Unlike saltine crackers, on a dagger is a bit more... cumbersome.

Five — FIVE YEARS?!

How did it take you almost five whole years to respawn?!

Were... were you just flat-out deleted and only now brought back? No! No, they wouldn't dare think of it! Something must had glitched out in the system! Some strange combination of events that had stolen time from you! Imagine the power you could had gained! The wealth! The feasting!

...five years.

You scoffed, upsetting more dust as the air billowed out through the holes in your fabric.

"Certainly explains these tatters," you muse with another sneered glare at the run-down shopfront. "They could at least had splurged for some mothballs."

Well then.

There was little point in wallowing in despair, and you were not the sort of hat to lose your composure so severely. You resummoned the pop-up.

For the briefest of moments you considered it's auto-hide feature infuriating. That went away at the sight of the portraits of heroes — males and females alike of various races, each far too gloriously portrayed in an assortment of form-fitting plate, leather, and cloth armors. And for the love of Refinnej, each and everyone of them was garishly loud and busy in color and design! So much so that it was hard to tell where their helms ended and their oversized shoulder paudrons began. An utterly disgusting affront to sensible fashion.

There were three of these criminally tacky portraits, with the same group of heroes facing off in horrendously cluttered formations against some threat or another, each with several overly excited blurbs of text below. Such as:

The Draconic Tribunals of the Zaffre Conglomerate Begin!

Are the dragons on trial, or are they the ones doing the tribunal? What interest would they have in a trade corporation? Why are dragons even subjecting upon or being subjecting themselves to a court of law to begin with? At best, dragons simply don't care for the law. At worst, they are the law and no tribunal would be held.

Part of you wondered if this was where the Lore — Legal skill was supposed to come into play. The rest of you, however, just didn't care. You jumped down a page and a half over other "heroically tantalizing affairs".

Devils Invade the Aetheric Commonwealth of Sinoper

...and... there literally is no reason behind this. Devils subvert and corrupt, not invade and pillage. Or were those Demons? Either way, none of this mattered to you. The weaponry of both sects of hell were usually cursed — properly, debilitatingly cursed — and, outside of the arch-whatever variety, usually utterly worthless in both utility and dietary.

You skipped most of the way down to the bottom.

The Ruination of Ironteak

Ah, bold of the devs to actually let "the land's most oldest, most legendary" city to be destroyed for the sole sake of tempting heroes with a high-risk, high-reward adventure. Escalating curses for escalating boons, all in a "daggers-to-cadavers" PvPvE area? Why, that sounded downright tedious. Doubly so with this blatant invitation for heroes to backstab each other at a moment's notice.

You scrolled to the bottom. There displayed more asininely giddy text celebrating your return — but where did you even go? — and a plea to enjoy the adventures, a push for claiming daily rewards, a reminder to browse the premium store, whatever that was, and so on and so...

One moment.

You scrolled back up, back to that last announcement.

Escalating Curses. Ruins. Ironteak.

You immediately summoned your character sheet over the pop-up.

Level 1 | Homberg's Gibus of Aggregation

Monster, Magic Object, Mimic, Explicit

Active Status(es): Bane of Ironteak

EXP: 6 / 100

Carry Weight: 3.51/5kg

Bane of Ironteak.

You knew this wasn't going to be some simple affair, but as the sun passed behind the half-destroyed wall of the building opposite your new home, the cold realization of impending, iterative doom slowly crept into your fibers.