Shadow Slave

The island Sunny was resting on was a strange one. It was rather large and covered in soft grass, with ancient stone columns protruding from the ground here and there. Most of them had long toppled and been shattered to pieces by some unknown disaster. The ground itself was full of depressions and generally uneven, as if it had served as a battlefield for giants once.

The reason why Sunny had come up with such a metaphor was not coincidental. The main feature of the island was situated at its center, and appeared to be a giant, rusty metal hand. Hence, the isle was unimaginatively called the Iron Hand Island.

It was well known to the Awakened anchored in the Sanctuary because very few Nightmare Creatures ever came here, and thus, many humans used it to rest during their journeys.

However, today, Sunny wasn't the only visitor to the peaceful island.

A rather ugly monstrosity lay dead in the shadow of the giant iron hand, its blood forming a large pool. It had a body like that of a snake, two powerful hands protruding from a human-like torso, a head with a long and toothy muzzle, and two leathery wings.

From the looks of it, the creature had landed on the island due to heavy injuries, and then succumbed to the most recent Crushing. Its body seemed broken and flattened, with sharp bone splinters protruding from the torn scales.

Sunny's interest was naturally piqued, because it wasn't every day that he stumbled on free soul shards. Additionally, and more intriguing, the shadow had noticed something glinting on the ground near one of the abomination's hands.

'Huh…'

Standing up, Sunny looked around, and then headed to the center of the island.

Soon, he reached the rusty metal arm and dove into the shadows, emerging on top of it. Standing a good ten meters above the ground, he stared at the carcass of the dead Nightmare Creature to make sure that the shadow didn't miss anything.

…Everything seemed to be fine.

With a shrug, Sunny jumped down and landed softly on the grass near the massive monster. Walking around it, he approached the spot where the abomination's hand lay on the ground, its five long fingers ending in terrifying claws.

were a scary one,

fought each other. Winged ones like this one were often

been relatively lucky, all things

seemed to have fallen out of the

"...A coin?"

holding a heavy golden coin.

Creatures were not exactly known for participating in commerce, and humans did not use coins. If they needed to trade, they either bartered with suitable items or used credits — of course, credits didn't exist in the Dream Realm, but the transaction would

where could a gold coin

turned it around. There was a depiction of an archaic ship on one of its sides, with a tall mast that had an actual tree growing around it. A beautiful human face stared at him from the other

long hair, and exquisite features. Sunny couldn't say if they were a man or a woman, just that they seem rather charming. There was a crescent moon drawn on their forehead, and… well,

coin some more, and then thought

is definitely cursed,

else was he supposed to think after finding a mysterious coin

didn't seem to

these things. He also had the sight

under the surface of the coin, Sunny expected to see a malevolent spellweave, or at least something strange, but there was

the looks of it, the coins… was

strangeness about it was that it seemed a little bit warm to the

"Huh…"

artifacts like this were few and far between. It wouldn't result in Sunny receiving any contribution points, but the old

shoved the coin into his pack

many shards you're hiding, ugly

tough hide of the Nightmare Creature. For a while, luck was on his side. He quickly retrieved two bright soul shards… so quickly, in fact, that Sunny grew sure that there had to