I came-to not long after—based on the sun’s position. The same sun that was hovering over the exact same fucking place I’d started my journey into this world at. Again. Also known as: fucking hours away from where I’d just been.

“Fuck!” I shouted, my voice echoing across the woods and hills. Then I doubled over and puked, immediately staining my fresh new sojourner outfit .

“Urgh,” I groaned, holding my head and swaying. “I feel fucking awful. Am I hungover?”

“Resurrection Poisoning,” Rexen said cheerily next to me.

“Huh?” I wondered groggily. “I thought it was Resurrection Sickness? But, goddamn…I feel like I got hit by the influenza truck.”

“You died while having the sickness,” Rexen explained. “So the effect advanced! It lasts longer now! And—”

He smiled happily in my direction.

“ —is far more affecting to your statistics!”

I glowered.

“And how is that a good thing?”

“My brilliant disciple is sometimes…not so bright,” Rexen admonished, shaking his head. “It is exhausting being your external brain at times.”

“Just fucking tell me what you’re talking about, Arjee!”

“My student forgets that revival has negative consequences for most, but my disciple Fati—”

“Fatigue!” I interrupted. “Oh, holy damn hell!”

I checked my notifications–which, I realized, weren’t affected yet by the strange nature of the suddenly extra unhelpful System.

Condition: Fatigued

Fatigue II

• Abilities and Skills suffer -15% efficiency while under the Fatigue II Condition effect.

Because of Fatigue II, Loon’s Bombastic Beatdown Aegis has temporarily reached Tier II effects.

• Strength Attribute increase [+8 multiplied by 150%]!

• Dexterity Attribute increase [+8 multiplied by 150%]!

• Constitution Attribute increase [+8 multiplied by 150%]!

Strength: 63 (Fatigue II)

Dexterity: 63 (Fatigue II)

Constitution: 125 (Fatigue II)

“Goddamn, baby! That Level Up did daddy good! What happens if I die again—Fatigue Three?”

Then I winced, because exclaiming like that made my head throb painfully.

“Seems likely,” Rexen said. “Though, my pupil will also get the Resurrection Curse.”

“Well, that just sounds like superstition,” I said. “What’s the curse’s deal?”

“It cannot be rested away,” Rexen said, nodding as though revealing a profound truth. “Other ailments due to being revived can be, but not this. Resurrection Curses require a healer to take care of. My disciple would be unwise to allow this to happen.”

“Well, huh,” I said, considering. “So, I probably shouldn’t die again before Resurrection Poisoning goes away? How long does this last anyway? ‘Cuz it sucks.”

“Iunno,” Rexen shrugged.

“Of course you don’t,” I said exasperatedly. “Well, shit. I don’t want to die again anyway. But…”

I thought for a moment.

“Arjee…”

“Yes, pupil?”

“You said you’ve got some shinies in that, uh…”

“My cache!”

“Yeah,” I said. “How about we go pay a visit to your little hidey-hole?”

—

The campfire sputtered and flickered, its golden arms reaching out to etch laughter lines on the barky, smiling faces of six woodland ruffians. Slumped around in poses more reminiscent of wind-blown saplings than hardened bandits, they reveled in the swelling song of their own merriment. You could say it was a convivial scene, if you overlooked the fact that they were tree-like humanoid bandits who were celebrating their victorious slaughter of an orc.

The biggest of the bunch, a chap called Yarkle, chuckled like a woodpecker.

"Didja see the look on his face when I stabbed ‘im?" he guffawed, sending a leafy shower of laughter echoing through the trees.

"Oh, oh, what about when I smacked him inna face wiff m’foot?" Bluck, the most diminutive of the gang, waved a twig-like arm in imitation of the event. Ironically, Bluck had the muscle mass of a sapling but hit like an oak tree in a bad mood.

"Like a bug on a windshield," added Crag. In his mind, a windshield was a kind of magical barrier that warded off insects.

They chortled and cackled, leaves rustling like a breeze was playing among them. Not the deepest knots in the trunk, they delighted in their short-term victory, blissfully unaware of the cyclical nature of resurrection available to their orcish adversary.

"I tell ya, boys," Yarkle said, swiping a tear from his eye, "we’re quite the merry band o’ forest brigands, ain’t we? That orc didn’t know what ‘it ‘im."

"Not 'til it hit him, at least," Bluck added, resulting in another round of laughter.

"Yeah, least ‘til Bluck hit him," Crag chimed in, always a beat too late.

"What say we next, lads?" Yarkle asked, picking at a greenish tooth with one rooty finger.

"I reckon we could go rob that elf bakery over in Whisper Pine," Crag suggested, licking his bark-like lips at the thought. “Get us some fresh cinnamon buns!”

Yarkle frowned, a feat that made his face look even more like a gnarled piece of driftwood.

"Crag, elves don't make cinnamon buns. They make…moonberry pies and starflower tarts. We've been over this."

"Right, right," Crag said, shaking his head as if trying to dislodge an errant memory. "I always mix that up."

It was not without a certain sense of irony that Crag was, in fact, correct, and the bakery in Whisper Pine did indeed have cinnamon buns among their scrumptious number. The sophistication of such a wonderfully crafted dessert was not outside the bounds of any baker to concoct—elf or otherwise.

"Besides," added Bluck, "last time we tried that, you got a case of the sap runs from eating too many moonberries."

The whole gang roared with laughter again, Crag included.

"Oh, that's right! I was watering the forest for days!"

Grim, a particularly gnarled specimen with moss growing in his ear canals, grinned.

"Could be we rob the Dragon's Hoard over at Sage Mount?"

"Right. Because that went so well last time," jeered Warty, a smaller bandit whose main claim to fame were the fungal growths on his head that passed for hair. "Didn't we lose half our loot running from a dragon that only turned out to be a lizard?"

"Honest mistake,” Grim grumbled, his white eyes reflecting the firelight. “It was dark, and the bloody thing hissed.”

"How 'bout we raid the Royal Library?" Perry, a vilden with stony protrusions jutting out of his back, suggested. "I ‘ear they got a book made outta gold inn’ere."

"Since when can you read?" chuckled Yarkle.

"Dunno," Perry scratched his rocky head, "but gold's gold, innit?"

—

"Alright," I growled, my voice echoing back at me from the unseen depths of the tunnel, "I've had it up to fucking here with your shenanigans. I mean, I've walked into some seriously dumb shit on a half-baked promise before, but this, oh man, this takes the whole goddamn cake."

Rexen, the ethereal pain in my dick, shimmered and shifted like an over-enthusiastic will-o'-the-wisp.

"Cakes are predictable," he said. "Pie, now, there's an unexpected delight."

"Arjee," I bit out, feeling another headache building in my temples, "if you don't shut up about pie, I swear to God, I'll..."

"Yes, pupil?" he chirped, pivoting around in the cramped tunnel with all the grace of a floating disco ball. "I’m unconvinced of your gusto. You are fabricating outrage. My disciple loves these shenanigans."

With a grunt, I stalked past him.

"Don't test me, ya upjumped nightlight. My patience is thinner than Alpha’s dick right now.”

His spectral form followed, casting an eerie glow over the tunnel walls.

"Ah, student-mine, if it's any consolation, I think the cache might be...um...over there," he offered, pointing down the tunnel with a ghastly appendage.

"Arjee, 'over there' is a goddamn rock wall," I sighed. "Are you just fucking with me now? You’re fucking with me, right?"

His light dimmed slightly.

"Not intentionally," he said, sounding surprisingly bashful for a being without a conscience. "But you know what they say about one orc's wall being another Thaumaturge’s door..."

"Zero people say that, Arjee. Literally no one."

He seemed to consider this.

"Well, maybe they should. It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

I took a deep breath, clenching and unclenching my fists.

"Arjee," I said in as calm a voice as I could manage, "if there isn't a cache full of goddamn wonder at the end of this tunnel, I'm going to...to..."

I didn’t get to finish that thought though because we arrived at the end of the tunnel. A blank, barren stone face met my eyeline, and my anger spiked.

"What. The. Fuck? A dead end?!" I roared, jabbing a finger at the wall of solid stone that confronted us. "That settles it. I’m figuring out a way of removing this Pact, even if I have to claw it outta myself with a fork.”

But Rexen was silent. His form pulsed softly, casting a glow that did nothing to alleviate the darkness of the tunnel. Then, he started to hum. It was a gentle, lilting tune that sounded...oddly familiar.

"Oh, an eeby-deeby here, a diddle-doo there," he sang, bobbing in mid-air. "Below the earth, beneath the booly-wool square. Where the spider-bats fly and the mole rats dare, lies the treasure of the land, right under there!"

I gaped at him.

"The fuck…?"

But as his words died away, a symbol appeared in the air between us. It was intricate and complex, lines and curves interweaving to form an image that was both fascinating and bewildering.

"Arjee! What in the eeby-deeby is this?" I demanded, reaching out to touch the symbol.

"No touchy, pupil!" Rexen warned. "This is very delicate Arcana. One wrong move, and we could be catapulted into the seventh dimension, or turned into beetles! Or worse, end up in a reality where I’m not your master!"

I blinked at him.

"So you are just fucking with me."

He seemed genuinely offended.

"Me? Never! I’m as truthful as a berry in a well!"

“Yeah, that’s not a saying either.”

"Should be," he retorted petulantly. "It’s as legitimate as any other comparative phrase in the common tongue."

"Arjee..."

"Yes, pupil?"

"I fucking hate you."

"I know, pupil. I know."

Despite the irritation threatening to explode out of me, I couldn’t help but stare at the glowing symbol. It was...beautiful. In a mad, crazy, Rexen sort of way. But the real question was, what the hell did it do?

"So," I ventured, "what's the next step here? What's this all about?"

Rexen, the sentient flicker in my peripheral, floated closer to the glowing symbol. “Simple, pupil," he said with an air of importance that did nothing to reassure me. "I just need to..." He paused, tilting his incorporeal form slightly to the side. "Activate it!"

"And how do you—"

Before I could finish my question, Rexen began to bob up and down in an excited manner. Then, he blew a gust toward the symbol. There was a flash of light, bright enough to force me to shield my eyes. When I finally blinked the spots away, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The once imposing stone wall had vanished, fucking…supplanted by an overwhelmingly vast, vault-like expanse. The cavern dwarfed any concept of a room I had ever naively harbored. Its enormity reminded me more of a giant’s bedroom than something that could possibly exist just under the surface of a woodland. The ceiling was a distant, shadowy mystery; its cavernous maw swallowed up the strange light within, rendering its true height an enigma.

In stark, neat lines that seemed to stretch on into infinity, rows upon rows of towering…were those bookshelves? Whatever they were, the cubby holes stretched out longer than several football fields—each one laden down with curiosities. There were peculiarly shaped, luminescent crystals, ancient-looking relics and devices of unknown origins, and scrolls that hummed with an arcane energy. Every item pulsed with a faint, ghostly radiance, as if the very air around them was saturated with untold magic.

And, like a spider sitting in the middle of its web, a colossal black plinth stood as the cynosure of this treasure trove. It was enormous, hulking, and composed of an obsidian-like material that shimmered with a surreal, inky sheen. Its aura was palpable, a pulsing, thrumming resonance of power that echoed off the cavernous walls, a discordant symphony to my already ringing senses.

It was mind-bending.

"Fuck of all fucks,” I muttered. “I’ve wandered into Merlin's basement."

It was sincerely impressive. I never thought I’d say that—especially because I was one-hundred-percent expecting this little trip to be much more dangerous than it was. In fact, it had just been a well-hidden alcove in the ground.

"Arjee…" I began, my voice trailing off as I tried to take it all in.

Rexen was practically bouncing with excitement.

“Behold, pupil!” he exclaimed, his voice echoing around the vast chamber. “The Cache of the Ancients and the Mundane! Isn’t it magnificent?”

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts.

"What in the air-fried, Tardis-throating hell…?"

My gaze was drawn back to the plinth in the center of the room. There was something...familiar about it. A shape, a design, a pattern that was just out of reach of my memories. I frowned, trying to place it. But it was like trying to catch smoke with a butterfly net. My Fatigue, ever the playful minx, was at its games again. Fuck you, Fatigue.

“Arjee, why does that thing look so recognizable?” I asked, squinting at the plinth.

Rexen bobbed over to it.

“Oh, the monolith? It's only one of the most powerful Arcana conduits in existence. Maybe you saw it in a dream? Or a nightmare? Or a daymare? They’re like nightmares but during the day. Very underappreciated, daymares."

“Arjee…” I said, staring with amazement into the doorway. “You grossly undersold what this place was.”