“I told you not to pick Phantom Cloak.” Tootsie screamed over the roar of the flames. “Did that help you? Oooh, I can turn invisible. Did you even think of it while that thing was sucking on your head?” She flapped around in the fires over my head unscathed. Screams of agony filled the cave bouncing off the walls to assault my ears all over again. “Why even have a guide if you're not going to listen to her?” She huffed and gestured sarcastically for me to crawl up the cliff wall toward the respawn plate. “First girl you see in the game and your brain just turns to mush.” She stopped then laughed, “literally.”

The flames peeled open my skin and dragged down through my muscles. Hot coals burrowed into me, and melted flesh dropped behind me as I clawed my way up. I climbed faster this time than I did the last time I was here. I thirsted for the coolness of that plate. My jaw dropped away bouncing off the rocks below. I looked down to see other ghastly melted faces frozen in screams below. Each climbing up toward me. Then I heard a scream I recognized. Mia. I looked to the side and below me. She wasn’t too far off to my left and just a few yards lower on the wall. I could reach her if I just could get past the bulge of the wall. I pressed my head to the wall and reached around toward her. She spotted me and changed her agonizing course toward me.

“There she is again,” Tootsie called after me. “And there you go again. What is it with that girl? She is just gonna get you killed again. Let her fight her own way out of here.” Tootsie whizzed past me and over to taunt Mia. She hovered in front of Mia’s singed blackened face waving her butt in front of her.

I grabbed Mia and helped pull her higher. Her eyes lingered on mine a moment in appreciation, I think, but it is hard to tell as the fire destroys her beautiful cheeks. We climbed together and I pulled her higher as I throw myself up to the next handhold. I heard tendons and bones pop as valuable tissue melted away only to reform. I tossed Mia up over the ledge and waited for my muscles to regrow before climbing further. “Tootsie Shut up,” I said as I rolled onto the plateau.

I wanted to catch my breath a moment. Let my muscle and bone heal. Instead, I am greeted by the screams of Mia as a hundred dead climb over her on the way to the respawn plate. She couldn’t break free from the mass. She was swamped. All the selfish sufferers using her as a foothold toward their own freedom. The sight sickened me. Melted flesh dropped down on Mia.

I struggled to my feet and rage began to pump up my flaming muscles. The fire burned out my eyes, so I had to move by memory. I stomped toward the mass with an outrageous cry bellowing my censored curses as I kicked, punched, and threw bodies at the walls. I saw screamers fall back into the flaming canyon as my eyes regrew. I held an arm in my hand without a body attached to it. I smacked away another transgressor with a backhand from the disembodied arm and flung Mia up on the respawn plate.

Then I collapsed on the plate allowing the coolness to soak into my seared flesh.

Second death exp. 1000

Damn the Damned exp. 1000

Level 6 reached

I let the dew-covered grass swallow me. Cool relief washed over me, and a breeze tickled the sweat on my brow. I swallowed gulps of the night air. I ignored the whimpers as long as I could. I just needed a moment to collect myself. I hate this game. Who in the flatulating pig sphincter thought this kosher bird droppings up? I slammed my big fists into the ground angry I couldn’t even curse in my mind. I tore a handful of grass up from the ground and plastered it across my face then drug my nails down along the sides of my face. More whimpers and someone sobbing.

“You made it out.” Tootsie sounded as if she were grinning from ear to ear. I imagined the happy little hummingbird laughing all the way up to the point I tore her little buzzing wings off. I must have been some kind of gangster or murderer in the past life because I couldn’t help but imagine all sorts of violence in this wretched place. Why had I come here? Was I a masochist? If I could go back to the world, I had entered this place through and remain an orc I would do my old self a favor and rip his arms off his body. I would kick him down a hallway. I would duct tape him to the front of a city bus naked and cut his brakes. What kind of guy was I to willingly submit myself to this? “You are pretty stupid you know.” Tootsie broke through my spell of self-torment, “I would have left her. It was her own fault letting you believe…”

I caught her. I caught her by her little chipper throat. I held her firm in between my finger and thumb. I reached down to my side to fish the gun from my pouch, to put a bullet in her mouth and make her crawl out of the fires again. See how cheerful she sounds when she comes back. I felt around with my hand, but the pouch was gone. My silly leather skirt was gone, my jacket was gone. “What the fickle, flaked, feathered, festering, fanny!” I bit my lip till it bled in my mouth. “Where are my clothes?” I let out as calmly as I could without squeezing Tootsie’s head till it popped.

She struggled and clawed at my fingers. Her face was red, and she looked terrified. I released her. She flew high up above me and collected herself. She was no longer laughing or smiling. I felt guilty. Ashamed even. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

“You should be.” She muttered back. “What flew up your skirt?” She attempted a smirk. Her eyes shifted to something beyond me, and worry filled her eyes.

I turned thinking it was Mia but instead it was hundreds of terrified people. Huddled in corners of some sort of stadium dirt floor. All races. All naked. All scared. The room smelled of pee and blood. I rolled over and looked around the room. “Tootsie what did you get me into?”

“What did I get you into?” She sounded indignant. “Wait, stop, you shouldn’t go back there. Not at night. I can’t help you are a stubborn orc. If you were a mouse you would get caught eating out of the cat bowl.”

Orc

Pug

Pig Face

Level 6

Strength: 17

Dexterity: 10

Charisma: 5

Intelligence: 18

Manna: 5

Constitution: 14

Perception: 14

Exp: 6475

Soul Points: 12

Skills: Furious Feline: cost 2 mana,

Dex: +3, Claws, time: 1 hour

Carapace Skin: +4 Constitution,

Cost: 2 Mana, time: 1 hour

Phantom Cloak: Cover a target area of three square meters for 7 minutes (Stage 2)

Cost: 2 Mana

Coin:

$495

Gear:

Rapier Beretta

Ammo: 3 hollow tip rounds

Leather Kilt: Protection against fire damage, armor 2

Satchel: First aid kit

Beginner crossbow

Ammo: 13 bolts

World Map