Book 1, Chapter 8: The Chicken and the Damsels in Distress

Alen dived, a small bang ringing out from behind him as the bear’s jaws clamped shut against empty space. He twisted his body and closed his eyes as he raised his arms. A boom reverberated out as the bear’s paw slammed against a wall of black-green mana that rose up from the pitch black floor, shattering it as Alen had the mana on the ground pull him backwards, away from the bear.

It charged at him and Alen cursed, sending spikes of darkness stabbing at it and tearing into its thick hide. The ghoulbear closed in and Alen punched out, a large fist of black-green mana forming and hitting the bear’s cheek.

He turned around and ran, propelling himself forward with a pillar of mana from below his feet. He sailed in the air, but the bear chomped down on his leg, dragging him back down and slamming him against the floor. His chin hit the ground hard. Alen tasted blood. He felt his chest get crushed by the bear’s massive paw and coughed out blood. Its jaws ripped out his neck, the blood pooling out from below him as he lost his life.

Alen’s corpse exploded in a torrent of black-green mana that sunk into the ground. Not even a moment later, a large amount of mana formed into the shape of a person nearly a hundred meters away.

The mana melted off the person’s body and revealed Alen who heaved profusely, gulping in large amounts of air as he stared at the bear charging towards him. He’d been here for a relatively long time, and he’d been killed by the bear multiple times.

Whatever his spell did, it put him here and had him fight the bear in a deathmatch. Every time he died, he would revive, but as he glanced at his mana, every time he controlled the darkness in the ground and came back to life, it would slowly decrease. Alen didn’t want to find out what would happen if he ran out. He glared at the bear and began to move to the side, the black floor under him allowing him to glide over quickly it as if it was ice.

He created bolts of darkness as he moved, sending them shooting towards the bear, glancing past its thick hide. He summoned skeletons from the ground, black-green minions rising and charging at the bear to give him time to think of his next move.

What was he going to do? What was he going to do? Alen looked around in a panic. Nothing but empty darkness. His attacks were wounding the bear, but they looked like petty wounds and he didn’t trust his mana to hold out at the rate he was going.

The bear bulldozed through his skeletons and tore at his makeshift defenses, shredding them easily. Alen spread his arms out and swept them inwardly, two giant spikes of mana thrusting at the bear and digging inches deep into its shoulders. That didn’t stop its charge though, as it forcefully let the spikes rip through its skin to reach Alen. In a panic, he scrambled away and sent a flurry of attacks backward, but most missed in his haphazard use. The bear tore his torso apart and killed him once again. His mana lowered to forty-two percent.

Alen reformed and stared at the bear with bloodshot eyes. The feeling of death was very real here. And it felt like every time he died, the more attuned he was to the essence of this place. The feeling was extremely unsettling.

He reached down and touched the ground, trying his hardest to form a more complex type of attack. Until now, he had a lot of difficulty forming complex spells. He groaned as the form in front of him collapsed. The bear charged once again and killed him by biting his head clean off. What was he doing wrong!? He vomited on the black ground from the feeling assaulting his head, even the liquid leaving his body was black-green. Dying was nauseating, and he’d died no small amount of times. His mana was at thirty-seven percent.

Something was being done wrong. He knew this. But what? He reached into the ground and tried to manipulate it, the mana bending to his will without much problem until he tried to form a complex form of attack. He sent blades of darkness slashing at the bear, wounding it further until he died.

Thirty-one percent.

Alen gritted his teeth as he tried his hardest to figure out what he was doing wrong. He would reach into the ground with his mind. It was natural to him. He felt powerful, but he wasn’t powerful enough. He was killed again.

Twenty-four percent.

His mind raced and reviewed all his experiences, his life flashing before his eyes. He sent a multitude of attacks at the bear again. It was like molding play dough. Easy and uncomplicated. He died again.

Eighteen percent.

Suddenly, Alen’s memories stopped at one moment. He sat alone in a dark crevice, gaunt and his eyes bloodshot, frowning as he manipulated a small cloud of mana. It would condense, expand, and move in a line, but that was it. Easy but limited, like molding clay. He could not build a powerful enough structure with clay. Alen’s emerald eyes shone as he stared at the bear.

He had the ground bend to his will, moving him back further to buy him time.

Seventeen percent.

Alen was going about it wrong. It couldn’t be helped that he didn’t realize it sooner. He was a fucking dumbass after all. He grinned despite the desperate situation, laughing at his own stupidity. In his mind, lines of code raced and formed, the first skill he’d created running at full power. He was using it.

Mana Programming.

A loop function to gather as much mana as it could, to compress… to form a shape until the if-statement governing its power was fulfilled, have it rise, form above him.

As Alen did this, a massive guillotine of mana formed in the empty black sky above. It glowed an emerald green and a powerful aura of death radiated from it. It formed and compressed onto itself. Smaller, smaller. He roared as the mana drained from the ground at an alarming rate, turning the smooth black floor whiter and whiter. The guillotine was sharp. It was the world, his remaining mana compressed into a single spell.

The ground stopped moving him backwards, the mana being used transferred over to the spell. The bear was getting closer. It swiped towards him with both claws.

His spell was completed at the same time.

The guillotine slammed down and cut off three-fourths of the bear’s neck as its two claws heavily lacerated Alen’s stomach and chest.

Alen looked at his mana. Zero percent.

He looked at the bleeding monster in front of him, unable to even move due to its severed spinal column. Alen looked down at the blood gushing out of his destroyed stomach and grinned madly at the bear despite the intense pain that blanked his thoughts.

It stared back at him as he spoke. “Guess whoever dies first wins, right?”

Alen coughed up blood, the grin slowly leaving his rapidly paling face. “Shit,” He said, staring straight into the eyes of the barely breathing foe in front of him.

His vision blurred, and his eyes began to close as the smile was completely wiped off his face.

Whatever the fuck happened next, at least he felt as badass as he did in this last moment.

Eilynn watched as the claws about to tear into the emerald-eyed young man’s side stopped abruptly. The black-green mana in his hand sunk into the skull of the bear, which collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Suddenly, the young man gasped in large amounts of air as he clutched at his chest, kneeling down as sweat poured down from his forehead. He sat there, still for a few moments as Eilynn and Roland stared in bewilderment.

Finally, he relaxed and wiped the sweat from his pale face. In front of him, the bear slowly stood up. Roland drew his sword, but the young man raised his hand and stopped him.

He struggled to get on his feet, and the bear lowered its head, allowing him to get on and secure himself between two of the large bone spurs on its back. He looked at the two of them with a satisfied grin and spoke. “I’m so fucking awesome,” He said.

“What…” Roland said, staring at the massive ghoulbear dumbfoundedly.

The young man looked at both of them, his bloodshot eyes barely open. “You know, it’s about time I said a cool line. Here it goes,” His laugh was cut short by the pain in his side, causing him to grimace. “Fuck, um... You guys need a ride?”

“Y…Yeah,” Eilynn said, pulling the warrior forward as she cautiously climbed the bear, as if it would lash out at her any moment, and sat down securely on a space behind the black-haired young man. Roland followed, sitting down beside her with a grunt. He looked at the person in front of them, who’s shoulders were slumped.

“How did you… do this?” He said, and the young man in front of him jumped, as if being jolted awake from falling asleep.

He looked at the both of them blinking and spoke. “So you two assholes almost got me killed, so I guess an introduction is in order,” He laughed weakly. “My name’s Alen. Presumably necrophilic corpse-fondling necromancer,” Alen finished, and the bear began to climb the slope leading outwards, the cold dry air blowing into their faces as they surfaced.

Eilynn pulled out a vial full of red liquid from a bag strapped to her side and handed it to him. “Drink this potion. Draenys-made, so there’s a guarantee in quality and manufacturing.”

Alen drank the potion and groaned as the wounds on his side closed at a slow, but visible rate. He frowned and mumbled something under his breath. Roland looked behind them, staring at the dark forest with a frown. “Where are we headed?” He said.

“To my sex-dungeon full of big, burly, muscular orcs,” The young man said, and seeing that there was only silence behind him, he sighed. “Draenys. The city? Big walls. Watch towers go shoot-shoot.”

The warrior frowned. “Are you making fun of me?”

“I saved your lives and got you a ride on a ghoulbear. Cut me some fucking slack,” Alen shot back, the bear obediently stepping over a fallen tree as they moved in the direction of the city. Alen looked at the blue screen in front of him.

System Message!

Congratulations! You have continued on your path as a mage by improving a skill. Control Undead has changed into Dominate Undead. Improve the spell further to unlock a path that has never been tread before.

Roland sighed and leaned back against a bone-spur. “Are you part of the expedition?”

“No. Ghoulbears fuck me over enough. No way I’m going deeper into this place,” He distractedly said, yawning as he waved away the message.

Eilynn stood up and looked behind them, scanning the forest. “You said your name was Alen? You must be new to the city. Necromancers are rare and sought out in this part of the continent and people don’t usually ignore ones like you.”

“Are they as welcome everywhere else?”

“…No, fish-folk and Sun Elves hate your kind. It’s a slap in the face to their beliefs.”

He sighed. “Thought so. You guys are trainees of the expedition right? I knew I shouldn’t have joined. They’re basically sending you out to do shit on your own.”

“They teach us a few techniques to hunting the undead. No military in the continent does it better than Draenys’s, with the forest right beside it and all,” Eilynn said, leaning against a spur with a frown as the bear swayed lightly in its steps forward.

Alen opened his mouth to say something, but Roland raised his arm to stop him. “Eilynn, you hear that?”

“For a while now, yes,” She looked at the ground. It was shaking slightly. Behind them, the noise of a large group moving began to boom out louder.

Roland drew his sword and clenched it tightly, sweat forming on his nervous face as he glanced back from his seat as the seed of a realization bloomed in his mind. “This is not good.”

“What the fuck are you on?”

Eilynn pushed the sound of the two arguing to the back of her mind as she focused on the distance. The trees were shaking, and the ground was trembling. Alen in front of them frowned and looked back, grimacing from the pain of moving his body.

“What’s going on?” He said, squinting to see better in the dark.

The elf nocked an arrow and aimed. “Make the bear move faster.”

“What?”

Suddenly, zombie burst through the treeline, an arrow coated in a frosty aura pierced through its head and killed it. The roaring intensified as dozens of zombies and undead running on four legs ran out into their line of sight. Eilynn pushed Alen back into his seat with a pale face as she drew more arrows in a panic.

“Run, you fucking idiot!” She screamed. Roland scrambled up to position himself near their flanks. “Run!”

Alen sent a series of commands to his ghoulbear as a stream of curses left his mouth. “You don’t have to fucking tell me twice!” He nearly fell off as the bear exploded into motion, bounding over dead trees with jumps that made his stomach feel like it was sinking. It tore apart trees in the way, ramming into zombies and skeletons in its mad charge.

Behind him, Eilynn released arrows at an unexpected speed. Roland eyed the ghouls running on four legs that had caught up to them. They jumped, and he gritted his teeth, slamming his shield against a ghoul and knocking it back off the bear. It rolled past them on the ground, but more were coming. The warrior’s knees buckled when the bear bulldozed through a tree, slapping away the zombies that popped up in front of them.

He kicked off a zombie that managed to grab onto the bear, shouting back at the necromancer behind him. “Can’t you help us!?”

“Of course I can’t you dingus! My mana’s completely drained from taking over this motherfucker right here,” He motioned to the bear they were on. “Best I can do is make sure we don’t fall off, now stop whining and Spartan kick those zombies!”

“Spartan wha—!!” Roland stumbled as the bear suddenly turned, causing him to drop his shield. “Watch it!” He growled.

“Both of you shut up and focus on not getting us killed!” Eilynn reached for an arrow, but found that there were none. She drew a dagger from her waist and held it in a backhanded grip, stabbing through the throat of a ghoul slowly climbing through the ghoulbear’s matted fur. A rotten hand reached for her foot and snagged her, causing her to fall, barely holding on to a bone spur on the bear’s back as the screaming zombie was dragged across the ground behind her.

Roland sliced off the zombie’s arm and grunted as the bear leaped. He barely held on to the elf and one of the spikes of bone on the bear’s back, preventing both of them from falling off.

“Are you trying to get us killed!?” He screamed.

Alen held onto the bear’s fur, his face pale as he gritted his teeth and responded. “Unfortunately enough, no!”

They heard a familiar roar behind them as a ghoulbear bounded into view. It ran alongside their mount, just slightly behind. It lunged, tearing off a piece of flesh from their ghoulbear’s hind leg. Alen cursed and gathered the small bits of his newly regenerated mana to form a small Blightbolt. He aimed and tossed it back, getting lucky and landing it in the opposing bear’s eye. It howled and stumbled forward, falling and rolling away from their sight as they left it in the dust.

Roland smiled grimly. “Good shot.”

“I try,” Alen said, sweat pouring down his forehead at his forceful expenditure of mana. The pain was almost unbearable, as he continued to give the bear detailed commands on where to go.

Above them, giant bats dotted the sky and swooped in, their entire torsos splitting in half to reveal a giant mouth full of jagged teeth. Eilynn formed a knife of ice in her hand and threw it at the bat, slicing open its wing and causing it to fall to the ground. Dozens more followed, swooping in as three long tongues dripping with saliva extended from their bodies.

Alen abruptly turned the bear. “Hold on!” He said, going into a patch of the forest with thick trees and nearly causing the three of them to fall right off from the sudden movement.

The bats lessened in number due to the large amount of trees, the warrior and the elf behind him fending off the remainder of the bats still chasing them. Alen kicked at a skeleton trying to grab onto the bear, too desperate to find its weird fall amusing.

He felt rows of teeth pierce his arm as a bat bit him. He felt the tongues digging into his wounds and screamed, grabbing it by the face with his other hand and squeezing as he forced out more of the regenerating mana from his body, making the bat screech and fly off as part of its face suffered from the black, dead tissue caused by Alen’s mana. His eyes began to close, but a slap from Roland kept him awake.

“Fall asleep now and we all die! Keep… going!” The warrior roared as he blocked a bat that was trying to bite at his neck with his arm. Its teeth sunk into his flesh and he drove his sword into its opened torso, killing it. Alen felt his eyes watering from the sheer pain in his head, causing his vision to blur. The white streaks in his black hair increased as he forced his mind to keep sending orders into the bear’s head. He hit his head against a bone spur as they left the boundary of the forest, abruptly going downhill as a tsunami of undead surged out from behind them.

Eilynn sheathed her dagger and started hitting the last of the bats swooping down at them from the sky with her bow, using it like a bat to knock them away. She had cuts and marks all over her body as well, the onslaught of undead continuing as bats began to chew away even at Alen’s ghoulbear.

In front of them, watchtowers shot down crossbow bolts from the above as the men on the walls shot flaming arrow after flaming arrow at the horde below. Magic colored the sky in the hues of various spells as mages destroyed the flying undead. A ray of light would occasionally drop down from cannons mounted on the walls, causing explosions and killing dozens of undead. Alen turned the bear and made it run at a part of the wall that was yet to be sieged by the dead. Roland pulled out a crystal from his pocket and infused mana into it, causing a bright light to shine out as they approached the wall full of nervous soldiers.

Another light shone up from above, red this time, followed by three green flashes. The snow elf beside Roland cursed as she drank a health potion.

“No use getting closer to the wall, they aren’t letting us in,” She said, wincing as her wounds slowly closed underneath her barely functioning armor. Alen watched his mana slowly regenerate. It was at three percent.

“What the fuck? Why!?” He closed his status screen and glared up at the guards on the wall. Roland grinded his teeth beside him and strained out an answer.

“It’s too late. They don’t want to risk opening the gates during an attack and want us to use the emergency entrances hidden around the city instead,” The warrior’s expression turned dark as he stared at the approaching horde of undead behind them as their mount raced along the side of the wall. “Entrance B3 is left un-manned during emergencies, and we won’t be able to hold out long enough in the passage leading to it for a guard to open the barrier and let us in.”

Alen gripped his left hand tightly, pressing his thumb against the scar on his palm. “Where is this entrance?”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said? We’re better off charging into the horde and hoping the guards on the wall provide us enough support to get out alive.”

Eilynn slung her bow over her shoulder unsteadily as the bear bounded forward. “It’s up ahead from here Alen. Keep following the wall.”

Roland frowned. “We’re really doing this?”

“We don’t have much of a choice,” The elf shrugged, drawing her dagger and looking up at the night sky above them that was full of devastating magical lights, protecting them from further attacks from the maneater bats.

“For what it’s worth,” Alen forced out a laugh as he patted the ghoulbear’s head. “I’ll at least thank you guys for giving me the chance to dominate one of these fuckers before I die off tonight.”

“I’d thank you for saving us a while ago, but you’ve nearly gotten us killed enough times to cancel that out,” The elf replied, a grim smile on her face as even the warrior beside her twisted his lips a little. The next few minutes were silent, as the areas they previously passed were flooded with the dead, their pace steady as the bombardment from above slowed the dead enough to be unable to catch up to them. That would be ending very soon though.

Roland pointed at a large flat rock ahead and told Alen to have his ghoulbear tip it over. Below it was a wide set of stairs leading downward created to hold a large amount of evacuating civilians and retreating soldiers. Without hesitation, they quickly entered the hole, the large booms of battle ringing out from behind them.

It was a fairly long passage, but with the speed of their mount, they were able to reach the end in a matter of minutes.

They found a stone door by the end. The warrior pulled a lever and the door slid to the side, but in front of them now was a glowing yellow barrier. It was transparent, and the clean basement-looking room on the other side seeming to taunt them. With a grunt, Alen got off the bear and the two followed. They called out to the other side of the barrier, but no response was heard.

Alen frowned, his eyelids feeling heavier by the second as waves of fatigue rolled across his body. “How the hell do we get in with this barrier in the way?”

Eilynn sat down and started creating more ice-arrows with her magic. “There’s a lever on the other side that makes the barrier disappear, but I’m guessing they’ll only be using the button that lowers it for a second to let us in. Until someone gets here, we have to focus on not getting killed.”

Alen groaned, sending the ghoulbear forward using one of the two strings of mana attached to him. It would act as their vanguard for as long as it could.

He leaned on the barrier and watched his mana slowly regenerate. “Everything’s going to be alright,” He muttered.

“What?”

“I’m calling flags on purpose before any of you fags can do it. Since I’m aware that they’re a thing, I’m trying to like, counter-raise the flags so we come out alive. It’s like reverse psychology, but with flags.”

The warrior raised an eyebrow as he secured the iron plates on his leather armor. “I don’t know what you’re saying, but it’s good to have hope. We’ll get out of this.”

Alen let out an exasperated sigh. “You aren’t supposed to be doing it, dumbass. It’s counter-intuitive. It’s like painting a target on your forehead. You’re probably going to die in some heroic death a few minutes from now, sacrificing your life to save your damsel in distress.”

Eilynn grinned as she stood up and dusted off her pants. “Make that two damsels.”

Alen nodded. “Yes. Make that two damsels.”

The warrior in front of them was about to refute that he’d be the first to enter the barrier, but the sounds of feet and claws rapidly tapping against stone floor stopped his reply. Dark expressions made its way into their faces.

“They’re coming,” Roland said.

“Yup,” The elf nodded and reached for an arrow of ice she’d created and stored in her quiver. “Here comes round two.”

Alen looked at his mana that was at twelve percent and sighed. “Please count me out.”

“We unfortunately don’t have a choice,” Roland muttered.

The ghoulbear crunched the torso of a zombie in its mouth, slapping a ghoul into a group of undead farther in the back. Another ghoul jumped onto the bear and tore out strips of the flesh on its front side. Beside the bear, Roland desperately swung his sword at the seemingly endless horde of zombies and skeletons charging towards them. An arrow zipped past his shoulder and hit the face of a ghoul that was about to hit him. The bastards were much faster than the zombies, and Roland was extremely thankful for the help he received from the elf. Taking the opportunity, he cut off the ghoul’s head and retreated a step to give himself breathing room.

Undead surged forward, and Alen directed his bear to block the way. It was slowly being worn away. It wouldn’t be long until it died at the rate of which the undead were tearing it apart.

Slowly, they were pushed back, and Alen found himself borrowing Eilynn’s dagger to help against fighting the undead. He was so unskilled it was painful, but with the state of his mana, he didn’t have much of a choice. The wound on his left arm he’d received from a ghoul a while ago was slowing him down as well. His ghoulbear continued to beat against the undead as they were slowly pressed closer to the wall.

Alen cursed. Shit, why were the guards still not here? The barrier should’ve opened by now. They were going to get killed at this rate.

A zombie managed to land a hit against Roland, causing him to stumble and suffer a leg wound from a skeleton that lunged at him. He crushed its skull with the pommel of his sword and grunted as he stabbed his sword into the body of the zombie that hit him.

Eileen shouted out from behind them. “Fourteen arrows left!”

Alen’s ghoulbear lost the ability to move its left front leg as a strike from a ghoul’s sharp lacerated claws severed an important muscle that let it move. A zombie bit at its neck, and skeletons began to climb it.

What were those soldiers doing? Fuck, was the attack that bad? He gathered his mana and casted empowerment on the ghoulbear again, making this one last for three minutes. He didn’t let his mana dip below five percent. He felt that if he let it hit rock bottom another time, his consciousness wouldn’t be able to hold out. Pain was stabbing into his head as-is, feeling like hammers banging against the back of his eyes.

The bear moved forward, bulldozing through a large group of undead as it tore into the rotting flesh of its kin. A cut tore open its stomach, causing its decaying black intestines to hang out and drag across the ground.

A hand stabbed into its eye and it roared, its movements slowing.

Alen had it fall back, but it was already too late. The bear had been fighting for too long. It collapsed on the ground in front of them, dead. It served as a blockade for the undead like a funnel, but it wasn’t enough. Alen watched as one of the two strings of mana connected to him disappeared.

Wait.

Two strings?

His face suddenly lit up as he remembered the one undead he’d left in the city this morning. His chicken!

Hurriedly transmitting a command to it, Alen made it start moving towards his direction. All he had to do was hold out for a bit longer. He couldn’t believe he didn’t notice the string a while ago. He was too panicked. It was something that’d get him killed one day. He stood behind Roland and covered for any undead that tried to flank him. It was shabby, but it bought them more time. Two arrows flew past them and killed three zombies, one arrow managing to pierce one and kill two.

A ghoul slipped in and tore at his shoulder before Roland managed to kill it. He fell back and his back thumped against the barrier, his torso bleeding profusely. Eilynn tried to cover, but there were too many undead. Roland’s injuries continued to pile up. Eventually, he even lost his sword when it got stuck inside a zombie’s corpse. Alen weakly gave him his knife and drank a health potion Lynn had lent him before the fight. He felt his wounds close, sucking in air at the sharp sting that greeted his senses.

He felt the string of mana connected to him getting closer. The chicken wasn’t far. It was getting closer.

Roland was tackled to the ground, dropping his knife as Alen managed to kick the skeleton off. The warrior nodded at him and slammed the skeleton’s head against the ground. It took him two hits to kill it this time. He was starting to weaken.

Alen felt the thread. Closer, closer.

A ghoul ran past Roland and dug its claws into Lynn’s stomach, causing her to cough up blood as she stabbed the undead in the face with one of her arrows. She gulped a potion and fired her last three arrows, buying Roland enough time to get back on his feet.

Alen charged in and stabbed a zombie in the chest with Eilynn’s dagger. It didn’t die, and the zombie’s nails raked through his back before he could stab through its spine.

Eilynn grabbed the dagger from his as he fell back, assisting Roland in melee combat as they tried their hardest to fend off the undead. Expressions of desperation filled their faces, and their bodies felt like they were dropped into a cauldron full of boiling water. Aches, wounds, and fatigue continued to pile up. They were pushed farther back. Their backs were to the barrier now. Nowhere to run, nowhere to maneuver .

The warrior laughed as blood dripped from his wounds. “Guess you were right, Alen,” he said, punching a zombie and pushing it back. “I’m feeling plenty… ugh, heroic.”

Lynn suffered a deep wound across her torso, the ghoul’s claws shredding her armor as she let out a pained cry. Gritting her teeth, she pulled it in and drove her knife up its skull. Her body began to sag. “Save that… for when you manage to get us out of here,” She said, her eyes drooping from exhaustion.

The elf’s knife dropped to the floor, and she fell back. Instead of hitting the barrier, she kept falling, until she hit the floor, the air getting knocked out of her lungs.

Beside her, she felt another body fall to the ground beside her. It was Roland.

Her vision was blurry, and she couldn’t see properly. In front of her, she saw someone staggering forward before falling down and supporting himself against a table beside him. Beside him stood the form of something white and thin. Like a skeleton. Was that… a chicken?

Lynn heard his words as she slowly lost consciousness.

“I am so fucking.. awesome…” Alen said, falling from the table and collapsing on the ground as the skeletal chicken looked down at him. Alen never felt so thankful towards a chicken in his entire life.

His blurry vision picked up the men in armor entering the room in a hurry, kneeling over the two new people he’d met today. They really looked like shit right now. Alen laughed, but it came out as dry wheezing instead. It hurt. Alen’s eyes slowly closed as well, blankness filling his thoughts as his mind went to somewhere else as he spared a final glance at the message that told him he had passed a threshold.

He definitely deserved to fuck off and be lazy tomorrow.

Yeah. That’s what he would do.