Serra awakened at her appointed time and stood up, stretching as she looked around.
“Breakfast is by the fire Jakobin,” Eric called out from where he stood, elbows deep into the dragon’s exposed ribcage, cutting out another magical item that he and Pig had found with his Dragon Sight ability. “After eating you should go through your notifications… this’ll probably take a while.”
Serra raised her hand in acknowledgement before settling down beside the small fire and eating her breakfast, which was exactly the same fare as the previous meal. Then, after checking that Eric was still preoccupied, the short-haired woman found a comfortable position on their makeshift mattress and began going through the backlog of notifications she had received.
It was about an hour and a half later when Eric noticed that Serra had stood up and was walking towards him. He was just about finished looting most of the dragon’s carcass of all the items Pig had located and tagged earlier, and he was now ready to start working on the last one.
However, seeing Serra approaching, he impulsively decided to test out the aura ability he had received with his Blood-Soaked Title.
Helpfully, Pig overlayed a circular red line over Eric’s vision to indicate when Serra entered the abilities’ five-meter radius area of effect. Eric grunted his approval for the visual clue, reminding himself to ask Pig to do the same consistently when in battle. When Serra stepped across the red line Eric reached out towards her mentally, willing the aura to activate.
He felt more than saw a surge of energy rushing out of him and catching Serra unprepared.
“WHOA!” Serra exclaimed in fear and shock, inadvertently taking a few steps back, before settling into a fighting crouch. “What was THAT Sir!?”
“Sorry!” Eric shouted back, cutting off the effect immediately and raising his hands in a placating motion, knife still in hand. “I just tried out an aura effect I received along with the Blood-Soaked Title.”
Serra recovered herself, rubbing her upper arms where goosebumps had broken out.
“How did it feel?”
“Like shit, Sir.” Serra replied unhelpfully, giving Eric a resentful look as she came nearer. “It was like I was helpless and trapped, and you were coming to kill me.” Her voice trailed away, and she got a faraway look in her eye.
“That bad huh?” Eric rubbed his chin, thinking. “Too bad the effect isn’t that HELLFIRE!!!”
The last exclamation came as a terrifying force seemed to rush out from Serra’s body, pressing down on Eric like a ton of bricks, so much so that he would have leaped back had the terror he felt not frozen him in place.
Then the sensation was gone, and Eric was left facing Serra, who had a satisfied grin on her face.
“Seems like I got the same Title and aura you have, sir.”
“No shit, Jakobin.” Eric managed, his body trembling with residual adrenalin. “That was an experience for sure… Wait, you said you received the same title?”
“Yes sir. Let’s see, I have four: Back from the Dead, Blood-Soaked, Eater of the Mighty and Titan-Slayer.”
Eric’s jaw dropped. Serra had received the same titles he had, and had even received an extra one Back from the Dead, which Eric did not have.
“What is Back from the Dead?”
“Says here I got it for dying and staying dead for more than a minute,” The woman shuddered, remembering how close she had come to permanently getting dead. “And it gives me a fifty percent chance to resist Death-aspected aether, forms, and effects.”
“That sounds like a good thing, Jakobin.” Eric said, turning back to the dragon’s carcass with his knife. The smell of blood and offal had been overpowering earlier, but thankfully Eric’s nose had quickly become used to it. “Though the way to acquire that Title doesn’t seem the slightest bit fun.”
“I didn’t enjoy the experience of getting it either, sir.”
“Ha!” Eric barked, stopping with his knife stuck into the dragon’s flesh to give his companion an appraising look. “You finished looking through your notifications?”
“Yes, sir.” Serra answered. “It was a lot but I managed to get through them all.”
“Happy with your choices?”
“As much as I can be, sir.” Serra said. “I’d have liked to know a bit more about how everything works before making any possibly permanent decisions on my build.”
“Yeah,” Eric agreed, turning back to what he was doing. “All that terminology had my head spinning. Wish they had a user’s manual we could read.”
“It’s been pretty standard stuff so far, at least on my end.” Serra said, a questioning look in her eye which Eric ignored for now. He’d make sure to make time to sit down and have a proper discussion sometime later. “I remember when me and Rome first logged in to Star Tournament 4...” The woman’s voice trailed off, remembering the events that had occurred in the lab.
“I’m sorry about Rome, Jakobin… I know you and him were close.”
“Nah, he’ll be fine,” Serra brushed away the sentiment with a laugh. “He’d have loved to be here though; he was the one who was always fiddling with his build and mine… Hell, we even reached low Masters in the PVP rankings before we shipped out to this last gig.”
Stolen story; please report.
“Ah, so you’re a gamer then, huh?”
“Not so much since ST4 was the first one I really committed to,” Serra said deprecatingly. “But the ability selection was kinda similar to what we have here… we just need to find synergies and combos that work with each other.”
“I could use some help with my selections once I’m able to get a new ability,” Eric admitted. “In the meantime, I’ll finish up here and we’ll see about finding more about this place.”
“Roger that, sir.”
Serra continued past Eric to walk around the dragon’s carcass, looking over its bulk with a curious eye. Once in a while she reached out to touch a scale or trace the outline of a carved glyph, still not believing she had helped kill such a monstrosity.
As Serra made her circuit around the remains Eric finally managed to get the point of his knife deeper through the dragon’s epidermis and into the layer of fat and fascia underneath. His Dragon Sight showed him the general location of the glowing something imbedded in the area, though Pig could not identify what it was exactly.
About a minute of fishing around the area rewarded him a round disc made out of purple-black metal with a fierce-looking three headed snake design stamped onto its surface. Dragon Sight showed him layers of maroon entwined with thin strands of indigo and colorless aether. Even as he stared at the disk the aether strands loosened and dissipated, fading into the surrounding air.
Interesting.
By now, Serra had completed her inspection of the dragon carcass, noting the areas where Eric had cut into the beast’s hide to retrieve embedded objects.
“Seems like you’ve carved up the dragon pretty thoroughly, sir.”
“The creature had all sorts of valuable-looking and probably-useful items placed within its body… seemed a waste to leave them there.”
“And would your Loot Mad flaw have anything to do with that, sir?” Serra asked teasingly.
“What?” Eric whispered, quickly turning to face his companion.
“Your Loot Mad flaw,” Serra repeated casually as she bent to run a hand along the ridges of a cruelly curved claw. “Did it have anything to do with your being so thorough with your scavenging, sir?”
“How did you...?” Eric was at a loss for words, and not just a little ashamed that his long-held secret was discovered so easily.
Serra straightened and then looked at him fully, wearing a roguish expression.
“I received an ability called Flaw-Seeker sir,” The woman explained, her sly grin reappearing as she noticed his reaction. “And since we were using each other as targets for ability practice I decided to try it out on you.”
Eric stared at Serra’s face for a long moment before breaking out in loud laughter.
It felt good to just laugh, especially after all the events of the past day and a half.
“You got me there Jakobin,” Eric said after he was able to compose himself. With a casual wave of his hand the disc he was holding vanished into his ring. He had been practicing all morning and now could store and retrieve items smoothly. He then looked at the still smiling woman before him.
“How in hellfire did you get such an ability though?”
“I got it from that Core I absorbed earlier, sir.” Serra said, still grinning, hands on her hips as she looked mock-disapprovingly at her superior officer. “Makes me see a creatures flaws and weaknesses… Though I would never have thought that taking a dragon core would result in you receiving the flaw you got there.”
“Well isn’t that ability just unfair…” Eric murmured thoughtfully, already thinking of ways he could use Serra’s ability tactically. Then, seeing that his companion was waiting for an explanation, Eric made the decision to tell his companion the truth about his condition.
“That flaw isn’t all due to the dragon’s Core…” Eric began, drawing in a deep breath. He had kept the shame he felt for his affliction so deep down that it almost physically hurt him to unburden himself now. “Before I left the service, I was in a situation where my survival depended on what I could loot from my enemies: It was pure survival, at least at first…” Eric paused, finding the words difficult. Years of secrecy and fear of discovery crippled his tongue. Shaking his head, he powered on. “Eventually, it came to the point where I needed to loot… so much so that I would often decide to kill anyone I encountered just because I wanted to see what I could get from their corpse.”
Eric forced himself to look up, despite what he feared he would see on Serra’s face. Surprisingly, he saw no judgement or condemnation on the woman’s scarred features. She just waited patiently for him to continue.
“After I got out from that mess The Service had me institutionalized. It was a good place, circumstances aside, and the Union psychotherapists and mind-mancers there did what they could for me,” Eric said after a few moments, remembering the long hours of therapy and the parade of never-ending drugs. “It took a couple of years, but they finally got me to a point where I didn’t have to actively try to kill someone just to see what they had on them… but the experts still couldn’t remove the impulse to loot entirely.”
“Was that why you left the Service, sir?”
“Left?” Eric snorted, his amusement lightening the mood a little. “The damn Strategic Council had me booted off, although they did let me file for resignation to keep up appearances.”
The two soldiers remained silent for a while, both lost in their own thoughts.
Both of them had been soldiering nearly their entire lives and both were very aware that situations people in their profession got themselves into could do horrible things to a person’s mind. Everyone in the Corps had seen and heard horror stories of comrades who “couldn’t take it anymore” and had ended up doing all manner of insane things.
“The shrinks must have done a pretty good job, Sir.” Serra’s voice was soft, breaking the moment gently. “Seeing as me and the guys never saw a sign you had that kind of problem.”
“I don’t take from just anyone Jakobin,” Eric growled as he placed a hand on the dragon’s carcass and willed the entire thing into the space inside Vashanka’s ring. Serra stepped back at the sudden rush of wind as air filled the space where the dragon’s body had been. “But if you’re a foe of me or mine, all your shit is mine to take.”
“Oh, I can agree with that completely, Sir.” Serra said, crossing her arms across her chest.
“So, you’re ok to work with me still?” Eric asked, carefully not looking at Serra as he gathered up the other stray chunks of exploded dragon that lay all about. He came across his broken rifle and took it with a shrug. The parts could be useful later down the road.
“Always sir,” There was no hesitation in Serra’s voice, lifting a weight over Eric’s heart that he hadn’t known he was carrying, until it was gone. “Not like I have much of a choice at the moment!”
Eric smiled at her comment, but he forced himself to stand straight and fully look at her, his expression growing serious.
“I mean it, Jakobin,” His words were firm and deliberate. This was something they would have to get clear between them in order to move forward. “Can I count on you to have my back, despite you knowing I have this flaw.”
“I would follow you to hell and back, sir.” Serra said solemnly, steadily meeting his gaze with her own. Then she suddenly smiled, spreading her arms to indicate the now empty room. “In fact, I’m here now aren’t I?”
Eric nodded with relief, ignoring the sting in his eyes.
Despite all he had been through in his life, it was still good to have someone to rely on.
“So…” He began a bit later after he had regained his composure, pulling up the Vashanka Ring’s inventory. “Which melee weapon do you think you’d be most comfortable with?”