The next morning Azrael rose, just as the sun was rising. He would never wake up this early in real life, but something about the new day managed to wake him at such an ungodly hour.

Out of bed, he began preparing himself for the day ahead. Not that there was much to prepare. He had no clothes to put on, no toothbrush to brush his teeth with and due to the game, he didn’t even have to go to the toilet. So, all that really meant was eating leftover skewers from last night and grabbing his spear.

Dropping down to the forest floor he stopped and thought for a moment. Realistically, he could get very lost if he started wandering aimlessly, which meant that his best bet was to follow the lake.

It was not wholly as exciting as exploring an overgrown forest, but it would provide him with a reliable route, as well as protection from one side. (That was is there were no monsters in the lake, because sometimes you never knew). Az weighed up his options. Go through the forest or go by the lake; Probably getting lost, against possibly getting drowned. He gripped his spear tighter. Lake it was.

Fortunately, for Azrael he didn’t encounter any monsters in his first twenty minutes, lake or otherwise. Unfortunately, he met the monsters after the first twenty minutes.

Azrael sprinted for his life, through the forest, cursing. He’d been walking along the shore of the lake, admiring the shimmering rainbows in the mist that the waterfall threw up, when he’d stumbled through a bush. On the other side had been a large boar. A very angry, large boar. A very angry large boar that was still chasing him. He looked back. Yep, still there.

Jumping over a protruding root Azrael barely managed to dodge a hanging branch.

‘Why’, he wondered did everything want to kill him? Avoiding another tree branch, he jumped over a bush, the top branches coming dangerously close to his exposed privates. It seemed the developers had a lot to answer for.

Behind him the boar simply charged through the bush, ignoring the inconsequential obstacle that it presented.

Another bush, another branch, another root. How did cross country runners deal with the monotony he mused?

Leaves flashed by, trees flashed by, bushes flashed by. Most of the forest seemed to have flashed by when he realised that he was quickly running short on stamina. His spear was still in his hand, but it would probably hold out just as well as a toothpick compared to the muscle mass of the raging boar.

Squeezing between two trees he continued the sprint to his inevitable demise, when he heard an almighty ‘THWUMP!’ of the boar crashing into the two trees, unable to halt its momentum.

Ready to collapse, he watched it shake off the impact and charge after him again. He started sprinting again, a stitch beginning to develop and his legs protesting.

Suddenly, he burst into a clearing, a tall stone spire raging into the sky. Other than a few rocky outcrops here and there the clearing was completely devoid of any possible cover.

Behind him the boar burst out of the clearing and stopped, its sides heaving from the chase. Azrael slowly backed away, watching it. Unflinching, it watched him.

He gripped his spear tightly in a sweaty palm and sized it up. It looked back, sizing up him.

Reaching the stone spire with his back he lowered his spear slowly with careful movements, as so not to startle the boar, supporting the back of it with his foot. If the boar charged it would impale itself on his spear and his foot would help resist the force of the charge.

Unfortunately, unlike a traditional boar spear, his was shorter and without a crosspiece to stop the charge. Without it the boar would continue on. It was a risky manoeuvre at best and if the bo…

The boar charged, rushing straight towards him, causing him to flinch. Its hooves thundered across the clearing, throwing up turf, but he held his ground.

He heard its breathing and saw sunlight glinting off its tusks. ‘Gods’ he cursed, there was no way the spear would hold. No, it had to hold. He licked his lips tentatively, that was a lot of muscle heading his way. 10 meters, 5 meters…

4…

3…

2…

He chickened out, dropping the spear and diving to the side. He skidded across the ground as the boar crashed into spire, with what he swore would have been enough force to shake it. Barely thinking he scrambled to his feet and escaped to the only place that offered him a chance of safety. Up.

Azrael clambered up the rocky spire, finding impossible handholds on his mad scramble up. Loose rocks tumbled down and he nearly fell off a couple of times, but he didn’t stop until he was a good three or so meters up.

Below him the boar backed away groggily, suffering from sever concussion. It staggered for a moment, before toppling over. When it finally got up again it gave a few curious sniffs around the place, before stumbling off like a drunk. Obviously, it had received more than a little knock to the brain. Only when it had vanished back into the trees did he release a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

He stayed there for a minute or two more. Eventually however the adrenaline began to subside and his muscles began shaking from the strain. Conscious that he couldn’t hold on much longer he tried to climb back down, only to fall down the last bit when his fingers gave way.

He landed roughly and his knee gave way, sending him sprawling to the ground. Instead of getting up he lay there, his chest heaving, his muscles sore and adrenaline still buzzing through his system, like a swarm of sedated bees. Slowly though that subsided as well, leaving him with a stiff and sore body. He raised his fist to the sky in a victory motion, before wincing. Even that hurt.

Eventually though, he had to get up. He was in no condition to continue his exploration and even if he had been he calculated that in his current condition it would take him the better part of the day just to walk back to the lake.

But… not before leaving his mark. Grabbing a rock from the ground he etched his name into the base of the spire; A – Z – R – A – E – L. Large enough that any passer-by would see it, not that anybody would ever come here. It was more of a memorial mark.

When he finished carving in his name, he grabbed his spear and headed back. It wasn’t hard in the navigational sense, he just had to follow the trail of destruction the boar had left during the chase, but it was agony to his body. Branches had scratched his exposed skin, leaves acting like little whips and stones trying to cut into his bare feet. He couldn’t wait to sit by his fire tonight and eat.

He paused.

“Shit” he swore. He still had to collect wood before nightfall. That was going to hurt.