The prevalence of loot slaying is an ongoing issue that the WHA takes extremely seriously.

  - WHA Enforcement Chairman Venna -

  The error box keeps repeating every so often in the corner of my vision. I swipe it away. Seems to silence it.

  “What is that?” Trent asks, pointing his twisted tree branch staff at me. Eyes lowly humming with mana. He’s ready to channel. He doesn’t need to chant either, I saw that much earlier.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, trying to buy time.

  “Don’t play dumb, I saw that ring swallow the mace,” he says.

  Fuck…

  “What does it do?” he asks with greedy eyes, I’ve seen them before. WHA people have their own rules. Whoever finds it, keeps it… unless they mysteriously die during a quest.

  That's probably why Mwangi hates WHA mages, they seem to be the most common ones in the tales of backstabbing.

  “Relax, I’m not going to tell anyone about it, what does it do?”

  “It eats items,” I say, looking behind me, nowhere to run.

  I don’t even have any of my gear, no helmet, no plates, no rifle. Guy said it was a waste of fucking mana to carry them up.

  “I saw that, what does it do with them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Not bullshit.”

  He clicks his tongue, shaking his head.

  “I’ve never heard of an item that can destroy a quest item.”

  What does he mean by that?

  “That stupid ass look on your face tells me that you’ve never had someone try it.”

  “Try to purposefully throw a quest?”

  “Off-worlders can be liabilities sometimes.”

  “Okay…”

  “Quest items are indestructible until the quest is complete. It’s why the system is having an aneurysm, which…”

  He pauses, brow furrowing as though he’s just had an epiphany.

  “That’s not… can’t be…” his eyes widen, a grin forming on the edges of his lips, “Is that what they’ve been looking for?”

  Shit. Why’d he have to be smart?

  “Holy… that’s it… that’s the divine item drop, isn’t it?”

  No matter what I say, no matter how I say it. I can tell. He’s going to try and kill me. And from the confidence in his stance, I wouldn’t be the first one.

  “Goddamn, your luck stat must be zero,” he scoffs, moving the tree branch staff in front of him, “I do believe you by the way.”

  “About?”

  “That you don’t know,” he says, rolling his neck, “In fact, if you had said you knew, I would have been wary. You fucked up medic.”

  “Doesn’t have to be this way.”

  He laughs, and then his face goes deadpan.

  “It does.”

  He whips his staff upward, but I roll before the vines he’s controlling can get me. I jump and roll again, actually thankful that I don’t have heavy gear on. How do I play this? He’s not going to let me down, and I…

  “Triage…”

  Time ebbs to a slow crawl, and five vines whip through the air mimicking his fingers. I manage to dodge with Triage’s help. The skill dissipates as I move forward. A black pop-up.

  [ Weapon Learned and Unlocked ]

  [ Type: Mace ]

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  More boxes, I swipe them out of the way, and one of the tendrils grasps my foot and pulls me to the ground in my distraction.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way!” I yell at him, he barely scoffs as the vines descend. Wrapping around my throat. I try to gasp for air but nothing comes. Suddenly, I feel something taking shape in my hand, my eyes are fading… heat… warmth… light.

  I gasp for air suddenly, my thoughts slamming into my mind against the confusion. Blinking fast, I see the vines burning away from the blue flames. In my hand, I’m holding the Mace of the Ardent Flame… how? It swells with energy, sapping from my mana, pulling it to brighter flames. I rise from the ground, stumbling toward him.

  “Shit,” Trent says, shuffling out of the way, “Wait, wait, wait.”

  I pause for a breath, mind trying to process, hoping against hope that I don’t have to… I feel the mana in the air stirring. He’s trying to cast still. He’s going to try and kill me again.

  He might be a specialized class… but I’m level fourteen, our stats aren’t as far apart as they would have been a month ago. My body stumbles forward more, almost passing out again, but I don’t. I don’t want to do this… But I swing that fucking mace like my life depends on it… because it does.

  “Stop!” he yells, one of the spikes cuts through his robe, and the hue of blood spraying mixes against the color of it. I don’t relent… I can’t.

  It’s kill or be killed.

  He twirls his staff, about to conjure something big, I can feel it in the air. The hand that carries Abyss stretches forward grasping the staff. Black shadows erupt and engulf it. Trent’s eyes bulge as he tries to hand channel, but he’s faltering. He stumbles back, tripping over a vine. Hands in front of him.

  “Wait!”

  The spiked mace collides with his hands, spearing through them… I’m dazed, mind still not fully caught up, but I know I can’t stop. He screams in pain, vines erupting around us, I slam the mace down again… and again… until he doesn’t scream anymore. I blink fast, covered in blood… his blood.

  A look of horror etched across his face.

  [ 1 x Wither Charge Gained ]

  Memories flood my mind, vivid memories of his death. It’s horrible. Gut-wrenching. If my stomach wasn’t empty I’d hurl. Fuck… I killed him. I kneel next to him, dumbstruck, his face barely recognizable… I can’t even close his eyes, the spikes they… oh god…

  I hold my stomach. Fuck, what did I do? No… I didn’t have a choice, it was me or him. My hands are shaking. A pop-up flashes in my vision.

  [ New Clear Quest: Kill the Emperor Dragonfly ]

  [ System Notice: Difficulty and Reward Upgraded ]

  My breath is finally coming back to a normal rhythm, my throat is sore, and I think my windpipe is damaged. Those vines almost killed me... he almost killed me. I look down at the ring, it may be the reason I’m here, but it saved my life. I set down the mace, it turns to dust and flows back into the ring. All the smoldering flames that it caused instantly go out. Okay. I’ll figure that out later. I have more pressing concerns, like the fact that I just killed a WHA member.

  What do I do now? How do I proceed from this? His face is so... my stomach churns. I pull his charred cape over what’s left of his face.

  Okay, breathe. Push it down. You did what you had to. Now is not the time to uncork.

  I activate triage, I can’t get a glimpse of my throat, but there’s bruising forming all over my extremities from the vines squeezing down. Other than that, I’m fine. I got lucky. If he was a fighting class, I’d probably be dead… the Knight with him. Bregan… oh shit, they seemed protective of him earlier.

  Looking around, I don’t have a reliable way down. It’s a long way too. How do I get down then? What do I do with his body? Do I just leave it? Looking down, I’m covered in his blood. I won’t be able to lie that away, so how do I… there’s a rumbling around me. A deep and ominous rumbling, like something is... my eyes blink. Through the semi-translucent parts of the walls that are thinner, I see something moving outside, lots of somethings.

  It doesn’t take long to realize what it is, dragonflies, bigger ones than before. Hundreds of them. Hacking and gnawing to get in. Okay, I need to get down. Fast, but not too fast, otherwise I’ll die.

  Think…

  Moving to the edge, I see some of the striations on the wall look like they are peeling in some areas. I remember as a kid, I used to tear the stalks of dandelions, if you do it right you can… maybe… that might work. Pulling out my newer knife, having lost my other during the Fox quest, I begin carving into the side, trying to make a strip peel off the wall. The scratching and beating of wings are getting more fervent, and so too are my cuts. Gliding deep into the sticky flesh of the massive plant, I manage to carve off a piece of it. My guts fall to the side as the plant leans in the wind. I tug and pull at the piece until it starts tearing under my body weight, just a small strip, but it’s working.

  Faster and faster it’s working… shit, I’m going to die if I don’t slow it. I try to drag the heels of my boots on the wall, but it’s no use, I stab my new blade into the wall. Almost losing my grip on it. It seems to do the trick. I’m still moving too fast. Shit… shit… shit… my blade snags, breaking my pinky finger on the handle, my fall increases momentum again.

  The mace… I hold out my hand, willing it to come, my eyes widen as it does, I slam it against the wall, the spike sheers in, slowing me, the flame erupts inside the plant, burning at the wall, leaving a scorched path. The ground is coming up, fast… too fast… there’s nothing I can do except… darkness… then pain… confused ruptures of thoughts that bleed into others.

  “Goddess of Light, hear my prayer, thy humble follower beseeches thy Divine Blessing. Holy magic, blessing of Goddess Amaetha.”

  My ribs unfurl from inside my lungs, pulling back to form. It’s agony. My legs untwist and the shattered fragments of bone slide back into place. The muscles following it, my brain feels beyond concussed. One of my eyes is out of the socket, my cheekbone is caved in. The eye slips back in as the bones mend. This is beyond healing magic, even Dorliac can’t do this much.

  “Blessed are those chosen by her light, blessed be those who walk her path.”

  With each word, the process speeds, and my jumbled thoughts become even clearer. Until my vision returns. Blinking slowly, I look above me. Verantha. She healed me.

  “What happened?” Dorliac asks.

  My head turns, she’s kneeling next to me.

  “Above. Trouble.”

  She turns her head to look above, then back to me.

  “Where is Trent?” Verantha asks, kneeling now too.

  “Dead.”

  She blinks.

  “How?” Dorliac asks, giving a wary glance to Verantha.

  “Trouble… above.”

  My eyes begin to slide closed. I’m so fucking tired. I should be dead.

  “Hey, what happened?” Dorliac asks again.

  Her voice is distant. My muddled thoughts fall away as I embrace the sleep that calls. I can’t resist it.

  I feel a sudden jab in my leg. A rushing of… adrenaline.

  My eyes spring open as my heart pounds like I just did sprints.

  “What happened?” Dorliac says louder than last time.

  I sit up, eyes blurred as the confusion tries to fall away.

  “Big dragonflies… coming.”

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