Nelson winced as his collar rubbed against his sunburn. He’d been in Bermuda for two-weeks after his boss had finally given him some time off. After a long vacation spent drinking things with umbrellas in them and admiring long brown legs he was feeling significantly better.

He knocked lightly on the door in front of him silently admiring the golden CEO nameplate while he waited for his boss to answer. . A few seconds later a “Come in” came from behind the door and he walked in. An impeccably dressed blond man sat behind his massive desk with steepled fingers.

“Nelson You look like a lobster. I’m fairly certain people with your complexion are supposed to wear sunscreen.” The CEO said as he took in Nelson’s prolific sunburn.

Nelson raised an eyebrow. The boss was actually in a joking mood. That was a rarity. Wasting no time he pulled out the folder he was carrying and handed it over with a smile.

“Good to be back sir. Marketing has given me the latest numbers. Pre-orders are up another 20% and the board is wondering about subcontracting system production. There are now 350,000 players in Otherworld with another 10,000 accounts a day being created. We just can’t keep up with demand. We’ve got over 500,000 thousand pre-orders with no-way to fill them.” The scientist said as his boss read the reports.

“Well, we knew that going in. But we aren't shipping the plans for the Mark 3 oversees until we absolutely have to. We’ll be up to our eyeballs in knock-offs within the month.” The CEO said scowling. “Is there any domestic company that can handle that much demand?” He asked as he flipped through more pages.

“No, not that isn’t already under contract with someone else.” Nelson replied.

“What are we looking at if we dumped money into our own production?” The boss asked curiously as he sat the reports down and met Nelson’s eyes.

“I’d have to check the numbers to be sure but at least 10 million and it would be months before we could start production..”

The CEO sighed again. “Why is it you never have good news?”

“Because that’s my job…. “ Nelson replied with a self-deprecating chuckle.

“Alright, In a month we’ll contract to china. Then we open up an Asia server cluster. We should have the volume by then.” The boss said making a decision.

“Yessir.” Nelson replied while he made notes with his smart-phone.

He typed away for a moment then looked up with a grimace. “Speaking of bad-news III says he needs more people.” Nelson prepared for the storm his announcement was going to cause but there was no avoiding it.

“You just told me there are 350,000 thousand players. How could he possibly need more?” The CEO asked stunned.

“He said it’s not the same. People act differently when they know they are in game. Without more realistic data he won't be able to produce more NPC’s for the areas outside the Ten Kingdoms. We’ve already had a few people exploring the border areas and within a few weeks we’ll have over 10% of the population ready to leave the starter zone. Add the new Asia cluster to that and he’ll be even more behind.” Nelson explained.

“ So he wants me to kidnap more people….” The boss said shaking his head. “We had to bribe, blackmail, and kidnap more than ten thousand people for the first test. You know how hard it is to get-away with something like that in the middle of America!? I’m surprised the FBI hasn’t already kicked down the front door and arrested us all.”The CEO said shaking his head in disgust. “We managed to dodge a bullet the first time around and now he wants us to try again?”

“I’m just the messenger. He said we’ve got two weeks before he has to start duplicating NPC’s or lowering their functions. Oh and he said when you get the next batch these players absolutely have to be in it.” Nelson said as he slid a list of a dozen names onto the CEO’s desk.

The CEO examined the list critically then scowled. “How are these people going to help? They are already playing. Didn’t you just say he needed people who didn’t know they were in game?”

“Ask III if you wanna know. Although good luck prying out anything useful.” Nelson said as he put his phone back in his pocket.

“Alright, I we’ll start making plans then.” The CEO replied unhappily.

************************************************************************************

“Group of eight, six seconds” MoProblems yelled as he raced into the alley where the two girls and I were waiting for him.”

I flexed my magic and a stone wall rumbled upward sealing the mouth of the alley except for a small gap about three feet wide.” I stood on the other side of that gap clad in legionnaire's armor and armed with my giant bronze hammer.

A few seconds later a skeleton rounded the corner and pushed through the gap attacking me with mindless hate. I retreated a step drawing the skeleton after me and into the alley but making sure it’s body still plugged the hole. Jasmine’s axes swept in from the side as we pinned the skeleton between the two of us and the alley wall. It’s position both blocked it’s retreat and formed the plug of our bottleneck. The skeleton quickly fell to Jasmine’s axes and another skeleton immediately came forward walking into the exact same trap.

It fell to a blow from my hammer and a third skeleton pushed through the gap and into the meat grinder. One of the remaining enemies must have found a foothold outside because suddenly a skeleton appeared overtop of my earth wall as it attempted to climb over. A flash of light appeared behind us and a chuck of ice collided with it knocking it back down and into the frantic undead on the other side of the wall. .

The fourth skeleton gave up all pretense of attack and barreled into me as it attempted to push me from the gap and let it’s fellows through. It was a futile effort. I’d met plenty of things that could outrun me in the game, and a few things that could outfight me, but I’d only ever encountered one enemy that could move me if I did not wish to be moved.

Instead of stepping back to take its charge like it wanted I just stood there like a stone wall. It crashed into me, barely making me shift my weight. I wrapped a stone gauntleted hand around it’s exposed spine and pulled it tight against me. The motion completely immobilized it while jasmine ruthlessly hacked it to pieces. Her strikes may have come a touch closer to my face than was necessary but I didn’t press the issue.

The battle proceeded without incident and as the last skeleton died I stopped channeling mana to keep the wall up. It slid down with a rumble and left us in the alley mouth standing over a pile of vanishing bones. A few second later all that remained was a decent sized pile of coins.

Things had gone much better for us after we’d had our little spat and changed tactics. At first things had been a little shaky but now the group ran like clockwork . All the high-level mob kills had leveled everyone up quite a bit and the loot drops had gotten progressively richer as we continued our exploration.

I was most interested in the skill gains and attribute bonuses I was gaining. I used my magic constantly down here. Casting buffs, creating the walls for our traps or just wasting my mana while we were taking breaks. The only thing that would have made it better was a good ore-vein or Jasmine attacking me in another fit of lust .

The success we were having had lightened the mood considerably. Jasmine had even started to act like a reasonable human being. She would laugh and joke with the the rest of the group. Her snark and crude humor contrasted with Meredith's dry wit and it made the run pretty enjoyable.

With me she was still angry and short-tempered but I think even she knew she was being unreasonable at this point. I was just giving her distance. I did like her, despite her shitty attitude, and I was willing to let her work out her own issues. At least I wasn’t willing to burn a bridge over a few punches. If I was in this game for the long haul I’d need allies and for all her issues the girl could fight.

We traveled for another hour and fought a few more times. Even the powered up skeletons couldn’t fight us well one at a time. We continued leisurely chatting, occasionally fighting, and sucking in the loot. We’d hadn’t found anything too interesting but the gold alone was adding up nicely and the new crafting drops we found were all uncommon. By the time we got our of here all of us would be quite wealthy.

The street we’d been traveling down suddenly ended, changing into a wide circular market area that was free of buildings. The area was terraced and descended downward in three large rings each smaller than the one above it. At the bottom was a flat circular area that seemed to be a single slab of white marble thirty feet wide. In the center sat a large statue of a winged woman. She wore a toga and luxurious curls fell down over her shoulders. The entire thing was sculpted with masterful detail.

The woman held a large platter in her outstretched arms and a large silver chest sat on top of the platter. I groaned inwardly as I saw the statue. It was fairly obvious who it was. The statue was as haughty and awe inspiring as the reality and the artist had even captured Baria’s smirk. The one that seemed to say her thoughts were so subtle and profound that morals couldn’t even fathom them.

“Absolutely astounding” Meredith said as she started to walk into the market. I put out a hand to stop her. There was no way we were going in there yet. I’d never seen anything that was so obviously a trap in my life.

“Whooooooaaaaaa, Hold up. There is no way this isn’t a trap or a boss fight. We need to rest up before we go down there.” I said. The one thing we were lacking in our party was a thief or rogue. Any traps we found we’d have to deal with the hard way.

“We shouldn’t be to the boss yet, right?” MoProblems asked as he walked up beside me to examine the market. He was squinting through his glasses and clutched his mage-orb tightly in one hand. He’d leveled up again and had made it to eleven, giving him even more mana. He’d be quite terrifying once he learned some more spells.

“Might be more than one in here. I’ve only been in a dungeon one time and it wasn’t anything like this one.” I said shrugging. “Anyway, let’s all take a break for an hour or so then see what’s in that chest.”

There were a few mumbles of accent then group split up and most of them logged out. I hopped back to the RL for a sandwich then immediately rushed back so I could practice magic while everyone was away.

Training for an hour in here was equal to eight-four minutes outside and every second let me gain an miniscule edge on the competition. The problem with my skill gains was an obvious one. When I’d been captured I’d gotten a vague idea of how long it really took to train up your skills. Doing a difficult exercise to the point I was actually hurting myself had still taken hours to gain a single level. Each rank-up increased that time exponentially. In order to break through to beginner rank in fire magic I’d need to spend three entire days down here doing nothing but training. I wasn’t sure if the scale was going to stay consistent but if it did, by my calculations, it would take a normal person roughly seven to ten years to train a skill to legendary rank. Even with my 40% boost that was still a LONG time.

In order to offset that a bit you could also discover a new uses for a power or skill and gain a large experience boost. When MoProblems and I cast that ridiculous barrier it had almost killed me but at the same time I’d gotten rewarded with almost two weeks worth of average skill training in a single hour. Granted, I’d gone blind for 12 hours afterwards but even so I’d still come out way in the black. Had I done the same thing now that bonus would have been increased by 40%. So what I needed to do was to think up some interesting uses for my magic while I was down here so I could reap maximum benefit from it.

The biggest problem with my fire magic was that it wasn’t terribly useful in battle against skeletons. I was getting better at compacting my mana and my increased resonance score gave me a larger mana pool. However, all I could really do with it was summon a gout of flame or unleash my mana in a stream to make a flame-thrower.

I could also use my flash-bang skill but that took way too much mana and the explosion was way too big. The other problem was I didn’t really know how I had done it. It was an accident caused by me screwing up another spell in the heat of battle. I’d named the skill so i could just use it now by calling it’s name, but I didn’t really understand how or why it did what it did.

Against the lowbies in the sewers with low hp and no defense my flames had been a terrifying weapon but against these skeletons it wasn’t useful. Skeletons just didn’t care if they were on fire. Bones didn’t burn.

What I needed was to create my flash-bang effect more efficiently and with more explosive power. After all flame didn’t hurt a skeleton but if I could create an explosion the blunt force of it would be effective. I sat at the entrance to the market while I pondered.

How to make an explosion………..

My mana was effectively fuel but it wasn’t really explosive. It more like motor oil. It burned hot enough, but it didn’t really blow up. If you wanted to make a non explosive fuel into an explosive one you generally needed to atomize it like gas fumes. What I really needed to change the fundamental nature of the fuel to be more explosive but I had no clue how to even sort of attempt something like that. Atomisation was a cheap substitute and one I should be able to manage. So how to condense my mana enough to be useful fuel but at the same time diffuse enough to explode?

I pulled ten mana from my core and compacted it. Then, frowning, I made a mental effort and chopped it in half. Then I moved the halves away from each other, still exerting the compacting force on them. The I chopped those halves in half again, and again until I was mentally controlling sixteen small pieces of mana.

Sweat dripped from my brow and my head pounded as the strain of trying to keep sixteen chunks of mana compacted all at once strained my brain. I converted the mana into fire magic and pushed it out in front of me. It was in an area about the size of a bowling ball and I found that once It left my body I could move the small cloud without much trouble while still maintaining it’s shape. Curious to see the results I ignited it.

FFFFFFFFump

I could see the fire quickly burn through all the mana. The fire twinkled as it burned all the individual mana chunks. It was an improvement from normal but it wasn’t really explosive. So I pulled 10 more mana and chopped it into sixty-four pieces and tried again. That made my nose start to bleed, but I gritted my teeth and endured.

WHUMP

The next test was even better. The mana burnt in a flash and I could no longer distinguish the individual pieces of mana. Definitely closer to what I was going for and a useful attack against anything alive but not nearly powerful enough to do any damage to a Skeleton. I was at my limit for what I could try for now. I’d have to to some more experimenting when I improved my skills more.

Blip

Ba-Ding

A green flash lit the street and I grinned as my testing paid dividends.

“What was that?” Meredith asked from beside me. I’d been deep in concentration and hadn’t noticed anyone was back yet.

“My fire sub-skill leveled to beginner rank.” I told her.

“How is that even possible. Even if you played all day every day it should still take weeks before you hit beginner rank.” I frowned. I hadn’t actually told the girls I was a beta tester so I could understand her confusion. Although, I was surprised MoProblems hadn’t said anything.

“I was in the beta test.” I said shrugging. ”I’ve got like six skills at beginner rank.” Meredith frowned slightly in thought and I used the time to inspect the pop-up that had been obscuring my vision.

Fire Sub-Skill has Reached Beginner Rank. New Skill Unlocked Dragon’s Breath

A breath attack that costs a portion of the user's life

A dragon's breath is infused with it’s own heart’s blood. Although most blood is a poor substitute for a dragon’s, the technique can be replicated for lesser results.

Rank: Novice I

Cost: 10% of Max HP/Sec, Variable Mana

Activation: Channel

Damage: Variable

An magical attack that boosts damage and costs HP. That was a typical fire-magic move. I was very tempted to try it out but the others would be back soon and I needed to regain the mana I wasted before we moved on. I quickly meditated and soon the other were back and ready to go.

“You guys ready?” I asked as the four of us once more stood on the edge of the market.

“Yes, I believe we have sufficiently prepared. Let us see what great tribulation awaits us.” Meredith said from beside me. The girl walked into the market and looked around her. Obviously waiting for something terrible to happen.

The rest of us followed cautiously our eyes peeled and looking for traps or monsters. We didn’t find anything. We continued down until we stood next to the statue. We were all tense but our curiosity was rapidly overcoming our caution. I bent down and inspected a bronze plaque at the base of the statue.

Above Man are Gods.

Above Gods are the Three

Above Cities and Kingdoms is H’ern

“How humble.” I grunted with a sarcastic chuckle. The merchants of H’ern must have been an arrogant lot. Even centuries later this whole place oozed opulence.

The four of us stood there for a few minutes jumping at the slightest sound before the tense atmosphere broke into a comical one.

“Well, this is exciting.” Jasmine said as she started to twirl her axes nonchalantly. “I’m really feeling the danger here.”

“Well, if your confidant why don’t you grab that treasure chest.” I shot back at her. Instead of replying to my bait she just reached up and grabbed the silver chest. Then the trap sprung and all all hell broke loose.

A blinding blue light shot into the sky from the top of the statue and slammed into the ceiling above. The power flowed outwards then fell from the ceiling in a circular curtain around the top-most ring of the market.

“And now we’re trapped.” Moproblems said sullenly.

“Wait for it….” I said as I held up a finger. “Alright, bets on the boss. Hurry up before it gets here. I’m putting three gold on a Zombie Minotaur.”

“I’m going with giant spider.” MoProblems said from beside me as his mage orb started to glow.

“Unlikely, We’ve yet to see a spider. Most bosses are thematically tied with the dungeon. In our case I would guess a lich or zombie horde.” Meredith replied with her usual coolness. Although her grip on her wooden staff was making her knuckles white.

Then a great chorus of low-moans rose around us. The sound echoed off the hard stone and the nose grew to deafening volume. Then the zombies arrived. They poured in from the three main streets to the market. Not a dozen or twenty but an endless wave hundreds strong.

Well…. Shit….

“I hate it when your right.” Jasmine muttered towards Meredith as she quickly re-sheathed her axes and withdrew her lute. The same lively tune started to play and my body filled with excited energy making me bounce from foot to foot to the rhythm of the song.

Then the first zombies entered the market and started towards us with stumbling uneven gates.

“Jasmine Left side. I’ll take right. Mo you guard the rear and protect the healer. See if you can kite them a bit. If we can pack them together enough we should be able to unleash some pain.” I said as I pulled the hammer from my back and activated both of my passive abilities.

I walked to the nearest zombie and gave it a heavy swat with my hammer. The motion was casual but with my witchcraft buff and new skill my strength had risen to nearly superhuman levels. The zombie flew backwards into the rest of the horde and left a pile and tangled bodies and grasping limbs. I took full advantage and hurled a gout of flame into the churning mass.

I didn’t have to hold it long before the mass of zombies was a charred ruin. These enemies were obviously much weaker than the ones we had been fighting but their numbers were massive. I didn’t charge into the fray but instead did my best to hold the line. Every attack was a kill but their numbers were simply too huge and soon I was backing towards the middle of the market while swinging in wide arcs. The attacks helped push back the mob a bit but the damage was adding up.

Blows rained down on me constantly and even with my armor and defence I was still getting beat to hell. Attacks came from every direction and even though they were slow and clumsy the sheer volume was making up for their lack of individual effectiveness. It only took a few minutes of fighting before the situation got desperate.

“Whirlwind Kick!” I shouted as a half-dozen zombies lunged forward at once. I leapt into the air agile as a bird and lashed out with a spinning kick that trailed blue energy. The zombies near me were knocked back into their horde mates and I jumped at the opportunity.

I then activated my newest ability. Suddenly my chest felt like someone had stuck a vacuum down my throat. A strong suction seemed to fill my chest trying to devour everything inside me. My lungs seemed to be starved for air and I reflexively inhaled. As I did I could feel both my mana and my life being sucked into the vortex along with the oxygen. I was scared for a moment before I used my will to send more of my mana into the sucking void. Hopefully the effects would be worthwhile. I wouldn’t get many more shots. My head started to swim as my lungs filled to capacity and I pointed my mouth somewhere in the direction of the massed undead in front of me and exhaled with a roar.

RAWWWWWWWWWRRRRR!

The roar that came out sounded nothing like a human’s shout. It was the roar of some massive beast and the sound echoed off the low ceiling and hard floor until it nearly deafened me. At the same time a cone of red and black fire shot from my mouth and poured onto the mass of zombies. It was a cone of flame fifteen feet long and ten feet wide. The temperature was hotter than anything I’d ever managed before. Dozens of zombies burned as I sent the flames slewing back and forth against the oncoming mob burning everything in front of me to cinders.

The attack was devastating. The area in front of me was devoid of anything except blackened stone and corpses of the newly re-dead. Black smoke rose in waves and the the smell of burnt flesh filled the air as I stumbled and to a knee. That attack had taken a lot out of me, both physically and mystically.

“Medic!” I shouted as I turned to see how the others were holding up. MoProblems was backing away from a stream of zombies. His orb glowed constantly and waves of white energy washed over the horde slowing the ones in front and causing them to fall back as more pushed forward. The boy seemed to be holding them back well enough but he wasn’t killing many of them. He still didn’t have a good finishing attack, instead he was buying time.

Jasmine on the other hand was having the exact opposite problem. Instead of giving ground she had charged forward into the middle of the horde on her side. She was surrounded on all sides and I could only catch glimpses of her in the surrounding mass of bodies. Her eyes glowed a demonic red and she must have been using some dual-wield skill because her axes left silver trails as she spun and hacked at anything that came close. Chucks of zombie and congealed black blood flew in all directions as she cut them apart.

Blood dripped from numerous cuts and she took more wounds while I watched. Instead of slowing her down however, the injuries seemed only to enrage her further and the red glow from her eyes grew stronger as she fought. She had to be holding on by a thread. Meredith had given up all pretense of mana conservation and a think green rope of power extended from her staff and connected to Jasmine. Jasmine’s skin grew back together even as new cuts opened.

The healing rope flicked and weakened as Meredith stumbled. She was the lowest level of any of us and that kind of constant healing had to be brutal. She pulled a light-blue potion from her pack and drank it. A wash of pale-blue light covered her for a moment and she straightened gritted her teeth. The healing beam became more stable again and Jasmine fought on oblivious.

Our healer seemed to have her hands full so I was on my own for now. I didn’t have any healing potions but I grabbed some roots with healing properties out of my pack and stuffed them into my lip like a dip of chew. It wouldn’t heal too much and it tasted awful but things were desperate. Meredith wouldn’t be able to keep that up for more than another minute.

I forced myself back to my feet just as the next wave of zombies made it to me. I caught the closest one with an uppercut sending reeling then reversed the swing and brought the hammer down on top of another, crushing it instantly. I looked out over the churning mass and noticed that the zombies had stopped coming from outside. That left me fighting a good three dozen but the reinforcements had at least stopped.

I glanced over a shoulder as I fought trying to get a sense of the numbers. Jasmine seemed to be about even with me, or a little ahead. MoProblems however hadn’t killed many and was just kiting them with his ice. He still had almost a hundred chasing him. There was no way we could win unless I helped him.

“MO! Do you have a real spell for this yet!” I yelled over the moans and cries of the undead horde. I turned back to my fight so I didn’t see him answer but his reedy voice carried well enough.

“Uhhh…. Hopefully but I haven't actually tried it yet!” He replied as I smashed another three zombies and took a heavy wound to my shoulder.

Gonna have to be good enough……

“Meredith! Grab that dark blue pot we got from the chest and throw it to MoProblems. Mo kite them towards me and ready your spell. When I give the word use your spell then throw a fire spell right afterwards!”

“But my fire spell is only two runes! What the hell is that gonna do?” He called out clearly confused.”

“JUST DO IT!” I yelled as a zombie nearly slit my throat with its black fingernails.

I backed in the general direction of MoProblems as I fought hoping my plan would work. I’d accumulated even more injuries and was getting to the end of my rope. The zombies had worn me out and I only had about fourty hp left. Hopefully it would be enough for one last effort.

I heard more zombies behind me. Letting me know MoProblems had brought his horde this direction. I let them close then then abruptly turned and charged past MoProblems at an angle causing my zombies to chase me into the middle of MoProblem’s zombies.

I fought like a cornered demon while I was in the center of both groups. I spun and lashed out in every direction, trying to survive the few seconds I’d need. While I fought I started pushing out all my remaining mana into the area. I didn’t shape it at all. Instead just used as much of it out as I could. I weakened even further as the mana left me, then deactivated my Geomancer skills so I could spend everything I had left at once.

I fought toward the edge of the horde as my legs started to wobble. Then crashed into one of the zombies at the edge of the mass and we both tumbled out into the open.

“Now…..” I croaked as loudly as I could. I didn’t have enough strength left to even dis-lodge the zombie that had fallen on top of me.

“Tirg Na Cry Et Yon Na!” MoProblems shouted from somewhere to my left. I could only watch as the air above the zombie horde transformed into thick billowing mist. The mist started to swirl, slowly funneling towards the center of the horde a good ten feet off the ground. In the middle of the vortex the mist started to congeal and as more and more mist was sucked in a small circular ball began to form. The ball grew rapidly and soon the mist was gone leaving a massive spiked ball a good six feet wide hovering above the zombies. Then as if finally giving up its fight against gravity the ball plummeted down onto the churning mob.

There was a flash a blue-white power as the orb hit the ground and freezing air and icicles shot in every direction with incredible force. The zombies nearest MoProblem’s ice bomb were simply ripped apart by ice-spikes the size of swords while the ones slightly further away were frozen completely by sub-zero air. Even so his most powerful spell had only accounted for fifty or sixty kills. Under normal circumstances that would be astounding but now that counted for less than half of the zombies still remaining on this side of the market. The rest would be up to me.

What I’d done had been a fairly simple exercise. The easiest one in fact. I’d just let my mana accumulate in one giant ball, every last drop of power I had. No one else could see it but to me this side of the market glowed with red power. Dense fire magic covered this half of the square like a giant cloud of hydrogen. Just waiting for the smallest spark.

“Et Saa!” MoProblems said weakly. His spell must of nearly dried him up but he’d followed orders. My eyes became even heavier and I gave up the fight and fell down into darkness. I didn’t see what happened next but I could feel the heat of the resulting conflagration even from my dreams.

**********************************************************

A sharp pain in my ribs woke me. I opened my eyes in time to see a leather clad leg kick me lightly in my obviously broken ribs. Another bolt of pain shot through me as an exasperated voice spoke up from out of my vision.

“Would you stop kicking him already? He’s covered in wounds and burns and he nearly died.” After a few seconds of processing I recognized the voice as Meredith’s. I would have turned to look but I hurt everywhere.

“He leveled up. His HP is completely healed he’ll be fine.” A deeper feminine voice spoke up from directly above me.

“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Stop being childish.” Meredith responded, exasperated.

“PPPFFFFT, I could break a rock over his thick skull and the moron wouldn’t even feel it.” Jasmine said as she kicked me again.

“Psychology isn’t exactly my prefered area of study but people who have difficulty expressing their emotions often antagonize those whom they feel strongly for as a way of getting their attention.” Meredith responded coolly.

Jasmine stopped kicking me and I could hear her back away from me like I was a poison oak vine.

“Did we win?” I asked from my position on the floor. My voice came out in a dry croak and I was in no hurry to try and sit up.

“It was ugly but we won.” MoProblems said as he entered my field of view. After your fire burnt all the zombies on this side. I went over and helped Jasmine finish up. Meredith ended up unconscious as well but we all leveled up from the fight.

“What was in the chest?” I asked curiously. I gritted my teeth and reached for my pack. I needed to make a camp-fire if I was going to heal. Even so it would take me hours before I was ready to fight again.

“We were waiting on you to wake up.” Meredith said as I dug wood out of my pack and make a fire.

“Well lets see what the reward for fighting off about three hundred zombies is.” I said as I finally sat-up and used my pack as a back-brace. The motion made me wince but I gritted my teeth through the pain and exhaled heavily when I was finally situated.

Jasmine walked over carrying the chest before she sat it down in the middle of our little group. The lid opened without trouble revealing a pile of treasure. Gold and gems glittered in the felt lined box and Meredith quickly separated and divided everything up.

“We’ve got exactly one-hundred gold pieces that’s twenty-five each. Four gemstones is one each. Then there are two health potions and this jade box. She said as she pulled out the box and sat it next to me. I scooped it up and inspected it. It didn’t pop-up any item information so I fiddled with the clasp until it opened. Revealing a small pile of blue power.

Essence of Water

(Rare)Crafting Ingredient

Reagent

The Crystallized remains of a water elemental, this magic dust is filled with the power of water. It can serve a number of uses including acting as a catalyst for various types of magic or imbuing armor or weapons with water magic.

“What is it?” MoProblems asked from over my shoulder.

“Magic dust basically. It’s infused with water essence and can act as a reagent or crafting drop. Rare quality too, prolly worth at least a hundred gold. There can’t be more than two or three rare quality drops in the game yet.” I said as I closed the small box, making sure none of the dust got out.

“Hmmmmm” Meredith said as she tapped her chin. “I suppose we will have to acquire more items. We currently don’t have anything of sufficient value to split this with.”

“You do that.” I said with a groan. “I’m going to log now. I hurt everywhere. It’s almost mid-night anyway. We should pick this up tomorrow morning.”

“That works. Ten central?” Jasmine asked as she sheathed her axes and laid down next to the fire.

“Works for me” I said as I made my own bed and logged out. I was too sore to care at this point. I’d deal with it in the morning.

AN: Yes I am late again. Honestly at this point I'm happy just to get chapters out. I'll keep trying for once a week but things have been crazy lately.

Addendum:

Item Rarities / Color Key

Common

Uncommon

Rare

Magical

Attuned

Potent

Mystical

Mighty

Unique

Legendary

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