Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game

Jake sat among the dead.

Not just the fallen, but the truly, irreversibly gone. And not just people. Friends, comrades. Pieces of his own soul that had fought, laughed, bled, and burned alongside him in this cursed Dungeon and even before that, during his first months as a true player, when he decided to start fighting for real.

Cass, Alric, Elise, Riven.

He stared at the still bodies arranged in a line, each covered by a torn cloak or scorched blanket. It was all they could afford them now.

Graves would come later, maybe. If they lasted that long.

He’d helped carry the remains and the bodies himself. Had taken each one from the battlefield in silence, refusing to let anyone else do it.

Refusing to let them be just another number in the cost column of the war that had not even begun.

Jake had known what it meant to fight in the Dungeons. But nothing... No [Tutorial], no raid, not even skill, had prepared him for this. This quiet, this emptiness.

He knelt beside Cass first. Her face was slack, peaceful. The stubborn, fire-eyed smirk that had mocked him countless times because of his fear was gone.

She’d been the first to join him when he split from the main forces, trying to cover the rear and make way for as many players as possible to retreat. She’d died trying to cover his flank, screaming for him to keep moving.

Next to her was Alric, the shield bearer, the tank of the group. His chest plate had been caved in, a fatal blow, but he hadn’t let go of his sword, not even in death. The metal of his tower shield was fused to his gauntlet, melted together by heat and impact.