Sometime later, I rolled out of the heap of wood and cloth. My guts were hanging high in my throat when I looked over to see the charred pile of gore. I knew it was a monster, that I shouldn’t feel any guilt. Another part of me thought about how this monster was an infected human, I wondered if it was made by the DOMINAI or if it was some leftover of another life. I wondered if I was considered a murderer now and how I should feel about that.

  The pile of meat that had been a monster lay smoking on the floor. I walked over, not sure if there was anything salvageable from the situation. I figured, if it was a game, there had to be loot. If all the loot was destroyed, then I would construe that this place might be more of a simulation than a game. I walked up and next to the body was a very small chest, no wider across than my forearm. Looking at the corpse, charred and looking small compared to what I had thought it should be. Without all the hair, there wasn’t all that much to the Werewolf. On its hand I caught a small glint. A chained necklace with a charm of some kind. I took it, and it burned me a bit before I put it into my inventory. I hissed at the pain but made a mental note to see if the necklace was still hot when I took it back out.

  The chest abruptly opened, interrupting my chain of thought. In my UI it said “Mini-Boss Chest” as the description. The inside of it glowed, a partially transparent hand symbol flashed just above the box’s insides. I reached in, plucking out what felt like a set of dice. Opening my hand to inspect them, a little black box popped up that said,

  “Warning:

  This item may only be accessed from the UI.

  This item cannot be used without equipping it first.

  Equipping this item permanently binds it to your race.”

  I suddenly had a nagging concern about these things, and I quickly put them into my inventory. I pulled them up in my menu to see two weapons, they were flashing and glowing. I looked at the first one, and the glow dimmed to normal. It read:

  Surestrike Knife - Uncommon - A balanced throwing knife enchanted to always strike the intended target blade point down. This item gains a minor attack bonus when thrown. If lost, this item will materialize in its sheath after one hour.

  I moved to my inventory and a small box appeared below my main weapon. An achievement mark flashed in my vision, but I ignored it. I already had a good idea as to what it would be.

  The new box was titled “Ranged.” I mentally selected the item from my inventory and equipped it. A sheath appeared at my legs covering my cargo pants. Curious, I pulled one out and a timer appeared over the knife, counting down from an hour. Neat.

  I moved back into my inventory after putting the knife back in its sheath. The other weapon displayed as a set of partially translucent fists. The item description was read by PAI:

  Flying Fists - Rare - When equipped, this enchanted item extends the user's unarmed strikes with partially translucent ghostly projections. These projections extend up to 24 inches beyond the user's physical reach. Strikes at 18 inches or closer retain full power, while damage decreases progressively beyond this point, becoming minimal at maximum range. Upgradeable for increased range and damage retention.

  Moving to my inventory, I removed my old weapon and excitedly equipped these, curious to see how they worked. Upon equipping them, I felt a faint bit of airflow between my fingers. Oddly, the airflow was body temperature which began warming my hands ever so slightly. I gave out a practice jab, just to see, and a ghostly fist and forearm shot out, seemingly attached to my arm though it wasn’t entirely corporeal. I then sent a practice hook and watched, mostly astonished, as the ghostly arm extended from my body running parallel to the strike. I smirked wickedly to myself before launching into a short combination.

  To my surprise, when I sent an elbow, a translucent elbow appeared striking forward with my body. Proper movements usually meant you used your whole body with an elbow strike, so I barely caught the image before it dissipated. I did it again to be sure, and it did indeed send elbow strikes! This meant that anything within a punching range now could effectively be elbowed, meaning I could seriously deal some damage to anything that got too close.

  Still curious, I moved to grab something with the extended ghost hand, and it didn’t work. I tried again, seeing if I snatched at things quickly enough, it could be considered a strike. Unfortunately, this didn’t work. I spent probably another five minutes next to the smoldering corpse of a werewolf trying to see if I could trick the game into letting me grab things with the new item, all of which was time wasted. I shrugged, it was still really fucking cool and would likely keep me safe from a lot of serious threats.

  Taking one more glance around the room, I readied myself to leave and continue exploring. As I left, I shut the door behind me, not wanting to catch the sight of what I’d done. A loud series of noises surprised me just as I shut the door. I stopped and thought for a moment before cracking the door open and peeking inside. The entire room had reset, including the robed figure. I quietly shut the door, not wanting to go through that again.

  I walked down the single functioning staircase and continued on the path with inward airflow. I kept catching scents in the air, musky and gamey. The faint smell of stagnant air began mixing in, which I thought was odd considering the consistency of air current. The ground itself was bumpy, like old stone and mortar that had seen heavy traffic for a few hundred years. Some pieces of stones had become exposed as the mortar dissipated over time. I stubbed my toes more than enough times, but my fear of another enemy around the corner kept my eyes up rather than watching my footing.

  My efforts paid off as small winged pixie creatures, looking like evil Tinkerbells, began crawling out of cracks in the walls. They weren’t tough, but there were plenty of them. PAI had started reading the explanation for them in my head, but I was too busy trying out my Flying Fists to give a bother. When they died they let out a bemoaned whine, almost like a complaint. After enough of them fell, the rest decided to make a getaway. I tossed a throwing knife, missed, then promptly gave it a rest. I didn’t know who would be bothered by such inane creatures and shrugged as I began looting.

  I was able to loot the entire corpse, and it was only then that I realized I had gotten very lucky. In the description of the pixies, it said, “Warning: Pixie dust applied directly from a pixie kiss causes temporary paralysis. Once paralyzed, the swarm of pixies will magically transport their victim back to the pixie base, where they slowly eat the victim alive.”

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  I shuddered as I continued to loot the bodies. Each one looked a little, well, emo. Comb over hair that covered one eye was the most common haircut, and most of them, males and females, wore fishnets and super tight jeans. The AI had titled them “Sadistic Sprites.” I disagreed with the name, but didn’t care much as they were easy experience and my new weapon made it very hard for them to get close.

  After picking up the remaining bodies, I checked them in my inventory. Though it read “Corpse of Sadistic Sprite: Level 3,” they all had the tag “alchemy ingredient” associated to them.

  “What can I make with the pixies?” I asked PAI, expecting some kind of snarky response.

  “If you had sufficient skills to process them, they make morbidity potions. They, well, they make the drinker depressed.”

  “That doesn’t sound that bad,” I comment, because it really didn’t.

  “Correct! These are more often used in late game, typically used as a method of sabotage considering how long it takes to effect the user.” She sounded like she was hiding some things, so I pressed.

  “How does making someone depressed work out to be sabotage? I mean we,” I choked off, realizing “we,” as in humans, didn’t apply to the talking voice in my head. Before I had a chance to rephrase what I meant, the damn thing just jumped straight to a description.

  “Depression – One of multiple insidious debuffs. Causes lethargy, slow reaction times, poor hygiene, and questionable fashion decisions. If left untreated for fourteen days, the victim will commit suicide by any means possible. At this stage in the debuff, it becomes uncurable by traditional means.”

  I stopped after hearing that. That was… disturbing. Especially since I could, or rather someone that could do alchemy could, effectively make others commit suicide. When applied to dungeon monsters, it made sense, they weren’t real, but when applied to people? The thought gave me a sinking feeling that I didn’t like. I frowned as I didn’t want to think on it any more.

  Leaving my thoughts for the time being, I looked down the long stone hallway, noting a few torches on sconces some distance down. Remembering the skill I had gained from the potion I had bartered for, I activated my Eagle-Eye ability.

  My stomach lurched as my vision zoomed way up. It was like I was standing 80 yards down the hall, and for just a brief moment, the image of the area took a moment to populate. Like any game from home, moving too quickly caused some of the items to pop into existence, like the hardware couldn’t keep up with the game. For just a second or two, on my left, there was no wall. There was an adjacent room running parallel to the hallway, and it started somewhere between where I currently stood and where my vision was looking. When I turned my eyes, I got a very close look at the stone wall to my left, so I turned back quickly. It seemed that the ability was just from my current position, I couldn’t look elsewhere without being able to see it from where I stood. What this meant was that I couldn’t just activate the ability to safely look around corners, thus cheating the system. Still, though the mechanics of the ability were limited, the loading issue was something I would keep a mental note on. There was a way to get to that other room around here, and I wouldn’t have known it if not for the skill. I hoped it wouldn’t get fixed too soon.

  I started walking down the hall. Cautiously, I inspected everything along the way. What I really expected was a trap of some kind, though I didn’t have a guarantee from being able to see the other room for a moment, I suspected it was either a trap or a hidden chamber for those pixies I just fought.

  As I walked along, one stone in the wall stuck out, slightly off color compared to the rest of the stone and mortar around. With trepidation, I reached out a hand and grabbed the stone. I pulled it a little, then pushed it, seeing if it had any kind of give. It wiggled a bit one direction, so I pushed it that way. A soft click echoed through the hallway just before the wall parted, sliding slowly to a stop.

  The new room was well lit, torches lining the walls of some kind of royal chamber. Unlike the entire dungeon thus far, this area was clean. Clean to a point that it made me feel a little uncomfortable. There was, leading out of the area where the secret door was, a single red carpet, gold on the edges, leading into the well-lit room. There, in the center of the room, were maybe thirty steps leading up to a chair, no, a throne. Sitting on it was a man, rail thin, long hair draped over to one side. I could see the amount of eyeliner on the guy, and judging by his tight jeans, black band tee of some unknown artist, and fishnets coming out from under the shirt, this was a scene kid. An emo, something that time had gratefully let slip by. Now looking at this person, I felt nothing but the desire to laugh. So, I did.

  I could hear mumbling from the chair but couldn’t help myself. It was a good laugh, right from the belly, I let it out despite my worry over the pixie creatures. Nothing came of it, thank god, so I strode up to the scene kid trying to figure out what was keeping him from speaking.

  On closer inspection, the young man barely looked old enough to be out of high school. He shook his head, trying to speak through lips sealed tight. His hands were gripped against his throne, thin lines running up and down his limbs barely caught the firelight. His face was gaunt, and though there was indeed eyeliner on the kid, his eyes were drawn with deep bags underneath them.

  “Uh, need a hand?” I asked, sounding stupid. The young man nodded, his words muffled from his mouth being shut. I looked, noting the slight refraction of firelight on his lips. A cynical man would stop to make a joke about wearing lipstick, but considering how wide this guy’s eyes were, I figured now wouldn’t be the time.

  “Let’s have you up, then.” I grabbed the emo kid by the shirt, it was surprisingly baggy and stretched as I pulled. As soon as I did, the guy started screaming, shaking his head. I let go, opening my hands, I said, “what, what? What is it?”

  He started moving his chin to the side, but when I looked, I didn’t see anything. It sounded like he was trying to say “higher.” I looked up, not noticing anything, I looked back to the young man who continued to gesture with his chin. I looked that direction again, hearing the muffled noise, he could be trying to say, “ire.” I nearly facepalmed when I realized it.

  “Fire?” The young man became suddenly animated, nodding his head vigorously. I pulled out a torch, gesturing to his arms. He nodded, so I placed the flame up to the wispy fibers surrounding the young man’s limbs.

  Like lighting a wick, the flames arched across the pathways of the fibers, crisscrossing the young man’s arms, legs, up his neck, finally burning out on his lips. The scene kid leapt up howling, swatting at his face momentarily before the flames went out. He paused, taking a moment to look around, before he started laughing joyously. He reached out, hugging me before I had a chance to protest. He started weeping.