Apotheosis

[lick450]

Prologue - Maltrusia

In the year 2342 AD, the human population has surged to over 15 billion, living on Earth alone.

With huge and complex mega cities across the globe, floating civilizations above the clouds, and a metropolis thriving in under the Pacific ocean, the current human condition is to simply work and work, breaking only when there is reasonable time between job shifts.

Companies don't own their property and brands, they own their workers. Their cities. Their own countries. In this way, technology has rapidly and extensively grown to the point of almost godhood.

Disease is no more, hunger isn't an issue, and there are no slums anywhere on the planet.

The only thing that needed to happen to accomplish this life is the growth of the market and the brand politics.

Far out planets have been colonized (to both success and failure), and everywhere you look silver skyscrapers tower over the horizon, both being a sign of progress and life but also showing the true power corporations hold over humanity.

People constantly looked for ways to escape from their current lives, doing anything they could to change their situations and improve the fun they could have by living.

Perhaps because of this, when a revolutionary new biopic and neural technology was developed to create virtual worlds inside of a human's brain, this tech was immediately put into use developing video games and simulations.

Of course, back then when the tech was first invented this was just a highly advanced and incredibly expensive form of virtual reality. It required a huge pod with tons of power routing to it, and an extensive team working to make sure that the user's brain doesn't fry. And these were just to simply enter a 3D world, and look around. No movement or interaction, just a peek into what could be.

However, in the years since, this technology (dubbed by corporations as "Full Dive") has been exponentially improved, currently only needing the headset and a special chip installed directly into the brain (alongside the other monitoring chips already present within any human).

This technology was widely available, getting cheaper by the month, and an incredible development in the world of virtual worlds.

Video games were developed using this hardware, first starting off as little more than demos, and eventually becoming the only method many people play video games now.

Games called FDMMO-RPGs were created, which stands for "Full Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games". There were hundreds of these developed, all with different themes and ideas, but there is one game that has been enjoying the spotlight as the undisputed best for the past 20 years. GRIMDARK.

Taking place within a world called Aludarile, this game allowed for more freedom than any other game on the market. The main selling point was that you could do anything, create anything, and have endless amounts of fun.

With over 80 separate tools for creating characters, armor, weapons, buildings, and npcs, the idea of endless creativity was one hundred percent true. You really can create anything you want, not necessarily within the game, but create it outside of the game then bring it in by spending data crystals (one of the main forms of currency in game).

Players could create almost any character they like, with the games having over two thousand different classes that players could spec levels into. With three different types of classes, each having their own level cap, and having a player level cap of one hundred, players could decide any multitude of classes to choose from. Basic classes had a cap of level cap fifteen, major classes had a cap of 25, and legendary classes had a cap of 35. This meant that players could choose any number of classes to spec levels into, in the ultimate aim of reaching level 100.

Character creation was completely free and unrestricted, with the only restrictions in place being related to player choices, such as a morally evil character not being able to have an archbishop class.

You could create hundred of different characters on different accounts, create friends in game to create guilds, go fight giant raid bosses with random allies, or even just go out into the wilderness, create a farm, and relax.

GRIMDARK had no limit to its player freedom and interaction, truly creating a new era of entertainment and control over the hearts and minds of the human world.

Not that any of this even matters.
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"Lick, what the heck you doin over there?"

Atop the great volcano Maltrusia, colloquially dubbed as "The BFV", a scene of pure carnage is currently unfolding.
Black clouds blot out the sun, with the only sources of light being magical energies and the magma from within the volcano. Two goliath monsters are fending off a combined force of over thirty warriors and mages, attempting to push them back into the maw of the exploding mountain.

Ice litters the arena, constantly getting melted and reformed in an effort to slow the creatures of the volcano, hammers slammed into the beasts creating deafening booms heard for miles around, and arrows flying through the sky barely piercing the hides of the monsters.

One of the beasts has a body of a lion upon it's hind legs, with a mane of crimson fire, three curled horns protruding from it's scalp, and a giant scimitar made out of the bones of a long dead dragon god. The other is shaped after a falcon, with wings twice it's size crafted from hellfire and souls, two solid black talons with claws piercing into the solid rock and magma of the volcano. Both wear crowns of pure gold and alabaster upon their helms, constantly creating huge lava bubble around the beasts preventing any attack.

Huge locusts the size of cats, with razor sharp needles on their legs, making a deafening buzz completely surround the two monsters, reflecting magical shots and arrows from hitting the goliaths, and even attacking some of the weaker looking heroes.

These two giant horrors are demons from the black realm, released into this world by an ancient coven of witches, attempting to turn the world into magma and ash. Also known as raid bosses.

The guild of al-Numeria has spent the last year and a half completing an extensive (and exclusive) quest, attempting to track down these two hell spawn and send them back to where they came from. Hundreds of thousands of hours have all been devoted to this one moment, where the demons have their back against the figurative wall of Maltrusia, slowly getting forced back.

Ogthamon and Algrolun (the lion and the falcon demon respectively) are unique raid bosses that were the center of a giant race between many different guilds to fight. Hints and data about them were dropped 2 years ago, causing any guilds of a high enough level to immediately search them out. This was because they are confirmed to be have one of the most powerful drops once defeated.

The Crystal of Creation.

Supposedly, this magic rock would be able to grant the wish of any person that used it, directly to the developers of the game.

This could be something as simple as adding a spell, or something as drastic as removing an entire continent from the world map.

So obviously, every single player in the game wanted this item, for the possibility of having their wish granted by the developers.

Back to the volcano battle though, as a player donned in full plate golden and white armor, with huge golden feather wings yells out, "My god, why do these things have so much damn health!"

"They're raid bosses idiot, each one is supposed to be faced alone with a forty player party, and we're fighting two of them with 36- no, 35. Somebody go an find Lick, we're gonna need him for the sealing," replies a shorter, red-bearded man, wielding a hammer almost twice his size. Swinging the hammer down into the ground, spikes of black rock shoot out towards the demons, rapidly catching up to them and impaling in an attack that would instantly kill any lesser being.
A third player, female, donning two brass revolvers, a bejeweled cutlass, wearing a doublet and a waistcoat, "Who knows where that moron is, do we even need him to seal these animorphs?"

Replying, the bearded man replies, "He's the only one with a strong enough Intra-seal to send these guys back, now Speak, go fly up and find him. Tell him we need his damn sealing magic. We're not going to fail, especially after we've spent this long fighting the damn things."

Sighing, the golden winged player dodges a ball of magma and begins to flap their wings to fly into the black clouded sky. "Yeah, whatever you say Mr. Raid leader."

Speakeasy, shortened to Speak by friends and guildmates, begins to soar into the sky, searching for the familiar red aura of one of al-Numeria's tribunal members, Lick. The tribunal were the three leaders of al-Numeria, and one of the other members was the man who told Speakeasy to search for Lick, Peptic.

He played as an Elder Dwarven Lord, with complete mastery over blunt weaponry and control over the Earth. A level 35 in his Legendary Dwarf Champion class made him the second strongest combatant in the guild, right after the third member of the tribunal, Pooderp.

Speakeasy herself played as a Tercelet. A heavenly bird, that was sent down and given a human form. She usually plays the role of a scout, due to her incredible maneuverability, eyesight, and her race ability of seeing any traces of magic or aura with her falconesque eyes.

Thus, while everybody else fights, she was sent out to find out where Lick was hiding, somewhere out in the clouds. The only reason he was up there, was to prevent his death in the incredibly low chance that he would get killed from the raid bosses.

Due to him being the only player with the ability to seal the demons, therefore defeating them, he was the most important member of the guild to keep alive and prevent the twelve hour respawn clock from going into effect.

Already a couple hundred meters into the air, she can still hear the clangs and explosions of the battle happening beneath her. The two demons were already at about a quarter health left, putting them in range to get easily sealed by a high level Intra-seal, a special spell that only demonkin can cast, that specifically seals and destroys the enemies it is cast upon, leaving not even a soul behind.

These mythic level spells could take upwards of five minutes to cast, meaning Speakeasy really needed to find Lick, so he can start casting the spell to end this year and a half long quest.

Climbing through the ashen clouds, getting a major accuracy debuff, Speakeasy soars around looking for any sign of the guild leader. The clamor of the fight beneath is still as loud as before, with high level magics even rebounding up into these clouds, searching for any target to hit, making this ascent still as treacherous as ever.

Bracing her wings, Speakeasy quickly casts the spell [Harpy's Gale] allowing for even quicker speeds through the air, a spell she only obtained after slaying a whole tribe of harpies and eating the corpse of their queen.

As she gets higher and higher, the clouds let up and the wind gets notably stronger. The pitch black clouds she had been flying through earlier begin to let in levels of light she hadn't seen for the last four hours.

Seeing the aura detection from the corner of her eyes, Speakeasy begins to call out saying, "OI! Lick, where are you?"

"Over here Speak, what'd you want?" replies Lick, popping out of a cloud and holding a large, black leather bound book with crimson pages within.

Huge, two sets of huge white and feathery wings sprout out of his back making him appear to be an angel. And he certainly would be seen as one, if not for his dark red skin and curved goat horns.

You see, Lick was a demonkin– half demon, half human.

Or at least he was, until after a very long and extensive questline (using up a little more of the guild's resources than he care's to admit), Lick completely balanced his karma meter being completely even on both evil and good.

In this way, he was able to get an enchanted vial of cherubim blood, drink it, and shed away all of his humanic side becoming half demon and half angel (specifically cherub). This feature was then almost immediately removed from the game by the devs, due to both its lore breaking and gameplay breaking effect. Yet they allowed Lick to keep his custom race.

This left Lick with huge angelic wings and a constantly switching aura, with his natural horns and skin color of a demonkin born of the Demon Lord Phlegethon. In terms of gameplay, it's even more broken and confusing with his one hundred percent dark magic affinity, matched with his one hundred percent affinity to holy magic. Match this with his lineage affinity to fire and destruction magics, and Lick is one of the strongest casters on the entire server.

"You didn't have to fly up this high, moron," replies Speakeasy, pointing down below. "They're at less than quarter health. We should be able to seal them now. Or at least that's what Peptic said."

"Yeah sure," replies the half-demon player, flying his way over to his guildmate. "It'll take me a bit to cast this, this stupid tome is like ten levels too low so I'm going to have to custom cast."

"Shit, why didn't you tell us before?!" yells Speakeasy, already getting worried over the success chance.

"Don't worry, it'll be fine. I'm used to custom casting anyways. I didn't tell y'all about the level difference cause all of us thought the raid bosses would be level 150. Since they're 170, we won't be able to use this, and I'm gonna have to improvise. Don't worry about it. Now let's go," says Lick, closing his wings and plummeting down to the volcano.

I knew this guy was carefree, but not telling everybody that the spell might not work if they were too high a level is just too much. I don't care if he's one of the better custom casters on the server, this is just too reckless.

In game, there are a quite a large variety of ways to cast spells. Usually, players do what's called a perfect cast. This is when they're playable character already knows the spell and can throw it out whenever they want.

This is by far the most common type of spell casting, and practically the only useable one in pvp.

What al-Numeria was going to try was a knowledge cast, where the spell is written in a spell tome, and by using the casting mechanic, high enough level casters can cast the spell basically by just reading the words on the page.

However, these spells have two major limits. One is that they can only effect an enemy of a lower level than the spell tome (mainly to prevent a guild from cheesing raid bosses, something that al-Numeria is trying to do right now), and two is that each spell can only be once and the words are completely algorithmic. So you can't memorize the words on a spell tome to keep using that spell. Once you use that spell, it's gone for good.

Not even like you could memorize the words for a spell tome, as there are over two hundred words for most spells cast in this manner.

Custom casting is when you take a knowledge cast, and by studying up on the in game magic system, you increase the spell's potency to incredible lengths by switching out words, re-arranging words, or even saying completely different words. This is incredibly hard to do, and has close to no real benefit for the work that goes into a custom cast, so it is almost never used.

Very few players can even attempt a custom cast, and even fewer have ever pulled off a successful one.
However, most level one hundred casters can at least do a minor custom cast, and about a fifth of those casters actively practice it.

"Once we get down there, Imma need you to get Squongo and Andy and bring them over to me. They won't be able to cast the spell, but they can at least help me figure out how to do it quicker."

Squongo and x2anDone are the only ones besides Lick who even practice custom casting here. If Lick is needing their help, this is gonna be one huge spell

"Yeah sure, no problem. I assume you also want me to get you some defense?"

For a second everything is quiet, minus the sounds of battle below and the wind rushing by the ears as Speakeasy falls.

"You still there Lick?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll prolly need some defense, we're gonna just be focused on getting this custom cast up and running. I'll be fine from any lava meteors that come our way, but a large amount of those locust summons and we'll get distracted."

"Great," Speakeasy replies.

With the peak of the volcano coming into sight, along with the demons and the heroes, Speakeasy and Lick flap open their wings with just a thought and begin to slow their descent, but only by a little bit.

With both of them at level a hundred and having legendary classes, the only way they could die from fall damage is if they literally fell down from the heavens. There slowing of fall was more of a quality of life choice, as the fall would hardly damage them, but they would have a pretty annoying movement debuff for a couple minutes after.

The two of them land a couple hundred feet away from the maw of the volcano, and Speakeasy immediately runs towards the fighting, running over to fetch Squongo and x2anDone.

Lick has already opened up the tome and found the spell, placing his fingers on the words and working through this complex puzzle of changing words and updating the spell.

Running right into the midst of the battle, surrounded by allies and locusts, Speakeasy signals over Squongo, a huge ape-like creature with giant arms and an even larger wooden staff.

"Hey, I thought you went to go get Lick?" he says in a deep and booming voice, coming over to Speakeasy, and occasionally hurling a ice lance in the direction of the bosses.

"Yeah, I did. Long story short, he needs help creating a custom cast for the sealing spell."

Squongo simply shakes his head and says, "Shit." before rushing over with the speed almost equal to Speakeasy.
"Wait, so the spell won't even work?" yells a large, green skinned woman with the face of a wild boar.

"Lick says it will, he just needs some help with the custom cast. Somebody go tell Andy that Lick and Squongo are gonna need his help," yells Speakeasy, to no one in particular.

Everybody seems to have hear it, as although they are constantly hurling magic, shooting their guns and bows, and swinging their swords, a message seems to get passed through the group to go and get x2anDone over to the spell tome.

Joining in on the fight, Speakeasy seemingly pulls a giant golden, shimmery lance from out of thin air, and rushes over to the front lines for full combat.

Although she is a scout, that doesn't mean she can't hold her own, and there is something to be said for a warrior who can move as quick as lightning.

Ending up right next to Peptic, Speakeasy says, "Hey, Lick said he's gonna need to custom cast the spell..."

Shocked to the point of almost dropping his hammer, Peptic continues to swing with all his might but replies, "That son of a bitch... once this whole thing is done with, I'm gonna get on to him so hard... he better not mess this up. For me and him both..."

With a new born fury, Peptic jumps up over fifty feet to be right even with the face of Ogthamon, and swings his Hammer of Mascaleedes directly into it's snout, causing the health bar in the corner of his eyes to flash white for a second, and then have no noticeable change.

"Damn, even a critical hit from the big man didn't do shit. These things aren't bosses, they're just tanks," says one player covered in shimmering green scales, and donning entirely purple armor.

"They don't even do much damage, I don't think a single one of us have even gotten close to dropping beneath half," replies another player, made up of misty blue fog and wielding two stilletos.

"You can thank us for that, Brian," says a man wearing a huge trench coat and large tricorn hat.

"Shut up man, it's weird when y'all say my actual name."

"Well you should have been more careful with who you tell," replies the trench coat man, snickering.

"Just focus on getting these guys' health down. You two can flirt later," says Speakeasy, getting quick glares in result, but no response back.

Looking behind to the back line, across the jagged rock and ice, Speakeasy sees a girl in all black and a witch's hat, flying on an actual broomstick back over to where Lick and Squongo are working on the quick cast, followed by a wolfman with shaggy brown fur and a two huge rabbit ears sprouting from his his head.

Seems like Luna and Andy are making their way back over to Lick. They should be good from here.
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Crouching around in a circle, four mages stare intently at a magical book, occasionally poking it and saying a couple words.

Lick looks down at the pages, covered with words in black tongue, or more accurately, gibberish. The crimson pages are supposedly made out of the skin of an elder demon, and the black leather binding the book together is the skin of the Leviathan.

All in all, this book is crazy powerful demon magic.

One of only five books in the Lemegeton, in his hands right now is the most powerful of them, the Ars Paulina. This is the only book of the five that tells how to permanently destroy demons, with a powerful spell that has no name.

The whole of al-Numeria then, refers to it as an "Intra-seal", which doesn't really mean much of anything. Peptic just thought it sounded cool. Which it doesn't. At least in Lick's mind.

"I can't make heads or tails of this Lick," says x2anDone, the wolfman with rabbit ears, called Andy by the members of the guild. "Sorry"

"Nah man, it's good. I don't really know either. I'm just kind of guessing what words to switch out, and whenever I see norgroth I just replace it with nargoroth," says Squongo, having already used written magic to replace a few of the words on the page.

"Wow, lesser with greater. Real creative there," says Lick, replacing more words with written magic.

"Well y'all are already at level 166, you don't have that much further to go," says Darknessluna, referred to as Luna by the guild. With dark skin, and clothed in a Halloween witch outfit, she looks more of a cosplayer than an actual warrior, but as the best defensive mage in the guild, it's helpful to have her nearby.

"Yeah, but all we've done is the easy stuff. Now is the part where we have to actually move words around, while only knowing about a third of the words on the page," says Squongo, not looking up.

All three of the custom casters have classes that allow them to understand a certain percentage of different languages inherently, shown in gameplay by having a little translation modifier to their vision. However, that will only get you so far when dealing with a magical language, such as black tongue or holy speech. The game's system only allows for a third of words to be translated automatically, something which causes great distress to anybody needing to use said magic language.

"Alright, 167 guys. Don't touch these 23 words, they're about as optimized as I can get them. And realize, we only have about ten more minutes until the original written magic gets removed from the tome."

This is the main reason why custom casting is such an issue. In order to custom cast, you must change the words on the spell tome, but, those words will only remain that way for about fifteen minutes.

This is to prevent the use of permanently better spell tomes, and rather just custom cast on the fly, and either right before or during a battle.

"At this point, if the guild just focuses on one of the demons, they might kill it before we have the chance to Intra-seal it," says Andy, looking up for a brief second to look at the chaos at the volcano's peak.

"No... we almost got it now. All we need to do is switch some paragraphs around and we should get it," says Lick, slightly wondering how it's even possible to level up this already crazy powerful spell, well beyond the levels of any ordinary mage. "Shit. I have a perfect idea. Guys, is the tomb up in mother base open today?"

"Yeah why?" replies Squongo, looking up.

"Briefly, magic item, instant translate, sacrifice levels, in tomb, 3 minutes," replies Lick, shooting to his hoofed feet.

"Damn, great. You get it, I'll use it, you cast super spell," replies Andy, standing up as much as he can while on all fours.

"You sure you wanna use that Andy, it's like a removal of 5 or so levels," says Luna, probably thinking on how many more hours of grind that is.

"Well I'm barely a higher level than Squongo, you don't know how to correctly custom cast, no offense–"

"None taken."

"–and Lick needs all his levels to cast the spell. Simple. Even twenty levels would be a worthy sacrifice for this Crystal of Creation, as long as there's a one hundred percent success chance," says Andy.

"Sounds good then," Squongo says staying down near the book, continuing to work. "Andy, you help him with the TP".

"I don't need his tp just to get to mother base," says Lick before bringing up his arm and saying, "[Teleportation]", and instantly shimmering away.

"Let's hope he didn't mess that up," says Andy, looking over to Luna shaking her head.
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Spoiler: Author's Note

AN - This chapter is a little less than half the length of chapters that I want to write (aiming for around 10k words a chapter) but that fits for a prologue, I guess. Gonna go right out and say, this story is gonna be primarily inspired by Japanese isekai shit, mainly Tensura, Re:Zero, and (if you haven't already figured out) Overlord. I really like the mechanics of YGGDRASIL, and wanted to use that as a base, which I will build off of later. Also, names of the players are based off of people in my discord dms (except for Lick, which Iis my discord un). I have a tradition where every chapter (when I remember) comes with a anime rec, and today that is One Piece (gotta start with the goat). Thanks for reading!

 

[lick450]

Chapter 1 - Feather Rock

Teleporting in GRIMDARK was simple, and greatly enhanced by the direct neural link of the Full Dive system.

Simply cast [Teleport] (a simple level 45 utility spell), and think of the exact location you wish to go to, and you'll be instantly transported there. The only limitation of said spell is the fact it only works on the player who casted it, and it can only move players to locations they have visited and remembered enough to know it's location.

Travel times are usually just in the seconds, and this time it was no different for Lick.

The first thing he feels was warm water on his bare feet.

Snapping his eyes open, he's met with a sight he's never seen before.

Directly before him was a body of water, vast in size and action. Soft waves crashing into a white sanded beach, leaving behind clumps of white bubbles and foam, and barely reaching up to his cloven feet.

Out into the water were larger waves, three to four feet high, each topped with the white water churned from the tops of the teal colored water. Large black and brown rocks out in the water near the beach, slowly getting worn away by the constant flow of the ocean.

The sky is perfectly blue, with the only thing held within being a large sun heating up the water and beach.
Turning around, Lick was met with an even grander sight as a green rainforest sprawls behind him.

Huge leafy bushes growing bright colored fruits, giant palm trees swaying lightly in the wind with piles of coconuts beneath them, and mountainous hills off in the distance, covered with the green foliage.

The beach goes all the way back to the tree line, with the occasional fallen log or rock being the only items on the pure white sand.

"What the hell is this?" Lick says to himself. "I've never see anything like this in game."

Looking up and down the beach, the white sand seems to go on forever, being constantly swept away by the blue waves.

"This really ain't right... I'll have to investigate this place later, and probably file a bug report," he thinks, semi-awed by the looks of the beach. "Lemme just teleport over to the tomb for now."

He thinks up the exact location of the tomb, and casts teleport, and the purple mist of a successful cast leaves his hands, only for nothing else to happen.

"Well if that doesn't work, mother base might have a block on it or something. Lemme try TP-ing to the town."
Once again, he thinks up the location, casts the spell, purple mist, and nothing.

"Shit, this really isn't good."

Trying something else, he decides to try a different spell, [Greater Teleport]. A spell which is [Teleport] , but you can also move up to six other people with you. Only moving himself though, it's a complete waste of mana.

Regardless, thinking up the town, he casts the spell, a darker shade of purple mist leaves his hands, and nothing.

"Well this gets worse and worse. The spells are succeeding, it isn't a cast failure. What the heck is preventing me from leaving? The only other choice I have is [Gate]... well I gotta try something."

[Gate] is a much higher level spell than any teleport, as it creates a portal allowing for instantaneous travel between locations, with no personal limit or time limit. The 'gate' drains mana for as long as it is active, and has to be actively disbanded by the caster.

Once again, thinking up the location of the town, Lick casts a spell, and finally get's something.

In front of him is a giant ten foot tall red circle, glowing brightly against the sand.

"Well this is at least something," Lick says out loud, before stepping forward and right through the portal to the other side.

The other side of the circle that is.

After seemingly walking through absolutely nothing, Lick is still on the beach, just on the other side of a big glowing red circle.

"Well that worked really well, didn't it."

Loudly sighing, Lick closes the gate, and looks around the beach again.

"Where the hell even am I? As far as I know, there weren't any tropical islands in GRIMDARK, and certainly no oceans this big. The world border stopped long before you could reach something like this."

Plopping down to sit on the sand, he's surprised with how soft the grains are.

"This genuinely feels pretty nice. It's too bad I can't feel the warmth though... let's try and contact Pooderp so people at least know what's taking me so long."

Attempting to open up the chat menu, nothing happens.

All you have to do usually is think of opening up the chat menu, and the game will do it, but absolutely nothing happened when Lick tried that.

For about three minutes, Lick sat down on the ground, his white wings getting all furled up into the sand, and tried to open up the chat menu.

"This just gets worse and worse..."

Then he tried to open up any menu at all.

Inventory, Settings, Privacy, Guild Status, Character Sheet, Skill Page, literally anything that was a separate in-game menu. Even trying to open up the developer contact console (a feature that only guild leaders for guilds in the top thirty of the rankings have), and absolutely nothing.

"If this is a bug, this is one insanely crazy one. I literally can't do anything, and am trapped here. I should just leave, and try to contact people from outside," Lick thinks, standing up and preparing to performing the emergency exit command sequence.

In cases like this, where menus or the other usual methods to leave a Full Dive, there is a worldwide mandate that all software using the equipment must have an emergency escape function.

There is no way to move your body in the real world while inside of a Full Dive, so by performing a complex action with your hands, feet, or head the software will forcibly eject you from the Full Dive and back to the real world.

Of course this feature always had trolls, who in, very elaborate ways, would trick newer players into doing the movements ejecting them from the game.

Anyways, Lick performs the actions with his hands, spinning around on the sand like a monkey, kicking up sand and splashing into the water.

The five-second-dance is complete, and Lick closes his eyes to get ready and leave the system, until the constant waves at his feet inform him that it was a failure.

More worried than ever, Lick thinks, "No way the devs kidnapped me or something... by doing this they would be breaking global law..."

It's then when he smells it.

The saltiness of the ocean, the smell of freshly blooming flowers coming from the forest, and a faint fruity smell from the entire area.

"How the hell does this smell so strong. This is way more than thirty percent."

Full Dive video games, as opposed to the general software, had another rule which was labeled as the 'Reality Rule'.
Everything in game, from sounds to smells to taste had to be weaker than thirty percent of how it would feel in real life. For example, a flower would only smell thirty percent as strong as it would in a real forest, and an explosion would be much, much quieter than it would be in real life.

This was mainly to prevent people from going full online and living their lives inside of a machine, the prevention of which comes with the added bonus of forcing them to actually work.

"What the actual fuck is happening right now. I tried teleporting to mother base, and now I'm on a tropical island in who knows where, and this place feels real."

Looking around more only confirms this idea.

Everything in GRIMDARK looked as real as could be, but anybody could tell by looking that it wasn't.

Maybe it's just some sort of inherent ability humans have to tell reality from fiction, but GRIMDARK was obviously not the real world.

On the other hand, the place Lick finds himself in is anything but.

"This place is too real to be fake," Lick says out loud, looking around in more detail and seeing the natural beauty of the area. "Those trees are too green, this water too blue, and the sky too perfect. There's no way I'm in a Full Dive."

Thinking back to himself, "But that makes close to no sense. Where am I, if not in a Full Dive? And why–," looking down at his crimson colored body and golden robes, "–do I look like this?"

Clothed in his mythic level Dawn Cult robes, and looking exactly like the half demon, half angel he played as, the only logical explanation is that he is still within the Full Dive.

But somehow being moved to a odd location, having what seems like full sensory abilities, and not being able to open up any menu whatsoever really makes it seem like something else is going on.

An idea pops into Lick's head, before he quickly throws is to the side as completely impractical or even possible.

"Well I guess it's best if I at least get a move on, see if I can find anything on this island," Lick thinks, before unfurling his wings and attempting to take flight.

As his wings flap behind him, sand is thrown up from the ground in a flurry of air and dust, and Lick quickly rises up and into the air.

Wind rushes past his face, and he feels himself gaining altitude into the endless blue sky. With the fresh air on his face, and the air beginning to thin out, he slows down his flapping to stop going up, but to also not come back down.

Peering down at the land beneath him, Lick is met with the sight of a tropical archipelgo filled with life and movement.

Forty or so islands, each covered in vegetation, and surrounded by bright blue waters. Large boulders are sporadically place throughout the waters and lands, all different shades of black and brown, and some having moss and shrubbery growing atop them.

Off in the direction of the slowly setting sun is a huge gray mountain, with black smoke billowing out the top, meaning it has to be some form of volcano.

Around the different islands, hundreds of large galleon ships can be seen traveling to and from, and a couple large settlements can be spotted on some of the islands.

And off in the endless horizon, the sun was beginning to set.

"Bro, where the hell am I?" wonders Lick, shaking his head in disbelief.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"I don't know what you want us to do chief. They've already sunk five of our fishing boats, and have set up a complete blockade from the port."

"Without our fish, are food stocks have been steadily depleting, and now we have little more than a couple weeks left of food to support the entire village."

"Bioral isn't going to send any help to our tiny little village, and even if they did, the chances of them arriving within the next couple days is slim to none."

For as long as Sóbal has been alive, Gienba has had a pirate problem.

First it was simply paying them off with portions of fish and maybe some money made from trade with the capital. But it's never enough to just placate the obvious threat.

Despite living peaceful and simple lives, pirates and marauders will always take as much as they can, eventually leading to something like a naval blockade completely preventing a small fishing village from getting food.

Sóbal sighs, and looks around the room.

The room is barely lit with a couple of candles and the walls are all covered with tapestries showing off the great history of the small fishing village.

Eight men sit around a mat in a circle, all desperately thinking of ways to save their village.

Sóbal is one of these men, though he just became of age a couple weeks ago. His father had been killed during one the pirate's attacks, and has now just become one of the twenty or so village members sunk by the ocean raiders.

As the new head fisherman, Sóbal should be out in the ocean right now, casting his nets and bringing back the food the village desperately needs to survive. Instead, he's here with the other men attempting to find a way out.

"Chief, we need to do something now. The children can't play on the beach. Merchants can't come to trade with us. The boat can't go out to get food. We can't live like this," says Fargin, the current shipbuilding boss in Gienba.

"I know Far, I know..."

Of course the chief could call the second oldest person in the room by the first part of his name. The chief was the oldest person in the room, and the fourth oldest in the village. He could call anyone by their first part, but that has nothing to do with his current health.

Chief Varsaba isn't looking so well.

Since the pirate ships docked right outside our village and inside the bay, the chief hasn't gotten a second of peaceful sleep, and it shows.

His face no longer has the brightness and cheer of the leader of a great fishing village, but rather shows sorrow and fatigue. His once straight and proud back now curled over like a dying bug, a worrisome sign of what might happen to our home.

"It's just... what's there to be done?" the chief asks, getting silence in response.

There is nothing we can do, the odds are stacked against us in the form of three pirate ships, each with crews half the size of our entire village.

"Chief, there's something I would like to say," says Gindal, a younger man, only two years older than Sóbal. With long black hair going down to his broad shoulders and a defined face, once he became of age, it is no surprise he became the ladies favorite.

His good looks, combined with his smart brain gave him a quick spiral into success as he rapidly became the village's chief equipment manager, creating all the tools we use from spears for wildlife defense and the pots for cooking food.
"Go ahead, Gin," says the chief, looking up and straight into the Gindal's eyes.

"Tanmir and I have been watching the pirate ships from Feather Rock for the past couple of days, and we have an idea. The pirates have seemingly loaded thousands of barrels of black powder into their ships, in order to supply the canons. We could use this against them..."

"How?" asks Yorbal, primary manager of trade and commerce, and one of Sóbal's distant uncles. However, that doesn't mean the two of them were family, as they hardly ever spoke to each other, and the first time they ever did was at the funeral for Sóbal's parents.

Looking away from the chief for a second and looking at Yorbal, Gindal says, "I'm getting to that," before looking back at the chief. "If we can get together around four men from the village, and swim up to the ships in the waning hours of the day, we can sneak abord–"

"No," says the chief, cutting Gindal off. "In no way am I going to permit anybody from this village to go abord those vessels and get slaughtered. The cruelty of man is something those pirates have no shortage of."

"But Chief–"

"No, not happening. I would sooner abandon this settlement and seek refuge with our neighbors in Q'sdan than willingly send any of you to your deaths."

"But who says we would die?"

"I said no, and that's final," says the chief coldly.

"If we don't do something about it we die chief!"

"Calm down Gin. The chief said no, so we won't do it," says Darctay, the primary resource manager of the village. As the man in charge of keeping track of food and then rationing it out, if anybody has had more work than the chief, it's him.

Shooting up to his feet, Gindal loudly says, "Are we really just going to sit around and wait for the inevitable? Before we have to abandon our own homes to pirates and thieves?!"

His head swivels between all the men, and Sóbal watches as each leader averts their eyes before Gindal locks eyes with him.

"Só, if anyone here has reason to fight back against these pirates it's you," he says, pleading with his eyes.

"That isn't true Gindal. All the men here love Gienba just as much as you do, and have sacrificed more than they should to keep our lives here. It isn't right to ignore that," replies Sóbal, before looking back down to the ground alongside the other men.

"So that's it, huh. We're just going to abandon the village. Is that the idea, Varsaba?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so. Mobilize the women and children first–" the chief begins to say, before being cut off by Gindal.

"I'm not going to take this. I'm not going to sit down and just accept the things that happen as inevitable. You old men can decide how to escape, but I'm going to stand my ground," he says, storming out of the lodge before any of the leaders could respond.

Silence fills the hall, as each man sits and thinks of what's to come.

Not a single one of them wants to leave the village, and Gindal knows this. In fact, he just said what each member of the table had been thinking for what seems like years of torment under the pirates.

The candles burn down, and the room grows ever darker as the now seven men sit in absolute silence, and await their fates and the fate of their home.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The village leader's meeting didn't go much better after Gindal left.

The only decision made was to evacuate all the women and children to the only other settlement on Hasgier island, Q'sdan. A decision the leaders (minus Sóbal and Gindal) are telling the rest of the village.

The only problem is that, with the women gone, the village wouldn't be able to survive much longer. The men would be left here, standing ground until they too were forced to retreat by the marauders and lack of food.

Looking back at the lodge, decorated with exquisite palm wood and intricately carved with the shapes of fish and serpents, Sóbal sighs and looks around.

The village of Gienba is situated right in between two large hills, with a short road to get to the ocean and the docks.

Forty different wood carved buildings make up the village, each one made of the same material, but handcrafted to be different from the rest.

Houses, supply depots, kitchens, trade stations, and even our very own tavern are just a couple buildings that make up our home.

It's not much. Nothing even near the size of Vesgan, with its huge sandstone buildings and palaces.

Compared to the capital, Gienba is just a backwater town filled with natives who barely contribute to trade. But despite that, its home.

But the span of a few short weeks, this home will be burned to the ground by ocean bandits, plundering all they can for wealth. Wealth that they won't find in this simple little village on the coast of a small island in a much bigger nation.

A much bigger nation that cares not for it's people, but rather for the livelihood of its trade routes through the Azure Sea.
Staring off into space, Sóbal is brought back by a voice yelling, "Yo Sóbal, how's it going?"

Looking over, Sóbal sees a friendly face coming running over.

"Hey Jurag," replies Sóbal, looking at his friend's flushed face.

"How'd it go in there?"

"You haven't heard? We're evacuating–"

"No, everybody already knows about that. What happened to Gindal in the lodge? He left, looking pissed off as ever, and went straight to hold up in his home."

Sighing, Sóbal says, "Yeah, he had a plan to attack the pirates and Chief Varsaba said no and would rather evacuate. So that's what we're going to do?"

"So are we attacking or evacuating?"

"We're evacuating."

"No, I meant what are we doing?"

"For the time being, we are going to stay here and try to save something. We don't really know. The chief is just against us fighting against the pirates."

"Huh," says Jurag. "Maybe we should go and check in on Gindal, you know?" he says, before starting to walk down to Gindal and Tanmir's hut.

Catching up with him, Sóbal says, "I really don't think that was a good idea. He got really mad when I didn't decide to go fight pirates with him?"

"Well you'll just have to apologize then," says Jurag, not stopping for a second.

This steadfastness and quite instant decision making has always led to people being confused on how Jurag and Sóbal even became friends, as their personalities are completely different.

In the words of the Jurag's father, Jeeral, "One throws a net in front of the fish, the other throws a spear at the fish," and nothing sums up the two friends better than that.

Ever since the two of them got lost in the jungle and somehow found their way back, it's hard to ever see them apart.
One is always nearby to the other, and always there to support.

"What is this idiot going to do now," thinks Sóbal, not really ever confident in his friend's ability to think rationaly.
Regardless though, Sóbal follows after this impulsive mess of a man.

Weaving through village people and buildings, the two of them eventually arrive before the hut of the newlyweds, still having the matrimonial parrot feather wreath on the door, in its rainbow colored splendor.

"I really don't think it's a good idea to be talking to him now..."

"Ehh, what's the worse that could happen," Jurag says, before walking up to the front door of the hut and banging on it loudly with his fist.

Scuffling and a loud bang can be heard inside, followed by a yelp of pain.

Jurag looks behind him at Sóbal, who just shrugs his shoulders in response.

Moments later, the wooden door opens and Tanmir stands in the doorway looking down at the two men.

"What'd you two want?" she says, rubbing her forehead.

Tanmir and Gindal are what anybody would call a "power couple". Gindal being one of the strongest men in the village, and Tanmir being, undoubtedly, the faster swimmer on the island. The two of them became betrothed in what seemed like minutes after Gindal became of age and turned sixteen, only for the two of them being forced to wait a year and a half for Tanmir to catch up.

Needless to say, the two of them have been madly in love with each other since the day they met. In the words of old they are shirnuk. Destined to be.

Tanmir has always been an incredibly beautiful woman, with her skin the color of the ramón trees and long chocolate hair both serving to compliment her slender face and blue eyes.

However, her current appearance isn't particularly lively.

Disheveled and dirty, Tanmir looks as if she's been rolling around in mud for the last decade, and doesn't even know what the word 'clean' means.

Sóbal and Jurag just stand still, somewhat in awe of the drastic appearance change before them and somewhat confused.
"I'll ask again, what are you lot doing here?" Tanmir asks, even more aggressively than the first.

Sóbal steps up and replies, "Well Gindal stormed out of the lodge meeting, and the two of us were hoping to talk to him and make sure everything's all right."

Tanmir's glaring eyes soften up a little, before she says, "He's doing great right now, you can go–"

"Ehhh, let them in For-Tan. Jur is a good kid, and I wish to talk with Só," replies a voice from within the hut.

Tanmir shakes her head, sighs, and says, "Whatever you say Fir-Gin." Waving her hand inside, she says, "Come on in boys," and walks inside.

For-Tan and Fir-Gin... the two of them really have gotten used to the married life, using the matrimonial prefix.

The two friends walk inside the hut, and are shocked by the state of things.

Plates and dishes strewn about, broken boxes littering the floor, and what seems like a month old rotting fish displayed on the counter.

Behind the piles of trash and junk is a single barrel, and seated behind it holding some papers is Gindal.

His face lit with only a single candle, one can just barely make out the white on his brown face and his piercing eyes.

"Sorry about the mess you two. We haven't been really sleeping in this place for a while now, there were more important things to be done," Gindal says, waving them over to the barrel. "Come on over and sit."

Tanmir is the first to go over and sits down right next to Gindal, leaning her head against him while still rubbing her forehead.

Jurag then follows and sits, with Sóbal following him and choosing to stand.

The four people look at each other in silence, their faces lit only by the singular candle.

Jurag breaks the silence asking, "So you doing fine Gindal? I saw you storm out of the meeting–"

"That's cause nothing was going to happen with those old pacifists in charge," Gindal angrily says, staring right at Sóbal, who can only shake his head in response. "I respect each one of the leaders, and the chief more so than all of them, but I couldn't stand it. They would rather completely abandon our village to the mercy of pirates and thieves than stand up and fight for their home."

Jurag looks over to Sóbal, who then says, "I think they just didn't want any others to die. If we leave, we lose our homes but we keep our lives. That's how the chief sees it."

"I know that's how he sees it, but I don't like it!" Rocketing up to his feet, Gindal then points at Sóbal and says, "You sit there, and you hear them speak of abandoning this village your father and mother died trying to get simple food for. The people responsible for it are just right outside this village, and you do nothing about it!"

"Shut up Gindal, you can't say that about somebody who's lost their own parents, idiot," yells Tanmir, standing up and smacking him upside the head.

Jurag then rises to his feet and says, "We've all had lives impacted by the pirates here, and that's reason enough to be mad at them. But last time I checked, Sóbal was the only one here who's lost the only blood family he had to these thieves. It's fine for him to take his own actions in response."

Tanmir and Jurag both look at Gindal, each disappointed and upset with him.

Gindal looks down at the ground, then sits back down in silence before saying, "You're right. Sorry about that Só. I just couldn't fathom why somebody like you wouldn't be the first person to join up to attack those killers."

Throughout this all, Sóbal just looks at Gindal's rough form and angry eyes and calmly says, "I'm just as pissed as you are Gindal. I'm just focusing on the people I have left and the lives that I can save, rather than avenging the lives of those already gone. In that way, I bring honor to my parents."

"Well said," replies Gindal grimly.

Tanmir and Jurag then sit back down around the barrel, with Sóbal then sitting down on the available final stool next to his friend.

"Anyways, I invited you in here for one reason, and we got sidetracked. Sorry," says Gindal, before continuing, "Sóbal already knows this, but For-Tan and I have been scouting out the pirate ships for the last couple weeks. That's why our place looks like the nest of a rat king–"

"And why I look like shit," interrupts Tanmir, smiling mischievously.

"Yes, what she said. Regardless, we've discovered huge amounts of black powder constantly being brought to the ships, and stored in red, wooden barrels. What we want to do–"

"Hey! The chief said no on that. There's no way–"

"I'm not asking you to do this Só, I just wanted Jurag to help out. He's one of the best swimmers in the village, and we'll need somebody like him to do this."

"The chief said everybody who gets on those boats will die," replies Sóbal angrily.

"Not if the plan works. And the plan is foolproof," retorts Tanmir.

"What the hell is this plan?" asks Jurag.

"Simple. The three of us swim up to the boats, board them from one of the large side windows, located the explosive black powder, and blow up the ship from the inside," says Gindal, grinning and looking at Jurag.

"You can't seriously expect this to work Gindal," says Sóbal.

"I very much do. Every day, when the sun begins to sink in the sky, every single marauder goes up to the deck of the ship, and drinks like crazy. Every. Single. One. Not once have Tanmir or I even seen a shadow on the lower parts of the ship during sunset."

"That's still ridiculous, and the chief said no. We can't do it."

Suddenly, the person next to Sóbal, the man he would trust his own life to, asks, "Well what if it does work? What if we safely get into the boat? How will we blow it up, without blowing ourselves up?"

"No, no, no... you can't be asking this Jurag. This is a death wish, plain and simple. Exactly like what the chief said. No one can get up onto those boats and come out alive," thinks Sóbal, to shocked to say anything out loud.

Tanmir says, "The hardest part will simply be getting aboard. After that, we take a barrel of black powder, and make a long line of it toward the barrels from far away. A line of powder long enough, that we can light up one end and be safe from the explosion on the other end. In other words– a super long fuse. Once the fuse is made, I light it with [Spark] and we're good to go."

"And when a giant explosion causes a huge hole in the boat, the ship will rapidly sink to the bottom of the bay. In that time, all we have to do is jump out, and swim to land. Something all of us at this table could do with our eyes closed."

Standing up, Sóbal finally says, "We can't do this Jurag, let's go," but Jurag doesn't move a muscle.

Instead, he asks, "What do we do if there is somebody on the lower floors?"

Grimacing, Gindal replies, "Each of us will carry two spears onto the boat."

No more words needed to be said, and Sóbal knew this. He also knew that Jurag was going.

He was going to try and blow up a pirate ship, and at this point, Sóbal could say nothing to stop him. But that doesn't mean he can't try.

"Jurag, you can't do this. You still have a family to protect. Your sister and mother need somebody to protect them, at least until cute little Io finds a man for herself."

Jurag stands up, and looks at Sóbal and says, "You're right Só... they need to be protected, and there's one real easy way of doing so that, and I'm looking at it right now. It's best if you leave now Sóbal."

Sóbal looks at Jurag, shocked but not surprised. If anyone in this village would immediately go along with a plan as risky as this, it would be Jurag. Perhaps that was one of the reasons Gindal wanted to ask him to join.

"Sóbal... there is one thing I ask of you. Don't tell anyone. This is my own decision, don't go and try saving it for me. Please."

Tanmir and Gindal look away from the table, and Sóbal just asks, "How likely is this plan to succeed, with no casualties?"

Gindal responds and says, "If it goes to plan, absolutely none. Even if it doesn't, I will jump in front of any arrow to protect For-Tan and Jur."

"When are you planning to do this?" asks Sóbal.

"We can't tell you. We trust you not to tell the chief or any other leaders, for the sake of Jur, but even then. On the slightest possibility you would betray our trust, we cannot tell you," replies Tanmir.

"Well than why did you even let me know that you're still planning this attack?"

"Two reasons. One if we didn't come back... people would want closure. Two..."

"This opportunity is still open to you," finishes Gindal, cutting Tanmir off. "I know you have your own way of avenging your family, but when shown with a foolproof and direct way to get immediate revenge, we though you might want to come along. We could use the best spearman on the island for this. You also might want to come along to help out your friend–"

"Ohh. So that's what this is about," says Sóbal realizing something crucial. He glares at Gindal and says, "You wanted Jurag to come along, just so you could force me to come along."

Jurag cuts in and says, "There's no way that's true Sóbal, and you know it."

Tanmir then says, "No Jur, he is partially right. Primarily, we wanted to get young men who were strong swimmers. The two of you are the best there are, and if we could get one of you, we were confident we could convince the second."
"Why would you tell us this?" asks Jurag, upset.

"We are simply being as open as possible with the two of you. We aren't hiding anything, and simply want the village to be better than it currently stands," says Gindal, holding out his hands. "After the events in the lodge, and what we've just talked about, I'm confident that you won't join us Só, but I'm also confident you won't tell the chief."

Sóbal sighs and says, "You're right, I won't tell the chief anything. Nor any of the leaders. And no matter how hard I think about it, I won't join you. Deep inside of me, I really want to help out. But I just can't go against the chief. I respect him more than my own life, and I honor his words."

Jurag then calmly says, "Without the village, there is no chief. Without our home, we have nothing except each other. And everybody in this village except those too young to speak, know that just each other isn't enough to survive out here." Jurag then looks into Sóbal's eyes, and says, "I'm not going to let this chance to save our village be tossed to the side. I'm going to do this, and it would mean more than anything to me if you would join, Sóba– no, Hin-Só."

Brother Só... it's fair for him to call Sóbal that. The two of them have been through more than enough together, and they are as close brothers. In fact, most of the villagers wouldn't be surprised if they were related.

"You can't just whip out the brother card here, Jur..." Sóbal says, looking at his friend.

Those usually playful and bright green eyes are now as serious as death. That face that was perpetually smiling, even during the hardest tropical storms was now as still as the bay. You couldn't even see his trademarked missing front teeth.
The only thing on his head right now, was the face of a warrior ready to fight for his village.

And Sóbal knew the same thing was on Gindal and Tanmir's faces as well.

The three of them were warriors.

And who was Sóbal to deny them that?

And who was Sóbal to ignore that?

And what was Sóbal if he didn't help that?

"No... Hin-Jur," Sóbal says, steeling his rapidly beating heart. "If we are to be brothers, what brother would look at his own blood and say 'good luck' as they go out an fight for what is true? This isn't the right choice, but if it's the one you are going to take, then I will take it with you."

Patting Jurag on the back, Sóbal says, "There's no way I'm can leave this alone now. There's no way I can report this to anyone. So the only thing I can do, is join in."

All three of the warriors before Sóbal smile, and Gindal says, "Perfect. Tonight, we sink a pirate ship."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Of course Gindal would want to do the attack tonight.

He explained it in a way that made a lot of sense at the barrel, but now, not so much.

Sóbal stops walking, and stares at the back of his brother, wondering how much danger the two of them have actually entered into.

Jurag notices Sóbal stopping, turns around, and says, "It's too late to turn back now. We got to do this."

"I know, I know," says Sóbal, walking alongside Jurag. "It's just... I don't want any of us to get hurt, and I don't see us making it out of these pirate boats without one of us getting injured, in some way or another."

"We'll be fine. As long as we don't get detected, which will be trivial, nothing will happen until we blow up the barrels."
"Well did it have to be tonight?"

"You heard what Gindal said. 'If we don't do it tonight, we're just putting off the inevitable and allowing for more pirates to arrive. We best strike quick, and strike hard'."

"I guess, but it just seem so quick. We're only an hour or two away from sunset, meaning an hour or two away from doing the most important thing in our lives."

Speaking in a serious voice, Jurag says, "The more worried you are, the more likely things are to go wrong. We will be fine. Just think that way, and it will come true."

"I guess," replies Sóbal, as the two of them arrive at Jurag's hut.

Much larger in size than Gindal and Tanmir's hut, this home was clearly built for a family of four, but ever since his father drowned, it's been home to Jurag, his mom Heldor, and his sister Kirag.

Knocking on the door, much softer than at Gindal's mind you, Jurag yells, "Mom! I'm home, and–"

The door immediately swings open to reveal a short, five year old girl, with long charcoal hair and huge green eyes. The exact same vibrant color as Jurag.

The girl initially gives a wide smile at Jurag, before looking over, seeing Sóbal, and immediately frowns.
"Jew-ra, why is he here?" she asks, looking at Jurag angrily.

Jurag laughs and says, "Hon-Ki, you know he is your brother's friend, and actually, he's now he's my brother. So no being mean."

"Okee, Jew-ra," she replies, before turning around and walking inside, not before giving Sóbal one quick flash of her tongue.

"She really hasn't gotten to like you yet, huh," says Jurag, grinning.

"I guess not," Sóbal replies, looking into the hut.

"Well... come on in," Jurag says, and the two of them walk inside.

Lit up with big lanterns and candles, the middle of the wooden house is colorful, and decorated, the complete opposite of the previous home the brothers were in.

Large paintings, created by the mother herself, litter the walls occasionally stopping for a window or hanging pots. A table in the middle has four chairs around it, and a meal is set up on them.

A meal for three, but at first glance, looks like for two at most.

A single roasted Mahi-Mahi fish, a large bowl of greens, and half a jug of water are the only foods on the table, with three sets of tableware laid out.

"I've been expecting you, Só," replies a voice from the corner of the room. Turning to face the voice, Sóbal sees who he expected, a middle aged woman with hair the same color as her daughter, and skin as brown as the soil in the jungle. Jurag's mother, Heldor, then asks, "What's this I hear about a new brother?"

Jurag smiles, and goes up to his mother and hugs her while saying, "Só and I have decided to become brothers. We already acted as such, so the two of us decided to protect each other as family, and became brothers."

"Of course... it was only time until something like this happened between the two of you. Your father always said that Só was our kid, and you were Yunbal's kid..." she says, before looking off in the distance. Lost in thoughts of better days.

Snapping her back to reality, Jurag says, "Well it looks like food is all set up, can Hin-Só eat with us? We have something to do later tonight, and figured it would be better to eat together..."

"I'm not hungry, I just want to sit down with your meal," Sóbal interjects, after seeing the lack of food on the table.

Each family has been hit hard by the fish rationing, and Sóbal wouldn't even dream of taking away food from somebody else.

"I would love if Só would sit down with us, it's been so long since we've been able to talk with each other," Heldor says, smiling.

"Sounds great," says Jurag, smiling and sitting down.

"I don't want him here," says a girls voice, followed by Kirag walking out from behind the corner of a wall.

"Don't be like that Ki, come over here," says Heldor kindly.

Ki then walks over to her mother, sticks her finger in her nose, and her other hand grasps around Heldor's. The two of them sit down right next to each other, and Sóbal then sits down next to Jurag, at the only chair that doesn't have a plate in front of it.

The three eating people dig into their food, or more specifically, their salad.

Not a word was said among them, but each grabs a clump of leafy greens, dumps it on their plate, and chows down. The occasional grab for water would sometimes halt the feast, but only for a moment, before the eater continues.

Laughing a little to himself, Sóbal looks at the family enjoying their meal and enjoys the spirit of the family dinner table.
Soon though, the greens run out, and the roasted fish is the only food left on the table.

Heldor and Jurag share a look with each other, before Jurag says, "Man, I'm really full. If only somebody would eat this fish..." then he looks at Heldor and asks, "Mom, do you want this fish?"

With a sad smile, she responds, "No, I am also full. How about you Ki?"

Kirag looks at the fish, then looks at her family members and says, "The fish looks very good, but I want to share."

Wincing, Jurag replies, "Hon-Ki, I think you should eat this fish all by yourself, and grow up into a big girl soon. Without this fish, you can't do that..." He then picks up the roasted Mahi-Mahi, and plops it down onto Kirag's plate, before saying, "You want to grow up to be big like me, right Hon-Ki?"

"I guess... you sure you don't want some Jew-Ra," Kirag says, looking up at her brother.

"Yes, Hon-Ki. I really am all filled up from the salad mom made."

"Alrighty!" she says smiling, before digging into the fish.

All three of the older people at the table laugh, and Heldor asks, "So what are you two going to do after this?"

Sóbal replies and says, "We're going to go over and help Darctay with the stockpile transfers. He needs all the help he can get as we get ready to... evacuate."

The happy, family feel of the table entirely dissipates, and is replaced by the dread of the pirates. The dread over what is soon to happen to Gienba, and the dread over what it's citizens will have to do soon for survival.

"And speaking of which," Jurag says, looking out the window and seeing the sun dipping below the horizon. "I think it's time we left. He's definitely waiting for us by now. We got to go," he says, standing up from the chair.

Sóbal stand up as well and watched as Jurag gives his mother a big hug and kiss, then walks over to Kirag, who's still eating the fish almost as big as her head, and says, "Now you behave yourself while I'm gone."

"Okay Jew-Ra. I'll be good," she says, before getting out of her chair (almost falling out of it in the process) and giving Jurag a big hug. And if Sóbal didn't know any better, he would say Jurag teared up in the process.

Heading over to the door, Sóbal leaves the hut, and waits for Jurag outside in the setting sun.

It wasn't too long until Jurag stepped outside, with two fishing spears on his back, and two in his hands.

Each spear is over almost two meters long, with a tri-tipped metal head on the end.

"You ready for this?" he asks, tossing two of the spears over to Sóbal.

Catching them, and strapping them to his back, Sóbal replies and says, "No, but there isn't much of a choice right now."

Shaking his head, Jurag walks past Sóbal and says, "We have to do something, sometime. And that thing is blowing up pirates, and that time is now."

"I know, I know..." Sóbal responds, following after his brother.

The two of them lightly jog over to the meeting location for the raid.

Feather Rock.

A huge boulder right on the edge of the beach, looking out into the bay that tends to be the home to hundreds of rainbow parrots, constantly making nests and eating fruit. This then leaves behind thousands upon thousands of multicolored feathers, each vibrant and beautiful.

Aspiring wives of the village go out to the rock, collect as many feathers as they can, and weave them into a wreath. This wreath is then given as a gift to the man they want to marry as a proposal.

Nobody knows when this tradition started, but it's said that the larger the wreath is, the happier the marriage will be.
Anyways, the two men arrive at the boulder, and look up to see their teammates standing up and looking down at them.

"Just in time, For-Tan was about to go down and find you two," says Gindal, smiling.

"Yeah, we just stopped by for dinner at my house," says Jurag, climbing up onto the rock, followed by Sóbal.

"Did you tell your mother about this?" asks Tanmir.

"No, but I did leave a note behind in my room, should the worst happen..."

"Which it isn't going to," says Gindal, reaching down and pulling Jurag and Sóbal onto the rock. Pointing into the bay, and at the three huge pirate ships, Gindal says, "We're going to take down that one. The Marumbar Fleek. It's that sort of black one that's real close to the docks."

Logically, Gindal chose the ship closest to the shore, which also happened to be the smallest.

Not like it isn't large than the entire fishing boat fleet combined, but it's about three quarters the size of the goliath ship right outside the bay.

With a long hull painted black, huge masts with white sails tied up, and the infamous jolly roger waving from the top mast, the Marumbar is a worthy target of destruction. Sóbal can also now see what they meant by nightly drinking sessions, as it seems like an entire village worth of people are up top of the deck, having a party.

"Now, one more quick recap of the plan," says Tanmir, turning to face the bay. Pointing at the docks, she says, "We will swim for as long as we can underneath the docks, so that we can easily come up for air should the need arise. Once we reach the end of the docks, it's one big breath until we get over to the ship. Shouldn't be more than a hundred meters until we reach the hull of the ship. From there, we use these–" pointing at a bucket with a handful of sharp flaying knives "– to climb up the hull of the ship, and into one of those large portside windows. From there, it's searching for the barrels of black powder, and blowing them up."

"I hate that I can't see any holes in this plan," thinks Sóbal, looking into the water.

He knows his father's boat is down in these shallow waters, alongside many others sank by the pirates. Now they're just going to add a much larger one into the depths.

Gindal continues and says, "The black powder is likely going to be stored near to where the canons are located, so once we get onto the ship, we move as a group and find the canons. Should the need arise, us men will defend For-Tan as she sets up a fuse and gets ready to light it with [Sparks]. We'll have eight spears if you count For-Tan's, which is easily eight dead pirates–"

"I've never killed a man before," interrupts Jurag.

Gindal looks over and sighs. "Neither have I. But I'm willing to, if it means dealing with the threats to our village."

Jurag nods along, and says, "So be it then."

"We needed you two along for just in case if things get hairy. If one of us gets injured to the point where they can't swim, then two other people can help them ashore. We will be perfectly fine, and this plan will succeed."

"What if the barrels aren't close to the bottom of the ship? Will the boat even sink, if all it has is a giant hole in the side?" asks Sóbal, wondering if that would prevent the plan from working.

Tanmir responds and says, "No, it wouldn't. In fact, it would probably be better. A giant hole in the side of the boat would cause the entire deck to collapse, quickly killing a large number of those partiers. The boat would then have all these trapped pirates on it, and slowly sink down to the bottom of the bay."

"Sounds good to me," says Jurag, taking off his cloth shirt and sandals, grabbing two knives from the bucket, and crawling down the rock and towards the forest. "Let's get his done."

The other three follow suit, and walk down to the edge of the tree line on the beach, right outside the distance any pirates taking a look at the beach could spot them from.

They stand there in the bush, looking off at the target boat, with the sun setting behind.

The clamor of the drunken pirates completely masks out the natural sound of the waves and forest. A sound that doesn't belong, and shall soon be removed.

"Well then... let's go," says Gindal, running straight for the docks, and diving underwater. In less than five seconds he was off the beach, and underneath solid wood.

Tanmir follows after, even quicker than her husband, leaving Sóbal and Jurag remaining.

Jurag turns to Sóbal and says, "Until this is done, we won't have much of anytime to speak to each other. So good luck in there," before running into the water and underneath the dock.

"Gods protect us," prays Sóbal, before following after his team, and into the water.

The shallow water is still warm from the day's sun, and feels great to the touch. The perfect swimming temperature, and just the right heat level for fishing up eels, but that's besides the point.

Underneath the dock, Sóbal sees the other three already swimming to the far end, a little over two hundred meters out from the shoreline. It's not a long swim by any means, especially when you can breathe, but once everybody gets to the end... the most important swim of their lives will take place.

As silent as a horned serpent swimming through the waters after its prey, the four of them swim towards the edge of the docks, as close as they can get to the pirate's ship.

In little over three minutes, all four of them reach the end of their protection from the sights of the pirates. The end of the dock.

The Marumbar can be seen poking out from the water, with its red hull staining the ocean.

The four defenders look at each other, before nodding their heads, taking a quick breath, and diving underwater.

If one were to look down, they would see huge jagged rocks, broken ships, and hundred of fish and colorful coral.
But none of them looked down. They all looked straight ahead to their destination, swimming forth with the determination required of them to protect Gienba.

Swimming only five feet beneath the surface of the water, the four of them are able to travel relatively quick through the water, while also staying completely unseen from any forces above them. Once the sun begins to set, the water of the Azure Sea is completely impossible to see within from outside, but quiet easy to see through when within.

In this way, they all reach the back of the boat, and swim up to the surface.

Gindal puts his finger to his mouth for the other three to see, and points over to an open window, maybe ten yards up the back of the hull.

Each of them nods, and silently pulls out their two knives, jamming them into the wooden boat. Slowly, and with much effort, they begin to pull themselves out of the water, and up to the window, one after another.

Gindal is the last to start the climb, helping to push the other three just that little bit to get out of the water and start the climb.

Although its only twenty meters, this climb was far worse than the swim.

Relying purely on upper body strength, these simple fishers and villagers must pull themselves up a sheer wooden wall, with no breaks. It's a good thing then, that all four of them are young and in perfect shape–for swimming at least– and that the supplied knives had just been sharpened by Tanmir.

Leaving behind a hundred stab marks in the wooden hull, the four of them finally make their way up the wall, roll in the window, and collapse on the ground inside to catch their breath.

Laying on the floor for only a brief minute, they stand up and look around to see where they have arrived.

It seems one of them is lucky today, as the four land in what seems to be a food and beverage store room.

Shelves line the walls, decorated with assortments of bags of grain, fruits, dried meat, and herbs. Dark brown barrels, assumedly filled with rum for the pirates, line the back wall of the storage room, right next to the open window the four of them just fell through.

Because you can never be too sure, Tanmir stabs one of the barrels with her knife, and a brown liquid comes dripping out.

Definitely not the black powder.

Regardless, the shelves are lined with foodstuff, and just the sight makes all four of the mouths water.

However, they have a job to do, and they have to do it now. The longer they spend waiting around, the quicker they are going to get caught. They are quite literally in the heart of the enemy, and have to blow it up.

Jurag goes over to the door to exit the storage room, cracks it open just a hair, peeks through, then waves the others through the door. All is clear.

Now within a lengthy hallway, the infiltrators look up and down for any sign of life, their spears already in hand.

Upstairs the sounds of revelry and debauchery are heard, as a hoard of pirates drink the night away, drowning themselves in simple pleasures. However, nothing is seen or heard down here under the deck.

With their hearts audibly beating away, the four make their way through the hallways, carefully checking each and every room for enemies. Gindal and Tanmir seemed to be right though, as not a single soul was encountered, and the ruckus above them just grew louder and louder.

The further they all went on, the louder their hearts became, knowing how far away the only known exit became.
Unconsciously, all of them began praying to their gods for any sign of the barrels. The only hope they had, and the only reason their even on this damn boat.

Every dead end in the hallway was a near heart attack, and every room a teeth clencher.

Soon, they had explored the full floor, and were only able to find a ladder going up a level.

The four of them stand around the ladder, none of them wanting to lead the way into a potential enemy attack.

What could've been an eternity passes, before Gindal smiles to the group, points upward, and climbs the ladder.

Upon reaching the top, he pokes his head up, swivels like a madman, and gives a thumbs up.

Seem like it's all clear.

The other three let out loud sighs of relief, and follow up the ladder after the man who has become their leader. At the top, Tanmir hugs Gindal for a brief moment, before the group then takes a good look around themselves.

The four of them are completely surrounded by stacks of canon balls, the actual canons, and piles of barrels labeled with a black X on each one.

Sprinting over to the closest stack, Jurag lets out an actual squeal of delight when a small mound of black powder is beneath the barrels.

They've found it.

And boy is it a motherload.

Thousands of pounds of black powder are stored in over a hundred barrels. Who knows where the pirates got all this explosive powder from, and what they were going to even use it one when fighting a bunch of villagers, but this is going to work extremely well.

All four faces are beaming, as they get to work.

From the size of the stash, it's going to need a long fuse to prevent damaging the detonators.

"But, it should be easy to make a fuse," thinks Sóbal, grabbing handfuls of the powder from an open barrel and spreading it in a line towards the ladder.

The others work alongside him, creating a long black line of powder, all the way to the ladder. A twenty-five foot long black line leading straight from the ladder to the primary explosive source, the largest pile of barrels in the canon room.
The four of them stand right next to the ladder, looking at their handiwork.

Gindal lightly nods and quietly says, "And with this, let's g–"

BANG

Time crawls to a halt, as Gindal's forehead begins to squeeze out a torrent of blood.

His body drops down to the floor lifeless.

A pool blood rapidly forms beneath his head, spreading out and seeping into the wooden floor.

Sóbal hears a scream next to him, as he sees Tanmir fall to the ground next to Gindal, and–

BANG

Another shot rings out, and Sóbal sees a chunk of Tamir's shoulder flight out behind her.

Looking up, Sóbal sees what the group always feared seeing.

With one hand holding a flintlock, and the other holding a bottle of booze, standing in a doorway is a pirate. Dirty hair, golden earrings, and a black cutlass on his hip, before the group stands a true life and blood pirate.

His arms move in autopilot, as Sóbal brings a spear behind his back and throws it directly at the pirate, getting a direct hit. The spear goes right through the pirate's neck, and pins it self to the wall behind, covered in blood.

The pirate's body sinks to the ground, causing the bottle of liquor to break open when it hits the floor.

Tanmir is screaming, clutching the body of her husband, completely ignoring the blood pouring out from her shoulder.
Jurag has fallen to his knees, hands on his head, and a face as white as bone.

Gindal is dead.

Sóbal feels a something rise up to the top of him, before quickly pushing it back down. If he were to let that feeling take over, there's no way they would make it out of this.

He says something. He doesn't know what he said, he doesn't know if he even said it. But the other two definitely didn't hear it, or even pay attention.

So he tries to say it again. This time, he knows what he was trying to say.

"We have to get out of here."

Jurag looks up, his eyes watering and mouth bleeding. He must've bit his tongue. He slowly nods and stands back up, tapping Tanmir on the head and holding out his hand.

Tanmir pushes the hand away, and screams louder, clutching onto the body of her lover for dear life.

A stampede of people is heard above them, rushing to get down to where the gunshots were heard, and where the screaming is.

The three of them don't have much time until the pirates get down there, and Sóbal knows that.

The only thought in his head was survival, as he jumps down the ladder, and feels a leg crack, while falling to the ground. Must be broken, but he doesn't feel it. He stands up and looks up the hole for Jurag, seeing him jump over the hole down and run to the doorway where the pirate was.

Sóbal yells something. He doesn't know if it was encouragement or anger, but he yells at Jurag. He wants him to come down here so they can escape, not go towards the pirates.

Seconds later, Jurag runs back over, having dropped one of his spears and clutching the flintlock.

He puts it down to the ground.

No.

He puts it down to the black powder.

A thousand thoughts rush through Sóbal's head as he stands at the bottom of the ladder, looking up at his brother about to light the fuse.

Jurag looks down, his face the opposite of a hero.

Fear and pain show on his bloody and wet face, completely lacking in any color but red.

Jurag and Sóbal's eyes meet, for a split second.

For the last time.

Sóbal hears the click of the gun, and the fwoosh of fire.

The fuse has been lit.

Tanmir's screaming melds into the background as hours pass by, before the explosion happens.

And an explosion it was.

With the boom of a thousand canons, fire erupts from the floor above, completely engulfing Jurag and Tanmir. The force of the hot air rushing down into the small ladder hole, throws Sóbal backwards and into a wall, immediately knocking him out.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Sóbal wakes up.

Lying on cold wood, and looking up at the stars, he has no idea where he is.

He feels pain in both his legs, and his back, but ignores them. It's easy to do, as all he has to do is cry.

And so he cries.

Like a baby having just been born, tears fall down his face and he howls in sorrow and pain.

He doesn't know why he's so sad, but he knows if he thinks about it, it will make him more sad when he realizes why.
All he knows is that he needs to cry.

He needs to–

"Okay then, that's enough kid."

Sóbal ignores the gruff voice and continues to bawl.

"I said, THAT'S ENOUGH!" the voice says, as Sóbal feels a sudden sharp pain in his foot. "His back is broken, so push him up. I want him to look me in the eyes," the voice says, and Sóbal feels hands behind him, pushing his torso upwards.
His face rises up from the ground, and he's met with hundreds of angry faces glaring at him.

With filthy faces and hair, cutlasses and flintlocks, before Sóbal is an army of pirates.

Sóbal's mind instantly clears up, and he realizes that he is soon going to be dead. Killed by a bunch if pissed off pirates, after blowing up one of their ships.

The thought is so ridiculous to him, that he smiles.

"Don't you dare fucking smile at me, you backwater scab," seethes one of the pirates in front. Wearing a crimson jacket and a tricorn hat, this man seems to be the leader of this group of pirates. "You come onto MY boat, blow up MY supplies, and kill MY good men. Ohh man..."

Bringing up his cutlass, he stabs it downward and into Sóbal's bleeding leg. Sharp pains rocket up his legs, yet he continues to smile. It seems like the plan worked.

"I will kill you. Don't worry about it. I'm just going to take my time. I cannot put into words how much I hate you. I hate you so much I ordered my own men to fish you out of the water, and bring you up onto the deck. You're unlucky they spotted you. Sinking to the bottom of this bay would've been much better for you," the pirate captain says, face red with anger.

In the span of a second, Sóbal thinks of all the people he has helped with this.

Sure, there are two other boats, but taking out the closest one to port will undoubtedly help the villagers.

He wonders if his parents would've been proud of him.

He's sure they would.

As are the parents of Tanmir, Jurag, and Gindal.

All four of them have done some serious good, as the cost of their own lives.

The chief will be furious, but he'll understand.

The only thing Sóbal can think of that he regrets, is not being there for Jurag's sister and mother.

He smiles though, as he'll watch over them. As will Jurag. As will all who have fallen to the pirates.

"I told you, to stop fucking smiling!" the captain says, swinging his cutlass down even harder, and Sóbal feels it crack into his leg bone.

"Look up there, you hick," the captain says, pointing up the main mast of the ship. "That flag right there. That's our jolly roger."

Sóbal's vision is blurry, but he can faintly make out a skull and crossbones.

"You mess with a ship with this flag flying from it, and you will be–"

"[Incinerate]"

A voice from the heavens.

Upon saying that, a torrent of fire flies straight from the sky, instantly lighting half the pirate crew on fire, including the captain.

Sóbal looks harder into the night sky, and watches as a man's form slowly sinks downward.

The figure has huge white wings, and a circle of red fire surrounding him. Wearing golden robes etched with lines of crimson and purple, the being reaches the deck of the ship, just as the pirate's bodies fall to the ground, burnt into ash.
Sóbal takes a closer look at the man, seeing black horns emerging from his crimson colored skin, completely contrasting with the heavenly wings on his back.

The man walks over to Sóbal, and looks down at him.

Sóbal get's a good look at his almost angelic face. Perfectly proportioned, it truly would be the face of an angel, if not for the demonic skin, hair, and horns.

The man smiles a sharp toother grin, his black eyes seemingly holding no malice, and says, "Now I take it you were the one who blew up that boat?"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Spoiler: Author's Note

AN - 11k words is a lot. Two and a half hours of proofreading is also a lot. But I think it's worth it. If any of y'all actually reach this point (the end of the chapter) congratulations. I could've easily split this into two chapters, and I might do so later, but this works for now. Anime rec for today is Gintama, it's funny af. Thanks for reading!

 

[Shadow8ting]

Looks pretty good so far, good job