After a few minutes the first new enemy appeared. He could hear it from a distance and changed his direction to get closer to it. It had a squishy sounding body when Pravin attacked and killed it. Master and pet shared the meal and progressed in their march. Zortex remembered that the track to his demise had taken a while, but at the time he had light and could proceed quite fast. Now he had Pravin leading the way, but he still had to move slowly. It would be really foolish to fall in some other trap after spending so much time in the previous one.

Much better to spend a couple more hours going slow than to make an unforgivable mistake.

The walk continued smoothly with a couple more slime attacks, until an unfamiliar sound reached him. For the first time in a long while Zortex heard the sound of rats closing on him. He felt so much joy that it was difficult for him to believe that it was just rodents making him happy. After one more minute Pravin stopped abruptly looking confused. The only other occasion he had heard anything different than a slime or his master was when he fought against the skeleton.

“Be ready Pravin. You are going to have fun now” Zortex said. “Kill everything which moves close to us. They are our enemies, but they are weak. You can also eat all of them after you are finished. I don’t want to eat those. They don’t look nice and probably they are not nearly as tasty as you slimes”.

There was a group of three rats attacking them. Probably their level was 1 or 2, the same as slimes. Zortex had still to see their level even once since plumbing into darkness, but he remembered it from his hunt at the beginning of his experience. Monsters leveled up the same as human beings, so there could be higher level rats, but thinking back to how many enemies Zortex had to kill before reaching his level he doubted that in all the sewers there would be anything more than a level 4 rat or slime. Those would be considered the bosses of their respective species.

Regardless, Pravin was a level 6 slime, so he should be able to handle three of them at the same time. If not, Zortex was close to him to offer assistance if the HP went too low. The fight lasted only one minute with a clear winner, although the rats were much more aggressive compared to what Zortex remembered. The rodents were basically screaming during the whole fight and he had to cover his ears a coupleof times. The slimes main weaknesses against rats are their lack of speed and their tendency to go solo. Pravin compensated these faults with higher level and much better skill levels. Killing a few rats was no challenge for him.

“Status Pravin”

Name: Pravin

Class: Slime

Level: 6

Stats:

Strength

10

Health

52(61) + 2/min

Endurance

7

Stamina

35 (61) + 6/min

Agility

4

Mana

40(49) + 2.5/min

Spirit

85

Skill proficiency

Consumption

Level 1

Tentacles

Level 11

A new skill appeared in Pravin status. What is this consumption? It sounds cool, but maybe it is a fluke.

“Show me Consumption skill”

Skill: Consumption

The owner of the skill slowly consume one of its victims to increase the recovery of Health, Stamina and Mana. The quantity of the regeneration depends on the subject consumed and the level of the skill.

· The movement speed is reduced by 30% while the skill is active.

· 0.1% chance to take the shape of the monster consumed.

It looks quite good. Slimes are slow by nature, thus in most cases they just fight standing their ground, so having slowed movements would not impair them at all. And now I understand why, on the first day, I saw a slime which looked like a rat. It must have activated this skill’s second ability.

They started walking again in the same direction. The darkness was still absolute, but Zortex was growing frantic trying to catch any sign of illumination. He knew that he was still quite underground, and he should have to wait some more time, but the excitement was increasing exponentially.

Slime warrior and slime had a few other fights with rats which proved not difficult at all, although strangely the rodents kept making a lot of noise. Apparently they had left the territory of dispute between slimes and the rodents, and now they were in the territory fully dominated by rats. That made Zortex joyous, because it was following the pattern of his first experience in this maze of tunnels, although he could not remember at all the way he had taken going down. There were a few turning points where he didn’t know if he had taken the same path he had used to come in the first time. Nevertheless the path was going up a couple of stairs, so he took it as a sign that he was in the right direction. There wasn’t only one entrance to the sewers, and he didn’t care to come out in another zone of the city.

He and Pravin kept walking and walking until even the rats presence started to diminish. Zortex knew it was a sign that the outside world was coming closer. Ten more minutes of slow going and finally Zortex noticed an anomaly. There was an intersection but at first he couldn’t understand what was happening different than usual.

“Pravin, stop. There is something strange. My instincts are telling me something here is different”. Zortex stood in silence for a few minutes expecting for something to happen. He could hear some distant rats' noises back from where he came, but nothing else. Finally it hit him.

Nothing is wrong here. It is simply the fact that I can see a tiny bit. That is what was alarming me. I can barely distinguish the contours of the walls in the intersection. There is light! I have come out!

“Let’go! We arrived to our destination” Zortex said.

The master and pet moved following the light. He thought that he had almost reached it but somehow, even though the light was getting stronger, he had to walk a while yet. What is this? I am seeing light, but it is growing so slowly. I thought I had basically arrived, but it is almost as if I was still deep inside. Zortex thought.

By now he could walk as fast as he wanted, he just needed to slow down enough for Pravin to follow. His vision of the corridor was almost complete, as if the sun was shining inside, but somehow there was no exit yet. Is this a joke? I know that I have increased vision in the dark, but this is too much to be possible. It is like standing in the middle of a road at noon in summer. I can catch every detail and it is starting to feel difficult to keep my eyes open.

Soon Zortex found himself in trouble. There was a bending in the tunnel but just before reaching it he was assaulted by such an illumination that he could not keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time. He had to stop to catch his breath before trying to move forward. He was waiting for his vision to adjust, but it was not working. Against his own body Zortex moved forward keeping his eyes closed and passed beyond the bend. He opened them for a millisecond and saw the opening to the outside. It was as if his body was on fire. He didn’t really feel pain, but his brain was assaulted by so many things at once that he couldn’t understand anymore what was in front of him. He closed his eyes again and run back to the sewers until he reached a position where he could open his eyes again.

This is wrong! It shouldn’t happen like this. I have my freedom just one minute away and still I’m stuck in here. What should I do? What happened? I have increased vision at night but this should not impair my vision during the day. It feels like when I was using the Sonar at the beginning. I need information from someone! I have to do something that I should have done a long time ago. Zortex thought frantically

“Sorry Pravin, but I have to go for a while. Don’t worry I will be back soon”.

“Endless, I want to return to my room”.

Just like that Zortex left the tunnel and he entered a completely dark room with only the small kid in front of him. He waited a few second to reorient himself and then started to talk.

“Why is the room black now? Last time it was completely white” Zortex asked. Talk to someone else apart from Pravin felt weird to him.

“This your room. It follow your wishes. Apparently you wished for a dark room this time”

Still that creepy voice. But I need answers.

“What happened to me while playing AoL. Why can’t I see anymore where the sun shines? It cannot be a skill which is causing this.”

“Usually I cannot answer specific questions related to specific worlds, but in this case I can tell you. What happened to you is torture. Sense deprivation is a common torture method applied in the past. It leads to madness under prolonged infliction. In your case you spent months under those conditions. It is surprising that your level of madness had not yet completely take over your brain. It is probably related to the presence of your pet, monsters, lack of real body and AI of the system. Just by seeing the status of your character in the corner of your vision you had a way to focus on something beyond your own thoughts.” Endless replied

Zortex didn’t know what to say. He was not prepared for such an answer. He expected to have activated something wrong in his permanence in AoL, but torture was the last thing he imagined.

“How is that related to my vision? Those two things are not related” Zortex requested.

“Your brain coped with the lack of information by increasing the sensitivity of all senses. Everything has reached limits beyond what a human being could possess in the real world. In Endless only your mind is present, so it was possible to instigate such change that would be prevented by the limits of a physical body. Especially your vision has strained to such a level that your mind cannot cope with the amount of information you are getting. Of course if you are put back to normal living conditions you will find yourself overwhelmed by the amount of data” Endless answered back.

“How could you let this happen?” Zortex asked with trembling voice.

“How could YOU let this happen? You always had the opportunity to come back here to save your mind. I could not protect you from self-inflicted torture. If I start intervening on the life decisions of people, you would all just become puppets under my control. From my birth that is something I was forbidden to do.” Endless responded.

“How can I get back to how I was? There must be a way for you to help” Zortex said desperate.

“I am not allowed to tamper with your mind as I said before. My only suggestions are for you to either dampen the amount of data your senses receive or to learn how to handle so much information. An example is the skill called Sonar that you learned. You have lowered the amount of information you are getting but it is still too much for you to handle. Keep struggling and in time you may succeed or completely destroy your mind. Good luck”