When JohnWillStab logged into the game he found himself sitting alone atop a fallen tree.

He jumped off and landed on the ground, once again he glanced at his stats as if to make sure they didn’t change overnight.

“I guess Bonifacius hasn’t logged in yet.” John thought looking around.

“Maybe he’s at work? Or maybe he went shopping?”

Before JohnWillStab could spend much more time contemplating the whereabouts of his companion a noise caught his attention.

“Meow…”

JohnWillStab spun around expecting some over-sized sabre-toothed looking monster.

It was a cat.

A regular black cat, much like John’s hair, the cat’s fur was a dark blue shade of black.

“A cat?” John took a step towards the cat only for it to run off into the bushes.

“JohnWillStab: Wait!” he followed the cat into the bushes.

“A black cat? This can only mean good luck!”

Every time he caught a glimpse of the feline, it would meow and run off further into the forest.

The dark, grey-green forest now enveloped every inch of John’s vision.

Throughout his journey he never noticed the steadily increasing number of webs and bones building up around the nearby trees.

With a loud hiss, a creature fell down from the large tree above John.

He rolled to the side narrowly missing the surprise attack.

Moments later, he got a good look at his assailant, a blood-red spider about half his size.

It had eight twitching eyes and fangs that dripped green ooze.

Wet, wire-like hairs grew out on its back.

Its legs were thick and fuzzy with hairs like the ones on its back.

“Holy shit!”

For someone who never played any RPGs, not to mention MMOs, giant spiders weren’t a common enemy.

JohnWillStab drew his daggers and charged at the spider, he managed to slash it twice.

Each time it was cut, a small squirt of guts and blood burst from its throbbing form.

Unfortunately for JohnWillStab, the spiders here were level five, in other words, they were his level.

JohnWillStab’s dagger and fist classes were the perfect combination.

The perfect combination to get his ass kicked that is.

The dagger class in typically taken by long-ranged fighters who want a very light weapon so as not to be slowed down with their heavy main weapons like cannons or sniper rifles.

The fist class is typically taken by players who want to be able to kick and punch their enemies while wielding a sword, axe or other melee weapon.

Sometimes, the fist class it taken by mages or profession-focused characters who want to limit their carry weight as well.

In other words, JohnWillStab picked two already below-average back-up classes as his two only classes.

The spider lunged at him, before John could react the arachnid began spinning a web around him.

In mere seconds, JohnWillStab was completely immobilized.

With no other options left, JohnWillStab resorted to dealing mental damage.

“JohnWillStab: SHOO!”

“JohnWillStab: F#*K OFF, SPIDER!”

That’s when JohnWillStab saw the spider casting its ultimate attack.

More liquid began to collect on its fangs from deep within its mouth, the venom trickled down as if the spider had a little venom-tap in its mouth.

Moments later it buried its fangs into John, dealing a little bit of damage and filling him with deadly poison.

“SHIT!”

“…”

“JohnWillStab: …hold on…”

“JohnWillStab: Poison?”

He remembered undead are immune to poison.

JohnWillStab lay there as the poison slowly came and went.

After a few seconds, the web binding him broke allowing John to attack the spider.

He proceeded to kick it to death.

Every few seconds he would become trapped in web and poisoned, a few seconds later he would get up and deal a little bit of damage to the spider.

It took JohnWillStab three minutes to kill one spider.

Thanks to the its dependence on venom, the spider only brought John’s health to about fifty-percent.

As John knelt down and looted the spider, he saw the same cat from before staring at him expectantly from a nearby bush.

“JohnWillStab: There you are!”

After picking a handful of coins, a spider leg and some anti-venom from the spider, he approached the cat.

Like before, it turned and ran.

“JohnWillStab: COME BACK HERE!”

As JohnWillStab jumped over the bush the cat just ran through, he was intercepted mid-air by another spider which knocked him to the ground and began pumping more venom into his body.

“JohnWillStab: NOT THIS AGAIN!”

He defeated the spider with the same tactic he used on the previous one.

After every fight, he had to take a short break to regenerate his health, if he was really unlucky the same spider would respawn and attack him again.

By the end of his chase, JohnWillStab was a solid two litres heavier.

With about forty-percent of his total health, JohnWillStab stumbled through the bushes, smaller baby spiders gnawed on his arms and legs but they weren’t any serious threat.

“JohnWillStab: CAT!”

The cat felt a shiver run down its spine as John’s visible bloodlust reached it.

Just as he was about to teach the bastard of a cat the meaning of the phrase “Long-distance kick” he spotted another human.

It was a child covered from the neck down in webs.

The cat sat right beside the boy.

“I feel your pain, child. The webs suck!”

In that moment, John felt a feeling of sympathy and comradery come over him, he wasn’t the only one being tied up by Chernobyl-looking-ass spider.

He rushed over to the child and cut them free.

After falling to the ground, he stood up after a few seconds.

“Lost Child: Huh? What happened?”

JohnWillStab was given with three choices to reply with.

“You were attacked by spiders; I’ll bring you back to Duskshire!”

“I should be the one asking you questions, what are you doing here?”

“I’ve released you from the webs, go bother someone else.”

Being the kind-hearted edgelord he was, JohnWillStab selected the first option.

“JohnWillStab: You were attacked by spiders; I’ll bring you back to Duskshire!”

The child looked around uncertainly.

“Lost Child: My cat… I need to find my cat, she ran off earlier!”

“Did you have too much spider-juice, kid? You cat is right h-…” John turned to where the cat sat only to find it missing.

He was once again given the choice of how to reply.

“We don’t have time to look for your cat! You could be poisoned! Besides it’s too dangerous.”

“Fine, we can go look for your cat…”

“Go look for it yourself!”

JohnWillStab moved his mouse down to select the second option, “I followed the cat this far, I might as well finish the job.”

By accident, he misclicked and selected the third option.

JohnWillStab folded his arms.

“JohnWillStab: Go look for it yourself!”

JohnWillStab’s let out a horrified gasp as he realised there was no going back, he just sent off a child to their own death.

“Lost Child: Oh… I- I see… Thank you for helping me out, mister!”

Reluctantly the child began to walk away in search of his lost cat.

From a nearby bush he was given the dirtiest of looks by the familiar face of the fearsome feline.

“JohnWillStab: THERE YOU ARE, YOU C#*T!” he was about to run after the cat when his attention was once again brought back to the child.

“SHIT!”

The child was walking in a straight line away from the place he was trapped and into another spider which bit him, tied him up with its webs and wandered away right after.

John’s blood ran cold as he broke into a sprint towards the child.

Once again, he cut them free from the webs and initiated a dialogue.

“DON’T FUCK UP NOW, JOHN!”

“KEEP YOUR CLUMBSY HANDS OFF THE MOUSE!”

“Lost Child: You’ve come back to help me, mister!”

In an attempt to keep his hands off the mouse John accidently pressed the “1” key which triggered the first dialogue.

John smirked.

“JohnWillStab: As if, I came to make sure none of the spiders got infected with your failure!”

Immediately after he said that the child burst into tears and ran off.

“WHO MADE THIS FUCKING GAME?!”

This time, John didn’t the need the dirty looks from runaway cats to motivate himself to stop the NPCs incoming death.

They ran through bushes that grew thicker and thicker.

The branches battered John dealing no real damage to him, though they did push the little spiders off him.

When they finally reached a clearing, JohnWillStab saw the child.

They were about to run straight into a massive chasm.

“SON OF A BITCH!”

“Think about this reasonably, John…”

He realised panicking wouldn’t help.

“I’ll roll forward and kick the NPC back, worst case scenario I fall into the hole and respawn!”

John performed his plan.

He rolled forward and kicked the child into the massive ravine.

In that moment both John and the child had the exact same thing going through their heads.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Immediately after noticing his mistake John leapt in after the falling child.

Unluckily for him, the child was out of reach.

As John awaited his upcoming career as a red stain on the bottom of some cave, he was suddenly caught in a large web that the child also landed in.

John breathed a sigh of relief.

Again, he initiated a dialogue.

“JohnWillStab: Hey, Child! Are you alright?”

John got no reply.

He clicked on the child seeing a small icon next to their health-bar.

It was a debuff; “Grimfang Venom”

Moments later the black cat jumped down into the hole, landing beside JohnWillStab.

“I’m not great at roleplaying a hero!” John thought seeing the dying child he kicked into a cave after essentially telling them to politely fuck off.

He turned towards the cat seeing it meow at him again.

He contemplated attaching a letter pleading for help escaping a spider-hole to the cat and kicking over to Duskshire like a message in a bottle.

Suddenly, he remembered the antivenom he looted from all those spiders he had to fight.

He opened his inventory and selected the child.

JohnWillStab used the antivenom on them to no effect.

“JohnWillStab: What the hell!?”

He tried again and again.

Eventually he noticed a description of the item appear when he hovered his mouse over it.

“Weak antivenom, cures very weak venoms”

Apparently, the game decided Grimfang venom was not that weak.

As John was starting to run out of hope to lose and considering getting a hope-loan at the hope-bank AKA alcohol; he noticed the cat walking away from John and towards what looked like the entrance to a cave.

It turned back to face John and meowed repeatedly.

“What the hell does it want? Food?”

John looked around at the ravine they were trapped in.

“JohnWillStab: If you want to go outside, so do I, deal with it!”

After a few more seconds of this, John remembered how he got in this mess.

“JohnWillStab: Hold on, are you trying to lead me somewhere?” he asked.

Surprising, the cat didn’t reply.

JohnWillStab picked the child up over one shoulder and approached the cat.

Once he got close enough, the cat moved deeper into the cave until they simply walked without stopping.

Eventually John noticed it, a considerably larger spider.

“WHY IS IT ALWAYS SPIDERS?!” he demanded.

John turned towards the cat who looked at him with the feline equivalent of raised eyebrows.

The spider was about double his size, its hairs twitched along with its eyes, a constant stream of light-blue ooze trickled from its mouth and onto the ground which was drenched with the fluorescent fluid.

Massive, bulging egg-sacks pulsated with green veins which clung to all sides of the cave’s walls.

John put the child down and clicked on the spider seeing it was level seven.

He took a deep breath of air and charged directly at it.

JohnWillStab tried kicking the monster only to be knocked back with its thick legs, they smashed both the ground and John like hairy jackhammers.

John flew directly into one of the egg-covered walls, popping several and releasing a small wave of super-mini-tiny spiders which dealt about one point of damage to him before dying, which wasn’t even one percent of his health.

He was about to be rammed, head-first by the massive spider, luckily for him he managed to roll to the side and dodge.

Sensing his opportunity, John slashed at the spider’s exposed side revealing more blue-grey flesh.

It let out an angry cry as it spun around to face John.

Before he could react, he was pushed back with a pressurised spray of blue venom.

“THIS IS NOT HOW VENOM WORKS!” John thought seeing the spider pouring spider-juice all over the cave like a garden hose.

JohnWillStab tried to roll to the side but the aim-botting spider never took the stream of blue liquid off him.

“JohnWillStab: STOP IT!”

JohnWillStab used [Dagger Throw] to attack the spider at this range.

The daggers buried into the spider, one after another, until it acknowledged its strategy of keeping John back with a stream of venom wasn’t working.

It lunged at him again, moments before John was crushed by the spider he jumped up.

The massive spider smashed its head into the wall as John landed on its back.

“JohnWillStab: GOTCHA B#*CH!”

He began carving up the back of the spider with a satisfied grin.

It let out a scratchy hiss as the pain surged through its body.

“JohnWillStab: Oh? What’s wrong?”

John was slowly becoming covered in blood.

After a few moments, the spider stopped moving, it collapsed to the ground as the floodgates to whatever pocket-dimension it used to store its venom opened up.

A rapid stream of blue liquid spewed from its gaping maw for a solid ten seconds

JohnWillStab looted its corpse, finding a bottle of stronger antivenom as well as some coins and a new dagger.

It was called the ‘Venomsteel Dagger’ and was a little bit better than his current ones.

The description read: “The Venomsteel Dagger is covered in black veins within which gather deadly poisons, this blade has a 100% chance to inflict a poison debuff to creatures of a lower level, the chances of infecting a target decrease the higher level they are!”

It was only one dagger after all, so he would still be wielding one normal blade.

JohnWillStab equipped the weapon in his right hand, it was silver in colour with a black handle.

Black vine-like tendrils clung to its surface, they looked painted-on rather than the fleshy kind John imagined.

He turned to the poisoned child, quickly he used the antivenom on him.

When he checked for the status it was gone.

He breathed a sigh as the child woke up.

Before John could even start a dialogue, the child pointed at the spider.

“Lost Child: M-My cat!”

John turned to look and saw the heavily digested corpse of a black, almost blue cat drifting from the slowly tricking stream of blue leaving the spider’s open maw.

Confused, JohnWillStab turned to where the cat was moments earlier.

It was still there.

He hovered his mouse over it and for the first time since the start of the quest clicked on it.

“Undead Cat”

JohnWillStab turned back to the child seeing that they were now heading towards the corpse of the cat.

Moments before he stepped into the pool of blue venom the child was picked up by John.

“Lost Child: Put me down!”

Without any further comment, JohnWillStab left the cave, the cat led him to a conveniently-placed ladder he didn’t notice earlier.

JohnWillStab travelled all the way back to the town.

When they reached the walls of the ever-uninviting Duskshire, JohnWillStab put the child down.

He didn’t have anything to say to John, the child ran straight into the town and after a quick conversation John missed thanks to being too far away, the quest he unknowingly started was complete.

JohnWillStab earned another level bringing him up to six.

He opened his stats only to see the reputation tab was highlighted.

“Strength: 10”

“Athletics: 9”

“Dexterity: 7”

“Magic: 2”

“Intelligence: 4”

“Luck: 4”

“Stamina: 4”

“Perception: 6”

“Charisma: 3”

“Weapon Skills: 8”

After checking his stats, he clicked into the reputation tab and noticed a bar labelled ‘Global Reputation’ was now yellow instead of the usual red.

He hovered his mouse over it.

“You are neutral with the common people of this world.”

JohnWillStab couldn’t help but grin as his effort finally paid off.

He turned towards the town and began heading towards it.

Anxiously he approached the gate were two guards stood with swords and shields.

He stood mere meters away from them and they didn’t react.

“Duskshire Guard: Quit staring at me, Undead…” remarked one of the guards, it was a standard built-in message guards had a random chance of saying when a neutral player stood around them.

“JohnWillStab: SORRY! PLEASE DON’T KILL ME!”

As JohnWillStab was about to head into town he was stopped by a familiar sound.

A meow.

JohnWillStab turned around and saw the cat

“JohnWillStab: If you think I’m going to go find more lost kids for you, you’re sorely mistaken!” he warned.

After a few awkward seconds John received a notification.

“It looks like the undead cat wishes to join you; do you accept?” read the message.

“Huh?”

JohnWillStab looked down to the cat and felt a strange sense of comradery with it, after all, they were both very intimately acquainted with spiders and their venom, not to mention that whole undead thing.

After a few seconds of contemplation, John accepted.

He received another message.

“What do you wish to call your new pet?” read the message.

Before JohnWillStab appeared a small text-box he could fill in.

JohnWillStab smiled.

He knew exactly what to call his pet.

He wished to call her after the first quest he did without anybody’s help.

After a piece of his character he developed during this adventure.

After a trait that would forever remain burned into his heart and soul.

JohnWillStab wrote his pets name into the box and clicked “ok”.

After a few seconds, his character was enveloped in light as he received a new achievement.

It was called: “First pet!”

“Congratulations!...-” read the notification on John’s screen.

“-Your pet is now called: Arachnophobia!”

After realising that Bonifacius probably wouldn’t be online for another while, JohnWillStab decided to log off and get something to eat instead of getting involved with another long quest.