Look Out!

I don't hesitate and immediately cast Locate Ally. I strike the quarter turn, slightly flexing my muscles. A pinprick of blue light blooms in my vision. The minimap appears in the upper righthand corner of my HUD. With it comes that unnerving influx of information and understanding as I zoom out slightly from my current location on the minimap and hone in on the white dot marked 'Jelly Boy' slowly moving southeast.

He's alive. Thank goodness, he's freaking alive!

His Health bar is still in the single digits, too. So, he isn't completely vulnerable. And he's moving slowly. I can definitely catch up with him and whoever took him.

Was this the Cardinal Hand? Did that woman do this, or have an accomplice? That doesn't seem likely. Why would she point out his disappearance and tip us off so quickly, if so?

Something prickles the back of my mind, like someone's tugging on my mental sleeve trying to get my attention. It's a subtle feeling, and if it wasn't so unfamiliar, I probably wouldn't have noticed it. I realize it's my new passive Perception Skill.

I spin in place, scanning the glassy terrain. A glint of blue catches my eye. It's where Jelly Boy had been—right next to Veronica, where he took that lightning nap and nearly got vaporized.

But there's more.

Other blue. Lighter. Stringy. Thinner. Like snail trails if the snails were made of cotton candy jelly.

Another slime?

Well, shit.

I crouch beside Veronica. She's lying on her back like a broken doll, half of her armor scorched, parts of it melted. Her face is pale, her lips cracked. But she's breathing. That's good.

"Hey," I say, gently nudging her shoulder. "You awake?"

She grunts. Her eyes flutter open like she's fighting to keep them that way. "I feel like I made out with a toaster in my bathtub and lived to tell the tale…"

"That bad, huh?"

She makes a noise that's somewhere between a groan and a death rattle. "I'll live."

"Did you see anything? Something… take Jelly Boy?"

She winces, turns her head to the side. "No. I was going in-and-out there… For a little while."

Great. So much for some eyewitness testimony. If my hunch is correct and another slime took Jelly Boy, what was it planning on doing to my slimy pal? Was there a food chain of slimes in this part of the Realm? Did Jelly Boy have natural predators that we weren't considering as we traipsed our way up the mountain?

Who knows. But now's the time to act.

I glance over at Clyde, who's half-buried in wyrmling gore. He's elbow-deep in dragon guts, trying to locate the core before the body cooks it into unusable slag. In one hand he's holding a dagger that I've never seen him use before (he really prefers to stick to his pistols).

"I've got a ping on Jelly Boy," I say. "Not far. Looks like something dragged him off. Another ooze, I think."

Clyde pauses, pulling a slimy fist out of the dragon. He doesn't even look up. "Go. Veronica and I will extract the core and head for the Factory marker on the map. You can meet us there."

I hesitate.

"It's risky," I say. "You won't have the Locate Ally ping. If I go dark, you won't know where to find me. And why head straight to the Factory?"

Clyde looks up this time. His expression is unreadable, but his eyes are sharp. Calculating. "If you don't go now, we might lose him. And Veronica?" He nods toward her. "She's not in fighting shape. As for the Factory, I don't think the core can be stored directly in our Inventories. At least not as it currently is… I've gotten a hand on it, even generated a System description, but can't pull it into my Inventory. Perhaps it takes up too much space… Or maybe I'll be able to once I get the fucking thing out of the corpse… We'll see."

I look down at Veronica again. She's trying to sit up, gritting her teeth through the pain. She's a damn tank, but even tanks need repair time. He's not wrong, I tell myself.

"Here." Clyde tosses me two potions. I catch them. One red, one electric blue. "Veronica's still got four Health potions in her Inventory. These are my last two. Healing and Stamina. You've got more Stamina potions on you?"

"Yup. Three more."

I pop open the Health potion and toss it back. I quickly follow it up with the Stamina potion, which makes my body's muscles feel like I just took a relaxing ice bath after a brutal lift. Clyde kept two of our higher quality potions on his person, and I know immediately that's what he's given me.

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Health: 112/140

Stamina: 280/295

Wait a second… 140 Health? 295 Stamina?

That's when I realize I still have unopened System notifications minimized and blinking in the bottom corner of my interface. I open them with a swift mental gesture.

You have defeated Baby Storm Dragon, Level 47!

Partial credit awarded to… Clyde Richmond!

Patrial credit awarded to… Veronica Sampietro!

Partial credit awarded to… Jelly Boy.

Level 16 increased to Level 17!

[2 Stat Points Currently Unallocated. Assign Stat Points?]

Without another thought, I dump both points into my Dexterity. I'll need all the speed I can get if I'm going to catch up to Jelly Boy.

I turn back to Clyde. "See you at the Factory."

"Get back Jelly Boy."

Then we bump fists. It's not much. But it's enough.

"And don't get killed," he says.

"Same to you," I say. "Just get that damn core."

He grins. "We already did the hard part."

Then I turn southeast—towards Jelly Boy's location on my minimap—and I rocket forward in a full-on sprint. The Storm Essence cracks beneath my boots, and the air still tingling with the aftershock of the Mother Dragon's untimely death.

Someone—or something—took Jelly Boy. And I'm going to find out who. And I'm going to make them regret it.

POV: Clyde Richmond

Fifteen minutes.

That's how long I've been elbow-deep in reptilian viscera, wrist-cramped and knuckles bruised, rummaging around like I dropped a wedding ring in a dumpster filled with acid and dragon spleen. My Health has taken a decent hit from the burn damage caused by the soupy infernal guts of the wyrmling corpse.

And I still can't find the damn thing. I swore I had touched it earlier. I even conjured a System description.

[Baby Storm Dragon Core]

[Description: The core of a Baby Storm Dragon. These cores are often used as a power source in artificery as they can draw in, channel, and conduct various elemental energies, specifically lightning energy.]

I swear, if this wyrmling's core disintegrated early, I'm going to take up gardening and just accept my new life in this stupid Realm. Maybe Baptiste could give me a job on his farm?

But then—there. A glint. A hum. My fingers brush something warm and smooth, and I know before I even yank it free: this is it. I pull.

It resists. I can handle a little resistance, a little struggle. My whole damned life was a struggle, and I wasn't going to let this stop me. Fuck gardening.

With a squelch and a sound like a cork being yanked from a wine bottle, the core comes loose.

"Ha!" I hold it aloft like a video game protagonist that just picked up some rare loot from the end-of-dungeon chest. And holy shit, is it pretty.

The thing pulses in my hand, a glassy orb the size of a volleyball, like a plasma globe you'd find in an old mall Spencer's Gifts. The purple lightning inside actually stings when it kisses the inner walls.

I turn and stride back toward Veronica, who's propped up against a pile of Storm Essence like it's the world's most uncomfortable lawn chair. She's managed to sit up. That's progress. Her armor's still half-melted slag, though—burnt through at the shoulder and cracked down the side. The pink-red scar tissue running up her neck glows. It looks painful. It probably is painful. I hope she's still regenerating to deal with that.

She raises an eyebrow at me, mouth twitching into something that might've been a smile if it weren't attached to a face full of pain.

"Well, well," she says, voice hoarse and dry, "look who finally decided to get his hands a little dirty."

I smirk. "You should have chosen a long-range build."

She rolls her eyes. "Thanks for the advice, asshole." Then she groans. "Now help me to my feet, you smug bastard."

"Of course," I say. I attempt to slip the monster core into my Inventory, but as I feared it doesn't work. "Damn," I hiss. "One second."

I place the orb down before I take her hand and brace her with my other arm as she hauls herself up, stiff and slow. Every motion looks like it costs her. And maybe it does. Maybe not in HP, but certainly in the pain and the memories it will leave with her.

Once she steadies herself, I crouch and snatch the core. I hand it to her. "Just for a second," I say.

She takes it into both of her hands without another word.

I approach the wyrmling corpse.

[Loot Baby Storm Dragon corpse?]

I mentally confirm and receive several items in my Inventory.

Storm Dragon Meat x1

Storm Dragon Scales x10

Storm Dragon Claw x1

I go ahead and do the same to the thing's dead mother.

Storm Dragon Meat x2

Storm Dragon Scales x30

Storm Dragon Eye x1

Not a bad haul.

"I think we just got some pretty nice stuff from their bodies," I say, sliding down a slope of Storm Essence back towards Veronica.

Veronica opens her mouth, probably to say something pithy—maybe something sincere. Hard to tell with her, sometimes. But whatever it was, it dies on her lips.

Her eyes go wide, pupils dilating fast with surprise.

She points, voice jagged and sharp. "Look out!"

I don't ask questions. I spin, following her line of sight with the kind of reflex that comes from living through one too many almost-deaths in my relatively short life. My left hand fills with a mote of pixelated light as I summon my pistol.

But I'm too slow.

There's no time to process the figure on the ridge or the way the air warps and hisses. No time to admire the artistry of the spell coming at me, how it bends the light and burns violet through the world like a lance made of something cruel and practiced.

All I have time for is one word, and it's not even particularly useful: "Shit."

Then it hits me.

The blast nails me square in the chest. Dead center. Bullseye. Damnit… That's kind of my thing. It feel like getting punched by a freight train. My ribs scream, my spine folds like a lawn chair, and then just like that I'm airborne. I fly, body soaring over the miniature dunes of obsidian glass. The sky spins. My HUD explodes in red. Pain flares so hot and bright it's almost cold.

And then the ground slams into me and the air explodes from my lungs.

I bounce once, slide maybe ten feet more across jagged obsidian Storm Essence. Every shard cuts through my shirt and exposed skin. My pistol clatters free from my grip, landing somewhere out of reach. My breath comes in wet gasps, and I think—hope—that's not blood in my throat.

System notifications scroll across my vision like ticker tape of bad news.

My fingers twitch. I'm not fully downed… Not yet.

Somewhere, I hear Veronica yelling. Another spell goes off. A crackle of magic. My vision's swimming too much to tell what exactly is happening. I shake my head, trying to get my bearings. Another caster?

"Of course," I croak, coughing, wiping Storm Essence ash and blood from my lips with the back of a trembling hand. "Should've guessed it wasn't going to be easy." It's never easy.

I grit my teeth, force my body to move.

Time to see who wants me dead.

And whether I can return the favor.

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