Victor of Tucson

Victor stood, chest heaving, atop the latest pile of bodies, the remains of the final wave of attackers sent to defend the first gate of the dungeon’s “crucible.” Gore dripped from his axe and him—every inch of his armor was soaked with it, dripping into the widening pool at his feet as the armor’s self-cleaning enchantments worked to sluice it away. Grunting, he hefted Lifedrinker to his shoulder and stepped around the broken, torn remnants of his foes, glaring left and right, hunting for further targets for his rage, hoping that some still lurked among the charnel mounds.

His Iron Berserk had worn off during that last wave, and his fight had grown a bit more desperate, contending with the much stronger foes. Even so, he’d never contemplated failure; his Furious Battle Momentum had never let up, and as the blows of his enemies mounted, Victor’s strength, speed, and ferocity had risen to incredible levels. Even now, as he glared around, seeking something more to fight, the world was tinted in deep shades of crimson, and his hunger for battle was unslaked.

Even without his active berserk ability, his natural regeneration continued to knit the cuts in his flesh and smooth out the lumps of countless contusions. He was distantly aware of System messages floating in front of his face, and though they irritated him, a tiny part of his mind knew they were important. With nothing left to fight, he stood amid the corpses, viscera, pools of blood, and gore and simply breathed, waiting—at first for something more to kill and then, as his rage slowly cooled, for his mind to come back to him.

The process was accelerated as a great mist of Energy rose from the corpses of his foes and poured into him. The waves of euphoria washed away his fury, recharged his Core, and finished the renewal of his flesh. His consciousness wasn’t aware of any of that, though, as it drifted through strange, disjointed visions—oceans churning, geysers erupting, strange, shadow figures climbing insurmountable slopes, planets colliding, breaking apart, and reforming as great beings traversed their broken landscapes.

When his mind returned to his body, and he saw that he knelt before the open gate amid the wreckage of his foes, Victor smiled, almost lazily rising to his feet as he scanned through the System’s messages:

***Congratulations! You have cleared the first gate of the Crucible of Fire! Collect your reward inside the gatehouse!***

***Congratulations! You have cleared the first wave of a group-rated challenge as a solo adventurer, earning a bonus to the value of your reward!***

***Congratulations! You have achieved level 75 Berserker of Unstoppable Momentum and gained 9 strength, 14 vitality, 9 agility, and 9 dexterity.***

***Congratulations! You have increased the rank of your Sovereign Will ability: Epic.***n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

“Holy shit.” Victor’s eyes were focused on the last two messages—he’d nearly given up on improving Sovereign Will. He ran it all the time, and the only guidance he’d gotten from Dar about the ability was to keep using it. It looked like his persistence had finally paid off in a big way. Before, he’d been able to apply a third of his will to two of his physical attributes. At this point, a third of his will was about 224 points. Now, he could apply half or roughly 336 points. In other words, this upgrade had granted him another 112 attribute points times two.

“Two hundred and twenty-four extra stat points for free, chica!” he crowed, hefting his enormously heavy axe above his head.

We have bathed in the blood of your foes, and now we reap the glory!

Victor laughed, pleased by Lifedrinker’s outlook. After a moment to savor their bond, he regarded the other messages again. Another level, which didn’t surprise him, even though levels were supposed to be getting slow now that he was mid-tier-seven. After all, he’d just killed five hundred foes, and the last few waves hadn’t been pushovers. More intriguing was the fact that the System had just rewarded him for completing “group” content by himself. What did that portend for the rest of the crucible?

Victor walked through the squelching, blood-soaked gravel to the gate and looked inside. Sure enough, a black stone chest sat to the left of the pathway, flickering with golden System-style runes. The messages and the chest helped him confirm his suspicion that the System wasn’t always listening and watching what he did. If it knew he was in the dungeon with the intent to destroy it, to help a sleeping ancient being strike a blow against it, would the System reward him? Would it be increasing his rewards for the difficulty of the challenge? Wouldn’t it, instead, make things harder for him?

Of course, the thought brought to mind a dozen other questions. Could the System listen to him and watch him all the time? It certainly seemed able to send him messages whenever he leveled or did something with one of his skills or spells. Victor couldn’t help imagining it was like a complicated network—constantly monitoring on a base level but only really paying attention when something specific happened. It chafed—feeling like he was always being watched, but the idea that it wasn’t consciously watching all the time gave him a little comfort; there was some wiggle room, an opportunity for…rebellion.

Victor had to face the facts; his current trajectory was leading that way. He might not be able to do anything significant yet, but if his ancestors and the very nature of his blood were steering him in that direction, would he fight it? Would he turn aside? Would he turn his back on that part of his nature? And if he didn’t? What price would he pay to try to throw the System off, to operate outside it? How might an entity capable of conquering galaxies respond?

The mountain, the sleeping ancient titan, had grumbled about rising from his slumber and battling against the System’s imposed control, but how far could even such a mighty being take his war? He’d spoken about breaking the world and others besides, but would the System even care? It controlled millions of worlds. If the System couldn’t oppose a titan like Azforath directly, couldn’t it simply isolate him or wait for him to wear himself out and go back to sleep? What would the System care if a few billion lives were lost in the process?

Victor sighed, pushing the thoughts from his mind; he had work to do and couldn’t solve the riddles that plagued his mind by standing there in the gateway. He walked to the chest and unceremoniously lifted the lid, waving away the glittering golden steam that poured forth so he could look within. Two objects lay inside the chest—a brilliant, glittering, sapphire-colored gemstone the size of a baseball and a brick of lustrous, silver-hued ore.

The ore was dense, heavier than gold as Victor lifted it out, but there wasn’t any clue about its nature other than the deep well of Energy he could feel within it. As for the gemstone, it was a similar situation. It felt incredibly potent and rich with Energy, but there wasn’t any sort of identifying label tucked away inside the chest, and the System didn’t provide any further enlightenment. Victor tucked both treasures away, intent on asking Trobban about them.

Part of him hoped the gem was what he’d come to the mountain hoping to find: an “azurite star.” It matched Trobban's description, but Victor couldn’t believe he’d already found one. It seemed too easy. Before moving on, he sat on the now-empty chest and took out the Farscribe book he shared with Bryn. He figured he’d delayed giving her an update long enough:

Bryn – Don’t go any deeper than where I left you. Everything should be fine, though. There aren’t hordes of demons or anything on their way up. Haha. Guard that door, and I should be back before too long. I’ll update you if anything delays me too much.

-Your Boss

He chuckled at his lame attempts at humor and almost scratched out the “Your Boss” part, not sure Bryn knew him well enough to realize he was being stupid. He shrugged, though, and left it. He knew, if he were being truly conscientious, he’d warn her about the sleeping god-like being on whose resting site they were treading and probably about the dungeon he’d entered, but some lingering paranoia kept him from doing so. As far as he was concerned, the fewer people who knew exactly what he was up to, the better. Shrugging, he walked the rest of the way through the gatehouse and laid his eyes on the second part of the “crucible.”

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The sharp, black gravel road continued for a hundred yards and ended at the edge of a lake of bubbling lava. Victor could feel the deep well of magma-attuned Energy out there and briefly contemplated pausing to cultivate it for his Breath Core. The oxygen in the air was thin, and Victor knew if he weren’t Quinametzin and if he didn’t have a magma affinity and the feats that made him resistant to poisons, he’d be suffering from the gases that hung above the burbling, hissing, smoldering semi-liquid. As it was, he simply breathed shallowly and narrowed his eyes as the caustic blend made them water.

Stepping closer to the edge of the lake, he saw solid stone platforms or pedestals dotting its surface, leading away to the distant shore where, another hundred yards further on, he could see the next gate. “So, I need to cross, huh?” He almost laughed. The lake was maybe a quarter-mile across, and he figured he could cover the distance in a few Titanic Leaps. Even easier, he knew he could use his armor’s enchantment, Flight of the Lava King, to clear the distance in a matter of seconds. He wouldn’t need to hop from platform to platform.

Nodding with a grin spreading over his face, he held Lifedrinker before himself, channeled some Energy into his armor, and activated the Flight of the Lava King. With a crackling woosh, his fiery wings sprouted from the air near the center of his back and cracked down, sending black smoke and ash whirling behind him as he sprang into the air, streaking across the lake of lava just as he’d envisioned it. He moved his gaze toward the far, rocky shore and descended, ripping through the air with no resistance.

When his feet set down and he jogged toward the gate, gradually slowing his momentum with each step, he wondered if he’d cheated somehow, breaking the gauntlet by trivializing a crossing that was supposed to be a challenge. When his fiery wings faded, and he stood a dozen yards from the gate, he stared at it, waiting. He wondered if something would come through that he’d have to fight or if the entire point of the second gate was to see if he could cross the lava.

The gate didn’t move, but after two or three minutes, he heard a noise behind him—a squelching, hissing, burbling sound. At first, it had blended in with the usual sounds of the hissing magma as its surface broke with giant, swollen gas bubbles. Victor whirled, lifting Lifedrinker high, only to see dozens of dark lumps of cooling magma forging through the barely liquid surface of the lava lake. They looked like stones being pulled by invisible lines through the thick liquid, moving quickly enough to leave short wakes.

Victor narrowed his eyes, watching as the first of the dark lumps reached the shore, and then, with a squelching surge, it exploded out of the lava to land on two lumpy, magma-coated legs. “What the fuck?” Victor readied Lifedrinker and pulled a rope of furious rage-attuned Energy into his pathways, preparing to cast Iron Berserk. As he did so, more and more of the magma-covered humanoids lurched onto the shore, dripping molten rock around them that hissed and sizzled.

They weren’t huge—somewhere between a human and a giant in size, but they were bulky, and their very nature sent a shiver of doubt down Victor’s spine. How could you kill something made of lava? “One way to find out,” he grunted, striding toward the nearest one. It didn’t seem to have eyes or ears, but somehow, it knew he was coming. It squared off with him, spreading broad hands with glowing-hot fingers. Victor grunted, hacking Lifedrinker down in an overhead chop, aiming her massive, gleaming axe-head at the monster’s crown.

To Victor's amazement, the thing reached up and grasped the sides of Lifedrinker’s blade, halting her momentum cold. Victor’s eyes grew wide with shock as the creature pulled, nearly yanking his axe from his hands. “Hell no!” Victor roared and cast Iron Berserk. Victor gave in to his rage as his muscles exploded with unnatural growth, and his figure stretched, towering over the monster. How dare this thing try to strip Lifedrinker from him?

He ripped the axe back, viciously raking her blade over the creature’s fingers. They fell to the stone ground with little plops, but by the time Victor turned, lifting the axe high, ready to hack into the monster, he saw that they’d regrown. Worse, five more of the monsters were closing in on him. In his titanic form, they were like children to him—stocky, fiery, faceless, extremely strong children. Victor, his vision clouded with crimson, stepped forward and heaved Lifedrinker in a broad, flat cleave. Her impossibly sharp obsidian edge split the magma creature like a cleaver through taffy.

As the top half flew to the side and the bottom staggered and fell, Victor bore down and roared at the other approaching magma-men, activating Voice of the Angry Earth. The roar echoed through the vast canyon, shaking the ground, sending waves of magma over the lake, toward the far shore, and, nearer to hand, the magma-men fell to their knees or toppled backward, stunned by the force of his voice. Victor gleefully, madly, strode among them, ripping Lifedrinker left and right, sending chunks of semi-liquid magma sliding over the ground on steaming, hissing skid marks like monstrous versions of a snail’s trail.

All told, he slaughtered thirty of the magma things, killing them before they could even muster an attack, thanks to the stunning effect of his furious sonic attack. When he stood on the shore, and no further creatures approached, he whirled to face the gate, only to see that the magma-men he’d first slain were climbing to their feet—new, bubbling magma-meat growing to replace the parts he’d cleaved away. Worse, the pieces he’d cut off were growing new parts! As Victor stared, his enemies recovered and more than doubled in number.

***Congratulations! You have reached the second gate of the Crucible of Fire! Survive the magma sprite onslaught!***

Despite his rage, Victor’s will and the magic of Iron Berserk allowed him to regain his senses. Enough so, that he realized he might be working against himself if he went on another rampage. Would they continue to multiply? Victor bolted down the shore of the lake, breaking out of their midst and taking advantage of their plodding movement to give himself time to think.

“Let’s try something, Beautiful,” he grunted, lifting Lifedrinker high. He darted forward and brought her down, just hard enough to cleave into one of the sprite’s shoulders but not split it in half. Once she’d gotten a good, deep bite, he let go, allowing her to do her thing. “Drink!” he screamed, kicking another sprite away and then jogging off. When he turned to see how Lifedrinker’s ability to drain Energy was progressing, he was horrified to see another of the sprites grab her handle and yank her out of his comrade.

As the little pendejo lifted her high, looking almost comical with the oversized weapon, Victor growled and ran toward him, channeling his Energy Charge spell. He slammed into his enemy, leading with his shoulder, and when he made impact, it felt like he’d tried to tackle a brick mailbox—back when he was an ordinary human. The crash was thunderous, the shockwave enough to knock all the nearest magma sprites onto their asses, and Victor felt his Core pouring Energy into the shield to protect him from the forces generated.

The sprite was a sturdy, heavy, strong creature, but it wasn’t powerful enough to withstand those torrential forces. As the creature exploded, hunks of magma flying in every direction, Lifedrinker fell to the ground with a tremendous thud, splitting the stone like a ball-bearing hitting glass. Victor yanked her up immediately, feeling relief and pride vibrate through her and into his hand. “Sorry, chica!” he cried, mortified that an enemy had held her against her will.

Let us slay!

Victor grinned madly despite his lack of a plan. He turned and jogged ahead of the small horde of magma sprites, wracking his brain for a new idea. He’d killed one, hadn’t he? Could he just whittle them down with Energy Charge? As he turned to assess the field, he had a rapid change of heart. The magma sprite he’d “killed” was coming back to life—a hundred times! Each chunk that had resulted from Victor’s explosive impact was growing into a new sprite.

“Chingado!” Victor spat, then jogged closer to the wall, running parallel to it to give himself more space as the much larger horde of magma sprites inexorably advanced. Mentally, he ran through his abilities, trying to think of one that could kill a sprite without splitting it. His gauntlet’s lava lash would be useless, likewise his berserking abilities; what good would it do to make himself more deadly with an axe that could only increase the count of his foes?

He could switch weapons, but to what? A spear, a sword, a hammer? What difference would any of them make? If he hammered one hard enough to kill it, would that not splatter the magma? He could pull them apart—same problem. He could throw them into the lava, but that would only delay them. He could summon coyotes or his bear, but again, they couldn’t harm the sprites without increasing their numbers. In the end, Victor figured he had two possible strategies.

His nightmare alter ego, Terror, could probably kill the creatures, draining them of Energy, but only if they were capable of feeling fear. Victor wasn’t sure about that, and he wanted to keep his wits about him as much as possible, so he decided to go with his other idea. He sent Lifedrinker into her storage container, and then he began to pace back and forth, waiting for the horde of magma sprites to get closer. While he paced, he breathed in and out, deeper and deeper, gathering his breath, channeling the Energy that hung thick in the air.

As the front row of the magma men closed the distance to twenty yards, Victor grinned at them. “Okay, assholes. You like fire, huh? How do you like ice?”