The floor they walked was more rock than dirt, a hard rock red maze. The paths interchangeably gave way to open spaces the size of a small field or chasms so narrow they had to jimmy their way through. There was little vegetation apart from dry grass and the occasional dead tree. It looked like the area was once a savannah turned now into the deserts of Mars. The heat of the sun bearing down on them like eggs on an old car engine.

“And so we enter the badlands,” Adil stated. Starting to sweat as he was pulled up onto another tall rocky protrusion.

“ I always wanted to live in a game,” Swift said, as they worked their way through the route.

“I bet. Can't be worse than home anyway.” Replied Adil.

“Home.. why would you say that?” Swift asked stopping to face him.

Adil scrunched up his nose as he realized he didn't know either.

"I can't remember."

A brief silence followed them both.

"Well, this sucks.."

"It can't be a game though, in seriousness that just sounds crazy" Adil replied.

"Ok then... How about a government experiment?" Swift added.

"What?"

"Like, an experiment by some organisation, to help start-up humanity again."

"Come again?"

"OR OR .. we died!"

"Jesus man, how do you even, why do I know our government is too broke for that but not anything about our home?"

"Why are you in shitty clothes like a noob from a basic RPG?" They both stopped and looked at each other. They were wearing the standard brown villager rags they give to starter people in most video games.

".. Ok... I guess let's just accept this is a litRPG and move on," Adil added almost sarcastically.

They carried on, walking further into the rocky maze. The paths abruptly changed their course at each cross-junction, and they soon became so hopelessly lost it was unclear if they had gone in circles. Further and further, they went through the barren landscape trying to stick to one direction.

“We need some food and drink,” Adil stated.

"Yeah, the game already told me that," Swift added.

Swift noticed a hunger and thirst icon in the corner of his awareness, like a leg of meat and an empty flask. It was as though they really had an rpg user interface, small icons flashing in the corner highlighting that they were in the same player party. Their “health” was also visible under each username next to flashing symbols of hunger and dehydration.

“So thirsty,” Swift exclaimed, staring up at the sky. As he looked down he noticed strange shapes moving in the distance. After squinting he saw the shapes change into something more human, but a bit green.

Adil moved closer and saw about five of what roughly appeared to be... goblins?

The goblins suddenly noticed their presence, moving slightly towards them the group raised their fists and tolls into the air shouting words of a strange language. The language was strange and animal. As time passed and the groups drew closer, the noise from the Goblins grew more ferocious. They started slamming their makeshift tools into the ground as if to frighten them. With each passing moment, Adil felt he was gaining a better grasp on their language, odd phrases standing out. The meaning of the phrases developing from angry shouts into a more refined "bad thing go away".

“Well, this is new,” Swift said, still trying to shield his eyes from the light as the goblins began circling.

“Hold up; this isn’t a game. These guys look like people; they can probably be reasoned with,”

Adil started walking up to the group with his hands held high showing he came in peace. The goblins moved closer as Adil began to mouth some odd sounds he thought could be understood.

The goblins started shaking their makeshift weapons at Adil as he drew closer. He carried on talking. *peace* *friends* he slowly said. Adil carried on talking, and the goblin was almost taken back as Adil mouthed what he thought was the word peace in goblin speak.

Having surrounded the group, one of the goblins had begun staring at Swift. Swift looked towards him, and a gob of spit was shot out of the goblin's mouth, just missing Swift's feet.

"Oh fuck off," Swift shouted, then kicked a rock at them. The goblin threw his tool and *crack* Swift had ducked, and the tool swatted Adil in the side of the head. The goblins club had brought Adil tumbling to the floor.

“Adil!!” Swift shouted and charged in. He ran towards a goblin besides Adil, but instead, the goblin in a turning motion clubbed him across the side of his head. Swift then fell down to the floor, losing consciousness.

...

Adil awoke; both he and Swift had been tied up, they were being dragged on a raft made from few broken planks of wood. The goblins here were now all dressed in armour; a shitty metal made darker by a mix of ash and dirt.

“We really suck at this,” Adil said quietly. With a throbbing headache, Adil could see a health bar at 'sixty of one hundred' and a shaky head symbol in the corner of his vision, thirty minutes next to the symbol counting down.

“It was my bad,” Swift replied with a slight smirk. For the time that past Adil carried on picking up on the odd sounds that came from the goblins as he tried to figure out what they were saying.

"It's ok you know, there's always a way out if you think and try hard enough. I think I’m getting the language... It's kinda primal but has a nice flow to it,” Adil added.

"Right," Swift replied a slight smile on his face.

Adil motioned towards the goblin leader and attempted to speak their language: “Where.. take..?”

In reply, one of the goblins dragging the planks spat into the dirt, the others ignored him. At this point swift was trying to untie his bonds, he thought enough squirming and grating it on a nail would either loosen it or fray it enough to break free, feverishly squirming whenever the goblins looked away.

One of the goblins came up to Adil, and got into his face, a scar visible over the goblin's right eye. The small-statured humanoid said in French:

“Human… weak…will break you,” then spat to the side. They really liked spitting.

This one seemed like the leader Adil thought, he was different, bits of bone built into his metal armor and he seemed slightly bigger than the others.

When they reached the end of their journey, they had been dragged into what seemed like an enclosed goblin outpost. A base that was held together with little more than jagged pieces of wood and rope. Both Swift and Adil were taken off the planks and pulled onto a raised stage. Swift had not yet broken free, so the goblins tried to use the same binds to tie them to stakes by hooking another rope through their arms. Adil looked around and saw ten or so more goblins had gathered and were now shaking makeshift weapons and shouting in front of them, aggravating his headache.

The goblin leader started addressing the small crowd, Adil had perked up his head, listening and focusing enough to gather meaning within the goblin language. “Will… Revenge… War…. Bathe... destroy," it all seemed so strange.

The goblin pulled out a jagged knife from his side and walked towards Adil. Swift had just loosened his binds enough and broke out, charging at the Goblin. The leader's face was so unsurprised he almost seemed expecting, when Swift was close enough, he punched him in the face and plunged his knife into the ragged clothed noobs chest.

Something clicked in Adil. This was real.

Cheers from the crowd of Goblins as Swift was bleeding out and Adil was broke into a panic. Swift was on the floor now, Adil staring in horror, the last gasp left his mouth, and a shimmer only visible to Adil seemed to leave his body.

Adil tried one last time to talk, using a rudimentary understanding of their language:

Adil was in shock, unsure of how to take what happened. He tried one more time to talk to the goblin as he approached.

“Stop... Don’t... wh-” and Adil’s neck was cut.

He choked on his blood and slumped down the stake. He was collapsed forward with blood pouring out of his neck. Adil felt cold, in his vision, an icon of a big red drip started growing less opaque. His health bar was slowly lowering, and the sound of the chanting Goblins became dimmer. He looked up one more time and saw the goblin, a raised bloody knife in it's hand, raised to the crowd. Everything faded to black.