Becoming the Dark Lord

For a moment, everything was dark.

Then he felt warm water around him.

The instant Luke opened his eyes, he knew something was wrong. He was sitting in an enormous wooden tub, submerged up to his chest in hot water beneath a thick layer of bubbles. The air was damp and faintly sweet. Water trickled down a nearby stone wall, forming a small natural waterfall that fed the bath.

Luke looked around, then down at himself.

Am I wearing clothes?

The situation only grew stranger.

Where is this? I was traveling through the Kingdom of Rosemark... I think?

He had no idea how he’d gotten there. His memories came in broken fragments, and before he could piece any of them together, something touched his leg. A pair of shapely legs pressed against his, far too deliberately for it to be an accident. Luke looked up and found someone sitting much too close.

“Hey there, handsome,” a teasing voice said.

Luke froze. “Artemis!?”

The goddess was right there. In the tub. And from what little the bubbles revealed, completely naked. Thankfully, they hid enough to keep the situation from becoming even more absurd.

“This is a dream,” Luke said, narrowing his eyes. “It has to be.”

Artemis stretched lazily. “You know, Luke... I spent days waiting for my dear apostle to finally fall asleep.”

So it really is a dream.

“Yes,” she replied. “I had to wait until you were asleep before I could show up. Don’t forget, Luke, you and I have a special... relationship. You need to drop by once in a while and give your goddess some attention.”

“A business relationship, you mean.”

“That depends.” Artemis slid closer until their shoulders touched. “What exactly is included in our arrangement? Does it come with benefits?”

“Didn’t you say these calls were expensive?” Luke asked, edging away.

“You’re worth the price.” She blew him a kiss, and a floating heart drifted toward him.

“Sure.”

Luke ignored it.

“Wow. What a mean boy. Did you know goddesses have countless followers who are hopelessly in love with them?”

“I don’t want to know.”

“You’re going to hear it anyway.” Artemis settled more comfortably into the water, smiling wickedly. “Mortals see a beautiful, powerful, perfect goddess appear before them, and plenty of them fall in love. They lose their minds. They climb the ranks of the Order, earn merit, do anything for a single conversation with her. Some haven’t even gotten that much. They just hope they’ll get to stand in her presence one day.”

“I could’ve gone my whole life without knowing that.”

“And the goddesses know it,” she continued without the slightest hint of remorse. “So they use it. They feed that devotion with crumbs. During some grand gathering, right in the middle of a speech, they look directly at one faithful little devotee and tell him how special he is. They play with his heart until he’s ready to die smiling in the next war. Can you believe that, Luke?”

“Absolutely. Men used to throw money at women on livestreams. I don’t see why goddesses wouldn’t use the same business model.”

Artemis stared at him for a beat. Then she closed her eyes and leaned closer, lips puckered as though she meant to kiss him. Luke raised a hand and pushed her back by the forehead.

She pouted.

“Exactly. And then there’s you.” Artemis leaned against the side of the tub with theatrical despair. “Your goddess is right beside you, overwhelmed with desire, and sadly, her follower refuses to do what must be done. You have an opportunity one of those obsessed lunatics would kill for.”

She brushed her fingertips along his chin.

Luke stood. “All right, that’s enough. I’ve seen Inception a few times. I’ll find my own way out of this dream.”

“Hey, hey, relax.” Artemis raised both hands. “Luke, I was just trying to have a casual conversation.”

“A casual conversation. Right.”

“I’m serious. It’d be weird if I only contacted you to talk about work, man. I don’t want us to have some corporate vibe. My church has simple rules. Talk to your goddess, feed your goddess, sleep with your goddess... you know, fun stuff. No reports, spreadsheets, or boring corporate nonsense.”

Luke stared at her for a few seconds, then sat back down. She wouldn’t have invaded his dream just to harass him. Probably. Maybe. With Artemis, it was hard to be sure.

“So, how are you?” she asked, her tone shifting. “Did you meet up with everyone?”

“You were with me the whole time. Don’t you remember?”

“Oh, no. I can’t download the memories from the fragment of myself inside your necklace to catch up. This space is reserved exclusively for the goddess and her apostle. I also can’t keep an eye on you all the time yet. It’s way too expensive. Soon, though, I might be able to.”

“You’re not going to use that to watch me shower, are you?”

“Who do you think I am?” Artemis pressed a hand to her chest, offended. “Do you really think I’d use an incredibly expensive goddess-apostle benefit just to watch you shower?”

Luke kept a straight face.

“Come on, man. I have principles, okay?”

She did not sound convincing.

“Anyway,” she said, returning to the subject, “I have a few things to tell you.”

“So do I. Did you know the damn teleportation malfunctioned? I didn’t go back to Maine.”

“That’s exactly what I came to talk about. Everything is on fire. You weren’t the only one. It happened to everyone, even the people who left during Stage 2.”

Luke’s stomach dropped.

“Everyone? What about my family?”

“No, wait.” Artemis raised a hand. “I said that badly. Everyone who already had the system. The fifty-one percent of the population. The Baummans weren’t affected. They made it back to Maine.”

Luke let out the breath he’d been holding. That was a relief. One less problem to worry about. His mother was still out there, but by now, he knew she could take care of herself wherever she had ended up.

Luke filled Artemis in on everything that had happened since the teleportation, including how he’d found Charlie and Angie. Part of it was to keep her informed. The rest was to see whether the pieces fit together.

“The system isn’t always transparent with us,” Artemis said thoughtfully.

“No kidding.”

“I mean with the divine side. The investors. I wasn’t one of the goddesses who invested in your universe, so there are things I don’t have access to. But the system itself scattered everyone who already had it across the planet. Why? No one knows. That was its decision. Still, not everyone was affected in the same way.”

“What do you mean?”

“People who were already part of a major community or kingdom were able to return to the right place. Others, like you, got scattered.”

“Strange.”

“It’s the system. Of course its motives are shady. But based on what you told me, it dropped you near a Kingdom Core and left your allies relatively close by. It could’ve treated you worse. That’s all I can say. Sorry, but you’ll have to figure out the rest yourself.”

“That’s fine. This already helped a lot. For a moment, I thought...”

“Your cosmic bad luck had struck again?”

“That too.”

Artemis smiled. “By the way, congratulations on claiming a Kingdom Core. Your goddess is very pleased with your progress. And you saw the special quest that became available, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“The Teleportation Array on the New World continent is active and fully operational. That’s what the gods were instructed to tell their followers. See? Belonging to a Divine Order has its advantages.”

“When you put it that way, that’s some seriously privileged information.”

“All you need to do is use the Array to teleport to the New World. By then, hopefully the people from your country will have found their own Array and activated it. But that’s a problem for later. Those people will have to fend for themselves for now. That’s why they don’t have you.”

Artemis glanced at her wrist. “Our time is up.”

“You’re not even wearing a watch.”

“So you want to spend more time here with your goddess?” She tried to hug him.

“Okay, I get it. Time’s up.”

Artemis laughed. “I’ll see you next time, my apostle.”

Clouds swallowed everything. The tub, the waterfall, the bubbles, and the goddess vanished into white mist.

Luke opened his eyes.

I really was asleep.

He was lying inside a tent, camped beside the road and already far from Rosehall. For several seconds, he remained still, staring at the fabric above him.

Artemis slipped me a clue. She probably wasn’t allowed to say it outright.

He replayed the conversation. She’d said the Array on the New World continent was already operational, but she’d implied that the one in the United States still needed to be found and activated. She had also said those people would have to fend for themselves because they didn’t have him. The pieces began falling into place.

Were people like me kept from returning home so everyone who’d just gotten the system would have to rebuild without us? Hunt Kingdom Cores, form communities, survive without someone overwhelmingly powerful taking control from the start?

A single Rank D could seize control of a country full of Rank Fs. Maybe that was exactly what the system wanted to prevent.

Remove the strongest players. Force everyone else to organize without them.

The theory made sense. Which was probably proof that the system had done exactly that.

Franky kicked him in the leg. Luke looked over. The kid was still asleep, sprawled across Luke’s side of the tent and snoring loudly.

This kid needs to learn how to stay in his own bed. Wait... is that my blanket? The little bastard stole my blanket in his sleep.

Luke carefully grabbed Franky by the collar and dragged him back to his side of the tent without waking him.

By the next morning, they were back on the road, and Franky was still talking about his class mutation.

“And that’s why I’m super powerful,” Franky continued from atop the Spectral Beast, lecturing Charlie and Angie.

Neither woman looked remotely interested, mostly because this was at least the tenth time he’d told the same story.

Franky was now a [Crypt Mage Apprentice].

Then Luke read the class description.

Maybe the little bastard wasn’t exaggerating after all.