"This way," said Brad, with all the cheer he could muster. He didn't like turning his back to this freak; it felt like turning his back on a lion. Any moment it would pounce, he was sure. He could nearly feel the freak's dead eyes boring into his back. His shoulder-blades tingled. All Brad could do was put one foot in front of another and force his spine straight. He was sweating through his shirt, sweating down his legs, sweating so bad it was getting in his eyes. He swore they passed the same crooked tree three times—just how far was that damned lair?
It was a relief when it popped up on his mini map. Still there—the dot was there too, deep in, unmoving.
"Well," he said, "there it is!" He gestured at the cave.
The freak blinked. "Huh." He seemed surprised.
"Yup," said Brad, "you want us to hang around, just in case?"
"No need."
Brad kept his face blank, even as he sneered internally. The arrogant fuck. We'll see who's condescending to who soon enough.
"Oh, it's no trouble," Brad said easily. "We can just stay outside the entrance. So we can come in if anything goes wrong, y'know."
The freak shrugged as though saying, 'suit yourself'.
"You never know," Brad continued. "You're pretty strong, sure, but it's strong too. It's Level 24."
"Yes," said the freak slowly, "you told me that already."
"Oh, did I?" Brad tried to play it off casually—had he overdone it? But the freak's face was as blank as ever. The others behind him glanced nervously at each other; they all knew it wasn't Level 24. They'd seen the damned thing. That moron Cale looked especially concerned. He seemed ready to speak up until Brad silenced him with a glare.
If anyone should have had a problem with this freak, it was Cale. If Brad saw his girl hanging off someone else's arm like that… someone was going home with a black eye—either his girl or the other guy, depending on how big the other guy was.
As Brad trained the glare on the rest of them, their heads went down one by one. No one dared say a word.
***
Zane peered into the mouth of the cave. There was a dot deep within, but he couldn't make it out from out here. "Hmm," he said.
That dark cave mouth revealed nothing, and it went on so long it was outside the scope of his mini map. Who knew what truly lay in there? Usually he liked to get his eyes on the enemy before he fought them… this time, the only thing he had was Brad's word.
And Brad wore a smile on his face that Zane had seen many times before. This shit-eating smile. He didn't trust that smile at all.
He looked back over the crowd—a little over a dozen dirty, haggard faces. "Anything else I should know?"
"Nope," said Brad, but he wasn't talking to Brad; he was talking to the rest of them. Silence. Then—
"He's lying!" It was Annie, the little girl he'd saved. She screamed, even as her mother gave her an alarmed look. "It's Level 38!" cried Annie. "Don't go in!"
"Yeah," said Zane, "I suspected that."
He turned on Brad, who was quickly backpedaling. "No, no, no," he said, "it's not like that! She's lying, dude, it's just one Boar, it's got a few minions. She—she doesn't know what she's talking about. She's like five!"
"I'm nine, asshole!" shouted Annie. Her mother's stare was turning horrified—whether at her daughter's insolence, or at the fact she knew a swear word, Zane wasn't sure.
"Looks like we have a problem here," said Zane, crossing his arms.
"Dude, I swear, I swear on my—" Brad shook his head. "On my mama's ashes, man. I swear, right hand to God, it's Level 24!"
He looked ready to shit himself. Zane considered them, then—"Fine," he said. "You stand by that?"
"Of course!"
"Then come with me."
"What?"
"Into the cave."
In the silence that followed, you could hear Brad swallow. He choked out a laugh. "You're joking."
"It's Level 24," said Zane, "according to you. I'm Level 31. Stay behind me, and you'll be in no danger. Put your money where your mouth is."
"Uhh—"
Zane took a step toward him, and Brad stumbled back.
"Get him!" he shrieked.
Brad's men charged. A few burly grunts and wild-eyed boys came howling, and Zane, he watched them come in genuine boredom. He didn't even need to draw his chains; he just walked forward leisurely and grazed their chins. They fell, one by one, eyes rolling back. Brad kept scrambling, screaming, "Stay away from me! You—"
Then he saw the people he called 'civilians.' And Zane saw the awful idea come into his head.
Brad leapt, reaching for a hostage. But Zane was quicker. He ripped into Brad's stomach, dug his knuckles so deep he nearly touched the spine, felt the wind crushed out of the man. Then Brad fell, curling over himself in the fetal position, whimpering, sobbing a little.
Only now did Zane bring out his chains. A few Sacred Binds later, they were all frozen solid.
"That should hold them," he said. He looked to the rest of the group. It was blatantly obvious none of them had any love for their self-appointed leader. "Anyone have something you can bind them with? Just in case."
As it turned out, they did. They'd picked up some cords of Grade F grappling rope from a treasure chest; it was built to withstand a rockslide. With this double lock in place, Zane was pretty certain they weren't getting out anytime soon.
"I'll be trying the boss lair soon," Zane said. "Can you people keep track of them?"
They frantically nodded. Most of them fell to their knees; a few started sobbing. From them, he gathered that Brad and his posse had set a brutal pace for days. Most of them couldn't keep up, especially the children and the elderly. But they were all too scared to speak out. They babbled their thanks at him; they insisted on introducing themselves to him, and he could only awkwardly listen and nod.
There was Mara, a frizzy-haired, scattered-brained middle school english teacher from a town a few miles north. She seemed a sweet old lady. Now she wasn't so scared, Zane could imagine her as the kind of teacher who kept a cookie jar on her desk, or who went out of her way to check on a student if they seemed down. The first thing she asked was if he'd seen her grandkids. She'd collapsed a little when he said no. She'd been with them when integration happened, and they got separated, and… well. Zane could guess what'd happened to them.
Then came Elena, a former D2 pole vaulter who happens to go to the same college Zane did. At level 15, she was the best fighter of the bunch, after Jacob and his goons. She was quiet, but she had a determined, almost angry set to her jaw. "You can count on me, sir. I won't let them run," she promised. Sir? Zane honestly didn't care that much. It wasn't like they could hurt him anyway; the ropes were more for the others' sake. But he appreciated the sentiment.
There was Liam, lanky blond a pre-Med at UDub, who had been out on a camping trip. He seemed very out of sorts, a little desperate. He kept saying he had to get out of here—he had an orgo final next Tuesday. He couldn't be stuck here. He kept repeating it like a mantra. Zane would be surprised if UDub still existed. The boy seemed a little disconnected from reality.
He wasn't the only one. There were a handful of high schoolers who stumbled around in vacant shock. There was Annie, who Zane thanked for speaking up, and Annie's mother, who was a software engineer at a big tech firm. She'd been with Raj—a software engineer from the same firm—on their quarterly 'innovation synergy excursion,' which was big tech for corporate retreat, when integration hit. They, at least, seemed adjusted, if a little frazzled. They'd accepted reality; they seemed ready to grit through.
Then there were Cale and Sophie. Sophie still wouldn't look at him. Cale said she felt scorned, but Cale said thanks for the both of them. Zane had always thought he was a good dude, maybe a little too good. Sophie was on to something when she said he had golden retriever energy; very 'ah shucks' kind of guy. If Zane punched him in the face right now, he'd probably go, "Come on, man, why do you have to do that for?"
They seemed a decent bunch. The trouble was they kept looking at him expectantly. Like they expected him to lead them. He sighed.
"Honestly," he said, "I don't want to lead you people. I don't even really care about getting out of here. I just want to fight."
They stared at him like he was speaking an alien language.
"But I realize," he continued, "shitty as they were to you—these," he nodded at Brad and his bunch, "might have been the only people keeping you from the monsters. And I've just deprived you of them. So. You can tag along with me for now. Just keep out of my way, and I'll clear the monsters. Sound good?"
Nods all around.
"You can select a new leader amongst yourselves," he said, waving absently. It was quickly decided Cale would be the new leader. Zane suspected because he seemed the opposite of Brad.
"Alright," he said. "Then stay in the area. You can move around if you see Monsters coming, let's stay close. I'll be back in a few hours."
He might've gone in without prep if it truly was Level 24. But 38… some precautions were in order.
***
In those few hours, he went back and scoured the Goblin's territory for Moon Fruit—he was pretty sure he picked every last one. Then he swept the Crystalback Highlands too, sucking up all the essence he could, slaying every Monster he came across. He left a few crystal clusters untouched for practical reasons.
All that effort yielded him only two levels and change. Still, it could make a difference.
The Fruit he'd retrieved definitely would.
***
He came back and found that the Sacred Binds still had most of their energy left. He'd prepped all he could.
For a moment, he thought a few of them might volunteer to go with him—Cale and Elena seemed on the verge of it—but ultimately, they hung their heads and nodded.
Zane understood how they were feeling, even if he couldn't really sympathize. All this must be a lot to put on someone. At times, he figured a typical person might be overwhelmed.
Zane had the opposite problem: he was constantly underwhelmed. He didn't feel shit. So this place was a kind of paradise. The only times he'd felt the way this place made him feel were one— when he was fighting. And two—one afternoon three years ago, when he'd accidentally taken some mystery pills along with his usual antidepressants, and experienced, for a euphoric ten minutes, what he imagined most people must feel all the time. He wept at a ray of sunlight. It was awesome. Try as he might with whatever drugs he could get his hands on, he could never recreate it.
"Are you sure you'll be okay?" said Cale.
Zane shrugged. "I'm Level 32 now. It's Level 37. Close enough. Should be a good fight."
The answer was no—of course, he wasn't sure he would be okay. What fun was there in that? As he looked over this disheveled clump of survivors, he could see that was what they needed—this assurance. They were so painfully scared of death. Death fucked them up so bad they had a hard time living. It was unhealthy.
Zane had never understood the fuss. He felt no strong way about it, one way or another—which was pretty much how he felt about everything. Death was simply nothing, all the time—it couldn't be any worse than sleep. Certainly it had to be less soul-drudgingly boring than life. If he went out swinging, burning hot, he'd count it as a win.
Cale looked doubtful. "Take care, man."
"You can do it!" squeaked Annie. Zane decided she was his favorite of the bunch.
Off he went.
***
He was more than 90% of the way through his Level. He could feel the warmth of it tingling on his skin. He had a Moon Fruit in his mouth; same trick. This trick would be harder and harder to pull off the higher Level he got—just too rare to be this close to a Level Up. He'd milk it while he could.
Soon, halfway down the length of the cave, the full extent of it came into his mini-map. There was a chamber far out. No minions this time. At the center, huge red dot. It didn't seem so different from the Hobgoblin Chief's lair, at least from a bird's eye view. Only underground.
He got a notification.
𝕃𝕒𝕚𝕣 𝕃𝕠𝕔𝕜: ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔹𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕥𝕙
𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℂ𝕣𝕪𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕝𝕓𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝔹𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕥𝕙 𝕙𝕒𝕤 𝕝𝕠𝕔𝕜𝕖𝕕 𝕚𝕥𝕤 𝕓𝕠𝕤𝕤 𝕝𝕒𝕚𝕣.
He breathed out. So it had sensed him too. No turning back now.