VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne

The curved dagger floated through the air towards Saige. He quickly raised both of his hands, cupping them together and watched the dagger with reverence as it gently placed itself flat into his hands.

When he looked up to speak to the Beast Lord again, the lizard had vanished without a single trace, with only the faint hint of divinity and his words lingering in Saige’s mind to prove his existence.

The Beast Lord’s Wing. It was not a literal offer. He wasn’t going to be turned into a wing that was stuck to the lords body or anything.

Instead it was a type of class promotion.

The Church of the Beast Lord was separated, like many churches, into a variety of levels. All of them named after different parts, which also differed depending on the culture or the beasts in question. But there were some general consistency to the naming sense.

The Church Branch that Saige belonged to used traits of predatory animals, mainly birds and land beasts.

The Lowest level was a feather, which was what he was currently at. The next was Wing, then Claw or Talon, then it was Fang. This was the highest position within their branches church, akin to a High Priest or perhaps even a bishop, in the sapient churches.

The parallels were not perfect, but close enough.

Above this was two positions. The Eye, which was akin to the Pope and who led the entire Church of the Beast Lord, and the Howl - also known as the Call or the Cry.

The Howl had no official position, but they were respected above all else. They were the Avatar of the Beast God. The one who was said to be his voice, and who spoke for him in many cases.

After all, a meeting like what Saige had was far from normal. Many could go their entire life time without ever seeing so much as a glimpse of hide nor hair, or hearing a whisper of his voice. Whilst others could have conversations like this, and gain individual favours.

Such was the whims and the favouritism of the Gods. It was unfair, but who were you going to complain to? Gods could do what they liked, it came with the title.

But if one wanted to have the next best thing, the Avatar was exactly that. A permanent mortal form for the Gods to occupy and speak through, and a direct line to them from the mortal world.

Every God had one, but some were more well known than others and some were not known by anyone.

With his mind filled with thoughts of his class promotion, as well as the fact that he had met his God and survived such an ordeal, Saige did not think very much about it as he slid his thumb gently over the blade of the knife.

It was barely a brush, with force just enough to rustle a hair. Yet still, he let out a sharp hiss of pain and dropped the knife as he ripped his hands apart on instinct.

It flipped through the air, its point landing on the ground and immediately sliced straight through the stone. It buried itself in the stone, only stopping because of the ring at the end as it buried itself perfectly up to that point.

Saige grit his teeth, glancing at the gash in his thumb, which was surprisingly deep considering how little he moved it. He quickly healed it, before picking up the dagger again, this time holding it by the ring.

He didn’t even need to worry about pulling it out in a curved motion, as it carved through the stone easier than the air. It was impossibly sharp, which was a serious problem.

It was so sharp that it could, and would, cut through anything with even the smallest amount of pressure. And that included from gravity.

That meant when Saige tried to wrap it up tenderly and carefully, and hang it from his belt, the knife simply cut through and fell to the floor again.

No matter the angle he could position it at, it would always find a way to cut itself free. Which meant that he had to carry it the entire way. Something that was undoubtedly intentional, as yet another test.

A pilgrimage of sorts. One that could result in him gutting himself if he landed wrong. Wonderful.

Carefully spinning it in his hand, Saige held it in his left hand with the blade pointing outwards. At least this way if he fell, he would stab the ground and not himself, but it did leave him looking a touch aggressive and threatening. If such a thing was possible with such an adorable fox boy.

By the time Saige rejoined the rest of the group, they were on clean up detail. Lilith was finishing off the last of her simps, whilst Belladonna and Vestra were already consumed by their inner loot goblins as they rooted through the pockets of the fallen demons.

Figg staggered out of the main tent, a bundle of vines clutched tight in his hands as he dragged a large chest behind him. A feat he managed with a lot of huffing, puffing and red faced heaving. He barely managed to get it out the tents door before he collapsed.

Lilith, after transforming back to her usual gorgeously muscular self, chuckled as she strolled over and took the vines from him. With a single hand she picked the chest up and flung it to the centre of the camp like it was completely weightless.

Figg’s face turned a completely different shade of red as he slowly got to his feet, brushed himself off and approached the chest he had retrieved from the tent completely by himself without any need for anyone else’s help. Definitely.

"I found another one. One that looks like the other indestructible ones," The Druid explained with a concerned expression, "But it was already open and empty. I think one of the other groups got here before us and got the fragment before us."

"Dammit," Belladonna cursed, stuffing a few coins into her pocket. "But I guess it’s nothing that we didn’t expect, even if it sucks to hear. I’ll check with my guy when we get out. No point in doing all of this if we can’t get all the fragments, right?"

"Yeah, but on the plus side, I got this one! Whether its a respawning chest or not, whatever it is is definitely still in there." Figg said excitedly, hugging the chest from above. He gave it a few firm slaps, making the heavy padlock on the front shudder and rattle, drawing attention to it.

"I thought that maybe one of you had some kind of spell for it, or lockpicking skills. Whatever it is must be good because I think it will be hard to get into." Figg smiled confidently, before his joy was interrupted by a heavy thud as the padlock fell to the ground.

He frowned in confusion, leaning over the chest as he looked at the hasp, which had been sliced cleanly in half. So cleanly that it still had the semi circular bars of the padlock hanging from the latch.

"Oh..." He muttered as he deflated, before glancing up at the knife Saige had used to cut it.

"Where did you get that?"

"God gave it to me." He answered, as if it was no big deal, before he opened the lid of the chest with Figg’s help.

What was inside did not sparkle like gold, nor did it shine with radiant and powerful magic. However despite that, the group still had wide smiles on their faces as they gazed at the contents.

It was a mishmash of random pieces of armour that didn’t fit the demons odd body shapes and which they had pulled off their victims, a few misshapen or unwanted weapons of the strange black steel, as well as discarded parts of the lizards they enslaved and slaughtered, to be turned into more equipment.

It was disorganised, partly unusable unless it was fixed. But it was also enough to arm a very small army, or at the very least, one small group of reckless idiots.