“Hey! I’ve got an idea.” Veronica’s eyes lit up. “I could use someone like you in my party. I’ve got three friends in the city so far who all utilize different skills. Maybe we could buddy up, and I could show you what true adventuring is like?”

  Chloe stormed over to Gideon and wrapped her arm around his. “He’s not interested,” she said through gritted teeth. “Gideon’s already in a party, and it’s with me.”

  “Oh.” Veronica nodded, a coy smile on her lips. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you two were a thing.”

  “We’re not!”

  “We’re most certainly not!”

  “Ha!” Veronica said. “Didn’t mean to touch a nerve. Then what’s all this crap about a party? You call a mage, a battle mage, and a…what, a bear, a party?”

  “We’ve got others. They’re just logged out for a few hours,” Gideon said.

  Chloe added, “And Blueballs is a toffet.”

  “That makes zero sense to me.” Veronica sighed, resigned to asking, “Okay, if that is the case, we’ll forget the party, but my friends are also logged out right now, too. Why don’t we team up for this quest, and then we’ll part? Go our separate ways? We’ll never meet again.”

  Chloe considered that. Veronica had been right. Chloe had never played a game like this before. Watching her ex-boyfriend's sessions on MMORPGs hardly qualified her to understand most of the lingo.

  But there was something that appealed to her about the cleric class. It was a mystery to her. The mention of communication and understanding with the gods intrigued her. If she could at least use this time to find out more about what clerics had to offer, then maybe once this was done, she could find her own cleric to add to her party.

  Y’know, one who wasn’t half as annoying as Veronica.

  “You’ve got a deal,” Chloe said, extending her hand to Veronica.

  Veronica pulled away at the last minute. “Ah. Not yet. I get that we’re both blessed, and the last thing I want us to do is turn on each other and kill the other in battle just because we can. If we’re going to partner, we will partner properly.”

  A text box flashed up on Chloe’s screen.

  A holy contract

  In the name and presence of all the gods of Obsidian, and under the holy protective clauses and vows set forth in this contract, I, Chloe, do hereby solemnly swear to Veronica Hickstone that for the duration of 24 hours, I will protect you, journey with you, shelter you, help you, and provide you with all the comforts life can bring, as Veronica Hickstone agrees to provide the same conditions for you.

  Signing this contract will confirm an understanding between both parties and shall be conducted under the eyes of the gods. Breaching of this contract will result in instantaneous death, a 24-hour respawning period, and the loss of two character levels.

  Once the terms of this contract have been met, each player may continue as if this contract never existed.

  Issuer

  [Signature here]

  Recipient

  [Signature here]

  “Uh, what’s this?” Chloe said, blinking in confusion at what she was seeing.

  “A secret skill of the cleric. Between the blessed, we are allowed to make contracts that are bound by and held in place by the gods of Obsidian.” She shrugged. “It’s no big deal, as long as you’re not planning on getting smited by breaking the rules.”

  “I’m something of a rule-breaker,” Chloe murmured wickedly.

  “Huh? What are you guys looking at?” Gideon said, following where their eyes were blankly staring and seeing nothing there.

  “How come Gid doesn’t need one?”

  “I trust him.”

  Chloe turned up her nose. “How can you trust him? You’ve only just met him.”

  “Are you going to sign it or not?”

  Blueballs growled as they heard shuffling feet coming up the tunnel again. The demons were apparently thinking the worst was over, and it was safe now to journey back to the source of the noises.

  Chloe hurriedly read and re-read the contract, knowing from her own family the importance of understanding all of the conditions of a contract before signing, no matter how boring it is.

  She looked at the signature box, then willed her name there, and it appeared.

  “Great,” Veronica said after she signed, clapping. “Shall we get to destruction, then?”

  Chloe smiled, agreeing with Veronica for the first time. “You read my mind.”

  Blueballs roared and charged as light shone from behind him.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  At some point along the way, the cave started to look like a shrine. They battled their way deeper inside, taking out demon after demon. Thanks to the cleric’s powers and Chloe’s light spells, the demons barely stood a chance.

  “I don’t know what the mages were worried about.” Chloe grimaced and fired another blast. “Taking down these little gremlins is easy.”

  And it was. Demon after demon faded into nothingness. When she had approached the first few immobile demon bodies she had reached down and activated the looting process, the demon’s body disappearing into the ether. Unfortunately, apart from a load of black goo, there wasn’t a whole lot worth collecting.

  What Chloe did collect, though, was experience.

  With every kill came a nice little boost to her experience bar, and the demons continued to come in droves. Chloe wasn’t sure where they were coming from, but she didn’t much mind. The cleric’s powers, while weaker than her own spell, drained a lot less mana, and between them, they managed to spare enough of their mana to find the part of the cave where the walls began to smooth and strange green sconces of flame were lit.

  By the time they finally arrived at the shrine, the demons had all faded. Chloe and Veronica sighed with relief. Their foreheads were peppered with sweat.

  “This is it?” Chloe asked.

  A waterfall covered the end of the cave, which they passed through, Chloe glad to feel the cold water on her skin. Blueballs hesitated, then ducked his head and ran under. Chloe and Gideon laughed when the toffet shrank, his wet hair clinging to his body. He gave a mild grin and caught up with them.

  The shrine was an impressive construction, a great dome carved inside the cave with an altar in the center. Around the edges of the room, the water flowed, creating a small moat that bubbled and ran around rocks. A large hole in the ceiling let in slivers of moonlight that shone on the altar.

  “It’s beautiful,” Chloe breathed.

  Veronica nodded, eyes wide as saucers. “Isn’t it?”

  “I wonder why they call it the Shrine of the Damned?” Gideon asked.

  “Because this is the altar where the dark gods commune with the living,” Veronica said. “A place where people can come and communicate with those they have lost to unfortunate circumstances. A place where the dark can be harnessed, and boons bestowed upon mages who wish to study the darker of the arts.”

  Chloe thought about that. “So, baddies, basically?”

  “Not all who study the darkness are bad,” Veronica replied. She walked toward the altar, gracefully dropping to her knees, and looked up at the figures carved into the altar. “In life, there exists a delicate balance of all things. Rich and poor. Old and young. With light, there must also be darkness.”

  Veronica raised her hands, her palms momentarily covered with a dark purple glow. Thin slivers of shadow formed around her, magnifying her appearance and replicating her shape. It looked as though she had grown into a giant shadow version of herself.

  Chloe gasped, and then it was gone.

  Veronica chuckled. “A little trick I picked up studying with the mages here a little while back. Cool, huh?”

  “Yeah…” Chloe glanced at Gideon. She twirled a finger around her ear. “Cool.”

  Gideon hid a laugh behind his hand and caught up with Veronica, taking a knee beside her. “So, what do you think the problem is? Mages have been disappearing from here, but why?”

  She shrugged. “Probably just the demons. Many NPCs can’t handle the true dangers of the world like we blessed can.”

  That’s not true. KieraFreya snorted.

  Hush.

  “But it looks to me like we’ve done it. We’ve saved the shrine, and now the people can return to their daily worship. Strange that we haven’t received a notification to say that we’ve completed it yet, though.”

  Chloe had thought the same as she joined the other two. She stared at the decoration on the altar, feeling a strange power in its presence. There were over a dozen carvings on the basin that was the altar, the liquid within very black.

  An image suddenly stood out to Chloe—a small, dark imp with wicked eyes that seemed to watch her as she moved her head.

  “Who’s that?” Chloe asked.

  “Oh, that’s Fukmos,” Veronica replied. “God of Mischief. Son of Asros, the god of the Dead. The only son, in fact. The stories say he was an accident, birthed into the world out of shadow and malice. As the only son, his two sisters—Dryana, goddess of ghosts, and Myaris, goddess of disease—taunted and teased Fukmos until he had had enough.

  “He began to play pranks, looking for ways to get revenge on his sisters. And when they began to ingratiate themselves with the sovereign gods, Fukmos was left behind. None of the good gods wanted to associate with a tiny imp who messed up people’s plans and played tricks on the others.”

  “So, he got mad?” Gideon asked.

  “Not exactly mad, but he got even.” Veronica reached forward and brushed the carving of Fukmos with her fingers. “His pranks grew in annoyance and danger. He would create pits from shadows, causing gods to fall inside for days at a time. He would start rumors and cause rifts between the sovereign gods and their kin, spewing venom with his words and laughing at the chaos it brought.”

  “And you’re telling me people worship him?” Chloe asked.

  “Everyone worships someone,” Veronica replied. “Some people just happen to like darkness.”

  Chloe nodded solemnly, listening to the soothing sound of the waterfall behind them, wondering again about the mages who visited here. Where had they gone? She had saved the shrine from the demons, but the mages hadn’t reappeared. The whole damn thing was a mystery.

  Chloe heard a stifled grunt behind her. Momentary. Fleeting. A sound she would have dismissed had it not reminded her Blueballs was behind her. Chloe wanted to laugh once more at the drowned rat and his soaked fur.

  “Um, guys?” Chloe stood up and turned around.

  Gideon’s eyes grew wide. Veronica muttered some words and marked a cross against her chest, a habit she had picked up from her days as a Catholic girl in Utah.

  Blueballs was hovering in the air, the only parts of his body visible his terrified eyes and the bottoms of his feet. The rest covered in coils of dark shadow as thick as girders that receded into the walls around them.

  “Blueballs!” Chloe shouted, drawing her sword with one hand and letting the other fill with light.

  Gideon’s mouth dropped open. “What the hell is that thing?”

  Creature: Hand of Darkness (Lv 23)

  HP: 1,872

  Resistances: No information available

  Weaknesses: No information available

  “Uh, that’s not good,” Chloe muttered.

  Veronica powered light into her fingers. “What? Can you scan creatures?”

  Chloe nodded and told them the information she had seen in her vision.

  “Level 23?” Gideon complained as the coils began to squeeze Blueballs tighter. They could hear his strained cries, muffled by the tendril of shadow. “We’ve got no chance.”

  “Not with that attitude,” Chloe said as she willed her mana into her palms. “KF, let’s do this!”

  She stroked her hand around the air surrounding her sword, channeling as much power as she could into bonding the weapon with magic. It was tricky, something she’d only done with a lower-level electric spell before, but she thought it might be worth a whirl now.

  The Hand of Darkness threw out another tendril, aiming it at Chloe, who swiped with the sword before it could reach her. A chunk of shadow somehow came away, vanishing into nothing beneath the sliver of light from the ceiling.

  “Veronica, aim for the coils around Blueballs!”

  “You really called your bear ‘Blueballs?’” She chuckled, fingers exploding with light.

  There was a sizzling sound as the light hit the shadows, the coils unwrapping slowly, fizzing like candy dropped in Coke. Veronica grunted, fingers straining under the power.

  “Great!” Chloe said as Blueballs began to descend back to the ground. Chloe took the opportunity to charge forward, sword glowing bright white as she harnessed her acrobatics skills and jumped higher than she ever had in her life.

  She slashed down with her sword, managing to cut through two tendrils in one blow. The darkness had no face. No body. Just endless shadow. Chloe didn’t know where it started or ended, but she jumped and cut, jumped and cut, until Blueballs was released back onto the shrine’s floor.

  Gideon, meanwhile, scurried over, casting Healing Hands on Blueballs. The toffet’s energy returned slowly and he rose to his feet, hair bristling.

  Before all of the toffet’s health had been restored, Gideon felt his mana drain completely. He stared at his hands as if willing them to charge.

  “Chloe! I’m out of juice!”

  Chloe, mid-leap, only half-heard Gideon’s cry. It rang in that deep recess that holds onto reality while a person sinks into insanity. She went for another slice of the Hand’s reaching tendrils and saw that her sword no longer glowed. The light extinguished, only intensifying the darkness around them.

  “Er, Veronica? A little help?”

  Veronica stared at her useless fingers, her own mana drained. They had spent a lot of energy taking down the demons, and only now realized what the cost of that had been.

  Chloe landed back on the floor. “Gid, you got any potions?”

  Gid nodded, having replenished his stock over the last few days in the city. “A few. Here.”

  He handed one to Veronica, who drank it greedily. Chloe, on the other hand, ran toward Gideon, only to find herself dragged backward as a shadowy tendril wrapped itself around her ankle, tipping her upside down in the air.

  “Hello, darkness, my old friend.” Chloe laughed, the sound cut short as a tendril squeezed her throat. “Gid,” she said in raspy wheezes. “Help?”

  Blueballs roared fiercely, baring his teeth as he dropped to all fours and bounded toward the shadow. The darkness had begun to stretch along the cave walls, growing in size with every passing second. It was toying with its victims.

  Blueballs leapt into the air and grabbed the coils that bound Chloe, not realizing the irony of the two swapping places as he sank his teeth into the tendrils, gripping with his paws just inches away from Chloe’s body.

  The toffet’s weight was enough to bring the coil nearer to the ground. Veronica and Gideon ran over and grabbed Blueballs’ legs. Gideon scrambled, climbing onto first Veronica’s back, then Blueballs,’ avoiding the chomping head as he barely held on with one hand, hunting for a mana potion with the other.

  The darkness seemed to throb in delight as the flies flew eagerly into its web. Chloe managed a few small drops of the potion, most of it going down her chin, before she felt the power come back. A few MP. Not a lot, but maybe enough.

  “Hold on tight,” she croaked, ignoring the voice in her head that told her she sounded like Donald Duck.

  Gideon and Veronica did the opposite, letting go and thumping to the floor. They scrambled backward as shadows snaked toward them.

  Bright light seeped between the coils of the shadow, bursting forward as Chloe summoned the barest minimum to cast her Deic Light. She circled her hands, severing the tendrils as she and the toffet landed back on the floor.

  “The rest,” Chloe called.

  Gideon instantly obliged, tossing the potion her way.

  Chloe uncorked the vial and drained it, gagging a little as the thick liquid went down her throat. She felt suddenly energized and ready to battle. Her HP had taken a hit, but it wasn’t anything to worry about just yet.

  “Okay.” Chloe rolled up imaginary sleeves. “Let’s do this.”

  “I hope you’re saving some of the fun for us?” Tag’s voice grumbled from the beyond the waterfall.

  “Who’s that?” Veronica asked, eyebrow raised.

  “The KieraSlayers,” Chloe replied with a smirk. “My party.”

  They charged through the sheet of water, dodging and ducking out of the way of tendrils that leapt suddenly their way. Tag’s ankle was briefly caught before Ben fired an arrow into the shadow and it released enough for Tag to continue running. Chloe’s heart lightened as she saw the shaman’s wisp trailing behind them.

  There’s always a light when you need one.

  Not necessarily true, but okay, KieraFreya replied.

  “You know, you’ve got to stop running off without us,” Jessie remarked.

  Ben nodded agreement, eyes trained on the growing shadow around them. It had begun to look like an octopus orgy, all limbs and tentacles flailing around. The Hand of Darkness had spread into a near 360-degree circle around them, avoiding only the waterfall. “She’s right. You’re better off with us, remember.”

  “I just wanted to try something,” Chloe replied. “I didn’t see this happening.” She blasted Deic Light as several tendrils shot out at them, jabbing at them like a viper toying with its victim.

  “What the hell is it?”

  “Hand of Darkness,” Ben said, using his own Creature Identification.

  “Which is?” Jessie asked.

  “Does it matter right now?” Talbot replied, sword in hand. “Let’s just kill it.”

  They stood close to each other, each person harnessing their skills to attack the Hand of Darkness. Ben shot arrow after arrow, Tag swung with his hammer as if playing baseball, Jessie withdraw small orbs from her bag that smoked at her touch, launching them into the body of the beast, where they exploded with orange smoke, Talbot hacked awkwardly with his sword, Gideon tried every variation of his spells, Veronica attacked with the light from her fingers, and Chloe blasted with her light.