Returning to my atrium I let out a long breath and checked the timer I had set up. I had about an hour before my thirty days were up. I took the chance to review my messages and check on the general situation in FEAR. I got my brain back in gear as I prepared myself to go back in and win.

The Order had crushed Galmore led by General Ralph and Loli-chan. She really got into the role with the puffy skirt with frills and the huge scythe. It was hard to stop watching the videos of her racing around the battlefield. It was a dance, a brutal but mesmerizing dance of death.

I couldn’t determine what type of build she was using either. My best guess was something similar to my own. Her reactions were always spot on and the way she kept dodging attacks at the last possible moment to close in on her opponents. The scythe was incredibly deadly, just a single cut and it was a gruesome death.

There were still no messages from Tor unfortunately. I hadn’t told her I was coming to see her. She would either hug me or stab me, probably both. The heat for me had died down a bit, with no sightings. The fact that I was rumored to be out of the game and unable to be located or contacted via message made people curious what I was up to.

Most suspected I was hiding, but a significant portion of the player base were convinced I was beating the game. If only that were true. I was still struggling to move forward. Sure I had weapons, the cube, and an okay level but the end still seemed so far away.

I entered a minute before my protection wore off. Thank goodness, the game world and Earth had matching day lengths otherwise converting would have been a nightmare. I was greeted by a blue field. Looking past it I didn’t see anything at all. My heart skipped a beat. I had been buried.

The key thing was not to panic. I had activated the protection a bit after my night village raid for supplies. This meant it was a couple hours before dawn. If someone came across me they wouldn’t know when I would out of Tafe’s protection. They probably had people watching on top of me. Since there had been no alerts going out, either a small close knit team or a single guild.

A single high level player was a possibility as well by using the local villagers. They would just wait me out and fight. I would be in for a serious fight. The protection wore off and I felt the wetness of the soil. Either it was raining or a stream had been diverted on top of me.

Holding one’s breath was very similar to moving. There was a continual cost with an increase in the rate every ten seconds. There was a ten second grace period and then I would start getting hit with SP costs. I couldn’t afford to lose any SP if I was going to be in a fight.

I didn’t let out my breath and moved my arm up through the mud. I then cupped my hand over my nose and mouth to force the mud away. I let out and took a shallow breath. It didn’t matter how much I breathed as long as the air left my body in to the surrounding air.

There was no photosynthesis in game or actual consumption of oxygen. One of the corners cut to provide a realistic experience. It would never be noticeable in most cases. If it was me in charge of this trap, I would check once every week, maybe once every month. Checking more often would only lead to a greater chance of my escape. I would keep a careful watch on top of where I was buried.

Underwater was slightly different. There was so much air space required in order to breathe. Supposedly it was much easier to have a set height based on the water level and then require greater air space under that level. For someone up partway a mountain I didn’t have this issue despite the muddiness of the ground

I couldn’t act. With two hands I might have been able to grab my flame sword and breathe, but the problem with one hand was that it wasn’t enough. I brought my legs up through the mud and too my chest. I then tucked my head to my chest and carved out an air pocket with my lone hand.

With that completed I was finally free to move my hand towards my flame sword and take the hilt. It was a slight struggle to pull it free without moving my head or my body under the mud but I managed.

I didn’t know what would happen when I started up my flame sword, but I had to do something to change my situation. “Flame on.” I whispered out. I knew I was immune to heat, but heated water could be different. It was water, not fire. I felt the waves of heat but it wasn’t uncomfortable yet in the cold mud.

I slowly moved the blade to a couple inches in front of my body. I made sure to keep the blade moving about to carve out a small chamber. I then pushed my face forward as quickly as possible until I felt my hand break through into the chamber I was carving out. I then moved my face into the heat and the carved out void that was now supported by clay.

With that completed. I slowly moved my flame sword out of the carved out chamber and began moving it upwards at an angle turning more of the mud to clay. I kept working on drying out and hardening the mud to brittle clay.

There was one close call as my clay chamber began filling up with mud. Some work with the flame blade and things hardened up. I mentally hummed a tune in my head to keep myself calm and help keep track of the time. Once almost all the mud and been turned into hardened clay I then released my satchels.

The bulb would be lost along with all the food and extra gear I had. I couldn’t afford to be burdened down. I would have my two swords, dagger harness, and a really pissed off attitude. I used the rock wall behind me to help guide me upwards.

When I pulled myself free I almost let out huge gasping breaths. That would give me away and it was still dark. A wood palisade had been built around my location near the rock face and filled in. I had been planted in a giant half assed pot.

I may be part demon, part bug, but I sure as hell wasn’t part plant. I pulled the rest of my body out of the mud and crawled my way over to the small trickle of water pouring down into the dirt. I washed off my face, hands, and swords. I began stripping out of my mud caked clothes. They would only hinder my movement. I noted that my lone boot had come off.

I pushed the clothes back in the dirt and smoothed over the hole I had made. I had not seen anyone about, but this wasn’t a random land slide. I carefully made my way around the area, making sure to keep quiet in the darkness. I found the camp not far away.

It was half assed and looked like something that had been barfed onto the landscape. I picked the nicest tent and went inside. A brutish looking thug lay there and two women in the makeshift bed. I pulled out a dagger and quickly drove it straight into his skull. He let out a pained gasp before dying. Both women woke up. I pulled the dagger free along with bits of brain and blood. I then drove it straight into one of the women’s throats. She let out a choked gurgle and died. The other woman let out a scream.

If I had two arms this never would have happened. She began scrambling her way out of the tent. I ripped the dagger free and threw it. It struck her shoulder but didn’t put her down. I pulled out the Slice of Life and stalked my way out of the tent.

A number of worn down looking people stumbled out of their tents in shoddy armor and worse looking weapons. “You are going to die.” I said it calmly, because it was a fact. It was like gravity or the rotation of planets. It was a truth embedded into the universe. That same truth was that all these assholes were walking corpses.

“We-“ Just the thought of listening to these bugs offended me. ‘Burst Speed three times, Conceal Movement five seconds.’ With the mental commands to activate my skills I charged forward. The man who had tried speaking lost an arm.

As he was looking at the stump in shock I moved onto the next one. I slashed open his gut and his bowels spilled out in front of him. The third on was slashed from the groin up across his hip. The forth swung a blade but it was simple enough to twist around and cut off the top of his skull removing a portion of his brain.

That was when they tried to run away. I ran up behind each of them and sliced the back of their legs. Hamstrung, they collapsed on the ground while I moved onto the next person. As the sun finally started to come up over the horizon it was done. All the assholes who had tried to bury me alive were either dead or bleeding out on the ground.

I then took slice of life and poked the tip into each of their eyeballs. I let them scream, piss, moan, and plead. I didn’t care. Killing Ulther made me made. Losing my foot made me pissed off. Tafe was aggravating. This was a whole new level of rage. I then used my flame blade to burn the flesh away to seal their cursed wounds and burnt off their balls.

If the best revenge was living well, then the reverse was also true. I would make their lives as shitty as possible. No eyes and no balls. I then removed all their clothes and dragged them out of the camp and left them next to the palisade they had set up to bury me alive.

I got to work looting their camp. There wasn’t a clean piece of clothing in the entire place. I ended up grabbing the least offensive and scrubbing the articles off in a stream. I found two satchels and filled them up with their food supply. I filled it up. I still had my canteens strapped to my leather harness, which was nice.

I made sure to give myself a through wash off before changing to remove the remaining mud and all the blood. I was able to salvage my leg and arm guards after a good rinsing. I left the camp without looking back. I did not like being buried alive.

It took another two days to cross over the mountain range and see the desert once again. I began making my way south along the edge of the mountains and the desert. I was tempted to try and find a worm to ride, but that seemed like really pushing my luck to the limit.

I didn’t hear any news about the people I had mutilated. They could have been NPCs but it didn’t make a difference really. If they were NPCs then they didn’t matter that much. If they were players then they were feeding information to someone quietly. The second option seemed unlikely with how many people there were. They probably were barbarians living in the Wild Lands.

It was another twenty days to reach the city of Osgoth. The city existed on the opposite of Divide Lake from Helsinn. It rested on the side of a mountain stretching from up high to the shore of the lake. A river was between the city and the plains that led to the Durrunian Desert.

The city wasn’t anything special and had been suffering from a lack of trade. Not many people wanted to go out to the Durrunian Desert and the entire area had been in decline for years. The recent influx of players had started to revitalize the area.

The dungeons to the west would probably use this as a base city. An easy to navigate route along the edge of the mountains would lead people to this city and Helsinn. In a couple of years this place might be its own power. For now it was under the authority of Galmore but there wasn’t a heavy military presence.

To the south there was just more forest and the main route along the river had the city of Palon at the mouth to block large scale attacks. The fact that the city was on the side of a mountain and next to a lake would make it incredibly hard to take by force.

Approaching the city wasn’t too difficult. With my speed it was simple enough to sleep on the roofs of houses while I traveled during the night. I paid a contact for useful information about Osgoth. I paid $10,000 for the information listed as high value through a third party side to block identities.

It was the same info-broker that had led me to the contact from Galmore in Palon. He was clearly operating in the area and the listed was listed as high value. It contained directions to a complex of buildings opposite the city on the other side of the river. The only note on what was being done was that high end transportation research was being conducted.

Before I left the city I made sure to raid a store for supplies and a lot of canteens. If I was going to travel in the desert I didn’t want to run out of water. I then stole a boat and slipped across the river at night. I snuck up and over the wall and into the complex. I made my way to the large ware house and went in.

Inside was completely dark. I pulled out my flame blade and lit it up and my breath was taken away. In front of me was what could only be described as a small boat with wheels. It was so much more than that though. It was a work of art and this meant I wouldn’t have to walk anymore. “Thank you.” I whispered out.

Whomever made this ship had plans to sail out into the desert. A land ship would allow one to cross far more easily than walking across the endless boiling sands. It would also open up trade past the desert into the Wild Lands. In a few years there could easily be massive fleets of land ships sailing across the desert.

I began inspecting it while making sure to keep my flame blade out of the way so as not to burn this gift down. I was definitely taking it and zooming away. It would be glorious sailing over the sands. It also appeared to have deployable wings. I almost shouted in glee at how brilliant this was.

I heard the scuff of a shoe. ‘Burst Speed, Conceal Movement one second.’ My mental commands went off and I moved. A spear jabbed into the spot I had been standing in. A woman dressed in a simple robe twirled her spear and kept tracking my movements.

My active skills wore off and I stopped and we stared at each other. “You are trespassing.”

She appeared to be middle age. The only light was my flame blade. Her blue eyes were cold. There were no smiles coming off this woman. The fact that her hair was cut short, I would have said she was a man except for the two very flat breasts and the lithe figure.

A fight was going to happen. It didn’t look like she was going for help. She was confident or had a strong sense of honor, which was her loss. I was tempted to start attacking but decided to indulge a bit. But a bit of pre-fight banter would get me into the mood for fight. I was getting rusty without things to kill and having only one arm was havoc for my fighting style.

“You aren’t good enough to defeat me.”

“I can’t you take the land ship.”

“I guess I will have to christen it with your blood.”

“Many men have said similar. They don’t say much of anything now.” My satchels were hindering me, but she kept her eyes pinned to me. I wouldn’t have a chance to remove them.

“Observe.”

Balsa HornwoodLvL: 86Strongest Stat: DexterityHP: 14761MP: 412SP: 1568Strongest Skill: Piercing Jab

Not a wimp and based off her strongest skill, she had focused on the spear as her weapon of choice. “Burst speed two times.” I moved in at high speed. My max speed hit 70 miles per hour. I was a blur as I ran forward to cut Balsa down.

I cut out with my flame sword, but she managed to counter. She batted the blade away with the tip of her blade and spun to my left. I turned to face her and she rushed at me jabbing out with her spear. I was forced to move make. At level three, Burst Speed would last for 6 seconds. After that I wouldn’t have the SP to use it again after using up a bunch to travel here. I moved in again but she was perfect in her blocks and counter attacks.

I couldn’t charge in, since every time it seemed she had positioned her spear perfectly to counter such a move and impale me. The fourth and last time right before my speed ran out I moved in but slashed upwards at her weapon rather than her.

My blade and flames hit the bindings that held the spear head to the shaft. They burned away in the flames and the cutting edge of my blade. She tried to back up but I pushed forward and drove my knee up towards her stomach. She twisted to the side and blocked with a raised leg.

She then slammed her head into mine from her half bent position. My nose exploded in blood and pain. In my stunned state I was barely able to bring my blade up to block and overhead blow towards my head.

I staggered under the blow but this was my chance. I pushed forward and made sure the flame blade was between us. Both of our clothes burned, but I was merely massaged by the flames while she was burnt.

“Ahhhh!” She cried out. I stepped to the side while slashing out with my blade. It wasn’t a strong slash, but it left a shallow cut of burned flesh across her stomach. The smelled of cooked meat filled the air. She still had the presence of mind to swing out again. The blow hit my side and shaved off a couple hundred HP. I didn’t bother to care.

I jabbed out and pierced her chest right through one of her breasts. The flesh of her breast melted around my flames. She struggled for a second before she stilled. I lowered my weapon and she slid off. My SP was shot, with only 200 and change left. “Well fought bitch.” My nose was really hurting and dripping blood everywhere. I set my flame blade down but made sure it was touching my bug foot and used the Slice of Life to look at my nose in the metal.

I put the weapon away and grabbed my nose with my hand. I twisted as hard as I could and snapped it back into place. I collapsed on the ground and let out a moan. That had hurt. I had set my nose and arm before during training but it hurt a lot each and every time.

I lay there for a couple of minutes in the dark, letting the flame blade go out. After a bit I stood up and got to work. First I loaded all my stuff into the land ship. Next I went outside and found a store house. I found a barrel of beer. I poured out most of the beer and filled the rest from a well. Dawn was quickly approaching and I needed to get out of here, since my SP was dangerously low. I loaded up the barrel and then opened up the warehouse and the main gate.

With my preparations done. I got behind the land ship and slowly rolled it out. “You! Stop!” A man shouted out and began to run over. I reached into my leather harness and threw a dagger. My aim was still decent and it hit him in the eye, killing him.

I pushed the land ship fully outside and hopped on. I began fiddling with the sails and it slowly began to roll forward picking up speed. I saw more people rushing out as I cruised out of the main gates. I heard shouting but couldn’t pick it up.

I got to work deciphering the complexities that were all the ropes controlling the land ship. It was only three feet wide but ten feet long. There were two axles and two sails. The main sail in the center that appeared could only go up and down with about 60 degrees of rotation. There was a rear sail at the back that was controllable with a lever that could rotate up to 120 degrees.

The steering wheel controlled the front axle. The seat was right in front of the main mast with a second behind the main mast which I had put the barrel and all my supplies. The land out here was incredibly flat and the grass was fairly short.

I made my course due east since the wind was coming down from the north at the moment. I would be tacking into the wind for the first part of my journey and I knew this area could have the wind suddenly change direction.

“Hahahaha.” I laughed as I cruised along and began to pick up speed. I had been really disliking all the walking I had to do. It was tiring and seemed mostly pointless. There was also the lack of ability to bring supplies. While I could carry quite a bit, I couldn’t really stock up and had to keep resupplying.

With the land ship now under my control I was free. I could travel the continent in style. Well not the whole continent, but at least this portion and the desert. I had hated the sand that went everywhere. Now I could bypass the worst part and just cruise along.

“Hahahahahaha.” It was more of a chuckle this time, but not even Tafe could remove my grin. It wasn’t an airship but this was the next best thing. After the last airship disaster at Breckley, people were a lot more hesitant to devote resources to developing air power.

This was land power. I stroked a hand over the steering wheel and vowed to protect this land ship with my life. I would rather die than walk any more, that went triple for the desert.

***

UltimataSecret: I just saw a land ship outside of Osgoth while chasing after Blood Rain

6996: Land ship?

Killashard: Ship with wheels and a sail

DeathMusic: Blood Rain the pirate, arrrgggg

HunterXBloodRain: AHHHH, I went the wrong way to the west. Never getting Blood Rain now

HamsterLord: He is the master of escape. Maybe he is going back to that dragon worm tower.

Tribbles: All forces converge!

GODHAXLOL: LAND SHIPYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!

BurnBaby: Did the land ship have weapons?

TheWinzKid: I want one

Worm: It is a trap

GambleMan: remember to place your bets. Blood Rain continues to elude pursuit. Jackpot on correct day is now $157,124

***

Author’s Note: I had the MC using two hands for the underground portion. I was then like….oh. Here is a list of all the damage/appearance in case you forgot.

Right Foot: Tri-prong bug foot

Left Arm: Cut off above the elbow (Still waiting on chain saw upgrade)

Demon Blood: Lets off small bursts of fire, fire immune

Facial Scar: Scar along left side of face near eye and tip of left ear cut off

Scars: Multiple scars across body

Appearance: Around 5 feet, pale skin, red eyes, no hair, enhanced body parts

Not exactly it, but used as inspiration. Also have a....MAP! All tiles are 10kmx10km. I know I use miles all the time. Derp....

Download Link To Map