If you ever find yourself up shit’s creek without a paddle, clench and pray.

  - UWO First Sergeant Tomma -

  The air swallows my thoughts as it relentlessly blows against me. Abyss has gone from MVP item of the year to what it is now… a buddy fucking bastard. I groan in the wind as my arm flops uselessly, dislocated from the shoulder. My other arm still has a tourniquet on it and is missing more than half the fingers. At least I still have a thumb though, oh, and a pinky. It’s the little things.

  The pain is becoming worse, adrenaline can only pump for so long before it dries up. All over my body I feel heavily beaten and battered. My ears stopped ringing a while ago. I don’t know how long the Emperor Dragonfly has been flying. It seems to be flying in circles though, chasing down its kin to feast. I’m almost at max Wither Charges again.

  I still have no idea what Abyss is doing, or why it thought that I wanted a ride. One thing is certain though, it does have some type of sentience. I don’t know what that means exactly, but so far it seems to want to keep me alive.

  [ Weapon Learned ]

  [ Type: Two-Handed Sword – Berserker Aspect ]

  [ Weapon Name Logged ]

  [ Sword of the Enraged Berserker of Diminishing Intelligence ]

  [ Consume to Evolve Abyss or Store? ]

  [ Evolve / Store ]

  Well, that sounds like a hard pass. Evolving Abyss to have anything with the berserker trait sounds like a very irresponsible decision. Plus, if the gnome was any indication of what the diminishing intelligence does, yet another very hard pass. It must be one of those equivalent exchange-type weapons. I’ve heard of them, sacrifice strength for extra mana regen, or extra intelligence for lowered luck, there are many variations. I hit the store button with my tragic-looking strong hand.

  I can feel more Wither Charges activating. Twenty-seven so far. The issue is that only one is using Whispering Decay still. If the brand activates…

  Fucking jinxed it.

  The brand that had Whispering Decay just went off. Making it twenty-eight that have gone off now. The wings slow suddenly. The Emperor Dragonfly shakes its head, clattering its mandibles. The air shifts as it moves towards the ground, apparently having shaken off its sanity debuff, its flight path is less erratic now.

  My arm tugs as Abyss retracts the vine, bringing me closer and closer to the emperor.

  “What is wrong with you?” I scream over the wind.

  It launches me upward past the Emperor Dragonfly’s one semi-functional eye. Why is Abyss so obsessed with it? The head turns toward me, massive tree-sized mandibles chittering. Oh fuck…

  Abyss swings me towards the open mouth.

  “Abyss!” I scream, flailing uselessly as it swings me inside. The vine releases and momentum carries past the mandibles as they slam together. Barely missing me. A foul odor grips me as I slam against the hot and humid wall of the dragonfly’s mouth. Sliding down as the muscles undulate and press everything towards the gaping hole beyond.

  I try to stand, but I’m stuck in the saliva, it’s thick and pungent. Plus, only one of my legs is actually working, the other is just flopping there, completely useless. Suddenly the armor begins to spindle out from Abyss, wrapping me in it. The saliva still burns my legs, singeing the skin with its acidic compounds. Fuck.

  It’s weird, I’m suspended in the armor, like gravity itself has fallen away. I’m not touching any part of it. I can see through the helmet though, it’s semi-transparent. Only a faint outline of it remains. I will my arms to move, and the suit moves with it. Always keeping me suspended in it. This must be how that tiny ass gnome was able to move around in it. I grab at the mucous-ridden surface to no avail. The mace…

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  I summon it, slamming it down and finding purchase. Blue flames erupt from the impact, but fizzle out quickly. The muscles undulate harder and faster. Sweeping me further down. The mace turns to dust and flows back into Abyss through the small gaps in the armor.

  This is fucked. Why does it even want me in here? I feel a pang of hunger coming from my dislocated arm… Abyss is still hungry? Is that why it… I look around in the bubbling soup of what I assume is some kind of stomach. Bobbing bodies of half-digested man-sized dragonflies slosh about with the churn. Among them… I see three people. Dead. Faces melted off. The dark vine from Abyss pulls them closer, until it begins taking from them… it wants their items.

  “Fucking greedy bastard, have some decency.”

  It doesn’t have decency. It strips everything of value. Even what I’m positive are common items. I’m getting tons of notifications. The lower-tiered ones seem to be almost instantly absorbed. But there isn’t an option to use them to evolve Abyss. Maybe they need to be higher grade?

  My wither charges are full, and time is still slowed. I know that I should keep pumping more charges into the Emperor Dragonfly… but the fucking memories from the soldiers that I have so far… they’re horrible. Thoughts of loss. Regrets. The pain of an undignified death.

  I grit my teeth, carry the fucking torch.

  Abyss has finally stopped slithering about and desecrating the fallen. It slinks the vine up and toward a darker passage of flesh. Pulling me from the soup and out towards the… back end. Pulling me past clumps of unidentifiable matter.

  Light breaches my eyes as it throws us from the ass end of the Emperor Dragonfly, we free fall for a few seconds, until another tug sends my organs into my abdomen. It’s latched itself to the long end of the emperor.

  “Get me closer…” I say.

  More charges… faster activation, in theory.

  There’s a tremor as the armor falls to dust. Abyss pulls me quickly through the air until I can touch the Emperor Dragonfly directly. The Wither Charges slide into it.

  More than fifty have activated by the time it starts to shudder and lose altitude. The memories… burn. Leaving me dazed and confused, but I don’t stop. I keep pushing. Until there are well over one hundred and thirty charges.

  No more charges tingle up my spine. That was the last one. The slow descent becomes faster as more brands activate. Abyss forms the Aegis armor around me, without me even asking. Dark vines begin to spin around me, making a thick cocoon, some of them slither inside the suit as well, pulling my dislocated arm back into place, twisting my kneecap back to the front, unbending my leg, and entwining it like a brace.

  I can’t see anything. But I feel the impact even with the antigravity inside Aegis, it hurts like hell. I feel more charges detonating. Eighty-five now. Getting closer. As vines unfurl, I see a few soldiers through the semi-transparent helmet. Eyes wide as they stumble backward, running further away. I don’t blame them. I crawl to the top of the beast forged from nightmares. Abyss helps drag me upward, as though it senses my intentions. I don’t stop until I reach the one remaining eye of the Emperor Dragonfly.

  I summon the Mace of the Ardent Flame. Slamming it down, again and again. Each time for a memory. Screaming in rage, I continue, spit flying from my lips. I don’t stop even as I sink into the jelly of its eye. Blue flames rising all around me as more and more wither charges erupt in some kind of chain reaction.

  I carry the torch of twenty-two people now… one taken with my own hands. Fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters. I carry them all. Releasing their last breath in the swings of the mace.

  “Bregan!” a voice yells, but I don’t stop.

  I can’t fucking stop. If I do… I have to face their memories.

  “It’s dead!” the same voice yells.

  My eyes blink, the body of the Emperor Dragonfly is becoming ash beneath me. The final Wither Charges finished it. I turn, it’s the Cleric Verantha… she thinks I’m Bregan. The armor. Of course.

  My legs buckle under me. Tears welling in my eyes. It’s done… I did it… I carried the torch.

  [ Kill The Emperor Dragonfly Quest: Completed ]

  [ Congratulations Hunters ]

  [ Gate closing sequence initiated ]

  [ Goodbye ]

  The Aegis armor turns to dust after the System pulls us back toward Earth. I barely feel the discomfort from it.

  Light billows from the midday sun as I roll out from where the gate decided to place me. In an expansive field at the base of the mountain. More and more people start materializing in. Planes come next, covered in bug guts. There’s a stink in the air. I turn and realize that the System has a sense of humor.

  Next to me is Trent’s body, mutilated and twisted from the dandelion’s fall. As though the System is trying to fuck me over somehow. I wrench myself away. Pausing for a moment when I see the dead gnome Bregan… fuck the System.

  My arm is still messed up despite being relocated. One of my legs is useless. It’s a sad sight I’m sure, but I don’t want to be next to either of those bodies when the questions start.

  I need to find them, Cortez, Tran, Barlow, Mwangi, Dorliac, even Tenny. Maybe even Gilroy… shit… Gilroy knows. Tran and Barlow saw too. Fuck. Worry about it later. I need to see those I give a shit about are alive.

  “Jimmy…” a voice says from behind, cutting through the darkness that grips my heart, “Jimmy… oh thank god.”

  Cortez rushes to my side, turning me sideways, looking me over.

  “Are you okay?” she asks frantically, peeling off my tattered shirt, and looking at my molting skin from the dragonfly acid. She holds a hand over her mouth, eyes telling me it’s pretty bad-looking.

  She starts yelling for a medic, I can barely hear her though. Pretty sure my right ear is completely deaf. My left isn’t much better. She’s alive.

  Tran and Barlow come next. One of them has a shallow bite mark on their shoulder.

  They’re speaking, but I’m drifting off. I’m stupidly tired. Besides, I think I've earned a nap.