Chapter 8: There’s No Escape

I found myself deep inside a dungeon, surrounded by bones, old, cracked, piled in forgotten heaps. The air was heavy and damp, and the game’s hyper-realism sent an actual chill crawling down my spine. This place didn’t just look eerie. It felt haunted.

I must’ve ended up here after the blast. One minute, I was reaching for Jarrod as the flames swallowed us both, then suddenly everything went black. Now I was alone. Everyone had been scattered, and I had no idea where the others were.

So this is how the five-million-dollar challenge begins, huh?

The dungeon was massive, like a ruined city buried beneath the earth, arches crumbled, stone paths half-swallowed by roots, the broken remains of what once must’ve been something sacred. It stretched on like a maze with no end.

I kept walking, senses on high alert. Honestly I was getting bored, because it’s been an entire hour that I’ve been walking and nothing happens.
That’s when I heard it, quick footsteps, echoing from somewhere nearby. Before I could turn, something or someone slammed into my back.

We both hit the ground hard. I groaned and rolled over, expecting maybe a monster or another player. But instead, I found myself staring at a girl. A stranger.

She looked terrified.

Her eyes darted around the shadows like she was being hunted. I raised my hands slowly and spoke gently. "Hey—hey, it’s okay. You’re safe now. Just breathe."

It took a moment, but she responded. Her breathing slowed, her posture eased. I helped her sit down on a chunk of stone nearby to rest. Eventually, she let out a shaky breath, finally finding her voice.

"Th-thank you… I didn’t know what to do. If you hadn’t been there…" She stopped herself and gave a small, grateful nod. "I’m Ysanthe. What’s your name?"

I smirked, brushing dirt from my jacket. "Jack Knockout. I go by the Glitchwalker."

"Glitchwalker?" she echoed, raising an eyebrow.

I gave her a crooked grin. "Cool, right?."

Ysanthe smiled faintly, but the weight hadn’t fully lifted from her expression. Her eyes were still distant, haunted. I crouched in front of her.

"You okay? Looked like you were having a full-on panic attack."

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, her lips tightened. Then, slowly, she reached out and took my hand. Her touch was soft, but her grip had purpose. With her free hand, she conjured a flower, its petals burning gently like candlelight. It hovered, shedding warm illumination across our dim surroundings.

My eyes widened. "Whoa. How did you do that?"

She looked down at the flame flower. "It’s my main magic. It’s called Flower Flare. Every player gets a different main type of magic when they start… random, I guess."

Curious, I opened my own HUD, flicking through my character settings. Sure enough, there it was, Magic: LOCKED. I blinked. "Huh."

"What is it?" Ysanthe asked.

I laughed and palmed my forehead. "I forgot I’m the freaking Glitchwalker. I can unlock stuff myself."

With that, I pressed my hand against the icon and just like that, the locks cracked and shattered away. A new ability glowed into existence before me.

"Nova Bloom," I read aloud. "Says here I can conjure small electronic magnetic explosives."

"Sounds… destructive," Ysanthe said, raising a brow, but smiling now, genuinely.

"Sounds awesome," I corrected her.

Ysanthe led me through a narrow, crumbling passage, her steps nervous, her eyes locked on the ground ahead. Whatever had spooked her earlier, she was bringing me straight to it.

When we arrived, I understood immediately.

There was a body. A player. Lying face-down in a thick pool of blood.

I froze.

The way it was mangled… the way the limbs were twisted at unnatural angles, skin torn and armor crushed, it made me instinctively look away. I had to steady my breathing. For all the game’s incredible realism, I didn’t expect this.

So this is what happens when a player dies in Onlife: Alchemy & Alloy?

They don’t just disappear or log out like other MMOs. They leave a body behind. A corpse.

I glanced at Ysanthe. She wasn’t crying, but she was hugging herself, her jaw trembling slightly. Her fear wasn’t just about death, it was about how real this was. Too real.

"Stay back," I told her gently. I approached the body, crouching next to it. I didn’t recognize the player. But the wounds were savage, bit marks, deep slashes, torn flesh.

Definitely a monster attack.

I scanned the area. Bones were scattered everywhere. Skulls, spines, clawed limbs. This dungeon had been a slaughterhouse long before we showed up.

"Whatever did this," I muttered, "it wasn’t human."

But the thing was, I didn’t know what it was either. I wasn’t caught up on Ashalondaria’s lore, especially not the underground stuff. Maybe some kind of carnivorous dungeon beast? That’s the best guess I had.

We moved on, but the image stuck in my mind like dried blood. That body… it felt too real. If the game leaves corpses behind when you die, as a way to sell realism, then… did that guy suffer before it happened?

I mean, it’s just a game, right?

I shook the thought off and tried to keep moving. I noticed Ysanthe glance at me, worried.

"You okay?" she asked softly.

I gave a short laugh. "Yeah. Just thinking… this isn’t exactly the cozy tutorial dungeon I was expecting."

"Cozy?" she raised a brow. "If your idea of cozy involves murder caves, I’m starting to question your standards."

I smirked. "Hey, some of us don’t get hand-fed flame flowers at spawn."

"Oh, please," she rolled her eyes. "Flower Flare literally useless unless I have sunlight. Down here? I might as well be swinging a glow stick."

We shared a small laugh. It wasn’t much, but for a second, it helped. It felt human.

"Seriously, though," I added. "You did good back there. Most people would’ve logged out or frozen."

"I wanted to," she admitted. "But I figured… if someone like you was still alive, I shouldn’t wimp out."

I raised an eyebrow. "Someone like me?"

"You know. Glitchwalker," she teased. "Big title, big pressure."

I chuckled. "Great. I’ve been here ten minutes and I’ve already got a fan club."

But before she could throw another comeback, I heard someone pleading.
When we ran to see what was happening, Ysanthe and I stumbled upon a brutal sight, four guys ganging up on a lone player.

They were merciless, kicking him, stomping him, shouting at him to hand over his loot.

He refused. Even on the ground, bleeding, he clutched his bag with defiance in his eyes.

Then one of them pulled out a knife.

Before we could react—

—he drove it into the man’s throat.

Just like that. No hesitation. No second thought.

I froze. Ysanthe covered her mouth, gasping in horror.

This wasn’t a raid. It wasn’t PvP. This was a straight-up execution.

I couldn’t believe it. The cruelty from Onlife… had followed us into Alchemy & Alloy.

Looters. They’d found a way in.

And now they were spreading their filth here too.

The four of them ransacked the man’s corpse, laughing, joking as if they hadn’t just murdered someone. Then, without a care in the world, they walked off—disappearing down the corridor.

We approached the body in silence. The man’s eyes were still wide open.

He was gone.

We should’ve stepped in. We should have done something.

Then—
A guttural scream tore through the corridor ahead of us.

Then another voice, panicked. "No—no, they’re everywhere!"

We ran a few paces forward, just in time to catch flashes of movement up ahead—the same looters now surrounded by monstrous, skeletal creatures with weapons of bone and rust. There were four of them. Then three. Then two.

And then silence.

Only the wet crack of bone and armor being crushed.

Ysanthe covered her mouth. I clenched my fists.

We were too late.

The monsters disappeared back into the shadows, but the players’ bodies remained—slumped, bleeding, lifeless.

"Jack…" Ysanthe whispered. "Are those… real deaths?"

I didn’t answer. Not because I didn’t want to—but because I didn’t know.

Were they just visuals to raise the stakes?

Or were we watching real people die?

The silence left behind by those screams lingered far too long. The air felt heavier, like even the dungeon itself was mourning.

Ysanthe clutched her arm, her face pale.

I took a breath, then another.

"Maybe… you should log out," I said quietly.

She looked at me like I’d just offered her an escape hatch.

"You think it’s safe?"

"Safer than staying down here with whatever tore through those guys." I nodded. "Go ahead. I’ll be fine."

She nodded, shakily. "Okay."

Ysanthe raised her hand, palm open, fingers trembling slightly as she swiped through the invisible HUD.

I waited.

And waited.

Her expression twisted.

"…Where’s the log out?" she murmured.

"What?" I stepped closer.

"It’s not here." She opened the system panel again. "No ‘Exit.’ No ‘Log Out.’ Not even a ‘Disconnect.’ It’s just… gone."

That cold chill from earlier? It was back, but this time it didn’t just brush my spine. It buried itself in it.

"Let me try." I called up my own menu, swiping through every option: Settings, Network, Emergency Override…

Nothing. Just blank spots where the Log Out option should’ve been.

"No way," I muttered. "No way."

My heartbeat spiked. But I kept my voice even as I pressed my fingers together, glitching the space in front of me, forcing an override like I’d done before to unlock magic. Code cracked, shimmered.

I pushed harder, trying to spawn a manual log out panel.

Error.

Tried again.

Error.

I clenched my jaw. "This isn’t right."

Ysanthe was already pacing. "Why would they remove the log out? It was here before, I know it was."

"I know. I remember it too."

"But now it’s just… gone?"

I didn’t want to say it, but the words spilled out anyway.

"Ysanthe… what if we can’t leave?"

She stopped pacing.

"What?"

"I’m the Glitchwalker. I can override locks, break through UI limitations, even hijack functions—but it’s not working. Nothing I do breaks this."

I glanced around the dungeon. The dim, fire-lit ruins. The still bodies. The silence.

"Something’s wrong with the game," I whispered.

"No," she shook her head. "No. That’s not possible. They wouldn’t, this is a high-profile launch. This isn’t supposed to happen."

And yet here we were. Trapped.