*A side quest* What kind of bullshit is this? I didn’t sign up for this, I didn’t ask to be in this world, wherever that may have been. What I would give to be back in my office, analysing data for project managers, at least it was safe there.

I focused on the text that popped up in the bottom left of my vision again.

*New side quest unlocked*

As my eyes remained fixed on it the next part of the text gave me additional information.

*Infiltrate the Terror Camp Of Doom*

Sounds ominous, that wasn’t it though I continue to read as additional side quests were added.

*Find out the ‘whispers’ of Raven’s past*

*Bonus Quest - Destroy the Terror camp by killing all of the Terror’s 0/20*

“Shit,” I said out loud, Raven looked up at me as if I had seen something in the trees. She instinctively raised her hand to her back ready to grab her sythes if needed.

“No it’s ok, I think all of the Terror’s are gone. It’s just I have been given a side quest.”

Raven looked at me as if I had three heads.

“Do you not see things the same as I am?” I asked, “Like all these messages, updates and information on everything to do with this world.”

Raven shook her head.

“Well according to this information, I have been given a side quest. One that involves the camp where those Terror’s are based, it also has a quest about you?”

Raven suddenly seemed more interested as I explained what the message said. “It wants us to infiltrate the Terror’s camp and unlock the whispers of your past. Did those Terror’s do something to you, is it you they are looking for? Not me.”

Raven nodded her head again, she looked in parts angry but I saw a flash of the little girl that she was. That said I couldn’t escape the fact that she had just masa red the two Terror’s that had ambushed me with the skills of an assassin. It was strange seeing someone so young act so violently.

I had played enough RPG games to understand what a side quest was, it was an optional extra, something that I didn’t need to actually do. Fidget had told me to look for someone who was north in the forest, that is all I hd to go off before she had gotten cut off from me. The question was, what help could I be with Raven, she is a kid but she is far more deadly than I am.

“Did they do something to you in their camp?” I asked her.

She nodded again, before lowering her head, a hint of sorrow about her. She then snapped back by starting to sign again but as like before I had no clue what she was saying.

“Do you want to go back? Like do you have unfinished business with them again.”

Raven continued to frantically sign, I couldn’t help but notice the aggression in her facial expression as she tried to explain to me, both of our frustrations growing.

I couldn’t tell anything she was saying at all, all I could do was guess. She had helped me, she hat cut down the ropes when I was suspended from the air and she had protected me from the Terror’s. Helping her in return would be the right thing to do, I just wasn’t sure what help I could be.

“Do you want me to help you?” I asked.

Raven nodded and continued to try and sign to me.

“Well I guess we best find this Terror camp of doom then.”

Raven stopped signing and pointed in the direction of the Terror’s that had gone out looking for us in the forest. We had to find their camp, in the process find out Raven’s history whilst somehow killing all seventy five of the little bastards. Although the latter seemed to not be an absolute, then again seeing Raven in action filled me with more confidence for he being with me.

When I took a step forward my foot caught the dead Terror that was sat against the tree, I had never seen a dead body up close, let a lone something as grotesque as this thing was. By his hand sat his rusted weapon and I went over to pick it up.

*Rusted Cleaver - lvl 2*

It felt strangely heavy in my hand as I examined the small butchers cleaver, most of it was heavy corroded with rust with the outer edge serrated and chipped away in parts. The handle was rough and wooden, giving me the feeling that if I squeezed it too tightly I would wind up with a load of splinters for my troubles. Still it was better than having nothing and given I was slowly being integrated to how dangerous this world could be, wherever the hell I was, then I was not taking any chances. I swung the cleaver in the air a few times to practice with it, I had no clue what I was doing. I had never used a weapon before, let alone tried to kill anyone.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Raven watched me before shaking her head, signing aggressively at me. I felt like I was being scolded by a teacher at school as she stepped forward and took the cleaver from me.

Stepping away from me she jabbed it forward in a couple of ways before slashing it downwards as if cutting from one corner of a square to the next. She then tossed me the blade and panicking I jumped back as the blade bedded into the ground.

“Shit!” I said as Raven stepped forward to the cleaver and pulled it out of the ground with a judgemental sigh, before passing it to me a little more delicately this time, she held the cleaver by the blade so I could take hold of the handle.

Once I had hold of the blade she gestured with me with her shoulders, an air of expectation from her, before impatiently jabbing her hands in the air as if she still had hold of the cleaver.

“Oh,” I said before doing as she was asking, I mimicked what she had shown me an over and over as she watched me with pity in her eyes. After a while Raven took the blade from me, this time holding the cleaver at the top, forcing the blade to track down her forearm, before showing how agile she could be with it, making a forearm smash suddenly a lot more deadly. She passed me the blade back and I practiced for a while longer under her watchful eye, out of the two types of fighting with it I preferred the first way, it felt more natural and comfortable. I couldn’t move as fast as Raven and I made the movements look disjointed and clunky but at least she had thought me a couple of moves. Not that suddenly I felt prepared to take on a group of Terror’s.

We continued to practice for a good couple of hours, my shirt was wet with my sweat and I couldn’t remember the last time I had a workout like this. In fact I never worked out so it was a new experience for me, I didn’t have the frame for or will power for exercise but finding that my life was genuinely in danger here, seemed to be all the motivation that I needed. Go figure.

The afternoon wore on, I didn’t have a clue what time it was but the sun was still high in the sky and not showing any sign of setting into dawn. I finished jabbing my cleaver at a fake enemy in front of me with Raven watching on, she was sat on the sump of a tree that had fallen over, silently laughing at my skills.

“I don’t think k I am ever going to be ready for this,” I said, Raven was a monster when it came to how deadly she was with a blade, compared to me who was about as deadly as a toddler.

Raven frowned at me and shook her head.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence kid.”

In truth I had no clue how I was going to be any help at all, if anything I would be a hindrance, a six foot two gangly one.

“Maybe I could just be a decoy.”

Raven nodded her head in agreement.

“I see, you want me to create a destraction.” I explained, “So, you can get inside.”

Raven became more animated, nodding like one of those bobble heads you sick on the dash of your car.

Hopping up from the tree stump, Raven skipped over to a nearby tree and looked around on the ground for something. After wa while she went up to the branch of the tree and jumped up, swinging of it until the branch snapped with a satisfying crack.

She landed on her ass before dusting herself down and picking up the branch, becoming me over with her free hand.

As Iw walked towards her she started drawing a picture in the ground, it didn’t take me long to understand what she was doing.

On the ground she drew a wonky recatangle as best as she could, with an opening at the front.

“Er, is that the entrance?” I asked,

Raven gave me a sarcastic sigh and nodded her head, the kind of sigh that told me she was thinking where this fuck wit had come from.

She drew a stickman next at the front of the gate with a knife in his hand before prodding me with the stick.

“Ow!”

The stick poked me in the top of my arm, the force she used was excessive at best.

“Right so that stick man is me.”

She then drew an arrow of me going straight into the centre of the Terror camp.

“You want me to just wander straight in?! Kid listen, you have seen me with this cleaver. I am useless, I won’t last two seconds in there.”

Raven sighs again, this time rolling her eyes as if she is exasperated with me. She pokes me with her stick again, this time stinging my upper right shoulder.

“Ow! Quit it!”

Raven drew a fresh stickman in the centre of the camp, followed by some squigly lines coming of my head.

“I don’t understand,”

Raven gesticulated quite aggressively her frustration growing as was my own before she jabbed me again in the other side of my chest. The pointed stick stinging as she forcibly poke me.

“Stop it,” I said slapping the stick away.

She didn’t listen, this time jabbing me in the stomach, it was a nauseating blow and I was getting more pissed off at Raven every time that she prodded me.

“ENOUGH!” I roared as my anger flared and my voice boomed as if it was amplified.

*Berseker skill activated*

The icon flashed in the corner of my vision, the thinest of red lines sitting above a stamina bar. A little red sword icon with a flame around it pinged up where the symbol for that had appeared when we were hidden from the Terror’s earlier. A thirty second timer started.

Raven simply smiled, eyes wide as I could feel the power of the skill pouring out of me, a red glow surrounding my skin.

I studied myself, clenching my fists as I panted like a dog, I felt angry, like really angry, as if I could lash out at anything around me. I even looked at Raven and contemplated snatching the stick from her and wrapping it around her head. I was seething, a vitriol building in the back of my mouth making me feel like I just wanted to scream at the top of my lungs.

The sensation as incredible, as the timer counted down I felt like I was invincible, like I could take on the entire world, nothing could stop me. My chest heaved as I continued to breath in and out until the timer hot zero, the red mist that had descended onto me faded away and an air of calmness fell over me. That and a headache like I had just woken up from a heavy night on the town.

“What the hell was that,”

Raven simply smiled, doe eyed like a proud parent. I looked at the sketch she had drawn of me with squiggly lines coming off my head.

“More importantly, how did you know I could do that.”

Raven simply shrugged, I had no chance of getting an explanation from her. I wondered if she could see things like I could, icons, names, health bars and levels.

“That’s what you want me to do, you want me to go inside the Terror camp and activate my berserker ability.”

Raven nodded her head franticly, wide eyed like she was excited. She set about signing a load of signs that I had no clue what she meant.

“You make it sound so easy,” I said.