Sir Bellas had no choice but to break any automatic attack routines as Briggs manhandled his basic attacks badly, forcing him to actually draw on his experience and skill in order to measure up to the bigger and younger man with such appalling strength. Endure crashed against his armor repeatedly, the echoes of a thousand rending cuts and impacts barely visible on the metal, yet evident as it stove in under the assaults of Endure’s adamantine edge.

  His Greatmace definitely wasn’t chorozite, lacking the semi-transparent nature of the Null Aluminum. Had he found some sort of Null Iron, or even Null Carbon to alloy with some decent iron to make steel? It was interesting to consider.

  The duel went on for a good five minutes, mostly because Briggs was enjoying himself parrying the many different angles and methods of attack Sir Bellas was using, countering and riposting when the openings grew too obvious.

  But it could end in only one way. Endure flicked out, Briggs’s wrists just snapping it out as if the heavy Hammer was a willow wand, and the heavy head crashed against the helm of the famous knight and sent him falling over to the side, out cold but not truly harmed as Mercy claimed him.

  “Drag him into the other room,” Princess Kristie said, grabbing one muscular arm of the fallen man. Briggs grabbed the other, and they easily hauled him upright between them, dragging him down the passageway out with his arms over their shoulders, while I just followed behind.

  We returned to the previous room, the Fiuns still asleep and recuperating on their Disks. I backed the aliens away to give the two Forsaken space.

  I’d noticed Briggs had also had his hand on the man’s helm. As they laid him down, he calmly drew it off, revealing a blue-skinned face, broad and heavy-featured as someone so muscularly built was almost bound to be, with a graying beard and salt-and-peppered black hair, a rarity among the Viamontians and considered by many to be a sign of inferior blood.

  No doubt a great incentive to beat the crap out of arrogant Viamontians.

  “Heal him up. Just use minor spells with your Kickers, conserve the mana.”

  “He has an arseload of Health Qi I won’t be able to Heal up,” I informed her, studying the White Aura of the man as I spent a Mending spell on fixing up the rents and dents in his armor. Health Qi was very similar to temporary hit points, and basically could only be mended by the being itself, i.e., natural healing, Fast Healing, or Regeneration.

  “Ah, wondered why he was so tough. Definitely tougher than any normal person,” Briggs nodded. “That’s good. Get him up and moving as much as you can, then. He won’t attack a Healer. And keep Healing him while Kris fights him, too.”

  Okay, that was going to be funny. Princess Kristie, reincarnation of Sir Bellas’ greatest and most beloved student, smiled thinly as Quaver began to ring out softly.

  Sir Bellas grunted, blinked, and looked about in clear confusion at the change in expected scenery. His eyes focused on me in shock as I sent another wave of very basic Healing magic bolstered by a lot of Holy Kickers and Metas into him, banishing his aches and pains and restoring his focus bit by bit as the friendly and comforting Holy energies of Heaven washed across him.

  The simple spell literally only cost me a single point of mana, but I was getting at least forty Health with every spell, so a good return for the power I was spending.

  “You can stop that. There is no need to Heal someone waiting to die, Gharu’n,” he told me gruffly.

  I just flicked my hand and sent another wave into him. “Then it is good that you are not waiting to die anymore. Your Great Mother has called you home. The survivors of your House need all the help they can get, and Varicci does not have the time nor the forces to keep you here in your eternal slavery to the System any longer, great knight.” He blinked at me in confusion. “Do you know it has been over fifteen years since you’ve seen another living soul, Sir Bellas?” He stared at me in utter shock. “You have been a slave, a spirit kept on a leash and used by the System which has killed many, many of your countrymen. It is time you returned and took up your mantle once again.”

  “I… have no spirit left to fight with,” he mumbled, nonetheless sitting up. A massive hand opened in front of him, and he looked above it to find the warrior who had rendered him unconscious standing above him silently.

  The great knight eyed the hand, considered the victor of the duel between them, and reached up to clasp it.

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  He was hauled upright as if he were weightless, even while more magic was pouring into him and healing his injuries.

  “I am afraid you will get no knight’s ransom from me or for me, sir,” Sir Bellas said, clearly finding it a new experience to look up at the bigger man and his neanderthalic features, along with startlingly piercing pale green eyes.

  “I am Commander Briggs, Warlord of the Armies of Freehold and Stonehold, committed to taking back Dereth from the forces who attacked us after the Fall, Sir Bellas. I know you know little to nothing of what has happened over the past nearly thirty years or so, but matters have greatly changed since Varicci exiled you here and attempted to kill you, only for the System to continually bring you and your assassins back.”

  He held up Sir Bellas’ helm. The knight started to raise his hand to grab it, then looked at it in consternation as it began to turn transparent, and then simply dissipated into nothingness in Briggs’ huge hand.

  “You are a spirit, caught in the System, used and abused for a great many years for the secret of Augmentation Stones.” The knight frowned at the statement.

  “The secrets of Augmentation have been a treasure of the knights of Viamont from our ancestor Karkun, the first Blooded. How did you learn of them?” he demanded to know.

  “Knowledge of them was spread widely after the Great Mother ordered the lore to be spread, and it was found that all the cultures of Ispar had some exposure to different aspects of that kind of lore. You, however, were considered a test to decide the worthiness of those who desired to receive that lore,” Princess Kristie broke in with her best Imperial airs, naturally drawing his attention. “In the pouch at your side you will find the trophy gems that were used to signify victory over you and gather the Karma needed to cement the lore into fact with magical speed and surety.”

  He slowly looked down at the purse at his waist, hanging from his girdle, not missing the fact that Princess Kristie was leaning on his Fist. He reached in, scooped out some clattering things, and lifted his hand up, opening it to reveal some bright square-cut stones in brilliant orange and yellow hues, perhaps a variety of topaz or jacinth.

  “I know nothing of these,” he admitted hesitantly.

  “Of course you do not. You have been a slave of the System, reduced to little more than a waking dream. The shadows of combat have no doubt been tugging on your memories. You have died in combat thousands of times, Sir Bellas, and you will know neither rest nor recourse if we merely kill you again.”

  “An honorable death in battle is the only thing I crave now, woman. Who are you?” he demanded sternly.

  A hard hand knocked him on the chest-plate warningly. “A care, Sir Knight,” Briggs said in a very, very deep voice as the knight staggered back a step. “You stand before Her Imperial Highness, Kristie Rantha-Briggs, second princess of the Emperor of Ispar, Ravager of Viamont, Hammer of Aluvia, Enlightened of Gharu’n, and Fist of the Sho.”

  “Ravager of Viamont?” Sir Bellas repeated, blinking.

  “Eighty percent of Viamontian nobility died at the hands of my mother and father, along with half its population, and all of the Houses of Lotila and Corcosi, among others,” Kristie stated with the cool confidence of having witnessed that fighting herself. “The enemies of the House of Bellenesse back on Ispar have largely been wiped from the land, Sir Bellas. There remains only Varicci II and whatever demented remnants of his vassals still live after the Fall took place here.”

  The great knight was at an obvious loss at hearing such things. “You, you said it has been thirty years?” he asked softly, shaking his head in consternation.

  “The House of Bellenesse fled through a Portal to the lands of Dereth before I was born,” Kris replied calmly. “You died long ago right here.” She lifted his own Mace to tap at the floor underneath her heels. “The eight men escorting you here were sent to make sure you didn’t change your mind at some later date. You slew them all as they managed to bring you down, and you were all claimed by the System of magic which exists in this world.”

  Sir Bellas looked down at the floor. “I cannot even rest in peace, can I?” he asked bitterly.

  “You could,” Kris interrupted him coolly. “It is a coward’s way out, but if you are subjected to vivus, as were those men of Varicci’s, you will be sent to your final fate, beyond the System’s reach.

  “But the remnants of House Bellenesse need you alive, Sir Bellas. There are no known blood heirs of the House left alive, but the Great Mother indicated that there would be no issue with your claiming the Duke’s title and taking over the House.” She gave him a piercing gaze. “The Duke’s half-brother and Champion of the Bellenesse should have no such problems doing his duty to his people, should he?”

  That was news to me, and it explained a great deal in hindsight. Still, there was something I had to correct.

  “Kris, Briggs, Sir Bellas is an NPC, not a Summons,” I told them quietly, earning a startled look from both of them. “Summons are for souls of no consequence, trapped in their shells of mortality. Sir Bellas is himself. Briggs released an NPC, not a trapped soul.”

  Sir Bellas looked around at us. “I do not know what that means...,” he finally said under our thoughtful gazes.

  “It means you are flesh and blood, but the System had its hooks into you, and you could not die. You did not age, you did not have to eat, and when you died, you would be reborn through the System… but you are Sir Bellas, not a chained soul wrapped in a seeming of ectoplasm to look like him.”

  “You should know what Summons are, Sir Knight. The creatures who stayed there upon the landscape, waiting to do battle, dying and dissipating, only for another creature to appear where they fell? As opposed to the real creatures which wandered about as the living do…” Briggs prodded his memory.

  “I… do remember those. Passing strange it was, but soon enough just another strange feature in a strange land. So, if I can free myself of this System, I can find peace…” He straightened marginally at the thought.

  “You get one chance to do so,” Princess Kristie informed him. Sir Bellas caught the Fist of Bellenesse as it was thrown to him, looking at the very irked face of the Imperial Princess who had hefted the heavy Weapon so casually. “If you can defeat me in a duel, I will agree to allow you to go rushing off to your doom, which exists just outside the unnatural halls of this Dungeon we are in.

  “If not, you will take up the Sword and mantle of the Duke of the Bellenesse, and return to lead them in your brother’s place, as the man and knight you were raised to be, and who you raised others to be.”

  Quaver rose, blue-black steel, eye-watering perfection of make, by itself enough to make his eyes widen at the quality of her Weapon, and how it was a mate to the Hammer of the younger man next to him. Then the Blackfire Stones and Lost Light woke up in a burning spiral about her Sword, and she swept the ringing Blade through an ornate flourish that had his face flushing in recognition.

  “I will take that challenge!” he shouted, raising the Fist of Bellenesse once again, the four flanges of it gleaming and ready. “Prepare yourself, girl!”

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