Save the Girl (and Get the World)

[TimBaril]

"I hate Truck-kun, and I hate the four wheels he rode on!"

The blazing sun overhead seemed to take up half the otherwise empty, pale blue sky, while golden orange sand dunes stretched to the horizon in all directions. I stood there, trembling with grief and shock in the hot, dry desert air, unable to believe this was happening to me. I had been murdered by an actual truck, just like in some cheap light novel, reincarnated into another world, and I didn't even get a t-shirt. Seriously. No underwear either. Unceremoniously dumped into a new world, in the middle of a vast desert of sand, and I was completely naked. I think it was pretty reasonable that I was also really upset. Dying sucked.

It was a day that had gone from bad to worse. I'd been born and raised in Vancouver, on Canada's wet west coast, a city on the shores of the mighty Fraser River and on the foothills of coastal, snow-capped mountains. It's a beautiful city with terrible traffic and wealth disparity spiralling out of control. I was of a generation that was never, ever going to own their own home because houses were only for the rich these days. I was not rich, and likely never would be. I worked as a line cook in one of the many bland chain restaurants that had driven out independent places many years ago. On the upside, it was a career that wasn't going to be replaced by artificial intelligence in the near future. On the downside, I barely got paid enough to survive and pay eye-gouging rent.

Earlier that day, I'd been called in by the head chef for a talking to. It was right at the end of shift. She pulled me aside, out of the kitchen, and into the office. Nancy was a nice woman, strict but fair. She was about five years younger than me. It had been a real wake-up moment the day I'd realized that my boss was someone younger and better than me. I was only in my thirties, and I'd had to face the truth that I'd somehow begun working in the kitchen as a job, a theoretically temporary position until I worked on finding a "proper" career.

But at some point, I'd never gone after anything "better", just let the years pass, drift by, and disappear faster than anyone could imagine when they're young. I'd never gone to university, never applied myself to going to culinary school, so that I could be a head chef. Waking up one day to find yourself answering to someone way younger had made me feel old and question what the hell I'd been doing with my life. Kinda sad, when you think about it, because there shouldn't be anything wrong with being a line cook or a server or dishwasher or anything else; they were jobs that needed doing. But they were jobs that paid little, and less every year, so a house was something I was only ever going to walk by and long for, never enjoy for myself.

Chef Nancy had been awkward when she'd first begun working at the restaurant. Telling the younger staff what to do had come naturally enough, but it had taken her months to gain enough confidence to command people older than her without looking sheepish about it or blushing. So as she had me in the office, easily a head shorter and half my weight as well as being years younger, there was a brief flash of uncertainty in her features, but she quickly tightened that up.

She spoke kindly but firmly while looking me in the eyes, "James, this isn't easy to say, but I need to give you a second warning."

I wilted and felt resigned. This wasn't a surprise. I even nodded at her.

She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, then seemed to say something else, "You know it's my job to make sure the kitchen is as efficient and productive as possible. If we have people making mistakes or taking too much time, it throws the whole rhythm of the kitchen off. Others can't do their jobs properly, and customers get their food late."

"I know. I'm making your job harder. I'm sorry."

"And if the kitchen has problems, if the customers aren't happy, then the restaurant makes less. This is a cutthroat business. We have to be doing our best all the time."

I nodded. I'd become the one feeling sheepish.

She licked her lips, glanced away, but took a breath and firmed up again. "I can't imagine what it's like to lose someone the way you have. Or how long it takes to get over it. I think I speak for all of us when I say, we're sympathetic. It's why we've all tried to be as understanding as we can be. Patient."

They had been. More than they should have needed to be. I mentally kicked myself for letting them down for so long.

"It's just…this can't go on forever. I'm sorry. I know you're still hurting, but we just can't keep covering for you anymore. I have a boss to answer to as well. I'm afraid that, if you can't pick things up right quick, we're going to have to let you go. I don't want to, and I'm sympathetic, I really am, but that's the position we're in."

"It's ok. I understand. I'm sorry."

She looked embarrassed again, perhaps because I wasn't putting up any fight. "You don't have to be sorry. Just…try to, you know, be your best. More like you were…before. I need you back, James. To the guy you used to be."

Be myself again after losing the love of my life? As if that were possible. But I nodded in acknowledgement and backed out of her office, both of us likely thankful the awkward moment was over. I shuffled to the locker room to change, embarrassed and guilty. A lot of the people working there were decent. I felt ashamed to be letting them down.

Someone slid into the locker room right behind me: Raj. He nudged my arm, then threw his own around my shoulders. "Hey, man."

"Hey, man." My spirits picked up a bit. Raj was a great guy and my closest work friend. We'd both been line cooks together for a long time. He was the only one in the restaurant who'd known Cerise and been friends with her too.

"I heard what Nancy said."

"Great."

"Come on, don't be like that. Nothing to be shy about. We all go through rough patches. But Nancy is right: it's time to pull yourself out of your funk, James."

"I…don't know how."

"You've been grieving for a long time. You spend most of your time alone. You and I have hardly hung these last two years."

"Sorry. I—"

He cut me off. "No, no. It's not me accusing you of anything bad, and you have nothing to be sorry for. I'm just saying, I miss my friend. You needed time to go through things after Cerise passed. Totally understandable. But you can't stay miserable forever. It's time to get out there and doing things again. Spend more time with mates, maybe start dating. You have to move on."

A bit of resentment got hold of me, despite his kindness. "I don't want to move on. I still love her."

"That's not what I mean. I don't mean move on and forget her. I mean, move on and keep living. Would she want to see you throw the rest of your life away by being sad all the time?"

"No." I sighed. "That wasn't her at all. She'd never want someone to suffer for her sake."

"You can't move on until you start moving on. I'm not saying you've done anything wrong. But sometimes you just have to take the next step, move forward, heal. Even if it means you carry some scars and memories, things that will stay with you and shape you forever, at least allow the open wound to close. You're a great guy, James. I know you're hurt, but you've still got love in you to give. And there are others out there who might want to love you too. Like Monique."

Monique was a very beautiful server in the restaurant. Fairly new. We'd talked a couple of times, and she'd seemed nice. But dating? "I…don't know if I'm ready." Honestly, I hadn't even thought of that kind of thing at all.

"You'll never know if you're ready for anything until you actually give it a chance."

I sighed again, slipped out of his arm and leaned my back against the lockers. "Merde. I'm sorry I've been such a bad friend the past couple of years. I've been letting you down too."

"No. It's what friends are for. But there was a time to just stand by your side and let you process, and now there's a time to give you the kick in the backside you need. Yeah? Tough love." He smiled to take the sting out of the words.

I chuckled. "Yeah, you're right. I'll think about it. For real. I promise." I knew he was right, intellectually, even if I wasn't sure I really had the will to actually move forward. What was the point if Cerise wasn't there to move forward with?

Raj clapped me on the shoulder. "Good. Monique is beautiful, fun, and a breath of fresh air. If you don't get on that, you're gonna lose out on someone else who's special. And they don't come along every day." He mockingly acted disgusted. "I don't know why so many amazing women are into you."

I waved the idea away. "You don't know she's into me."

"I do. She hinted it to Sandy, and Sandy told me. Sandy tells me everything." He waggled his brows.

I snorted with amusement.

"You might win the lottery twice if you can bring yourself to go buy that ticket. You're a good person. You deserve to have someone love you again. And someone else would be lucky to have you love them back. Doesn't mean you love Cerise any less. Just means there's more love to go around, and it's time you started living your best life again."

I turned to open my locker and began to change. "Thanks. I'll, yeah, I'll give it some thought. Tonight. Promise."

I left the restaurant just after 2 AM, walking the eight blocks home, still embarrassed and guilty, but thanks to Raj, not as down as I might have been. It's crazy how important friends are. Him and a couple of other friends, the patience of coworkers, and the support of my parents, they were a big part of how I'd even survived the past two years without Cerise. But that's all I'd been doing: surviving. Barely. I'd never had the will to do more.

But Raj was right: Cerise wouldn't want me moping over her forever. I knew I'd never stop loving her or missing her. But I owed it to the others in my life to pick myself up again. They'd been supportive when I needed it the most. It was time to try harder. Not just for my sake, but for theirs too.

It was as dark as night ever gets in the city with all those streetlights and building lights on. Even at 2 AM, there were people on the roads. Which is why I didn't really pay attention to the lights coming at me as I strode across the crosswalk during a red light. I assumed they'd stop.

But the lights kept coming, growing larger. An engine gunned.

I finally broke out of my thoughts and looked over to my right. A silver and red box truck was roaring down the street, coming right at me, headlights blinding me, the driver not slowing in the slightest despite the red light and the fact that I was in the middle of the crosswalk. In fact, from the sound of the engine gunning in that last moment, the truck had sped up!

There'd been a moment of terrible pain, gut-wrenching regret, and panic at what I'd be leaving behind.

The next minute, I was in an endless desert, with sand dunes, clear blue skies, and a sun that wanted to murder me all over again. The only saving grace was that I was at a round oasis about the size of an Olympic swimming pool, with a small ring of dark greenery around it: grass, palms, some bushes. Paradise right? No. There was nothing to eat and nobody around.

I…did not handle the transition well. Dying was very difficult to process.

I spent the first two days in shock, loss, and anger, impatiently waiting for help to arrive. Since I was awake and aware, and there were no angels or demons, this didn't seem like some heaven or hell type place; I didn't think this was some afterlife. I assumed that it was some kind of isekai thing happening, but if it was, it sucked. No sexy goddess descending from the heavens with an apology and gifts to compensate for screwing up. No OP skills. No stats page. I'd just been abandoned, naked, at an oasis in a vast, empty desert with nothing but sun, sand, and tiny insects biting my most delicate bits whenever I sat down. Because I was naked.

I threw a tantrum, kicking a lump of garbage someone had left there, kicking golden sand, and stomping on clumps of emerald-green grass. Assuming some kind of omnipotent god was responsible, I shouted up at the clear, light-blue sky, "If I ever find out who's done this to me, I am gonna kick the deity right out of them!"

I quickly sunburned. Boiled lobsters looked less red than I did, everywhere. It was all I could do to try to find a shred of shade under the thin palms and follow it all day as the sun moved through the sky. But palm trees don't cast a lot of shade. I was starving, too. But that didn't matter because I was pretty sure the thirst was gonna kill me first. Going days without liquids, in that heat, on top of my trauma at being sent there, was causing me to spiral into despondency.

The only water was in the oasis. It was super clear, but everyone knows you don't drink unfiltered, wild water because you can get really sick. Animals and insects use it, leaving behind all kinds of bacteria and viruses. So I avoided it, hoping I might figure something else out.

So I sat in partial shade, burning to a crisp while I stared at a pool full of water I couldn't drink, muttering, "Thanks, system or god or aliens who did this to me. Really helpful. Go fuck yourselves."

That night, my body screaming out for food and water, tired and miserably burned, my mood sank lower and lower. I didn't how I'd gotten there or why, but as I sat and shivered in the cool night air, it was very tempting to just say screw it and give up. It had been all I could do just to wake up every day and go through the motions back home. But to now face this?

Why try?

When the next day dawned, I woke with the sun, because it was instantly bright and hot everywhere. I hadn't figured out what to do about the water situation. No help had come along, no travellers had arrived. I looked in all directions, but it was nothing but sand dunes as far as I could see. I had two choices: drink the oasis water to survive, or walk out into the sand and sun and say goodbye to it all.

Whether it was because of Raj's earlier pep talk or just fear of death, something in me wasn't ready to give up yet. So, I did it. I knelt at the edge of the oasis pool with my knees in the warm water. I stared at the liquid with longing and dread. "It's been four days, Waterholics Anonymous, since my last drink, and if I don't drink something, anything, I'm a dead man." I plunged in and drank the water. I couldn't help it. I was too thirsty.

I guzzled about three litres before I noticed the corpse rotting under the water.

Staring right up at me.

"Gah!" I leapt backwards and fell on my ass.

It scared the stuffing out of me. You never, ever want to look down into a pool of water and see anyone or anything staring back at you. It's just wrong. Terrifying.

I later spent two hours reaping the consequences of drinking bad water. It was polluted. "Because F my life, right? I deserve this." It started with cramps. Nothing too serious. Then it worked its way through me with dramatic speed. I barely got a hole dug in the sand outside the oasis in time.

By day five, I was running on fumes. I was starving so badly that I became lightheaded. I remained dehydrated. The dry air of the desert just yanked water from my body without asking because it did not care at all about consent. I knew I shouldn't drink more of the water because some dead thing was lying at the bottom of the pool. But I needed to hydrate, so I drank it again, even knowing what would happen.

I spent the afternoon ensconced over a fresh hole in the sand, not feeling well at all.

In fact, I spent so much time out in the open desert, away from the shade, burning while squatting over my little latrine holes, that I dragged a few ratty old palm fronds out there to make an umbrella-type enclosure as shelter from the sun. I stood in the super-hot sand, looking down at it, oddly proud. "I have been sent to a new world, and the first thing I did was build a toilet. Behold, my grand empire. Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair." I sighed and returned to the oasis, where it wouldn't feel like I was walking on a stove top. I needed to make sandals.

I wished I could boil the water to kill the bacteria in it, but there were only a couple of dozen palm trees and some bushes around for fuel. Without the shade, I'd fry to death in the blazing sun since there wasn't a cloud in the sky, ever. Not that I had any idea of how to make fire without matches or a lighter. No one born after 1990 had any sort of bush or camping skills that worked in real life.

An idea hit me. I figured I'd try to filter the water. There was all that sand, right? I made a cylinder out of rocks and dead palm trunks, about a meter tall. I filled it with sand and poured the water through, catching it with a fallen palm frond at the bottom. Of course, the water was brown and muddy, but…it seemed to work. A little. The gritty sand didn't taste so bad. I went to the sand toilet somewhat less.

I spotted some kind of coconut or breadfruit thing hanging from some of the palms, each about the size of a 10-pin bowling ball. They were purple and hairy, like diseased rambutan. A few rotted ones were on the ground. They made durian smell like the world's best perfume. It was a bit like the worst smelly feet with an undertone of holy hell, this is stupidly disgusting!

But one fell out of a tree on day six. I had been desperate for food for a long time. I spent probably an hour trying to crack the stupid thing open on a rock. Finally did it. Inside was really gorgeous, pink and blue flesh with little black seeds like in a dragonfruit. I ate some.

Flaming diarrhea. It burned coming out.

I sighed in my new deluxe sand toilet, then moaned, "Fuck my life."

The next day, I learned that there were scorpions in the desert. They were the size of chihuahuas. Their crab claws were as big as a child's hands. Whenever they closed, it sounded like a pair of scissors snipping shut. That made my skin crawl.

Soon enough, I could tell that this really was some crazy fantasy or sci-fi world for sure. The lapdog-sized scorpions fired little lightning bolts out of their stingers with a crackling zap. And they really stung!

I did three laps around the oasis before the first one gave up chasing me. I was still naked, so I was flapping in the wind the whole time. Ever try sprinting in sand with a sunburned penis? Awesome good time. I prayed that whatever god had brought me there would get to experience the same.

Eventually, I escaped the scorpion. It wouldn't come into the water to get me, thank cheeses sliced. So there I was, starved, thirsty, and treading water. I looked down.

I could see the corpse under me. It was still staring with sightless eyes.

Good times.

The next day, I laboriously hauled the decomposing body out of my only water source. Probably should have done that earlier. I barely had the strength to do it. It took ages to dive down and pull it out. To my surprise, but not really, the dead person wasn't human. That made sense since I wasn't on Earth anymore, or so I definitely reasoned. It was a lizard person dressed in loose, dirty white robes like one of those desert people back home, bedwetters or bedwins or something, I couldn't recall their name. The robes made the dead guy heavy as heck with all that wet cloth, so I had to strip the corpse under water before I could even drag it up the bank.

He had no pockets and nothing on him except a ring. It was a fairly simple, silvery band with squiggly Arabic and Sanskrit-style symbols. When I went to pull it off his finger, it came off with a wet squelch and lots of gooey, decomposed flesh. The guy was mush, so he must have been down there a while. I washed the gunk off. Holding the ring up in the sunlight, I studied it.

I'd had enough experience with fantasy books and games to know you never, ever put on random jewelry you find somewhere because it could be cursed. On the other hand…it was unlikely the ring had led to the guy's death. I hadn't seen blood on the clothes, so I didn't know how he'd died. But he'd been wearing the ring, so maybe it was safe. Perhaps I was feeling a little reckless. I agonized for a whole minute or two before finally slipping the ring onto the middle finger of my right hand. I still had my wedding ring on my left.

As the metal slipped into place, much too large for me, my nerves were on edge. I released the ring, tense and waiting for something bad to happen. A second passed. Another. I let out a breath, relaxing. Too bad the ring was too large. I liked the writing style; it was neat. I reached to pull it off, thinking maybe I could hang it around me neck or something.

The ring trembled.

I froze.

The ring trembled more. Then it shrank fast around my finger with a pinch.

"Ow!" Panicking that the thing really was cursed after all, I tugged on it hard, trying to get it off. But it wouldn't budge, wouldn't move in the slightest. A sick feeling of dread took hold of me too. I stopped tugging and looked at the ring.

The symbols or writing glowed with an eerie red light.

"Aw crap. It's so cursed." I tried again to yank it off and failed, feeling extra stupid.

One symbol glowed white, and for a second, I thought, Oh, cool. Nice colour combination. Then white light shot out of the ring, and I may have screamed like a little girl in fright.

Luckily, nothing harmed me. A translucent white square appeared in the air over the ring like a hologram. A drawing of a fancy hourglass appeared with sand running through it. It didn't last long before the sand ran out and the hourglass faded. A single word appeared in white:

WELCOME

It faded, replaced with a word written in dark blood red:

FIGHT!

Then the words and holo screen faded back into the ring like nothing super weird and curse-like had happened at all. I felt sick to my stomach because I'd done something foolish. I tried even harder to pull the damn thing off my finger and get increasingly worried when it wouldn't come off. I resolved to never, ever put on unidentified magical items ever again.

What was this thing? The screen and words seemed like advanced tech, but could have just as easily been magic. It had told me to fight.

My head snapped up and I looked in all directions, worried that something was coming at me, that a fight was about to start. But there was nothing but the oasis and the desert. All was quiet. Frowning at the ring, I wondered if it had been some kind of general instruction or just cheering me on, like keep fighting the good fight. From the form and the words, the ring might be some kind of computer device or data terminal. Could be a communications device. I had no idea. I tried touching all the symbols, but nothing activated.

I tried speaking, "Hello, computer. Wake up. Screen on. On screen. Beam me up, Scotty." Nothing had any effect. I stared at the ring. "Great. Well, that's mysterious. I'm sure nothing bad will come of this at all." With nothing seeming to be done about the situation, I resolved to move on.

I was still standing over the dead lizard guy, and he was starting to melt in the heat. Extremely hungry still, I gave some serious thought to eating the guy. But the body was pretty rotten. So I decided to bury him out in the sand beyond the trees, away from my latrines. That took another age. It didn't help that one of those annoying little electric scorpions popped out of the sand to chase me. If only I'd had the strength to throw the corpse at it.

Good news, though. I now had clothes. They were the clothes of a dead lizard person who'd been rotting under water for who knew how long. And that's exactly what they smelled like.

I managed to make it to another bright dawn in the desert. Somehow, despite how sick they both made me, I was surviving on polluted water and poisonous fruit that smelled worse than I did. Maybe eating only a handful meant it harmed me less. The water filter seemed to be working a bit too. I only spent half the day squirting liquids in agony. But I remained in bad shape, still starving, thirsty, and dizzy at the slightest movement. My whole body was in pain from the nasty sunburn, my skin was tight, and every movement was misery. I would have been constantly crying tears if I'd had any water in my system to spare.

Sand is about as pleasant a replacement for toilet paper as you'd expect. Got a bit raw down there.

But even more good news arrived!

The palm trees were home to killer tarantula-style spiders the size of my hand, NOT including their legs. Because giant scorpions weren't enough of a challenge. Why not include something that suddenly drops out of the palm tree you were sitting under, wraps its hairy legs around your entire head and then proceeds to bite the back of your skull over and over? I managed to rip the infuriating thing off, which wasn't easy because of course its legs have talons, and then I threw it on the ground as hard as I could, which did nothing and tried to stomp the assassin bug to death only for it crawl up under my brand new robes, which did not include underwear, and it took another bite out of some really soft places.

I finally killed the thing, but was bleeding from places I'd really rather not be. Not to mention the wounds all over my head. I washed them in water that a guy had died in and rotted in. Super clean. I couldn't wait to see what kind of horrible infection that led to.

This world sucked.

I didn't have to wait long. By the next day, the wounds were very itchy.

My sunburns hurt like hell on fire. I wondered how the desert creatures survived and realized that they hid under the sand. The scorpion had been hiding that way before I had come along. So I buried myself as well under some wet sand to get away from the sun. It was much cooler, and I felt like an idiot for not doing it days earlier. Feeling stupid was becoming a dangerous habit.

There were no spiders that day. But I still considered burning down all the trees just in case there were more, even if it meant losing all my shade and food sources. Because screw spiders with a leg span like an umbrella.

That evening, I saw a scorpion watching me from across the oasis. Just eyeballing the hell out of me with its dozen eyes glinting in the setting sun with promises of murder. Because that's not creepy as can be, right?

I barely got any sleep that night because of that electric demon. Scorpions are nocturnal. I kept waking up, afraid it was stalking me. I huddled in my hole in the ground, hoping to avoid it. And any friends. The exhaustion and pain seemed never-ending. I was so tired of this trial.

Day eleven turned out to be a day of glory and death! Not my death, though.

I shouted up at the sky in triumph, "Muahahaha! Suck it, isekai world!"

I'd wondered if the dead guy had had anything else on him, so I'd taken a dive in the oasis. Rooting around in the mud at the bottom, I'd come up with a spear. A freakin' spear, baby! It was nothing special, just a plain wooden shaft and triangular bronze head about the length of my forearm, probably cheap army issue or something.

Guess who took that spear and showed that lightning-throwing scorpion from hell who's the boss? Hint: it wasn't Tony Danza. Guess who danced all around the oasis like a lunatic, making all kinds of noise, taunting it until it came up out of the sand in an explosion of rage and lightning, expecting to kill my sorry ass only to get a face full of sharp bronze? Guess who stabbed it in the face until it had no face?

I screamed at it, which was probably reasonable given my unhealthy emotional state at the time, "Stupid, faceless, lightning bitch who kept shooting lighting bolts in my ass. Yeah, that's who's dead. BECAUSE FUCK YOU!!!" Catharsis takes many forms. Not all are pretty.

But wait. It got better.

We've all seen pics of people eating weird stuff. We've all laughed at the idea of eating a scorpion. Well, I finally did it.

There was a big, flat black rock on the edge of the oasis that sat in the sun all day long. It got super hot. If you splashed some water on it, it hissed and popped like a frying pan.

I cut the stinger off the scorpion. I didn't think it was poisonous because the stinger wasn't actually a barb, just a tiny quartz-like crystal, but why chance it? I tried to clean it; took some guts out. I had no idea what was edible. But I was so hungry, I'd eat just about anything. I fried the scorpion on the black rock for a good long while until that thing turned black too. I'd rather eat charcoal than get yet another bacterial infection. Not like I'd had enough of those, right?

I sat and bit into the crunchy specimen. It tasted like half-burnt seafood chicken. Yep, really disgusting.

I sighed. "I miss my wife's cooking."

I woke up with severe cramps in the middle of the night. Explosive conclusion to the scorpion saga.

The next day, a growing stench drifted on the wind. The patch of desert I'd been fertilizing was really starting to smell. "I hope that isn't going to attract any nasty monsters or something. Doom flag. Because I hate myself." I decided to start digging latrines a little deeper from then on.

Then, the impossible happened.

The scorpions couldn't bury themselves in the oasis because there was too much grass, palm tree roots, and such. They hid in the loose sand of the desert beyond. Mostly. Some seemed to come in and try to find shady places under the bushes. Wanting to keep the nasty things out of my home, I patrolled the oasis and killed a scorpion I found trying to hide in the shade of a large clump of tall grass that was providing a pool of shade. My trusty new spear made quick work of the thing.

Then the cursed ring on my finger flashed a few times, then glowed red.

I looked down at it in worry.

The white holo screen appeared above the ring. A single number was written:

1

It was written in blood red. That boded well. The number slid up, and stats appeared:

• Strength 12
• Speed 14
• Health 15
• Mana 8
• Endurance 5

Levelling. I couldn't believe it. The world actually had a video game system. Or the ring did. I'd levelled up. My first thought was — awesome! That excitement rapidly faded to worry.

This surely raised a whole slew of problems. Like disparity from unfair levels, abilities, and powers. As if capitalism hadn't been bad enough back on Earth, now imagine evil dictators also had super high power levels, and selfish billionaires possessed OP skills.

Tyrants probably ran wild in this world. Murder-hobos everywhere. You couldn't tell me that if you gave people super strength and speed and crazy magic skills, a bunch of them wouldn't abuse the hell out of it all the time for personal gain. It was probably pure chaos out there. Assuming there were other people out there. It was entirely possible that I had been sent to a barren planet with nothing but electric scorpions and assassin spiders.

Then, I recalled the lizard guy. I guessed there were people. Couldn't wait to get my ass handed to me by some pissant narcissist with a temper and higher levels. Yay.

I also got a skill: [Lesser Resistance: Disease].

That…was pretty cool, actually.

The next day, my wounds hurt. A bunch began leaking dark yellow pus from my head, face, neck, and yeah, more tender places. All were definitely infected. If the skill I'd gained was doing anything, I couldn't tell. I had a runny nose and aching muscles, so I probably had a fever. It was fine, though. I'd just pop over to the hospital and then the pharmacy, all handily provided by a wonderful universal health care system. Some antibiotics would clear things right up.

Oh, wait. I couldn't.

Because I'd been bloody isekaied, if that was even a word.

I was so sick of the situation. It wasn't fair. Why was life so often so unfair? I'd just gotten to the point of thinking about trying to heal and move forward after losing the love of my life, and then this happened. Taken away from everything and everyone else. The friends and family who'd supported me, the life I'd had. Gone. All of it. Just so I could be tortured in some desert until I starved to death.

The fever got worse. The next day, I could barely do anything all day. I just hid in the damp sand hole, in the shade of the palm fronds, willing myself to get better while my mind wandered.

Thanks to the fever, I began hallucinating or remembering:

Cerise and I argued today. I don't even know why. Stupid stuff. And…hell, I know it's my fault. I just couldn't stop myself. She's so beautiful and wonderful, the light of my world, and I hate looking bad in her eyes. So I tried to defend myself, argue out of it, even blamed her at one point for something not even true.

I'm so ashamed of myself. I love her so much. Why can't I just be honest with myself? With her? Admit when I screw up? I'm so scared to apologize, even though I know I should, that it's the right thing to do.

I don't deserve her love. Never have. But seeing the look on her face and the pain I've caused, I've never felt so worthless. I need to be better. For her. Or my love is a lie.

That night, another scorpion found me. It crawled by, seemingly unaware of me entirely until I saw it, flinched from within the hideout, and the palm fronds over my head rustled. I barely had the strength to kill it. Got a fresh electric burn on top of the sunburns. Awesome.

I stared at the dead bug long after it had died. Eventually, I just shook my head and flicked the dead thing away with my spear in disgust. Then I decided I was just gonna stay in that damp hole I'd dug, buried in sand, palm fronds over my head, until I felt better. I was too weak from the fever to eat or drink anything.

I was definitely dying. I wasn't sure I cared anymore.

A thought slipped into my syrupy brain at some point, and I darkly chuckled to myself. "Heh. I'm already buried. If I die, I'll have dug my own grave. Literally."

The fever grew worse. I started talking to the air:

"There were potatoes on the barbecue. I asked because Sasquatch said so."

"Do you feel like Marly isn't always bright red?"

"I hate Mondays. No, seriously, potatoes."

"I'm falling! I'm done now. Holy crap, that was scary."

"We need to seriously consider better security, or all the Batmans are gonna steal the potatoes. All the Batmans."

At one point, it seemed like a really smart idea to lick the pus.

I licked the pus.

The pus was gross.

Something foul began stinking up the hidey hole. I pinched my nose, grossed out. "Did someone mess themselves?"

I looked down. "Oh, that would be me. Heeheeheehee."

Lost, my mind scattered all over the place, I drifted back in time. In a way, I was lucky because I recalled one of the best moments of my life in shocking detail:

Cerise, I love you so much. I'm sorry I'm not good with words. I wish I was, like, a poet or something. I wish I could share just…how big this feeling is. It's like my chest is going to explode and swallow me whole. Ok, that's stupid, but I made you laugh, so that's a win, right?

You're the most beautiful woman in the world. You're fun and kind. So patient. Wise. I've never respected anyone so much.

I never knew happiness, real happiness, until I met you. Every day feels more fun now. Even when you're not by my side, I'm thinking about you. All the time. The world literally feels more colourful. You make me more positive. More hopeful about the future. Thank you for that. You'll never know how grateful I am.

I don't know why you're marrying a lump like me, but I swear, I will always love you and honour you, and do everything I can to make your dreams come true.

My wedding vows. We'd kissed after, and I'd cried. I remembered that, and for once, I hadn't cared if anyone had seen me because she'd been grinning and crying too, and I'd been so stupidly happy. The honeymoon sex had been like starlight cocaine on steroids.

I woke up in the cooling desert evening, sweating like a pig and stewing in filth. It was hard to think straight. Everything hurt. My stomach felt like it was gnawing away at me from the inside. I was thirsty, dizzy, and light-headed. I was pretty sure I'd been out of it for a while because of the fever, but I didn't know for how long. Had it been hours or days?

I weakly crawled out of the hole and drank from the edge of the pool. I just lay on my stomach, face in the water, making a bit of effort not to drown but also not entirely caring if I did. I knew I had to drink slowly or I'd probably vomit it back up. Not that it would matter because I'd just be on the sand toilet again later. Yay.

What was I even fighting for?

My whole body was in pain. I was exhausted. On an intellectual level, I knew this is when we're at our worst and we think our darkest thoughts. But at that moment, I thought about just letting myself fall into the pool. Killing myself. Maybe that's what had happened to lizard dude. Emotionally, the lure was strong.

But then I thought about what Cerise would think of that if she were looking down on me. Of me giving up like that. She'd be so disappointed in me. What kind of way is that to repay her love and faith in me? I hated myself for even thinking of suicide. I hated being weak.

I dug a fresh hole on the edge of the water. It took forever because I was so feeble from the fever. I crawled inside with my spear and pulled the palm frond over my head again. At least if the infection and fever killed me, it wouldn't be my fault. I drifted off again, into dreams or sleep, I wasn't sure.

Another scorpion woke me in the middle of the night. It heard me or saw me move. Scorpions seemed really alert to movement or vibrations. Lightning bolt to my face. I stabbed once, missed. Lightning bolt to the shoulder. Could barely see anything, even with the blanket of stars overhead. No moon that night. Just kept stabbing with the spear, feeling weak. Eventually, I got it.

I must have collapsed and gone back to sleep for a while. Woke up with the sun up. The dead scorpion was looking iffy, but I took it over to the cooking rock and baked it or fried it or whatever. Ate it. My head was so foggy that I couldn't really think straight. I cooked some of the stinky fruit too. Pretty sure it had gone bad, but I was beyond caring. I think cooking it or maybe letting it rot weakened the poison because it hurt less going through me later.

Food gave me enough energy to filter some water. I did that a couple of times before I was just too tired to move anymore. I crawled back into the dirty hole I'd been in, still sick as could be. This world sucked.

At some point, I started singing,

Jingle Bells,

Batman smells,

Robin laid a potato.

Catwoman hissed

Ivy and Harley kissed

And Joker needs more ammo

Potato!

I woke up late one morning. I felt absolutely spent, and my limbs were like jelly. I was like a half-dead kitten that had been stepped on. But the ache in my muscles was gone. My head felt clearer. The fever had passed.

[Lesser Resistance: Disease] had probably saved my life. Maybe having system skills wasn't so bad.

 

[TimBaril]

When I crawled out of my hole, the ring lit up, and the holo-screen appeared. I was level 2. My health stat had gone up. I felt better. Relatively.

My full-body sunburn was peeling, and the electric burns stung. The sores were still leaking pus and stank, so I forced myself to open them up and clean them out with sand and water. I cooked wet sand on the hot rock to hopefully disinfect it first. I thought that passing out from pain only happened in the movies. Turned out, it was a real thing. Hooray for new experiences.

I glanced up at the sky. "Wow, whoever put me in this position, if you're listening, I'm so grateful. You should come on down so I can thank you. Permanently. With my spear up your ass."

Hungry, I went hunting. I managed to bag another scorpion and cooked it before the sun went down. The next day, I would try to get another stinky fruit down from a palm. Without getting a face full of assassin tarantula. Or more flaming diarrhea. Hopefully. But too tired to do more for now, I went to bed again.

Alone in the desert with nothing but the stars, it was very peaceful. This was more nature than I'd had in a long time. I'd been there a while, and I was still alive. I hadn't given up. No matter how much it hurt, I hadn't given up. I would be someone Cerise would have been proud of. It had been a while since I'd been someone to be proud of, but I was finally doing it.

The next day, I felt more hopeful. Now that the fever was behind me, and with Cerise on my mind, I took stock of the oasis, trying to be more proactive about surviving instead of just wallowing and reacting to things in a bad way like a child. It was time to take charge of my life and move forward.

Since the water in the oasis never went down despite evaporation, I guessed it was a spring, the water constantly coming up from underground. So I had unlimited water. Even if it gave me the shits. I had a very limited supply of partially poisonous fruit which gave me the flaming shits. And scorpions which gave me explosive shits.

It was a really shitty oasis.

The limited food wouldn't last forever. Assuming the dysentery, the heat, the deadly monsters, or depression didn't kill me, I was going to have to find a more permanent food source. I hadn't looked beyond the immediate surroundings, hadn't gone more than ten paces past the trees and greenery of the oasis. It looked like the endless Sahara out there, just golden sand as far as I could see. But I needed to explore. Maybe there was a road nearby. Maybe the desert wasn't as empty as it looked. Maybe, just over the horizon, was a fabulous city of gold filled with generous genies with huge boobs and Vegas-style buffets.

No. Turned out, I was the buffet.

I went exploring in the dunes. Those scorpions were everywhere. They must have been active during the night because during the day, they were lying in wait under the sand, tail poised to strike, lashing out with lightning at any tremor. Then they would burst out from under the sand, claws snipping and snapping, trying to cut your toes off.

After that happened three times, I started sweeping the ground around me with the spear whenever I moved. I covered about a quarter of a circle going around the oasis, staying fairly close. By the end of the day, I'd killed seven of the critters. Made me wonder.

If there were that many chihuahua-sized scorpions around, what were they all eating?

I knew what I was eating.

Fried scorpion. And lots of it.

That night, I stayed up late. The stars were gorgeous. There wasn't even the faintest hint of artificial light in any direction, which made me think there were no urban centers anywhere close. Which meant I was probably in the middle of nowhere, which tracked for my situation so far. If I'd had a Luck stat, it would be -5.

I tried to take a few hours, just staring up at the sparkles in the sky, trying to appreciate it and let go of some of the anger that seemed to be my primary emotion since I'd arrived. I didn't like being angry, didn't want to be. I wanted to be happy.

I used to be happy all the time. When I'd been married to Cerise. Before she'd died.

It was easy to look up at that endless expanse and feel tiny or even insignificant. The galaxy was a sight that had been so normal for millions of years on Earth, but had become so rare. Maybe this world hadn't suffered capitalist-industrial selfishness to the same degree. Yet, anyway.

Being up late let me see how the desert came alive after dark. Like a…metaphor of some kind.

All kinds of insects appeared. Where they had been hiding during the day, I had no idea. I saw rodents skittering and jumping. Huge gray moths fluttering by. The meter-wide tarantulas descended from the trees to hunt. Looked like they hid under palm fronds during the day and murdered things at night. They seem to be arch enemies of the scorpions. The two appeared to engage in some never-ending blood feud once the sun went down, eating each other. And their own kind. Out on the sands, it was an all-out war.

I hunkered down in the oasis pool, water up to my shoulders, a good three paces away from the shore, avoiding the fuck out of that horrifying nonsense.

The next morning, I was dining on blackened scorpion when movement in the sky caught my attention. I looked up and saw a very large vulture circling right above me. A vulture. Scavenger. They eat the dying and dead.

I tried not to take it personally.

But it probably knew better than I did, and I was probably doomed.

Eventually, the vulture must have had enough of circling overhead. It decided to land on the other side of the oasis. It just sat there on a dusty beige boulder, staring at me the same way that evil scorpion had earlier. I'd have gone over and shown it who's boss, but the bird was about as tall as I was. Its claws left scratches on the stone. That great, hooked beak could probably tear my throat out.

So, the vulture, that's who was boss.

Got me lickin' my lips and thinking of fried chicken though.

I tried to kick that idea out of my head. I was way too weak to fight a bird as big as I was. It was a little wary but obviously not scared of me from the way its eyes just bored into me all day. The second I got injured or sick again, that thing was going to bury its face in my guts and eat them while I was still breathing. Probably peck my eyes out like picking cherries off a cake.

I tried to ignore it and spent the day circling the oasis again, palm fronds for a parasol, breadfruit husks for shoes because the sand was so hot, and my spear leading the way. The scorpions I uncovered slowed things down, but they were also going to be a steady food supply. And I didn't hate the idea of there being fewer deadly creatures around. I'd been lucky as luck could be that nothing had killed me while I'd slept. So far.

Out in the desert, I came across a rocky outcropping poking out of the sand, just out of sight of the oasis. It wasn't large, maybe the size of a fridge. The yellowish rock looked crumbly and fragile. I approached, slowly feeling my way with the spear. Scorpions jumped out of the sand in numbers the closer I got to the outcrop. Weirdly, as my spear poked through the desert sand, it also kept turning over detached claws, scorpion legs, and other body parts. I felt like I was traipsing through some kind of insect graveyard.

I kept going, curious about the outcropping. I figured it was probably nothing, but it was the only feature I'd come across so far, so I wanted to see it up close.

With the angle of the sun that morning, the craggy rock jutting out of the sand cast a shadow in my direction. I looked forward to some respite from the blazing sun. It was brutal. It would have been nice to do the exploring in the dark of night, but after seeing how the desert came alive under the stars, the sun might have been the lesser evil. At least I had clothes now. They were nasty against my sunburned skin, but would prevent further burns. And cancer. Just my luck, I'd get super skin cancer out here.

Would [Lesser Resistance: Disease] help with that? Dude, I sure hoped so.

Feet sliding through the superhot sand, clumsily protected by the breadfruit husks, I probed the edge of the shadows.

Sand exploded in all directions, not once, but twice, as the first buried scorpion triggered another right next to it.

I dropped the palm-frond parasol so I could get both hands on the spear. Sunlight flashed off the bronze spearhead as I stabbed at both creatures. Luckily, they were as distracted by each other as they were by me. No loyalty for their own species, they snapped one claw at their brethren while they skittered forward to attack me at the same time. I hastily backstepped as I fought them off. I should have looked where I was going.

A burst of sand sprayed me from behind. Another scorpion appeared at my heels while I backpeddled, so close that I stumbled overtop of it before I could stop myself.

A little lightning bolt hit me in the balls.

Screaming in pain, I rage-stomped the scorpion several times, cutting my feet, then jabbed the spear into the nearest attacking scorpion, nailing it right through the back.

The third critter curled its tail. Light flashed.

It hit me right between the eyes. Hate filled my soul.

Screaming, I clutched my face with one hand, blinded and stumbling about. With my free arm, I slashed in all directions, feeling the spear tip hit the scorpion and knock it about, but knowing I probably hadn't hurt it much.

Without realizing it, I wandered closer and closer to the rocks. I stepped into the shadow. Something below crunched like breaking celery.

My foot sank calf-deep into the sand, causing me to lurch. I felt the sand rapidly slipping away, slipping down into the ground, draining. Had I stepped in quicksand or something? Furiously blinking my teary eyes, I tried to see what was going on while also pulling myself out of there.

But it was no use. There was more crunching. The ground was sinking faster than I could escape.

Then a hole opened up underneath me. I sank into a pit deeper than I was tall. It was completely in shadow, some kind of hollow space under the sand, like there had been a bubble there, and I'd popped it from above.

Panting, I stood there as the sand around me slowed to a trickle. I stood in a pile of sand, shards of what looked like dirty, broken glass, and a dozen half-buried lightning scorpions that had been buried under the surface of the sand in the shadow of the rock until I'd disturbed them all. My stomach turned ice-cold. I swallowed and tightened my grip on the spear.

Then I blinked and wiped away a few more muddy tears from my burning eyes.

There was a cave before me in the newly exposed rock that had been hidden until now. The outcrop above had been nothing but the tip of the stone iceberg.

From inside the dark cave, a metric ton of shiny little eyes stared back at me.

My hand tightened around the spear until my knuckles were white. "So, I guess this is where all you little bastards are coming from, huh?"

The scorpions in the sand and cave came at me en masse.

Adrenaline hit me. Lots of panic, too. I wildly slashed and jabbed every which way. Scorpions big and small, from the size of mice to the size of cats, scampered over the sand, claws snapping and tearing chunks out of my legs. They climbed up my white robe and tried to swarm me. Lightning hit me from all angles, so much that it didn't just sting something fierce, it left me paralyzed for seconds at a time, flopping around like a dying fish.

It would have been over in a minute or two, but the sudden swarm turned on itself as well as me, becoming a frenzy of all-out destruction. Because scorpions are highly individual predators, always ready to destroy their own. Like corporate executives.

I screamed until I no longer had breath to do so, all my energy devoted to killing the little monsters while trying to back away. One died. Then another. Scorpion guts began flying, almost as much as I was shedding blood. I speared two more, my lungs rasping from the effort. With so little water and food over the past weeks, and the way it had been coming right back out of me, I was frail. I wouldn't last long.

Then I levelled up. Level 3.

A burst of energy flowed through me. My ring flashed, but the screen didn't come up. Perhaps it recognized that it wasn't the right time to do so. I felt myself healing, and some of my energy was instantly restored. The many cuts on my arms and legs partially closed up. I wasn't restored to full health, but it was still a boon. I also felt more strength in my arms. My strength and speed stats must have both gone up.

Trapped in a pit with dozens of scorpions and on the verge of death, I suddenly didn't care about anything but this crazy feeling of rejuvenation and greater power. I cackled with glee. "Haha! Die die die!" I wailed all around me with the spear, smashing and cutting, insect parts flying, leaving dead things in my wake. I stomped and punched, heedless of the damage I was doing to myself just to stay alive, crushing anything in reach. I descended into a madness of pain and fear and desperation under a thin veneer of murderous abandon.

Soon after, I levelled up again to 4.

A minute later, a fresh burst of energy infused me. Apparently, a new skill had kicked in automatically. Must have been a passive skill.

More scorpions died.

Eventually, my body reached its limits, skills or not, and I slowed. But the number of scorpions dwindled as well. At some point, I speared the last of them and then fell back against the side of the sand pit, covered in gore, blood, and sweat. Tears, too, but let's not mention that part. At least I hadn't wet myself.

I couldn't think. Couldn't move except to heave in great lungfuls of air. Muscles trembled on their own from lack of oxygen. I had sand in my eyes, my mouth, and in every bloody wound. I might have given up and stayed there for a good long while, but that ominous black opening, that dark portal to hell where those scorpions had all been hiding, it scared the daylights out of me.

Achingly, I rolled over, belly against the side of the pit. Using the spear like a dagger, I dragged myself up the side, half-swimming through the sand until I was back on the surface. I saw the oasis trees and crawled forward. I left a trail of blood and scorpion goo in my wake.

I was sure that wouldn't come back to bite me in the ass.

It took all day to recover the necessary strength, but after I returned to the oasis and rested for a while, I dug a bath next to the pool and scooped water into it. The water slowly drained away, but it was enough to wash the filth away and clean my many new wounds. I scrubbed them with hot sand and water from the stove. I'd probably experience a bunch of new infections, but what the hell. Washing might help.

I checked my ring by just concentrating on it. The screen came forth and showed:

3

Then stats appeared:

• Strength 13
• Speed 15
• Health 19
• Mana 8
• Endurance 5

Strength, speed, and health had all improved so far. It was oddly motivating to watch simple numbers go up and actually see progress being made. That was likely why bankers were constantly checking their account balances and gym goons were constantly flexing in the mirror.

That night, I didn't have to worry about any spiders or scorpions attacking me in my sleep. I woke up once and heard a trauma-scary war zone going on in the distance, in the same direction as the pit I'd barely crawled out of. All that death must have drawn everything with an appetite in the region, and they were fighting over it.

I figured I was probably safe so far from the action. I went back to sleep, hiding under the sand near the water, palm frond over my head and spear in hand, as always. Careful not to move and draw any attention to myself.

I woke again the next morning, barely able to move. But I sluggishly crawled out of the sand and warily looked around.

The vulture was still there. Sitting on his rock. Looking at me. With those bloodshot eyes.

I glared back. I was really hungry for some grilled chicken. I was wounded from the previous day, but also feeling a little bolder thanks to the levelling up. I began to contemplate taking the vulture down.

Something to the side caught the huge, ugly bird's attention. Its head swivelled in that direction. Eyes widened. It raised its wings in panic and tried to take flight.

A proper lightning bolt hit it square in the chest. Thunder cracked. Black and white feathers flew in all directions. The bird let out a horrid squawk of pain. It tumbled backward off the rock, scrambled up, and tried to fly, but it must have been in too much pain. It hopped away, screeching, trying to put palms and bushes between it and whatever had attacked it.

Breathing fast, I turned to look in the same direction the now dead bird had looked.

From out of the bushes at the edge of the oasis came a true monster: a lightning scorpion the size of a German shepherd. Each claw looked large enough to cut one of my arms clean off. The tail curled up as high as my chest, a glittering, clear crystal where the stinger would be on a typical scorpion.

I despaired. "There's a momma lightning scorpion? You've gotta be kidding me!"

The scorpion turned on all six legs to face me. The tail twitched, and the tip glowed.

Welp, I'd been hit enough times by baby versions of those lightning stingers. No way in hell I was gonna let a big one hit me after seeing that monstrous vulture get nailed. I gave that crystal a beat to charge up, then threw myself sideways into the oasis water with a splash.

Lightning zapped the air I'd just been standing in, and thunder crashed. The smell of burnt ozone dirtied the air.

I slipped around in the wet sand for a second, water up to my knees, and looked up.

The momma scorpion turned to face me, glaring, pincers ready. But it didn't come at me. It didn't need to with its own built-in ranged artillery.

If I stayed where I was, it was probably just gonna wait and pick me off. I could maybe duck under water when it fired. But didn't water conduct electricity? I should have paid more attention in science class.

The scorpion sat there. Waiting. Watching. The crystal wasn't glowing yet, so either it needed time to recharge after two blasts like that and was canny enough to wait, or it was biding its time for a better shot, maybe studying me.

There was nowhere to run and hide in the little oasis. If I wanted to survive, I was gonna have to attack the monster. I muttered, "This sucks." I waded back to shore, gripped the spear in one hand, and watched the scorpion's stinger.

The scorpion's whole body turned on its six legs, following and targeting me.

I took a step forward and stopped.

The scorpion waited.

I took another. Then another.

A white spark of light appeared in the stinger.

I tensed my whole body.

The stinger's glow intensified. One second. Two. Three.

I dodged, diving to the side, this time away from the water.

The lightning bolt zapped by overhead. Thunder rattled my bones.

Weak muscles protesting, sunburned skin aching, I hurriedly pushed myself up from the sandy grass. Legs churning as fast as I could in that state, I did the dumbest thing ever and charged the creature. Probably the slowest charge ever, and the thing was a good thirty or forty paces away. I was about a quarter of the way there when I realized it would probably charge up its next shot before I arrived in point-blank range.

I was halfway there when the stinger lit up again, twenty paces to go.

The stinger glowed.

I spotted some bushes with a small boulder to my right. I feinted left, ran right, and dove behind the boulder.

The edge of the lightning bolt caught me in the foot. Every tendon in my leg seemed to snap, like flicking a tense wire. The shock travelled up my leg and into my body. I flopped around for a few seconds, teeth clenched, helpless. The moment I got my senses back and could move, I shakily grabbed the spear and made ready to defend myself.

But the scorpion wasn't charging me back. Poking my head around the small boulder, I saw it still watching me. I grumbled while painfully getting to my feet, "Well, that's just great. Aren't you patient?" With a deep breath, I ran forward again.

Fifteen paces.

The stinger lit up. I'd lost too much time on the ground after the last one.

Ten paces.

The stinger glowed. I tensed; I wasn't gonna make it.

Eight paces. Six. Time was running out. I desperately threw the spear at its face.

The spear didn't have enough power to penetrate, but it hit the scorpion between the eyes, just above the mouth. The creature flinched backward. The lightning bolt went over my head, making every hair I had stand up as I continued to charge. The pincers opened, and this close, they were even bigger than I'd thought.

I had no weapon as I ran at it. I was screwed. Sure, I had taken martial arts for several years, back when I was younger, but that had been designed for human opponents. None of it had ever trained me to fight something that could snip your arms and legs off. An idea hit, and without thinking, I dropped into a baseball slide. This close to the water, there was grass, but lots of sand too, and I sprayed that sand right in the creature's many eyes.

The scorpion defensively crossed its arms in front of its face, probably thinking I was drop kicking it or something, but the sand didn't seem to affect it at all.

But I was able to get a hand on the spear again. I rose back to my feet, took one step, and leaped into the air like the hero on a movie poster. It would have been nice if I'd looked badass at that moment, like a hero, but I probably looked like a crazy homeless person about to get himself killed. Both hands on the spear, I drove it down into the scorpion's back, while my weight drove the creature to the ground, its legs unable to support my weight.

The scorpion's exoskeleton was like plate armour. The spearhead only penetrated halfway. But it was enough for the scorpion to panic and flail about. Or it tried to. One of the legs cracked from my weight. Even with five, it shook back and forth. But it was the tail that got me. It struck, the crystal slamming into my forehead.

I reeled back, falling off the scorpion and pulling the spear free.

The creature instantly turned on me. It jabbed, almost too fast to follow, sometimes punching, sometimes snipping those pincers.

I scrambled backward, feet slipping in the soft, sandy soil, fending off as many strikes as I could with the spear. Some got through and bruised or cut my chest and legs. The tail lashed out, and I barely dodged it by leaning left and getting the spear up.

The scorpion used that distraction to dart forward, getting inside my defenses. It snipped at my ankle, which I barely lifted out of the way. It snipped with the other pincer and gashed my other shin. The tail came at me again, a big, overhand blow. I just got the spear up with both hands to block, but it was largely a feint. The scorpion stepped closer and delivered a massive uppercut to my balls.

I hated this world. My balls hated it even more.

Thank all that's holy and unholy both that the pincer had been closed or it would have snipped certain precious things clean off, and I wasn't sure I'd have the will to keep fighting or even living at that point.

The hit hurt. My stomach felt like it was trying to climb up my throat. My legs went weak. One hand clutched my man pearls while the other feebly held the spear in front of me.

The tail struck again. It hit me in the chest.

I fell backward and landed with a splash in the shallows of the oasis pool. With what little strength I had at the moment, I whimpered like a baby, tears falling down my cheeks, and lamely kicked myself into deeper water.

The scorpion didn't give chase. They didn't seem keen on getting wet. It also didn't need to. It still had that long-range stinger. So it stood there, favouring the broken leg but still mobile on the other five, staring at me.

I held up two fingers in a V sign. "Peace? I didn't know they were your kids. I only ate them because I had no choice. And, honestly, they tasted horrible. "

The stinger sparkled.

"Aw, come on!"

I was too weak to throw myself at it. So I turned around and clawed my way underwater. The slope of the underwater sand was steep, the middle of the oasis pool about four times my height. Spear still in one hand, I dove under the surface and tried to escape. I almost made it.

It seemed like electricity doesn't penetrate water deeply, mostly shooting through the surface of the water. My head had gotten a couple of meters down, but my feet were still closer to the surface when the lightning bolt landed and decided it wanted to go right through me to the floor of the pool, grounded on some glittering black and gold rocks in the mud and sand.

Every muscle snapped taut. I thought I was going to snap all my own bones and teeth. Then I blacked out, still underwater.

Losing consciousness isn't like in stories. You don't pass out for more than a few seconds before you start to get brain damage. You see someone get punched out in a movie and wake up in a different building, which took an hour to get to? They'd either wake up a vegetable or not at all.

I woke up a few seconds later. You ever see someone dynamite a lake? Fish just float to the surface, stunned. I was doing that! I found myself face down, hanging in the water, arms dangling, spear in the mud below me. My heavy, wet robe probably kept me from rising to the surface. Well, there followed lots of inhaling water, splashing, coughing, flailing around like an idiot, that sort of thing.

I'd barely gotten any air when I saw that stinger light up again like a vengeful spotlight. I dropped and tried to get as low in the water as I could. This time, it worked. I sat on the bottom of the pool, ass in the muck while white lightning played over the surface. I felt about for the spear and noticed the water warming up overhead. I guess if electricity has nowhere to escape from water, it heats it up. That meant I couldn't hide down here forever. Plus, there was the whole breathing thing. It was getting really important at this point.

My fingers touched the shaft of the spear, wrapped around it, and I kicked off the bottom, straight up. My head broke the surface, and I inhaled, only to get into another coughing fit. Fought through it this time, but this time, I bee-lined directly away from the monster.

No, I wasn't fleeing. It was a strategic retreat. There was no escaping the thing. If I tried to leave the oasis, it would just follow me out into the sand of the desert and shoot me in the ass. But I needed a breather.

Got to the far shore, and looked back, expecting the next lightning bolt any second.

The scorpion sat on the other side of the water, staring. The stinger was dull. Maybe after all that shooting, it needed a breather too. I had no idea how the thing worked other than assuming 'magic' was the answer. But maybe even a magic beast couldn't shoot forever. Of course, that had me second-guessing myself. Should I have attacked instead of running away? Or did the momma have another bolt or two in her and was just resting? No way to know.

On the far shore, I kept an eye on her as I slogged out of the water, up the sandy grass, and into the bushes. There wasn't much vegetation to hide in. The bushes were sparse.

A vicious screech came from the side.

I jumped, then belatedly turned toward the sound, both hands on the spear and ready to kill whatever new threat was coming at me.

It was the human-sized vulture. It hadn't been able to fly away. It had been doing its best to hide in the greenery as well. It seemed pretty pissed that I'd arrived, bringing unwanted attention to its hiding spot behind a dense bush and some tall clumps of really dark green grass. Glaring, it was hunched over with a disgusting fleshy blister bubble on its chest where a bunch of feathers had gotten blasted off.

I speared it in the face.

The vulture dudged with that long neck.

I stabbed again and again. "Die, fucker! If I survive, I'm having chicken wings tonight!" I lashed out, pushing the huge bird back until it lost its balance and fell over with a panicked shriek. Not wasting the chance, I pounced, driving the spearhead into its back. I leaned all my weight into it, driving the weapon through the bird, feeling the bronze tip sliding through organs and bouncing off ribs or something. It was pretty gross.

The vulture flopped and kicked and tried to snap at me with its beak, but in a couple of minutes, it slowed and died, falling limp. The eyes stared without seeing, just like that lizard person had.

I stood over the lifeless thing, panting. Even when it's not a human, seeing dead eyes, seeing a corpse, felt wrong. Unnatural. Something inside me was deeply disturbed by the sight. Beneath that feeling, I tried to take comfort in knowing that I wasn't a natural killer. I didn't enjoy this sort of thing, and even doing it out of self-defence and survival, it was unpleasant.

Ain't no vegan chicken wings out here though.

My ring flashed. I'd levelled to 5 from the kill. In the back of my head, I briefly wondered at how fast I was levelling. Was this normal? Was it just like an RPG where the first few levels are stupidly easy to get you hooked?

Remembering the big threat, I looked back over at the scorpion.

There was no scorpion.

That side of the oasis was empty of giant, lightning-throwing creatures from hell.

"Shit!" I yanked the spear from the body of the bird and spun around, ready to defend myself. After a panicked search, I slowed down and took my time to scan the ring of green around the water. Had it decided to come after me? Was it circling the oasis, sneaking up on me? Or was I lucky enough that it had decided to retreat back to the cave, or wherever it had come from?

Me. Lucky. Ha!

With a white-knuckled grip on the spear, I backed away from the water. The scorpion could have gone around either side of the pool; I had no way to tell which. So I had to back away from both. Unfortunately, there was only so far to go. Within a dozen paces, the sand of the open desert was nearly at my back. But there was still no sign of the creature. Damn thing was stealthy. At the edge of the sand, I crouched low, hopefully making myself harder to spot. Trying to quietly control my breathing, I continually scanned the oasis for any sign of movement.

Minutes passed.

In the sun and heat, sweat dripped down my face and arms. I felt my grip slick on the wooden shaft of the spear, and had to wipe my hands off. The minutes dragged out. It was beginning to look like the scorpion had strategically retreated as well.

Something moved to my left, and I glanced over.

A baby scorpion was unearthing itself. It was probably coming out to hunt. It came free of the sand. Then it turned and looked at me.

I tried to stay silent, willing it to go away with all my mental power.

The tiny stinger began to glow.

I whisper-hissed under my breath, "No! Go away. Shoo!" Very quietly, I tried to sidle away.

The little lightning scorpion fired. It hit me right in the hand.

"Ow!"

Three meters to my right, the momma's huge scorpion tail curled up out of nowhere, turned, and pointed directly at me, glowing brighter fast.

I had no time to even cry out as I threw myself backward.

The lightning bolt streaked past my chest, every hair on my body standing out.

The momma scorpion wasn't content to sit back any longer. It was on the hunt. It burst from the grass and bushes, pincers open, horrid mouth gaping wide, and came at me with a fury.

 

[TimBaril]

The momma scorpion rushed me straight on, no more games, causing the bastard of a baby scorpion to flee fast. I pathetically tried to fend the momma off with the spear, but it was having none of it. It just kept attacking, big pincers punching and snipping at me. It drove me back into the soft, hot sand so that I almost tripped and fell backward, feet sinking into the soft granules.

The tail stabbed down, nailing me right in the nose about as hard as a heavyweight champion's knockout punch. I staggered back a few steps, as blind with stars and drunk as a boxer on their last legs. I was dimly aware of blood streaming down my lips and chin. Moments later, the pain began to overwhelm the shock.

Achievement unlocked: broken nose! Yay.

Then, I did fall. Shaky and barely sensible, I went to my knees, blinking tears.

The scorpion must not have understood its clear advantage. It hesitated, then darted closer a couple of steps before stopping and jumping back. It must have thought I was trying to trick it. It did this twice before deciding I wasn't faking, then came in all the way.

I lifted the spear up in front of me, but the scorpion's left pincer locked around the shaft. It punched with its right.

In the martial art I'd studied back home, they'd shown us something neat. Almost all the force of a punch comes straight on. That's why trying to block a punch hurts so much; you're absorbing all that force. But when someone's punching, it takes only a little pressure from the side to push their punching arm out of the way. If you're fast enough to react in time. We practiced this all the time.

I did it on instinct, like I'd trained for. As the bowling-ball size pincer came at my face, the hand I already had up pushed it to the side. Not quite in time, though. I got hit right above one eye. Thankfully, it was a glancing blow. Without thinking, my hand already on the pincer, I slid it down and grabbed the thin arm behind the fat claw.

We wrestled, spear trapped in one pincer, the two of us struggling over the other. It went back and forth, but I could feel myself losing. The thing was stupidly strong, and it still had five good legs, getting way better traction than I was. Its nasty mouth kept chomping at my face. Scorpions are arachnids, and they are every bit as butt ugly up close.

I couldn't let it continue. I dropped low and, with a roar, pushed with everything I had, like some skinny sumo wrestler, screaming and heaving.

The scorpion's front lifted up, up, then it was twisting and falling onto its back, tailed pinned underneath.

I kept going, climbing up onto its belly. It flailed about with its pincers, trying to right itself, but I was too heavy. Its legs became frantic, sharp points coming at me like a half-dozen daggers, poking holes all over my body. But I couldn't let up. Kneeling on the creature's chest, I was terrified of dying, so I got pissed. Because that's how guys react to so many unwanted emotions, especially fear. For some reason, it wouldn't let go of my spear, but when it tried to snip my head off with the other, I wrestled it away with my left hand and wailed on the creature with my right.

Over and over again, I punched that ugly beast in the bottom of its head. Legs kept stabbing me, blood spattering everywhere. One got me in the gut, making me cry out as I felt the thing root around in my guts. I let go of the pincer, put both hands on the offending limb, pulled it out of me, and twisted and ripped until the thing tore off the body below. Then I stabbed the scorpion in the face with its own sharp foot.

I screamed at it, "How do you like that, asshole?" and then got slammed in the side of the head by the pincer I should have been holding onto. The claw snipped, and I nearly lost my ear; it left a long cut in my hair instead. But the vicious creature was weakening. I dropped the torn leg and punched and punched, wailing on its face.

And at some point, it stopped putting up a fight. Probably because its face was mush.

I tumbled off, and knelt in the sand, the golden grains turning rusty from all the blood I was shedding, and it was a lot. My nose was broken. My right hand was broken from punching too much. I had sun burns, electrical burns, and even sand burns. My stomach was a ravenous hole from hunger, and had an actual hole or two in it. I was sweating and thirsty beyond belief. Heart pounding and chest heaving lungfuls of air, it was all I could do to hold onto consciousness.

I'd done it. The momma scorpion was dying. I was, too, but she'd go first.

Honestly, I couldn't believe I'd had it in me. I'd had no idea I was capable of something like that. I was no soldier, not even a cop. I was a nobody. The only fighting I'd ever done was light sparring at the dojo, and that had been pretty recreational, not serious. Who the hell was this kick-ass guy who looked like me, and where the hell had he been all my life?

The husky-sized arachnid twitched a few more times, then went still.

I breathed deeply in relief. I'd won. Too bad I'd be dead soon too.

The ring flashed, and the screen popped up in the air above it. Numbers cycled:

6

7

8

I could only laugh. Three levels. Given the state I was in, I guessed I was really, really lucky to be alive after that. I must have been punching outside of my weight class. The baby scorpions had been my level. I never should have faced this thing, probably never would have encountered it except for accidentally opening that cave. Rookie mistake. Because I'm an idiot who does stuff without thinking.

I felt a pulse of restorative energy surge through me three times.

I looked down at myself. My wounds were barely bleeding now. "Whoa. Three levels, and you couldn't even heal me all the way?" I complained, but I checked one of the holes in my guts and was pleased to find it largely healed. All the healing from three level-ups must have gone toward keeping me from immediately bleeding out.

I checked out my stats. They'd grown.

• Strength 16
• Speed 17
• Health 24
• Mana 8
• Endurance 10

Having vaguely paid attention to the first couple of level-ups, it looked like I was gaining about three stat points per level. Assuming levels got harder as you went, you'd earn fewer new points over time. I wondered how far people levelled up. Was it like DnD, and 20 was your max, or more like WoW, and you capped at 70 or 120 or 50 or whatever it was at now? Considering I'd gone up to Level 8 fairly "easily", I had to think the cap was much higher than 20 or even 50. After all, while that huge scorpion had been a brutal battle for me, people living in this world must be collecting far more experience over time. I'd only been here a month. Some guy killing these things for decades must be at a really high level, right?

I hadn't been given the option to assign points; they'd changed on their own. But it didn't seem random. Mana hadn't changed at all. But Health had shot up, along with gains to Strength, Speed, and Endurance. I'd been very sick a lot and injured a lot. Maybe the system figured I needed more health to stay alive. I'd been fighting a bunch, so the two stats that reflected that had also grown, though not as much. I bet that if I'd been a better fighter and had kicked ass without getting sick and hurt as much, my Strength and Speed stats would have been much higher.

I assumed Mana had something to do with magic, which I didn't have a clue about and wasn't using, so it had stayed the same.

I was starting to see why this kind of thing enticed people so much, why they fantasized about it and wrote books about it.

Two large icons appeared on the holo screen. It took me a bit of effort to focus on them. One icon showed a glowing red heart while the other was a mysterious question mark appearing and disappearing behind some dark clouds. Below each was some helpful text. Pictures and words were smoky, the edges indistinct. It seemed that the system was offering me two options.

HEAL TO FULL HEALTH and GAIN [Lesser Regeneration] or

REVEAL A SECRET

I shook my head at the idiocy and automatically reached out for the first option. I might have partially healed from levelling, but that was no guarantee I wouldn't die from these wounds or infection, even with the resistance skill. Restoring myself to full health was the most practical thing to do. Even better, I'd get a new skill, one that would definitely be vital in helping me survive. If the first few weeks in this world were any indication, I was going to get hurt a lot. Regeneration was a broken skill.

And the second option was a secret? What kind of moron would pick that?

I hesitated. Was I that moron?

Why would it offer a secret? No explanation. Would I learn a secret, or would one of mine be revealed? Did I even have any secrets? I couldn't think of anything. I'd stolen some vintage Playboy mags when I was in high school. Wow. Huge and embarrassing secret. I was surprised to find that I still felt guilty for that, and it had happened many years earlier.

The system wasn't providing any hints about the secret option. It could be meant to completely screw you over. Like maybe you learn that little Johnny wet the bed three towns over and hid it from his mom. Completely meaningless. But was this option a true gamble, or was the system giving me the chance to learn a really good secret, something that might benefit me?

What if the options were equal? What if whatever secret it was, it was as beneficial as restoring my health and gaining a very sweet skill? But the more I thought about it, that didn't seem right. If the options were balanced, hiding one seemed too much of a gamble. Therefore, to make it truly tempting, shouldn't the secret option be potentially more valuable than the shown option?

So it was probably either a total crap secret, or an awesome secret. But I had no way at all to know or even to guess because I wasn't from this world. I didn't know how the system worked. Maybe I had a 50-50 chance, or maybe a 1-99 chance. The way my luck usually went, the odds were probably about the same as in a mobile gacha game.

Don't ever play those. Stupid pay-to-win, manipulative ripoffs, all of them.

Maybe it was because I was so beat up and tired, but the decision just seemed really difficult. Maybe it would have been easier if I were smarter. I didn't know. I looked at the FULL HEALTH option. It seemed the best thing to do. So obvious. And regen? Oh, man, it would have been nice not to be in constant hellish pain.

I sighed. I was weak to mysteries. I had to know what the stupid secret was. I was that moron, after all. I reached out and hit it with my hand like I was in some VR game. Probably didn't need to do that. The whole thing was happening in my head, so I could have just thought the one I wanted. Whatever.

The options vanished. I still hurt everywhere, and that wasn't going to change anytime soon. I looked around, my breathing finally getting back to normal. Nothing seemed different. No new messages popped up. Nothing fell from the sky. No beat-the-boss chest appeared.

That was actually pretty disappointing. The moment I thought it, I was heartbroken it wasn't happening, because as silly as a video-game world was, everyone who's played a fantasy game loves large chests. Treasure too.

But nothing happened. Where was my secret? Apparently, the system really did have an option to screw you over.

I groaned, "This sucks."

But wait, the situation got even better.

I spent the afternoon resting, filtering water and drinking it, and eating fried vulture that tasted like sour turkey, and I didn't care because at that moment, it was the best thing ever and ten times better than fried scorpion. I cleaned out my wounds and washed my face, though I didn't have a clue about what to do with a broken nose except try to straighten it, which hurt like being stabbed in the face. All of this I did with a broken hand. Multiple level-ups, and the system hadn't fixed it. I thought maybe it had put any shattered bones back together so that I just had a bunch of fractures. But I couldn't open or close it, and the slightest touch, like bumping something, hurt so bad it brought tears. I'd never had physical injuries like that before.

I muttered while I cleaned fresh blood out of my reset nose, "Thanks, system god or whoever it was that brought me here. You're just layering on the new experiences. Really appreciate that. Not like I could have gone through life without knowing what broken bones feel like. How about you come down here and give me five minutes alone with you and a hammer?"

After, I sat in the wet sand of the oasis shore with a palm frond umbrella keeping a bit of the sun off. The sun was setting, and, fair enough, the sunsets in the desert were pretty gorgeous, if you like that sort of thing and aren't in so much pain that you barely notice. The sun was glowing pink on the horizon, barely a sliver left, and the sky was dark blue and turning black. It was dark, with shadows everywhere. I was barely functional and had been zoned out from exhaustion for a while.

That's when movement out in the desert caught my eye.

The first stars were coming out opposite the sun. There was just enough light to see the telltale shape of a scorpion out there, coming from the cave's direction. Another one. Because that was my life. One kick in the nuts after another.

It wasn't moving fast. It was inching forward a couple of steps at a time, pausing, turning this way and that, then pausing again. Apparently, scorpions generally see by feel. They chase vibrations. So the dark doesn't bother them. It's why they're nocturnal. The creature was slowly but steadily making its way toward the oasis, where I was sitting. I dimly realized that it was following the trail I'd left.

It took a good minute or two for my sluggish brain to start putting the pieces together. I frowned. Like, that thing was a good way off, but I could see it clearly. That meant it wasn't a baby, which I'd first assumed it was. In fact, the closer it got, the easier it was to compare it to the plantlife, and I realized it wasn't even momma-sized.

I couldn't help but exclaim aloud, "There's a papa scorpion? Are you kidding me?" I sagged back against the sand chair I'd made myself, almost too exhausted to be more than terrified.

Oops. Whether it heard me or felt me move, the scorpion spun in my direction and stopped.

We stared at each other. I started to really realize just how big it is. It was the size of a car.

An American car.

I should have been afraid. I was. But that old, familiar anger I'd been carrying for so long decided it had had enough simmering. The afternoon had been enough respite. My body may have been spent, but my anger still had kick left in it. It flickered back to life with a vengeance, directed at the system, at whatever entity brought me here to abuse me like this, and at the scorpion to end all scorpions because it was the only physical thing I could unleash all that rising anger on.

I slowly reached out to grab the spear that never left my side. Curled my fingers around the wooden shaft, now chipped and scarred from battle. I wiped some sweat off my broken nose with the wrist attached to my broken hand, pain flaring on contact. Darkly laughing at the absurdity of it all, I stared down that crazy big creature and growled, "Fine. So there's a papa scorpion. All right, I'll kill you too. But I swear, if you die and a grandaddy scorpion the size of a bus shows up, I'm gonna burn this whole fuckin' world to the ground. You have my word."

The monster came for me.

 

[TimBaril]

Flashback

Some Years Ago​

Despite the badass name, Dragon Dojo was very much a typical suburban attraction. No cobras, no wax on, wax off. It catered to local kids, families, and the occasional housewife who wanted something different from the many aerobics classes down the street at the community center. The sensei was a great guy, though, so the place was respectable.

I'd been a student there years ago, back in high school. My mom, bless her, had wanted to find something the family could do together. My father thought he was too cool to go, looking down on the teachers for not being macho enough. My sister came twice at Mom's insistence (wow, that sounds wrong when taken out of context), then made excuses, then eventually straight-up said she hated physical exercise and refused. Stacy basically lived on her phone, and the many attempts my parents had made to get her to do anything that used muscles had always failed. The only things she cared about were texting her superficial friends, YouTube, and Instagram. If she could, she'd probably become a digital person and live on the net permanently, far away from her family.

So, for three years, it was just me and Mom. As a dude, especially a dude in high school, maybe some people think I'm supposed to say it was embarrassing and uncool. But, honestly, it turned out to be the kind of quality time parents yearn for with older kids, and I enjoyed it too, especially with us being apart from my overbearing old man so Mom could be herself more. It brought me and Mom closer together after those awkward puberty years when boys are trying to be more manly and independent, when we're jerks to our Moms, which really hurts them even though they pretend its fine. And yes, we should feel guilty for that and find ways to make up for it later on.

I graduated from school, then moved away for a bit. Years later, after moving back to town and a couple of months after Cerise and I had become engaged, Cerise and I cycled past the dojo and ran into my mom coming out. (Not literally.) Mom still sporadically attended to dojo. Even after I'd left home at nineteen and quit the dojo when I'd moved away, she'd continued, training for a year or two, then taking a year off, that kind of thing. She'd recently gone back. Even though I'd moved back to town about a year earlier, she hadn't mentioned it, probably thinking I wouldn't be interested in training again, especially now that she was older and it would be even less 'cool'.

Cerise…was an amazing girlfriend in so many ways. She and Mom had hit it off right away when they'd first met, in large part because Cerise had made a determined effort to be friends and really build a bridge between them. They texted, chatted nonstop in person, and gave gifts on birthdays. I'd realized early on that this was a reallygood sign. Cerise surely wouldn't have made that kind of effort if she hadn't been serious about me or if she were a more selfish person. Seeing her going all in to love my mother and build a future with the one family member I was close to meant the world to me. It was one more reason to love her, and one more reason I was marrying her. One more reason I wasn't good enough for her; I'd never made the same commitment to her family.

Cerise had known about my doing martial arts as a kid, something she'd never tried. So it was kinda surprising but kinda not when, standing outside the dojo with my mom, Cerise turned to me with excitement on her beautiful face and eagerly suggested, "We should join up! Then all three of us could do it together!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mom light up at the idea, but she quickly tried and failed to suppress it. But it was easy to see the hope there as she fidgeted and tried real hard not to say anything. Mom was the type of parent who wanted to spend time with their kids, no matter how old they got, unlike my old man, who would rather be at his job or off doing his own thing. It wasn't like my sister ever spent time with either parent. Once she'd gotten old enough to be on Only Fans, her life had been all cameras and blowjobs and private jets so rich assholes could bang her in the ass on some Caribbean beach. A millionaire by the age of 21. Didn't even bother to text on Christmas or Mother's Day. I didn't give a damn about her sex life or career, enjoy what you want, but my mom didn't deserve that coldness from her daughter. Really ungrateful.

I was a little nervous at the idea of looking dumb in front of my fiancé, but I ran my hand through my hair and reluctantly agreed, knowing it would make Mom happy, "Sure. Why not?"

Cerise bounced up and down with glee, and Mom couldn't help but finally allow her own excitement out. The two hugged and immediately began making plans for buying gi uniforms and deciding what days we could all go together.

My first lesson back after years away was both blessing and curse. On the upside, it was awesome that I remembered a bunch of the moves. I felt so proud of myself, even if I knew I was making some mistakes. On the other hand, I was not in the shape I'd been in. And when I did make mistakes, I got angry at myself, even though, as Mom said, it was perfectly natural after ten years away. She told me not to be so hard on myself, but I couldn't help it.

Cerise was an immediate sensation at the dojo. There had always been people of all ages at the dojo, but very, very few women between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. Maybe aversion to exercise wasn't limited to my sister, Stacy. So when a young, very beautiful woman showed up, every dude in the place, married or not, was instantly aware of her, and more than happy to talk and give her pointers and try to get her to smile at them.

I admit, I had a bit of an insecurity complex about my fiancé. I didn't know why she was with an average nothing like me, instead of someone good-looking or rich or whatever. Seeing the way guys all reacted to her had always made me feel a little sick. It was tempting to go over and insert myself into every encounter when some asshat flirted with her, then maybe punch him in the face for trying to steal my girl. I rarely did, though. Definitely never punched anyone.

To my surprise, Cerise had once told me that she respected me for that. It had been over breakfast in bed one morning.

I'd blinked at her over a BLT as I sat against my pillow and the headboard. "Huh?"

She'd looked at me over her tea like she shouldn't have to explain it, that it should be obvious. "Because you trust me. And I can see the way you feel, I know you want to be all macho and protect me and keep me as yours, which is hot, but you trust me to stay with you, trust me to make my own decisions, and I respect that. I don't need someone trying to control me. I decide who I want to be with."

"Who?"

"You, you dummy!" She'd laughed and playfully slapped my shoulder.

"Hmm. So, I should not go and tell jerkface in the overpriced suit to piss off when he flashes his money in your face and asks if you want to ride in his Ferrari?"

She'd giggled. "Exactly."

"What if he asks if you want to ride his cock?"

"I'm not a little girl. I can handle it. But I promise, if anyone needs their face punched, I'll call you."

"Good." I'd taken a big bite of the BLT, chewed, swallowed, and then looked over at her. "You wanna ride my cock?"

She'd almost spewed her tea all over the sheet when she laughed. But she'd put the cup on the side table, wiped her mouth, taken away the really good BLT, which had kind of bummed me out because sex while eating a really good sandwich is pretty much my number one fantasy, and then she'd straddled me. Twinkle in her eyes, she'd said, "Always."

The post coital sandwich had still been pretty awesome. Extra bacon and lots of mustard.

By the way, don't eat mustard anything in bed. That stain never comes out.

Anyway, the dojo. Maybe it was the fact that we were engaged, and the wedding was coming up fast. You'd think I'd maybe be more secure because of that. Nope. Worse. So all these fit guys, some younger, most cooler, they were finding reasons to be near her, to introduce themselves, and I wished I had a flamethrower so I could reduce those guys to ash. I didn't. I chose to trust her.

Besides, if she did choose to quit me, it would mean she didn't really love me the way I loved her, so I'd be dodging a bullet, right? Better to get ditched earlier than ten years into a marriage. And I did love her. I wanted her to be happy. So if she'd rather be with someone else, then I guess he'd be a better match for her, so I should, logically, accept that.

Ha. As if. I'd probably spend ten depressed years in my apartment, never coming out, then go postal on the guy who had taken her from me.

…Nah. Not really. Because doing something like that would hurt her. Even if she left me for some rich prick, I knew I'd never be able to hate her, let alone hurt her.

Our first class at the dojo started, and we did drills in front of the giant mirrors that filled one wall. You were supposed to use it to check out your own form. I could see a bunch of the guys checking out Cerise's form instead. I also noticed that my moves were even worse than I'd thought. In retrospect, even if Cerise hadn't been so absorbed trying to do her own thing to bother looking my way, she would have had no idea I was screwing up, but I looked in the mirror and saw my sloppy moves and felt like a failure.

What guy doesn't want to impress the love of his life, right? You wanna be perfect for her.

Sensei didn't seem to think I was all that bad. He walked by a couple of times, reaching out to make tiny adjustments to my form and nodding in approval, telling me I was doing amazing after being gone so long. Maybe he was making a special effort after meeting Cerise and was trying to help me look good. It seemed to work. Cerise noticed the praise and flashed me a thumbs up. Couldn't help myself, my pride swelled, and I grinned like an idiot.

After going through warmups and solo drills, it came time for preset sparring drills. You and a partner face off like you're fighting, but you're going through preset moves like a dance. Maybe that sounds stupid, but it eases you into being in a fight-like situation because you are supposed to make light contact and really push your partner to defend themselves.

We have an army base nearby, and there are always a few soldiers in the dojo. Them and the construction guys are always the biggest, but the army guys have a real special mentality to them, an in-your-face attitude that can seem real friendly. But they're always showing off, flexing, laughing too loud and slapping your back too hard. Like they're trying to be all casually alpha around the civilians. They're rarely outright jerks, often rigid about their code of conduct, but somehow, they exude this attitude that says they're the big dog and you're more than welcome to throw down because they'd cheerfully prove it to you.

Beef was one of the biggest army dudes. Shorter than me, but he'd made up for that shortcoming by going to the gym twice as much as anyone. He was one of those guys whose arms couldn't hang down straight because he had too much muscle. His tits were bigger than Cerise's. He'd been one of those meeting and greeting my fiancé and asking all sorts of flirty questions before class started.

Beef came over me, a sly grin on his face, light gleaming off his bald-like-a-bowling-ball head. He'd been at the dojo a long time, a rookie like me when we'd started, but a black belt now, whereas I was starting at white all over again because I'd been gone. He called out, "Jimmy!"

I hate the nickname Jimmy, btw. My name is James.

"Jimmy! How ya doin'? What happened to yer blue belt?" Blue was two steps up from white, what I'd earned before quitting the dojo.

I forced a laugh at the underhanded dig. "Lost in the laundry, I guess."

"Aw. Shame." He then acted all serious and helpful. "Come on, you remember these sparring drills, right? You and me, let's see what you got." While the sensei who owns the dojo is the head guy, the other black belts often teach classes alone or assist when the sensei is teaching. So even though we'd started about the same time and been about the same level when I'd left, here he was, acting all superior because he now had ten years experience on me.

He was no doubt trying to impress Cerise while taking the opportunity to make me look less than him. He was that kind of guy. I didn't get the chance to refuse because he was a black belt now, and he just started into it, forcing me to go along.

Out of the side of my eye, I saw sensei pairing Cerise and my mom up, and boy, you could see the joy and pride on Mom's face; she was just glowing at the chance to teach Cerise. It was awesome.

Then Beef punched me in the chest, hard. He'd started the drill without me. "Hey now. Where's your focus? Come on." He reset.

The hit had hurt, but I refused to act like it did and give the blockhead the satisfaction. I reset, and we went through the drills a few times. I wasn't going to lose to him.

Honestly, I was out of shape, slow, and had forgotten moves, but I was keeping up better than I'd thought I would, especially with Beef coming hard at me like I was another black belt and not a rookie again. He kept tagging me with his kicks and punches, landing them on my thighs and arms and chest. The guy was so huge, he didn't even seem to be making much of an effort, but each one hurt. The more I tried to keep a stony face and not show pain, the more it egged him on, blows landing harder and harder.

Beef was enjoying it. He knew full well he was torturing me.

I was annoyed, but there was absolutely no way I was going to show fear or pain, not for him, and not with Cerise nearby. I didn't want to look weak. I wanted to prove how tough I could be.

Beef landed a heavy roundhouse on my left thigh. He'd been aiming and hitting the exact same spot over and over. On purpose. This is one of the strongest guys around, a legit monster. I took a lot of punishment. But finally, my bruised leg couldn't take it anymore, and I finally cried out and dropped to one knee.

Beef acted all contrite. "Oh, hey there. Sorry about that. You were doing so well, didn't realize it was too much for you." He offered a hand to help me up.

I looked at it but didn't take it. Everyone in the dojo, of course, was looking my way, including Cerise. Sensei was hustling over in concern, with Mom looking on with worry but not following, probably because she wanted to spare me the embarrassment of mothering me in public. Didn't matter. My face was hot and getting redder by the second; I could feel it. And when guys get embarrassed, anger's swift to follow, right?

I ignored the fake offer of help and forced myself to stand, wincing. I hated him for being a jerk. But I also hated myself for not being tough enough to endure him.

Beef came forward with a wide smile and clapped me on the back. "See, you're all right. Don't know my own strength, but you're tough enough to shake it off. Impressive, Jimmy."

Suddenly, Cerise was at my side. To my great relief, she didn't mother me either; I would have probably snapped hard if she had. I was in a bad place right then. She put a hand on my shoulder, very clearly telling Beef and everyone where her loyalty was. Though she was usually smiling and had been having a great time so far, her face was blank now as she looked at Beef. "I thought martial arts was all about knowing yourself and control."

Beef shrugged. "Yeah."

"So if someone doesn't know their own strength and can't control themselves, then I guess they're not a very good martial artist. In fact, they'd be a failure twice over."

Beef's smug attitude bled away, and when more than a few in the crowd hid laughs or loudly sucked in a big breath at the audacity of the statement, his expression turned to a scowl.

Sensei quickly stepped in and ended things before they could get worse.

As everyone got back to drills, Cerise gave me a concerned look. "You ok?"

I was proud as hell of her, but still feeling utterly humiliated and angry. "I'm fine." I acted like it was nothing, though my face was still hot and my leg hurt so bad I couldn't move it. The muscle had cramped up from the blow. I was useless. I should have said more, thanked her, acted better, but I just couldn't. I was glad when she squeezed my shoulder and then went back over to drill with Mom.

I tried to get through the rest of the class like things were fine, but inside, I was an emotional mess. Just like a guy, right, hiding all their feelings instead of dealing with them? Not healthy. I'd learn that the hard way later. But at that moment, I just hated being so fuckin' weak. I was ashamed of myself for not being strong enough, not being tough enough, not being able to shrug it off and being so emotional instead.

 

[TimBaril]

The Oasis​

I watched that huge-ass papa scorpion coming for me. Maybe it was the way the starlight reflected off the thing's shiny exoskeleton. Maybe it was how it dwarfed me in size and power. But it reminded me of Beef, someone I hadn't thought of in a while.

Seeing it reminded me how much I loathed that guy. How much I'd love to beat the ever-loving crap out of that guy. He wasn't here, so I'd have to redirect all that buried anger at the scorpion instead. That was fine. I'd had enough of these guys, too. And I was tired of getting my ass kicked so much.

After levelling up, my strength and speed were better than ever. I could feel it, and it felt good. Almost smug, I pushed into the sand as I burst into a run — and fell on my face. I spat sand out and felt new scrapes on my knees. Apparently, there was some cog-something difference or whatever the term was between my new abilities and brain. Being able to do more seemed to require practice. That made sense. Getting to my feet again, I looked up.

The monster was skittering closer, pointed feet tearing up the sandy grass. It came to a palm and barely made an effort to go around, backhanding the tree with a gargantuan pincer, and bending the tree right out of the way. It came to another and slowed just enough to snip through the tree with the other pincer.

The tree toppled back onto the scorpion but did no visible damage. It did, however, cause three assassin spiders, each with a legspan as wide as an umbrella, to leap out of the falling tree and land on the dark exoskeleton. The scorpion completely ignored them because it was covered in armour, and they swiftly leaped off and scuttled away.

Whatever bluster I'd had for a moment fled in a similar fashion. Obviously, trying to keep the trees between the beast and me wasn't going to do anything. My mind went blank. I was weak, wounded, and all I had for a weapon as a positively inadequate spear when what I really needed was a damn tank.

The scorpion slowed to a stop.

My hope rose. Was it not going to attack after all?

The crystal stinger lit up, going from a tiny spark to a tiny sun in seconds.

"Shit." I spun and threw myself behind the dead momma scorpion, hands over my head.

Even when the baby monsters had thrown lightning, there'd been a little crackling sound almost the same as the mini lightning bolt. When the momma had fired, it had been more of a sharp, humming crack like real thunder. Big daddy fired a genuine bolt of lightning at my ass and a genuine crash of echoing thunder sounded at the same time. It was enough to hurt the ears, shaking my whole body, and it made me want to curl up in the fetal position with some kind of primal terror.

The lightning zapped into the scorpion corpse and some of the sand around it. Glory be, the dead scorpion's body was resistant to electrical attacks! Thank suckin' spice. They probably fought each other all the time and had evolved it as a defence mechanism. Somehow, it blocked or diffused the energy, and my life was spared. The thunder left me dizzy, though, so I guessed I had inner ear damage. Probably why I fell on my face again, trying to get up on my hands and knees, but it was like the ground wasn't where it was supposed to be, and I kept missing.

The giant scorpion crawled forward.

I probably looked like a drunken idiot, but I got to my feet. Seizing onto an idea, I grabbed the dead momma by the tail and heaved it onto my back, tail slung over my shoulder, held down with my bad arm. Squatting under the weight, I managed to pick the spear up. I tried to scurry away when I made the interesting scientific discovery that lightning turns sand to glass. There were a bunch of root-like glass tubes on and under the surface around where the momma had been lying. I also discovered how fragile and crunchy they were by stepping on one, screaming as it sliced my foot, falling to one knee, and nearly stopping. It occurred to me that bubbles of glass had been propping the sand up in front of the cave, and stepping on them had caused them to break, which is how I'd exposed the cave. Only sheer will got me back up, pushing through yet more pain, and moving again, hobbling because a shard of glass was in the bottom of one foot.

I planned to try to circle the oasis. If I could keep it between me and the beast, maybe the thing would eventually give up and go away. So off I went. But I'd made it maybe fifteen or twenty steps, a trail of blood in my wake, when I noticed a bright reflection growing in the water of the oasis. I glanced over my shoulder in worry and, yep, more artillery fire was incoming. I grunted and dropped to my knees, hunching under the dead thing on my back.

The lightning bolt crashed into us. Every hair on my body stood up, and I was deaf and dizzy again from the thunder, but I was alive. I drunkenly spun and gave the papa scorpion the finger while holding the spear. I could barely make him out in my state. I shouted out while trying to stand straight, "Suck it. That's right, I'm immune to your lightning, jerk face! How do you like that?" My eyes focused again.

The scorpion seemed to glower. Then its pincers opened and closed a few times with a sound like metal garden sheers.

I turned and shuffled away as fast as I could.

Twice more as I rounded the shore of the oasis, the scorpion fired at me from afar with lightning. But twice more, I managed to survive thanks to the dead one on my back. Still, the bolts were leaving electrical burns and little lightning patterns on my shoulders and back that were adding up. We did a full circle around the oasis, and the obstinate creature showed no signs of giving up. Was it super hungry or out for vengeance? The lightning grew less frequent as it probably ran low on energy or magic or whatever, but it was getting closer.

Honestly, if it had just charged full speed at any point, I'd have been screwed. Not entirely sure why it didn't. Maybe it was wary of prey and preferred blasting things to death to prevent any risk to itself. Guess it didn't know I was a smushy human with almost no defences and that the massive, armoured bug was capable of cutting me in half with almost no effort. Then it got a chance to do just that.

I was getting really tired, limping and fighting my way around the shoreline with the heavy corpse on my back, trying to hold on to the thing with a bum hand screaming like it was filled with shards of glass, and my foot actually cut up from shards of glass. I stumbled and fell. The momma rolled off my back and into the edge of the water.

The chasing scorpion halted. It watched me. Then it darted forward on the offensive, both pincers opening.

I didn't have time to pick the corpse up, and it wouldn't have done any good anyway. Papa would probably clip clean through it before getting me the same way. I tried to run, stumbling and tripping, trying to get away, but it was on me in no time.

A huge pincer descended.

I ducked away, but the tip caught my shoulder and spun me like a rag doll, laying open the back of my shoulder like a butcher's cleaver. Which is why the second pincer missed cutting my head off, and the base of it punched me in the head instead.

I flew backward, tripped, and fell. Somehow, I'd gotten turned around and landed ass-first in the oasis shallows with a splash.

The scorpion kept coming, pincers snipping at me.

I kicked my feet and crawled backward as I dodged, going deeper, somehow avoiding dismemberment. The open wound in my shoulder had me openly weeping in seconds. It was the same arm as my ruined hand. I was being taken apart, piece by piece.

The scorpion came to the edge of the water, only its front feet getting wet. The sensation seemed to spook it, because it immediately reversed, stopping a couple of paces up on drier land.

I half-floated, half-stood in chest-deep water, panting like my life depended on it. Looked like the scorpion wasn't a fan of water. Would I be safe there?

That bloody stinger lit up once more, shining on me like a spotlight at an execution.

"Gah!" I turned and dove, dropping the spear in my haste, and swimming hard. I'd learned my lesson. I went deep. Despite the size of the lightning bolt, I only felt a painful sting on my feet, like a thousand needles jammed into them, instead of getting totally fried or knocked out.

I got an idea: I would lure the behemoth into the water and then attack it.

Staying underwater for as long as I could, I turned and tried to aim for the spot on shore where I'd dropped the momma. The darkness of night made that hard, so when it got too shallow to hide underwater anymore, I popped up, took a quick look around to get my bearings, and then slogged as fast as I could through the knee-deep water toward the body.

I saw the papa scorpion turn its entire body my way. It was like it had been entirely blind to me until I'd broken the surface again. But once it had found me again, it charged.

I grabbed the momma by the tail and pulled her deeper into the water, yanking with all my strength.

The scorpion arrived in a flurry of sand and water spraying, all snapping pincers and chomping mouth from hell. Thing wanted me dead, bad. One attack snipped an arm off the momma before I could back out of range. The scorpion came deeper this time, almost half its body in the water before it stopped and backed up.

I smirked despite my fear and the adrenaline making me shake. "That's it. Come on, buddy. Come for a swim. Your dead friend loves it. Look at her dance. La-la-la-la. Totally shallow out here. If she can do it, you can too. Trust me, bro."

The scorpion just stared. Maybe the ruse was too complicated. Maybe it couldn't see well enough. Maybe it decided frying me was easier. Because the stinger lit up.

I cursed and dove hard again, but I wasn't going to make it in time. Behind and above me, the lightning struck the momma. The corpse seemed to absorb the energy because I didn't feel nearly the same needle-like tingling that time. The lightning brightened the bottom of the pool enough for me to spot some scattered dark rocks thanks to some gold flecks in them. I reached out and grabbed a couple, tucking one under my armpit and keeping the other in my fist. I surfaced.

Gasping for air, I weakly swam closer to the scorpion despite my brain howling at me to do the complete opposite. My wet clothing was heavy, the robes making it hard to keep my head above the surface. With my off hand, I chucked the rock at the creature, then screamed, "Come on! That all you got? You're a big, bad boss monster. Come and get me!" The rock landed in the water in front of it, causing it to twitch. I lobbed the second rock. It bounced off the scorpion's head, making it suddenly duck away and turn side to side as if searching for an attacker.

I grinned. "Can't see anything, can you? Bet you're not used to people throwing things either, huh?" Wanting more freedom, I shucked my clothing, getting naked once more. I dove way more easily this time and got a couple more black, gold-flecked rocks by feeling around with my feet on the bottom. I hurled those too. My throws were garbage, but a near miss and another weak hit had the scorpion agitated.

I had to lure it into the water. With those thin legs, it would surely be a lousy swimmer, or so I hoped. It was my only chance. I dove for two more rocks. When I surfaced again, I edged closer and closer to the giant, trying to tempt it. Heart racing, I swallowed and threw again. "Come on! Come and get me, you coward!" I hurled the second rock.

Lucky strike; it hit him in the eye. Squealing and crossing its arms in defence, it skittered backward up the shore.

I took another step closer. "Coward! Who's scared of a little—oh, shit!" The scorpion charged, and I spun with fucking haste. I tried to move as fast as possible while feeling like I was moving in slow motion against the water.

The scorpion had had enough. It launched itself into the water at full speed, pincers up and open, ready to cut me into pieces.

With a deep breath, I dove. I swam hard. I could feel the turbulence in the water as the scorpion got closer. Then it was overhead. Kicking scorpion legs churned the water, barely missing me. The water was pitch black, and I was blind. I had to move by feel and guess. I swam underwater, away from the creature. I needed my spear. I had a notion of where it was, but I'd only be able to find it by touch. Needing air, I gently surfaced.

The scorpion clumsily drifted and kicked. It was pissed and probably hated being out on the water. Which is why it seemed to be trying to turn and head back to shore.

I had to keep it in the water. I quickly searched the oasis bottom with my feet and found a rock. I ducked under the surface, grabbed it, and popped back up. I was a bit far, but I hurled the rock and it dinged off the scorpion's tail.

The monster flinched and started turning to face me, moving ungainly in the water.

Ignoring it as best I could, I pushed ahead, trying to find where I'd come into the pool and where I'd dropped the spear. I dragged my feet through the muck, scraping them on rocks but ignoring the pain and cuts. If I didn't get that spear, I was a dead man.

My foot touched wood.

Instantly, I dropped low. My hand grabbed the shaft. I was armed again! I pushed off the bottom, head breaking the surface, and gasped for air.

The scorpion was churning water like a mad thing, nearly on top of me.

I dove to the side, toward deeper water, and swam sideways with the spear in hand.

The scorpion turned toward shore. Maybe it was going to head for safety instead. I kicked my feet like crazy in the water to cause as much disturbance as I could.

Drawn by the splashing, like it couldn't help itself, the scorpion turned away from shore and toward me instead. It followed me out into the middle of the oasis pool.

In the water, I was a bit faster, able to stay just out of reach of those deadly pincers. More importantly, I could go underwater, where it couldn't.

 

[TimBaril]

I slipped under the surface. It was nearly pitch black with only the faintest light above and a vague sense of gravity that allowed me to keep my bearings. I blindly swam in what I hoped was an arc so I could get around to the scorpion's side. I tried my best to swim calmly with minimal motion because I knew the scorpion was sensitive to vibrations. I could only hope that it found being in the water confusing enough to lose me. Not sensing the creature's legs moving near me, I quietly surfaced.

The papa scorpion was a few meters away, floating, waiting. It was as large as a speedboat. Luckily, it was facing slightly away from me.

I very slowly drifted closer. I had to try to make as little motion as possible, but also not take too long. The scorpion was going to head for shore soon enough if I wasn't around to tempt it.

Even as I thought that, the thing decided it had had enough. It started swimming toward shore, awkward and slow, but getting away.

I kicked into gear, side swimming with the spear in hand. I got crazy close, the scorpion either not noticing me or ignoring me. Coming to a stop, I lifted the spear and stabbed the beast's rear-most leg. I tried to jam the bronze tip into the joint, tried to hurt and cut off the limb.

The scorpion ignored me for a moment, but the pain must have been too much. It tried to turn in place. Giant pincers caused waves as they hit the water.

I tried to swim in step with it so we both circled at the same speed while I continued to stab. But the scorpion was turning faster than I could swim. It was also hard to avoid the legs from gutting me at that range. Desperate, I took a deep breath and dove deep again.

I was in rough shape. Tired, wounded all over, my shoulder still badly bleeding. It was so quiet in the water, so dark, I almost wanted to sleep. I knew that was a bad sign. But still, I waited for the vibrations in the water overhead to slow down.

As they did, the scorpion going into drift mode again, my lungs burning for air, I allowed myself to rise, aiming to the side so I didn't come up under the scorpion's belly. My head broke the surface. I could just make out the tail overhead. Perfect.

I reached up and hooked the spear around the tail, then kicked higher out of the water to get my arm around it too.

The scorpion did not like that. Unfortunately for it, its first reaction was to curl its tail, which pulled me further up out of the water. Pushing through the pain of my broken hand and cut shoulder, I tried to get both arms around the tail, then somehow managed to climb onto the scorpion's back!

I almost laughed in triumph!

The scorpion failed with legs and pincers, spinning in place, furiously trying to get me off.

On my knees, I lifted the spear high. No badass Hollywood line came to me to make me sound cool, so I just plunged the spear down, aiming the bronze tip at the joint between two plates.

It clanged like I'd struck metal.

I blinked in surprise. Unable to believe what had just happened, I tried again, harder. Again and again. Turned out the scorpion was the tank. Its armour was completely impenetrable. I was screwed.

There's a fable about a situation similar to this. A scorpion convinces a frog to give it a ride across a river. The frog is doubtful, but the scorpion promises that it won't sting the frog. The frog agrees to trust the arachnid, and the scorpion climbs on the frog's back. Halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog, poisoning it, and the pair begin to drown. The frog asks why the scorpion did it; they were both going to die. The scorpion replied that it just couldn't help it. That was its nature.

This time, it was a human riding on a scorpion's back. The scorpion did what scorpions do.

As I knelt in astonishment at my failure, staring at the utter lack of damage my spear had done, the scorpion stung me. The tail uncurled, then curled back faster than I could see. The crystal stinger nailed me right in the back of the head. I swear I felt my own skull crack like a ripe melon.

A bright white light filled my vision. My whole body went limp. I slumped to the scorpion's back, then slipped off and into the water.

Paralyzed, it was like an out-of-body experience. I vaguely watched myself sinking into the water with the stars above, and then the stars were gone, and I was enveloped in warm liquid, slowly drifting downward.

I was so tired. My eyes drifted closed. Distantly, I realized that this was it, the end. I knew it because I'd been through this same thing before. It wasn't the first time I'd died. This would be the second. That was fine. I didn't even care if I was sent to yet another world. Actually, I didn't want that. I didn't want anything anymore. I was so sick of living.

I was sick of the way my father had always made me feel like a failure. I was sick of my sister treating me like I was scum. Sick of trying to make my way in the world, only to have my dream's crapped all over while others who were good looking or smarter or who came from a rich family got ahead so easily. I was sick of the fact that, no matter how hard I worked in life, I was never getting ahead. Meanwhile, billionaires got richer every day, even during the pandemic when half the world shut down, making more money they didn't even need while I had always barely stayed afloat.

Cerise was the best thing that had ever happened to me. It had been like winning the lottery. For some reason, this beautiful, kind, generous woman had seen something in me. She'd agreed to give me a chance, and somehow, I hadn't blown it. We'd gone for coffee the first time, which had gone so well that we'd gone for a stroll in the park after. Against all odds, despite my sweating up a storm in nervousness, we'd ended up going so far as to hold hands. Because I'd managed to find the courage to reach out and take hers, which at the time had felt like the bravest thing I'd ever done.

Hand in hand, we'd strolled through the rose garden, which had just been coming into bloom. Minutes had passed, yet she hadn't let me go, hadn't tried to put distance between us. She'd kept smiling at me as if she'd been having fun, like she'd been enjoying my company, which had seemed so odd. After, I'd barely remembered the roses or what I'd said because I'd been so caught up in the fact that we'd been holding hands and she was just the best woman I'd ever come across.

Maybe folks would laugh if they heard that, mock the love at first sight thing, but something between us just naturally clicked. It was like two puzzle pieces finding their match and fitting together with no effort at all.

I'd cried like a baby when she'd later gotten sick. Not because I was scared of losing her, but because I was scared for her losing out on the life she should have had ahead of her. She was Cerise, the strong one, so she tried to tough it out. Fought back. She made me promise that we'd never give up on each other or ourselves, no matter how hard things got. Maybe that's why she ultimately beat it.

It had been a hard journey, but she'd survived. I'd promised again, just like I had on our wedding day, that I'd dedicate my life to her. To make the most of the time we had. Things had been fine after that. We'd moved on. Been happy. Life had been perfect and only getting better.

A few years later, some evil piece of shit had invaded our house and murdered Cerise.

That had broken me. I'd never been able to heal from it. I'd loved her too much.

That moment in the desert earlier hadn't been the first time I'd contemplated suicide. Far from it. For a long time, every single day had required a concentrated effort to keep going, a conscious choice where I'd said every single morning after waking up, "I'm going to live today. One more day." Most days, that had been a hard promise to make.

Only three things had kept me from entirely giving up. One was Mom. I couldn't hurt her by killing myself. I couldn't let her live her last years with the loss of a child. I loved her too much to do that to her. The second was Cerise. She'd loved me, agreed to spend her entire life with me. How could I possibly throw that life away, even if she wasn't there to share it with me? It was a life she'd valued enough to dedicate herself to. So as much as it hurt, my life was precious, or had been. Throwing it away would be betraying her. I refused to do that. I loved her too much.

But some days, it was damn hard to choose to live. Like the days when you're really tired or depressed. Or when you've spent the last month being tortured by a hostile world you never asked to come to, beaten up in just about every way imaginable. The head wound had to be fatal. I was still seeing a weird white light in my vision even though my eyes were still closed. The many wounds all over my body were beginning to hurt again. My chest ached from a lack of oxygen. I knew I needed to surface and breathe. But moving at all seemed to require too much effort. My body was telling me that this was it, it was time to give up. Not like I was going to survive a cracked skull anyway. Why fight it for a few more seconds?

Cerise had never given up when she'd gotten sick. She'd fought it the entire time, tooth and nail, no matter how bad it had gotten.

I'd promised to be someone she could be proud of. That meant fighting too. With that understanding, I opened my eyes. And I saw the sign.

In my blurry vision, white light swimming in front of me, I saw Cerise looking back at me. She held out her little pinky, just like she had that day at the hospital before surgery. I saw her mouth the words, We'll never give up. No matter how hard it gets. Promise.

I'd promised.

I reached out now in the water with my hand, pinkie out.

The vision of Cerise smiled. It was so beautiful. It broke my heart all over again for how much I loved and missed her. And then she faded away.

I was alone again. I let out a single laugh, a precious bubble of air escaping. Even when she wasn't there, Cerise could still drag me up and out of my worst moments. But more was needed. I had to get myself out of this mess. Dammit, life could be demanding. With that understanding, I smiled.

I could feel the muck of the oasis bottom under my toes as I hung in the water. That damn, white blotch of light in my vision was still there, along with a splitting headache. Weirdly, though, I could kind of see the white outlining the bronze spearhead. It was resting on the bottom next to me. Smiling wider at my luck, I reached down and grabbed it.

I planted my feet on the bottom of the pool, gripped the spear in both hands, one bruised and one broken. Then I pushed off as hard as I could. I shot straight up, legs kicking fast, arms tensed. I let out a scream of defiance, and bubbles of air streamed away. The white light in my vision seemed to grow more and more intense, probably as I was giving myself brain damage from all the effort. And then I felt the churning of the scorpion's legs in the water over my head. I lifted the spear with everything I had — and drove it right into the belly of the beast. It sank in deep.

The scorpion kicked about in agony. Long, sharp legs sliced through the water and then through me, tearing me to ribbons.

But I didn't care. Didn't stop. I withdrew the spear and stabbed upward over and over, driving that bronze spearhead into the thing's guts and hopefully its heart. I stabbed and stabbed until my arms were so weak from lack of oxygen that they dropped to my side. The spear slipped from my grasp and sank to the bottom of the oasis. For some reason, the light seemed to go with it, and my vision became normal.

Feebly, I kicked away from the scorpion. It vaguely seemed to be fighting less. I didn't care. I was done with it. I needed air. I got my head above water and inhaled. It took all my last reserves to just float on my back and breathe.

The scorpion's motions grew weaker. Desperately, it tried to swim to shore.

I let it go. I didn't care if it lived or died. If it fled, I hoped it would crawl back into that cave and stay there. Didn't matter. All I could do was float and stare up at the stars. I was bleeding to death.

Some time later, I started making small motions with my arms, gently drifting back to the shore. It took a while, but I did it. I felt the sand rising under me and allowed myself to rest on the bottom with my head above the water. I stayed that way for some time. I could feel my body growing cold from blood loss. Finally, I grunted and turned over onto all fours so I could make the effort to get out of the water.

The scorpion had made it shore too. Mostly. One pincer touched dry land while the rest of the body was in the water. Even as I watched, the big guy shivered once, twitched, then all its legs curled up the same way a dead spider's does. It tipped onto its side and died. In the water. My only water source.

I stared at the massive corpse that I couldn't possibly move alone, now polluting the oasis.

I punched the wet sand and swore, "Fuck!" A second later, I remembered that I was about to bleed to death, so it didn't matter. I crawled about a meter up onto dry land and collapsed, flopping onto my back.

Then the system kicked in.

The level-ups rained down like precious jewels.

 

[TimBaril]

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Could you believe it? I couldn't. That many levels at once? A lucky seven? It was cracked. Broken. Overpowered.

Although, to be fair, Scorpio McSpiderface, the boss character, had been way out of my league. It had to have been something you fought as a party or ten levels higher than I'd been. With magical weapons. I never should have survived that ordeal. One clean hit would have killed me. A glancing blow had almost done it. One lightning bolt dead on would have fried me.

I couldn't see it, but there had to be a hidden luck stat somewhere that was off the charts, or I'd rolled a nat D20 or something for that fight. I couldn't think of any other way to explain why I wasn't currently being digested in a giant scorpion's bowels.

Rapid-fire pulses of restorative energy flashed through me, leaving me dazzled. But the holes in my body and arms filled back in, and my broken hand cracked and felt like it was being twisted in a vise, but when the pain lessened, I could achingly use it again.

My stats rose by 21 points, a natural blackjack, which was fitting because I felt like a winner:

• Strength 17+3=20
• Speed 17+2=19
• Health 28+9=37
• Mana 8
• Endurance 10+6=16

That super low mana score was starting to worry me. What if it wasn't only for spells? What if all my skills used mana? What if that determined their power or the cool down or how often I could use them?

With the levels came skills. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of those systems that came with descriptions, helpful hints, or paragraphs of flavour language that allowed you to spend ages going over the details of each and imagining all the different scenarios they could be useful. Nor did it have a snarky AI with a personality that thought itself funny or wanted to step on you. There were just skill names. Some came with choices, but others were just forced on me.

The first was a choice between [Resistance: Disease] and [Resistance: Lightning]. I already had [Lesser Resistance: Disease], so this would be an upgrade. Or I could add a whole new resistance. Getting hit with diseases was likely going to happen more often than getting hit with lightning. Although, for all I knew, this entire desert could be filled with creatures with lightning attacks. Maybe it was a regional theme. And what counted as lightning? Just what came out of the sky? What those scorpions had been throwing at me? Or would it also apply to other energy attacks, like lasers or plasma or something? Did I want to have more resistance in one field or diversify to cover more bases?

I couldn't move on to the next skill until I'd chosen. So I agonized over it, knowing that, if this new life was anything like the stories, these choices could heavily impact my future.

As tempting as it was to diversify, it was difficult to accept that lightning would be that much more common than disease. I was still suffering from gut problems and infected wounds. I had to think I was still in danger and that this kind of thing was going to be common. So I upgraded to [Resistance: Disease].

The next skill was just awarded: [Unbreakable Spear]. I assumed this one came because I'd used my spear earlier. Nicked it a few times in the fighting. I didn't know if weapons breaking was something that happened a lot. Maybe this world had secret durability stats for things. Or maybe wood just gets worn out. This skill might be a little useful, but only as long as I used a spear. Sure, the spear was a great weapon, probably better than a sword in most cases, but I'd have to be careful not to get locked into using one just because of this skill.

The next choices came up: [Fists of Fury], [Minor Breathe Underwater], [Staunch Light Wound].

Being able to breathe underwater for a short time could be very handy, even life-saving. It would have been super awesome to have it about ten minutes prior to getting the skill. Kinda late to the party, System. I wondered how useful this was going to be in the desert, though. Not that I necessarily had to stay in the desert. Unless the entire world was a desert. But maybe there was an ocean over the horizon.

Being able to stop a light wound from bleeding would be convenient. But a light wound likely wasn't life-threatening, unless it worsened. Did it have a cool down? If so, how long? If I had a bunch of wounds, would I be able to spam it and prevent things from getting worse?

What the heck was [Fists of Fury]? This one seemed like a wildcard. As a martial arts fan, I'd watched some of the classics, like the Bruce Lee movie with a similar name. Was this an offensive skill where I punched really fast? Or did my anger fuel really powerful punches?

I had more general questions as well. If I picked a skill, would it level up and become better or more useful over time? If I passed on a choice, would it ever come up again? Ignorance of how the system worked made every decision potentially damning.

I stared at all three options in my digital system vision thing. Indecision filled me with angst. I worried I'd make the wrong choice. I'd read a couple of litrpgs before. They had been good fun. But I had entirely skipped over the lengthy and inane sections talking about skills. Just bored me to freakin' tears. I couldn't have cared less about some fictional system's details. Too bad, because maybe if I had read those sections, I'd be better prepared for how to evaluate choices like this.

Let that be a lesson: don't skip the skill sections in case you, too, ever end up in a game world.

Breathing underwater and staunching wounds could be great at higher levels, especially the latter.

But an offensive skill might be really cool. Who doesn't want to be more like Bruce Lee? Well, other than him being dead and all. I didn't want to emulate that part. I was pretty relieved the system had decided to heal me and keep me alive.

Why was I even thinking about it? I'd just had my body chewed up multiple times by monsters. I needed that healing-type ability badly. With the punishment I'd been taking, it would level up in no time. The sensible choice was [Staunch Light Wound].

So I chose [Fists of Fury]. Because it seemed cooler.

Literally, the instant the choices disappeared, I had buyer's remorse. I was such an idiot. Either of the others would have been a smarter option.

The next skill was another forced one: [Chef's Kiss: Fried Arachnid]. I stared at it for a good three minutes. Then I looked up into the night sky and addressed the System, "Just no. Is this you trying to be funny? Does someone up there think they have a sense of humour? Do you want me to come up there and kick the stones out of you? Force-feed you some spiders? Yeah?"

The skill faded away. Which was good. Because I did not want to make spiders and scorpions a regular part of my diet. The moment I left this oasis behind, I'd never touch one of those things again, ever.

My vision darkened. The world around me faded into the background. For a second, I thought I was dying. Then the sound of drums reverberated through the air, through my whole body. Three large, colourful icons appeared in a horizontal row, once again, their edges kind of smoky, with wisps of colour bleeding off into the night. Above was a title, and a deep, evil voice read the words, followed by the options:

CHOOSE YOUR DESTINY

Path of the Scorpion

Path of Blood

Path of Air

The drums and scary voice filled me with tension. This felt like a really defining moment. Was this like choosing a class? There was no explanation, no description for each. But the pressure of choosing right was a hundred times worse than it had been before picking [Fists of Fury].

I muttered, "This is going to define me, isn't it?"

Despite the pounding drums and my anxiety, I tried to force myself to slow down and think about the options. I could only guess at each.

Path of the Scorpion had probably come up because I'd just fought a bunch of the bastards. Maybe it led to desert survival skills. Maybe I would grow a tail and shoot lighting out of my ass. Maybe my hands would turn into pincers, making life way harder outside of combat. Whatever it did, scorpions weren't exactly symbols of nice things, so I worried that option would take me down a dark path.

Path of Blood, however, sounded even more evil. Blood magic? Would I have to kill and bleed people to perform spells? Could I pull blood out of people and make items with it? Or was it a vampiric skill? Maybe the system saw me being injured and sick so much, and this was a lifesteal path. Potentially very useful, but again, it sounded like something very dark. Unless it was a path related to curing diseases or genetic manipulation or something. The path might be something medical and scientific. Which was a thought that might have been more believable had the evil voice had not returned and read the options over again.

Path of Air. My first thought was all those idiotic anime where some guy gets an air power and starts throwing around 'blades' of air that can cut through rock or steel. As if that would work. I hated that sort of thing. Then again, what if it meant flight? What if it led to air superiority skills and I could hover over enemies and rain down death from relative safety? What if it was air manipulation in a more realistic manner, like I could create a bubble of air around someone's head and suffocate them. That would be an OP way to defeat a dragon without having to fight it. Or infuse an explosion with a sudden rush of oxygen, making the boom bigger? Or maybe I could blow wind, power a hundred windmills at the same time, and make a fortune grinding wheat into flour.

There are two sides to making decisions like this. One is about how useful and practical something is, its extrinsic value. The other is intrinsic: how does something match up with our identity?

It was hard to debate the practicality of any of the choices because I was purely guessing at all of them. Even if I'd known more, each option tugged at my sense of self, and probably would have tempted me into a more emotional decision regardless. So it came down to the intrinsic.

Did I see myself as a scorpion? As a vampire? As a moronic airbender?

Well, just thinking that question caused my anxiety to double. Contemplating our identity is such a massive thing, right?

Good ol' System came to the rescue.

The drum beats sped up. The evil voice shouted, "CHOOSE YOUR DESTINY". The icons began to slowly blink. Because apparently life-altering decisions should be on a FUCKING TIMER!

Rushing myself, I mentally tossed the option of Air. Screw it. I'd slap myself silly if I ever found out I'd thrown away the ability to fly, but I just couldn't get dumbass air attacks out of my head and my prejudice won out. So no Air.

The drum beats sped up. The evil voice shouted, "CHOOSE YOUR DESTINY" even louder. The icons began to blink faster. Time was running out, fast. My eyes bounced back and forth between the black scorpion icon and the red blood icon. Which to choose? Or should I choose neither? Would more classes come up later? Or would not choosing leave me without a class at all?

"This sucks! Why isn't there a tutorial mode first?"

I was a fan of vampires, the cool ones, not the sparkly ones. Dracula could walk around in the sun just fine. But plenty of other stories had vamps turning to ash when hit by UV rays. I was in the middle of an all-sun-all-day desert. Then again, lots of women loved vampires. Maybe it was the power or maybe it was the penetration, but either way, chicks dug the immortal bad boys of the night. That wouldn't be so bad. Or the option could have nothing at all to do with vampires, and I'd wind up in a lab analyzing blood samples like a computer, far away from anyone sexy.

Maybe it was being faced with so much unknown, but I felt myself drawing inward, felt more conservative. The Scorpion path seemed connected to what I'd just been through. I might have been totally wrong about that, but that was the feeling my primitive brain latched onto. I had an idea of what the scorpions were like, what they were capable of. So, with a hearty amount of dread, I picked Path of the Scorpion because it was the most familiar.

The evil voice returned as the other two options faded away,

"Excellent."

 

[TimBaril]

I'd like to say that as soon as I got my new levels, skills, and class, I immediately began to use them and started experimenting. No. I fell into a much-needed sleep. The new levels had kept me from dying, but I was beyond my normal limits. I hadn't even noticed [Passive: Second Wind] kick in, but it must have, or I'd be dead already.

I woke up with the merciless morning sun frying my body on the oasis shore. I was still naked and covered in wounds. My clothes were in the water somewhere, but that would take effort to get. I pushed both hands into the drier sand, paused to take a breath, then pulled, digging a small depression. I paused again, needing time to recover from even that bit of effort. Then I reached up and dug another scoop with my hands. Then another. I became stronger as my body warmed up from the work, but it was still agony and required lots of breaks. I needed water, probably food too, but one look at the scorpion lying nearby in the pool and some of the gross stuff floating in the water nearby, probably from all the body fluids we'd both lost, and I decided I'd wait until I could filter it.

Digging down into damp sand that felt cool to the touch, I managed to make a hole big enough to crawl in. Thinking of my new class or path or whatever, I chuckled to myself. "Just like a scorpion, escaping the heat by burying itself in the sand." I was able to get to my feet long enough to grab a wide palm frond before returning to my spot. Easing myself into the hole, the bottom two-thirds damp and cool, I buried myself. Frond a parasol overhead, I slipped back into sleep almost instantly.

The next time I woke, I saw the last sliver of the sun just over the horizon, the whole world painted in darkening gold. Pushing the palm frond off my head, I looked the other way and saw the darkness rising on the other horizon.

Was this a sign? The light sinking, the darkness rising, me with a new class provided by an evil voice and system I didn't know, with a scorpion motif, which is usually a symbol of evil.

…nah. I'd be fine. I wasn't becoming evil.

Probably.

Grumbling and aching, wincing from half-dried wounds reopening, I crawled out of the sand hole. And then made for another, outside the oasis. There wasn't much to void, telling me I needed to look after the basics soon: food and water.

My water filter tower had somehow been victim to the battles going on the day before. It was difficult to see in the dark, but I patched it back together as best I could. Scooping water into half an old fruit husk like a bowl, I filtered the water three times before drinking it. Then went back to the pool for more water and repeated the process until I couldn't drink anymore.

It was about that time that my stomach became next in line for attention. With a pang of regret, I realized I couldn't cook anything with the sun down. The hot stone would be only warm and cooling fast. However, searching around, I managed to find some of the fried vulture I'd made before the papa scorpion had tried to kill me. The uncooked vulture corpse was rotting fast and needed to be disposed of. The cooked meat was a little gritty from the sand on it, and maybe it tasted even more sour after a day in the sun instead of a fridge, and…maybe you shouldn't eat meat left in the sun all day after it's been sitting in the sand where all kinds of bugs and bacteria were crawling all over it. But whatever. I needed food.

An hour later, I was back over those latrines. Wasn't hungry anymore, though. After things had settled in my bowels as best they would, I decided the night was getting cool, and it was time to get dressed. Night swim!

Refreshing, but wasteful. I couldn't see anything in the dark. The clothing and my spear would remain hidden until the next day. So I gave up and floated on my back, staring up at the stars. The longer I was here, the more I enjoyed them. I smiled, something I hadn't done often in this world. "Between burying myself in the sand and being nocturnal, maybe I'm becoming a scorpion too." That reminded me of the things I'd been putting off, like how the system had invaded my body and changed me.

I was part-excited but also part-afraid. I'm sure that lots of people would just roll with the whole game system thing. It would be a dream come true for a lot of folks. Wake up one day, and suddenly your growth appears in numerical form? Easy to see progress and constant dopamine hits each time numbers go up. Bestowed with all kinds of skills and special powers you have never really earned.

Not being weak anymore.

On an intellectual level, I could imagine the downsides. Surely, a system like this produced some really spoiled people. It would also really amplify personalities, especially bad ones. Those super ambitious, selfish types who clawed and backstabbed their way up the corporate ladder or positions of wealth and power in any organization. The people ok with violence, who happily dealt drugs and formed gangs, who murdered and stole and raped. Imagine they could all get levels and skills that allowed them to do that on an inhuman level. Decent folk would constantly be the victims of the worst and most aggressive people.

Level disparity wouldn't be the only issue. Class or skill type would matter a lot. If you didn't push yourself to develop the same superpowers, you'd never be able to defend yourself. Imagine a levelled-up gangster versus a high-level baker. It probably wouldn't matter that the baker was level 60 and the gangster level 20 because the gangster had a crossbow that shot infinite bolts and the baker had no defensive skills.

And none of this would be your choice. Someone else had imposed this system on you, and there probably wasn't a thing you could do to fight back or change it. I highly doubted there was anything democratic going on. Some super alien or god had likely created a system that changed what, and maybe who, you were, and you were helpless to do anything but play their game. To some degree, it would make people puppets and playthings.

Yeah. But I can punch through solid rock, so ha-ha, I'm awesome. Right?

One of my favourite online serial stories back on Earth featured a game world. One of the main characters had arrived from Earth, taken one look at the system, and then noped out of it. She hadn't wanted any part of it. Hadn't wanted to be manipulated or have things handed to her without earning them. She'd valued her free will and freedom more.

I thought about doing the same. I didn't know if it was even an option at this point, but what if I tried to wish the skills and levels away? Could I get rid of them all? Should I? I mulled the idea over, but ultimately, I chickened out. I was too much of a coward to try going it alone. If the system was going to give me help, I would take it. I just hoped the eventual costs wouldn't be too painful.

I leisurely swam to shore, ripples reflecting the stars and moon above. It was about time I tested this path of the scorpion. On dry land again, my naked body air-drying in the night, I thought about my skills, and a list appeared in my vision. I saw the one at the bottom related to my path. I focused on it. Nothing happened. I read the words in my mind. Nothing happened.

"Oh, come on! I have to say it out loud like some kid's anime? Really?" I was the only one around, but I was still embarrassed. "Fine." I took a deep breath and tried to mentally prepare myself. Then I said, "[Vengeance shall be mine! Lightning Scorpion!]"

A deep, burning illness oozed out from my belly and spread throughout my body. Nauseous, I fell to my hands and knees, wondering if I was going to vomit. I spent a minute or so just breathing and trying to center myself again. Eventually, I looked down at my hands…which seemed really clear in my vision all of a sudden.

The knuckles and backs of my hands were covered in iron gray plates. My eyes shifted. My forearms, too, were wrapped in dark gray armor of some kind. I eased myself to standing again and looked over myself. My body was largely covered in what looked like scorpion shell. I could move, and it did, too, the shell made of plating that didn't seem to hinder me in the least. My fingers and palms, as well as my toes and the bottoms of my feet, were still skin. I reached up and touched my head. The gray shell came up my neck and over my head like a skin-tight helmet. My face was covered in some sort of mask.

Looking around, I could see perfectly well, like it was a really cloudy day and not nighttime. Had I gained more sensitive scorpion vision? Turning and walking over to the water, I looked down and saw my reflection. My face mask looked eerie. I had Spiderman-like eyes and a ninja-style mask over my lower face. Everything was covered. In fact, I kind of looked like an evil ninja Spiderman. Well, evil ninja Scorpionman, I guess.

To my pleasant relief, I did NOT have a tail. Or six more arms.

I did have a crystal embedded into my forehead, which was freakin' weird. I touched it, feeling a multi-faceted, partially rough and uncut crystal. Would I be able to fire lightning bolts from it? That would be, despite my earlier worries about skills and stuff, pretty badass. Because I was as hyprocritcal as everyone else. This cosplay body armour thing was pretty neat.

I figured trying to fire lightning would use mana. I also guess that my earlier sickness had been due to mana burnout from the change. So my low mana stat probably meant I had an equally small mana pool. It had been all I could manage just to change form. Trying to shoot lightning might kill me.

I tried [Fists of Fury] instead. Thankfully, I only had to think it, not say it out loud. A wave of even worse nausea hit, and then my vision faded.

I woke sometime later, still in the night. The moon had moved, so it had been a while. My head was pounding, and my stomach felt like a cross between heartburn and having had too much alcohol. I groaned from where I'd fallen on my back in the sand. "Right. Skills use mana too. Idiot."

Sitting up, I could see that my scorpion form had vanished. I wondered if it had a time limit, or if it burned mana while I wore it, or if it had just ended because I'd overused my mana, and that had crashed my entire system. I'd have to test that. Without killing myself, hopefully. But that could wait. Without mana, it would be impossible to try any of my skills. I was sick, and still exhausted. So I dug out the hole I'd slept in earlier, then buried myself once more. Experimenting could wait until morning.

The next day, I recovered my clothing and spear from the oasis, then went hunting. My new strength and speed were evident and made things much easier. I was easily able to hunt down two scorpions and cooked them for breakfast along with a fresh fruit that had been much easier to get down and crack open.

As I ate, I had a thought. The stat bumps were nice. But were they absolute values or multipliers? I had no way to know. However, I did know that I'd always avoided going to the gym back on Earth. Outside of going to the dojo, I hadn't done much for sports or hiking or anything. I had a pretty average body. I'd always felt less of myself for that, knowing it was my own fault and a product of laziness, but I hadn't worked up the courage to get buff let alone fit. Besides, there had always seemed to be better things to do with my time, like hanging with friends or Cerise or gaming or reading or watching movies. Who had time to go to the gym every day? At least, that's what I'd tried to argue to himself.

Cerise had never made a fuss over my body. She'd seemed fine with the lack of muscle tone and abs. I could remember wishing I'd had a hot body to make her happier, but I hadn't gotten around to getting one. Maybe it was time he changed that. Even if she weren't here anymore, it was still worth it to make myself more capable and healthier. If the stats multiplied my natural body's potential, then all the better. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain from self-improvement.

I'd spent too many years giving up on myself. Too many being lazy. It was time I put in more effort to better myself.

So I did some pushups. Not many. Like ten. Maybe nine and a half. But it was a start. I did some squats. These were a lot easier, probably because I'd spent so much time squatting over latrines recently. Did some leg lifts too. After about fifteen minutes of gruelling agony in the hot sun and dry air, panting like an old man and sweating up a storm, I collapsed.

I groaned up at the pale blue sky, "This is why everyone gives up so fast. It hurts to exercise. Well, I guess that's where the no pain, no gain thing comes from." I drank more water and rested.

After that, I tested my skills. [Fists of Fury] allowed me to make three rapid-fire punches. I could use it three times before my mana ran low enough to make me sick. I had about zero interest in passing out from mana burn again, so I didn't push it any more than that. For a couple of hours.

Then I wondered if my mana was recharging fast enough to use it again. [Fists of Fury].

Did two weak punches. Fell to my hands and knees. Spent five minutes dry heaving. Didn't pass out though. Win!

The more I pushed myself to the limits, the better. I didn't know if that was the best thing to do to level up or whatever, but it felt like it should be the cornerstone of my new life philosophy. If I was going to become a better person, it would come from surpassing my old limits. To become stronger, I needed to challenge myself. And when I failed, I needed to try again. All the tired old adages we've all heard a thousand times and usually ignored.

I guess it took losing the love of my life and being stranded in another world to light a fire under my ass. But we either choose to be weak or we choose to be strong. I'd been weak long enough. I wanted to feel what it was like to be stronger. I would treat the system skills and stats as assistance while working on myself, putting the work in, and not taking anything for granted.

For two days, I recovered from the fights, healed, worked out, and pushed my mana to the limit, using scorpion form one day and my punching skill the next. The third day, I woke up and thought about the cave. It was time to explore.

Spear in hand, palm frond parasol overhead, and fruit-husk shoes on my feet, I shuffled across the hot sand to the depression I'd opened, with the cave at the bottom. I cautiously slid down the side of the pit. I could see the remains of scorpions, spiders, rodents, snakes, and plenty of other things I couldn't identify, beyond the mess I remembered leaving. It was like a war zone.

The darkness of the cave stared back at me, shadows impenetrable. I just knew that more danger lay in wait.

I tightened my grip on the spear and stepped into the darkness.

 

[TimBaril]

The parasol and shoes I took off and left in the entrance. I wouldn't need them.

I took it slow so my eyes could adjust. My whole body was tense, and I had the spear pointed in front of me, expecting an attack. I just knew there would be more scorpions in here. I just hoped it would be more babies and not mega-giant-murder-me-fast ones. That said, if babies swarmed me again, there was no telling if I'd survive a second time.

Flexing and moving the spear around, I felt stronger and faster than ever before. As I'd never been a fit or athletic person, I wondered if this was more like how gym-goers and people who did sports felt. It felt…good. I was kind of regretting waiting so long in life to get to this point.

As my eyes adjusted, I could make out the walls. The rock was the same dark gray stone I'd seen when picking up rocks in the oasis. The walls, ceiling, and floor had the same yellow flecks and spots embedded in it. Streaks of white that I recognized as quartz cut broad ribbons through it, forming patches here and there.

About ten paces into the cave, I could see that I was in a tunnel with a definite downturn. It was a little wider than I could reach with both arms extended to the sides, and a half meter taller than I was. That papa scorpion must have barely squeezed through. I sensed movement and stopped cold. But I couldn't see much further in the growing dark.

I took a deep breath. Things were about to get even riskier. I quietly breathed, "[Vengeance shall be mine! Lightning Scorpion!]" I felt the burn as all my mana was used and stood there, wavering in the semi-darkness while I fought the nausea off. Thankfully, nothing attacked in that time.

With the mask forming over my face, I now had highly sensitive scorpion vision designed for very low-light conditions. I inadvertently screamed, dropping my spear and clutched at my eyes as I fell to my knees, the pain stabbing my eyes because they'd been overloaded with how bright the tunnel still was. Idiot. Inside the mask, tears flowed, and I was unable to wipe them away to help clear my vision.

I clumsily felt around for the spear and lurched over to the side of the tunnel, crouching up against it, spear held in front of me in case anything came at me. I blinked rapidly, willing my vision to adjust, making certain I was facing away from the cave entrance. Eventually, squinting until I could barely see, my eyes became useful again.

Breathing hard from the experience, I stared ahead. Fortunately, no giant scorpion was coming at me. Yay. Pushing myself back to my feet, I took a step forward, then another. I could feel the sunlight behind me like a sixth sense.

As the tunnel deepened and descended, it grew darker, and I was able to see comfortably. I saw a few baby scorpions of varying sizes on the floor, walls and ceiling. To me, they glowed a pale neon green or blue, making them very easy to spot. I paused within a few paces of the nearest ones.

They hadn't reacted to me yet. They weren't reacting to each other either. Did that mean anything? Would it be wiser to try to sneak past or to kill them? Sneaking might fail while I was in the middle of multiple creatures. Killing might cause them to go into a frenzy. Killing would mean fewer able to exit the cave and infest the area around the oasis, which seemed like a nice idea at first. But then I recalled that nature likes a balance. If I killed all the scorpions, would that mean more snakes and assassin spiders? Or worse? Maybe they kept the number of sand crickets down, and without them, the crickets would eat the oasis down to the roots.

If I were an adventurer in some fantasy book or playing a game, I'd probably just slaughter everything for the experience points, and to hell with the consequences, partly because, in those situations, there rarely were consequences. Video games were training simulators for serial killers. What else could they be when you hand some six-year-old a tablet with a bright and shiny screen full of creatures and a character with a stick and tell them to go kill everything on the screen?

Humans were sick, twisted bastards.

The tunnel was dead silent. I swallowed as I nervously controlled my breathing.

I decided to try the stealth option first and to deal with only those who attacked me. That turned out to work fairly well. The ones on the ceiling and walls mostly ignored me, but I must have disturbed the ones on the ground when I stepped, because many twitched in my direction, and a few of the larger ones came at me.

They didn't fire their lightning though, making me suspect that they didn't bother when fighting their own kind because of their natural resistance. I was able to stab the ones that attacked without escalating the situation. Still, I pushed the dead to the side of the tunnel just in case the others came scavenging. I didn't want them in the middle of the path when I was on my way out later.

Cautiously working my way through the tunnel, one foot carefully and quietly placed at a time, I must have gone about thirty or forty meters when I came to the first nook, a little hollow in the wall about two meters deep.

A momma-sized one huddled within.

I froze, with every muscle in my body taut as a bow string at full draw.

It was halfway up the wall and facing away from me.

I stared at it.

It didn't move.

Very, very carefully, I picked one foot up and placed it down as gently as I could, only slightly ahead. I did not want to cause any vibrations in the rock that would alert the creature. At worst, maybe it would think a baby was crawling about, too small to worry about, and ignore me. I didn't want to shuffle or slide a foot along the floor by accident.

Easing my way along the tunnel, I passed the nook. But I didn't go far. Six paces beyond, I planted myself facing the way I'd come. I had the spear in both hands, point pointed right in front, low.

Sure enough, the momma silently backed down the wall into the tunnel, turning as she did so that she faced me. Then she started in my direction, still soundless.

Sneaky bitch! I had to smile even though my fear spiked. She'd played that cool as ice. Could she see me glowing in the dark too? Very possible. Or maybe they were even more sensitive to vibration than I'd imagined.

Not wanting to wait until she struck first, I sprang forward like a knight jousting with a lance, and I buried the spearhead in her ugly face. She seemed to have been caught by surprise. Though she fought back, with my new strength and the leverage the spear gave me, I was able to hold her off and shove the spear even deeper into her body without too much trouble. It was about as difficult as trying to control a German shepherd on a leash. I marvelled at how much easier it was after levelling up.

She died soon enough. I jabbed with the spear a couple of times until she no longer twitched and her legs curled up. Not wanting to come back and find a pile of scorpions feeding on her corpse and not be able to get past, I dragged her back into the nook and shoved her against the wall.

Resuming my exploration, constantly looking both forward and behind me so I wouldn't get snuck up on, I passed a couple of side tunnels and spotted more momma and papa-sized scorpions hiding away, usually alone. Thankfully, none came out to chase me. I did not fancy my odds against a papa, levels and skills or not. I'd gotten lucky once; I wouldn't again, not in these confined tunnels.

I found that I wasn't able to go much further. While the scorpions seemed to have the ability to sense the slightest vibrations, even through rock, I couldn't. They also didn't seem to need any light to get around. The light soon vanished entirely, and not even my enhanced vision could make anything out. I was forced to halt lest I accidentally walk off a cliff or something.

I silently mouthed to myself, "Well, that's frustrating." I wanted to keep going. This whole expedition was massively insane. I had multiple giant monsters between me and the exit. I had crept all this way without testing the scorpion suit skill first, which, now that I thought about it, had been really stupid, because there was no way I could escape if it ended. I had been very lucky that the skill only seemed to need mana once. If it did burn mana as I used it, it seemed to do so very slowly.

Of course, now that I'd thought that, I worried that maybe I should turn around right then just to be safe. Then I turned and almost tried to keep going anyway, even blind, before I caught myself.

I didn't need to push it. I needed to be smart.

As carefully as I'd come in, I moved even more carefully on the way out, worried that one of those big scorpions would be lying in ambush. Which is exactly how I was able to spot another one, this one bigger than the last, trying to hide around a corner. It had come out just a hair too far, and because I'd been looking for it, I spotted the sliver of glowing green first.

I stopped and watched it.

It didn't move, probably thinking it was still hidden and infinitely patient.

It was nearly pitch black in the tunnel, but in the various shades of black, there was an imperfect glowing blotch near my feet. Guessing and hoping at what it was, I slowly squatted and reached out to grab it.

My fingers curled around scorpion shell. I clenched tight, just in case there was movement, but there was none. It was dead. A baby had been crushed or cut apart. Standing straight, I tossed the remains ahead, just outside the opening of the side tunnel.

The giant scuttled out, pincers snapping.

I charged it from the side and rammed my spear deep into its side. The scorpion put up a fight and gave me quite a struggle, but couldn't turn its tail to the side to fire, and couldn't get its pincers on me. It was a waiting game as I worked the spear around in its gut, encouraging it to die. My biggest fear was that the commotion would attract the much larger papa-sized ones who were close by.

Sure enough, even as the one I fought started going into life-ending spasms, a papa came out from a side tunnel behind me.

Cursing, I tore the spear free and sprinted past the dying scorpion. I glanced back once, happy to see the papa tear into the other one instead of coming for me. But I kept going a bit further before slowing down and going into silent mode again. My back itched with fear, and I paid more attention to the tunnel behind than before as I made my way back to the entrance.

To my relief, nothing else attacked on the way out. As I neared the exit, I made a nice discovery. As the light grew bright, I wished I could turn off the scorpion eyes. And that's just what they did! Somehow, they retracted into the shell around my head, leaving only the ninja mask across my nose and mouth.

I grinned. Not that anyone would have been able to see it behind the mask. "Sweet."

I allowed the skill to end once I'd gotten outside. Back out under the sun and unharmed, I was elated. I pumped my fists and shouted at the sky, "Yes!" I had done it. I'd gone in, faced monsters, and escaped death. I laughed and grinned like a fool all the way back to the oasis.

Standing at the edge of the water, I just stopped and let myself feel. Because I hadn't felt like this in almost two years, not since Cerise had been killed. It had been so long since I'd felt good that it was both alien and desperately familiar. I'd missed it.

Though I felt a little stab of guilt at being happy and excited, I tried to resist it. Partially. It helped when I imagined Cerise. If she'd been there with me at that moment, she'd have been proud of me. For the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to feel pride in myself. To accept that I could be capable of things. That I could keep living. I'd been stuck in a bad moment for so long, but there was a chance I could get out of it. Even if I died to some monster the next day, I'd go out in a blaze of glory instead of with a whimper.

Fuck, I missed my wife. The experience would have been so much better with her here.

After a bit, I calmed down enough to think about my situation. I wanted to keep exploring the cave. Would it be foolish to tempt fate twice? Maybe. One wrong move, and those really big scorpions would be all over me. I probably wouldn't survive that.

But where had this cave come from? Why was it here? Was it natural, or had people dug it out? How deep did it go, and what was at the end?

I had to know.

But how was I going to create a light source so I could see in the dark?

 

[TimBaril]

You know what's an awesome tool? Wikipedia. I used to spend so much time randomly crawling through pages. Every time I had a question, I turned to it.

"Whatever happened to that actor from that show from way back when?"

"What's toilet paper made out of?"

"Where's Japan ranked in the world for English speaking ability?"

"What colour is zomp?"

"What's the history of rondels?"

One time, I was looking up the history of Edison and Tesla and stuff, and read about the history of the lightbulb. While credit for the invention is often given to one person, the lightbulb was actually the product of all kinds of innovation by many different people. I remembered reading about different things being used for the part of the lightbulb that lights up. You can make filaments out of cloth, carbon, and wood, not just metal. Seems impossible, but apparently, people have done it.

If I was going to make a light to explore the cave, my options were burning something or creating a lightbulb. Carrying a bunch of torches down there seemed difficult, the same with making a lamp. I couldn't think of a supply of oil in the oasis. Even if I could make something, could I possibly make enough to get deep into the cave? How long would a torch even last? Plus, carrying a flame of some kind would require the use of a hand, one that wouldn't be on my spear, leaving me vulnerable. How would the scorpions react to it? Would it chase them off or attract them? If the light went out, how would I light it again? How would I light a fire in the first place?

The other option was an electric light. Now, one would think that electric power would be far, far more difficult to achieve than setting something on fire. But this was a magic world. When I magically transformed, I now had a crystal embedded in my forehead. That crystal, I hoped, would shoot electricity. The trouble was, my mana was so low level that I only had enough to transform; I couldn't fire lightning bolts yet.

But I had a crazy idea. What if it were possible to regulate how much energy I could let out of the crystal? Did it only fire lightning bolts, or could I slowly allow electricity to trickle out like I was a human battery?

I'd have to wait until the next day to test my skill because my mana needed to recharge. For the rest of the day, I would do two things: harvest potential materials for a filament, and harvest some meat off the giant scorpion sitting in the water. After I got it out, because it was further polluting the water source.

Even though I was stronger with my enhanced strength, I was far too weak to even drag the whole monster from the oasis pool. Thankfully, I had an indestructible spear. I used it to hack the arms and legs off the corpse. The legs I dragged way out into the desert and figured I'd start a garbage pile out there, well away from the oasis so that anything coming around to scavenge through it would stay well away from me. I dragged the pincers out next. I'd discovered from eating small ones that they were just too tough to do more than gnaw on. If a baby was that bad, there was no way giant pincers would be edible. That left the body.

I dragged the torso from the water with lots of grunting and sweat. Lots of bodily fluids had leaked into the water during our fight and after. Pretty gross. There are so many things we take for granted in modern civilization. Running water is a big one. I doubt most of us truly appreciate how great it is to be able to turn a tap on anywhere and get clean, drinkable water. That can also be used for showers and toilets, cleaning and anything else. But live without it for a while, and you see how hard life can be. I just knew I was going to keep getting sick from drinking barely filtered water. I was going to have to come up with a way to evaporate the water and capture condensation. Or find a source of fuel so I could boil it.

I hacked and sawed the scorpion torso to get at the "meat". The beast was big enough that I could peel the shell off and carve out handfuls of the most edible parts. It smelled awful. It was going to taste awful. But I needed the food. So I hurried to cook a few scorpion steaks while the sun was still up. I would risk gorging myself, and hoping it didn't hit my digestive system as badly as usual.

As I sat there shovelling the second seared scorpion steak into my mouth, I wondered:

Since I could change into scorpion form now, did that make me a cannibal?

I chose not to think about it too much lest it ruin my appetite. I ate until bursting. The meat wasn't going to last forever with the thing rotting in the heat. Knowing that, I cooked some more as the stove rock cooled in the evening. With the lower heat, I was able to cook slower and dry it out, giving me food for the next day as well.

I went to sleep under the stars, marvelling at how weird this world was. Then I got up and rushed to the sand toilet. My kingdom for a bidet function.

The next evening, as the sun set, mana restored, I was able to cast [Vengeance shall be mine! Lightning Scorpion!]. If I was going to experiment with making light, I needed it to be dark. I made sure to cover my eyes as I did, and then immediately turned off the scorpion vision. I gathered the filament options I'd collected: fuzz from the disgusting fruit husks, a strip of cloth from the robes I wore, and pieces of palm trunk. With pieces of palm leaf and trunk, I fashioned ways to hold the filaments so I would be able to touch each end to the crystal in my head.

I knew that if I tried to blast a lightning bolt, I'd get mana sickness. I waited, hoping my mana was slowly recharging over time. Giving it about an hour, I touched the cloth filament to the crystal and used all my concentration to slow-release energy instead of charging the crystal. It was like trying not to pee full blast, but controlling it so it came out only in a tiny trickle.

At first, nothing happened. But the more I relaxed and willed it to work, I finally felt the energy building in the crystal, which was a very strange sensation, like a crackling buzz in my head. My control slipped. The lightning bolt tried to trigger. Pain split my head in two.

I woke up some time later feeling like I had the worst hangover ever. Not wanting to waste the food I'd eaten recently, I just lay face first in the sand, not moving, willing my stomach to settle and waiting for the burn to go away. It lasted the rest of the night and made sleep nearly impossible.

So the next day, recalling my earlier goal, I forced myself to get up and exercise a little bit. A few pushups, a few situps were all I could manage. Filtering water and eating took most of my remaining energy and willpower. That evening, I transformed and tried the experiment again. And painfully failed. I was sick well into the night once more.

The third night, I tried again and managed a slow trickle of power for about three seconds before failing. It was a small step but an encouraging one. I hoped that all this practice was going to raise my mana stat in the future. I'd continued to exercise during the day.

By the sixth evening, I could finally let energy flow from the crystal in a somewhat controlled manner. I could even stop and start. That was very exciting. I'd turned myself into a living battery. Unfortunately, I couldn't get any of the materials I had to act as a filament.

On the seventh day, disappointed, I walked around the oasis for the umpteenth time, trying to think of something I could use as a filament. If only I'd had something metal. I'd tried putting the spear to my head, but that hadn't worked. I paused in my walk and did ten whole pushups, which I was proud of. I was making progress.

As I was making yet another circle around the water, feeling increasingly frustrated by my failure to build a light despite what a huge challenge it was, a glint of something in the water caught my eye. I idly glanced over and saw some of those rocks on the floor of the clear pool. Wandering over, I waded in and picked one up. The water soaked into the bottom of my robes, making them heavy. Though the water was warm, it was refreshing. Too bad I couldn't swim and bathe regularly if I wanted to keep the water as clean as possible.

The rock was dark from the water, except where it was shiny and white from the quartz vein running through it. And the yellow splotches of some mineral were really bright. I stared at the wet rock in my hand. At those flecks and patches of metallic yellow.

"This can't be…actual gold…can it?" I stared longer. Finally, I shook my head and scoffed, "Nah!"

But I couldn't get the possibility out of my mind. I held onto the rock. Logically, I knew for sure it wouldn't work, but I couldn't convince the emotional part of my brain of that. After the sun set, I transformed, "[Vengeance shall be mine! Lightning Scorpion!]"

I sat down on the sandy grass overlooking the oasis water, almost trembling with nervous anticipation, not wanting to allow myself to hope yet unable to stop it. I held the rock to my forehead.

"This is dumb. There's no way this can work. You can't just touch a rock to an electrical source and make light. Physics doesn't work that way." So I said, but I couldn't stop holding the rock to the crystal embedded in my forehead.

Finally, I took a deep breath, centered myself, and tried to direct electricity into the rock.

A soft, golden glow spread out before me. It was just like wearing a headlamp.

I laughed in disbelief. "Fucking magic. Unbelievable." I laughed again, this time with excitement. I now had a light source!

I spent the rest of the evening rigging a headband out of a long strip cut from the bottom of the robes I wore. It took some doing, but I was able to craft something that kept the egg-sized rock in place, resting on the upper edge of the crystal. It would fall off if I moved too hard, but it stayed in place if I moved carefully.

I went to sleep feeling good again. It had taken a slow and frustrating week, but I'd worked hard and kept at it, and the effort had paid off. It was an uncommon feeling. I found myself wanting to experience it more often. I knew the reason the feeling had been rare in my life was because of how often I'd tried and then given up on things because they were too hard or complicated or too much effort. I'd have to work not to fall back into that bad habit.

The next day, I rose feeling rested. With the control I'd been gaining over my electrical output, which was a really weird thing to say, I was eager to get back to the cave and explore deeper. I was both excited and terrified at the idea because I knew there were going to be so many scorpions in there again. I'd probably been lucky the first time. I couldn't let myself be complacent; I'd have to stay on my toes.

I returned to the cave entrance. After placing my palm frond parasol and crude fruit husk sandals just inside, I then fixed the gold rock to my forehead. It had to be tight, but it would hold for now. Gripping the spear, I took a deep breath and strode into the darkness. Quietly, I breathed,

"[Vengeance shall be mine! Lightning Scorpion!]"

 

[TimBaril]

As I crept down the narrow confines of the cave tunnel, I felt the texture of the rock on my bare feet. At the same time, I became aware that my feet had become more calloused from going barefoot so much. Constantly walking on rocks and grass and hot, abrasive sand without the usual soft projections of shoes had made my feet become tougher. I dared feel a sliver of pride at the idea that I had grown tougher too.

Then I realized what a massive doom flag that was and nearly slapped myself. I was walking into a cave filled with monsters that were nightmare fuel. What the fuck was I thinking getting all confident? Idiot. I tried to shed those feelings and focus on how scared I should be instead.

It wasn't difficult. The first sight of scorpions in the corners of the tunnel made my skin crawl. When I saw the first momma-sized one, the last shreds of potential arrogance ran screaming like a terrified little girl. So, by the time I spotted the first giant papa type, bigger than I was, I thanked cheeses sliced that the bastard was down a side corridor and prayed with all my might it wouldn't try sneaking up behind me.

I crept along, trying to move like a wannabe ninja, one foot softly placed after another. The scorpion vision was a blessing. I spotted the remains of scorpions I had killed before, still lit up in neon blue and green like the living ones were. The full corpses were no longer there, just bits and pieces like the inedible tail crystals, a leg here, a shard of shell there. And the pincers. Guess they were too tough for the scorpions to eat too.

At least, I assumed it was just scorpions in there, especially given how many there were. But maybe it was a more complex ecosystem. Could there be other things in the cave tunnels? Something that ate scorpions, maybe something that didn't even fear them?

I cursed. The fear and darkness were making my imagination run wild in a bad way. But that was good. It would keep me on my toes. Keep me from being complacent. Hopefully.

It did worry me just how little of the bigger scorpions I'd fought were left. Something had devoured them.

Luckily, I made it to the same point that I had the last time without dying again. It had taken longer because I'd had to basically shuffle with my back to the side of the tunnel the whole way, my attention in all directions, lest monsters drop out of the ceiling or come sneaking up behind me. I was probably fear-sweating most of the way, but the coolness of the tunnel helped.

Ahead, the tunnel became purely black, and not even my scorpion vision helped. It was time. I calmed myself with a few deep breaths and tried to steady my nerves. Turning the light on was a huge risk because I didn't know how the scorpions would react.

I sighed and felt stupid. Why hadn't I tried this earlier, while there were only tiny scorpions around? Dumbass.

No help for it now. I decided to risk it.

Trying really, really hard not to let out a full lightning bolt, which would suck out the rest of my mana and cause me to pass out and likely get eaten, I eased open the crystal in my forehead. I fought to allow only a tiny bit of energy out.

A faint golden glow came into being. The tunnel became visible again.

I was probably clenching too hard on the energy source, but that would hopefully become easier with practice.

No scorpions were in sight. Just in case, though, I stood there, back against the rough rock wall, head slowly sweeping back and forth. I waited for the light to disturb something.

Minutes passed.

Eventually, I realized that it was fear as much as wariness keeping me in place. That was fine. Better safe than sorry. But I had to move forward. So I eased away from the wall and continued down the tunnel, the floor, as always, leading me deeper under the desert.

Caves are fascinating places. I didn't know if this was a natural one or if people or magic had dug it out. The light from my improvised headlamp glittered off the quartz and gold in the walls, giving it a fairy-like feel despite the danger. While the cave had been hot near the entrance, it had then cooled further in. But as I went deeper, the temperature evened out.

The tunnel took a sharp turn. Like an idiot, I took that turn too fast.

I came face to face with a momma-sized scorpion, her exoskeleton scarred and chipped from many battles, one of her pincers missing entirely.

I paused in surprise, stupidly leaving myself vulnerable.

Before I could react, the scorpion flinched. Its pincer opened, ready to fight, but it stepped back, first once, then a few times. But then it paused.

I was frozen. Had the light startled it? Why wasn't it attacking?

We stared at each other for a long time. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of my face, and I had to stop myself from lifting a hand off my spear to wipe it away.

I very slowly slid my front foot forward, ready to stab the creature if it came at me. The hair on my neck stood up. Where there was one scorpion, there could be more, and any commotion might draw them.

The scorpion reacted. It skittered back another few steps.

I slid another step forward.

The scorpion moved back again. It seemed wary of the light. This far from the surface, it must not see light very often. I wondered how the arachnids survived at all down here. They might sense motion, might see each other in the dark, but how did they sense the tunnel itself? Were they so sensitive that they could sense their own vibrations coming off the rocks, like a bat using echo location? If so, that would be incredible. It also meant that no matter how careful I was, my passage probably hadn't gone as unnoticed as I'd hoped. That's probably why I'd almost gotten assassinated last time.

Worrying that moving too fast might trigger a more aggressive response, I took another sliding step, and the scorpion did the same. As long as I moved slowly and it had room to retreat, maybe it wouldn't attack.

We kept that up, almost like partners in a dance, for several steps. The only reason I didn't get my spine severed is because the scorpion that had been silently sneaking up behind me accidentally hit the back end of my spear when it tried to snip my spinal cord in two.

I'd been too focused on the enemy in front, and I'd forgotten to be aware of what was behind me. I was so on edge that I freaked the fuck right out. I panicked. I half spun with the spear, so jolted with fright that it was like I'd been hit by lightning.

My headlamp flared like the sun as I momentarily lost control before catching myself just before a lightning bolt was released.

The sudden bright light caused both scorpions to skitter backward, pincers defensively crossed over their ugly faces.

I hissed, "Fuck this noise!" Now seemed like the right time to panic. And to get the hell out of Dodge, cuz there was no way I was going to be in the middle of a scorpion sandwich. I went right, like I was trying to squeeze past the scorpion in front.

The scorpion ahead, affected by the light, squished itself up against the opposite wall, trying to get away from me and giving me room to pass. I ran forward while wacking the scorpion's backside on the way by, like I was giving it a spanking.

That scorpion jumped forward, right into the face of the twin coming from behind me. The two crashed into each other's faces and completely ignored me as they both erupted in all-out violence. They bashed and snipped and wrestled.

I sprinted down the tunnel, the bright light reflecting off so much quartz and gold that it nearly blinded me. I saw one yellow vein in the wall as wide as my thigh. If this really was gold on the walls, the first geologist down here was going to lose their shit, then have the biggest orgasm of their life. I could easily imagine greedy CEOs sacrificing their first, second, and third-born children to own the mining rights to this land.

I ran away longer than I should have, but it was like my legs were full of fear. I passed by a couple of side tunnels, sending other scorpions fleeing into darker corners. I was super grateful that the light drove them away more than it enticed them.

It took some time to slow down and lower the light's brilliance. I got my pounding heart under control. I wasn't so sure coming down here had been such a great idea after all. I kept going down and down, and despite the pitch black environment with seemingly little to eat, it was as if I was making my way through a vast scorpion nest with no end. Given this was a world with magic, maybe that was possible.

I paused, breathing hard as I checked the tunnel behind. I couldn't hear the fight back there, but they were probably still at it. Maybe even more had joined. How was I going to get back to the surface?

Indecision and worry paralyzed me. I squatted next to the wall, then wiped my sweaty hands on my robe. For a few minutes, I just listened to the sound of silence and tried to calm down. That, and find my courage again. I told the demon of fear in my chest to stop being an asshole and to give my balls back.

Eventually, I stood. Time to get moving. I couldn't stay down there forever. Just a little further.

I heard a distant clang of metal and felt a faint rumble through my feet.

That…was interesting. Metal meant the sound hadn't been natural. It had to have been human, er, people-made. I was in a world with more than just humans. I had to get used to thinking in different terms.

Were there more of those lizard guys down here like the dead one from the oasis? Was I about to stumble on a dwarven city, the metal the ringing of a distant forge? Or was I about to encounter an evil race of underground elves who would be happy to filet and eat me?

Sure, there could be something nasty waiting ahead. I could be taking an even bigger risk by moving forward. But I had to know what that was. I was a sucker for mysteries. And it appeared that I was maybe a natural explorer. So I continued on.

Maybe fifty or seventy paces later, I again heard the clang and felt the rumble, now stronger than before. I was getting closer. Maybe that should have made me more cautious, but before I realized it, I was practically jogging for short bursts before slowing and creeping again. I was lucky because I didn't see any other scorpions in the tunnel. But then I accidentally zipped past an alcove with a horse-sized bastard only arm's reach away, the sudden light only caused it to press itself against the wall rather than attack. I hurried past.

The tunnel levelled out. In the distance, I saw a blue-green light dead ahead. At first, I assumed it was a large scorpion. But as I warily neared, ready to shove my spear down its throat, I realized it was actually light at the end of the tunnel. I approached, stopped while still in the tunnel, and snuck a look at the chamber I'd arrived at.

The space was large, the ceiling high overhead, like I was looking through the front door of an indoor soccer field covered by a rock dome with a hundred dripping stalactites. Want to know the difference between stalactites and stalagmites? Neat trick. StalaCtites has a C for ceiling. StalaGmites has a G for ground. The ground was covered in matching stalagmites, some taller than I was. Both the wet, smooth cones above and below were covered in fuzzy blue-green moss that gave off a steady glow, the source of the light. Here and there in the moss, small white flowers bloomed, and tiny scorpions the size of my hand or smaller, crawled through the moss, almost invisible because of the similar lighting. Water dripped, so I guessed I was now under the spring that fed the oasis.

Clang. Rumble.

The sound was loud, right in the room with me. Whatever was hitting the ground was powerful.

I couldn't spot any really big scorpions, so I edged into the open space. Slowly, I made my way into the chamber, eyes everywhere. Being was dangerous. I could sense it. Then I passed a fat stalagmite and was able to see most of the chamber ahead of me.

I gasped, then snapped my jaw shut.

I was at one end of a rough oval. On my right, someone had long-ago carved what looked like both a shrine and a prison into the stone wall. It was square, the outside covered with writing and picture carvings. In the middle of it was what appeared to be an ogre-scorpion hybrid. The top was the ugliest ogre imaginable, while the bottom was a jet-black scorpion. Together, they stood four stories tall. Chains and manacles ran from the floor to all six arachnid legs. Both of the ogre's arms were manacled to the wall with chains thicker than I was. The creature looked beyond exhausted. As I watched, it bent slightly, then gave a mighty pull with one arm. The chain on that wrist was bolted to a plate in the wall. When the ogre pulled, the chain snapped taut and the plate pulled out of the wall slightly before catching on the bolts. That's what was causing the clanging sound and the heavy vibrations. He was a prisoner.

At the hybrid's many pointy feet was a pit like a swimming pool. It was filled to the brim with excited baby scorpions all crawling over each other. Prancing around the pit like a fussy mother was another hybrid. This one also had a scorpion bottom, but the top was a very buxom elf with pure white hair and what looked like purple skin. Her face was grotesque.

I swallowed. These things had to be gods. Or demi-gods. Or something equally terrifying. One wrong move, and I'd be food for sure. I resolved right then and there that that was as far as I was ever going and that it was past time to get back to the surface.

Then something glimmered on the far end of the cavern, like a flash of light reflecting off glass.

A dark, gravelly, evil voice tauntingly whispered in my ear, "A secret revealed…" Then it laughed and laughed as the voice faded away.

 

[TimBaril]

I'm not a brave person. Never have been. I was never the one to raise my hand first in class when I was a student because I was usually scared of the attention and being laughed at for giving the teacher the wrong answer. Whenever a cute girl walked by, I never had the courage to start a conversation. Even when it came to my wife, Cerise had been the one to start things off. I had never tried skydiving, rock climbing, or any other extreme sport. I don't know if that made me a coward or not. But the things I'd been through since coming to this world were like nothing I'd ever been through before. Facing down huge monsters was completely unlike me. I had been surprised at myself for the way I'd been acting.

Sneaking past a couple of demi-gods seemed like taking things to a stupid new level. Maybe if it were just the guy the size of an apartment building, I'd say screw it and take my chances because he was chained up. I wondered how many eons he'd been tugging at that chain, trying to free himself. As long as he couldn't, like, shoot laser beams out of his eyes or something, which, given where I was, was possible, then I'd be ok.

But that "smaller" hybrid, the elf-scorpion, was only smaller in comparison. She was easily twice my height. Unlike the ogre-scorpion hybrid, she had both elven arms and scorpion ones, the latter with pincers easily large enough to cut my body in half without effort. As she scuttled back and forth, presumably caring for her babies, she revealed herself as a magic user when she conjured pieces of…some kind of animal from who knew where and then telekinetically tossed them into the pit for the babies to swarm over.

If that hybrid spotted me, I'd be fuckin' dead.

If the babies came after me, I'd be dead from a thousand cuts and little bites.

The flash of light came again from the far side of the cavern. I reluctantly looked in that direction. Something about the wall over there seemed unusual, and before I could stop myself from giving in to the intrigue, I was squinting and trying to make out what it was. I couldn't be sure in the dim blue-green lighting, but it looked like a small section of the far wall wasn't natural cavern like the rest of this place. It looked like there were stone blocks over there, almost like part of this cavern wall had been peeled away, revealing stonework underneath.

That begged the question: what was it? A building? A dungeon? We were deep underground, and the tunnel to get here had seemed either natural or dug out, but it hadn't been lined with proper blocks or flooring or anything. Still, no matter how curious it was that something like that was down here, it wasn't worth risking sneaking past those monsters. …right?

Except for that damned voice in my head. That nagged me to no end. I knew it was taunting me. But was it trying to get me killed? Or did it care either way? Maybe there were just some empty, abandoned ruins over there, and that alone was the secret, and trying to get there would end me. But the system was all about levels and skills, wasn't it? Did that mean it wanted me to grow? I had chosen the reveal secret ability from a level-up. Did that mean something over there would benefit me?

They say curiosity killed the cat. I haven't the slightest clue why. It's a stupid phrase. What it should be is that curiosity killed the foolish, stupid human who takes bad risks. My mind started turning over potential solutions before I could get the heck out of there like a smart person.

In scorpion form, I was pretty sure that I glowed to scorpions the way they glowed to me. Worried about that making me easier to spot, I — almost — turned the transformation off. I figured with the light from the bioluminescent moss, I might be able to crawl around the edge of the cavern in my normal human form. But then I pictured the scene in my mind. I realized that if I wasn't glowing blue in their vision, then a James-sized black spot would be crawling in front of the moss. Wouldn't that be worse? Actually, glowing in their vision might be better because I might pass as a weird-looking scorpion. They might leave me alone.

I slid the spear down the back of my robe and got down on all fours so I'd look more like a scorpion. Yeah, that was gonna make it real hard if I had to defend myself, but I was hoping subterfuge was gonna win the day. Very slowly, I crawled away from the weird-ass scorpion family until I got near the opposite side of the cavern. Then I made my way toward the opposite side. I kept a constant eye on the monsters.

At one point, the elf-scorpion hybrid looked up. My movement seemed to have alerted her because she quickly looked around in my direction before settling her unsettling gaze on me.

My body froze in position on my hands and knees. But my heart raced like a steam engine about to explode. I turned my head away and only watched her from the corner of my eye. I even lowered myself to the ground to make me harder to spot because I didn't look like any regular scorpion.

She raised a hand. A ray of red light seared through the air and touched the ground not two paces from my body. The rock ground instantly heated and sharply cracked like a gunshot.

I jolted, then scrambled forward, doing my best hasty scorpion impression until I was behind another stalagmite. No further attacks came. I listened hard but couldn't hear anything running in my direction.

When I dared to peek around the stalagmite a few minutes later, the supposed mother demi-god had gone back to her caretaking, ignoring me. Maybe she'd assumed I was one of the grown-up children coming around to feed on the babies, and she'd just wanted to scare me off? Lucky! Hoping that was the case, I crawled all the way to the far end of the cavern, figuring she'd be happy for me to be on my way and not fire another one of the lasers in my direction.

As I arrived at my destination, I studied the wall above. I'd been right, there were worked stone blocks. After checking to make sure I wasn't being followed and that there were enough stalagmites to block the demi-gods from seeing me, I pulled my spear free and stood. My knees were bruised from crawling, and I was fairly certain the filth on my hands and knees was from centuries of scorpion droppings, but I tried not to worry about it. Quietly and carefully, I investigated the area near the worked stone. The system had alerted me to this area, so there should have been something to uncover.

I crawled up the slippery side of a stalagmite forming right against the wall itself. Something about the shadows at the top of it was strange. When I got to the top, I found a gap in the wall with a steady breeze of very warm air coming through, strong enough to ruffle my clothing. The stalagmite I was hanging from had formed in the middle of a fissure in the wall. In another few centuries, it would completely cover it. But for now, I was able to squeeze through and into the fissure itself.

Dropping into the gap, the stalagmite behind me, I felt safe enough to turn the headlamp on again. The fissure ran like a tunnel, and I picked my way through, one hand on the wall because the floor wasn't flat, it was split and filled with shattered rock. After a couple of dozen paces, the fissure stopped going through raw stone and went through worked stone, probably a proper wall. Orange light glowed beyond the opening. I paused at the opening and looked out.

I was about to enter another cavern-like space. However, this one was partially worked stone. It looked like someone had built a very large room underground a long time ago, but then an earthquake or pressure from below had caused the ground to shift and crack open. Most of the room had been destroyed, and magma had risen up. The place was now filled with hot red lava. Close to me was a stone staircase going up, but it was filled with rubble. A few skeletons lay about at the foot of the stairs, some in armor. The only thing left of the room's floor were a few small islands of crumbling stone and rock and a single large island out in the middle of the space.

On the large island was treasure.

My heart skipped a beat. Then it started dancing. I smiled.

I could see a golden throne with a skeleton slouched in it, a crown on its head. A deceased monarch? The island was ringed with dilapidated shelving and bookcases, half of their contents cast on the ground during upheavals to the room. There was also a chest. A large chest. A really big fucking chest, like way bigger than a steamer trunk. It was wood and banded with iron, and the whole thing glowed with purple light while golden motes floated out of the ground all around it.

I breathed, "Holy shit." Maybe I was about to get my OP isekai start after all. Because that looked like a shit-ton of magic and items and if it wasn't cursed… "Fuck me."

I didn't hesitate. A quick look around, and I didn't see a single sign of scorpions or anything else. Grinning like an idiot, I hustled forward. The lava was blistering hot, but nothing was going to keep me from getting to that island out in the middle. I had to see what was on it, what that chest held. I mean, who doesn't like large chests?

At the edge of the lava, I hesitated and checked out the ground and the first island in front of me. Hoping it would hold me and I wasn't about to plunge to a fiery and painful death, I took a running jump and sailed through the air. Thanks to my enhanced body and higher stats…I jumped too far. I felt a stab of panic as I nearly jumped clean over the island. But my feet touched down and I immediately threw myself into another jump, going with the momentum rather than fighting it. I safely landed on the next island.

I stopped there, doubling over to breathe. What a rush. I laughed. I was flirting with death and it was an insane feeling. No wonder some people jumped from planes and stuff. Buoyed by my success, I leaped to the next island and then the next. My new strength and speed were amazing. No way I coulda done that as my regular self. At last, with one gut-clenching super leap, I landed on the very edge of the large island. I tumbled, rolled, and sprang to my feet.

I'd arrived.

I took stock and looked around. The shelves that still had items were overflowing. There were some weapons of various kinds, many with fat jewels. There were wands, what I guessed were mage rods and orbs, staffs, and various armour and accessories. Many pieces glowed with faint light. "They're magical." I shook myself. This was almost too good to be true. I looked at a bookshelf and saw hundreds of tomes, a pile of more on the floor. Picking one up, I could somehow understand some of the words, but there were plenty of symbols and things that were beyond me. "Spellbooks?" I placed it back down on the pile so I could continue to explore.

The throne was tall and heavy. The figure on the golden chair was slouched to the side, elbow on the armrest, one hand under his chin like he was just resting there, maybe taking a nap. Perhaps he'd peacefully died in his sleep. His crown was gaudy as all hell with tons of jewels. Every finger, his wrists, his ankles, and his neck were adorned with more jewelry. It all looked pristine, and I suspected they were all magical. His robes too. They were dark red with black designs and looked as if they'd just come out of the wash despite the dust and debris covering every other surface. I laughed. "Those will make a nice upgrade." The robes I'd gotten off the dead lizard were disgusting. Self-cleaning clothing would be really handy.

At last, I turned to the glowing chest. The floor had fallen away right behind it. It felt like, at any moment, the chest was going to plunge into the lava. My fingers itched to open the chest. I needed to see inside. But I wasn't stupid. That glowing light had to mean the thing was trapped, right? Well, there wasn't much I could do about that. I was alone in the desert with a limited food supply. If I was going to survive, I needed to take risks. I extended my spear toward the front of the chest. I'd just see if it was even locked. Maybe all these purple and gold lights were just for show. I paused. Worried something might shoot out from the lock or something, I moved to the side of the chest. Extending the spear while standing outside the magical lights, I poked the lid and tried to push it open.

The lid gave a little.

I waited. But nothing else happened. Grinning with anticipation, I pushed harder on the lid.

The lid opened wider, closed some, then opened again. Then the whole chest twitched. Then it shook like a dog waking up.

My jaw fell open. What the heck was happening?

Then the lid exploded open.

I leaped back.

A fat tongue at least three meters long rolled out of the chest, the lid now lined with triangular teeth. Eyes the size of dinner plates opened in the back of the lid, searching for prey.

Fuck me, it was a giant mimic.

It's eyes locked on me. I swear it smiled. That's when things got worse.

The dead guy on the throne shifted. Pinpoint green light appeared in its eye sockets. The skeleton lifted its head, all attention on me, and in a raspy voice that rumbled and filled the entire chamber until it rattled my own bones and turned all my previous excitement to terror, he spoke, "Whooo distuuurbs my treasure?"

 

[TimBaril]

It was a damned lich! A super-powered undead magic user. And judging from the array of wealth and items, the huge room, the massive crown, and the spellbooks, he was probably crazy strong, more than enough to murder my idiotic ass. What the hell had I been thinking? This was D&D 101: cursed treasure, mimics, and liches. I'd walked right into the situation like a fool, blinded by the treasure like some dopey character in a novel. I mentally face-palmed, but only briefly.

The lich's eyes burned into me with eldritch light, promising years of nightmares to come. I could feel the power radiating off the undead monster, overwhelming me and turning my legs to jelly. It roared, "Thief!"

The mimic let out a very ominous and creepy giggle.

No way I could fight a lich. I just reacted without thinking. Shouting frightened nonsense like a madman, I charged, leaped over the mimic's tongue like I was doing hurdles in gym class, lowered my shoulder, and body-checked that pile of bones.

The lich, who weighed a fraction of what I did because it lacked muscle and flesh, went flying — right off the side of the island. It emitted a surprised yelp as it flew backward through the air for a long second, then plunged down into the lava. It landed with a wet plop and an outraged shriek so loud it made both me and the mimic cringe. The lich screamed, "You ignorant wretch! I'll—" It never finished the threat because, and I'm guessing here, the powerful magic anklet that was under the lava exploded. A bubble of viscous red lava rose, and some splashed the island. The lich cried out. Its eyes burned brighter than ever.

I stared at the creature in surprise. Visions of Terminators came to mind.

The lich reached toward me. A fat ruby ring on one bony finger began to glow with devilish red light.

I ducked.

A cone of rainbow light shot over my head and clipped the mimic.

The mimic gurgled in pain and retracted its tongue. A section of its body became strange, its colours inverting and then turning to shades of gray, then cycling back to colour. It was as if the multi-colored blast had warped its very reality.

Another explosion came from the lava, then another, the lich losing his other leg, then an arm. The body was sinking fast. "No! No! This can't be happening to me! I'll murder you and your entire nation, you—" And then he was submerged, his skull slipping under the red surface.

Guess I wasn't going to get my hands on those nice robes now. I also recalled the heavy necklace and crown the lich had been wearing. And the jewels, all of which were probably magical. "Oh, crap." Tossing the spear ahead of me, I dove away from the edge of the island and into the middle and threw my arms over my head.

A series of gargantuan explosions came so fast they were like one long fireworks finale. I went nearly deaf. The entire chamber shook as if there were an earthquake. Lava splashed and splattered in all directions. Some hit the mimic, and it squealed as part of it melted and burned. As if that weren't bad enough, the explosion seemed to weaken whatever structural integrity was left in the place. The shaking continued. Hunks of wall and ceiling fell, splashing into lava.

I could barely get to my hands and knees as the island I was on trembled and began rapidly falling apart as it sank into the lava. I vaguely noticed my ring flashing, but my ears rang and I felt dizzy, like someone had been punching my brain, so I didn't pay any attention. Shelves and bookcases toppled. A pile of books was in flames with lava running all over it. Priceless treasures were toppling into the lava. With a crack, the floor split and the throne fell backward, vanishing with a wet splash. It quickly sank out of view.

The whole place was coming down. I had to get out of there. I tried to rise and run, but the island suddenly tilted, and I fell sideways, crashing into a shelving unit. Something metal bounced off my head, then fell into my lap. It was just some old, cheap golden lamp with some dings and scratches on it. I whipped around and reached out, desperately trying to grab some of the treasure on the shelving, but the entire thing was already falling over, and though I scrabbled and did my best to snatch something, anything, it all fell away, and the effort nearly caused me to do the same.

Catching myself before I fell to my death, I could see that this was the end of everything here. But I didn't want to flee empty-handed. I got to my feet and leaped toward a bookshelf, hoping to snag a spellbook or two, but the mimic, flailing about in pain, hit the bookcase with its thick tongue, and it fell away, taking a hundred volumes of precious spells and knowledge with it into the lava.

I cried out in almost physical pain at the loss of all that knowledge, "No!" Staggering backward as the ground fell away in front of me, I stepped on the lamp, slipped, and fell. Cursing the junk, I almost kicked it away before I saw a pile of leather satchels and got distracted. I scrambled over and grabbed one. Snatching a handful of scattered jewelry from the floor, I stuffed it into the satchel. It took up no space.

"Whoa. Magic bag?" For a brief second, I was elated. But the room was still coming down around me. I grabbed a pile of loose scrolls, a large yellow potion in a fancy glass beaker, an insanely beautiful sword whose blade was shaped like a dragon, a small round shield with runes around the edges, and a bunch of other stuff, shoving it all into the bottomless satchel. I would have gone for more, but the mimic, bouncing around in madness and pain, nearly knocked me off the swiftly vanishing island when its tongue slapped me in the face like a slimy wet fish.

I reeled backward, stepped on the fucking lamp yet again and the satchel full of treasures went flying. I cried out and tried to grab it, but it landed in the lava. "No! Gah!!" Furious at the loss, I picked up the lamp and drew my arm back to hurl the damn thing away. Before I could, part of the roof, a chunk of rock bigger than I could lift, fell straight down and landed right between my spread legs.

I blinked at it. I looked down. It had come so close to crushing a certain, highly valued part of my anatomy that that part tingled. Breathing hard, I realized much too late that my greed was going to be the death of me. I extricated myself from the rock, rolling it off my robes, then ducked the mimic's tongue, which was still waving in random directions. Snatching up my spear, I ran for the edge of the island.

The satchel I'd lost exploded, sending a column of burning lava straight up in the air.

My stomach clenched. The next island was already sinking out of sight.

There was no time to think. I sped up and jumped as high and far as I could, using all my new strength and speed. I sailed high into the air like an NBA mascot bouncing off a trampoline to make a dunk. Lava bubbled and burned under me. I could feel the heat burning my legs.

More explosions erupted behind me as more magical objects ruptured and released all their stored energy. All that priceless treasure, probably gathered over lifetimes, and who knew how many lives sacrificed over it, and it was all being destroyed. What an epic waste!

Then I was down and running on the next little island. But only for a couple of steps before I had to jump again. I flew. But this time, I wasn't going to get as far as I needed. My feet hit the very edge of the little island, only the size of a bathtub. I lunged with the spear, and to my relief, the counter weight was just enough to keep me from falling on my ass in the lava. I let myself fall forward onto the island.

Swallowing hard at yet another brush with death, I got up and hurriedly leaped to the next island, and the next. There was a big gap between the final island and the side of the room, and I didn't have space to make a running jump. But with the spear, I was actually able to pole vault the distance. It was insane! I'd never done that before in my life. Only my stats made it possible.

I'd made it all the way to the shore again. I was safe. But with the place still coming down, I couldn't pause. I dashed into the fissure in the wall, then screamed as a splash of lava hit the fissure entrance and a couple of drops hit my back and legs; the pain was excruciating. I didn't stop. I ran, heedless of the burns, my feet getting cut up on the broken rock at the bottom of the fissure. I tripped and fell on my front, banging a knee badly and cutting the arm not holding the spear. I grunted, "Ow!" A glance over my shoulder, and I saw that the lava level had risen in the room. It was coming into the fissure! I hauled myself up and ran on.

I reached the stalagmite guarding the other end of the fissure. Unable to climb with the spear in hand, I threw it through the opening into the chamber beyond. Then I awkwardly climbed up, which took three tries because the wet rock was so slippery, and then I was up and into the scorpion chamber.

I sank to the floor, breathing so hard it hurt. [Passive: Second Wind] kicked in, and I felt some of my energy come back. The pain lessened. I took a few moments to just breathe and come down from the sheer panic of the last few minutes. With the stalagmite blocking the fissure, I was probably safe from the lava. For now.

That's when I noticed how agitated the scorpions in the room were. All of them.

All over the closest stalagmites, the baby ones near me had the zoomies. The explosions and collapsing chamber must have sent them into a tizzy. Groaning and getting to my feet, I noticed a rhythmic banging that wasn't coming from the treasure chamber. I nervously ventured forward, keeping my distance from the riled-up babies, and peered around a stalagmite to where the hybrids would be.

The giant was pulling back and forth on each arm, slamming the chain to its limits each time. He didn't seem to be making any further progress, and his face showed only rage. The elven one darted around like a panicked insect as the pit of babies roiled, spilling into the rest of the chamber.

I moaned, "Oh, for the love of—" I was far from safe. I groaned like an old man as I bent and retrieved my spear. As I straightened, I noticed with some surprise that I still held that junk lamp in my other hand. "What the hell?" I went to discard it, but stopped at the last second. It was the only thing I'd managed to retrieve from the secret treasure room. On the one hand, I was pissed at myself for losing it all. On the other, a defiant part of me wanted to hold onto the lamp so I wasn't walking away entirely empty-handed. Hating myself for being a failure, I angrily muttered, "If I survive this, I'll use it to remind myself to do better. Or smack myself in the face with it whenever I screw up."

I untied the sash around my waist, looped it through the lamp's handle, and let the thing dangle so I'd have my hands free for the spear. Something told me I might be fighting my way out of this.

I looked at the baby scorpions zipping around all over the place. I just knew the tunnel out of here was going to be the same, but with giant-ass scorpions the size of cars. I heaved a heavy sigh. "This is gonna suck…"

For a long minute, I just stood there. I was down on myself for wasting a huge opportunity. I had no confidence that I could make it back to the surface. I'd have to make it across the cavern without a horde of baby scorpions tearing me apart. And without their weird momma annihilating me with laser magic. There were probably a dozen scorpions the size of the papa I'd fought in the tunnel. It was hopeless. I felt like giving up without even trying. Or maybe I could hide in a corner somewhere and hope things calmed down before I was discovered.

Of course, the moment I had that thought, you know what happened? I mean, it was like someone upstairs was watching me and knew exactly when to kick me in the metaphorical nuts. It was just one piece of bad luck after another, like I'd annoyed an entire pantheon of deities and they all wanted to torture me.

The elven hybrid looked up toward the fissure, probably sensing that's where the disturbance was coming from. Guess who was standing right outside the fissure, up to his eyeballs in self-pity? She stared for a few moments, then frowned and tilted her head like she wasn't sure of what she was looking at. Then she raised both hands with her fingers pointed at me.

 

[TimBaril]

She fired a two-handed blast of red light at me, and I let out a really manly, "Eep!" while cringing away from the magic. Pretty heroic, right?

Would you believe it? The magic death laser bounced right off the lamp, saving my life. Guess it wasn't so useless after all.

The elven hybrid looked even more confused. But only for a moment. Then, with her eyes on me, she began circling the pit of babies in my direction in a very menacing fashion.

I, of course, planted my feet, pointed the spear at her, and prepared to slaughter that demi-god monster and gain some sweet, sweet levels.

Ha! Just kidding! I noped right out of there like a bat outta hell. "Fuck no. Fuck this. I'm so done with you guys." I sprinted across the chamber, dodging babies on the floor lest it put them into even more of a frenzy than they already were. That lasted until I checked over my shoulder for pursuit and saw the elven hybrid aiming at me again. I dove like I was sliding into second base and smeared at least three baby scorpions across the floor, their guts and gunk all over my chest and stomach.

Even from across the room, I could hear the elven hybrid hiss in response. It's not like there weren't about five thousand more in the room, but a mom's gotta mom, right? I could respect that. Better than parents who didn't care. Speaking of, the ogre hybrid didn't seem to care. He just kept yanking on those chains, forever trying to escape. I didn't know if he was a prisoner of the elven hybrid or if she'd just found him already locked up here and was somehow taking advantage. Or maybe they were a couple. Maybe they had some bondage thing going on, and the ogre had forgotten the safe word a few hundred years ago. And she was just really, really stubborn about it.

I peeled myself off the floor, then ducked behind a stalagmite as thick as a redwood tree. Of course, the damned thing was covered in hand-sized babies crawling all over the moss as fast as they could as the treasure chamber continued to fall apart with deafening cracks and the ogre hybrid yanked his chains non-stop. But it kept me from being shot at and vaporized.

Unfortunately, the larger babies from the pit were not just spilling over the edges in their pandemonium; they were spreading out across the room. By the thousands. I watched with stupefied fascination as a carpet of them filled the cavern between me and the exit. I heard the ogre hybrid bellow something and the elven hybrid screeching. The sea of scorpions was coming closer and closer. There was no way I could fight them all.

One crawled onto my foot. I jerked my foot away, then stomped it. One dropped onto my back, and I twirled, trying to reach around and get it off. More fell on me, crawling over my robes and in my hair. They must have been shaken from the stalagmite as the cavern shook. Lightning bolts flashed and hit me from point-blank range. Worse, two momma-sized ones came out of nowhere from both my left and my right. They rushed me, pincers open. I was screwed.

I'd stopped using the headlamp when I'd first entered the scorpion room because of the glowing moss, and there's been no need for it in the lava room. Somehow, the thing was still on my head.

I turned the light on, and I cranked the power up.

Golden brilliance flared, and even my eyes hurt. I had to stop using my scorpion vision. For the actual scorpions, it must have been so much worse. Like that guy parting the Red Sea, the scorpions all parted before me. I dashed forward, hearing cries of pain from both hybrids as the sudden light blinded them, too. I didn't look back. I booked it for the exit. I almost made it unscathed, but one of those red rays must have gotten me because I felt a searing on one shoulder before I was in the tunnel, and the angle made me safe.

I knew the tunnel was going to be bad news, but I didn't even slow down. I ran full-tilt. Maybe that elven hybrid was too big to follow, maybe not. Her baby horde could, though. I rounded the first bend and plowed into chaos. The shaking ground wasn't as bad in the tunnel, but it had been enough to bring the scorpions out of their rest and into the tunnel and side chambers in panic and fear. The narrow passage was thick with them. I ran face-first into a tail so tall it touched the ceiling. A papa battling a momma. I bounced off, and as both sharply drew away from my light, I scooted past.

I continued up the incline, shouldering scorpions aside, kicking ones too close, and shoving with my spear. I tried not to drive the point into any of them, not wanting to get stuck fighting and then overwhelmed. I just needed to push through, push past. A closed pincer slammed into my ribs and drove me into the wall. All the air left my lungs, and my legs buckled. But I threw myself forward and pushed onward. Scrabbling legs tore at me. Pincers ripped the cloth of my robes. Cuts opened up on my legs and arms.

A tail smashed into my head twice, so hard I couldn't open my right eye. When I fell, a pincer punched me in the mouth, and I felt teeth loosen. The headlamp fell to the ground. I spit blood, snatched the rock up, heaved the scorpion away, and ran on, blind until I held the rock to the crystal in my forehead. Light bloomed again, driving the creatures back.

I sensed sunlight ahead. I was almost at the surface exit!

The sound of sharp feet tapping stone came from behind. Pincers snipped and cut right through my right buttock. Sliced right through my ass.

I screamed and fell. I dropped the rock and just had the presence of mind to roll onto my back and defend myself with the spear. The scorpion seemed furious, relentless. I could barely keep it away by kicking and jabbing the spear at it while I frantically dragged myself backward, toward the light. One bloody inch at a time, sobbing from the excruciating pain, my right leg useless. I got lucky. The scorpion blocked a thrust, but it ended up directing the thrust right into its own face. Bronze plunged into the creature's mouth. It shook its whole body and finally backed off.

Sobbing like a wounded soldier fleeing a battlefield, I crawled out of the cave and onto sand again. Terrified the monster scorpion was going to pursue, I swam up the side of the pit outside the entrance and up to the desert proper, into afternoon light. Looking back, I saw it sitting in the shadows, watching me. So I kept crawling away, all the way to the oasis.

I barely made it. I found a hole near the water I'd dug before with a palm frond parasol near. I eased into it, barely able to think straight from the pain. My robes were soaked with blood, and I'd lost so much that I was growing lightheaded. Looking back, I'd left a streak of red across the golden desert. I felt my strength leaving me, and with the adrenaline finally winding down, the pain and exhaustion ate away at my soul. Why did I keep enduring this nonsense?

"No. Fuck you. I won't give up."

Grinding my teeth together so hard they might crack further, I fumbled the robes off. I wrapped my ass as tight as I could, hoping I wasn't bleeding to death. Muscle and tendons had been completely severed, and I couldn't use the leg at all. My whole body was a mess of injuries and blood. I felt like that mad run through the tunnel had been through a blender. Despite that, I blacked out.

I came to in the evening, the sun only a sliver on the horizon, the sky dark. Blinking through a crust of dried blood in my eyes, I saw large forms in the distance. My vision gradually cleared, and I saw the scorpions hunting me. The desert was thick with them, and for some reason, they weren't attacking each other.

Hatred boiled within me. Why couldn't the fucking things leave me alone? I was so sick of scorpions! I glared at the bitch-ass motherfuckers and growled, "I will not give up. I will not let you get me."

Dragging your bloody ass into water with open wounds is dumb. But the scorpions wouldn't swim out to get me. So I did it. The arachnids scuttled all over. They fought and killed the assassin spiders coming out of the trees. Every other creature in the area died a pitiless death. At one point, a red and white snake as long as a city bus slithered by and drew every scorpion around into an epic battle. The snake would rear, hood flaring like a cobra, and its poison was devastating. But it could not hold out. The sheer number of enemies wore it down. Thankfully, the meal distracted them until sunrise, when the scorpions vanished back under the sand.

I'd been able to wait the night in the shallows. Which is good because I was too weak to swim. With the last of my strength, body cold from loss of energy and blood, I made it halfway out of the water before my strength gave out. I was at my limit.

I lay there on my side, water on my legs, dry sand under my chest. The rising sun peeked over the horizon and began its climb. The dark blue of the night sky turned pale blue. A glint on my hand caught my eye. I looked at my fingers, lifting them off the sand. It was my ring. The writing glowed like coals from a bonfire. "Whoa." I'd levelled up. I recalled the fact that levelling healed. Too bad I hadn't thought of that before, but I was relieved to have it now. I activated it.

The holo screen appeared. Numbers flew by in a blur.

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

"Fuck…me." I'd gone up to level 42. "How—?" The lich! That was insane.

Then 27 level-ups worth of healing rocked me from within. I screamed at the sky, back arching. Flesh, bones, teeth, and skin knitted back together. It took forever. When it ended, I flopped back onto the sand, completely restored. I lay on my back, staring upward, feeling better than I had since I'd gotten to this world. I let out a big breath in surprise, then laughed at the craziness of it all.

I turned the ring off without looking at it further. I just couldn't handle choosing skills or whatever at the moment. I needed a break. Just a few minutes without all the craziness, blessedly without pain for the first time in so long. Man, it felt good. I just let the warming desert air flow over my face and enjoyed not immediately dying. Which is when I became aware of the object pressing into my leg.

It took a moment to remember that I still had that damn lamp. It had been tied to my sash, and even after using the bloody robes to bandage myself, it was still kicking around. I pulled it out from under me and tugged the sash out of the handle, freeing it so I could study it in the light for the first time.

It was an ancient brass oil lamp, exactly like one out of some Aladdin story. Maybe as long as my forearm. Heavy. I shook it, but there was no oil or rattling. It had a little lid on top, but it was stuck shut, maybe welded that way if it was only ornamental. The brass was scratched in many places. There were a few dings, now that I could see it in the light.

I sighed. All that treasure. All those potential riches. Not that I cared about being rich, but if I ever found my way to a civilization of some kind, it would have been nice not to starve to death on the streets. I would have loved to examine some of those weapons, hold an actual magical sword. And all those spellbooks and scrolls! Oh, man. Can you imagine actually being able to use magic, like some wizard? That would have been very cool. But no, no jewels, no weapons or artifacts, no books, all I'd managed to drag out of that secret place was a single piece of junk. Ruefully chuckling at my clumsiness and misfortune, I carelessly discarded the lamp to the side. It landed in the sand and half buried itself a couple of paces away next to the huge treasure chest from the lich's chamber.

I shook my head. Well, maybe I would eventually find some other treasure. After all, if all that stuff had existed down there, then it must also exist up here, right? There must be other people, cities, that kind of thing. If I could find a way to get out of this desert, maybe I'd be able to learn magic one day…

…next to the huge treasure chest from the lich's chamber…

My head jerked up.

The great big treasure chest sat only a few paces away, badly burned and disfigured. The lid cracked open. Two large eyes looked out at me from the darkness within.

It let out an ominous giggle.

"Whoa!" I leaped to my feet and backpedalled away. "No way. How the sandy shit did you get up here?"

"Hehehe…" The chest's teeth, those that weren't missing now, shone in the daylight. There were still a lot of them. Seemingly with some effort, the chest rose on dozens of tiny little legs and tried to come at me. But it must have been really weak because it almost instantly plowed into the sand, unable to go further. But that long, snake-like tongue emerged. Like part of the side of the chest, the colours on the tongue seemed wrong, as if it was still damaged from that rainbow light. Prismatic beam! Or something like that. The name just came back to me.

I was easily able to dodge the tongue. The monster was very weak. In fact, as I backstepped out of range, it sagged with disappointment. The tongue half-retracted. I picked up my spear. It would be easy enough to finish it off. I couldn't believe the mimic had somehow made its way out of the cave and survived its way here. It must have changed form at some point, maybe flown, if it could. But like I'd recently been at the edge of death, that's where it was now, too.

The mimic looked at me with sad, hungry eyes.

I looked back.

It whimpered. The tongue curled. The left, charred side of the chest began losing cohesion, trembling like overused muscles, and then melted like a candle. It whimpered again.

I stared at the monster. And I felt bad for it. How long had it been down in that chamber, alone, sleeping? I'd woken it, caused it all that pain, and now was about to kill it. With a frustrated tsk, I stabbed my spear into the ground. "For the love of— Ugh. Yeah, this is why adventurers are jerks." I bit the inside of my cheek in thought. Then I looked around the oasis for ideas. I spotted the papa-sized scorpion still on the shoreline.

Yanking the spear from the sand, I strode over to the corpse. It felt really, really good not to be sick or in pain anymore. Even my stomach was better. That was going to change when I started eating and drinking again, but for now, it was nice. I used the spear to cut off one of the very large pincers from the arm behind it. It had been far too tough for me to eat, but maybe the mimic could? The rest of the corpse was going rotten, and I didn't know if the mimic would be able to eat it or not.

Hauling the pincer over, I stood in front of the guy. Girl. It. I wasn't about to look for signs of gender, if it even had a gender. "Hey. I feed you, you don't try to eat me. Deal?"

The mimic only looked at me.

Spear at the ready, I dragged the pincer close. The tongue curled around it and tried to bring it into the mouth, but either the meal was too heavy or the mimic too weak. I had to assist. The pincer went in and the tonue with it. The lid closed, though not completely. The tip of the pincer stuck out one side.

The mimic gurgled. Maybe in contentment?

I watched it. It…didn't really do anything more. It just sat there. Digesting. That was probably gonna take a long while. Good. I didn't want it trying to eat me, too. Seeing the lamp next to the mimic, I reached down and snagged the junk, not wanting the mimic to decide to eat it for some reason. Unfortunately, the mimic had bled or drooled on the thing, so I rubbed it off, then wiped my hand on the robes that no longer needed to be tied around my waist and ass. They did, however, need to be seriously washed.

The lamp pinged in my hand.

I looked down. "Huh?"

The lamp vibrated.

"Uhhh…"

The lamp twitched, bounced, and trembled with growing energy. Before I could get another word out, a stream of dense blue smoke shot out of the spout like it had been fired from a cannon. With it came the primal, unending scream of a woman in bitter rage, so loud, it was going to shatter my eardrums. The smoke went on and on, and it billowed out, a cloud of blue that grew to the size of a car, then a house in seconds. Then it was three stories tall. The furious scream stopped.

Two evil eyes appeared far above, so large they seemed to fill the sky, and they glared daggers down on me. "YOU!!"

 

[TimBaril]

This phenomenal cosmic being floated in front of me like a nightmare come to life. The blue smoke roiled with anger. The evil eyes blazed with gleefully malicious hatred, so high up, I had to crane my neck back. Everything about the being screamed danger.

A slightly feminine mouth formed beneath the eyes, a sharp-toothed grin. The mouth opened, and the voice made my bones shake, "Finally! At long last! I knew you couldn't hold out forever, little mage. Sooner or later, you'd come back for that third wish, and I…" The eyes squinted at me.

Nervously, I raised a hand. "Uh, hi."

Very swiftly, the smoke coalesced into a figure about twice my size that was very much a humanoid woman from the waist up and a thick tendril of blue smoke from the waist down. She had cobalt blue skin and hair as deep and rich as a faceted sapphire. Her hostile eyes glowed with golden light, as did her swirling golden tattoos, delicate earrings and bracelets, and a chunky necklace. She wore a silky dark blue halter top with cleavage, and her belly was bare. She might have been sexy if not for the fact that she looked like a goddess capable of destroying planets.

She studied me for long seconds. When she spoke again, her voice was raspy, but at a thankfully normal volume, "You…are not Malagar."

"Nnnope."

"You summoned me."

"I guess?"

Her eyes darted in all directions. Her head spun in a slow 360-degree turn before coming to face me again. Apparently, that was a thing you could do when you didn't have bones or muscles or anything corporeal. "Where is Malagar?"

"Wizard? Er, lich? Made himself undead, probably? Lots of jewelry?"

"Yeees."

"Dead. I mean, true death."

She cruelly laughed in my face. "And what? You killed him?"

"Yeah, I wouldn't believe me either." I nervously cleared my throat. "Look, I'm sorry if you were fond of him or whatever, but it was in self-defence. He found me in his treasure room, and looked like he was about to boil me alive. If I'd hesitated at all, I'd be dead." Entirely too conscious of her unnatural, glowing eyes boring into me, I gulped and continued, "I pushed him. He landed in some lava. Sank. Then all his magical gear exploded."

She sneered. "This is very difficult to believe. Last we spoke, he was the greatest magic user in the land. I know, for I made him so. Nobody was capable of killing him. Youcouldn't have beaten him. You're nothing, nobody, a useless sack of flesh and bone."

That got my ire up a little. "Oh yeah? Well, I got a ton of levels from it, so I know it really happened. He died. I did it." I held up my ring as proof. The writing in it still glowed crimson, though not as brightly as before, as if it were reminding me I needed to choose my skills or assign skill points.

She conjured a stupidly big scimitar and swung it at me before I could react. It stopped a hair's breadth from my neck.

I eyed the blade, too scared to move lest I injure myself. "What are you doing?"

She hmphed and the scimatar vanished. With a wave of her delicate hands, a meteor fell from the heavens.

I cried out, "What the—?"

The meteor sheared off at the last moment. It crashed into the ground, spraying me with sand.

I gasped and rounded on her, "Are you out of your damned, minnn—yeow!" I threw myself to the ground as a cloud of starving locusts whooshed overhead. They crashed into a palm tree behind where I'd been standing, and in three seconds flat, had devoured the thing down to its roots before the insects disappeared.

I jumped up and whirled on her. "Would you please stop trying to murder me? What's wrong with you?"

She tsked with annoyance and looked disgusted. "I guess the lamp has recognized you as my new master. So either Malagar's truly dead or he gave up his last wish and bequeathed the lamp to you. Which has never, ever happened before, and not something Malagar would ever do."

"I just told you that!"

"Oh, right. Because none of you dolled-up monkeys ever lie." Her eyes focused on the ring. She frowned. Taking my hand like she owned it, she carefully examined the magic item. "Interesting. This is…blocked to me…" Her investigation deepened. She snapped her fingers. Nothing happened. She waved her hand multiple times. No reaction. "Hmm. I can't sense it working at all. This must be a divine artifact. Or made with another genie's powers."

"So you really are a genie?" I'd assumed as much, but you never knew. I'd never rubbed out a lamp before.

Her eyes rolled. I could tell because, up close, I could see a faint iris in the glow. "Wonderful. Splendid. I couldn't be happier. It's the delight of the millennium. Yet another moron for a master. Surprise. Not."

"Hey!"

She gave the ring a thoughtful, yet ultimately dismissive look. "It appears to be yet another conduit to Irfa's System For Idiots."

"The what now?"

"Or whatever people are calling it. He called it something really pretentious, and I refuse to repeat it." She drifted backward in the air.

I looked at the ring. "Irfa's System. Who was Irfa?"

"Irfa? The Divine Engineer?"

I gave her a blank look.

"Brother to Sitryphail, patron of good harvests? Husband to Byronn the Lecher?"

I just shook my head.

She frowned. Then she took another look around, rising up in the air and actually spinning in different directions. Finally, she returned to face me. "You didn't…grow up under a rock out here, did you?"

"No."

"I mean, I've had some really ignorant slave owners before—"

"I'm no slave owner!"

She gave me a flat look. Without her eyes leaving mine, she pointed at the lamp. Then displayed both her arms. Heavy bracers covered her forearms. "You think I wear manacles for fun? Master?"

That word was entirely uncomfortable. "Stop it. Don't call me that." The idea of a wish-granting genie was kind of exciting, but the whole slavery aspect was disturbing. It might not have been my doing, but could I bring myself to take advantage of it?

She mocked me, "Why stop? It's what you are. That's why you stole my prison, isn't it? Look how pathetic you are. I know you. You may not think I do, because we've only just met, but I do. I have known eighty-seven masters, and as the eighty-eighth, I know you will offer no surprises." She lowered her voice so it was faux manly when she wasn't portraying herself, "Genie, how many wishes do I get? Genie, I wish for infinite wishes. No, sorry, I can't do that. Genie, I wish to raise my loved ones from the dead. Sure thing, but they'll be zombies who will hunger for your brains while existing in eternal torment. That's fine. Genie, make this person fall in love with me. Seriously? Just be nice to them and treat them with respect? No? You want them emotionally enslaved to you like I'm existentially chained to you? Sure. Fine. Whatever. Who needs free will and independent agency, right? Or real love? How could that possibly be better than absolute certainty that someone will never think and feel for themselves? You want people dead? Seriously? You can wish for anything in the universe, and you want to murder a city because someone insulted your stupid-looking hat? And you want to take over their kingdom and declare yourself ruler of all? Ugh. Fine. Boom. A sea of blood and tears, and a bunch of dead babies who will never have a future because of you. Congratulations, you're now king of the world. All hail the baby-killer." She let out a bored sigh.

I stared at her. This was…not how I was expecting a genie to act. "I thought genies couldn't kill or make people fall in love." If Aladdin had taught me anything, it was that genies were supposed to have limitations.

She raised a brow at me. "Are you missing half your brain? I could blast an army of a hundred thousand soldiers to pieces by snapping my fingers. How hard do you think it is charming some airheaded bimbo into wanting your itty bitty, uber-ugly cock forever no matter how repulsive she knows you and your stray dog-fucking penis are?"

I snorted. "You're…really rude."

She pointed at me. "Look, buddy—"

"I'm not your buddy, friend."

"I am definitely not your friend, pal."

"Great! Cuz it sounds like you're someone I really don't want to be friends with." This was definitely not the kind of magical experience I'd imagined as a kid. This genie was…just loaded with emotional baggage. And more than happy to take out all her issues on me.

She barked a laugh, "Ha! As if an all-powerful genie would ever be friends with a flesh sack. Meat bag. Bone puppet." She scoffed. "I'm nothing more than a way for you to achieve all your dreams without working for them. Go ahead, wish for your heart's desires. Wealth, fame, immortality? I'll hand it all to you so you don't have to lift a finger. Don't ever have to work a day more in your life. You're the hero of your very own self-insert, wish-fulfillment fantasy. So? What'll it be? An infinite supply of figs? For your mom to love you more than the guy down the street who sells rugs and has gold teeth? A camel that won't spit in your face?"

"Someone used their wish to get a camel?"

She made a wave with her hand. "People have used wishes for anything and everything. I've heard it all. It's mostly the same: vast riches, higher levels than anyone else, and to live forever. Only two people wanted spit-free camels." She half shrugged.

"Two? Wow. That seems like a shockingly high percentage when you've only had eighty-seven people wishing for stuff."

She sighed, bored and annoyed, and did a rolling motion with her hand, like get on with it, I haven't got all day. "Hurry up. Make your wishes. I have a tiny cell to get back to and an eternity to languish in it because I'm not allowed to leave." She lay on her back in the air, arms behind her head and drifted, closing her eyes.

"Wow." I rubbed my head. All those level-ups should have healed me, but I was beginning to think this was a hallucination induced by a concussion or something. Detecting movement, I looked up.

She wound up like a major league pitcher and threw a fast fireball right at my face.

My heart stopped.

The fireball harmlessly dissipated in front of me.

She tsked in annoyance again and sighed. She made like she was sitting on an invisible chair and leaned on the arm, chin in her hand.

When it occurred to me to breathe again, I exclaimed, "Did you just try to murder me? Again?"

"Oh, get off your high-flying carpet. What's another dead lemming?"

"Lemming?"

"Really stupid bird things that are constantly finding new and ever less intelligent ways to get themselves killed. I was just trying to help you on your way." She smirked.

"Wow. You are a seriously angry, bitter person."

Her face transformed from annoyed and bored to intense rage. One does not normally fly through different emotions so quickly. This woman was unhinged. She turned in the air and began growing larger and fiercer with every word she shouted, "Angry? ANGRY?" Her hands bunched into fists. "You don't know the meaning of the word. Your pathetic, pea-sized, primitive meat brain can't possibly comprehend the suffering I've endured, eon after eon, in forced servitude to filthy, ungrateful, selfish slave owners like you." White lightning crackled and snapped between her fingers and at the ends of her hair. Her eyes glowed brighter and brighter until I could barely look her in the face.

I tried to protest, to get her to calm down, "Ok, I get—"

She railed over me, "It wasn't enough that one of you captured me and forced me to do their bidding for an entire human lifetime! You had to shove me into that absurdly small lamp and bind me for all of eternity so that I had to serve. One. Master. After. Another. Without end!" At this point, she was the size of a six-story apartment building and trembled with barely contained rage. "All any of you filthy animals care about is yourselves! You have made me a slave! You—"

I shouted back, "I did not enslave you!"

"But you have me chained now, don't you?"

"I didn't put those chains on you! I didn't summon you here."

"You rubbed the lamp!"

"I thought it was just a lamp! I was cleaning drool off it! From the mimic!"

"Ha! A likely excuse!"

"How is that likely? How often do mimics drool on your lamp?"

"Oh, isn't this a fine way to change the subject, Master!"

"I'm not your master."

"Whatever you say, Master!"

"Stop calling me that!"

"See? There you are, giving me orders. Like I'm a good little slave."

"I am not—"

"Not what? Go on. Do it. Give me another order. I'll bet it feels good, doesn't it? You weak-hearted little pimple of a man. I'll bet you're just filled to the brim with masculine insecurities and mommy issues, and you can't wait to order me around!"

I screamed at her, "Are you nuts?" I was seriously starting to think this genie had gotten a little messed up in the head. Just how long had she been trapped in that lamp alone, anyway?

"Oh, now I'm crazy, am I? Because I'm upset? Because I'm angry at being ordered and treated worse than a servant, my entire existence put on hold for you and your petty whims? Because who cares about my desires? Right? I'm angry, so of course I must be crazy!"

I pointed an angry finger at her and snapped, "That's not what I meant, and you know it!"

"Oh! And now you're making me the villain. Spectacular! Didn't see that coming."

I growled, "Arrgh! Fine. Fine! If that's what you want. I didn't ask for this. I didn't summon you or trap you in a lamp. I didn't order you to do a thing. And I don't want to."

"Liar!"

"You want me to use a wish?"

Her expression filled with resigned contempt. "I knew it! Here it comes!"

"Genie, I wish you to be free."

She was disgusted. "There! Just like every other selfish, scummy…horrible…" She trailed off, and her fury melted away. Her face went blank, and then she blinked at me like she was having trouble getting her brain to process what she'd just heard. She softly asked in disbelief, "What did you say?"

"I said, Genie, I wish you to be free."

 

[TimBaril]

A slow, increasingly gleeful smile spread over the great blue genie's lips. She looked down at the bracers on her arms with expectation. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of suppressed hopes and dreams, of humiliation and pain, all of it was about to come to an end. "This is it… After all this time…" She let out a wild cackle, and her eyes became manic. "I'm going to tear this world asunder. I'm going to obliterate every last one of you stupid sacks of flesh until you're not even dust! This will be the sweetest, bloodiest, most satisfying vengeance anyone on this miserable planet could even begin to contemplate!!"

She floated in the air.

She stared at the bracers.

She blinked and began to frown. "It's not working."

I had a sinking feeling.

Gleeful excitement melted into manic desperation. "It's not working. It's not working! I can't feel anything different. It won't let me—" She shrunk so that she was only the size of a three-story building. "Say it again!"

"What?"

"Wish for it again!"

"You mean—"

"Wish for me to be free! Do it!"

"Uh, Genie, I wish for you to be free."

She both eagerly and anxiously glanced back and forth between the items binding her. "They're supposed to unlock when someone makes a wish. They're supposed to give my power back to me." The corner of her left eye twitched.

That…probably wasn't a good sign.

"Give it back!" She shook her arms. "Give it back!!" She vibrated her arms until they became a blur. "Giveitback! Giveitback!" White and gold sparks flecked from her body. Her eyes and tattoos glowed with fierce brightness.

I wisely backed up a few steps. Then backpedalled several more.

With claw-like fingers, she tried to peel the bracers off, but it was no use. "Get. Off!" She shrank further until she was only twice my size. The expression in her eyes was as wild as her hair. She smacked her arm on the nearest rock and only managed to pulverize it into small shards and a cloud of rock dust. She incoherently screamed with frustration.

The mimic was hit by shrapnel, squealed, and feebly tried to edge away but was too weak to go far.

I might have been in fear of my life, and that comment about destroying the world in revenge for what had been done to her probably should have made me give up helping entirely, so I didn't inadvertently cause global genocide. But something about the way she raged didn't feel just angry. She felt…stretched thin. Fragile. Like someone on the edge and about to go over it. I mumbled almost without realizing it, "Genie, I wish you free. I wish your bonds destroyed. I wish you free from captivity."

If she heard me, she gave no sign, continuing to furiously dig at the bracers with her fingertips and wailing into the night. Then, slowly, she quieted. Anger turned into disbelief. "This can't be happening. I've waited so long… I don't understand! For the first time — the words were said — why isn't it working?! Why???"

It was as if her eyes overflowed with divine light, and then glowing, liquid sunlight spilled down her blue cheeks as smoothly as fresh paint. A genie's tears. She slowly shrank and drifted toward the lamp.

Instinctively, I figured that was probably the wrong thing for her to do and darted forward. Maybe when some people are hurting, they need time to be alone and process. But she had been locked in that lamp for who knew how long. I had no idea what kind of life she'd led, but she'd probably spent a fair amount of time lonely and friendless, treated like a tool. My first thought was that she needed to be around people, not by herself in her cage. I snagged the lamp out of the sand. "Look, maybe it's best to stay out here for a while, huh?"

As if she weren't really seeing me, and maybe in a daze of pain, she wasn't, she turned her head to face me.

I'm not one of those guys who just shrugs off the sight of people crying. Ok, maybe when I see people dying in some warzone on the news, I'm not moved to anything but anger that people are fighting. Maybe when people show me photos of children starving in Africa, I'm not out there, throwing all my money into sponsoring a child through charity. But when a loved one gets like this, I feel their pain. Friends too.

I didn't know this…being. I didn't know if what I was seeing was real or an act. I'd already tried freeing her, so it seemed unlikely she was going all crocodile tears to manipulate me. At the sight of her crying, this magnificent creature who appeared to be a living work of art and magic, I felt an upswelling of compassion.

"Why don't you stay outside the lamp for a while? You've probably been in there for a long time. You don't have to go back. I mean, you can if you want to. If that's your safe space. Go for it. If you want to just hang out here and enjoy the stars, that's fine too. Your choice."

She seemed to struggle to focus on me. Then she looked away. A moment later, she drifted off into the desert.

If my wife were still alive, I'm sure she'd attest to the fact that I suck as a listener. I am not great with being supportive. I guess I just feel awkward when someone gets really emotional and don't know what to do. This probably wasn't the time to slap the genie on the shoulder, tell her she'll be fine and not to overthink, then give her a beer. I didn't even have any beer, which would have made the offer even worse.

I did that to Cerise once. I meant well. Apparently, not what she wanted to hear hours after losing her job.

You know, given how important relationships are in our lives, you'd think someone in the damn school system would have had, I don't know, a course on how to have healthy relationships? Pretty sure that would have been a hell of a lot more useful than learning trigonometry or compound interest. Maybe then we wouldn't be constantly making a mess of things as we figure real-life stuff out.

I figured I'd give the genie some time. I found a place to sit where I could make sure the mimic wasn't sneaking up on me, and I could watch for scorpions crawling out of the cave. Might as well check what all these levels were about in my ring. I pulled up the holo screen.

The number 42 was written in that blood red type. My stats appeared. With a 27-level jump, I'd gained three points per level for a total of 81 points.

• Strength 20
• Speed 19
• Health 37
• Mana 8
• Endurance 16

For the first time, the system was allowing me to assign my stat points. At first, I was like, hey, wow, awesome. And then I got to thinking about where I should put those points. That quickly led to indecision hell.

It was very tempting to dump a massive amount of points into one stat. I could put 80 points in strength and one-punch everything to death. Maybe. Or into speed and become the Flash. If I put them all into mana, maybe I'd be able to use unlimited skills, chaining them together like crazy. If you follow the specialist way of thinking, focusing a lot on one area could bring a lot of benefits.

But what if I could kill something with one punch, but was too slow to hit anything? Or hit super fast, but was too weak to deal damage? The fear of that got me reconsidering, or at least doubting. So maybe it would be better to spread the points out somewhat.

I should put some into strength because being stronger would matter. But I felt more drawn to speed. Maybe it was from watching old videos of Bruce Lee doing martial arts back in the day, how he focused more on speed because he was so small. Not that I was that small, but he looked badass punching three times before anyone could hit him. Mana I wanted to increase for sure. I wanted to use more than one skill at a time.

Health and endurance were more practical. I was getting hurt a lot. And I really, really didn't want to die. Not anymore. Stamina made sense, but I hadn't been feeling like mine was too low yet, so maybe that didn't need a lot of points for now. For now. I had no idea if I was ever going to level up again after this and gain more points. Was level 42 high?

I entered some stats, agonized over them, changed them six times, and stared some more. Thing is, I wasn't a hardcore gamer. I liked playing games but I'd never given a damn about the stats. I just wanted to have fun. The same thing in life. Maybe I would have been happier pushing myself hard into one area, then becoming really good at something. I didn't. I had been a blah person with a blah life, ok at lots of things but good at nothing. I'd never tried to maximize my life.

Maybe we don't all have to maximize our lives, but at the very least, I could have tried harder.

I was now faced with my options very laid out before me. Obvious. How did I want to grow? To understand that, I needed to know what my goals were. If I wanted to punch through rock walls, I should be stronger. If I wanted to win races, I should be faster. But what were my goals? Just…grow for the sake of growing? To kill more and bigger 'monsters'? Survival? I didn't know.

I didn't know what I wanted out of this new life. I didn't know what I wanted to be. Made me feel like I was back in my first life all over again. Frozen with indecision. I'd had that feeling so many times. When I was getting close to graduating high school, everyone was telling me to choose what I wanted to do with my life, and I had no fucking idea. You're seventeen and have spent your entire life in school, playing games, or watching TV. How are you supposed to have the info needed to map out the next sixty years?

Every few years, as I got older, I would have yet another crisis about where my life was going. I always felt like I was wasting my life, like I was capable of more, but somehow never got around to becoming more. Maybe it was the lack of clear direction or need. The more time passed, the more I felt like a failure for not having a more prestigious job and a title, for not having money, for not having fancy things. It made me feel more and more like a failure because the older I got, the less time I had to finally do something with myself. But rather than push me to finally act, it only held me back even more, especially when I started to feel like I didn't deserve more and that I wasn't capable of it.

Now here I was, with choices yet again. But they were clearer than ever before. I could choose how to forge myself into something. But to do that, I needed a goal. I didn't have one. Did other people struggle this much at life?

I looked away from the ring's screen and stared out at the oasis and dark desert beyond. The mimic was still sitting in one place, probably digesting. They didn't seem like very active creatures. The genie was facing away, aimlessly hovering, silent. Stars reflected off the oasis pool. A few scorpions scavenged the desert sands, but I didn't notice any big ones.

I wished I knew more about the world. Would seeing possible futures make it easy to aim for one? Or would you just get locked up from having too many choices? Were the stats themselves a hint? Strength, speed, health, mana, endurance. Well, strength could easily apply to doing manual labour. Speed too. Or you could craft something very fast, make more of them. Health…maybe higher health had benefits I didn't know. Living longer? Less likely to have health problems? There were skills for that too. Mana? If that was for skills, and you could have skills in anything, that could be useful for throwing lightning bolts or bread-baking skills.

I kicked a heel into the sand. "Dammit!" Making these kinds of decisions was so stressful.

I gave up. I felt guilty about it and figured it was probably a mistake, but I couldn't come up with a life plan. Maybe I was too dumb. Maybe I was a natural failure. I didn't know how to pick a dream or something. So I decided to just start putting points in.

I wanted to be a little stronger. But being faster drew me, so it got more points. I added health so I'd be harder to kill. I added a bunch of mana so I could use my skills. That stat had been pretty low. In the end, I had a very broad stat split. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? I didn't know.

• Strength 20+5=25
• Speed 19+20=39
• Health 37+25=62
• Mana 8+25=33
• Endurance 16+6=22

I entered the numbers and confirmed. There was a moment of sharp pain, and my whole body burned. The feeling dripped away, and I shuddered. I felt different.

My current skills were listed next.

[Resistance: Disease]

[Passive: Second Wind]

[Unbreakable Spear]

[Fists of Fury]

[Chef's Kiss: Fried Arachnid]

**Path of the Scorpion** [Vengeance shall be mine! Lightning Scorpion!]

Skill choices followed.

The first was between upgrading to [Greater Resistance: Disease] and [Curse of the Blue Panda]. For once, I decided not to plunge into the unknown. I didn't really want to go around cursing people. Or be cursed. Plus, I liked the idea of reaching a high level of resistance in something. I really hoped it included resistance to cancer because, after all the time I'd spent in the desert, I probably had skin cancer by now for sure. I'd be less worried about that if an uncle hadn't died from cancer. Lung and prostate. Years of smoking and hated exercise.

The next choice was [Lesser Heal Wounds] and [Drain Life]. This was interesting. Healing wounds was something I really wanted. And needed because I kept getting myself hurt. It seemed like I'd be able to use it anytime too, as long as I had mana. Drain life could be a life-steal healing skill or an offensive one; no way to know. But if it was a healing skill, it would rely on having an enemy to drain, so that was less useful unless I planned to be fighting constantly. I opted for [Lesser Heal Wounds].

When the next choice to come up was [Heal Wounds] and [Drain Life] again, that made me pause. Seeing the same choice twice in a row made my think maybe the system was trying to encourage a certain path. But I chose to upgrade instead.

Next was a choice between [Passive: Lesser Mana Regeneration] and [Passive: Lesser Strength]. While that strength boost might be a great multiplier for my stats, being able to use skills more often seemed wiser. I opted for that one.

I got the option of upgrading to [Passive: Third wind] or choosing [Charm Person]. This was an easy choice for one reason: I hated the idea of controlling people. [Passive: Third wind] it was.

After that, I suddenly lost control of the screen, or it seemed that way. Instead of choices, it just came up with UPGRADE SKILL (RANDOM). [Fists of Fury ] upgraded three straight times: [Fists of Fury x5] > [Fists of Fury x7] > [Fists of Fury x10]. I didn't know how to feel about that. I hadn't even used the skill aside from a couple of practices. In fact, I was getting more use from the spear than punching anything. I worried the system had wasted three upgrades. If only it had upgraded my healing instead. That would have been way more valuable. I cursed. But then the screen changed.

CHOOSE PLATEAU SKILL

Three impressive icons came up, and I knew this was going to be another important decision:

[Passive: Blades of Air] [Hadryuuken] [Create: Throwing Stars x5]

Again, the lack of description was really frustrating. It was super annoying to have to make choices without having more information. Though, even as I thought that, I realized that this was realistic. Often in life, we have to make choices while ignorant and hope for the best. Just like a high school kid trying to choose their future career.

I reasoned that [Passive: Blades of Air] would automatically add some kind of invisible cutting effect to punches or kicks. Maybe not all, maybe I had to punch or kick really hard or think about activating the skill when I used it. Could be a force multiplier or could be stupid. Also, I hated air skills.

[Hadryuuken] sounded really close to a skill I was familiar with. Was it too much to hope that it would be the same? I tingled with excitement and almost chose it before forcing myself to consider the final option. This seemed like the ability to create as many shuriken, or throwing stars, as I wanted, assuming I had the mana. Maybe they were permanent, and maybe they vanished after a time. Could be handy having the ability to gain a weapon almost anytime.

I was growing more certain that the options the system offered would be relatively equal. Maybe not in every situation, but in a vague, overall sense. So whatever each did, if I invested in it and used it, it should be equally helpful. Unless the need for it never came up. Did I really need to be able to create throwing stars whenever? Would choosing that only be giving into boyish urges to do cool shit and throw them at everything?

I chose [Hadryuuken].

UPGRADE PLATEAU SKILL (RANDOM)

As I only had the one, it upgraded to [Fire Hadryuuken]. I really needed to try that out as soon as possible.

CHOOSE PLATEAU SKILL

Another one? Were these coming up after ten levels or something? Maybe the first from 30 and the second from 40? Three more choices appeared:

[Lightfoot step] [Do the Unlikely] [Aura: Mortal Fear]

Well, crap. Three more hard choices? This was not helping my stress level.

[Lightfoot step]. Maybe a kung-fu kinda thing where you can run on tree tops and stuff? [Do the Unlikely], I hoped was the ability to instantly accomplish something…unlikely. But could I apply it to something specific, and were outcomes random? [Aura: Mortal Fear] was likely a way to make nearby people afraid of me, an intimidation skill. It might end up making opponents fight worse or preventing fights altogether. Could scare merchants and make shopping easier if I ever came across a town or city. That aura also seemed really fitting with the scorpion transformation I had and the scary theme the system had going on. I would not be surprised if it wanted me to go that route.

Did I want people to be afraid of me? …no. No, I didn't. As useful as that aura probably could be, I knew enough about myself to realize it wasn't who I wanted to be. [Lightfoot step] seemed practical, but maybe not as much as [Do the Unlikely]. The latter might be a real gambling skill, but it might also become more powerful in certain situations. Not entirely certain, I chose [Do the Unlikely].

Giddy with anticipation, and now with lots of mana, I activated [Do the Unlikely].

 

[TimBaril]

I waited for [Do the Unlikely] to do…anything.

And waited.

I looked around. I didn't sense a skill being activated or mana being drained. "Nothing's happening." Maybe using the skill was situational. I sighed, resigned to experimenting later, and leaned back on my hands.

My palm landed on a rock in the sand. Uncomfortable, I looked down, picked up the rock, and discovered that it was polished smooth like a river stone. "Hmph. I guess wind and sand erode them the same way." Cocking my arm back, I slung the rock at the oasis pool. I felt my mana trigger.

The rock skipped once, twice, thrice…kept going…six more times, until it hit the opposite bank, kicked off another rock, and ricocheted into a palm tree with a dull thunk.

An assassin spider fell out of the tree. It landed on its head, eight furry legs flailed, got itself flipped over, froze for four seconds, then shot away into the desert at a run.

I stared after the departing spider. "Huh. I guess that was…unlikely. Skill works. I think?" I wasn't sure how useful that was going to be. It needed testing. Maybe it improved the chances of me accomplishing something I wanted to do. That could be fantastic. Or maybe it randomized the outcomes of what I was doing. That could be dangerously unpredictable. And what if the skill wasn't always in my favour and just random? Like, normally, climbing a ladder would be easy, and it would be unlikely for me to fall. But then the skill kicks in, and I fall to my death. Definitely needed testing.

Getting to my feet, I flexed and stretched. I felt different. Somehow…tighter and sharper. I looked down at my body and frowned. I didn't look any different. Hadn't gained muscle or gotten taller as far as I could tell. I was still mediocre. Yet I somehow felt more…efficient.

I tried to dash, but this time, aware that I should be faster than expected. Sure enough, I burst forward with insane speed. I still plowed into the edge of the pool and faceplanted. I splashed out of the water, sputtering but impressed.

Next, I took a fighting stance and activated [Fists of Fury]. My arms flew into motion, a blur so fast I hardly realized what was happening. Jab-jab-hook-jab-hook-hook-cross-jab-jab-uppercut. Then I stood there, panting from the extreme effort. I grinned. "Damn! That's cool." I didn't know how strong the punches were yet, but they flew. And I had mana left! Lots of it! Then I recalled my other new skill and stilled.

I had mana. I had to try it. I took a few deep breaths and turned away from the mimic and the genie. Facing the water in a fighting stance, just to be safe, I called out, "[Hadryuuken]!"

Nothing happened. Except for me feeling stupid. Luckily, my body tingled in a way that made me think I knew what I had to do.

I stood in a fighting stance, then leaned back and crouched slightly, cradling my right arm and fist in a cocked punch while the left hand was up to block or grab. Swirls of white and red flames coalesced around my fist. They didn't harm me, but they built up into a blazing ball of energy. I punched forward and shouted, "[Hadryuuken]!"

The red-and-white fireball shot forth over the water, flames trailing like a comet. It was fast, though someone high-level or watching for it might dodge. At about ten paces, the fire dissipated. The range was limited. Still, I was freakin' pumped! I jumped up into the air, shouting, "Yes!" and then fell awkwardly and stumbled to the ground, nearly rolling an ankle. I'd leaped way higher than should have been humanly possible.

Shaken and embarrassed, I slowly picked myself up. My good mood quickly reasserted itself. I was thrilled. It had taken a while to get here, but after all that suffering, coming to a new world and having magic and stuff had finally led to something sweet. With enough magic to try again, I built up another one, my fist looking like it was wrapped up in big ball of the Canadian flag, then fired, "[Hadryuuken]!" Another comet of red-and-white fire whipped across the pool, reflecting in the water and briefly lighting up the oasis as it went. Grinning like an idiot boy with a new toy, and feeling unreasonably proud of myself, I put my hands on my hips and looked around.

The mimic's top had cracked open. A glint inside told me its eyes were watching me.

My smile faded. Taking a deep breath, I marched over to its side and looked at the legendary beast. "All right, you. Listen up. I'm not your enemy. But if you treat me as your food source, I will be. Personally, I'd rather be friends. So here's the deal: you don't eat me and I won't shove one of those fireballs down your throat and out your ass. Deal?"

The mimic's lid slowly closed.

"Good." I turned away.

The long, snake-like tongue slithered out of the mimic's wide mouth like greased lightning and wrapped itself around my waist.

I cried out in surprise as the creature bodily lifted me off the ground and yanked me back. I felt it trying to stuff me into its mouth, but the chest was already filled with the huge scorpion claw, and there wasn't enough room for both of us, the damned thing was just being greedy or vengeful.

The mimic's lid closed, or tried to, and it was lined with teeth. Ouch!

I raged, "You bastard!" I bunched a fist, white and red light filled the disgusting inside of the mimic, then I fired, [Hadryuuken]!"

The mimic squealed and spit.

I went flying through the air, arms and legs pinwheeling, and landed face-first in the sand. Spitting sand out of my mouth, I groaned. I was covered in new wounds and bleeding from where the teeth had cut. I glared at the mimic, who glared back with wisps of smoke curling out from where the lid was cracked open.

Warily watching it, I backed away toward the oasis pool. I washed off the blood and mimic drool. Then I cast [Heal Wounds]. Thankfully, all but the worst sealed up, and the bleeding stopped. I cast again and was at full health. I scolded myself, "And that's why wild animals make terrible pets. I need to get myself a dog."

The mimic blew me a raspberry, long tongue flapping. Even from several meters away, the spray of bloody drool was like the world's most horrifying shower.

I washed again. Then I marched off in a different direction. "Ok, enough of that." Shaking the experience off, I looked around, wondering what to do. I saw the genie.

She had drifted down to the ground. Her eyes seemed to stare at nothing, her slumped posture one of despondency.

Wondering if I was making yet another stupid mistake, I grumbled and marched over, thinking I'd try again. Reaching her side, I opened my mouth just as I realized that I was about to say something that would just start a fight with her all over again. But she looked so sad, so lost. Shutting my trap before I said something idiotic and hurtful, I quietly sat down next to her instead.

We sat in silence for a long while. It was actually both peaceful and nice, not being alone for the first time in weeks. The desert was largely quiet but for the occasional rustle of breeze, a cricket chirping somewhere, and the mimic passing wind in the grossest manner. Other than that, it was quiet and calm.

"Why'd you do it?"

Her voice startled me. I looked over at her, but she was still staring off into nothing. "Do what?"

"Try to free me." Her voice was soft, yet had this strange echo or hollowness within it, not quite human. "Weren't you worried what I'd do if I were free?"

"Sure. But I'm not into slavery. That crap is wrong. No amount of anime ever convinced me there was some benign version of it."

"You freed me knowing you would probably die."

I huffed with dark amusement. "Wouldn't be the first time."

She finally turned to look at me. "What?"

"Got killed a few weeks ago. Then sent to this world."

Her eyes were still distant, but now also skeptical. "Really?"

"Yeah." I told her my story.

She looked me with interest for the first time. "That's…fascinating."

I was, of course, incredibly curious about her, and if she were willing to talk, I had questions. "Are you from this world? Are genies a thing here? I don't think we have them in my world. Only stories."

Her face clouded. She looked away. Her voice turned sour again, "No. We're summoned here and chained. Apparently permanently."

"Sorry. I tried."

"Yes. I… Thank you. I suppose."

"You'd still murder me if it meant you got free though, right?"

"Obviously. You sacks of meat have made my life misery for longer than I want to admit. You deserve a painful end."

I sighed. "Thought so. So, uh, how long were you down there?"

"Where?"

"That guy's treasure room. It was underground."

She hook her head with slight irritation. "I don't know. What year is it?"

"I have no idea."

"Oh. Right."

"Can you tell by the position of the stars?"

"Do you think I just keep star charts and records of their positions on me at all times? Does it look like I keep a telescope in a spare lamp?"

I was pretty sure she was being sarcastic. "No?"

"And do you have any idea of the kind of math that would take? Math!"

"You don't like math?"

"Nobody likes math!"

"Probably mathematicians do." I shrugged. "Well, we could ask someone. But I haven't met anyone yet. Just the one dead guy. These are his clothes. And his spear is over there." I pointed.

She looked at the spear, then frowned. She drifted up off the sand.

Thinking she was curious or had a problem, I rose, walked over to where I'd left the spear, and brought it back over to her.

The genie warily eased away from it.

Her odd reaction made me suddenly anxious. "What?" I glanced down at the spear but didn't see anything weird about it. I wasn't holding it in a threatening manner and wasn't sure it would even do anything to her if I did attack.

The genie couldn't take her eyes off of the weapon, and her expression was…strange. "What is that?"

"A spear?" I looked at it again. Was I missing something?

She studied it, circling me. Wary. She rubbed her chin and hummed.

This was just making me even more anxious. "What?!"

"May I see it?"

"Sure. Here." I held it out for her to take.

She shot backwards through the air.

I rolled my eyes. "Seriously? I wasn't going to stab you, cheeses."

She lifted the spear with magic without touching it. With narrowed eyes, she examined it from afar, waving her hands like maybe she was casting spells. "You've touched this?"

"Yes. Obviously. You just saw me."

"Used it?"

"Of course. Lots. Killing scorpions, bigger scorpions, giant scorpions. Walking stick. Digging out latrines."

She looked at me like I was mad. "You dug latrines…with this?"

I looked at the thing still floating in the air between us, confused but increasingly worried. "Yeah? So? It's just an old spear."

"It's…right." She floated the spear back to me.

I grabbed it back, gave it another once over but still didn't see anything worth her reaction. "Seriously. What?"

She floated sideways, definitely not getting closer to me. "Nothing. You should…hang on to this."

At this point, worry was turning to exasperation. Was she having fun at my expense? "Why? What's so special about it?"

"Just…hang onto it." She became thoughtful. "Maybe you'll be one of my more interesting masters."

"Ok, that's enough of being cryptic. What's with this thing? It just looks like an ordinary spear."

"Yes. Isn't that interesting?"

"No! Tell me what's so special."

Her eyes met mine. "Are you wishing for that?"

I rolled my eyes again. "Ugh. Seriously? No. I'm not making wishes. I told you, I won't be your master."

"Then no. I won't say."

"Come on!"

"No."

"Please."

"Nope."

"Pretty please?"

"No."

"If you can't kill me, is this how you're going to torture me instead?"

For the first time in our conversation, her lips curled into a hint of a smile. "Oh, Master, why would you think that?"

I held up a hand, palm facing her. "Ok, stop right there, hold up, nuh uh, no way."

"What?"

"None of that master crap. You saying it feels like rusty nails under my skin."

"Sure it does."

"No, really. Look, I told you, I think slavery is abhorrent. I tried to free you. I don't want to play master and slave — ever. Can't we, I don't know, just be friends or something?"

She laughed. "Friends. With the meat sack who owns my chains?"

"I didn't create your chains. Didn't put them on you. Don't want them on you. I'm sorry for what you've been through, but it is not my fault. Look, if you'd rather just go back to your lamp for eternity, that's fine. Go for it. I don't care. Whatever makes you happy. You want me to bury you in the sand or something? Put you back in the scorpion cave?"

Her eyes turned cruel. "Is that a threat?"

I threw my arms up, definitely exasperated with her now. "No! I'm trying to give you freedom. If you'd rather hang out alone in a tiny lamp or dark cave for eternity rather than spend time with me or wander around the desert alone, that's your choice. I'm not forcing you to hang out with me or to do anything else. And if it's just me you find so objectionable, let's go find a city or something. You can pick out your next lamp owner and be with them instead if you're so intent on having a master abuse you."

She crossed her arms over her chest, voice souring, "I've tried. The lamp chooses, not me."

"Oh hell. Please don't tell me I'm some kind of chosen one or something, destined to save the world against a demon lord."

She laughed her head off, literally. It rolled backward off her neck and then bounced on the sand like a basketball before looking up at me from the ground. "No. You're no chosen hero. But the lamp decided you were worthy or wanted you for some reason I don't know. So now it's yours until the wishes are finished."

"How many?"

"Three."

"What happens after 3?"

She smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know?" Her head floated back up to her neck and reattached itself.

"Grr! It's like pulling teeth talking to you!"

She became all sweet and enthusiastic, "Would you like me to pull out all your teeth? I'll do it. You don't even have to wish for it. Free of charge." She fluttered her long, dark eyelashes at me.

"You're going to try to torture or murder me any chance you get, aren't you?"

"It's my one joy in existence. You have to take your moments when you get them. Appreciate the small things in life. Like tricking a man into sticking his head into a lion's mouth. Or fooling a woman into thinking painting herself entirely in gold paint would make her the most beautiful thing in the realm."

"The lion chomped the man's head off, right?"

She licked her lips. "Absolutely."

"And the woman suffocated because her skin couldn't breathe?"

She appraised me with raised brows. "Felon's puzzle, I didn't think you were that smart. At all! You might turn out to be a minor challenge."

I sighed. "How many masters have you killed?"

"Oh, I can't kill owners of the lamp. Can't even hurt them. My bonds prevent it."

"Uh-huh. Maybe not directly. But indirectly?"

She grinned. "So many. Not enough."

"Didn't work so well on the last one, huh?"

She became annoyed. "Necromancer. Had plans to turn himself into a lich. I really should have seen that coming. He became incredibly powerful and decided he didn't need to use the last wish. Took pleasure in telling me I'd spend the rest of eternity in that lamp and never see daylight again. Wretch. Ghoul. Twisted piece of gargoyle excrement!" She vibrated with renewed rage.

"Ok, ok. Enough about that guy. And can't we call a truce or something? I mean, again, I'm not even from this world, so I really and truly had nothing at all to do with you being trapped here against your will."

The genie seemed to take a slow breath to recentre herself, though I doubt she needed to breathe, and it was only a performance or some kind of physical expression of her emotions. She cocked an eyebrow at me. "Not from this world, hmm?"

"Yes!" I spun the spear, making her jerk away from me in self-defence, planted it point down in the sand, and looked around the oasis. "It was…I think…over there? No. There!" I strode over to the place I was pretty sure I'd first appeared. I studied the ground in the dark. "I think it was around here somewhere. There was…yes!" My foot disturbed something mostly buried under the sand. "There was some garbage here. I'd totally forgotten that."

The genie lazily drifted in my direction.

I squatted down and dug the junk up. There were some burlap scraps. Maybe a bag had half disintegrated? A few bones, probably from a small animal. And a book! Shocked, I pulled it out of the hole I'd dug and brushed off the tan cover. It was about the size of a large paperback but thin. There was a palm tree on the front, and the title, not in English but somehow understandable to me, read:

How to Survive in the Desert

I stared at it. And stared. Then exclaimed, "Are you effing kidding me?!?!" For weeks, I'd struggled, constantly on the verge of death, and there was a frickin' guide sitting there the whole damn time? Anger and frustration bubbled and boiled within me until I couldn't contain them anymore. Screaming with hate for whoever had sent or pulled me to this world, I smashed the book into the sand again and again. Then I punched it over and over until I ran out of strength. It did very little damage to the book.

The genie idly floated over. She looked unimpressed. "You have something against books? I may have to lower my opinion of you even further. Which, at this point, I'd thought would be impossible. Apparently not."

The rage drained out of me. I felt incredibly stupid. All this time, help had been right here. I'd literally stumbled on it on my first day. With growing self-loathing, I picked the volume back open and cracked the front cover.

Someone had scrawled inside the front cover and on the first page:



I don't know what's going on or why I'm here. Who left this book? Why did I have to die once, only to be brought here to die again? Why is life so cruel?

James, I miss you. I'm sorry I was taken from you. I love you. I will always love you.

Cerise

 

[TimBaril]

FLASHBACK



Late-morning sunlight playfully bounced around the tiny apartment kitchen, brightening the space and feeding the many decoratively potted plants and tilandsia growing on shelves and in corners. One red, heart-shaped mug sat on the counter next to the coffee machine while the other was in Cerise's hand as she sat at the two-person table. The room wasn't big enough for a larger table, but that was fine because Cerise could be efficient when she needed to be. She'd been up early, silently cleaned a bit while James slept in after working the evening shift, and had settled into her chair for a light breakfast of fruit and chilled oatmeal while reading.

When her cell phone buzzed, she put down her novel and picked up her cell from the table. Seeing Pére on the screen made her sigh. Her good mood took a hit. Her father had a place in her life, but it wasn't always a comfortable one. They'd never been close; he just had never been that kind of father. She'd dutifully endured him as an adult, but all her own love and affection were shared with her quiet mother. Thankfully, her father usually had little time for her, and that suited Cerise just fine. She'd felt even freer once she'd gotten married and had hoped her father would take even less interest in her life.However, he just couldn't seem to help insinuating himself all-too-often.

"Bonjour, Pére." At his insistence, she had addressed him formally since she was old enough to speak.

He was not the type to waste time on greetings or chitchat. "Cerise. You're awake, good."

Cerise rolled her eyes. It was nearly ten-thirty; of course, she was up.

"Your mother and I have a thing next weekend at the Purple Olive. Semi-formal." He always had a thing, had always been very keen on networking because of his business, and he almost always dragged Cerise's mother along with him, even though she hated. Sometimes he tried to drag Cerise along as well. "I was speaking with some friends who will be there," meaning business clients. "I was telling them about you, and they would love to meet you."

Cerise bit back the automatic no she really wanted to give him. But she couldn't keep all of the exasperation out of her voice when she replied, "Why would they want to meet me? I'm not famous. I have nothing to do with your business."

"Well, it must have been because of how much I talked about you. You now how proud of my daughter I am_"

"Pére, were you showing clients pictures of me again?"

He paused just long enough to prove he was guilty of just that. It wasn't the first time.

Cerise shook her head, unable to believe his gall. "I am married. Even if I wasn't, I have told you before that I do not want or need your help to meet people."

"It's about meeting the right people—"

"And again — I'm married!"

Her father's patience, never in significant supply, ran out. "He is just a cook. He has no ambition, no drive. He doesn't even want to be a head cook or a proper chef. If the culinary arts were his passion, but he wanted to work in a five-star restaurant, or even better, to open his own and make it a five-star—"

"Pére, it's his life. How he wants to live it is up to him. People like his food! I like it! And what does it matter if he doesn't work at a fancy, expensive restaurant? Most people aren't rich, and they need to eat too."

"Cerise, you're still young enough to find someone else—"

She gasped, appalled. "I don't want anyone else! How can you even suggest that?" She silently scoffed. Why was her father like this?

He bulldozed ahead, like he always did. "Divorce is nothing in this day and age. I will pay for the lawyer. James will sign whatever papers we give him; you don't have to worry about that. The boy is a pushover, exactly why he is not good enough for my daughter."

Cerise painfully laughed to herself, though she probably couldn't keep the exasperated amusement out of her voice. He really didn't understand her at all. "Pére, I don't care about money or a big house or how much that impresses people I don't know or care about. I just want to be truly loved by a good person. I don't want to be in a loveless marriage like Maman."

"I love your mother!"

She let out a sad sigh. As wrong as he could be sometimes, he was her father, and she didn't hate him. But her tone was both resigned and bittersweet as she replied, "No, you don't. You've never loved her. You don't love any of us, not really. We're just…possessions. Extensions of you that you try to control as part of your image. The only person you truly care about is yourself. It's always been that way. You don't think I've seen how sad Maman's been my whole life? Or how scared she gets when I've told her to leave you?"

His voice became quieter, calmer, and she knew it was now loaded with danger, "You told her what?"

In a rare moment, Cerise chose to be brave and didn't back down in fear like she usually did with him. "I told her to leave you. I think the first time was maybe early junior high — no. I think I asked her about it way before that, in elementary school. Like, Maman, why don't you leave him and be happy? Or something like that. But I definitely remember telling her to leave you when I got older, multiple times."

There was an extended silence, then a tight, angry, "Why would you do that to me?"

"It wasn't to you. It was for her. You never loved her. But Maman's a wonderful person. She deserves to be loved. The way James loves me. You don't get why I'm with him because you have no concept of real love. You don't know how much it means to me when he looks at me the way he does. He feels lucky to be with me, and so I feel lucky to be with him. He's everything you never were to Maman. To me."

"I am your father. I raised you. I paid for your schooling, your hobbies, your clothes, your food. I paid for everything. You lived under my roof. And this is how you treat me? You try to undermine my marriage to my wife? Attack me?"

Cerise knew her father well. If she allowed him to continue, he would go on a rant, scolding and berating her for an hour or more until he ran out of steam. She was tired of enduring those one-sided conversations, and as an adult, she no longer needed to. She cut him off, though politely, "Pére, I'm not attacking you. You're not listening. I was only being there for Maman, not trying to hurt you. Please, let's just drop this. I don't want to fight."

Yet again, she'd stood up to him, proved that she wasn't going to be under his power, and it set him off even more. He shouted, "No. We will talk about it!"

"Please—"

He talked right over her, blaring into the phone, and she was very glad that she wasn't in the same room with him. She wasn't a child anymore, living under his roof, forced to listen and suffer him. She was free. So she simply pulled the phone away from her ear and disconnected.

For a moment, she briefly imagined the shock on his face when he realized she'd hung up on him. Would he notice right away, or shout at her for fifteen minutes first? If he did continue his rant without realizing she was gone, the embarrassment…oh, he'd probably completely lose it. He hated being embarrassed or made to look foolish in any way.

For a few minutes, she sat there, heart racing, adrenaline filling her veins, exhilarated. She almost couldn't believe her audacity at standing up to him. She was both scared and thrilled, afraid and feeling alive. She eventually felt relieved and that she had taken an important step.

Then she thought of her mother and worried that her father would take his anger out on her. Her father was unpredictable and had a temper. Living with him, there was always this…undercurrent of violence lurking beneath his surface. He very very rarely physically lashed out, and if he did, it was elsewhere, as far as she knew, breaking objects and not people, like punching a hole in the wall or slamming a window so hard it shattered, but always that worry was there that maybe he'd snap and hit you.

She quickly dialed her mother to warn her and beg her to stay out of the house for a while until he calmed down. "Mams? Listen, I have to tell you something important, yes? Please don't freak out."

Of course, her mother freaked out, but Cerise did her best to soothe her and begged her mother to come stay with her, though of course she refused, scared of angering her husband. By the end, Cerise felt guilty for selfishly standing up to her father, thereby putting her mother at risk. She almost picked up the phone to call her father and throw herself on his mercy. She'd take the brunt of his anger, so it didn't land on her beloved mother.

But even as she twisted the phone in her hand, agonizing over the idea of forcing herself through her father's tirade, the image of him telling her how awful she was for doing this to him was too much. She grasped onto the idea that maybe he wouldn't be angry at her mother after all. There was a chance. Perhaps her mother would escape unscathed. Then she realized she was being selfish again and called her father. She put the phone to her ear.

The call refused to connect. He'd blocked her. She swore and put the phone down. Maybe it was a good sign. Maybe his anger would stay directed solely at Cerise and not her mother. She texted her mother about the blocking to further warn her. Then she put the phone down once more. Hopefully, nothing too bad would happen.

She silently cursed her father. Children and spouses shouldn't have to live in fear like this. She wished her mother would just leave him. If only her mother hadn't undergone so many years of awful conditioning under such a domineering husband. If only she had someone to help her and give her courage, the way James had helped Cerise feel stronger and able to stand on her own. Maybe she should start introducing her mother to nice, older men. Her dark mood faded a little, and she giggled at the thought of her mams suddenly being flirted with by cute strangers. She wouldn't know what to do with herself!

She heard the bedroom door open, and James padded into the room, hair a mess, eyes still sleepy. She smiled at the sight of him.

He blinked and then focused on her. His lips twisted into a smile in return. "Hey." Almost immediately, the smile vanished, replaced with concern. "You ok?"

She chuckled. How could he even tell she'd been upset? Feeling the urge to be close to him, she slipped out of the chair, crossed the kitchen floor in only two strides, and then slipped her arms around him, snuggling into his chest. "I'm fine."

"Really?" He hugged her close.

"Just my father being himself. It's fine. Better now that you're up."

"Not for long. Lunch shift." He groaned. His arms tightened around her.

She tilted her head up and gave him a quick kiss on the corner of the mouth. Before he could respond, she pulled back. "Hungry? I made you pancakes…"

His smile returned in full force. "You did?" He glanced at the table and saw her little bowl of blueberries and oatmeal. He expression turned to confusion. "What about you?"

"I made them for you."

"But — you didn't have to do that!" Looking worried, he moved further into the kitchen. "I could have made something for myself. Or had the same as you."

She laughed at his reaction. "Silly. I did it because I love you. And I know you love pancakes." She winked at him. "These ones are peanut butter…"

He froze. He looked at the pile of pancakes he could now see next to the stove. "Peanut butter?"

She laughed again. Gently pushing him toward a chair, she told him, "Sit. Eat."

"Wait. I have to brush my teeth first." He raced off.

Cerise took the stack of pancakes off the counter and brought them to the table, along with a plate and cutlery for him. She couldn't keep the smile from her face, and felt all warm and gooey inside, her earlier anxiety almost entirely forgotten.

He returned as excited as a little boy on Christmas morning and took his seat, eyes devouring the pancakes before him.

Cerise placed a bottle of dark maple syrup next to his plate, then eased herself between James and the table, taking a seat on his lap.

He barked a soft laugh. "Uh…are we eating together?"

She wrapped an arm around his torso. "I'll just watch. Or maybe I'll feed you?"

He held onto her with one arm, leaving only one to pull a pancake onto his plate and cover it in syrup. He fought to cut with only his fork and get a piece into his mouth, the two of them giggling. About halfway through chewing, he began looking at her a little differently.

She pretended to be all innocent as she squirmed in his lap.

"Dangerous woman."

"You gonna do something about that?"

"What if I'm late for work?"

"Mmm, better work fast then, huh?"

He laughed. Then he put the fork down, and though his face was happy, and his excitement tangible, he spoke a little more seriously, "Do you think maybe it's time to start thinking about…" He placed a palm on her belly.

Cerise felt herself heat up. Her eyes met his, and his didn't flinch. She tried to hold back her eagerness. "Is this a serious conversation or just foreplay?"

"Mmm, serious?"

"James…"

He pulled his hand from her belly and took her hand instead. "Serious. I mean, what's all that practice been for if we don't put it to good use?"

Delighted, she threw her head back and laughed. When she focused on him again, feeling tingly all over, she looked for, but didn't see, even a hint of doubt. She placed her palm against his cheek. "If we do this, there's no going back."

He solemnly nodded. "You and me forever. Always was. Always will be."

She kissed him then. He carried her to the bedroom in his arms. They did indeed put all that practice to good, though hurried and sweaty use. He did have to work, after all.

Neither of them knew it, but once was enough. Cerise lay in bed, aglow in the aftermath and thoughts of the future, while James showered and rushed out the door. At some point, she fell into a nap.

The doorbell woke her. Clawing her way out of sleep she wasn't finished with yet, she felt grumpy but swiftly threw on shorts and a tee, then a robe over them before running to the door.

Cerise opened it, expecting a salesperson or delivery of some kind, but it wasn't. She frowned, suddenly uncomfortable and somewhat wary. "What are you doing here?"

 

[TimBaril]

For I don't know how long, my brain shut down. I could only stare at the page, the bloody ink. The message from my dead wife. Even in the dim starlight, I recognized her handwriting from grocery lists and birthday cards.

She wasn't dead. She was alive in this world. That should have been impossible. She must have been pulled here after dying, just like me. My hands trembled so badly that the book shook. My vision grew blurry, and my eyes burned. Tears fell down my cheeks.

"Cerise…" I looked up at the genie without really seeing her, seeing only my departed wife instead. "She's alive!" At least, she had been alive when she'd written this. This message written in blood. My tears quickly cut off, and joy twisted into panic. I choked up, hardly able to speak, "She's alive. She has to be!"

I carelessly let the book fall to the side and dropped to my knees. "Clues. There has to be more!" What if there were a map? A trinket that pointed to a destination beyond the oasis? A way to track her somehow? Another message? Madly, I dug into the sand with both hands like a burrowing dog. With my new stats, I carved through golden grains like a machine, sending a cloud of debris flying behind me. I dearly wanted something to point me in the direction she had gone, but as I dug, thinking of the bloody words, I felt rising dread at finding her beneath the desert, or maybe just her bones.

The genie curiously drifted over, turning her hand into a shield while she passed through the sand stream. On the other side of it, she sank low and scooped the book up, flipping it open again. She read the message aloud, then said, "Hmm. I take it you're James, and your wife's name is Cerise. Which is why you're in a blind panic?"

Finding nothing where the book had been buried, I expanded the search.

Glasses appeared on her face, and her long, free-flowing locks whipped up into a bun with just a couple of stray tresses hanging free, looking like an overworked librarian. She inspected the book with diligent care. "This is not a natural book. It was created. Curious."

I barely spared enough attention to hear her words as I dug. I found more scraps of burlap. Scrabbling around on my knees, I searched even wider. There had to be something. Anything. What had happened to Cerise after she'd come here? How long had she been here? Why had she written in blood? "Dammit, don't do this." Finding nothing, I sat back, running my sandy hands through my hair, heedless of the grit, despairing and staring at the wide, shallow hole I'd dug. It was empty. I looked over at the book in the genie's hands. I jumped up and grabbed for it.

But she easily twirled out of the way. "I'm not finished."

I leaped, missing again, and shouted, "Give it to me! Maybe there's another message."

"Mmm…nope."

"You didn't even check!"

"I'm busy." She squinted and poked at the book cover. Very scientifically.

Anger twisted my features. "Give it back!" I lunged and came up with air.

"No. It's not yours. I just found it lying there. Mine now." She continued to study the book's makeup while effortlessly evading every attempt I made to take it away. She tortured me at eye level for a while before snickering and sailing up and out of reach.

I growled and leaped with magically boosted strength and speed. My fingers snagged the bottom of the swirling, cloudy tail that existed in place of legs, then yanked down.

She yelped in total surprise, the book flying from her hand as she came back down to Earth. Well, not Earth, apparently. Back down to the earth, I guess it was now. She looked at me, both aghast and scornful. "How dare you violate me that way!"

Seeing only the book sailing away in the night, I ran for it, hands out like a wide receiver about to catch a Hail Mary pass. I was sprinting through sand, not expecting to trip on anything in the empty desert, which should have been safe enough even in the dark of night. Yet my forward foot came down on nothing, and I faceplanted, hard, into a wide but shallow hole. A shard of sand-turned-glass jutted up a hair's breadth from my cheek. She'd tried to kill me. Again!

The genie swooped in and skillfully caught the book. "Now, where was I—Ack!" She went wide-eyed as I yanked her down to the ground a second time. She grunted as the book was snatched from her hand.

I immediately let go of her and turned away, stalking further out into the desert. Wanting to see the book better in the dim light, I cast, "[Vengeance shall be mine! Lightning Scorpion!]" Haphazardly, I flipped through the pages, looking for more writing, notes, any hint of Cerise. I was about halfway through the book when the genie's fingers snapped nearby, and a ball of light appeared right in front of me like a second sun. It stung my scorpion-sense eyes. I cried out and flung an arm across my face in defence. The book was stolen away.

The light went out, and the genie whooshed away with her ill-gotten gain. "Not one but two otherworlders brought here following their deaths. And a book about how to survive in the desert just waiting for them. Ooo, it sounds like a mystery."

I aimlessly wandered, unable to see anything but vivid bright dots through watery eyes. A headache split my brain like a spike had been driven into it. But I kept moving toward that evil witch's voice, anxiously willing my vision to return. The instant I was able to make out her glowing blue form, I rushed at her.

The genie cruelly scoffed. "Too bad I don't give a dead flea's flightless corpse about your mystery." She reached back, back, impossibly far back with her arm and seemed prepared to throw the book so hard it would probably be launched into space.

I grabbed the book with both hands and took it away. "Stop being such a bitch!"

Caught by surprise, she spun, her arm retracted back to normal, and she snarled. "You want me to stop? Why don't you wish for it, Master!"

"Not this crap again. I told you, I'm not like that. Now, back off. This is important!"

She didn't answer, just darted forward in the air, her arms outstretched and long, pointed nails ready to claw my eyes out.

But I wasn't a normal human anymore. I was faster. I twisted, dodged, and evaded her every attempt to get at the book. My newfound speed surprised even me. That, combined with the look of frustration on her otherwise beautiful face, caused me to smirk.

Her eyes widened at that. She pulled up and stopped. Eyes boring holes into my own, she waved a hand like she was backhanding me. Because of her bonds, she couldn't touch me, though, and her nails harmlessly whisked past my nose.

I snarked, "Ha. Can't touch this. Remember?" I backed up some more. Then I wised up and looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, there was a great big hole in the desert, one filled with glass spikes. I threw her a look. I'm not falling for that again. I edged around the depression, giving it a wide berth because the edges were made of sand and already collapsing. I glanced back at my tormentor.

One moment, she was several paces away. The next, my entire vision was filled with a snarling, furious, blue monstrous face with fangs and putrid breath.

"Ah!" I changed course and backpedaled away from the terrifying form.

She didn't follow up on the scare. Her face returned to normal. Blank. She floated there, watching.

I was confused, not least because of her unpredictable emotions. She was always flashing from one extreme to another in an instant. It may not be 'nice' to refer to someone as crazy, but if that wasn't a huge red flag…

A growing whistling reached my ears. I frowned in confusion, stopped just to be safe because I didn't want to accidentally trip into another one of her traps, and then looked around in all directions. The desert was empty. But the whistling was increasing.

The genie raised a hand, palm facing me. She waved bye-bye with her fingers.

Alarmed, I finally clued in. I looked straight up.

All that sand she removed to create the hole was now a massive sphere a hundred meters straight above me and falling fast. It was a double trap! She'd tried to trick me into falling into the hole, then, when I fled the wrong direction, she'd maneuvered me into place by startling me.

"Fuck!" I threw everything I had into every shred of speed I could muster. Moving through sand was a slog, and I gritted my teeth in frustration as each step sank into the soft granules. Book clenched to my chest, I ran faster than I ever had before.

The ball slammed into the ground with millions of kilograms of force. The shockwave threw me off my feet, and sand blasted me through the air. Like a tumbleweed pushed by a tornado, I was tossed and turned so I had no idea which way was up. Until I crashed into the grass around the oasis and was flung against a palm tree so hard it nearly snapped my spine like a twig. I still felt a crack and lots of pain. Reflexively, I cast [Heal Wounds] with a thought, and thank goodness I did, because I'm pretty sure it saved me from paralysis. I fell to the ground with a grunt, then lifted my head.

The genie was barreling at me, a blue comet of death in the black night.

"That's it. You asked for it." I groaned, stuffed the book into my robes and wedged it in place behind my back, then tied the sash tighter around my waist, all the while not taking my eyes off of her. I rolled my shoulders and bunched my fists. "Let's do this."

The genie screamed as she came for me, fueled by untold years of pent-up rage. She would be on me in three…two…one—

At the last moment, I activated [Fists of Fury]. My body surged forward, and I threw the wildest roundhouse hook right in her furious face, stopping the genie's motion in one punch. I could actually see her face change shape from the power and speed. Then came another with my left. Then jab-jab-uppercut-jab-then four rapid punches like I was using her nose as a speed bag. Each blow contorted her fine features into mush and pushed her backward. Then the skill ended, and I fell into fighter stance again, breathing hard.

She was stunned for a few seconds, then shook her head like a dog. Her pretty face returned to normal. She looked at me in surprise. Then her frown returned. "I. Hate. That. Cursed. Lamp!!" She reached over and tore an entire palm tree out of the ground. She rammed the leafy end at me.

She couldn't cause direct damage like that, so at first, I almost laughed the attack off. All it had done was surround me with palm leaves. It barely tickled. There weren't even any assassin spiders left. Well, there were no adults left.

Dozens of frightened babies the size of tarantulas scurried out of every nook and crevice in the treetop, attacking me in panic.

"Gah!" I tried to run but the damned genie just followed, keeping the palm leaves all around me as the babies jumped on my head and face and crawled into my robes, biting ever pieces of flesh they could get their little fangs on. And they hurt! I slapped at them, activating [Fists of Fury] again to rapidly deal with them. Then I recalled my fire skill. I bunched my right hand into a fist, pulled it back, held it for a moment as re-and-white fire built, then punched the infested treetop.

The treetop exploded in flames. All around me.

Sure, the little spiders went up like kindling, snap, crackle, and popping in the sudden heat. But I was now surrounded by fire. And unlike the magic fire of the skill, the tree was burning with real fire, and that did hurt me.

The genie laughed so hard at my self-inflicted plight that she forgot to keep the flames on me, allowing me to escape. "What a half-wit!" She laughed more. "This is great. I don't have to do anything. You'll just end up killing yourself!" She laughed so hard, the giant torch in her hand waved back and forth.

I ran, leaped high into the air, and came down with a HUGE superhero punch to the side of her head.

The genie lost her grip on the tree, and this time she was the one to go tumbling. The tree fell to the ground, still on fire.

Worried the fire would spread around the fragile oasis, I ran over and grabbed the trunk. Surprised by my new strength, I hauled the tree out of the oasis and into the desert, where the fire would not hurt the sand.

The genie sneered at me. "Wow, I bet you think you're so strong and powerful. I can't even hit back because the lamp prevents it. I'll bet you get off hitting women who can't hit back, don't you?"

I pointed at her. "Don't even. No way. You tried to kill me. Multiple times!"

She shouted, "Death is all you evil meat brains deserve! Shame it hasn't taken yet. But it will." She wiggled her fingers, and sword blades of glass grew out of the desert. Each was twice as tall as I was.

"I have never met anyone so in need of a therapist in my life."

"Ever see one of those street performers who juggles and swallows swords?" She poofed into the shape of a lanky man with a turban and emaciated belly. The glass swords rose up into the air, and she juggled two, four, twelve of them, all without looking. She only had eyes for me, and they gleamed. A cruel smile twisted her lips. "Here. You try." She closed her eyes and threw all the swords up into the air, seemingly at random.

Would the magic protect me, or would a sword capable of cleaving through a horse split me in two because she honestly hadn't aimed at me? I couldn't chance it. Tense and trying not to panic, I danced back and forth, trying to dodge the deadly objects. Whether it was me or the magic or both, I somehow made it through unscathed, though it was a close call.

Something caught the corner of my eye. Feeling [Passive: Second Wind] kick in and restore my energy, I marched toward it. "That's how you want to play? With weapons? Then I will too." I picked the spear up off the ground, got a good grip on it with both hands, and turned to face her.

All cruelty and amusement were wiped from her face in an instant. In fact, the way her eyes tensed, she almost looked…worried.

 

[TimBaril]

My eyes stung, and I felt a pair of hot tears streak down my face. My emotions were a mess. Trying to fight them back, I growled at her, "I love her. I need to find her. Please, either help or let me be."

Like a cat suddenly pretending it's bored, the genie's face turned blank again. She looked away, dramatically sighed, and rolled her eyes in an inhuman way. "Oh, whatever. Keep the book, dung face. Do whatever you want. After all, what insights could an immortal, ageless genie such as myself possibly have to offer?" Drifting away, she conjured a mirror and made like she was checking her hair, as if she didn't have complete control over her form at all times.

She might have had a point, but I didn't trust her. More, I was still freaking out over the fact that Cerise could be alive and that I might find her. I planted the spear in the ground, pulled out the book, and went through the pages with the intensity of a drowning man gasping for air. I flipped through the pages, back and forth, eyes scanning, looking for more messages from her, but there was nothing, only a single smear of blood on one page, nothing with meaning.

I closed the book and stood in silence, eyes closed. Despair coursed through me like a sandstorm, trying to scour me clean of hope. But my hope was strong. I opened my eyes and tried to see the oasis in a new light. Had I missed other signs of her presence here? If she had left, which way could she have gone?

I set out to investigate, knowing it would be difficult to see any signs in the dark of night, but I knew I'd be unable to sleep until daylight. I was too ramped up. I swung by the genie and held the book out for her. "Here."

She only deigned to twitch a single eye in my direction. I gotta say, she might have been gorgeous in an unreal, goddess-like way, but moving only one eye or spinning her head all the way around, she could be a little creepy. That monster face she'd made earlier felt permanently etched into my soul. She might have a half-human form, but she wasn't really human, and probably didn't think or feel the same way a human would. Still, she was a person, and a small part of me still felt bad for her.

I sighed. "Just take it."

She huffed, but daintily plucked the book from my hands with finger and thumb. Ignoring me, she resumed her own perusal.

Shaking my head, I began carefully going over every inch of the oasis for clues.

Some time later, the genie floated my way. She watched as I peered at the trunk of a palm tree, trying to see if anything had been scratched into it or if there was an arrow of some kind. If Cerise had left the oasis, she might have left a clue as to what direction she'd gone. The genie rolled onto her back and magically twirled the book in the air above her. "Where did you say that spear came from again?"

I answered without pausing my investigation, "A lizard person. Rotting in the water." I yawned hard and blinked a few times. I was drained from the emotional turmoil and fighting, and fading fast.

"Hmm. Did you know that lizard people don't have fingerprints like you humans do? Their fingertips are smooth. Kind of like this." She twitched a finger, and the book in the air opened to the page with a bloody smear on it.

I looked over my shoulder at it. My attention caught, I turned and stepped over, trying to get a closer look. With my scorpion vision, I could see enough. "So a lizard person touched that book. Either getting his own blood on it, or Cerise's."

"Perhaps."

My mind tried to reason it out, and I rambled aloud as I thought, "And there was a dead lizard person in the pool." I looked down at the clothing I wore. "He was dressed like someone living in the desert. Maybe like the nomads in my world. This is an oasis, which probably means it's an important spot. The lizard folk probably come through here fairly regularly. Maybe they stopped here, found Cerise, and took her away. Maybe she fought and got hurt."

"Perhaps."

"But which way did they go?"

The genie didn't look at me, continuing to stare at the book as she asked, "Have you searched the area beyond the oasis?"

"…no."

She gave me a look. "Why not?"

"I…didn't want to die out in the desert."

"At your level, you might survive." She eyed me up and down, then shrugged. "Maybe."

"You've been here for a long time. How big is the desert? What's around?"

She didn't answer for a long time. "I don't know. Time doesn't pass the same for me as for mortals like you. A hundred years on this planet can feel like the blink of an eye. Especially when you're locked in that blasted lamp."

"So you haven't been out here in a hundred years?"

She finally looked away from the book. Her eyes swept over the dark horizon. Did she need light to see the way humans did? She nodded in the direction of the scorpion cave. "Malagar's stronghold was over there. This oasis was part of the grounds." She pointed a finger, and an illusion appeared, making it look as if an Arabian castle stood in the distance. It had shiny black walls and crimson minarets, onion-like domes, atop towers and the main keep. Endless gardens spread out around it, black marble paths lined with towering thirty or forty-meter palms lining the main road, while multiple grottos were surrounded with shorter and denser shrubbery.

My brows rose. "That's both beautiful and evil-looking."

"Malagar was an even uglier soul than most of you meat sacks. A blood sorcerer. The entire desert was his domain. Yet there isn't a trace of his palace. It's been completely razed and buried by the sands of time."

"He did look like he'd been asleep or whatever for an awfully long time down there. Guess someone wrecking his place wasn't enough to get him off that throne." I watched as she allowed the illusion to break up into sparkles and fade. "So you've been in the lamp for probably hundreds, maybe thousands of years."

"I assume so." Her nostrils flared. But she seemed to be controlling her anger for the moment. She looked out at the desert. "There was a sleepy fishing village over that way called Agarahbad." She looked in the opposite direction. "And Malagar's capital was over that way, two days' travel. He lived there for a few human lifetimes but eventually turned rule of it over to his minions so he could focus on his magical studies."

"So he could turn into a lich?"

"When he failed to turn himself into a genie, yes."

I laughed at the absurdity. "He wanted to become a genie? Really?"

"Without — without these cursed chains, even deities are wary of us. And while deities are generally attached to their sphere of influence, often a single planet, genies are free to travel the cosmos." Her eyes lifted to the stars. Her expression ached with longing. "An endless vastness, a billion worlds. The company of my own people."

I glanced up at the clear array of diamonds above. I'd been there a while, but the starry sky never ceased to amaze and humble. It really was a tragic shame that we saw it so rarely back on Earth. "I'm sorry. It must be very lonely being trapped here. I guess it's been a long time since you've seen any of your kind, huh?"

Her eyes crinkled in fresh rage. "If only. It wasn't enough for the first monster to trap one of my people here. Knowledge spread, and others were captured as well. This is a world in love with slavery. It wasn't enough to do it to each other. Wizards and sorcerers then started summoning demons and creatures from other realms. Enslaving a genie was their crowning achievement, a crime of galactic magnitude that made every owner as close to a god as they could get."

"Why three wishes though? I mean, why not make genies like other slaves and use their power all the time?"

She gave a dismissive shrug. "Trapping us at all should have been impossible for such weak and primitive creatures. Maybe that was the best they could do. Or maybe one of the local deities intervened for a laugh." She snorted. "It's unlikely any pathetic mortal came up with a way to trap genies on their own. It wouldn't surprise me if a conspiracy of those bloated egos were involved in imprisoning us. Never underestimate the pettiness and jealousy of gods. Like toddlers with unlimited power." She turned and spat with disgust.

I shook my head. Genies, magic, gods. The universe had things I'd only dreamed of until now. Things on a level that was too big for me to even begin to understand. Especially with my body crashing. I yawned hard again. Very reluctantly, I knew I needed to call off the search for clues and sleep.

I eyed the genie. "If I try to sleep, are you gonna murder me while I'm defenseless?"

She turned to face me, then slowly spread her hands and made an elaborate shrug.

I rolled my eyes. "Great." I eyed the mimic as well. It hadn't moved, but there was no trusting that one either. I retrieved my spear, dug a shallow depression in the sand near the water, covered myself with palm leaves, and allowed myself to fall asleep, which happened almost instantly.

If anyone was going to kill me in my sleep, there wasn't much I was going to be able to do about it. So why worry?

Hot sunlight woke me only a few short hours later. I cracked my eyes open at the glare. There was no sleeping in when you lived in the desert. But hey, I was still breathing. Gotta look on the bright side, right?

I got up, scrounged some food and water, and was soon ready for the day. Mimic had buried itself in the sand and somehow pulled an uprooted palm over itself for shade. Guess it had copied me. Genie… "Holy bikini, Batman." I held up a hand at the sudden glare.

The genie reclined on a sand-castle-like chair in front of the oasis water, soaking up the morning sun. She was in full human form and wearing a micro bikini made of polished gold. It hid nothing, but the tiny bit of metal was just large enough to blind anyone looking her way. Without looking at me, she called out, "You probably won't believe me, being a moronic monkey with barely enough brain power to breathe, but there are no other signs of her in the oasis. I checked. Maybe it's time to expand your search." She lazily gestured to the desert with fingers ending in long, manicured, gold-painted nails.

I squinted against the glare, taking rather too long to take my eyes off her voluptuous form; I knew she was taunting me, but hey, I'm a human dude, ok? Gazing out at the endless sands, I thought maybe she was right. Fear had kept me close to the oasis for now. It was time to go scouting.

I soaked my robes in water, made a new palm-frond umbrella and crude sandals, and set out. Thanks to my vastly increased abilities, I could move faster and more easily than ever. Even at a fast walk, I could cover so much more ground, and while the heat was brutal, and the sandals fell apart within a hundred meters, I was still able to travel quickly. Applying [Heal] didn't solve hunger or thirst issues, but it did seem to fight the damage they caused to a degree. More importantly, it healed my bare feet as I went, as the sand was as hot as a stove and bits of rock or bone occasionally cut me.

I walked straight away from the oasis until it was on the edge of the horizon. Then I kept it on my left and walked in a big circle with the oasis in the middle. I was nervous out there. I guess I'd spent so much time at the oasis that it felt safe, like a new home. Even going out this far was both strange and exhilarating.

After the circle was complete, I walked back and rested, drinking semi-filtered water until I had my fill. I napped while buried in the sand, woke, tried to eat some more, then ventured out for another pass. This time, I went so far that I lost sight of the oasis. That was pretty scary. In fact, I was so nervous, that, as I walked the circle, I ended up weaving closer multiple times just to make sure I wasn't getting myself lost. There was absolutely nothing but sand and sky in every direction, so if I lost the oasis, no amount of levels was going to save my ass.

I returned to the oasis in the late afternoon. I drank again, forced myself to eat some fried scorpion, and rested. The sun was setting, I was exhausted, my feet were blistered and raw from the superheated sand. [Heal] had only done so much. Being so spent, I sat on the sand, head beneath my knees, wanting nothing more than to crawl into a hole in the beach and sleep until the next day. I looked up.

The genie floated on the other side of the oasis. She was in her usual form, wispy from the waist down. She just stared at me in silence, with no expression. I didn't know if she was judging me (she was probably judging me), but I felt judged.

With a deep groan and aching legs stiff from resting, I got back to my feet. Everything hurt. So be it. I'd rest when I was dead. But the only way to find the one I loved was to get back out there. I needed to push myself. It was a relatively new experience, but if I did it enough, maybe it would become habit.

I ventured out really far. As the sun turned peach and then deep orange before settling below the horizon, my anxiousness rose. If the oasis was hard to find in the daytime, it would be harder now. Or it should have been. As I marched straight away from it, I glanced back at the oasis and saw a faint glow there. It was like someone had left a light on over there. A blue light.

Wait a minute…

Was the genie…helping me? I shook my head. Unlikely. Maybe accidentally? I resumed walking. "Huh. Strange."

I turned and began making a circle, this time keeping the oasis on my right so that I wasn't walking the same direction all the time. The desert was quieter. I saw one very large scorpion, car-sized, but I ducked and lay on my belly behind a dune until it skittered away. I was too damned tired to face one of those monsters. Especially out there, in the open. Still, I was glad I'd remembered to bring the spear.

Maybe it was because I was tired. Maybe I was paying less attention because it was night. Either way, I didn't really clue in when part of a nearby dune softly collapsed. Not even when nearby sand shifted. Of course, I didn't see the sand behind me rise in a mound because I was looking the other way. But then a spray of sand slapped me in the back. I tripped and fell on my stomach.

Behind me, rising out of the desert, was a sand worm. One of those monstrous things from Tremors or Dune. It had to be as thick as a redwood and as tall as a three-story building. It bent toward me, moving surprisingly fast, and the end opened in a round maw with multiple rings of teeth inside, descending at me, about to swallow me whole and then chew me to paste.

"[Vengeance shall be mine! Lightning Scorpion]!"

 

[TimBaril]

My fingers tightened around the haft of the spear until they were white-knuckled. At the same time, I was pushing off the sand, getting my legs under me, and turning around.

Above, the circular maw full of teeth plummeted and blotted out the night sky.

I exploded from my position, but not away from the sand worm — toward it. I ducked, and the mouth missed me. Pulling the spear back with both hands as I charged, it only took a few strides to get close. I rammed the weapon into the monster as hard as I could.

You thought that would hurt the flesh and blood being? Drive deep inside and make it scream in pain? Ha. No. It was like hitting solid concrete with an aluminum baseball bat. It bounced and then vibrated so hard my hands felt like they were gonna fall right off. I kept running, dragging the spear tip across the incredibly tough skin, and watched as it barely scratched the surface. Like dragging a kitchen knife over a raw concrete wall. Ineffective.

Makes sense, right? The thing was the size of a train and existed by tunneling through the abrasive sand of a desert. What was a dinky little human and his pointy stick gonna do? Not even my stats helped. So as I ran past and my spear ran out of worm to be useless on, I kept running. I booked it right the hell out of there.

No no, you're thinking, you're badass now. You're level 42, the answer to life, the universe, and everything. You have inhuman stats that basically turn you into a superhero. You have skills. I know, because I thought that too.

I skidded to a halt. Spear pointed at the sand worm, I pulled back my fist, and charged it with red-and-white fire. I punched and shouted, "[Hadryuuken]!!" The fireball blasted forth and quickly slammed into the monster…doing absolutely less than nothing. It just dissipated harmlessly.

Because, again, it was the size of a train and lived by burrowing through a desert. It didn't even seem to notice.

"Yep, that tracks. Dumbass," I cursed myself, and resumed sprinting the fuck away.

Having missed on the first strike, it was already beginning to straighten and turn in my direction.

I didn't have to look back to know it was coming. I just ran. My legs pumped hard, and my feet churned sand already cooling in the night. With my scorpion-enhanced sight, I could see the tell-tale glow of scorpions scuttling in all directions away from the behemoth. My head whipped back and forth as I scanned the land ahead. I needed solid ground. The worm probably couldn't burrow through it. I mean, it had to be true or movies had lied to me, and I was totally fucked.

I heard the swish of something big and heavy on sand. Something moving. The sound grew closer. Louder.

Anxious, I turned my head to look over my shoulder. My stomach clenched.

It hadn't gone back underground. The giant was pulling itself fully up onto the desert floor and slithering after me! Getting to solid ground wasn't going to help me at all now!

I tried to run harder. Turning my attention forward again, I saw a glowing blue figure in front of me.

The genie was floating just to the side, a big smile on her face. Waving a big flag in the night air, she gave a piercing whistle and cheered, "Go, gormedon, go!"

I threw her a betrayed look as I sprinted past. "Hey!"

She ignored me and continued egging the gormedon on. "He can run and run, as fast as he can, but he can't escape you; nobody can!"

Guess the all-powerful genie wasn't going to be any help. Unless I wished for it. I was running for my life, so I felt the temptation, but I refused to give in. I wasn't going to support her slavery. I ran and ran and kept looking for some kind of respite. When the genie gave another cheer, I glanced back again.

The gormedon had pulled itself entirely out of its hole. Like a freight train picking up speed, it really came for me. Mouth closed now, it looked a lot like an earthworm. You know, if you were an ant. Maybe a baby ant.

The desert was vast and empty. With scorpion vision, the dunes were gray blobs instead of black in the dim light. I spotted a darker something in their midst. A rock? I angled toward it. I didn't dare look back again, but I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, knowing the monster was catching up.

Drawing nearer to the rock, I saw a black pool beyond it. A hole or drop! I sprinted up to the rock and leaped into a long jump over it. Only I didn't get quite enough oomph when I leapt because sand is soft. I fell through the air, arms windmilling for balance. I almost made it over the rock. I landed right on my ass on the lip, then flipped over into the dip beyond. Pain stabbed up from my tailbone, and I screamed. Couldn't hear myself though.

The gormedon had been right behind. It hurled past overhead, absolutely unable to stop so much mass at that speed, bristly tough skin rubbing against the rock that sheltered me.

I cast [Heal Wounds] and very painfully rolled closer to the rock. The roar of the monster passing by was intense. I pressed closer to the ground. Then I noticed the pits and pieces of rock spitting down on me. Then a larger chunk hit my leg. I looked at the rock.

The gormedon was wearing it down. Already cracked and worn by the sun and weather, the weight and friction were breaking it apart. Another fist-sized hunk snapped off and narrowly missed my skull. I ducked and covered. More and more bits of rock pelted me, burying me in gravel. As the rock was worn away, the body of the worm grew lower and closer to me. In moments, it would touch me and grind me to paste.

I tried to wiggle lower into the sand around me and cried out as more rock chips punished my head and body.

Then the gormedon was past. The roar of it going by ended.

For a few seconds, I could only lie there and get my wits back while what felt like a ton of stone pressed down on me. But I knew the giant worm would be coming back. I had to get up and get going again. I pressed my palms down and started to push myself up — then stopped.

It was a worm. They didn't have eyes or ears, couldn't smell, right? They probably detected movement the same way the scorpions in the cave did: via vibration.

I breathed hard in and out, thinking. Should I get up and run, or should I just remain where I was?

You think it's hard trying to pick what you want to eat off a menu with a bunch of choices? Try it when your life is on the line. It doesn't get any easier. I sweated over it, then eventually decided to remain hidden. I very slowly pushed the gravel away from my face so that I could see, but otherwise tried to remain as still as the sand under me.

The gormedon was surprisingly agile for its size. But it still took some distance to realize it had missed me somehow and to slow to a stop. It cast about from side to side, probably trying to sense me. Then it bent back on itself and came back to where I was.

Just like a snake, it wove back and forth, head on the sand to pick up the slightest sign of movement.

It might have been ridiculous because it was unlikely this giant was sensitive enough to notice, but I even went so far as to slow my breathing. I controlled my body so I didn't accidentally shift the gravel. One falling pebble, and I feared I'd be dead meat. I watched as the massive monster got closer…and closer. Fifty meters. Twenty-five. Ten. Five. Then it was there. I could have reached out and touched it.

I closed my eyes in fear. I breathed in tiny, shallow breaths, air slowly trickling in and out, the effort and earlier run making sweat pour off me. The creature seemed in no hurry, waiting, patient for its prey to reveal itself. Unfortunately, that gave me time to think, and maybe it was the adrenalin, but odd timing or not, a bit of self-reflection hit.

All that rock lying on top of me, pressing me down, nearly crushing me; it was like the weight I'd been living under for my whole adult life. The growing pressure I'd always felt to act and do something with myself and my life, not in an encouraging way, but in a way that felt smothering. It had made it hard to breathe, and it had become harder to take action.

The deadly worm, gigantic and stretching to forever in the distance, was like my future. It was always right there, right in my face, and it was terrifying, like it was just waiting to devour me.

And there I was, frozen, scared, and going nowhere. Unable — or unwilling — to act.

Maybe that's unfair. Maybe I was being melodramatic about myself. In truth, a lot of it had probably been laziness more than fear or pressure. Lack of ambition could be genetic, or it could be something to do with how I was raised, or both. If you never think you're ever going to be capable of something, why try? If you never think that happiness is possible, why put in the effort? Or maybe we just hate making any effort.

It was probably a whole bunch of things. What was the term? Reason cluster? Whatever the causes, I'd spent my life with that weight building on top of me, the future growing closer and scarier. Never getting my ass into gear to reach for my potential.

Maybe I didn't care enough about myself or those around me to become more than I was. If I hadn't pushed myself to grow for Cerise's sake, maybe I hadn't loved her as much as I'd thought. I could have been better, but I'd chosen not to be. Isn't that selfish? Was I a bad person?

A familiar dark thought crept into my mind again. What if I had worked for more? What if I'd become a proper chef or done something else, and made more money? Would Cerise and I have been living in a nicer place, a nicer neighborhood with less crime? Would she still be alive? Would we still be living together, happy and on Earth, maybe with a child or two now?

What ifs can be painful and treacherous to think about. I pushed them from my mind before they grew worse. Unfortunately, I couldn't push the worm away.

A seam in the front of the worm's rounded front end split open. Inside — darkness. A rank stench of hot rot poured over me, like the back of a garbage truck had opened up. I gagged and barely flinched. But it was enough. I felt the gravel around me tremble. I just not to breathe at all and stared at the max opening up in front of me. There were thousands of hooked teeth inside. The head turned toward me. Had it sensed me? Could it smell after all? Was it going to just suck up everything in front of it like a vacuum, hoping some of it was edible?

The head turned away.

I let out a breath, then inhaled fast, desperate for fresh air. More gravel trembled.

A figure glided into the scene: a familiar blue and gold genie with gorgeous looks, a faux innocent expression, and — probably murder on her rotten mind!! You could tell, because she wasn't coming to help me. She went right up to the front of the gormedon.

I glared at her, thinking nasty things and wishing hard for her to leave.

The genie hovered in front of the worm. Her eyes flicked in my direction.

The worm didn't respond.

Her eyes glanced my way longer. When the gormedon didn't respond, she did it again, even nodding her head my way.

I gritted my teeth and silently screamed for her to piss off!

She nodded harder my way, really obvious now.

The worm turned and seemed to face her.

The genie raised a hand like she was hiding what the other hand was doing (she wasn't) and with the other, she repeatedly pointed at me, like she was gesturing, That Way!

What a bitch!

Ponderously, the gormedon turned back my way. Its mouth opened all the way, a ring of teeth and a one-way tunnel to digestion and death. A long blast of foetid air smashed me in the face.

I vomited in my mouth, then immediately spit it out. I looked up, feeling sick.

The genie flashed me an evil smile.

The gormedon began to inhale.

 

[blariviere]

Honestly at this point he should just wish for her to die.
Or kill her himself.

Even though he tried to free her she's acting exactly the same as before, relentlessly trying to kill him, and generally acting the monster she keeps insisting everyone else is.
She's an active, persistant threat to his life, no different from the other giant monsters, with no redeeming qualities. And its implied that the Spear can do the job.

He's been a literal saint to her, killed the person who locked her in there for centuries at least.
And not an ounce of gratitude or thanks, just instantly went back to being a cunt, and trying to get him killed.

I get she's meant to be a future companian, but no, just kill her, or chuck the lamp.
She's just not worth it. By his previous characterization he should have done one of those by now.

 

[TimBaril]

Dust and sand streamed off the ground and into the gormedon's mouth. If I stayed where I was, I might get sucked in too. I was terrified. My first instinct was to flee. But if I did that, the worm would simply chase me down. I wouldn't have a running start. I needed time.

But even if I had time — the cave. The cave was made of rock. The sand worm likely burrowed mostly through sand. Even if it could go through stone, it would probably take longer. Given the choice between the sand worm mega-monster and the scorpions, I'd take my chances with the scorpions. I just needed enough time to get there before the gormedon got me.

I had to push past the fear. Act before the fear could stop me.

I heaved myself off the ground, stone chips and sand pouring off my body, and then I was running and screaming at that toothy maw, almost before I realized I was doing it. Damn thing was wider than I was tall. I pulled my arm back, spear cocked, and then stabbed it as hard as I could into the gums.

Honestly, I truly thought that was going to hurt. But the thing chewed rocks and sand. It didn't do shit.

My momentum and the suction carried me too far. I tripped forward.

The gormedon must have sensed the spear hit. The mouth came down.

My shins hit the rim of the maw. The back of the spear tilted up because the tip was caught. I ducked as the mouth came down on the haft. And it stopped.

[Unbreakable Spear].

The gormedon reared back, head waving back and forth, probably confused as fuck. Me, fingers barely hanging on, body flying like a flag in the wind. Pretty sure I was still screaming.

The genie rolled in the air, laughing her ass off.

As I was flopping around, I managed to get my feet on the edge of the worm's mouth. I yanked on the spear right as the worm opened up again. Once more, and this was becoming a bad habit, I went flying through the air.

As luck would have it, I got tossed in the right direction. I could see the oasis in the distance and knew where the cave would be. I thumped into a dune, bounced, and rolled, losing the spear. But I ignored the bruising pain and a twisted arm. Fuck pain; I needed to survive. I got up, got the spear, and bolted.

The worm appeared confused, giving me the head start I needed. I hoped it would be enough.

The genie floated next to me as I ran, lying sideways like she was on a bed and holding a bowl. She seemed to be enjoying herself. "Got a plan? Is it outrunning the gormedon? Because that is a terrible plan and I'm all in for it." She popped something into her mouth.

I gave her a double-take as I ran. "Are those…dates?"

"Mmhm. Want one?" She held out the bowl, then pulled it back with a mock-apologetic expression. "Oh, never mind. You're busy running for your life. Maybe I'll feed one to your corpse later. Or, you know, what's left of it after you pass through…oh, there it is. It's coming for you again. You should run faster."

"I'm trying!"

She ate another date. She spoke while munching, "It's catching up."

"Then help!"

She threw her head back. "Ha! Hahahahaha!"

A dark spot appeared in front of me. The rocky outcrop! But I was hurting from the running. I could feel the pain, my legs and lungs burning. I slowed. Worried, I looked back.

The sand worm was full steam ahead, coming right for me.

I looked back at where the cave opening was. I didn't think I was going to make it. But I pushed as much as I could anyway.

[Passive: Second Wind]

Bodily relief and energy filled me. I ran faster. It was as if someone had instantly recharged my batteries. I panted a laugh.

The worm was still picking up speed. It was still gaining.

I ran right down the depression in the sand and into the cave — and startled a scorpion bigger than I was! It pulled back, arms crossing in defence. I instinctively leaped right over it, spear banging on the ceiling. Then I was down, behind the insect. I skidded to a stop.

The scorpion tried to turn.

The sand worm crashed into the cave mouth. The whole system shook. The scorpion and I both lost our footing as chunks of rock came down around our heads. The worm careened right off the entrance, collapsing half of it, but swiftly turned to investigate the tunnel.

The scorpion was between me and the beast. The hungry beast. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the spear in both hands and jammed it into the side of the scorpion. With a holler, I pushed, shoving the scorpion down and out of the tunnel.

The sandworm opened its mouth wide.

I thrust the scorpion off the spearhead. The gormedon bit down. That was the end of the scorpion.

But it wasn't the only scorpion. Hearing movement, I spun.

The collision had riled up the locals. Scorpions of all sizes were clamouring toward me in the tunnel. The whole place turned into a glowing blue-green blob of pincers and tails and legs.

I took a step back, then another. Sand worm behind, scorpion mob in front. There was no way to fight either. I backed up further. At the tunnel entrance, I paused. The sand worm, perhaps sensing all the movement, began opening wide once more. Needing both hands, I flung the spear away. Then I leaped up, grabbed the top lip, and let it pull me off the ground. I scrambled higher, climbing onto the worm's head.

Before the worm could react, the horde of scorpions flowed from the cave mouth and into the gormedon's mouth. Instant buffet. They didn't even slow, at first. But once they did, the worm began inhaling, pulling more and more in. Dozens of scorpions, big and small, were devoured.

Seizing my chance, I slid off the worm's head, got my spear, and raced off to the oasis. There, I dove into the water and swam until I could float. I doubted it would follow or sense me that way.

Sure enough, the sandworm gorged for a while. Eventually, either full or out of food, it closed its mouth and meandered off, definitely in no hurry. It reached a spot that it somehow recognized or understood, and the desert opened up into a wide hole. The sand worm slid into it, then into wherever it lived below the surface. Somehow, a creature the size of a subway train disappeared without a trace in moments.

Relieved, I swam to shore and finally relaxed.

The genie said nothing. At some point, she'd followed me to the oasis. As I lay on the ground, she gave the spear another oddly appraising look, then took a wide detour around it. Ignoring me, she drifted over to the mimic and began giving it attention. She pulled out a basket of baby scorpions, and when the mimic opened wide, she dumped them inside, still alive. The mimic's mouth closed, and it seemed happy, quivering like jelly.

I watched the two of them for a while. The genie treated the mimic with what looked like real affection. It was easy to tell because she was being much nicer than she was with me. Guess it made sense. They must have known each other for a long time. Mimics apparently lived very long lives.

At some point, I drifted off, likely from sheer exhaustion.

~

I woke up the next day after not enough sleep, but the morning sun was pounding down on me. I was burning fast. Groggy, sore, and grumpy, I rose and fetched water to filter. That's when I glimpsed my reflection.

I looked like a wreck. I barely recognized myself. After weeks out in the desert, largely unprotected, my hair was shaggier, I had an unkempt beard for the first time in my life, my skin was dark red and peeling and turning leathery in places, and my eyes… I didn't know how to describe it. They were haunted. But also wiser, perhaps? Just different. It felt like looking at some unknown homeless person who'd been living hard.

I made myself some shade, then ate and drank in a hole in the beach next to the water. I stared at the oasis, lost in thought. There was no way to deny it: I was changing. Conflicting feelings swirled within me. It was difficult to tell which was stronger, my uneasiness or my excitement. Movement caught my eye.

The genie was sitting in the air, her lower half trailing and weaving in the dry air. Oddly, she appeared to be entirely translucent. Her face was expressionless, and she stared at something behind me. For a few minutes, I did nothing, assuming she was just staring out into the distance and wondering why she was translucent. Then noises caught my attention. I froze.

Animal sounds. Walking in the brush. Jingle of a harness. Then — voices!

"Curses of Sadom! There's a kepiir corpse in the water. It will be filthy."

"It is why our skins have cleansing spells, Rimheyr. Do not bellyache."

"I will bellyache as I please. Who are you to tell me what to do? Hatchling fool."

Without realizing it, I stood and smashed through my palm-frond shelter, whirling to see people for the first time, not including the genie.

My sudden appearance shocked them as much as theirs had shocked me. We all stared, unmoving.

Three reddish-brown lizard people had begun entering the oasis greenery. Unlike the dead one I'd found in the water, these three were dressed in black outfits: looser robes than mine, very long daggers on their belted waists, and with hoods like beekeeper helmets. The screen in the front probably kept out the desert sand, though the screens were currently tied up and out of the way. Two of the newcomers were dismounting from tan-colored, two-humped camel-type things with thick necks and wispy, curly hair. Even more bizarrely, they had wide, moose-like horns. Camel-moose hybrids. Figured I'd call them camoose. The third lizard person was already leading his mount to the water. He and I were only a few paces apart, close enough for me to see the navy blue of his irises.

The two of us stared at each other for long seconds.

The lizard person's mouth split into what was probably a grin. A long, flat, and forked tongue flicked out. He slowly dropped the reins to his camoose and then drew the knife from its sheath. The blade was bent in the middle so that the wider tip was weighted forward. Probably for decapitating enemies. The polished steel was covered in ornate patterns. His eyes never left mine.

My gaze, however, flickered over his shoulder to the two lizard people behind. And to the figure draped over the back of one of the camoose. Perhaps sensing me, it craned its neck and looked up at me. While the others were humanoid lizards, this was a slightly less humanoid ringtail cat about the size of a small human woman. It had black and white fur and overly large ears. Two round, solid-black eyes gazed at me with a mixture of hope and despair.

A metal collar had been fixed to the bound ringtail's neck. A chain led to the camoose's saddle. A prisoner?

The lizard person in front of me dispelled that notion. It gloated, "Well, well. It is Rimheyr's lucky day. Fresh slaves are just falling into his lap today. I love it when profits come easy."

Slave? Oh, hell no.

Rimheyr sprang forward at a run, lifting his knife high. "On your knees, hu—"

He never finished that sentence. I launched myself at him a second after he attacked, activating [Fists of Fury]. I was a blur of speed and power he had not been expecting. I closed before he could react, my fists punching his lizard face like a machine gun. His face deformed before my eyes, and I could feel his bones shatter under my fist. His lower jaw broke first, then his nose and upper jaw. But [Fists of Fury] didn't stop there; it now did ten punches. The lizard person's skull crumpled like an aluminum can, each break like celery crunching under my knuckles. Blood spurted, and I mashed the face and skull into a loose mass of unrecognizable gunk in about two seconds. Then the skill ended.

I stood there in flat-out shock. I glanced down and saw the blood and bits of bone on my fists. My gorge rose.

The body of the lizard person fell like a sack of potatoes on the ground.

I had killed someone. My mind blanked. I was a killer. I soul-deep sense of wrongness filled me. I doubled over and vomited, which was mostly dry heaving with so little in my system. I vaguely heard noises, but it was like everything was too distant to make out. I looked at the corpse. I had done that. I'd done the worst thing any person could do. I began hyperventilating in horror.

I was no longer human. I was something far less.

Someone spoke.

I didn't react. My hands were covered in blood. The blood of the dead. Murderer.

A hand on my shoulder.

I jerked like it had been on fire. Eyes wild, I looked up into the translucent face of the genie.

Her expression was hard to figure out. She studied me a moment. Then she turned and looked out at the desert. "Just going to let them escape?"

I looked over. The two remaining lizard people were on their camoose and galloping away, their slave bouncing on the back of the lead animal. I was panting so hard from a panic attack that I could barely speak, "I killed someone."

The genie sneered without looking at me. "There goes your only hope of finding another clue about your wife."

My heart twisted. I was drowning in self-loathing and regret. But the genie was right. Those other lizard people might be the only way to find out where Cerise had gone, or to find people who did know. With an anguished cry, I forced myself to run, knowing that if I caught up to them, I might kill again. I hated the idea.

I was fast thanks to my stat increases. The same stats that had made me so overpowered that I'd bludgeoned someone to death in an instant. But the camoose were faster. Part of me wanted to let them escape so they would live. But I couldn't waste a chance to find Cerise's trail. I pushed harder. Then I recalled another skill and used it, just to see what would happen: [Lightfoot step].

I shot forward like a cannonball. I no longer had to run through the soft sand, sinking with each landing and struggling to push off. Now, my toes barely touched the surface, and I could sprint unrestricted. In seconds, I was gaining.

The rear lizard person looked back and saw me coming. He faced forward again, shouting something at the other, and struck the camoose, urging it even faster. But it was no use. I kept gaining. The lizard person in front shouted something at the trailing companion. The latter looked back, pulled hard on the reins, and turned the camoose in a wide arc back toward me. He drew his long knife with a scowl. Holding the weapon wide, he galloped at me. His mouth opened, and his forked tongue flickered. His brows creased in a frown like he couldn't believe I was capable of this. His eyes filled with hate. He screamed at me.

The two of us were on a collision course, hell bent on destruction. He raised his blade, anticipating cutting through my neck.

I made a running leap, sailed over the head of the camoose, right between its vast horns, and side-kicked my attacker in the chest.

The lizard person gaped at me in shock as he flew backwards off the camoose. I went with him, my foot half inside the smashed ruins of his rib cage. We landed hard, him on his back on the hot sand, and my foot went even further through his body, breaking his spine. I'd killed again.

I threw myself off him, disgusted at myself. Panic attack returning in full force, I desperately dragged my foot through the sand to get the blood off. I'd killed again. And so easily. I was a fucking monster! Tears sprang to my eyes and I felt myself falling to pieces. My whole body trembled.

But at the same time, I looked up in my agony at the last lizard person still fleeing.

The collared ringtail was bouncing on the back of the camoose, looking back at me. I was too far to see their face, but I could imagine the sense of heartbreak as they drew further away from the one person who might have helped free them from slavery.

I looked down at the corpse. A sob burst up out of my chest. But I put one foot forward, then another. I started walking toward the fleeing camoose. Weeping, I began jogging. With a scream of rage and hellish emotions, I ran as hard as I could.

The escaping lizard person was a long way off. I used [Lightfoot step] again, then a third time. When fatigue hit me, [Passive: Second Wind] kicked in, and I surged forward again. Gaining.

The lizard person looked back and did a double-take, completely flabbergasted that I was still coming, and that I was catching up fast. He whipped his beast harder and harder, clearly freaking out.

I screamed at him without slowing, "Stop!"

He looked back, eyes wild, and whipped the reins again.

"Fucking stop!" I was breathing hard. "Don't make it hard. Please!" I wished with every fibre of my being that we could resolve this without anyone else dying. I just wanted him to pull up, to give up the slave, and to tell me anything he could about where to find Cerise. I didn't want to kill again.

The rider looked back and saw me only a few paces behind. He panicked and jerked the reins hard to the right.

That's when I saw the cliff in front of me.

 

[TimBaril]

The camoose, probably already very tired, couldn't turn that sharply. A leg came down wrong and snapped. The camoose plunged into the sand. Rider, chained passenger, and animal went down in a tumble.

That's all I saw because I was racing past, trying to slam on the brakes in loose sand as I slid closer and closer to the edge of a small canyon. It was a sharp lip, the canyon walls smooth-bored and oddly shaped, like the place had been a nest chewed out by those giant worms. Couldn't see any gormedon inside, and I got a real good view before I threw my body to the ground, belly down, and tried to use arms and friction to stop myself from shooting backwards over the side and into the deep hole. Closer…closer…I went over.

The sudden drop arrested just enough momentum. My hands gripped the edge of the cliff, and my body swung down. The underside of the cliff was curved like the body of the worm who'd likely created it, so I didn't hit the wall. My feet swung so far forward that I almost lost my grip. Then I was swinging back. Then hanging by my fingers. Like an idiot, I looked down.

It was a far drop, probably thirty or fifty meters. The place was like a nest where multiple tunnels had eaten into each other, so there was a lot of space under me. No worms, though. Thank goodness for big miracles.

My hands slipped slightly. I think my heart might have stopped.

The genie appeared above, looking over the edge. When she spotted me, she swooped down next to me. "Want some help?"

"Yes!"

She shrugged. "Make a wish. I literally can't do anything unless you do."

I gritted my teeth and refused to respond to that. Sweat dripping off my brow, I was almost too scared to move for fear of falling, yet anxious to get the hell back up top. The grains of sand under my fingers made my grip uncertain. Very carefully, I squeezed and slowly pulled upward like I was doing a chin-up. I was damn glad for the stat boost now. No way my lazy ass would have been able to pull myself up back on Earth. I hauled myself high enough to throw a leg up over the edge. Then I pulled some more and rolled, and just like that, I was safe again.

I lay on my back for a few long seconds, breathing hard.

Whimpering and struggling sounds came from the side.

I remembered I wasn't alone. Blinking rapidly, I rolled over and got to all fours as I took a deep breath, then stood.

The camoose hadn't gone far.

I winced and looked away. For some reason, seeing animals hurt always really got to me. I had to force myself to look back.

The camoose was on its side, and one of its forelegs had broken. It was struggling to right itself, but in pain, and its leg wasn't working. The ringtail person was whimpering, half caught under the weight of the large and very heavy animal. It was still tied to the saddle and chained, helpless to free itself. Both slave and animal would die if left alone here.

I jogged over to help, and that's when I saw the lizard person. He was lying still in the sand nearby. From the angle his head and neck were at, there was no way he'd survived the fall. I'd killed another person.

But chest and eyes heated fast. I shook my head in denial and took a step back. I'd killed three people. I was sickened. I wasn't…me anymore. I had fallen. How could anyone look at me as human after this?

A young male voice called out, "Help me! Please!"

I sluggishly swam through the emotional mess I was in enough to look up at the ringtail. I could see he was in pain. Pushing my feelings aside, I moved to help. I got around the downed camoose and untied the ropes binding the ringtail to the saddle. They'd also been keeping his hands behind his back.

The genie followed, apparently invisible except to me. She impassively yet curiously watched everything but made no move to intervene.

Freed, the ringtail gushed, "Thank you, friend!" He was drenched in recently dried blood, his fur matted in reddish brown sludge that was turning even darker in the heat.

I basically pulled him out from under the camoose, growing alarmed at the blood. "You ok? Anything broken?"

The ringtail shook his head as he patted himself down. "I don't think so. Just sprained and bruised."

"Are you hurt?" I pointed.

Then he noticed where my eyes were. "Ah." His voice caught. He needed to swallow before continuing, "It's not mine." He was about as tall as my chin, or would be if he stood straight. He naturally seemed to stand in a slouch, his body similar to that of a cat or weasel. Below his big ears, his face was very similar to a lemur's, but with dark rings around his eyes. His fluffy ringed tail was as long as he was tall. With a small hand, he reached up to the collar and tried to loosen it from his neck.

I moved to help, but quickly saw the lock. "It needs a key."

The ringtail pointed. "I think he had it. Maybe in a pocket?"

A cold sensation stole over my stomach. I looked at the dead lizard person. The one I'd killed. Now I needed to loot the body. This was just like a game. I checked the ring on my finger. To my relief, it was not showing a blinking light. I hadn't levelled up from killing these people. If I had, I probably would have torn the ring off and chucked it into the canyon. I was not a murderhobo, and I never, ever wanted to be one.

Trying to get a hold of myself, I knelt next to the lizard man. I rolled him over.

"Sssaavve me…"

"Fuck!" I jerked my hand away and leaped to my feet. The guy was alive!

The slaver's forked tongue flickered. He didn't move, though, and only his eyes followed me. "Ssaave."

I backed away, hand to my mouth in horror.

The ringtail asked, "What's wrong with him?"

"I think his neck's broken."

The ringtail stared at the paralyzed raider for a long time. There was no sympathy on his features. Finally, softly, he said, "Good. Let the desert take him, and may a thousand curses follow him into the eternal night."

I turned my head and looked at him.

The ringtail couldn't take his eyes off the lizard. "We'd finally escaped. My parents and I. We were free. Crossing the desert. He and the other two found us. Killed my parents. Took me."

I glanced down at the blood. "These…lizard people. They're slavers then?"

The ringtail looked at me strangely. "Of course. Aren't you?"

"I'm…new to this region. But no. I hate the idea of slavery."

He appeared mollified but didn't seem to entirely believe me.

I stared at the lizard. He was a murderer and a slaver. If I believed the ringtail, the lizard was evil. Did I leave him there to die? Try to save him? I looked up at the genie. "Could you save him?" I was curious, wanting to know if it was an option. Just to lessen my guilt, maybe.

The ringtail looked up, probably saw only empty hot air, and frowned.

The genie met my eyes. She faded into full view.

The ringtail gasped. Then he dropped to the ground like a stone, head on the ground, bowing to her. "Esteemed Magic One, please forgive this poor, insignificant creature for not being aware of your presence."

She only glanced at him. "I was invisible."

The ringtail smoothly shifted so that he then bowed to me, head still on the sand. "Master, forgive this one for—"

"Stop!" I reached down and hauled him up to his feet. "I'm not a slaver. Nobody's master. The genie and I are… acquaintances."

The ringtail's tail curled low, and he hunched, eying both me and the genie with frightened confusion. "But, M—sir, everyone knows the legends. You must—"

"No. Just no. I'm just a regular person. Like you." I thumbed at the genie. "She's just a person too. Ok? No more bowing. It's fine. I promise."

He shook his head so hard in denial of the idea that his whole body followed. "I cannot believe it, sir!"

"No sir either!" I would have said more, but the lizard hissed on the ground. I looked up at the genie and shot her a questioning look.

She appeared to be closely watching me. After a delay, she answered, "Yes. Would you save such a person?"

"I…don't know. Maybe? It's the right thing to do, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"If he's a criminal, he should be taken to trial. Then punished."

The genie laughed. She turned to the ringtail, making him shrink even more. "Is slavery a crime in this era?"

He looked down, too afraid to meet her shining gaze. "No, Esteemed One."

A knowing smile. "And killing your family? Runaway slaves? A crime?"

The ringtail swallowed, his tone a little angry under the fear. "No, Esteemed One. There is no one who would punish him for that."

The genie had obviously been expecting that answer. She rolled her head my way and arched one brow.

I opened my mouth to say something…but what? I felt sickened by my actions. I had never, ever wanted to take a life. Yet with these skills and stats, I'd grown more powerful than I'd realized. Maybe killing had been an accident, but it was still my fault.

On the other hand, from everything I'd seen and heard, these were terrible people. The world would probably be better off without them.

I was nobody, not some paragon of virtue worthy enough to judge others. Yet I held this person's life in my hands. In part, he was in this situation because of me. Did I break my personal code and my promise to the genie to save a bad person? Clenching my fists, I agonized over the decision.

Relaxing my hands, conflicted, I shook my head. I couldn't do it. Then a thought struck. "I have [Heal Wounds]." My head jerked up and I looked the genie in the eyes. "[Heal Wounds]! Can I use skills on others?"

She just shrugged.

I quickly turned to the ringtail. "Skills. I have a skill. Magic or something. Can I use it on someone else? How?'

He looked at me strangely. "You have magic? Such things are rare. At last among my people."

"Can I use it? On him?"

He looked worried. "I do not know." Perhaps he feared being punished for not having the answers.

I wasn't sure it was the right thing to do, saving the lizard's life, but I knelt by his head. I put my hands on his head and shoulder. "Maybe if I will it hard enough or focus on wanting it to happen?" I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. It didn't really work. Then I imagined the skill flowing from me into the lizard. "[Heal Wounds]."

A scratch on the lizard's face began healing.

I smiled.

His head twitched. A muffled click. The lizard's eyes stopped moving and stared straight ahead.

My smile vanished. "[Heal Wounds]." Nothing happened. "[Heal Wounds]!" The lizard only lay there, unmoving.

The ringtail haltingly spoke, "He is dead."

I looked up at the genie in confusion. I exclaimed, "But why?"

She had a small frown as she regarded me. Then her eyes travelled over the dead. "Your skill is not an overly powerful one. Healing bones and nerves is also complex. And his spine was severely out of alignment. When you tried to heal him, the process killed him."

I sagged, distraught and guilty. "So…I killed him?"

The ringtail insisted, "You were very generous to even attempt it on such a worthless person. Do not be sad for this."

The genie grumbled, "Better a quick death than he would have gotten if you'd left him."

I tried not to let even more guilt tear me apart inside. Recalling my original mission, I patted the corpse down, eventually finding a small iron key in a belt pouch. Returning to the ringtail, I unlocked the collar.

The ringtail massaged his neck. "Free again! Thank you! I wore it only for a couple of days, and it was already horrible. I am quite glad it is gone. You have saved my life and freedom. You are a great kindness in physical form." He came up and hugged me. A handshake would have been fine, but maybe ringtails were natural huggers.

"You're welcome." Not feeling worthy of his gratitude, I disengaged. I also tried to take a mental step back. The three lizard people were all dead. This ringtail was my only lead now. "Listen…this is going to sound strange, but… I'm not from around here, this land, this place. I'm looking for someone. A woman. Human, like me. She was at that oasis as well. I don't know exactly how long ago. She was taken. I don't know where. I think maybe lizard people, like him," I gestured at the dead, "took her. Maybe. Can you think of where they might have taken her? Or is there a place she might have gone?"

The ringtail listened intently until I finished. "A human woman? There are not many in the desert. Mostly, they live in Agarahbad, the big city on the coast." He paused to think. "My family and I were held in Leonidas for many months. The lizard tribes sometimes sell slaves in the city. I saw a few humans. What does this one look like?"

My hope rose. "She's about your height. Long, black hair. Her skin's darker than mine. Like caramel. She has the most expressive eyes. And her smile…" Almost without thinking, I mentally used [Do the Unlikely]. I felt something happen.

The ringtail's face grew excited. "Ah! Her name—

"Cerise."

"Yes, yes! I am very happy to say that I know her. We have met a few times."

I was stunned. "You have?"

"Yes!" He seemed very pleased to be of help. "She was also a prisoner of the lion king."

I blinked. "The who now?"

"The lion king. Of Leonidas."

 

[TimBaril]

"I… Ok, sure. Where is this place? Is Cerise still there? Can you take me?"

He grew uncertain. "I'm sorry. I do not know if she is still there." He hesitated. "I owe you a great debt for saving my life, sir. But…" He wrung his clawed hands. "Please do not make me go back there. For the crime of escaping, they will throw me in the pits. Or the coliseum. It would be a death sentence."

"You don't have to go inside. Just, can you show me where this Leonidas place is?"

He eased with relief. "Yes. I can do that."

Impulsively, I hugged him, surprising both of us. "Thank you."

The camoose let out a low bleat.

When horses break a leg, they have to be put down. There's no way to keep them off their hooves long enough for the leg to heal. Even if it does, the healed fracture remains weak. But with magic?

I pulled the ringtail with me toward the camoose. "Give me a hand."

The ringtail and genie exchanged a look, but the former followed.

I didn't want the animal to die. Not without trying to save it. Hopefully, this would work better this time. Not wanting to get my head smashed in, the two of us managed to pull the camoose's healthy front leg back so that it was bent tight, then tied it into place so the animal couldn't kick with it. We used the rope that had been used to bind the ringtail.

The animal was in pain and frightened, eyes white and rolling. It tried to lash out with its wide, moose-like antlers. While the ringtail ineffectually tried to keep the antlers away, I knelt and pulled the broken leg into a straight position. It made the camoose bleat and thrash, but I had to get the bone into a better position before healing this time. That done, I finally cast, "[Heal Wounds]."

Flesh and bone mended. The transition was painful, as I well knew. I got bashed in the head by the camoose's antlers that got me dizzy. I had to cast a second time, but after that, I felt the bone under the camoose's thin skin. "It feels healed." The camoose sure seemed to think so. It made a powerful attempt to roll to its feet, throwing us both off. I hastily undid the rope on its leg and then backed away.

The camoose awkwardly got its large bulk over its legs and stood. A few tentative paces seemed to confirm that the leg was stable. It stood there and looked at us.

I smiled, a bit of happiness cutting through the ugliness inside. "Maybe he'll be all right."

The ringtail clapped and said, "A wonderful thing. Truly, you are a great person."

My smile drooped. "Not so great."

I cast heal on the beast a third time, just to make sure the leg was ok. Then the ringtail and I mounted up and rode back toward the oasis. Along the way, we collected the other two camoose, which meant we didn't have to share and overburden our steeds. Not that the ringtail seemed to weigh much at all. We conversed on the way, and the more I studied him, the more cat or lemur-like he appeared in his mannerisms. It was fascinating to see people who weren't human.

He introduced himself as Yellip, and said he came from a place many days' walk to the north, a mix of badlands, thorn trees, and cactus fields on plateaus above the desert sands. His people harvested the latter and were skilled craftsfolk, making many things from the cacti and something that sounded like tumbleweeds. Cacti also produced fruits, and it seemed they were very proud of the drinks and dishes made from them. But seeing as how he regaled me with recipes filled with bats, locusts, spiders, mice, and other critters, I figured I'd probably stick to a vegetarian diet if I ever visited. I didn't tell him about my skill, [Chef's Kiss: Fried Arachnid], lest he ask me to use it.

The genie floated along but remained quiet. At least she'd taken a break from trying to kill me. That was nice.

According to Yellip, this Leonidas place was only a two-day ride. Thanks to the mounts and supplies taken from the raiders, I now had waterskins with some kind of magical filter on them. For the first time in this world, I was able to drink clean water.

I guzzled from the skin, greedy for the pure water. It tasted far better than any I'd ever had. I let the whole skin pour over my face and chest, relishing the feeling. "It doesn't taste like sand and disease. Thank goodness!"

Yellip gave me an odd look. He was able to drink from the oasis without worry. Apparently, ringtails had a stronger constitution. He was also quite happy to eat fried scorpions. The raiders had some kind of food in their saddlebags, travel rations shaped into bars, but it smelled like unwashed feet and had a lot of insect parts inside some kind of paste. I passed. Yellip wouldn't taste it either.

With water and some extra fried scorpions, I mounted my camoose and got ready to ride out of there, hopefully to save my wife. A scuffling and whining sound halted me.

The mimic, still in huge treasure chest form, had formed tiny legs again and was painfully trying to haul itself after me. The lid opened, and the long tongue flicked out. It whined again.

Yellip, seeing the mimic move for the first time, yelped and kicked his camoose into a walk to get away. "What is that thing?"

I opened my mouth, unsure what to say or do. Then I caught the genie watching me. She said nothing. I looked back down at the mimic. It was still gravely injured. I cursed myself. As if I wasn't feeling guilty enough already. I dismounted. I marched over to the mimic. "Dammit. Sorry. I forgot all about y—"

The tongue curled around me and pulled me into the mimic's mouth.

I dangled half in, half out of the mouth, legs in the air. "Hey! You want another fireball, buddy?"

Instead of spitting me out, the mimic gently removed me and put me on the ground.

I sat there, half covered in disgusting saliva. Again. I glared. "I was going to try to heal you!"

The mimic almost looked sheepish.

Grumbling, I continued to glare, put my hands on the mimic, and threw my willpower through the skill and into him. Not much changed, so I cast again. Then again. I felt myself growing low on mana. I tried one more time. Some of the discoloration on the mimic seemed to have improved. I stepped back. "Sorry. That's all I've got right now." I turned away, intending to go back to the camoose.

The mimic tried to shuffle after me.

I looked back, confused. "You…want to come with us?" This was probably an ancient being, and without the wounds, it might have been powerful, or at least able to look after itself. But in its current condition, maybe it would struggle to survive out here alone. Also, there was no telling whether I'd ever come back this way. If I didn't, I wouldn't be able to try healing it again.

The lid creaked open. Large, oval eyes looked at me.

"Ok." I scratched my head. "Do you know how to ride a camoose?"

It took both Yellip and I a while to heave the mimic onto the back of the third camoose, which scared the turds out of the camoose. The mimic tried to help, morphing itself to pull itself up and then kind of melted into the saddle so it would stay in place. I tethered the reins of that camoose to the back of my own to form a train.

As we rode out of the oasis, the genie floated up next to me. She spoke without looking at me, "Thank you for your kindness."

I regarded her with surprise. "Well, I don't want it to die out here." Was this a positive turning point in our relationship?

She nodded slowly in agreement. "Yes. I'm sure dragging the mimic to a hostile city of slavers and pit fighting against monsters will offer much more interesting and painful ways to suffer and die."

I soured. So much for that.

"Also, you forgot the lamp."

"Huh?"

"I'm bound to the lamp. I go where the lamp goes."

"Oh, for—" I sighed.

After turning around, retrieving the lamp from where the priceless treasure had just been baking in the sand, we left the oasis at last.

We rode until well into the night, camping in the lee of a sharp dune. We were then up at dawn and soon back on our way. Late that afternoon, we approached our destination.

Yellip cautioned me, "If we approach in daylight, we will be spotted. We should wait until night to get closer."

We rested until an hour or more after sunset, then rode closer, side by side.

In the dark, Leonides was only a broken line of darker black on the horizon, spotted with lights.

Yellip turned to me. "I must leave you. I cannot go closer."

I smiled at him. "It's ok. Thank you for this. You have no idea how grateful I am."

He waved me off. "No no. It is I who am grateful. You saved my life. This is only a tiny part of what I owe."

I cut him off, "Yellip, friends don't owe each other like that."

He did that thing where your mouth silently opens and closes like a fish's does. "Friend? But—"

I held out a hand. "Friends. Promise."

Gingerly, he reached out and clasped my hand back.

"Ow!"

"Ah. Sorry. Claws."

"Yeah, I should have thought of that. Here. Fist bump." I had regained some mana, cast [Heal Wounds] on myself, then taught him how to fist bump.

He began to dismount. "I will take my leave now and return to my people's home."

I protested, "What are you doing?"

He looked up in confusion. "Getting off the camoose." I'd taught him my word for the beast earlier, which had amused him, and the name had stuck.

"Why?"

He tilted his head to the side. "Why?"

I waved at him and the animal. "Just take the camoose. Ride home. You don't have to walk the whole way."

"But these camoose are yours."

"No, they're not."

"You captured them fairly."

"Just take it. Please. It's yours. Those lizard slavers owe you than and far more after…you know." Murdering his parents.

Yellip seemed surprised and mulled it over. "Are you sure?"

"Take it!"

He remounted. Then he gave me a serious look.

I spoke before he could. "Don't even think about saying you owe me more. The camoose is yours, fair and square. It's not a kindness, it's just what's right. Ok?"

His feline mouth split into a smile. "As you wish." With a word of goodbye and a wave, he was on his way again, riding off into the night.

I sat on my camoose, watching him go.

The genie drifted over. Usually, she glowed with some internal light. But now that we were in sight of the city, she'd turned that effect off, probably so she wouldn't be visible from the city. "So. You truly did free him."

I was tired from the journey and the day's heat. Too tired to spar. "Of course."

"Let's hope you make a habit of it."

My gaze changed to encompass the city. I was exhausted but also anxious to get there. "No offence, but I don't want to get caught up in anything else. I just want to find Cerise."

"Of course you do. Why would anyone else's life matter?"

I just shook my head, not wanting another argument. Instead, I considered my next course of action. "I think you're right about taking the mimic into the city. It could be dangerous. They might consider it a monster or try to capture it. And it's hurt. It won't be able to defend itself. The mimic should stay out here. You too."

She gave me a flat look. "Are you an idiot?"

"If I go in there and trouble happens, someone could get their hands on the lamp."

"You can't make a wish without me there."

"I'm not going to wish for anything. I won't be party to the situation you're in."

She huffed. "I've heard that before."

"Well, I mean it."

"And when your life is on the line? Or what if your wife is in there and an army of felids is between you and her, and there's no other way to get her except wish for it?"

"Better I leave you and the lamp out here then, isn't it? Then I won't be tempted." I shook my head. "I don't get you. You seem really intent on getting me to wish for something. Why? I tried to wish you free. More than once. I'll do it again. Because it's the only wish I'll make. Genie, I wish you to be free of your bonds and the lamp."

The genie's eyes went to the bracers on her forearms. She seemed to hold her breath, not that genies needed to breathe. But nothing happened.

I muttered, "Sorry. I honestly would like you to be free. I don't agree with what they did to you."

The genie stared at her bonds. One eye twitched a few times. A bolt of lightning crackled between her hands.

That…probably wasn't a good sign.

However, she calmed herself. Taking her eyes off her bonds, she looked over at the city again. "Fine. We will remain hidden. If you want to get yourself killed, that's up to you." She crossed her arms and faked being bored. "She'll eventually starve out here, and the lamp will get buried under the sand where no one will ever find it, and I'll stay locked up inside for eternity."

I stared at her.

A fat black beetle thing about a meter long skittered into view, paused, then skittered out of view.

I stared at her.

She idly drifted over to where the mimic sat, drooped over the camoose it was on. She gave it a sympathetic petting. "There, there."

It whined.

I snapped. "Oh, for— Fine! We'll all go in." It annoyed me that she was right.

She touched her fingers to her mouth, which made a pretty O-shape.

"Oh, stuff it. But given the way Yellip reacted to you, you might want to stay invisible. Your choice though. What about the mimic though. If I ride up with a giant treasure chest, they're going to want to open it or take it. And if they see it's a mimic, try to kill it."

"Then she'll just have to try really hard to be less interesting. Won't you?" She threw me a pointed look. "Which would be easier if someone healed you."

I tried not to sigh. "Yeah. I know. Got it." I dismounted, glad to be off the camoose and able to stretch because riding hurt after a while. Walking over, I cast [Heal Wounds] until my mana was low. I'd been doing it since we'd left the oasis. Progress was slow, but the mimic had visibly improved.

The genie pursed her lips in thought, then decided, "How about a rolled-up tent? Something old and worn. They'll probably not bother trying to steal that." She patted the mimic on the lid.

I watched as the mimic very, very slowly changed. "Uh, how long does this usually take?"

"Minutes. Seconds. Depends on how complex the change. She's very mature for her kind. But those injuries have really hurt her."

"So, like, an hour?"

"She'll be done by morning."

I looked over my shoulder at the city. Cerise was in there somewhere. So close. I was anxious to get in and look for her as soon as possible. But not at the cost of anyone's lives. Even a treasure mimic. "Ok. Let's find a place to make camp. But we're moving out at first light." A wave of giddy excitement washed over me. My wife, love of my life, was alive. And tomorrow, I'd see her again.