The road was dust and packed earth.
The army that surrounded the village of Rainshear stood in full formation—shields braced, siege weapons at the ready, a camp of maybe five hundred men stretching from ridge to ridge.
Their armor was mismatched. Local mercs, conscripts, and some battered nobility. All focused on the rickety wooden walls of the town they had every intention of burning.
Until something approached from the woods.
At first, it was a shadow.
Then footfalls.
Then—
Twelve feet of glowing metal.
APOC.
His footsteps cracked the road.
Behind him came VOR, swords floating lazily around him like curious snakes.
Then Plague, swaying her hips, waving at terrified soldiers.
Famine, skipping and singing something about intestines.
And Death, trailing behind with a book in one hand, not even looking up.
"MOVE!" Famine shouted, pointing at soldiers ahead of them.
"Move move move move! I'll kill you! Move! Move or explode! I haven't decided yet!"
The soldiers parted like water.
One tripped over his own halberd. Another fainted. A third just dropped his spear and walked away.
"Diplomacy is going great," Plague said, grinning wide.
"I don't think that word means what you think it means," Death mumbled.
At the village gate, a small wooden platform overlooked the road.
On it stood a blonde-haired young woman, barely eighteen, with dirt-smudged armor and a shortbow slung over her shoulder.
Linda.
She narrowed her eyes, watching the bizarre group approach.
"Halt!" she shouted. "You can't come in!"
Plague skipped forward and knocked on the massive wooden gates like she was delivering a pie.
"Hello? We heard you had a dungeon and a minor crisis!"
"We're under siege!" Linda snapped from above. "No one's allowed inside!"
APOC stepped forward.
His voice rolled like thunder.
"We are not here to invade. We are here to fulfill our divine mandate."
"What mandate?!"
"To not cause trouble for the village."
Linda blinked.
"That's oddly specific."
Plague smiled up at her.
"So, uh, hypothetically, if someone else was causing the trouble..."
"Like this army?" Famine offered, twirling in place.
"...Would smiting them count as a crime?" Plague asked sweetly.
Linda stared.
The soldiers behind the Shellborn slowly began to backpedal.
"We are simply here for the dungeon," APOC rumbled.
"But this army's presence may interfere with that objective."
"So we will interfere with them interfering with you," Death added dryly, flipping a page.
"I… I'm going to need to talk to someone higher up," Linda said faintly.
"We are the higher up," Famine called, flashing all his teeth.
The army stood frozen.
Five strange figures blocked the only road in or out, and not a single one looked nervous.
Famine was doing cartwheels.
"Should we introduce ourselves?" he asked mid-flip.
"Maybe perform a song and dance before the slaughter?"
"No theatrics," APOC rumbled.
"I brought fireworks," Plague added, pulling a smoking vial from somewhere inside her dress.
"That is a jar of centipedes," Death noted without looking up.
"Festive centipedes."
Linda, still standing on the wooden lookout, squinted down at the chaos incarnate below.
"Wait, are you people serious right now?!"
VOR spun one of his swords through his fingers like a baton.
"Deadly serious."
He flung it into the air—one of his fire swords.
It spun like a flaming wheel before embedding itself neatly in the road in front of the army commander's feet.
The commander blinked.
"Was that a warning shot?"
"That was a greeting."
"Gods help me…"
Plague cracked her knuckles.
"Can we start now?"
"We haven't delivered the message yet," APOC said.
"What message?" asked a nearby soldier, trembling.
"This one," APOC replied.
He slammed his hammer into the earth.
The ground shook.
Birds exploded out of the trees.
A nearby latrine collapsed in on itself.
Above the army, a swirling portal formed in the air.
Golden light spilled out.
From within, a six-winged figure emerged—halo aflame, eyes like twin stars, face impossible to look at directly.
The army fell silent.
A few men screamed and ran.
One tried to crawl under his horse.
And then came the voice—calm, divine, and unbothered.
"In three months' time, if you do not surrender, we will take the town. If you do not wish to fight, stay in your home and mark an X on your door."
"All others," the being said, voice ringing through the valley,
"war is coming."
Linda stared.
Plague waved at her.
Famine licked a rock.
"...You people are not normal," Linda muttered.
"You're welcome!" Famine shouted.
The army hadn't moved.
Five beings stood casually in the middle of the road behind them, like they'd just dropped in for afternoon tea and bloodshed.
One soldier leaned over to another.
"Do you… do you know what they are?"
"I think that one with the hammer is a siege weapon."
"I think the small one's a child."
"The small one's threatening to eat someone's bones."
Famine danced between soldiers like a skipping stone, grinning ear to ear.
"Move, move, move! Out of the way! I'm allergic to your faces!"
"Diplomatic immunity?" Plague offered helpfully, holding up a jar of centipedes.
"That's not how that works," Death muttered.
"It works for me."
From atop a trembling horse, the enemy captain finally rode forward.
Chainmail clinked around his gauntlet as he raised a hand.
"Enough!" he shouted, voice shaking.
"I don't know who you are or what you're doing here, but you'll leave now or face judgment!"
The Shellborn all turned to APOC.
He stood like a statue, eyes glowing faintly red.
"They have made their stance clear," he said calmly.
"Which part?" asked VOR, spinning one of his swords lazily.
"That we are not to interfere with the village," Death said, closing his book.
"Nothing was said about the invaders."
Famine threw up both arms.
"Murder's on the table!"
"Technically," APOC agreed, "yes."
"Ohhh baby," Plague grinned.
The soldiers didn't know what to do.
One backed away slowly, eyes locked on Famine's teeth.
Another tripped trying to retreat.
"Can we please start now?" Plague asked, practically bouncing.
"Not yet," APOC rumbled.
"Why not?" VOR asked.
"I want to see if they run first."
The captain pointed his sword.
"Attack!"
He really shouldn't have.
"Permission granted," APOC said.
The words had barely left the captain's mouth.
"Attack!"
And that was it.
APOC moved first.
He didn't run. He walked.
Every step shook the dirt, each footfall a slow beat in a funeral dirge no one realized they were attending.
A soldier charged, screaming.
APOC's hammer dropped.
There was no scream.
Just red.
Just a wet crunch that sprayed across the faces of six men behind him.
The hammer swung sideways.
Three bodies went airborne.
Not thrown— disassembled.
To the left, VOR's swords ignited.
All seven.
Each one lit with a different power—flame, lightning, wind, void, gravity, blood, and the last… silence.
He vanished.
Reappeared behind a formation of twenty men.
The swords danced around him like birds in a feeding frenzy.
They cut without warning.
Without rhythm.
Without mercy.
One soldier tried to block with his shield—only to have the sword slice the metal into confetti and leave his entire torso on the ground before his legs realized they were alone.
"Ahhh," VOR exhaled, stretching, "I missed this."
Plague twirled between bodies.
She didn't fight. She played.
Fingers trailed along necks. Breath poured from her mouth like perfume.
Where it touched, men screamed.
Boils erupted on their skin. Eyes yellowed.
One man collapsed into a coughing fit—and coughed until his lungs left his body.
"Whoops!" Plague laughed.
"Didn't mean to hit your soul. Silly me."
A soldier raised his sword to her.
She caught it.
With two fingers.
It rusted into powder in her grip.
"Try harder," she whispered.
"I want this to last."
Death strolled through the carnage, untouched.
He never drew a weapon.
He just opened his hand—and the ground cracked beneath his boots.
Hands emerged.
Rotting.
Burning.
Wailing.
Dead men pulled the living down.
Dragged them into pits that hadn't existed seconds before.
"I offer no vengeance," Death said softly.
"Only the absence of continuation."
And then there was Famine.
He danced.
He giggled.
And everywhere he stepped, men collapsed—skeleton-thin in an instant.
Their armor clattered to the ground with no weight inside it.
"Oops," Famine said, leaning over a collapsed knight.
"All your calories ran away. Guess they liked me more."
He patted the corpse on the cheek.
"Don't worry. I'll tell your bones you said hi."
Within three minutes, the front line had dissolved.
Within ten, the army was a memory.
No survivors.
No second chances.
No heroes.
Only red soil.
Only silence.
Only five figures standing in the field of unrecognizable bodies—barely winded.
"Well," said Plague, licking her fingers,
"I think we were very respectful of the village's peace."
Linda couldn't move.
From her perch on the wooden wall, bow trembling in her hands, she had a full view of the slaughter.
And it was slaughter. Not battle. Not war.
The five strange beings hadn't fought.
They had performed.
Like gods bored with theater and deciding to improvise a massacre.
She watched the tall knight—the one with the glowing hammer—flatten men like they were bags of grain.
She watched the smug, sword-spinning lunatic—cut through armor like cloth.
The woman in the tattered silk laughed as men clawed at their own faces, screaming about spiders under their skin.
One of them—wasn't even doing anything. He just walked, and the dead rose to drag screaming soldiers into the dirt.
And the small one?
That… thing danced. Hummed. Wiped sweat off a man's brow just before his entire body caved inward like a dried fruit.
Linda stood frozen, hand over her mouth.
"What… what are they?"
Fifteen minutes later, the battlefield was silent.
Still.
Red and steaming.
The five of them—completely clean—walked back up the hill.
Knock knock knock.
The front gate shuddered as Plague knocked gently on it.
"Hi again!" she called cheerfully.
"We took care of your wart!"
"The army," VOR clarified with a sigh.
"She means the army."
"Be nice," APOC rumbled.
Famine coughed and grinned.
"So uh… we good now? Can we come in?"
Linda descended the ladder slowly, hands still shaking.
She walked to the gate.
Unlatched the lock.
Pulled it open an inch… then stared up at them.
"Who the hell are you?"
They all looked at each other.
Then back at her.
"We're here for the dungeon," APOC said calmly.
"And to join the adventurers guild," Plague added, beaming like she hadn't just melted a man's lungs out his nose.
Linda blinked.
"...You people are insane."
"Certified," said Famine, holding up an invisible badge.
The gates creaked open.
The Shellborn walked in.
The town of Rainshear—what was left of it—froze.
Farmers held tools mid-swing.
Mothers pulled children behind them.
A dog howled once and ran into a shed.
APOC walked with measured steps, towering like a cathedral on legs.
VOR followed behind, swords floating lazily, still wet.
Death trailed, silent, reading a book and whispering, "no one writes poetry about intestines anymore."
Famine smiled and waved at children.
They screamed.
And then… there was Plague.
She crouched beside one particularly chubby toddler near a bread cart.
"Gah gah gah!" she cooed, pulling her cheeks wide, flashing her rows of shark teeth.
The child screamed so hard they fell over.
Plague blinked, sour-faced.
"Well screw you too, tiny meatbag."
They reached the Adventurer's Guild Hall—a squat, stone building with a crooked sign and one cracked window.
Inside, the mood didn't improve.
Silence.
Everyone felt them walk in.
Plague dragged her nails across the wall absently.
VOR twirled a sword like he was bored at a dentist's office.
At the front desk, a man in silver half-plate looked up.
Then looked down.
Then looked anywhere else.
"Uh… can I… help you?"
"Registration," APOC said calmly.
The man nodded. Slowly.
"Of course. Right. Just… over there."
A crystal slab jutted out from a black pedestal in the center of the room.
A glowing screen hovered above it.
Power Calibration Matrix.
Famine skipped over first and slapped his palm down.
BZZZZZT.
The crystal glowed.
The matrix flashed red.
S
S
S
"Triple S?!" someone gasped.
"That's not real!" another whispered.
"The Cardinal of Flame only tested as a high A!"
"That one licked a mailbox on the way in!"
Each of them took their turn.
Triple S.
Triple S.
Triple S.
The crystal cracked under APOC's reading.
The system rebooted after Plague's.
Death's scan just made it weep in binary.
The Guildmaster emerged from the back room—a woman in her late 40s with heavy armor, a scar across one eye, and the expression of someone who had just realized she was now managing five magical nukes with mood swings.
"What… are you?"
"Adventurers," APOC replied.
"We're gonna help," Plague grinned.
"Maybe."
"Unless we get bored," said VOR.
"Then we'll go home," added Famine.
"Tomorrow," Death muttered.
"Maybe."
The Guildmaster stared.
"...I'm going to need a drink."
"We brought one!" Plague said, holding up a jar of glowing slime.
"Please put that away."
The five of them stood in a line at the guild counter, staring blankly as the receptionist handed over their new guild cards—etched silver plates embossed with shimmering runes.
"You're officially ranked... um... Triple S Special Class Unrated."
The clerk blinked.
"That's not a real category, but the system shorted out and screamed when we tried to assign anything else."
"Cute," said Famine, flipping his card like a coin.
"It's shiny," Plague purred.
"It's official," APOC said solemnly.
"We are now… adventurers."
"God help the world," Death murmured.
They walked out into the town square.
VOR stretched his arms, swords floating lazily around him.
Plague cracked her neck. It made a sound like wet celery.
"Where's the dungeon?" she asked.
"Northeast wall. Crater entrance," Death answered without looking up from his notes.
"Field trip part two!" Famine cheered.
Meanwhile...
Deep below the earth, Aiden stood in front of a workbench, welding something vaguely microwave-shaped that definitely hummed like it wanted to explode.
"ZEUS, hand me that—"
Ping.
"...What was that?"
"Update on the children, my Lord."
"Oh no."
The HUD blinked to life.
Shellborn Status: Active
Mission: Dungeon Clearance
Status: COMPLETE
Time Elapsed: 47 minutes
"...The hell do you mean 'complete'?"
"They've exited the dungeon, sir."
"Alive?"
"Mostly. Them, yes. The dungeon? Not so much."
Back in Rainshear—
The guild hall doors burst open.
Five figures emerged, drenched head to toe in blood, black ichor, and half-dissolved limbs.
Plague had a rib sticking out of her hair.
Famine was chewing something he refused to identify.
VOR looked like he'd been inside a blender—and the blender lost.
Death was spotless.
APOC stood in the middle, holding the entire dungeon core, still pulsing.
They stretched.
"Too easy," VOR yawned.
"They screamed a lot," Plague noted cheerfully.
"One of them asked for their mom," Famine added.
"Then exploded."
"I believe we're finished," Death said, tucking away his book.
"Shall we go home?"
"No!" VOR barked.
"We're adventurers now! Let's see what missions they've got!"
"Something harder," said Plague.
"Something tastier," added Famine.
They turned as one.
Back to the guild board.
Covered in gore.
Smiling like kids at a candy shop.
They stood in front of the quest board, still dripping.
The receptionist had fainted after one glance.
Two junior adventurers were curled up behind the firewood barrel, whispering prayers to conflicting gods.
Someone quietly locked the front door from the inside.
Famine pressed his nose to the board like a kid at a bakery window.
"Oooooh, here we go. Eliminate Bandits near Blackroot Pass. Reward: 500 silver, and a meat pie!"
"I like meat pie," Plague grinned.
"Bandits?" VOR muttered, skimming the details.
"Doesn't say how many."
"Then assume too many," Death said, already walking toward the door.
Back in the underground fortress...
Ping.
"ZEUS…" Aiden grumbled, rubbing his temples.
"Another update, my Lord. They've accepted a quest."
"Good. What kind?"
"Bandit extermination."
"Normal. Reasonable. Finally."
"They appear to be strategizing how best to scorch the area into glass."
"...You had one job."
On the road to Blackroot Pass, the Shellborn trudged along like tourists headed to a bloody renaissance fair.
APOC carried a war banner he made out of dungeon scraps and a goblin femur.
Plague skipped ahead, singing a song called "Guts in the Trees."
VOR summoned all seven of his swords at once and named them.
(One was called Greg.)
"Do we know how many bandits there are?" Plague asked.
"Sixteen confirmed," said Death.
"So... forty," said Famine.
"At least a hundred," VOR nodded solemnly.
"Thousands," Plague whispered with reverent glee.
When they arrived, the bandit camp was exactly as advertised.
Two tents.
A firepit.
Sixteen bandits. Drinking. Laughing. Playing dice.
And then they looked up.
And saw death in five very colorful flavors approaching.
"Hold on, who the hell are—"
They didn't finish.
VOR threw Greg.
Greg cleaved through five throats before anyone screamed.
Plague leapt over the firepit, laughing, spraying green mist from her mouth.
One man aged sixty years in five seconds.
Another just melted.
Famine danced on the spine of a captain, plucking out ribs and whistling.
Death opened the earth beneath the dice table.
They didn't even bother to run.
APOC stood still.
Let the screams wash over him.
Then lowered his banner.
"Problem resolved."
The town of Rainshear had only just begun to breathe again after the dungeon incident.
Merchants swept their stalls.
Children were cautiously peeking from behind crates.
The guildmaster was halfway through her second bottle of whatever-that-was and considering retirement.
That peace lasted exactly forty-eight minutes.
"BANDITS NEAR BLACKROOT PASS DESTROYED!"
A scout burst into the guildhall, panting, sweating, visibly traumatized.
"I saw it!" he wheezed. "I saw the aftermath!"
"You mean the Shellborn completed the mission?" asked a clerk.
"COMPLETED?! They turned the forest into an art project!"
"...What kind of art?"
"MODERN. With bones."
The scout dropped a sack onto the table.
It spilled out ashes, melted gold, and a boot that looked like it had been screamed into submission.
"We counted zero survivors. Not even wildlife."
"What happened to the trees?"
"There are no trees anymore!"
The guildmaster blinked slowly.
"So... that's a success, right?"
"The bandit captain's shadow is still screaming on a rock!"
Back on the main road, the Shellborn returned.
Covered in soot.
Smiling.
Eating roasted bandit meat on sticks.
"Delicious," Famine said, chewing.
"Surprisingly tender. Think he was vegan."
"Greg did good work today," VOR said, lovingly polishing his sword.
"We gave the world a gift," Death intoned.
"Silence."
"Their base had a swing," Plague sighed.
"I broke it."
"We are heroes now," APOC said proudly.
They passed through the gates of Rainshear.
People stared. Again.
Mothers clutched their kids.
Someone dropped a basket of apples.
One guard began whispering, "Don't make eye contact, don't make eye contact."
"Back to the board?" VOR asked.
"Let's pick something peaceful this time," said Death.
"Like assassination," Plague beamed.
"Or exorcism!" Famine offered.
"We can bring our own ghosts!"
"Whatever it is," APOC rumbled, "we'll finish it."
"Quickly," Death added.
"And legally," Plague winked.
"...Technically," Famine shrugged.