Rogue Evolution

by James Hunter

  Kaz squinted into the darkness ahead, nostrils flaring. “We are. Kaz can feel the lost recipe in his soul food.”

  Roark glanced up at the Mighty Gourmet.

  “In your soul, Kaz.” He wiped the Jackal blood onto the thighs of his Leathers and stood. “You mean that you feel it in your soul.”

  “No, Roark,” Kaz said, shaking his huge head and making the Peerless Obsidian Plate Armor he’d traded for his chef’s garb clank. “Gry Feliri said when ultimate flavor is close, a true Gourmet will sense its splendor in the depths of his soul food. And look!”

  The Thursr Knight reached into his Inventory and pulled out two enormous handfuls of Fried Wild Fowl, Saber Boar Fat Biscuits, Sautéed Greens of the Collard Plant, and Mashed Tubers smothered with Wild Style Gravy. Amazingly, the food items were glowing with bright white light and vibrating at a high frequency. Kaz took a few steps farther down the passage, and the light and shaking intensified. The Sautéed Greens of the Collard Plant nearly rattled out of Kaz’s wide palms with the force of their apparent enthusiasm.

  “It is just as the great Gry Feliri said,” Kaz whispered reverently, his onyx eyes as wide as serving platters. “The lost page is ever so close.”

  Seeing the vibrating food, Randy let out a laugh that was more than half snort.

  When Roark and Kaz both turned to look at him, the Arboreal Herald shook his head, still grinning, and waved a hand at them. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just admiring the work of the devs who created Gry Feliri.” Then his face turned pensive, and he continued under his breath, “If there even were devs who created him...”

  “What do you mean?” Roark asked. “Didn’t you say that your devs created everything within Hearthworld?”

  “Well, I mean, that’s sort of the idea of a... dimension like Hearthworld. Devs don’t create everything, but they create most of it, then set in motion the code that generates the rest. Sort of like preprogramming the universe to do A if B happens. But since you showed up in Hearthworld, a lot of Cs and Ds have been happening instead.” Randy tugged at his chin. “I just wonder whether Gry Feliri was an A/B or a C/D.”

  Roark nodded and moved on to the next pile of ashes, this one from a Hellstrike Jackal he had killed himself. Ignoring the foreign words Randy always seemed to assume he would understand, he thought he understood the point the Herald was getting at. The devs had set up Hearthworld much like a Curse Chain—albeit a very complicated one—where defined actions led to predetermined outcomes. Introducing an unknown into the Chain could cause new, unexpected, and even disastrous results tailored to that unknown.

  He pulled a Standard Hellstrike Transmutation Core from the ashes. The cores were a prime example of Randy’s suspicions. The World Stone’s latest ability required a Transmutation Core, and suddenly the cores began appearing in Hearthworld, but only in the remains of the Hellstrike Jackals Roark killed. He’d checked the others’ kills to make sure their Jackals weren’t dropping Cores and only confirmed it.

  Roark touched the leather armor over the World Stone Pendant absently, frowning. If the stone could alter any dimension it was in, who knew what sort of power it contained? Marek had used the World Stone for the better part of two decades, but could an artifact as powerful as it was be nothing more than an object or must it have some sort of hidden intelligence? A sentience that could adapt and change itself according to its surroundings and its user’s need? Could the stone be working toward its own ends or the ends of some unknown master from its home dimension?

  Not a terribly comfortable line of inquiry, that.

  As they continued grinding through the tunnels of Five-Alarm Cave toward the lost recipe, Roark pushed his new unease to the back of his mind. For now, he had no alternative but to use the stone. He couldn’t allow it to fall back into Marek’s hands. Too many lives depended on it.

  Finally, they came to a towering set of carved stone doors at the end of the tunnel. Chef’s knives, vegetables, and steaming cauldrons had been hammered in gilt around the edges, and at the center, a strange impression had been set into a golden seal glinting with a white magical energy Roark hadn’t encountered yet in Hearthworld.

  Kaz stepped forward eagerly, bouncing zealously on oversized toes.

  “Wait,” Roark said, grabbing his friend’s meaty shoulder. “It may be some sort of Divine trap. Look at the color of the magick.”

  The Mighty Gourmet shook his head. “There is no Divine or Infernal in the world of flavor, Roark. No mob or hero. All who value deliciousness are welcome to sample its wonders.”

  Before Roark could stop him, Kaz pulled a handful of salt from his inventory and pressed it into the oddly shaped imprint in the seal.

  The grinding scrape of stone on stone filled the air, and the tunnel began to shake. Dust rose from the floor as the enormous doors pulled back into the stone walls. A blast of boiling air blew out toward them, immediately drying the sweat from Roark’s face and making his skin feel tight and sunburnt.

  On the other side of the doors lay a sprawling cavern lit by bubbling lava streams, which crisscrossed the room in a haphazard fashion. Stunted, rocky projections grew from beside the flows, belching fire at regular intervals and trailing curling wisps of smoke. The air was suffocating, hotter than the inside of a glowing coal, and thick with the stink of volcanic gasses. There was another scent, too, something earthy and musky like the scent of some great wolf mixed with the aroma of rotten meat.

  A deep, bass growl rumbled through the cavern, the heavy note reverberating in Roark’s chest, as a small mountain of lava rock began to shift on the far side of a bubbling molten stream.

  A [Greater Hellstrike Jackal] rose to standing on paws the size of Kaz’s head and let out a rib-shaking warning bark. The creature’s size beggared the imagination. It was at least as big as the wooly mammoths that used to roam Terho’s cold southern reaches, with smoking, jagged obsidian tusks protruding from either side of a slavering canine mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. Where its eyes should have been were clusters of uncut rubies like the many-sectioned eye of a dragonfly, each precious stone dancing with brilliant red fire.

  Roark opened his mouth to give an order, but Kaz bolted across the cavern toward the mammoth-sized beast before Roark could utter a word, Legendary Meat Tenderizer raised high.

  “For the flavor pilgrim. For the lost recipe of Gry Feliri. FOR SALT!” the Thursr Knight bellowed, spittle flying from his mouth.

  Quickly, Roark shot a pre-inscribed Physical Damage Rebound spell on Kaz, then glanced at Randy. “Whatever we do, we have to keep Kaz alive. If he dies, this quest is locked to him forever.”

  The Arboreal Herald gave a sharp nod, then shot into the air with a powerful flap of his feathered wings. He pulled his glowing purple Urumi just before he and it disappeared from sight.

  Now that they were finally in a space large enough to make use of their flight, Roark followed suit, taking a running leap at a red updraft arrow rising from a lava stream. His leathery wings caught the heat like sails and launched him upward. Considering the Jackal’s size, every little advantage would help, and Roark knew from experience that greater maneuverability when your opponent was much larger than you was no small advantage.

  Across the cavern, Kaz roared and slammed his Meat Tenderizer down on one enormous canid paw. Furious, the Jackal swept its head at Kaz, lashing out with those jagged tusks. Kaz tried to dodge, but wasn’t fast enough. The Thursr Knight was enormous and built to take a hit and dish out damage—he wasn’t agile like Zyra or even fast like Roark, for that matter. The blow glanced off the Knight’s armored back with an unholy screaming of rock on plate and sent Kaz tumbling across the uneven black floor of the cavern before landing in an unconscious heap.

  As it stomped after the downed Knight, Roark cast Infernal Torment on the Greater Hellstrike Jackal. He kept his eyes firmly locked on the creature, waiting for some sign that his Jotnar spell was working. Finally, a few tongues of violet flame appeare
d around the creature’s face and throat, but they were so bloody tiny. A sliver of the Jackal’s red Health bar disappeared, but the enormous canine just kept raging toward Kaz, who made no move to get up.

  With a curse, Roark broke off Infernal Torment, fishing a trio of cursed heads from his satchel. He pulled earrings and nose rings with a sharp jerk of his claw, then rained the exploding body parts down on the creature below. They exploded on contact, sending up great billowing clouds of smoke and light. The cursed explosives barely scratched the Greater Hellstrike Jackal’s outer armor, but they did momentarily distract the beast.

  Exploiting the small open window, Roark triggered Infernal Invigoration, healing the Mighty Gourmet in a fall of bloodwine-colored light, and angled his flight downward. He landed just in front of Kaz’s motionless form.

  The view of the rampaging Greater Hellstrike Jackal was positively terrifying from that perspective. Roark could feel the rocky black dirt trembling beneath his boots as the creature shook off his previous attack and resumed its ominous march forward.

  “Get up, Kaz!” Roark shouted, casting a level 4 Slow spell at the Jackal, then following that with a level 5 Sucking Mud. A pit of mud forty-five feet across opened in the Jackal’s path, the brown goo splashing wildly as the creature stormed through it, hardly slowing.

  “Kaz, I can see Gry Feliri’s lost recipe,” Roark urged. “It’s right there, you just need to get up and take it.”

  Still he got no response from the Thursr Knight. Roark’s mind whirred through possible solutions.

  His new Jotnar spell! He’d forgotten about it in the excitement of discovering Transmute Flesh, but if there was ever a time to disrupt a creature’s charge, that time was now.

  Roark pulled his rapier and dagger, then took a half-step forward and let out a booming shout. The sound felt as if it were torn from the depths of his stomach, and the air around him crackled with icy Infernal energy. Glowing amethyst ripples exploded from his heel in rings, skimming over the floor of the cavern in all directions.

  The first ripple slid under the raised front paw of the Jackal, but the second made impact as the creature lowered its foot. With a dismayed cry, the Jackal stumbled to the earth, the force of its weight shaking the entire cave. Unlike Infernal Torment’s slow burn, the effect on the enormous canine’s Health was immediate and obvious as a slice of its red bar drained away.

  Not wasting a moment of the advantage, Roark darted in toward the Greater Hellstrike Jackal’s exposed side, his Speed enhanced by the enchantments on the rapier and dagger. With a flurry of Off-hand Combos, horizontal tondos, and diagonal squalembratos from the shoulder, he carved away at the creature’s hardened lava rock hide.

  His advantage quickly ran out as the Jackal regained its wits, however. As Roark lunged for a stab, the Jackal swung its huge head toward him, snapping with its massive jaws. He dove out of the way, going into a roll and coming up near its flank.

  With a gurgling growl, the Jackal opened its jaws. A fountain of molten lava spewed from its mouth, spattering Roark’s wings and the cavern wall behind him. Burning agony tore through the appendages as the fire melted through their leathery membrane. Even after more deaths than he could count, the pain was excruciating. Like a legion of red-hot pokers being driven into his back. The molten rock cooled quickly, solidifying. Instinctively, Roark shook his wings out. The solid rock shattered, but his wings remained melted and useless.

  Before the Greater Hellstrike Jackal could let loose with another lava attack, however, purple light flashed behind its neck. The creature reared, letting out a howl of fury that felt like a knife in Roark’s eardrums, then spun to attack the invisible being harrying it. As the beast whirled, it spewed more lava in a wide arc, but Randy must have darted out of the way, as the molten rock splattered uselessly to the cavern floor some thirty feet away.

  More purple flashes lit up the gloom of the cave, the invisible Arboreal Herald relentlessly pressing his attack against the Jackal with his many-bladed Urumi. The Infernal damage the sword whips were inflicting cut bits and pieces from the creature’s red bar and elicited new howls of pain and rage with every strike.

  Roark added his Infernal Torment to the flurry, keeping eye contact with the Jackal for the full thirty seconds of the spell while simultaneously weaving and dodging, desperately avoiding its crushing hind paws.

  A new roar cut through the chaos of the battle.

  “FOR ROARK’S WINGS!” Kaz, enveloped in the brilliant red aura of his Infernal Knight’s Rage ability, charged toward the howling Jackal.

  “Kaz, look out!” Roark shouted, finally pulling his gaze away from the creature, letting his spell falter and fail.

  The Jackal belched out another gout of lava at the attacking Thursr. Kaz slammed into the wall of molten rock without stopping, his Rage cutting the damage in half. An unstoppable juggernaut. The lava cooled immediately upon contact with the Mighty Gourmet’s skin and burst into shards of rock as he continued storming forward, arms and legs furiously pumping. With a war cry on his lips, Kaz slammed his Legendary Meat Tenderizer into the Jackal’s closest tusk with an incredible crack. The jagged protrusion shattered, shearing off at the base.

  Enraged, the Greater Hellstrike Jackal thrashed its head at Kaz, trying to slam into him once more with the remaining tusk, but the Mighty Gourmet leapt over the tusk like it was nothing more than a child’s skipping rope.

  Seeing the weakness in the Jackal’s stance, Roark hurled a bevy of new cursed heads—finally exhausting his supply—then lashed out again with Infernal Thunder. The beast took the infernal damage with a screech, fumbling its step once more and going down. Kaz landed on its head, bringing his Meat Tenderizer down with a resounding smash. Chunks of lava rock and dust flew through the air.

  From the corner of his eye, Roark saw Randy become visible and dart in from his side, flailing the ribbon-bladed Urumi at the creature’s exposed back. With a thought, Roark triggered Hex-Aura, which would attach itself to him and his allies for the next two minutes—hopefully enough time to finish this. For every strike the Jackal managed to land, the aura would deal .5n Damage, with n being the beast’s own level, back upon itself.

  That done, Roark cast Infernal Torment once more, then raced in and began hacking at the Jackal’s flank with his rapier. The fiery creature was down to half its original Health. They were wicking it away in scraps and slivers, but they were doing it.

  The thought of the Transmutation Core this leviathan might have sent a wave of renewed energy flowing through Roark’s limbs. It would be bloody brilliant. He had to have it—

  A pained cry tore through Roark’s fantasies, bringing him back to the brutal reality in front of him.

  Randy’s winged form shot across the cavern and slammed into the wall of the cave with a splintering sound. The Arboreal Herald tumbled to the floor, one wing and one leg bent at sickening angles, and his cursed Urumi dropped from his grasp, skittering away. Randy was a powerful fighter and sorcerer, but the Greater Hellstrike Jackal was a level 62—a full twenty-two levels higher than the Herald.

  The Greater Hellstrike Jackal let out a victorious bellow, rearing and throwing Kaz from his back.

  The Mighty Thursr rolled to his feet, snarling in return, and ran at the Jackal, colossal hammer poised to deliver another crushing blow. The hammer bounced off the creature’s stony shoulder, creating new fissures, but not stopping it.

  The Jackal broke into a lumbering run, this time heading straight for Randy.

  The Arboreal Herald’s eyes doubled in size, and he struggled to his single good foot, trying to fly away. His broken wing flapped uselessly like an injured bird. Randy’s Health was down to just a quarter, and he couldn’t get out of the giant beast’s way.

  Roark let loose another gut-wrenching shout of Infernal Thunder. It tripped the beast, but the Jackal had built up too much momentum. It slid across the floor with the sound of a boulder crashing down a mountainside, poised to crush Randy against th
e wall.

  Kaz let out a cry of dismay, and Roark flinched with sympathy for the split second of pain Randy would experience before he was sent to respawn.

  A heartbeat before impact, a burst of green light exploded from Randy, and a sphere of thick, tangled branches sprang up around the Arboreal Herald like a spiny barricade. The Greater Hellstrike Jackal slammed into the thorns with a mighty crunch, bouncing back a little.

  “Randy?” Kaz called, his steps faltering.

  Seconds passed without answer, and Roark was certain that the Arboreal Herald had been crushed inside his thorn sphere.

  “I’m okay!” Randy’s reply was muffled by the thicket, but otherwise strong, and Roark let out a sigh of relief. “As long as nothing happens to my Haven of Thorns, I’m good for at least—”

  The Greater Hellstrike Jackal spewed lava at Randy’s thorny protection. The branches immediately burst into flames, crackling like a roaring hearth fire on a snowy night. A terrified yelp came from inside the fiery ball.

  Encouraged by the scream, the Jackal reared back and pounced, determined to crush the broken-winged Arboreal Herald inside his burning refuge.

  Elemental Adolescence

  THE THORNY SPHERE WAS quickly blackening, the wood growing ever more brittle. Each time the gargantuan Jackal pounced, its branches groaned and bent a little more. From inside came the horrible pained shrieks of a man on fire.

  Roark wasn’t sure whether to hope Randy burned first or was crushed. Neither would be a pleasant way to die.

  “Randy!” Kaz cried, running toward the blaze, eyes wide with panic. “Do not be afraid, Kaz will save you!”

  “Bloody hell.” Roark shoved his pity to the back of his mind and broke into a run, casting a speed-enhancing spell on himself. He would feel bad for Randy when the quest was completed. For now, he had to stop Kaz from killing himself.

  He slammed into the Mighty Gourmet while they were still fifty yards from the burning thicket. Even at that distance, the heat from the flames felt like a forge stoked to the verge of blowing up.