set Skycat to the task, and his hitpoints slowly counted upward. Too slowly.

Easy Out.

Easy Out.

Easy Out.

The crab knight continued stalking the Zero Hero. Armond was too far away to Heal, and the cleric had his hands full besides.

Fire... Use fire... Use fire...

He had Flame Bracelet. What hadn't he applied fire to?

Sword of Water hurled an orb of boiling water at the knight. He swatted it away with his sword and continued stalking.

Boiling a crab would have been a good thematic weakness, but it too had no effect.

Boil the crab…

Wayne cast Hrglut while thinking of Flame Bracelet. For the first time, the knight staggered.

Wayne repeated the cast several more times, driving the knight to its knees. It dropped its massive sword and pawed at its helmet, as if trying to take it off. Pushing his mana as far as he dared. Wayne spammed the spell combination on the crab knight.

The boss fell to the ground, still trying to remove its helmet as it writhed around, steam rising from its helmet as liquid leaked through the narrow visor. Then the knight went still.

New crayfish stopped surfacing, and the Zeroes mopped them up handily while Wayne let Fanbi do its work.

Wayne felt several system notifications.

"What is that smell?" Fergus asked as he approached to check on Wayne. The old scholar's face soured. "Really? Good gods, that's disgusting."

"Cooked it from the inside. Fucker was invincible."

"Armond is patching Hector and Margo up, but nothing serious. Between Hector's shield and Armond's barrier… well, we felt pretty good out there, I'd say."

"Glad to hear it. You guys are definitely finding a groove as a party."

When Wayne felt the extra hole in his ribs knit together from Fanbi, he thought of the time a goblin speared his thigh. He could scarcely comprehend that pain, yet he could now grit through nearly being cut in half.

When he first read the accounts of how Horcus the Chosen Wizard fully embraced this world as being a game, Wayne had thought the wizard was sociopathic. While that judgment might still be true, he could no longer fault Horcus for embracing the video game belief completely. That was a video game battle, or just like one, rather.

Wayne was certain Fergus wasn't an NPC, but how seriously he considered that possibility was a surprise to himself.

"Did you check your system?" Fergus asked.

Wayne opened his stats.

Hero: Wayne the Guy

Level: 16

HP: 57/247

STR: 34

AGI: 25

VIT: 18

LCK: 30

"I went up three levels from that fight," Wayne said.

"Wow. We only got two."

"Only two?"

Fergus laughed. "Yes, yes, we should be grateful."

"We were underleveled for that, for sure."

Offering his hand, Fergus helped Wayne to his feet. They approached the epicenter of the battle. While everything around was crater, there was a deep hole at the very middle. Dozens of feet down into the pit where the crab knight slumbered, Wayne saw a chest on a stone platform. Though it was relatively plain, the masonry matched the Asplugha ruins perfectly.

From the lip of the hole, Wayne used Open.

The chest lid clicked open. It didn't slam back dramatically like the chest in the tunnel dungeon, but it was open, and there didn't appear to be traps.

Wayne and Fergus slid down the steep embankment and opened the chest completely. Six metal cuff bracelets rested in two neat columns on a bed of gold coins. At the center of the chest was a stone token.

"Earth Temple…" Fergus mumbled to himself.

"What do you mean?"

The old scholar pointed at the token. "That's the symbol for the Water Temple, and no, I don't have any theories."

Wayne didn't either.

Resource Values.

Boon for the Chosen Cleric. Average value of [no sales data available].

Boon for the Chosen Fighter. Average value of [no sales data available].

Boon for the Chosen Paladin. Average value of [no sales data available].

Boon for the Chosen Ranger. Average value of [no sales data available].

Boon for the Chosen Rogue. Average value of [no sales data available].

Boon for the Chosen Wizard. Average value of [no sales data available].

Water Sigil. Average value of [no sales data available].

Wayne shared the messages with Fergus. Trying the bracelets on to test their magic was tempting, but he was still healing from the crab knight. Playing with strange jewelry probably wasn't wise right now. He dumped all of the coins into his Bank and gave Fergus the cuffs and sigil to hold.

At the top of the hole, Fergus said, "I feel we owe Vanilli a thanks for helping us find this treasure. At the same time, I didn't appreciate the fight very much."

Wayne agreed. The crab knight didn't activate until the Zero Hero arrived, however, so Vanilli didn't summon anything. He did detect it, though. Learning more about how that worked for demons would be worthwhile.

He had a thought and slid back down the pit. With his barehands–and strength stat helping–Wayne clawed the dirt around the chest platform away.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"What's on your mind?" Fergus called down.

"How much do you want to bet that there's a Dwarven Cube under here?"

Fergus perked up and shuffled down next to Wayne.

"Hey Margo. Sorry to bug you already, but could you come to me and Fergus when you're able?"

"On my way."

Wayne saw the green dot approach. When she poked her head over the hole, he asked her to watch the platform and to let him know if she saw anything with Prism. As soon as the chest slid to the side, Margo descended into the pit as well.

When she finished chalking what she saw, Wayne needed only a moment to confirm the characters. He had translated this exact message in Julian's tomb.

Mode: Active

Status: Beta

Thirty minutes of digging revealed the platform to be a much larger cube than they had seen before. The outer for sides read:

Access: Forgemaster

Condition: Proximity

Phase: All

Crustacean Crusader - Exp 32,000 - Levels 22 to 25

Summon Super Bad Crawdads, Five Rounds

Armor Immunity to Elemental Magic

Armor Immunity to Slashing Damage

Armor Immunity to Projectile Damage

The repetition of Diagnostic Cube terms made translating the faces fairly easy. Condition and Phase settings were new, however. Wayne read those to mean that the encounter triggered when someone with Forgemaster access was near. If his theory about Forgemaster being equivalent to Administrator, that was an odd combination of settings to leave buried in the ground.

From what Wayne saw from the fight, there was only one phase, but reading the Immunity settings led him to believe that was his fault. He never broke its shell, though. Use blunt weapons against a crab, duh. A second phase after destroying a boss's armor was common in games, so that could have been the intention here. Cooking the boss alive in its own vomit wasn't a solution the first dwarves considered.

Seeing the level rating made Wayne grateful he broke the boss by accident. It was so far ahead of the party that a second, more challenging phase would have been unwinnable.

"This wasn't Vanilli's fault," Wayne said.

"Wayne," Fergus groaned. "Please don't use that if I'm standing right here. It's disconcerting."

"This wasn't Vanilli's fault," Wayne said. At this point, Armond and Hector were by the pit as well. They heard that news too. Making sure his party knew Vanilli hadn't tricked them was important to Wayne. The Zeroes needed to know so they didn't hold it against him, and Vanilli needed to know that no one doubted his innocence.

He asked the Zeroes to send someone to fetch Sammy, Vanilli, and the wagon. Hector volunteered and moseyed down the coast on Outlawson's back.

Fergus inspected the large cube in the pit. "I'm not being silly. I believe this to be a cube-cube."

"Please explain," Wayne said.

"This is a cube built to hold smaller cubes," Fergus replied. "It's a compact version of the pedestal rooms. Every cube we've seen so far has six sides, and each of the faces here is from a specific type of cube."

Wayne pictured dwarves selecting a setting on a smaller cube and sliding it into the larger cube with slots on each side. The first dwarves, however, were unbelievable craftsmen. Like with the hatches hidden in ruins, Wayne couldn't detect an edge that suggested this large block was anything but one solid unit. He also couldn't find any means for ejecting the smaller blocks.

"We could try breaking them out," Wayne said.

"Absolutely not," Fergus said. "Same goes for trying to move it. If it's attached to something, I don't like the idea of damaging it."

"Maybe Vanilli will have ideas."

Wayne found a clean spot in the grass and opened his system.

Hero: Wayne the Guy

Level: 16

HP: 57/247

STR: 34

AGI: 25

VIT: 18

LCK: 30

That was a lot of progress from one fight. He believed the unlocks he hadn't used for those levels wouldn't carry over through level ups, meaning he missed out on eight Christmas List slots.

Oh well. That was a bummer, but he also couldn't have done anything differently. He patted himself on the back for being so emotionally healthy with his reaction.

He unlocked his final ability from Lightspeed:

Defensive Screens – Your defensive screens work by randomly cancelling attacks against your ship.

More protection options were always welcome. That was a good get.

Testing this new skill from Pat Riley Basketball was going to be interesting, though:

Blocking a Dunk – You won't have the opportunity to stuff every slam, but if you have a man under the basket, he'll appear in a closeup shot with his own Block gauge.

He had no thoughts on where to start or what to expect.

Tunnels and Trolls gave him:

Wink-Wing – Moves one character forward two squares during combat.

If that worked on enemies, Wayne could force enemies into his sword. Maybe. Who knew if it actually functioned that way.

He hoped this was a new Skycat upgrade from After Burner II:

Roll – A maneuver that will get you out of many tight spots.

And this unlock from LHX Attack Chopper sounded like a Skycat buff also:

Camera – A video image along with range, bearing, and status information of the target you're currently tracking.

Wayne closed his system windows. Fergus lay in the grass, eyes closed, his hands on his stomach.

"Iomallach is going to be more challenging than we expect, isn't it?" Wayne asked.

"If we can accidentally happen across boss encounters in the wilderness you mean?"

"That, and who knows what we find in the next set of ruins."

Fergus shrugged without sitting up. "If we find them. We can't expect to locate every rumored ruin in a matter of days when others have failed to locate them across lifetimes. The lighthouse is known, but it has been mapped and explored and then reexplored again. Anything of value is long gone."

"But not in secret tunnels and rooms."

"True. Could be more ratman fleshmancers."

Wayne sighed. "I'm being serious."

"So am I," Fergus retorted. "I doubt we met and killed the world's smartest rat."

"Fair point."

Wayne saw Outlawson approaching on his HUD, pulling a wagon.

"Do we rebury it?" Wayne asked.

"How would we go about that? Scoop it up with our hands?"

"Or… maybe we can use Outlawson."

In his mind, Wayne pictured using his strength stat to hold Outlawson in place while Fergus urged the insect to run. Since he was stuck in place, his weird bug legs could kick dirt into the hole. Fergus was skeptical of this plan, but Wayne was hopeful.

As the wagon pulled up, Wayne heard Vanilli talking with Hector and Sammy. He couldn't quite make out the conversation, but there was laughter. That was a good sign.

Vanilli hopped off the far side of the wagon and out of sight with the cook. The excitement of the crustacean crusader disrupted breakfast, and that was unacceptable to Sammy, so Vanilli would finish his breakfast right here with the proper comforts.

Wayne stood at the edge of the hole and yelled over the wagon, "Vanilli! You good?"

"I am!"

Fergus held up a finger for Wayne to wait and hopped to his feet. He leaned around the wagon and asked, "Would you mind taking a look at what we uncovered? When you finish with breakfast, I mean. There is no need to rush."

Wayne heard Vanilli say, with a very full mouth, "Then I shall not rush."

Well, that was that. Since Hector was already on Outlawson, Wayne asked the tank to back the insect up to the edge of the hole, directly on top of the largest pile of loose dirt.

"You can leave him there," Wayne said, and Hector slid off the side.

"Should we, perhaps, Probe more of these fields before we depart?" Fergus asked.

"We" meant Wayne, but that was fine. Fergus was right that taking a look wouldn't hurt. With his wounds nearly healed and having had a little bit of time to recover mana. Wayne told the scholar to inspect the cube whenever Vanilli was ready. They didn't need to wait for him.

Blitzing over the fields was scenic, but it was boring. Wayne had a lot of ground to cover, so he opted for one pass up the coast, and then one pass along the treeline. That should give him the most surface area for the effort. After two Probes with no results, Wayne thought the boredom was going to kill him.

"How's the party?"

"Well," Fergus answered. "Vanilli is in the pit now. No, I'm talking to Wayne. Sorry about that, should have warned you."

"What's he think?"

"Says he never saw cubes in the Temple. He doesn't recognize any of the writing either."

"He can see the writing like Margo?"

"..."

"Fergus?"

"What?"

"Can he see the dwarvish?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Fergus said. "I shook my head to answer, but I suppose that wouldn't work in this scenario. But no, he doesn't see the writing. He feels it."

"So no groundbreaking insights?"

"Afraid not."

That was fine. Expecting to uncover even more secrets today was being greedy. Wayne needed an hour and a half in total to complete his scan. No more buried red dots or buried yellow dots appeared on his HUD.

When Wayne got back to camp, he stopped at the wagon for water. He could hear Fergus and Vanilli in the pit, talking.

"Are there a lot of demons buried in lawns?" Wayne heard Vanilli ask.

"You are certain that was a demon?"

"Yes."

"How do you know?"

Vanilli chewed with his mouth open, and the sound carried. Wayne made a note to address that habit sooner rather than later. "We demons can sense each other's presences. The stronger the presence, the more you probably want to avoid that demon."

"Was this a big presence?"

"Eh," Vanilli said, "middle of the road, really."

"Any ideas why the first dwarves locked a demon underground?"

"Because the first dwarves are bastards?"

"Okay, I can understand your position on that one," Fergus admitted.

Wayne walked to the edge of the pit with a waterskin. "Can I get you guys–"

Vanilli looked back at him in his oversized clothes and cover-art-perfect hair.

"Can I…"

"Wayne?" Vanilli asked. "Is that ashen tone natural for humans?"

The Zero Hero collapsed on to his butt. He sat in the dirt, staring blankly at his own feet.

"What's wrong?" Fergus asked, hurrying to Wayne's side.

"Do you remember playing with the disguise enchantment?" Wayne asked.

How could Fergus forget? It was, admittedly, an odd way for friends to introduce each other to one another's family members–one disguise change at a time–but the more they drank, the better the disguises got.

Without lifting his head, Wayne asked how looking at Vanilli–or anyone, really–in a disguise made him feel.

Fergus looked back down into the pit and then returned his gaze to Wayne. "I'm not sure it feels like anything."

"Exactly. Nothing was weird when I saw you in disguise. That was also true when I saw Perris in disguise."

"Alright…"

Wayne sighed. "I shouldn't even tell you this, but you know that feeling I complained about with Sheeri?"

"The valley of uncanniness."

"Yes, that."

"I get the same exact feeling when I look at Vanilli in his disguise, and only Vanilli."

Fergus' gaze darted back and forth between the pair. His eyes went wide and a huge smile took over his face. "You mean you– Because she's actually– And you definitely–"

Wayne nodded, defeatedly.

The old scholar clapped, bellowing his laughter. "Oh, this is wonderful. Absolutely magnificent. This will keep me entertained all the way to Iomallach."

See you in Book 2!

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