The spiral staircase seemed to go on forever, winding up through the bedrock of the world.

  I took the steps two at a time. The euphoria of the candy-explosion victory was fading, replaced by a cold knot of anxiety in my stomach. We had been down in the Sunken Temple for... how long? Days? Hours? Time in the dungeon felt elastic.

  But up here, in the real world, time was cruel.

  I thought of the civilians huddled in the sealed cave behind the barracks. Mothers, children, the elderly, and the wounded soldiers who hadn't been fit to stand guard. They had been trapped in the dark with limited water and no food since the mountain collapsed.

  "Move faster," I ordered, my voice echoing off the stone walls.

  "My legs are fine," Faelar grunted from behind me, munching on a piece of taffy. "But my thirst is returning. Sugar is a poor substitute for malt."

  "Save your breath, Faelar," Captain Vane snapped. She was limping less now, thanks to the mithril sword acting as a counterbalance and the lingering effects of the stew, but her face was grim. "If they panicked... if they tried to dig out and caused a secondary collapse..."

  She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to.

  We reached the top of the stairs. I pushed open the hidden stone door that led back into the rear of the cavern system. I braced myself for the sounds of weeping, or the stench of sickness and despair.

  Instead, I smelled... yeast?

  I smelled fresh bread. I smelled roasted nuts. I smelled clean water.

  I stepped into the cavern.

  It wasn't a tomb. It was a picnic.

  The cavern, which should have been pitch black, was lit by dozens of soft, floating orbs of starlight that drifted near the ceiling. The three hundred civilians were sitting in clusters, eating.

  And they weren't eating rats or boot leather.

  Mrs. Higgins, the baker’s wife, was tearing into a loaf of bread that looked softer and whiter than anything I had ever seen. A group of children were passing around a jug of juice that glowed a faint, happy orange. The wounded soldiers were sitting up, gnawing on strips of dried meat that smelled spicy and rich.

  "What..." Vane lowered her sword. "Where did they get supplies?"

  A town elder, a man named Horgus with a limp and a bad eye, spotted us. He scrambled to his feet, dropping a half-eaten apple.

  "Captain!" Horgus cried, rushing over. "You're alive! We thought the demons took you!"

  "We're alive," I said, looking around the well-fed crowd. "Horgus, report. Where did this food come from? Did you find a cache?"

  "No, sir," Horgus shook his head, looking bewildered. "The Delivery Man brought it."

  I exchanged a look with Liam. "The Delivery Man?"

  "About six hours ago," Horgus explained, gesturing vaguely at the wall. "He just... appeared. Pop. Out of thin air."

  "Describe him," Vane ordered.

  "Old fellow," Horgus said. "Wore robes made of paper, or maybe parchment. Had ink all over his fingers. And..." Horgus lowered his voice, looking scandalized. "He was absolutely hammered, Captain. Stank like a brewery fire."

  Faelar’s ears perked up. "Go on."

  "He stumbled in," Horgus continued. "Knocked over a stack of shields. Hiccuped so hard he vanished for a second and then reappeared on the other side of the room. He kept muttering about 'Spawn Rates' and 'Difficulty Curves.' Then he snapped his fingers, and these crates just fell out of the sky."

  Horgus pointed to a stack of wooden crates stamped with a symbol that looked suspiciously like a twenty-sided die.

  "He said something before he left," a young woman added, stepping forward with a baby on her hip. "He looked at the ceiling and yelled, 'Sorry about the physics engine! The bird wasn't supposed to have root access! Enjoy the carbs!' Then he fell backward into a portal and was gone."

  Vane looked at the bread in the woman's hand. "And you ate it? A drunk wizard appears from the void, rants about birds, and you eat his magic bread?"

  "We were starving, Captain," the woman said simply. "And it tastes like honey."

  "The Weaver," Willow whispered.

  Everyone turned to the gnome cleric. Willow’s face was pale. She was staring at the floating lights with wide eyes.

  "Who?" I asked.

  "In the texts of the Life Mother," Willow said, her voice trembling, "he is called Aethelgard the Spinner. The God of Coincidence. The Architect of Fate."

  She touched one of the crates reverently.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  "He isn't supposed to be here," Willow said. "The texts say he only watches. He writes the story, he doesn't... act in it. If he physically manifested, and if he was inebriated..."

  "It means the script is broken," Liam finished, stepping out of a shadow. "It means the world is off the rails."

  "It means he didn't share!" Faelar shouted, kicking a rock. "The God of Stories shows up with snacks and booze and doesn't wait for the dwarf? That is a personal insult!"

  I looked at the food, then at the stone on my belt. I didn't know anything about Aethelgard or "The Weaver." To me, the voice in the stone was just The Game Master—the celestial operator who had given me the map to the Otter, the guy who had admitted to messing up the dragon fight.

  The Game Master came through, I thought, a small smile touching my lips. He realized he pushed the difficulty too high, so he sent a patch. A drunk, stumbling patch, but a patch nonetheless.

  Whatever Willow called him, I knew one thing: the man upstairs was watching, and he had a guilty conscience.

  "It doesn't matter who he was," I said firmly. "He kept our people alive. That’s what matters."

  I looked at the front of the cave. The massive pile of rubble from the landslide still blocked the exit, sealing us in.

  "But we can't stay here," I said. "We need fresh air. And we need to see what’s left of the world."

  I turned to the dwarf.

  "Faelar," I pointed at the blockade. "Dig."

  Faelar looked at the wall of rock. It was fifty feet of granite, shale, and compressed dirt. It would take a mining crew a week to clear it.

  Faelar cracked his knuckles. He took a swig from his new Brewer’s Bandolier.

  "Stand back," Faelar grinned. "I’m feeling motivated."

  The dwarf didn't use a pickaxe. He walked up to a boulder the size of a carriage. He planted his feet, gripped the underside of the rock, and roared.

  [Ability: Indomitable Might]

  The rock didn't just move; it flew. Faelar heaved it over his head and tossed it behind him like it was a pebble. It landed with a ground-shaking thud.

  "Next!" Faelar shouted.

  He became a whirlwind of excavation. He punched through shale walls. He kicked gravel into piles. He ripped boulders out of the earth with his bare hands. He was a one-dwarf industrial boring machine, fueled by magic stew and divine alcohol.

  "He’s... he’s terrifying," Horgus whispered, watching Faelar headbutt a stalactite out of the way.

  "He’s ours," Vane said, a hint of pride in her voice.

  Ten minutes later, a beam of harsh, natural sunlight pierced the dust.

  "Breakthrough!" Faelar yelled, his voice echoing from the tunnel.

  We emerged into the blinding afternoon sun.

  I stepped out first, my new white spear in hand, shield raised. I expected a hail of arrows. I expected the roar of Void Beasts. I expected to fight for every inch of ground.

  I was met with silence.

  The High-Wall Fort was a ruin. The walls were crumbled, the towers toppled. The landslide had devastated the courtyard.

  But it was empty.

  The wind whistled through the broken stones. There were no purple banners. No demonic encampments. The Void Army was gone.

  "They left," Liam said, dropping from a broken archway where he had scouted. "Tracks lead north. A massive column. They marched out days ago."

  "They think we're dead," Vane realized, sheathing her sword. "They saw the mountain come down. They assumed no one could survive that. Why siege a graveyard?"

  "We're ghosts," I said, lowering my shield. "That’s good. Ghosts are hard to kill."

  I looked back at the tunnel. The civilians were starting to emerge, blinking in the light, clutching their children. They looked at the ruins of their home with sadness, but they were alive.

  "We can't leave them like this," Willow said, looking at the devastation. "They have no walls. No shelter."

  I looked at my hands. I felt the hum of Level 18 power in my veins. I looked at Faelar, who was juggling rocks. I looked at Elmsworth, who was currently arguing with a cloud.

  "We don't leave until they're safe," I said. "Misfits! Work detail!"

  The next few hours were a blur of impossible feats.

  Usually, rebuilding a perimeter wall would take fifty men a month.

  Faelar and I did it in three hours.

  We worked as a two-man crane. Faelar would lift a massive slab of cut stone—remnants of the old fort—and I would guide it into place, using my spear butt to fuse the mortar. We rebuilt the eastern wall, stacking stone upon stone with a speed and precision that defied physics.

  Elmsworth handled the water. The fort’s cistern had been cracked.

  "Fix! Mend! Be wet!" Elmsworth shouted, pointing his staff.

  A burst of blue magic sealed the stone cracks. Another burst summoned water to fill it.

  "Why is the water purple?" a child asked, peering into the well.

  "Flavor!" Elmsworth declared.

  Vane tasted it cautiously. "Grape," she confirmed. "It’s... perfectly fine."

  But the true miracle was Willow.

  She didn't lift stones. She walked among the people.

  There were hundreds of minor injuries—infected cuts from the cave, sprained ankles, chronic coughs from the dust, old pains that had lingered for years.

  Willow stood in the center of the courtyard. She closed her eyes. She reached into that new, bottomless reservoir of golden light in her chest.

  She didn't cast a single spell. She cast [Mass Heal].

  A wave of warm, golden energy rippled out from her, washing over the crowd like a summer breeze.

  Bandages fell away from healed skin. Canes were dropped. The hacking coughs of the miners ceased instantly. An old man who hadn't walked without pain in a decade stood up straight and wept.

  "It is the Life Mother," a woman cried, falling to her knees.

  "No," Willow said softly, helping the woman up. "It’s just us. It’s just the Guard."

  By sunset, the civilians were safe. The wall was defensible. The larder was stocked with the Game Master’s magical crates. They had water, and they had health.

  I stood on the newly rebuilt rampart, looking north. The wind whipped at my cloak.

  The tracks of the Void Army were like a scar on the land, heading toward the Capital. Toward the Spire. Toward Malacor.

  Captain Vane walked up beside me. She had cleaned her armor, and the new mithril sword hung at her hip.

  "The Sergeant says they can hold the fort," Vane said. "With the walls repaired and the supplies, they can last for months."

  "Good," I said.

  "They want you to stay, Kaelen," Vane said quietly. "They're calling you the King of the Mountain. They think you're a god."

  "I’m not a god," I said. "I’m just a man who took a wrong turn at the edge of the world."

  "What do you mean?”

  "Never mind," I shook my head. "We can't stay, Vane. You know that. As long as Malacor has the Spire, this rot will keep spreading. These walls won't save them from the Void. Only we can."

  Vane looked at the Misfits down in the courtyard. Faelar was arm-wrestling three miners at once (and winning). Liam was teaching a kid how to hold a dagger. Elmsworth was letting children pet Nugget. Willow was sleeping, exhausted but smiling.

  They didn't look like misfits anymore. They looked like legends.

  "Are you coming?" I asked.

  Vane looked at her soldiers. They were safe. They had a mission here—to protect the families.

  She rested her hand on the mithril pommel.

  “Someone has to protect the people here and help rebuild,” Vane said. “I wish I could, somebody has to keep you lunatics from invading the wrong castle.”

  I smiled. I reached into my inventory—a thought that was becoming second nature now—and pulled out a map.

  "Malacor thinks we're buried," I said. "He thinks he won. That’s the first mistake he’s made in a long time."

  I gripped the Sun-Piercer spear, the white metal humming in the twilight.

  "Let's go," I said. "We have a wizard to hunt.”