The chilling fog permeated the air, making me break into goosebumps. The crumbling buildings around us reminded me of what could happen if we failed. It all only added to my rising anxiety.

I heard both Casey and Frank gasping as the teleport finished.

“Whoa, okay! I get why you squeaked the first time we went here,” Frank said.

“This is pretty creepy…” Casey murmured before shaking her head and giving us a resolute nod. “Let’s get going.”

The two of us returned the nod and we wasted no more time in setting off.

It didn’t take long for us to encounter the first group of skeletons loitering around the place. As soon as they noticed us, they charged us with their rusty swords drawn.

“Clankers! Let’s do–”

Frank’s enthusiastic shout was interrupted by a bright blast shooting out of Casey’s staff, swallowing all four skeletons, and annihilating them. Once the light dimmed, only piles of broken bones and dust were left behind.

Frank and I stared.

“Uh… Well, that works too, I guess… How many more shots like that does this thing have?”

Casey shrugged.

“Probably a couple thousand…?” To our intensified look of disbelief, she explained. “It’s filled with mana. I wouldn’t be able to do… the thing, if it wasn’t,” she finished with a grimace, probably recalling what we had caused. “Not to mention, I also drained all of the mana on Earth, remember? There was quite a bit.”

“That’s freaking crazy,” Frank said while shaking his head. “Hell, what are we even worried about? Couldn’t you just one-shot the boss with this?”

Once again, I remembered the dream and suddenly felt very concerned. If this staff was that powerful, then one little mistake while I happened to be in the line of fire…

“I probably shouldn’t,” Casey said with a frown. “We still need whatever is in its stomach, right? I can’t just evaporate it.”

“Also…” I began, looking at the staff with unease. “My dream ended with you doing something and light washing over me… And since the other dream would have ended up with me dead if I hadn’t moved when it happened for real…”

“Oh shit… Friendly fire?” Frank concluded.

Casey grimaced.

“I wouldn’t do that! I’m being very careful with the output!”

“Yeah, but what if it goes out of control or something? What if all that mana exploded out of it? Wouldn’t that kill us all?”

Casey stared back for a moment, before she pursed her lips, closed her eyes, and seemed to concentrate for a bit.

“Let me check something, then…” she murmured.

I blinked.

“Uh…?”

“Hold on… I’m looking through the history of this thing…” she mumbled.

Frank and I exchanged a confused glance. Looking through history? Oh… she meant its history inside Wiland. Wait, she could still do that while she was here?

“This staff was made from the roots of the world tree feeding on the world’s core two thousand years ago,” Casey began explaining. “Initially made by an elf to help regulate the world tree’s intake and output of mana, it gradually filled up with more and more mana. Later on, he modified it to be able to spread mana over a large area and used it to regularly enrich the elven forest. It became a national artifact and was passed down from generation to generation, but was eventually stolen by a malicious necromancer, who then tried to destroy an entire nation with it.”

Frank and I listened to the impromptu history lesson with rapt attention.

“He used the accumulated mana within the staff and channeled it through the heart of a zombie dragon to spread the disease. Eventually, he was defeated by a group of dragons wanting to avenge their friend whose corpse he had defiled. Afterwards, Cradence, one of the dragons, took ownership of the staff.”

I had known about it before, but hearing the details now just hammered in that this staff really was an ancient artifact. Honestly, it was probably more valuable and powerful than all of our other gear combined, wasn’t it? No wonder Cradence hadn’t wanted to give it out for free even to alleged gods…

“During all its years of existence, it only went out of control twice,” Casey said as she opened her eyes. “Once, shortly after being created. Its creator got a bit overzealous about filling it with mana and didn’t realize he had made a mistake in its construction. He fixed it afterwards, though. The other time was when the dragons were about to defeat the necromancer and he tried one last stand by channeling everything he had into an attack. Another dragon nearly died from the blast.”

Casey briefly grimaced.

“But that one was not only intentional, but took a lot of effort on the necromancer’s part. For all intents and purposes, the staff shouldn’t go out of control unless I try really hard to overload it.”

“So… it should be safe then?” Frank asked and Casey nodded.

“As safe as it can be.” She turned to me. “Your dream… Well, I don’t know. Maybe your dreams aren’t always you dying…?”

That would have been ideal, but obviously, I wasn’t willing to risk that.

I sighed.

“Maybe the light from your magic just blinds me and then the boss crushes me…” I mumbled before shaking my head. “Anyway, we’re not going to let that happen. We have our phoenix amulets and if they ever trigger, we’re getting out of there, alright?”

“Yeah, definitely. Not gonna try to mess with that,” Frank said as Casey nodded in agreement.

“Let’s keep going then?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

We continued through the mist-filled ruins straight toward Abyground, but soon ran into another group of skeletons.

“Oh, more skellies,” Frank exclaimed before holding out his hand in front of Casey. “Hold on, though! Don’t blast them away yet. Let me and Renee warm up first too! And we also gotta get used to our new skills, right?”

Casey pulled her staff back with a nod.

“Right… You’re right. Go ahead.”

She retreated to the back and watched as Frank and I stepped forward, gripping our weapons.

“You take the one on the right, I take the left?” Frank suggested.

“What about the middle one?”

“Hmm, whoever beats their skelly first can beat up the last one!” I gave him a withering gaze. “Or Casey can just blast it again,” he finished with a shrug.

“Sure. A bit of practice of using this thing while you two are at the front might not be a bad idea,” Casey agreed.

“Right…” I nodded.

Then we both dashed forward at our respective skeleton. The mobs hadn’t even noticed us yet. Not until a blast of light flew by us and struck the middle skeleton. The other two jumped in surprise and turned to face us.

Before mine could react, however, I used flash step to appear right next to it and drew my lightning-covered katana while slashing at the skeleton’s exposed neck. All in one swift motion.

Its head went flying and the rest of the body crumpled soon after.

I was momentarily startled at how easy it had been and remembered what Elyssa had said about me specifically not needing any training to be this good. Where had I learned to use the katana like a samurai or a ninja? Why did these movements feel so familiar?

I glanced at Frank fumbling around with his shield to block his opponent’s attacks. He seemed nowhere near as skilled as I was, despite also having his true form and his other skills.

Remembering that I was still in the middle of combat, I turned to the third skeleton who hadn’t actually been defeated by Casey’s earlier blast. I took a step and prepared my katana to finish it off… only for another magic blast to fly by, hit its head, and blow it into pieces. I had to quickly jump back to avoid any splash damage.

The headless skeleton fell down into a heap of bones and I couldn’t help but grimace. Casey might have an incredibly powerful weapon and I might be very skilled with the sword, but this was still the first time we’d had to fight together. Our teamwork and coordination… didn’t really exist.

Was that really how I would end up dying? Accidental friendly fire?

I mentally shook myself and glanced at Frank, who was still struggling with the last skeleton, and decided to help him out.

Just like with the first one, I used flash step to get close and swung my blade to decapitate the skeleton in a smooth motion.

Frank was momentarily startled by my sudden appearance before seeming to relax as our final enemy fell down and stopped moving.

“Oh… uh… thanks,” Frank awkwardly said. “You know, this is much harder than playing a game. Who would have thought, right?”

I pursed my lips and glanced down at our defeated foes.

“I think… I think we’re being too hasty. We really need to, at the very least, practice fighting together a little more before going straight to the boss,” I admitted.

“You’re right…” Casey admitted as she walked over to us. “This isn’t as simple as playing a video game. We could really hurt each other if we don’t coordinate properly. As much as we need to hurry, we should probably take a minute to learn how to work together.”

Frank sighed as his shoulders slumped.

“Yeah, you’re right… Damn reality. I guess there’s a reason why games are more fun, huh?”

With some trepidation, we put our mission to slay the octopus boss on hold, and settled in for a training montage – Frank’s words, not mine.