A Calm Dusk

"I'm sorry," Erik mumbled. "I'm still having trouble processing all that." He seemed lost; his expression showed a range of emotions throughout my tale. I didn't blame him for taking my words with a grain of salt, but it still hurt a little.

"Honestly," Alina chimed in. "What were you thinking attacking the thing head on? What if you failed again?" She coughed and took another sip of her drink. Her cheeks were red. She was tripping all over her words.

"Well," I mumbled. I didn't really know how to respond to that. "I'm alive, right?" I forced an awkward chuckle.

"Thankfully." Vincent added, then lightly squeezed my shoulder. "I'm glad you're with us." His words seemed genuine.

"I'll be the first to admit that I was lucky," I said with a bitter smile. "But why did you guys leave?" I finally asked. Someone had to address the elephant in the room, right?

Samantha flinched. "Well,"

"I'll explain." Erik said with a sigh. "After we returned to the campsite, Alina healed our wounds. Since she hadn't levelled up her skill, it took her about an hour or so. After that, I wanted to head out to find you, since it was a little after noon." He looked out the window. "I wanted to check the crystal before that, though. And that's where everything went to hell."

"What do you mean?" I asked. I should have just finished climbing the hill at that time.

"Well," He opened his interface and showed me the quests panel. "Look, we got these two quests."

It read 'Escape the Torchlight Woods' and 'Get to Stonepatch Village'. I raised my eyebrows. "I don't have these."

"We wanted to come after you, but the first quest gave us only until dusk. If we failed to leave the woods through the mountain pass by then, we'd be stuck."

Like I was, was what I wanted to say, but I held my tongue.

"We made it only minutes before the deadline." Samantha chimed in. "We planned to wait just outside the woods. Once the danger had passed and the quest had been accomplished, we'd go back to camp and wait for you."

"The monster didn't leave though." Joshua added. "It just… waited there. It was massive, we had no chance against it." He sighed. "We had no choice but to leave and come here."

"What have you been doing since?" I asked hesitantly. I clenched my fist under the table. A quest was the reason they left me behind?

"We've been grinding, we wanted to kill the creature." Alina said with a yawn. "Avenge you and all that." She took another sip from her mug.

"Just say it Alina." Samantha interrupted her with a harsh voice. The blonde girl flinched as she continued. "We got a quest to kill the monster right after we arrived here. The rewards were great for Alina and Joshua, so they wanted to complete it. The rest of us agreed because it'd help us avenge you." She glared at me with reddened eyes. "We thought you were dead."

I flinched. "I see." I sharply said. I took another deep breath and forced myself to stay calm. "I'm sorry to have worried you. It wasn't my intenion." I shook my head. "What happened to the quest?"

"It's cancelled." Erik said. "More accurately, we failed it." He tapped the table. "It happened at around the time you claim to have killed the monster."

I nodded, that was my proof. "I never received-" I suddenly stopped. What I was about to say was a lie. I had received two quests when I returned to camp the next morning, shortly before running into the giant horned lion. But instead of reading through and accepting them, I had dismissed them in my panic.

"What's wrong?" Erik asked.

"Is there one of those crystals around here?" I asked as I quickly sprung to my feet. "I need to check something."

"The guild houses one. It's the large building at the centre of town." Samantha also got up. "I'll take you there."

"Oh, I'll come too!" Vincent hurried after us while dragging Erik along with him. "You two can pay, right?" He shouted at his brother and Alina as we left through the front door. I could barely hear Joshua's curses.

Samantha led us through the now much more crowded main street – a cobble and dirt path, really – to the Guild. The building was a two story, stone building. I spotted two guards at the large doors. I glanced at Erik who just shrugged it off.

We approached the door. Samantha smiled and waved at the guards, who nodded and allowed her to pass. Erik and Vincent both greeted the guards as well. I also motioned to walk through the door, but a pair of spears to my throat were quick to stop me in my tracks.

"Hey, hang on!" Erik quickly tried to stop them, only to be ignored.

"Please provide your identification." One of the guards said as his spear poked my neck. I quickly raised my hands to show I wasn't armed and glanced at Erik. I didn't have anything on me that could serve that purpose.

"Your status. Show them that." Samantha called out from behind Erik. She was tightly grasping her bow. Worried that she'd make a scene, I quickly summoned my status window.

'Level 30 Soul Keeper | Exp: 100/11000 - - Souls 100/100 - - Mana: 480'

Both guards flinched and quickly withdrew their spears.

"Our apologies, honoured Soul Keeper. Welcome to the Guild Hall." One of them said as he made a weird sign with his left hand. The other one mimicked his friend. "Indeed, please excuse our discourtesy."

I hesitated; I had no clue as to why they were talking to me like that. "It's fine, don't worry about it." I said awkwardly, then rushed inside under the questioning gazes of Erik, Vincent, and Samantha.

"What was that about?" Erik asked after the doors closed behind us. "Kai? Hey?"

I didn't hear him. The interior of the Guild Hall was… very nostalgic. It had a warm and fuzzy feeling; the floorboards and furniture were made of timber. It was very plainly decorated – there were several sitting areas with light coloured couches. Nothing in here was hard on the eyes. The soft light of the chandelier only reminded me more of our family's training hall back at home.

"Kai?" Erik grabbed my shoulder. I flinched. "Oh, sorry. I was lost in thought." I mumbled as I let my gaze wonder around.

"I can see that." He said with a sigh. "Anyways, the crystal is in the back." He pointed towards the door at the far end of the room. "You can go and check there. Actually, why don't we come with you?" With his iron grip, he dragged me to the back room with Samantha and Vincent in tow.

The crystal was, as usual, floating in the air. As soon as I approached its light, my head throbbed with pain. I staggered and massaged my temples. This was annoying, did it have something to do with the crystal, or was it because of the constant ache on my back?