As a kid, John, who was eleven years older, would yank me from a deep sleep by my ankles and hang me upside down. He did it incessantly, thought it was the funniest shit to see me squeal and thrash in a half-conscious panic.

When the Arachni-Screamer lifted me up off the ground just like that, it was John that came to mind. It would have been a nostalgic moment if I wasn’t so freaking terrified.

I surprisingly retained the knife as I was dragged across the rocks. Almost instinctively, I reached up to the tentacle-like appendage around my ankle and stabbed, stabbed, stabbed the thing, gashing my leg open in the process.

It screamed again—gah, what a horrid sound—and dropped on my face. I scurried like a worm towards the forest pathway but only got a few meters before a new tentacle grabbed my ankle again.

“Goddam—”

My exclamation was cut short by the sheer strength of its pull. This time, something in my hip snapped and the knife went flying over the precipice.

Well, there goes another one.

The monster held me up higher this time, probably high enough to break my neck if it let go.

Slowly, more of its mass rolled out of the crevice in the mountain. Prickly skin peeled back from around a bulbous center and a dripping wet, sphincter shaped maw opened up wide. For a moment, I thought it was going to stuff me in its asshole. Then I saw the teeth and what had to be a thrice-split tongue.

The time it took to unravel itself gave me a moment to scour my inventory. I quickly pulled something Gruda called a Fume Boom. The Forest Gnome had gone on and on about this one, how it was her favorite way to keep Forest Stalkers at bay. It was also why there were so many pools of water around her front door.

Like the other potions, it was stored in a glass vial. Instead of liquid, however, this potion consisted of a dense substance called Impact Gas. That was LES’s term for it. Gruda called it, “Goblin Farts.”

Blood rushed to my head like a water balloon at a faucet. I yanked the cork off the vial with my teeth, blew my thumb candle to life, and lit the glass tip.

The mucus-doused sphincter gaped open, and I tossed it in.

Ten points for Gryffindor.

The explosion came in the way of a fleshy tidal wave that sent me soaring backwards in the air towards the edge of the cliff.

My top half slid right over the precipice, face down. My ass-half teetered upward, threatening to follow suit. Thank the gods the tentacle, still wrapped around my ankle, was connected to enough body mass to pull taut. It was the only thing that kept me from tipping over.

I muscled my way onto the ledge and rolled onto my back, coming to rest in a pile of bloody monster gore.

I immediately pulled a health potion out and drank it. It tasted like cherry flavored piss. There was a snap, crackle, and pop from my hip as the potion set it back into place. I screamed. Apparently putting it back hurt worse than breaking it.

I had one more consumable health potion like this in my inventory, and one that could only be applied topically. I was tempted to use both right now just to make sure I was all the way healed but thought better of it. I had a funny feeling this was just a warm up.

Notification

Congratulations!

You just killed a Mountain Arachni-Screamer. How the hell did you pull that off? Those suckers are near impossible to kill, so, yeah, pat yourself on the back for that one, you little murderer. Oh, and make sure to take an ivory fang or two. They are worth a lot of coin to the right buyer, but be careful with the pointy end of those things. They’ll knock you straight to sleep.

Our estimated survival rate for you has increased by 2.5%.

You gained 11 experience points.

Notification

Congratulations!

You have unsealed your Sealed Survivor's Reward Chest.

Reward

A Spaceball!

What? What is that? It’s a ball of space, that’s what! Sounds fun, right? Technically, it’s a baseball sized sphere of antimatter. And as you know from high school physics and late night YouTube surfing, whenever antimatter touches real matter in the real world, it's never pretty. We're talking about anihilation. A baseball sized mass of antimatter is enough to completely erase the entire region in a mushroom cloud. Since this a virtual world where the laws of physics are obviously a bit different, however, it acts more like a throwable incenerator than an imploding star. Why? Because our programers are bit incompetent and tend to emblesh cool items with words they don't quite understand. That's why.

This item has a boomerang effect. Spacialists are not affected by this item.

Able to walk again, I got to my feet.

The entire outcropping was a sludge fest of putrid gore. I trudged over to where the mouth of the monster used to be to obtain these rare fangs but only made it a few steps before I fell to my knees and puked Gruda’s breakfast all over the place.

Holy Hell, what I wouldn’t give for a shower right about now.

I found only a single fang after digging around for a bit and put it into my inventory. That was good enough. I had to get out of the mess before I threw up again.

The narrow pathway opened up into a mountainside forest along the steep incline. Thin white and black speckled trees filled the area. The sun was setting, and gooey remains of the screamer still clung to me. I was practically drenched in guts and starting to get a chill. My thumb candle didn’t help at all to warm me.

I must have hiked a mile upward before I saw it, the strange luminescence behind a wall of vines. It made me stop and blink. It glowed then dimmed over and over again very softly as if breathing.

Hesitant, I inched over to inspect. It looked as if someone had tossed plant debris over it in a hurry to hide it.

I extinguished my thumb candle just to be safe and slowly pulled back the vines to reveal … a plant? But it wasn’t a plant, not really.

The main part of it was a bulbous-like pod that grew out of the ground. It was as tall as I was and slightly transparent with a purple tint to it. Inside the bulb was a curled up, floating person.

I took a step back and looked around.

What the shit was this?

I swallowed then slowly placed a hand on the bulb.

The skin of the bulb was warm. It felt like pulsing, wet rubber. I looked at the purple light it cast over my forearm as it illuminated, then faded once more.

The body inside was definitely human-like but his features were way too sharp to be completely human. His ears and nose all came to sharp points and his elbows and knees had a spike-like quality to them.

An elf, I wondered. I guess they have those here.

It was definitely male but there was nothing between his legs to prove that. An umbilical cord extended from his belly button into the base of the plant.

The man twitched, and I jumped back.

Someone yelled in the distance.

I crouched down and looked around.

There were voices now, and sounds of clanging metal, but I couldn't tell where it all was coming from.

This upward forest slope made it almost impossible to get a clear picture of the surroundings, especially in the dimming light.

I scurried down the incline to a large cluster of broken rocks and dived between them. Peeking my head up towards the sounds, I found two people entangled in swordplay just up the hill from where I hid.

One was a tall, naked man very similar to the person in the purple pod. The other was a … Well, he was much uglier. He had the body of a man but his skin was yellowish-green. And his head … yeah, that was the face of a hog. A hairy, brown hog.

That had to be a hog-goblin.

They danced around each other, swinging their blades, sliding this way and that down the steep slopes.

As they got closer, I noticed the naked man’s eyes were glowing a bright purple-white, very similar to the color of the pod.

The hog-goblin was fully clothed in padded armor giving him a slight advantage, I would say. And the pig-faced brute was laughing. He seemed to be playing with the other man, throwing most of the blows and making teasing, snort gestures.

The Hog-Goblin gave his opponent a sharp kick to the chest, sending him tumbling down a grassy slope.

“Oh, there’s another one,” said the hog-goblin.

For a fleeting moment, I thought he was referring to me, but his gaze pointed to the pod. The hog-goblin let out an excited squeal then headed down towards the glowing plant.

All my focus was locked on the hog-goblin, I didn’t even see the naked man getting back up. When the hog-goblin’s blade came down to slice open the pod, it was blocked by the man’s own blade just in time.

The hog-goblin huffed a snort, then lopped the man’s head off with a single, downward stroke.

I heard myself say, “oh shit,” before covering my mouth.

The head rolled down, bouncing off the rock I was hiding behind. It flew over me, destined for the mountain outcropping below.

The hog-goblin roared with laughter as the man’s body crumpled into a sliding heap. The hog-goblin lifted his sword to hack at the pod but stopped again, this time sniffing the air. He took a step towards me and sniffed again. A huge grin crept up on his ugly face.

“Mmmm,” he said. “Haven’t smelt that in a good, long time.” His voice was gruffy and wet, full of vicious mirth. This time, I knew he was talking about me.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” said the Hog-Goblin. Then he swung his sword, landing the blow deep in the flesh of the pod. Gooey liquid burst forth from it like water from a dam.