“We should salvage everything we can from the hotel room,” I say to Jeffrey, “Especially any cups. It will be difficult to get water around here, and some sort of containers and cloth is needed to acquire it.” I gave him a wry smile. “In order to get clean water, I pull up toxic sludge from the wynot infested creek and then cleanse and filter it to drink. I don’t want to imagine doing it without containers.”

Jeffrey gives me a solemn nod and organizes the salvage effort, while I thank God that he is here to keep the soldiers calm and orderly. Already the soldiers look at me like some sort of superhero and it's hard to interact with them. Especially Jones.

The poor guy seems to be hanging on my every word and keeps giving me hope-filled stares as if I was the only way to salvation.

…

I suppose it's a little true, without me, everybody else would be dead here already, but I don’t like it. Hopefully, we can get them all some powerful classes for themselves so they can stop worshiping me.

Jeffrey doesn’t look at me that way, but he knew me from the little time we spent together on earth. He has the most practical view out of everybody here.

The corporal isn’t so bad either, she mostly keeps quiet and stern, herding the privates around when needed like a sheep dog. However, when I finished healing her from the frostbite and restored her vision, I could see some of the tight control slipping.

Afterwords, she kept touching her face and hand as if it wasn’t real.

Frankly, I’m impressed that none of the soldiers have gone bananas over this situation yet. Jeffrey can be thanked for that I suppose, but having an ultimate fallback healer helps.

Jeffrey and I are convinced that a quick decisive battle is our best option to defeat the mage skeleton and escape here, the sooner the better.

The corporal’s class is interesting, but ultimately unimpressive for what we need at the moment. As we prepare to head out, I walk over to where the Corporal and Private O’hara were experimenting with the former’s skills.

“What about air, sir?” “Ohara asked excitedly, “Can you shoot little air blasts? How large of blasts?”

Duncan gritted her teeth and replied, “I am running out of mana, private. This is the last experiment for now.”

Lifting up her newly healed left hand the corporal's face contorted slightly in concentration. A second later a light blue glow emanated briefly from her hand, before a small “hrumph” noise sounded out. The foggy green mist wavered slightly in front of her hand, but otherwise nothing else changed. Duncan let out a sigh.

“Not very useful,” she said dryly, lowering her hand.

“But you could do it still?” O’hara replied, looking at the agitated green mist.

“Was it more difficult to do than a rock?” I asked, stepping forward.

Duncan nodded back, “Besides being in contact with whatever I want to accelerate, I also need to ‘visualize’ what I am shooting. Holding a rock is easy, because it's literally right there to look at. The air was harder to focus on.”

I nod and reply, “That makes sense. Learn anything else good?”

“Yeah!’ O’hara replied, rubbing his hands together. “Her aura extends about a meter around her. I’ve been chucking pebbles at her and depending on how large the rock or how fast it is going, she can turn them away before they hit her.”

“The faster and bigger the object is, the more effort it takes to deflect it,” I paraphrase. “Probably not very useful for now, we should probably stick to guns.”

“Yeah!” O’hara nods eagerly, Duncan apparently at ease letting us talk about her next to her, “But I thought of this, imagine what happens when she can accelerate herself upwards at a consistent and steady rate? Like, say 9.8 meters per second?”

I feel my pulse quicken at the man’s dream.

“She’ll be able to float. Or even fly!” I say, catching onto O’hara’s enthusiasm.

Damn! I want to be able to fly!

“Yes! I almost want to take the same class as her just to get it.”

“It would take a lot of control and mana..” I muse.

“I know, but eventually…” O’hara trailed off, a distant look in his eyes.

…

Dang! So cool!

I look over to Duncan, who was eyeing us both bemusedly.

“Get your heads out of the clouds, you two,” She butts in, “Don’t forget where we are. We’ll be getting out of here soon, there will not be time to ‘level up’ my abilities to get there anyway.”

O’hara gives me a quick look, “but we wouldn’t lose our abilities when we get back, right?”

I nod slowly, “No, but the only way I know of leveling up is by killing the creatures here. I doubt we’ll get anything from killing animals, or God forbid, people in our world. Keith and I were talking about it and we concluded there wasn’t any way of obtaining ‘experience’ on earth.”

O’hara deflated a bit but I could tell he was far from giving up..

Jeffrey and the crew had finished salvaging anything they thought they could use from the remains of the hotel room and so it was time to depart. Time for some hunting.

Keeping up with the cleansing everybody needed from the infections was doable, but annoying. Just breathing the air for more than five minutes was enough to infect anybody, but any contact with any objects on the landscape would also result in an immediate infection. Thus, I was constantly moving from person to person, cleansing and healing as needed, including myself. While my new regeneration rate was enough to keep steady, it was still an annoyance that kept me worried. It would mean the death of anybody if they got seperated from me for more than an hour.

Our first stop was the sludge creek so we could stock up on “water”. I noticed that while many of the features of the original instance were present, they had been geographically randomized, as if a random map generator had been used.

Needless to say, as the instance was still new and relatively small, it didn’t take long to find the creek.

Oh yay. I get to deal with the flying jellyfish monsters again.

“Okay, stay back while I gather the sludge,” I say, while easing forward with a refurbished coffee machine. “These things like to jump scare you and the first few times they melted my face off. I’m going to lure them and injure them and we’ll let you take turns killing them.”

I get solemn nods from two of the privates, and excited bug eyes and maniacal grin from O’hara and a stoic look from Jeffrey. Duncan was on look out behind, her shot gun out and ready to blast anything that would move.

I crept forward to the molasse river. Hand extended out. Despite dealing with the wynots for weeks, they still made me jump when they come flying out, I can never tell exactly where they would come from. Somehow, they always manage to surprise me.

I was able to get a nice large glop of the river sludge with the coffee reservoir before the wynot jumped out at me.

Thankfully, when I fell over with a yelp I didn’t spill the sludge all over myself or break it the container.

Not my most impressive moment in front of the soldiers, but to hell with that, these things are terrifying and as horrible as I remember. Squirming appendages, sharp death, gaping maw…

God awful!

I was able to swat it away and cripple the damn thing with a well placed cleanse. The blasted thing let loose that horrible screeching that they always do when wounded. At this point I would finish it off, but instead I looked over at the soldiers, all staring at the noisy horror with stricken expressions.

I grin and shout over the screaming urchin, “Who’s up?”

Surprisingly, O’hara deferred the chance at gaining a class, his face white. Neither of the two privates seemed eager either.

Smielnisk eyed the crippled creature, having a seizure on the ground and asked, “And you ate these things for over two weeks?”

“Come on,” I cooed over the impressive lung capacity of the wynot. “You will too, if we don’t hurry up. We aren’t even certain if this will even get you a class or not, it's just our theory. You might have to defeat the creature independently to get a class, who knows? Think about trying to tackle one of these things all by yourself.”

O’hara looked to get even more white, if possible. He mumbled, “I think I’d rather kill a zombie or something.”

“Come on!” I say again, losing my joviality. “We don’t have the leisure of doing that. Who’s up? We need to kill this thing before it attracts too much attention. And remember, the way you kill it might influence the type of class you get-”

The stand off suddenly ended when Jeffrey stepped forward and brutally stomped the wynot with his touch army boots. The sound got cut off with a sudden shriek, and then there was blessed silence once again.

And wynot guts, splattered over me and the Sergeant. That wasn’t nice, and it also sizzled slightly with acid.

“Stop dallying,” The Sergeant ordered, lifting up his boot from the mess he made, a steel glint in his eyes. “Kill the damned things and then we move on.”

The three privates were stunned into silence, shifting uneasily.

…

Impressive move.

After cleaning up the remnants of the acid and filtering the water to restock, I went hunting for more wynots, up and down the creek.

Jeffrey’s new class seemed to prove our theory that how the first kill is obtained effects the type of class gained. His new class was Striker, which seemed fitting considering his kill. The description was, “A close combat class that allows for enhancement of users body though mana usage. Skill usage limited to quantity of Mana available.” The two skills he got were lunge, a skill that shot him forward unnaturally, as well as strike, a skill that let him hit things… especially hard.

Not the type of class that I would have suggested he get, it seems even less helpful that Duncan’s kinetic mage class here, but, again, perhaps in the future it might have extraordinary capabilities. At least the class fits his personality.

O’hara was next up for his class and was extremely disappointed that his class didn’t grant him the ability to throw around the force of nature. He tried to be clever and kill his wynot by burning it to death with gun powder he scavenged from a grenade but all that got him was some sort of alchemical class.

“A crafter class?!” he shouted indignantly at the sky. His skills involved creating compounds out of… practically anything, using his skills to magically alter the way the ingredients interact with each other. It seemed to come with the knowledge of how to create several different ‘potions’, none of which had ingredients available or provided containers to keep the potions in. Altogether another class relatively useless for what we needed.

At least when we make it back to earth his class will give him opportunities unimaginable in pharmaceuticals or chemical engineering. Too bad the guy hated school.

We really wanted another class that could affect the wraiths though, so after O’hara got over his disappointment, we put our heads together to try to come up with a plan.

The problem was that we wanted to get supernatural powers from a kill that we can only use natural means to achieve. It felt like a catch 22.

Jeffrey was getting impatient though, so Smielnisk went next, simply blasting the next wynot and acquiring the Kinetic Sorcerer class like Duncan. I thought it was a waste, but Jeffrey was correct, we needed to get a move on.

The last Wynot was more difficult to find, the three new class users were exploring their abilities carefully while still on guard. The sun was showing that it was still early afternoon, but I knew that night came quickly here. Jeffrey and I both wanted to end this before night, we were not sure how well we would survive it.

I located the last Wynot and had Jones come up to finish it off, when inspiration struck me.

“Wait!” I said excitedly, all of us ignoring the wailing wynot.

“You think of something?” O’hara eagerly asked. Jeffrey just gave us a tired look.

“Yeah, Jones, Let me coat you in flare and let you kill it. That might be considered well?”

Jones gave me a wide eyed look and acquiesced, “If you think it will work.”

“Yeah!” O’hara said happily, then his face shifted, “Maybe… it's worth a shot at least. It can’t be worse than Alchemist.”

With the wynot screaming on the ground, I grabbed Private Jone’s shoulder and coated him with flare. I heard him breathe in suddenly, surprised at the sudden warmth, before giving me a nod.

“I never thanked you for healing me, or cleansing me of that curse,” he said softly to me.

Still keeping up the flare I him, I reply quickly, “You are welcome. Now kill this thing.”

But the Private does not hurry, he continues instead, “Whatever power i get from this, I want to be like you, to help and protect. God put you here for a reason, and I want to be part of that. I want to be able to destroy evil, wherever I see it.”

…

Okay...

Then taking the butt of his gun, also coated in flare, Jones reached out and smashed the wynot. It exploded in unnatural force and Jones flinched back, before giving me a tight smile.

“Well?” O’hara said, jumping up and down. “Did it work?”

“I think so,” Jones replied, looking out the group. His eyes unfocused, looking at his notification, “I got the class ‘Transient Ward’. The skills are Causality, and Ward.”

I give him a look of disbelief. In some ways, I guess I am not surprised, perhaps a correct mental state can also influence an initial class.

Somehow, the Private Jones looks bigger, taller and more imposing. His back is straightened and he seems to give off an aura of safety. Maybe he really does, maybe it's a part of his class. I don’t know.

“I have been granted the tools we need,” Jones continues, looking at his screen. “Causality appears to give, umm, chaos damage. It looks to be able to give damage to the wraiths at a distance. Small as it is right now. Ward is similar to aura and gives an extra defense boost to my allies.”

…

Chaos Damage? Ward?

…

I suppose that explains the feeling I am getting from him.

“You f***ing kidding me, right now?” O’hara exclaims. “Jones get’s the goddamn jackpot, while I am stuck with alchemist? How is that f***ing fair?”

Private Jones turns and gives O’hara a stern glare at his words before saying, “Please, do not profane the air.”

O’hara just looks at him, agog, and I take a deep breath, ignoring the infection notice.

…

Group dynamics just took a shift.

….

What the Hell? Was Jones always like this, or is the blasted class affecting his personality? That’s a scary thought.

“Okay!” Jeffrey adds in, clapping his hands for attention. “Private Jones, figure out the mechanics of your Causality skill, make sure it is what we want. An extra ability to deter the wraiths will be hugely beneficial, but we will be going in either way, we will not be spending the night here. Once you feel confident in it, we are going to track down the temple and get out of here.”

Jeffrey turns to me, “Do you feel confident in finding the temple today?”

I nod back, “yes, this instance is very small right now, over the next few days it will increase in size a lot, but it should be relatively easy to locate.”

“Good.” is all the response we get.

After the success of Private Jones's class, the group’s moral takes an upwards turn and I am relieved to see that Jones is no longer eyeing me like the virgin mother. I rustle up a few more Wynots for Jones to test his powers on, as well as level up once, all the while still cleansing people periodically.

We also make a plan, albeit a pretty straightforward one. Jeffrey leads the assault and uses the kickass shotguns to mow anything that stands in the way while with Duncan, Smielnisk and O’hara joining in. Jones stays back and focuses mainly on the wraiths. Our haphazard testing determined that his smite skills show an effective range of five meters and up to ten meters with diminishing returns. I can’t guarantee they will be effective against the wraiths, but O’hara and I decided that something like chaos damage is meant to be metaphysical and bypass all conventional defenses. It should help protect against the wraiths. The wynots certainly did not like it, screaming and dying with no visible wound.

I would hang back until needed, against the wraiths, mage spells, whatever it may be. With any luck. I won’t be needed at all.

There are a couple of wild cards though. The mage skeleton is a new addition by any account. I have no idea where he even popped up from. I would have thought if they were a standard part of the undead legion the crappy black mage from before would have used it. Or maybe they weren’t necessary since he was already a mage.

There is so much about these things that we have no idea.

…

I say that next time, we just destroy them all, leaving nothing up to chance. Take no prisoners!

…

Now I sound like a villain.

It doesn’t appear that the mage skeleton has much in its repertoire besides summoning the wraiths, but maybe he has more. Considering he is a relatively low level, I suspect a good shot to the chest will be enough to end that guy, he got lucky with the core in the way last time.

The other wild card is Pesos. I know she is here and she will be a tough fight, even for me. I doubt bullets will have much of an effect on her and I also doubt a low leveled spell from Jones will be very effective here. It’s up to me again to face the k-9.

I had really hoped it would have been the end of Pesos when I killed the mage, but I suppose that was just wishful thinking. Is Pesos trapped in this instance with me, or will she follow me to a new one, say, like the one in Los Angeles? I hope not, but my gut is telling me otherwise.

I had hoped that with the abilities these soldiers could get from this place, they could just be sent out in my stead. However, unless one of them develops the ability to remove curses and infections really quick, I am out of luck. Spook is still in my future.

Finding the blasted temple took longer that we would have liked. The sun was nearly setting by the time we located it. The sick green horizon was an ugly sight, and I will not be sorry to see it go.

Jeffrey and I looked out over at the clearing the small temple sat in. Just as I suspected, the instance had been reset, the temple appearing like a tall A shaped single room. In front of it roamed several skeletons and a few zombies. A single wraith flew circles around the top, looking around. It wasn’t long before our group was spotted by it, and it ran back screaming, warning its comrades.

I let an evil smile grow on my face. Let them raise the alarm. It won’t make a difference. This time will not be like last time.

…

That was very poetic of me.

At the alarm, the door to the temple opened and out stepped a familiar figure.

I let my grin spread more and let out a small chuckle.

“What is it, Greg?” Jeffrey asks, whispering at me.

I point down at the temple, at the new skeleton that had stepped out. “See that new skeleton with the spear? He’s a special guard type. We have a history together.” I turn and give Jeffrey an evil smile, “he burned down my house and I stole his spear and killed him. Twice.”

Then a sudden thought struck me, “I wonder if he even remembers me over the new instance?” The idea was oddly sad to me.

Jeffrey gives me a strange look before saying, “You seem like a different person in here, Greg. You seem more confident and more yourself.”

Jeffrey’s comment hurts in an unclear way. I don’t reply.

He turns to his soldiers, “let’s go! Stay in formation, do not get outside of ten feet from Greg! Jones, you take rear guard.”

As we move out with determined faces I add, “And be sure to keep a look out for Pesos, the black greyhound. She likes to jump out at opportune moments.”

No sooner were the words coming out of my mouth than I spotted the little rugrat. She was just as I remembered too, silent and daring, looking out over our group from the side. The heavy breaths wreathed in flames that Pesos was giving out indicated she hadn’t lost her levels in the change. The whole group noticed her too and I could see a few of them stiffening in surprise and fear.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her,” I add, moving to the back.

“Stay near,” Jeffrey commands me, stopping me from chasing after the dog. “We need to be sure that Jones can affect the wraith.”

I glance back at the group, as we now slowly approach the temple. Gunshots start flashing out as we draw into range, mowing down the beginner zombies. The wraith stays back though, not getting within range of Jones.

I shout back at Jeffrey, “I’ll stay as long as I can, but I can’t fight Pesos with you near! She’s too destructive for you guys!”

I turn to Pesos and see her now sprinting at me, flame tipped feet singeing the dead moldy grass around her.

Yup. I leave the group behind and run out to meet her..

I hear the continued fight behind me and pray it ends well. I focus my attention on the poor dog racing at me again.

….

I wish I had my spear with me. Instead, all I’ve got is this stupid baton. I gave my police shield away to Jones.

Pesos doesn’t attack head on though, but diverts to the side at the last moment, spraying me with her corrosive flame breath on the fly by. It’s not a new trick though, and I have a barrier up before the flames can get me.

Minutes went by in this game of keep away. Pesos is too agile for me to catch, while most of my abilities negate her attacks. Her breath attacks are strong and almost constant though, forcing me to erect barrier after barrier unless I want to get coated in the painful magic. A stalemate, as they say. It's nice not to have skeletons attacking me too, with arrows and stuff.

….

My mana isn’t endless, you know. Usually I win by baiting the dog into range of my hands, sometimes getting mauled in the process. Time to score some agro.

“I knew you would be here, Pesos!” I shout out at the dog, during a lull in the flame attacks. “You just can’t let it go, can you?”

Does Pesos understand my words? It seems crazy, she certainly never had that ability when she was alive. But my words have always seem to get her riled up and today is no different. The moldy grass is burning around us, the noxious fumes poison with every breath.

“I talked to your master!” I shout again at her, “And do you know what he said when I told him about what you have become?” Pesos howls and growls loudly at my words, pawing at the ground in agitation.

“He says you were a bad dog! He was disappointed in you, Pesos, him and and his wife! Both thought you were a bad dog!”

Part of me feels guilty for saying this to Pesos. The other part of me wants to survive.

“You were in the greyhound races for three years? And you never won a race, did you? Such a failure, it was a wonder anybody adopted you. Your master confessed to me, he said he regretted ever taking you in. A failure and a Bad Dog!”

Ouch. I’m being so cruel.

That certainly did the trick though, letting loose a thunderous roar, Pesos leaps at me, her black flames burning.

Despite egging Pesos on, her speed surprises me and I can’t get a shield up in time. She collides with me at full force, knocking me back, biting and kicking and clawing at me in the dusty burnt grass.

She even manages to rip out my throat, again, before I punch her good in the muzzle with a flared hand, and then again in the chest.

She backs off from the engagement, and I’m not sure whose worse for wear. Half her head is gone as well as a portion of her chest cavity while I am covered in burns, gouges, and have blood flowing down from my gurgling throat.

I struggle to my feet and I heal myself as quickly as possible while watching Pesos’s black aura condensing and filling in the damaged parts.

I hear footsteps behind me and turn to see Duncan and Jones coming up. Looking back, I see a messy battlefield, littered with corpses and bones. O’hara is taking out the stragglers while Smielnisk and Jeffrey stand at the opened door to the temple.

“You look like Hell,” Jones, says to me with unneeded joviality.

“You okay?” Ducan asks, looking much more appropriately worried.

I turn back to Pesos, limping and glaring at me a little ways away. I cough up the blood that’s clogging my pipes.

“You finished over there?” I ask.

Duncan replies for them both, “Yeah, Private Jones’s ability worked against the wraith, thankfully. Caused it to explode from 7 meters away, it was really weird. The mage got a good shot at Smielnisk though, he’ll need some healing when you are ready. We found the core, but didn’t touch it, like you said. The sun’s about to set though, we were sent to help you out.”

I stand up gingerly, dusting off my bloody pants. Pesos flinches, but doesn’t back away, growling again at me.

I point out at her, “Can you hit her with your spell, Jones? I’d like to incapacitate her, if possible.”

“Why, sir?” Duncan asks, even as Jones lifts his right arm.

At the action, Pesos leaps up in the air with a strangled yelp, like she would when

I accidentally stepped on her tail. A pitiful sound.

“I want to try something.” I add, moving in again at her.

Pesos backs away from me as I approach, with heavy growling. “Hit her again.”

“It'll be my last one.” Jones replies.

A second later the spell hits again and Pesos cries out in agony like only a dog can. In the distraction, I jump at her, pinning her and then start hitting her with flare, watching as she yelps and slowly dissipates. Before she disappears completely though, I stop and take the wisp that’s left of her. While mostly incorporeal, I’ve found in the past I’ve been able to grasp her enough to work.

Taking the wisp with me carefully, I say to the others, “let’s go, quickly! Before more enemies spawn.”

We run back to the temple, I eye the setting sun, an ominous look, if nothing else.

“What are you going to do with the dog spirit?” Jones asks on the way.

“I’m not letting Pesos remain here for all eternity.” I reply back with gritted teeth. “Not if I can finish it, she deserves better than that.”

It would also be nice to not get attacked anymore by the psycho dog.

We reach the temple door after braving the battlefield, and I notice the guardian skeleton’s remains scattered around the temple. Along with a spear. Not as good as my spear, but it would be nice to have a spare…

As I pass I drop the baton and grab the new weapon. It feels nice in my hand, the wisp in Pesos in my other.

Smielninsk give me an odd look, but doesn’t comment as he holds the door open for us.

“Where is the skeleton mage?” I ask as I enter.

There is no way I am leaving any loose ends.

Smielnisk points to the crumpled remains with his left hand, his right one was black and dead looking.

I choke back a gut wrench at the sight of his arm. I know that spell.

“Did he have a name when you identified him?” I ask casually as I come over to Smielnisk.

The room is pretty small, so everybody is present at the moment, looking at me. Jeffrey looks impatient.

“No.” Jeffrey replied, “none of them did. It appears you are right, the original mage was unique. These were all “spawns” as you call them.”

I nod and reach for Smielnisk after handing my spear to Duncan. “How’s the arm? Can you feel anything?”

He shrugs and replies, “It doesn’t hurt, I can't move it though.”

I nod and drag him out to the dying sunset to get a better look. Once on to the steps of the temple I grab the arm tightly as high as the black flesh went and pull.

The arms comes off with only a slight ripping sound, the suddenness of it leaving the soldiers stunned. Before Smielnisk responds, I cleanse the remaining stump as much as possible, leaving no blackness on it at all. The arm loses another centimeter in the process.

Smielnisk is sputtering at me, unable to form a coherent thought. I grimace and say, “Sorry about that. I know that spell used against you. If left alone, it would have traveled to the rest of your body. Getting rid of the infected flesh was the best option. It wasn’t even difficult as you can tell it was already dead. Even I can't fix that.”

Smielnisk didn’t reply to that, just staring down the steps at his arm, now disintegrating before his eyes.

I give him a thump on his back. “Better to rip off the bandaid! Don’t worry! I’ll regrow your arm for you, no problem!”

I turn back to the temple and walked in, not waiting for a response.

“Anybody level up?” I ask.

“I did!” O’hara replied proudly, before deflating. “Not that it matters.”

“We all have,” Duncan said next for the group, “Two or three times. My mana pool increases with each level, as well as my regeneration, but that is it.”

“Yeah, eventually, you’ll get new skills too. More mana is nice though.”

“I’d like to get out of here, if you would be so kind, Greg.” Jeffrey adds in, grumpily. Then he asks, “Will Private Smielnisk be alright? Did you just rip his arm off?”

I nod back, “He’ll be fine, I promised to help regrow the limb, when we are done. I’ll need to let my mana recharge to get us out of here though, it's a tough fight trying to cleanse the core, my hands get stuck to it as it tries to eat me. I almost died last time.”

“What happens if one of us touches it?” O’hara asks. I bend down scrutinizing the skeleton mage again.

“Don’t. I have no idea. Probably something bad.”

At my words, the whole group inches away from the black marble.

I smile and grab the headdress that the skeleton mage was wearing.

“So, how do we divide loot?” I ask, holding it up for them to see. They can’t use identify yet, so I read it to them.

Skeleton Mage Headdress: + 2.123 per minute mana regen

“Wearing this will increase your mana regeneration.” I clarify to those not in the know.

“Dang! Boss loot!” O’hara expliams, “that’s so cool!” The other soldiers were not impressed.

After a moment, Duncan asked, “Do you have to wear it for it to be effective?”

I consider before checking my status. Then I give her a grin. “Looks like it, my regen isn’t being boosted from just holding it. Crazy, right?”

“Right.” She replies back, clearly thinking of never wearing it intentionally.

“Just put it on,” Jeffrey says with a sigh. “So we can get out of here faster.”

Dutifully, I put it on, feeling not at all ridiculous. I checked my status and sure enough.

Mana:

169/462.2106472

Regen: 22.8516944 + (2.123) per minute

I give the group a smile. “It works!”

They just stare at me poker faced, making no response.

With a sigh, I turn back to the single control board that the temple has. Given some time, I know that this will expand to a whole new room, but for now, it's just one board. Looking over the alien controls I give a shake of the head.

“Anybody have a phone or camera on you?” Jeffrey asks suddenly, “I know keith would give his soul to see these figures here.”

Nobody said yes, but I rescued poor Keith. “I think that when we teleport back it will take this board with it. It’s close enough to the core, probably most of this room will come too. Than they can geek out over it as much as they want.”

I look up at the A frame ceiling. “I’ll be sure to put a barrier up, in case the roof collapses again.” The rest of the group looks upwards as well, only a little anxiety showing at the thought of the stone falling on them

I pour over the board for another minute before Jeffrey asks, “What are you trying to do?

“I’d like to save Pesos, if possible.” I reply not looking up, “He’s tied to me somehow and maybe also to this instance. I was hoping I could find something about her on this, but I have no idea what these characters mean. I am disinclined to just start pressing buttons too.”

After a few more minutes, I give a sigh and give up, holding up the Pesos wisp in my hand to look at. Its growing bigger, even during these last few minutes. I can’t bring her back to earth, that would be too irresponsible. “Maybe once the linguists crack the code here we can try to figure it out, but for now I think I need to kill her again before we go home.”

I give the wisp another wistful look before sighing again. “Yep, I’ll kill her again. It'll take another day before she comes back, so we will be safe.”

“Let me,” Jones said, stepping forward before I can take action. “There is no need to you to subjugate yourself to this again. I’ll take care of her.”

I give Jones an eye, before dipping the wisp into his hands. “I know she is just a dog, but I said some really mean things to her this time.”

“You did what you had to do,” Jones replies, heading outside to the steps again. The sun had finally set and only a murky green glow remained out there. Inside, the control board was lit up lightly, giving the room a pale blue sheen, enough to work in. It's good, because I didn’t want to have to provide light for everybody.

Tipping the wisp to the ground, Jones says, “farewell Pesos. You were a good dog.”

Then he casts his spell and the black blob explodes into wispy nothingness.

I feel a little melancholy, but that’s it.

A notification greets me.

Vengeance Spirit conquered!

Level reset

Timer until respawn

…

huh.