Heaven was hotter than I thought it should be, and my body hurt, which made little sense. There shouldn’t be any pain in heaven! When I opened my eyes, and saw the angel. She looks just like a girl I used to know. Ole Emily Weels. Yeah. That’s…

  Then she slapped me.

  “What the?” I say caressing my cheek gently.

  “Snap outta it. You’re droolin’ all over me.” Emily said with a grin.

  “I thought I was dead, and…well, I thought you were an angel.”

  “Okay, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Would you go to dinner with me?”

  She smiled again. “Probably not a good time to be hittin’ on me, Casanova.”

  “Like I said. I thought I was dead. There’s no better time to reach for the stars.” I sat back up, feeling a little embarrassed about my lack of timing. “Anyway, what are you doing out here? How did you…?”

  “I came out here with Vic, Steven, Powers, and…” she hesitated as if she regretted saying the last name, “and Susan. Susan Johnson. She. She didn’t make it. It seems a lot of people have been hurt or killed out here the past couple of days.”

  “Yeah. It’s been hell.”

  “You two know each other?” Steve sauntered over. I believe I heard a little disappointment in his voice.

  “Yeah,” she said. “A lil’ bit.”

  I met Emily about a year and a half ago when I came home for hernia surgery. I had to take it easy for four weeks, so I stayed in Pierre Pard so Dad could help me recover. Emily was my physical therapist. At the time, she was finishing school to be a paramedic.

  We hit it off and had dinner twice before I had to go back to Fort Hood, Texas. We kept it casual and stayed in contact the whole time. I saw her again around Christmas, and my plan was to see her as soon as she could get some time off work. This, however, was not my idea of how I wanted to see her.

  “Yeah,” I said. “We met a while back. How did you guys find me?” I tried to change the subject. My private life was just that. Private.

  “She got a quest to find you,” Steve answered. “We heard ya screamin’ like a lil girl all da way cross da river dere, and came runnin’. Well, she came flyin’!”

  “You can fly?” I asked her incredulously.

  “I guess so. I am pretty much made a water now, and I guess I can fly.”

  “Interesting. You picked that lineage?”

  “I still don’t really know what a lineage is. Steve tried to explain it earlier, but...” she made the ‘over her head’ motion and whistled.

  “You didn’t see banners? Warnings? Lineages to choose from?”

  She shook her head. “No. I didn’t see anything nerdy like that. Well, not until I asked for a quest. That was Steve’s idea, and it worked.”

  Just then I saw my dad covered in some sort of sticky black goo walking our way. “Dad! What happened? Did you—”

  “Aww…shut up. It’s the blood of dat…dat thing. Whatevah da hell dat was.”

  “Yeah, Bart,” Pow spoke for the first time since I’d seen him, “he helped us kill dat ting.”

  “Yeah,” Steve said, “he was a beast. Uh, pun intended?” He laughed at his own stupid joke.

  “Y’all are stupid,” Dad said. “I’m goin’ back to da bus.” He grumbled some probable obscenities as he passed us.

  “I don’t know who’s grumpier,” Steve grinned. “Your dad or Deputy Vic.”

  Vic growled at him.

  “Yup,” Steve laughed. “It’s Vic! Definitely Vic.”

  “Let’s go see if dere’s any loot in the monstah,” Pow said as he headed towards the body of the large centipede. “As big as it is, we should get a lot of good stuff.”

  “What’s loot?” Emily asked.

  As she said that, a banner popped into view.

  You died, and have successfully been revived.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  You can choose to change your lineage to Cajun Navy or remain Basin Hero.

  Note: If you change, all your abilities will be removed, you will return to base stats, and you will receive the stat points from your levels to re-appropriate as you deem necessary.

  Do you wish to change your lineage? Yes/No

  I didn’t change my lineage. While Cajun Navy sounded awesome, I just didn’t want to spend all that time re-doing my stats.

  After a long mansplanation from Steve about the glorious benefits of loot, we finally got down to business hacking and chopping the centipede body into bits. I hadn’t fully examined the beast, but I was just as hopeful as Pow was that we would find valuable assets..

  I hate to say fighting something as monstrous as the centipede was worth it, but the amount of loot we got was unbelievable. We scored three cores, seven bottles of water, a ton of chitin and teeth, two frikin’ sabres made from the centipede’s mandibles, and a ton of meat.

  The chitin made pretty durable armor, even though it looked awful. We fashioned it to the best we could for both Pow and Vic. Dad started a fire and got to work preparing the meat. I examined the cores and the sabres.

  You have successfully recovered Item - Core of Joining

  You can absorb this core into your essence to obtain a new ability.

  Ability: Absorption

  Effect Absorb the life force of target.

  Level 1

  Do you wish to absorb core? Yes/No

  The cores were identical, and I was unsure if you could absorb more than one of the same core. I would think it would just level up the same ability, but it could be a waste too. I still had the beast core from the panther I had killed the day prior. Absorption would be a cool ability, but I had to do what was best for my team. I pulled the beast core out.

  You have successfully recovered Item - Beast Core

  You can absorb this core into your essence to enhance an ability.

  Ability Enhance ability

  Effect Increase the level of a current ability

  Level 1

  Do you wish to absorb core? Yes/No

  The cores were identical. I still had the beast core from the panther I had killed the day prior. Absorption would be a cool ability, but I had to do what was best for my team. I pulled the beast core out.

  Finally, I checked out the sabres.

  You have successfully recovered Weapon - Mandible Sabre

  Forged from the mandibles of a colossal Texas red?headed centipede, these razor?sharp sabres are designed as one?handed weapons intended for dual wielding. Their enchantments activate only when both sabres are wielded together.

  Passive ability Enhance strength +5

  Ability Curse of the centipede

  Level 7

  Durability 10/10

  Condition 100/100

  “Okay everyone. Let’s talk about dividing the loot.” I said and then explained what we had. “I think Vic should get the cores since he has the weakest stats right now.

  “All of em?” Steve asked.

  “Yeah. Unless you have a better idea.” I said. “We need a well-rounded team. Vic is—”

  “I can speak for myself, Cash,” Vic admonished. “I don’t want nothing to do with any of this. We are going to head back to town and then put this bull crap behind me.”

  “I understand, Vic,” I said calmly. “But whether you like it or not, you are a part of this. Fate chose you to be a part of this. If you haven’t noticed, you’re a rat now. No goin’ back to normal after this. Hell, there might not be a normal after this. You swore an oath to protect and serve, and if these monsters get outta this swamp, normal people will need protecting. You need to get stronger.”

  “Well, that oath is null and void, now.”

  “What are you going to do, Vic?” Emily joined in the conversation. “I agree with Bart. We need you. Your parish needs you. I don’t know why I feel this, but I believe magic is spreading and will soon reach civilization. Everything will mutate and evolve, and from what I’ve seen, none of that has been any good.”

  She sounded so calm and reasonable. I wanted to follow her. I wanted to get to know her better.

  She continued, “Absorb the cores, Vic. Ignoring your destiny is selfish.”

  I could tell Vic wanted to argue with her. It looked like he wanted to cuss her out, but he couldn’t make himself say the words. It was as if duty had a physical weight on his tongue and wouldn’t let him speak his mind.

  “What are your abilities, Vic?” I asked, trying to get us back on track.

  “Oh. I don’t know. Oh. Um.” He hesitated, staring into space, but I realized he was reading an information banner. “I guess I got minor night vision, stealth, pest aversion, and venom resistance. I didn’t even know I could see the information like this.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, dufus.” Steve teased. “We all got power, and we can see those information boxes, too.”

  “Well, it’s the first time for my ass.”

  “That’s what she said,” Steve acted like he had been waiting all week to use that old line. Pow laughed.

  “Okay, okay. Vic, if you hold the core close to you, it will ask you if you want to absorb it. Do the Core of Joining first. I think it would be best to get absorption and try to level that skill up quickly. What do y’all think?”

  They all nodded their agreement. Vic took the first core in his hands and after a brief moment he absorbed it into his essence. Watching someone else do it was cool.

  “Okay. Try one more of the same cores. I’m curious what happens if you take two or more of the same core.”

  “I bet you’ll double your power!” Pow said, suddenly excited.

  Vic took the second core and absorbed it. We waited for his explanation of what had happened. After what seemed like an hour, he told us it leveled up his absorb ability.

  “No way!” Steve shouted. “I gotta find more cores!”

  From a well-concealed location, the magical creatures from earlier that day popped out to see what was going on. “You guys are like Starla!” I laughed. “Come on out. Meet my friends.”

  They timidly started to make their way toward the group. As soon as, Steve saw them, he yelled, “Pow, power up! It’s one of the mud guys!”

  Pow started flickering with electricity.

  “Whoa, whoa!” I stood and motioned for them to stand down. “What are y’all doin’?”

  “Duh,” Steve answered. “We’re going to kill da monstahs!”

  “No! Y’all can’t just attack everything. What did these little fellas do to you?”

  “Day got bannahs, Bart,” Pow said. “Bad guys got bannahs!”

  “We killed two eariler today,” Steve confirmed. “They attacked us first.”

  “Did they?” Emily asked in her calm way. “If I remember correctly, you saw them and told Pow to shock them. They started shooting their water bombs after that.”

  “Uh.” Steve was speechless. Pow’s mouth dropped open.

  “That’s enough killing first. We’ve done this too many times. If we aren’t sure if we’re fighting an enemy, then we don’t attack. We should be able to tell what is dangerous,” I pointed to the centipede carcass for emphasis, “and what is not.” I pointed to the mudpie and his buddies. “No more killin’ unless it needs killin’.”