After a loss.

Victory is always shallow.

Your heart is left hollow.

Rewards, gold, and gear hit the ground with a clang.

This is where the euphoria is supposed to trigger.

When your heart leaps at the unknown, hoping it's an upgrade.

None of us ran over to inspect the loot.

First, we covered Frankenmuth, or what was left of him, in a cloak.

I had ordered them to back away.

They needn't partake in this

This was the one time I was happy they didn't obey.

The four of us carried the remains over to the maiden whose eyes no longer glowed.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

No longer pulsing with a sinister power.

Simply a statue left from long ago.

One who had triggered an event that would change everything.

One second we were fine.

The next...we were broken.

Finding a soft piece of ground next to the statue.

We dug, buried, and provided silence to see that our fallen comrade entered whatever sect of afterlife he believed in.

Wilder had said he thought Frank had mentioned being a Christian.

An old Religion from our ancestors' past world.

One that is rarely practiced but is respected nonetheless.

Remembering a text from long ago.

From a time when reading and the wild was all I knew.

I said a prayer and hoped it reached him.

Once the worst of it was over.

When we had gained our composure, as much as one can given the circumstances, we returned to the loot of the room that gave but took more.

Greens with affixes that didn't meld with our party's builds were added to our bags.

A blue amulet had dropped.

One that blessed the user with mana regeneration and a small boost to resistances.

Curie, our healer was given this.

Tears still crest the corners of her eyes.

She equipped the upgrade with an expression that didn't say, but showed.

It wasn't worth it….

Nothing could be…

Everything else that dropped was negligible.

Gold and silver, but not much.

Farming materials, but again, nothing more than the usual.

That's the way things go.

Regardless of the cost.

Whatever it is that one paid.

It was always a chance and never a guarantee.

We had lost much.

Too much.

And gained?

Nothing at all.

With one final look at the room that would forever be cemented in the hearts and memories of this party...

We returned to the dungeon that was still left to be cleared.

As a group living but defeated.