Cass woke up with the worst headache of her life. She pinched the bridge of her nose and blinked up at the ceiling. It was all grey stone cut into regular bricks.

What had happened?

An idle thought ran through her mind. A single word: Focus.

It held a punch, but Cass brushed it aside. She didn’t need it now. The urgency of it was gone.

“She’s up!” Salos shouted.

Cass groaned and sat up to see Salos and Alyx sitting on either side of her looking at her expectantly.

The three of them were inside a wide room with a door leading outside on either side. A large circle was drawn over the floor, Cass and company sat just outside of it. A statue stood limp in the center. One wall was covered in weapons. They hung on display yet not one of them was decorated for show. All were simple but functional pieces.

Someone–Alyx probably–had started a fire beside her. It was a small smoky thing, but its presence was welcoming all the same.

“Where are we?” Cass asked.

“We are inside the staging ground. You remember the pyramid?” Alyx said.

Cass nodded.

Alyx pointed at the statue in the center of the room. “Traditionally, that is a challenger’s first opponent.”

Cass squinted at the statue.

Training Golem

[A simple challenge to ensure challengers possess the basics before departing into dangerous lands]

It looked a lot less dangerous than the terrorcat she’d fought.

“The boat’s just out that way,” Alyx said, pointing to the far door.

The air whirled out there, the pressure building. Cass could feel it even indoors.

Alyx’s hand traced the grooves on her sword’s pommel. Quietly, she asked, “Are you alright?”

Cass nodded weakly.

“You’re not dead, are you?” Salos asked. There was play in his tone which covered very genuine concern rolling across their bond.

“What?” Cass asked.

“You spent all your Focus,” Salos said.

“Is that why there is a jackhammer taking apart my brain?” Cass muttered.

“It's a miracle you're not comatose,” Alyx said.

“Does that usually happen when you spend all your Focus?” Cass asked.

“No,” Salos said. “If all you have is a bad headache then we’re looking at a miracle.”

“Well, it's worse than a bad headache,” Cass said. “But, yeah, I think I’m not dead.”

“Maybe she managed to reserve the last couple points of Focus,” Alyx suggested with a shrug.

Salos settled onto Cass’s lap and nodded. “Near complete Focus depletion could have knocked her out, yes.”

“What exactly happened there at the end?” Cass asked slowly.

“Make yourself some tea first,” Alyx said. “I couldn’t figure out which pocket you keep all that in.”

Cass took out a cup and pot from her Bag. Idly, she wondered if Alyx had searched the Traveler’s Bag or if its enchantments had kept her from even considering it as an option.

Cass tried to activate Elemental Manipulation to summon water like she usually did. A splitting pain ripped through her head at the attempt and Cass immediately lost control of the skill with a grunt of pain.

“You okay?”Alyx asked.

Cass shook her head. “Hurts to summon water.”

She could feel Salos’s concern warm and worried through their bond. “Focus strain. You’ll live. But don’t use any Focus skills until the headache is gone.”

Cass nodded mutely. She could do that. It meant no tea though.

“Tell me what happened,” Cass said, putting her cup and pot away again.

“Well, first, I need to apologize,” Alyx said. She didn’t look Cass in the eyes, rather she watched the smoking fire beside them. “After you protected us from the lightning wave, something happened to you.

“You weren’t responsive. Salos and I aren’t sure what happened exactly.

“I used a skill to snap you back to attention. Commander’s Rally. It's supposed to give commanders in combat better control over their troops. It's supposed to be used to organize the chaos of battle.” She fell silent, the smoke billowed in front of her.

Cass wasn’t sure why she was hesitating, but she waited.

“I ordered you to focus,” Alyx continued. “I hadn’t expected it to take. Not the way it did anyway.”

Cass frowned. This sounded familiar. “Did you use that skill during the fight with the Caretaker?”

Alyx nodded. “I’m surprised you remember.”

“You yelled for me to get down, but I barely understood your language at the time. Yet I was able to understand you then. I think that was the skill.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Alyx nodded again.

“I don’t understand why you’re apologizing for that though.”

“It is difficult to use all of one’s Focus,” Salos interjected. “As you lose Focus, you lose the ability to concentrate on your skills. The less remaining Focus, the more one’s attention slips and the less ability one has to consume that Focus.”

“I think my command undercut that natural protection,” Alyx said sheepishly. “You overdrew your Focus because I had ordered you to do so.”

Cass shook her head. Alyx may have used the skill, but she shouldn’t have been affected like that.

I assume you let her use it on you, Salos added telepathically. He knew about Contrary Will. If Cass had tried to resist a skill like that, she would have without difficulty.

But, she also would have fallen apart at the seams.

The raw emotions circled through her memories. Cass recoiled at the touch. She still couldn’t look at that too closely. She needed to think about anything but how she’d gotten the assassin killed.

She could feel the damn breaking. She pushed it back.

She didn’t know that the assassin was dead.

Atmospheric Sense whispered that she did.

“We lived,” Salos said aloud. “I imagine Cass was only able to build that spear so quickly in front of the Thunderback because you’d ordered her to ignore that limiter, intentional or not.”

Cass nodded. “I don’t think I would have been any use if you hadn’t given me that command.”

“I’m glad you feel that way.” Alyx didn’t look at all relieved.

“In any case,” Salos continued, “You seemed okay after she ordered you to focus. We ran because that was the sensible thing to do. Alyx got caught because she’s slow.”

“Hey! Not everyone is speed-focused and I didn’t see you running.” Alyx poked him in the forehead. “Actually, I don’t remember seeing you at all.”

“I was there, not my fault if you missed me amid the chaos,” he said, sticking his nose up. He coughed and continued. “I heroically told Cass to help you, since you were knocked down.”

“I know that wasn’t what happened,” Alyx said, her arms crossed.

Cass nodded in agreement.

Salos continued, “You then threw all of your Focus into building the most ridiculous spear out of stone. You remember that much, right?”

Cass nodded. It was fuzzy, but she did remember that.

“I hid it like you asked and added Hidden Blade. Thank you for reshaping the pillar into something my skill recognized as a blade by the way, I wasn’t sure you’d heard me.”

Cass shook her head. She hadn’t.

“Either way,” Salos continued, “It slammed head-first into the spear. Blood and guts everywhere. You passed out immediately.

“I have to give it to you, I did not think your plan would work. I can hardly imagine another group of three that could slay a Lord like that.”

“Are you okay?” Cass asked Alyx. She’d been knocked out in that chaos too, it hadn’t been just Cass unconscious.

Alyx nodded. She tapped her chest plate, “It resists blunt force damage. I was knocked out but came to shortly after your heroics. I saw you on the ground and figured I better drag you here since you didn’t seem dead. I, um, owe you again.”

Cass shook her head. “I’d be dead if you hadn’t been there.”

“You wouldn’t have been there if that assassin hadn’t been after me.”

Cass looked down. There was an incredibly important question she was avoiding. She hadn’t needed a play-by-play of the battle.

She was stalling.

She had to ask it, even if she fell apart when she did.

“Speaking of the assassin?” Cass said slowly.

“Sent by my father,” Alyx said with a casual shrug and a sigh. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Again, sorry. But, you got some money out of the deal! And we didn’t die. I bet you got a lot of levels out of that whole experience, and the Lord’s Blessing?”

Cass hadn’t even glanced at her System since waking up. Sure enough, there were a host of notifications waiting for her.

She didn’t open them yet. There was something else she needed to know.

“Then, she’s…”

Alyx cocked her head to one side, waiting for Cass to finish her question.

Cass gulped. “Dead?”

Alyx’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Yeah?”

So casual. So completely ordinary. There was no emotion in that answer. She answered the same way Cass would have accepted tea or agreed the weather was nice.

Cass wanted to ask more. Should they bury her? Did she have family they should tell? Were there authorities they should report it to?

Didn’t it bother them?

The shock was leaking out of its box. Cass tried to push it back down.

She was responsible for the death of another person.

She hadn’t killed her, not really.

If she were a storybook protagonist, perhaps it wouldn’t bother her at all. It would be just another day, the way it was just another day for Salos and Alyx.

Alyx talked about assassination by her father like it was ordinary. How many assassins had she killed to live to today?

Salos easily spoke of backstabbing Alyx. About how his skill set was suited to assassination and stealth kills. How many of his 74 original levels had been gained through the murder of others?

Cass didn’t realize she was crying until her face was wet. She rubbed her eyes, looking away.

Alyx was looking at her funny.

What did that matter? Cass had caused the death of another person.

Did it matter that the person in question had been dead set on killing them all? Yes, of course, it did.

Did it make it better? Yes.

But did it make that good? No. Not even a little bit.

Hell, she was sobbing. Why was she sobbing? Alyx and Salos were asking her what was wrong. How did she explain any of this? Their world was one drenched from top to bottom in death. It had been nothing but death since she’d gotten here. Killing and killing and killing and killing and killing.

Every skill existed to kill. Every stat to kill.

She’d gotten good at it. She’d gotten excited about it. Even now, she was itching to see the numbers for her most recent gains. Had she hit level 17? Maybe 18? Higher?

Was this who she was now?

She’d gotten so good at pretending that wasn’t what was happening. It was so easy when the monsters were bugs. When they were behemoths out of video games.

Cass didn’t know how long she’d sobbed, or how long the two people closest to friends in this godforsaken world had panicked over her seemingly unprompted tears.

“Cass,” Alyx asked slowly when her sobbing had stopped. “Was the assassin your first?”

Cass nodded. “That was the first person I’d ever seen die.”

Alyx’s eyes widened. “How have you gotten this far without—“

She stopped mid-sentence, finally putting two and two together. “People don’t die in the world you’re from?”

Cass almost laughed. It came out a bitter snort instead. “People die. People die all the time. Just, not on the streets. Not to violence. Not usually. Not where you can see. Not in the part of the world I’m from.”

So, Alyx finally believed her. That was how big the gap was between their worlds. Cass’s reaction to death was the thing that finally had her convinced.

She couldn’t handle this now. She was drowning and talking about it further was just dragging her under.

Cass changed the subject, shoving all the shock and distress back in its box. “When does the boat come?”

Alyx and Salos exchanged a look. Salos answered. “Any minute.”

“We should get going then,” Cass said, forcing herself to stand. Her vision swam from the effort, but she didn’t fall over. “Lead the way.”

“We have some time,” Salos said. “No need to hurry.”

“We cannot miss this one,” Cass said, pointing up she added, “That’s bursting any time now.”

Alyx and Salos both looked up, their faces pale. Alyx said, “I suppose we should get going then.”

Cass followed them through the temple. She barely watched where they were going, after everything they’d been through, she could trust them this much.