“Greetings to all the beautiful people living beyond the fourth wall. My name is Jumo, and I’m the hero of this thrilling tale. My sidekick Edge is taking the day off to recover from his ordeal in the Savage Garden, so I’ll be your guide during this little trip down memory lane.

  “Just to be clear, this magical interlude with yours truly is intended to be a fun way to review our story so far, especially for people who might have taken a few months off between books. Feel free to ghost me and head right on over to chapter one if the last volume is still fresh in your mind or these chapters from outside the story aren’t your cup of tea.

  “Ok, with that disclaimer out of the way, let’s get this show on the road. Our tale began way back in book one, shortly after the anomaly deep-fried our original bodies and trapped everyone on Ord for the foreseeable future.

  “My good friend Edge had just purchased his puppet and begun his Prison World run, hoping to have the adventure of a lifetime while earning some royalties from his feed. But only a few days after he arrived on the planet, a mysterious disaster struck, shuffling the surface of Ord like a deck of cards.

  “Edge was dead broke, coreless, and on the verge of starving to death. So, he decided to risk it all on one last toss of the dice, exploring some crumbling ruins in the bottom of a chasm that had appeared on the Ivory Plains in the wake of the anomaly. He was hoping to loot something valuable enough to buy a few weeks’ worth of food and shelter but wound up finding way more than he’d bargained for.

  “Hidden within an ancient temple, Edge discovered a rune-bound reliquary—legendary chests containing the rarest cores on the planet. Before he could break the seal, two prisoners appeared, who were planning to kill the poor guy and steal his treasure. He endured a brutal beating, and just before they finished him off, something even worse appeared—a hulking bird monster called a shadowreaver.

  “The monster gutted him like a fish, and it looked like Edge’s story was already over, when the reliquary finally unsealed. Inside was a Unique core, Skill-Eater, which had the power to steal the skills of monsters, men, and beasts. Edge forged a pact with the ravenous lord bound in chains, binding their fates together forever.

  “Using his newfound power, he stole Regeneration and Elemental Blade. Then he healed his wounds and ambushed the reaver, picking up his first Rare skill, Shadow Step, during the fight. He left the ruins and made his way to Puppet Town, fighting some nasty beasts and enduring lethal alien weather along the way.

  “Before he made it to the settlement, a whole heaping pack of shadowreavers showed up and he ran into a hunting crew, which is when your hero entered the story. With my help, Edge kicked the reavers’ asses and evolved to stage one, gaining considerable power in the process.

  “Once we made it to town safe and sound, Trapper offered to let Edge join our hunting crew, if he passed a tag-team training session with a test at the end. He spent some time learning from Trapper, Riller, Violet, Blue, and myself, and got especially close to Sasha, cycling up and gaining new skills at an incredible rate. Matters took a turn for the worse when the two of them ran into a massive lizard called a padamas, which had migrated into the biome in the wake of the anomaly. They got away by the skin of their teeth, while Puppet Town scrambled to deal with the threat.

  “Edge tried his best to keep his new powers a secret, but a vicious bastard known as Warren the manslayer figured out that he had forged a pact with Skill-Eater. He ambushed my buddy on the Ivory Plains, hoping to collect the insane bounty someone had placed on unusual cores. They got into one hell of a brawl, with powerful skills and spellshots flying everywhere. Though it was far too close for comfort, Warren’s tale came to an end and Edge was the one who walked away.

  “While their duel was underway, the mayor of Puppet Town contracted Trapper’s crew to kill the padamas, so we set off together on a big game hunt that doubled as Edge’s final exam. After taking out a pack of monsters called cancerous blightlings, we found the oversized lizard hunting in the far corner of the plains. We set up a trap to kill it in an abandoned farmstead, but before we could finish the job, an even bigger beast appeared—a colossal dino called a garax.

  “The System offered us a quest to kill it, with a reward so good that we decided to go all in, even though the odds were long. We gave it our best shot and got in some solid attacks, but the garax didn’t go down. Just when it looked like we were totally fucked, Edge revealed his secret and brought out the big guns. He used Skill-Eater’s ultimate ability—a little something called Overdrive to save Trapper—who got swallowed during the fight, then finished it off with the spellslinger he’d picked up from Warren during their fight.

  “Thanks to Edge’s decision, we killed the garax and earned our reward, then traveled to the border of the biome to see what we could see. What was waiting for us shocked me to my bones. We thought that the anomaly had swapped bits and pieces of the frontier with the Ivory Plains, but that wasn’t the case at all. Instead, the whole damn biome had been moved to the far side of Ord, plopping Puppet Town right in the middle of some of the most dangerous regions on the planet.

  “We were cut off from the rest of our people, surrounded by unexplored lands, and that was only the beginning of our long list of problems. The magic suffusing the Ivory Plains was about to get a whole lot thicker, and powerful beasts and monsters would migrate in its wake. The residents of Puppet Town had a brief window to grow strong enough to hold our own before a horde of hungry critters came knocking at our door.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “We raced back to town to warn the mayor, then started training as fast as we could. Meanwhile, a hunter named Setna discovered an unconquered dungeon in one of the new biomes—a deadly house of horrors called the Savage Garden. Her crew triggered a quest when they peeked inside and ran into the boss. Whoever killed it would earn a core manufactory for their faction, which was just what Puppet Town needed to survive the ordeal ahead.

  “That was the good news. The bad news was the quest had been shared with the nearest settlement, which wound up being the stronghold of a jailbird gang—a bloodthirsty band of cutthroats who called themselves the Crimson Claws.

  “Trapper’s crew didn’t find out about the quest until Edge’s friend Sakura filled us in while we were hunting a killer scorpion. We raced back to Puppet Town just in time to join the expedition to conquer the Savage Garden, and everyone left for the dungeon the next day.

  “While we were crossing the Ivory Plains, we had to deal with a living lightning storm, and some giant sand shrews that packed quite a punch. We arrived at the dungeon shortly after and began clearing out the monsters zone by zone. Trapper’s crew got split up to handle various tasks. I went into the dungeon to protect Edge, along with Mel the deputy, Tessa the mayor’s personal guard, and two masked monster hunters called Snake and Fox.

  “The first zone was a maze of clearing and trails, with monsters and corrupted pool filling the glades. We killed several tough creatures and Edge picked up some cycles, then we proceeded to the next zone, which we decided to call the jungle.

  “At first, everything was going well, but then we encountered the dungeon’s environmental hazard—a form of magical mist that interfered with our sensory skills. While we were trying to find our way back to the entrance, we ran into one of three elite monsters roaming the Savage Garden—a six-limbed monkey called the gorilla general.

  “We fought with everything we had, but the crew couldn’t handle its howling swarm of minions. We split up and ran for the exit, hoping to live another day. I didn’t find this out until later, but good old Edge stayed behind to buy us some time. He wound up falling into a river and knocking himself out, only to wake up deep within the dungeon’s third zone, the swamp.

  “He was trapped in the depths of a monster-ridden dungeon, but that was only the beginning of our troubles. The Crimson Claws found our base camp the very same day and attacked the expedition. Everyone but Edge and Snake were either killed or driven away, and the jailbirds entered the Savage Garden to claim the manufactory for themselves.

  “While everyone outside the dungeon did our best to survive, Sakura contacted Edge and told him what was happening. That Puppet Town’s only chance of surviving the war that was coming was for him to solo the dungeon’s boss while racing the Claws to claim the prize.

  “The problem was, Edge was only stage one, and he was surrounded by foes who were far more powerful. Before he could hope to kill the boss, he had to grow strong enough to prevail against the legion of nightmares that called the Savage Garden home.

  “His first solo fight was against the elite ape that had attacked us before, but my man had come armed with a plan using Intimidating Roar—a cute little bugger whose avatar wound up taking the form of a chibi version of Edge. It was a brutal brawl, but in the end, he prevailed and secured a badass reward.

  “After picking up a power that let him see in the fog, he was able to stay one step ahead of both the monsters and the Claws. Over next few weeks he hunted and hid, eventually evolving to stage two. He kept stealing skills and cycling up until he was almost as strong as me. Ok, maybe just a little stronger, but don’t tell him I said that.

  “Edge kept delving deeper into the dungeon, then beat the second elite—a fast-healing amphibian with far too many heads that the System called the hydra. Along the way, he picked up his first piece of runic gear—a medallion that made his cold skills even stronger than before.

  “He stayed there as long as he could, keeping the Claws away from the boss. But when they killed the final elite, it was time to make his move. He wound up rescuing Setna and reuniting with Snake in front of the boss’s chamber. One of the jailbirds betrayed the Claws and joined them for the final fight—a hunter named One-Eye who wound up being far friendlier than Edge expected.

  “Together, they stepped inside the boss’s chamber and got ready for the fight of their lives with the fate of Puppet Town hanging in the balance. It wound up being a scarry fucking monster called the Gardener, who was sitting atop a mountain of bones. Before the main event, it summoned 100 monsters and cast a spell that made them go berserk, precipitating a massive free-for-all.

  “When the dust settled, the Gardener took to the field, using a rotating power that represented the changing of the seasons. Setna shattered her core using a skill called Vengeance to get retribution for her friends, but even that wasn’t enough to bring the big bad down. After a frenetic fight, Edge fired his final spellshot and unleashed the skill that had been Warren’s trump card.

  “It purged the chamber of magic down to the last magicyte, including the corruption filling the Gardener’s core. That was when something unexpected happened. Free from the taint, the Gardner wasn’t a monster anymore—more like a ghost of its former self. When Edge entered its core, he had a vision of the past and watched a calamity descend on Ord when the very first monsters appeared.

  “Edge picked up a new Epic domain, Fear the Seasons, which will digest in a couple of weeks. Then the hunters looted the chamber and left the dungeon, having won the manufactory for Puppet Town. There was just one last twist. The dungeon would seal itself when 50 creatures escaped, and anyone still inside would be totally fucked. Monsters came pouring out of the entrance and attacked the Claws outside, and I’m pretty sure that a lot of them died.

  “And that brings us to the start of book three. I hope you enjoyed our time together and all of Edge’s adventures to come. Before I say goodbye, I have a favor to ask. If you are enjoying this series and want it to continue, please consider leaving a rating or review right now or mentioning Skill-Eater to your friends. A story lives and dies by its reviews, and we could really use your help.

  “Edge said to pass along a giant thank you to everyone who has already rated the series. We couldn’t do it without you and deeply appreciate the assistance. With that, our recap is over and it’s time for the story to begin. I’ll see you soon everyone. Take care!”