Chapter 33: Bonds of Grief

*Date: 33,480 First Quarter - Iron Confederacy*

Demir took another look at Marco and Timmy, who were making okay signs with their hands, the healing potions having worked their magic through their battered bodies. Sin shouted across the battlefield, his voice hoarse but determined, "Go free them!"

Demir rushed toward the slaves, his heart pounding as he saw the chains connecting them to one another in a grotesque human necklace. The crazy battlefield around them was finally ending, smoke rising from goblin corpses and the acrid smell of blood thick in the mountain air.

Among the shackled figures, he saw familiar faces mixed with strangers. Not all were human. Goblins had been enslaving even non-player locals, treating all sentient life as nothing more than livestock to be worked to death.

He fumbled with the key he'd gotten from the troll, trying to unlock the shackles, but the key wasn't working. The metal was wrong, the mechanism different. Panic started to creep into his chest as the weight of their suffering pressed down on him.

"Selene!" called out a voice he recognized. "Demir! Thank god you came for us."

He turned to see Selene, one of his camp friends, her face gaunt from malnutrition but her eyes bright with hope. He hugged her awkwardly, the chains still binding her making the embrace clumsy and desperate. They were still shackled, still trapped.

Usahn called from further down the line, "Demir, I think the keys were with that know-it-all goblin." Another voice shouted, "It's with Kazzak!"

Demir's panic spiked. "Okay, okay," he muttered, putting the useless troll key in his pocket and running toward where Kazzak lay unconscious.

The woman archer who had shot the arrow into Kazzak's leg was waiting by his head, making sure he wouldn't escape. She looked up as Demir approached, her weathered face showing the exhaustion of someone who had seen too much combat.

"Did you free your friends?" she asked.

"No, no. I think he has the keys," Demir replied desperately.

The woman revealed a leather pouch from Kazzak's robes. "I took this from him but haven't opened it yet. We usually gather everything and divide equally among the group." She opened it carefully, revealing a rusted key along with gold coins and rubies, jewelry that glinted in the afternoon light. She handed him the key and smiled grimly. "You are fearless, kid. Good save with that boulder. I am Marven, by the way."

Demir had no time for chitchat. He felt every second passing with his friends still in shackles pressed down on him like a physical weight. When he rushed back to the shackled group, he started opening the chains one by one. Everyone who was freed hugged him whether they were from his camp or not, tears of relief mixing with exhaustion on their hollow faces.

When he reached Selene, Sin finally joined him, having helped Marco and Timmy sit on a stone to rest.

"Where is my father?" Sin asked, his voice tight with worry.

Demir looked at Selene expectantly. "Yeah, Selene, where is Alexious?"

Selene gulped and looked down, her shoulders shaking. "So sorry, Sinoue. I am so sorry. Alexious was wounded and passed away almost a week ago."

Sin was in shock, couldn't open his mouth. The words seemed to hit him like a physical blow.

Demir felt his own world tilt. "What? How?"

"After the second day of captivity, Alex kept constantly asking about Sin and Timmy. When he had a chance, he tried to run upstairs to escape and find the kids. They beat him to make an example of what happens to those who resist." Selene's voice broke as she continued. "His wounds became infected. There was no healing, no medicine. He just... faded away."

Timmy was walking with a limp but seemed alright considering everything. "Selene, I am glad you are okay. Where is my dad?"

Selene hugged Timmy, tears streaming down her face. "Timothy, I am so sorry," she whispered, and started weeping openly.

The twins entered a frenzy of crying, the loss of both their fathers hitting them like a landslide. Other members of Demir's camp who had survived the slavery those who were still alive gathered around Sin and Timmy, trying to comfort them despite their own recent trauma and freedom. They had all lost people, all suffered, but seeing the twins' raw grief brought their own pain to the surface.

Demir tried to comfort them but had no idea how to. Back in their world, he had avoided funerals where his father and grandfather insisted on attending. That avoidance, that fear of facing death and loss, pressed down on him now. He wasn't ready to face this, not here, not in this mess of a world where death seemed to lurk around every corner.

A ragged, sneaky-looking elf snuck up to Demir while he was struggling with his own emotions. Demir startled at the sudden approach.

"One day, one day you will be in need. I will pay for this, no matter what." The elf's voice was intense, desperate. "Name is Kirious. When in Satar, give this to any elven innkeeper. They will find me." He pressed a small rectangular stone into Demir's palm, the surface smooth and warm to the touch. It had an etching of symbol he doesnt recognized. Before Demir could say anything, Kirious had disappeared toward the woods alone, moving with the fluid grace of someone accustomed to staying hidden.

Demir returned to Selene and suggested she and Usahn help Sin and Timmy with their grieving. Marco came by, still pale from his injuries but walking steadily, and patted the twins on the back with gentle understanding.

Thalia was calling for Demir from across the battlefield. He was lost three of his friends dead to goblin slavery. But he needed a breather. He had to avoid losing himself to grief. He wasn't ready, at age twenty, to remember what had happened twelve years ago when his own world had been shattered by loss.

"How many did you lose?" Thalia asked when he approached, her red hair catching the late afternoon light. "Our main shield guy Shali died, along with archer twoPuc. All in all, it wasn't worth it at all."

"I'm sorry for your loss. Our three friends were lost before we even arrived," Demir replied, the words feeling inadequate.

"Sorry, kid. What are your plans after this?" Thalia's tone was matter of fact, but not unkind.

Demir looked around, puzzled. "I... I don't understand."

"Were you going to return to your camp with your friends?"

Demir looked around the battlefield, then at his freed companions. The question hit him like a revelation. He had no idea what came next. He couldn't return to the ruins where they'd been living. Everywhere was exposed there, and if goblin chiefdoms were this aggressive about expanding, they would come again. And even if goblins didn't attack, anything could happen. The last four years had been extremely lucky, he realized with growing dread.

"I... I don't know," he admitted.

"Our small settlement is not open to just anyone, so when I say this, take it seriously. We don't take people without someone vouching for them. I can vouch for you and your friends. You are clearly not idiots or blood-crazy players.You just caught in the game as casuals when everything went wrong."

"Yeah, yeah, none of us are crazy. Will you take us? All of us?" The hope in his voice was almost embarrassing.

"As long as you contribute by gathering food and don't create problems, we can take you."

"Thank you so much. We will need that," Demir said, relief flooding through him.

"Go talk to your friends. We will leave after looking for loot in the mines. We can't wait here. We don't know if the goblins will bring reinforcements or not."

"I will get them ready. Some might be beat up, but we have a cart. I can carry them."

Thalia raised an eyebrow. "By the way, where did you get those shiny plates? You and the twins, I mean. I thought dwarves only sold crappy items now, and there's no way you looted gear that good."

Demir pointed to his three-piece armor. "Ah, these? I made them."

Thalia laughed outright. "Yeah, right." She turned to the assassin. "Killgor, the kid says he made those shiny plates."

Killgor, wiping goblin blood from his daggers, looked skeptical. "Impossible. There's no crafting menu or NPC for materials to equipment exchange."

Marco walked over to them, overhearing the conversation. "Yeah, he made them. I saw him making them with my own eyes."

"Bullshit," Killgor said flatly.

Demir watched the interaction with surprised eyes. Was this really the place or time to discuss crafting?

Marco pressed on. "How did you make your potions then?"

"They were in stock before the game shutdown," Thalia replied.

"Well, Demir forged these with his hands, hammer and anvil."

"Yeah, I begged a master dwarf and he taught me. It's just D-grade though," Demir explained.

Killgor leaned forward with interest. "How many hours did it take?"

"Hours? It took nearly half a month, almost fifteen hours of hammering each day. My master prepared the ingots, plates, and leathers."

Thalia was in awe. "We can learn crafting?" she asked to the air, as if the revelation was too good to be true.

Killgor pointed at his worn-out leather armor. "Can you teach us or make armor for us?"

"I only learned metal plate armor. I can't make light armor," Demir admitted.

Selene walked up to the group, interrupting the crafting discussion. "Sorry to interrupt, but some of us are starving and very tired."

Thalia's expression immediately softened. "Sorry, sister. We can share our rations, and you can sleep while we loot the mines." She made a gesture to her companions, and they began distributing food and water to the freed slaves.

The sun was beginning to set behind the mountains, painting the battlefield in shades of gold and red. Bodies lay scattered across the ground, but the living had work to do. There would be time for proper grief later but right now, survival demanded they gather what they could and move on.

Demir looked at his expanded group - the twins grieving their father, the freed slaves slowly remembering what it meant to be human again, and Thalia's hardened fighters who had given them all a chance at a new life.

They had won the battle, but the cost had been higher than he'd ever imagined. And now they faced an uncertain future in a world that seemed determined to test them at every turn.

But for the first time in four years, there was a sliver of hope.