Nkhra, the Great Mother of the minor Gnoll clans, despaired. So close. They had been so close. She had smelled the weakness on the tall pink skins, the fear smothered beneath the spicy smell of mana frenzy. Their packs had been weak. And the Area Guardian… Nkhra growled.

When the Area Guardian had arrived, such would be an easy victory. It would save her litter many deaths. Her children, and her children’s children, had been reduced by the System—stripped of armor and blade, made to fight with fang and tooth like the Gnolls of old. Their savage intellect, of which she had once been so proud, now had become simple savagery. And even she, strong as she was, was reduced as well. She had smelled the Area Guardian. Even from afar, her nose was keen. It was almost like the pink skins, almost like the humans, but not quite. A shapeshifter. It would have been glorious to smell the pink skins succumb to fear, so deep it overrode the mana frenzy.

And the Area Guardian, the shapeshifter, the fake pink skin, had betrayed them, killed one of the horde. It had broken covenant, broken law, violated the protections of a Horde; in doing so, its life was forfeit.

But the pink skin had not died. It had risen atop a pile of Gnoll corpses—escaped with the lives of hundreds of her children, her litter. It hurt her, it hurt her so deeply, as she too climbed the corpses of her children to strike back at the transgressor. It always had hurt, the path to greater Glory always entailed stepping upon the broken backs of her children; but this, this was something else, something that ignited fire in her chest, demanded motion like never before.

And yet, she—Nkhra, the Great Mother of the minor Gnoll clans— could not move, could not see, could barely feel beyond the low throb of pain and the greater loss that howled throughout her bones and demanded the lives of her children be avenged.

And they almost had been. She’d had her claws around the metal shell of the false pink skin, vengeance should have been immediate, the Soul Spears made from her children could not harm her. And yet… And yet…

The pink skins—the true pink skins—had no idea what they invited into their midst. They had defended it, even as one whose skin had become stone robbed her of her sight. She hungered for the death of the false Area Guardian, but in her heart she held out hope that the shapeshifter would be their downfall, that her children would rise without her, that her children would become Enlightened someday—even without their Great Mother to guide her.

Nkhra could no longer see. Nkhra could no longer hear. But she held out hope all the same. Even after the spear pierced through her, and left the sensation of a mountain on her back—too strong to rail against. Even after she felt the light fade above her—the withdrawal of the sun’s heat transmitted through her fur into her skin. Even as the illusory mountain that pinned her down was replaced by stone and silence.

The pain faded, but the loss remained.

Chris smiled as he heard the crunch of bone. He didn’t see the end, but that Gnoll had been a monster—he doubted he could have fought it. He was too tired as he was.

He closed his eyes as he lay with his back against the wall walk, as chain dangled, as rock scraped against wood, as he heard a body released from stone land on two feet. The fatigue of expending his Slime swept over him. His veins were filled with too little fluid, his heart hammered in his chest, and his face felt heavy. He drifted off into darkness and dream, as a voice came from beside him. It was such a nice dream.

“Sir Christopher? Are you alright?”

Chris smiled. It was such a nice dream.

“Fuck you, Bruce,” he murmured.

Chris opened his eyes to see a roof above his head. The softness of a mattress covered his back and the armor that had formerly protected him no longer clung tight to him. He turned his head and spotted his plate mail lying in the corner.

His face itched, so he scratched at his forehead, then glanced down, confused when he failed to feel his fingers soothing the abominable itch.

Oh. Right. His arm was still missing. As was his shirt. That was in the corner too.

He patted at the stump with his good arm. His eyebrows rose as he felt bandage wrapped around it. That was odd.

Someone must have seen his missing arm; but if they had, why hadn’t they noticed the lack of blood, or the traces of Slime within his flesh. It wasn’t obvious at first glance, but someone close enough to properly wrap a bandage would definitely notice.

Why wasn’t he dead? Anyone who saw something abnormal should have gotten a quest. That would lead to them examining him closer. And… And…

Why wasn’t he dead?

He sat up, throwing off a rough blanket that had been draped over him. At least his pants hadn’t been removed, although his plate mail was gone there too. Someone had been thorough.

Then, following the motion, lightheadedness washed over him. He steadied himself, waiting for the disorientation to pass—it was like when he sometimes stood up too quickly, but worse. Oh, right. He’d lost a lot of blood—or whatever he had that passed for blood these days.

He looked back at his bandaged stump. Seriously. How had no one noticed that he wasn’t bleeding?

Once the dizziness faded, he rubbed at the absence of his limb. It didn’t hurt, but it still felt like there should be fingers there, something beyond the discomforting void where he expected to see an arm.

Then he wondered why he was thinking so straightforwardly. When he’d last lost his arm to Xys, he’d barely registered it, drowned as he was in the drive to move forward and slay the monster.

What had changed?

He checked his center and found that the pulsing ball of mana in his center was much diminished. It was uncontrolled as ever, but it was smaller—not yet replenished—and thus the haze of mana it threw toward his seven meridians was sparse.

He could faintly hear the battle outside, snarls and the sounds of claws on wood. He wondered how it was going. At least the lack of mana explained why he didn’t want to go out and fight. He really didn’t miss that feeling.

Still, just to keep in practice, he pushed back the thin fog of mana away from his meridians, then examined the room he was in more closely.

The roof seemed to be made of wood and closed, blue-painted shutters held out most of the light—although a few stray beams found their way in through cracks anyway. No one else was inside, and the room on the whole was sparsely furnished. Notably, on a table beside the bed upon which he sat upright, there was a plate of food—simple fare, bread, hard cheese, and some smoked meat. He wondered where it came from.

He unwrapped the bandages and tried to feed the Slime in his veins the food, but it was dormant and sluggish. He poked at an opened artery, frowning. It was filled with greenish-red material that was hard to the touch. Hardened Slime?

Damn. It must have been worse than he thought. Well, there went his plan for a rapid restoration of good health—he knew how the Slime was able to increase its mass when it had access to food supplies. That didn’t seem like an option right now.

He’d just have to eat the old fashioned way. Not that he was complaining. The bread was hard, almost stale, but the rest was good. The cheese was the perfect balance between sharp and creamy, like a ripe cheddar; the meat wasn’t bad either, tough, but deliciously smoky and salty.

He was just gnawing his way through the crusty heel of bread when the door opened. He looked up, then realized the stump of his right arm was still exposed. He dragged the rough-spun covers of the bed up around him as someone entered the room.

He blinked. It was bright outside, and the relative darkness of the room left him blinded as a familiar tubby silhouette stood in the doorway, pausing before closing the door.

“Bruce?”