The man stood up as he studied Ethan. Ethan studied him back, and the first thing his eyes picked up was the man’s bare feet.

  Where are his shoes? I’m not one to talk, but that can’t be comfortable.

  The stranger wore a black t-shirt with a popular metal band’s logo on it. Baggy washed blue jeans that may have been intentionally made into shorts, if Ethan was to go on with the rough and uneven tears. A bright smile stretched across the man’s deep olive skin as he rubbed his buzzed head with a hand.

  “You must be the one who took the crown for a minute, huh? What’s your name, dude? I’m Diego.”

  He seemed pleasant. Ethan wasn’t about to drop his guard, but he wasn’t getting any unsettling or uneasy energy from the man.

  “Ethan. And yeah, I had it for a couple of hours before it was gone. Did you take it back?”

  Diego chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. “Nope! I thought I would have had it back by now, but it looks like someone else took the lead.”

  A small silence fell around them for a second, and Ethan wasn’t sure what to make of the guy. Were things about to get violent, or could he just move on with his day and go find the others?

  Though Ethan would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious about the man’s ability.

  I wonder what he picked from the hidden quest. No daggers or pouches that I can see, and it doesn’t look like he needed the change of clothes.

  Ethan wondered what kind of fighting style the man practiced for his clothes to survive for so long.

  A few yards away, Diego’s smile widened, and Ethan tensed a bit. His curiosity must have shown in his eyes, because the next thing the man said was both exciting and alarming.

  “Wanna spar?”

  Ethan blinked, taken aback, but he didn’t dismiss the idea. Knowing how the man fought was surely valuable.

  And I kinda want to see how I would fare against the previous champion.

  Ethan reeled his enthusiasm back a bit and considered his options, and there were really two. If he said yes, he’d have to be ready for low-blows and attempts on his life, just in case he was misreading the man. He was also close to mana exhaustion, and so he couldn’t keep the fight going for long, while the man seemed to have been resting. Plus, [Mana Heart] still felt heavy in his Prime wand, which felt like thick bands were wrapped around his chest.

  On the other hand, if he said no, the man might let things be, or if he had any nefarious intent, he might take that for fear or weakness and he’d still come after him.

  Ethan realized even those two simple options could diverge into even more scenarios, and he didn’t like overthinking things, so he eyed the man’s face and just asked. The man’s reaction might tell him what he needed to know. “Are you not worried I’ll try to kill you?”

  The man’s eyes widened in shock, and then he burst out laughing. “What?! No! What kind of crazy question is that?”

  This dude’s either the most genuine person I ever met, or the best actor I’ve ever met.

  Ethan shrugged and gave the man an apologetic smile. “There are some weird people out there. You never know, I guess.”

  The man shook his head and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Nah man. It’s just a spar and you don’t have to. I know what you’re talking about, though. Had some weird people try and pick fights or get me to join up their weird-ass plans, but they moved on pretty fast once I told them to fuck off. Crazy how fast they backed up once they saw the levels.”

  He gave him a wide grin, and Ethan had to agree. The sense of freedom was pretty addicting. “Alright, sure. Let’s do a minute. Magic?”

  “Yes! I knew you were fun. Yes, to magic, but let’s keep away from the dangerous shit. Deal?”

  Ethan grinned and decided he’d test his scales in this case. They’d be perfect. He nodded in response and asked. “Weapons?”

  “Just these,” said Diego as he raised his fist and a knee, a cheeky smile on his lips.

  “Prime wand?”

  “Nah. I’m keeping some cards hidden. Just in case you try to kill me.”

  Ethan grinned as he began taking off his shoes as he moved the scales in the Elemental wand. “Fair enough. By the way, was one of the weird people you met someone named Amanda? Has wings and can go invisible?”

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  For the first time, a dangerous look entered the man’s eyes, and he tsked. “Yeah. Got some weird vibes from her. I’m not interested in that stuff, man. I just want to win this thing and find my family. I just hope they’re alright.”

  Ethan didn’t comment on that. Instead, he summoned [Reptilian Scales] and felt them spread out of his chest, down to his arms and feet. When they tried inching up his face, he stopped them at the neck while the man’s eyes went wide.

  Diego began walking around Ethan in the small clearing, jaw hanging as he marveled at the rust-red scales. “Dude… that’s awesome! It’s defensive, right? Maaan I was offered the scales but I passed on them. Now I gotta pick them up the next time.” Diego came to a stop and did a couple of arm stretches. “Alright, let me show you why I’m the goat.”

  Diego’s legs swelled and grew thicker. The thighs and leg lengthened, while the knees bent slightly, while coarse brown and white fur grew thickly to cover his lower limbs, which ended with a pair of thick hooves.

  The man gave him a shit-eating grin. “The goat. Get it?”

  Ethan tried to not smile at the crappy joke, but the man’s mood was infectious.

  “Ready?” called out Diego from fifteen feet away.

  Ethan would have been a bit more comfortable with his claws. But those were lethal. Worst comes to worst, he could summon the horns if he needed. “Ready—”

  Ethan barely finished sounding the last letter when Diego launched off the ground. The goat-legged man crossed the fifteen feet in a single bound, gauntleted arm wound back, and Ethan instantly thought he didn’t want to take a hit with that much momentum behind.

  But his path was that of a juggernaut. And pulling the gauntlets out was dirty.

  Ethan put his scaled arms in high guard in front of his face right and ignited them right as the metal-studded fist came crashing down.

  Both of their eyes met, and both of them had wide-eyed grins.

  The metal-fist cracked into his scales like a battering ram. It was like an explosion went off against Ethan's forearms. His bones groaned and shook from the impact and his scaled feet slid against the soft and muddy ground, but he didn’t fall. And he didn’t buckle.

  Ahead of him, Diego shook his right hand, a look of shocked surprise on his face. “Hot damn. You’re sturdy! How high’s your Toughness? And those flames hurt. I could feel them through the cestus.”

  Ethan grinned and lowered his arms. They were pulsing with pain, but his Toughness was currently at a whopping sixty points, and the pain was already fading.

  To be honest, Ethan himself was a bit surprised he managed to tank that hit, but when he thought about it for a second, it made sense. He had lost the points in Might, but his tier-2 wand was now boosting his Toughness and Spirit—which was boosting the scales—with twenty-four points each.

  He might not hit hard with his fist, but both his magic and durability were through the roof right now.

  Ethan cracked his neck and smiled. “Had to counter the gauntlets. I didn’t think there were going to be gauntlets. You’re not going to complain about the fire, are you?”

  Diego barked out a laugh. “Of course not!” the man said as he jumped and twirled in the air, and a dangerously large and fast hoof came at his unprotected face. But Ethan was already moving.

  Ethan lunged forward, and the hoof cracked onto the scaled forearms. The impact was painful, but not as painful as it would have been if Ethan had given Diego the space to fully extend his leg, and before the man could react, Ethan kicked at the remaining foot.

  Diego instantly saw what Ethan was going for and launched himself backward, and Ethan ended up kicking nothing.

  “Damn dude. What the hell?” said Diego as he landed gracefully on his hoofed, furry legs before he dismissed them. “And I thought I could hit hard.”

  Ethan lowered his guard and shook the arm that took most of the hoof’s impact. “That’s it?”

  Diego began doing stretches, face flush and eyes shining. “Yeah man. I can’t be wasting my energy right before I head back down there. But we should do this again sometime! And if there’s a big bad boss down there, maybe we’ll team up. After I try to solo-it, of course.”

  Over the next couple of minutes, the two said their goodbyes and wished each other luck, then Ethan headed back to his allies after taking a couple of minutes to locate himself.

  The tiny flames he could see up in the distance helped.

  ***

  Savannah stood over the rumbling, bleeding demon summoned by the primitive reptiles and stomped with a bare foot atop of the monster’s eyes socket. The bone crunched. The horn twisted and the brains of the creature splattered around her as if she’d stomped an overripe fruit.

  You have defeated [Fire Drake (I) - Level 53]

  The creature’s soul coalesced around the mark her Prime dagger had left in its throat and Savannah grabbed for the nebulous ball of light and raw power. Mechanically, she lifted it, then pushed it into the dim coloured lurid-green crystal set in the center of her chest.

  The organ pulsed with lurid green light, and Savannah felt the power course through her. Joining the strength of the rest. She lowered her hand, and she felt something brush against her palm again.

  She looked down and saw her badge. It had her name on it.

  Savannah vacantly stared at it for a second before her sight drifted away and down to the dagger in her hand.

  The Path of the Redeemed Soul. A dagger to mark them. A heart-gem to host them and offer her their strength, and wand to leverage the power at her disposal and to bring down her enemies.

  Starting with the lizardling. All of them. And all those who hadn’t helped.

  Her body screamed with fatigue. With pain. If she sat down, she might never get back up. So she didn’t. She trudged to the pink backpack at the cave’s entrance, steps slow and shuffling. She gently checked it for damage or spillage. When everything looked fine, she put it on her back, and walked out of the blood-soaked cave. To find more of the lizardlings and the demons they were summoning.

  In the back of her mind, she could see some logic to what the creatures were doing. Something to do with the ever rising number of water monitors. But she didn’t care. She couldn’t bring herself to care.

  She only cared about the lizardlings and their summons, and the quests that gave her the tools to quench the gnawing hole in her chest.

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