Ping!

Level up!

The much coveted ping sound rang at the same time as Alex’s back hit the ground. A great woosh of air escaped his lungs, and he floundered for oxygen like a fish for a desperate moment, blinking wildly at the blue sky, before he could breathe again.

Immediately, his first instinct was to touch his face. He was sure the explosion had seared it worse than a well-done steak for a split second there, but there was no pain. Not there, and not in his formerly shattered elbow. He chanced a flex of his left arm and felt all the appropriate machinery responding accordingly. Bones regrown, muscles reknit, unbruised skin.

Ah, the joys of living in a semi-rpg world.

“Bloody hell!”

“Are you alright?”

Alex didn’t have to turn around to know who had said what. Their voices were surprisingly similar when you weren’t looking, but the choice of words really made things easy.

Grunting, he rolled to his knees. “I’m alright,” he said, pushing himself up to stand. “I’m alright.”

Diana sidled up to him “But the explosion… and your arm—”

“The arm was just a bruise, I’m telling you.” Alex wiggled it in front of her face. “See.” The fact his arm was not a useless piece of flesh anymore hanging off his shoulder showed just how overpowered his ability to heal up with every level up was.

Then with a thought, he conjured a handful of flames into his right palm and put the fingers of his left hand inside of it. “And my fire doesn’t hurt me that easily,” he said, smiling.

That seemed to satisfy the girl, at least. She didn’t need to know that as soon as he released the fire for his control, he could burn just as easily as any sack of meat out there.

“Was that how you did that explosion yesterday with those boars?” Daven asked, eyes shining as he stared at the place the Sage Treant had fallen. “‘Cause I can get behind this type of magic.”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Alex answered dismissively. He was already turning to look at the fallen second rankers, still sleeping a few yards away. Then his eyes shifted west to the dipping sun. It was past time for them to go.

Diana noticed. “We should hurry.”

Alex nodded. “Yes, but we need to get the flower first.” He needed that quest done. It was half the reason he was even here at all. “Try to wake up the others, I’ll start looking for it.”

“Do you know what it looks like, at least?” Diana asked, frowning.

Alex froze for a second. “Not really,” he rushed to say, chuckling awkwardly. She didn’t know he had seen dozens of the same flower, somehow made not to decay, pressed against the pages of a book. “But I assume it’s different from any of the others around here, otherwise it wouldn’t be unique.”

Diana looked across the expanse of the clearing, to the dozens of flowerbeds dotting the grass. She sighed. “I’ll help you.”

They spread out along the far side of the clearing first, Diana starting her search from the right side of the half-empty pond while Alex went to the left. The whole thing was made even more annoying when Alex realized he couldn’t just skim through the flowerbeds looking for the distinctive pale-pink of the special flower, as Diana herself was also looking spot by spot.

Sighing, he crab-walked between the places where color blossomed amidst the grass, muttering under his breath about his lower back. The level up, as always, seemed to act in a very surface level area of recovery. All the injuries were gone, yes, and it felt as if he’d just gotten a double-shot of caffeine in his veins; the energy was good enough to carry him for a bit longer, but the crash was just around the corner, he could feel it in his bones. In the way his muscles ached and his joints creaked.

A sudden breeze gusted, carrying the heady scent of the flowers and dispersing any smoke that still remained. Alex allowed himself to stop and sit back on his heels for a second, breathing in the spices in the air, his mind still reeling after everything. The setting sun, half-hidden behind a smattering of clouds, made the whole clearing seem awash in a gentle, peach-colored light.

Only the mass of roots bulging in the middle of the clearing like a cancer and the dust still floating about where the Sage Treant met its end broke the peaceful image around him.

That, and Daven, of course. The archer had decided to put on a free show for them on the other side of the clearing. Alex watched curiously as he knelt down in front of Cedric, took him by the collar, and started tossing him around and yelling in his face something along the lines of ‘where is the fucking money?’ as if he was out doing a shake up for the mob.

It worked. Cedric was up in a jolt, muttered excuses spilling out of his mouth. Daven fell down to full belly laughter, cackling and wheezing like a hyena.

Alex shook his head at the scene. Daven’s idea of humor should be the subject of serious study.

Then Daven had the bright idea to do the same with Valerian. Naturally, he found himself flipped over and smacked down to the ground like a particularly pale pancake, the literal fist of an angry god cocked back over his face.

This time, it took a minute for Alex’s stomach to stop hurting, tears prickling the corner of his eyes as he laughed. Maybe Daven did have a future in comedy. Wiping at his eyes, Alex sat up and sighed. The search for the flower and Daven’s antics were a good distraction from anything too important.

On the edge of his awareness, he could almost sense the extra attributes and skills available beckoning him like a temptress whispering sweet nothings in his ear, but even thinking felt too much like undue effort for now. Unless something else popped up, he could worry about distributing his points after he had a good night’s rest. It wouldn’t do to make decisions like this when he was essentially running on a level up-inducing high.

Cracking his neck, Alex shrugged and moved on to the next flowerbed. That’s when something caught his attention. It wasn’t the flower, unfortunately, but from the corner of his eyes, he saw something glimmering on the grass. A tanned white against green grass, and only a couple of feet away from where the Sage Treant died.

A quick scan around the clearing showed the others doing their own thing. Diana crouched over a bush, Daven trying to explain what happened after the two second rankers were knocked out, making grandiose swipes of his arms and explosion sounds, while Cedric humored him and Valerian didn’t even bother.

Frowning, he stood to his full height. He lost sight of the thing as soon as he moved, the grass and the last specks of black dust getting in the way, but he was sure there was something there. Walking over, he knelt over the spot, and he couldn’t help the sharp intake of breath that came to him once he pulled out the object half-buried in loose dirt.

It was a dagger, a beautifully carved piece with vine engravings on its wooden hilt and a blade made of the same antler bone the Wooden Skeletons wielded. Fucking hell. Was that…

“Is that…”

Alex’s head whipped up. Diana stood over him, her electric blue eyes curiously eating up the dagger.

He cleared his throat. “It sure seems like it.”

By then the others had made their way over, Daven nearly bowling through him in his excitement. “What does it do!?” the archer asked, his voice pitching high.

Alex looked at him weirdly. “You stick ‘em with the pointy end, genius.”

Standing a few feet behind them, Cedric snorted.

Daven shook his head. “I know that, obviously, but they say some loot can have… blessings.”

“Blessings?” Alex’s eyebrows climbed up.

“A blessing from the First,” Valerian said assuredly, and Alex had to bite down a quick retort.

More like Second, in this case. He looked down at the dagger again, turning it over in his hands, eyes examining every inch of it, fingers tracing the furrowed carvings. The wood was incredibly smooth to the touch, as if it’d been properly sanded and polished and oiled instead of being the droppings of a dead monster. When nothing stood out to him, he brought up his status page in hopes it would show him a glimpse of some hidden power in the blade.

But there was nothing. No pop up about its properties, no notice of it being a reward.

Alex shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Looks like a normal dagger to me.” He flipped it over and offered it to them, handle first.

Before anyone could take it, Cedric shook his head. “Keep it,” he said, that genial smile he was so practiced in sliding easily onto his face. “If what Daven just told us is true, then you deserve to have it more than anyone.”

To the side, Valerian nodded in agreement. Looking at the siblings, Alex only got nods in response, even if Daven pouted and extracted a promise to let him try it out for a bit. So he shrugged and pocketed the dagger. He wasn't nearly nice enough to dissuade them from giving him a free item.