ThumpTHUMP
All eyes are on me as I race forward.
ThumpTHUMP
Ghost eyes, the remnants of hope from beyond the grave.
ThumpTHUMP
As the lone survivor here, it is more than a wish, but a duty to kill the beast that ravages our lands.
ThumpTHUMP
Up ahead, the scales on its face glitter in the firelight spread across the previously prosperous port of Omnen-Amur.
ThumpTHUMP
Its teeth are coated in the charred blood and guts of my fellows.
ThumpTHUMP
Its eyes are slitted and flaming with an eldrich gleam.
ThumpTHUMP
It has no wings like most of its kin, nor is it as towering.
ThumpTHUMP
It barely can peek over the fifteen foot wall enclosing this fair city, not that the wall stopped it.
ThumpTHUMP
Claws and bulging muscles helped it help itself to the cattle, the people, and the gold.
ThumpTHUMP
Here I am with two dainty swords, a grim smile, and the hopes of all those dead bodies on the ground.
ThumpTHUMP
It moves, charging.
ThumpTHUMP
I tense, sweat slick on my sword hilt.
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ThumpTHUMP
ThumpTHUMP
A leap.
ThumpTHUMP
ThumpTHUMP
A thrust.
ThumpTHUMP
ThumpTHUMP
It disappeared.
ThumpTHUMP
ThumpTHUMP
Teleportation.
ThumpTHUMP
ThumpTHUMP
Hot breath on my neck.
ThumpTHUMP
ThumpTHUMP
ThumpTHUMP
I’m still smiling because
ThumpTHUMP
I
ThumpTHUMP
Already knew
ThumpTHUMP
It
ThumpTHUMP
was there.
ThumpTHUMP
And with that, my blade goes through the beasts eye. The fires flicker out as it screams a final scream.
ThumpTHUMP
Did I say scream? I meant
ThumpTHUMP
ThumpTHUMP
ThumpTHUMP
ThumpTHUMP
firebreath!
ThumpTHUMP
Thump-blip-
You Have Died
Respawn available in one hour.
Proceed to lobby?
Yes/No
. . .Well, that could have gone better. Hopefully we still get credit for killing it. If we don’t, everybody is going to be super pissed off. All that work we put into our settlement and one damn teleporting dragon comes to screw us over. The guild leader is going to give me hell no matter what, I’m sure. Something like “Why didn’t you just shoot it with an arrow before it charged?” or “Why weren’t you at the town in the beginning when it started to attack like the rest of the guild?”
Lets hope that I can get away from her by logging out and then hiding for a while. I poke the No option.
Initiating logout procedure.
And then I lost a whole lot of weight.
Literally.
I’m living in half-earth gravity right now, so all the mass is still there, but the weight that comes with it is magically gone. Not that I get to be super happy about that. Even up in space, especially up in space, I have to stay in shape instead of pigging out on ice-cream and cake and becoming a nice ball of fat that can float amongst the stars.
I don’t have a six-pack, mostly because I, like everyone else on the Outlook spend a vast portion of my time in this pod that I’m waking up in right now. Can’t exactly cross the space between stars without long naps, right? In fact, most people don’t even get to wake up because they are termed passengers to be stowed away and live out the magnificence of fifty year-old state of the art virtual reality simulations. I like to call them videogames, but all the techy people on-board frown upon such an oversimplification.
I’m not really that popular to be honest, what with the fact that I have one to two PHD’s less than practically everyone else aboard. Doesn’t really dampen my spirits with the fact that most of my job is playing videogames all day every day.
As if determined to prove me wrong on my popularity, a bright-green, flashy call notice is blinking on the inside of my capsule as I de-frost. Interestingly, not from my guild-leader. She must be the smaller blinking icon that tells me that I have a new message. No, the call is from someone with more power, a being that heralds dread tidings: my Boss. I hit the accept call button. This can only mean one thing.
“Jackson, impressive timing as usual. Get up to the command module, we need your eyes.”
Work calls, ugh.
