It turned out that Noctarus’s study was located on the first floor of the castle. The halls and most of the other rooms were bare stone, undecorated and obviously unlived in.

  Not really surprising. Zombies were dead. Or undead, as it were. They seemed way more sentient than zombies in most Earth movies, but did they care about things like decorating? Or maybe they lived on those ships Noctarus was so motivated to repair.

  Either way, the castle was mostly deserted. I filed that fact away. As I followed the zombie maid toward the exit, we passed through a wide entrance hall that must have been grand in its heyday.

  Now the high chandelier was missing, the dangling chain ending in a broken piece of brass. Tattered remnants of tapestries covered the high walls, and most of the stained-glass windows were shattered, leaving only jagged shards clinging to the rotting frames.

  A once-grand staircase rose in a graceful curve up toward the second floor, but the railing was missing, along with many of the steps. The glimpse I caught of the upper floor suggested it was too run down for anyone to live in.

  That made the huge zombie monster crouched at the foot of the stairs even more interesting. The nightmare creature was a Frankenstein amalgamation of dead parts. Its 6 limbs were all from werewolves, and its torso looked like it was sewn together from at least 4 other wolves. Its over-sized skull had visible stitch lines where Noctarus had cobbled together pieces of several skulls.

  Disgusting, and very much undead. It turned is huge head to watch me as we walked past. It’s long muzzle was 3 times the length of any other wolf I’d seen, with twice as many teeth. It looked like it could rip an entire team of humans apart in a single bite.

  It was also obviously guarding the rickety stairs. That monster had to be Noctarus’s secret weapon. Had he realized I’d walk right past it? Maybe he figured a little shock and awe would encourage us to cooperate.

  Maybe it wasn’t his only flesh monster, either. Now I really wanted to detour up the stairs to see what Noctarus was hiding up there. Unfortunately, the maid continued past without slowing, and I bet my liver the moment I deviated from our path, the guard monster would pounce.

  I suspected I’d get a chance to return to the castle before hostilities began. I could use that as an excuse to do some more exploring next time.

  The gate in the outer wall looked solid, as did the stone curtain wall encircling the central keep. Assaulting the castle when they were ready for us would be tough. The maid stopped at the gate and a squad of zombie soldiers formed up around me. None of them spoke as we marched across the small island of solid ground toward the path south that led through the marshes back to the forest.

  I paused to turn a slow circle, and the zombies paused with me. From the outside, the castle looked solid, but badly run down. It was situated on the shores of the lake as I remembered. It looked like the castle only had 2 main floors, with 4 squat towers rising higher.

  Even from outside, the upper floor looked rickety, with missing stones in the wall. The towers looked so broken, I bet one of the Alpha’s howls would send them tumbling into the keep.

  “Move on, human, or we’ll carry you,” the zombie leader said, his voice rough as sandpaper.

  They were all dressed like sailors, just like the other zombies I’d met. All level 35 too. When I’d first met them just days ago, I’d been what, a level 2 human? They’d seemed nearly unbeatable. It was a bit shocking to think just how much I’d grown. I might only be level 12, but I’d gotten so many more stats and perks, I found I no longer feared them.

  They could still shoot me to ribbons with those laser rifles or knock me into happy land with those stun guns, but if it came to a fight, I could at least give as good as I got.

  “So, which ship are you guys assigned to?” I asked as I resumed walking.

  “None of your business,” the captain said.

  I shrugged. “It might be since your boss wants us to help you fix them.”

  They did not exchange glances like human soldiers might. The captain said, “If that happens, then I will tell you.”

  “If this whole agreement falls apart because you’re not being friendly, I’d hate to be standing in your boat shoes.”

  He did not respond. In silence we marched to the end of the solid island to where the deep marshes stretched across the path. Floating wooden walkways formed a causeway through the marshes, with the tall, green grasses growing high on either side. In the distance, the tree line beckoned.

  I considered my options as I gazed on the distant trees. Had Alpha kept attacking the town after Noctarus teleported me away? If so, the way might be clear. However, I bet he could figure out what had happened to me. He’d seemed intent enough on taking me that he might have just called off the attack on the town to chase me.

  That would be great for the town, but not for me. I had to assume the Alpha and up to 40 werewolves might be crouched among the trees, waiting for me to come out. They might have already spotted me exiting the castle, although right there at the start of the causeway, the tall grasses would keep me hidden until I emerged on the other side.

  Then again, if they were still attacking the town, I might need to race south to help. I could all too easily imagine werewolves smashing through the weakened barrier. Had Tomas and Jane and Ruby and Steve all been fighting desperately for their lives while I sat in a comfortable chair, drank ale, and learned about mana from the other stage boss?

  I quickly scanned my messages, then relaxed. I’d gotten several from Ruby and Tomas, worried about where I’d ended up. Ruby even warned me that Alpha had rushed away to hunt me after I teleported away, and she hoped I was safe.

  I mentally texted a quick reply to both her and Tomas, assuring them I was okay and that I’d reach out later. That meant Alpha probably was out there, waiting for me to emerge.

  The zombies stopped several paces onto the wooden causeway and stepped aside. The captain pointed toward the distant trees. “Go. Do not return without authorization.”

  “You’re a gem. Next time we meet, I hope to have a gift for you.”

  Like Soulrend through the face. Except Soulrend was gone. That was still depressing.

  The zombie captain turned and they marched back toward the castle. I took a few steps farther along the wooden causeway until they could no longer see me through the grasses. There I paused and glanced up.

  “You were strangely quiet during that whole exchange.”

  Cyrus responded almost before I finished speaking, as if he’d been barely holding back from saying something. “That was fun, wasn’t it? Fantastic show with Alpha, by the way. Then rolling with the change of venue? Brilliant! I fully expected you to jump right into a death battle. Lost that bet.”

  A rain of mana crystals suddenly appeared all around me. The softly glowing blue crystals jingled musically as they bounced off the wooden causeway planks and disappeared into my inventory. When I checked, I found I’d gotten nearly 100 tier-4 crystals.

  I chuckled. “Who’d you lose the bet to?”

  “And you actually let him teach you! Ha! Love it,” he continued instead.

  Eva added, “Congratulations, Lucas! For showing unusual maturity and flexibility of mind immediately after nearly getting ripped apart by the Alpha, you receive a platinum Picard loot box.”

  “Make it so, number 1,” I quoted as the glowing box appeared in front of me.

  “Next Generation was the best Star Trek,” Cyrus said.

  “I did like the new movies with Chris Pine.”

  Cyrus’s voice turned rougher, sounding just like Admiral Pike from the movie. “I dare you to do better.”

  “I thought I was doing pretty well.”

  “Not bad, but I expect a great show as you try to get back to the village.”

  As I considered my approach to that challenge, I willed the other loot boxes I’d waved away earlier to appear beside my new platinum one. The silver Darwin Award loot box for letting that werewolf bite me on the leg appeared first, followed by the platinum Death Wish loot box for meeting both tier-2 bosses within minutes of each other, and the platinum Shackleford loot box for Magical Resistance topping 100.

  The Darwin Award loot box held a single item.

  “Rubber wolf teeth. Adjusts to fit your mouth. Maybe if you’re wearing these, werewolves will be too busy laughing they won’t have time to bite you again.”

  The floppy pink teeth had no buffs or advantages. “Very nice,” I chuckled and tossed them into my inventory.

  The Death Wish loot box contained an entire sack full of small, softly glowing yellow cubes. Had to be nearly 100 in there. When I touched one, I got a little electric jolt.

  “Lightning in a Bottle. Elemental electricity storage cube. Contains enough power to imbue one arrow with Thunder Strike, or imbue a melee weapon with intense lightning effects for up to 60 seconds or 4 successful hits.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Thunder Strike. Transform an arrow or other projectile into a bolt of lightning to deliver up to 500 points of elemental electric damage.”

  That was a great sack of loot. My tier-1 Life Points had reached 813, which equated in that one stat’s unique odd calculations back to tier-0 to over 66,000 life points. That was way off the normal charts. Five hundred points of damage wouldn’t slow me down much, but it would do some serious damage on a lot of people, especially if I hit them more than once.

  Burns had shown how devastating a good lightning strike could be. I tossed the cubes into my inventory. I had some definite ideas on how to use those. Maybe an upgrade to Switchblade’s arsenal. The platinum Picard loot box contained a single item.

  “Night Mask of the Mauvari Catelaines. Uncommon. Considered a vital piece of any refined bedchamber, this luxuriously simple mask soothes the mind into a sense of calm serenity that enables the most refreshing night’s sleep imaginable. Includes over 500 soothing melodies to reinforce positive dreams. When used for at least 4 hours of sleep, increases health points and mental resistance by 50% for 8 hours.”

  I whistled softly as I examined the velvety black mask. It looked a lot like the sleep masks my mom used back on Earth. I’d thought it a joke prize at first, but those buffs were no joke. The platinum Shackleford loot box contained a single item.

  “Upgrade scroll. Magical Resistance now redirects up to 30% of incoming magical attacks to magnify the power of your next spell.”

  “Nice!” I hadn’t paid that much attention to my steadily climbing resistances and how much they were protecting me from magical damage. Magic still hurt, but maybe it was hurting a lot less than it would otherwise have done. Now that resistance added a potentially huge bonus to my own spells.

  “How do resistances work? Is 100 in Magical Resistance equal to 100 points of damage being resisted, or is it some kind of percentage thing?”

  “Great question. It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Cyrus said. “You’re a tier-1 human with a tier-1 magical resistance of 100. That equates to blocking roughly the first 200 tier-1 points of magical damage you receive from any spell. Now it also redirects another 30% of the attack into that new pool of power that will be used in casting your next spell.”

  “Huh. That’s pretty good.” With my tier-1 Life Points at over 800, protecting 200 points of magical damage could save up to a quarter of my entire Life Points pool.

  “The calculation changes based on the tier of the incoming spell, along with the growth of the stat, so it can be quite fluid. Just know that any resistance above 100 is starting to make a noticeable difference.”

  “Great. Is it possible to become naturally immune to magical attacks, or other types of attacks my different resistances block?”

  “True immunity is rare outside of perks from high-quality equipment, but as your numbers grow, so will your resistance. If you survive long enough, you could indeed begin to ignore weak attacks altogether.”

  Nice. The distraction of the loot boxes and stats discussion helped ground me again. Noctarus had left my head spinning with his meditation secrets, talk of other worlds, and befuddling mathology.

  “So, is Noctarus telling the truth?”

  Cyrus laughed. “That falls well short of your usually insightful questions.”

  I grunted. Of course he wouldn’t tell me that much. “Will it work?”

  When he didn’t respond, I sighed. “Okay, how about this? Is it possible for us to complete our quest on this stage and for Noctarus to complete his too?”

  “That question is better. There are always creative ways to solve any problem or to complete any quest.”

  At least it sounded possible. Not as helpful as I would have liked, but not surprising. It probably wasn’t worth worrying about. Noctarus would no doubt double-cross us, so we’d have to kill him anyway.

  We weren’t ready to face him head-on in open battle, so buying time would be wise. Best case, we could win 3 more days to learn enough about his powers to figure out how to kill him, and to glean as many benefits as we could before the possible alliance fell apart anyway.

  First challenge, escape Alpha.

  I had a couple short-distance teleport scrolls, but they only jumped me up to 500 yards. Not enough to return to town in a single jump.

  The more I thought about it, the less that appealed to me anyway. If I got back to town and Alpha figured out where I went, he’d just attack again and we’d be stuck right back where we were a couple hours ago. No, the town wasn’t ready to defeat the werewolves yet.

  We needed time, and if Alpha was hunting me, I could buy it for the town. I needed to hunt anyway. Noctarus’s warning about attacking if we didn’t agree to his offer added a layer of danger to the deadline, but I had time. I couldn’t lead Alpha back to town before dawn, so that meant hunting and playing tag in the mountains.

  If we were lucky, then the werewolves wouldn’t be as active during the day. That one werewolf had been forcibly un-transformed when that light beam hit him. Hopefully that meant daylight made transforming hard.

  Besides, I might have hit level 12, but I had a long grind ahead of me to level up enough so I could climb to stage 3 with everyone in a week. Cyrus hadn’t yet revealed the requirements to ascend again, but they’d be tough and I would not go through another collapsing stage hellscape.

  My illusion spell from Jane had long expired. Too bad. That would have been super helpful. I checked the status of Switchblade in my inventory, but it was still listed as out of commission and repairing. That Voidmaw Devourer had bitten the front right off, and it had already been battered, its power spent. Probably wouldn’t be repaired until tomorrow morning.

  So I activated Mirror Cloak and the world faded into monochrome. The wolfsbane blocked my scent and made it harder for the werewolves to hear or even see me. With my cloak active, I’d be totally invisible, so all I had to do was move cautiously, and I should be able to make my move.

  My first idea was to slip off the causeway and into the marsh. The tall grasses would conceal me, but the cold water and sharp-sided marsh grasses would be annoying, and my movement would be very slow. With Mirror Cloak active, I got a better idea.

  Turning back toward the castle, I circled along the edge of the solid ground, right along the border with the grasses, moving slowly to remain invisible. The zombies had returned through the gate, so I was momentarily alone.

  When I reached the lake, I spotted a bunch of longboats like the ones that sailing ships always used in the movies. Several were pulled up on the sandy shore. More were tied to long docks stretching into the still waters of the lake like pale fingers, but those were not what I wanted.

  On one side I found a much smaller boat, barely more than a narrow raft, sitting low in the water. Perfect. I pushed it into the lake and slipped aboard, lying face down to keep my profile as small as possible. The boat barely made ripples as I eased it forward using my hands as paddles.

  Once I gently guided it beyond the first row of docks and the mass of longboats, I paused to enjoy the uninterrupted view of the sunken tall ships. There were 8 of them, all two-masted sailing ships that reminded me of galleys and schooners from the Pirates movies. Not that I knew anything about ships. I was a motorcycle guy, not a sailor.

  They must have looked fine in their heyday. They had to be at least 200 feet long, and even though their keels and lower hulls were submerged, the lake was shallow enough near the castle that most of the ships rose high above the water. Zombie sailors scurried about the main decks and up on the higher decks at the front and back. Weren’t those forecastles or aftcastles, or something? Sailors in movies always said the word in a weird, clipped way that made it sound like focsil, or something.

  Most of the rotting sails were furled, although a few hung loose in the still air, dingy gray canvas with sagging holes. Even if we repaired the hulls, I couldn’t see how Noctarus expected those old relics to sail again. Magic, I guess.

  The zombies on the ships were preoccupied by whatever work they were doing, and none spotted the little boat with the invisible guy on it paddling away. Even moving my hands slowly to avoid splashing, the tiny boat glided effortlessly across the long lake. It wasn’t anything like what I could do with Switchblade, but it was a lot faster and more comfortable than slogging through the marshes.

  Halfway across the lake, which had to be a couple miles across, I paused to listen. A wolf howled from the forest, confirming I’d guessed right. Another howl suggested the werewolves might be growing impatient, but I doubted they’d figured out where I’d gone.

  Then I looked down. The moons and stars gave plenty of light for my enhanced eyes to see all the way to the bottom of the crystal clear waters. Even there in the middle, it looked really shallow. Sometimes really clear water looked shallower than it really was, but it honestly looked little more than 10 feet deep.

  The bottom was sandy and devoid of any weeds or plant life. For the first time, I wondered about fish or water monsters. Should have thought about that earlier. My little boat would provide zero defense. Then I spotted something glowing in the water and angled my boat to the right, paddling a couple times. Once the ripples faded, the view clarified.

  Stones. Rows of square stones, each about 2 feet long and glowing with a soft green light. Once I realized what I was looking at, I picked out patterns in the rows. They were obviously arranged in some kind of specific order along the flat bottom of the lake.

  I spent a few minutes gliding along, studying the patterns. I couldn’t read them. They didn’t make English words or say anything dumb like “SOS”, or “Help, we’ve been stranded on an alien world with magic.”

  Some kind of runes probably. I had no abilities with runes, but the patterns made cool loops and shapes that had to mean something. I activated Spellseer’s Gaze and the lake lit up like a Halloween pool.

  Dense green light flowed along the stones, and by that light I could make out much more of the patterns. Definitely some kind of rune or magical script that extended across most of the lake, if not the entire thing. With my new Mana Sense already up at level 15, thanks to that new Merlin title, the mana felt somehow familiar.

  Since I was lying face down on my little boat, I extended my arms as deep as I could into the water, feeling the mana, willing it into my hands. Swirls of green responded, flowing over my gloved hands like soft snakes. They felt like wisps of wind rushing past high peaks, but also nudged my hands like hints of those invisible fists that punched me through portals every time I’d been teleported.

  This vast array had to be tied to the mana crystal Noctarus said he was charging. Now that I’d connected with the mana of the lake, I spotted ethereal tendrils of mana twining into thicker and thicker ropes along the coiling patterns of the stone runes. Those ropes of power flowed gently back toward the castle.

  I rolled onto my back and looked at the old ruin on the distant shore. Thick ropes of mana, like hawsers from those old ships, were rising out of the lake and drifting up to that ruined second floor where they disappeared.

  He was gathering power and concentrating it in the castle. No wonder the nightmare zombie creature was guarding the steps. I really should have detoured to take a look.

  Should I go back?

  No. I’d get my chance, especially if we agreed to work together with the zombies. I’d ask Noctarus for another training session. Maybe I could learn more when I tried exploring the castle then.

  Noctarus had said he’d prepared a complex script over a period of days to manage teleporting me to his castle. This underwater script looked like the work of years. How had he managed it if the water was deadly to zombies?

  One more thing he wasn’t telling me. Sure, he’d said he was gathering power, but hadn’t mentioned anything about giant rune scripts in the lake. What else might he be lying about? I hadn’t told him everything about me, so of course he would keep some secrets, but seeing the extent of that script made me uneasy. Could we trust anything he said? Could we dare not at least try?

  Too bad I didn’t have a camera to take pictures of the patterns and show them around back in Midmount Vale. Maybe someone else had a rune power. I did get an idea though, and I pulled out one of my recent loot items, the Rubik’s Cube-sized magical metal cube.

  “Tidal Nexus. Epic. Hold this device over any source of running water to drop a clone cube. Clone cubes draw pure hydraulic energy from the moving water and ambient mana to charge the parent cube. That charge can be used to fuel spells and abilities or to imbue the power of the tides into weapons. Current Maximum number of clone cubes: 3.”

  The lake water wasn’t running, but it was filled to bursting with mana, so hopefully I could still get something from it. I held the cube over the water and willed a clone to release. A softly glowing blue cube slipped out of the parent cube and dropped into the water without a splash.

  Pushing the parent cube back into my inventory, I focused on my goals. I had hunting to do, and for the moment, zombies were not my targets. I resumed paddling, picking up speed. I was far enough from the zombies that even if I started splashing loudly, I doubted they’d notice.

  Soon I reached the far shore, slid off my boat, then tossed it into my inventory.

  “Waste not, want not.”

  Accelerating into a steady trot, I headed into the rolling, grassy hills to the west. They ran along the boundary of the foothills that marked the entrance to the ever-taller ranks of mountains rising toward the impassible peaks far to the west.

  Time to hunt.