Stage-3 Countdown Timer: 5 days, 22 hours, 15 minutes.

  Survivors Remaining: 301

  Views:     220,465,873

  Followers:   45,782,790

  Favorites    10,911,465

  VIP Points   100,363,987

  I should have expected the huge growth in my counts. A lot of folks had been paying for VIP access to live my past boss battles, but my duel with Tydrion and fight with Corvath were my first boss battles real-time. That drew even more people.

  Hopefully all the attention would pay off and I’d get something good. I willed the new loot box open. Instead of exploding into shards of light, the lid cranked open with a loud ratcheting sound, followed by a growing crescendo of cheering, and Eva spoke again.

  “Fans can now pay a nominal fee to vote on appropriate loot. You will see additional VIP and Fan boxes with loot custom-tailored to your needs, based on fan input.”

  Would that be a good thing or not? Would they vote for good loot, or gag gifts? If people across the multiverse were anything like humans back on Earth, it could easily swing toward gag gifts, despite the very real life-or-death stakes of the game.

  The lid finished cranking open and the box exploded in a brilliant blue flash, leaving behind a scroll and a small package wrapped in brown paper, like old-fashioned butchers still used sometimes.

  “Spell Scroll. New Temporary Spell: Mass Transmute.”

  “Mass Transmute. Epic. Level 7. You are now an agent of direct change. Pick one inanimate object within 1 yard, plus 1 yard per point in Intelligence and change all instances of that thing into something else. Uses Remaining: 7”

  “Note: Due to your class perk, Uses Remaining upgraded to 10.”

  Huh. That could be really cool. The affected area would be huge. The boosted Efficiency of my Intelligence pushed the stat to the equivalent of 1054 tier-0 points.

  So could I really transmute every instance of something into something else over such a vast area? Like change every piece of rubble into gold? Or cookies? For a moment, I let myself imagine a field of endless cookies stretching before me. Then I sighed. The rain would turn it into a field of mush in seconds. The gold, though. That could be worth testing. Or rubble into rubies?

  The second item, the paper-wrapped bundle, unwrapped itself in a flurry of tearing paper, as if a dozen invisible 3 year-olds were just unleashed Christmas morning. The paper shredded away to reveal white cloth that unfolded into a chef’s apron. No, a butcher’s apron.

  “Butcher’s Apron of Impeccable Skill. Rare. Since you have demonstrated an unusual, often disturbing, but never boring habit of killing monsters creatively from the inside, this apron will help you enjoy your favorite hobby like a pro. This single-use item, if coupled with Phantom Step, will allow you to carve your way entirely through one monster in one direction as an incorporeal entity, wielding a semi-corporeal butcher’s knife. Deal 10 times your normal damage while remaining perfectly clean for once.”

  For a moment, I wasn’t sure how to respond. At first, it seemed a total gag gift, poking fun at the disgusting ways I’d had to kill more than one giant monster, like I just had with Tydrion. And yet, it was also awesome. A single pass through a boss dealing that kind of damage could entirely flip a fight.

  I imagined donning the apron to face Thalorian. What would the terrifying marshal think after I carved through his heart and lungs from the inside? Could I even use it against Queen Marisara? Gag gift for the win!

  I hefted the pure white apron and looked up, flashing my best smile. “Thanks everyone! I’ll try to make it a good show.”

  It would have felt super weird talking to thin air before crashing onto Arasha, but my 2 weeks of chatting with an invisible AI made it seem a lot more normal than some of the crazy stuff I often had to do.

  I descended to the floor just as the rest of the team finished with their loot boxes. They were grinning, and it sounded like they got a lot of great loot from helping me route the merfolk and flying fish. I snagged Corvath’s throne and we headed outside.

  “It’s a pity we can’t just take the whole thing with us,” Jane said, gesturing at the house-sized pearl.

  Lana nodded. “Si. But even if I had the Base Camp utility spell, I don’t think I’d waste it on a throne room. It’s bonita, but not very homey.”

  “Hold on,” Ruby said, floating back to the side of the pearl and placing her hand against the side. She stayed like that for a moment, brows creased in concentration, then laughed with delight and the pearl flashed, then disappeared.

  “You took it?” Lana exclaimed.

  Ruby nodded and Steve said, “Why not? You can always shack up with Lucas, and now you’ve got a throne room for the really big parties.”

  “That’s not even the best part,” Ruby said, extending one hand toward us.

  A huge pearl the size of her fist appeared in her hand. Its sheen was faded, though, and a crack ran up the front face. As soon as it appeared, the cavern filled with screams and cries of panic and fear. Before I could spin to seek the threat, the world shimmered and my mind plunged into another vision.

  I found myself in a torrential flood, getting swept along with thousands of other people. The churning waters sucked me under, and in that vision, I could no longer breathe water. I coughed and choked and felt like I was drowning before my wild thrashing carried me back to the surface to vomit water and gasp in a water-laden breath.

  The world was chaos as waves churned, throwing me every which way, plunging me under before I could swim back to the surface. All around me, people screamed and thrashed as the dark waters dragged us through a deep canyon.

  Then something snatched my foot and yanked me under. Through the bubbles and gloom, a dark shape loomed and a giant maw opened wide, revealing long rows of teeth flashing at my head.

  With a start, I returned to the cavern, reflexively tumbling right over backward in my effort to avoid the underwater monster. I righted myself in time to see most of my team flailing in similar fear.

  “What was that?” Lana exclaimed, her eyes huge with fear.

  “That vision sucked,” Andy agreed, looking a bit green.

  I focused on the pearl, now clutched tight in Ruby’s hand. The constant screaming of thousands of doomed souls still reverberated through the cavern.

  “Put that thing away!” Tomas cried, but Identify triggered just before the pearl disappeared. With it went the screaming.

  “The Wailing Pearl. Unique. Echoes of Calamity quest relic 4 of 10.”

  “This artifact absorbed the terror and agony of half a continent of doomed souls in the Ashen Covenant who died in apocalyptic floods, filled with demonic monsters after Eryndale fell. The death curses of countless powerful Magiteks have coalesced into a lurking need for vengeance. They will break fee of the pearl’s restraints soon, but there is no telling who they will target in their blind hatred. While submerged in water, the pearl shares the echoes of numberless death cries.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Well, that’s depressing,” Steve said when I shared the description.

  Ruby sighed. “So tragic. Those poor people.”

  “If it was real at all,” Andy retorted.

  “Hopefully we’ll find a way to use that curse against Queen Marisara or the ultimate boss of this stage.”

  Jane added, “For now, maybe don’t bring that thing out again.”

  “Especially underwater,” Tomas agreed with a visible shudder.

  “As freaky as that was, it’s good you found that relic,” Steve said.

  “Would have been a stupid waste to leave it behind,” I agreed.

  Tomas said, “But you upgraded your Base Camp a lot. You won a relic, but you’re going to just toss all that investment?”

  Ruby’s smile returned. “Not at all. I found a secondary menu. Figured an epic-grade treasure from Corvath’s home world must have more to it, especially since I didn’t see any living quarters.”

  “That’s a good point,” I said.

  “I was right,” she said triumphantly. “In addition to winning that relic, the pearl’s got multiple interior spaces available, like several totally different buildings all linked together, including a palatial living space. I can choose which one is active at any given time.”

  Lana turned to Andy, “You should have checked, Querido. Then we could have lived in style.”

  “Never even crossed my mind. I did get several hundred smaller pearls I’m happy to share with you.” He pulled one of the beautiful pearls from the treasure room into his hand and bowed over it, offering it to Lana.

  “I can work with that,” she said, taking the pearl and giving him a quick kiss.

  “I’ll check out the space when we have more time,” Ruby promised.

  Andy shrugged. “I’d love to see the other options, but we’re already living in style in the castle.”

  It was a good win for Ruby. Maybe on stage 4 we wouldn’t be able to all share the same space, so having another epic Base Camp was a great idea.

  As we flew up through the water to the surface, I thought of Echo City. With the discovery of the Wailing Pearl, another story would have collapsed, dropping all the buildings down to only 2 stories. We had to make time to get back down there before everything collapsed.

  Once we rose from the lake, we continued into the water-saturated air of the cavern that allowed our Water Flight spells to keep working. Part of me was tempted to dive back down and hunt the remainder of the merfolk and the fish. We could farm a few more levels that way.

  A better idea would be to return later with Edmund and some of the other folks with broken classes. They needed the levels more, and with luck, we could get them a lot closer to level 75 where they would hopefully get the chance to fix their broken classes.

  We dove into one of the upward-flowing rivers that plunged into the ceiling on their trek to fill the canals flowing through Ruin. We should get back to Port Royale not long after dawn. I trailed a bit as the rest of the team led the way back toward the surface. The tunnel through the rock split ahead, with branches turning vertical and off to the left as well as continuing straight.

  As my team banked up toward the vertical shaft, I opened my messages to send a chat to Tony and Burns about their upcoming raid. In that second, a swarm of yard-long wormlike creatures shot out of holes in the wall and struck at me from every side.

  I hadn’t spotted any red dots on my mini map and honestly wasn’t expecting any more resistance, so my reaction came a second later than usual. I reflexively pulsed out a wave of convergence mana to drive them away just as Identify triggered.

  “Lurker Leeches. Common. Level 45. This swarm-based hive-mind monster attacks from stealth, surprising unsuspecting prey and latching on with lamprey-like teeth. They feed on life force and all types of mana, the stronger the better.”

  Well, crap.

  My wave of mana rolled over the leeches and they convulsed, but not in pain. The disgusting, slimy things sported nasty, teeth-filled mouths on both ends of their bodies. They swelled to triple their previous size and attacked with a frenzy that churned the waters.

  I missed the vertical tunnel branch as I swatted at the little monsters. The attempt was stupid and totally unproductive. They swept around my arm, then my limbs and my torso, latching onto every surface, teeth screeching against my Overlord chitin armor.

  They were so disgusting, and I grimaced as the nasty things thrashed against every joint, trying to worm their way inside my armor. The invisible protection of my Embersteel battle helm protected part of me, but not my entire torso.

  Somehow the nasty leeches compressed to the width of single sheets of paper, slipping through where no blade could have penetrated. Somehow my full-body under armor didn’t stop them either. Tiny pricks of pain flared all over my body and my health and mana bars started to steadily drop, despite my rapid regeneration and the flood of energy available from my Tesla Coil bracelet.

  The disgusting things grew rapidly as they fed on all of it. This was insane! I’d defeated crazy-tough bosses and now I was getting sucked dry by low-leveled, common leeches? My blades wouldn’t help, and my evolved mana only fed them faster.

  “Get off!” I shouted, my initial surprise and disgust shifting to rage as I slammed down on the hotlist spot for a scroll of Firestorm.

  White-hot flames erupted all around me as the tunnel was consumed by fire. The superheated flames vaporized the water, filling the tunnel with steam in a concussive underwater explosion that cracked stone walls on all sides.

  In the center of the blast, I settled to the floor of the channel, Water Flight fizzling as the amount of water in the air dropped. Achievement notifications scrolled past as the charred remnants of the Lurker Leeches drifted away, reduced to bits of ash. The little buggers might feast on raw mana, but they couldn’t digest pure fire.

  “Take that,” I announced right before a wall of water crashed back in to consume the hole my flames had made.

  The impact wave sent me tumbling head over heels deeper into the tunnel system beneath the city. I crashed into a wall before a side current dragged me bodily in a different direction.

  I managed to level out my wild tumble just as the current dragged me into an enormous room. No lights pierced the darkness, but Wolf Sight allowed me to see the giant space. It was like a vast cube had been excavated out of the earth, at least 100 yards across in every direction.

  Water poured in from a dozen tunnels on the near side of the space and swirled in a gentle whirlpool current before exiting on the far side. The space was empty except for a smaller cube of stone the size of a 3-story house connected to the center of the roof. Square stone tubes extended from the cube in every direction, like petrified air-conditioning ducts.

  They radiated out along the ceiling, and many turned upward, while more continued on through the outer walls. It was a weird sight, and I hovered in the water for a moment, studying the scene until Identify triggered.

  “Lost temple of the Hydra Core. A remnant of the great civilization of the Ashen Covenant, this temple housed one of the experiments that doomed the famous city of Eryndale. Even though the Council of Eternities sealed the temple in stone, their efforts could not undo the calamity.”

  That sounded depressing, but was there loot locked away in that petrified temple? Might be worth checking out. Was it tied somehow to the demon king, or to whatever they did that summoned him and his endless horde?

  I flew through the swirling water toward it. No doors or windows broke the surface. From the outside, it looked like a huge stone block. Activating Spellseer’s Gaze didn’t show anything else about the block, but glints of light on one side drew my gaze and I swam around for a better look.

  Hanging from brackets embedded in the stone were broken lengths of chain. Each link was larger than me and the gently swaying, broken ends suggested maybe the chains had once encircled the entire block.

  Weird. I swam to the opposite side, and sure enough, more broken lengths hung there. All the chain glowed faintly with some kind of power, but Identify didn’t trigger. As I inspected the chains, I got a chat message.

  Ruby: “Lucas, where’d you get to? What was that explosion?”

  Lucas: “I had to deal with an annoying monster and missed the turn. I’ll catch up in a minute. Just checking out 1 more thing.”

  Ruby: “Okay. Be careful.”

  I swam forward and touched one of the chains. A faint pulse of magic responded and I got a vague sense of durability and time, but nothing specific. The mystery seemed important, but I got no more clues.

  The chains were attached to the brackets in the walls by removable bolts. It only took seconds to unscrew them. They had rusted, so resisted, but with my Strength so high, I powered through without much trouble. I collected all 4 long lengths of giant chain and dumped them into my inventory for later study.

  With nothing else of interest, I headed for the exit and checked another waiting chat message.

  Tony: “Lucas, you’re not going to believe this.”

  Lucas: “Are you in trouble?”

  Tony: “No. Just the opposite. We found a warehouse full of over 1000 clockwork insects, but they’re all deactivated.”

  Lucas: “Where?”

  Tony: “North side of Ruin. Elizabeth did buy the upgraded town defenses, so Burns and I took our entire force and followed that hummingbird of yours. Didn’t bring us to the Mech-mantis lair or down to Echo City, but to this warehouse. Looks like some kind of maintenance or staging area. A bunch of the monsters are partially disassembled.”

  Lucas: “We just defeated the king of the merfolk and most of his forces. If you can wreck that warehouse, that might cripple the Mech-mantis ability to attack in force.”

  Tony: “Our thoughts exactly. We’ve split into several teams to hit the place from every side in case the monsters activate.”

  Lucas: “Do you need help? We’ll be back to town soon.”

  Tony: “We should be fine, unless they hit us with another of those Leviathans. Burns took a small team to scout farther and watch our backs. Me and the majority of the force are launching our attack now.”

  Lucas: “Good luck.”

  I pushed the limits of the Water Flight’s speed. Finding a warehouse full of deactivated clockwork monsters seemed too good to be true. Could it be a trap, or had all our Luck stats finally paid off huge? We needed to get back to town so we could help if things turned south.

  I got a new chat message notification and opened the message window, expecting to see one from Ruby. It wasn’t from Ruby.

  It was from Queen Marisara.