A shiver went down Theon’s spine. He darted to the side and pressed his back against the wall trying to calm his breathing. This was definitely a hallucination, what are the odds he would start seeing orcs? He started to laugh to himself but stopped when he heard a siren approaching. It halted just outside his building and he could hear something being said over a loudspeaker.

Theon leaned over to peak out the window, to his left he could see a cop car sideways blocking the middle of the street, and to his right, he could see the orcs and their wargs scattered out. They were alert and cautious as they spread out, focusing on the cop car.

A second police car arrived, and two officers got out and approached the first car. Theon could hear them calling out for the orcs to drop their weapons, referring to the crude swords and spears they held, one even had a shield that looked like it was made from stacked yellow bones.

Theon watched transfixed as the orc with the shield and a crude sword, the leader no doubt, stepped forward and bellowed out to the cops. Its voice was guttural, deep and angry. Theon saw other people watching out their windows across and down the street, as a third cop car pulled behind the first two.

One of the cops fired while the orc was still talking. A street lamp illuminated the bullets impact as the orcs muscled and bare chest exploded outward from the projectile. Dark blood flowed as the orc stared at the wound. An instant later they were all firing at the orcs and their wargs. Theon was dumbfounded, the orcs weren’t running, and they weren’t falling dead. Instead, they seemed to be shocked and confused by this sort of attack. The leader raised his shield and charged while sending out a roar that shook the glass in Theon’s window.

The wargs were like giant, shaggy, pony-sized wolves with rows of sharp teeth on long heads. They rushed ahead of the orcs and towards the cops who were now retreating to their cars.

They lunged over the first cop car going for heads and throats, the cops didn’t stand a chance at close range. The sound of gunfire was replaced by the sound of screams and crunching bone. The third car’s tires screeched as they did a U-turn and peeled out, racing off in the distance.

Theon dragged his eyes from the scene of horror below to a flash of light a few blocks away. A column of light stretched from the sky for a few seconds, then vanished.

He looked back down when he heard screeching tires just in time to see the first cop car take off and plowed into one of the wargs. Its leg snapped inward with a loud crack and it tumbled over the hood, landing in the street. It howled loudly in pain as the first car made good its escape.

Theon wiped the sweat from his terrified face. A small ping sounded, as a blinking exclamation point off to the side of his HUD appeared. He ignored it as he saw the orcs reorganizing themselves.

They rubbed some sort of brown salve over their wounds. Five of the wargs and two of the orcs had fallen in the battle, leaving just seven orcs and four wargs left. The one that had the broken leg was put down with a spear through its head.

Theon watched as they regrouped and began talking amongst one another. It was like they were trying to figure out where they were as they gestured to their surroundings and the dead cops. The shield bearer cut into the discussion, knocking one of the orcs down before he turned to Theon and pointed directly at him saying something to the others.

Theon darted back from the window, the last thing he wanted was their attention. After a few moments he crept toward the window again and peaked down, a sick feeling rushed through him and he pulled his head back quickly. The glass shattered as a wooden spear shot through where his head had been and slammed into the ceiling.

His entire body was now shaking, and he could hear the orcs yelling below. His eyes were fixed on the spear jutting out of the ceiling. If he hadn’t pulled his head back, he would be as dead as those cops in the street. They had guns and they still died, what could he do? He wasn’t a fighter, he was a gamer. Then his attention was brought back to the blinking exclamation point, and he wondered what it said. The blinking skipped a beat and a screen appeared before him.

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The Quest for Access!

This is a global quest. You must prove, as a species, that the benefits outweigh the risks of granting your species full access to the Galactic Internet. How you choose to participate is up to you.

Reward: Variable and proportional to your contribution.

He figured this was where the answers were. He looked back to the still blinking exclamation point and again it skipped a beat as the last screen vanished and a new one appeared.

Trouble in Paradise!

Access to the Galactic Internet has forever changed your world! You now have limited access to the Galactic Internet and must use it to survive! You currently have one active subquest.

Orc Hunter Squad!

A group of orcs have been transferred to your world and have been given the task of killing you for a chance to return to their world. It’s your second attempt, are you up to the task?

By the way, you can’t afford a respawn, so good luck!

Quest Objective: Kill the orcs and wargs.

Reward: 100 Galactic Credits per kill.

Theon was broken from his trance by the sound of cracking wood from below his now broken window. His mind was racing at the speed of a jet fighter, he no longer worried about being insane, that would be preferred compared to the alternative.

Those orcs were coming to kill him, and he needed to think of something. He looked at the spear sticking out of the roof at an angle, then his eyes darted to the knives in the kitchen.

He started to move towards the spear, keeping himself low to the ground, while he listened to someone screaming from below him. It sounded like Chuck his landlord. Chuck was an old guy who stayed in his apartment and watched TV all the time. He never really bothered anyone, and he certainly didn’t deserve whatever was happening to him now.

Theon gritted his teeth and reached up, grabbing the spear. He yanked down on it as hard as he could a few times until it finally came loose. It was like a small tree and way too heavy for him to be able to use properly.

Chuck’s screaming had died out already and he could hear the chaos in the building starting to escalate. It was a small building with about a dozen apartments and Theon knew it wouldn’t take them long to get to his.

Then an idea came to him, he didn’t know if it would work but he had to keep himself moving forward. He rushed to the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of vodka. He used a kitchen knife to pull out the stupid plastic thing inside and then grabbed a small hand towel. After cutting a strip out of it he crammed it down inside the bottle.

You have created one shoddy Molotov Cocktail.

Theon waved the message away as he rummaged through his junk drawer for a lighter. He didn’t waste any time lighting it and he turned to the door. Running and stomping could be heard coming from the hallway. He looked to the Molotov Cocktail, the glass was pretty thick, he doubted this would even work. He noticed he had the knife in his other hand, as he turned to glance out the window.

There weren’t any orcs outside, but he could still see the dead cops and one of the cop cars in the street. He looked down and considered if he could survive a fall from this height. It was all concrete around the apartment building, but it wasn’t that far down.

His attention was jolted back to the door as something rammed into it splintering the wood and almost knocking the door free. He could hear the growling and barking from the wargs now.

He didn’t waste any time, he threw the Molotov Cocktail at the still closed door as hard as he could hoping deeply that this wasn’t a hallucination as he watched the glass explode and his apartment was set ablaze. A little of the glass and flaming vodka even came back at him and his pajamas caught on fire here and there as he shielded his face with his arms.

He started patting out the fires on his body and clothes and noticed that they seemed to be going out on their own. Looking down at his pajama pants, he focused on the fires there and they went out.

He didn’t have time to focus on it though, as the door cracked one more time and exploded inward. He stepped back towards the window as he saw the orc on the other side of the door to his apartment.

For a moment it was like time froze as his breath caught in his throat and he eyed the orc. It was like some sort of war god with rising flames all around it, holding the bone shield and a crude but wickedly sharp looking, twisted sword of death.

Time resumed as Theon’s kitchen knife clattered on the wooden floor. The orc gestured toward him and grunted loudly just before a warg pushed his way into the doorframe.

Theon didn’t wait to see what happened next, he turned to the window and jumped.