The waystone flashed, and the world shifted—

—and chaos reigned.

The garden burned.

The once-carefully tended groves and green fields studded with flowers were now blazing pyres choked with the bodies of the slain.

The parts of the valley that weren't on fire were choked with red, seething red that Rich thought was blood for a second before he realized that he was looking down on a choked mass of PVP-flagged red names.

Above them, dragons rose and fell and flapped through the skies, striking indiscriminately at those below them. A few figures flew up among them, fighting back, but the flashes of magical spells going off and the volleys of arrows and clouds of gunsmoke made any accurate observation of the fight impossible.

And no sooner had Rich realized what was going on, then the world exploded around him...

...and subsided, as he flinched.

Chuck Waller has attacked you!

Your PK settings prevent all damage!

Do you wish to enable PK for retribution? Y/N?

“No!” Rich roared. He turned, scooped up Midian as she faded in, and ran.

Not flew. Ran. He knew from long experience that the big spells couldn't hurt him while he had his PK off, but they could still push him around, knock him down, or otherwise force him into a bad spot. And with Midian carrying Geebo's egg, collateral damage wasn't an option he could afford right now.

“No, no, no, no,” he chanted, as attacks struck him and slid off or burst around him without any real effect.

It all went well... up until the point it didn't.

The heat struck him like a blast furnace, and he heard Midian shout, shielded her with his body and chanted “Greater Healing!” as her HP dipped perilously low.

“Who dares?” he roared, scanning skyward. That had to be an NPC, but dragons didn't kill other dragons, so hopefully it was just a poorly aimed breath.

And there, wings flaring against the smoke-covered sun, was a large white dragon. For a split-second he thought that the ancestor from Geebo's dream had come to life and somehow clawed its way out of the dreaming to get him, but no, this one was built like a wyvern, with batlike arms and trailing wings.

But worse still, was its face.

The face gleamed coppery in the firelight, copper from the distorted and familiar mask that it wore.

How long have they been holding this in reserve? Rich thought, as he juked left, tucking Midian under his arm like a football and galloping with his other three limbs. And how many more do they have?

“Over here!” VictorVector's voice whispered in his ear, barely audible as the masked dragon slashed downward, missing him with its rear talons but throwing aside six or seven players, sending them in all directions. Some were dead before they hit the ground, others just rolled with it and kept the pressure on, hacking with overlarge weapons, firing off spells, or chanting healing spells as fast as they could.

Pound per pound, the wyvern-like dragon didn't look much larger than Rich. He was pretty sure he could take it, but that wasn't the goal here.

And he was sure he couldn't take it on without collateral. One missed attack, and his PK switch would be on for twenty-four hours. And when that happened, there was no way he'd survive this battlefield.

Let alone his payload.

“Over here!” Came Victor's voice again, and this time Rich could pick out his green arm waving at the edge of the merrily burning central patch of vegetation. The player was wearing respawn boxers, and it took a second glance to confirm that he was the guy Rich knew.

Rich arrowed toward him...

...and ran smack into a wall of force.

“Gah!” Midian gasped, as she hurtled from his grasp, bounced off the wall, and ended up on all fours, shaking her head. “Warn me, will you?”

Rich whirled, taking care to avoid splattering her with his tail. Sure enough, a familiar looking box was forming around him, a box without a top.

Why? Easy enough to get out...

...and then the wyvern descended, roaring.

“White Hot! Burninate!”

“Midian! Wall above!” Rich called out, and a blue, translucent wall snapped into place a split second before the shimmering waves of heat rolled into it, flames following a heartbeat after, so hot that even through the walls of force he could feel the air warm and catch in his lungs.

Coughing from next to him told him that his elf friend wasn't faring so well. “Get ready!” He grabbed her and glanced to the far wall. “Dispel Magic!”

The wall rippled but stood firm. “Shit, shit, shit...” This had to be one of their top sorcerers. Maybe even Boombabe herself.

“Dispel Magic!” Midian gasped, and the wall vanished with a bang as heated air shot out of the box and met the ambient breeze.

Rich ran once more, making it to what was left of the undergrowth in the center. Glancing backward, he saw the white dragon wheeling away, pursued by two smaller dragons. Gone... but not for long, he thought. “Give me a sitchrep!” he snapped to VictorVector, shielding the nearly-nude orc from the rest of the battle with his body.

“Shit's fucked!” VictorVector yelled. “We tried to hold the tomb entrance, but they cored us out of there!”

“Pat and Greg?”

“Inside the tomb, along with everyone who's still got gear!”

“Get on my back,” he said, tossing Midian a Greater Healing and putting her up top as well. “Camo up and stay low,” he advised the Scout.

“Don't have to tell me how to do my job,” the orc grumbled, as he muttered skills and faded from view.

“Then let me tell you how to activate this lightning wand,” Midian told him, offering a short rod with crackling energy around it.

“Now we're talking. Literal tail-gunner, huh? I can do that.”

Rich opened his mouth to invite him to the party, then paused. Victor had his PK switch on. That would flip their entire party to PK as well. He couldn't... not yet, anyway. Not now.

But eh, the man wouldn't lose much if he died. He was already down to his boxers, after all.

Rich nodded. “Midian? Get ready to dispel if they drop walls ahead of us. I'll try a flyby on the tomb, see what we're dealing with. If it looks like we can get through, we'll push in. If we can't, then we'll try to get to a safe spot and figure something out.”

“There's a lot of tries in that, Rich,” VictorVector said, laying down as they took to the air. “Do or do not, you know?”

A fireball exploded around them, and Victor grunted.

“Worry about your own do, and I'll handle the do not!” Rich roared back and soared over the brush, towards the tomb entrance.

The smoke was a blessing in disguise, hiding him from spellcasters on the ground. And his senses were sharp enough to hear trouble coming, even if he couldn't see it. Three times he adjusted his flight to dodge what had to be other dragons and felt the wind as they adjusted themselves to steer away. They were fast-moving, compared to him. But then he was a stone dragon, and his strength wasn't in speed.

He burst forth from the smoke, got a good look at the tomb, and almost died as a hail of force bolts slammed into him. He grunted, gasped “Greater Healing,” and swung back into the smoke, diving low and feeling the air snap and hiss above him as the barrage continued.

Your Fly skill is now level 31!

“No go!” Midian yelled, then coughed and coughed.

Annoyed, Rich cut out of the smoke eastwards, checking his status as he went. Still down a bit but not too bad. But going straight on against those defenses was suicide.

Going straight on...

He was a stone dragon, now wasn't he?

“Hang on tight! Hold your breath! Get off and behind me as soon as you can!”

“What?” Midian called back, her lungs clear of the smoke.

And then both she and VictorVector screamed as Rich dove for the ground.

“Force Shield!” Midian yelled, a heartbeat before his own cry.

“Burrower!”

Your Burrower skill is now level 21!

The earth exploded around him, and he curled outward, tried to shield his passengers from the worst of it. He couldn't tell how successful he was, but he hadn't gotten a death notice for Midian, and that was good.

The dirt gave way around him as he burrowed, eyes slitted to keep grit out of them. He was about half a mile, maybe more from the tomb entrance. And normally he'd worry about exact details and measurements, but here he didn't have to. He had the direction right; he was sure of that.

All he had to do was go until he hit worked stone.

Any other day he'd worry about Earth Elementalists, but there was such a battle raging outside, that between that and the fires he thought that their usual seismic senses wouldn't be of much use in detecting him.

And as he went, he sent an ECHO message.

Message to: Patrick Bayer

>>We're coming in hot. Get someone outside the dungeon to invite us into the party.

PATRICK BAYER: How many?

RICHARD ROYAL: Two, maybe three.

PATRICK BAYER: We can do two, but not three.

RICHARD: You sure?

PATRICK: Positive. We tried having someone leave the party. The tomb immediately ejected them.

RICHARD: Shit, okay. Wait for my signal. We'll need invites the second we breach.

He turned his head, poked it around through the wall, scraping dirt free in a spray. Sure enough, Midian and VictorVector were jogging along behind him. He dissolved the party and spoke fast.

“Midian, we're going to get a party invite when we get through the wall. Accept it and get into the dungeon. This is what matters; this is the only thing that matters. Got it?”

She nodded.

“And me?” VictorVector asked.

“Stay safe. Go home. Maybe log out, man. Bad things are coming.”

“Yeah, fuck that noise. Tell you what...”

VictorVector has invited you to join his party!

“We're going to have to join Pat's as soon as we get in there.”

“Which is why I'll dissolve it after we're through. And for a precious few seconds you'll benefit from my party buffs.”

Rich inhaled and nodded. “No time to argue. Let's do it. Yes.”

You have joined VictorVector's party!

Midian has joined your party!

“Good. Mass Camouflage. Ambush. Now let's fucking do this!”

Rich growled his agreement and turned back to tunneling.

It took less time than he thought... either adrenaline was lending him speed, or the ground around here was more yielding than his usual excavations. Either way he didn't question it, tearing up through the slabs like a breaching leviathan.

Spells blasted into and past him, arrows and bolts thudded into his scales and clattered from the walls, and for the second time today he almost died.

“Greater Healing, Greater Healing, Greater Healing!” he roared, racing toward the back of the tomb, waiting for the inevitable...

Your party has disbanded!

There was too much dust in the air. He couldn't tell who was screaming, who he was clawing into and through, and it didn't matter. All he had to do was clear a path.

Clear a path and send a message.

Message to: Patrick Bayer

>>We're in!

And not a half-second later, came the words he'd wanted.

Father Nosebest has invited you to join his party!

“Yes!”

Midian has joined your party!

And then he was through the dust, and there were four masked figures standing between him and the tomb's door, four figures who were pouring dark bolts of crackling lightning on Pat's mitered form, Pat who turned and fled back into the tomb as red numbers flew from his head.

Four figures who turned as he approached, raising their hands and he was too far, much too far from the entrance, and he knew all they had to do was slow him down for a few precious seconds until the rest of their army in here realized what was going on—

“Time Stop!” yelled Midian.

Seconds that no longer mattered, as the world froze but Rich didn't.

He hurtled into the tomb's door, and the world shifted around him, dumping him into the outer corridor. He lay there breathing hard, and looking at his friends.

Including one he really, really hadn't thought he'd see again.

“It took you long enough to get here,” said Agnezsharron. “Come on. Let us go and dream up a better world.”