Biohuman

A purple light glowed up to the ceiling as Lily jogged over. The ukulele following her at her side while its musician looked over at Keng. The exhaustion was apparent on both of their faces yet Lily was more worried about Keng. She looked over at him, watching him closely. She remembered Keng spent so much time in between traveling and at Pea'ir practicing Resonance and now he was using it in battle.

Keng took a step forward, letting out a sigh of relief as his body lifted from Resonance. He felt heavy and sore from using it so much. The Negative pressed against him, making Keng lose a step as he crumbled next to the purple light.

"K-Keng!" Lily shouted, running over. She knelt down besides him as he took a moment to gather himself. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? Are you exhausted?"

"Just really sore and tired." Keng answered. The purple light died down, revealing a toothy necklace. Keng reached for it, unable to move. Lily noticed this and grabbed the necklace for him and handed it over to him.

"An actual drop." Lily commented. "Dad said these were rare." Keng studied the toothy necklace. It was laced together with purple and red material. Tooth-like protrusions stuck out of it. It looked a lot like the mouth of the worm.

"So that's why I haven't seen a single monster drop something this rare before." Said Keng. He looked over at Lily. "Monsters dropping items like this is rare? So does that mean Earth operates on the same chances?" He didn't expect Lily to answer him back. He looked at the strange necklace, turning it slowly.

"You should see what it does." Lily motioned.

"Huh? What if it's a trap?" Keng glanced at Lily and back at the necklace a couple of times.

"This won't take your head off or anything." Lily chuckled. "Do you know nothing about item drops?" Keng shook his head. Lily shook her head and cleared her throat. "I'll give you a rundown. Daros runs on a rough grading system when it comes to monster drops. Bronze, silver, gold, quartz, platinum, emerald, diamond, and demi are the different kinds of ratings there are. It can get complicated and frankly I don't understand all of it myself, but according to what Dad says, Earth has a similar structure so it'll be easy to remember.

"Bronze and silver are your… Common drops, I guess. You see these all the time. Those blind monsters we fought earlier? Their claws are in that category. Gold and quartz are uncommon. You'll see these here and there with common drops.  Platinum and emerald are rare drops, which is what this item is. And then there's diamond and demi which drop extremely rare stuff which is often categorized as legendary or mythic. It depends on who you ask, but Dad says people usually go by legendary.

"I should mention dangerous monsters within a emerald and higher ranking (about a B+ ranking) have their own categories within that, but I don't understand that, myself." Lily explained, letting out a sigh.

"So this is at least a platinum or emerald? So like a low B-rank?" Keng asked.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." Lily nodded. "Like I said, in Daros, at least, it's harder for you to get actual drops like this, so you're pretty lucky."

"So I should try it out?" Keng asked looking at the young Savior for direction. She nodded at him and Keng hesitantly put the necklace on. As soon as he did, the AI dinged and a pop-up showed up.

[Lava Worm's Necklace]

'Should've named it something better.' Keng instantly retorted with a snort.

"What?" Lily asked.

"Nothing." Keng shook his head. He turned his attention back onto the screen in front of him.

Lava Worm's Necklace

B Class Item

Rarity: Emerald

Enchantment Slots Available: 2/6

Enchantment Effects:

- Heat Resistance: The lava worm lives its life amongst the molten liquid, so why shouldn't you be able to take a bit of heat?

- Fire Enhancement: Boosts Fire-based abilities. (This will boost abilities like 'Blessed Fox-Fire' and your passive ability 'Silver Light'.)

- Summon Lava Worm: Once a day, you can summon a lava worm that will do your bidding.

- Lava Shield: Summon a shield of Lava (B-rank) to protect you from any danger. (Note: May react differently based on if the attack is elemental in nature or not. Element weaknesses still apply to Lava Shield).

"Huh." Keng bit his lip.

"What?" Lily asked, following Keng's eyes. She saw nothing and wondered what he looked at. "What're you looking at? You're doing that strange thing you do." Keng shook his head and looked at her.

"It's an Emerald-rarity necklace. It's rare like you said it be." Keng told her. "It has four out of six enchantments on it right now. Heat Resistance, Fire Enhancement, Summon Lava Worm and Lava Shield."

"How do you know that? Normally you'd have to use it a bit to understand what it does." Lily cocked her head. Keng had moments where he would stare off into space and read under his breath (like he did just now) and Lily would always wonder how he knew things.

"Well, the AI told me." Keng pointed in the air. Lily looked around, not seeing it. Keng waved his hand and shook his head. "It's not anywhere. I'm just… Never mind. The AI told me through text when I wore it. That's how I know what it does."

"Ahh." Lily nodded, still confused.

"It's complicated. It has something to do with Lee Seng." Keng stood up, stretching his arms. He felt way better after looking at his new item.

[For future reference, you can look up what you have equipped in your personal menu.]

'Good to know.' Keng nodded.

"Ready to go?" Keng asked.

"Are you sure you're ready to go?" Lily asked standing. "We literally just killed a worm that spewed lava at us." Keng touched the conch and studied the map. He raised his finger and pointed at the blinking spot.

"We're here." Keng told Lily as she stood next to him. His finger dragged up for a bit, evnetually landing on another blinking light. "And that's…"

"There's more blinking lights." Lily pointed out. "There and there."

"Strange. Did their locations come back?" Keng asked. He looked over at Lily. "How about you? Can you see any of your team mates?" Lily touched her conch and watched as a similar screen showed up. It wasn't as filled at Keng's, but it was still around the same area.

Keng swiped his map away, studying Lily's. There were two blinking lights and they were slowly moving. Keng moved his map over Lily's and they watched as the one of her lights matched with two of his.

"It seems like one of your team mates are with two of mine. We can assume that's Cayi and Aliza then." Keng observed.

"Then someone got lost on their own?" Lily asked pointing at the lone dot.

"Hmm…" Keng leaned in. "They're awfully close to us." His finger moved to where they were and the other one. "See if you can get in contact with them." Lily nodded and pulled her conch off her belt and lifted it up to her mouth. She tapped the earth toned conch and listened to it hum.

"Hello?" Lily spoke into the conch. "Is anyone there? I  see someone close to me and Keng." A quiet silence fell upon them as the hum of the conch went on for a bit. A voice cleared their throat and spoke.

"Lily!" Calis replied. "Thank the gods you two are okay! Where are you? Should I come to you?"

"We're quite far." Lily told Calis.

"And in a ravine pit." Keng added, leaning into the conch. Lily switched the conch to be besides the both of them.

"Hmm." Calis's voice came through the conch. "It seems you're quite far still. Should we try to meet in the middle? The caverns split me away with the others. This place definitely wants us apart."

"Well, we almost died to a Lava Worm, so…" Keng casually blurted out.

"A Lava Worm?" Calis's voice rose like he was taken aback. "You must be in the Deep then…. This isn't good. You need to get out of there before you see anything else. Try to make your way to this point." A X-mark appeared on the map.

"Oh!" Trenni's voice came through static-y. "I can hear them!"

"Who?" Aliza asked.

"Trenni? Aliza?" Calis called out. "Gods, the conchs are finally connecting like they're supposed to!"

"This damn PSHHHH… making it hard to PSSSH!" Trenni's voice came in and out.

"What was that?" Calis asked. "You're cutting out!"

"Ah, by the bosom of the Sea!" Trenni cursed in Merfolk. Keng chuckled.

"That's a sentence." Keng spoke.

"Lily and Keng are going to meet up with me at the X, Trenni! We'll try to meet up with you after I get to them, alright?" Calis shouted into the conch.

"Al— We'll try to — Aliza —" The conch went dead.

"Hello?" Lily called out. "Hello? Leader Calis? Trenni? Hello?"