I was breathing heavily, my heart slamming against my ribs in a machine gun rhythm. I could feel blood and sweat mingling over my body, running down my skin as if I had just come in from some kind of grim rainfall. I pushed on, gritting my teeth and realizing just how much my jaws ached, dragging my sword from the chest of a dead goblin. 

I could still feel the dregs of anxiety running through my mind as I looked about the stone room, fire guttering here and there from the spells that had been cast. “Four.” I breathed a sigh of relief. Four others were still standing after the ambush, though each looked to have taken some amount of damage. Luckily, despite my hatred for my position as the teams ‘tank’, i’d managed to keep my team alive. 

I could see frustration in our leader's eyes, a high elven mage, as he took in the parties damage, no doubt understanding that we’d need to pull out of the dungeon, but I pulled my gaze away from him and looked to our healer, a halfling priestess. She had a nasty cut over her brow, one that might have taken half her head off if i hadn’t intervened and hauled the goblin back and away from her as it swung. 

She had a curious look on her face as her own gaze landed on me and I started to worry the hit was worse than it appeared. “You good Tenna?” I spoke out loud, even as our leader started to spout off some spiteful remarks about humans and their skills. I’d heard plenty enough over the last couple months, we were the new kids, inexperienced. A little heat was expected but a single week of enduring him and i was ready to quit the team, and adventuring, as soon as the team could find a replacement tank. I’d been ready to quit adventuring the second I’d stepped out of humanities tutorial world but I'd needed the money for my plan so I just went for low risk runs.

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She cocked her head slightly, scrunching her brows, making me more sure she needed some kind of healing. Judging by the amount of fire surrounding us I doubted our leader had saved enough mana for even a small healing spell so I reached to my belt where I kept my first aid kit and started towards Tenna, only to drop to my knees. I was confused, i hadn’t tripped over anything, or it didn’t feel like i had so i looked down to see the cause.

“Oh.” My voice was quiet, and I was surprised I could hear it until I realized Rellen had stopped his bitching. My armor, light chain mail, was in tatters along with the gambeson beneath it. I was bleeding heavily from a number of wounds, my body appearing like a bloodied map rather than the ‘rugged knight’ look I'd taken some pride in. Why couldn’t I feel that? My body was wrecked, I could even see a broken arrow shaft near my hip. Why hadn’t I felt any of that?

“Tanner!” I looked up as Tenna called out my name and I saw her, and the rest of my team looking on in horror.  The movement made my head spin as the injuries finally caught up to me. Two elves, a halfling and a beastkin. Fuck, was this how i was going to die?

I was still reeling in confusion, my sword hand coming up and spinning the blade in a long practiced motion so I could press the tip into the stone to stand up. “Tanner, lie down!” Tenna had made it to me and I could see the red mist that was her orders healing magic working its way up her arms to her palms.

“I’m fine Tenna, heal yourself first.” My response was ingrained from training, healers always came first. If she was incapacitated then we’d all be boned. I made to say as much to her as I stood but didn’t manage to get much more than a syllable out before the world started to spin and I was plunged into unconsciousness.