Chương 90: Chapter 89

Heart of the Banished Dark Five million gold? Sure, the Dark One had been a tough bastard, but that was a ridiculous sum. The dragon quest only awarded 1, 500, 000 and that had a three-star difficulty rating and a recommended group size of twenty. I read the quest completion message again. Minor administrative oversight. Nobody needs to know about this. Yeah... it was pretty clear what had happened.

Some poor bastard at GEC had fucked up spectacularly, and Rel and I had swooped in to save the day and prevented his dumbass from getting fired. This meant that the gold and item was hush money to keep our mouths shut. Now, I'd always considered myself to be a man of integrity. Someone who valued principle over profit. Someone who could not be bought. After all, what if something similar happened again, except this time it was Kaelis, Allaria, and Voklum who stumbled upon the quest?

A creature like the Dark One would slaughter them. The responsible thing to do would be to report it immediately. However, I felt it would be wildly irresponsible not to examine the item first… you know, just for scientific purposes and whatnot. Heart of the Banished Dark The tears that the Dark One created allowed a not insignificant amount of chaos energy to pass from his realm into this world. After the connections were severed, much of that energy dissipated. However, some remained.

It was gathered, purified, and condensed to form this item. Absorbing Heart of the Banished Dark will permanently grant the following bonuses: +10 strength +10 durability +10 agility +10 intelligence + Grants the ability: Bane of the Dark Passive ability The user's vision is no longer hindered by darkness. Provides a permanent 50% boost to damage against creatures of corruption. Then again... maybe I shouldn't report it. What if the employee responsible for the fuck-up had a deathly ill child? Or an elderly mother?

Or a deathly ill elderly mother? If I reported the incident and he lost his job, leaving him unable to look after them, I'd basically be some sort of monster. Besides, surely he'd learned from such a colossal screw-up and wouldn't make the same mistake again. No, the right thing to do would be to overlook it. Honestly, I surprised myself sometimes with the depth of my generosity and compassion. My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden, sharp intake of breath, followed almost immediately by a pained whine.

I looked up to see that Winterclaw had opened his eyes, which were thankfully no longer a creepy blazing purple, and had, quite understandably, started panicking after realising his head was only partially attached. The pained whining quickly escalated to desperate howls of agony as the reality of the situation sank in. He then started thrashing around on the ground, which did little to help with the whole half-decapitation issue.

Rel, who had apparently been just as distracted by his rewards as I had, glanced up, a look of mild irritation on his face. It passed very quickly when he remembered that Winterclaw was an entirely innocent and unwilling participant in the Dark One's schemes, and he let out a dramatic sigh as he raised a paw.

"Wolves may be uncouth animals, tragically lacking the grace and dignity of arboreal observers," said Rel grandly as an orb of golden light began to gather over his paw, "but that does not mean you deserve to meet such a gruesome end." His arm shot forward, launching the orb at the wolf. It raced towards Winterclaw, bathing his dark fur in a golden glow. The orb struck his torso and immediately sank into his body, the powerful healing magic getting to work at once.

As the first wave washed through Winterclaw's body, the severed flesh of his neck began knitting itself back together. The desperate howls of agony ceased immediately, replaced by a confused whimper. He rolled onto his front, his tongue lolling from his mouth as he panted heavily. Then he tilted his head slightly as he looked at Rel. I'd had several pet dogs throughout my life, and it was a look I recognised immediately. Rel was about to be on the receiving end of some enthusiastic canine attention.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Rel, who was entirely oblivious as to what was about to happen, looked smug as he witnessed just how effective his Rejuvenating Touch was. Winterclaw leaped through the air, Rel's eyes widening as the giant wolf bowled him to the ground… And then started nuzzling his head against him and licking him with considerable enthusiasm.

"Get off me, you unhygienic brute!" roared Rel as he flailed under the onslaught, his little paws batting against the wolf's muzzle. Realising Winterclaw was only moments away from being set on fire, I whistled and bent over slightly, slapping my palms against my knees.

"Who's a good boy, eh?" I shouted. Winterclaw turned to look at me with a big doggy grin on his face. After giving Rel one final lick for good measure – knocking off his saliva-painted wizard hat in the process – he bounded towards me. When he was around ten metres away, he pushed off the ground and launched himself through the air. I caught him mid-flight, and we crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs and fur.

A moment later, I had him pinned down, rubbing his belly furiously as one of his back legs kicked uncontrollably.

"I can't believe that big meany the Dark One possessed you like that," I said.

"But you're safe now, aren't you? Uncle Pete and Uncle Rel made sure of that, didn't we?" This continued for a few more minutes. Rel, refusing to be associated with such 'uncivilised' behaviour, rose a hundred metres into the air and glared down at us with crackling blue eyes. Winterclaw eventually decided that he'd shown enough gratitude, disentangled himself from our little wrestling match, and rose to his paws.

He lowered his enormous head once more to nudge it against my chest, then turned and began padding away. Rel had grown a little complacent, believing himself to be safe from Winterclaw's attention while hovering in the air. He was wrong. With a tremendous leap, the wolf soared upwards, unleashed a drive-by lick as he passed Rel, then landed back on the ice with remarkable grace.

He howled excitedly as he tore across the ice, suddenly changing direction at random to avoid the pursuing fireballs as if it were all some brilliant game. I grinned as I watched the wolf grow smaller and smaller as he faded into the distance. Now, you might think I'm an asshole for not stopping Rel from attempting to BBQ our new friend, but the truth was that he could have landed any one of those fireballs with ease if he'd really wanted to.

He'd never admit it, but I could have sworn there was a little smile trying to form on his lips as he watched the wolf disappear into the distance.

"What a repulsive creature," said Rel as he floated back down to the ground. I grinned. Sure, buddy. Whatever you say. Rel glared at me for a few moments, then cleared his throat and straightened to his full height, tilting his chin slightly upwards.

"Now he's gone," Rel continued, "we can get back to more important matters. Namely, the rewards for the quest…" It turned out that we'd both received the same reward. Now admittedly, the quest had been more difficult by far than anything we'd faced before, but even so... Within the space of a single day, we'd earned a total of 10, 000, 000 gold and each received an item that permanently increased our stats by an amount that would normally take at least a month of solid training to achieve.

"Well, buddy," I said, withdrawing the Heart of the Banished Dark from my inventory, "it looks like we might be ready to take on that dragon a little sooner than we'd thought." In many ways, it was very similar to the Heart of Lightning we'd received back on Floor Eight of the Tower of Potential. It was a glass sphere, roughly the size of an apple. However, rather than containing a miniature storm, there was a writhing black mist inside, with little tendrils of golden light threading through the darkness.

I glanced over to see that Rel held an identical, albeit much smaller, item in his paw. He spent a few moments turning it over and inspecting it closely before nodding approvingly.

"Excellent. The energy has indeed been purified and is safe for us to use," he said. I'd heard enough. With what was no doubt a disturbing giggle, I lifted the sphere and pressed it against my chest. As it made contact with my shirt, the glass dissolved and the swirling black mist soaked into my body. Black and gold veins spread from the point of contact, so bright that they were visible even through the fabric of my peasant garb. I gasped as I felt the power flood through my body and I sagged to my knees.

Peter Brookes… The Avatar of Peasants and Bane of the Dark. It took a few minutes for the energy to be fully absorbed by my body, and I stayed on my knees the whole time, the giggle eventually giving way to a demented grin. The grin only slipped when the veins reached my eyes and an uncomfortable pressure built behind them. I squeezed them shut and gritted my teeth. Apparently, this was the part where the magic rewired my eyeballs. And then it was all over... I opened my eyes and rose to my feet.

I glanced at Rel to see that he had not quite finished the process of absorbing the energy. Perfect. That meant I had time to check out how my stats looked after the boost from the item. After one last quick check to see that Rel was still occupied, I returned all of my items to my inventory... including my peasant garb. After all, I didn't want the +5 stats they offered interfering with my analysis. As I stood there, feeling the crisp Arctic air caressing my junk, I couldn't help but feel at one with nature.

Maybe those nudist people back on Earth were on to something... Current strength: 69 Current durability: 61 Current agility: 52 Current intelligence: 37 Holy shit… The Heart of the Banished Dark was quite possibly the strongest item we'd come across since entering the Trial Zone. In fact, I honestly hoped the GEC employee would fuck up again so that we could swoop in, save the day, and milk that hush money for all it was worth.

Then I remembered the whole eldritch horror thing and decided that perhaps it wasn't a particularly sensible wish.

"Pete, what the fuck are you doing?" I spun on the spot as Rel's scandalised voice interrupted my thoughts... then I felt my face flush as I remembered that I'd removed my peasant garb, and my hands became an imperceptible blur as they darted down to cover Pete Jr.

"I was– erm..." I said.

"I wanted to see what my base stats were after the upgrade from the item." Rel raised an eyebrow.

"And the immensely challenging task of subtracting five from each of them was beyond you?"

"I suppose when you put it that way..." I began, but my words trailed off when I realised Rel had already moved past the minor issue of my public indecency. His eyes had taken on that distant look I'd come to associate with people accessing the system. I used the distraction to very quickly put my clothing back on. However, I left the rest of my items in my inventory. I had no doubt that, now the whole Dark One issue had been dealt with, we'd soon be getting back to business as usual.

"Now that's more like it!" said Rel triumphantly.

"Pete, take a look at the leaderboards." Total Stat Gains: Peter Brookes Squire Rel Tog Tog Moranthor Tolar Wise Claw Acquired wealth: Peter Brookes Squire Rel Unu'pora Tog Tog Tolar Wise Claw Reputation and influence: Squire Rel Peter Brookes Moranthor Tog Tog Unu'pora That was more like it. Peter Brookes and Squire Rel on top, baby.