The reward rose from the ruin of the throne and settled onto the cracked dais, and the family gathered around it in the draining dark, the black water still lapping at their ankles as the last of the Sunken King faded into nothing.
It was not a plain iron chest this time. It was a coffer of pale stone bound in dark coral, and when Erix worked it open, the light that spilled out was richer and cleaner than anything the dungeon had shown them yet, a glow that had weight to it, that made the small hairs rise on the backs of their arms.
Inside lay a sword. It was long and slender and quiet, its blade a soft grey-white like moonlight on still water, and even sheathed in the scabbard, it carried a presence the whole family felt at once, a pressure that named it before the notification could. Skyward-grade. A weapon forged for a being of the rank they had just killed, worth more than everything they had gathered since waking in this world.
