Jasper‘s fall ended with him crashing into a sandbank, which was nice. Probably it saved his life.

Then a great deal more sand came crashing down atop him, alongside ancient crumbling bricks and chunks of stone. That was…

Less nice.

He groaned, coughing up dust, trying to move his limbs. Vision was slowly returning– the lightning bolt had blinded him for a moment, replacing the world with a seared-in white fog, but now that fog began to clear away and blurry details flowed back into being.

A dark room.

Something that glowed…

Cracked stone tiles.

A massive statue looming out of the darkness…

He was pinned beneath a pile of rubble, the ceiling above him still caving away as the initial explosion left it perilously weakened. Little missiles fell from the roof to shatter into stony shrapnel. One landed near his face, barely the size of a finger, and broke into spinning fragments that cut across Jasper’s cheek. He could taste blood.

The Sunfather’s Blessing had ticked down. His life had been ‘saved’...

But he was trapped. One arm under the rubble, the other slowly working its way out as he wriggled and pulled. Something twisted against his trapped arm, the rock shifted…

There was a sudden burst of pain that almost blinded him again as the limb broke.

Jasper did his best not to scream. His level best.

But as he groaned into the floor, his tongue choked by gritty, clinging bits of sand, a stone rolled past..

He assumed it had tumbled down the cliff of debris atop him.

Then another rolled by. This one was odd-shaped, and should have rolled onto its back and fallen still. Instead…

It lumped on by, awkwardly turning over and over like a bizarre wheel.

They were going in the same direction. And they were both the same kind of stone. Cloudy, white salt…

Jasper squinted into the dark and saw what he’d been hoping not to.

The salt-devil was rebuilding itself. There was a core stone, a finger-sized fragment that glowed brilliantly. The salt rocks were amassing around that, protectively building up around it. Limbs were beginning to form. The elemental was standing up…

Jasper snarled.

Its arms were forming now, its shoulders…

And a beam of fire pierced through its center, aiming for that tiny fragment of luminous stone. For a moment, brilliant red light washed against the long-buried walls of the submerged room, revealing ancient murals and long-decayed tapestries.

The sorcerer had been right.

Jasper really did only get one shot– one shot he gave everything, all his mana, pouring it into the lance of molten fire that emerged from his fingertips. He carved downwards, slicing the elemental into two pieces. The beam faltered, flickered, and broke into sparks as it went out.

The salt-devil stood there for a moment, seeming almost surprised.

Then its body fell into pieces and shattered, leaving only a pile of salt behind, with a faintly luminous stone in the center.

Jasper wanted that to be in the end.

He wanted, badly, for this whole wild ride to end here; for someone to come and dig him out from the terrible, crushing weight pressing down on his broken arm.

But it couldn’t be that simple.

Stones rattled down from above as an elf dropped down the far side of the breach in the ceiling, leaping from stone to stone like a monkey. He was wiry, tall, and silver-haired. Luminous waves and glowing birds in flight were inked across his flesh. Carried across his back was a spear made of what looked like pure silver, bleeding light from its crystalline point into the air.

He dropped in front of Jasper, and reached down, picking up the spirit Shard between two fingers.

“You have stolen my hunt and dishonored me…” He said, in a raspy, leathery voice, not at all the musical kind of speech Jasper had expected from elves– it was the voice of someone who’d gone days without water in the deep desert, until all that they spoke was harsh and cracked like the earth below. “Normally I would not kill someone in such a pathetic situation, but…”

“You wanna talk about pathetic situations?” Jasper groaned out, his voice shaky with pain. “Try a mirror sometime buddy. You look like a two-dollar cosplay.”

The knife materialized in his hand– and the elf paused, stiffened with shock.

“What.” He said, and then, “How can you speak in–”

That was as far as he got before Amaria, dropping from above, slammed into him. They both hit the floor with bone-cracking force. He tried to catch himself with his arm, and Jasper heard and felt the bone snap in a moment of primal sympathy. She landed against one leg, and it was the same brutal sound. Together they fell to the ground.

Amaria reached for a dagger, groaning, and flipped herself atop the elf to lift the weapon high. He struck her hard in the throat, spittle flying from her mouth as she made a short, guttural choking cough. His hand grabbed her wrist and twisted, although she grasped for his face, trying to dig his fingers into the elf’s eyes, it was too late–

He twisted her wrist until the dagger dropped away, and with a sudden brutal turn, broke it. She screamed, and he kicked the dagger off into the dark.

With a single smooth motion he flipped atop her and slapped away the hand reaching for his eyes. It was too close to use the spear. He reached down and grasped her throat, pushing his body weight into his thumb as it crushed into her windpipe.

And Jasper threw the dagger across the floor. It skittered across broken tiles, skipped over a dip in the floor where water pooled, and spun to a stop hilt-first by Amaria’s hand.

She plunged it into the elf’s gut. He made a breathless wheezing noise, and she ripped it out, blood spurting across her chest and fingers. Again and again, she drove the stiletto point into him.

As Jasper faded out of consciousness, he could hear the wet, repetitive sound of steel meeting flesh.

— — —

Rough hands seized him and pulled. The weight of the rubble had lightened, and although his body scraped against jagged pieces of rock, nothing caught, nothing ripped. Jasper coughed hard as the weight of the stone was lifted from his back, his lungs allowed to fill–

He spat up blood and saliva and looked up into Amun’s face.

“It’s a goddamn Ruin.” Amun said. “You have damned luck.”

“Amaria?”

“She’s safe.”

Jasper nodded, and let the darkness have him again.

— — —

The next time he opened his eyes he was lying in a bed of fluffy white pillows, his arm extended across a series of straps secured to the ceiling. Long pins jutted out from the broken limb, penny-thick droplets of blood welling up where the needles punctured flesh.

“Oh.” Teysa heard him groan and turned. “Don’t move. I’m minutes away from fixing you.”

Leaning over her shoulder, examining a glass vessel, was an old man with extremely withered dark skin. He looked like a mummy, his hair cropped back to a thin fuzz of white.

The stuff in the glass was a rolling silvery vapor infused with crackling energy, sending out sparks to rattle and rebound against the bottle’s inner walls.

“Mm.” Jasper said; his tongue felt like a foreign entity, a snail that had crawled into his mouth and died. Bits of rockdust clung to his throat. “How’s Amaria.”

“Oh she survived. She was better off than you. Nice clean break.” Teysa said, “Although, I’m afraid…”

“What?” Jasper asked as she tapered off.

“Her crush on you is quite incurable, I fear.” Teysa said, a smirking grin on her face.

“Ugh.” Jasper closed his eyes. Amaria was nice, but– she was way too young for him. In fact, he wasn’t even sure she was eighteen.

“That’s what you get for being a heeeroo..~” Teysa sing-songed, crossing over to him with the bottle of cloudy lightning. “You’re going to need to inhale this.” She said, holding it under his face. The stopper was rattling slightly.

“Is it–”

“Oh it’s going to be fun.”

— — —

Jasper lurched out into the hall, flexing and splaying the fingers on his right hand. It no longer seemed like his hand. There was a chaotic energy lurking through his body, and he felt muscles move of their own accord, twitching.

The elixir had been electric.

But his arm was whole again. Stitched together like magic.

He walked through a makeshift infirmary. The town’s only inn had been converted for the night, and the injured lay in their beds, groaning, strips of bandage turned green by herbal remedies pressed to their wounds.

He descended the stairs and was greeted by a roar of good cheer.

The entire warband– and much of the town– was packed into the inn, drinking and telling tales of the battle. His arrival sent a shockwave of applause running through them, and before Jasper could protest, he was pulled down to a table. A glass of thick, frothing amber liquor was put in front of him, and a shot of something that coiled like red smoke at the bottom of the glass poured in.

And everyone wanted to hear the story.

— — —

Jasper realized fairly quickly that, with the healing elixir still burning in his system, alcohol was hitting him like a truck and it was unwise to drink any more.

He realized that–

But he didn’t exactly listen.

It was three drinks later– brandy with an alchemical concoction they called ‘lip’ splashed in, plain brown ale that still had husks of wheat floating at the top, and something truly foul they distilled out of horse milk. Jasper stumbled out onto a balcony, surreptitiously glanced over his shoulder, and tugged down the front of his pants.

A steady stream tumbled down into the bushes below.

Jasper tilted his head back and sighed.

“Jasper.” Amun’s voice was deeply unwelcome in that particular moment. “I think I misjudged you.”

“Uh, this may not be the time– You know, I think we can have this conversation when my dick’s not in my hand.”

In reply, Amun shouldered up next to him and dropped his own trousers.

A second stream fell into the bushes.

You know, adding more dicks doesn’t make this– Jasper just held his tongue.

“You have battle-sense. Seen it before. Some people, some people just know how to move. How to move others. Keep a– a cool head, Jasper, that’s what I’m saying. A cool head.” He swayed drunkenly. “An’ you prob’ly saved the day. Town’s happy with us. Town’s real happy. They have a new Ruin to bring people in– so we get paid, even though the hunt went sour.”

He paused, shaking himself dry.

And tucking away, he reached into his pocket, taking out a fragment of glinting, luminous salt. “So the Shard’s yours, is what I’m saying.”

Jasper looked at it.

“Well?”

“You didn’t–” Jasper winced. “Do you ever wash your hands?”

Amun just snorted and pushed the Shard into Jasper’s hands. “And they call me posh.”

— — —

And then– then this incorrigible dog, he says to me–” Amun was in a fine temper. The alcohol had washed his face red and drowned his anger. Now, he was telling the story of him and Jasper arguing at the gates as if it was a squabble between brothers, and laughing at Jasper’s insults as if they were his own jokes.

Jasper rolled his eyes and slipped away, moving clumsily through the crowd. His own drinking had his head cloudy and murky, but he was looking for…

For…

Teysa. There she was, her fingers stained with poultices and blood, awkwardly nursing a tall glass of brandy refined out of desert plums– the local delicacy.

“What are you doing here?” She asked. “You should be soaking up the glory. Man of the hour and all.” She punched him in the arm– and Jasper faked a wince, making her eyes lift in alarm until she realized he was joking.

Then she punched him again.

“What, and leave you over here alone?” Jasper asked.

“Hey, I did what I said I was going to. Stayed clear, let someone else wade through the shit. You went diving in headfirst– so you get the glory and adoring the mob.” She gestured towards Amun, roaring away to the delight of his audience.

“Eh.” Jasper looked at the drunken mob, at the warmth of the flames, and he remembered the cold sweat of the battle. “Let me tell you. I’m not feeling glorious.”

“Maybe it all squeezed out when that building fell on you.”

He glanced down at the notification in the bottom of his vision. Only a single use of the Sunfather’s protection was left…

And a row of skill notifications were waiting beside it.

“Something like that.” Jasper said with a rueful smile. “So, where’d you grow up? And how many brothers did the gods inflict on you?”

“Oh? As far as you know, I was an urchin, alone on the streets.” She challenged.

“You punch like you have two, no, three brothers.” He replied. “And you argue like you were the only girl.”

She snorted.

And the conversation just kind of flowed on from there.

— — —

“Play! Play! Play!”

The golden buzz of alcohol was reverberating through his entire body, and the crowd was stomping, yelling, crying out for him to perform. Jasper couldn’t remember feeling this good. Genuinely. Not once.

He flexed his repaired hand, fingers feeling the strings of a borrowed lute.

He dipped his head to play.

And darkness rushed over him, obscuring what happened next.