"Say it again. Go on! Say it one more time and I swear, I will slap you in the mouth."

"Kryst, I can't even stand." From my seat on the walkway I look up at the irate fairy. When confronted with the opportunity to simply fly off and leave Cinnamon and I, she adamantly refused. The shield of tough-girl armor that she  wrapped herself in was chipping.

I can't help but feel more than a gentle plucking on the ol' heart strings.

Brash, so frickin' over the top intense, a chip the size of the rock of Gibraltar on her shoulder. Damn-it, if she wasn't loyal to fault. We barely knew each other but already there was a nearly tangible connection growing between each one of us. I'd known people for years who I felt less of an attachment to than these women.

Was it this world? That kind of unspoken rule at the gaming table. The one that forced players to make bonds at an accelerated rate to form up as a party of adventurers.

Or maybe I was over thinking it. Could this simply be what happened between people when exposed to out of the ordinary, life and death circumstances?

Perhaps it was more along the lines of the camaraderie formed between firefighters, police or soldiers. But that took extended periods of time too. Right?

Or... I swallow involuntarily. Was it something else?

I look at Kryst standing defiant, hands on her hips and my pulse quickens. My lips tingle at the memory of the kiss we shared a few moments ago, but this time the rush that goes through me isn't one of an overactive libido.

I push the feeling down. I just hope that I won't have lots of time to contemplate it further while sitting in a jail cell. The guards will reach us soon.

Groups of them are doing the cop thing. Directing people on the far adjacent lifter platforms, attempting to deter rubberneckers, and I suppose, getting statements and the like.

If they are anything like the police in the really real world, there is no way they will just let us go on our merry way after direct involvement with the elevator incident. We will be detained for questioning, and at that point, if the two guards on the street we encountered earlier were any indication, it's a very slim chance that they won't realize we are the ones with the APB out on us.

I just hope those guard we knocked out in the alley were still in dreamland and hadn't been found yet. If they have? Well, how'd it go? Out of the frying pan, dot, dot, dot.

"They are going to be down here in minutes if not sooner." I decide to refrain from telling her to 'get out of here' again. Just in case she does indeed follow through with her promised delivery of bodily harm.

"Look, Too Tall. Why don't you use those pointy ears of yours for something other than looking pretty." Kryst says. "I didn't agree with this plan of yours to go running from a scrap to begin with and I'm damn sure not going to leave you or Carrots here to deal with what's coming in your piss poor conditions."

Pluck. Pluck. Pluck.

She was right, though. We are in really bad shape.

Cinnamon isn't injured. At least, I pray she isn't. The shape she is in, however, is still that of a downy soft, and ridiculously cute, bunny rabbit.

I'm a different story. My hands feel like they've been dipped in lava. Unfortunately I had chanced a glance at them few minutes ago. That alone had made my stomach do more somersaults than I had performed in my death defying parkour-robatics on the cliff. I hadn't looked again, the image was already seared into my brain.

The rough, hemp rope had done a real number on my palms and fingers. Shredding flesh and slicing away at the meat. Surprisingly, it was less blood than I would have imagined, but the skin looked horrible. Torn in flaps and groves to expose the muscle underneath. Large raised blisters with white and pink tinted discolorations, made even brighter against my dark skin.

I shudder and the movement makes me to grind my teeth. The slightest twitch caused agony and with every second that passes my fingers stiffen more and more.

Not that I wanted to engage in a fight with the quickly approaching guards but there was no way I could even ball up a fist let alone draw my handgun for any sort of confrontation. Just the thought of discharging my firearm and feeling the buck of the heavy pistol's recoil causes another shot of pain and an increase to the burning sensation in my hands.

The second problem was with my feet. The right one in particular. It must have been the foot to take the brunt of Kryst's kick and as bad the pain in my hands are it feels ten times worse.

Thankfully, I couldn't see the injury. My boot had already become soaked in blood and the thought of removing my footwear to inspect the damage was truly frightening. I only hoped that the hamburger like condition, that had now firmly taken root in my mind, was simply my imagination running wild on me.

I sincerely doubted that was the case. Either way, there was no way I was moving from where I now sat.

"What do you expect us to do, Kryst? Please. You are the only one of us that can-- "

"I ain't going nowhere." The fairy cuts me off then glances back to the end of the walkway. The muscles in her jaw tense. "Not this time."

Huh? My forehead wrinkles. If it wasn't for my sharper than human senses I wouldn't have picked up the added whisper. My mouth opens to speak when I feel a heavy weight settle in my lap.

The sudden pressure makes me start in alarm and spasms of pain wrack my body. In a vicious cycle the action repeats causing me to shake and tremble over and over. The pain continues until I manage to steady my breathing and force myself to keep still.

"Brian?! Oh goodness." Cinnamon has a her hand to her mouth. She looks me over and lets out a gasp when she sees my tattered hands and blood soaked leg. She reaches over and touches my face in a soft caress.

"Nice of you to join us, Carrots." Kryst all but grins.

"Hey, Cinni-buns. " I manage a weak smile after the exhausting muscle spasms.

Cinnamons fingers leave my cheek. Positioned for speedy accessibility she plucks a few of the small colored vials and bottles from the belts and strapped on holders on her waist and arm.

Interesting that her clothes changed with her. Some games do use that as part of transformation magic. A kind of side effect that allows items and equipment to merge with the new creatures form. It must have been because Kryst is a living creature that she was not absorbed into Cinnamons bunny body along with her clothing and carried accessories.

"Here, drink this, Brian. I'm sorry it's not stronger." She places the tiny bottle to my lips and tips my head back gently. A tasty blend of sweet fruit juice fills my mouth and like a man in a desert I gulp it down. It quenches a thirst that I didn't realize that I had.

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A prickling, like parts of my body have fallen asleep ripples through me. The sensation settles then seems to concentrate in all the locations where I've sustained injuries over the past few days, but the tingle is particularly strong in my hands, legs and feet. There are a few sharp tinges of pain like I've been poked with needles and an odd... wrong sensation. As if the flesh and muscle fibers are twisting, writhing around as if it they have a will of their own.

In the next instant I feel... better? Still absolutely awful, but the pain in my leg is now a steady dull throb and much of the stiffness in my fingers has diminished.

Brian Status: HP: 5/ 12      Stun: 22 / 22      Mana: 2 / 10

Cinnamon pops open a container that' s made from the carapace of an insect the size of a peach. She scoops out a white colored salve. Taking my hands she slathers it over the ruined skin. I flinch at first, fearing the medicinal sting but there is only a cool numbness instead. A wave of relief washes through me.

There is a bit of that weird sensation again and I look down at my sticky hands as the effect takes place. In total fascination I watch as the smaller cuts knit before my eyes, leaving behind smooth unblemished skin. The injuries are still there but whatever this stuff is, I feel amazing.

Brian Status: HP: 6/ 12      Stun: 30 / 22      Mana: 2 / 10

"This will heal some of your wounds and help relieve any pain you're feeling." Cinnamon dips her fingers into the container again and spoons out more ointment into my palms and onto other places where the rope has burned me.

The color and consistency of the marvelous anesthesia cream reminds me of the lotions and hair products that I've often stacked the shelves with at my old job.

It even smells the same. A delicious cherry almond scent that transports me back to when a supply case of said product had busted open in shipping. The stuff had gotten everywhere. Soaking into wooden pallets and cardboard alike, it made the entire storage room smell like some kind of tropical bakery for more than a week.

Wonderful as that sounds, and as infinitely preferable to Greta the Grendel's noxious cigarette smoke, it had been hell on me as the strong, albeit delightful, fragrance had been just another of the many triggers for my old, overly sensitive, sinuses.

I didn't have that problem anymore. Just a stack of new ones. A smile creeps onto my lips. Slowly at first until I am grinning like an idiot.

I can't help it. The memory of snuffling and sneezing like a bad actor in a cold and flu medication commercial stirs something in me and I laugh out loud.

My boring old life. Where my biggest woes were dealing with a toxic, tobacco fume fueled boss. Working menial jobs alongside snide co-workers. Paying the rent on my shoe box apartment. A lack games and friends to share them with.

And of course, my total inability to garner any sort of interest from women.

Alright, yeah. I guess there were some actual woes in there.

In the distance past a forest of green, a larger than it should be, red-orange sun blazes in the sky over a beautiful azure sea. A playboy bunny girl and a hard bodied, kung-fu fairy are on either side of me. All of us hanging midway down an impossibly tall cliff on rust speckled, goblin constructed, piecemeal scaffolding.

In the past few days I've faced and fought real monsters. Killed and eaten, an actual Naga and a dinosaur... thing. I've been slapped around by and then befriended both a fairy and a troll. Fallen off a building. Which doesn't hold a candle to the follow up elevator sabotage plummet. Ran up a vertical rock cliff face after I jumped off a bird!

Magic airships, steam-gear mechanical suits, a red and black tree the size of a skyscraper over my head. That and so much more.

I'm a Drow. With a gun.

The crazy of it all bubbles up. A chuckle rumbles up from my chest growing into full on laughter. Even the bit of pain that ripples through my body, just makes me laugh harder. Damn, I am so happy to be alive.

Kryst and Cinnamon both look at me with worried expressions.

"I don't understand." Cinnamon glances to the near empty container, as if it could be the cause of my chuckles, "Brian are you alright?"

"Don't worry." There is wetness at the corner of my eyes, "It only hurts when I laugh." The corny line sends me off into another fit.

"Gracious, he may be going into shock." Cinnamon bits her lip nervously.

"I didn't think I kicked him that hard." Kryst says.

"You kicked him?" Cinnamon gasps.

"He told me to! Beside it was either that or have the two of you get smooshied." Kryst turns toward me but her mouth is curling up in a smile as the infectiousness of my giggling starts to get to her, "Will you stop laughing!"

"Okay, Okay." Still chuckling I nod then wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes against my shoulder

At the end of an overhead platform the guards have somehow gotten ahead of Plogz and Captain Reigns, perhaps they pushed past the slower moving goblin or had merely taken a different route on the multitude of interconnected walkways. The how isn't that important, only that they are moving down a last series of steps in their hurry to get to us.

"You three. Stop right there." One of the guards shouts, "We've got you."

I glance about confused. A few feet away from me a grate squeaks, hanging by a couple of loose bolts at the dead end of the platform. Over a drop into hundreds of feet of nothingness.

"Yeah. Another fine collar, Colombo." I shake my head.

They all but skid to a halt a few yards away. These guards are dressed in the same style of leather armored uniforms as the two we'd encountered in the alley. Their swords are still in the scabbards on the hips but most have their mahogany colored wooden truncheons in hand.

"Afternoon officers. How can we help you today." I say with a cheerful smile.

Awkwardly they glance between one another, clearly not expecting my calm and friendly delivery.

"You three are wanted for questioning." A man with tousled blonde hair in the lead states. He has a crest that is a little larger than the others with a few horizontal lines under the tree imagery. It's easy enough to figure out it symbolizes a higher rank.

"On what grounds?" I address the leader, still keeping with the smile and calm tone.

"If that lifter incident wasn't cause enough, " he nods toward the bottom of the cliff, "You happen to match the description of some perpetrators who attacked members of the Cityguard." His eyes shift to Kryst and back to me.

Hell in a handbasket. Out of the frying pan dot, dot, dot, it is.

"You will hand over your weapons and come with us."

"And if we don't?" Kryst says from where she stands on the safety rail.

Before the he can speak a barrel chested guard with a bulbous nose muscles to the front of the group. He regards Kryst with a sneer "Then we crack your heads and drag you in anyway." He lets out a humph, "Your kind have caused enough trouble around here, speck. So please, just give me a reason."

The blonde man's mouth twitches into a frown directed toward the back of the larger guard. It's clear he wants to berate the man for the outburst but his eyes dart onto to us again and he keeps silent.

Kryst, however, has no such qualms speaking her mind.

"Don't go and square up on me, fatso." She crosses her arms and leans back with a derisive grunt of her own, "Unless you actually prefer the taste of soup to solid food."

The guards all pause at the threat. Some grin with laughter, glancing between each other.

"Insolent bug!" Anger flashes in the big guard's eyes and he pulls a small burlap sack from his belt. Held open in one hand like a trash bag he reaches out with the other to snatch the fairy from her perch.

His fingers almost close around her tiny form but then, like liquid lightning, Kryst blurs into movement. The guard manages only a single grunt of pain and topples backward to thump onto the walkway. The metal and wooden structure shakes in protest and by the looks on the faces of the other guards it is more than just my tail-hole that tightens.

Except for the wind and the creaking scaffolding a hush descends. Magenta energy dances over her body. One fist outstretched, the other close to her chest, Kryst slowly straightens from her stance. The bag the guard dropped slips through the grate to tumble through the air. Slowed by the blustery gusts.

Kryst hops down onto the walkway and positions herself between our two groups. Like she's straight out of a old kung-fu flick, complete with billowing silk outfit and whipping sound effects she twists her torso and flashes her arms back and forth in a high-speed martial form.

"Right!" Fingers mimicking claws Kryst tucks down low. By her smile she can't wait to fly into the lot of them and dish out some Ip man meets Ken and Ryu styled beat downs.

"Let's get ugly."