-Shadow-
20 years ago.
It was a cold night. I had tears rolling down my cheeks. Mommy was doing what she usually did on a Saturday night.
She was drinking.
Angrily she responded to my crying in a drunken slur. “Holly I don’t want to hear it go to bed!”
I tried to hug her in hopes of being comforted, but she pushed me away screaming naughty words at me.
I cried “Mommy, don’t make me! The monster-“ I was cut off as my mother yelled back.
“I don’t care you stupid child! Go to bed! Mother knows best!” She pointed a finger down the hall while spilling whine on the carpet.
The glass was half empty. I cried again and ran down the hall as my mother seemed to scream in anger.
I thought she was mad at me, but really she was angry because she’d drunkenly spilled whine on the carpet.
The sound of bear feet taping on hard wood resounded through that hollow house as my crying mothers words echoed passed me. “I wish you were never born.” Like a scalpel they cut so deep that I nearly fell over.
Entering my room I was met with darkness and the sounds of my heavy breathing. I sobbed holding my ears while trying to hold the door closed.
She didn’t come after me. Mommy would never hit me, but when she drank, she would yell a lot. It was really scary.
I ran to the bed and crawled under the covers to hide. I wish daddy was here. Mommy was always happy when daddy was home.
She was often cold, and a lot of the time it seemed like she didn’t like touching me.
Are all mommies like that? If I was a mommy I would be really nice to my kids.
I've seen other mommies on TV and they’re really nice. How come my mommy isn't like that?
I remember those mommies hugging their children. I bet it was warm. I tried to do the same wrapping my arms around myself and imagining mommy was holding me.
It felt a little warmer, but it wasn’t right. My arms softened and shifted to a more comfortable position.
I wasn’t afraid of the monster anymore. I was more afraid of Mommy. I needed to be extra quiet, otherwise Mommy would yell again.
I rolled over in bed to get comfortable. My eyes had finally adjusted to the low light, and I could see a lot of my toys on the floor.
I got out of bed and reached for my favorite dolly. I remember aunt Susie giving it to me for my birthday.
The doll looked just like me. She had pretty long black hair and brown eyes. Back when I got her I named her little Holly.
I felt another tear run down the side of my face. “What’s the matter little Holly?” I asked the doll.
“Oh… there’s a monster in your closet? Oh sweetie, don’t cry.” I sobbed. “The monster can’t get you. I’ll keep you safe. D-Don’t worry, Mommy’s here.”
Getting back into bed I hugged little Holly. “It’s okay little Holly” I cried. “It’s okay. I love you. You don’t have to cry because Mommy is h-h-here…”
Tears fell on the doll as I squeezed her tightly to my body. I wasn’t sure why I was crying, but it felt good. Crying is good. It makes the sad go away.
Little Holly had no reason to cry because she had the best mommy ever.
“Hush little baby don’t say a word m-mommas gonna buy you a mocking bird…” I sang to little Holly and wrapped her in my loving warmth.
I don’t know how long I babied that stupid doll, but I must’ve fallen asleep at some point.
Present day
I woke up somewhere else. My head was in pain and there was something on top of me.
Lifting my head I realized I was under some rubble. My head was the only part of me that was visible. It looked like I was stuck under a collapsed wall.
How did I get here?
Immediately I thrashed getting myself out from under the rock, but at the same time scratching and cutting myself on the stone and wood.
Two things were made apparent. The first was that my leg was broken, made obvious by the fact it was bent the wrong way….
Or was my leg facing the right way and it was actually my body that was bent the wrong way? Regardless it was broken for sure.
The other thing was that I definitely hit my head. It was also made obvious due to the blood running down my neck.
I must have had a ton of adrenalin running through me because the pain wasn't that bad.
My heart wasn’t beating. It was vibrating. Should I be concerned? I’m not sure if this was a heart attack or not… Actually my heart was the only thing that didn’t hurt.
Fishing out a mid potion, I downed it. Everything seemed to nit itself back together including my broken leg.
My heart was still vibing to its own tune, but I don’t think I was dying. I was actually at full health.
My throat was a bit dry from all the dust but I still managed to rasp out. “Where are my children?”
Dizzily I made my way out of the broken building. Once outside I hopped up onto a roof top.
I thought back to what happened. Back to where everything went wrong.
Alice was about to tell us what I assumed was the biggest secret of all, when all of a sudden I felt dread creeping up on me.
It was subtle but slowly rising. I tried not to show the sudden change in vibe as Alice said something about Masters fake mom not wanting them to date anymore.
As it passed over me every one of my hairs stood up and I started to sweat. My heart began beating faster and faster in my chest. It was so fast that at some point I was no longer sure if it was actually beating.
It was a bit uncomfortable at first but I quickly got used to it. The moment seemed to last forever as all my senses were turned up to max. I’d never felt so alert in my life, yet I still didn’t understand what was wrong.
Everything seemed fine, but I couldn’t get the feeling of dread to shake off. I knew we were in great danger but I didn’t know why.
I looked around but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. A moment passed and an explosion of some kind ignited in the distance.
My body felt stiff, and my already erect claws tightened. It was like they were trying to extend passed their threshold.
Kind of like how my ex husband would roll the tube of toothpaste from one end to the other in order to get that last tiny drop out.
I tried to shield Alice from the danger and she even trusted me enough to hang onto my leg. However…..
Something screamed inside me to run! To get away! To move as far away from that place as possible! I had to keep Alice and Luca safe, but I couldn’t stop myself.
It was as if a frightened beast had taken over my body. A raw primordial instinct forcing me to run as far as I could, and before I could stop myself they were gone.
Maybe it’s better to say I had left them behind. I abandoned my children. I couldn’t believe I would do something so careless. There wasn't any time to sulk.
Buildings collapsed as I avoided a giant bug like body that seemed hell bent on destruction.
It wasn’t so much that it was crawling towards me. It was more like it had fallen out into the light and started to thrash in a panic.
The monster was taller than any building. So long that I couldn’t even see where it started or ended. It’s body was covered in spikes and sleek black chitin.
I wanted to go back but I couldn’t. To do that I’d have to get around this massive creature and that was currently impossible.
I felt a strange tingle on my skin and for some reason it felt like the creature was humming. Kind of like the frequency of a humming birds wings.
My stomach went cold, and I began to sweat. Somehow… I knew… this thing was watching me…. I was under a giant microscope.
The beast somehow saw me even though it’s eyes were nowhere to be seen.
Snake-like tendrils grew out of its body rapidly extending towards me like giant snakes.
This wasn’t good! I activated a smoke bomb in my hot bar. It materialized in my hand just as I avoided the first snake-like limb.
My eyesight might have been bad but I could literally feel the danger as if it were a tangible thing. It was almost like I’d unlocked a 6th sense.
I pulled the pin flipping the fuse. Smoke started to poor out as I dropped it at my feet.
The smoke rapidly filled the area in a thick black cloud just as another tendril reached for me.
The monster tried to stab me but instead it’s needle like appendages struck the roof top of the building.
Thanks to the thick smoke I was able to activate stealth, vanishing from whatever spectrum of sight it had, I could even feel the frequencies of my body change becoming less noticeable.
The best way to describe it would be like ripples on water. I could feel the monsters ripples and it could feel mine.
Stealth not only dampened my existence in the light spectrum. It also forced the monsters frequency to go right through me.
The cloud of black smoke seemed to have its own effect forcing the monsters frequency to lose focus, scattering its vibrations in the process.
It was all way to much information, and my body seemed to do what I needed before I could even figure out what was going on.
Using my high speed I got away from there, and decided to travel through the alleyway where it was nice and dark.
My sprint came to a stop when I noticed the strange objects in the sky. With my bad eyes they looked like reddish-black strings.
It wasn’t until one of them fell near me that I finally understood what I was looking at. They were like the big one, except these were smaller.
One fell into the alleyway I was in while two others crash landed a street over. The sound of their screeching made me feel sick to my stomach.
You know that one kid that would scratch the chalkboard. It was like that but a million times worse. Am I old? I don’t think they use chalk boards anymore.
I moved the other way not wanting to break my stealth. Lucky for me the beast was too low level to notice me.
I activated dash leaving it behind. The ability dash let me move forward in short bursts of speed at the cost of a few focus points.
Dashing through the streets I tried my best to get back to where the others were. By now I had already tried party chat and found that it wasn't working.
What does that thing have that’s jamming our signal? I couldn’t even bring up my map to see where everyone was.
Every time I tried there was this little “ting” noise. Like someone hitting one of those triangle instruments.
Except the sound waves were kind of muffled by the constant humming of that giant monster.
There was even a crazy de-buff lowering my stats. The constant buzzing felt very oppressive on my body.
Why didn’t I stay with them! They were right there! I should of grabbed Alice! I should have ran away with Luca!
I was about to punch the wall in frustration when I spotted the head of the giant monster moving ever so slowly across the sky.
That thing was the ugliest bug I’d ever seen. Could you even call it a bug? Hard to believe it’s only rank 3. Looked more like a rank 4 raid boss.
Sometimes the devs would take rank 3s and turn them into raid bosses. It was meant as a fun way to bring back old monsters.
How were we supposed to fight something that big. Was this supposed to be balanced?
You can’t just drop a whole ass - excuse my language - boss in the middle of the city out of nowhere! This is ridiculous!
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
No quest! No build up! Not even a cute maiden in trouble! This is terrible story telling! I swear the devs are so lazy. They should hire new writers. This is lazy writing in the purest of forms.
Forget that. I need to find them. I need to find my children. Master is out there somewhere.
Unlike Luca and Alice I can’t see her HP bar. Luca is hurt but she’ll be okay. Alice has full health. That’s good.
That boss isn’t normal. It looks like a centipede… centipede? Could this have something to do with that thing in Masters head?
Master what did you do? This has to be that thing Alice was talking about. That bug thing that made Master kill that poop head.
I wonder… how did this all connect? Isn’t that thing just an alter? It couldn’t actually be real right?
Just because this was a fantasy world didn’t mean our mental illnesses could come to life as giant bug demons. That’s not how mental illness works.
I honestly don’t know what is real anymore. I mean just look at me! I’m in another world In a cat girl body of all things!
If that’s possible then why couldn’t Master have a pet monster living inside her head… That still sounded crazy. You know, to be fair everything about Master is crazy.
She might say she isn’t crazy but she totally is. Of course I always nod along since I don’t want to hurt her feelings.
Just then, another thought was unearthed. What if….. what if that’s Master!?
That’s how these types of plots unfold right? The nine-tailed demon kid gets taken over by the evil fox spirit and It’s up to their friends or character growth, to turn them back to normal.
Or the binge eater's kakuhou turns the MC into a people eating cannibal and only the thought of no longer being human keeps them from going full Hannibal lecture.
Or like Akira…. Oh wait didn’t that guy die in the end….. oopsie forgot to put in a spoiler warning. My bad.
(Authors note: Who hasn’t seen Akira?)
How would I even go about turning Master back to normal?
She can’t fit into a dress anymore! How will I cuddle with her at night! She’s not cute at all!
“No!” I slammed my fist into the wall next to me causing my arm to radiate with pain. The stone cracked on impact.
My stealth broke and I heard the screeching of one of those ugly bugs. There was this vibration coming from behind me.
The vibration felt similar to the one in my heart but different. Somehow it was wrong.
It was a gut feeling of pure danger. I didn’t even have to look to understand it had lunged at me. Before it could hurt me I activated after image.
It’s stinger went right through my illusion and I appeared just above its head. My claws lashed out cutting deep into the bugs back.
Like a cracking egg it’s body split open causing black blood to explode out of its back. There was little to no mess as the bug, and it's bodily fluids turned to ash.
“Master would never turn into a monster!” The image of Master about to impale Mantis flashed Intrusively in my mind.
“That’s not right! It was an accident! She never meant to! she was just angry! Master is a sweet girl!”
Another memory popped up. One of Master crying and talking about her mother.
That night….
I didn’t know a mother could do that to their child. I know I would never do such a thing. She wasn't a mom. That lady was the real monster.
How could she hurt little Hol- uh…. Master…. How could she hurt Master like that.
Master isn’t a monster. Master is the victim. I’ll save her. I just have to try harder. She just needs a hug and a good cry is all.
How?
I felt so frustrated. I wasn’t like my guild mates. I wasn't clever enough to come up with a solid plan.
Anger flared up inside me. Born out of self hatred. My claws lashed out slicing through the wall of a building.
I’ve spent so much time with them. Why can’t I be like them? Did I not learn anything! What the hell have I been doing all this time! I should of paid more attention!
A roar escaped my mouth. It sounded like a tiger or a mountain lion. The air even seemed to shake with the expression of my anger.
Come on stupid brain! This isn’t math! It’s simple! What would my guild mates do? What would Master do?
Master always came up with great ideas. While everyone else filled in the details. All I did was stand where they wanted me and do as I was told.
Slamming my head into a wall, I gave it some thought….
I need to take care of the boss. Take that out and the minions will all vanish….. I think. This wasn’t the game so I wasn’t sure.
Okay! That's the end result! Now how would Master get it done? Something had to have rubbed off…
Anything?
“Ugh…..” first Mao would give us a run down on what the monster could do. Then Luca and rhyme would start talking about ways to deal with that stuff.
Eco would say something like “I’ll break through its defense and lead it to a better position.” or something like that.
He always seemed to act as bait. Master said his rapid fire abilities made him good for gathering agro.
Fish would say something dumb like “I’m not sticking my dick in that” Then Clara and I would start fighting with him, because Luca was present.
Rhyme would probably go AFK not wanting to get involved. Luca would say she wasn't a baby and tell everyone she found the joke a little funny.
The conversation would turn into something else entirely as Master tried to calm everyone down and Mao would try to get everyone back on track.
Wait, what was I thinking about?
“Ugh!” This only works if I have a party! Even if Alice, Luca, and I could team back up. That’s still not enough people.
I doubt anyone of them could tank! We don’t even have a healer. I need more party members.
The socialists won’t do. They’re too low level for that. I doubt boner could take much of a hit. Maybe with his new armor and shield, but….. he would still die.
To be fair I don't think there's anyone alive that could tank that thing. Not when real physics were involved.
Boner is already teamed up with one of the squads. Sapphire would just be a sitting duck. She’s also acting as lookout for the evacuated civilians.
Rosy is with the champion watching over the map. She’s more useful there… or she was before communications went out.
Luca originally wanted her to man the traps and keep an eye on everyone. So much for that idea.
King is entertaining the civilians. Also he is probably the least qualified for a raid on the boss.
Come on Holly, Think. We’re the raiders for crying out loud. Its in the name.
Oh….
And then it hit me like a bag of exploding light bulbs…. Or something that makes more sense. Like…. a brick?
What about the soldiers? They’re low level too but….
Master did set them to train their stats and at level 1 their stats would have been naturally low. Which means….. it means…. Come on cat brain!
It means stat training would have been super effective.
There’s lots of trash mobs around. If I have them team together and start clearing the streets of minions there sure to level up a few times. NPC levels grant way more stat experience.
This sounds like a plan. Yeah, I can do this! Everyone will just have to wait a little. As long as they hold out till then I’m sure everything will be fine.
Alice, Luca, and Master can join me at the end to fight off the boss. It’ll take time but I can do it.
I activated stealth getting on all fours. My butt was raised high into the air as my claws pawed at the stone cutting shallow grooves into the rock.
A moment passed before my ghostly body vanished in a blur of speed. The only thing left behind was a cloud of centipede dust and my doubt.
I stuck to the alleyways avoiding one centipede after the other. I couldn’t help but notice how much faster I was on all fours.
It was almost like I was only using half of my speed up till now. My claws gripped the ground so well. I wasn’t expecting it. The whole thing felt so natural.
One of the centipedes fell from a rooftop trying to dislodge itself from its crash. It fell right in front of me too.
I bounced off the ground digging my claws into its chitin. They sunk so easily, like a hot knife through a scented candle….. A scented candle that smelled like a rotting waterlogged skunk corpse.
A bit of pressure and I tore the beast in half before it ever knew of my existence. I didn’t like how easy it was for me to kill. It felt so natural.
I had no training whatsoever, yet somehow my claws seemed to find themselves in the perfect spot to do the most damage.
I was no longer an assassin. I was a hunter. An apex predator on top of the food pyramid…. Or was that a ladder? A chain? Circle of life? I might of gone in a whole other direction.
Scratch that! I was like that monster thing in that alien movie my ex-husband made me watch.
Whoa! I’m just like the predator! Cool.
My body seemed so in tuned with my surroundings. It was shocking to me. These were my hunting grounds.
Even with my bad eyes I could still feel them all around me. Danger. That’s what it was. I was sensing danger coming off of every monster.
It wasn’t as bad as what the boss was radiating but I could still feel it on every one of them. Like having a radar in my heart.
I shook my head as I dashed passed another target. Nope. I can’t kill them. I need to leave them alive so that the soldiers can gain exp.
If I kill them now we won’t be able to take out the boss. Even if it means I have to take detours I have to leave them alone.
Thanks to my speed and stealth I managed to make it back to the barricade relatively quickly.
I thought I would come back to soldiers standing around, but they were engaging a large centipede in battle.
This one wasn’t as big as the boss but it definitely was a tall bastard. It’s level was in the 50s
The soldiers were having trouble holding it off, but were managing thanks to team work and the quarantine force field that seemed to be tanking the hits.
The warrior would step forward gaining the monsters attention with a war cry. Once the beast tried to attack him, he would jump back behind the force field. The magical shields hit points were at half now. That wasn’t good.
While the tank kept its attention the assassin slashed into the monsters back though he didn’t seem to be doing much damage. My best guess was his dexterity was to low to do a proper stealth attack.
It didn't help that his knife was so short. Maybe Master should of handed out short swords instead.
The ranger was up on the roof tops. He fired an arrow hitting the beast in its right eye, creating a blind spot.
It screeched and thrashed about. That was when the mage used a bind spell. Following it up with a curse of weakness.
The creature was greatly de-buffed. It looked like curse of weakness had two stacks already. There was even a curse of slowness.
The cleric activated a sacred art called minor blessing. This gave the tank a small boost to all his stats. He would need it to tank that monsters stinger.
I watched as the monk charged forward unleshing a fury of strikes. He stuck to the blind spot making sure to stay out of its vision. That move was called break.
It was an eruption of powerful blows that lowered defense. The monk jumped back behind the force field switching places with the berserker.
I wasn’t actually sure if the monster could see them or not, but it looked to be struggling to pin point their location.
There was definitely some other type of vision there, but I couldn't say for certain what it was.
The archer shot the monster with a stun shot causing its body to spark with electricity.
The berserker activated the ability sword smash. Swinging his blade as hard as possible. It hit causing the chitin to split further lowering its defense in the process.
He activated another ability called blender, swinging his blade repeatedly at the beast, as his hit points were drained by the skill.
He was like a lumber jack steadily chopping down a tree. Each strike did a good chunk of damage, but it wasn’t enough to finish it off.
At this point the monster still had over half its HP and the force field won't last forever. Once it's gone they'll die one after the other.
I moved forward drawing out my knife. It felt odd in my clawed hand, but I couldn't use any attacking abilities without it.
I activated the ability target. Which let me target an enemy insuring a critical hit. A dark red X appeared over the monsters body.
I went with the most powerful ability in my hot bar. One that ignored armor. “waking rend!”
My weapon grew in length as pink energy wrapped around the blade. It took the form of a short sword causing the cut to extend past the centipede slicing it nearly in half.
The ability was more powerful when used on someone with the effects of target. My knife vanished back into my inventory before the energy could even vanish.
I didn’t need to look at the monster to know it was dead. It’s body turned to gray ash, sprinkling down like dandruff….
Or, or! Something cool like nuclear fall out! Yeah that’s way better than dandruff!
I was met with the goofy smile of a moon elf. He was very pretty for a guy. I already felt like punching him, though, I wasn't sure why.
Probably because he reminded me of Mantis. This wasn’t him though, so I tried not to let that effect the way I treated him.
“Lady Shadow. You’ve come to save us.” The moon elf nearly fell to his knees in gratitude.
I couldn’t help but feel like the situation wasn’t that bad to merit a reaction like that. Looks like his name is Numen. Strange name.
I looked back to his other companions. The berserker was being healed by the cleric. His life draining attacks had drawn out a good chunk of HP.
I wonder what that felt like. Is it like giving a blood transfusion only with life force? On second thought, I think I’d rather not find out.
The archer - who was on the roof top of an item shop - fell on his butt letting out a sigh. The monk bowed politely at me while the tank approached.
The tank - just like the berserker - was a big guy. Master said they would be half giants, but I wasn't expecting him to be 7 feet tall.
“Hello“ I looked his name tag up. “Creeder”
The man smiled and sheathed his sword. “It is good to see you alive Lady Shadow.” He lowered himself to one knee.
I wasn’t sure what to say. That's when I noticed everyone else mimicking the gesture.
My mouth nearly dropped open. Right, guild leader. What a strange feeling. Is this how Master feels when all those NPCs gush over her?
Now’s not the time for this. This is a good thing. I can use their loyalty. How do I get them to stop? This is kind of like that war movie? “At ease soldiers.”
My words had them all fall back into a more formal stance. This was better for my health.
“Okay Creeder. Give me a status report.” Creeder took on a more serious look falling into the role of a stoic warrior.
“Yes ma’am! The twenty squads are all alive and well. We are holding our positions. Our station is the only one that was affected by the stronger monster. Other than our shield everyone else’s holding at 100%.”
Huh, I guess it’s lucky I got to this one. That seems pretty impossible, but I’m just glad everyone is safe.
We really couldn’t afford to lose soldiers right now. I thought about summoning more but we didn’t have the gear for that many. I think Cindy was still in the process of making more.
I checked my map. it looked like it was working again. That’s good. The only thing was the area the boss was in had been completely blacked out.
I couldn’t see any of my children on the map. The only thing telling me they were alive was the HP bars under my own.
Speaking of which it looked like Luca had taken some serious damage. I looked back towards the quarantined area and felt utterly useless.
I wanted so bad to go and find her but that was as good as looking for a needle in a hay stack.
I clenched my claws into fists causing blood to bubble in the cracks of my fingers.
The blood slowly dripped off my knuckles. A moment passed and Lucas HP shot back up.
Relief washed over me and my claws released my palm. I tried to send a message to Rosy but it still wasn't working. I still had that de-buff.
It was no longer being continually refreshed and the timer was actually going down now.
“Okay then, let me refresh your shield.” I checked the empire tab and reset the shield using the countries gold and the guild crystals focus.
I had given Rosy instructions to keep the shields running. I guess she thought letting it break was acceptable.
“Alright then. I’m heading back to the commanders tent. Please keep holding this position. Kill any centipede that approach. No bug gets out alive.”
They all nodded new resolve growing on their faces. With that taken care of I vanished in a blur of motion. I swear I’ll save my children.
It took me about 15 minutes, but after a bit of running I found the tent. It wasn’t far from the barricades but still.
The tent was set up in the middle of the street. I went inside and found Richard the paladin and champion of Entropy.
I don’t understand why Master would pick a paladin of all things. I was sure Mao and them said mage champions were over powered.
Maybe it was because of the synergy the paladin class had with other classes. They usually did well to bolster armies.
“Lady Shadow. You are back. What is going on?” Richard was the first to say something. Rosy looked somewhat intimidated by me.
It was probably the claws that I couldn’t get rid of, or the slit eyes I had, or the dry blood.
I also think the fact that Master was afraid of me also seemed to play a role in how Rosy and her friends saw me.
She was afraid of Master so it would make sense she would be afraid of the one that could control Master.
“We are taking the fight to the boss. I want the troops to start marching forward and to kill every centipede they find. We will converge on the boss and fight it as a raid party.”
I need to save them. I need to keep my children safe. I need to protect my litter. My hand made a fist causing blood to drip as my claws betrayed me.
“Y-you want to fight that thing?” Rosy shifted where she stood.
I just about attacked her. Nothing would get in the way of me protecting my litter. I had to unclench my fists.
I might of come off a bit to strong. This girl is like Master. She is a shy one. I should be nicer so she can focus on the task ahead.
“Ahem” I cleared my throat. “Don’t worry, We can use the minions to level the troops. We’ll slowly close in on it and take it out as a team. You don’t have to help with that part.”
I wasn’t gonna let her convince me not to go on the offensive. There was nothing that she could say that would change my mind.
“What about Aku? Just what happened out there?” Rosy looked like she was gonna cry.
I looked her in the eyes and she jumped. I wasn’t that scary. “I don't know what happened, all I know is that our guild mates are still out there and in danger. If we don't take care of the boss then we will lose more people.”
Rosy looked like she wanted to run. Her and her friends had gone through a lot and the idea of conflict completely rattled her.
For a moment I found sympathy in that. I put my hand on her shoulder for reassurance.
“Don't worry kiddo. Everything will be okay. We’re no ordinary guild. Your dealing with the raiders here.” Rosy nodded.
I almost smiled. Almost. That was until I saw something that should of never happened.
I was wrong. I was so wrong! This wasn't right! How could this have happened! I was supposed to protect them!
System log:
Luca has died.
Her HP bar was gone. She was no longer in the guild and I couldn’t find her on my friends list.
I let out a scream of anger and pain. Rosy nearly had a heart attack.
“Sh-shadow. Is everything okay? What’s wrong?” She backed away from me.
All I could think was how I’d failed them. My litter was dying because I was so dam useless!
“Luca just died! Get the soldiers ready! We are going to exterminate every last bug!” There was so much anguish in my voice that even the well composed Sir Richard was startled.
The venom in my voice was absolute. ”I’m gonna tear out its heart!” a roar escaped my throat causing the tent to rumble like a storm.