Mark stood in the shower while the hot water pinged off the bracket holding the glass lens of his new left eye. He had been in here for over an hour, slumped against the wall staring at his new hand with his new eye.

A few hours had passed since he left the shop to hear Terra’s angry words. It had taken him a while to understand what the problem was. It hadn’t helped that she wouldn’t come right out and say it, but he figured it out in the end. She’d told him on her way out to spend all his points on body augmentations. She’d phrased it as a joke, so he hadn’t taken her too seriously at the time.

“850 points,” he said. Listening to the barely discernible whine of machinery as his hand opened and closed, over and over again. He had all the pieces; he just hadn’t put them together in time. The sphere had stated that he needed to spend 2,500 augmentation points on upgrading his body. Terra had told him not to worry about gear and focus on his body.

“None of the prosthetic accessories counted, neither did the Broken blade. In the end only 1,650 of the points I used counted towards that total. So, now I still need 850…I had 194 left over so I guess I really only need 656 points. Unfortunately, it sounds like points are a lot harder to get when one does the tutorial the right way. I’m sorry Molly, I had a shortcut to you and I blew it.” His self-abusing words were interrupted by a banging on the bathroom door.

“Damn it old man, get out here.” It was Terra, waiting in his room. She’d been there for the last half hour hitting the door every ten minutes or so and hollering for him to come out. “I’ve already told you, it’s not the end of the world. It’s just going to take a little longer. You had 2 low and 2 medium difficulty quests to finish anyway. So, it’s not like you could have wrapped up the tutorial tomorrow or anything. Now get out here.”

With a sigh Mark turned the water off and stepped out of the shower. Grabbing his towel, he dried himself and looked at the pile of bloody rags that was the remnants of his jumpsuit. He couldn’t bring himself to put it back on, so, wrapping his towel around his waist he opened the door.

“Ok, ok I’m out. You happy?” he said exiting the bathroom to find Terra sitting on his bed, arms folded and a scowl on her face. He stood there, dripping wet, towel around his waist and waited for her to speak. She sat there, eyes moving over his frame. Before taking a deep breath and looking him in the eyes.

“Damn old man,” she said at length. “Those attributes look good on you. Though, be honest with me…how many points did you spend on cosmetics?” she smiled at him, unabashedly giving him another once over. Finally, with a wink, she tossed him a new set of clothes.

He caught the clothes easily and sighed. Giving her a nod in thanks he returned to the bathroom to get dressed. He loved smart fabric; without it this jumpsuit would never have fit. Not since he gained an inch or two and put on several pounds of muscle anyway. Slipping on his boots he tossed the towel over the drying rack and walked back into his room.

“Feel better?” Terra asked him as he plopped down in the small room’s only chair. It was a ships cabin, one of the perks to being in a tutorial. Normally he would have had to do some “quest” or something for the city to get in here. Terra, being Terra, pulled some strings and got one for each of them somehow.

“Yea, I guess.” He said at last, “thanks for the clothes, and sorry for the attitude. I don’t know why; but being in a city surrounded by people actually makes it harder to stay calm than being stuck in the cave surrounded by monsters.” He chuckled and shook his head, fingering his new eye with his new hand. “This didn’t help either, half my face was replaced by this thing.”

“It’s pretty common actually, ever see a kid break a bone playing and seem totally ok until mom shows up? They go from calm and collected to water works in an instant. Don’t know what the scientific term for that is, if there even is one, but its part of being human I think.” She said with a shrug, not mentioning the eye at all.

Mark didn’t know if he felt comforted or insulted by the comparison, but it was Terra he was talking too so he chose the former. They had been together for a while now, and she always shot straight with him. At least when it came to things she wasn’t lying about right to his face. Actually, he might decide to go with insulted after all.

“Gee, thanks for that.” He said with a snort, somehow feeling a little better. “Anyway, what now? I know I just set us back a little.” He did his best to keep his tone even but it was hard.

“Calm down stud.” She said with a sigh, “honestly I’m surprised you’re mad at yourself here. I figured it was more likely you would have been mad at me for not just telling you what to do.” She added with a frown.

Mark had to think about that for a second. He wasn’t really sure why he wasn’t mad at her. He knew there was more to her than she let on, and he also had the feeling that if she could have come out and told him what to do, she would have. She never did though, everything she said was couched as advice not orders. In the end he only shook his head and shrugged, motioning her to continue.

“Well,” she sighed looking at him. “Now I think you should go and complete those quests. It will give you a chance to get used to your new body and going solo will make it harder. As long as you don’t die the points gain will be better if you’re alone.” She finished speaking with a shrug.

He thought about that for a bit, pondering on what she had said and what she hadn’t. He wondered if she’d had some cheat method to get them through the quests, and figured she probably did. if he had spent his points properly than he might have been on his way to seeing Molly right now, instead of off to struggle through the quests the hard way alone.

He blinked, finding himself fiddling with his new eye again and lowered his prosthetic. He would have to be careful not to make that an unconscious habit. Sighing, he let it go. He hadn’t known, and it was silly to punish himself for not knowing something. He hadn’t known anything since he got here so how was this any different. Besides, he really did need some time to get used to his new body anyway.

“Alright,” he said at last. He wasn’t looking directly at her but he caught the look of surprise in her eyes. “What?” he asked with a wry chuckle. “I’m knocking on 100 years old girl. I might not know what you’re up to, but I can play along. What will you be doing while I’m ‘grinding out quests’ huh?” he used air quotes around “grinding out quests.” It was a term he had heard Derik use multiple times as an excuse, when Mark had wanted his help in the shop.

It was strange, but just being here made him feel closer to his boy than he had when he had been alive. He really must be getting old, he’d hated hearing that excuse from his boy, now some two or three decades later he was bringing it up.

“Don’t worry about me stud,” she said with a sly smile. “Me and Tinker can keep ourselves busy while you’re away.” She added with a wink, before getting up and moving to the door. “Get some sleep Mark, the next part is going to be up to you.” With those comforting words wringing in his ears, Mark shut the door after her and move to his bed.

Settling into the bed was like laying down on a fluffy cloud. He hadn’t slept on anything softer than bioluminescent moss-covered rocks in who knew how long. Ordering his thoughts he closed his eyes. The right one worked like it always had, the left irising closed over his lens eye. He sighed, that was going to take some getting used to.

* * *

A few hours of sleep, some breakfast, and a verbal sparring match with Terra later, Mark found himself in front of a teleportation pad. He was feeling rather naked without the porter drone carrying a bunch of stuff for him, he’d also left his mark III and the club in his room. All he had was a few trail rations and his Broken blade.

Not to mention a body that was nearly vibrating with vitality. Honestly, after the attribute increases, he felt like he could take on the world bare handed. He’d jokingly told Terra that he might just take on the quest bare handed. At which point she’d cleared the plates away and soundly beat him at an arm-wrestling match. He cringed a bit at the memory, but it had knocked his feeling of invincibility back down a peg.

It was probably a good thing; confidence was good but over confidence could be deadly. Taking a deep breath, Mark walked onto the teleportation pad and rested his hand on the sphere. Like before, a flash of light enveloped the area. There was no ear piercing scream this time thankfully, and when the flash faded Mark was no longer in the city.

Blinking to clear the spots from his vision, he heard a buzzing right next to his ear and felt a sharp sting on his neck. On reflex he slapped the spot as his surroundings came into focus. He was standing on a teleportation pad, in the middle of a swamp. Bringing his hand away from his neck he looked to see what had stung him. It was a mosquito, with a body the size of a half dollar coin from back home. It wasn’t alone either, he felt two new stings just in the short time he had been taking in his surroundings. A swarm of the big buggers gathered around him as he stood there, and he decided to move.

He started moving at a jog, in a bid to get away from the swarming insects. When he reached the end of the teleportation pad and entered the swamp proper, he nearly face planted. Only his newly enhanced agility and strength saved him from falling down as his foot sank up to his knee in the mud. Doing a stumbling hop/skip move he managed to stay on his feet, though he was thoroughly soaked.

He paused to get his balance, and the mosquitos swarmed him again. With a grunt and a few furious slaps, he plunged forward into the swamp. For the next twenty minutes he moved through the swamp in a random direction, slapping at mosquitos and doing his best not to trip. Everywhere he looked was the same; knee deep mud, gnarled and twisted trees, swamp grass and mosquitos. This was awful, he was having flashbacks to the fecal fly cavern, and rage mixed with terror was starting to well up inside of him.

“Damned vixen,” he grunted out as he slapped another bug. “She had to know about this, but did she mention it…gahh when I get out of here, I’m going to…” his tirade was interrupted by a scream. It sounded close; Mark paused in his tracks momentarily ignoring the biting mosquitos while he strained to hear anything.

The scream echoed out again, and he thought he knew the direction. With a shrug of his shoulder, he loosed the Broken blade from its harness and hefted it. He was already moving towards the voice as it settled into his hand. A few dozen swift strides moved him through a thicket of swamp grass and the scenery changed.

The first thing he saw was a boy, perhaps twelve years old, with a dead rat the size of a German shepherd on a sled. Standing around the boy in a loose circle were a group of humanoid crocodiles. They were bright green with yellow and red stripes, standing out clearly from the dark greens and browns of the swamp. The whole scene was backstopped by a house sized mound of sticks and mud, looking a bit like the swamp version of a beaver dam. Mark, putting the dam aside for now, took a quick head count and continued to move confidently towards the boy.

There were five of them, each holding a primitive spear. They were of simple construction. Made from wood with stone or bone heads, held on with tightly wrapped vines. The primitive weapons, coupled with the fact that the crocodile men were unarmored, gave Mark full confidence that he could beat this group easily. That confidence was only bolstered when he fired his prosthetic mounted energy pistol at the nearest lizard and it went down.

The next closest lizard, turned as its companion dropped and reflexively hurled its spear at Mark. A smile spread across his face when the spear went wide by a few yards. It impacted a nearby tree and the shaft literally exploded from the force of impact. The smile faltered when he looked at the stone head, buried a hand’s span into the tree’s trunk. It disappeared completely when he turned back to see the first lizard man he shot getting back onto its feet.

Its arm was hanging limply at its side and there was blood leaking from a small charred hole in its shoulder, but it wasn’t out of the fight. Mark raised his left hand again to snap off another shot, but was forced to dodge to the side as two more spears came hurtling towards him. He managed to avoid the spears, but some quick math told him there were two more spears among the group.

The rest weren’t unarmed either, they were pulling an assortment of weapons off their belts. From long knives to belt axes, any of which could be wielded in close quarters or thrown. Mark cursed himself for a fool at his overconfidence, but it was too late to do anything about it now. With a yell, he charged in snapping off another quick shot as soon as his implanted radical indicated a lock.

He didn’t have time to see if he’d managed to hit anything because he had reached the wounded lizard. Backhanding away the one-armed spear thrust he brought his Broken blade down in an overhead chop. The creature’s scales offered more resistance than Mark expected but the artificially toughened blade still sunk into the lizard man’s neck.

That chop took it down, almost taking the modified naginata out of his hands as well. His newly enhanced strength and agility allowed him to wrench the blade free and keep his balance, but he was forced to stumble back a few steps in the mud to keep from falling over. That was actually good luck for him, because a flint headed belt axe cleaved the air where he had just been. He reflexively lashed out with his left hand in a backhanded blow. That failed to hurt the lizard but knocked it off balance long enough for Mark to thrust his blade into its guts.

A slash from a long knife opened a wound in his back. He spun around to meet the new enemy, the sideways motion ripping his blade through the lizard’s abdomen and spilling its intestines into the mud. That was two down three to go, but now he was injured. The lizard swung back with its knife to build momentum and Mark lifted his left hand as if to block.

As soon as his hand reached chest height, he fired off an energy bolt pointblank into the lizard’s chest. The hole it made wasn’t very large, but it must have hit something vital because the lizard blinked its eyes once before slumping to the ground. That was three down, but he didn’t have time to celebrate.

A thrown spear, the last one, slammed into his thigh as his latest kill slumped over dead. It didn’t hit bone thankfully, but the spear blasted through his thigh taking a chunk of his leg with it. He screamed as pain exploded through his body. First his back, now his leg, without any other options he triggered his parasitic regeneration.

His whole body spasmed and he felt an odd writhing in his gut when he triggered the parasite. It was alarming, but he didn’t have the luxury of time to worry about it with two lizards left to fight. He had dropped to his knees, meaning the mud was up over his waist now. He screamed again when the foul slop of the swamp entered his wounds.

Seeing he was unarmed and in agony the nearest lizard reached down and grabbed him by the collar. It hefted him up to look it in the eyes, and its wide mouth split into a tooth filled grin. It was still raising the belt axe over its head when Mark grabbed its throat with his left hand, and triggered the Taser.

Mark was afraid, considering their location in knee deep mud, that the Taser wouldn’t work. There was also the possibility of it jumping back to him seeing as the beast was holding him up. Thankfully however, the electrical discharge did what it was intended too. The lizard flailed for a second before slouching down, smoke wafting from its neck. Unfortunately, the prosthetic was now out of power, and its fingers were locked around the creature’s neck.

Already injured, Mark failed to pull free of the falling corpse and was dragged down with it into the mud. Using his right hand, he was able to pry the fingers of his left hand off from the lizard’s neck and slump backwards into the mud. He slouched there, gasping and in pain. A spent arrow without any force left to propel it, and there was still one more lizard man to fight.

He stared at it, where it stood unmoving from its original position in the circle. It was now directly across the boy from him, but Mark couldn’t muster any energy to move. He could feel his wounds healing, but the parasite wasn’t the same as the nanites. This was painful, and a gnawing hunger was worming its way from his guts throughout the rest of his body.

The lizard man let out a wet gurgling sound that Mark assumed was a laugh, and pulled a belt axe from its waist. It then slowly began to walk towards Mark, ignoring the cowering boy. It twirled the axe menacingly as it neared, as if limbering up before he drove it into his skull.

The boy hadn’t moved since the fight started. He was crouched down in the mud beside his sled, trembling. The lizard sneered at him when it walked past, but otherwise ignored him on the way to finish Mark off. Once the creature had its back to him the kid stood up. Mark sighed with relieve, hopefully the kid would be able to get away at least. The kid didn’t run however, instead he picked up a strange pole from his sled.

Mark blinked, trying to keep a straight face. The pole had a damned bear trap fastened on the end, and the kid swung it around and stabbed it into the lizard man’s back. With a snapping sound the metal jaws slammed shut, and the lizard gave a pain fueled lurch. The pole was ripped from the kids’ hands, sending him sprawling.

The lizard turned back towards the kid, who was scrambling backwards as quickly as he could. Mark was able to see where the bear trap had bitten into the creature’s back. It wasn’t a very deep wound; the odd pole trap was clearly built for something smaller and less armored. It had gotten its attention however, and it looked like it planned on killing the kid for the attack.

Mark felt a surge of adrenalin flooding his system. He had thought he was out of gas, but if that pipsqueak could manage to make an attack than he could muster up enough strength for one more try. Dragging himself forward, he snatched the nearest weapon to hand, a long flint knife. With a pain filled surge of motion he charged the last enemy. Fresh blood spraying from his wounds with each step.

The lizard had it’s back to him, moving in on the boy. The pole swung around wildly with each step it took, and Mark in his injured state wasn’t able to dodge it as he charged in. he was worried the game was up when the pole struck his side, but the motion actually tore the wound open more. The lizard howled in pain and started to spin back around, but it was too late. The distraction the pole provided allowed Mark to close the last few steps and drive the stolen knife deep into the lizard’s chest.

They went down together, in a splash of mud and blood. Mark stared into the creature’s hate filled eyes as it slowly, painfully, raised the axe up again. With a heave, Mark levered the knife out a few inches and plunged it back down into the scaled chest. He had to repeat the move two more times before the bright green lizard man lay still.

Blackness closed in around Mark, threatening to drive him unconscious. The gnawing of his insides while the parasite stripped his body of its resources to heal his wounds, prevented him from passing out. He gasped in pain, and moved his trembling hands to his pack. Rummaging inside until he produced his trail rations.

He pulled out a bar of hardtack, something akin to concrete and just as tasty. He’d tried the stuff when Terra gave it to him, deciding it must have been a joke on her end, before forgetting about it. Now, with hunger’s iron fist twisting in his belly, he bit down into the bar and swallowed chunks as quickly as he could rip them off.

He hadn’t even finished that bar when he’d already pulled out another one. He repeated the process until his bag was empty. Unfortunately, the hunger hadn’t abetted. He gasped looking around for something, anything, to eat. After failing to find anything else, his eyes reluctantly landed on the dead lizard man. He wanted to gag at the thought, but he needed food.

Thankfully, before he did anything hasty, the kid he had helped moved over in front of him. He was holding out a foot long tenderloin with trembling hands. It was raw and dripping blood between the boy’s fingers. Mark’s pain and hunger addled mind blinked a few times trying to figure out where it came from. His gaze finally landed on the boy’s sled and the huge rat it had held. It was still there, but its hide had now been split open and the tenderloin removed.

“Take it mister.” The boy said, still trembling. “It’s a fresh kill, and swamp rats are herbivores.” Mark stared at the meat for only a heartbeat before snatching it. He ripped huge chunks of the raw meat away with his teeth and, hardly stopping to chew, swallowed it down. By the time it was gone, the boy had returned with the other backstrap. He greedily inhaled that one too before the pain in his insides subsided a little.

“Thanks, kid.” He managed at last, slumping down in the mud. The food had helped a lot, and the parasite stopped eating him from the inside out in order to heal his wounds. It was now using the nutrition from the food instead as it closed up the injuries and forced the contaminated mud out.

“What’s your name kid?” he asked once he felt up to speaking again.

“My name’s Lu, mister.” The youth answered, looking at him with equal parts fear and gratitude. “Thank you for saving me mister. My dad told me not to come out… but… since the Trogs came no one has been out trapping and everyone back home is starving. I thought I could sneak out, trap a few swamp rats, and get back before anyone noticed.” The kid hung his head in shame after saying his piece.

Mark actually took a close look at the kid for the first time after listening to his story. The kid was skinny, almost gaunt, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. He looked hungrier than Mark felt, and he’d been reduced to eating raw meat from a swamp rat. Guilt reached its fingers into his chest when he realized the kid had fed him first, even when he probably hadn’t eaten in days.

Mark sighed as he looked around. He took in the lizard… Trog… corpses, the sled with the giant swamp rat and the house sized beaver dam. Then he looked at the hollow-eyed boy.

“Alright kid,” he said at last. “Give me a few minutes to heal up, and we’ll see what we can do to help your village.”