Every time Arron thought he was progressing, he found himself—once again—playing catch up.

Arron cursed the fallen tree blocking the steep mountain path. It was huge. The damn thing was on its side and nearly up to his chest it was so big. With no other way around it, he dug his fingers into the rough bark, forced to climb over it to continue up the pass. His foot slipped, slamming onto the rocky ground and dislodging some packed earth. Pebbles tumbled down the slope behind him, kicking up dust that curled away into a vast nothingness beyond the ridge.

The diminishing cracking of the stones into the distance brought a shiver to his spine. He hated heights.

This wasn’t the first time he’d almost fallen. Shit, it wasn’t even the tenth time. This path was steep and treacherous.

Of course the stuff in his inventory just had to have some ridiculous task associated with it. Stupid game. Stupid quest.

“I swear, lad,” Torbin had sputtered, almost comical in his speechlessness. “I swear. I… swear.”

“How articulate be our fearless leader,” Mercutio said.

Torbin paced a bit, muttering under his breath.

“Ok, I’m going to assume you get the idea of an inventory,” the dwarf started. “Like, it’s a place that things are stored. You get that much, yeah?”

Arron nodded.

“Thank god for that, at least,” Torbin said. “Well, in Interius, loot is handled through crystals like the one I gave you. A crystal can have a nearly unlimited amount of stuff held in it, and in the case of a loot crystal, it’s bound to the Player who has claim to the loot. When you touch the crystal, it is automatically sorted into your Inventory where you can access it.”

“Makes sorting large piles of stuff way easier,” Iris said with a wave of her hand.

“That crystal I gave you has the loot from your kill. Go ahead and take a look at your drops,” Torbin said with forced patience.

Arron opened his Inventory.

Inventory

Half Rotted Rat Tails x14

Rat Tooth Dagger (Unidentified)

Smashed Zombie Brains x2

Living Weapon (Unawakened)

Minor Core x1

0g 4s

It didn’t seem like much considering how long he had been playing.

As the Valkyrie had mentioned, on each of the times he died, he’d lost his Inventory. According to his new friends, most players go back to where they died and collect the gem containing their things.

Which would have been helpful to know. Would have saved him taking so many trips fighting that damn rat.

If you didn’t retrieve the crystal though, it would eventually fade away, reclaimed by the game. Which explained why there weren’t dozens of hammers on a random swampy road in the Darkened Lands.

Congratulations flew when he told them about his Rat Tooth Dagger. It needed to be identified, but it was a rare drop. Iris had bid on one in a local auction, and used it for quite a while before upgrading.

“Yea lad, it’s a well-known drop from Wesley. People can run that quest 500 times and still not get it. You have a great weapon there to Level with,” Torbin said, clapping him on the back.

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“Excellent,” Arron said. “What do I do with spare stuff then? I have something called Zombie Brains and a Minor Core?”

“Most of those will be sold to NPC’s or the auction house,” Iris said. “The brains—” Torbin visibly gagged and gave a sidelong glance at Arron, to which Iris held back a chuckle. “—however you got those, are an alchemical ingredient. Probably get you a gold a piece. The Core you can keep for crafting, or sell the same way,” Iris finished casually.

“Yea, I’m not so interested in crafting things,” Arron said. “I’ll leave the Martha Stewart stuff alone.”

He smiled and looked past his Inventory screen, expecting a laugh from the group, but everyone looked at him with blank faces. Clearly, he wasn’t funny. Must be his low Charisma, he told himself. After an awkward cough, he continued, “So I take it it’d be the same deal with the Auction House for a Living Weapon?”

The clearing went silent.

Everyone slowly turned, their stares searching his face for something.

And then Iris tried to cut his throat.

The woman in black produced a wicked-looking black dagger from nowhere and launched herself over the campfire at Arron.

Not expecting the attack, he froze in shock, and she hit him with the force of a stock market crash. He almost bent in half as their bodies came together, tumbling end over end, rolling across the ground.

Landing on top, she held her knife in a reversed grip over his head, poised to strike. She smiled with wild, unrestrained glee as the blade descended towards Arron’s—

She was blindsided by a beard with churning legs.

Torbin slammed his shoulder into the side of Iris’ head, bending her neck at an odd angle while he wrapped his arms around her, dragging her to the ground.

“Go!” Torbin yelled. “Now!”

Iris slammed an elbow into Torbin’s face, eliciting a cry of pain from the stocky dwarf.

“You’re gonna defend the filthy casual? C’mon, man! You heard what he said—Ow!” Iris flailed under Torbin’s strength to hold her down. “Grrrr! Fine, a little PVP for a Living Weapon? I’m in, Torby.” Iris’s words were tinged with laughter.

“Agreed!” Mercutio fairly crowed and dashed towards Arron.

Arron skidded backward on his hands and knees, trying to put distance between himself and whatever madness had overtaken his group. Grunts and curses came from the pair flailing on the ground, Torbin occasionally swearing at Iris for going after “his bits.”

Mercutio, though, was advancing, his rapier poised to strike. “You know, some would say it is rude to kill one less fortunate than yourself,” the bard said, looking down the length of the slim blade. “I, for one, cannot agree. I think when they look for you in the morning, they will find you a grave man.” Quick as a fox, Mercutio shot forward, extending his sword in a lightning fast thrust.

A wall of ice exploded from the ground in front of Arron, blocking Mercutio just before the tip of his blade could plunge through Arron’s heart.

Sonya was extending the wall left and right. Blue and white symbols floated around her, pulsing with energy as they formed patterns in the air.

“Sonya!” Whined Mercutio from behind the barrier.

“Torbin’s right, Arron,” she said, ignoring the bard. “You must go, now. Keep the weapon a secret until you can have it awoken. Until then, anyone who slays you can take it for their own.”

Shouts rose over the wall as Mercutio helped Iris with Torbin, the dwarf spitting the kind of colorful language you might hear in a skatepark.

Sonya frowned. “I can’t hold them alone. Go! Head to Glendale, talk to the smith. He will give you the starter quest.”

A grappling hook sailed over the top of the wall, its sharp points sinking into the ice and the rope went taut. Sonya moved her hand and fire erupted from her palm, burning the rope away from the hook, but leaving a gap in the wall. A solid thunk from the other side indicated she’d thwarted someone’s climb.

Smiling, she looked back at Arron one last time. “Seriously, go. No time to delay.”

She threw fire into the gap at the top of the wall, just as Mercutio’s face appeared.

An explosion threw Arron forty feet through the air, directly into the trunk of a tree. Pieces of ice and stone rained down around him, and the dirt settled in a smoky haze. Before the cover of dust lifted, Arron forced his momentarily unresponsive body to stand and took off into the forest.

He dodged trees and bushes, pumping his legs to the limits of his speed. Several times roots seemed to come up and trip him, but he kept going.

What the hell had just happened? His mind whirled trying to process the events of the last few minutes.

He’d been running for almost ten minutes at top speed by the time he realized he wasn’t winded, tired, or even sore. He stepped up his pace, pushing himself until the crimson spots around the sides of his vision formed, confirming his suspicion. No pain. The haze was the only way he even knew there was a problem.

This Pain Threshold thing was awesome!

A huge smile was on his face as he entered the town, not even bothering to slow down, just running straight to the blacksmith’s shop.

The smith, Smith, raised an eyebrow when Arron burst in, smiling like a loon before nearly collapsing and gasping for breath. Minutes went by as Arron tried to get out words, his body heaving, trying to suck in oxygen however it could.

Ok, good to know. Just because it doesn’t hurt to run, doesn’t mean I can be carefree about it.

Second guessing his previous decision, he turned his Pain Tolerance down to 85% as Torbin had mentioned. It was obviously too easy to ignore the damage and risk ending up in respawn.

“Hello, sir, I was—” he choked out, noticing a dull pain in his chest for the first time in a while.

“Not interested,” the large man replied, moving to the back of his shop.