Walking across the plains took more than a few minutes, as the length of it boggled my mind. If the volcano weren’t smack dab in the middle, I could’ve ended up walking for days with no way to know where I was going. As it were, the giant slab of rock saved us from that unfavorable fate.

“No, no, not like that. You swipe from right to left!” I exclaimed with exasperation as I tried to teach Verita the ins and outs of stabbing.

“A stab is a stab pretty boy. If this gets into you, you’re as good as dead,” She countered with a roll of her eyes.

“Yes, but what happens when you meet someone who doesn’t die from one stab? Someone packed with either fat or muscle. Then you’d be wishing you knew how to stab better, but it’ll be too late,” I admonished with a sigh.

We were nearing our destination and the height of the monstrosity made me a bit wary. Whatever called this place home was definitely not a lightweight. Incidentally, I noticed a wide entrance set into the very base of the volcano. Unsurprisingly, the tunnel looked man-made.

“So we escaped one tunnel to head into another? I’m starting to reconsider my opinion of you.”

“Really? What do you think of me now?”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Excellent!”

Verita gave me a dirty look which I replied to with a wide smile. She sighed and slumped her shoulders, admitting to herself the one thing she feared most.

“We’re gonna die.”

“Probably.”

Hey, I wasn’t going to mislead her and give her false hope. There was a strong chance that we were going to die horribly and painfully in that volcano, just as there was a chance we would live and find some form of shelter or escape. Only time will tell. In the meantime, the best we could really do is get our head into the game.

“Are you ready? It’s pretty much nighttime already, so we’re not going to lose much entering right now,” I stated while twirling the rusty short sword in my hands taking in its stats.

Rusty short sword

DPS: 3-5

EFF: none

END: 15/50

Utter, complete and total garbage. I wouldn’t even use this shite to sharpen my fingernails. But it’s all I have to defend myself against whatever populates a dark and dormant volcano. I looked at the dagger and almost vomited.

Rusty dagger

DPS: 1-3

EFF: none

END: 10/50

Yeah, we’re dead. If our own stats were anything to go by, humanoids must have at least, above 300 health and monsters at least above 100 health. Even if my rusty sword hit at the maximum output, it would take me more than a few hits to bring down a monster, much less a humanoid.

We came to a halt right before the wide maw of the tunnel and looked to each other, a mixture of fear, apprehension and excitement playing across our faces.

“So…” Verita began.

“No better time like the present,” I stated with a confident smirk.

She snorted and nodded, becoming pensive. I mirrored her demeanor and we took the tentative step forward into what could easily have been our demise.

* * *

“This is taking too long.”

We had traversed the tunnel for hours and realized one painful fact. It wasn’t just a single passageway, but a plethora of them. This was a goddamn labyrinth. My minimap had saved us from going in circles, as I made sure we stuck to routes that lead away from already discovered passages.

And still, we had yet to see a single living organism. The inside of the labyrinth was fresh and smelled earthy, like some form of ventilation existed. That told me that someone may have created that system or it might be that the maze exited into an open area. I was seriously hoping for the latter.

“I’m thirsty,” Verita complained loudly, making me wince.

“Verita darling, could you please keep your tone down? We don’t want to attract the monsters so soon,” I pleaded with her in a whisper, “besides, there are water rations in your inventory.”

As if she had set a masterwork trap and had caught a legendary prey, Verita smiled victoriously. “I don’t want water. I want something thicker.”

If I were in a cartoon, the typical ‘loading’ icon for buffering videos would be hovering over my head as I processed what she said through all avenues and derivations available, all leading to one solid conclusion.

“Ah,” I said with my genius level intellect.

I immediately, turned from her and broke into a run. She shouted after me once before following suit, a determined look on her face that made me feel the beginnings of true terror.

Like that, we chased each other through the burrows for a time, only stopping to rest when our stamina bars were low. I learned something important from that however. It seemed that like in any typical MMO, we could walk indefinitely but our stamina bars were drained as we ran. Interesting tidbit.

Absolutely useless in my current predicament too.

How exactly does one deal with a beautiful, morally ambivalent Caribbean woman that I chasing after you with a rape face on? I knew the moment I was caught, my oath of loyalty to Maria would be broken. This whole scenario seemed unreal to me.

After a near death experience and being stranded on an island together, a beautiful woman would chase after me for unsavory reasons? Shouldn’t it be the other way round? Or maybe she was under some debuff or effect?

I slowed to a stop right before an edge, peering down to see what I feared most. Verita came to halt behind me, panting heavily and with a look of indignation.

“Are you trying to leave me behind so that I die on my own?” She asked with a hint of betrayal in her voice.

Naturally, I blinked in confusion and replied her slowly. “I thought you were going to rape me.”

“Of course not! Do I look like a whore to you?” She ground out through her blush. To see a dark skinned woman blush was almost comical.

“No, but we come from different societies, so the cultural nuances may be different. Besides, it’s common knowledge that Latinas are feisty. It’s why you’re revered by men in our world,” I explained calmly, still peering over the edge.

“Hmm, you aren’t exactly wrong. Where I come from, it’s not unheard of for a woman to make the first move, but we don’t outright rape people!” She admitted with exasperation.

“Yeah, I would believe that if you hadn’t had a rape face on when chasing me,” I accused her with a frown. I lowered myself into a crouch as I took out a food ration and nibbled at it leisurely.

“Rape face? What rape face? No rape face here please.”

Even if she had whistled an off tune key, she couldn’t have looked and sounded more guilty.

“Verita.”

With a sigh, her shoulders dropped and she had a defeated look on her face. “Listen, I’m sorry okay. I will admit I had some unsavory thoughts back there. I don’t know why, but ever since I saw you drop in, I’ve been strongly attracted to you. There it is.”

I looked at her and nodded. “I appreciate you candor and I honestly would take you like a wild animal over this cliff right now if I didn’t have someone that meant everything to me.”

“I understand. Must be nice,” she muttered sullenly.

I parsed her earlier admittance through my head and found something I had initially gleaned over. She said she had been attracted to me since seeing me, but none of the other women there had felt the same pull.

“Verita, what’s your magnetism stat?”

Her eyes unfocused a bit as she checked her stats and spoke with an even voice. “5, why?”

My breath caught. What? How could a beauty like Verita have only 5 magnetism when I had almost 20? She had captured the eyes of almost everyone in the cavern, with none on me…

“Verita, while I was out, how many people tried approaching us? And why do you think they did?”

“Pretty much everybody. The guys obviously thought that they could ‘protect’ me and get some ‘favors’ in return so I sent them packing. Then the women seemed to try to manhandle you, so I made it clear you were *cough* mine. It was the only way to keep their grabby hands off you.”

Well, that answered that. It seemed that the magnetism stat had a direct effect on the minds of those who were oriented to you. The tooltip had stated as much, but I figured it would only affect natives of this world or NPCs – Non Player Characters – so I was surprised to hear it had affected us. The tooltip stated that the effect was doubled for the opposite sex. If Verita was a 5 with the attraction of 10 and had pulled all the male attention, it meant as a 20, my attraction was a mind boggling 40.

I suddenly felt very bad about shutting down Verita. It must be hard resisting the effect of whatever rules this world has imposed. Her ability to resist the temptation for so long earned my respect in ways that no one ever had. I sighed and stood up, gesturing for her to come closer.

She approached me warily, wondering what I was up to. I leaned forward and spoke into her ear. By the time I was done, she was blushing furiously with a covered face, but she nodded.

Alright, enough playtime. I pointed over the cliff and downwards, gesturing for her to take a position beside me. Still burning from embarrassment, she complied. The moment she did, her face hardened.

Below us were cages arrayed in a circle around a firelight. In each cage was a group of people in dirty rags, some crying, some listless and the rest were unmistakably dead. I could see the captors of these people and grunted in surprise. They were the last species I expected to live in a volcano, much less take captives.

I focused on calling up their sheet was received a skill notification as well as the information I was looking for.

You have learned the skill ‘Identify’. You can now gain basic information about enemies and neutral parties by focusing on them.

Skill level 1

Young Kelp lvl 2

HP: 50/50

MP: 0/0

SP: 30/30

Kelps were a water based species that in most games looked like humanoid fish. These ones were diminutive, barely reaching my knees were I upstanding. They had two arms, two legs and a torso, but their head was that of a lobster with beady black eyes and two long feelers. Their bodies were covered in yellowish green scales that reflected the light of the campfire. One thing I knew about kelps is that their size did not match their strength. They were usually as hardy and strong as dwarven races and had wicked claws.

“What are those monsters?” Verita asked quietly.

“Focus on bringing up their character sheet. You should receive a skill for it.”

She focused on the Kelps below for a few seconds before grunting softly. “They have more health than some of the humans in the cages. So many dead…”

I hadn’t thought to observe the humans. The thing was, I didn’t even know how or why they were there. Were they PCs – Player Characters – like us or were they NPCs who had been captured? Was this a quest? The moment I thought so, a pop up appeared.

Hark, you have been charged by your deity to save these people and claim the altar of Calypso from the evil hands of the trolls!!

Difficulty: Hard

Rewards: Access to Island shrine, Class upgrade, blessing of UNKNOWN

Failure: You don’t want to hear it. Truuuust me.

“Did you-” Verita began.

“Yep.”

The lack clarity made me curse UNKNOWN bitterly. Talk about hypocritical. He went on and on about how he was different and turned out to be made of the same stuff as the rest. Hmph.

“So are we going to do this?” She asked tentatively. I could see in her eyes that she wanted to help those people, but she was no hero of justice. She was also scared out of her wits and her stress was breaking through her façade.

I realized that since we had literally been transported into another world that employed video game mechanics, there were chances that we could respawn. But I really doubted it. It would be too easy for something like that to happen.

I jumped to my feet, which startled Verita, and started doing stretches with a shit eating grin on my face. Naturally, Verita gave me a worried look as I did, probably wondering if I had finally broke. With what I planned to do, maybe I had.

“Verita darling,” I cooed sweetly, putting the woman on instant alarm. She took a step back from me, shaking her head slowly.

“Please Jay. I want no part in what you’re planning,” she pleaded as she continued her slow backpedal, increasing her speed when she saw I was mimicking her pace, “have mercy.”

“No such word in my dictionary love. Now why don’t you come closer so we can take down our enemies together, hmm?” I reached out to grab her and her eyes widened even further.

“No… NOOO!!”