Today's Earth date: November 28, 1991

We have a long way to go, but we've been stopping in small villages to rest and recover. We're in a little town called Vientuls as I write this.

I met someone. I wasn't trying to date or even hit on anyone, but it just kind of happened.

She's amazing. It feels weird to say I'm in love, but that's how I feel. I'm still a Chosen Hero, though. My life isn't really my own. She said she'll wait for me, but who knows if that will work out.

I can see myself moving back here when all of this is done. Spend some time unwinding from saving the world, and then take her to Earth with me.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

Wayne woke to the comforting sound of Sammy scraping eggs off a skillet and onto a plate. Fergus poured a cup of tea for the cook. Armond extended his arm, so the old scholar filled his cup too.

The sun was up, and the morning dew on the golden fields around the Water Temple was almost gone. The salt in the air and the crashing waves were refreshing, almost spiritually-so. Wayne propped himself up on his elbows and wiped sleep from his eyes.

"Want a cup?" Fergus asked.

Wayne managed a nod. He was never a morning person, in either of his lives, but this wasn't so bad.

"Did he give you a reason for saying 'no' or did he just never come out of hiding?" Fergus passed Wayne his tea.

"What do you mean?"

"Vanilli."

"He's…" Looking around, Wayne didn't see the demon. Vanilli was laying on his back in the grass, looking at the stars when Wayne drifted off. He definitely wasn't here now, though.

Probe.

He checked his HUD. They were indeed one party member short.

"He was here," Wayne said. "We got in sometime last night."

"Took off, then."

"Let's not be so quick to assume."

Fergus held eye contact with Wayne as he sipped his tea. "What other possibilities are there?"

"I just woke up, Fergus," Wayne grumbled. "Give me a minute to get my bearings before we start solving mysteries."

In truth, Wayne's assessment of the situation reached the same conclusion, but he hoped he could think of an alternative with breakfast to inspire him. Last night, he believed Vanilli when he said he would join the party, and their conversations felt vaguely like the beginnings of friendship. If he shared that with Fergus, the old scholar would respond with "yeah, but he's a demon."

And Fergus wouldn't be off base to point that out.

"His stuff is here," Margo said as she sat with the party for breakfast. "I don't think he'd leave his music behind, not with how much he loved it."

She was right, Wayne said. Yet, Vanilli wasn't here.

"We're not in a hurry," Fergus added, more to comfort Wayne than to leave a door open for Vanilli. "Perhaps he went for a walk?"

"Maybe." An early morning stroll along the shoreline wasn't an outrageous explanation. Wayne had done that himself on more than a few vacations–taken off before anyone else was awake to soak in the beauty and the solitude of being on a beach alone.

"Vanilli?" Wayne said with his Voice ability, hoping to connect to the demon remotely. He didn't get a response, but that didn't mean anything. The most likely explanation was that the skill only worked for people connected with Four Score.

Looking up and down the coast, he didn't see anyone walking in either direction, but the coast stretched for miles. Far enough away, Vanilli's small smudge would be functionally invisible.

Regardless of how this looked, Wayne believed Vanilli hadn't run off.

Sammy handed a plate to Wayne. He used the smoked pork from yesterday's cookout in his omelets. Since Wayne wasn't there, Sammy also gave him a pile of shredded pork with a dab of dark sauce. It wasn't exactly barbecue sauce from Earth, but it was close.

"Thanks, Sammy," Wayne said.

The cook smiled proudly.

An hour later, Sammy and Armond washed dishes while Hector and Margo packed the wagon.

Still no Vanilli.

Wayne Blitzed down the coast toward Cuan. He had no real reason for picking this direction over the other, but he felt he owed it to Vanilli to try finding him.

A cat who spent their life indoors often had a sort of "brain break" when they were outside for the first time. At least, his cats behaved like that if they managed to get out. In the best cases, they froze in place long enough for Wayne to scoop them up and bring them back in. In the worst cases, overwhelming freedom and curiosity combined with a sort of existential panic. Then the cat would bolt.

Vanilli wasn't a cat, but centuries trapped in the Temple had to make being on the surface a similar mish mash of feelings.

Perhaps a mile down the coast, Wayne used Probe.

Nothing. Not even a goblin looking for food.

"No sign of him this way," Wayne said to Fergus with Voice.

"He went west it turns out." Figures that Wayne would go in the wrong direction.

"Is something wrong?"

"Uhhh… Not wrong, per se. But you should get back here."

When Wayne reached the wagon, Fergus, Margo, and Sammy greeted him.

"Vanilli says he found another demon," Fergus explained. "Up the coast and dormant."

"Dormant?"

Fergus shrugged. "He was worried he woke it but wasn't sure because it's pretty far underground."

"So the three of them could be fighting a demon right now?"

"Correct."

"Sammy, can–"

"I got it under control," Sammy said cheerfully. "I'll be fine here."

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Wayne summoned Outlawson. Fergus and Margo climbed on with him, and the insect scurried in the direction of the rest of the Zeroes. Wayne resisted the urge to use Probe right away. He didn't want to be in the vicinity of the demon with that skill on cooldown. He'd get the most out of the skill by using it nearer to where Vanilli sensed the demon.

Fergus didn't say it, but Wayne caught the skepticism in the old scholar's voice. The Temples kept demons from accessing the rest of the world. That was their entire purpose and the reason why demons weren't seen anywhere else.

According to the literature, Vanilli should be the first demon to ever escape a Temple. His finding another of his kind mere hours into his life on the surface was highly improbable.

But why would Vanilli lie? What was there to gain?

"Are you guys okay?"

"Gods damn it, Wayne," Hector replied.

"You scared Hector," Armond said. "We're at the spot with Vanilli. No hostiles in sight… Okay. He's reminding us it's underground."

"Buried?" Wayne exhaled with relief. The Zeroes weren't in immediate danger. No matter what this ended up being, at least his people were safe.

"There!" Fergus pointed inland. Their allies weren't directly along the coast anymore. They had ventured into an open field, a few hundred yards from the water.

Wayne couldn't resist anymore.

Probe.

If a normal enemy dot was one pixel, the red Wayne saw now was nine pixels big. He saw three green indicators, which meant the system was now treating Vanilli as an ally. Wayne didn't know how his HUD made that determination, but it was comforting nonetheless.

That comfort was short-lived.

"Pull back!" Wayne called to Armond and Hector. Beams of red light shot up from the ground, forming a circle where the enemy was on Wayne's HUD.

Armond and Hector didn't hesitate to follow the order. When Hector grabbed Vanilli's arm and pulled him along, Wayne remembered the order was telepathic. He needed to be more careful about that in the future, especially when the party was mixed.

Red clouds streamed out of the light and circled in a slow pinwheel, darkening the sky as if a storm approached. The ground shook.

Like an explosion coming from underground, the center of the red light bubbled upward and popped, spraying dirt and rock in every direction. When the dust cleared, the field was a crater. Armond and Hector stood to wipe themselves off. Though they were close to the blast, the barrier from the Deban spell shielded them from the worst of it.

A humanoid creature wrapped in the pink spiky shell of a crab crawled to the surface. When it stood to its full height, it was taller than ettin. Its height was concerning, but its density was more worrying. Ettins were large but lean. This monster was large and thick, like its shell was oversized armor.

One arm of the monster was a large crab claw. The other held a black sword. The blade was proportional to the creature. Wayne estimated it was fourteen feet long. The same dark iron that formed the sword repeated in a sort of full-face helmet with only a narrow slit for the eyes, akin to a fairy tale knight. The helmet was a stark contrast to the pale pink covering the rest of the boss.

Instead of rushing after the party like a hungry beast, it set its stance and raised its weapons. The ratman fleshmancer was likely their most intelligent enemy up until now, but it still seemed at least partially feral. The crab knight, however, looked to be calm and in complete control of its emotions.

But what was it doing buried in the middle of a field?

"Vanilli!" Wayne yelled. "Head back to the Temple!"

"That was my plan!"

The demon in disguise continued running while Wayne and the Zeroes assumed formation.

"Hector," Wayne said. "You and I need to stay mobile and keep its attention. You go left. I'll go right. Backline: favor Hector's side of the battle. Like with the ratman ettins or basilisks, taking any kind of hit will be bad, so let's use as much of the open field as we can."

Hector nodded, shield and sword ready. Armond, Margo, and Fergus readied themselves to shadow their tank.

Skycat zoomed forward, machine-gunning Missile spells at the monster. It didn't flinch. Worse, the Missiles ricocheted off of the armor, not even leaving a smudge.

"Ferg…"

"I saw."

The party wizard began testing spells against the knight. For Wayne's part, Missile was his only direct damage dealer. He used his sword and speed for the majority of his attacks. Fergus, meanwhile, had a few to choose from.

"No on Rot. Same for Gra."

The fireball from Flame came next. Then the sky laser of Tsu. Then a thunderclap blast sent a ballista of fire from Fergus' hands and into the knight. That was Gifoi. The spell could melt metal according to its description, but the knight was entirely unbothered–by all of Fergus' attacks.

Wayne's mind flashed to the skeleton lord in the Asplugha ruins. According to the Diagnostic Cube, that boss monster was meant for levels 14 - 16. Armond casting Undead saved their asses, insta-killing the skeleton lord. Many RPGs had a similar mechanic where reviving or healing an undead killed or damaged them. As for the skeleton lord, fighting it head-on like the encounter was designed for would have been a tough fight to win.

If the level estimate worked how Wayne thought it did, they were severely underleveled for that fight. Beating it so easily was luck.

The crab knight wasn't in a dungeon, but the red light matched the work of the first dwarves. Therefore, this enemy could be as strong as the upper level bosses on the Cube. This fight could be for level 10 Heroes or level 30 Heroes. He had no way to know.

But it was awake now. Cuan didn't need another calamity, nor did some hunter in a cabin nearby minding their own business.

The black bodies of giant crayfish punched through the dirt all around the boss. Suddenly, Wayne's HUD registered forty more enemies.

"Clear the adds! I'll focus boss!"

Without reply, the Zeroes went to work fighting the crayfish. They were slightly smaller than the tentacle monsters they fought on the ocean. Their shells were tough, but they weren't immune to spells.

Good, Wayne thought before turning his attention to the knight.

Linebacker Bot.

The football robot drew the aggression of the crayfish nearest to Wayne. Skycat surrounded the boss in flaming shrubbery. Wayne Blitzed closer.

He noticed the knight using his sword to clear a path through the flames. If it was totally immune to fire, it wouldn't take the time to do that.

Immune to spells but weak to fire…

A wheel of fireballs appeared at Wayne's waist and expanded to orbit the Zero Hero. He Blitzed through the air, Braking short of the knight's sword range. Wayne cut a crayfish in half, skewered another, and circled around the boss. Right now, the Zeroes were in its field of view, so facing it in the opposite direction was Wayne's first priority. He didn't want the boss to go after the Zeroes instead or for them to get blindsided by an ability meant for Wayne.

The knight circled as Wayne ran his loop. Wayne felt like he was back in boxing class, dancing stupidly around one of the pros who held their ground at the center of the ring. As soon as he moved in for a punch of his own, the pro would level him. They both knew that, but Wayne circled anyway.

This wasn't boxing class, but the knight hadn't attacked. Its real strength was still a mystery.

With a powerful chop of its sword, a dense line of water cut through the soil, carving a long trench as it blasted toward Wayne.

Easy Out.

He felt the wind of the water speeding past him and dared to look over his shoulder. Whatever the attack was, that surge of power continued cutting through the field for dozens of yards. Wayne didn't have time to see how far it could go, but he had seen enough to confirm that rotating the boss was the right move.

Wayne cut a sharp angle toward the knight's claw, then Blitzed again to hurl himself at the monster. The claw swung to swat Wayne away, and he came down on it with all of his strength, aiming to sever the arm completely.

The sword hit shell.

And bounced off.

That thrust used every point of his 31 strength, and the crab knight was unharmed. His ESWAT fireballs were just as useless.

The back of the monster's claw folded Wayne in half with a swift strike, the power throwing him across the field.

Down 35 hitpoints.

Personal Foul activated, but the knight marched toward Wayne, wholly unbothered. Linebacker Bot zipped in from the side to intercept the boss. Pausing, the knight turned to see the robot charging. And stomped.

Linebacker Bot was out of the fight, but…

Wayne guided Skycat back into the battle with his mind, and put more burning bushes in the knight's path. Again, the knight paused to clear the flames. The pause was so brief as to be inconsequential, but it was a pause nonetheless.

The crosshairs at the edge of Wayne's vision flashed red.

Easy Out.

Two of the crayfish adds collided and ran toward Wayne when they recovered.

Skycat beat them into the ground with Missiles before they got within claw range.

Fire… Fire… What else could Wayne do with fire?

Wayne directed Skycat to place bushes directly under the knight. When it did, the knight lurched in surprise, but otherwise, it was unimpressed. It stamped them down and cut them away as fast as Skycat could plant them.

Another blast of water sprayed dirt and grass as it buzzed by Wayne.

The Zero Hero launched another assault. He used Blitz to dart around within the knight's range. He hit arms and legs. He hit the bends of joints. He tried to cut the neck. He chopped at the head.

The knight was unharmed.

"Shit."

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