Pinnacle of Malice

  I was sitting on a bench in a park, eating a sandwich. It was chutney and cheese with red onion. I’d got it from someone in the Lounge group, since they were the only ones who had things like chutney and onions. I had been fucking starving, and now that my near-constant state of terror had passed, I savored the sweet-and-salty meal with pleasure.

  I had my left hand on the back of the bench, and I was simply trying to clear my mind from the troubles of a hard day. If not for the fact that I was staring into an endless abyss of what I was becoming increasingly certain was the gaps left between realities, it could have been a perfectly ordinary Wednesday. For someone else, I mean. Someone who touched grass back on Earth. And, of course, the park itself was nothing like anything on Earth. The purple-silver trees had begun blossoming over the last 45 minutes, and the flowers were luminescent green.

  Still, it was nice to have a moment for myself where nothing was imminently trying to murder me and I didn’t have to solve an impossible problem under a tight and literal deadline. I took a deep breath and attempted to find beauty in the abyss I was gazing into.

  “The waiting is the worst part, isn’t it?” Clarence said, as he sat down next to me. I noticed that he had managed to patch up his old suit. There were now patches of cloth sewn onto his elbows, and tears fixed with mismatched thread, but he still managed to retain that stiff, well-dressed Earthling aura that he had come into the Tower with. I moved my arm out of his way and sat forward.

  He was saying almost the diametric opposite of what I was thinking.

  “I guess it must feel that way for you,” I said. He looked at me, and shook himself.

  “My apologies, Mr. Vorhal. I really didn’t consider your position in this whole endeavor. I suppose my experiences must seem very cushy indeed for you,” he said.

  “God no. I’d have expected you to go mad stuck in that tiny room with that many people. I think I would have,” I said.

  “It was a near thing a few times, I am embarrassed to admit,” he said, “There is just no assortment of sleeping schedules between two hundred people where fewer than a dozen people are snoring. Quite loudly if I might add. I could be much more sympathetic about the screams and night terrors, but that didn’t help morale either.”

  “Well, you did get mortal peril to shake things up after all,” I said.

  “I am being perfectly sincere when I say that I much preferred it to the waiting,” he said.

  “Trench warfare psychology,” I said. He paused for a moment, struggling to find my meaning. I should really stop making references nobody that is not in my head would ever have a chance of guessing.

  “I assume you mean that the young men in the trenches waiting for weeks if not months would feel relief in the order to charge, even if it meant almost certain death and they knew it? A strange comparison to bring up in this instance,” Clarence said.

  It was at this point that I noticed that Will walked past us for the third time, taking a brief pause, but not joining in the conversation before moving past us.

  “That’s not like you, Will, come, join us,” I called out to him, and he looked up to me. There was a rare uncertainty on his face, and what looked almost like pain, “You alright, man?” I added when I saw it.

  “Yeah. No. No, not really,” he said, as he sat in the space between us. He was still in his gleaming plate armor, though his frog-face helmet was apparently stored somewhere else.

  “Talk to me,” I said.

  “I- No, I don’t know where to start. Just distract me,” he said, and collapsed, his elbows hitting his thighs with a clank.

  “Nope. Talk about your feelings now, nerd,” I said. He chuckled weakly.

  “It’s- It’s all of this. It’s also how you seem to be alright with it, but I mean, fuck, dude. People died. People I’ve been friendly with. Now we’re in some nightmare realm. I was in a different fucking genre before we met up,” Will said. I felt dread in the pit of my stomach. I might have been angry about it, because I did think he was blaming me. But that’s not who I was. I was afraid that I was losing a friend. And who could blame him. People kept dying near me.

  “It isn’t- I haven’t done anything. I didn’t mean it to go like that,” I said, stumbling over my words.

  “God, no, sorry, Alex. That’s not at all what I meant. If anything I’m so fucking mad that you and Anna have had to go through shit like this the whole time. It’s just- For me, this was a dream come true, except for not knowing where Jess and Junior were it was like a high adrenaline vacation. Then, suddenly dark elves crucifying my friends to death and toads crippling others,” he said. He’d turned to me and looked me in the eye so that I would see he was sincere.

  “Shit. No, yeah, sorry for making it about myself. How is Sarah?” I said.

  “Adam was right. She didn’t heal right. The bones will have to be re-broken and then, I don’t know. Maybe she can walk through her pain on some splints for her ability to kick in, maybe we’ll need to find a better healing ability,” Will said.

  “You’re a hero, man,” I said.

  “Fuck off,” Will said.

  “I mean it. The only reason your group didn’t go through the shit we did in the first challenge was you. You’ve been talking about how you protected them from the jump. The horrors are just too big for you now and you’re struggling with the rest of us. But you’ve done so much for so many people. You should be proud of that,” I said.

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  At that Clarence coughed.

  “What?” I said.

  “Is it really so difficult for you to see how someone clearly heroic would have a difficulty accepting the descriptor?” he said.

  “Oh not this again. If you recall we did go through the horrors in first challenge,” I said.

  “More than twelve hundred survivors in a challenge designed to leave no more than a thousand alive. And what was your title again, Alex?” Clarence said.

  I was about to respond with something clever that would prove how it was obviously different when I felt a tug through my spell-senses. I realized I had so many tenuous arcane connections- the party ability, my connection with Chum, information from the HUD- that it took me a moment to guess where the tug was coming from. Only when I focused on it I recognized it. The Mind Worm I’d left in the dark elf had finally grown to maturity. The spell was ready to transport my awareness inside him.

  “Oh, sorry, this really cannot wait,” I said, and entered a trance that transported me to a different place. For a moment I felt like I was falling upwards. Then, I was someone else entirely.

  I, Savirak stood at the edge of the pit of sacrifice and felt rage boiling through my veins. The promise of this Xem and his Journal was filled with tricks and games that I, Savirak did not have the time for. I, Saverak felt the new power taut in my enhanced muscles and nerves, but the progress had slowed down miserably by now. If it had not been for the convenient ability that allowed me to raise my attributes high early on, I, Saverak would have had trouble surviving against the monsters and so-called heroes of this demiplane without the assistance of my entourage. It was beneath my station as Dauphin of a whole world to resort to gaming the mechanics of this new demiplane for mere survival.

  I, Savirak looked to my left and my right and saw my aides there. Laur’Kith to my right was a scholar and a poindexter. If not for his competence in discovering the mysteries of this Journal, his presence would no longer be needed. To my left, Anun, my beautiful consort. They would stay by my side, of course, in war as well as in peace.

  The portal opened once more, taunting me. I, Savirak had learned on my first day here that the portals that brought us here did not work the other way. Indeed, no way to travel away from this place had been found by Laur’Kith, and so it was safe to assume it was impossible. But supplies from home still came, so long as my family could afford to pay the arrogant fool atop this Tower his tariff. And so, a thousand dwarf-slaves were pushed into this demiplane into the vast pit beneath.

  I, Savirak drew Lanathil and Zyrcor, my twin twilight blades and leaped into the arena in a high, beautiful somersault, landing on my feet among the unwashed, stunted men and women there, even as their own Journals were materializing in their hands.

  The dance of death was beautiful. My enhanced strength allowed me to slice through the flesh and bones of the fat race with such ease that my wrist didn’t even feel an impact. My speed was such that the blood from my first kill hadn’t even hit the ground before the tenth was taken. I reveled in the smell and the taste of what was my right. And I, Savirak, killed a thousand of them in less than five minutes. As soon as the performance was completed, I, Savirak flipped open my Journal

  Traits:

  Murderer (19): Who’s a wonderful little over-achiever? You are! You have gained one additional attribute point, but I’m sure you knew that already. Requirement to Murderer (20) 0/1000.

  The Journal had stopped increasing the number of kills required some time ago. I, Savirak flipped over to my attribute sheet and I circled ‘Physique’, to increase it once again. And it did not work. Confused and furious, I, Savirak tried all of the attributes in order. My capacities were certainly high enough.

  “Laur’Kith!” I, Savirak called, “I am unable to increase my attributes.”

  “It was inevitable, eventually. The realm is yet new. There are limits to how much this fresh magic can improve a body, my Lord” Laur’Kith said.

  “So we were cheated by the wizard! He promised infinite power!” I, Savirak said.

  “Unlikely. I expect that it is simply a matter of time. In a few weeks the ceiling shall be raised, so to say. And we have many weeks to work on your great work, Lord” Laur’Kith said.

  “I shall not sit idle while there is power to be gained. Advise. Now,” I, Savirak said.

  “Skills, I suppose. Those are the abilities with the least magical investment. I would guess that any skill under level ten could be advanced to that point without delay, my Lord,” Laur’Kith said.

  I, Savirak, turned my thoughts inwards. And with a new fury, I, Savirak found an invader therein. What worm would dare… it mattered not. I, Savirak, squished the Mind Worm in an instant with a powerful burst of-

  I snapped back to reality with a jump and a deep breath, feeling as if I should have been crushed like a bug. I took several deep breaths, and the friends next to me had become concerned, and so I calmed myself with an effort of will.

  “I think I thought of something that might make you feel better,” I said.

  “Cloudberry Negroni?” Will said.

  “You know how they say revenge isn’t going to make you feel better? I’d like to see if it’s true. I really fucking want to kill that Savirak bastard,” I said.

  “Not exactly heroic,” Will said.

  “Fuck heroism. That son of a bitch won’t hurt anyone ever again once we’re done with him,” I said.

  “You know what? You’re goddamn right he won’t” Will said.

  Then there was a crystalline pop and a hiss from behind us. We turned as one to look toward the seal that Adam had been working on. The cylinder spun and turned like one large mechanism, and it turned open like a camera lens. And behind the opening there was the same sort of mist that we’d seen at the entrance of our first dungeon.