Soren clutched at his injured arm, the cut so deep it'd severed muscles and tendons. He was still in the dungeon, trying to make it back to the beginning of the current floor, where he could try and convince passing adventurers to help him get to the surface.

He'd tried using the last of the potions in his belt, but the bottle had shattered in the struggle. Now he was bleeding all over the floor, his vision going in and out of focus, his breaths coming in rapid gasps as he desperately tried to maintain his stealth. If a monster detected him in this state, it was over for him; between the blood loss and his dominant arm being rendered useless, there was no way he could fight them off.

He stumbled into a wall, leaning against it as he took a shaky breath. He needed a cleric, an elixir, something, anything, before he bled out. The damn assassin had been clever, ambushing him and his group on the seventh floor; it was largely deserted, with beginner adventurers exploring the earlier floors and experienced ones delving much deeper.

Their cleric had been the first to go, then their tank, and if Soren hadn't been a stealth specialist he'd have been third. Instead, he'd managed to get away with just the gash in his arm, hiding in the shadows as the rest of his party got mercilessly slaughtered.

They shouldn't have stolen that damn necklace. They should've known better than to mess with a noble client's haul. But it'd been worth a fortune, and they'd gotten greedy. Now the others' corpses were probably being picked at by monsters.

"Someone," he mumbled, stumbling further along. "Anyone, please."

His knees buckled, and he caught himself on the wall. Blood was dripping from his fingertips; his arm had gone completely numb. He wasn't going to make it. He was going to die here, all over a stupid necklace.

"F*ck," he swore. "F*ck. F*ck." Soren wasn't a good man—he deserved no second chances. But he couldn't help but pray for one. "Gods above, please," he gasped, his vision darkening. "Anyone. I'll give anything."