We Need to Leave, Now

The world was still ringing when I finally understood what Amparo had been saying. I had been hearing her say "Stop!" over and over again, but I hadn’t realized what she meant until she took me by the shoulder.

Combat had been won. Floating in front of me, with Amparo’s head partially sticking through it, was my transparent character sheet, showing off my new stats.

+++

Name: Loiel Krieger

Class: Lord of Tyranny (Slave Knight)

Species: Ursine Therian

Level: 6

HP: 72/72 FP: 10

Attributes: Vigor: F-, Mind: F-, Endurance: F-, Strength: F+, Dexterity: F-, Agility: F- , Intelligence: F-, Faith: F-, Luck: F-

Equipment: -Broken Sword, -Roughspun Tunic, -Satchel (-3 days of rations, -Climbing Kit, -6 F-tier Vitae Cores)

Effects: -Slave Mark

Class Features: -Unarmored Defense, -Reckless Attack, -Fury, -Danger Sense, -Undying Crusader, -Lethal Speed, -Fanatacism, -Hallowed Ground

Proficiencies: -Simple Weapon Proficiency, -Martial Weapon Proficiency, -Shield Proficiency, -Light Armor Proficiency, -Medium Armor Proficiency, -Heavy Armor Proficiency,

Skills: Perception: F, Athletics: E, Survival: F, History: F, Religion: F, Medicine: F-

Racial Traits: -Dark Senses, -Relentless Endurance, -Untrammeled Savagery

+++

However, that didn’t matter. Amparo’s face was contorted in fear. Fear aimed at me. She was terrified of me. I looked down and found myself drenched in gore, and the monster’s head nearly completely decapitated. Even so, it took many long moments for me to process the situation, for me to actually understand the circumstances and their implications. It took me much longer to remember that we were here to save someone.

"I’m sorry." I said as my eyes fell upon the boy, who remained crumpled up against the wall, barely breathing, still bleeding. Our eyes made contact, and I saw the fear in his eyes.

I began to run towards him, only for the boy to raise his magic object at me, and yell "Stay back, you lunatic!"

"I’m not here to hurt you." I said, dropping my sword and holding up both hands. "I didn’t mean to frighten you, I’m sorry."

He grimaced and lowered his guard, "You had that same frenzied look that Lady Mussol gets in battle. If we’re not careful, she’ll cut down friend and foe."

"I wouldn’t have done that. I just got caught up in the moment." I said, frozen to the spot feebly trying to convince myself more than him.

The first time it happened, I excused my loss of control as being a novice. Just nervous energy released in an explosion of violence. But now, I had to admit, I’d actually been on the verge of losing control. I glanced at the character sheet still floating in front of me, and my eyes fell upon a class feature. -Fury.

In game it was just a short buff that doubled your damage and halved the damage you took in turn. It was an ability shared across many melee classes with a few limitations, being that you needed to either be taking damage or doing damage at all times to maintain it, and that you could not cast spells or do anything that required precision or concentration. Those were drawbacks that, if built right, could be inconsequential.

In reality, it turned me into a bloody minded lunatic. Even though its described as the character losing all restraint and self-control, or alternatively entering a meditative murder trance so deep that they could only kill, those things didn’t matter because at the end of the day the player still retained complete control. But now I was the one experiencing it, living through it, and there wasn’t the degree of separation between physical reality and a computer screen to remove me from the intentional bout of insanity.

If I wasn’t careful, I could really kill someone on complete accident.

Then there was the new class feature -Hallowed Ground. That modified -Fury so that at will, I could generate an aura in a five foot radius around me that would harm anyone, friend or foe. Eventually it would gain a radius of 30 feet, and that made party play truly impossible, but even now it was still a highly indiscriminate weapon. I could easily kill Amparo, or anyone else for that matter, by simply standing too close. It left me frozen in place, as I realized how dangerous I had truly become.

"Loiel, we need to do something. What do we do?" She asked, shaking me out of my trance.

"We need to treat his wounds." I said, approaching the dying boy as I picked my sword back up. While he grimaced at my approach, he didn’t resist our assistance.

Thankfully, I knew some first aid from back during my time on earth, but it was basic and I wasn’t certain how much could be applied here. The wound was horrific, three deep puncture wounds that cleanly went through him. He was bleeding profusely, and I wasn’t sure if we could even save him. We could clean the wound and apply pressure, and what would that do? There was no one coming to save us.

I directed Amparo to use her knife to cut away the cloth so that we could get direct access to his wounds, while I dug out a healer’s kit, a water skin and clean scraps of cotton cloth from her backpack. The healer’s kit was very basic, merely clean bandages, a honey salve, thread and a few needles for suturing the wound.

At first I had Amparo apply pressure, but that only caused the boy to howl in agony, "Stop! Stop, that hurts! Just- just clean the wound. Please, just clean it up."

Figuring they were his dying wishes, I had Amparo carefully clean away all the blood and grime, while I hunted down any scraps of cloth that got caught on the wound. While he would faintly grimace in pain while we worked, he was turning pale quickly, eyes growing unfocused.

"I’m Amparo, that’s Loiel." She began to explain as we went about her work. While I knew that was just her dealing with her anxiety, I didn’t stop it. He was fading, and we needed to do anything to keep him conscious. "What’s your name?"

"I’m Javier of Pakiynga." He said breathlessly, struggling to stay awake

"Do you have parents? What did they do there? How far away is it from here?"

"I don’t have parents, I was raised by the Stone Solari, in the monastery right above us."

"Really now? What are you doing down here then?"

"Everyone with a unique class is sent down into the Dungeon as a trial to see if they’re chosen. If they survive, they are chosen. If they die, they are not."

"Really? They must be special then. Did you come here alone?"

"Anyone who descends into the Dungeon must do so alone, but that doesn't mean we can't go down together. I found Mauricio. We were looking for Javier next using Mauricio’s abilities, but we were attacked. Please, tell me, is Mauricio alive? I saw him fall over there." He said pointing past me.

I realized he meant the other human body we’d seen. Fearing that we had left someone else in urgent need of tending to die, I rushed over. I found another human boy wearing similar robes. He was dead. I didn’t have the heart to say it, so I only shook my head.

Javier didn’t see it, but Amparo did. "What’s your class?"

"Saint." He said, his eyes focusing back on Amparo, "I still have some strength left in me, I should be able to call upon one more miracle to heal me. Is the wound clean?."

Amparo nodded, and Javier began muttering a prayer in a language I didn’t understand. It reminded me of the liturgical Greek or Latin I heard read aloud when I used to attend church on earth, both a literal lifetime ago, and probably only just yesterday. A golden aura began to shine from his star shaped sigil, and I watched in amazement as the deep gash in his side began to close. Calling it a miracle wasn’t an exaggeration.

After casting the spell, his eyes drooped close and he became nonresponsive. Terrified, Amparo tried to shake him awake, but he did not stir. I rushed back to the saint’s side checking for breath from his lips and a pulse on his neck. Both were still present, but faint. He looked terribly pale, and by how much blood drenched his robes, I realized he was probably on the verge of going into shock.

As I was thinking about what we could possibly do to keep him alive, we heard something wailing in the distance. Something that I instantly clocked as being far more dangerous than what we had just dealt with. "We need to leave, now."

"His wounds might reopen, or worse, if we move him." Amparo said, tugging at my sleeve and preventing me from picking him up.

"You heard that too, didn’t you?" I said, and she nodded, "We’re in a room filled with dead bodies and blood. This is like a feast for anything living down here, and that sounded like something bigger than that… Thing. It’s dangerous to move him, but its more dangerous to stay. We need to find someplace to go to ground."

Amparo looked towards the direction from where the shriek had come from, and was startled when another, louder shriek emerged from the darkness. "Fine. You take that side, I’ll take this side.”