The air before Arwin shifted as new words shifted to take the place of the old ones, and another message from the Mesh took shape.
Milestone 3 of [Curb the Hunger] has been completed.
Milestone 3: Master the Hungering Maw. Your control over yourself grows, and so does your hunger. Find a way to completely bring the Hungering Maw under your control before it consumes you.
Reward 3: The Hungering Maw is no more. Your class has been advanced to The Ascended Forge.
Arwin’s lips curled upward in a weak smile. Every breath he took felt like it was dragging glass through his lungs. All the damage he’d taken from the fight had returned. But in spite of all the pain, for the first time in recent memory, there was no more dull throb in his stomach.
It seemed he’d succeeded after all.
“How?” Alrich asked, his words falling from stunned, disbelieving lips. His eyes stared blankly at Arwin, seeing but not understanding. “How could you throw it all away? You could have been a god! You — we — could have lived forever! A perfect world. And you threw it away?”
“Are you really that dense?” Arwin asked, coughing as he finally pulled himself over to Lillia and collapsed by her side. “The world doesn’t need a ruler. It never did.”
Anna raced over to them, sliding the last few feet as healing magic lit at her hands and she crouched beside Lillia again, pouring her power into the other room. Lillia let out sigh that was somewhere right between pain and relief. It transformed to a cough before it had finished escaping her lips.
Even still, she turned enough to look at Arwin, a faint grin pulling across her features.
“Nice.”
“Don’t talk,” Anna snapped. “You’re half dead.”
“You damned fools,” Alrich snarled, finally tearing himself from his disbelief. His gauntlet ground as he tightened his grip on his sword and strode toward them. “This world will destroy itself. People need a leader. They are idiots. Cowards. Sheep. We were necessary! But I will not allow your arrogance to doom us all. This can be fixed. But you won’t be there to see it.”
Koyu stepped in front of Arwin and Lillia, his metal form lowering into a fighting stance. Reya stepped up alongside him, raising Wyrmhunger before herself.
“I think you will find that more difficult to do than you hope,” Koyu said.
“You think you can stop me?” Alrich asked through a sneer as he raised his blade. “A girl and a revenant. I am a hundred times more powerful than you are combined. The rest of your guild will be nothing but rubble in the span of minutes, and I will end everyone here myself. You’ve done nothing but delay what we have been working toward. We will find another one capable of handling the power we need. It will take years. Countless more lives — all on your heads. But we will save this world.”
“You’re still feeding yourself that?” Reya asked. “That’s rich, man. We all saw.”
“Saw?” Alrich asked. His eyes narrowed and he jerked his chin over his shoulder toward the group of guildsmen at his back. “Saw what? I have an army, you idiots. ”
A distant rumble echoed through the room from somewhere far aboveground. Koyu let out a dry laugh. “Don’t, Reya. Let’s let them find out the hard way.”
“Find what out?” Alrich demanded. He pointed his sword at them. “Answer me!”
“Use your head,” Arwin said with a grim smile. “I didn’t really want to go killing myself a second time. And I couldn’t just stick the magic somewhere. The Cycle needed it. That said… I wasn’t the only one with stolen magic. I can think of a few other people in the Guild who have power that doesn’t belong to them. Power that needs to be released. So what kind of Quest do you think I possibly could have offered to make sure that happened?”
Alrich paused for a moment. Another rumble followed the first. Then a third after it. They were getting closer.
The Guildsman’s eyes widened.
Then a beam of golden light lit the air several feet away from Arwin.
Neil emerged from within it, his gaze cold. A dozen new beams of energy appeared a moment later, fading away to reveal a platoon of heavily armored men and women.
“As requested. Bronze Dragon has arrived,” Neil said, cracking his neck and raising his blade. “Reporting for some free energy. I asked the Mesh to send me over to you. Looks like it was listening to my prayers. How fortunate for us.”
More beams of light washed over the room in a wave, coming one after the other, fading away to reveal legions of adventurers armed to the teeth.
But was wasn’t just adventurers.
Monsters, standing tall and clad in armor of their own, materialized in lock-step with the humans.
Arwin hadn’t limited his quest to the the Kingdom of Lian, after all. There was no need for that. Not when everyone had seen what he knew. The Horde had been victimized just as badly as the Kingdom had. It was only right that they got an equal chance to take back at least a little of what had been stolen from them.
The entire room filled with warriors and mages of every sort in just seconds — and judging from the sounds of battle ringing through the air overhead, this wasn’t even a tenth of it.
Every single battle-capable being in the entirety of the Kingdom of Lian and beyond knew the truth.
And if there was one thing Arwin knew about adventurers, whether they were human or monster, it was that they’d never turn down a good opportunity to get stronger.
Especially not when it came with a side serving of revenge.
“Huh. Would you look at that? You do have an army,” Reya said, spinning her dagger over her knuckles with a grin. “But ours is bigger.”
Alrich took a step back. There was so little room for him to move in the room that backward was really only the direction he could go. The rest of it was filled with very, very hostile gazes.
“What is this?” he whispered. “I don't…”
And then he trailed off.
Through the horde of adventurers and monsters standing between them, Arwin saw realization finally dawn on Alrich as he figured out exactly what Arwin had spent all of his stolen magic on.
Arwin’s lips twitched.
“Is that permission?” Neil asked from beside Arwin.
“Permission?” Arwin asked. “Why would you need permission?”
“Because this is your fight,” Neil replied. And, throughout the room, the other adventurers and monsters nodded. As eager as they all clearly were to move, they were waiting. “You were the Hero. The Demon Queen. We all saw. We’re waiting for you to finish it.”
Arwin let out a tired laugh. Beside him, Lillia sent up a weak smile, still too injured to speak.
“No,” Arwin said. “I’ve got no right to anything here that the rest of you don’t. Not anymore. I’m just a smith. Lillia is just a tavern keeper. And that’s all we want to be.”
“Wait,” Alirch said. He took another step back toward the stairwell, bumping into the mess of Guild warriors bunched up behind him. He raised his hands. “You don’t understand. We were trying to save the world. It was a necessary evil.”
“What are we waiting for now?” a monster called from somewhere in the crowd… though it might have been a man. Arwin couldn’t tell. “I’m hungry to get this on with.”
“Nothing at all,” Neil called back. His grin turned cold. “Let’s go, lads. Eat your fill!”
“No!” Alrich screamed. “Don’t listen to—“
Those were his last words.
At least, Arwin was pretty sure they were. It was a bit hard to tell over the clash of metal and magic and screams that followed. There was a good chance that Alrich’s actual final words were more of a sob of desperation, or perhaps a curse against Arwin, or something else entirely.
If Arwin was entirely honest… he didn’t care.
He just slumped back against Lillia, letting himself lie there on the cold ground alongside her, feeling the faint beat of her heart against his back.
“Should we go follow them?” Reya asked, scratching the back of her neck as she watched the horde of adventurers and monsters pour up the stairwell, leaving the bodies of the fallen Guild soldiers in their wake. “They’re gonna get the Guild Leader before we do.”
“Lillia is not moving until I’m done,” Anna said sharply, still crouched alongside Lillia with magic glowing at her fingertips.. “Maybe we can have the others bring the Guild Leader back down here?”
Arwin let out a small laugh. “Who cares? I don’t give a shit about him. He can join the rest of the Guild in becoming nothing more than a bad memory. There’s only one thing I want to do once Lillia is cleared to move, and that’s get out of here.”
The Guild didn’t matter. Not so long as they were removed from power. As for revenge… it was nice. He was nowhere near moral enough to try and claim otherwise.
A ripple passed through the air alongside them.
Arwin glanced over as a woman with long, black hair appeared at their sides. She pushed the heavy locks away from her weary features before giving them a faint smile.
“Anywhere in particular you’re looking to go?” Eleven asked.
“Seriously? How long have you been there?” Arwin asked with a laugh.
“I came with the Quest,” Eleven said. She paused for a moment. Sadness welled in her eyes for a moment. Then she shook her head. “I did think about sitting it out and sleeping this one off. When I saw the Quest pop off, I knew one was right. You really did pull it off. And for something like that, I think sleep can wait.”
“The Menagerie,” Arwin said. He swallowed, his mouth dry. “Are they…”
“No casualties,” Eleven said. “The Guild’s forces broke with the Quest. Half of them didn’t actually know what was happening. They turned on the others. Everyone you’re worried about is perfectly safe. They’re waiting. Just give the word.”
Arwin and Lillia exchanged a glance.
Then they both looked up to Anna.
The healer squinted at them. Then she let out a defeated sigh. “Oh, fine. Just make sure you get the others that are still here, Eleven.”
“I’ll collect them right after you,” Eleven promised. “Figure I might join in on a bit of the looting as well. I don’t reckon much is going to be left of Guildwall or anyone within it that knew of what the Guild was up to by the time night falls. You sure you don’t want to join in on that?”
Arwin shook his head. He glanced at the others, but there really hadn’t been a need to. All of them were thinking the same thing. “I already said, Eleven. I’m not needed here. This is a fight, and I’m just a smith. Besides, there’s only a single place I think any of us want to be right now.”
Eleven let out a snort. “I don’t think anyone in this room is anything even close to just anything. But suit yourselves.”
Koyu extended a hand. Arwin took it, allowing the other man to pull him upright. Koyu and Reya then helped Lillia up to her feet. The four of them turned to Eleven.
Then Arwin smiled.
“Okay,” Arwin said. “Take us home.”