All her preparations.

All her plans.

They all came down to this.

And as the explosion roared in her ears and the light consumed her vision, Chase remembered.

Four days ago. They'd been on the road to Gnome. Sitting around a campfire far off the side of the road. No refugees tonight, for a change.

Chase was mopping the remnants of the evening's stew from the pot, when she felt a presence behind her. A familiar heat, an odor of rusty metal and leather. Even now, he wouldn't take his ruined armor off.

“Hello, Dijornos,” she said, working the rag to get a pesty cluster of charred grease. “Was there something you wanted?”

“Lots of things,” the big man said, squatting down on his haunches. She glanced up to him, then around the campsite. They were the only two still up... save for Renny, who was watching from across the fire, glass eyes glittering and a question inherent in his posture.

Chase leaned around Dijornos and shook her head at him. Renny relaxed, and got up, slipping into the night.

“Can you narrow it down?” Chase asked. “My feet hurt from walking all day, and I'm really looking forward to getting this done and clambering into my tent. Unless you want to help wash these?” She nodded toward the other cooking implements next to the creek.

“I don't know how,” Dijornos said.

She paused and looked at him.

“My world's different,” he shrugged. “We have machines that handle it. Even the poorest of us have stuff you guys can't imagine. I wouldn't know where to begin if you asked me to hand wash stuff.”

“Would you... like to learn?” she asked.

“Nah. It looks like work.”

Chase bit her tongue, then turned back to her task.

“She's gonna betray us, you know.”

“Maybe.” There was no need to ask who 'she' was.

“What are you going to do then?”

“Hopefully we'll be done before she gets the chance to do that. Once we've found Thomasi her window for betrayal closes. Hurting us then would cost her goodwill with the person she least wants to offend.”

“Sounds good.” Dijornos said.

He shifted, metal easing and rasping against broken metal. Chase fought to avoid flinching. He meant her no harm, she was sure of it.

“Sounds good but I know her,” he said finally. “See... she's what we call a one-trick pony.”

“Please tell me that's not some weird otherworld sex reference,” Chase frowned. He'd snuck a few of those in as jokes, and earned some ire from the companions already during the trip. Cagna in particular hadn't forgiven him for that 'doggy-style' taunt.

“What? Hell no. Hah! No, no. Different kind of trick.” He grinned and shook his head. “Basically it means someone who's really really good at just one thing, and uses it all the time. She'll use it at some point. Even though you asked her not to. And since she knows it'll piss you off, she'll betray you when she does, or shortly after. It's how she works. She's mental like that.”

“There's that chance,” Chase said, staring into the pot. It was as clean as she could get it. “We can't get rid of the risk entirely.”

“What if I told you that we could?” Dijornos asked, eyes gleaming.

And then he told her exactly how PVP worked in Generica.

Four days ago he'd turned off his PVP switch.

Two days ago he'd left the group under a pretext, faking a power-play with a Mercenary skill that didn't actually work that way.

And yesterday the cooldown period had expired, and his PVP flag had disappeared.

Which rendered him and all of his partymates immune to attacks from other players.

He'd left the group.

But he'd never left the party.

She'd gambled on trusting him.

And as the shrapnel from Pwner's explosion struck her and bounced off, as the light blazed and faded, and the normally-eardrum-destroying explosion faded to a dull roar, she knew she'd gambled and won.

WIS+1

“What... what just happened there?” Bastien sounded shaken. It was rare she heard him like that, and Chase turned to answer him.

Then she clapped her hands over her mouth, and fought desperately to avoid vomiting.

She and all her friends, everyone in the party, had been immune to Pwner's bombs.

Speranza and her remaining minions hadn't.

The gore shook her, and she looked away. Distantly, over the fading rumble, she heard Greta retching and that didn't help either.

But with most un-halvenly willpower she held it together.

“Okay, weah still alive. Didn't expect that,” Madeline said.

The dust settled, and Chase felt well enough to risk taking her hands off her mouth. “Player stuff. I think we're fine.”

“What?”

“We don't have those at home,” Renny said. “I'd better explain.”

Something slammed down next to Chase, cracked, and she gasped as pain flashed through her. Without looking, she knew a red number had just burst out of her. “No time to explain! Run!”

And with a creak and a groan, what was left of the ceiling started to come down.

While Dijornos was with them, they were protected from Speranza's song.

They were protected from Pwner's bombs.

But the building collapsing? Well, that wasn't an attack. That was a consequence, and it looked like they weren't protected from those.

Distantly, Chase wondered if that was why Pwner used bombs and overkill. If the collateral was his way of getting around the restrictions. But then she was too busy running to wonder.

Fortunately by this time they'd had a lot of experience fleeing collapsing buildings.

They assembled outside of the compound, ignoring the few fleeing green-mailed survivors. The cellar was still burning, even through the collapse, and by the ashes of their foe's stronghold they gathered and watched it burn.

And with mounting glee, Chase felt energy surge through her, as now that she was finally out of danger, she gained level after level.

You are now a level 8 Gambler!

LUCK+5

PER+5

You are now a level 9 Gambler!

LUCK+5

PER+5

You are now a level 10 Gambler!

LUCK+5

PER+5

You have learned the Slot Machine Skill!

You have learned the Suit Sorcery Skill!

Your Suit Sorcery Skill is now level 1!

You are now a level 15 Grifter!

CHA+3

DEX+3

LUCK+3

You have learned the Bluster skill!

Your Bluster skill is now level 1!

You have learned the Mega-Moxie skill!

You are now a level 9 Medium!

CHA+5

LUCK+5

You are now a level 10 Medium!

CHA+5

LUCK+5

You have learned the Draw Fortune skill!

You have learned the Object Reading skill!

Your Object Reading skill is now level 1!

You are now a level 18 Oracle!

CHA+3

LUCK+3

WIS+3

But as the euphoria faded, her head pounded. Whump, right through her skull. Whump again, the worst headache she'd ever had. Chase sat down, rubbing her head. “What is this?” she whispered. “I didn't see any conditions pop up.”

“You're feeling it too?” Greta asked. “I don't—"

WHUMP.

The noise drowned out Greta's question.

It wasn't a headache.

It was the deafening beat of leathery wings.

We're too late, Chase realized. They had won the battle, but not the war. The dragon had arrived.

And then a furry hand fell on her shoulder. “We're not lost yet,” Cagna said. “We don't have to fight this thing—”

WHUMP.

“We can totally fight this thing!” Dijornos roared, his face radiating hellish glee in the firelight. “We've got a full party! We got ranged, we got healing, we got damage, we got tanks! We can do this!”

WHUMP.

“This isn't a pahty thing,” Madeline pointed out. “This is a raid thing at least! And we don't have numbahs”

Dijornos did a double take. “You know about raids?”

“My fiancee is a guildmastah. Of cawse I know about raids! And we don't have the numbahs fah this one.”

Dijornos' face twisted into a mask of indecision. He looked back and forth from her to the dark spot in the sky. The rapidly growing dark spot in the sky.

WHUMP.

“Run,” Chase decided. “Run!” she shouted again, when they only looked to her.

They fled, heading for the southern wall, and dashing right past a line of porcelain dolls, past them and past the black-veiled figure who stood among them like a giant among children.

“Dragon's coming, Corinthia! Run!” Chase yelled.

WHUMP.

“Command Undead! Go home darlings!” Corinthia shouted, then hiked up her skirts and ran for her life.

“Too slow!” The Muscle Wizaard decided, and scooped both sisters up, tucking one under each arm. Then they were off, and Chase and Greta were stuck with their legs flailing out in front, and their heads staring down at Bastien's loinclothed rump.

“I feel like a pig in the oiled bacon race,” Greta said, and Chase snorted hysterical laughter. More than it deserved

WHUMP. Whump, whump whump whump....

Wind howled past them, knocking Renny off his feet until Madeline caught him with her jaws, flapping her red-painted wings to compensate. The group staggered, slowed as stone crunched and shattered behind them.

The dragon had landed.

Chase opened her eyes, and she and Greta stared back at it.

Four stories tall from head to tail. Green, emerald green glittering in the firelight, as it stared down upon the compound from its perch on the crumbling wall. It surveyed the destruction, and Chase could almost feel the anger radiating from the creature.

Then its horns tilted, as its head shifted and eyes the size of dinner plates narrowed.

As it looked to them.

“Go faster!” Chase shrieked.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” The beast spoke, and its voice was strength and fear and death. It spoke with the voice of a thing that had seen empires rise and fall, and been unimpressed.

“Hell with this,” Madeline said. “Go. I'll see if I can tahk some sense inta him.”

With a clatter she rose on wings of wood and leather, and the great beast's eyes snapped to her... and widened in shock.

“WHAT? HOW!”

Madeline roared.

His answering roar knocked her out of the sky, and the sheer force of it bowled the group over... all save for The Muscle Wizaard and Dijornos, who dug their feet in and braced for all they were worth. Bastien clung to the little halven girls with grim resolution, and for her part Chase and Greta ducked and covered.

“I thought you were going to talk to him?” Cagna asked, helping Madeline off the ground.

“That is tahking! Dragons roah to talk in dragon! It's how the skill wahks!” the little red dragon explained.

“How'd it go? What'd he say?” Renny asked.

“Not good,” Madeline said.

The dragon reared back, and a glow built in his mouth. Corinthia caught up with them and ran past, dolls following.

“Oh hell! Shield Against Fire!” Madeline shouted.

Instantly the air around them shimmered...

...as the dragon breathed flames.

A dome rose about them, becoming visible as the air itself burned, an inferno of sound and fury and heat that pounded upon Chase and her friends. A sea of light, a river of burning that broke and parted around the dome that encircled them.

And when it ceased, the stones around the dome were cracked and bubbling, tar and grit and impurities running and flowing, and what was left of the nearby buildings blazed.

“Manipulate Air!” Renny shouted, and sent a howling gale southward, blowing flaming wreckage away and cooling the stones. “Let's go!”

“Yeah, we'd need more gear to win this one,” Dijornos said. “We'll come back when we're prepared.

But Chase could detect the quaver in his voice.

“You go, I'll draw him off,” Madeline said. “Maybe if we weah him down he'll listen to reason. Renny? Some help?'

“You got it!” The fox hopped on her back, and the two elementalists took to the skies.

Chase considered telling her friends to stay and support Madeline. It was tempting... but she knew she should check it first. “Foresight.”

...Yeah, no. Definitely no. Hoo BOY would that have been a poor decision. Once her ten seconds of horrific vision was up she shouted “Do it! Run!” and tucked herself in under The Muscle Wizaard's arm as best she could.

“Where?” Cagna shouted as they fled.

“Home base!” Chase shouted back. “Get to the alleys, then head to base!”

Five minutes later, the group hauled up short.

Home base wasn't there anymore.

The street lead up to it... and was gone. Simply gone, swallowed into a blackness deeper than the night.

It roiled and churned, a sphere that seemed to envelop the block in a roughly oval shape.

And every so often, deep in the heart of the blackness, came a green glittering glow.

“The dungeon core,” Chase whispered.

“What?” Corinthia asked.

“Something we brought... it's gone wrong. At the worst possible time. Why now? Why is—” Chase shuddered as realization caught hold of her. “The crystal. They were trying to find the crystal. They meant this! This was the crystal they were looking for, the one that the dragon's shadow... oh gods. Oh gods, we brought it here! We're to blame!”

“What are you talking about?” Greta said, squirming free of the Muscle Wizaard's arms.

“It's a corrupted dungeon core,” Chase explained, following her sister to the ground, unable to take her gaze away from the almost-pulsing darkness. “Something went wrong with it, and it was getting worse, but we were too busy trying to find Thomasi and we didn't watch it. We didn't realize what was happening. Oh gods. The divinations even told me it was bad news and I ignored them! What was I thinking?”

“You know, that was the question that I was going to ask you, Oracle.”

The voice was familiar, but so unexpected that Chase's mind blanked for a second.

Slowly, she turned.

And there stood Vitaly, in the lorica of old, a horse-hair-maned helmet atop his squat, armored form.

No, wait.

There was no armor.

It WAS his form, shorn of the coveralls. Metal and pistons and gears and steam bubbling slowly from a boiler where his gut should be. The wax mask over his metal face was cracked and melting, and instead of a mop he held a spear, its bronze blade glowing and traced with numbers in the ancient script.

Behind him eleven more figures stood, some metal, some beastkin. Yubai stood with them, armored and bearing a crossbow twice his size. He grinned and waved.

Dijornos swore, ending a long, vulgar sentence with “—ing sweet!”

“And now I know why a dragon burned my city,” Vitaly said, his voice losing its pretense of humanity.

“He wanted the core too?” Chase said, looking back to the darkness.

“Core?” Vitaly shook his head, drops of wax flicking the ground from the motion. “So much knowledge you've lost over the centuries. That is not a dungeon core. That is only what the new arrivals call them.”

“Then what is it?” The Muscle Wizaard asked.

“Call it what it is,” Vitaly said, leaning on his spear. “That thing you corrupted was once a dragon's egg.”

CHASE'S CHARACTER SHEET

Spoiler: Spoiler

Name: Chase Berrymore

Age: 15 Years

Jobs:

Halven level 12, Cook level 5, Archer level 9, Gambler Level 10, Grifter level 15, Medium level 10, Oracle level 18, Painter level 2, Teacher level 6

Attributes / Pools / Defenses

Strength: 75 Constitution: 44 / Hit Points: 119 / Armor: 10

Intelligence: 73 Wisdom: 138 / Sanity: 211 / Mental Fortitude: 60

Dexterity: 147 Agility: 70 / Stamina: 217 / Endurance: 0

Charisma: 246 Willpower: 61 / Moxie: 307 (353) / Cool: 73

Perception: 145 Luck: 300 / Fortune: 445 / Fate: 53

Generic Skills

Archery – Level 1

Brawling – Level 8

Climb – Level 15

Dagger – Level 2

Dodge – Level 13

Fishing – Level 14

Ride – Level 10

Stealth – Level 19

Swim – Level 7

Throwing – Level 31

Halven Skills

Fate’s Friend – Level N/A

Small in a Good Way – Level N/A

Cook Skills

Cooking - Level 20

Dishwasher – Level N/A

Freshen - Level 12

Archer Skills

Aim – Level 9

Demoralizing Shot – Level 6

Far Shot – Level 1

Missile Mastery – Level N/A

Quickdraw – Level N/A

Rapid Fire – Level N/A

Razor Arrow – Level 8

Ricochet Shot – Level 21

Gambler Skills

Ace in the Hole – Level 2

Ante Up – Level 8

Assess Challenge – Level N/A

Cardsharp – Level 9

Deadly Dice – Level 1

Double Down – Level 1

Gambler’s Fortune – Level N/A

Hold’em – Level N/A

Slot Machine – Level N/A

Suit Sorcery – Level 1

Grifter Skills

Bluster – Level 1

Feign Death – Level 7

Fools Gold – Level 4

Forgery – Level 11

Master of Disguise – Level 15

Mega-Moxie – Level N/A (+15% Moxie)

Old Buddy – Level 7

Pickpocket – Level 21

Silent Activation – Level 36

Silver Tongue – Level 34

Size Up – Level 9

Unflappable – Level N/A

Medium Skills

Bad Fortune – Level 17

Crystal Ball – Level 10

Draw Fortune – Level N/A

Focus Vision – Level 5

Fortuna – Level N/A

Good Fortune – Level 18

Object Reading – Level 1

Palmistry – Level N/A

Séance – Level N/A

Stack Deck – Level N/A

Oracle Skills

Absorb Condition – Level N/A

Afflict Self – Level 1

Diagnose – Level N/A

Divine Pawn – Level N/A

Foresight – Level 46

Grant Vision Level 7

Influence Fate – Level 14

Lesser Healing – Level 51

Omens and Portents – Level N/A

Random Buff – Level 9

Short Vision – Level 17

Transfer Condition – Level 15

Painter Skills

Fast Dry – Level N/A

Painting – Level 5

Teacher Skills

Lecture – Level 24

Red Ink – Level 3

Smarty Pants – Level N/A

Unlocked Jobs

Farmer, Herbalist

Gear

Enrico’s Last Hand

Light Leather Armor