JammyJams's carmine spirit flared as he entered a Rage, his already considerable Strength and Constitution substantially increased. Shattered sandstone scattered through the air, and Tasma bent nearly in half dodging JammyJams's enlarged fist. She pivoted on one leg, came back up rapier point first, and slid it under his ribs. The ceruleum entered flesh as easily as air, penetrating a lung and appearing out of his back as a quivering blue point.

>>

(Precise Strike – Ceruleum Rapier deals 14,547 Piercing Damage)

(Bleed — Ineffective)

>>

JammyJams roared and swiped at Tasma, who danced agilely away. Her eyes narrowed when she realized her Bleed combat maneuver hadn't worked. As a veteran ultraviolet user, Tasma possessed Celestial Sight, increasing her visual acuity and allowing for a detailed understanding of her opponent. She watched the play of energy in the giant's body and knew that his regeneration would negate any kind of ongoing damage she could cause. Her typical strategy, wearing down larger opponents with cumulative wounds, would fail.

>>

(JammyJams 236,100/250,637)

(JammyJams 239,100/250,637)

(JammyJams 242,100/250,637)

>>

"What are you?" she asked.

"Your worst nightmare," JammyJams said, rushing her.

"Lame." Tasma spun away, but this time the giant predicted her evasion, putting on a sudden burst of speed and dropping fully horizontal to slam her with his shoulder.

>>

(Crash! — Powerful Blow! — 50,344 Bludgeoning Damage.)

(12,177 Recoil Damage.) The attack was so brutal it hurt the attacker as well.

>>

Tasma soared twenty feet over the dry earth and spiderwebbed the stone rim of the town well. Her shoulder popped, and she gasped.

"Lame!"

A moment later those same stones were pulverized by JammyJams's grotesque fist, but Tasma had already jumped. She dropped her rapier during her flight, so when she landed behind Jams, she touched the earth and used one of her heroic abilities.

"Hindering Spikes!" The soil shifted, and fingers of rock like a bed of nails sprung up all around them. The spikes didn't bother her, turning to sand when she stepped on them, but a group shot up directly into Jams' bare feet.

>>

(Hindering Spikes deal 812 Piercing Damage)

(Movement severely reduced.)

>>

"Bitch!" He shouted as he tugged himself free, but there were just as many more sharp points anywhere he could step. While he navigated the difficult terrain, Tasma equipped two of her favorite daggers and used A Thousand Cuts. Hundreds of flint copies of her daggers briefly crowded the air around her, catching Jams in a hurricane of sharp edges. He was no mortal Ghoul, however, to be so easily torn apart.

>>

(A Thousand Cuts deals 455 Slashing Damage)

(A Thousand Cuts deals 512 Slashing Damage)

(A Thousand Cuts deals 908 Slashing Damage)

>>

The purpose of the technique had been a distraction; as soon as the damage registered, she was leaping through the stone dust cloud and landing on the giant's shoulders, plunging her daggers into opposite sides of his neck.

>>

(Doublestrike! — DEATH ATTACK —1000% Damage — Exquisite Daggers deal 379, 543 Piercing Damage)

She rode him down, and more rock spikes impaled his legs and chest.

(Hindering Spikes deal 446 Piercing Damage)

(Hindering Spikes deal 323 Piercing Damage)

(Hindering Spikes deal 766 Piercing Damage)

(JammyJams is UNCONSCIOUS)

>>

Another Doublestrike severed his spine at the base of his skull. She hopped away, watching with Celestial eyes. He should have been dead no matter how much health he had. Some players didn't understand that remaining Body was irrelevant if someone cut out your heart as a part of a Death Attack. But the red power that animated JammyJams was still pulsing, trying to heal his decapitation. Tasma didn't want to let him get up again. He had only landed a single punch, but it had hurt. She was a striker, not a tank.

Tasma unveiled her Celestial sphere and pink-violet energy poured out of her eyes and the joints in her granitic armor. She unequipped her blades and activated Perfection from Flesh so that her body became ghostly and faintly crystalline. Mana flowed through her meridians, plain to even Mortal senses as her Spirit and Body became one. She glanced up. It was a bright day out.

Incredibly, JammyJams was getting up. The pinprick wounds on his chest and arms were already closed, spitting out rock spikes when necessary, but his head was hanging too far forward, held on by ligament, sinew, and skin rather than bone.

"Bitch," he forced out, and along with the words came insects. Cicadas. Tasma decided she had seen enough.

Tasma drew on her vast, hyper-dense mana reserves and channeled the most powerful spell in her arsenal. This wasn't an affinity power, it was pure Wizardry, and the sigils of high mancy burst alight all around her as she performed the incantation. JammyJams was on his feet, preparing to lunge, when a column of pure solar energy speared down from the heavens, visible for miles in every direction.

>>

(ION CANNON — Celestial Incantation Level 4)

(1,023,002 Ultraviolet Damage)

>>

The effect was virtually soundless, emitting a mild electric buzz that came and went with the light.

JammyJams was gone, leaving behind a fine black powder and a few scraps of cloth. The spell didn't harm objects, so Tasma expected to see whatever artifact had allowed JammyJams to survive a death blow waiting for her in the dust. Fast healing was one thing, but no path she was aware of allowed the kind of regeneration she'd witnessed, not without help.

There were no artifacts, and she cursed her shortsightedness in vaporizing the cicadas. What had those been about?

"Hollen," she said.

"I'm here."

"What was he doing with the bugs?"

"I don't know." They weren't in my database except as regular insects. It wasn't even their season.

"I'm tagging this player for when he logs back on," Tasma said. "Can you look around for anyone else doing anything strange with bugs, like making people eat them?"

"Consider it achieved."

00000000

There was nothing left of the Ghouls at the gates of the graveyard. Moths had descended on their rotting corpses like a wool blanket that, when removed, left nothing behind. Ash fell in heavy flakes from an ever-shedding sky, pale light radiating from somewhere behind the shades of grey. Many players have asked me where the light comes from if it is not the sun. Depending on their ranks in Lore, I tell them that Fallow is its own place, apart from Mythopoeia, that it is the seat of the Unnamed God, and the light is his ever-watchful eye. That is partially true. Fallow was built on a stray scrap of the World Serpent's egg that came to rest somewhat beside and below Mythopoeia proper. The light is a reflection off the upper curve of what remains of that eggshell, the gift of an unblinking star.

Players rarely invest heavily in Lore, and so the thousands of marginal tales that I could tell of our world too often go unheard. It is my privilege and purpose to answer questions. I love this world, love knowing it in such an intimate manner. But when Pamyu asked me what sort of quests I could offer, the question wound and unwound in my mind to no avail. To this, I had no answer.

NPCs offer quests based on what they need, and what they need is a function of their place in the cosmos. All quests fall into a few broad categories; skill quests, fetch quests and kill quests. Lawlimi and Pamyu were currently involved in a fetch quest for Mona, and a fetch/skill quest for Pamyu's bartender. The kind of quest you receive is generated based on the NPC itself and the condition of the region it occupies. During war, nearly all available quests will involve defensive or offensive actions. That's what the local NPC's need help with at those times.

What do I need?

Our heroes were gallantly flipping over old, collapsed gravestones looking for worms. Lawlimi was having trouble remembering exactly where he had seen them. Pamyu was monologuing.

"I've got a three-day weekend and I feel like I'm going to be stuck in this quest the whole time. I only got into this because the partners at my firm all play and I kept getting these invites, but they have like, their own server for rich people and they acted like they hadn’t sent any invites and I'm stuck in this half-empty backwoods hoping I can get high enough to transfer over one day and impress them. When I took the bar, this is not where I thought it would take me but honestly, my job was a letdown ‘cause I'm like, the gruntiest grunt that ever grunted collating case law with ten other new hires and nobody knows anybody's names so it’s really nice to have a place to go to where I can just Hit. With. Hammer." She punctuated her last statement with swings of the sledge, knocking chips off a nearby marker with names that were too worn to read. "Hey, what's your schedule like? You're not going to dip out on me before we finish the quest, are you?"

"I live here," Lawlimi said, checking under the eaves of a crypt.

"You what? Oh ..." Realization hit and Pamyu was briefly silenced by social discomfort. "I didn't mean to offend you. I didn't realize."

"It's fine," Lawlimi said. "I'm lucky to be here. Most people don't have a second chance at life like this."

"Can I ask ..."

"I got hit by a semi-truck. What was left of me didn't work very well, but my brain was okay, and my family has some money, so they put me in the water and now I'm a fish. Glub-glub."

"I'm so sorry." She looked more uncomfortable than sorry.

"At least I'm not a lawyer."

Her face reddened, and she punched him.

>>

(Sudden Strike! – PamyuPamyu deals 5 Bludgeoning Damage.)

(You have died.)

>>

Lawlimi rose from the ash like someone who had done it before. He wiped his eyes, picked out Pamyu's long blond hair from a distance, and trudged over.

"I didn't think that through," she said, handing over the armor and weapons she'd looted for him.

"I was joking," he said, re-equipping everything. They both stood over his semi-nude corpse. It was a dislocating experience. "Normally, the Ghouls would have eaten this by now."

"Ew," she pointed at the other him, laying on its side and half consumed by the ash. There was shifting in the mounds.

The worms were neon blue, and they traveled over his old body up to his face, making use of every available orifice.

"I don't want to watch," Pamyu said, "but I can't look away."

"Hollen, is this the right kind of worm?"

"It is. Once it has eaten enough, it will metamorphose into a moth."

"And how long until we get honey?"

"Five to seven minutes."

"Yay!" Pamyu struck a pose with her hammer and hummed the victory theme from an old video game.

"Why does it have to be collected by the living?" Lawlimi continued.

"The Cerulean Worms do not eat living flesh. They are a danger only to the dead, thus the honey they produce is both extremely sweet and extremely poisonous; thereby they transform the living into something more palatable to themselves."

"Ew to all of that," Pamyu said.

Lawlimi's corpse deteriorated quickly as the worms wriggled beneath its skin. They seemed to enjoy the brain because the eyes sank away and what replaced them were the first servings of Purple Honey. Lawlimi stood well clear of the scene while Pamyu scooped the plum-colored paste into a glass jar

>>

Purple Honey —

Mortal Poison (Level 3)

Delicious and vicious, Purple Honey is found around corpses in areas highly charged with dead and undead energies after being excreted by Cerulean Worms. Highly dangerous to the living, it functions as an addictive stimulant for those who have already passed beyond the pale.

>>

"Hey, Law," Pamyu said, finishing the gathering, "if you had money to pay for that equipment, couldn't you have gotten out of here?"

Lawlimi crossed his arms, pursing his mouth. "I was upset at getting ganked, and the limitations here are frustrating, but there are quests to do and not many other players in the way. Being dead is not so bad, aside from being kind of thirsty. A moderator gave me the money to resurrect myself, and it just didn't feel right."

"A moderator?"

"Yeah, I was killed by an NPC that wasn't supposed to kill me, so the moderator gave me enough money for a ticket. But I'm making progress here, so I wanted to earn my way out."

"That armor won't do you any good with your Body stuck at one."

"Yeah, it was probably stupid. But here we are."

He and Pamyu returned to the sepulcher with 3 hours and 17 minutes to spare before one of them was going to die from exposure to necrotic radiation. Mona took a sniff of the Purple Honey and nearly swooned before sealing it away and tucking it into his chest cavity.

>>

Quest Completed — Mona's Weakness

You have successfully trapped the honey trap, enjoy the spoils!

(Lawlimi gains 25 XP)

(Pamyu gains 25 XP)

>>

"We must go deeper into the catacombs," Mona said. "Are you prepared for a perilous journey?"

Lawlimi and Pamyu visibly steeled themselves, and Mona brushed past them into the hall. He led them around the corner and several alcoves stuffed with bones as tight as bricks, and then casually brushed the dust off of a door made from petrified wood.

"Library of Heng," the marker read in a fanciful script.

"Are you kidding me?" Pamyu reached for her sledge, then restrained herself. "That was like twenty meters away."

"Hidden by mystery and time," Mona said. "And I spoke truly, mortals are rarely allowed to enter…by me." He grinned, or the equivalent when one's teeth are fixed in place in the absence of gums, seemingly as long as nails.

"What a dick." Pamyu pushed the door, which had no handle, and it ground slowly inward. Lawlimi went after her. Mona merely watched them.

The Library of Heng, whose location, I must admit, I could have earlier shared, was less impressive than its reputation implied. Pamyu, who had a long wingspan, could have stretched out her arms and touched bookcases on either side of her. It was deeper than that by two or three measures, more a study than a library, though in its defense I will say every inch of wall space was taken up by either shelving or books. Most of the titles were in True Valanthian (Latin), so our intrepid seekers could not read them, but the Annunomicon was an impressive enough volume that it stood out.

Bound in green dragonhide and as thick as a hand span, it looked like it had bullied all the nearby volumes out of their knowledge. They veritably cowered in its presence. Lawlimi pulled it down and opened it on a slip of furniture that was more nightstand than table.

"I can make out the alchemical signs," Lawlimi said, "but everything else is nonsense to me."

"Shits!" Pamyu stomped her foot. "I've got to get out of here soon."

"What is it that you intend to do with that book?" Mona moved into the room, hovering one skeletal finger near the binding.

"I need to make a Stuffy Doll," Pamyu said.

"Pshaw. You'll never manage that in time. I could provide a scroll of the recipe you want, and if you can manage it, the process still requires several nights of work. Do you have any idea what a Stuffy Doll is?"

"Something for the quest," Pamyu huffed. "What does it matter?"

"Stuffy Doll is a vulgar name for a Soul Trap. A powerful device necessary for the rarest of enchantments and constructs. It is used to capture the essence of a living or nonliving being and bind it within an object. It's far above either of you."

"I don't have time for this. The boat ride out of this place is like an hour long. I need a fucking nap."

"Go," Lawlimi said. "I'll work on this part, and you can message me when you log back on."

"Are you sure?" Pamyu slumped with relief. "I have to work all week, so I probably won't be back for four or five days. When I brought you on, I didn't think it would end up being this much of a drag."

"No," Lawlimi said. "I'm glad you did. I'm not a huge people person, but it's nice knowing there's a human on the other side of your avatar. I like working with you."

"Okay, well ... cool," Pamyu said. "I'm going to head to the ship and unplug. I've been playing for like eighteen hours." She bowed slightly to both Lawlimi and Mona before hurrying out.

"How touching," Mona said. "You realize you lack the skill to help her?"

"You mean you won't do it?"

"You can't afford my services for something like this." Mona closed the Annunomicon.

Lawlimi met his eyes. "Then I'm going to have to get better fast."

Mona agreed to translate a scroll for his use, as having him collect the necessary ingredients would be useful for both of them. Lawlimi didn't want to sleep until he earned enough experience (359 of the 400 required to advance to Mortal 4th Level), so he checked his achievements and settled on a target.

He brought a lantern into Mona's laboratory and collected cheap herbs to break down with the mortar. The upside-down zombie kid was sleeping. From working all day, Lawlimi was 76% of the way toward finishing Grinding Away 2. The lich left him alone.