Elizabeth the Healer, the Eighth Immortal who had saved the world, cast one last spell to bring everyone in her party up to full health. She had already fixed the big injuries, but wanted to make sure she didn't miss anything.

Deep in the Jungle-choked ruins of the old American capital, they had found a dragon. Considering that their job was to hunt down the biggest monsters before they could be a threat to the City, that wasn't a surprise. Monsters evolved into dragons at level 128, so every dragon was a world-ending threat if left alone. This one had scanned as a “Columbidae Dracobeast,” whatever that meant, and had been level 135. It had been a big scaly thing with feathered wings, a wicked beak, and swift, sudden attacks.

All dragons were difficult fights, but this one wasn't too bad. After over eighty years of working together, the team was a well-oiled machine, and they had taken it down. Sure, Felicia got her guts ripped out at one point and Felix lost an arm, but that was why Elizabeth was here. Sapphira managed to cover them with her shroud long enough for Elizabeth to put them back together.

No, the problem wasn't the fight. The problem was that they hadn't been looking for a dragon. They had been here looking for a bloodvault.

Blowing up threats to the City was only half their job. As the only people who could explore the world somewhat safely, they had to search for solutions. The world was growing more and more dangerous, while the human race was still resetting with every year. It was the same situation they had been in before they defeated the Tower, but worse.

Obadiah pushed past the corpse of the dragon without a second glance, and Elizabeth followed. This place had once been some sort of government building. The dragon had ripped the roof off, or maybe that had been the result of time and weather. There was little left inside but splinters and detritus, all pushed to the walls by the dragon's bulk. It had fit inside the building like a cat in a shoebox; not too big to fit, but not so small that it could explore.

In a corner of the floor, there was a stairway down, flooded with broken chairs and desks. Obadiah called over Solomon, who used his summons to clear the way. Any one of them, including Elizabeth, had put enough points in their Strength score to shift the rubble. But Solomon was faster. He was an elementalist summoner these days—Elizabeth didn't remember the exact name of the class—and used gravity elementals to lift everything away.

Solomon dismissed his summons. The eight of them descended into the bloodvault without a word.

There were warnings on the walls in a dozen languages, citing a hundred laws from a dead government. They promised immediate execution for breaching the vault for anything less than an emergency. Elizabeth saw one that explicitly said that any unauthorized access to the vault would be subject to immediate and direct interrogation by a congressional review board.

When the Tower had first arrived with the Jungle, every living human above the age of eight years old had received access to the System. Unlike later years, after the resets, everyone also received a class that first day, starting at level 1. Of the eight billion people in the world, a few hundred thousand unique classes had been assigned. Maybe as high as a million. No one knew for sure.

While the System had given instructions on how to create bloodstones, not everyone had paid attention. Many classes were lost with the first reset, and more over the following years, as the world was slowly choked more and more by the Jungle.

Most of the surviving governments realized that something needed to be done. So, the bloodvaults were created. Repositories of every bloodstone a government could get their hands on. In the early days, the nations fought over especially valuable stones, but by the end they had finally started sharing what they had and what they knew. Every bloodvault should have copies of everything the world had access to at the end.

The door to the vault, a massive circular door of the sort you'd find in a bank, had been broken. Kicked into the vault as easily as if it was a pull-away tab on a tin can. Tyrus summoned an orb of light and sent it in ahead of them.

The Eight Immortals stepped inside the vault to find rows upon rows of empty shelves. Elizabeth could tell at a glance that there had been at least a few hundred different types of bloodstones stored here, with eight copies of every one. They were arranged in the standard pattern: [Combat] stones to the left, [Utility] stones to the right. The [Combat] stones were then split into [Attackers], [Defenders], [Healers], and [Tamers]. The [Utility] stones were split into [Crafters], [Gatherers], [Scholars], and [Explorers].

Every individual shelf was labeled, with a place for a box that could hold eight bloodstones. There were also books with plastic pages chained to each section, which she knew would explain every individual class in more detail, including what was known of its level progression.

Most of the shelves were smashed. Not as bad as upstairs, but something large had clearly come through without any care to keep the place intact. Glass cases were shattered, and the glittering dust under their feet crunched. Parts of the metal walls were scratched, as if something had tried to dig its way out.

There was supposed to be a computer on a pillar in the center of the room, but that was gone too. Elizabeth guessed that it had been smashed by the monster as it scrambled around the room, looking for its prizes.

Bloodstones gave monsters experience when eaten. No one knew the exact amount, because humans didn't gain any such benefit, but the theory was that it was a percentage, or perhaps a percentage in addition to a flat amount. They hunted down the stones wherever they could. The stones in this vault could have turned any random Jungle-touched animal into a dragon.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Elizabeth stepped over to the [Explorer] display. The first intact label she saw was for the Runner class. Elizabeth knew that class. She had spent time as that class before, though not on her current build. She thought Obadiah might have some Runner in him, to supplement his Rogue build. Runners had been a popular class, because the speed they granted synergized well with many combat classes.

At higher levels, Runners could dodge bullets. They could jump a hundred feet in a single bound. If they really knew what they were doing, they could even learn spells to extend their speed to others. They were also an important building block for some important higher-tier classes. Most classes based around teleportation had a Runner somewhere in their advancement tree.

Runners would have made excellent scouts, not to mention led to the actual Scout class. If they had a Runner bloodstone, they could have extended the influence of the City. They could have a better messenger service. They could move supplies through the outlying villages more easily.

She stepped over to the [Gatherer] display. She looked around for a specific class, and soon found it. The Farmer class. Even a low-level Farmer could harvest an entire field in a fraction of the time it would take for a mundane laborer. At higher levels, they could just wave their hands and take everything into their inventory at once. Not to mention that the class was useful in planting the crops in the first place, and was key to more advanced classes that could grow an entire field in the space of an afternoon. She had never seen that combined with the growth of the Jungle, but she was sure it would be impressive.

There were no stones left. Not so much as a single drop of blood. The monster had gorged itself. Such a waste. Such a bloody waste.

Some part of Elizabeth, the part that had enjoyed fighting a dragon and actually earning a reasonable amount of experience for once, was even more angry because the specific stones hadn't mattered. The monster could have eaten ten thousand Mage bloodstones or ten thousand Knight bloodstones and gained the exact same benefit. It hadn't needed to eat unique and irreplaceable bloodstones.

Such a waste.

Suddenly a notification came in. The world quest that had been blaring for the last month or so. Elizabeth sighed, double-checked that nothing had changed, and dismissed the notification.

“Do we have time to go back and yell at Jonah for this?” Felicia boomed. Her voice always boomed. “He should be able to get his shit together! It's been a year!”

“It's been a month,” Tyrus said gently. Then he frowned. “Though it is odd that it's taking so long. And since a unique bloodstone is involved, perhaps we should intervene.”

“Our route will take us back that way early next year,” Tahpenes said. She was usually the one with the maps. She checked her phone. “Yeah, just after the solstice. If Jonah hasn't fixed everything by then, we can step in.”

Felix crossed his arms over his chest, the shield on his back rattling. “If we wait until the reset, there's a chance that we'll lose a Crafter bloodstone.” He waved a hand around the empty vault. “Do you really want to risk more of this?”

“Jonah knows to call us if he needs us,” Obadiah said. “He's never been shy about asking for help. His own daughter is involved, he's not going to mess around. If he doesn't need us, he doesn't need us.”

Sapphira gave an impressive snort. “I'm not sure I trust that kid to be objective when his daughter is involved.” She sighed. “Poor girl. She gets a new bloodstone, and it's even more non-combat than before.” She shook her head. “I knew I should have slipped her a few Shrouder stones.”

Elizabeth ignored the byplay. This was not new. They had some variant of this discussion every time the world quest notification appeared. Personally, she had faith in Jonah's pragmatism, if not his restraint or mercy. In all honesty, they should go back and untangle whatever mess he had gotten embroiled in. Eventually, they would, one way or another.

But right now, they had more work to do.

“We can't wag off this,” she said. “We don't have time to worry about some mad operative off his rocker. Where's our next go at?”

“Uh...” Tahpenes checked her maps again. “Up north a bit.” She paused. “Walter Reed Medical Center. It's an Army base.”

“All right.” Elizabeth gripped her staff tighter. “Let's get this done, and forget about that daft quest.”

She felt for the poor kidnapped girl, it was true. But if this Hundredborn boy knew what was good for him, he'd give her up and throw himself on Jonah's mercy. That's what she would have done.

If, by the time they finally made their way back to the City, he hadn't given up the girl, well. Elizabeth was known as the Healer. Mender had been her first class for this build, and [Healer] was the current role she played. She was unquestionably the greatest healer in the world, in absolutely every sense of the word.

But she had more than [Healers] in her build. She had Warlocks and Poisoners and even a few levels of Necromancer. She could curse someone with ever-burning flames, strike them with disease, and if she was in a really bad mood she could animate their own blood to tear them apart from the inside.

Elizabeth liked Ruth Moore. If she wasn't already safe and sound by the time she found her, Elizabeth wasn't asking any questions. She'd nuke the boy from orbit and sort through the mess later.

Walking out of the charred remains of the dragon's nest, she knew that she didn't have any other choice. Being one of the Eight Immortals meant striking swiftly, striking surely, and striking mercilessly.

Dragons deserved no pity.