As the minutes crawled by, Chippy and I ventured deeper into the base . . .

Contrary to my imaginings, though, the pathway was not a direct shot to wherever my associates had been taken. There was meandering pathways which led to dead-ends. There were also sections of the path— or building, I guess— that were either damaged or in ill-repair. When a trail section was damaged, Chippy and I remedied the situation, otherwise, we would not be able to continue on our quest. Luckily for us, such moments were sparse and easy to fix— find something to wedge a door open, lay down some flooring (wood, cardboard, whatever) to cross a toxic sludge, shit like that. Shit that took minutes to do if you weren’t lazy. If anything, it seemed like these occasional slow-downs were more to break up the pace than anything else, like how in a video game, a dungeon will be divided according to combat and non-combat sections. But again, I was just using video game terminology as a way of explaining the weird situation; whatever this building was, it was old and in disrepair. Quick fix jobs all over as I sped along to my goal was to be expected.

What was unexpected, though, was the enemies.

I just finished fixing a wheel to a broken pipe to manually turn a gate open, when, suddenly, another beast— this time, a giant and rotted lizard-person— attacked me. Luckily for me, I easily evaded its snapping jaw and, to be frank, it wasn’t very intimidating in general as the creature only came up to about my chest. Heck, it was so short I could easily keep it apart from me just by holding some plank of wood against it. But I tired of playing keep away with it and finally pushed it off of me and back down to the floor.

“Marcus!” ME said to me from the ether, still, obviously, keeping watch over me as I dived deeper into this mess. “remember, the dagger!”

Since the battle with the tongue, I panicked for a moment since I did not bring the dagger with me. I left it back in the office, still lodged in that tongue creature. But my worrying was for naught as moments after my fit of fright, the same dagger materialized in my hand like Scotty had beamed it down to me. But hey, it is a magic dagger that always returns to me— I won’t knock it for being useful!

With me in battle mode, I held my dagger close to my chest, ready to swing. And motherfucker— a health bar appeared above its head!

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

What. The. FUCK?!

Time slowed down to just a crawl as my shocked mind registered the fact that a red health bar had appeared above the lizard-creature’s head.

But like a heart beat, time resumed its normal pace and I was tossed into the thick of it— the lizard-beast lunged at me.

On pure muscle memory, I jabbed my weapon at it, but my heart was not in it, seeing as how I was still weirded out by seeing yet another video game feature in my increasingly twisted real life; in the end, my unsure spasms did not so much hurting the beast, as it resulted in inconveniencing it. But my half-sure jabs did have the effect of setting the monster away from me and giving us some fighting space. I valued my personal space and getting up and heavy with a pea-brained lizard did not make me feel very important. Finally having some breathing room, I caught my breath and re-set my sight on the foe in front of me.

By now, I saw yet another new feature— the timed turn.

Just underneath the red health bar— which still creeped me out— I saw a green bar for what I assumed was stamina. Fast and unrelenting, it was running out. Which must have meant . . . it was my own turn. Awesome.

So, yeah, what else did I do but go and stab that fucking creature?

It brought its arms into a defensive position and blocked my attack but . . . not really? I mean, can you really say that your opponent ‘blocked’ your attack when skin, muscle, and bone was sloughed off as a result? ‘Cause, seriously, that scaly-skinned lizard biatch got fucked up.

Daring a darting glance to its health bar, I saw that a huge chunk of its life was erased by my attack.

Removing my dagger from its body, I took a step back to my own battle line, giving its its turn to strike; sure, a part of me did want to just finish it off with another attack, but with the adrenaline coursing through my veins, but the threat of being mortally wounded always on the horizon, I thought it better to bide my time and let this deadly dance go its full majesty. That, and my own stamina bar, even though I could not see it— obviously— was likely running pretty low. So, yeah.

But when the lizard-thing struck not a moment later, I easily dodged it— which revealed to me a new mechanic— countering.

Feeling a tingle in my brain, not unlike a Frequency Trigger, I dodged its strike and seized on the initiative. With a single jab, it was over; the creature’s health bar ran out and it fell to the ground. Dead, presumably. Or whatever happened to corrupted monsters that hadn’t for whatever reason reached their destiny. Purgatory? Who knew.

“Christ-on-a-cracker— hardcore, yo!” Chippy said, using an unfamiliar term to me.

“Christ?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing. Something from a different time and place. Anyway, onwards!”