The giant maw of flowing sand engulfed and then dropped me into a dark room. I managed to land on my feet, only needing to take a few steps to keep my balance. My shadow also managed to keep his feet but the same could not be said for the others. Burin was yelling, I could only just hear him over the churning sand. Surprisingly the floor was absent from even a spec of the stuff. Looking to the opening, there was a wall of sand that was flowing very quickly into a number of glowing pipes attached to the walls and ceiling. Bits of debris, stone, pebbles, and cactus would occasionally fly out of the mass of churning sand to land near or, unfortunately for those not paying attention, on top of them.

The others were slowly getting to their feet. I leaned down to help the closest, Yui, get to hers. She gave me a smile and we started to move away from the impact zone. My shadow helped Miko up, leaving Burin and Richard to get up and move themselves. Turns out I was chivalrous.

We were in a long narrow room with three wooden walls that curved outwards and upwards. The floor was filled with bits of plant matter, small rocks, and the few corpses of a lizard looking creatures of various sizes.

Richard crept slowly towards the wall of sand. “I have never seen an enchantment like this before. It’s changing both the direction and the momentum of the sand and only the sand, letting anything else through.”

He turned and flashed us a big toothy grin. “I thought for sure we were going to suffocate.” A moment later something smacked him in the back of the head and sent him to the ground.

We all backed away from the opening, apart from Burin who kicked what turned out to be a yellow slime off Richard’s head. Burin helped Richard to his feet and away from the danger zone.

“Your hands.” Richard said softly noticing Burin’s injury. He slowly removed the bandages.

While they were busy my shadow stepped around and dispatch the slime with a daggerbolt.

“They are severely burned.” Continued Richard.

He held his hands over Burin’s, which glowed a bright yellow for a handful of seconds. Once the light faded, Richard removed his hands and looked over Burin’s burns. The skin looked much healthier. It was now pale and smooth, like it had just regrown.

Richard gave Burin a small smile. “Best not to practise that alone.”

“Aye. I’ll keep that in mind.”

I went to talk but my voice was drowned out by the sound of the rushing sand. Shouting as loud as I could I tried again. “How am I hearing you so clearly?”

Richard turned to me and held his hand, he pointed to the rings on his fingers. “Channel some mana into the party ring when you talk.”

Trying it out I asked, “Is this working?” I couldn’t hear myself any clearer than before but the nods from the others confirmed it was working.

I reached over and patted Burin’s back. “Sorry. I was hoping my bandages would do a better job of healing.”

“Bah.” He waved me off. “Ye stopped a lot of sand from getting to them. Would have been worse if not for that.”

“Can I see one of those bandages?” Richard asked.

Conjuring a roll, I handed it over.

“I thought so.” He said to himself before looking up to me. “Your bandage does provide some healing, but it’s useless on burns and other elemental or magical afflictions.” He wrapped it around his forearm as he continued talking, “Good for cuts, but the healing won’t activate until fully wrapped.”

Removing the bandage, he let it fall to the floor. “Handy for out of combat healing and better than nothing but can’t do what a specialised healer can.” He declared.

“So, no good for burns and what, curses?” I clarified.

“Burns both frost and fire, acid, curses, poisons, diseases etc. Basically, anything other than cuts or general physical injuries.”

“What about missing limbs?” I asked.

He let out a chuckle. “No. It will help stop the bleeding though. In fact, your regen stone would likely be better for a missing limb… Given enough time.”

“Hey, at least he can heal.” Miko cut in. “I can’t do even that much. I was gifted a selfheal book for my birthday last year, but it just turned into a temporary health buff.”

Richard laughed. “Yeah, I remember your face.”

“Hey, get ready.” Yui cut in. “I I hear footsteps.”

I had no idea how she could hear anything with all the noise in this room. Her head was up against a wooden wall, this one went straight up, instead of curving outwards like the others. We all moved closer but couldn’t hear anything over the sand sucking behind us.

The wall Yui was listening against opened outwards and knocked against her. She managed to jump away as it fully opened. On the other side were two men wearing leather straps and tattered cloth. They each had a scimitar and dagger strapped to their waist.

I cast identify.

[Sand Pirate]

Health:610 / 100%

Class: Swabbie

Level: 6

Race: Human

“Pirates!” My shadow called out excitedly. He rushed towards them and ran one though with a spear. The other he disarmed of all weapons before throwing him towards us. “One for me, one for you.”

Experience gained.

The pirate landed on the wooden floor awkwardly and took a moment to get to his feet. The others seemed shocked and were looking back and forth between my shadow and the thrown pirate.

The only person not surprised was Burin. He marched over to the fallen pirate and plonked him on the head with his hammer.

“Ohmygod Ohmygod.” My shadow chanted excitedly and turned to face us. “Come on! We have pirates to kill!” He then rushed though the open door and up some stairs.

Everyone but Burin looked to me.

I returned their gaze. “What?”

Yui spoke first. “You said that…” She pointed to the open doorway “That’s a copy of you.”

“Yeah...” Honestly, I was just as excited as my shadow was and it took considerable willpower to stop myself from giggling like a child and run after him.

“But… you don’t fight like that.” Commented Richard.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m a caster. My shadow is magic.” I gestured to the stairs “Shall we?”

“What?” Richard almost yelled. “That makes no sense.” He turned to Yui and pointed towards me with a questioning look on his face.

Burin chuckled and went through the door. Miko followed behind him.

Yui let out a sigh before walking to the door. “Let’s go. Reigner, watch the rear.”

Richard stared at me for a moment longer before following the others.

It appeared that my shadow held no qualms of holding back around the others. As I walked behind Richard, I saw countless dead pirates pinned to the walls, ceiling, and floor by spears and other summoned weapons.

As we got closer, I could see the others were fighting against a few pirates. My shadow was generous enough to allow a few to get past him for the others to deal with. Even though they were human they did not talk or call out to us. Instead, they just made stereotypical pirate noises.

“Yar!” “Arr!” and “Argh!” could be heard as they fought against the team.

As we progressed, I noticed that the groups formation was falling apart and instead of covering for each other they were instead all charging forwards, laying waste to every pirate that came into view.

Miko slammed her shield into the face of hook handed pirate. “Hey, shadow Rey! Stop charging in. I should be the first to attack. I’m the groups tank, not you.”

My shadow stopped mid battle, holding the sword of the pirate he was fighting, and glared at the beastkin. “Shadow Ray? I’m not some laser beam.” My shadow then laughed. “You need to tank these? They are just kind of falling over when I tap them once or twice. Maybe you need to hit a bit harder.”

Yui dashed to Miko’s side and cut down the pirate she was facing. “Formation is the foundation of a groups safety and strength.”

“That’s a nice way of saying you can’t fight alone.” My shadow ran past them, up a set of stairs laughing the whole way. “You’re so slow!”

“Slow?” Yui made the word sound like a curse. “I’ll show you slow.”

Richard sent out two light orbs that attached themselves above and behind the shoulders of Yui and Miko just before they disappeared up another staircase. Burin was close behind them, making quick work of the stairs despite his stocky dwarven frame and legs.

Richard’s shoulders slumped as he let out a deep weary sigh. Half turning to me he muttered, “I hate running.”

“Don’t bother. My shadow won’t get too far and can handle anything they encounter. We have important work to do here anyway.”

His eyebrows rose. “What’s that?”

I gestured to all the fallen pirates around us. “Looting!” I cheered. “If there are pirates then there must be pirate gold.”

My friendly cleaning and looting sprite appeared before me. I willed it to loot all the bodies around us as I looked around for any chests that needed looting.

The section we were in looked to be some kind of sorting area. Long tables were on either side of the room with bits of junk, rocks, and plant matter, mostly cacti laying on top.

At the back, I noticed a wall of metal bars running from the ceiling to the floor. Inside lay a pile of bodies, beastkin by the look, stacked on top of each other.

Richard came over and gasped as he peered inside. “These were climbers.” He reached a hand between the bars and cast golden light onto the bodies.

He turned to me with a panicked look on his face. “Two are still alive in there! Barely but they are breathing. Do you have the key?”

Nodding, I walked up to the lock, wrapped my hand around it and pulled. It flexed slightly before just giving up and snapping away from the gate.

Richard rushed past me and started digging into the pile. He was quick but gentle. He would check a body, shake his head, and roll it to the side. After moving four bodies he found a survivor.

He picked up the beastkin and gently passed them over to me. “Place her a table.”

Doing what he said I moved over and gently lowered the beastkin down on to the nearest table. The beastkin looked to be part hound or wolf and was clearly female. I don’t know what the pirates did to her, but her clothes were nothing more than dirty rags. They did very little to cover her ample figure.

Turning away I went to help Richard move another beastkin on to the table next to the first.

The other beastkin looked almost identical to the first. About five and a half feet in height with grey hair and tail. Their skin looked pale, lips dry and cracked, and their eyes seemed sunken.

Richard leaned his head down onto the chest of the first wolfkin before doing the same to the second. While he was listening to her chest, he opened his eyes and saw me watching him. With a start he straightened quickly and let out a cough.

He placed a hand on the beastkin’s sternum and cast a spell. As he walked to do the same to the other, he asked, “Can you cast your campfire spell? They are very close to death and it’s going to take a lot of mana to heal them.”

Picking a location out of the way but close enough to help, I conjured a campstone.

“Anything else I can do?”

Turning bright red he said, “Perhaps some clothes?”

“Of course. Just let me know when it gets closer to ten hours. Wouldn’t want another repeat of what happened to Miko.”

“W-what happened to Miko? Wait tell me later… I need to focus.”

A short time later a blood covered Miko, Yui, and Burin stomped their way down the stairs followed by an angry looking me.

“Why are you still here!” My shadow yelled down. “There are still so many pirates to…” He noticed Richard chain casting spells onto the two beastin. “Oh…”

“What happened?” Yui asked as she reached us.

I gestured to the brig behind us. “Looks like a few groups worth of adventurers were captured before we arrived. These two were the only survivors. Richard is doing what he can for them.”

Yui just nodded and took a seat further down. She placed her arms on the table and rested her head between them. Miko glared at me for a moment before doing the same.

“What happened?” I asked my shadow.

He stopped staring at the two survivors and gave me a pained smile. Before he could answer Burin cut in.

“Well, it was fine until Darky here suddenly slammed into an invisible wall. In our rush we ignored him… and continued into a particularly large group of pirates.” He gave a shrug. “We managed but without either of ye there it was a…” He looked over at the two women of our team. “Bloody battle.”

Yui and Miko ignored us and were quietly resting, their hair, skin, and armour, covered in blood.

“Uh Reigner, why are ye surrounded by junk?” Burin was pointing down towards my feet.

Following his finger, I realised that I was surrounded by rusty swords, rags, and bits of armour. Every so often a small orb would fly to my storage pouch, turn into an item, and fall on to the pile.

Loot gained:

Pirate hand. (Inventory full)

Looking down I saw that the latest item to join the pile was a pirate hook.

Summoning some bags, I placed them on the ground and emptied my storage of everything that my sprite had looted. “Might as well help me organise this loot.” I said as I tossed aside a raggedy bit of cloth.

We sorted everything into five bags, each holding similar amounts of pirate junk that we could split evenly.

My sprite had come over and sat on my shoulder as we finished packing the last of the looted items. Looking over at Burin’s armour I sent the sprite over to clean him and the others up.

Burin’s eyes widened as my sprite cleaned and tidied him up. “I’m a fool.” He moaned.

He stood up and cast a spell on himself. His skin shimmered wetly for a handful of seconds. It was like a small layer of water covered his skin that churned against itself in countless streams and currents.

Burin let out a breath, sounding refreshed. Looking embarrassed, he said. “I forgot about that.”

He used the same spell on the others, waking them up from whatever rest they were getting. He then cast it on the two beastin after getting the okay from Richard.

The spell did wonders on them. I didn’t know if it was from Burin’s spell, Richard’s healing, or a combination of both, but they were looking much healthier. Their skin no longer looked dry, and they seemed to be breathing easier. They were gorgeous, I would place them next to Sera and Yui in terms of beauty. They were dressed in plain black robes I had conjured, but that did very little to hide just how attractive they were. They were clearly related, sisters or even twins if I had to guess.

“How are they?” Yui asked, having been woken by an instant bath.

Miko was close behind and gave Burin a punch on his shoulder. “You should have done that sooner.”

Burin gave a small smile in return.

“Much better than when we found them.” Richard commented as he looked them over. “They were infected with some type of disease that was preventing my heals from taking full effect. Thanks to Reigner’s campfire though, I was able to make up for it with constant healing. The health regen had a lot to do with their recovery too. Once they were no longer on deaths door, I cured them of the infection which has allowed heals to fully land. They should wake up soon… and I bet they will be hungry.”

“Got it. I’ll have a feast waiting for them as they wake.” I said before everyone started staring at me.

“No…” Richard said. “No feast. Not for these two anyway. It looks like they have been here for quite some time. Something simple to start off with. Don’t want them eating too much they sicken themselves.”

Miko stepped over to peer at one of the wolfkin. “Well just because they can’t doesn’t-“

“That wouldn’t be fair. Don’t you think?” I interrupted.

“Aye. How would you feel to wake up starving and only allowed to eat boiled mush while watching others enjoy a feast?” Burin commented. I was surprised, this was the first time I had seen him go against Miko’s call for food. My respect for the dwarf increased.

“I guess…” Miko grumbled as she looked down at the beastkin.

Richard glanced to the pile of climber bodies. “Yui, do you have any cad bags?”

Yui nodded and pulled out a white cloth sack. “Reigner. Burin. Please lay them out separately for me, one at a time.”

Sharing a glance with Burin we moved over to the decaying bodies, took the one on top, a grey haired beastkin, and placed him in a clear area on the wooden decking.

Yui reached into the sack and pulled out a bundle of white cloth. “Remove the TKS from his neck.”

Burin was closest to the head, so he reached down and removed the tower storage device. After he stepped back, Yui casually tossed the white bundle of cloth onto the body. The white cloth on contact with the dead adventurer unfurled and wrapped itself around the body.

Yui walked over, took the TKS from Burin, and placed it on the chest of the now wrapped corpse. The amulet glowed and seemed to just absorb the body into itself.

Burin jumped. “I never knew the TKS could do that.”

Miko moved to stand next to Yui. “It’s easier than carrying the body. The TKS are storage devices after all, it’s a bad idea to place them into your own.”

I thought back to the time I placed the elven storage bag into my own. “Wait why? Will they explode?”

Miko let out a laugh while Yui looked at me with a small smile.

Yui gestured for another body as she answered. “Yes and no. The enchantments on both devices would unravel and you would be left finding another means to carry all your stuff. It doesn’t violently explode like you might think, instead just expands to take up more space, usually ripping open whatever it was stored in.”

Miko’s laughter turned into a giggle. “Dad said something similar and was terrified of keeping storage devices close together. Only after the guild enchanter spent hours going over how the runes would fail if one was to be placed inside another did he start to relax.”

I placed down another corpse with Burin. “That’s strange. Remember those Elves we fought on the first floor?”

Miko gave a nod and I continued. “Well, I grabbed one of their bags and placed it into my storage. Neither one seemed to break.”

Yui dropped a cloth onto the body. “Elven magic can be weird. You were lucky you did not ruin your storage bag.”

We were interrupted by a sobbing sound from the table. Looking over I saw that one of the beastkin had woken. She was staring towards us with a mournful expression.