I groaned as I regained consciousness, my head hurt as if someone had decided to use it as baseball practice. The heavyweight pressing down on my body didn't help, I wiggled out from underneath the large deepstalker. I put my hands on its cold scaly body, checking for a heartbeat. Nope it was dead as a dead... something. I gave my body a quick once over to check for wounds, I was fine. In tippy top shaped despite what had happened actually. The wounds on my leg had already recovered, man that kabane enhancement sure was good stuff, would be nice to have my whole body like that, Jim had told me that a true Kabaneri lived on blood. Which was a no-go for me, I loved food. Wasn't giving that up for any amount of power.

I sighed as I noticed my mind wandering off again, I brought my thoughts back to the present and took stock of the cave. It was smaller than I had first expected, this didn't seem like a communal area for deepstalkers. Perhaps it was a private room of sorts for the deepstalker I had killed. I glanced at the body and the sheer size of the thing. It had been as tall as me when it stood on its legs, I was pretty sure it was a deepstalker leader. The colour pattern just didn't fit that of a matriarch, although it was larger in size than I had expected even of the highest rung of hierarchy in the deepstalker community. It struck me as odd, I looked around the small cavern once more my eyes widened as I noticed something. An egg, my heart twitched as I saw it. I knew Deepstalkers could be tamed and trained and I was against killing an innocent creature. I loved animals and I really really missed my dog.

On impusle, I for grabbed the egg and gently placed my hand on the outer layer. I could feel the gentle warmth of life through the thin shell. I took the helm of my head, it had cracked a bit when I crashed into the floor and lost my consciousness. But it would make for a great secondary purpose. An egg holder! The egg was smaller than my head and fit comfortably inside my helmet, I took off my jacket and folded it around the egg. Then attached the helmet to my belt by its straps and left it hanging there. I smiled in pride at my own ingenuity. Then my eyes swept the cavern for the last time, seeing nothing else of note I headed to the relatively small entrance the Deepstalker had dragged me through, I carefully crawled through the hole, keeping the helmet in front of me so I wouldn't accidentally squash the egg.

Once I reached I the end of the longer than I remembered tunnel, I realized the top of the tunnel had been blocked off. A giant corpse was in the way, I carefully listened for any sounds. Worried there might be darkspawn left in the cave beyond. I heard nothing, I carefully pushed against the corpse of the ogre blocking my way. The thing was heavy, it was like pushing a small car, I maneuvered myself until I could put my back into the corpse while my legs pressed against the wall so I could utilize the maximum amount of power. Inch by Inch I managed to push it further away, freeing the entrance. I almost gagged as the stench of death penetrated my nostrils, I expected to hear the manic buzzing of flies as they feasted on the corpses. Instead, an eery quiet had fallen over the area.

I wondered if no insects lived in this cave system, that made no sense, how would an underground ecosystem survive something like that. I frowned, a lot of things did not make sense in a fantasy world such as this. How was a broodmother able to birth thousands of the spawn, where did she get the energy from. How did they feed such a huge amount of their kind underground, I knew they ate people of all races. Surely they were not able to kill enough to feed their sheer number. So many questions, so few answers. I felt the influence of my sister in my thoughts, she always wanted to know how everything worked. I managed a sad smile as the sense of nostalgy hit me. Once again I shook the thought from my head as I surveyed the destruction around me. The sheer amount of corpses was mindboggling,

We must have killed hundreds of the things, then there was the spawn who fought and killed deepstalkers, heavy losses on both sides. I wondered why the stalkers had rushed out to attack, then I saw the reason. The matriarch had been killed, she was surrounded by a few darkspawn, the teeth and claw marks indicated she had sold her life at a high price. Then I realized the spawn was most likely not here for us, they had come to clear this nest of deepstalkers. But why did they not take the corpses for food, I was sure they would even eat their own kind. Yet there was an untouched mountain of potential food here. It puzzled me, I had no idea what was going on and nothing made sense to me. My eyes widened a bit as I realized something, this felt like a simulation. Not a true world in itself, it IS a game. Games did not have fully self-functional eco-systems, they always had small lapses in logic.

The realization struck me causing my jaw dropped. Did that mean this was a simulation, it made sense. Creating entire real words with the intent of training a handful of individuals made no sense, rather it shouldn't be possible. But what did it mean, were we even till really us? Had the information of what and who we are somehow been captured and copied. Were we still alive or was I a simulation of myself. I pinched myself, it hurt like normal, but how much of that could be emulated. How much was real, was I... Real? My mind was thrown in a frenzy, the implications such a simple thing made, threw me off. I cursed, I could die but I wouldn't die. I could gain powers that were theoretically impossible. I could travel worlds, had I become a game character?

Had I become a series of zero's and ones? Then what was the use of this simulation? This enemy, The Nihil that we are supposed to fight. What if they were a virus, an extremely complicated intergalactic virus. Then what did that make the people who fought against it, the various races that had been turned into information? A fire-wall? An anti-virus? This was something I was not prepared to handle, I could be a copy of myself. An advanced form of brain-scan that copied my essence and turned it into bits. Binary body, binary soul, Binary blood? I froze... Did that mean that if I did not perform up to expectations I would be deleted? The thought scared me, scared me more than I would like to admit. If I truly was some kind of copy of myself, then ok... I could live with that knowledge, I was still me. Yet if I died, if I got deleted. No afterlife... No reïncarnation... No nothing... I would be gone and that thought scared me a lot more than death ever did.

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I cursed and kept on cursing. I started kicking the corpses around me voicing out my inner turmoil, screaming my anguish. Should I ask the fluid? But what if that meant it saw me as a malfunction, it could delete me. Who would stop it, I sure as hell couldn't, the power I could wield here was power granted to me. It would change nothing in the larger scheme of things, then what about hacking... Could I hack into the software of whatever it was that ran this and alter my very being? But I had no talent for hacking, I knew this. I did not have the mind for the small detailed work that was necessary for the art of hacking. Which meant I had a new priority, find another human who was a hacker. The best one I could find, then we could find out. Then I would know if my theory spoke true. I released a breath as a sharpened my mind, this meant I had to make sure to survive, to keep my new friends from being deleted. It was time I got serious.

I walked towards one of the cave entrances, my back straight and my head held high. I would do what I ne-- PFWAH. I tripped over a corpse and smashed face first into the floor, blood rushed to my cheeks as I hastily straightened myself. I quickly checked the egg to see if it was okay, to my relief it was unscratched. I coughed and pretended nothing had happened and continued my cool hero walk towards the entrance. First thing first, gathering points. Fluid did not let us know beforehand what would get us points, we had to act and we would be awarded based on what Fluid thought it was worth. I was pretty sure I would gain points per day I survived, probably a few points for kills. Most importantly I needed allies, I needed something or someone to watch my back. Eve was most likely still alive but she would have run off. Somewhere safe to gather as many points as she could on her own.

There were few allies to be found in the deep roads. The dwarves were one, but they stayed close to their few remaining cities. Grey wardens were another, although they mostly only ventured into the Roads to find death. It would be good to find them however. The one that I had the most chance of running into and would make for superb allies were the Legion of the Dead. Dwarven warriors who dedicated themselves solely to fighting the spawn in their own territory. But to find them I would need to know where I was and most importantly where they were. I had no map of the roads, very few of such things even existed. Which meant I would have to wander around and hope that I would run into a more favourable situation. Experience over the last two missions had taught me luck was not on my side.

Which meant I had to be extra careful. I also knew next to nothing about the egg, I had no idea if I had to keep it warm. Or what circumstances it needed to hatch, then it came with the problem of taming it and keeping it fed. First of all I had to keep myself alive long enough that the egg had a chance to hatch. I sighed, patted the egg and walked further down the dark gloomy hallway. Keeping me ears open for any stray sounds, seeing was more difficult now that I had no night-vision. But the glass had been thoroughly smashed and my goggles were useless. I made my way by keeping a hand on one wall and slowly making my way forward. Taking extra care to be as silent as possible. My hand ran over the rough surface of the stone, I trailed it further as I used its presence to keep me balanced. Then my hand ran over something fleshy and I froze, I braced myself for movement, for pain. One breath, another breath... Nothing happened, I relaxed a bit and carefully felt the flesh-like texture. Then I remembered the flesh like coverings of the walls in darkspawn areas and relaxed.

I really really REALLY didn't want to know how those things existed and what they were made of. I had more than enough fuel for nightmares for years to come. I also did not want to keep running my hand over the flesh wall, I could see just enough to make out shapes. I suppose it would have to do for now. I continued walking through the tunnels, choosing random intersections each time, I wasn't even sure that I was not walking in circles. I would just have to hope that I wasn't. To my surprise I was starting to get tired again, my feet hurt as I had been walking nearly the entire day. Nothing had happened, no monsters had tried to kill me today and somehow I had avoided walking into anything hostile. The night would be even more dangerous if it even was night. It could be day for all I knew, finding somewhere relatively safe to spend the night was my number one priority. Was there anywhere in this tunnel system that would be relatively safe for me to sleep? I didn't know, for now, I decided to keep walking a while longer hoping to find one of the main roads that were lit. I could probably find a small enclave to spend the night if I found one.

I walked for what I felt was another hour or three, eventua, ly I spotted light at the end of my current tunnel. I wanted to run towards it, it would be nice to see properly again, but I refrained myself. If could see properly that means other things that lurked down here might be able to as well. I edged towards the entrance to the main road, and peeked down both sides. The road was massive, it was more than thirty meters in bredth. On the sides every twenty meters orso massive pillars reached upwards to support the weight of the cieling. Magnificant dwarven engravings decorated the pillar and I stared at it in awe. They were HUGE, they stretched upwards twenty meters. The massive structures must have taken ages to build. It had never seemed that impressive in the game but seeing it in front of me it made quiet the expression. It made me wonder what Orzammar the capital city of the dwarves actually looked like. I bet it would blow my mind.

I snapped my mind back under my control, I had no time to be awed, I needed to check for danger. The everlasting magical flames lit up the road, making it easier to look around. Then I saw a good place to rest. Up one of the pillars there was a giant crack, it had been hollowed out somewhat over time and was large enough for me to rest in. I climbed up the pillar using the foothold that the carvings provided to make my way up. I reached the crack and crawled inside, it was even slightly more roomy than I expected. More than enough for me to rest in. I closed my eyes and fell asleep, my need for rest taking my consciousness despite the relative uncomfortableness of the crack.

I started awake, I heard something. Boots, marching boots. Hundreds of them and they were coming closer!