CHAPTER 40

Kopius awoke, head pounding, body in pain. The palms of his hands met his eyelids as he tried rubbing it all away.

“Worst. Death. Ever,” Kopius groaned from the ground.

His side felt like he had rolled over a fire pit and his mouth, like someone had chiseled in there without novocaine. He tried opening his eyes, but they burned when exposed to the air. There was a perpetual throbbing on his entire right side but with one saving grace: he could move his arm again.

Gingerly—if you can even do it like that—Kopius summoned a healing potion. The weight of the vial, not really heavy at all, sent waves of pain up his arm. He quickly grabbed the vial with his other hand, and the pain started to dissipate.

“Ayo, you want some help with that?”

Two strong but gentle hands gripped Kopius and lifted him to a sitting position. He heard the vial being opened and then felt something else placed in his good hand. He lifted the object and felt sloshing; he found the spout and lifted it to his nose.

“It's water,” the familiar voice said.

Kopius coughed out the first few sips, almost passing out from the ache it caused. Once he was able to get the liquid down, Cici took the waterskin and replaced it with what felt like the vial. Kopius, still bitter, brought the vial to his nose.

“It’s healing potion, lad. Come on now.”

“Can’t be too sure these days,” Kopius grumbled, sounding like a carton-a-day smoker. “Shit just up and leaves sometimes.”

Cici gave no verbal responses, and Kopius couldn't tell if he had gestured or not. He drained the vial in his hand, lay back on the dirt, and passed out.

When he woke up again, Kopius came to a sitting position. His body was very sore but manageable. His ribcage was the most tender, and he stretched his previously injured arm like it had fallen asleep. It wasn’t until he stood that he began to take stock of his surroundings.

The pond was still black as ever, smoldering pieces of bones still littered the entire shore, and Cici leaning on the handle of his weapon next to a massive pile of skinwalker dust. Seeing the grin on the big man’s face that screamed ‘‘I have something to tell you” Kopius went with his gut instead of his ego.

“You could have told me something,” Kopius started with the slightest hint of scorn.

“Ahh,” Cici replied with a wave of his hand, ”you knew I was coming back.”

“Did I though?”

“Well, you do now.”

“That light,” Kopius said after a pause, rubbing his still sensitive eyes. “What the hell was that?”

Cici brought his hammer head out from behind the dust pile and placed the astralsilicate back on the ground. The opal stone hissed when it touched some mud, and Kopius noticed that the iridescent rock had a soft, pulsing light deep inside it.

“Nothing shines brighter, my friend.”

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“What?”

“Just know it will be a while before I can do that again.”

“Do what again?!”

“Proxima’s Wake,” Cici answered, which explained nothing.

Kopius just shook his head and took a long drink from his waterskin. He still felt this residual, dreamlike state that he couldn’t shake. The overall shock from the events, mixed with an adrenaline rush the likes of which he had never experienced, all coalesced into this ‘’I’m okay; you’re okay’’ trance. He needed to walk it off.

After a short rest and some food, Kopius returned to Cici with a clear mind. The big man was still meandering by the pile of dust which was as tall as the skeleton had been and almost as wide. If it had been a pile of autumn leaves, Kopius would have already jumped into it.

“Alright man, what we got?” Kopius asked as he waved his hands at everything.

“We’ve got good, and we’ve got great. Which first?” Cici spoke with the excitement of a child about to open presents. Kopius’s mood lifted slightly. “Good news” and “great news” were not his normal options. He would have raised a single eyebrow if he were capable.

“Umm,” Kopius chuckled, his ribs not appreciating the jostling. ”Good first.”

Cici briefly stepped behind the dust pile and came back with the defecating orb, rolling it with his foot. Once it was in plain view, he stepped back and presented it.

“I give you the Orb of Contamination.”

“Are you saying that this hemorrhaging ball of shit was the source of pollution?”

“I am.”

“And now what?”

“Oh, that’s right. We were tasked with destroying it.”

“Finishing the Ripple quest isn’t the great news?”

“Not by my mind.”

Cici stopped his presentation of the orb and shifted his arms over to the pile of dust on his other side. Beside the impressive size of the mound, Kopius wasn’t sure why this would be the great news. By his best guess—given the size of the skinwalkers and the fact that there were eight of them—Kopius assumed there to be maybe one-hundred-ish pieces of grafeen. From what he could recall, that wasn’t enough to do much of anything, beside maybe a week of debauchery.

“Did they drop gear or something?” Kopius asked.

Cici shook his head and then rammed his fist through the dust. He gave Kopius a smirk and then pulled his hand back out. In his large fist were a countless number of grafeen bits, many slipping out of his grip and falling to the ground.

Kopius’s eyes widened a bit, he too stepped forward and pulled a wad of grafeen from the dust pile. He couldn’t help but smile. It was like reaching into a haystack and pulling out a gold brick. The two looked at each other like children about to dive into the largest ice cream sundae of their life.

Once they figured out how to shave the dust away instead of plowing through it, they made short work of removing it. What was left was a waist high pile of tiny, glittering pebbles; like someone had dumped out several wheelbarrow loads of shiny, gray Nerds.

“Are we rich?” Kopius managed to get out of his mouth, to which Cici chuckled.

“Maybe in Cawbachu. You can barter it for a number of things there. Outside of that, you’d have to find a skilled blacksmith or a Mage’s Guild to turn any kind of profit. Covens; witches love this stuff.”

“And this is better than completing the Ripple?”

“Probably not, but as far as what we have in front of us—yes.”

Kopius tried to reconcile this in his mind. He concluded that Cici was the type of person to bid on their Showcase Showdown and not even bother to see what was behind the other curtain. Shame.

“Okay then,” Kopius conceded. ”How should we split this?”

A few moments of strategizing later and Kopius took almost all grafeen into his inventory. First, they had filled two small pouches for easy access to currency once they reached Cawbachu, and then everything else went into a single inventory slot in his ring. They agreed it’d be best to split up their loot once they were in safer spaces.

After it was all said and done, the two men were left with the Orb of Contamination.