I swiped away the text about Devour Mana's Tier 3 evolution and something about an accomplishment as I stared at the man in bone armor.

Clouds blotted out the stars and the night was so dark I could barely see him. He stood in a tall doorway, most of his body and features shrouded except for the high cheekbones, nearly white eyes, and the lines of someone else's bleached white ribcage he wore around his chest.

He seemed to drift closer rather than walk, his long face and white hair slowly taking form. A breeze drifted from the doorway behind him, carrying the scents of death and decay. To his right, I saw his abomination step out of the darkness, its body so wrong my eyes couldn't quite make sense of it all at once.

Same pet as last time, then.

But unfortunately for this asshole, I had basically maxed myself out within this tournament since we last met. Even then, I'd gotten a piece of him.

He drifted into full view now, yellow and black teeth bared in something resembling a smile. He seemed taller than I remembered. Almost so tall it felt wrong to think of him as a human. "Hello, again," he said in a whispery, low voice. "I think I will add you to my pet when we're through here…"

"And I think you'll be the perfect person to test a theory on," I countered. It wasn't just idle shit talking, either. I'd been looking for a chance to try something out. Something that I'd been wondering about ever since the idea struck me yesterday.

"A fellow man of intellectual curiosities, then. What theory do you wish to test?"

"Let me win and you'll find out."

"Hah," he barked the sound, but there was no humor in it. It was all oil. Even his voice felt like it sunk inside me, tainting my blood. Shadows from all around the courtyard seemed to darken and pull inward toward him. There was a feeling in the air that I realized wasn't all that different to when I'd been around the lich ages ago in the infested ruins.

Forsaken magic… Whatever this guy was involved in, it felt like forsaken magic.

But I'd already faced so much just in this tournament. So much, in fact, that it felt somehow wrong to be able to look at this Level 50 Iron Rank necromancer without flinching. I knew I could die here tonight, but I didn't feel fear. I only felt a kind of tingling readiness and anticipation that ran bone-deep.

I had my entire kit at my disposal again, and I had proven I didn't even need every last ability or item to punch above my weight class.

The realization settled on me like a strange weight.

I wasn't afraid because deep down, I knew he was the one who should've feared me.

I reached into my slip space and summoned my Silver Scream Bow to my hands, drawing an arrow loaded with my newest potion. It was a nasty mixture called Hungry Dark.

I nocked the arrow, holding my bow at the ready but not drawing yet. Then I split my focus, mirroring my Silver Scream Bow with Forge Echo.

The green and ghostly copy of my bow bounced to the left, taking up a flanking position and aiming for Ashmore. Unlike me, my Forge Echo drew the string back, arrow poised and ready to take flight at a moment's notice.

The necromancer didn't even look at my echo. He just kept drifting toward me with a slow inevitability. It was almost hypnotic in a nightmarish way. His feet definitely weren't moving. He was hovering an inch above the ground, bare white toes dangling on a shifting cloud of shadow. "Arrows?" he asked. "That was your plan?"

"Part of it," I said, waiting. The truth was, I had plans on top of plans. I thought there were a dozen ways I could handle this fight, and I was simply starting with the safest, lowest risk option. If it failed to take the bastard down, I'd keep adapting.

My eyes flicked to either side of Ashmore as I felt movement.

The corners of the courtyard darkened until it felt like a wall of blackness was gathering around us. Even the sounds around me seemed to dampen and grow muffled, as if we were underwater.

Shapes darted toward Lord Ashmore like the shadows of hundreds of birds flying overhead. Each shadow rushed into the cloud at his feet, seeming to climb up his body and darken him as well.

He extended his right hand and a scythe of pure darkness formed there. so black it was impossible to make out a single detail except the thing's shape. He gave it a swipe. The weapon left a black smear on the air that slowly writhed and spread, almost like an infected wound. It faded after a few seconds, but the message was clear enough.

Don't let him touch you with that thing. Got it.

Ashmore apparently wanted to talk more. "I had hoped for a more spirited—"

I tuned him out, drawing my bow as I vaguely remembered how I'd found it hard to fully pull the string back when I first acquired this weapon. Now it was almost effortless. I was more worried about breaking it by pulling too hard. I closed one eye, smiled, and then jerked the bow to the left at the last second.

Thwack.

A split second later, another thwack sounded as my Forge Echo got the message and fired into the pet.

Lord Ashmore had a split second for his surprise to register before the arrows whispered through the night and punched into his "pet".

Both arrows landed dead-center, and dark liquid began pumping from the arrows, spreading over the huge creature that was easily ten feet tall and seven feet wide. It was like a walking house, and I—

Lord Ashmore made a beckoning gesture and the arrows were plucked from his pet with a wet slurp sound. Fingers of shadow held them in mid air, then snapped the fragile glass shafts, dropping the remnants to the ground.

The abomination shook off the bits of black liquid, then punched out with both hands toward my Forge Echo, which was closest to it.

Ropes of gore and blood exploded from its huge hands, wrapped around my Forge Echo, and then condensed. Green magic hissed from the bubble of carnage as I felt my summon vanish.

The loss of a summon, I'd learned, came with a mana cost that was far greater than unsummoning it myself. Nearly a quarter of my mana was gone the moment it failed, and I quietly cursed myself for not seeing that coming and unsummoning it first.

The rope of gore slowly retracted like a horrible tongue that dragged across the dirt toward the abomination's hands. It turned toward me and began walking.

Well, shit.

I had plenty of time to take in my surroundings while I was playing dead, so I didn't waste any time. I backpedaled, jumped over the frozen, wide-eyed guy I had stabbed the shit out of, and ran toward the far wall.

Lord Ashmore laughed. "Lost your nerve already, have you?"

Just getting the high ground, I thought.

Even with my back turned, I could sense Ashmore and his pet easily enough. Ashmore himself was bathed in magic, and my Mana Sense passive made him feel like a beacon I could've pointed to with my eyes closed. The abomination was similar, but less "bright".

I ran straight for the closed front gate, and then when I estimated the time was right, I began summoning a staircase of Mana Shields, taking them in huge leaps that quickly brought me upward toward the top of the wall. Thankfully, Mana Shields only took on the "Reflective Barrier" characteristics if I summoned them a certain way, so I wasn't launched several feet into the air when I stepped on these.

In just a few seconds, I was on top of the wall and looking down at a row of several floating sheets of blue glass-like mana. Lord Ashmore stood at the bottom, tilted his head, and then spread both arms out wide. The shadows at his feet coiled and churned, lifting him upward with apparent ease.

Damn. Floating was one thing. But this bastard could fly.

I summoned Deborah using Awaken Mana. The praying mantis with flowing blonde hair appeared right where I told her in the middle of the Mana Shield staircase with a flash of green magic.

I dismissed the lower steps then created a pathway for her to use to reach the floating necromancer.

One moment, there was a single diagonal slash of Mana Shields leading from the courtyard to my position on the wall. The next, It was like a horizontal ramp extending straight toward the floating shape of the necromancer.

Deborah screeched with glee and began jumping toward him, one Mana Shield at a time. I went to my knee, nocked another arrow of Hungry Dark, drew, and then fired it at his abomination, which was using a ramp at the far side of the keep to make its way toward my position.

Ashmore looked toward his pet, but Deborah was flying through the air, scythed arms reared back as she flew in.

Teeth bared, he jerked sideways mid-air, scythe slashing through the air upward toward Deborah. But I placed a Reflective Mana Shield directly in his weapon's path.

Normally, the Mana Shield would've been strong enough to withstand the relatively light attack. It did knock his scythe back, twisting his body as he bared his teeth in annoyance. But his weapon also seemed to infect the shield, spreading black tendrils through its shape until it decayed and crumbled in seconds.

Deborah used the momentary distraction to land on his face, though. She slammed into him at full speed, scythed arms already slashing and stabbing at his back and neck as her blonde hair flowed in the wind.

Ashmore made a sound of annoyance as he tried to peel the insect from his face, but I knew Deborah well enough to know that was going to be pretty much impossible unless he managed to kill her. She was a tenacious woman. Oddly beautiful, even, when she was in her element and hacking at an enemy like this.

Even though she was half the huge necromancer's size, he was having trouble doing anything as she crawled on him, drawing black blood as she cut into his skin again and again. Every time he reached for her, she slashed at his arms, but then I felt a huge gathering of mana.

I realized all the blood she was drawing wasn't gathering on the ground. It was turning black and smoke-like mid-air, then drifting back toward Ashmore.

And then all the sound seemed to go silent for a split second as the collection of mana reached its peak. With a sudden, deafening sound like thousands of bats rushing from a cave, shadows flocked upward and caught Deborah from below.

She was torn to pieces in an instant, ichor and pieces of her body flying before the magic dissipated.

Once again, I'd lost a summon and about a quarter of my mana.

Fuck. He was tougher than I'd anticipated. Easily stronger than the elites I'd faced at the end of challenge dungeons. He was more like a Forsaken, I thought, meaning his actual power level was probably comparable to a Silver.

That just meant I had to try harder.

I already had my third and final arrow nocked and my bow drawn. It was time to try something in combat that I'd only practiced on trees. I knew I could do it about half the time without breaking the arrow. But I could tell the asshole was simply going to pull some bullshit to block my shot if I didn't try.

With a breath, I dismissed every Mana Shield and mapped out the plan in my mind quickly. If this was going to work, I needed every shield I placed to be precise and my shot had to go exactly where I was planning.

Lord Ashmore smiled, drifting toward me as black blood bubbled from a wound on his leg and chest. To the side, I could see his abomination was slowing by the second as more and more of my Hungry Dark was pumped into it from the Silver Scream arrow. Ashmore noticed at the same time, turning to the side to magically yank the arrow from his pet again.

As soon as he turned, I let my arrow go.

But I didn't aim for his chest.

I aimed for a spot several feet above his head.

Ashmore turned back toward the arrow in alarm, but then relaxed as he saw the arrow's trajectory. It was a miss. A wide miss, even.

But then I began summoning a series of Mana Shields in a careful arc. Each was small and the angle was as carefully set as I could manage. Every shield was just large enough and tilted just right to catch the arrow mid-flight and subtly alter its path without slowing it too much or shattering it in the process.

Every Mana Shield changed the arrow's angle of flight by mere degrees, but one after another, I curved it down sharply.

It all happened in less than two seconds, and Ashmore only had time to look upward, eyes opening a tick wider.

"Ugh." The noise slipped out of him as the arrow punched into the base of his neck. He staggered, shadow scythe flickering in his hand as he sank several feet, his magic threatening to fail completely.

Yellow acid pumped from the arrow, sizzling and burning flesh. Acidbloom, this time.

He looked down, eyebrows furrowing as he lifted a hand to reach for the arrow.

I summoned a Mana Shield, blocking his arm from lifting.

More acid pumped into him as he fell to one knee, the cloud of shadows at his feet flickering more intensely now. His abomination was still coming, but it, too, seemed to be struggling. Now it was freezing, as if its power source was failing and it wasn't only struggling from my Hungry Dark potion.

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He coughed black blood and yellow acid, features curving as the acid burned part of his face on the way out.

Now or never, I thought. I ran toward the open space between us, jumping high and summoning a Mana Shield each time I was about to land. In several strides, I covered the distance and jumped for him, summoning an Elemental Spike made from Acidbloom at the last second.

I felt a little like Deborah must have felt as I jumped from the last Mana Shield and sailed through open air with the prospect of landing on a necromancer being my only hope of not crashing to the ground fifteen feet below.

I wrapped my legs around his torso as I came in fast, both hands gripping the magic dagger as I stabbed into him again and again.

The impact of my jump knocked him backward and we both began falling toward the ground—him back-first and me straddling him and stabbing wildly as we fell.

Acid sprayed everywhere, several bits even burning into my armor and skin, but it all happened too fast for the pain to register.

One moment, we were falling fast. The next, blue light flared bright.

His stasis had triggered, stopping our fall mid-air and nearly slinging me off his body that was now slick with magic that had the same texture as wet glass. But I clung on tight, dismissing my spells as I put all my focus into threading my fingers tight around his torso, holding on as I waited.

Come on… work…

And then…

Lord Ashmore's immobilized body began to drift upward toward the airship. And I was clinging to him, floating upward, too.

It worked.

But it wasn't the time for that, so I let go as he was beginning to gain speed, falling almost ten feet and hard enough to jolt both legs. I smiled through the pain as I washed it away with Devour Mana.

It actually worked… my brain was churning with how I could use this and weave it into the full plan. But then the sound of something wriggling in the dirt reminded me I still wasn't alone.

The guy I'd immobilized before was squirming around, using what little freedom of movement he had from my potion to slowly but surely make an inch or so of progress per minute. He'd successfully traveled about three feet since I left him there, leaving a pathetic, curving and jagged trail in the dirt.

I walked toward him, getting a better look at him now that things were a bit calmer. He had pale skin, sunken cheeks, and hollow eyes with flowing black hair that was clumped with grease.

He saw me coming and froze, then almost comically closed his eyes as if pretending to be unconscious or asleep.

I knelt by his side. "Listen," I said. "First of all, calm down. You know you assholes can't even die in here. So stop being dramatic. I also know you're not asleep. I just saw you trying to escape like a worm."

The man slowly opened his eyes, staring up at me. Everything but his head was wrapped in a thick black substance. "What do you want from me?" he asked.

"You saw what I just did to your boss, right? I didn't even use all the tricks in my toolkit to do that. Understand? That was Plan A."

Technically, it had been more like Plan B or Plan C. But he didn't need to know that.

"I had plans all the way down to Plan F," I continued. "Honestly, it was kind of disappointing. I expected him to put up more of a fight."

"What. Do. You. Want?" the man grated through yellow teeth.

"You know things about this tournament, and don't bother denying it. I've been asking questions the last few days. I've heard it from two different nobles who were highly motivated to tell the truth. They both mentioned you. And that's why I came here tonight. Not to beat him. I came to collect you. So you can be my cooperative little necromancer worm, or I can eliminate you, too."

"Why wouldn't I just let you eliminate me now? Why should I help you?"

"Did you see that part where I hitched a ride on your boss for a second there?"

His forehead creased. "Yes…"

"Piss me off, and I'll ride you up to that airship," I said, pointing upward without looking away from him. "Now maybe you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming the stasis only stays active until you get up there, right? So if I ride you up there, I can finish you. Really finish you…"

His throat bobbed as he swallowed. "They would kill you for that."

"I'm pretty sure they want to kill me either way. That's the other reason I'm going to be needing your help. I've got a plan, but I need some more information to fill in the gaps."

"Just kill me now," he said, face hardening and eyes closing. "Do what you must. Death is better than I deserve for the things I've done."

I rested my forearms on my knees as I stayed crouched by his frozen form. "Look at that… a little bit of nobility. A little bit of regret, even? That's good. Maybe there's hope for you. Despite what you might think, I'm not a complete lunatic. I'm actually a pretty nice guy under normal circumstances."

"You've won, aspirant. Claim your victory in blood and stop taunting me. Please."

I sighed, producing some rope I had in my slip space and beginning to tie it around his center of mass. "We'll talk about it."

"He'll kill me if I help you," the man said suddenly.

My hands paused as I was working the knot into place. I glanced up at him. "Ashmore?"

"Yes. If I help you in any way, he'll kill me when I leave here. It won't matter if I helped under duress."

I considered. "Well… then it sounds like your best path to survival once this is over is to convince me I can trust you, isn't it? Because I just kicked that guy's ass. If I was you, I'd want to do whatever I could to become very good friends with me. I protect my friends."

The man watched me silently, but I could see the gears turning in his head.

"Good," I said, tightening the knot and standing upright. "Sorry. I didn't have time to get a cart made or anything. But just let me know if this hurts." I began dragging him with the rope over one shoulder. Glancing back, it looked like the friction was all on the frozen black liquid, meaning it shouldn't be too uncomfortable for my new necromancer friend.

I didn't leave the keep, though. There was no use giving up a perfectly good keep, after all, so I dragged him to the base of the inner stairs and left him there for the moment. A quick jog led me to a central room with another altar. I claimed it, unlocking an Active skill slot I didn't even need anymore.

But the others could absolutely make use of this. Smiling with satisfaction, I jogged down to collect my necromancer. "What's your name?" I asked, realizing I didn't want to keep thinking of him as 'the necromancer.' Part of me actually wanted to help the guy, even if he seemed like a bit of an asshole. Knowing his name might be a good first step.

"Voy'nar."

[Human, Level 37 (Iron)]

He was decently high level and Iron Rank. If there was any chance of winning him over, he'd be a pretty strong ally. But mostly, I just needed the information he had about tournaments. If I could get that, I'd call it a victory either way.

"I'm Brynn. Nice to meet you."

With the rope over one shoulder, I began dragging him through the night back toward the first outpost we'd claimed where I knew my allies would be waiting.

"I know who you are. Leader of the Mongrel Army. Rumors have spread of you the last few days. Rumors of danger."

"Good," I said, but my attention was already on the level up notifications, accomplishments and skill evolution I'd been trying to read when Ashmore interrupted.

You've reached Level 50!

I'd hoped to finish off getting level 50. It was expected, but exciting all the same. Based on my experience in Beastden, I knew the more experience I accumulated now that I was maxed, the easier it would be to ascend to Silver.

In other words, I just had to farm some more experience and I was relatively confident I could push myself to ascend. I doubted they expected people to ascend within the tournament, which meant I'd get myself a very nice power advantage if I could pull it off. I'd be at least a rank higher than every single person in here.

I mentally explored, searching for the same feeling of a vessel I'd felt when I was Wood and wanted to advance to Iron.

To my relief, I felt it. Distant, but unmistakable. Maybe the challenge would be harder this time, but I knew the technique. Sensing the vessel again made me at least feel like I had a good shot of unlocking it once I filled it with more experience.

But maybe I could brute force it right now if I tried hard enough…

I decided I'd give it a try tonight before resting in my Cursed Bedroll. If I couldn't crack it, I'd just need to keep working at it as I gained experience.

I felt a little guilty at the thought of advancing. These past few days, I'd been keeping Lyria and the others at arm's length. But I had become increasingly certain it was a necessary precaution. For now, I couldn't risk explaining it to them, but I would once this was all over.

As I'd gained levels, I had a more and more concrete sense that I was being watched. Yes, the grommet viewing portal was never far, but it was something else. I could sense a kind of gathering of mana that came and went, but more often than not, it hovered near me. It felt like a gateway of some kind, but I couldn't be sure.

At first, it wasn't always around. Hours would sometimes pass without sensing it. But these last few days, it hardly ever left me for more than a few minutes at a time. The grommet viewing portal felt similar, but less intense, so my best guess was a pretty obvious one.

It was some sort of viewing portal, but one I couldn't see. I couldn't be sure who was on the other side of it, but I could be relatively sure I was being watched secretly. And lately, they were almost always watching, meaning there was no safe way to explain my plans to Lyria or my other allies without risk of it reaching the wrong people.

Worse, if the people behind this tournament decided I was on track to cause too many problems for them, they might try to strike me down. Me and anyone else they thought was in on my plans.

It meant the safest and most rational choice was to keep everything possible in my own head. To a degree, I needed to find a way to manipulate my own allies into doing what I needed without explicitly telling them why. So far, that hadn't been too hard. I just needed to them to keep doing what they were doing.

But soon, the biggest test would come, and I'd have to desperately hope Lyria could guide the others into trusting me, even if it seemed insane. When this was all over, I'd have to find a way to thank them for putting up with this shit.

For now, though, I shifted my attention to my skill evolution.

Like always, the branching paths of evolution felt intuitive once I focused on it. And there they were. Two potential paths to change how one of my most powerful skills could function moving forward.

The first seemed like a complete downgrade at a glance. All this evolution did was dramatically increase the mana cost of Devour Mana. In fact, it was a massive mana increase in cost that would make healing myself and allies far less useful. I'd go from being able to heal one near-fatal wound on someone like Lyria with her limited mana pool to maybe only being able to heal a superficial scratch before I burned her entire mana pool.

But the reason someone might choose this evolution was pretty clear. It was an evolution that would make the way I'd just used Devour Mana on Voy'nar far more effective. Essentially, it would mean sacrificing the ability's use as a tool for healing and almost entirely turning it into an offensive weapon meant to drain the mana of my enemies. The cost was high, though, and I wasn't sure I could justify giving up the healing potential for yet another offensive weapon.

I shelved the idea for a moment, focusing on the second option.

The second evolution made me feel how I could use mana to essentially "freeze" a wound. I could, for example, stab an enemy and then use their own mana to create a barrier around the wound that would resist further healing. If they took healing potions or used healing magic, it would have to first overwhelm the magic barrier I'd put around the wound.

It was far more situational and less potentially overwhelming than the first evolution, but it didn't come at any cost. It was purely a new capability of a spell I already relied heavily on.

I mulled it over for a minute or two as I walked before locking in my decision. I went with the second option, gaining the ability to freeze wounds so they would resist healing.

I felt the evolution click into place with a warm tingle that started in my core and spread to my fingertips. I checked the notification.

[Rare] Active Skill: Devour Mana. [Tier 3] Create a barrier of pure mana

[Devour Mana Evolution(s)] [Wound Block] Use an enemy's mana to create a barrier around injuries that will resist attempts to provide healing.

That was interesting. Devour Mana had always been listed as a "Common" rarity ability. It was the first time I'd ever seen an ability's rarity increase.

Had I found an unusual evolution path, maybe? That provided some exciting potential in the future. But even all my rapid progression had only bumped a few of my Tier 3 abilities to Tier 4, so I thought I still had a while yet before I would be knocking on the door of Tier 6, which was where I hoped a second evolution would come.

I also had a new accomplishment waiting, which joined the increasingly impressive list I'd been building over the last few days. I scanned through the full list, skimming through the ones I'd earned in the first few days:

[Common Accomplishment] Enter a tournament and survive the first ten seconds. [Reward - Common Tournament Token]

[Rare Accomplishment] Survive a duel with a noble contestant. [Reward - Rare Tournament Token]

[Rare Accomplishment] Claim an outpost in a tournament. [Reward - Rare Tournament Token]

[Rare Accomplishment] Defeat (1) elite enemy within the tournament. [Reward - Rare Tournament Master's Token]

[Rare Accomplishment] Complete (1) challenge dungeon within the tournament. [Reward - Rare Tournament Master's Trophy]

[Rare Accomplishment] Capture an outpost with a group of (3) or fewer people. [Reward - Rare Tournament Token]

[Rare Accomplishment] Defeat over (100) enemies in under five minutes within a tournament. [Reward - Epic Tournament Token]

[Rare Accomplishment] Trigger the rage of an entire colony by killing its babies. [Reward - Rare Atrocity Trophy]

[Rare Accomplishment] Defeat (2) elite enemies within the tournament. [Reward - Rare Tournament Master's Token]

And then I moved on to the newest accomplishments, including the two I'd just earned back in the courtyard.

[Epic Accomplishment] Complete (4) challenge areas within a tournament. [Reward - Epic Tournament Master's Token] "You know they try to create these challenge areas to have about a ten percent success rate, right? That means doing four of them successfully like you did should almost be statistically impossible. I bet they are really stewing over at twisted tournament maker headquarters right now."

[Epic Accomplishment] Defeat (6) nobles within a tournament [Reward - Epic Tournament Master's Token] "This one is really hard to get, Seraphel. Well, not hard to get in general. Nobles get it all the time. But Aspirants are lucky to get one or two noble eliminations. And by lucky I mean it only happens every few tournaments. "Usually, the job of an Aspirant is to sneak around, strike deals, and hope they get to absorb some tournament points along the way and maybe sneak a decent reward at the end when the dust settles. They aren't actually supposed to do meaningful things. Again, I'm pretty sure the people in charge really, really don't like you by now. You're breaking this whole thing."

[Epic Accomplishment] Claim (1) keep within a tournament solo [Reward - Epic Tournament Master's Token] "Guess what! This is actually one of the more common styles of tournament tokens. What usually happens is when the number of survivors dwindles, there's a bit of keep and castle swapping that goes on. Teams lose the ability to properly defend, and these places can change hands a few times in a short period of time. Congratulations, though, because you definitely had to work for it. If you ask me, the reward should be bigger when you have to kill some kind of boss necromancer to claim the keep, right? "By the way… kind of odd that you're keeping the greasy one as a pet. You really think that's a good idea? I guess I shouldn't question it. You used to do this kind of thing all the time. Not taking human pets, of course. But having plans that seemed strange and then they just kind of magically came together at the last second. Woo! Go Seraphel!"

Grinning, I tallied the total number of accomplishments. Twelve.

I'd also earned every one of these at Iron Rank, which made me believe there was a good chance I'd get Iron level rewards from at least most. It was great, except for one small fact.

I had every reason to believe I'd be Silver Rank by the time I got out of here. Once again, I was progressing so damn fast I was basically out-leveling my rewards. But that was alright. Even now, my Silver Scream Bow was highly useful. My Abyss Walker boots were still a huge advantage I hadn't even needed in the necromancer fight. And my Mana Bender's Raiment would probably continue to grow even more powerful if I collected more pieces of the full set. If nothing else, the items I earned now would be useful during my journey from Silver to Gold.

Vay'nar began muttering something as I dragged him, reminding me that the man was still with me.

"You good?" I asked.

"I… have thought on your proposition."

I stopped dragging him and turned, kneeling so we could talk face to face, even if he was in the dirt and sideways. "Okay."

"I wasn't always a bad person. I believe… perhaps there is a future where I could convince you to trust me. But I don't know if you can help me."

"Help you with what?"

Vay'nar lowered his eyes, seeming almost ashamed. "The price of his dark gifts… it's great. It's grisly. And I would ask only that you put an end to me before they take my mind."

Frowning, I leaned closer. "What do you mean? Can you be more specific?"

"The corestones he gives us… They are given the dark gift of Forsaken-level power. But they bleed corruption into our bodies. His gift was to teach us how to purge the corruption. The price is murder. Torture. Pain. In this way, we can leech the corruption from our bodies into our targets, buying our sanity in the process. But it requires a never-ending supply of death and pain. I don't want to be part of it anymore. I want to be free of this existence, even though it will mean my own end."

I took a seat in the dirt, thoughts turning over his words. "Believe it or not… I think there may actually be a way I could help you. But it'll depend how this 'gift' works, exactly."

Vay'nar shook his head, seeming suddenly decades older. "No. No more. I'm done. I won't take more lives to keep my own. I'm finished pretending I was only waiting for my opportunity to strike. I've lived as a coward. I'll do some good by helping you, maybe, and then you can finish me. Promise me this, and I'll help."

I didn't want to make him promises I couldn't keep. But I wondered if there was a way to help this guy keep his sanity without killing people for it. What if I could take some of his corruption and feed it to my bedroll? Granted, I didn't love the idea of getting tortured to do it, but maybe there was another way.

"Let's try working together and see how things go. I want to trust you, but for now, you stay in worm mode, okay? We'll work our way up to the point where I can let you out of here. Maybe. But for now…" I summoned my Alchemist's Kit which was full of Hungry Dark Potion. I unstoppered it and carefully poured another layer over Vay'nar's body. It spread out, shiny in the darkness before thickening again.

"Alright," I said, hoisting the rope. "Time to meet my friends."

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