I immediately mentally asserted yes on my HUD and the mountain of gold in front of me disappeared. A new notification popped up and even though we were seconds away from a cave in, I couldn’t help but look at it.

Loot successful! 1,250,000 gold has been added to your inventory.

“Holy shit.” I breathed, glaring dazedly at the notification. I was a millionaire. I was rich. I was filthy, stinking, tory scum, duck island, trump tower building rich.

A loud groan interrupted my train of thought. I looked down to see Sally siting on the floor, rubbing the back of her head.

Oh yeah, that was why I looted the gold in the first place. I remembered.

Sally had been flung into the gold pile by the dragon and I’d rushed over to pull her out of it before the cave collapsed.

“The cave!” I shouted, startling myself as I remembered the dire predicament we were in. Being rich as fuck was good and all but I couldn’t spend my copious amounts of looted dragon gold if I was crushed to death in a cave in.

I looked down at Sally and offered out my hand. She looked back at me with a puzzled expression but took it anyway. I hoisted her from the ground, and by that I mean she stood up entirely unassisted whilst I held her hand and made a show of helping.

She nodded at me and opened her mouth but the imploding cave was too loud to hear anything. I took it to be a thankyou though and I nodded back with a smile before gesturing towards the dwarven mineshaft.

We turned and began running towards it as ceiling rocks and wall debris crashed all around us.

I dived into the tunnel after Sally just as the final Jenga piece toppled the tower. The dragon’s lair caved in with a mighty crash sending dust and debris flying into the tunnel.

It was like my own personal action movie moment.

I picked myself up off the ground and checked on my team. They were dirty, scared, battered, and bruised, but they still lived, and so did I… somehow.

“Where’s Reggie and the elf?” Sally asked innocently, looking around the dark mineshaft as if they might be hiding in the shadows ready to pull a prank on her.

“They…” I began, struggling to meet her inquisitive, deep blue eyes. “…They didn’t make it.”

She looked at me for a moment and I looked away. She opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to comfort me, or maybe to admonish me for not doing better, but we were interrupted.

“Listen, I called dibs!” Bell shouted, raising her hands up and backing away from Jamie.

He was stalking towards her with his fists raised and his teeth gritted. Whatever was going on, he was furious at her.

“It’s fucking disrespectful!” He shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. “He was our friend you loopy, psycho-bitch!”

“Well yeah” Bell replied, as if she couldn’t quite comprehend what the water mage’s problem was. “He’d have wanted us to loot him, and I called dibs.”

I stared on, not quite sure what to say.

“He was my best friend! You can’t just take his stuff like that. He fought for us, died for us and before his body is even cold you decide to loot him? It’s fucking… it’s just… heartless.” Jamie’s rage began to cool into frustrated despair as he lowered his hands and sobbed whilst staring at the fire mage in disbelief.

She didn’t reply, choosing instead to look at me and shrug nonchalantly before walking back down the mineshaft slope towards the dwarven town.

I felt hair tickle my neck, accompanied by the smell of lavender. I turned towards it to see Sally leaning uncomfortably close to me.

“I’ll make sure he’s alright, go check on her.” She whispered.

I nodded and trotted after Bell, Panda hot on my heels.

“What should I say?” I asked him quietly before I caught up with her.

“Honestly.” Panda began, looking a little awkward as he spoke. “I know it’s not very nice to say, but I don’t think the girl did anything wrong. She looted that Reggie kid’s corpse on the way out of the lair right?

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“I actually think it was pretty quick thinking. Healer boy probably had loads of useful things on him and the cave was collapsing. Taking it was better than leaving it if you ask me.”

I wasn’t so sure myself, but I nodded my thanks at him as I caught up to the fireball mage.

“Hey, wait up!” I called as I jogged the last few steps towards her. She turned to me, slowing her pace slightly and smiling in her usual cheery fashion.

“Oh, hi Kaleb.” She greeted me. “That was one hell of a shit show back there huh? Who would have thought that dragon would be so strong?”

“Uh… yeah.” I replied, brushing off the small talk. “Listen, I just wanted to check on you, to see if you were alright?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” She replied, a puzzled look in her eyes. “Wanton death and destruction is my middle name.” She winked casually.

I was at a bit of a loss for words. Was she truly not bothered by the deaths of people we’d travelled with for over a week? Maybe this was just her way of coping. I couldn’t tell.

Before I had a chance to continue my conversation with Bell, a new notification appeared frantically on my HUD and the entire group came to a halt.

A group system notification?

Emergency Quest!

The Sacking of Havar

A dragon is coming! A dragon is coming!

Thanks to the misguided deeds of certain members of the Adventure Society, a large, red dragon is currently on his way to the city of Havar.

This dragon is pretty upset and intends to genocide the fuck out of all sapient life forms on the island.

Objectives:

Prevent Havar from being destroyed 0/1

Kill the dragon 0/1

Protect the citizens 0/1 (Remaining Population 1,732,192/1,732,192)

*This is a group quest given to all inhabitants of the area surrounding Havar*

“An emergency quest? Well, shit.” I said aloud as I read through the notification.

Bell turned to look at me, she looked worried, concerned even, as her big eyes shimmered oddly in the low light of the mineshaft.

“Kaleb.” She said, her voice cracking slightly in a small, frightened whisper. “There’s no reward listed.”

I stared back at her, dumbfounded.

“I’m sure there will be one.” Panda said, approaching us cautiously. He gave me a meaningful look which I didn’t quite understand.

“Keep moving!” Sally shouted from behind us. “This new quest is now part of your exam. We need to get the fuck out of this dwarven cesspit and back to Havar.”

I looked back at her to see a piercing, battle-junkie gaze staring back at me, a fangy, exhilarated smile sat underneath. She marched towards us, and the exit, practically dragging Jamie behind her like a lazy dog that was refusing to walk.

I nodded and turned back to the exit, before breaking out into a little jog. She was right, there would be time for grieving later, right now we needed to save Havar.

“Come on.” I said to Panda and Bell as I left for the exit, they followed, but with less enthusiasm than I’d hoped.

As I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, I heard a few screams and groans from outside.

I picked up my pace, rushing towards the sounds of anguish and exited the mine tunnels into the blinding, midday sun.

It was carnage.

The bustling dwarven village we’d spent the night in was a sea of flames and blood. The aggressor was nowhere to be seen, but the devastation left in its wake was evident.

The town square was littered with tiny, charred corpses. Children cried over their fallen parents, dwarves huddled around their dead friends and the mayor, Ale, stood in the middle of it all, unharmed and sporting a thousand-yard stare.

I rushed towards him, grabbing the dwarf by the shoulders,

“What happened?” I asked, shaking him. “It was the dragon wasn’t it?”

“Aye.” He replied, his voice as distant as his stare. “He burst from the mountain like a god of death, he did. That big… fucking… lizard.

“He… he breathed fire all across our village. Our homes, our people… gone. Then, then he just fucking left! No words, no… nothing.”

I let go of the dwarf, he was clearly in shock and there wasn’t anything I could do for him. The scene around us was horrible, the smell of burning flesh would surely haunt me later down the line, but right now, I didn’t have time to think about it.

All I could think about was getting back to Havar before this happened there too, on a much larger scale.

The others caught up to me and I looked around the village square. I needed a dwarf who wasn’t in shock and as my eyes settled on a familiar face, I found one. Vodka stood off to the side, holding his wife. She was alive and it seemed that the entire family was unharmed.

“Vodka!” I shouted and he looked towards me with alert, but sad, eyes. “I need a fast way back to Havar, does anyone here have a car I can use?”

“Aye.” He replied. “I got the quest too. You can take Yerma, she’s parked over yonder.” The sullen dwarf gestured towards a building which seemed to have been spared from a fiery death.

It was an unassuming, wooden, barn which sat just far enough from the rest of the town to not quite be a part of it.

“Yerma?” I asked, before leaving.

“Aye.” He replied, still obviously a little dazed and speaking stoically, his voice completely monotonous. “She’s the town’s only car, we use her for supply runs and the like. Naturally, everyone’s ridden her at least once… just like Yer Ma.”

I shook my head, unable to suppress the tug of a grin on my lips. I uttered a few words of thanks before turning back to my team and gesturing for them to follow me.

Without words, they did and I sprinted towards the barn on the edge of the small mining town. It looked pretty Amish to me, a typical, red, wooden barn with white structural beams on the outside and presumably, copious amounts of space on the inside.

I began sliding one of the doors open whilst Sally grabbed the other. As the midday sunlight streamed through the open doors, I caught a glimpse of our commandeered transport.

It looked like an old jeep. It was black with a roll cage and just about enough room for the five of us to squish inside.

“This will do.” Sally said, a smile curling on her lips. “This will do nicely.”