The battle was joined.

  The stakes were raised.

  And Fauna’s hand wobbled as she made her move.

  “Our future rides on this move, Fauna the Hopla.”

  Tara’s statement did nothing to alleviate the rabbitgirl’s sweating brow.

  “Make it count.”

  This she whispered into her left ear so close that it gave the girl tingles.

  “…ok,” she whispered into the flames that lay between them. “I’m…I’m going to pull it…out.”

  A collective gasp reverberated through the party as Fauna reached towards the stone pyramid round the large glass cup containing all their wine and pulled out one of the stones inlaid around it.

  The cup wobbled.

  Everyone held their breath.

  And then it settled.

  “Haha!” she yelped, punching the air in triumph. “I survive! I win!”

  “Nobody ‘wins’ Ring of Fire, Faun.” Klax cautioned her, face between his hands as he contemplated the ever-changing battlefield. “As Ethan has told us, even the victors are poisoned…”

  Ethan threw his great head back and belched, savoring the night air as only a true drunkard could.

  Between them all was a large cylinder full of all their booze combined. And around that was inlaid a series of stones Ethan plucked from the ground. He’d decided, in his infinite wisdom, to teach them a drinking game from back home – one that, as he put it, ‘put hair on one’s chest’.

  “We all pour half of our glasses into the mug,” he told them, adding at least four different wine-bottle’s worth of swill to the great glass before they even knew the rules of the game. “Around them, we create a circle of playing cards. But here – we’ll make do with stones. Each of us take a turn to remove one single stone from the circle and then takes a sip from their drink. Anyone who draws a stone with a cross symbol needs to add more booze to the center cup. Whoever breaks the circle and causes the glass to fall to the ground needs to down the whole thing.”

  Ethan then showed them the stones he’d marked with a cross, leering at them like a lecherous old man teaching infants how to piss off their parents.

  “Whoever breaks the circle has to drink the ‘dirty glass’,” he smirked at them. “No arguments.”

  They had looked between themselves, back at him, and then between themselves again. A chill wind blew across their mountain peak.

  They were surprised, he knew, to find him so willing to indulge himself in what seemed like such a childish game. But they were also intrigued – it seemed that his people on Earth were far more advanced in the ways of imbibing alcohol than they were. They even found a way to make it fun.

  Fauna was the first of them to stand, hands on hips, and declare her intention:

  “I accept this mission!” she bellowed.

  “We aint going on a Delve here, Faun,” Tara chuckled wryly from the ground. “It’s just a silly game to pass the ti-“

  “As do I!” Klax roared, shaking the ruin walls around them. Tara flashed him a look of astonishment to which he merely puffed up his chest and smirked down at her.

  “Afraid of a little friendly competition, ‘kitten’?”

  She was up and in her seat, straight backed and ready before he could say anything else.

  “I’ll make you eat those words, dogbrain.”

  Thus had the game begun. Thus had the last half-hour passed with nothing but laughter and silly antics from the team. Ethan had joined in, thankful to have something trivial to focus on in the wake of the Architect’s denouncement.

  None of them had asked him if he’d accomplished his mission. In truth, they were already far too drunk to care. It seemed they didn’t even hear the commotion of his battle in the Southernmost mountains, or even see the destruction he’d caused.

  And that’s exactly the way he liked it.

  “Tara! No using Skills!”

  “Wha?” the saucy Minxit slurred as she removed two stones at once in the space of a split-second. “Ethan didn’t say we couldn’t use Skills, right?”

  Fauna looked to Ethan immediately, sipping from her drink beside him and tapping her feet for an answer.

  “Sorry Faun,” he shrugged. “It’s a game of dexterity after all.”

  “And a game of wits,” Klax agreed, slowly reaching for his stone and removing it with sweat dripping from his furry brow. “It rewards patience and skill in equal measure. A true test of a champion’s prowess.”

  “You broke the circle, Klaxy.”

  “What? No I –“

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Omigosh what is THAT!”

  Klax spun his head around with the swiftness of a true protector. Meanwhile, Tara used her [Swiftpaw] Skill to remove the stone nearest him and then return to her position while crossing her arms and feigning innocence.

  When Klax fixed her with a look of confusion, she pointed her foot at the broken stones.

  “Cheater,” the dogman said, pointing an accusing finger at Tara.

  She stared him down as nonchalantly as she could, before bursting into hysterics with the rest of the party.

  “You’re too easy, Klaxy,” she laughed into her hands. “Wow. Don’t tell me you wanted to protect little ol’ me?”

  “Would that you needed my protection,” he sighed as he sat back down, smarting at Ethan and Fauna as they giggled away. “The only one that needs protection is the warrior who gets in your way.”

  “Alright!” Ethan announced before Klax could actually drink the dirty glass. “No no no – we can’t have cheating here. I’m afraid we’re going have to set the game up again and play from the start. Miss Fauna? If you would kindly set up the stones again.”

  Fauna didn’t answer at first. Instead, she swayed in her seat and knocked against Ethan’s shoulder, fixing him with a drunken pout.

  “You didn’t take my side,” she said.

  He blinked his four eyes down at her.

  “Wha-?”

  “I told you Tara was cheating!” she complained. “You’re supposed to take my side!”

  “Am I?” Ethan asked, a cheeky grin appearing on his face. “And why would that be?”

  Tara and Klax leaned forward, their ears perked up and listening intently while their eyes traced Fauna’s increasingly bashful face.

  “I…”

  Tara was practically on the edge of her seat.

  “I…” Fauna stuttered. “I – fine!”

  Fauna immediately started restacking the carved stones with a few well-timed (and hastily cast) spells.

  “LET’S PLAY AGAIN!”

  More laughter followed, and the game commenced anew.

  As the night went on, Ethan could hardly believe this was happening. Here, of all places, he was actually starting to enjoy himself. His team – his friends – huddled around a campfire with him, drinking expensive booze atop a mountain at the edge of reality, with not a single solitary care that the alcohol hadn’t at this point obliterated from their minds.

  Makes a change, big guy, Sys echoed in his mind. See, every man’s gotta learn when to let go every – hic! – once in a…while.

  Ethan blinked.

  Sys? Are you…drunk?

  I’m whatever I want me to be, baby…

  …you’re drunk.

  So are you.

  Ethan rubbed an angelic palm across his forehead as he bent forward and reached for his stone, taking a liberal sip from his glass as he did so. Once he sat back, smiling at the fact his bulky fingers didn’t break the circle of stones at all, he felt something warm on his shoulder.

  Fauna the Hopla, eyes closed, and breath ragged, had fallen asleep on his shoulder.

  “Ethan…” she mumbled lazily. “Take me to bed…now.”

  Tara and Klax tried to conceal their laughter – and it barely worked.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so relaxed,” Klax smiled.

  “I ain’t seen any of us this – this – uh – relaxed? In…fuck. In ages.”

  Tara’s voice dropped as those words left her mouth. She looked at Klax over the lip of her drink, and the wolfman’s face took on a dark hue all of a sudden. Ethan knew what statement was hidden behind those words, and those looks: this could be the last time they ever relax like this all together, depending on what happened at Mistborne Isle when he finally confronted Kaedmon.

  As Klax moved to take his turn, Ethan looked down at Fauna, watching her puffy chest rise and fall. He resisted the urge to pet her very pettable brow. It didn’t seem right. It never did.

  “This is the kind of life you should all live,” he said, staring into the fire momentarily while he sipped from his cup. “Once this is all over, I want you all to come back here one day, remember all this, and drink to our time together. I want you to promise me you’ll do that.”

  Klax and Tara looked at him like he’d throttled a kitten.

  “Whaddya mean…’you all come back here’? Whatcha mean ‘our time together’?”

  Before Ethan could make any reply to Tara’s slurred questions, Fauna stirred beside him, her little arms flailing in her dream state.

  “Ethan won’t…leave us again,” she moaned. “He won’t leave…”

  His gaze flitted between the three of them as he slowly reached for another stone.

  Careful, Ethan…

  “I’ll do what I can,” he said. “I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure there’s no more Gods to rule over you.”

  Ethan.

  He withdrew his stone without breaking the circle and nodded to Klax.

  “Now, it’s your turn,” he said with a smile.

  The old wolfman grunted slightly, locking eyes with Tara who was in the process of trying not to vomit up her insides while her mind tried to grasp what Ethan was saying.

  “Faun’s right,” she belched. “You – you can’t leave again. You gotta promise us that. Hate to break it to ya, but you’re a big part of this world now. Argwyll –hic! - needs ya.”

  Ethan looked at his folded hands, watching Fauna’s paws dreamily play across them.

  “Did all the Hybrids who died in the Sanctum attack need me, too?” he asked. “The humans who followed the Lightborn into the slaughter, and all those who died in Lucent – did they need me? Did Lamphrey?”

  When no response was forthcoming from either of them, he looked up and gazed into the campfire.

  “Am I worthy?” he asked the flames. “Am I worthy of this – any of this? Would someone else have done a better job?”

  “So what, Ethan?” Tara whispered. “You’re just gonna quit at the end? Is that why we came here? So you can find a way to fix this world and then leave it behind?”

  He said nothing.

  “You gonna tell her that?”

  Images began to flash by in the campfire. The crimson flames licked at his mind and began to take on a shade of corrupted green – the bright, cleansing flame that he remembered from Lamphrey’s vision. The flame spewed from his angelic form as the world was purged of all life.

  His reverie was broken by Klax withdrawing the lode bearing stone. The pyramid-circle began to topple, and the dirty glass fell right into his waiting hands.

  “Defeat!” the dogman exclaimed. “And yet still, I have my prize.”

  He held the dirty glass aloft, shaking its viscous innards with the glee of a child.

  “Ethan makes a good point,” he then declared to Tara’s snickering face. “We have not yet honored the dead with a toast. Those who gave their lives so that we could be here, right now, on the edge of the new world. Those who chose to get us here despite it all.”

  “Klax…”

  “Those who we won’t see again,” he continued with a gulp – as if a lump was forming in his throat. “Those brave souls who got into this war knowing the costs, and yet still joined our fight. Those who fought, and died, and would do so again even if we didn’t ask them to.”

  His eyes turned then to Ethan’s intense stare.

  “To our fallen brothers and sisters,” he said, holding up the poisoned pint. “To those who fell in the Battle of Sanctum. To Lamphrey the Oneiromancer who saved all our lives. And…to Jun.”

  He looked down at the sloshing liquid.

  “…who made life worth living in the first place.”

  He steadied his hand as Tara moved to be by his side. She placed a shaky but gentle paw on his arm.

  But before he could swallow the swill, the glass had left his hand and ended up in Ethan’s.

  “If it’s for them”, Ethan said. “Then I’ll drink it myself.”

  He downed the drink without pause. They watched their Archon force back what must have been a vile concoction, every gulp being one that spoke of a burning throat. And when he was done, he set the glass down and lurched, as though he was about ready to bring up his angelic innards.

  Instead, his eyes lighted on them and he flashed them a final sad smile.

  “I’m going for a walk.”