[Bonus chapter for getting me to top 20 golden tickets/powerstones!]

Aldrich passed through the portal, followed by Okeanos and Valera. They

warped into the Death Lord's Arena, standing in the center of an enormous

colosseum.

They were in the actual ghting pit itself, surrounded by a stage of sand dotted

with shards of shattered bone and bits and pieces of hacked o armor.

Evidently, this place had seen quite some action in the past.

Now, though, as Alrdich looked around, seeing the many empty stands and

seats towering around the pit, he felt a distinct sense of emptiness. Of

abandonment.

The Death Lord followed Aldrich's gaze and sighed. "Yes, this place has seen

better days. Roaring crowds and battles to make the blood of even the coldest

hearted of undead boil. But since the Severing of Realms, I fear I do not have

enough under my command for such spectacle, with less than a third of my

troops remaining with me."

"Severing of Realms?" said Aldrich.

"It is a term that Medula, my precious second, coined the strange incident that

tore us from the Elduin realm and into this...this limbo space," said the Death

Lord. "This space bound strangely to your existence.

If you fall, we all fall, so do take that into note and try not to die, my dear

Usurper."

"I've been meaning to ask about that, actually. Do you have any idea what

happened to transfer you over here?" said Aldrich.

He had always been curious exactly how the game world had manifested into

reality, but he had no ways to get an answer. There was his game console in

Blackwater, and he did have plans to retrieve it. However, it had been some

time since Aldrich had been in Blackwater.

Most likely, his dorm room had been cleared out by now. And trying to get back

to the rundown store that sold Aldrich the game would be impossible.

Aldrich remembered that store. It was a Shack store, a rundown, temporary

store set up around the outskirts of Neo-York. The owner of the shack had been

a man with a cybernetic black mask who had said nothing to Aldrich, just sold

him the single copy of Elden World in his store for fty or so credits.

Shack stores like that which sold antique physical copies of games on top of

random pieces of hardware and junk propped up and disappeared so often that

he highly doubted the store even still existed.

And the store owner's status as a Nomad meant he had no citizenship recorded

anywhere on top of never settling down in any one location. It would be

incredibly dicult, if not near impossible to track him down, if he was even

alive.

But if the Death Lord had the resources of her Necropolis, it might have been

possible for her to get a much better understanding than Aldrich.

"You wish to know the answer?" said the Death Lord. "The truth of the dark

secret that lies in the this merging of realms?"

"Yes," said Aldrich.

"Then good, I do too." The Death Lord shrugged.

"..." Aldrich put a palm to his face before speaking again. "Let's get on with

xing Volantis."

The Death Lord smiled and nodded. "Medula, Wai'ki, it's about time you show

yourselves."

In response, a portal appeared behind the Death Lord. This portal was not green

like hers or Aldrich's, but instead a bright, infernal red. The tell tale coloring of

demonic energy.

From there, two women stepped out that looked dramatically dierent from

each other.

One of the women was tall and skinny, standing about level with Valera. She

was dressed in a long black trench coat, with the coat tail reaching almost down

her ankles. Almost all of her skin was covered, her hands wrapped in what

looked like bandages and her feet clothed in black boots.

The lower half of her face was wrapped in bandages as well. The only thing

really visible about her was her upper face, the skin pale in shade and marked

along the cheeks with a line of gleaming red runes. Her eyes were a ery

orange-red, covered a little by a thin curtain of white bangs.

Deep, tired crease lines and dark circles decorated her eyes, giving her a

positively 'done with this all' aura.

She peered at Aldrich with this tired gaze. "So, this is who our new master will

be? I expected more."

This was Curator Medula. Second among the Deathguard. Four red horns

sprouted from the sides of her white hair, indicating her status as an

Archdemon. If Aldrich remembered correctly, she was level 80+.

She served as the curator of the Necropolis, specializing in spatial magics to

keep things moving throughout the forbiddingly large structure.

"D-don't say that we don't know what kind of person he is! He might be

wonderful!" said the woman beside her. She was a much smaller woman in

comparison to Medula and held a far more welcoming aura with a shy but big

smile.

She daintily grasped a wooden sta ending with a glowing blue ower head in

front of her. Her garb consisted of a chest covering and ankle length skirt made

of leaves and owers knitted together with bones. Unlike with Medula, this

outt bared quite a bit of her tanned skin.

Her lengthy, forest green hair was tied in a bun set with narrow bone spikes as

hair pins. Deer antlers glowing with a spectral blue shine sprouted from her

head.

And this, Aldrich recognized, was Wai'Ki the Spirit Caller, the fourth of the

Deathguard. Level 60+.

"I always set my bar low," said Medula. "That way, I'm never disappointed."

"Stop spreading your negativity everywhere!" said Wai'ki. She turned to

Aldrich and gave him a deep bow. "Greetings, Usurper. I am Wai'Ki, fourth

among the Deathguard. I look forward to working with you!"

Medula shrugged. "What she said."

"Why are you two here?" said Aldrich.

"To x Volantis, of course," said the Death Lord. "My powers can destroy, but

restoration is not my specialty. These two are far better at that."

"I see," said Aldrich. "Medula as an Archdemon probably has knowledge of

Volantis, and Wai'Ki's spirit magic helps in dealing with Volantis's soul."

"Precisely," said the Death Lord. "My spirit magic is nothing to sco at, but it

is still at the level of a novice compared to Wai'Ki."

"Oh, don't say that, you're plenty special too, Melly!" said Wai'Ki.

"Melly? That's your name?" said Aldrich to the Death Lord. He had never

actually known the Death Lord's name in the lore because she was just known

as, well, the Death Lord.

"W-what?" The Death Lord was ustered. "No, that is a simple nickname. And

so what if it is? Hm? Do you think it unbetting of someone my status?"

"No, I don't particularly care," said Aldrich.

"Alright, enough chatter," said Medula. She rubbed her forehead. "I have

enough research and tower maintenance as is. Let's get on with this. You-,"

She pointed a bandage wrapped nger at Aldrich. "Get naked."

"Excuse me!?" Valera stepped forward.

"I need Volantis o to inspect him," said Medula. She looked at Valera,

inspecting her briey before shooing her away. "You, you're useless. Go wait

somewhere else."

"If I am to be your new master in the future, then you should know a thing or

two about treating others with respect," said Aldrich as he stepped in for

Valera.

"Mm. What I mean is she's a warrior. She doesn't have the knowledge to be

here. She'll get in the way. Same with that shellsh," said Medula as she stared

at Aldrich with her unbrokenly fatigued stare.

"I never get in the way of the master," protested Okeanos.

"Medula is an academic through and through. She has spent her eternity

secluding herself in a study like a recluse," said the Death Lord as she yanked

Medula back with her coat. Medula just stared tiredly as she was lifted up and

placed behind the Death Lord like an unruly puppy. "She has not learned how to

lter her thoughts. Nor has she learned a shred of decorum, no matter how

much I try to teach her.

But she is right, Volantis must come o for this procedure to continue."

"I understand," said Aldrich. He willed Volantis to detach, and the Demonwill's

voice echoed in Aldrich's mind.

'Removing Armor' said the Demonwill.

Aldrich watched as the armor started to break apart into exible metal strips,

peeling o of his body.

"M-master? With no hesitation at all? I will give you your privacy!" Valera put

her hands in front of her eyes, though noticeably, she left a gap between her

ngers to peek.

And as the armor fully unpeeled, it revealed Aldrich in his full, naked glory. As a

skeleton, of course.

"I still feel strangely naked, even as a skeleton," commented Aldrich as he

looked down at his body of bare bone. Then, his magical aura manifested,

turning into a bright sphere of glowing green energy that covered his lower

body. "Much better."

Valera sighed in mild disappointment as she took her hands from her eyes.

"Inspecting now," said Medula as she twirled her hand. A faint purple outline

covered Volantis's now empty armor form. The armor levitated in the air and

plopped down right in front of Medula. "Wai'Ki, get over here and be ready."

"Yes!" Wai'Ki hopped over to Medula's side, peering at Volantis.

"How long will this take?" said Aldrich to the Death Lord.

"Not long at all. A mere minute or so, I should say," said the Death Lord, gazing

at Medula and Wai'ki like a proud parent. "After all, these are my precious

Deathguard. Their abilities are top class."

"The Demonwill has become this weakened from the New World?

Interesting...," said Medula. She put a hand on the helm of the armor, directly

over the white eye dot. "Isolating Demonwill."

Medula withdrew her hand, and from the eye dot, a strand of ery red energy

emerged. The energy snaked upwards, coiling across Medula's ngers and up

her arm like a living worm of energy.

"Containing," said Medula as she opened her palm. A baseball sized black hole

like void manifested above her hand, sucking in the Demonwill before

collapsing in upon itself. This was Medula's Warp Magic, the Mystic Path that

she specialized in the most.

Where warriors could devote themselves to Combat Arts and Weapon Arts that

indicated specialties in specic martial arts and weapons, mages followed

Mystic Paths that indicated the eld of magic they practiced.

Medula nodded to Wai'Ki. "Your turn."

"O-okay, I'll try my best!" Wai'Ki took her sta and gently put the ower head

on Volantis's helm. "Volantis, you were such a wonderful mentor to me. Always

driven to get stronger and so condent, too! Now-now I'll try and help you

out."

"---,---,---,---" Wai'Ki started to chant in a tongue that no human vocal

chord could ever utter. It sounded like multiple voices layered into one. Utterly

indecipherable.

As she spoke, her antlers glowed brightly, and strange, ghostly wisps started to

emanate from the ground below Volantis, circling the armor in gently dancing

light.