I carefully walked down the bloodstained stairs, looking at the blackened corpses around my path.

‘What happened to them?' What kind of creature could do that damage? I notice piles of darkened metal around the corpse and realize it must have been their armor.

‘To even melt what should be pure iron, what could have caused this...' Finally getting to the bottom, I look around for anything of use.

At first, there was nothing but blackened bones, but as I walked further, some corpses were covered in blood but not burned. It seemed that only the ones closer to the altar were affected. I kept walking, and some of the knight corpses were still there relatively untouched, although now few and far between, contrary to the plentiful charcoal corpses near the altar.

I start looking through a few of them, and something catches my eye.

It was a bright silver dagger, seeming to be untouched by the chaos. With a jeweled handle made of black moon iron and some sort of silver mixed with other metals in the blade. It seemed to originally be a holy weapon, but now it has long lost its glamour.

I grabbed the hand that was grabbing it and slowly peeled it out; until I realized two fingers were already severed. I drop the arm in surprise and resist the urge to puke.

I try to recompose myself and attempt to grab the dagger again, this time successfully.

To my surprise, a blue message appeared on my retina.

{ A holy artifact has been acquired }

{ (Blessed) Knights Oath—Ceremonial Dagger }

Realizing that was all that came with the dagger description, I kept the dagger handy, and continued looting.

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I walk over to the next corpse, and see the armor and weapon of the knight, which have already long been destroyed. Upon further inspection, however, I find a coin pouch containing a few large and small silver coins, along with plenty of bronze coins.

Without knowledge of the current economic situation, or even what kingdoms still stand, I am unsure how valuable these still are, but I will take them regardless.

I do a similar check for the few bodies still relatively untouched, and on one I finally found a piece of armor still worth taking.

I had been wearing quite shaggy clothing, so it really helped. Although a church emblem was engraved on the simple iron tunic, it was of Leta, a god known for taking in a wide variety of mercenaries, so it should prove to be no issue.

With the left over bodies stripped clean of anything of value, I reinspected my loot to verify my findings.

‘About 13 Large Silver, 11 Small, and 37 Bronze. There was a ring in here… Oh there it is.’

Remembering to inspect the artifact, I decided to evaluate it, hopefully with more success.

{ Ring of Strength – Basic Mana Ring }

{ Adds a small amount of strength for the Mana put into it. }

{ Has a low maximum strength, plentiful in the nation ‘The Othi Republic’ }

‘Success!’ I excitedly deduced ‘It seems that whatever ability lets me observe artifacts doesn’t allow me to see everything for the time being. It also gives very little detail, depending on the strength of the artifact.’

‘Also, what is the Othi Republic?’

Already, signs of my knowledge being outdated were showing. I could not remember any nation or capitol being named ‘The Othi Republic’ for the life of me.

Deciding that it would be best to gather information, and that it wasn’t possible here, I keep going down the cavern in hopes of escaping.

…

Eventually, after walking for what felt like days, I saw a very faint light at the end of the tunnel. I quickly rush there, only to find a cave in.

The source of light being from small crack in the ceiling, in front of the wall of rocks.

Seeing very few ways out besides this exit, I quickly try to scramble up the wall of rocks excitedly, but am unable to get a good grip on the rock.

I try to find some outcrop or indent to grapple on to, and manage to take a hold of a crack in the rock.

I continued like this until I was half way up, but I quickly slipped and went tumbling.

…

I wake up, in agony. It feels like my foot was fractured, and my back injured.

‘AGGGHH’ I internally scream, trying not to let a sound be made, but occasionally failing.

I could feel blood dripping from my back, and I quickly realized a part of my back was going numb. I try to feel where, only to realize a sharp, yet small chunk of rock got lodged in my lower back.

‘This is it. I just wake up only to die.’

"FUUUUCCcc---…." My voice slowly fades, and I pass out from the pain.