“Oh good,” Tom’s voice echoed through Elijah’s hazy mind as he regained consciousness. “You’re finally awake. I was starting to worry I’d knocked something loose in that head of yours.”

  Elijah’s head still throbbed with pain, but he wasn’t sure if it was from whatever glitch he’d run into in his reward box, or whatever Tom had done to knock him out. Probably a kick to the head, if Elijah had to guess.

  Elijah’s mind focused enough that he could see where he was. He was in a room similar to the storeroom he’d found himself in the first time he teleported to the Reaper Lair. The rough-hewn stone was slightly darker and appeared to be damp. His wrists and ankles were bound to a table that was inclined slightly so he could see the room.

  Elijah tried to teleport away; he would not let Tom gloat and commit whatever atrocities he had planned. His mana funneled into his bats, but the mana ripped away from them, and they screamed in his mind. He felt his mana being drained from him like ice water running through his veins. A large stone in the center of the room glowed blue, and he could sense his mana being absorbed into it.

  “Nice trick, right?” Tom laughed. “Took a lot of annoying Bob to convince him to make me that crystal. But it works the same as his mana siphon does.”

  He finally came into view, a wickedly evil look on his face. He leaned in close and Elijah could smell the stench of rotten flesh on him. “The best part? Your own mana powers it, so good luck trying to overfill it like Mara did.”

  Elijah controlled his breathing. Right now wasn’t the time to have a panic attack. If he stayed calm, he could find a way to escape. He closed his eyes.

  “We’re going to have so much fun, Elijah. No, no. No going back to sleep.” Tom grabbed his chin and slapped his face.

  But Elijah wasn’t going back to sleep; instead, he was opening his friend menu. He just didn’t want Tom to see his eyes glazing over.

  Elijah > Guys, I need help. It’s Tom. He received some kind of Celestial class from his reward box. He’s got me trapped without access to my mana.

  Sasha > Elijah! We were so worried about you!

  Nicholas > Where are you?

  Elijah > I’m not sure. Some kind of dungeon, I’m almost certain of that. It looks like he repurposed a dungeon like they did with the lair in Raystown.

  Bo > Just hold on. We’re coming for you.

  A harder slap made him open his eyes, and he quickly closed the chat menu.

  “I said no going back to sleep!” Tom snarled. He pulled out a serrated dagger from his inventory and drove it through Elijah’s hand. The pain was intense, but Elijah held back the scream that tried to push itself free of his throat.

  “You’re sick,” Elijah managed through the pain, spitting at the madman.

  Tom laughed again. It wasn’t the manic laugh of a madman, just a soft, almost tired laugh. “Don’t start moralizing now, Elijah. What I’m doing to you is hardly different from what you did to my army.”

  Tom twisted the blade inside Elijah’s hand. The pain made Elijah’s breath ragged. “So, what now? You’re gonna torture me for a while and then turn me over to your master?”

  Anger flashed across Tom’s features. He pulled the knife free and dug it into Elijah’s forearm. “Arturus is not my master. He is a weak piece of shit, more interested in making a good stream than enjoying the game fully.”

  Tom wasn’t under the control of Arturus anymore. Elijah didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, but the one thing he knew was that he was in trouble if Tom’s actions so far had been under the direction of Arturus and now the man was unhindered.

  “So what’s the plan here, Tom?” Elijah hissed through clenched teeth. The man probably didn’t realize it, but the pain he was inflicting on Elijah was nothing compared to the physical pain he’d felt during the ascent up the first tower, or the emotional pain he’d felt when Bo had died. “You're just gonna torture me until my friends bring this place down on your head?”

  He laughed uproariously at Elijah’s words, the light from the mana crystal above glinting on his sharpened teeth. “I’d love to see your friends figure out where we are. No, Elijah, I plan on torturing you until the devs figure out how to break us out of this game. Whether that takes another month, or years.”

  “Of course,” Tom spoke slowly as his eyes glazed over. “That’s assuming we aren’t all digital ghosts now. If we are, I’m going to get to torture you for all eternity. Have you even checked your nutrient tanks lately?”

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  Elijah shook his head the best he could. He hadn’t been paying attention to it; he knew his pod had at least a few months left when he’d trapped them in the game. He opened his menu. It took a few moments to find the right submenu, but he finally found it.

  And his heart skipped a beat.

  His nutrient tanks were reading completely empty.

  “You see it too?” Tom chuckled, pulling the blade free from Elijah’s arm and holding it to his neck. “Completely empty, right? As if someone drained them? I noticed mine about a week ago. We’re all just digital ghosts in here. Sentenced to an eternity in hell.”

  Elijah refused to believe it. Surely they wouldn’t have pulled him out of his pod. There had to be people watching the streams of the Celestials. They had to have seen the trial where he revealed to them he had the power to get everyone out.

  No.

  Mara’s explanation about the Temple of Creation cut that thought off. Streaming was impossible while within the confines of the temple. Nobody outside of the eleven of them knew Elijah was the key to everyone’s salvation. He’d been too secretive about his ability. None of his friends streamed, and if Mara hadn’t been streaming when he met her in the Great Hall at Mara’s Bastion, then the outside world wouldn’t know.

  If he was a digital ghost, was it even worth it to save everyone? If he did, then he’d be alone without his friends. Surely they wouldn’t have euthanized a famous actress like Sasha or a former developer like Bo. Even Nicholas was a ‘trust fund baby’ as Bo had called him. Surely his family had the wealth to keep him alive indefinitely. He knew little about Benjamin, beyond the small amount he’d learned about him through casual conversation, but surely they wouldn’t have killed a young man with his whole life ahead of him.

  “Seems like I struck a nerve there,” Tom smiled as he drew the serrated blade across Elijah’s skin. “So buckle up, because we’re about to go for an exciting ride.”

  Elijah didn’t know how much time had passed when Tom finished with him. Though he was certain the sadist would be back before too long to have his fun again. The physical torture had been bad, but the mental torture had been worse. He found Elijah had a particular soft spot for Sasha and had recounted in excruciating detail the things he would do to her if he ever got his hands on her.

  The physical pain he had borne without giving in to Tom’s twisted desires to see him squirm, but he’d made the mistake of fighting when Tom brought up the White Mage. Elijah had burned through a significant amount of his mana trying to fight back. Swarms, bombs, familiars, even his scouts. The mana for each of them flowed up into the crystal above, causing it to glow brighter with every point he expended. His wrists were bound to the platform he was lying on but he still tried to summon his sword, trying to impale Tom on the necrotic blade, or use it like he’d used it when he’d destroyed Arturus beneath the waters of the inland sea.

  He’d missed, summoning the blade a fraction of a moment too early. For his attempt, he wound up with twin knives through the palms of his hands. It was devious but effective. The shadows refused to coalesce around the weapons shoved through his hands.

  He wanted to tell his friends not to come. If Tom had been expecting them, then begging for their help would only put them in peril. It felt like hours had passed. Elijah didn’t even remember shutting his eyes, but a loud bang woke him up. Tom was back in the room and he was struggling with someone.

  Was it his friends coming to save him? No, he could see it was just a single person struggling with him and he was winning. He tied the person, a woman, to a platform in front of Elijah. When Tom moved to the side, his heart dropped.

  “Sasha!” he screamed.

  He fought hard against his bindings, once more trying and failing to activate spells. He had to get loose, had to save Sasha.

  Tom smacked him hard across the face. “Relax, you idiot. I didn’t capture your friend, at least not yet.”

  Elijah stilled, his focus coming back slowly as he looked at the woman, bound and gagged across from him. She looked remarkably similar to Sasha, but once Elijah calmed himself, he noticed slight differences. The color of her hair was off, and this woman’s skin was slightly darker than Sasha’s incredibly fair complexion. The most obvious difference was the name tag above her head.

  There wasn’t one. This woman was an NPC.

  “Took me a little while to track her down, but I remembered an NPC who looked very similar to our little actress friend.” Tom laughed wickedly as he waved a knife in the woman’s face. “I wanted to give you a little example of how I like to have fun in this game, at least until I can capture your precious Sasha.”

  “Now, admittedly, it is a lot more difficult to play with NPCs instead of players, since they don’t always show their health bars, but we just have to be careful. So, I’m going to give you a choice.”

  “Let her go,” Elijah snarled. This ‘person’ may not be real, but he refused to allow Tom to play these games with her.

  “Not yet, Elijah. Not until we’ve had our fun,” Tom cackled. “I’m going to give you a choice. I’m in need of a few fingers for a project. Should I cut them off her hand?” He waved the blade near her fingers, then switched hands and pressed the weapon against Elijah’s fingers. “Or yours?”

  Elijah understood the man’s game now. He was going to torture Elijah until he gave in and told him to torture the woman. Elijah refused to let that happen. Tom’s target was Elijah, and Elijah wouldn’t let anyone else suffer on his behalf.

  “Mine,” he grunted out, preparing himself for the pain.

  Tom looked almost upset by Elijah’s answer, but shrugged his shoulders. The blade dug into Elijah’s fingers, and he had to grit his teeth to stop himself from screaming. Across the room, the NPC woman was fighting against her bonds and screaming into her gag as she witnessed the horror.

  When Tom had finished severing Elijah’s fingers, he tried again.

  “Okay, that was fun. But,” he tossed Elijah’s severed fingers onto the ground beside him. “Now I need a leg muscle. That one is particularly painful, I’ve been told. So who will it be, Elijah? Her or you?”

  It was better that he took the pain. The experience would traumatize her enough without Tom harming her. He didn’t even know if NPCs could regrow limbs like players could. Tom began butchering Elijah’s flesh with grim determination. He was intent on breaking Elijah, and Elijah was determined not to allow himself to break.