Little by little, I can feel my body coming back to its senses. First, there's heat, then my heartbeats, the acute ringing coming from the depths of my ears, the smell of mold, and finally the rocky ground.
"Hmgh…"
My eyes open slowly, I lift my cheeks from the cold floor and move to sit.
"What… happened?"
There are stone bricks everywhere. My forearm itches, so I try to take whatever is doing that off, but it's attached to my body. I look down to see that I'm wearing dark leather gloves, I turn my hand back and forth, then I stare completely confused at the palm of my hands. Until a shock of fear dominates my body.
Sigivald: "So you woke up."
"WHAT THE FUCK?" – I jump away.
Sigivald: "I told you already, no? I'm not here to hurt you."
"A-A-A-" – I point my finger at him. – "W-W-WHY-?"
The smiling man with a blue top hat tilts his head, staring at me before moving his mouth to speak.
Sigivald: "You received my item, yes?" – He widens his grin. – "I see, so it already took effect."
"T-Took effect? What took effect?"
His smile shrinks slightly.
Sigivald: "Don't you remember what I told you?"
"Hah?"
Sigivald: "You accepted my gift, did you not? Weren't you listening? You do understand why you have it, don't you?"
"What?!"
The only thing that comes to mind is his dialogue box.
"Y-You mean the lore?" – A drop of sweat goes down my temple. – "Who fucking read those? Why would I waste my time on an entire book of nonsense?? I'm not a fucking lore nerd!"
Sigivald closes his smile.
Sigivald: "Than that is indeed very dire. Do you want me to repeat myself?"
A moment of silence comes between us, until Sigivald sighs and loses his focus to look at the wall near him.
Sigivald: "Well, I would, but time is up."
I glance at the same wall he looked, however there's nothing but the same pattern of bricks that repeats itself throughout the entire place, and when I look back at Sigivald, he's walking away with his back turned at me, going for a wall at the other side of the room.
Sigivald: "I'll be going now, if you wish to find me, keep searching this labyrinth. You may meet me again… eventually."
"…h-hey, hey. Hey! What do you mean, find you? This place is a mess! It keeps changing randomly, there's no way I can find you."
The man stops while facing the wall, he turns just to stare at me with one of his blue eyes and a nervous smile.
Sigivald: "That is true, but if there was a way for me to make my find easier for you… the entire plan would be put at risk."
He steps forward, going through the wall as if it was made of liquid.
Sigivald: "And that is something I cannot let happen at any cost," – his voice fades until the last liquid wave solidifies.
With hesitation, I stay still for a couple of seconds, listening only to my heartbeat.
"What the heck?..."
I get up and stride to the wall he passed through, but my hands slap the hard stone bricks.
"Where did you go?! Are you going to leave me here!?"
I hit the wall with my fist and a wave of pain comes right after, spreading out from my little finger.
"Shit, fuck!" – I shake my hand in the air.
As I turn, I hear a quiet earth shake, one that I was already listening faintly but wasn't paying much attention to.
At the door of the room, a giant beast looks at me, his three heads and all his six red eyes pulsating in anger staring deep at my skull. His big stature is just enough to enter the tall entrance by slightly bending his shoulders down. And at the side of one of his heads, rests a big clean tree log being held by his right arm.
I can remember him from a mile away, it's the mini-boss Ogre that was at the dungeon's entrance on the previous server.
"RRRAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH," – the Ogre roars, spitting saliva at the floor.
And with a single step, he's in.
I walk back towards the extreme opposite of the door. The enormous Ogre straightens itself, tightening his grip on his weapon and turning it slightly, supposedly hitting it on the wall, or at least that was what it should happen, but the long trunk goes through the stone, not like the liquid wall trick Sigivald did, but as if the weapon itself didn't exist.
"A-Ahm… w-wait a second."
The Ogre quickens his pacing towards me, taking his weapon off his shoulder.
"Wait a second."
He lifts it, passing through the ceiling without causing any damage.
"H-Hold on! Let's talk it out, okay?!"
In a single swipe, the oversized club descends, I jump to the left, and the club crashes behind me as I almost fall to the ground.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."
I recover my balance by dashing away. The Ogre's weapon quickly shines white and enters the crate it just did, becoming intangible again. One of his heads turns to look at me. I turn to the exit of the room, fastening my pace towards it, but midway to it, I feel earthshakes coming at me quicker than before, I glance back just enough to see the Ogre charging at me with his shoulder forward.
He's going to stomp me.
I look at the exit.
I won't make it.
My right hand extends forward, as if trying to grab the exit to come closer. Then, something clicks in my head.
I need to go a little further.
There's one last earth shake right by my side, I feel my entire body heat up, the wind making the ends of my cloak fly, and then-
*VIULP*
The entire world twists itself around me and my legs lose balance for a moment, but a forced stop allows me to regain my footing.
Behind me, the Ogre crashes and breaks through the wall and falls to the other side.
"I… I blinked?"
Fragments of energy disperse and fade out around me and from where I was but a moment ago.
It's my scout's ability… I can teleport.
After hesitating for a second in awe, I turn to look at my feet.
"Speed boots!"
The ground shakes again, the Ogre is out of sight but I know he's getting up.
C'mon, my feet… need to be faster.
I don't stop staring at my boots, trying to focus all my mind to build the same model that appeared countless times when I played the game: the blue magic that makes my character faster, a wrapping ghost made of energy.
My feet and legs tingle, then suddenly, semi-transparent blue stripes materialize from thin air and begin involving my boots from top to tip, molding themselves until wings pop out near my ankles.
"That's it!" – I open a smile.
With a step forward, the wind pushes my back, allowing me to race out of the room. With a quick side look, I see the Ogre at my right lifting himself from between the rubble with the help of his club. My feet turn to the opposite way and I dash as I never dashed before.
This is inside the game, then… what that guy was doing--? He passed through the stone wall, and before that, he looked at another wall, he saw something that wasn't there? Which abilities are those?
I turn to the left at the corridor path, distancing myself from the Ogre even more.
I need to think. The first is probably some permission only he has to pass there, it's the only thing that comes to mind, and... Wait, maybe he used Vision or a similar ability. Some dungeons allow you to see beyond the walls if you use a perception skill, don't they? That's right. I need to know how to do that, c'mon focus, Vision, Divine Vision.
My imagination works hard to visualize what I have always seen from the other side of the screen: my eyes filling with energy, the golden color, the grey wave, the name tags. And as if it was natural, in a blink of an eye, the entire world is painted with a wave of grey.
I instinctively look behind me, and there it was, the silhouette of the Ogre appearing faded through the wall, with a fading text over his head:
[24th War Ogre, Shadow's army (Level 90+)]
It's the same guy, I knew it.
Then… I feel a shock of fear electrifying my body, my eyes widen and my blood freezes, just like when you realize that something was wrong, that you just made a mistake. The earth shakes as I turn to face it, I look up with only one of my eyes, reading the name hovering just below the ceiling in front of me: "Seventeenth War Ogre, Shadow's army".
Huh.
Everything seems in slow motion. The giant club swinging sideways right at me, his six angry red eyes, the "Level 90+" above his head.
Two of them?
I extend my hand forward, focusing my eyes on the open space between the Ogre's hip and the wall, everything is so slow that it feels like I'm submerged in thick tar.
I need to blink…
My right arm's aim stabilizes on where I want to go, and I imagine the same sensation that saved me before. The need to teleport away, the tingling, the magic, the animation the character does, the particle effects, the mana cost, the button I click, the entire energy enveloping my body.
ONE MORE TIME!
*tlick*
The noteless sound of a piano key being pressed underwater reverberates in my head. A familiar sound effect that I'm used to hear.
Hah?
The world trembles.
It's on cooldown.
My foot reaches the floor and my body hits the wall brutally.
My entire left side screams in pain. My blood, my bones, my muscles, I feel all of them tangling together in a mess as I'm buried in the stone. A bit of black smoke comes out of my body, a skill that supposedly should block half of fatal damage disappearing as if it was nothing in a single frame of a second. As my chest side is pressed by the tree log, my life bar decreases at the corner of my vision, shaking desperately.
[30##/3710]
[23##/3710]
[17##/3710]
[11##/3710]
[958/3710]
I cough out blood.
The Ogre's club moves away, my body slowly looses off the wall and I fall to the side, but before I can hit the ground, a giant hand grabs me.
My eyes open to see everything doubled, red blood tainting the entirety of my left eye, and his giant hand covering me from ribs to knees. The dust clouds dissipate as the Ogre lifts me closer to its three faces.
"... let me go…"
His grip tightens. My eyes tremble in pain, searching if there's anywhere to run to.
"Let me go…"
Nothing, there's nothing but the white walls and the repeating stone bricks, the yellowish baseboards illuminating the oversized corridors, and the rough and dirty emerald-ish skin of the Ogre.
The Ogre's grip tightens even more, one of his heads laughs in an echo.
("Samsara Fall Online, huh? Looks promising.")
There are no abilities to use. My life bar keeps decreasing. My ribs crackle. The pain burns everything in me.
"Disconnect." – Blood squeezes out of my mouth.
([New update: The Fall approaches])
(["Tropper96: How about it, kid? I give you real money for it."])
([Do you accept this mission?])
"I-I want to disconnect!"
I hit him with my bare hands. My mind blindly trying to remember how to leave the game.
"LET ME GO! DISCONNECT!"
(???: "I started playing that game you told me about.")
(There's blood everywhere, but it doesn't stop the punching.)
("He's just a damn kid.")
"PLEASE, I SWEAR- LET ME GO! STOP IT! STOP IT!!"
The red bar shrinks at each heartbeat.
( [Yes] [No] )
("But why he would do that?")
("That's a good way to get yourself killed.")
My body flounces to free itself, my head turning and twisting up and down, right and left, my nostrils trying to gasp for air, my legs to kick him. All for nothing.
'3##/3710'
'2##/3710'
'1##/3710'
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
Suddenly, lightning strikes. Light-blue sparkles spread and crackle around the Ogre's heads in a thunder. Like a cannon shot, the explosion pushes him back, making him lose his balance and fall onto the wall, finally releasing his grip. My body falls until my head hits the ground, then everything snaps to a fog of darkness.
Steps echo deep in the background.
?Man: "Nice shot, Elay!" – a hoarse voice exclaims muffled in my dizziness.
?Girl: "Thanks, but we need to help him, agro it!" – a girl says.
?Man: "Easier said than done."
?Boy: "Guys, h-he's level one hundred and twenty-seven, a couple of hits and you're done for!" – A man's feeble voice comes from farther away.
Someone comes near me.
?Girl: "He's unconscious, but he's still alive! Holy--" – She stops herself. – "He's only at eight HP, we almost lost him."
My eyes manage to narrowly see a pink-dressed girl with both arms extended to my torso. I feel my body heal, and slowly my vision opens just enough for me to see my health bar rising, then my eyes close shut again.
?Girl: "You're going to be okay~; everything is going to be okay~," – she sings in a calm-ish voice.
Something crashes in the background.
?Man: "Shit! His weapon passes through walls, bugged as hell!"
?Boy: "Focus on dodging, I-I'll do the damage."
"T-th…"
?Girl: "Look, he's going to say something!"
?Man: "Um… I don't care!? Why don't you join the fight, Elay?"
The Ogre's weapon crashes the wall again, followed by an explosion.
"… there's one more…"
?Girl: "There's one more…? What? following the corridor?"
The ground on my cheek shakes with the two Ogres walking.
?Boy: "I-It's true, Elay, get out of there! One more War Ogre coming from nine o'clock."
?Girl: "What the heck is nine o'clock, Steven?"
Someone lifts my body.
?Girl: "Oh! Look, I can carry him! Let's run!"
?Man: "Why, Elay? Stop doing that!"
"We need to get out of here."
?Girl: "See? Even he is saying to get out! Let's move!"
?Man: "Tsk. His health, Steven?"
?Boy: "A-Ah! N-Ninety-five percent."
?Man: "Okay, let's get out of here. Our attacks didn't do shit."
The Ogre strikes the ground as I hear someone's cape drifting in the wind with an evasion.
?Girl: "What is he?" – She passes through the giant Ogre in a quick dash. – "A mission NPC?"
The three of them run, my body shakes with each step.
?Man: "Did the talk-to button appear?"
?Girl: "N-no? I don't think so."
?Man: "So, it's not. He's useless."
"I'm not- an NPC…"
?Man: "Huh…?"
"… I'm a player…" – I manage to say before blacking out.
- - - - - - - - - - -
"I'm a player?" – Elay says a little bit afraid.
"Don't listen to that idiot, Elay. Drop him, and let him die already," – a boy says annoyed on the other side of her headphones.
"P-Player? Maybe it's a new group in the lore!? Definitely not dropping an important key to the story, Mark." – Steven says excitedly.
Looking at her screen, Elay clicks her mouse to open the chat's past logs, where the previous messages fade back in, all in which "DArkstrider:" appears with a purple name in proximity chat.
"Not an NPC, huh?" – she thinks aloud.