Before heading back up to the rainy main street, I sent a message to Syvelis.

  Count Blacktide: The man Lucas took the bait. I’m closing in now.

  Countess Syvelis: You’re late. He has caused me some trouble tonight. Do not fail to capture him again.

  Count Blacktide: Are you okay?

  Countess Syvelis: Don’t be a fool. Of course I am, but his actions have stained my honor. Once you have him, I need a few minutes alone with him before you deliver him to our queen.

  Count Blacktide: I need him alive.

  Countess Syvelis: I will not kill him, but I will exact vengeance upon the cur for causing me such pain.

  I did not respond, although I did laugh with glee. That bomb had pushed Syvelis do personally take a hand in matters. That might give me a rare opportunity to target her too. After a moment, she sent another message.

  Countess Syvelis: Grant me this boon and I will help you gain the advantage over your rival, Nextharos.

  Count Blacktide: How?

  Countess Syvelis: You’re a novice in the game of power that I have mastered. Don’t pretend you don’t recognize the value of my help. I will even share the secret of how Nextharos always seems to know when and where to strike to steal your kills.

  Count Blacktide: You have a deal.

  “Yes!” I pumped a fist into the air. From everything I’d learned, Countess Syvelis was the real deal. Powerful, conniving, and devious. If I could take her out too, I could cripple a major portion of Marisara’s court even before we reached stage 4.

  Don’t count your death chickens before they hatch, I reminded myself, but still couldn’t help a surge of hope. I needed to make every encounter work. Then I got another idea and opened the chat again.

  Count Blacktide: Vhaernos, did you feel an explosion?

  Count Vhaernos: How would you know? You’re supposed to be in Ruin still.

  Count Blacktide: I am, and the game is playing out better than I had hoped. I allowed the man Lucas to think he had escaped me. He fled right into The Briggs, the spies that Syvelis is using. In their fight, he sent one of them back to Syvelis with a bomb strapped to her back.

  Count Vhaernos: You took a monumental risk, but it was well played. We all felt the explosion. That was a powerful bomb. Syvelis won’t admit it yet, but it dealt her network a serious blow. One of my informants claims that Syvelis herself was wounded. That’ll teach the arrogant slime.

  Count Blacktide: Good. Is she weakened enough for you to make a move against her?

  Count Vhaernos: That is my business. I will see you later.

  So much good news. If seemed like Marisara’s entire court were on the verge of open fighting. The side-effects of building your court around intrigue and the rule of absolute power. Had I stirred up enough chaos among them to focus on each other instead of the taps I planned to lay for each of them?

  Hopefully. Then again, if the damage I caused to Syvelis’s network encouraged Vhaernos to make a move before meeting with me, that might distract them too much. Hopefully I hadn’t overplayed my hand, but I couldn’t take it back now. I’d prefer driving my swords through their throats myself, but if they killed each other off, that was fine too.

  That was all the time I had for court games, though. It was almost midnight and Nextharos would be lurking around soon. Step 1, the Briggs, had gone perfectly. Time to see if I could keep up the average.

  I took a Water Flight potion, gave another to Nigel, then we flew farther north to find a fitting spot to lure in Count Nextharos. About half a mile farther, I slowed to a hover above the remains of what must have been an enormous mansion, right on the bank of one of the fast-moving canals. That section of town had more intact ruins than most areas, revealing gracefully curving stone walls, remnants of formal gardens, and even the lower sections of a circular arena farther west.

  “Nigel, I’m expecting one of the stronger bosses from stage 4 to arrive soon.”

  “Then we kill him together,” Nigel said eagerly.

  “Sorry, bud. I need to challenge him to a duel, which means I have to fight him alone.”

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

  Nigel started to growl in annoyance, but I added, “It’s important to win the best loot from him. I need your help, though. You need to stay out of sight and patrol the area for spies who might be watching the fight from one of the other bosses. They can’t see what happens, so you need to take out anything you find.”

  The little murder kitten’s lips pulled back from his sharp teeth and his body vibrated with a low growl. “I will hunt.”

  “I knew I could count on you.”

  He shot away and soon disappeared in the gloom, although through our bond, I could still sense him in the distance. I settled onto the huge entry salon of the big mansion. Fragments of fancy colored tile still clung to the floor along the edges of the room, while bare stone walls rose a full 10 feet on all sides. Nextharos was a hunter, so hopefully he’d see this as an ideal ambush spot.

  Now to set my trap. Using 1 of my Doppleganger Decoy potions, I created a decoy double of myself 100 feet away. It appeared in one of the nearby rooms. I wrapped it in mana strings and carried it into position near where I stood. I found I could even move my doppleganger’s hands behind its back, as if bound by shackles.

  Then with the Mask of Eternal Identity I got from Velexis’s vault, I took on the appearance of Count Tydrion Blacktide. I’d never used the mask before, and the experience was weird. Tyrdion was much taller than me. The mask didn’t change my body but wrapped me in a weird, semi-tangible illusion. It was like I was suddenly squeezed into one of those fat suits, but a total-body version that looked exactly like Tydrion. It had the same clothes, the stylishly messy black hair, the little horns, and even the crown of leaves.

  “Weird,” I mumbled as I moved around, getting a feel for the illusion. Even my voice came out like Tydrion’s cultured, arrogant British tone.

  The Illusion moved perfectly with me even though my limbs and the illusion limbs didn’t really match up. It was like the inside of the suit included a tiny spatial distortion that allowed me and the taller illusion to move perfectly in sync. That mask really was an epic-tiered artifact.

  I then took a few minutes setting some traps throughout the huge mansion to help turn the tide if Nextharos got the upper hand. A few strategically-placed emoji trap stickers, along with 4 Napalm potions with remote triggers helped boost my confidence.

  The final step was to activate Mirror Cloak. My doppleganger didn’t disappear too, which was too bad. Still, when Nextharos spotted him, he’d no doubt scan the area more closely. He was a hunter of huge undersea monsters, so no doubt had ways of tracking down his prey.

  If anyone had a way to pierce my invisibility, it would probably be him. Hopefully he’d find me and drop by to gloat. If he failed to pierce Mirror Cloak, maybe he’d just try to steal the prize.

  I kept a sharp eye scanning as far as I could through the midnight downpour, but not even I could see far through it. Too bad we hadn’t found more Mist Lurkers and gotten more of those eyes to help see farther. Still, with Spellseer’s Gaze, I could spot any active spells or mana usage, and with Wolf Sight, I could pierce illusion, so I should be able to see him when he got close.

  Long, slow minutes dragged by as I stood in the deluge, the constant drumming of rain on stone in the chill night the only sound. I started silently urging Nextharos to hurry. I had too much to do, sitting around waiting was such a waste of time.

  A mighty roar rang out in the distance, but it cut off abruptly. My heart nearly stopped. Nigel!

  At the same time, through my bond to Nigel came an overwhelming sense of pain and terror. Nigel was badly hurt, maybe dying.

  I launched into the air, shooting toward the sound as fast as Water Flight would allow. I also willed him back to my castle. The link to his Familiar Collar flickered a couple times, and for a terrifying second, I feared it would fail. Then the connection solidified and the ability worked. I sent a group message to my team.

  Lucas: Anyone in the castle, Nigel’s been hurt badly. Help him!

  Barely a second passed before I got a reply.

  Jane: Ruby and Tomas are on the way down. They blew the doors right off the hinges of both rooms. Lucas, are you okay? What’s going on?

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Both Ruby and Tomas were there. Between them, they could heal whatever wound Nigel had just suffered. I could focus on tearing apart whatever had done that to him.

  Lucas: Busy. I’ll explain in a bit.

  Towering rage boiled through me at the thought of Nigel getting hurt and I growled with anger as I scanned the rainy night. I’d hunted so much with Nigel over the past week and faced down so many mighty monsters that I hadn’t seriously considered that he could get hurt while patrolling the ruins around me.

  No monster in the area should have been able to get the drop on him. That flood of emotions made it clear he’d been caught totally by surprise and received a near-mortal wound before he even knew what hit him. What could do that?

  A hunter.

  I stopped as the obvious truth clobbered my mind. Nextharos. The hunter had found Nigel instead of me.

  Or maybe he’d found us both.

  I spun and returned to the mansion just as fast as I’d left. I couldn’t blindly react, not while facing a famous hunter of dangerous beasts. He had played me perfectly, taking out my scout while luring me out of position.

  Well, it would have been a perfect play if I’d been Tydrion. And acting like Tydrion, I had to return to protect my prize, just as Nextharos no doubt anticipated. My trap location had just been turned against me.

  In seconds, I spotted my doppleganger standing in the same place I’d left. I scanned the mansion, but spotted nothing, not even with Spellseer’s Gaze or Wolf Sight.

  Had I misread the signs? I doubted it. Nextharos was there, just better concealed than anyone I’d ever faced. If I couldn’t find him, I needed to let him find me.

  Willingly stepping into a trap set by a talented hunter was idiotic, but I wasn’t who he expected me to be, so that still gave me an edge. I couldn’t miss the chance to take out another of Queen Marisara’s court.

  And there was no way I was going to turn and run after he’d just hurt Nigel. That memory of that roar cutting off and the wave of pain and terror I’d received from Nigel renewed my anger and boiled away any fear.

  I dropped to the floor, back near a wall, and spoke in Tydrion’s arrogant, nasally voice. “Such a showy entrance could only be from you, Nextharos. Come out, coward.”

  I fully expected him to step out and gloat like he had in his messages. Nextharos clearly believed himself the superior nymph lord. He’d want to rub Tydrion’s nose in his upcoming defeat.

  So it caught me totally by surprise when an invisible force smashed into my back.

  In addition to continuing to post Nexus Runner, as of TODAY, I am also starting another LitRPG series on RR. This one is very different, and I hope you'll check it out and share your thoughts. Here's the shoutout link.