He was without a land to call home but to be completely honest, he was kind of fine with that. He had attempted to save the collection of Dwarven lands that he had based himself in, but that was proven to be impossible. He was ultimately correct to have left it to be destroyed by the Rattan, but a part of him still yearned to fight back against the monsters to the bitter end. That was probably the Dwarven Nature of his Avatar shining through, but the real person inside managed to keep that unneeded and unwanted sense of Dwarven Shame buried away.

He still was on a mission to kill the elusive Vermin-King, that other Player who had allowed the Rattan clans to unite and destroy his adopted homeland. However, that mission was now one of his own choosing, not one forced upon him by the idiot Kings. He was still very upset that so many Dwarves died so horribly or were enslaved, but he did also find a bit of twisted entertainment and mirth at the knowledge that the people who mocked him for not having a beard were now either dead or wishing they were.

After that whole mess and a half, he had left the underground and taken job after job as a hired assassin. Even if he screwed up during his stealthy bits, he was a very high-leveled Player, so if he needed to go loud then there were few, if any at all, that could hope to stop him. However, as he went about completing contract after contract, he began to hear whispers regarding a person whose attire bore an absurd likeness to that of the so-called Vermin-King.

First, he was said to have appeared in the Trelawny Kingdom, helping a band of outlaws overthrow the legitimate government and install the leader of the bandits as the new Queen. Then he was claimed to have been spotted fighting alongside the Beastmen and having aided them in bringing ruin to another domain. Finally, he learned of the person once again interfering in global affairs, this time having been instrumental in not only preventing the fall of the Solusand Dominion but also ensuring its recovery back to what it once was.

The man seemingly would pop around from random place to random place, seemingly with no rhyme or reason to be deciphered regarding the destination he would next manifest at. A bit of minor mental math later, and Morgrim Nobeard had determined the singular thing that united all of the disparate adventures that the other Player had been up to, and the realization of who the Vermin-King was hit him like a freight train.

This was no normal Player that he was aiming to eliminate. This was a Tamer, and not just any Tamer, but THE Tamer. He wasn’t after some random person, he was after the man single-handedly responsible for fucking over nearly every decent Player at one time or another during their history in Neon Genesis Fantasia. The man who had stolen every Raid Boss at least once and before anyone else could get to it, the man who had unleashed the army of monsters and mobs at the end of the game’s lifespan, the man whose rampaging creatures had killed him and, somehow, consigned him to living in this New World.

Vaile. It was fucking Vaile.

When he became aware of that fact, he knew what he had to do. It would only be a matter of time until that bastard came to another monster’s aid, so it would only be a matter of waiting near and around one group of beasts or another until that asshole showed himself. Truth be told, he was already on a mission to shadow the Exterminators as they wiped out a cultist lair when he saw that troll appear and wreck house. Those people stood no chance at all, and they were toyed with as though Vaile had inherited some of the sadistic tendencies of his menagerie of monsters.

He watched and waited patiently as the bastard wiped the floor with those he was supposed to keep somewhat safe and as the Tamer revived literally everyone and everything that had been slain by the hands of the Exterminators. After that, there was a bit of dialogue before Vaile and the cultists’ leader split ways. He stalked that asshole for a while, preparing to deal a single, decisive blow.

He would get revenge for all that had happened, both in the game and in this New World. That bastard had oceans of blood on his hands, even if it was spilled by proxy. He was more than willing to indulge his Dwarven desire for revenge this one time, even if it wasn’t his current mission, not that he had succeeded in that, though.

Unfortunately, he had failed to check his minimap and followed Vaile right into a trap of his own. That was unexpected, but not the end of the world. The cocktails tossed at him rendered him unable to one-shot the asshole of a troll, but a few quick and precise strikes in just the right places would be enough to lay him out. Surprisingly, Vaile met his charge and held him in a tight grip even as he stabbed him in the side. Then things went downhill at a breakneck speed.

He knew this feeling, but he had not expected it. In fact, it should have been nearly impossible to pull off what was happening, especially with the pain that Vaile was likely feeling surge through him. The space around both of them shifted and they fell a few meters, crashing together on… non-sticky webbing? His confusion was his undoing, and in that moment of confusion, he was yeeted across the vast cavern and into more webbing, this time being so sticky that his attempts to free himself merely resulted in him getting more stuck.

The next option was to try and teleport himself out of that situation, but something prevented him from doing so. Morgrim looked around and discovered why he was unable to bail. His eyes nearly burst out of their sockets as he saw the question marks above the colossal spider’s health bar and the other various symbols denoting that he was in the presence of a Raid Boss-class monster. He switched his gaze around after he heard the odd ramblings of that asshole until he saw enough to realize that he was now royally fucked.

He didn’t want this. He didn’t want any of it! He didn’t want to have been taken from his old life and forced into this new one. He didn’t want to have his adopted home destroyed. He didn’t want to have his whole life upended so many times over, and now he was facing one last ‘fuck you’ from that bastard who had started everything. He tried to scream out his frustration, but a sting from a spider or five had removed his ability to do much of anything. He cursed his fate, he cursed God, he cursed everyone and everything that he could before the pain of what was happening to him overcame him.

He had lost everything three times now, and he knew full well that he would never, ever be able to escape the hell that was about to happen to him. And, if he knew those monsters like he thought he did, he knew that his torment would last as long as they could drag it out. He would face a fate worse than any he could have ever feared would happen to him, and there was no one alive who would come to save him.