Gabe woke to dust and heat. His face was on the ground - stone, from the feel of it, but rather than any soothing coolness all that greeted him was a lukewarm unpleasantness and a crick in his virtual neck. He sat up, groaning as a flair of pain pulsed down his spine, muttering curses at the designer who thought that including that detail was a good idea. His vision was blurry, and his head felt heavy like he spent the last night going on a bender. He made an effort to stand up, only to fall back down before he could even get to his knees.

“What the hell was even i-” he started to say, but stopped as soon as his vision started to clear.

Blobs of tan morphed into broken walls and crumbled pillars littered around him. There was only one window, open to a clear blue sky, but shadows shrouded most of the interior aside from the small ray of sunlight that bled into the center of the room from a hole in the ceiling above. Any furniture in the room was either broken by fallen rubble, or half buried in piled up sand. There was a lone table on one end of the room, relatively unscathed, but nothing lay on top of it. Off in the corner of the room was a small metallic device, nothing more than a thin metallic cylinder with a small, green, circular crystal that lay at the top of it.

He was wearing the gear he had on before, but his HUD was no longer in display. He tried to tap his visor to activate it, tapping only thin air.

He sighed, “Don’t tell me that broke too.”

He reached for his Smart Box, stopping short as he heard a groan from the other side of the room.

He saw movement from the shadows. It was slow, lethargic, not unlike the motions he went through. The figure sat up, flinching away from the sunlight as they leaned into it.

“Shit, that’s bright,” the figure said. It was a man, that much was obvious from the deeper tone in his voice. Gabe didn’t catch much else, other than a few grumbles, which he could relate to.

From the brief glance of the man he caught only a few features, namely the man’s pale skin and black hair. As the man moved around, Gabe heard metallic scraping against the ground, a sound that soon stopped abruptly as the man snapped his gaze to him.

“Howdy,” Gabe said, giving him a casual wave.

There was a flourish of movement in the shadows, which he could only take as a wave back.

“What brings you here?” Gabe asked. He found enough strength to stand up, and stretched, trying to shake off the heaviness in his limbs.

The man stood up as well, stepping further into the light. He was dressed in armor, a breastplate and metal vambraces to be exact, but there was a looseness to them that didn’t suit his slimmer, yet noticeably athletic build. There was a look of irritation on the man’s face, but not directed at Gabe. He was rubbing his jaw, wincing slightly as it hit certain positions.

“An asshole decked me in the face,” he said, “You?”

“An asshole shot me in the neck,” Gabe said, “Name’s Gabriel by the way.”

The man snorted. “Null.”

“Well Null, any idea where we are?”

Null shook his head, and started to unstrap his armor, letting it fall to the ground with a clatter. He was dressed in another layer of armor underneath, a hoodie-like piece of gear meshed with leather armor. Not quite to the technological standard as all the other gear that Gabe wore, but he assumed that was probably because Null was from Retissia, if the purple symbol on his Smart Box was any indication to go by. The pale-skinned man didn’t say much else, and directed his attention outside of the window, taking a step closer to it.

Gabe did the same, and saw the blue skies fade into hills of sand. From the little he could make out, he knew they were at ground level. Ruins of old buildings were scattered across his view, their small pieces of sandstone poking through shrouds of built up sand. A desert lay off in the distance, its scope hidden by dunes that rose up through to horizon, creating a makeshift wall at the edge of the ruins. Small gouts of sand shot up from the distance, landing onto a shifting ground that crumbled into small sink holes. Sand quickly filled these holes back up, and the cycle continued, like the desert itself was breathing.

“Welp, I got nothing,” Gabe said, “You got any ideas?

Null shrugged, then walked away from the window, “The real question is why they left us here alone.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t make much sense,” Gabe walked around the room some more, tapping his visor again before again noticing that he didn’t have it equipped.

He groaned and pulled out his Smart Box, about to open his inventory before noticing that he had two notifications. He tapped the notification symbol, bringing up two text boxes.

+++

K76 Adaptive Visor has been broken!

It has been unequipped from you and stored in your inventory automatically. Broken items cannot be used until they are repaired

+++

“Great.”

+++

Spawn point sync in progress

Time Remaining: 0:01:00

+++

“Spawn point sync? What-”

A loud beep echoed through the room, drawing both Null’s and Gabe’s attention to the corner of the room. The small metallic rod let out another beep, synced with a small pulse of green light from the gem at its top. The beeps were in sync with timer on his window, which was steadily counting down. He looked over to Null, who had his Smart Box in his hand, a text window hovering in front of him. He cut his eyes to Gabe, matching his gaze.

---

They were running.

The heat, for all that it splashed against his back, was the furthest thing from his mind in that moment.

+++

Spawn point sync in progress

Time Remaining: 0:00:30

+++

The box sat at the corner of his vision, its timer seemingly speeding up and his heels dug into the ground with increased fervor.

Null was beside him, and starting to pass him as they reached the edge of the ruins. New holes formed in the desert sands, at which Gabe started to yell incoherently at them. He didn’t know if his hunch was right, but he didn’t have any other choice at the moment. When there was no response, he picked up a piece of rubble from the ground and threw it, managing land it in the sinkhole. The act was unnecessary, as it was soon followed by a small ball of fire that hit the edge of the cavity, bursting in a small of flame. He looked over to Null, who flicked his hand and flung another bolt of fire at the holes. There was another small burst of flame, immediately followed by rumbling.

The holes in the ground grew, meshing together to form a gaping maw at the end of the path. From it emerged a head, or rather, something that could be interpreted as a head. It held no eyes, no nose, no ears, but there was a mouth. A mouth of three lips. Even without eyes, its attention was directed towards the two of them, but it remained unmoving.

“Come at me you son of a bitch!”

+++

Spawn point sync in progress

Time Remaining: 0:00:15

+++

He threw another piece of rubble at the beast, the rock bouncing harmlessly off of its thick hide. No response.

“Oh come-”

Another fire bolt struck the worm in its mouth, the burst of flame creating a gap between two of its lips. This was followed by a steak of lighting that cut into the creatures maw. There was only a slight flinch, at first.

It was fast, far faster than its size suggested, surging upwards from its hole and towering at least a 2 stories above them in a matter of seconds. When it reached its apex the worm opened its mouth, revealing rows of teeth that wrapped and spiraled down into it a dark abyss. It was a grinder of flesh and bone, and it was descending right towards them.

The sight made both Gabe and Null pause, and for a moment Gabe thought that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

That was all he could think, because the beast fell upon them, and then there was nothing.

+++

Spawn point sync in progress

Time Rem-

+++

---

At first, there was light. A bright light, blinding initially, but it faded quickly, leaving his vision blurred once again, but he didn’t have the same dregs of lethargy from before. He was on the ground again, and when he looked up, he saw that his body was still in the process of rematerializing. A thin line of light, originating from the corner of the room, traced back and forth, essentially printing out the rest of his legs. The whole process was rather quick, taking only a few seconds he was whole again, but he was too distracted to contemplate on what was happening. Two new text boxes were in front of him, their text bright in the shadowy confines of the room

+++

You have died!

All of your stats have decreased by 1, and all skill progression has been reduced by 10%. Please be more careful next time.

+++

+++

Spawn point sync complete

New Spawn Point: Merandu, Abandoned House

+++

“Fuck.”

Part 1 End