You ever come across one of those spots in a video game where the developers left a little crack in the environment? Maybe these three mountainsides form a triangle you can’t get out of; you fall in and get stuck and have to log out. Or someone built a room and then decided they didn’t want it, but instead of deleting it, they just build a wall to hide. But they didn’t do it perfectly, and there’s a tiny space where you can run and jump and twist every which way until you randomly squeeze through that impossible gap. Environments are never perfect.

Jane stalked out of the adventurers guild, her body hot and angry and possessed of disappointment and guilt. Taking a hard right, she plowed down the road, heedless of anyone in her path, forcing other players and citizens to scramble out of her way.

She felt betrayed. Somewhere deep inside, she’d always known that Quill would do something like this, that it wouldn’t last with him. Today had only confirmed her worst fears. He was just like everyone else.

Her foot came down on the edge of a sewer grate placed between the flagstones of the street — and where the metal met the stone, an imperfect gap had been left where she hit just the wrong space of nonexistent pixels.

She plummeted down through the crack in the street, losing her staff and crying out in surprise. Her vision cut off for a moment, and everything went black, then she was in free fall.

Yet it was over before she could fully freak out. Her butt and back landed on something smooth, soft, and bouncy, almost rubbery and covered with — slime. The stench of feces and rot hit her in the face like a freight train, making her gag. Before she could do anything, she was sliding through the muck, picking up speed. “What the hell!” She landed with a splash and flailed around, desperate to get out of the foul water she found herself in. Only once she got to her feet did she begin to register the world around her again.

She was in a large storm sewer main, the brick walls covered in ooze and lichen. Sunlight filtered down from the sewer grate overhead, along with a couple of faint shouts from people who seemed to have noticed her unexpected fall.

A man in plain clothing stood next to her with a burning, orange torch in one hand and a flaming sword in the other. With a fierce expression, he tried to insert himself between her and whatever was behind her. “Who are—? Get out of here! Run!”

Jane looked over her shoulder — and saw what was probably the biggest poo slime in existence, taller than she was. She ran. “Oh, hell no!” But she didn’t go far, blindly stumbling into the fighter’s partner and nearly taking them both down into the knee-high water and unpleasant stuff.

“Get off me, you crazy nut!” The woman tried to shove Jane aside, then raised her hands. “[Icicle]!” White motes of cold and light coalesced in a heartbeat into a sharp, conical shard of ice about the size of the woman’s forearm. It shot forward and penetrated the poo slime.

In creating that hole, the membrane that gave the slime its blob-like shape ruptured. A fountain of brown, acidic slime blasted back out of the opening and hit Jane square in the chest.

The foulest gunk imaginable coated her from head to foot, burning her skin. Her stomach heaved, and she turned on instinct, projectile vomiting all over the ice caster next to her.

The woman stared down at herself in horror. Before this, she had somehow managed to remain pristine from the knees up despite adventuring in a sewer. But no longer. She could barely get words out. “You…you cow!”

The burbling, gurgling sound of something viscous boiling carried through the tunnel. A shout of victory. Then the stench of steamy urine and feces washed over them. Then a panicked voice rang out, “Uh…help. Help! Winnie!”

Winnie was doing her gagging best not to vomit as well. “…[Icicle]…of for eff’s sake…” The shard shot out, eliciting a scream from the warrior in front as it clipped the side of his arm before nailing the poo slime.

He pleaded, “Watch it!”

She snapped back, “You watch it!”

He hacked away at the giant slime, but his sword wasn’t very effective when slashing, for the slime simply gave way under the blows. He lunged for the hole the second icicle had caused, but it was already closing, healing fast. “Stupid thing! Die! Why won’t you die?”

Jane wilted at the idea of joining, but she had no choice. Besides, she didn’t relish the idea of dying by poo. Pulling her knife out of her pocket, she readied herself, then slogged through the muck toward the enemy. The footing was half slippery, half sticky, brown water swirling around her calves and knees. Giving the warrior space to use his blade, she angled to the side of the monster, closer to the wall, then raised her knife and plunged it down.

It was like stabbing old, thick gelatine. But the knife did scratch the membrane.

The warrior looked over at her in relief. “Thanks! Keep it up. We can win this!”

The woman barked, “Don’t let up!” She fired another icicle.

“Sorry.” With a heave, he thrust his fiery sword into the slime. This time, it punctured the membrane and entered. Slime boiled, and more steaming, hot sludge poured out, running down the man’s body and legs. The smell…

The slime heaved once, twice, body swaying, then it pushed forward. The huge mass pressed Jane up against the brick wall so she couldn’t move and knocked the warrior onto his backside before rolling over him. When his hand went underwater, so did the torch he carried, the only light source. The storm sewer plunged into darkness.

“[Icicle]! Damn you…come on… [Icicle]! Bloody cooldown! I can’t see anything!”

Jane felt the poo slime eating away at her, her skin burning where it touched. “No. Not today!” She vented all her inner turmoil, all her frustration and sadness and fear, pushing the slime away far enough so she could move, then putting all that emotion into every stab of the knife, which she wielded like a serial killer on cocaine. Her hand blurred. “Diediediediedie!” And then she ran out of stamina, and her chest heaved from the effort, her lungs burning as they tried to take in precious air that tasted like a well-used toilet.

But though the warrior was down, he wasn’t out. His flaming sword punctured the bottom of the poo slime, and he rose into the body of the disgusting monster. The glow of his sword could be seen through the clear brown membrane, the sludge inside boiling faster and faster.

Jane had an appalling premonition. “Oh no…” She looked up at the monster’s HP bar.

The HP ran out. The giant slime shivered, quivered, and exploded, raining wet, brown awfulness in all directions.

The blast cracked Jane’s head against the sewer wall, and she almost died. She was vaguely aware of the ice mage being knocked off her feet at last.

The warrior dropped to one knee, gasping. Brown slime rained down from the ceiling. His skin was red underneath the foulness that coated every part of him, his health as close to empty as Jane’s. But he’d survived.

Jane pushed herself away from the wall and groaned. She hated feeling so unfit. After so many years of gruelling exercise in the real world, it just felt unfair. “That…was officially…the worst experience…of my life.”

The ice mage got to her feet in dismay, dripping. “Oh, bloody—! I can’t believe I let you talk me into this quest.”

The warrior sagged but looked up with a tired smile. “We did…we did it. We won.” He panted. “That was intense.”

Jane shook her head. “I hope the reward was really, really good for this. Or you people are crazy.”

He shrugged. “Dunno yet. XP when we turn the quest in.”

“Drop anything?” She was slightly annoyed that she’d only gotten experience for sharing the kill. If they’d had time to party up at some point, they could have shared their quest with her, and it would have given her a share of the reward.

“Hmm.” He shakily rose to his feet and looked around. “Aw, crap. It’s probably under the water somewhere.”

Jane looked at the knee-deep river of brown hell and shuddered. “Good luck finding it.”

He paused, then apparently decided against it. “Naw. It…it’ll be garbage, I’m sure. Right? I mean, we’re low-level; it’s a low-level quest. I’m sure nothing amazing would drop, right?” He said that, yet he stared at the water.

The image of the unique bikini currently stashed in her backpack flashed in Jane’s mind. She was reminded, yet again, that she was carrying around something very precious all by herself and that it could be taken at any moment. She’d been on edge ever since getting the thing, then more so after first splitting from Quill. Now that she’d cut ties entirely and was totally on her own, she felt vulnerable.

The warrior hummed and hawed. “Darn it. I’d better check.” He used his sword as a torch now and waved it around over the water.

She nodded to it. “That thing’s pretty handy. Magical item?”

He glanced up but kept blindly scouring the bottom of the sewer with his other hand. “No. Got my class. I’m an alchemical warrior. I specialized in fire, and I can make any weapon I use light up. Cool, huh?”

“Very.” She meant it. It looked sweet, and it surely did more damage than her knife, which was about as low as you could go for weapons short of using your fists. Even her staff hit harder. She looked up at the grate above. The staff was probably gone by now, snatched up by some passerby. She tsked. She’d have to get another.

The ice mage looked down at herself at a loss, like she wanted to wipe the mess off, but her hands were covered as well. “Ugh. Can we please get out of here now? Look at me!”

The warrior gave up on the loot and straightened. “Sorry. Yeah, of course.”

One of Jane’s brows rose, but she didn’t say anything. Considering what the woman’s partner had just gone through — literally through a poo slime the size of a house — the woman could be a little less self-centred.

The warrior slogged toward his partner but gave Jane an inquiring look. “Want to come with us to the exit?” He frowned. “How’d you get here, anyway?”

She trudged through the muck beside him. “I don’t know. I was walking on the street and somehow went through the grate.” She pointed up.

He followed her gesture. “Weird. Wonder if it’s a trap or a glitch.”

She shrugged, too tired to think about it.

The woman had already turned to face the other way but had waited at the edge of the sword’s light for her partner to catch up. She seemed impatient to get out of this place.

Jane couldn’t blame her. She needed a hundred hot baths and a bucket of scrubbing salts as soon as possible. Or maybe just kill herself and get reborn into a nice, new body that didn’t smell. She perked up at the thought of cleanliness by suicide, something only possible in a video game, then hesitated as she recalled her bag and the money and unique armour inside. She had a lot to lose and risked someone taking it all while she was running back to her corpse. Better not chance it unless she’d hidden all her stuff away somewhere first.

A thought struck her. “Wait. What level do we get to use the bank?” She really needed to stash her stuff where it couldn’t be stolen.

The warrior answered, “Five. We went earlier just to check it out, but we don’t have anything to put in it yet. You can deposit unlimited money, but there’s only so much room for items. You have to buy more space, and it’s very expensive.” His expression soured, though he had such an eager, boyish manner that it was kind of cute. “I don’t know if crafting or professions are going to come into the game at some point, but if they do, it’s going to be a huge pain. You’re going to have to carry everything around all the time because there’s no way you’re going to be able to store all your stuff in the bank.”

The ice mage, who Jane remembered the warrior had called Winnie, finally deigned to join the conversation. She was slightly older than Jane and much older than the young warrior, who appeared to be about eighteen or nineteen. With a haughty voice, she pointed out, “Nothing binds here. Anything you collect is going to get stolen. Nobody is going to be able to collect enough to make anything.”

“True.”

Jane looked between the two. “Are you…a couple?” It seemed unlikely, given their age difference, but it felt like he was following her around like a loyal puppy dog.

The young man managed to blush. “No.” He softly chuckled. “Uh, we met in the stadium. When we logged in. We were sitting next to each other.”

“Ah.”

His brows rose in an inquiring manner. “You’re soloing?”

She put a note of finality in her voice because she did not want to talk about it. “I am now.”

He seemed to understand and didn’t follow up with that line of questioning.

Winnie nagged, “Hurry up, you two. It stinks, it’s gross, and I want to get out of here.”

“Sorry!” The warrior walked faster, quick to please her, as seemed to be the norm with him.

Jane frowned at the woman’s back but refrained from saying anything that might start an argument.

They carried on together, with Jane and the warrior, whose name turned out to be Roger, chatting about the same thing all players talked about when meeting for the first time: this crazy death game they’d been caught up in.

Winnie largely kept silent, darting suspicious looks Jane’s way every now and then.

Jane got the impression that while the two weren’t a couple, the woman didn’t seem to appreciate Jane getting overly friendly with Roger. He was very tall and so skinny as to be bony, certainly had a boyish charm, but was by no means handsome. Jane didn’t have the slightest sexual or romantic interest in him. She made sure to keep things polite and friendly but said and did nothing that might seem like more.

The storm sewer main was quite large. Thankfully, it was also free of monsters because the other two had cleared it on the way in. That said, they couldn’t completely relax their guards. Smaller side tunnels fed into the main, where more monsters could come from. And those killed would eventually respawn.

In fact…

Something just happened to catch Jane’s eye as they made their way past a pair of feeder tunnels, one on each side. She half glanced that way, then stopped herself. Her voice tightened, and she whispered, “Roger. We’ve got company.”

He instantly became alert. “More slimes.”

“Not unless slimes carry steel. Pretty sure I saw a reflection off metal in the tunnel we just passed.”

Winnie overheard and looked over her shoulder at the two of them. “Are we going to run?”

Roger thought about it for a moment. “A fight means XP.”

Winnie countered, “We’re filthy and tired.”

Jane mulled it over. “I don’t have a very good weapon.” Plus, dying here meant risking her backpack, items, and money. Still, a chance to level and maybe get some stuff while she had two helpers was a great opportunity. Despite how firm she’d been on the idea of going solo after breaking up with Quill, er, ending it with Quill, (they weren’t a couple; why had she thought of it that way?)… Anyway… Being in a party made fighting a lot safer. “Maybe we check out their level. If they’re too high, we run?”

“Hmm. Winnie?”

She looked ready to object again but reluctantly gave in. “Fine. They’re probably human, right? Which means they’ll probably drop coins. We could use the money.”

He nodded. “Yeah. It’s not easy to come by this early in the game, huh?” He gave Jane a knowing smile, expecting her to feel the same.

She decided not to mention the huge windfall from the moss bear. “Uh, yeah. Definitely.”

Winnie was quick to take charge. She stopped and turned, hands on her hips. “You two tank. I’ll ice it from behind.”

Jane wasn’t sure she liked the other woman’s domineering attitude but couldn’t argue. Jane had yet to get a class or any skills or spells. “I’ve got high health. I can do that.” She tried to build up some mental fortitude for the upcoming fight.

Roger took a step toward the tunnel Jane had indicated. “I’ll pull them out into this tunnel. Keep an eye out in case anyone comes out the other one or from behind.” When they both agreed, he slid forward until reaching the corner of the side tunnel. Peeking around, he poked the sword inside. “Got one!” he rapidly backed up, sword defensively in front of him.

A male rogue in black clothing followed the warrior. He carried a long dagger and had a red bandana over the lower half of his face, his eyes intense. “We are the Scarlet Shadows. Fear me!” He lashed out at Roger.

Roger stood his ground in the middle of the sewer main.

Jane moved to join him, again going wide to give him space. However, she moved far enough around him that she screwed up.

Movement came from the side.

Jane looked up just in time to see a second rogue run out of the other side tunnel. “Ahh!” She dodged the woman’s spear and went off balance. “Sorry! I aggroed a second one!”

Winnie growled in disgust. “We should run. [Icicle]!” She blasted the woman coming after Jane in the chest, giving Jane a moment to catch herself and move in on the spearwoman before the latter could use her longer reach.

Jane was surprised but glad for the help. Not wasting this chance, she splashed through the water and mud.

The spearwoman rogue righted herself and readied to drive her spear tip through Jane’s belly.

But Jane was too fast, sliding past the spear and driving her knife into the woman’s face. It gave her a split second to check out the enemy’s level. She called out to the others, “Mine’s only level four!”

Roger shouted back, sounding pressed. “Mine’s five!”

“Do we run?” She asked this but knew it would be hard while fighting off both rogues a the same time. Besides, inside the spearwoman’s guard, on the attack, she felt like she could do this. She wanted to win this fight.

Roger grunted, and it sounded like either he’d gotten hit or the rogue had. “Winnie! Help Jane. Yours is weaker. I’ll try to hold out.”

Jane kept fighting through the exchange. There was never time to pause in a battle. This wasn’t some anime where they would trade one blow, then trash-talk each other for ten minutes, then trade another blow, then trash-talk for a whole season before the next hit came.

Then Winnie screamed.

Male

36

QUILL KRAU

Class NONE, Level 1

STR

1

STATUS

DEX

3

Currently feeling lost and angry.

HEA

7

SKILLS

INT

2

WIS

17

ITEMS

STA

14

CHA

11

Female

26

JANE EULA

Class NONE, Level 4

STR

6

STATUS

DEX

11

Currently wishing she was literally anywhere but here! Needs a bath now.

HEA

19

SKILLS

INT

18

WIS

18

ITEMS

STA

2

Gilded Armour of the Nature Goddess (unique); knife; staff (common)

CHA

5