[Player Log Start!]

[Log Holder: Terence Glasgow]

[Level: 4???]

The moment Terry could breathe and see again, he knew something had gone drastically wrong.

There was no ocean in sight. Just rocky mountains in every direction. And not the awe-inspiring gentle giants of Delica. These were wild cliffs, filled with all the danger of the real world. The safety the land had wrapped around them like a blanket was cut away, and for the first time in weeks, when Terry gulped in air, it felt like his lungs had to struggle to take it in.

Wherever Asadullah had landed them, it certainly was not CephaloRaven. This was best exemplified by the fact that in below the regular box greeting them back from any dimension was a new, very indignant popup box.

[You have Entered Level Four!]

[Realm: L-37 | Minefield]

[Level Skipping Prohibited!!!]

[You Have Not Completed Previous Primary Objective. Arriving in Level Four is Impossible. Allow to be Warped Back to your Correct Level At Once.]

[{ } Warp Back {x} Decline]

Warping back would certainly mean landing once more in the jaws of Roiland. Terry didn’t know what the long-term consequences of skipping Levels would be, but he was slightly more worried about the fire-wielding maniac at the moment. He pressed [Decline].

The same popup appeared a few away from him.

Why even include declining as an option if they weren’t allowed to choose it. He scoffed and made to turn his head towards Asadullah to snark at the poor game design, only to find the boy standing, frozen, as he stared up at the steely gray sky, which was just giving way to dawn, so a few brave stars were lingering in the edges of the celestial canopy.

Babur was wound over his arm, shaking itself sharply, “Phew. That was a kick. Strangely familiar, though. Think they borrowed djinn teleportation magics for this?”

His tail and ears were gone, so it was harder to read him, but the grief was obvious in the way he was holding himself.

“Are you okay?” Terry asked, wandering up to him. His eyes drifted down to look at his bangles, which were starting to ooze black a little bit, as Babur began to escape from the cracks.

Asadullah let out a wretched sound, “This is my home.” He explained, “This is Mira.”

A lot of confused thoughts went through Terry’s head at that moment. Until finally he settled on asking, “But I thought you said that there were these giant robot things smashing everything up?”

Instead of Asad answering him, it was the heavens who responded, as the entire canyon rocked with the force of an explosion so intense, he couldn’t even tell which direction it came from.

It must have been far though, because after the initial shockwave, nothing fell over in their vicinity. They were left standing there with ringing ears.

“We need to get out of here.” He told Asadullah, though if the boy could hear him properly was debatable. When Asad made no move to hand the Console over to him, ears still pressed flat, Terry lost his patience and made a grab for it.

An animalistic growl tore through his throat, and in the next moment, Asadullah was holding him in the air by Terry’s wrists, claws pressing all the way through thick sleeves and gloves and into his skin. His eyes were almost fully white, with thin slits of pupils and slivers of blood vessels around them.

Terry didn’t remember the last time he had ever been so scared of the boy in front of him.

He kicked sharply, the angle just right to get a good hit at Asad’s knees, the burst of pain enough to get Terry dropped onto the ground, and narrowly avoid getting pierced by the sharp rocks littered around.

“I’m trying to help you.” He told Asadullah, hoping familiar language would snap him out of whatever had brought on this wave of hostility, before he switched back to the tongue he was more well-versed in, “We need to get back to the correct world.”

“But this is the correct world for me!” Asadullah replied, waving a hand around, “I was promised a chance to save them all. Now I’m here, and it’s all already in chaos. I need to save who I can. The Game won’t deliver for me.”

“It did for me, remember?” Terry combated.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“Did it? Because when I last saw it, things still looked pretty fucked.” Asadullah replied, “The whole point of it was to make sure no one got hurt.”

Terry was starting to get irritated. More than that, he felt enraged. ZombieWorld was his victory. Their invention. Their discovery. They had been able to prove they were good for something, and through careful study, they had brought the world back from the brink of destruction. He had left the world at a better place, and Asadullah had no right to take that away from him.

He was resorting to signs again, even though if he tried hard enough, he could probably force the words through his mouth. His fingers were just faster at replying.

“Newsflash: People always get hurt. And you being there or not isn’t going to change that.”

Did he say it to hurt Asadullah? Or some foolhardy way to comfort him from the savior complex he had dragged through six different Realms? Terry wasn’t sure himself. But he did see the light fracturing in Asadullah’s eyes. His heart twinged at the look, along with his arm. Asadullah must have grabbed him harder than he intended.

“Besides, you aren’t going anywhere.” He said verbally and pointed at the popup that had been hovering over them menacing the entire conversation.

Asadullah sighed, reading it through, “So, we have to press this button and warp back to Delica?”

“Or CephaloRaven, if that works out.” Terry tried to remain optimistic. They would gladly throw themselves back into bird and octopus bureaucracy over the murderer waiting in their twisted paradise.

But their Primary Objectives were based in Delica, still, so likely that was where they were meant to go.

“They track the Harbingers through the Consoles, right?” Terry asked, their brain whirring with possibility, “And it allows them to teleport, too?”

“Yeah, why?” Asadullah asked.

“We should break it.” Terry suggested, hardly believing the words coming out of his mouth. When Asadullah gave him a similarly scandalized look, they rushed to elaborate, “These are in high demand, yeah? Immensely powerful? Half the reason we’ve been able to overpower them is because we’ve taken their Consoles from them. If we make sure they can’t grab it from us, we level the playing field.”

It was risky plan, but he was willing to go forward with it. And Asadullah did seem to be considering it. But then he shook his head, “What if we need it later on? Can’t afford to lose the upper hand like this.”

He was right, too. Caution was good. But still, they needed to find some way to subvert that, “Then how about we use the Console to warp us to Level 2 proper, instead of the Sub-Level?” He suggested.

“Or we could stay. It’s safe here.” Asadullah suggested, “Just for a little longer?”

But they wouldn’t be able to advance like this. They would just be stuck in a limbo all over again. But Asadullah looked so excited about it… He took a shallow breath and agreed, “Okay. We can do that.” He held up the Console, wincing slightly as his sleeve scraped against the still-raw part of his arm.

“Are you alright?” Asadullah’s ears perked up in concern.

“I think your claws came out too much in the panic.” Terry replied, rolling his sleeve back, and pulling the glove off to see what lay underneath.

He’d expected some mild indentation. Maybe the fingers squeezed too hard in some places and left behind bruises. Terry had failed to account for the gauntlet of fungus he had underneath the glove. And the thin layer of plastic keeping his skin protected from it.

Now, there were tears all along the wrists, green splitting to give way to wrinkled, light brown skin rubbed raw until it was red and bloody, with the green fronds already spreading into the gaps to feed on the fresh meat. Terry’s breath hitched, his mind already doing the calculations.

If he tried his best now to suffocate the mold, it would slow down the infection of the flesh, but he wasn’t going to be able to save their arm. Either way, it was going to have to be amputated. And Asadullah was going to blame himself for it, if he found out what happened to his arm.

Terry delicately reached into his jacket with his good hand, pulling out a fresh latex glove, and a squirt bottle of sanitizer that he clumsily poured over his upper arm.

“Is it that bad?” Asadullah asked, dabbing at his ears, which were shrinking slightly.

“No, I just felt like washing it out a little.” Terry tried to justify, his voice pitched high as he tried to ignore the burning pain of sanitizer seeping into the miniscule scratches in his skin. Pressing latex into his skin did not make the pain any easier, but he had to force his way through it. His vision blurred with tears.

“Are you crying?” Babur asked, appearing next to them. Terry jolted, swiping the jacket sleeve more securely over his arm.

“There’s plenty to cry about.” He defended, “And why’re you outside, anyway?”

“Sorry, that was my fault.” Asadullah told him, “Freaking out ejected it. Accidentally.”

“Oh, that sucks…” Terry looked around, catching a glimpse of a tiny stream just a few feet away from them, “Hey, you want some water? It’ll calm you down.” He dodged the popup and darted towards it. Three feet away was all he was able to cross before he slammed into a false wall. The popup was back in front of him.

Asadullah skidded beside him, hand pressed flat against the wall that wasn’t there, “What is this?” He asked, trying fruitlessly to step over the stream, “A forcefield?”

“Out of bounds, I’m guessing. To force us back.” Terry forced himself to stay calm, “It’s alright. We just can’t get out of this box. At least there’s water?”

“Then how come that guy managed to get out of the bounds?” Babur asked.

They both turned to look at where the djinn was looking. The landscape was green and brown, which meant that the man in the black and red high-vision jacket walking towards them was painfully visible. Roiland had caught onto them unbelievably fast.

Asadullah spat, “I thought he needed a Console to get here?” He asked. Terry didn’t respond. He could see the sunlight glinting off the metal on Roiland’s arm. It was hard to tell with how shiny it was, but he could see the bulky rectangular screen built into it.

It was one of the Consoles the Delica Gamers were using. They had left Nancy and Simon back there, he remembered nervously.

What had happened to the person he had taken that Console from?

“We’ll find out.” Asadullah promised, ears regrowing and his fangs sharpening as Babur shrank back into his bangles, “If we manage to beat him this time.”

[Player Log End!]