I approached Tharn, eyes still wide with amazement, as the key stoped floating and lowered into his open hand. "Where'd that thing come from?"

  Tharn tilted his head slightly as if in thought. "Ah. I guess it would make sense you don't know. In the wider multiverse these are called Vein Keys. They form from the energy released into the ether when something passes on to the great beyond. In my tribe, all are taught how to gather the energys when they are old enough for their first hunt.

  Everything that lives releases this energy when it dies, including us. In most cultures it is considered a great disrespect to the dead not to claim their key. To leave a key unclaimed is to deny the dead their final gift to the living."

  He held out the key for me to see. "You see the gem fix into its spine? The color varies depending on the rarity of the key. This one is a lesser key it's gem is red. Then you have greater, honed, prized, revered, mythic, and ancestral. Their corresponding colors are orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. With some saying there is another rarity on past that called unique who's color is white. However most believe it to be a myth.

  When a key's used, it can only be claimed by one. The gift is catered to whoever claims the key, with it listening to your needs. Rest assured whatever resides within the chest will be useful to you. The system is precise in that way, waste serves no purpose. For instance you won't receive armor made for a beastkin or an arachnid, if you do get armor it would be made for a human and fit perfectly."

  I could barely believe what I was hearing. "That's amazing Tharn!"

  He nodded "yes, truly it is a blessing to be thankful for." Then he turned and walked over to Sierra.

  "This, belongs to you." He said as he held out the key. "You fought valiantly, with heart and determination. Were it not for you we may have lost many today."

  Then after she grabbed it, he glanced around at the rest of the guard. "Would anyone challenge her claim to the key?"

  No one spoke up.

  After a moment he nodded then turned back to Sierra. Looking her in the eyes he said softly, "May it grant you an amazing reward." before turning around and walking away leaving her there gaping, wide eyed, at having just been given something of great value.

  After a moment she called after him. "Hey! How do I use this thing."

  He answered from where he'd joined a few other guardsman a ways away. "Just hold it out in front of you with the intent to claim the gift."

  We all watched as she looked down at the key in her hands, shrugged, then held it up as thought she were going to stick it into a lock. For a moment nothing happened. Then a pin prick of light formed in front of the key. It elongated and widened until it became a glowing white keyhole floating in space in front of Sierra. She had a wide eyed look on her face almost like she didn't expect it to work.

  Then slowly she moved the key forward and into the keyhole. When it was all the way in it made a faint metallic click, before the gem in the key flared to life, glowing a deep red.

  Sierra let go of the key taking a step back. Internally I wondered why she didn't turn the key in the lock but kept silently watching. The red light that had been shining in all directions slowly narrowed, focusing only on Sierra. It held there for a long moment before spreading outward again.

  Then the key flared brighter and turned in the lock by itself with a loud metallic click. When the key turned a wooden chest materialized mid-air forming from the key hole outward. It stayed floating there in the air for a heart beat before the key disolved in the lock and the chest droped to the ground with a soft thud. Everyone was in a stunned silence as Sierra bent down to open the chest.

  I watched as she raised the lid revealing, as far as I could tell, that it was just a simple wooden chest. As Sierra pulled an object out of the chest I could hardly believe my eyes. It wasn't that it was some ornate fantastical item, in fact it was the opposite. It was aggressively ordinary. In her hand Sierra held... A hairband. It was covered in brown cheetah print fabric, and looked like something you'd buy at a Dollar general for less than 5 bucks. I used identify starting to think She got gypped.

  I immediately changed my mind. That was a solid reward, and going off of the wide grin plastered on her face Sierra was ecstatic. She immediately put it on, the hairband pulling her hair back out of her face. When she did her eyes closed in pleasure as a faint rainbow sheen surrounded her for a second.

  She glanced up towards the sky and muttered. "I don't know if I'll ever get used gaining stats. It's pretty intense."

  Tharn let out a hearty chuckle. "Aye! That it is ha ha! But as you gain power it affects you less. It's a proportionate thing. At your level gaining 25 stat points at one time is significant. But if even a low level F grade were to gain 25 stats at once, they might not even notice."

  She let out a puff of air. "Thank God, I'd rather everyone around me didn't see my orgasm face every time I level up."

  Several of the other guardsman laughed at that, no doubt relating from their recent levels. I, having held off on accepting my new level, took that as a sign to go ahead and accept it.

  I let the bliss of leveling wash over me before putting all my free points into intelligence again, getting a second wave of ecstasy as I did so. Then I took a moment to look over my stat sheet.

  This newest level brought my intelligence total up to 44, finally catching up to my willpower stat, and making them tie as my two highest stats. But... Looking at my stats the amount of health, mana, and stamina didn't add up for the respective stats. It took me a minute but I eventually realized my actual stats were higher than shown because of my founder of civilization title. I'd honestly forgotten that I had it and it was a nice bonus.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  But even though I felt stronger, faster, and more capable then ever before in my life, this latest fight made me realize just how far I had to go. If it hadn't been for Sierra's strength and ability to keep the beast busy, as well as Tharns ability to do more than superficial damage, then we would've had to run away. The rest of us were all but useless in that fight. I need to get stronger... I...

  Mike put his hand on my shoulder bringing me back from my thoughts. "Hey Dude. Did we whoop that things ass or what? Sierra was a strait badass. Good on her for getting that system chest thing. She definitely deserved it."

  "Ha Yah, no joke. But don't think I didn't see you out there." I said with a rye grin. "You saved lives with that sketch wall you put up."

  He looked anywhere but at me with an awkward smile. "It was nothing... I uh just had an idea was all. I wasn't even sure it would work at the time."

  "Well as a reward for nothing what do you say we go get some barbecue? I think it's wild boar on the menu tonight. Bubba seamed pretty excited about it. Something about smoked baby back ribs and pork belly sandwiches."

  "Oh yea. Now that I can do. My mouths watering just thinking about it."

  The village settled into the familiar evening rhythm. Laughter carried between buildings, and the smell of smoke and cooked meat hung in the air. I stepped out onto the restaurant's porch, my belly full to bursting, then sat in one of the rocking chairs enjoying a moment of peace.

  As I sat there looking out at the village, kids ran through the field playing tag. Willard worked his distant garden. Villagers passed one another with easy smiles. Taking it all in, I felt a quiet sense of accomplishment. Eventually though my eyes drifted to the pillar standing silent at the village center.

  It was there like a silent sentinel giving me the tools to keep my people safe, and I intended to use those tools as best I could. I pulled up my quest page.

  Out of the threats detected, we'd only managed to take out 3 beast dens so far. Even after we'd had the quest for almost a week. Our biggest problem was being able to find the damn things. Hell, most days we just wandered the woods and came back empty-handed, burning time and stamina with nothing to show for it. But, at least we were making progress. As long as we keep doing what we have been eventually we should get them all.

  As for the infrastructure quest, I already had ten out the twelve long houses that the pillar asked for. Come to think of it I hadn't used any pillar mana in a while. I wonder if I have enough to complete this one tonight. I reluctantly got up from the comfortable rocker and walked over to the pillar.

  When I entered the construction interface I was happy to see I had almost six hundred mana. Each long house only cost two hundred, so I went ahead and placed the last two beside the existing longhouses. I'd already found out the other day that as long as no one was inside the buildings I could rearrange and move them as I saw fit for only 10 mana a structure. So it didn't really matter where I put them for now.

  After placing the long houses I exited the construction interface and watched as mana glided through the air, floating to form the long houses from the ground up. As soon as the last glowing wisp of mana solidified into the final piece of thatch on the roof, I received a system message.

  Having only taken a couple steps away to watch the buildings form, I turned back around placing my hand on the pillar. As I did, the entire structure started to glow a bright white, and another system message filled my vision.

  The pillar started a low pulsing hum as I took a step back shielding my eyes from the glow, and with each pulse a radiant white wave of light spread out from the pillar like ripples in a pond. It kept pulsing again and again untill after what felt like far to long it finally stoped. Again system messages filled my vision.

  I gaped at the rewards I received from completing what I thought to be an easy quest. If pillar map was what I thought it was, then I'd just gotten exactly what I needed.

  Looking at my status screen I saw that I had gained yet another tab. Now it read

  I opened the pillar abilities tab and as expected there were two item listed

  A giant grin spread across my face as I realized we finally had exactly what we needed. I closed my menu's and sure enough nestled there in the corner of my vision was a tiny mini map. I could minimize, move it around, or open it up taking up most of my vision. Looking over the map I saw two important details.

  First, our territory was now twice as big as it had been. Now going 20 kilometers in every direction instead of 10. Second, and most importantly I could now see all the locations of the beast dens or whatever threats were in our territory. Although looking at the map I had to do a double take and then quickly pulled back up my quest tab. And... It was just as I had feared.

  For a moment I was horrified. The amount of threats had almost tripled. There were all of those unknowns out there, basically in our back yard...

  But then I stoped and thought about it. Hadn't I just been saying how we needed to get stronger? This was literally a best case scenario for us. We knew exactly where they were. No more wasting days walking around without anything to show for it.

  This was how we fought back. This was how we would gain the power to keep our people safe. As I turned around to go spread the news, I was surprised to see that most of the village had gathered. No doubt wondering why the big stone pillar in the center of town started glowing brighter than the sun and making a giant racket out of nowhere.

  I stood there with a massive grin on my face looking out at the villagers and guardsman a like. I couldn't help myself.

  "Guardsman! We now have a way to know exactly where the beasts are, and if you've had a chance to look at the shared pillar quest you'll see that there are quite a bit more of them now. But I'm here to tell you that this all means one thing..."

  I paused for dramatic effect then with a flourish I said, "It's open season baby!"