Seeds of Discordia

Liam’s blood ran cold as he stared at Binky, who held their head up high, jaws closed.

The whispers that were tickling his ears, unintelligible from the beginning, started to clear as they grew a little louder.

Weak.

Failure.

Your fault.

He died because of you.

Worthless.

Each whisper that entered his ears grew harsher as his body started to become heavy.

Liam’s mind began to whirl as images of people swore at him. Bodies laid on the ground, covered in blood, as faceless people pointed at him. Yelling, screaming about how it was his fault for the deaths of many.

Mercer shocked by what had happened turned to look at Liam. What he saw made him grow even more worried and concerned.

Mercer’s eyes widened as he saw the look of distress and anguish grew on Liam’s face.

 It’s your fault! A voice screamed in Liam’s mind, making his sight grow dark.

No, I… Liam tried to start.

You were supposed to keep him safe! Another chastised.

I tried to… Liam tried again.

You’re going to lead them all to their deaths! A third added.

Liam started to feel the heaviness of the voices as they continued to berate him over and over. His breathing became erratic as his sight grew darker and darker with every word being thrown at him.

He didn’t realize it, but his voice quietly repeated each scornful thing thrown at him.

“It’s my fault,” Liam muttered softly. “I killed him. I couldn’t protect him. I allowed him to die…”

As Liam’s mind started to spiral out of control, a voice suddenly stood out among the tortuous voices.

Are you going to just stand there?

The voice was quiet amongst the screams plaguing him. It was so quiet, he had almost missed it. However, when it spoke, his mind focused on it, stopping his words to flow out of his mouth.

There’s still a chance. The voice whispered again.

Liam’s disorientated sight started to focus. He didn’t realize it until his sight started to clear, but he was looking down at the ground, watery from a flow of tears.

As his focus started to clear he noticed Artem’s Health bar hadn’t reached zero yet. It was, however, slowly going down.

Liam slowly looked up at Binky, who had turned its body away from him.

The feeling of anxiety, distress, and anguish was slipping away being replaced with a new familiar feeling. One, he had always hated. One he tried to stay away from all these years.

He felt angry. Angry that this beast had the gall to eat one of his team members. Angry he had let this beast close its jaws on the kindest and most scared member of his team. Angry that he couldn’t respond in time. But most of all, angry that he was allowing himself to get swallowed up from his past mistakes.

He felt his body tense as he gripped his daggers hard.

Mercer felt the change happen in Liam as he watched him. He didn’t know what was going on in Liam’s mind, but he knew it wasn’t good. He knew if he didn’t do something, Liam would do something stupid while he was lost in emotions.

Mercer looked around to see if he could get someone to help him get Liam under control, but knew it was hopeless.

Roman had woken up and from the look on his face he had seen what had happened to Artem as he laid on his stomach, mouth wide open.

Blair and Ariyana stood, frozen from the shock as well, evident on their faces.

Avery, who had gotten herself free, stood, slack jawed, unsure what to do as well.

Mercer gritted his teeth as he looked back at Liam, who was emitting a strong and powerful aura from his body. I need to get his attention before he does something stupid and gets hurt. He thought. He then yelled out, “Liam!”

The effect Mercer was going for failed. Instead of it grabbing Liam’s attention to face him, it was like a starting pistol.

Mercer watched as Liam let out an angry roar while racing towards Binky with wild abandon.

As Liam approached Binky from behind, he jumped straight up to dodge the tail swishing. However, instead of trying to jump over it, he landed on it and ran up the spine of the creature.

He raced across Binky’s back, not caring what would happen if he slipped and fell.

Avery’s, Ariyana’s, Blair’s, and Roman’s shocked expression suddenly fell on Liam as he approached Binky’s head.

Liam let out a vicious battle cry as he lodged his Shadow Bladed dagger right in between two scales above Binky’s right eye. Pain erupted into Binky’s eye and skull, making it thrash its head back.

Binky, who didn’t noticed Liam till the last second, widened its eyes right before Liam slammed his Moon Blade dagger into its right eye.

“Release him!” Liam screamed out as he pulled the dagger out and slammed it back in as hard as he could. Puss and blood exploded from the eyeball as Liam pulled it out again.

The others watched as Liam held on for dear life to the Shadow Blade dagger dug into the scale while continuously plunging his Moon Blade dagger over and over while screaming with anger, “Give him back!”

Ariyana watched Binky’s head whip to the left and the right, trying to shake Liam off as he shouted, “He’s not yours to take!”

Hearing Liam shout this and watching him attack viciously, brought the others out of the state they were in. They could feel Liam’s vehemence of trying to get Artem out from Binky’s mouth spread out and touch their souls, giving them the fighting spirit they needed to get back into the fight.

Ariyana chanted her Leaf Projection spell as Roman shot out his Stone Pillar spell under Binky’s body.

Avery fired a Fireball across the creature’s body, one landing randomly while the other hit the leaves Ariyana slammed into it.

Blair slammed her Great Axe into Binky’s hard scaled body, chipping not only the scales, but the blade of her weapon as well. After hitting as hard as she could three more time, the top half of Blair’s Great Axe shattered, leaving her weaponless.

Binky, feeling furious with the attacks it was receiving retreated for the water and dove right in.

“Liam, no!” the others shouted.

After a moment had passed. Binky broke the surface of the water with its body arched.

The others saw Liam holding on tightly to his dagger.

As Binky dove back in, it raced around the surface of the water.

Liam, above the water, held on as hard as he could.

Roman noticed Liam start to chant something. His eyes widened as he realized the spell he was going to use.

“Liam don’t!” Roman started to shout. “If you use that spell, you’ll get hit with it too!”

Not hearing Roman’s words, Liam finished chanting as his anger clouded his sight and Binky dragged him under, “As my grasp collides with their form. Static Grasp!”

As they watched Liam be dragged under, they saw his hand spark before disappearing into the water.

After a moment had passed, a flash of purplish-yellow lit up in the water. Arcs of lightning spiderwebbed across the surface of the water as thousands of bubbles filled the water.

Under the water, Liam felt his body tense as the lightning he released struck him as well. The shock of the spell brought his mind back from the anger that was clouding it making him realize what was going on and what he had done.

Shit! Liam began to think. What the hell was I doing?

Liam! Eri yelled in his mind. Can you hear me?!

Yes! Liam shouted back. Can you please stop yelling. Its rattling in my head loudly.

Eri let out a sigh of relief before chiding, I wouldn’t be yelling if someone didn’t lose himself to his emotions! I’m glad you’re back to your sense, but you need to get out of the water before you drown.

Liam tried to release his grip, but couldn’t move his hand. He noticed a debuff flash at the corner of his eye and frowned. I can’t move, I’ve been paralyzed.

And whose bright idea was it to use a lightning spell while in the water? Eri chastised. I swear, you come up with the most ridiculous things sometimes. Can you hold on till it’s gone?

Liam felt his chest tightened as he felt his lungs start to burn for air. His eye sight was slowly fading as he fought to stay awake. I don’t know. I’m trying to, but I’m not sure if I…

Before Liam could finish, he felt Binky move towards the surface, bringing him with it as his hand gripped tightly to the dagger.

As Binky jumped onto the riverbed, Liam gasped in as much air as he could to fill his burning lungs. As he was gulping in the air he felt the dagger loosen enough to slide out of the hold it had.

Liam then felt his body slide off the massive creature’s head and towards a group of jagged and sharp rocks clustered together.

Before Liam’s paralyzed body could collide with the rocks, he felt his head jerk to the side as Blair jumped and caught him, before running away.

Liam’s head was looking at the back of the room, where a peculiar sight was happening.

Mercer, staring at Binky’s head, readied his bow and started to pull the string back.

What was confusing was, Mercer didn’t have an arrow gripped, he didn’t have anything loaded. Judging from the angle Mercer held his bow, Liam could tell Mercer aimed for the eye that had been continuously stabbed.

Liam’s eyes widened as he watched as a massive arrow started to form on the bow. The arrow suddenly lit up with a brilliant flame that engulfed the arrow that appeared out of nowhere.

With a calm, collected breath, Mercer released the arrow as he said, “True Shot.”

Without warning, a line of fire shot fast towards Binky. The arrow was so fast no one was able to keep up with it.

It shocked the others as Binky’s head, where its damaged eye was, suddenly exploded with a large flame.

The amount of pain and damage that was done, made Binky open its jaws and let out a loud painful hiss.

As Binky lowered its mouth during its head thrashing about, Artem’s body fell down and rolled away from the massive creature.

Ariyana quickly raced over to Artem as Binky reared its head up, making everyone ready for one last push, but relaxed as it let out one last long hiss before falling to the ground, sending everyone a notification.

 

---

“Binky, The Giant Albino Crocolisk has been defeated!”

---

 

Liam, ignoring the rest of the notifications coming in, stared at Artem who was laying on the ground through one open eye while breathing heavily. He could feel his heart thumping hard against his chest as he scanned Artem’s body for movement.

He got out of Blair’s arms and tried to crawl, but stopped as he felt his muscles tense up again. He didn’t tense because of the Paralyze debuff, that had already disappeared. His body was tensing up due to fatigue and his stamina bar being at ten percent.  

After a long fearful moment of looking for signs of life, Liam saw Artem’s chest moving up and down.

Liam felt his body relax as a smile slowly grew.

“Hey guys!” Artem called out grabbing everyone’s attention. “I think I may have found out why that crocolisk was named Binky.”

With a trembling hand and shaking arm, Artem raised an object in the air for everyone to see.

It was a small pink binky.

“I found this lodged between its teeth,” Artem stated with a small chuckle.

Everyone stared at the object with a dumbfounded look.

After a moment of silence from the others, Liam broke it as he started to let out a painful laugh that led into a cough.

The others burst into laughter too after realizing the absurdity behind the name calling.

“The guy almost gets eaten and the first thing he says is he found out why it was named Binky,” Roman chuckled, gripping his sides.

Ariyana slapped Artem’s arm as he got into a sitting position.

As they all started to stop laughing, Avery, and Roman made their way to Ariyana and Artem.

Blair and Mercer watched Liam as he slowly got to his feet.

They could see how tired his body was as his arms swayed left to right in front of him while he had his back hunched over.

Liam had conflicting emotions running through his mind as he got up and the comical emotion of the name calling had passed.

He was happy Artem was safe, however, he was frustrated with himself that he wasn’t able to do anything to stop it from happening.

Thank god he’s safe. Liam started thinking. I don’t know what I would have done if he wasn’t.

That thought led to another as he started to grow a bit anxious. What would have happened if he didn’t come back from that alive? Would they curse me? Would they hate me? Hate me like…

Images flashed before Liam’s eyes. They were too quick for him to see what they were, but the bit of scenery he was able to see made him know when and where they were from.

Liam felt a lump form in his throat as his thoughts started to swirl again. Maybe I should have warned them beforehand about what I had learned from Eri… No. What good would it have done if I had told them before entering…We could have planned better for situations like that.

Liam could feel himself start to swirl back into the negative emotions he had felt earlier.

But what if the team’s morale worsened because I had told them before we entered. What if they decided they wanted to join someone else’s team for their safety and they left me alone…

Calm yourself Liam. Eri said in a soothing voice. If you continue to go down this thought pattern you could break your mind.

One of my teammates almost died. Liam hissed, feeling the anxiety and frustration start to overwhelm him. Not only because they weren’t prepared for possible death, but because I lost sight of the fight and allowed it to…

Calm yourself Liam! Eri shouted, bringing Liam’s attention to her words.

Liam could feel the worry that was laced in Eri’s tone.

Death is inevitable for everyone. Eri started. Do not beat yourself up for variables that you have no control over.

Liam stayed silent as he listened to Eri chastise him.

Artem slipping on that rock was something no one could have predicted to happen. Eri continued. Things like this happens in fights, life threatening fights. You are no longer in a place where things can be safe. I don’t know what you went through before coming here, but this is your life now. Unexpected and close calls will happen.

People will die and there is nothing you will be able to do sometimes. Do not make yourself believe you are some omnipotent person who can save everyone and make sure others avoid situations like this. This is reality! Get a grip and accept that you can not do this all on your own!

Eri’s words stung deep as she said them. However, deep down, Liam knew them to be true. He made thousands of plans for as many situations he could think of. He spent long nights going over all the possibilities he believed could happen and counter measures for them. However, he forgot the most fundamental thing when making plans.

Not all plans go the way you want them to. Liam mentally whispered to Eri.

Correct. Eri said softly. Adjusting plans on the fly is the only thing you can do, but you can’t do that when you succumb to doubt and guilt. That’s why you need to have others there to catch you when you slip.

Liam nodded at her words.

I know you were against telling them about the fact they can die in this dungeon, but I think you should tell them. Eri suggested.

But what if… Liam started.

If they leave you then they were never meant to be by your side. That’s all it comes down to. Eri bluntly stated.

Liam felt his body slump at what she said.

However… Eri started up again. I think you should give these guys more credit. I don’t think they would leave you. Be mad at you yes, but leave you…I don’t think so. So go tell them. I’m sure they are worried about you.

Liam looked up at the others and saw they were eyeing him.

Concern and worry were etched on their faces as they waited for him to speak.

Unsure how to proceed, Liam opened his mouth, but then closed it as he thought over what to say.

As his mind started to whirl again, he felt two hands touch him. One on both shoulder.

He looked to see Mercer on one side while Blair stood on the other, each giving him a nod that they were ready to listen.

Liam let out a sigh as he straightened his body. With a look of worry mixed with resolve, he stated, “I need to tell you guys something that I found out on the last floor. Something that I know you’re not going to like at all.”

“What is it, Liam?” Roman asked as he stared at him.

Liam let out another long breath he sucked in. After releasing all the air, he stated, “There is nothing protecting our lives here.”

Confused by what he was saying, Ariyana questioned, “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is…,” Liam hesitated. Summoning as much courage as he could he finally said, “We can die in this dungeon.”