Ashes of the Fallen

"I 'ave had some," answered Barik right after. "I hear it depends on the connection yer mind is able to make with the game."

"Is that how it is?" I stated while thinking over what had happened. "That whole fight, was a huge adrenaline rush, everything was in slow motion for me, but it taxed me heavily afterwards. I'm pretty fatigued right now."

"Whoa," said Ethan somewhat comically, doing his best Keanu impression.

I couldn't even laugh.

Was I even playing a game anymore?

Everything was so realistic, from the supposedly limited Artificial Intelligences that governed the Non-Player Characters like Selene and Katherine, to how real it felt to be here. When they said this was a Virtual Reality… I never thought it would be so realistic that I would find myself questioning my own reality on a daily basis.

Hell, I was even suffering from an in-game headache and had a simulated adrenaline rush. This was beginning to be a bit too real, even for me.

"Yeah," I said bluntly. "I'm thinking, I'm going to log out guys, I'm tired."

"Hey wait a minute," Barik yelped out. "Ye ain't goin' anywhere buddy."

"Yeah!" yelled Ethan as he practically skipped over to the back of the room, where a dirty chest had been sitting out of sight. "We've got treasure to deal with first lads."

Right, there was loot.

Oh, this was the fifth boss… that meant potentially excellent loot.

"Hah," I laughed out loud as I realized my mistake.

"So what's in it," asked Barik impatiently as Ethan fiddled with the chest's lock.

All of us had crowded around the small chest as we impatiently waited for it to open. Biding our time by nervously shuffling back and forth, we were excited and anxious to see what would be offered. We were the first to clear the dungeon, so there was a possibility we would have something rare inside.

Maybe, that is.

It could be entirely random, too.

We didn't know, and we didn't want to wait any longer to find out.

"Gods, ye take far too long," Barik finally spouted out as he pushed Ethan aside. "It's just a damn little lock, what takes ye so long."

"Oi I got it, step off," countered Ethan as he finally popped open the chest while pushing Barik back. "You lot are too impatient, chest isn't going anywhere."

At this point no one really cared about what was being said as we all eyed the contents of the chest. As the lid to the chest fell backwards and the insides started to glimmer and shine in the darkness of the dungeon, my imagination ran wild at what there could be.

Was there gold?

Maybe there were jewels, gemstones, or magic crystals?

Perhaps a rare item, like an enchanted dagger or a scroll that taught a rare skill… the possibilities were endless. I wanted to know, Barik wanted to know, Alan wanted to know, so too, did the frost mage.

"What," Ethan said dejectedly.

"That's it, huh?" stated Barik with a slight sigh.

The four of them backed off as if the chest was empty, much to my confusion.

"Step aside if you're done," I said, trying to budge them so I could see what had caused the sudden depression to spread like a pathogen. Brushing past them, I looked down into the chest that had a number of silver coins and hundreds of copper coins.

That was it?

Couldn't be… a chest of gold or in this case, copper and silver was nice but, there had to be more. I wasn't sold, that couldn't be it. They wouldn't have hyped us up with a chest after this incredibly difficult boss only to provide us with some coinage.

That was almost blasphemous.

I wanted to cuss at the developer, if this was the case.

"Nah, there's gotta be something else down underneath," I said as I started to sift through the coins and felt around the chest. Parting the coins and running my hands through them, I finally made contact with something that wasn't a coin. Grabbing the circular object, it felt a lot like a ring.

"There's a ring," I said with some shock.

Pulling it out and inspecting it, I was actually kind of surprised.

The [Silver Ring of the Outcast Goblin Chief] was an enchanted ring that offered plus five-percent or plus ten, which ever was lesser, to your Endurance and Vitality stat. A scaling item, that would grow with you as the game progressed, up to at least plus ten Endurance and Vitality. That really wasn't too shabby.

No, it was quite strong.

Especially this early in the game, when the other rings that had dropped were only plus-three to an attribute, this one was at least plus-five for me and wouldn't cap out until it hit ten. If I wore four of those, I might not have stamina issues in combat anymore… hell, I could probably run forever.

That didn’t even count the bonus to health as well.

It wasn't that bad at all.

An item that could last you quite a while, disguised as a minor double attribute ring.

Hah, it was perfect for a tank.

"Catch," I called out to Barik as I tossed him the ring. "You'll want a few of those."

"Eh," he replied before actually looking.