Ben shouts down to the half dragon – You mean FIVE! But just as he finishes the sentence, a flash of light appears from the ground, and the few moments that truly meant something to Ben start rushing through his mind.

It is strange, how the mind goes elsewhere when the body needs it to.

First he thought of Arva. Home. His brothers, sisters, cousins and elders. The settlors they protected and the battles they fought. The faces of orcs and goblins that perished at Ben’s hands for what he was taught was a greater good. Ben had spent a long part of his life killing one creature to protect another, and now he dies trying to protect a strange city, and friends that had been caught up in the mix. Such a situation would normally make Ben smile, as if it were all some divine joke, but the grin never reached Ben’s face.

Then he thought of the old man who had brought him into the services of Necrovian. The kindness and wisdom of the stranger that had saved his life and put him on a better path. The path that led him to the Adventurers Guild, and to Arran, his dutiful friend; Lirian, so smart, so inquisitive; Calia, the closest thing he had left to a moral compass; and Sey and Soryn, friends who had fallen. No, FAMILY who had fallen, FAMILY that had been his trusted companions for the best parts of his adult life. Ben had wandered the world looking for the sense of family he had lost so long ago, and in his final moments the thought that he rediscovered that familial feeling brought him peace. Ben’s mind raced through their adventures together: battles, skirmishes and plots, seeing pale fire destroy Urthrax’s army, that strange vision in the cave, and now fighting the Six.

Ben wanted to shout out to Arran, Lirian and Calia. He wanted to tell them all to flee, to protect themselves, that their lives were worth more than this city, at least to him.

But that all only lasted a moment. The next moment was all fire, peeling skin, and burning flesh. The pain brought his mind back to his body, if only briefly. Ben had so little air in his lungs that his scream barely lasted half a second, but it was a scream so horrible that it can only mean painful death. Ben’s eyes turned to the ground, and his eyes went dark before he could feel the sensation of falling.

The last thing to cross his mind was a simple emotion. Hope.