Death felt like an eternity, those three seconds before my resurrection where all I felt was infinite darkness, the kind that shook me so strongly to my bones, as I called my existence into question. It was it’s own kind of limbo, a special Sort of hell for the damned where there was nothing of worth to speak of, just a pit that was filled with gnashing of teeth and wailing of souls. A purgatory of biblical proportions and fucked up in all sorts of ways. Perhaps it was not just the darkness and loneliness that got to me, or the horror that I can remember of death, it was the loss, the knowledge that I was loosing something every time I defeated death, some things that I would never be able to get back. That was the feeling that got to me the most, so much so it left me aching every time except the first time that I died.

I felt the wind blow past my ears, a soft caress as the waves of the lake reached my body. It felt uncomfortable, especially due to the sharp digging pain that I was currently feeling from my back. I turned over only to get a face full of lake water, that happily rushed into my nose as I shot up, sputtering, coughing and hacking my lungs out as my hand came to rest on an uneven emerald rock the size of a fist. It was responsible for the discomfort I was feeling as I got my bearings and noticed the slew of notifications that went past my face. I dragged myself up in time to get tackled by Nguyen, her eyes red as an endless stream of hysterical tears fell down from her face.

“Save him please! I’m begging you please! I’ll do anything just save him, I’m begging you!”

Tobias was dead, his black eyes stared upward to the sky completely vacant and absent of life. But seeing that did not instill the pity and worry I thought I should be able to feel, instead I was just cold, and in retrospect it made me look at our current situation with a more analytical look than I would have ever expected. I turned to Kaixuan and raised an eyebrow, ignoring the sobbing girl on me as I asked, ignoring the fact that I was naked. “I told all of you to keep your distance from the bloody Arachne, to just focus on her broodlings and not antagonize her. Did I stutter Kaixuan, Amina, Laurent? Did I fucking stutter Ricardo? Or are you hard of hearing Andrej? What the fuck happened! Why is Tobias fucking dead!

Laurent took a step forwards, then he looked back at the dead body of Tobias with a sigh before he shook his head. “she wouldn’t let the brood move far from her, so we had to go on the assault to get the attention you needed in order to ambush the brood mother. But we miscalculated or perhaps we just got a little carried away, one of our attacks clipped the brood mother, causing more damage than we were able to before. She retreated from our assault, so we thought perhaps it would be possible, to bring her down before you use the bombs, eliminating the need of you having to sacrifice yourself.”

[Eye Of Divinity]

It was a passive skill, but I could see that Laurent was lying through his teeth, or rather it wasn’t as if he was lying, he was telling the truth but he was omitting something. They all were, almost as if they were worried about what I would say or how I would react. Such behavior reminded me of our time back at the academy; when one of us would do something wrong and the others would keep mum in order to protect said person. Of course we usually all ended up getting punished together for the crime, and while it was annoying, the punishments were lighter when we all took it together and usually the show of loyalty and camaraderie ended up getting most of us a reward. But this was not the academy and someone was dead, Kaixuan and the others might be holding on to that sense of loyalty, but Nguyen did not have time for that.

“It was Andrej! And his attack did not clip the brood mother, I saw it clear as day, he attacked her straight one and kept on taking shots at her even when Kaixuan warned him. The brood mother went on the offensive forcing the rest of us to act to try and not only defend ourselves, but to bring her down as by that point there was no other choice. Retreating would have been a mistake as giving your back to the enemy is a sure way to die, please save him, I’ll do anything.”

I didn’t reply to Nguyen, instead taking a long hard look at Andrej and realizing something….. he was extremely childish and selfish. But perhaps his selfishness has already been established, but this childishness? He had chosen to act out as a way of being indignant to me being in control, he was being petty, and his pettiness had cost us the life of a team mate. But I couldn’t bring myself to get angry at him, all I saw was a child, and in retrospect you can’t get angry at a child, when all a child knew how to be, was a child. The look in my eyes seemed to chill him as he took a step back, then cursed softly as he looked me straight in the eye with challenge in his gaze, daring me to act.

“You’re such a child, dealing with you and your pettiness is a waste of my time. But let me make something straight, the bottom of the class all of a sudden finds himself in the position where he has to make sure all of you entitled fuckers survive the dungeon and the elves and the bloody forest waiting beyond. If you step out of line again Andrej I will cripple you, and I will do it in such a way that no healer in existence would be able to help you, not unless they reconstruct your body from the ground up, and without a miracle like mine, that would be impossible.”

With my piece said I turned back to look at Nguyen, observing her for a moment before turning to Kaixuan, Laurent, Ricardo and Amina. Malkova and Kimberly were a ways back making their way towards our location. “gather all of the cores of the dead monsters, especially the one that belongs to the brood mother. It’s important to me and us getting out of here, plus I have a quest about it too. So help me out, and keep an eye on Andrej and Malkova, if they so much as move wrongly shoot them. As long as it’s not in the head, I’ll have time to heal them. That’s an order that should be followed to the letter or there will be consequences… for all of you.”

Honestly I did not want to save Tobias, in fact I don’t think I needed to. The idea behind being able to come back from the dead was quite good. But it would be so much worse if the world knows, or perhaps not just the world but two universes know that I have the ability to bring back people from the dead. Whole, complete, with all memories, sanity and abilities intact. Perhaps not fully whole, because I feel that doing so always has a cost, even if I had no idea what the cost for my resurrection actually was, I know every time I have died and come back I have lost something. None the less I want to protect myself, and to do so I will very much have to let sleeping dogs or in this case dead people lie there.

Perhaps the old me would have done this, perhaps he would have kept it secret that he held the power of life and death in his hands and just kept a low profile. But the person who I was or rather who I have become in just the span of 24 hours saw an advantage that not many people would see if they were in my position. The Terran Coalition was pragmatic and while strict in the administration of the governance, were pliable and flexible. They had learnt to make deals even with the devil to keep the human race going, and I know just remaining a foot soldier would not be the kind of life I want for myself, heck with everything I’ve seen on the battlefield, I honestly don’t want to fight anymore. War was messy, and dying so many times in just a few hours freaked me out. Sure this was a dungeon way beyond our current scope, but there were worse dangers out there in the universe than this.

My uncle was a captain in the Terran Coalition, and while he could have held a higher position, he had rejected it all in favor of being the most illustrious trainer and teacher of the Terran Coalition’s miracle blessed officers. He was good at what he did and was subjected to politics on a daily basis, and I basically lived with him when I was in the academy. More time with him than the orphanage he had dumped me in just so he could go play legendary teacher of the Terran Coalition. Either way I knew if I had something worth anything! I could bargain with the Terran Coalition. At the moment I don’t know what I want, but this was a chip that I could bring to the table later.

“I want compensation.” I said looking directly at Nguyen, or rather her uniform, knowing fully well that connection or no connection, the spell array in our battlesuits would be recording everything we see and experience.

“I will do anything, Samson, anything at all, just save him please!”

“I’m not talking to you Nguyen, but regardless you too will have to provide compensation. But it will be in the form of a promise, should i need your help. However Nguyen there would be a price exacted from him, I honestly don’t know what it is, but he would lose something, and from experience… I think it would be something extremely important. So much so that he might resent you for it, or have other unforeseen consequences. Are you sure you want this? He would be alive but even I don’t know what would happen after.”

Nguyen was definitely not going to take no for an answer as she grabbed my collar tightly and placed her head on my chest. Her years sliding down my bare chest as she sobbed and struggled to get her self in order. But with what she was facing or rather experiencing it was a little harder than expected. “please, damn the consequences. As long as he is alive I will give up anything.” I couldn’t help the pit that suddenly appeared in my stomach after she finished speaking, somehow, I got the feeling that either one of us will end up regretting the choice she had made.