Wyatt awoke to darkness. He had no idea how long he had been out for, but his notification icon was flashing, and icons appeared in the corner of his vision. He tried focusing on these, but his head was pounding and trying to move his eyes made it worse. He closed them for now, waiting for his head to stop spinning.

Distantly, Wyatt heard noises, but he couldn’t make out what they were. He opened his eyes again and tried to read his status symbols.

Status: Fatigued – Level 1

You have begun to reach the physical limits of your body. Rest and recover, or risk temporary penalties.

Status: Concussion

You have received a significant blow to the head. Temporary penalty to mental attributes. Rest and recover, or risk increased penalties.

Status: Twisted Ankle

You have twisted your ankle. Temporary penalty to movement. Rest and recover, or risk increased penalties.

Status: Fractured Ribs

You have fractured multiple ribs. Temporary penalty to physical attributes. Rest and recover, or risk increased penalties.

Well that explains the headache. Wyatt tried to moved, but a sharp pain in his chest stopped him immediately. And the other aches.

Taking a few breaths, Wyatt slowly rolled onto his side, then pushed himself to a sitting position. Sweat began to form on his forehead, and he had to stop for several moments until the pain subsided. He tried taking a torch from his cloak but found himself unable to formulate an image of the torch in his mind. After several attempts his hands finally gripped something, and he placed the torch on the ground beside him. Then he repeated the process for his flint and steel.

He struck the flint and steel together, squinting at the sudden burst of light. When the torch finally caught, Wyatt shielded his eyes for a few moments until they could adjust. When he finally opened them, his breath stopped.

The deformed face of the flesh golem stared back at him. Wyatt jumped, the pain in his body intensified from the movement, but he pushed it aside as he waited for the golem to attack. Eventually, he realized the thing was laying still, and he checked his notifications for verification.

Combat Report

Your party has slain:

Flesh Golem

You have escaped:

Skeleton Maze

Rewards:

Experience earned

Your class has leveled up: Mage – Level 19

You have gained Attribute Points

Your skills have leveled up:

Staff Mastery – Level 13

Rune Magic – Level 11

Rune Magic – Level 12

Spatial Magic – Level 10

Skill upgrade available

Wyatt’s head was spinning at the information. He looked around the room, using the light of the torch to make out where he had landed. He was sitting on a pile of stones, having fallen slower than the collapsed floor due to his last-minute spell. He tried to see where he had fallen from but saw only darkness above him. It was evident from the pain in his side and head that the spell wore off before he hit the bottom, and he was glad it had lasted as long as it had.

The room he found himself in looked to be larger than the one before, with pillars that disappeared into the dark. Somehow, the stonework seemed older and more destroyed than the ruins of the maze above. He couldn’t see his allies anywhere and tried to rationalize where they were. The rubble he was laying on was substantial, but with the dim light of his torch only reaching so far, Wyatt was unable to determine just how much rubble there was.

The background noise that Wyatt had been hearing came to the forefront of his mind again, and he tried desperately to focus on it. He couldn’t tell what it was, but it nagged at his addled mind. These ruins had shown him time and again that movement was his ally, and he knew he couldn’t stop now.

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The human forced himself to his feet, struggling against the pain that racked his body. When Wyatt placed his left foot on the ground the pain intensified, a brutal reminder of his injured ankle. Wyatt tried using Earthen Creation to summon another staff to lean on, but what he made instead was much shorter and thicker than the weapon he was used to, with cracks running along the shaft.

Wyatt resigned himself to using the crude walking stick, fearing he would only waste time in trying to make something better. He finally got to his feet, looking around for any clue of where he should go next. The meager light from the torch couldn’t reach the walls of the large room, and the human was forced to pick a direction at random.

His progress was painfully slow, and Wyatt hoped the increased healing granted by the system would kick in soon, removing at least one of his debuffs. His shuffling movements suddenly brought to his mind the image of the undead corpses that prompted their mad dash through the caves above, and Wyatt realized what was bothering him.

He focused once more on his hearing, making out the same scraping sound he had been hearing for far too long now. His mind finally grasped the concept, and he knew what was going on.

Fear had always been a sobering feeling, able to pierce mental fogs with remarkable ease. This time was no different, and Wyatt’s pace quickened, his adrenaline-fueled body now indifferent to the pain. The scraping sound seemed to grow louder, and Wyatt was unable to tell if that was a side effect of the fear he felt, or if the source was getting closer.

Wyatt risked a look back, and immediately regretted the decision. Hollow eyes stared back at him behind outstretched hands. Only a few at first, and he was momentarily hopeful.

That was, until more entered the circle of torchlight.

Soon, his sight was filled with countless shambling corpses, all reaching for him with a single-minded hunger for life. Wyatt looked forward, continuing his hobbled limp as fast as his injured body could take him. He didn’t know what he was moving towards, only what he was moving from. If they reached him, he knew he would be dead in seconds.

Finally, Wyatt could make out a wall in the dark beyond the light of his torch. He shifted the angle of his movement to move almost parallel with the wall, hoping he would come across a door before the press of corpses trapped him against the wall. They closed in, inching closer and closer with every step the human took away from them, the inevitability of them reaching him growing more apparent.

Eventually Wyatt’s hopes were answered with a patch of darkness that signaled a doorway. He moved toward it now, altering his course only slightly, but enough to keep the undead behind him from reaching him first. Soon, Wyatt forgot the first lesson this world had taught him.

He began to hope.

Suddenly – almost as if to punish the human for the error of thinking this world would work in his favor – the poorly made crutch that supported his weight finally cracked, sending him sprawling on the ground. His chin struck hard against the stone, dazing him momentarily. His senses returned to the pain that radiated from his ribs. He couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t stand.

Behind him, Wyatt knew the undead were closing in. He looked up at the door, refusing to give them their prize. Wyatt threw the torch closer to the doorway, reaching forward with both hands to drag himself along the stone floor. His nails cracked as his bare fingers fought for purchase between the bricks in the floor. Blood soon formed on the tips as he pulled his body forward.

Soon, he felt hands grabbing for his feet. He kicked hard, using the momentum to spur his forward movement. He kicked again, knocking more hands away from his feet. His third kick proved useless, as fingers now gripped firmly to his ankles, the nails shredding the thick furs he wore and digging deep into the flesh of his legs.

Wyatt reached for the door, the frame now inches out of reach. In a fit of rage, the mage unleased a burst of air. He had no control over the magic, instead unleashing the air all around him. The effect on the bodies behind him was minimal, the mana not concentrated on any one point, but the burst was strong enough to dislodge those that gripped him.

Wyatt had bought himself only seconds, and already he could see more undead closing in from all around. He reached for the door frame, his blooded fingers gripping the edge of the stone. Using all of his remaining strength, he pulled. His body slid across the broken stone faster than before as half of his body passed under the door frame.

Hands reached for him from behind. He heaved again, pulling himself into the door, and rolling past it. A wall pressed against his back, and he pushed himself up to sit against it. Wyatt looked back at where he came, the light from the torch almost completely covered by the mass of bodies that stood above it. He channeled his earth magic, trying desperately to repeat his previous trick to bring the wall down on his shambling pursuers.

His magic failed. He tried again, reaching for the familiar feeling of mana that should have flowed within him, but found none. Wyatt looked to his resource bars and saw nothing but the blinking red of a health bar close to drained.

His mana empty, his stamina failed, Wyatt prepared to meet his death. Anger – a now constant friend in this new world – flared within him at the thought of failing his quest for revenge. If he were to die, he would not die easily. His hands felt all around him, his fingers gripping a rock. He grabbed it, and held it high, ready for a hopeless fight against any that would come through the door.

He waited.

Wyatt became aware of cuts across his face, blood dripping down his cheeks and droplets falling from his chin. His head pounded, his chest heaving with each painful breath he took. Every inch of his body screamed in pain.

He waited.

“Come on!” he yelled, the incessant calm eroding the resolve born of anger.

Wyatt could see glimpses of the torchlight lying on the ground in the room beyond the doorway. He saw shapes, movements in the light as legs moved in jerking motions.

Soon, the rock in his hand grew heavy, and the pain in his body grew distant. The adrenaline that pushed his body to its limits began to fade, and he was vaguely aware of new status symbols in the top corner of his vision. He ignored them, as even the brief flashes of light from beneath the mass of legs beyond began to fade to darkness.

Wyatt realized it was his own vision that was fading and fought desperately against sleep that threatened to overtake him. He had nothing left, his strength spent, and soon his mind was again filled with images of death.

Wyatt’s staff spun through the air, his hands a blur of motion as he rained blow after blow onto his enemy. Anger filled his chest, a physical weight that threatened to grow too much for his body to hold. He pushed harder, forcing his legs to move faster as he struck again and again. He killed with the cold detachment reserved for flies. Armored forms fell, their helmets caved in from his staff and bodies impaled on spikes of stone.

Screams of terror and spurts of blood filled the air as Wyatt struck at the backs of these monsters that had killed his people, his family. He realized why their backs were to him.

They were running.

All around him lay countless bodies clad in the ornate armor of the high elves. A field of death surrounded the human, extending to infinity in every direction. It wasn’t enough. More still breathed, and they would not escape.

Wyatt charged, a bloodcurdling cry forming on his lips. More elves were killed, more blood spilled, fueling the flame of his anger and spurring the human to a renewed frenzy of death.

The last of them tried to resist, but it was nothing before the killer Wyatt had become. It attacked, but its sword flew out of its hands, and it froze in place. Wyatt battered its armor, the ringing of stone on metal resembling the innocent sound of a bell.

He struck again, the blow bringing his enemy to their knees, and Wyatt dropped his staff. He brough his hands to the elf’s throat, gripping tight as he felt the blood pumping in its veins. It looked up at him, its features that of a woman.

A human woman.

Mom.

She spasmed, her body grew limp, the dead weight adding to the weight in his chest, and Wyatt fell to his knees, dropping the body. He looked around, seeing for the first time the slaughter he had wrought, seeing the faces of those he had slain.

They were all human.

Every face he laid his eyes on was that of a human clad in elven armor. They stared blankly; the vacant stares of death boring into him more fully than if they had been alive, blaming him for what had befallen them. Wyatt looked at the polished armor of the figure that was his mother, and saw his blood covered reflection, saw his face staring back.

It was smiling.