A player being watched by worried Passivity Precept Counselors.

*The old player in a young body sat at the side of a lake. He stared into the depths seeing but not seeing. The top of the fishing pole clutched in his hands curved down with the tugging of a bite. He did not reel in his catch and soon the fish escaped with his bait. A white bird landed on his head and stole a strand of ebony hair before flying off. He continued to stare. He continued to do nothing. Just as he had done for the past few hours. Few days. Few years.*

“I should have... I should have left while I could. Huh?”

The polished ball of excrement slammed into the shit demon’s — er, I meant Fecal Golem’s — head like a soccer ball into a net.

Boom! Rumble! Small chunks of the ceiling rained down. A good fourth of the creature had vanished, leaving a charred hole where its head and torso had been.

Unfortunately, my world dimed and floated a bit, my joints locked and trembled. Come on! Move! It wasn’t fire. It was just a blast of energy! I know this!

The golem’s body slowly pulled itself together, reformed its head then squished over to me. My heart pounded as it punched out.

“Eep!”

Adrenaline flooded my system. I took huge bounding steps away. Too slow! A large pressure hit my back and the room blurred. Bang! My face, chest and hands stung. My bones ached like some asshat had grabbed a rubber hammer and pounded each one till they cracked. A good half of my health had vanished.

When I took a step back a rolling nausea overwhelmed me and I dry heaved. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to feel like shit since this monster decided to throw another ball at me. A freezing terror took root in my limbs, holding me in place.

Okay, self, how are you going to finish this guy when you’re scared to even get near the bombs now? It didn’t help that I was literally half dead.

I coughed up something salty and metallic and spat it out. Blood.

How could I just let my fear control me? This wasn’t even real. This wasn’t real! That mantra played in my head and my fear receded to a manageable level. I was like an arachnophobic dealing with a daddy-long-legs spider from 10 feet away while using a 12 foot pole. The ass clenching fear was still there but muted.

The golem flicked another bomb at me. It rolled to a stop a few feet away.

This is not real!

I ran up to the bomb and kicked it. It landed perfectly on the left arm of the golem. Boom!

With a nasty splat the shitty arm fell off and another chunk of its health disappeared.

My limbs still froze. I watched as the golem started to turn a red-brown. That wasn’t a good sign.

This is not real life! This is not real life!

Fortunately, the shit did not hit the fan, nor did it become a ball of fire. What it did do was dig its good arm into its stump and pull out a new arm, and then it squatted down, reminiscent of the rat I killed earlier.

I started hopping foot to foot, getting ready to dodge whatever was going to happen next.

It did not disappoint me. A stream of small polished shit balls flew out of the golem’s hands and toward me. I bolted. As the balls struck the wall, tiny explosions carved a path into it.

How was I supposed to use these to hurt it? Maybe it wasn’t immune to attacks anymore?

“Ahhhh!” I strafed in a spiral while getting closer and closer to the golem. I cast Add Water on my swords and lunged the last few feet. A flash of red-brown. I leaned back till my swords tips touched the ground.

It registered that the Fecal Golem had punched at me but missed. The hell! Wasn’t it supposed to be slow? If this avatar of mine didn’t have crazy reflexes I’d be mush!

I pushed myself up from my bend and slashed towards the golem’s leg. My blades sank deep into shit. I let my momentum carry my attack through and completely bisect the joint.

“ROOOAR!” It yelled as it collapsed onto its hands and knee.

My ears stung, my head swam and my vision started to dim. Fuck, I’d taken a lot of damage from that yell.

The Golem began to glow yellow and bulge in weird places... like its shoulder, and hip. Wait?! Was it going to blow like one of those bomb type monsters?

Shiiit!

I started hacking at it as fast as I could even though I wasn’t doing much damage to it. Like hell would I let this shit bag kill me — not after all I went through to murder it.

Its glow grew lighter and lighter until it was almost white. I cast add water and attacked one last time. The glow faded. The body deflated.

I almost cried from relief. Then I remembered what happened to bodies in this game. After turning, I walked away from the corpse, like a boss. Warmth spread along my back and I pretended that I looked badass, like I was a ‘cool guy’ that walked away from explosions without looking.

Heat struck my back and a few items flew into my inventory.

Congratulations! Your Dodge skill has gained two levels and reached level 4! Congratulations! Do to all of your creative running, your Parkour skill has gained a level. It is now level 2!

Warning! Due to your severe lack of hygiene, you have incurred a large Charisma debuff! Your Charisma started at 5 and has slowly decreased to 0.

Seriously, find somewhere and wash before talking to people or they might try to kill you!

Really? I had zero Charisma right now? The sudden thought of seeing Lore while I was like this had an existential dread crawling along my back like millions of spiders were creeping all over me. I softly slapped my cheeks because those thoughts would only lead to madness. No point in worrying about it now.

So, if I wanted to take care of my Charisma debuff, I’d first need to study the room.

A pile of ashes was left where the giant Fecal Golem had died. That area in the center had a broken spell circle. Ceiling debris lay everywhere. Oh, and the exit — the only exit — was still blocked by a cracked rock.

“Motherfucker!”