I had to be really mindful about using [Bounding Jump]. If I used the skill to its max capacity and launched a hundred meters away, I had to make sure that I wasn’t going off a cliff or something. Otherwise, the fall damage could zero me out. And since I didn’t know exactly how bad fall damage was, I really didn’t want to experiment with that for now.

So I was careful as I slowly charged up my jump over a dozen tries. I was jumping about 20 meters into the air now from a partial charge, going straight up and down. That was a pretty good height to start experimenting with direction, so I kept my charge around that level as I started angling my body on the jump.

As I tested out the skill, the directional difference seemed to be partially based on intent. Just angling my body a certain way had erratic results - but when I focused on a specific direction, it seemed the skill picked up on that, and tried to subtly shift my limbs before launching me.

Over the course of ten minutes, my control improved exponentially, and I found myself able to pick a landing spot within a few meters of accuracy up to 20 meters distance.

I started charging a bit longer, experimenting with that accuracy at 30 meters. Then 40. Then I jumped to about 75, and went way off track. I forced myself back into the 40-50 meter range as I worked on ingraining that muscle memory.

Flying through the air was fucking exhilarating - but also, god damned terrifying. Once I picked a trajectory and fired the skill, I was in the hands of video game physics and blind luck. Changing course mid-jump wasn’t possible, no matter how I tried to angle my body or move my limbs. I went through a bunch of different experiments with body control. I pressed my arms and legs in tight to make myself more aerodynamic, but it had no effect on speed or control that I could determine. Then I kept my limbs out like little wings to create more drag, but again, no effect. Tucking into a gymnast position did nothing as well.

So, once you activated the skill, if you misjudged the distance or angle, you were pretty much fucked…

That was not in the skill description.

Flight was starting to look more and more appealing, even if jumping around like the Hulk was an adrenaline junkie’s dream.

Once I felt I had enough of a handle on the skill to not immediately splat myself on the ground, I started climbing some of the taller buildings in Bastion with little hops of ten to twenty meters. I wanted to get somewhere I could start streaming without other players being able to find me, and I didn’t want to have to leave the city to do that. The verticality of the skill would make it unlikely for other players to accidentally stumble upon me, even if there were players flying and jumping all around Bastion. The number of players with a movement skill was dramatically lower than the actual player count, since it required level 50.

I was nearing the top of one of the taller buildings in Bastion now, probably a hundred meters up. From this vantage, I could see most of the city, and it was glorious.

The five separate districts were spread out below me, and the bustle of movement that had seemed chaotic and crowded earlier, now seemed distant and orderly. Like looking at lines of ants bustling to and fro during their day-to-day routines.

The building I was currently climbing was a government building that was part of a greater bureaucratic complex. I wasn’t sure if the interior of the building actually existed and was accessible to the players, or if this building was just an empty facade, but I still kept away from the windows lest a player glance out and see a fucking Damsel spider-manning on the exterior.

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Once I had reached a height where it would be nearly impossible to spot me from below, I found a little alcove where two parts of the building connected to form a nook that was hidden from the outside unless you were specifically looking for it at a certain angle. That would stop any players flying around from casually spotting me as they traveled.

I nestled myself into the nook, crouching down so my back rested against the building.

Perusing through my add ons menu, I found the streaming and recording package. It cost a whopping 50,000 gold, though it was a onetime fee. I purchased it and started going through the settings.

There was a mess of different settings, and it took me multiple minutes just to make sure I wasn’t accidentally broadcasting my location when I streamed, or detailing the contents of my inventory. Apparently, it was quite common to allow access to things like that so that viewers could check out your gear whenever they wanted, or look at your skill tree, or pull your location up on their map like an in-game version of Find My Friends.

I didn’t want any of that shit.

For now, I just wanted a simple recording of my face, and that was it. I checked a setting to blur my background, angled the camera through the settings to aim at my face rather than from my perspective or over my shoulder…

And then I hit record.

“Hello, Swords & Sorcery,” I started. “My name is Rayshawn Davis. I’m male. 24 years old. And up until recently, I was employed in this very game as an actor playing a Damsel-in-Distress NPC.

“Yesterday, I died…”

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The recording ended up being nearly twenty minutes. I had decided to do a recording instead of a stream because I was really fucking nervous. Good thing that I had, because I had tripped over my words more than a few times, and had to go back and edit some bits out.

I wasn’t a very good speaker, in general.

In the recording, I had covered a lot of ground. That I was a Damsel actor, that my apartment had blown up, that I had lived somehow, stuck in this NPC body. I left out some obvious details. Everything about Al, Null Space, and my meeting with Goldman. My incident with the two Neck rogues, Osgoth and Ysillith. I had also decided not to go into detail about player-killing Damien, Git, and their two friends. I had initially planned on laying out the details for full transparency, but had ultimately felt like it would lose a lot of players’ support for me. The circumstances were just too muddy and would distract from the narrative I was trying to craft.

Next, I had explained that we didn’t know what would happen if I died. I refrained from explicitly stating that it was certain death, but I implied that it was a very high likelihood that I was one and done as far as lives went. I also explained that I was classless, and could pick skills across any of the trees - though I couldn’t specialize.

And next, I explained the competition we were gonna hold - details pending. I gave enough information to entice folks to begin theory-crafting, and that the gold prize would be massive, but didn’t go into the submission process just yet. I figured we had a day or two before we needed that infrastructure set up.

And finally, I introduced the world to Damsels Gone Wild - a new guild that was open to all. We hadn’t had to time to form a charter, but I winged that part. I framed it as a supportive guild, eager to help newbies and vets alike, that would slowly begin forming top-tier PvP and PvE teams, but create an environment that was anti-elitist and designed to build each other up in a positive fashion.

And that we were formally accepting invite requests.

That was that - it was done, and there was no going back…

I watched the recording three times, making sure I had covered everything and hadn’t slipped in any information that I hadn’t intended to. I had also sent it to the guys through the Officer chat so they could vet it too. Jeremy chewed me out for not adding a ‘Hot Chicks Only’ disclaimer, but ultimately eased off on that restriction after the three of us told him to shut up.

When I was satisfied it was ready to go, and Jeremy, Kink, and T had signed off, I released the video out into the wild. My heart had been beating a thousand kilometers per hour as my finger had hovered over the submit button. But once it was done, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders.

For better or worse, the die was cast.

My head rest against the building wall behind me, and I let my eyes close. I breathed a deep sigh of relief that it was finally done.

I let my body relax, my mind taking a break for probably the first time in a full 24 hours.

Just a little rest, that was all I needed. Just recharge the batteries for a minute, then back at it…

Sleep snuck up on me like a thief in the night.