"Woah," said Eric, looking around at the unfamiliar landscape. Benny and his entourage had come to the outskirts of the town to test out the divine weapons. There were mountains in the distance with snowy peaks, but before that was a large grassland Eric now found himself in. The grasses didn't even reach his waist, while Benny was stuck into it down to his stomach. As soon as they entered the grasses, a group of tiny orange balls suddenly appeared with mouths as their only features. They had sharp teeth that looked dangerous, but they could only float slowly through the air. 

     "This looks perfect," said Benny, looking at the orange floating slime like a hunter. He raised his bow, pulled the string back so the glowing arrow appeared, then he leveled it at the orange ball and let the string go. The glowing arrow shout out of the bow like a bullet, piercing the orange ball so that it popped like a balloon. There was a slight spray of blood around where the orange balloon had been, but Benny didn't notice that as much. 

      "Woah, look at this," said Benny, looking at a small white screen that had suddenly appeared in front of him.

     Eric looked over Benny's shoulder to see what the screen said. 

      'Exp:2 $:0' 

     "So, that's experience," explained Benny, "and it looks like we can earn money from slaying monsters." 

     "Seriously?!" cried Eric, suddenly enthusiastic about this adventure. He spied another orange ball a little ways away, and he charged towards it with his chains in hand. Eric swung from a short distance away, putting all of his strength into the swing. The chain smacked into the orange bulb, then it popped like before. The chain kept swinging, coming around and hitting Eric in the side. "Shit," said Eric, reeling from the hit. Eric pressed on the area he had just hit himself, feeling the bruise already forming. 

     The little warning popped up, telling him he had just earned three experience points and no money. "Hey," said Eric, motioning for Benny to look at this, "I got more experience than you!" 

     Benny inspected the message, then he said, "Maybe it has something to do with your title?" 

     "Title?"

     Benny opened his inventory, touched the title underneath his name, and a little window popped up. "The title you have changes your stats," said Benny as Eric looked at the window. It read: 'Bow Mastery[Passive]: The hero's accuracy and skill inspires his comrades to match his excellence. Long ranged attacks do 15% more damage for all party members.' "See, my title implies that long-ranged attacks are automatically better for my party. The passive option means that I don't affect it, it will happen automatically without me doing anything. Check out yours." Eric opened his inventory, then pressed the 'Hero of the Chain' title, then a window opened up. 

     'Chain Links[Passive]: The bonds created in life are stronger than the hardest chains. For every member in the party, party experience gain is increased 100%.' 

     "Woah, that's so broken," said Benny, reading the title as well. 

     "Is it really?" 

     "Yeah, think of what happens if you have a big party. You'd have a shit ton of experience in no time." 

     "Cool," said Eric, glad that he would have such a big head start. Eric created a party with Benny and some of his entourage and they killed the orange things late into the evening, the experience gain increasing massively. They stopped to go back into town for lunch, then they got the tour of the town itself. Eric only remembered the area for the armorer shop, which was run by a strong black man who looked unsettlingly like Black Dynamite. He was pretty cool, since he was also a big guy who could sympathize with Eric's big guy problems. To show his appreciation for all of the help, Eric payed for a new set of armor for Benny to wear. 

     "Woah, thanks," said Benny, checking himself out in the mirror. It was some classy light armor chosen because of Benny's smaller frame and need for speed. "Hey, why don't I let you have one of my NPC's?" Benny offered. 

     "What's and en-pee-see?" Eric asked. 

     "NPC stands for 'Non-Playable Character', and refers to the people that aren't controlled by players. The shop owner here is an NPC." 

     "What did you just call me?" demanded Black Dynamite aggressively. 

     "Sorry," Benny said with no emotion. "Anyway, I could lend you one of my followers since it's such a big bonus for you." 

     "You aren't even going to ask them first?" Eric said disapprovingly. 

     "Dude, NPCs don't actually have feelings," said Benny confidently, "they just act like they do. Trust me, it's all well and good. Besides, your title bonus makes it sound like having companions is your forte." Benny went outside to his followers, while Eric payed for the armor, then went out to join them. He found Benny whispering in the ear of one of his group, who nodded to him. She was a beautiful woman who had fine armor on and who Eric remembered seeing with two fast daggers. 

     "Hey, my name's Judy," she said with a pleasent smile, "and I'll be your follower from now on!" 

     "Cool," said Eric, "I'm Eric Bane. Do you know where we can go to get some rest? I'm really tired right now." 

     "Sure," said Judy, "there's a little inn that is friendly with my family. We can get a discount there." 

     "See you later," said Benny, "I'm going to go hunt some more of those orange things." 

     "See you later," said Eric, waving as Benny and him seperated groups. "Come on, let's go see about that inn." 

     Eric found himself waking up to the sight of a knife in his stomach, the pain shooting through his body as he shot up. In the few moments he had before he woke up screaming, he saw Judy, his supposed ally, releasing the handle of the knife and run away. Eric didn't worry too much that her appearal was ripped, or that she was carrying his bag of money, he was too focused on the powerful pain that was arcing through his gut. Every movement he made moved the blade inside of his body, driving him crazy as yelled out in total pain. It took a few seconds for somebody to come up and check on him, and when they did, they saw he had a knife in his gut. 

     Eric pulled the knife out, feeling every moment it spent sliding across his insides. He finally pulled the knife out completely, then grabbed the nearest sheet and pressed it onto the wound. He was breathing heavily as the pain started to become manageable. Then he looked to the guy that had entered the room to see him with his legs apart and fists clenched. "You bastard!" shouted the man, looking at Eric with intense hatred. 

     "I need thread and a needle," said Eric through clenched teeth. 

     "What for?" the man demanded angrily. 

     "So I don't BLEED TO DEATH," Eric shouted at the top of his lungs. The man left the room for a few moments as Eric tried to get an idea of the damage the knife had caused. The cut was only two inches across, but the knife itself was five inches along. This was going to take more than a few stitches and crossed fingers. Maybe there was something in this world that could heal him magically, though there were niggles of doubt that undermined the accountability of that idea. The man reappeared and threw a line of thread at Eric, who was sick of this guy's attitude. "Where's the needle?" 

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

     "I gave it to you," said the man with a sneer. Eric picked up the thread, then he looked around for the needle which he found in the bedsheets he clutched. Eric pulled the sheets off, then he tied the thread through the needle and began his second-hand surgery. The thread was coarse, not the type of thing a person would want to stitch up a wound. Still, Eric gritted his teeth and stuck the needle through his skin, making a cross pattern in his skin. Once he was done, he pulled it tight enough that it wouldn't open, then he glared daggers at the man who carried such an attitude. 

     "What the hell's your problem?" Eric growled. 

     "You raped that girl in my inn," said the man angrily, "and you wonder why I have a problem?" 

     "I didn't rape anyone," growled Eric through clenched teeth. 

     "I've got a crying girl in ripped clothes sitting in my room that says otherwise." 

     "I didn't rape her," Eric shouted, "she just stabbed me for no reason!"

     "I don't care," said the man, "but you're not moving until the guards get here." Eric let the pain soothe down to a dull roar, then men in armor showed up carrying very sharp lances. He was handcuffed with cuffs so large they felt like he was having his arms pulled off. Since his abdominals were killing him, he ended up lifting the cuffs over his shoulders so that his hands were behind his head. He was poked and prodded by the lances so that he stood up and walked out of the room where more men in armor leveled their lances at him. 

     Eric was forced to walk through the street with a steadily bleeding wound in his stomach. The blood soaked his shirt, then it soaked into his pants, and it finally started to make a trail in the street once he was a getting closer to the king's palace. With the blood running down his shirt, Eric entered the immaculate palace and dripped blood in there as he was sorrounded by guards at all times. He was prodded into the throne room, noticing that the lances were starting to make small incisions when they poked him. He was bleeding all over by the time he stood in front of the stairs that went to the thrown. 

     "What is the meaning of this?" said a very annoyed voice as the king entered the room from the back door. He saw Eric standing with guards sorrounding him, the blood slowly collecting to a small pool at his feet. 

      One of the armored men, wearing a feather in his helm, announced, "Sire, this man has been caught in the act of rape. The inn keeper claims that he was raping one of his followers when the girl stabbed him and made a getaway." 

     "That's not true," shouted Eric, but he was silenced when the circle of armored men pointed their lances at his neck. Eric went silent, not wanting to waste his life just yet. 

     "Sire, the girl... it was Judy," said the guard slowly. The king adopted an expression of loss, then of extreme hatred which he aimed at Eric. 

     "You bastard!" the king shouted, anger filling his voice as he stood at the edge of the stage he had raised. "If you weren't a hero, I would execute you myself! As of this moment, you are hereby banished from this palace, and if you ever get close to my daughter again, I will drive nails into your body until you die of suffocation! Gaurds, get this man out of my sight!" 

     "I didn't do anything," Eric shouted in his defense, but they fell on the deaf ears of the king. As Eric was leaving the building, he saw Judy standing next to the blond pretty-boy, Tyler Jinx. Judy had her face in Tyler's shoulder, making heavy sobbing sounds, but Eric saw the malicious smile she hid underneath her hair. 

     "Bastard," said Tyler, looking sternly at Eric as he passed by. "I will make sure everyone knows what you've done! You will never get away with this!" Eric was being poked and prodded by the men in armor, forced to walk with the heavy cuffs on his shoulders. Once he was outside of the city, the guards kicked him in the back so that he fell with the heavy cuffs on his neck. Getting up after that was like lifting the weight of the world, but he got onto his knees as he reflected what had happened. 

Eric Bane realized that he had been set up, either by the girl, Benny, the king, or the entire group. Eric Bane had decided to trust them because he had no sense of direction otherwise, and they turned his trust inside out to take what little he had for themselves. Eric Bane was left with no money, a lot of bleeding holes, and the accusations of a crime he didn't commit. Eric Bane felt a strong sense of deja vu, because this had happened to him before. 

     When Eric was a child, his parents divorced and his father was dragged away because his new wife didn't like children. When he was ten years old, his mother buckled from the pressure of raising two children and left him with an eight-year old sister who was chronically ill. When Eric was twelve, a woman saw him picking a fight with some kids, introduced him to underground fighting, then cheated him out of most of the money he won. When Eric was fifteen, his sister was hospitalized, but Eric's cry for help was ignored by his sponsor, and his sister died at thirteen. When Eric was seventeen, he was confessed to by a girl, who turned around and betrayed him by luring him into a fight with an army of thugs. 

     Eric was tired, he was so tired of all of the betrayal that he just wanted to die. It was a gut-wrenching feeling that could have broken the stitches as Eric felt the weight of the cuffs on his hands. He sat there, looking into the fading darkness as light appeared over the horizon behind him. He could see the field of wild grasses in front of him, the forest beyond, and the mountain beyond that. He heard the voice of the king in his mind, that he would be helping out with the demon waves that plagued this world, so he needed to get stronger. 

     When Eric's dad left, he got stronger to support his woeful mother. When his mother left, Eric got stronger to support his sister. When his money was stolen, he got stronger so he could get more money. When his sister was in the hospital, Eric got stronger to be her crutch. When Eric was at the lowest point in his life, he always got stronger and pushed on, no matter the circumstances that conspired to push him around. Now that he was on his knees, everything lost to him, nothing mattering anymore, he knew what he had to do. 

     Get stronger.