Ember gasped as he stumbled past the massive bow planted into the ground. Heat flashes wracked his body as he limped, grunting and groaning as he forced his body to move. A headache had started to form, and his vision was getting blurry.

  “That was so hard,” he mumbled. “I can’t believe I survived that.”

  Using what little strength he had, he hobbled out of the forest edge and into the clearing. His two companions were just finishing off the last of the goblins when he came within their view. The sun was just getting ready to set.

  Chris’s eyes widened in shock. “Ember?” he asked, worry tinging his voice.

  “Wow,” Boulder said. “You took a hell of a beating.”

  Ember fell to his knees as the two quickly ran up to him. His body shook with effort. It took everything he had to settle on his knees and not fall over.

  “Jesus Christ,” Chris muttered as he tried to wipe away the blood with his sleeve. He flinched when he came to the cut.

  “That’s a deep cut,” Boulder said.

  “It’s fine,” Ember weakly wheezed out. “I can just heal it with overflow, yeah?”

  Chris just shook his head, a frown on his face as he started to rip his own clothing up. “You’re not strong enough for that. You need to at least be a Fundamentalist to pull that off. And you’re nowhere near that level yet.”

  “So what does that mean?” Ember grunted.

  “Well, I guess you’ll have a wicked scar.” Chris wrapped Ember’s eye, the pain enough for Ember to fall forward.

  “Great.” He strained as he felt his vision start to fade. “I’m tired.”

  Then he blacked out.

  He woke up several times on the trip back, his head resting against Chris’s back on the horse. Boulder led his own horse. The two talked quietly amongst themselves, but Ember was so delirious that he couldn’t understand what they were saying.

  When he woke up again, he was in an infirmary room, one not that different from the one he’d found himself in at Basintown. Various people walked around, murmuring as they inspected him. Chris and Boulder sat a stone's throw away; the two always engaged in an intense conversation.

  When Ember finally awoke for good, his head was pounding in pain. He groaned as he sat up, clutching his forehead.

  “Ow,” he muttered. He couldn’t see out of his right eye — it seemed they’d bandaged it. At least that’s what he hoped.

  He looked around to see Chris sleeping not too far away from his bedside.

  “Chris?” Ember whispered, his voice hoarse.

  His blue-haired friend opened his eyes. “We’re back in the hospital again,” Chris chuckled, sitting up and stretching. “Let’s hope you don’t make this a habit.”

  “How’d the job go?”

  He shrugged. “About as well as it could’ve. We took care of the goblins quickly and burned down their camp before heading back. You weren’t in critical condition or anything, but you’re going to have a nasty scar on your face.”

  Ember flopped his head back on the pillows. “Scars are cool, I guess.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  Chris chuckled. “If that’s how you want to look at it.”

  “And Boulder?”

  “He went off to do his own thing. Our party was only temporary, though I think he’ll make a good ally in the battles to come. I’m thinking of maybe trying to pick him up and put him on our permanent team before we head to Watertown.”

  Ember nodded. He ran a hand lightly over the bandage on his face. Outside of a dull ache, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Ember also realized his arms were wrapped as well.

  “We found the goblin you fought. It’s pretty impressive you managed to beat a cover goblin by yourself.”

  “Cover goblin? It looked different from the regular ones.”

  Chris reached over, grabbed an apple from the basket beside Ember’s bed, and bit into it. “Yeah, that’s pretty impressive. Usually, it would take a Fundamentalist to take one down. Maybe a low-level Fundamentalist. The fact you managed to kill it yourself… I don’t know if that’s a testament to your skill or a testament to the weapon you hold.”

  “Where is my sword?” Ember asked, pointing toward his blind spot.

  “It’s sitting over there against the wall,” Chris said, nodding across the room out of Ember’s sight. “You’ve made quite a splash already. People are impressed. It’s rare that a commoner beats an upper-tier monster like that.”

  “Upper-tier? That thing was that impressive?”

  Chris ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not so much that you beat it that’s impressive, it’s the level of power you’re at when you beat it. It’s enough to gain some eyes, though no one’s going to want to team up with you yet.”

  Ember sighed, “So what now?”

  Chris bit into the apple again. “Well, we still need money, so I’ll take on a few more jobs. And then after that, I want us to do a dungeon run.”

  This was news to Ember. “What kind of dungeon?”

  “We’ll be going into a recurring dungeon. They’re natural dungeons that a lot of beginners use as practice. Of course, we’re not going to go in one right away, but once we get some money and new gear, then we can think about it.”

  Ember yawned, his headache starting to get worse. “Are we going to need a party for that?”

  “Probably at some point, but it’s not too important right now. They do have dungeon runs that you can do solo or in duos, which is what we’ll be doing first — just to get familiar with the systems. I haven’t been in one myself yet, so even I’m not really sure what to expect.”

  Chris stood, eating the last bit of the apple, core and all, “But for now, get some more rest. Your cut is healing quickly, probably thanks to your weapon. Even though you don’t have the ability to heal yourself with overflow yet, the quality of ichor you’ve been using probably makes your healing a little bit faster. You should be ready to go in a couple of days. Until then, I’m going to keep looking around for jobs and allies. We’re going to want at least three or four before we head to Watertown.”

  Ember wanted to respond, but his eye started to grow heavy. His breathing evened out as he fell asleep again.

  The next several days passed very similarly to the ones in Basintown. Ember couldn’t help but get a large sense of déjà vu, being trapped in bed and having a doctor check on him every now and then.

  While he couldn’t do much physically, he decided to at least work on his overflowing. He spent that time with his sword in his grip, filling his cup and then draining it. Not by letting go of the sword, but by breathing out through his mouth. His body was getting accustomed to the coldness that emanated through the cycle, but he wasn’t confident that he’d be able to overflow like that again until he was one-hundred percent in control of filling his cup, which was still proving to be difficult, not to mention activating the ability itself.

  Every day, Chris would stop by and check on Ember, and once in a while, even Boulder would pop in to see what Ember was up to. Boulder seemed to have grown somewhat attached to him, fascinated by the stories Ember told about his own world.

  In one particular moment, Boulder brought him a meal, just a piece of meat and some bread, and Ember mentioned how, in his world, dwarves were short, three to four feet at most, and they didn’t eat rocks. Boulder found that hilarious. He laughed for several moments, thinking about the ridiculousness of dwarves being short.

  Finally, on the fourth day, Ember was allowed to take his bandage off. The doctor, whom he hadn’t seen much of, just a regular-looking man, handed him a mirror.

  Ember traced the scar. It went from his forehead across his eyebrow and right eye, all the way down to his jawline. It was still a little raw and angry, but overall, it seemed to have healed well.

  Chris sat not too far away, as did Boulder. Both were dressed in casual clothes, which made Boulder even more impressive, his frame taking up a large portion of the space in the room.

  “Well,” Ember sighed, “at the very least, it makes my plain-looking face look a little more interesting.”

  Boulder laughed, and Chris just shook his head.

  He felt the blemish. It was rough and dominated his face. Ember thought it made him a little more intimidating. Maybe it would come in use one day, but for now, it was a red, angry streak that almost cut his face in half.

  Finally, he was cleared to leave. He wanted to do something, anything other than sit in a boring bed staring at the walls.