I searched out further into the darkness that encompassed me and saw another light. It was smaller and dimmer, but it began to dance around as I approached it. I let my spirit dance with it. Then I pushed against it softly. It cowered back, so I pulled at it and sent a feeling of joy into it. Soon the light was pushing and pulling with me. I pulled at the energy of the vine and felt the power flow through me to the other lights around me. It was frenetic energy. Hot and angry. I stored it up inside me. I no longer felt the panicked necessity to breathe. I felt no hunger.

I toyed with the new light above me for a while. I knew the spirit, but I had a difficult time placing who it belonged to. I tried to communicate with the spirit above me, but it was as if it spoke another language. I caught flashes of sensory overload. I would hear a squirrel and then smell it but not see it. Then I smelled dirt and the musk of a deer. At the putrid smell of urine, I pulled back. Then I felt the agony in my leg, and I realized it was not me I was feeling but whoever I was linked to above.

I pushed my spirit in nearer to it and I saw for a moment Shia petting her dingo. I felt jealousy rise up in me and another sharp jab of pain. I smelled meat cooking over a fire and heard the juices dripping down into the coals. I longed for the meat. Rather he longed for the meat. I let out a growl into the blood surrounding me. Then I knew who I had linked to. My dingo.

‘Khan’ He growled into my spirit as I acknowledged him.

“Your name is Khan?” I answered back with my spirit.

‘Khan,’ his spirit affirmed.

I felt his leg pain again overwhelming my mind as he lurched for some meat tossed to him from Goar. I pulled again at the vine and pushed the energy up into Khan. His light grew brighter. I pushed again and tried to focus on his leg. I felt his relief wash over me.

Mana Manipulation exp 2506

Beast Bond exp 3317

Level Up

Exp. 36,285

Soul Points: 19

Warning Glitch Exploitation! Send report (Y/N)

“No,” I responded from my gut. “Tootsie what is glitch exploitation?”

I could sense her out there buzzing around but when she spoke it was as if she were in my ear. “It means you have learned a skill or acquired something outside the parameters of the rules of the game.”

“How did I do it?” I asked.

“I can’t be sure but be careful gaining unique skills and powers outside of the skill tree. Too many will make you a target of the admin and Mods.”

“What are they going to kick me out of the game?”

“You wish. Remember they have access to the code and can change the game as they see fit. Don’t want to get their attention or they may start modifying the creatures around you to even the playing field.” She was playing up above me somewhere. I could tell she was distracted.

Even the playing field, I thought. What, make the monsters in this game even more horrendous than the Shade? It was already stacked unfairly against me. If I could figure out how to get an advantage… I wondered just how plugged in I was. If they were able to create a world this real, could they see everything? Were they looking at me down here in the blood? Could they tap into my thoughts? It would take an enormous group of people to watch every gamer at all times, I thought to myself. Even if they could see us, I doubt I had done anything significant enough to warrant being watched that closely.

I decided to focus on the mana inside me again. I drew more from the vines and pushed both powers together into my arms. I felt a greater strength flood through them, and I tried to pull my arms free.

Mutation

What the heck did that mean? I reached out to the others around me and used them together to pull the mana of the vine. I showed them in my mind how to swirl the power around our own mana core and then I pushed the power into my arms again. I felt my muscles grow denser.

Mutation

Strength 29

I just couldn’t break free. The more I moved the tighter the soil gathered down around us. I was only packing us in tighter. Then an idea came to me, and I began to call out with my spirit to Khan’s spirit above me. I imagined my state, I imagined terror and the scent of blood. I imagined the feeling of the soil pushing down against me and the vines eating me alive, and I pushed the images up at him. “Help me.” I cried up silently.

I felt him grow alarmed he turned, and I saw a flicker of him looking down at the soil and smelling it. I sent the image again. Then I pulled the mana of the vine as hard as I could and shoved it into the spirit of Khan.

Beast Bond skill activated.

I siphoned as much mana from the vines as I could and began to swirl them in my heart until they were a typhoon inside me. I slammed the power down into my arms.

Strength 33

Mutation complete: Four Arms exp. 7659

Level Up

Exp. 43,938

Soul Points: 29

Warning Glitch Exploitation. Send report (Y/N)

“No,” I answered mentally. I pushed against the soil above me with all my might. I could hear scratching now on the surface. Khan was digging me up. I saw a flash through his eyes and there were others digging with him now. I was deep down. They were in a pit up to their waists. Then I saw a large pair of hands sticking up from the soil. There were vines sticking out of the backs of them like large I.V.s. Then another pair of hands just below those ones. They also looked like orc hands. The others stopped. Khan kept digging and I could feel his paws scratch my forearms. He bit down on the vines, and they recoiled into the soil.

When blood began to seep up from the hole, I was able to push up with my arms. I felt the coolness of the outside air. I felt the paw scratches against my stomach. I moved my arms up to the dirt holding down my head and began digging my face free. Then I lurched up from my living grave with a blood swamp sloshing around me. I yanked vines free and scrambled up out of the hole gasping for air.

It wasn’t until I reached the top that I finally realized how alarmingly extra capable I was. I looked down and saw four arms. Massive brawny arms. I looked like Goro from Mortal Kombat. I tried moving each of my fingers. “What the Flack!”

I heard one of the Falconites squawk at that. I tried to shake my extra arms off like a foreign goo. I jumped up and down. “What the Flack?” The Falconite made his strange call again.

I stomped and kicked and swung my four appendages like they were on fire. “What the Flack!”

“What sir?” The Falconite that had been squawking said.

“What do you mean, what?” I turned to him. He was so close I nearly ran my face into his beak.

“You keep yelling my name, sir.” He replied.

“Huh?” I stepped back from his hot breath. I looked him in his round black beady eyes. The feathers on the sides of his dark face were standing out, ruffled. “I never said your name, when did I say your name?”

“It’s Flack sir. You said Flack three times, sir.”

I shook my head, “seriously? Well, I wasn’t trying to say Flack I was trying to say, flack. Well, sheba! I mean,” I bit my lip. Stupid autocorrect. “Flack, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was saying your name. I was having a bit of a moment. Do you see these things?” I held up my extra two arms.

“I see them.” Tootsie was laughing in the air behind Flack.

“Very nice sir,” Flack answered.

I placed all four arms on my face exasperated.

“There is someone else moving down there.” I heard Mia announce. Then the sounds of frantic digging began again behind me.

Thurnar clumsily scrambled up from the hole. His eyes were wide and he was panting like he was trying to get away from a snake.

I looked past him down into the hole as Goar was pulling the centaur up from the gooey blood. Only the centaur had changed. He still had his human upper body and his long locks of hair. He even still had his horse lower body, but he now had a new addition coming out from the shoulders of his horse half. Two mighty crab arms came out from his sides. He was opening and closing them with his jaw hanging open.

I saw another marvel as his back legs came out of the goo. Agatha was wrapped tight around his hind legs. Shia and the elves were tugging the vines free from the pair. Agatha had changed as much as the both of us. Only she had grown much younger. She still had a goat head but had long lashes and less grey. Her body had become that of a twenty-something swimsuit model. She fell out onto the dry soil and looked down at her new curves with a grin.

I looked over to see Millie glaring down into the hole. She was not as happy to see Agatha's new figure as Agatha was. She stomped off and slunk down against a tree.

A cold nose nudged the back of my arm and I turned to see a very proud dingo behind me. He had grown to the size of a horse and was looking down into my eyes.

Khan. I had made Khan mutate too.

How much of this was glitch exploitation? I wondered, would I be able to keep this under the radar?