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  [Vagram] dealt 37 damage to [Nightwing]

  [Vagram] dealt 52 damage to [Nightwing]

  [Vagram] dealt 57 damage to [Nightwing]

  Wings fanned over us again, a span three times the length of the snakelike body, casting us in shadow. Vagram chased the dragon, but his tail slashed from the side and caught him off guard.

  [Nightwing] dealt 26 damage to [Vagram]

  The cleric spun away and muttered a prayer. Once again, he vanished, this time just before Nightwing's jaws snapped around him.

  Vagram didn't reappear. Izzy and I traded glances. Where was he?

  Nightwing turned to me and showed his teeth. He splashed closer as I took backward steps. Izzy solidified the water between us, but the dragon shattered the formations with tail and claw.

  I took a deep breath and dove into the Salt Sea. Nightwing charged. I fought the sting in my eyes. Paddled along the ground. Light glinted off the half-buried length of the dragonspear. I reached for it and turned, holding my breath and watching the cooldown timer for my dash.

  3, 2, 1.

  I exploded forward like a harpoon, keeping under the three-foot water level, waiting until I spotted the black snakelike body slithering toward me. I triggered deadshot and braced myself as the spear satisfyingly slid into Nightwing's belly.

  Combo!

  Critical Hit!

  Surprise!

  You dealt 232 damage to [Nightwing]

  I jerked up and out of the water as the dragon recoiled. He wailed and twisted in pain, body coiling in on itself. The sudden movement knocked me aside. Nightwing barked sharply as the dragonspear tore free from his body.

  Vagram was gone, I'd spent my main offensive skills, and Izzy's magic didn't seem effective—still the dragon was at three-quarters health. But my confidence didn't waver. I advanced and the beast eyed my legendary weapon, the bane of his kind. For the first time, concern crept into Nightwing's face.

  "That's enough!" barked Lucifer, now standing in plain sight on his rock outcropping. The land mass itself was barely enough for ten people, but that didn't account for what was hidden below.

  Obeying his master's words, Nightwing spread his wings and took to the sky, screeching as the horizon granted him reprieve.

  Izzy and I turned to each other, both heavy with breath. She nodded and I did the same. Then we slogged through the Salt Sea to have a word with Lucifer.

  0840 Diablo

  The water rolled calmly. Izzy and I splashed through waist-high salt toward the rock formation. Besides the body of the crusader half-floating in the water where the armor had been stripped off, only the three of us were in sight. Vagram had disappeared, perhaps for good.

  "You shouldn't have come here, Talon," said the fallen one as we climbed toward the shore. As usual, his voice was soft and nonthreatening.

  "You knew I would," I answered.

  "That I did. But are you here to destroy the crown, or to destroy me?"

  I didn't answer. The water only reached our ankles now. Lucifer was fifteen feet away, leaning on his black witchwood staff. I slowed and considered him. The stone ornamenting his weapon gleamed blue. The light caught the silver runes on his black cloak. It made his body appear energized with magic.

  "We don't have to be enemies," he said in that soothing voice of his.

  "Funny. I thought we had a score to settle." I glanced at the black dragon settling on the distant breakwater. Out of the action, but not far enough to be out of the equation. "Nice of you to spare your pet."

  "It is not my aim for any here to die."

  "Then why the show of force? Why even meet us?"

  "To advise you that both your objectives are false."

  I glowered as Izzy quietly flanked Lucifer and chugged a spirit potion. Part of me wanted to see her winter staff matched against his witchwood.

  "Did I not save you?" he asked. "Existentially. Did I not open your eyes?"

  "You're a manipulator," I leveled.

  "Perhaps. But I am no liar."

  I narrowed my eyes.

  "Consider the things I have told you. That your body was not dead. That the pagans aren't the true enemies." Lucifer smiled as he saw my hesitation. "What has happened to your righteous bravado, Talon?"

  "You sow destruction and discord," accused Izzy.

  "I open eyes. The actions which follow aren't always sweet, but they're honest." The devil's eyes returned to me. Silent. Waiting.

  I worked my jaw. He wanted to talk. He always wanted to talk. "Both my objectives are a mistake," I repeated, wanting him to extrapolate on his stated purpose. I figured chatting couldn't hurt, as long as I didn't get suckered into reviving another god of destruction.

  Lucifer smiled. "Your objectives..."

  Cleric Vagram blinked into position behind him and swung both swords inward. Lucifer stiffened in surprise and thrust out his staff to block a blow but he couldn't handle both. Bronze bit into his side.

  Ambush!

  [Vagram] dealt 32 damage to [Luc1f3r]

  My jaw dropped as Lucifer rolled forward. The air around him pixelated. His body digitized and blinked out. Vagram grunted a word of prayer. A beam from the heavens shone down, bathing the small island in holy light. Pixels blinked like popping light bulbs. Lucifer reappeared mid retreat, eyes wide.

  "I will cut out that silver tongue, devil!" seethed the cleric. "All your ilk are dead. You are the last."

  Lucifer's eyes flared. "I am the first." His staff slashed the air before him.

  "No," I muttered, but there was no hope of bottling this explosion.

  A blue beam of energy blasted Vagram in the chest, slamming him to the ground and leaving a crater in his breastplate. The cleric cast another healing prayer. He was still under a severe disadvantage from the warden's curse. Not dead but distracted, and Lucifer was going in for the kill.

  I dashed forward and swung my spear. Lucifer rolled clear, black witchwood knocking me in the head. I stumbled. A battery of icicles passed me. Lucifer ducked and folded his cloak over himself. The silver runes flared as they were impacted, absorbing most of the damage, but not all of it. I couldn't believe it. All this time I'd thought Lucifer was invincible. He growled and whipped his blue magic around at Izzy.

  I leveled the spear and nailed him with a deadshot. I'd been aiming for his neck but somehow he rolled away. My weapon bit into his shoulder and he yelped.

  You dealt 22 damage to [Luc1f3r]

  Instead of falling back completely, he twisted to the floor, bringing his staff back around and sweeping my legs. As I fell, a giant meteor of ice crashed down, forcing him to lunge to the side in haste.

  "Fools!" he snapped. "Nightwing!"

  The dragon leapt into the sky, distracting me for a second. Lucifer flipped to find Vagram on his feet, burned white tunic, smoking breastplate. The cleric's yellow curls were singed. Swords met staff in a series of quick clacks.

  "Talon!" warned Izzy.

  Mid stride, I confirmed Nightwing was still out of position. But he'd been the decoy. That became obvious when strong hands hugged me from behind. An unflinching grip heaved the dragonspear to my neck. My boots lifted away from the ground. I kicked for purchase. Another figure stood on the water behind Vagram. Not in the water, mind you, but on it.

  Izzy cast a spell as a perfectly chiseled man in flowing cloth drifted forward. Her magic fizzled. Vagram slashed Lucifer's leg and knocked the witchwood staff free before the other man wrapped up the cleric. Izzy spun frantically, on the lookout for more reinforcements.

  I could barely move against the unyielding grip, but I could turn my head to look into the face of my attacker. Two completely black eyes met mine.

  Walking on water. Immune to offensive skills. I immediately recognized what they were.

  "Oh my God, they're—"

  "Angels," said Lucifer with a hiss as he calmly retrieved the staff of witchwood. He writhed in obvious pain. "You know, Talon, I'd never planned on disabling the pain filters on myself,
but even I couldn't predict your ultimate actions."

  I struggled in the angel's grip. "You would've denied yourself your own gift," I said mockingly. My zeroing out of the beta flags had affected Lucifer as well. Small miracle.

  The devil flashed a smile. "Perhaps." Without pomp, he placed the glowing end of his staff on Vagram's chest. The cleric's eyes widened a split second before the explosion of light. After that, the angel let him slump to the rock.

  "Put away your weapon," said Lucifer to Izzy. I gritted my teeth as the wounded dragon flapped overhead. She saw no other choice and did as instructed.

  Nightwing landed hard in the water on the far side of the island.

  "There," said Lucifer, regaining his ever-knowing composure. "Now we can talk."

  "The two angels they sent to hunt you," said Izzy. "You've hacked them, somehow."

  "It was not an easy thing, believe me, but they are fallen now. AI apostles, since you wouldn't have me."

  I swallowed nervously. Nothing was good about Lucifer owning a pair of angels. In my short time battling a single one, I'd found them to be indestructible and unbeatable. Overpowered security protocols. Call it sacrilegious if you want, but I worried about them more than Nightwing and Lucifer combined.

  The devil took in the salty air and frowned. "I hadn't expected it to come to this," he admitted, "but I should have known. After all, you handled Orik head-on as well. The afterlife is full of surprises."

  "Sorry to rain on your little murder parade," I spat.

  His lips tightened. "Maybe this is my fault for choosing such a polarizing moniker, but you really must stop looking at me as the engineer of all of Haven's problems. I am not a cog, merely the grease. You, Talon, are a cog. And Izzy. And the crusaders and the pagans. All cogs of varying sizes, spinning round and round for the great machine. And do you know who winds this clockwork spectacle?"

  "I've listened to your anti Kablammy vitriol before."

  "Ah, yes. The Church of Capitalism."

  Izzy wrung her fingers. Her eyes dashed from me to Lucifer, to Nightwing, and to the other angel. This was about as tight a bind as we'd ever been in. Even I didn't have a plan anymore. But Lucifer liked to talk, so I let him talk.

  "Now you're gonna explain how you're here to help us," I said through gritted teeth.

  He chuckled lightly. "The evidence is there, if you would only look. The very dragonspear at your neck was unlocked by none other than Nightwing. If you recall, it was his acid breath that dislodged it from the old statue atop your tower."

  My face displayed defiance instead of surprise. Lucifer was always sharing the small truths to push the big lie. He was making out that he'd given me the titanslayer to strike down Orik and save Stronghold, but that was pure fabrication. I'd seen his face when the cyclops was raised. Lucifer was just as surprised about the god's existence as everyone else.

  "Do you know," started the devil, "why I broke into the Oculus in the first place?"

  "Same reason you broke into the Great Well?"

  He was taken aback. "That wasn't my doing."

  "You expect me to—"

  Lucifer slammed his staff to the ground. Blue fire radiated outward in a shock wave, washing over us. I didn't notice any effect but it was a showstopper.

  "You'll hear me out," said Lucifer, losing his patience, "or I'll instruct the fallen angel to break your neck."

  I gulped. It was strong leverage.

  "Now," he said, smoothing his robe, "while you were busy worrying about what the saints would do while we were in the Oculus, I was busy altering the machine. And do you know what I did?"

  The rage in my face bowed to curiosity.

  "I added a cog." Lucifer stepped close to me. "Adaptive code, Talon. Remember your work? The evolution it allows players in Haven? I added a cog to allow NPCs and monsters access to the same adaptive code routines that we all have. I allowed them to think, Talon."

  I frowned.

  "Of course, the change couldn't be suddenly acted on," he explained. "The goblin horde had their mandate. The boggarts wanted their god. Stronghold would've been their enemy no matter what. But as the days passed, the pagans grew more opinionated. More pragmatic. Their opinions divided and their ranks splintered. Their desire to exterminate humanity waned. Essentially, they'd been gifted free will."

  Lucifer held the staff to my stomach. The action was unnervingly similar to the blow that had downed Cleric Vagram. Izzy flinched and Lucifer wagged a finger. She relented but slipped the jagged frost wand into her palm behind her back.

  "Isn't that the basic right every one of us deserves?" posited Lucifer. "Freedom of choice? I've done nothing but remove the yokes and the blinders. Handed out the hard truths. And I've given them the ability to choose."

  "At the expense of Stronghold."

  He paused. "Perhaps. It's always the extremists who act first—that's why they're extremists. But you were there to defend your city. I never fought you on that."

  I grumbled. He was damned convincing when he wanted to be. Almost made me wonder why we were fighting him. "So... what? We're all good friends now?"

  He smirked knowingly. "I wouldn't go that far. Many goblins are still bloodthirsty, but that's mostly due to their leadership. Generals like Azzyrk still roam the countryside calling for your death. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose. It's the natural order. Every named instance in this world now gets to make that choice. As for the generic NPCs and mobs, well, their progress may be slower."

  That bull's-eyed the questions I'd been stewing over lately. AIs could be sentient. Or, at least, they could evolve past the boundaries of their original designs. It could mean chaos. Anarchy.

  Natural order.

  "Yes, Talon, you must ask yourself: Have you really been fighting on the side of the angels?"

  I gritted my teeth. "I've defended the people."

  "You have, but the gears you now churn: what is their purpose? You've stolen the crown of the wild king. One of many relics which grant mantles. Mantles are more powerful than you think."

  NPCs and mobs with mantles. It was Lucifer's hack that had enabled the possibility.

  "King Theoderic was always programmed to be a free spirit. An outlier. Once granted actual free will, he seceded from the bloodthirsty goblin horde and made a home for his people. I look on him as my first successful proof of concept. This is the symbol you wish to cast into the Salt Sea?"

  I was speechless. I'd had reservations about the quest ever since I first got my hands on the crown, but Lucifer's words spelled it out so plainly. The wild king was just a protector of his people, no different than me. Except, in his case, I had been the bad guy.

  "You didn't know about Orik," I said bluntly. Lucifer pressed his lips together, not wanting to admit ignorance, but I knew it was true. "You were just as surprised as I was when the boggarts summoned him from the mountain. Waking the NPCs and mobs was your goal, not destroying Stronghold."

  Again, he didn't answer. Imagine that: Lucifer wasn't the big bad.

  But I still wasn't sure of that. And nobody was painting him a good guy. Waking up the AI could still be disastrous for Haven, and the act alone didn't speak to his intentions. Lucifer and his natural order didn't care about Stronghold's fate one way or the other.

  Izzy and I, Lucifer, and the two angels stood on that little island as gentle waves lapped the rock. The midday showdown had turned into quite the conundrum. A big part of me wanted to hear what the devil had to say, but I couldn't help wondering if I was being seduced by his words. He'd tricked me before.

  Then again, he had opened my eyes. This was a tough decision. It would've been much clearer if he'd had a red tail, a forked tongue, and a pitchfork in hand.

  "Okay," I said warily.

  Izzy's eyes fell on me. "Don't listen to this. He's telling you what you want to hear."

  "What if it's the truth?"

  Her cheek twitched. "It probably is true, Talon. That's the trick."

  I gru
nted. Ethical dilemmas were easier on paper. I'd walked headfirst into Lucifer's manipulations before, following the truth like a dangled carrot, ignoring the truths I didn't see.

  "I'm willing to listen," I maintained.

  Lucifer smiled.

  "But only if you call off the angels."

  His face soured. "Given the previous hostilities, that is no longer wise."

  I hissed. "If we're to be allies, we need to trust each other. You need to tell me the whole truth, and you need to call off your dogs."

  The devil mulled over my words with a frown.

  "There will be no trust," breathed Vagram from the ground.

  All eyes turned to the cleric as he sputtered back to life. He should've been dead, right? But he pressed to his hands and knees, clutching the bronze crucifix. Golden light shone from the artifact as Vagram heaved in laughter, his face hidden behind a tuft of hair.

  "I am sorry, devil. There will be no alliances here. Only your annihilation."

  Lucifer waved a hand and the angel standing behind the cleric stepped forward. Vagram spun and brandished the cross. The angel stumbled backward as if blinded. Afraid of the light.

  "These are holy beings," spat Vagram. "They're unable to hurt holy men, despite your trickery." The cleric lurched forward.

  Lucifer whipped his staff into motion and met Vagram's dual blades. I tugged against my angel's grip, but it was steadfast. I had to get me one of those crosses already.

  "A little help here," I called, but no one noticed.

  The black dragon screeched and lumbered around the island toward us.

  "Lucifer," called Izzy. "Let Talon go."

  The devil rocked his staff against Vagram's sword and knocked the other away. I struggled against the locked arms around my neck.

  "Let him go!" ordered Izzy, Nightwing bearing down.

  I'd had enough. Skills were completely useless against angels. Anything offensive would sputter out without effect, as Izzy's magic had. But defensive and neutral maneuvers weren't necessarily deactivated. Dash was a traversal move. As long as I didn't use it as a charge, it would work. It had in the past.