I looked around the regal room, searching for one of my objectives. The primary reason I wanted to come to this crypt in the first place was to give Nis a bag of wonders, which was usually found on the altar to the side of the room. Unfortunately, there was neither an altar, nor a wondrous bag.

I suppose it was too good to ask for. This place had been raided and robbed numerous times already, it would be a miracle of the highest degree if none of them realized the bag’s worth. Especially so since the only people capable of reaching its end would be the crème de la crème of the adventuring world, the only people who might really know its worth.

Well, it’s not like this was a wasted effort. Even if one of my objectives was lost from the very start, we had beaten the lord of the crypt. If the Dreviout was anything to go by, then most of the chimeric beast should have dissipated by now.

I wonder about the undead, though.

Undead forcefully reanimated through magic lose their capabilities after the death of their master, but undead reanimated due to a negligence to bathe and rite the body for soul ascendance don’t. Specters and monsters that live due to the accumulated grief and sadness that befell them.

Of course, not every dead person turns into them.

I shook my head and looked around. I may have lost the bag, but this room had its own unique loot.

One of them was the large, crimson crystal seal situated at the wall. It was broken, sure, and many of its fragments turned into a crystalline throne, but it still had its uses. Materials such as these were hard to find, and they were perfect for magic bestowals... Problem is, I don’t have someone who can do that.

Well, whatever.

I brought out the black spear and struck the throne.

The spearhead clashed with the crimson crystal. For a moment, the blade seemed to cut deep, however, it bounced back a second later. My hands up to my shoulders turned numb from the feedback.

I clicked my tongue and stepped back.

Of course it would be hard, what the fuck was I thinking? It needed a hundred or so years for Bastroll to break through, no way I could do it in one strike.

This is depressing. I can’t even get a material as good as this when it’s so very close to me. Damn it, fine. I’ll just look at the entire room.

And so, I did. However, reality was not so convenient. There were good articles, of course, maybe nicked off from the adventurers before, but they were subpar compared to mine. It was no use to me, and it wouldn’t really matter if I sold them considering the massive wealth I was hoarding in my pockets... er, pouch.

I scratched my head in annoyance and looked at the one thing in the room that was at least of interest. The magic circle in chalk in the center of the room.

I walked up to the circle and felt up the chalk. A dry sensation. I then placed my palm on the inscription, on a patch free of lines, and passed my mana through it.

The magic circle glowed slightly, but it was all it did. Nothing came out of it but the wastage of my already dwindling reserves.

“Ancient elven ritual, it would surprise me if you were able to commandeer it.”

I looked behind to the voice that spoke. There, Madriel stood, one of her hands holding on to the door frame. She made a show of wiping away the tears from her face and walked up to me.

“What’s it for?” I asked her and turned my gaze back to the peculiar formation.

“An elven bestowal ritual. As you know, we elves do not truly die. When our physical bodies cease, our souls return to the Althanciel where we await the next cycle of our life.” She said and knelt before the ritual circle, passing her hand over it and causing it to glow a faint green.

“The elven bestowal ritual turns the soul of a non-elf into an honorary one, so that they may join the Althanciel and be reborn anew. Normally, this is done by several elders to a true friend of the elves.”

She smiled faintly as she grasped at the chalk on the ground. Immediately, the glow stopped and the low hum of magic ceased.

“And I used that very ritual for my beloved. It may not be the immortality he wished for, but it is immortality nonetheless.” She explained and scattered the chalk of the circle, scrubbing it clean from the room. What was left was a mess of chalk everywhere.

“So this is the reason you joined me in this suicidal mission, to help Bastroll.”

She nodded and stared blankly at the ground.

“I thank you, Sed. For giving me this chance, for letting make me amends, for letting me do what I needed to do.”

I snickered.

“Oh man, don’t even go there. I was next to useless if you hadn’t thrown that ball of light.”

We both laughed and enjoyed the silence after, the various emotions likely sinking inside her.

“You really loved him, didn’t you?” I peered at her face.

A lovely smile blossomed on her features.

“Quick question then, why did you make passes at me and Nis? And don’t even deny it, I saw you trying to flirt her up during training.”

Madriel chuckled and paced around the room.

“Living with Bastroll, and learning of his plight, you realize the differences between elves and the other races. Our kind is immortal, but we aren’t invincible. So long as we don’t take up the sword and live peacefully, we can live for eternity.” She spoke in a calm, if a bit emotional, tone.

“Throughout our lives, we love many people, and we watch them leave as often. Love for us is fleeting, and we enjoy the little moments, but the ones we truly treasure are the memories left behind by those we loved.”

“And so there the problem laid.” I spoke up.

She nodded. “Yes.”

I shook my head. “Tricky thing. I wonder how many more broken hearts did your kind pass by.”

“Maybe a tad too much.” She giggled. “It’s time we leave to report this to the lodge.” She said, turned her back and walked out of the room.

I followed suit, but looked behind one more time.

The spacious room, with nothing remarkable. What a waste, that crimson crystal, if only I could harvest it...

~ Slavos ~

“Report, Sir Slavos! The chimeric beasts seem to be dissipating in clouds of smoke.”

“Reporting, field command. West camp attack has ceased and their body has started to decay.”

“North side, battle’s done, but the remain’re poof.”

“Oh, everyone’s here... uh, well, east side, same thing.”

Inside the field commander’s tent within the camp, several reports started filing in from all sides. The sounds outside seemed to have died down, and if what they said was correct, then there was something amiss.

I brought up the sword on the table to my shoulders and walked out of the tent.

Outside was... in a way, an ordered chaos. The scenery has always been the same.

“I’m taking to the west side. Keep monitor of all others.” I told the other adventurers and went to the front.

The west side was the one closest to the crypt entrance, and where we had established the best defenses. I hurried there and in but a few paces, I found myself within chaos.

The entire area was enclosed in a tide of dead chimeric beasts, just as the reports said, it was an unending tide streaming out from the crypt. Yet now, that unceasing flow died down just as abruptly.

Their corpses littered the ground, and all of them started to emit black smoke.

Many of the experienced adventurers started to interject the corpses with their mana to stay their decay, but many corpses still lay unclaimed.

I sighed and relaxed my guard. It truly seems to have ended.

“Slavos, quick question.”

As I was about to return to the tent to tend with the paperwork, someone tugged at my armor and spoke. Her voice was silky smooth and childlike, and there was a rising curiosity that laced it.

I looked behind me to see Nis, Sed’s partner. She was, just like him, an oddity. A beauty, at least by human standards. Incredibly powerful for her age, able to command four demons with ease, and could handle her own in battle. Not to mention, she was able to control the tide in the heat of it.

“What is it, young lady?” I asked what she meant.

She pointed at the group of adventurers trying to save the spoils of war.

“What are they doing?” She asked, a glimmer in her eyes.

Hrm, it seems she truly didn’t know. It is common knowledge among adventurers, but I suppose thinking of them as ‘common’ is a faulty notion.

“Dead monsters decay after a time, their mana will be lost, along with their physical bodies. For adventurers to profit hunting these monsters, they require that their bodies remain in physicality for longer. It has been found that injecting them with foreign mana keeps them permanently anchored to this plane. Or so, that is the common belief.” I explained to her.

“Interesting...” Her words trailed off and she decided to test it herself.

She walked up to one of the decaying corpses and pressed her palm across its belly, then surged her mana forward. Immediately, the black smoke that engulfed the corpse vanished.

“What a weird thing.” She muttered before standing up. She then faced me, a crooked grin plastered on her features. “I’ll uh... do some things.” She giggled and ran away to somewhere.

I sighed and shook my head. The both of them, odd.

~ Sed/Chris ~

Just as Madriel expected, many of the chimeric beast corpses were decaying in the higher floor. Hell, the entire room was fogged by black smoke that it was nearly impossible to navigate the room, even if it was just one straight walk.

If it weren’t for my newer control over ‘anam’, which is what the black smoke is, we wouldn’t have been able to find our way out.

It’s a weird thing, being able to control this fucked-up version of mana all of a sudden. Maybe it’s because it’s been instinctual since the start, but it’s only after that weird death I’ve experienced that I’ve been able to control it decently enough.

I brought out the black spear from the pouch and stared at it intently as we walked.

There’s more to this spear than meets the eye, that’s for sure.

I gripped at the handle and pushed in a modest amount of anam in my dwindling pool, and it responded in kind. It vibrated slightly as if it were alive. It would be great if that were the case, so I could speak to it. Then again, it doesn’t have a mouth so I’m not sure if it’s even possible...

Wait, speak to it?

Now that I think about, I did have that, yeah.

A ritual spell exclusive for Occultists, the ability to strengthen weapons for a time. It was quite a useful ritual spell to buff player weapons temporarily, but the time and material sink for a day-long buff wasn’t quite cost-effective for players. It was used extensively by top-ranked raiding parties though if they planned to do nothing but raids for 24-hours real-time.

However, that wasn’t really my concern here. It was the flavor text of the spell. If everything is as I assumed it to be, then this ritual spell was more than just a simple buff for weapons. After all, the spell mentioned that the caster ‘talks’ to the entity residing within.

If I believe it to be true, and I do, then this black spear may just be my next lead to this entire world-chasm thing, or a dud in the wayside. Either way, it was at least something to aim for. If it's not, then I'll look for another lead. It's all about the hustle and the grind.