“I need a bath,” Liliana whined as she sat down on the cold stone floor and fell back. She could feel the drying and cooling blood coating her arms and she hated it. She was used to skinning creatures, but it didn’t make the mess any more palatable, no matter how many times she had to deal with it.

“Here,” Eric said, coming forward and laying a glowing hand on her.

In seconds, the blood and gore had dissolved off her skin and Liliana gleefully looked at her cleaned arms. The healer had some kind of cleaning spell. He said it came from his class, so he didn’t know if she could get a scroll with the same spell on it. She’d peppered him with questions about it the first time he’d used it to clean the team of blood and gunk gained from fighting their first goblin patrol. Alistair,

“I need that spell,” Liliana murmured as she slowly sat up. She looked around and saw Daniel poking around the cave, looking for the loot undoubtedly. Liliana sighed and mentally instructed Lelantos to paw at the third mini cave from the left. It was where the treasure was hidden. It would be far less suspicious if Lelantos found it than her, as he had an actual tracking skill.

The tiger obeyed, pawing at the spot and uncovering the hidden loot. The entire team hurried over as soon as they figured out what the tiger had discovered, and Liliana picked herself off the ground. She was excited for the loot as well, but she knew what to expect. She knew the drop table for this dungeon backwards and forwards. If the world followed that, then she wouldn’t be surprised.

“Nothing too good this time,” Sasha commented as she picked up a pair of leather bracers.

“It’s a new dungeon. The first few drops are always bad until it gets enough Mana, or deaths, to form better,” Daniel explained as he held up two uncut gemstones.

“This is nice, at least,” Sam commented, holding up a rather elaborate pendant for a first dungeon drop. A dark, almost black, blue stone sat in a silver setting, the silver twisting and crossing over and around the stone in a dizzying pattern. A delicate silver chain held up the rather large pendant.

Liliana remembered a small side quest from the game featuring that necklace. It was a guaranteed drop the first time you ran this dungeon, no matter what. The side quest was phrased as a side quest but you couldn’t actually continue on the story quest without completing it, it irritated a lot of players because it hadn’t been made apparent the side quest was mandatory.

The quest was simple and offered no rewards. You had to deliver the pendant to Liliana Rosengarde, if you played Emyr or Alistair. It made other players think it was a bug because none of the other characters had to follow the quest line, just Emyr and Alistair, who met Liliana before the Academy. Some theorized it was meant to play into the second game’s storyline.

Of all the things Liliana thought she’d see, the pendant wasn’t one of them. It had been a pointless quest in the game. Many, Liliana included, thought it was a bug that was never patched out because it held no significance to the story. So why was it showing up here and now?

“I think it should go to Liliana. It matches her,” Sam said, getting immediate agreement from the rest of the group. Even Alistair didn’t argue or put up any kind of resistance to the suggestion. Sam walked to Liliana and handed her the pendant. For a moment, Liliana caught an odd expression on his face, an almost misty quality to his eyes that vanished before she could be sure she saw it.

Taking the odd pendant from the archer, Liliana examined it, holding it up. She could feel power radiating off the pendant, piquing her curiosity further. The game had always treated the pendant as nothing more than a piece of jewelry, yet her senses said there was something more to the pendant that dangled from her fingers, swaying gently before her eyes. Activating [Identify] Liliana tried to discover the secrets the pendant kept.

Ancient Pendant

A pendant of unknown age, it’s perhaps seen hundreds or thousands of years pass by it. The stone and metal are remarkably well kept despite its obvious age. The stone is of an unknown origin, resembling a sapphire but not quite matching such a gemstone. The metal, while resembling silver, is also not quite what it seems. A beautiful piece of jewelry with no obvious magical properties.

Liliana glared at the pendant, staring at the information [Identify] was showing her with disbelief. She canceled and reactivate the skill, trying to get a different answer. When the same box appeared, she tried again, and again, and again. The same words taunted her every time. Liliana glared at the pendant, shaking it as if that would force it to reveal what secrets it was hiding.

“Eric? Can you use [Appraisal] on this?” Liliana called out, not dropping her gaze from the pendant in her grasp, as if she was facing down a dangerous creature.

“It’s just an Ancient Pendant, its stone and metal are unknown to me but that happens sometimes with older items,” Eric answered, seeming to be completely fine with the fact that his [Appraisal] skill had offered no more information than her [Identify] had. [Appraisal] was a possible evolution of [Identify], but it focused more on items than living beings. Eric had apparently gotten the evolution by accident.

He sometimes had so little to do in fights that he’d taken to using [Identify] on found objects so often it forced the evolution. It made him useful for dungeon delving, as he could usually get better information about loot than [Identify] would give, but right now the skill was useless to Liliana if it couldn’t tell her what was going on with the pendant.

“It’s just a pretty bauble, don’t think too hard about it or you’ll hurt your little brain,” Alistair called out and Liliana finally broke her staring contest with the pendant to give a withering glare to her stepbrother.

“You’re telling me you can’t sense the magical power radiating from this thing?” Liliana asked incredulously, and Alistair turned to stare at her as if she was going insane.

“You’re probably just feeling the power from the dungeon core. It’s likely nearby. They usually hide around the boss room or somewhere nearby,” Sasha answered, stepping in to prevent the fight brewing between the two siblings.

“Yea, sure,” Liliana murmured, lowering the pendant.

Was she feeling the dungeon core? But she could swear she felt the power coming from the pendant itself. Far more power than she’d felt coming from any piece of equipment before. Even her new naginata that had several enchantments worked into it felt like a flickering candle beside the contained bonfire she could sense within the pendant. Yet no one else seemed to sense the same thing.

Liliana retreated away from the others. They were dividing out the loot. It was mostly Mana infused stones and ore with a small bit of equipment. Normally, even that would excite Liliana. The possible monetary gains she could make selling dungeon enhanced gear was not to be scoffed at, but her mind was too distracted by the pendant to care.

Lelantos followed her and Liliana held up the pendant for him to sniff, wondering if their Soul Bond would enable him to feel what she did. The tiger pressed his large snout to the pendant and withdrew with a snuffling noise. Liliana almost cried in relief when he communicated a sense of power from the pendant, so she wasn’t going insane. However, the next impression he sent her gave her pause. Something about the pendant screamed predator to Lelantos, and it left him wary of the pendant. He wasn’t averse to it, but whatever it was hiding felt dangerous to the cat. Liliana stared at the mystery pendant for several more long minutes, wondering what to do with it.

The thought of tossing it away didn’t even cross her mind, though she felt a small urge to wear the pendant. She squashed that quickly. She didn’t trust mysterious jewelry that might hold some kind of ancient curse. She’d watched enough horror movies on Earth to know how that went. Eventually, Liliana decided the best course of action was to just toss it into her storage. She could go to the city and look for a higher leveled appraiser to unveil the pendant’s true nature when they got back.

The sense of power, and of a dangerous predator lurking, vanished with the pendant. Validating to Liliana that the sense she’d gotten had been from the pendant and not the hidden dungeon core. As she looked back to the group, she saw that the loot had been finally divided evenly among all of them, one small pile of stones and ores signifying her own, she assumed. Liliana walked over and knelt, looking at the uncut gemstones and shining hunks of metal.

“Some amethyst, a moonstone and a sunstone. Nothing too fancy for this dungeon, but it can make some good equipment. The ore is all iron ore. Maybe you can get a new naginata or daggers commissioned?” Sam informed her, pointing out the different stones. Liliana nodded thankfully as she deposited it all in her storage bracelet. She’d already taken her portion of the cores for the goblins, which she got the majority of for taking care of most of the goblins herself. She could tell she’d been given a good fraction of the loot, if one counted the pendant she’d been given too.

“We decided since you came up with the strategy for the boss that you’d get the nicer stones,” Charles clarified, but he pouted over his own small stone she identified as a sunstone too. If she remembered correctly, sunstones could be used to improve fire affinity skills and spells. It made sense that it was what Charles wanted. Liliana cared more for the moonstones, which could improve Soul magic as Soul fell under the Goddess of the night’s purview.

“You got the mimic’s core, don’t complain,” Sasha chided the fire mage, who just crossed his arms and looked away from the taller woman. Sasha sighed and reached for her axe, to undoubtedly whack the mage with the flat of the blade as she’d done before. Charles scrambled away, forcing a bright smile onto his face.

“I love my rewards! They’re perfect for me!” Charles said as he edged closer to the exit, prompting the rest of the group to get a move on. The mobs wouldn’t respawn for some hours yet, but dungeons were known to be chaotic and unpredictable, Liliana had heard tales from the guards of other groups killing a boss, and ten minutes later as they were still splitting the loot having the entire boss room respawn on top of them. It didn’t happen often, and Charles had theorized it was because the groups had gotten too close to the actual dungeon core, forcing it to defend itself, but no one wanted to chance it.

Liliana pulled herself on to Lelantos, slumping over her saddle. Her Stamina was full, but she was exhausted. She still had a headache lurking around the edges of her mind from having too many creatures under [Radiant Revelry], and the fight hadn’t been easy. Predictable, yes, but not easy. It was one thing to do a boss fight in the comfort of your hospital bed, nothing but your fingers moving. It was a whole other thing to actually do the boss fight in person, forcing your body to dodge, twist and strike.

She could tell the others were tired. Charles wasn’t even playing with fireballs or trying to singe Sam’s hair. Sasha was trudging ahead, but her axes hung low in her hands. Daniel was still scouting, but Liliana assumed he was likely moving as slow as the rest of them. Emyr wasn’t even hiding in the shadows, instead walking beside Alistair, the two whispering together.

Liliana watched the two for a moment, her mind moving slowly as exhaustion pressed in on her. Alistair was smiling, a smile Liliana never saw directed at herself. It was open, free, and easy. The laugh he let out at whatever joke Emyr had just told him rang through the cavern, the proud smirk on Emyr’s face showing the boy’s feelings about making his friend laugh. The light of her [Shine] hovering above them all cast the two in a bright relief, fully illuminating the happiness etched on both their faces.

What would it be like to have a friend from such a young age? Emyr and Alistair have known each other since they were in diapers and have been best friends since. Is it easier? To have someone who understands you so easily? They even chose classes and affinities that complimented each other. Did the system grant those, or did they go out of their way to learn them? Liliana considered as she watched the two. Emyr caught her watching eyes, he lifted a silent brow at her gaze. She looked away hastily, having been caught in her spying.

And I chastised him about spying and eavesdropping. What a hypocrite I make. Liliana flushed in embarrassment, fingers reaching out to fiddle with Lelantos’ fur to hide her shame.

Will I ever have a friend like that? The question tugged at her mind, summoning a familiar ache in her chest. She could say now that she had friends. Something she couldn’t say often in her past life. Emyr, Marianne and even Alistair, when he wasn’t being a little shit, were all people she’d consider now to be her friends. But the kind of closeness Alistair and Emyr shared it differed from what she experienced in her own friendships, both in this life and the last. A part of her, the greedy part of her that always wanted more than she had, yearned for that kind of closeness.

Affection, love, poured through her bond from Lelantos, the tiger sensing her feelings and thoughts. Liliana smiled at the tiger, a warm feeling blossoming in her chest. Perhaps she wouldn’t ever get the close friendship Alistair and Emyr shared with another person, but she could say the love she felt for her Soul Bond was something nothing in this life or the last could ever compare to.

Her lives had been hard, and this one was shaping up to be more difficult than her last by a wide margin, but she wouldn’t trade her bond with Lelantos for an easier life.