With a spear jutting out of his gut Ari began coughing up blood, and his body soon went limp. The bandit then pulled his spear out and tried to run away noticing that most of his allies were dead and the remaining two were soon to follow. However, the highest-level merchant caught the bandit off guard and swung his sword slashing the bandit’s throat preventing his escape. When life left the bandit, Marcus heard a familiar ding.

“You have leveled up to level 11.”

At the sound of leveling up Marcus broke out of his daze and opened his status and began looking for a particular skill. Finding the skill Marcus went to purchase it immediately spending five of the six skill points he had just obtained. With his new skill Marcus rushed over to Ari and began casting the tier one healing spell minor heal. Marcus cast the spell over and over again until he had run out of MP but the tier one healing spell was from powerful enough to save Ari.

“No no no, heal damn it, you cannot die here, do you not have a daughter waiting on you to return.”

However, try as he might Marcus was unable to do anything as life faded from Ari’s eyes. Sitting on the ground next to Ari’s dead body Marcus was soon pulled back onto his feet by Bryce who then slapped him in the face before saying, “Get yourself together we need to move there could be more of them around and if we stay here, we will be sitting ducks.”

Snapping out of his crippling sorrow the group began moving as fast as possible, to create some distance from where they were attacked. Once the group had moved for as long as possible and had made it to the edge of the woods where they could see the outline of Loursend, the party stopped to rest and process what had just happened. Ingrid immediately collapsed and started crying and wheezing, from the loss of her friends, while Marcus began slipping into a depression.

‘They are dead, Bodie, Mia, and Ari they all died. Just when I was starting to have fun in this world it came and reminded me how cruel it is. If I had just been stronger everyone would still be alive, I let those bandits live and now Ari is dead because of me.’

Wallowing in his grief Marcus could only blame himself for the death of his temporary comrades. The group stayed there for a good hour no one saying anything before Bryce spoke up.

“I understand that what we just experienced was tragic, but we need to keep moving if we want to make it to Loursend before they close the gates for the night. This is part of the job and we all knew the risks involved when we decided to take this job.”

At Bryce’s harsh words Ingrid snapped no longer able to contain her emotions.

“Shut up, we knew the risks, is that how you consider it. Bodie and Mia are dead, and it your faults. Why didn’t you come to help us, you just stood there around the carts even when you saw us being section off. And you Irene with your strength you could have quickly killed those two bandits and helped us. You have healing magic but you did not even stop to try and help Bodie, were you to guilt ridden that your weakness got Ari killed.”

After Ingrid had finished shouting at the rest of the party she stormed off in the direction of Loursend, tears streaming down her face. What had been a bad experience had been turned even worse as everyone realized the mistakes that they made, and started thinking about what they could have done better.

This did not last too long before Bryce the natural leader that he is once again tried to rally everyone.

“If we keep looking back at the past trying to fix mistakes that have already happened we will not be able to look towards the future. Yes we have experienced a tragedy, we lost some good men and women but do not blame yourselves, it was the bandits that killed them not you.”

With the slight boost in moral the party gathered themselves and managed to continue the march out of the woods and to Loursend. Once they exited the woods the full scope of Loursend came into view, and while the view would normally be stunning the somber group could not feel any joy.

‘Steady yourself Marcus, it is sad what happened but I still have a job to do. I know that if I had killed that bandit Ari would still be alive but I cannot come to grips with killing someone right now. I feel if I started killing people I would become a true monster, and I do not know what would happen to me.’

While Marcus struggled with his morality about killing people, the group soon made it to the line of people waiting to get into Loursend. Looking up for the first time and really looking at it Marcus realized just how massive Loursend is.

‘If it were not for what just happened this would be quite the sight, the walls are thirty feet tall and the city looks to be the size as some on Earth. While river Landing looked was pretty big I would not be surprised if this place was ten times its size. The sight and smell of the ocean is also calming, there is nothing to do but move forward.’

Soon the party had made it to the front of the line where their carts went through a routine search and everyone paid the steep entry tax of four copper. Once inside the hustle and bustle of the city perked Marcus up a bit seeing all the wondrous sites.

‘There are people flying on some type of large birds all over the place, and I even saw someone on a gryphon. This is what you would expect of a fantasy city, people all over flying on magical beast, food venders hawking their wares, and the ever moving wagons and carts.’

As Marcus gawked around at the amazing sites the group was making a beeline towards the adventures guild in Loursend. Once in view Marcus was amazed at the massive building as it was easily five times the size of the one in River Landing. Going inside one of the merchants led the remaining adventures to one of the booths to collect their reward. Once they made it to the front of the line they were served by a rabbit eared man who dulled out the reward of one silver to the members of Wild Wind and Marcus. There rewards in hand the adventures and merchants went their separate ways.

As Marcus was leaving he was suddenly pulled aside by Bryce who decided to give him some words of wisdom.

“Irene, I realize that you cannot kill people and while that is an admirable quality it does not suit an adventure. I know this may not be my place but I think you should give up adventuring. This job is not all sunshine and roses and if you cannot kill people there will come another day like today where it will cost you but if you can overcome it, I know you can be a great adventure. Also, if you need our help, we will be in town for a while exploring the Ocean Bluff Temple.”

With those words of advice Bryce and the other members of Wild Wind exited the guild hall, leaving Marcus to himself.