What followed was a slaughter fest of proportions that would make me sick on later recollection. I charged through the jungle, tracking the nearby mobs down via combination of my minimap and sight. I came across a variety of jungle-based mobs, such as the gorilla I had squished earlier. But also plant-like mobs that were reminiscent of venus flytraps but three times my size. Those seemed inert, but suddenly sprang into life as I neared. My poleaxe sheared it in two without issue. There were also packs of smaller mobs, like a group of monkeys that swung from vines and tried a hit-and-run strategy, and a large mother leopard and her cubs that tried to encircle me.

They were all cut down with alarming ease. The anger I had felt at reading S&S Crawler’s article, at seeing that ridiculous hashtag, had cooled, condensing into a small coal of rage. That rage seemed pacified, but I could tell it was just waiting for an excuse to flare hot again.

Slaughtering practically defenseless mobs helped, but only so much. It was like that achievement had said - humans were the greatest prey of all. I almost welcomed Osgoth and Ysillith back to take another shot at me. I realized that was irrational - they wouldn’t be taken by surprise again, and I had no gauge on their true capabilities when they weren’t just messing around with what they assumed was a lost damsel. But a part of me didn’t care, I wanted to hurt someone that deserved it. Since I couldn’t get to BigSword, anyone would do.

I snapped myself out of that line of thinking. I had just skewered another of the giant gorillas on my weapon, hoisting it in the air by levering the poleaxe upwards. It squirmed and squealed on the end of my blade, its attempts to escape only drawing it further down the blade, and eventually, past it, to the pole below. It was impaled halfway down the weapon now, within reach. I casually backhanded its head, literally decapitating it. A sudden wave of revulsion hit me as the blood squirted up from its now vacant neck.

“What the hell am I doing?” I muttered.

I threw the body away with a flick of my weapon. It careened off a tree, flailing wildly like a thrown doll.

This was a very unhealthy way to decompress, I decided. Sure, I’d have to kill more mobs in the future - a lot more. But doing it for the pleasure of the thing was just wrong.

I sighed, sheathing my weapon and rubbing my hands through my hair. I paused with my fingers interwoven through the long, damsel hair. Bits of gore and blood were caked not only on my hands, but through my hair, and all over my body I realized.

“Of course, you idiot. You just massacred an entire stretch of jungle.” How the hell did players stay clean? Why wasn’t everyone walking around like the end scene of Carrie?

I turned to my chat with Jeremy. I had been ignoring the flashes during my rampage, and so I had a few messages waiting for me.

I had stopped looking after he had informed me about a certain trending hashtag, so I had about 30 minutes of backed up messages.

SnotPuppy: dude…?

SnotPuppy: u good?

A few minutes later.

SnotPuppy: Ray? U there? Dont even sweat it bro. Itll blow over in like a week.

SnotPuppy: ur scaring me man! I see ur in combat but doesnt look like ur pvp flagged. Everything good?

SnotPuppy: okay, I figured it out. We’ll fight fire w/ fire. Ill reach out to Crawler and we’ll do a counter expose or w/e the fuck its called. This aint no thing. #BigSwordsACuck or sometin

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More minutes passed.

SnotPuppy: ok, that one was shit, I no. Im just spitballin here, but heres a couple off the top of my head:

SnotPuppy: #BigSwordKillsBabies

SnotPuppy: #BigSwordsAPedo

SnotPuppy: #BigSwordCompensating

SnotPuppy: #BigSwordLittleDick

SnotPuppy: #BigSwordTouchedMe

SnotPuppy: And then for u, I was thinkn:

SnotPuppy: #JusticeForRay (idk bout that one, its a bit derivative)

SnotPuppy: or #DamselLivesMatter

SnotPuppy: Shit…thats all ive got

SnotPuppy: Ray…?

I sighed, shaking my head. These were ridiculous.

RayGun47: Hey, I’m here. Sorry about that. Just needed to let off a little steam.

SnotPuppy: Cool cool, I get it. U know wat I do when I need to let off a little steam?

RayGun47: Stop! Oh, god, I don’t wanna hear it, please

SnotPuppy: Wat, Ray? Its a totally natural biological process. Speaking of…can you even?

RayGun47: We are so not having this conversation.

SnotPuppy: Dude, dont make it weird. Its for science! God id rather die than not be able to jerk it.

RayGun47: How…nevermind. Let’s talk about these hashtags for a second…#BigSwordsAPedo? Isn’t that like…libel, or something?

SnotPuppy: Ray, u no I dont speak latin. Im just sayin, we gotta clapback, u no?

Another hashtag caught my eye.

RayGun47: #DamselLivesMatter? Not sure I’m really comfortable with the wordplay.

SnotPuppy: I’m not sure I know what you mean.

I chuckled to myself. I knew he was bullshitting because he suddenly started using proper grammar and spelling.

RayGun47: You know exactly what I mean. As a black man, it’s not really cool to co-opt that, you know?

SnotPuppy: im not black tho…

RayGun47: Not you, dumbass. I’m black.

SnotPuppy: ur black!?

RayGun47: Fuck off, you knew that!

SnotPuppy: Yeah…I guess. But I dont see color man. Musta slipped my mind. Anyways, this is totally kosher man.

RayGun47: That’s also offensive.

SnotPuppy: What the hell, ur jewish too?

RayGun47: Well…no, but you’re getting awfully loose with the racial wordplay.

SnotPuppy: well I AM jewish, and its totally KOSHER! Jesus, get off my back PBS Special.

RayGun47: Fine, fine, whatever. Just please. PLEASE. Don’t start any of those hashtags. And definitely don’t link my name to them. I’d rather stay under the radar if I can. They didn’t call me out by name, so hopefully this will all blow over like you said.

SnotPuppy: Fine fine w/e. But Ray?

RayGun47: Yeah?

SnotPuppy: I was really scared when you didn’t answer.

I started an automatic reply, something like: ‘Oh, sorry, man. You have nothing to worry about.’ But, that was for normal people. If Jeremy was opening up like this, it wasn’t just something to brush over. I deleted what I had written, and started a more heartfelt reply, but a second message streamed in first.

SnotPuppy: I already lost my best friend once, you know? Don’t do that shit to me again…

RayGun47: I hear you bud. I’m really sorry I didn’t reply. But I’m fine, really. No one’s taking old RayGun down without a fight.

It was still a tongue-in-cheek reply - we both knew I wasn’t exactly a confrontation wizard, and there were plenty of people that could probably take me down without much of a fight. But it was better than: ‘I was on the verge of a mental breakdown…again. And decided to massacre a hundred mobs in cold blood for the fun of breaking something like a psychopath…’

SnotPuppy: Still, we should meet back up. I dont like us being apart while ur still learning the ropes. I have a quest to go to the capital. Y dont we meet there?

I thought about that for a moment. That sounded like a big risk. Not that my own faction could attack me or anything. But it would be impossible to hide my class. And with the Crawler article, it seemed possible there was a game-wide manhunt for a rogue damsel.

RayGun47: I don’t know man…people might add two and two

SnotPuppy: they wont! You’ll look like any other damsel companion walking around on bitch duty. Trust me, everythings gonna be fine.

Why did those sound like famous last words?