“Piercing Strike. That’s all it was.” Ron crossed his arms and snorted. “He took out the eye. Just like our Sammy did with the ankylosaurus that will net us a good haul… especially if it’s the last one anyone’s allowed to hunt here without paying whatever fee that asshole below is going to require, since this is now ‘his territory.”

  Sammy blinked, surprised at the heat in the normally cool-headed Ronny’s voice, though he did dip his head at the dust cloud over the massive beast below.

  “Still, it was a damn fine kill, that’s for—what the fuck!?”

  Sammy’s heart began to pound as the air grew weirdly thin and the tiny figure in the distance that she realized must be Ernest began to glow a fearsome purple light.

  “I’m blind. Fuck! I can’t see!” Peter cried out.

  “Close your fucking eyes, you idiot! All of you close your eyes. Close your ears! That’s Necromancy!” Sylvy cried out, features turning ghastly white as she covered her ears and curled into a ball.

  Yet Sammy found herself helplessly staring at that distant figure floating over the massive corpse before him.

  As awed and horrified as she was, for some reason, she just couldn’t look away.

  Lightning flashed and thunder bloomed, a whirlwind of a storm forming from nowhere.

  She began to gasp, feeling like she was being coated with an oily resin as words echoed through the air and caressed her body and, she feared, her very soul with a hideous intimacy that had her choking back a scream.

  “Surge Centuria! Imperator Imperat, Tibi!”

  The platform of bone and sinew holding them all so securely, that should have given it away, began to sway on unseen currents.

  They were on a fucking bone platform! Peter and Timmy were wide-eyed gibbering wrecks, looking ready to jump off, just to escape the nightmare they all saw forming below.

  And Sammy understood why, some tiny corner of her mind screaming right along with them.

  If she had felt terror before at the sight of Spiky glaring up at her as she fell to her almost certain death, it was just an echo of the absolute horror she felt when the creature lurched back to its feet! The earth groaned under its shifting weight as it opened awful green eyes blazing with eldritch fire!

  Yet what got her heart pounding so loud she couldn’t even hear her friend’s screams over the roaring in her ears wasn’t just the hideous power now radiating off the beast, echoing the potency that Ernest, for just a heartbeat, had showed off before them all. It was that the creature was looking right at her! with sentient eyes that UNDERSTOOD! Eyes that somehow RECOGNIZED her! Smirking as if conceding that she lived, for now. But he would always be there. Watching. Waiting.

  Hungry.

  But Sammy would give herself a tiny bit of credit for somehow holding it together despite how badly she wanted to scream.

  Up until the very moment the creature actually spoke.

  “Ave Imperator Abedimus!” roared a voice that brought them all to their knees, dizzy and shaking.

  The only thing worse was the laughter roaring from Ernest Edgelord Slaughter’s throat.

  A booming laugh that seemed to grow and grow as it echoed off unseen jagged mountains under brooding black skies in a realm her soul howled at the very thought of being forced back into, while still in the prime of her lush mortal life.

  “What the fuck am I thinking?”

  She clenched her fists tightly, unable to hear her own scream. The only thing her ears picked up were the howling winds of purgatory, the triumphant laughter of a madman, and what sounded like millions upon millions of lost souls roaring the same haunting phrase over and over again.

  “Ave Imperator Abedimus!”

  “Damn right you do, big boy. Congrats! You just got promoted to Underlord! We have a few openings, and I think a super carrier-sized triceratops with your impressive horns would serve as an inspiration to all our men. Now, can you imagine tearing into New York at fucking Mach 4 boosted by Mark of Resilience, Dreadlord’s Wrath, and Dreadlord’s Frenzy? Of course you can!”

  Sammy flinched when the wild-eyed youth turned his head to meet her panicked stare… then he seemed to disappear!

  Only to appear right before her, now glowing with a fearsome intensity that had Sammy on her knees. Not with horror, but with awe. With outright wonder.

  As if the dreadful storm and its brooding dark clouds that had come so close to washing them all to the next life had transformed to a gentle, life-giving spring shower. And the tender look in Ernest’s forest-green eyes was the farthest thing from a titan-raising psychopath.

  They were the eyes of a beautiful soul who cherished all those under his care.

  “Sammy?”

  She stiffened, wide eyes gazing helplessly his own.

  Why? Why was he gazing at her so intently? This monstrous youth radiating such power and beauty who could kill her in the blink of an eye… why did he look concerned? Tilting his head like he actually cared?

  “Question for you.”

  She gasped, heart thundering in her chest when powerful, gore-spattered hands gently clasped her own.

  “Please don’t hurt me!”

  Ernest blinked, looking genuinely nonplussed. “Sorry, what?”

  “Please!”

  He turned to his familiar. “Bun?”

  The rabbit sighed. “Dude, you clearly beat her Willpower check in the thunder n awe department.”

  Ernest furrowed his brow. “Shit. Seriously? I was holding back so fucking much…”

  “Yeah, I know. But Spiky?”

  Ernest winced. He actually winced! His cheeks were flushing! Sammy gazed at him in disbelief.

  He was embarrassed. Embarrassed before the scowling eighteen inch tall rabbit!

  “I know! I just… I couldn’t help it, Bunz. Everything just lined up! All the potency in this territory, even now hovering in a state of glorious quantum flux, and Spiky wanted to live so badly, and I earned such a strong connection after getting that kill! And when the System made it clear I could lock in that brightly glowing soul without spending a single Soul Point of my own… I just couldn’t resist?”

  His rabbit crossed his arms. “And was it plaque-free?”

  The boy flushed. “No.”

  This earned a sigh. “Alright. How bad?”

  The boy murmured something.

  “Speak up, Ernest!"

  “Just 0.2%!”

  His familiar scowled… then broke into a grin. “So we’re still well below 4 percent… and yes! FINALLY! We have a fresh Underlord, and you still got three spots left!” The rabbit squealed. “And he’s radiating so much power. Deep Bronze at least, if not half-step Silver! And how the fuck was a creature that powerful chilling in an Orange-tier zone? It makes no sense!”

  “True,” Ernest conceded. “Unless of course he’s the reason why the rest of the territory was so calm. So docile.” His features took on an excited cast. “Because he has a connection to the land, Bunz, and somehow I thought he was the key!”

  “The key?”

  “The link between necromancy and Endless Bounty!”

  The rabbit blinked, looking thoughtful. “So, is he?”

  The boy winced. “Not precisely? But there was a connection strong enough for me to claim him Soul Point cost free, with a big thumbs up from the System! AND the breakthrough’s gotten me halfway to my next Master Necromancer level that would now take a shocking number of kills to achieve and perhaps best of all, it got a certain skill to the cusp of Rank 18. The skill we know I need to get to the next tier fucking ASAP! All I need is one more revelation, and I’m breaking through! And so much of the plaque that should have tagged me washed back into rejuvenating the land, Spiky giving back to the territory he had dominated so utterly as if he had already conquered it… or had already been serving as its Underlord! So I just knew he would be a good fit!”

  The rabbit whistled. “That actually makes sense. And are my bunny senses skewed, or did you actually manage to infuse a rank of Dominion-based Impermeability on top of the rank of Wrath essence he has?!?”

  Ernest flashed a wicked grin. “As a matter of fact, I did. On top of a zero cost summoning. Did I break the bank on this one, or what?”

  “That’s fucking epic! WOOT! Nice job, Fearless Leader!”

  The air cracked painfully with their lightning fast high-five.

  “But no more revenants or raising anything until we take care of you-know-what.”

  Ernest solemnly nodded. “Scout’s honor.”

  “Awesome!” Bunz ears seemed to quiver. “We’re ready, Ernest. As of right fucking this second! The final pair of reds have fled the territory!”

  Ernest’s eyes widened. “Shit. You’re right. I didn’t even know they could—Unless they were enemy scouts or spies! But fuck it, no time.”

  Eyes wild with the promise of creation itself locked once more with a stunned Sammy’s own.

  “Okay, this is your first and last chance to affect the destiny of an entire realm, Sammy. What boon do you think would help you and your friends, and hell… all of New York the best?”

  Sammy gazed at him in open-mouthed wonder. Hardly daring to hope. Hardly daring to believe.

  Then she felt countless possibilities slip away when Ernest’s gentle smile stiffened.

  “Alright, Sammy. I’m sorry I—”

  Sammy forced herself to say it, whispering frantically in Ernest’s ear, cheeks flushing as she whispered words she suddenly wanted to take back, earning a throaty chuckle from the wild marvel before her.

  “I like it, Sammy, it’s brilliant.” Surprisingly gentle hands clasped her own. “Accept my party invite, and let’s forge something beautiful together.”

  When she felt the surge of crimson potency caress her like a lover’s embrace, she didn’t hesitate to let him in. Yet it was no more invasive than a gentle squeeze of her heart. And her soul.

  For just a heartbeat, she glimpsed their party sheet and was too shocked to feel anything but a numb sense of disbelief.

  For a brief period of time, she had felt like she was finally finding her place and achieving something she could truly be proud of as she forged herself into the warrior huntress of her dreams. Heads and shoulders above all the mortals she was so gentle with, and the average struggling adventurer in New York desperately grinding for experience points, ratty hides, and copper scraps in the piss-poor dungeons in the safer regions nearby.

  Of course the only ones to truly get ahead were those who lucked into professions that the gnolls and ruling elites actually found useful. They alone earned a modicum of respect from the lords of this city. They alone had accommodations actually worthy of being called a home.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  As much as her heart had gone out to them, as much as she thanked her good fortune every day to have fallen in with one of the very few corps that would dare the perilous, high-leveled beasties in the Orange-Tier region just beyond White-Tier New York City, she felt a fierce sense of pride in her accomplishments, spared the fate suffered by so many city survivors, believing that she was truly on the path to excellence.

  Only to be humbled like never before, seeing just how stark the difference was between her and the chance-met Contender now daring to shape a portion of the very world by her side.

  Eric & Friends ‘Let’s Reforge The World Together!’ Group!

  St / Vi / Fin / Qui / Per Mana / Qi Pool / Soul Reserves

  Eric 1412/ 1435 /1029 /1717 /1017 14114 / 3462 / 1180

  Sammy 50 /40 /45 /60 /45 -- / -- / 36

  Then all her silly feelings of jealousy and dismay were transformed to a shuddering awe that filled her soul completely. She opened her eyes to a beautiful world in glorious flux, alight with countless possibilities! For a heartbeat, she felt like she was a Game Master about to shape a country for her players so they could enjoy a handful of hours crafting a tale of their own together.

  Only now, the world they shaped was the actual one they lived in. A territory that might serve as as a magical sanctuary and wonder for countless adventurers and common folk who would be weaving their own life tales as best they could for centuries to come.

  “Prehistoric wonder meets the modern world. And somehow, you’re the key. How do you think we should shape it, Sammy?”

  More feelings than spoken words, but the meaning behind his query was clear enough.

  She shivered, locking gazes with the blond haired, blue-eyed boy suddenly before her, who looked so different from Ernest, free of the wild red hair, manic glint to his green eyes or pointed ears suggesting a Sylvan heritage… but somehow she was dead certain that they were one and the same. She wondered if he even knew that his disguise had lifted? Or was it deliberate?

  Then she got it, eyes widening with awe when she realized she recognized that face, recalling in that heartbeat her friend Sylvy referring to him as ‘Your Grace.’

  Eric Silver. Brother to Elonia Silver whose movies she had loved watching, having wondering more than once what it would have been like to live her life.

  And this wild-eyed, beautiful Contender was absolutely nothing like how he had once been portrayed in the tabloids.

  He was here. Right here! And a heartbeat from claiming this territory, no doubt for his sister’s growing empire.

  But no… he wasn’t just claiming a territory.

  He was reforging it in ways utterly beyond any stroke of a diplomat’s pen.

  And for some wonderful reason, he was sharing this moment with her.

  So many thoughts flashed by her suddenly hyper-acute intellect, realizing that she was benefiting from their odd gestalt, now understanding at last what he wanted from her. What he hoped she would share. And the magnificent gift he was somehow able to offer her in return.

  With a sudden spike of anxiety pricking her sense of wonder, terrified of losing out on the boon she sensed was just a single act of transformation away, she shared all that she could. All the insights and acuity of a former student of zoology, archaeology, and geology, having felt such a fierce love for nature, history, and the world they called home. Before shifting her degree to more practical interests including surveying, mineral processing, metallurgy, and mining engineering, having felt the weight of the world on her shoulders for most of her stint through college as she bounced between fields before graduating with a double major, only to find herself working in a zoo while waiting for a handful of applications to be accepted by several prestigious European mining corporations.

  The pay had been shit, but she had loved every minute of working with the animals after moving back in with her parents.

  Then the world had ended, and she had gone from destitute survivor to collared slave to freed woman and adventurer with the best guild she could have hoped for to now forging the world, or at least a tiny corner of the world, by a shockingly powerful Contender’s side.

  Once more loving every minute of it.

  Laughing with wonder as she whispered words of insight to the smiling youth’s ears, his own eyes widening with awe as she shuddered, feeling a piece of herself, countless hundreds of hours worth of memories, playing before them both like a movie at hyper-fast speed. She wanted to scream with the strain of it, not quite pain, yet the moment was bittersweet as so many memories came blazing back to full awareness once more as the youth before her nodded his head.

  “To think, all this in its proper time and place would have been transformed to oil and coal, and that’s just one of many, many gifts of mother earth that so many people made their lives pulling from the ground, up until the very end. Mines filled with iron ore and bauxite, titanium and garnets, zinc and copper and cobalt.”

  Sammy nodded. “It’s not quite that simple, of course. Most minerals are trapped in rock formations and have to be drilled or blasted out. It’s then processed at a mill where the ore we want is extracted from the debris we don’t.”

  The boy before her nodded. “Sure. That’s the way it used to be, and I can get a wonderful sense of it all, with your beautiful thoughts. But tell me, Sammy, what if a hundred million years of coal compression or several billion years of tectonic plate formations had been enhanced by magic? Magic sufficient to allow for veins of ore that were utterly pristine, binding only to the spicy magic unique to our beautiful territory. Magic that left those glowing veins of precious ore as easy to scoop out as claiming handfuls of clay!”

  Sammy blinked before she burst out laughing.

  “Oh, if only it was that simple! metals are never found in a pure state. They’re always combined with other minerals. Iron, for example is found as hematite, magnetite, or limonite, which is basically iron bonded to oxygen or water. The cost of extracting the pure metal from oxide minerals through chemicals, electricity, or in the case of iron, smelting, can be just as expensive or more expensive than any other part of the process!”

  Yet her bemusement froze to uncertainty when she saw the landscape reflected in his eyes. It was a world so like the one she knew and loved, but transformed, utterly.

  She shuddered in his gentle grip as the world became a roaring plane of lava. The air was filled with toxic fumes and the screams of comets soaring from the heavens with a brilliant star shining down upon at all. In that moment she understood that she was glimpsing what New York had looked like, countless billions of years before. Soon enough, the lava bed cooled and torrential rains began pouring down upon it. Light flickered with the passage of seasons and lifeless rock abruptly filled with lush, fecund ferns and tiny white blooming flowers she had never seen in any historical records for, this far back, and suddenly there were ankylosauri and stegosauri much like the ones she had trained herself to hunt with such dedication.

  Only these beasts seemed different, shockingly different, with their intelligent bovine-like gazes. Gentle, docile creatures, contentedly grazing upon ferns and succulents that were suddenly so much more than the limited flora of the Cretaceous era, filled with massive fruit trees heavy with succulent bounties that the docile herbivores took to with relish.

  Fruit groves that seemed to flourish beside the hill-shaped mounds that seemed almost to glow with a soft golden light, hitting her eyes so strangely.

  “Magic. Right? That mound is radiating… Mana?” She shivered, her mind tingling suddenly with an understanding, a feeling it had never had before.

  Heart pounding with wonder, Sammy shook her head, gazing once more at the youth still holding her hand.

  “Come on, Sammy. Check it out. Tell me what you think.”

  Swallowing her suddenly parched throat, she took stumbling footsteps upon the soft loamy ground covered in succulents she intuited were edible to humans as well as ravenous dinosaurs that were so docile that she somehow knew she didn’t need to fear them, even when she found herself passing just twenty feet from a massive sow happily devouring a bounty of dropped avocados fallen from a tree far larger than avocado trees had any right to be.

  Her trembling hand reached out to touch the hillock. Yet she felt nothing but gently leafy succulents that tasted just like spearmint when she bit a leaf, and lush soil beneath.

  “You have to use your hands. It’s just under the surface.”

  Sammy scowled at the youth behind him, before her handed her a shovel that she belatedly realized was made of bone seconds after she was using it, effortlessly cutting into the ground and bringing up heaping mounds of soil in what was truly effortless exertion. Even for her Strength!

  Before she could think to question, her shovel hit a thick vein of clay. Or what she thought might be clay. But when she brought it up… she stumbled to the ground, gazing at the lump of softly glowing ore she now held in trembling hands before turning to glare at the smirking youth beside her.

  “No fucking way!”

  The boy grinned. “Tell me what it is, Sammy. I know you can sense it. Right now, you’re as connected to this land as I am.”

  She scowled, then gave a soft chuckle. “My interface reads it as ferrous manatite ore.”

  Eric grinned. “Cool. Now shape it in your hands. Any shape you like.”

  Sammy frowned down at the lump in her hands before squishing it between her fingers and trying to shape it into a rough approximation of a spear blade… even if it looked like exactly what she knew it would with her zero artistic skills… a lump of mangled clay.

  She winced. “Sorry, I’m not an artist.”

  Ernest, or Eric, laughed. “That’s cool. But let me ask you, how useful metal that malleable would be in a production mill or factory?”

  He then solemnly handed her a bone-white mold that was, of course, made of bone.

  Sammy blanched only momentarily, then carefully put the lump of metal inside the depression and pressed the two halves together, a small portion of the excess metal coming out the hole, excreted in such a way as to make a surprisingly functional socket where the shaft would be inserted.

  When she lifted the mold, she saw a perfect spearhead.

  She took a slow breath, gazing at the smiling youth for long moments. “I just dug out a handful of metal clay and shaped it into a viable weapon head in less than a minute. Eric… assuming you have a way of hardening this again that’s not too expensive, you could equip an army.”

  “Or build up a city?”

  Sammy’s eyes widened, only in that moment truly taking in her environment. The lush foliage and contentedly grazing dinosaurs… and the dozens of shimmering nodes she could now sense with her inner eye. “Just how many ore deposits are there here?”

  “He winked. “Exactly as many as I saw on the mental map you had of all of New York’s mines.”

  She gazed at him in disbelief. “New York state is a big place, Eric, home to people and corporations that mined all sorts of minerals, in addition to coal, oil, and precious gems, in its near two century mining history.”

  “I know! You’d be surprised how many I was able to fit into 1600 square miles. With all sorts of metals and useful compounds that for some reason bond so nicely with the magic in the air here. And yes, there is a way to harden it. All you have to do is leave this territory, and the spicy mana gently leaves the ore, and you’re left with the metal in its pristine form.”

  Sammy was gazing at him in disbelief. He’s have half her professors pulling their hair out at the sheer impossibility of his claim, and the other half eager to form a business venture that would make them all shockingly rich.

  He then sighed. “I know it’s not perfect. Iron alone is nowhere near as strong as a good alloy of blended metals for making steel, and there’s the heating and tempering to consider, where we balance flexibility with hardness, with steel alloys most especially. But at least we can gather a crap load of iron from mines that never truly empty, form them into pure iron blocks, and combine them with other metals in factories and forges we’ll build later to form whatever alloys are needed for building towers or forging swords.”

  Sammy gazed at the youth before her for long moments, slowly shaking her head. “Eric… this could change everything. You know that, right? Absolutely everything!”

  Eric flashed an oddly relieved smile at that. “I can’t tell you how good it is to hear you say that. Now come on. I know I’m pushing you, but I have one final ore deposit to show you before you collapse!”

  Sammy smirked at that. “Hardly, I’ve never felt stronger, Ernest. But sure, show me… what the heck is that?”

  Grinning, Eric stopped before another mound, brushing off some soil before summoning an oversized shovel of his own to pull up a massive mound of a brilliant blue crystal he almost reverentially placed into the spear mold he had made.

  Sammy grinned at the perfect topaz-blue spear head she was solemnly presented with. “Keep it. This one’s yours.”

  “It’s pretty but I don’t recognize the alloy… which is strange.”

  “That’s because its Alutopaz. A patented Blue Corp material. Supposed to be extremely hard to formulate, but it’s absolutely fantastic for construction and pretty much everything else! It’s a lot stronger and lighter than pre-apocalypse steel. Only now…” He waved at a dozen glittering hillocks with a proud smile. “It’s not quite so limited a resource. Now we don’t have to worry about special request shipments from an off-world supplier that various scheming assholes will of course try to limit our having any access to at all, when it becomes clear that the natives not going down without a fight. But not anymore! Because this resource, like all the other ores here, will replenish itself regularly. And guess what? That’s not all! There’s another cool trick here that will, I think, make a lot of classers eager to take a certain profession.”

  He then gestured toward one of the triceratops, and with a couple of whispered words, an awed Sammy saw a ten ton creature that was somehow as docile as a workhorse effortlessly scooping out massive clods of soil and shimmering alloy with its horns.

  He was using a triceratops as an excavator!

  Sammy laughed. She couldn’t help herself, surprised to find herself stumbling to the ground, suddenly feeling dizzy.

  “I was hoping I could find a way to keep the dinosaurs, since I sense how important they are to you,” Eric explained. “But maybe not for hunting… maybe for excavating?”

  Sammy gave a delighted nod, and she was about to go into detail about all the wondrous possibilities this opened up, but found herself rapidly blinking as she cracked a massive yawn, now feeling such a warm glow through her entire body as she was swept up in the powerful youth’s arms.

  There was so much she wanted to say, her thoughts awhirl with the wonders before her, but her eyes were scratchy so she closed them for only a moment and found herself crashing down into glorious dreams of blossoming worlds utterly free of New York City’s dirt and grime, with laughing boys and cheerful dinosaurs as far as the eye could see.

  Congratulations! You have SUCCESSFULLY helped an Elite Contender forge a realm along the Path of Endless Bounty!

  You have earned a PERMANENT Bonus of +15 Strength, +15 Vitality and +5 Soul Reserves as a portion of the world’s bounty becomes your own!

  You have UNLOCKED Magesight.

  You have UNLOCKED Arcane Potential!

  Mana now flows through your meridians!

  You have FORGED a seventh Node!

  Your nodes now follow a Sylvan Configuration!

  All limitations have been lifted!

  You have TRANSCENDED the base dross of your existence and become so much more as you join your dreams with a Contender’s own!

  Sammy Blackwell: Class - Level 36 Primal Hunter / Profession - Level 21 Hunter

  Attributes

  Strength 65 / Vitality 55 / Finesse 45 / Quickness 60 / Appearance 13 / Scholarship 12 / Perception 45 / Willpower 14 / Charisma 10 / Arcane Potential 10 / Soul Reserves 41 /

  Skills of Note

  Spear – Rank 15 (20!) (Piercing Strike) / Stealth – Rank 12 (17!) (Hunter’s Grace) / Crossbow – Rank 10 (15!) (Rapid Reload) / Tracking – Rank 7 (12!) /

  *Instant Field Dressing / *Pristine Preservation / *Game Storage

  Arcane Skills – Magesight – Rank 1

  Hidden Skills – Path of Endless Bounty – Rank 1

  Battleforged Book 5, Phoenix Fire, is now live on Amazon!

  Battleforged: Phoenix Fire