Chpt. 6) It’s good practice

They entered the dungeon with Farah in the front, followed by Ford. The tunnel was lit by the crystals used as lights all around Banzzap’el; they gave off an eerie green light and made no shadows as they walked. After a few minutes of walking, Ford started to get bored because nothing was happening. It was not a problem not having traps after every step, but she would like something to happen.

Then Lilly spoke over comms, “Sooo, supposin’ tha’ I believe ye’re from another world. Who were ye there? Wha’ was it like? How did ye get here?”

Ford looked over her shoulder at the Elf behind her, then responded, “Alright, I got here by dying. I didn’t want to die, but I did. I was a teacher there and a chef before that. Also, there was no magic there. Other than that fact, we were about five to six hundred years ahead of you in technological advancement.”

“How do you speak our language?” Morgan asked after her answers.

“That is a good question,” Ford responded and thought for a moment, “it’s very Doctor who sort of translation. You don’t understand that. Uhmmm, okay, so when I was brought here, Tanashi downloaded your language into my head, and I can now speak, read, and write it normally. Here’s the thing though: I see and hear it as though I’m speaking and reading my language, English. It’s weird, and I don’t understand why, so I’m just going with it.”

“Were you a girl in your past life,” Benet asked, not hiding his intentions.

“No,” Ford said immediately, “I was a man. Though just as good-looking as I am now. If I do say so myself.”

“Oh, I see,” Lilly chimed in, un-impressed, “So, ye were just as humble as well, I take it?”

“Yeah, I didn’t get many compliments, and I never denied the ones I do get.”

Farah spoke up then, “Shut up. We’re at the first room.”

Ford drew her blades and walked into the room. It was surprisingly large considering the size of the dungeon temple, and there were four pillars in the room. Each pillar was pockmarked with honeycomb-like hives; each had hundreds of holes and was as large as an average man. Ford couldn’t see anything else in the room, and she walked in further.

As Gimble walked into the room, a large stone slab slammed behind him, making everyone jump. Then a large humming sound reverberated through the room from within the hives. Lilly started to speak through comms, sounding nervous, “J-judgin’ from the s-size and sh-shape of the hives and the hummin’ I th-think tha’ these are pixie hives.”

“Pixies?” Ford asked, “that is an oddly cute enemy monster to have?”

Everyone spoke through comms, except Gimble, “Cute?!”

The onslaught of voices in Ford’s head was thunderous, and she responded, “What the hell? Let’s not speak at the same time over comms, that hurt. Anyways what was wrong with what I said?”

“Pixies are terrifyin’,” Lilly said and then pointed to the center of the room. Ford turned to see a massive flying ball of humming beings. Each monster was blue and was no larger than her hand, and the wings moved as fast as a hummingbird. Then in unison, they all roared, and the resulting sound shook everyone down to the bones.

“Do you happen to know any destruction spells?” Ford asked Lilly.

“I do,” Lilly said, “but it will do li’le to tha’ many. It’s a flame spell tha’ only has a short-range.”

Ford nodded and said, “Circle up around Lilly. let them come to us,” as if on queue, the swarm burst apart and charged at them from all sides. Ford jumped back to get close enough to Lilly and protect her Morgan did the same and cast a spell around her that erected a blue bubble shield around everyone. The Pixies crashed upon the protection, splattering blood upon it, and the rest of the Pixies separated and circled the room for another pass at them.

The shield around them faded, and Gimble stood in front of them and held his shields in front of him, preparing to deflect the rush of monsters. Lilly climbed his back, and with her staff, she cast the destruction spell. A ball of flame appeared at the end of the staff, and a cone of flame shot out a few meters from the ball; as the Pixies charged at us, they impacted the flame and died as they came into contact with the fire the burnt corpses clattered against Gimble's shields.

The swarm of Pixies broke off as they realized that their charge attack wasn’t working, and they retreated into a humming ball again. More pixies flew from the hives on the pillars and joined the Pixies in the center of the room. An idea occurred to Ford, and she spoke quickly over comms, “The hives! Gimble, bring Lilly over to the hives so she can destroy them.”

“Okay!” Gimble said, then charged to one of the pillars with Lilly barely hanging onto his back. When he reached the first hive, she started to cast the destruction spell on it, burning it up and stopping the stream of Pixies.

“Kii, Mizu, do you have any spell that can destroy from a distance?”

Without a word of confirmation, the twins fired a bolt at each of the two pillars in the back of the room. As the bolts impacted, they exploded in a cloud of smoke and fire, stopping the stream of Pixies from each of those hives. Then the mass of humming Pixies made another roar, and Ford instantly reacted. “Morgan, we could use another bubble shield,” there was no response, “Morgan?” Ford looked at where the Dwarf was last standing, and he was collapsed on the ground covered in cuts and bruises, and Benet was standing over him, giving him magical first aid.

Ford cursed and yelled at Gimble and Lilly, “Lilly, Morgan needs your help; Gimble, fall back to Morgan and get ready to protect us. Farah in front with me.”

“Okay,” Gimble said and fell back with Lilly still on his back. When he got to Morgan, he turned and planted his shields on the ground, and Lilly jumped off and knelt over Morgan. Ford ran up and took Morgan's shield from him and stood on the left of Gimble, and Farah joined her as the twins stood directly behind Gimble and put new bolts into their crossbows.

“I hope you know how to use those swords,” Ford said to Farah as she held them at the ready with one resting on her scaled shoulder. Farah must have figured out what Ford was planning and stood directly in front of Gimble and Ford.

She looked over her shoulder and said in a confident tone, “Just watch,” then the swarm of Pixies charged at them and impacted a wall of blades as Farah moved them faster than Ford could comprehend. The Pixies were shredded on impact, and not even a speck of blood splashed against her. The Pixies that flew over her impacted on Gimble's shields and flew straight up, then separated and circled to attack from all sides again. As they did, another bubble shield appeared around them, and they impacted it. Ford looked to Morgan, who held his hands up and was covered in new bruises that were heald just as fast by Benet as Lilly sat on the ground, exhausted.

The Pixies broke off their attack and went back to the center of the room, and Morgan dropped the shield and collapsed. As soon as the protection dropped, one of the twins fired another explosive bolt at the last hive before it could start feeding the swarm. There was another horrible screeching sound as the last hive was destroyed, and the ball of Pixies began to pour blood to the ground.

‘Are they cannibalizing each other?’ Ford thought as she stared at the fountain of blood. Then the Pixies formed into three human-sized Pixies with functioning wings; their faces had large black eyes and rows of shark-like teeth inside a massive maw. The three Pixies flapped their wings incredibly fast, and they rose from the ground and flew in separate directions. Ford track one going to her right as it charged. She ran at the charging Pixie, and before it could attack, she jumped and slashed at the Pixie's wings, cutting them off at the base.

“Gimble,” Ford yelled, getting the giant's attention. He turned and saw the falling Pixie tumble across the ground. He then jumped forward and stopped the Pixie with his shields and then stomping on its head.

In the middle of the room, the Pixie charged forward and was quickly intercepted by Farah as she brought her two swords down and sliced the Pixie in three. The last Pixie flew off to the group's left as it circled, and the moment it was in clear view of the group, the last twin fired a bolt at its head. The bolt traveled into the Pixies gaping maw and exploded. Teeth and grey matter are sprayed everywhere as the body falls.

Ford took a few deep breaths and now looked around the room full of carnage to make sure that nothing else would try and kill them. Once she confirmed that nothing else would kill them, “Is everyone alright?” she asked over comms.

Everyone confirmed that they were unharmed and tired from the fight. Ford nodded and was hit in the head by another loot bag and everyone else. ‘Well, we’re safe, and we have loot now. Best to look and recover,’ Ford thought as she put her Karambits away and opened the bag to dump the loot out.

A new katana clattered onto the ground with no sheath; it was the same size and dimensions as the one that she broke outside the dungeon. This katana, however, had a black blade and was just as sharp. When she picked it up, she got a notification. Item: Katana of elemental blades; quality: uncommon; effect: unbreakable; effect: by charging the sword with one-hundred mana, you can create a wave of essence that will travel ten meters; restrictions; can only use one essence at a time and can only store three hundred mana at a time. Plus fifty EXP. Ford looked at her EXP bar, and it read five hundred fifty-one out of one-thousand one-hundred

“Oh hell yeah!” Ford exclaimed as she sheathed the new sword, “What did everyone else get?” she asked.

The twins spoke first with Kii, “We got two uncommon bows that let us shoot essence.”

Mizu continued, “and two chest plates that let us teleport to each other has an hour-long cooldown and a max distance of twenty meters, but still good equipment.”

“That cooldown sucks, but it should come in handy,” Ford said in approval.

Lilly spoke next after rubbing her head, “I got an uncommon bracele’ tha’ adds an extra five percen’ to my overall mana capaci’y.”

Ford walked over to look at the bracelet and saw it was made of gold, “Nice, a gift that keeps on giving,” Ford looked over to Morgan, who was holding up a pair of chainmail grieves with a shocked expression on his face. “What did you get, Morgan? I can tell you’re dying to tell us,” Ford asked.

Morgan's mouth opened and closed for a moment and said, “The chain Grieves of Shurma. An Epic quality item. Grants increased jump height, running speed, and carry weight, indestructible, and regenerated ten HP points per minute. Only works on superficial wounds and bruises.”

Ford's jaw dropped, and she said, “You have got to put those on and try them now because that is awesome.” Morgan nodded and started to put them on. While he did so, Ford turned to Benet, who was looking at a silver ring, “What did you get?” Ford asked.

“Well,” Benet said, paused for a moment, and continued, “it is an uncommon silver ring; the effect only works when I give it to someone else. The result is an extra five percent to overall mana recharge,” Benet sounded a little disappointed about it, then turned to Lilly and said, “I believe you should have it. You could make more use of it.”

Lilly nodded smiled, “Thank you, Benet, tha’s though’ful of ye,” she then put the ring on the same hand as the golden bracelet. Then Benet jumped as a notification appeared in his vision, and so did Lilly.

“Plus one hundred EXP,” Benet read, “for completing the secret description, you and the person wearing the silver ring will have an additional five present increase to overall mana recharge.”

“I don’ read silver ring,” Lilly said, a bit of anger in her voice, then she yelled, “I read Silver weddin’ band!”

Benet took a step back and was about to say something to save himself, which would result in an even deeper hole for him, so Ford stepped in, “Lilly, look on the bright side, you have an additional five percent increase to capacity and recharge, so burning Benet alive and disposing of the body will be easy to do. But do it later cause he did keep Morgan alive long enough for you to save him.”

Lilly took a deep breath and said, “Ye’re righ',” then she yelped as a loud bang sounded next to her as Morgan finished putting his greeves on and jumped five meters in the air. When he landed, he ran around the room at an incredible speed. He had to have done four laps in two minutes. If Ford's estimation was correct, which she probably wasn’t, he had to have run four hundred meters a minute.

‘Those are some cool grieves,’ Ford thought to herself, then looked at Farah, who also looked awestruck and confused at a metal orb in her hand. “What did you get, Farah?”

Farah’s look of awe turned into a scowl. She looked at Ford, “It’s an Epic quality helmet that allows me to see in three hundred and sixty degrees and grants an increase to intelligence by five points and an immunity to airborne poisons,” she said reluctantly.

“Awesome put it on,” Ford said excitedly. Farah just shifted her feet and did nothing but look away from Ford. That prompted her to ask, “Farah, do you know how to put on the helmet?”

“IT’S A HUNK OF STEEL! HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO PUT IT ON!?” Farah said in frustration.

She made a good point, and Ford thought for a moment, “Maybe it has a unique way of wearing it. try touching it to your head.”

“What would that solve!?” Farah snapped.

“Well, it is either a liquid sort of programable metal, which I wouldn't put it past the gods for making. Or we still have to form the helmet out of this metal. It will look cool if it’s the liquid metal; if it’s the hunk of metal, we get to laugh at you. Either way, it’s a win-win situation,” Ford explained.

Farah rolled her eyes and reluctantly put the metal ball on her head; after a second, it did nothing, and a small smile spread across Ford's lips. Then the ball morphed and melted onto Farah's head. The liquid metal flowed down her face and over her horns and solidified when it reached her neck. Farah stayed calm and composed the whole time and looked around. The helmet itself had no notable features and made her head look like a hunk of metal with no air holes.

“Can you hear me and breath in there?” Ford asked, a little panicked as she quickly walked over to Farah to help.

“I’m fine,” Farah said. Her voice wasn’t muffled, and she could most likely breathe in there since she was okay. Ford walked behind her and was about to poke her back to test the helmet. Farah spun and grabbed Ford's fingers and forced them backward, forcing Ford to kneel in front of her.

“Ow, ow, ow, okay, it works. Let go of my finger, please,” Ford said. Farah let go and continued to look around with her helmet. However, she could see everything literally. Shaking out her fingers, Ford looked at Gimble, whose loot bag was sitting on his head as he watched Morgan run around the room and asked, “What did you get, big guy?”

Gimble shook himself out of his entertainment and grabbed the bag from atop his head, and dumped it out. A pair of leather boots fell out; he picked them up and held them upside down, and a glob of slime fell to the floor; he looked at Ford and said, “Snotty boots.”

Ford rolled her eyes, walked over, and touched the boots to get the description, and she read it out loud for Gimble, “Rare armor; root boots: description; plants roots when the user wants not to move; grants immunity to knockback and can walk on any solid surface. Those are good boots. If I'm right, you can probably walk up a wall or even on the ceiling if you want. Put them on,” Ford gestured to Gimble's feet as he dropped a second glob of snot on the floor.

“So, wha’ did ye get?” Lilly asked Ford as she stood.

A gleeful smile spread across Ford’s face as she drew her sword and said, “Watch,” she held the sword with both hands and imagined channeling three hundred mana into the blade. She raised the sword above her head and aimed at the nearest pillar, then thought of fire as she swung the blade down. An arc of fire two meters in length shot from the edge and impacted the pillar. She then brought the sword up diagonally for an upward slash and thought light; a blade of light cut through the pillar. She then swung the blade around for a horizontal slash and thought earth. A blade of earth impacted the pillar and wholly shattered the pillar. Everyone looked impressed; even Morgan stopped running to look, though it was most likely from exhaustion.

“OOOO, our turn,” Kii and Mizu said simultaneously and shot two arrows at Farah, one made of water and one of electricity. She ducked under the water arrow and sidestepped the electricity arrow; the arrows later connected a second later and struck the far wall harmlessly.

“Please don’t test things out on our team,” Ford said flatly. Farah appeared behind the two little imps and picked them up by their heads, Ford couldn’t tell what her expression was, but she wasn’t happy.

As the twins squirmed, Mizu said, “It was worth it!”

“Nice knowing you, brother,” Kii said.

“Nice knowing you too,” Mizu responded.

Ford rolled her eyes and said, “Farah put them down,” a growl emanated from underneath her helmet, then Ford added, “I didn’t say anything about gently.”

“WHAT!?” the twins screamed as Farah threw them face-first into the ground and walked away. The twins pulled their faces from the stone, both their noses broken.

Being the kind person she is, Lilly walked over and healed them. Ford put three hundred more mana into her sword and sheathed it; then she said, “let’s rest a minute and recuperate our strength. Then let’s move on.” Everyone nodded and sat down to relax for a moment after the stressful fight; Gimble whipped out the snotty boots.

***

As they walked down the next tunnel to the next room, Lilly spoke over comms, “So, I’ve been thinkin’ abou’ wha’ ye said abou’ yer old world. If there is no magic there, how did everyone do anythin’, and how did you fight monsters?”

Ford chuckled a little and responded, “If you mean how did we light dark tunnels like this or travel around that I have an answer for; we used science. We built machines and used our minds to invent new ones to make our lives easier. As for monsters, well, we had none. The only monsters we had were the monsters in our head that told us to do horrible things to each other. It was a constant battle but easy to win.”

“If you built machines,” Morgan chimed in, “how did they work with no magic?”

Ford thought for a moment, “Okay, I’ll use the only machine I somewhat know. It’s called the internal combustion engine. You put gas into it, and a piston compresses it, creating a small explosion. This happens around two-thousand times a second, depending on the vehicle. Past that, I don’t know how it works.”

“Didn’ ye say ye were a teacher? Shouldn’ teachers know things like tha’?” Lilly asked as though she was trying to make a point.

“Hey, I was a language art and culinary arts teacher; I taught Japanese, creative writing, and how to cook. I barely knew anything about a vehicle,” Ford defended herself.

“Shut up! Where here,” Farah said, exasperated as they entered the second room.

The room was set up like a gladiatorial arena with gates along the walls, ten in total. The walls looked to be made of a solid piece of limestone, and above the wall were rows and rows of seats. Each seat had a faceless doll sitting on them. The room was lit up with bright light as though the arena was in the middle of the desert but didn’t feel as hot. Farah and Ford were the first to walk onto the sandy arena, and they were closely followed by everyone else.

Just like the last room, when they entered, a gate slammed shut behind them, and a small pedestal rose in the center of the arena, making a loud grinding sound as it did so. Ford nodded and spoke in a calm, reassuring tone, “Okay, to get through this room, we have to defeat a set number of enemies. We go to the center and touch the arena erection to start the challenge.”

Everyone yelled and complained about the phrasing except for Gimble and the twins, who laughed. They walked to the center of the arena and immediately circled up with Lilly and Ford in the center. Ford touched the pedestal, and it lowered into the ground. A screen popped up above them with two spinning pictures like a slot machine. The picture on the right stopped on the number five; then the second picture stopped on a half-snake woman.

“Lamia,” Lilly said, “there good with bows and magic spells. We’ll have to take them out quick,” the images spun again and stopped on the number one and a Minotaur. “Minotaur, strong but dumb.”

The images spun again and landed on a two and a lizard man. Ford spoke this time, “Lazarus beast take off their heads, and they’ll be easy.”

The images spun again and landed on a four and a weird lion-looking thing. Lilly spoke again, “Griffins, you just had to say it would be easy,” before Ford could defend herself, the images spun again, landing on a one and a green creature of some sort, “Goblin, they might be trouble.”

“I never said the entire thing would be easy. I noted the Lazarus beasts would be easy their slow. Also, Goblins are like cannon fodder; they’ll be easy to kill,” Ford said, and as if to contradict her on the spot, every gate around them opened up. Five Lamias came out of the gates to their left; one massive and muscular minotaur came out the gate in front of them; two Lazarus beasts came from each of the gates next to the Minotaur; a roar sounded behind them, and four Griffins came from the gates. They all had the body of a lion, the head of an eagle, and the tail of a snake with snapping jaws and fangs.

A loud booming sound came from the gate to their right, and another and another, then a massive green hand came out of it and pulled on the wall. The wall crumbled as a green head with a long nose and elephant-like ears crashed through it, and the Goblin stood a good six meters tall and wearing nothing but a loincloth and had a giant-sized club.

“Lilly,” Ford said over comms.

“Wha’ is it?” she asked.

“If we survive this, you have permission to slap me.”

“Can I slap you?” Farah asked.

“No,” Ford said quickly.

“Enough jokin’,” Lilly said, “wha’s the plan?”

Ford looked around quickly and thought just as fast, “twins take out the Griffins, Farah the Lamias. Gimble, Morgan, get the Minotaur, Lilly burn the Lazarus beasts when they get close; otherwise, focus on support. Benet, you and I will take down the freaking Goblin troll.”

“Judgin’ by its size, it’s most likely a Goblin king,” Lilly corrected Ford.

“Now is not the time,” Ford said, and as if on queue, the Minotaur roared and charged at them.

Gimble charged back at it and gave his war cry in response, Morgan following close behind. The twins put the goggles on their eyes and pulled back their strings to loose arrows at the Griffins. An arrow was loosed at Farah as she ran to the first Lamia to kill it. She dodged it, and the arrow hit Ford's hat and pinned it to the wall across from her. ‘That was my favorite hat,’ Ford cursed as she and Benet charged at the Goblin.

“What do you want me to do?” Benet asked as he followed behind Ford.

Ford drew her new sword and sent a blade of darkness at the club the Goblin was wielding as she said, “You’re the affliction expert use afflictions.” The blade of darkness cut the club in half, making a loud thud as it landed on the ground.

“Right, about that,” Benet said hesitantly.

“Don’t tell me you don’t have any,” Ford said as she dodged a giant green fist coming at her.

“No, no, I do have some. I just don’t meet the requirements to use them yet,” Benet responded sheepishly and with no apparent concern that Ford was fighting for their lives right then.

“Then what do you need?” Ford asked as she cut the right fingers off the Goblin's hand.

“I need a sufficiently deep wound and some darkness shadow,” Benet said.

Ford nodded and asked, “would one of my mana blades work?”

Benet thought a moment and said, “Yes, it would,” Ford made a diagonal slash at the Goblin with a blade of darkness. It impacted the Goblin's chest, creating a deep cut; Ford looked back at Benet and saw he was gone. Then the Goblin howled in pain, clutched his massive belly, and crumbled to the ground, writhing in agony. Then Benet walked out from Ford's shadow, “He should be dead in a few minutes,” he said, picking his nails.

Ford nodded and charged her sword with mana and looked around; the twins, Gimble and Morgan, were having trouble with their enemies. While the Lazarus beasts were still shambling toward them, Farah had only just finished the last of the Lamias. Ford pointed at the Minotaur with her sword, “Help them,” she told Benet, “Farah, take out the two Lazarus beasts, then help with the Minotaur.”

“What about us?” the twins said as they dodged a swipe from a swooping Griffin.

“Don’t worry. I’m coming,” Ford said as she bolted toward the nearest Griffin. The beast’s tail saw me coming, and the beast turned and swiped at Ford with razor-sharp claws. Ford dropped down and swung her blade overhead, severing the Griffins front paw at the elbow. It roared in pain and snapped at her with its beak. She thrust her sword forward and sent light essence through the blade, making a straight light beam through Griffin’s head.

It collapsed dead, and Ford was picked up by one of the other Griffins while the Griffins tail bit her leg in the air. She screamed in pain as the fangs sank into her; she stabbed the Griffin in the arm, making it square, and dropped her with only the tail carrying her. She then pulled her body up and cut the tail off the Griffin. As she fell, Ford noticed her mistake; she was way above everything. The arena looked like a little dot below her, and she was falling fast.

Ford looked at her health bar at one twenty-five and dropped one point per two seconds because of a poison debuff. She cursed and tucked her arms in and went into a dive. Her heart racing, she looked for the Griffin attacking her or any new ones. She looked two her right and saw the Griffin coming in for an attack.

Ford spread her arms, slowed her descent just enough for the Griffin to miss, and grabbed the Griffins wing as it passed. The Griffin instinctively tucked in its wing, and then they both started to fall. Ford pulled herself onto the Griffin and wrapped her arms around its neck as it struggled. The Griffin instinctively pulled up from the falling descent. ‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ Ford thought as she twisted and forced the Griffin back into the descent.

The Griffin struggled to control, which slowed the descent enough for Ford to see the other two Griffins below her. She let go and let herself fall. She shot a blade of light at the Griffin she was riding, cutting it in half down the middle. She then plummeted toward one of the last Griffins and drove her sword through the center of its chest, bringing it to the ground then decapitating it for good measure.

The last Griffin roared in anger, and the twins used that moment to shoot two electric arrows at it shocking it and stopping its heart. “Lilly, I need healing,” Ford said, limping toward her. Lilly stood and ran over to Ford and cast a healing spell on her using her staff. The poison debuff disappeared a second later with eighty-five HP left, and then her HP went up to its full one-hundred ninety-eight.

Ford looked at where the rest of the group was fighting the Minotaur. Gimble had the bull literally by the horns while Morgan shattered its knees with his hammer. Then Farah ran up the back of the Minotaur and cut its head off. Leaving Gimble holding its head as all the tension left the Minotaur’s body, making him fall forward and land face-first into the Minotaur's butt.

Ford chuckled and collapsed onto her back as she looked over to ensure that the Goblin King was dead. It was and was also decomposing already. Ford closed her eyes and spoke in chat, “Yay, we did it; whoa go teamwork yeah,” a second later, she felt a bag impact her face, “Ouch.”

She sat up, and the bag fell to her lap. Ford picked it up and emptied the contents of it onto the ground. Three brown monster cores fell to the ground, and a dagger with a decorative sheath fell to the ground. The sheath was decorated with gold inlays in the shape of lightning bolts and dotted with jade gems; it also had a clip on its back. Ford picked up the dagger and read the notification.

Item: Willful dagger; quality: Epic; effect: indestructible; effect: recall Willful dagger from any distance away; it will come to your hand no matter where you are or whatever may be in its way. If you don’t summon it, the dagger will return to its sheath within thirty seconds; requirements: you must lock it to your hand; hold daggers hilt for thirty seconds to lock; can apply to both hands.

A smile spread across Ford's face as she grabbed the dagger's hilt with her right hand and drew the blade. The blade itself was a thirty-centimeter steal and had golden lightning bolt inlays. Ford marveled at the craftsmanship of the blade as she held it. Fifteen seconds after grabbing the hilt, her palm got itchy; five seconds later, it started to burn. Ford felt the need to drop the dagger, but she couldn’t let go of it; ten seconds later, the pain stopped. She dropped the dagger and looked at her right palm, only to see a black club from a deck of cards tattooed to her palm. ‘Not cool,’ she thought as she felt the tattooed area then turned to ask everyone else what they got.

“What loot did you all get?” Ford asked.

Farah spoke, first spinning a necklace on her index finger, “A common necklace, plus one to charisma.” She said, then tossed the necklace away, and Benet snatched it out of the air and put it on.

Everyone looked at him, and he quickly noticed everyone was looking at him, and as though he remembered something, he said, “I got uncommon spiked knuckles, gives my opponents a poison effect when struck. The poison does five damage per two seconds.”

“Nice two and a half damage per second,” Ford said appreciatively, then looked at the twins, “What did you two get?”

Mizu spoke first, “Uncommon rings of steadiness. It gets rid of weapon sway.”

“We also got a rare bow. Zee’s hunting bow allows for three massive arrows made of mana to be fired at a range of three hundred meters, and a cooldown of each shot is five minutes and costs five hundred mana per shot, and we can’t store the mana in the bow either,” Kii said with disappointment in his voice.

“I told you we should have put points into the sniper class,” Mizu chastised Kii.

“And risk wasting points on something we know nothing about?”

“Yes,” Ford said, breaking up the argument, “put points into the sniper class. I bet the class would be awesome.” Mizu gave Kii a look, saying, I told you so. Ford turned to Lilly, staring at a pair of leather boots in her hands, her mouth wide open, “What did you get?” Ford asked, knowing the answer would be good.

Lilly blinked and then told them what the boots were, “The legendary air boots of Samael. They allow me to fly ten me’ers off the ground at no mana cost, and I will no longer use stamina when I physically exert myself. Plus, they’re extra comfy.”

Everyone gaped at her except for Morgan, who walked up with his chest puffed out and a massive bejeweled war hammer the same size as him resting on his shoulder. The gems on the hammer glowed and sparked as he slammed the hammer down on the ground, and a crater formed in a perfect three-meter circle around the impact site. Morgan lifted the hammer with one hand, rested it on his shoulder, and then explained, “The legendary war hammer of Shurma. Does not weigh anything and has the added effect of double impact, which I can activate at any time.”

Ford gaped at them both then looked up to the empty sky, “HEY, WHERE’S MY LEGENDARY ITEM RAT BASTARD,” Ford yelled at Tanashi. She knew he could hear her, so she might as well yell at him.

“Gods don’t choose to give Legendary items. They roll dice for the loot,” Lilly explained.

“Gods don’t play with dice,” Ford countered bitterly, then looked at Gimble, “what did you get?”

Gimble dumped out a chest plate with a black fur lining the same color as the Minotaur’s, and it was covered in slime, “Snoty chest plate,” Gimble said plainly.

Ford walked over and touched the chest plate to read the information, “Uncommon chest plat of the bull, plus two knockbacks for the skill force back, minus fifty stamina cost. Good armor for you. You should wear it,”

Gimble grumbled, “Don’t want snotty items.”

“Neither do I, buddy,” Ford said.

Then turned to see everyone looking at her expectantly. Ford walked over, put the three Griffin monster cores into her inventory, and clipped the Willful dagger to her hip. “I got an epic pet dagger. It likes to play fetch.”