This shithead might’ve eaten a hundred times his weight in human meat, but I was not going to end up on a spit over his fire with my jawbone slapped up on the wall in a display of cannibal feng shui. I kicked my legs out and bucked my hips, forcing the creature off-balance, then broke its grip with a jerk. Arms suddenly free, I drove my elbow straight up into his chin, knocking the creature off me. I scrambled to my feet and darted in while it was dazed from my strike.

With a scream, I brought my elbow down again, this time smashing into the back of his lumpy, mishappen skull. My arm connected with a crack, and the creature let out a startled squawk.

The youngster with the clicker laugh retreated a few paces and watched in morbid fascination as I wrapped my right arm around his buddy’s head in a guillotine choke and pulled his neck back so it was nicely extended. Then, with a snarl, I drove the K-Bar hard and deep into the creature’s upper chest, just below the throat. Had to be something vital in there, I figured. The creature let out a wet gurgle and toppled straight down, legs refusing to support his weight any longer.

Two down. One to go.

I turned to face the last remaining member of the pack. He grabbed a femur and ran in circles, all the while screeching and clicking and breathing that godawful stink in my direction. But he didn’t come at me like a cracked-out murder hobo, which was encouraging. Of the three, he seemed the most cautious, which meant he was probably also the smartest of the lot. He had just seen his two buddies die, so I was half-heartedly hoping he would scamper off and leave me in peace.

“Think it through,” I said, alien words rolling off my tongue. “I didn’t come here to kill you—all I really want is a pair of pants. You and me? We can go our own separate way, no harm no foul. Or…” I raised my bloodied knife so he knew I wouldn’t hesitate to do to him what I’d done to the others. “Or you can dick around and learn the hard way.” I stepped closer to his dying friend and placed my foot on his chest. The mortally wounded creature made a feeble attempt to lift his arm and push me off, but he was on the down escalator and not coming back.

Unfortunately, my bluff had the opposite effect.

The creature lost his goddamned mind and slammed himself into the wall so hard he tore through the calloused skin covering his forearms. Then the wily knucklehead spun and charged straight at me, his arms and legs high and wide, ready to grab me and pin me just like the other one had done. My Colt was just out of reach—knocked away during my tussle with Crave Ghoul number two—and man oh man was I regretting it.

Jagged claws whistled through the air and raked across my chest, slashing through skin like it was made out of tissue paper and digging down into my muscle.

“Son of a mother-loving donkey.” I brought my leg up and kicked the son of a bitch in the loincloth. No clue if there was anything down there to damage, but they were wearing junk covers, so one had to assume there was something worth concealing.

He squealed and leapt out of reach, hands clutched over the family jewels. Pretty much what you’d expect after a blow to the balls. I might be tripping, but at least there was some internal consistency to my hellish dreamscape. Monsters hunted in packs, ate humans, and screamed bloody murder if you caught them in the crotch. It all tracked.

I danced back, circling the creature, my feet faster than his, and used the momentary lull to scoop up my Colt from the floor. With the pistol back in my hand, the Ghoul hesitated, which was a huge mistake, because I didn’t. Not for a heartbeat. I raised the gun and squeezed the trigger, eating through a third of my blue bar. Well worth the cost, since the round blasted a hole in his head at six feet out.

The monster dropped like a sack of bricks and didn’t even twitch.

I looked down at the second Crave Ghoul—the unlucky son of a bitch who’d caught my knife with his chest. He twitched his claws and whimpered up at me. I aimed my Colt at the spot above his quivering nose and between those bloodred eyes and put him out of his misery, too. It was a mercy as far as I was concerned. And it was always best to make sure with these kinds of things. Couldn’t afford to have a bloodthirsty enemy at my six.

[You have killed an Immature Crave Ghoul! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 192 Essence!]

[You have killed a Crave Ghoul! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 293 Essence!]

>>

Bounty Fulfilled

Dark Lair: You have slain the pack of Grave Ghouls who have defiled this nexus with their unclean presence. As a reward for a job well done, you have been granted an additional 150 Essence and 5 Ward Points.

>>

Twin streams of gold mist leaked up from each of the newly minted corpses and rushed toward me while more of the golden light coalesced from the air itself, soaking into my body.

The surge hit again, even more powerful and exhilarating than the last time. Chimes rang out around me, a heavenly orchestra that filled my head while golden light leaked from my body like steam. Stranger still, I stared down at my chest and noticed the skin knitting itself together in the span of seconds. No pain. Not even a slight tickle. One minute I had a jagged gash running across one pec and the next I didn’t. Only faint pink scars remained, and even those were rapidly vanishing, until they were mere ghosts of the wounds they’d been before.

I thought my eyebrows might climb right off my face. That… Now that wasn’t normal. I mean, nothing about this was normal. Not the fact that I was alive. Not the space travel or the weird, half-remembered five-faced deity. Not the cave and the golden pop-up boxes. Not me being bare-assed and definitely not the creepy little Tolkien rejects. But the golden mist and the whole regeneration thing? Yeah, that was even more not normal than everything else.

This was Hell, it had to be. Sure wasn’t Heaven.

I waited for Cal to show up and tell me something I already knew and didn’t need reminding of, but he seemed to prefer the high-octane moments, not these quiet interludes when I was alone with three dead cave monsters, a newly healed wound, and my own somewhat jumbled thoughts. That was just like him. It became quickly apparent that standing around wasn’t going to provide me with any answers, so I figured it was time to try and find some locals. Hopefully locals that didn’t want to eat me and use my bones like macrame art.

But first, I needed to equip myself and see if I could turn up any clues as to where I was.

The creatures wouldn’t be doing any talking, but maybe their corpses could tell me a thing or two—though the idea of poking around the reeking bodies wasn’t exactly appetizing. I scrunched up my nose and eyeballed the freshly minted corpses. Instead of blood, they leaked pools of fetid green goo that smelled like an open sewer. They weren’t the first rotting bodies I’d dealt with, though, and they wouldn’t be the last. Time to embrace the suck and do what needed doing.

I crouched down beside the first Crave Ghoul and was surprised when another golden prompt appeared in front of me.

Harvest Soul Vault? Yes/No

I wasn’t sure what a Soul Vault was or how exactly I was supposed to go about harvesting it, but I hit Yes anyway. A wispy golden ball of energy rose from the creature’s chest, attached to the corpse by a thin tether of blue light. I canted my head, watching in fascination as the ball unfurled like a flower in bloom. Nestled inside the golden orb was a cubbyhole—or a pocket dimension maybe—not much larger than a hotel safe, and inside was a small pile of loot.

“Dude,” Cal said, startling the absolute crap out of me once again, “it’s like a bag of holding.”

“Damnit, Cal,” I yelped, “you gotta stop sneaking up on me like that. If you’re gonna haunt me, you might as well just stick around. Even if you can’t physically help me, a little emotional support would be nice. Or, at the very least, stop trying to make me piss myself.”

“But scaring the pants off of you is funny. It’s even funnier since you don’t actually have pants to begin with. And, for your information, I can’t just stick around even if I wanted to. It takes energy to manifest or even to say things, and I don’t have a ton of energy to go around. Every time I talk, it feels like the words are sucking a little bit of my soul out through a straw.”

That sounded suspiciously similar to what I’d experienced when using my pistol.

“Fine, just try not to be a total dick about it,” I grunted. “If you jump scare me at the wrong time, there’s a good chance I’m going to accidentally put a trio of rounds through your skull. I don’t know if you can die again or not, but it’s on you if you do—not me.”

“Fair enough,” he said, raising his hands in acknowledgment.

“So what do you think this is?” I nodded toward the void space in the center of the floating energy ball.

“Already told you, bag of holding,” Cal replied. “If you really want to know, I could duck out and ask around a little bit.”

“Ask around a little bit?” I repeated. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? You’re a ghost, Cal, and the only other person in this cave is me. Who are you gonna ask?”

Cal rolled his eyes. “No, dingus. When I’m not here, I don’t just stop existing. I feel like you should’ve already mastered object permanence at this stage of the game. When I’m not actively in this realm, I’m in this sort of weird void space. Glimmering stars. Lots of swirly white mist. Pretty boring, actually. There are other things there, though. Spirits, I think, but they seem grumpy and not super talkative. I’m betting they know some shit.”

I frowned and shook my head. “Naw, no point wasting time. Especially since you’re probably right—it does look like a bag of holding.”

Before I could second-guess myself further, I reached into the void space and dragged out the contents, forming a small pile of loot on the floor in front of me. There wasn’t much. Just a few pieces of pitted metal and some triangular stones that almost looked like large fish scales. Brief tags appeared above the bits of metal [2 x Raw Silver Ore, Fabrication Ingredient], [5 x Rawhide Strip, Fabrication Ingredient], [1 x Mortka Horn (Disciple), Fabrication Ingredient], [3 x Raw Iron Ore, Fabrication Ingredient], [2 x Crave Ghoul Leather, Fabrication Ingredient].

Other than the item names, they didn’t offer any useful information. The odd fish scales were a different story entirely. They glimmered with crimson light and radiated a gentle power I didn’t fully understand. When I examined one more closely, a description box appeared just as it had with my pistol.

>>

Hunger Affinity Scale

Type: Refined Hunger Affinity

Class: Novice

Ability: Consume

Primary Effects:

When consumed directly, Refined Hunger Affinity temporarily enhances the user’s strength and speed and unlocks the passive ability Ravenous Feeding. When Feeding, the user experiences an elevated Health Regeneration Rate and has a 15% chance of temporarily gaining a skill or ability from whatever creature has been consumed. Channel Refined Hunger Affinity into a metaphysical focal point, imbuing the item with unique benefits for a limited duration. Note: The strength and duration of the effect is directly proportional to the quality of the Scale consumed.

>

The Crave Ghoul had half a dozen of the strange scales. I didn’t have anywhere to put my newfound goodies, so I left them on the floor and went over to examine the next body. This one had three more of the Hunger Affinity Scales, two pieces of Raw Iron Ore, and a leather pouch filled with crudely cast circular coins. Most of them appeared to be copper, though there were a few heavy silver coins as well. I turned one of the coins over in my hands, examining the front and back.

A humanoid image was stamped onto one side, though I was reluctant to dub anything “human” before I’d had a chance to check it out personally. I’d been wrong once today, and I didn’t want to repeat that mistake.

The face on the reverse of the coin was of a dignified-looking man with a serious set of jowls that spoke of plentiful harvests and hearty meals. Good. Very good. Chances were high I was tripping balls, but I needed to treat it as real until I knew for certain, one way or another. And if I was going to be stuck in a strange new land, I wanted it to be one of plenty, not one of want. The fact that the coins had people-like images on the front was also good news because it meant there was civilization to be found.

I added the coin pouch to the pile of growing of loot, then moved on to the final body.

Jackpot. Ding, ding, ding.

The last creature was the one with the pitted machete. The blade wasn’t in the Soul Vault, but lying beside his body, but it was a fantastic find, even if it had no shimmering runes or messages from beyond engraved on its hilt. The weapon didn’t hold a candle to my K-Bar, but it would serve as an excellent survival tool if I couldn’t find a town or village nearby. Even better than the machete, though, was what the creature had in its Soul Vault.

No coins this time around, but there was a large variety of other interesting finds. He had five more of the Hunger Affinity Scales—bringing the count up to fourteen total—including one that was Disciple Class, whatever that meant. The creature also had a perfectly round gemstone, about the size of a small marble, with a red rune carved into its face. A Transformation Token.

>>

Transformation Token

Type: Crave Ghoul

Class: Disciple

Ability: Consume

Primary Effects:

Consume Crave Ghoul Transformation Token to temporarily polymorph-self into the form of a Crave Ghoul; duration, 7 minutes.

Restrictions:

Must have the Totem Transformation Ability to activate this Transformation Token.

>

“You seeing this shit?” I asked Cal, over one shoulder.

He nodded, a grin stretching across his face. “Dude, this is totally just Wild Shape. I’m thinking you might be like some kind of Druid.”

“With a magic Colt,” I said.

“With a magic Colt,” he agreed. “So Artificer Druid? But also with Wolverine regen abilities and game powers. Fine, I have no clue what you are, but who cares! It’s awesome.”

“Why aren’t you more concerned about what’s happening?” I asked.

“I’m dead, so it’s hard to be too concerned about anything, which also means I need to live vicariously through your experiences. The real question is, why aren’t you more excited?”

“Because I’m not dead and would like to keep it that way,” I replied flatly.

I tucked the marble into the leather satchel along with the coins and Affinity Scales, then retrieved the last of the items tucked away in the Soul Vault. This was the best of them all. Leather chest armor—worn, dusty, and beat to hell, but serviceable. I pulled up the item description and quickly peered at its rudimentary stats.

>>

Crude Leather Armor

Type: Light, Crude Leather

Class: Novice

Shoddy in both design and craftsmanship, this crude armor offers only the most basic protection against the cutting edge of a blade. What it lacks in elegance it makes up for in smell, but it is perfect for those wishing to specialize in Stealth or other unsavory abilities.

>>

It wasn’t the kind of legendary loot I would’ve expected in a real-world RPG, but anything was better than nothing. I slipped the armor into place, surprised that it even fit me.

“Really, dude?” Call asked as I stood.

“What?” I asked.

“What do you mean, what? You’re porky pigging it. I think this is worse than you just being naked.” He folded his arms and looked away in disgust. “Yeah. Definitely worse. It’s more obscene somehow. You need pants. You could always snag one of their loincloths…”

I tried not to vomit in my mouth at the thought. Even though I was still naked from the waist down, I decided that looting the Ghoul’s gross loincloths was going to be a hard pass for me. I didn’t want my junk anywhere near their junk, because that, my friends, is how you get goblin crabs.

“Fine,” Cal said. “If you don’t want cave troll diapers, you might check over by the firepit.” He hooked a thumb toward the far side of the chamber. “Looks like there might be some more stuff in a chest.”

Following Cal’s suggestion, I hoofed it over to their little campsite, where I found a weather-beaten trunk. There was no lock in sight, and it was filled with what looked like a haul of stolen items. Ah, no. Not stolen. These were dead men’s clothes. I pulled pieces out, one by one.

Trousers. Tunics. A dress. Shit, a miniature pair of leather shoes. Barely worn.

Holy hell. These animals took no prisoners and made no distinctions. Men, women, children, all were on the menu for these monsters. Suddenly I felt far less bad about busting up their shit. Seemed like they had it coming in spades.

Most of the items were junk—moth-eaten blankets, scraps of fabric, a couple of old leather boots—but tucked in the side of the trunk was a pair of scratchy linen trousers. I turned them around, looking for lice and ticks. I didn’t want to dodge goblin crabs only to be taken down by bubonic-plague-bearing fleas. They looked clean enough for a ratty old pair of dead men’s pants. They mostly fit, too. Sure, they hung down to my calves and were too loose around the waist, but a length of rope served well enough for a belt, and they were better than nothing.

Using some twine—sinew maybe? I didn’t look too closely—and with one of the leather hides on the floor, I fashioned a rough satchel, then filled it with what I could. The rest of the twine went in, along with some clean looking strips of fabric and a glass bottle. Then I headed to the firepit, searching for flint. I didn’t find anything as useful as a fire starter, but the bottom of the pit was filled with the remains of smudged black coals, which weren’t as useless as they seemed.

I wrapped some of them in a piece of fabric and added them to my makeshift pack—

Something rattled, not far off. I froze like a deer in the headlights, my senses screaming at me. Fuck. There was something else in here with me.