This chapter was hard to write, not only did I have a lot of things to 'catchup' to in the first few paragraphs, I then had to bring the story to the current events. If I didn't do this, I had a funny feeling that most of you would seriously consider dropping the story if I spent another chapter killing people and running through corridors with no real plot progression.

So I ended up rewriting this chapter 9 times before I was happy with it. It could still be improved in some parts, but its not good for my mental health to continue rewriting the same chapter.

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As I ran down the corridors, I would encounter groups of guards who often seemed shocked to see me, occasionally I would come at them from directions they never expected, for my ambush and surprise tactics were second to none. It had absolutely nothing to do with being lost. Yet despite this, they still managed to wound me and my HP would sink. But luckily it turned out that

everytime I leveled up, my HP and stamina were fully restored and I could keep on fighting trying to escape. I didn't really like having to fight them, it went against my morals. But the alternative was to leave them unharmed, yet they would simply continue trying to take me down. At least this way I could slow down their efforts and perhaps force them to let me go.

I tried leaving people alive a few times, however the instant they thought they had a chance, they would always pull some weapon out and attempt to tag me. I stopped wasting my time after that, it's takes a lot of work to avoid maiming them. But during my escape run, a few notable things happened.

Firstly, I would often have to release the club and in those times I would punch, kick and slam myself into them. As some kind of reward, I learned a new skill 'Unarmed Combat'. However I didn't use it very often, the club had a much longer range and while I did come across a few guns, I was a hopeless shot and would have died before I could learn how to shoot. The second thing was that I leveled up to 16 and had a few stat gains, however I never stuck around and always kept on the move. So I didn't have time to collect loot, or assign my stat points. It was only a matter of time until I encountered Talok, and somehow I doubted he would be lenient.

The third thing to note was that after defeating my.. seventh? group, I finally figured out how to display my health and stamina as small bars in my view, showing me a visual GUI on my status. It was incredibly handy as I could see my status and when to retreat. My closest guess as to why I could suddenly access this was that the examination skill had something to do with it.

The forth thing worth noting is that I noticed that the guards occasionally spoke in another language I didn't understand, when talking, they seemed more comfortable with it than english, and they often were touching the white crystal when they talked, especially when they saw me. However when I touched the crystal, nothing happened. I tried talking to it, holding it as I moved around, but nothing would work. So I just left them behind, another puzzle about this labyrinth I couldn't solve.

And the last thing, the guards had taken to screaming some sort of name when they saw me, some strange foreign word. "Palizar". I'm not sure what it means, however but their reactions were always of fear. And yet strangely they still attacked me, they must have known it was futile. Later when I looked at myself, all I could see was red and more red. Not a inch of skin below my neck was visible. Blood covered me, parts of it sticky and with the rest having dried out, but what made the situation somewhat ridiculous was that most of the blood was mine. I could imagine what they saw when they saw me, an unstoppable monster looking for blood.

A thing about my HP is that while my wounds could close in minutes, they never actually fully heal. Instead they would scab over when the bleeding status disappears, but picking at the scabs would resume the bleeding. When I leveled up, my wounds were instantly and completely healed, going as far as to removing the bullets still inside.

So I walked the corridors, the guards would attack and I would attack. I had no choice. I had to ignore their screams, ignore their bellows of rage and shutout their shouts of glee as I took damage and stumbled. I had to attack. Attack or die. They gave me no choice. They would not retreat, they would not run, they would not back down. They were looking for me, and after finding me, try to kill me.

I wandered the corridors but I was getting nowhere, the ground all looked the same, the walls were identical. Occasionally I found a place I had been before, a landmark consisting of walls painted red and bodies on the ground. Yet I never knew when I was going to find someone, or find a staircase leading up.

But I definitely wasn't lost.

I can't be lost.

Lost means I won't get out.

This time I ascended three staircases before being forced to retreat, my health sinking dangerously low to 60. I could hear the guards moving through the corridors, surrounding me. So I was forced to retreat. I descended a level, yet I could hear guards around me as well. I found another staircase and descended down. There was not much activity going on in this floor, but I could still hear them moving around, I couldn't possibly survive the encounters in my current state. I took the last staircase to the bottom floor where I finally found peace, corridors empty of activity and a chance to rest being presented.

Walking through the corridors away from the staircase, I saw a pair of guards walking ahead of me and alert for action, but they didn't think to look behind. I grinned and crept up, my feet made a small scuffle and one of the guards started to turn as he heard the noise, however before he could react, I smashed his legs with the club, knocking him off his feet as I rammed my body into his buddy to knock him down. As they both fell to the floor, I raised my club and ruthlessly gained EXP. However my stamina was running low again and I needed to separate myself from this bloody scene, obvious evidence that I had struck. Not really sure why I attacked them..

Moving back through the corridors, I walked past the staircase I had ascended previously and walked further. Moving at a steady pace, I was looking ahead for a spot to rest when I saw a curious door, it looked normal and was painted a sickly pale blue like other doors. However there was traces of mud on the ground in front of it, as if it saw a lot of traffic.

Opening it quietly, I took a look inside. My eyes bugged out and I gaped. The room had a deep pit lined with concrete, and in the centre of the pit reaching to the ceiling floated a shimmering mirage of colors. Gazing at the colors as they shifted from hue to hue for a minute, I eventually wrenched my attention away and looked around the room. Unlike the other rooms, this room had a high ceiling to account for the abnormality in the centre, and the size of the room was large enough to fit my house inside.

Stepping inside, I quietly closed the door as I took a closer look. Against the left wall were crates and boxes, a few were opened and the items inside looked to be food. The wall to the right was bare and devoid of any objects, just a white concrete floor and wall. The walls around the room were lined with light panels which gave off a harsh white light, but the thingy in the middle of the room washed the room in shifting rainbow hues. Stepping quietly, I moved left towards the crates to get a look at what was behind the floating abnormality. When the scene came into sight, I gagged. A deep round pool was sunken into the ground, filled with a red liquid. Beside it was a slope above which a metal grill was supporting a man as he worked on a obviously dead female body with his back to me. Behind the body were other bodies, mutilated and lying still as death. Red drips occasionally fell down from the grill, falling onto the slope and dripping into the pool.

I had seen dead bodies in the last couple of hours, but I didn't purposely mutilate the bodies and bleed them dry. As I quietly dry retched and leaned against a crate, I heard a voice coming from the door. Moving quietly, I moved out of sight and crouched behind a crate, ready to attack when the chance presented itself. But when they entered and I heard his voice, my plans shrivelled and my neck prickled as I felt a thin tentacle of fear coil around my stomach. It was Talok.

In a cold voice he asked someone "Where are the guards", I heard another man speak "Ah. I ordered them to look for the intruder". Talok snarled in disgust. Speaking in a low voice, he hissed at the man "You moron, get the guards back in here!". After a short pause he continued, his voice having calmed down. "Though it doesn't seem like he's found this place yet". The man started barking orders, likely into that strange crystal they all carried around. While this went on, I crouched in hiding, feeling like I was going to piss myself. Talok was here, and he was less than 10 meters away from me.

Eventually I heard a squadron of men report before taking up positions around the door. Taking a peek, I could see 6 guards in a spread out circle around the door, each of them wielding a uzi. Weird. I didn't recall encountering those weapons earlier.. Talok was facing the door with his back to me as the man nervously stood beside him. The man started to look around and I quickly pulled my head back in behind the crate. He didn't raise a alarm however, but I didn't look at them again. As we waited for who knows what, my stamina and health were recovering. Eventually after waiting for what seemed a age, I heard Talok speak "I'll hunt him down. Guard the room".

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The door was opened then closed and the silence returned, with just the steady drips of blood to be heard as the man cut into the body with a knife. After waiting for what seemed like a age, I carefully moved to get a look of the situation and peered out from behind the crate. 6 guards surrounded the door in a semi-circle, guns raised and held with steady focus on the door. Much to my relief, I saw they still had their backs turned to me. Their mistake. I waited a few more minutes, just to be sure that Talok was gone before I started to move.

Trying to be as stealthy as I could, I approached the back of the semi-circle where they had the least chance of seeing me. There was 6 guards and a man standing behind them, and I was going to have to do this as fast as I could. Inhaling slowly, I caught my breath and suddenly whipped my club around and brained their leader. Before the others could react, I took out the two guards in the centre of the circle and ran to the right. I quickly finished the guard that stood there and grabbed the last guard from behind as he turned his gun towards me. Standing behind him and tightly gripping his hands, I used him as a shield between the other two remaining guards. Not a single bullet had been fired. The guards warily watched me and pointed their guns, yet they didn't shoot, their reluctance to fire on their comrade showing. He struggled in my grip ineffectively as I started walking slowly to them. One of the guards tried to move to the side, whereas I immediately yelled "Don't move!" but he sprinted into a run. Cursing, I ripped the uzi from my hostage as the running guard fired at me. Swinging my hostage around, I used him as a bullet sponge, exposing myself to the first guard. However he had a crystal in his hand and was rapidly speaking to it. Informing someone of the situation.

A few bullets hit my arms and legs, their damage hurting me. Needing to resolve this quickly, I squeezed my newly acquired uzi which shuddered in my hands as it sprayed bullets. a few of them hit the second guard's chest which bloomed roses of red. Strangely none of the guards I had encountered wore bullet vests, but as the second guard slumped to the ground, the first guard fired on me. Running at him while holding my very-dead shield, I ignored the blossoming of pain from my exposed limbs as he fired and threw the dead guard at him. Caught by surprise, he fell under the weight as I raised my club and slammed it on his head. Finishing off the final resistance.

Checking my health, I shivered as I realised how close to death I was, 32 health. One more bullet would be death. Taking the black jacket from one of the guards I had killed, I ripped it into shreds and quickly tied it around my wounds. I was losing health much too fast. As my HP trickled under 5 the bleeding messages finally stopped, I had to use my hands to apply pressure over the wounds in my thigh and shoulder. Eventually, the bleeding messages also disappeared.

Personally, I loved how loss of blood or low health didn't effect my physical condition. I was still able to move just fine.

I moved to get a better look at the back wall, the butcher was standing on the grill fearfully looking at me. I couldn't see him holding a weapon, so I slowly approached to get a better look.

The detail and clarity of his job became obvious, the head of a woman sat on the metal grill, looking dully at me. Her mutilated body lay there, dripping blood into the pool. Behind her body were several other bodies that were unrecognisable. I distantly remembered seeing a 'Missing' poster with her face.. As I turned my gaze to him, he shivered, a hidden knife dropping from his hand.

EXP +100

As I was about to turn away, a glint caught my eye. I took a closer look at the pool of blood where in the center, a small red gem floated in a shallow depression, almost as if it was drinking the blood. I definitely wasn't about to touch it however, I didn't know what it did and had no desire to wade in the blood.

But from here, I was at a loss on what to do from here. Now that I had gotten this far, I was almost certainly dead. Talok knew where I was and the guard had just informed him of my location I had no doubt. Then I remembered my recently acquired skill. 'Examine' and 'Identify'. The colourful thingy in the middle of the room may yet be my saviour. However I wanted to first test it on the red gem as it looked to be somewhat important. Looking at it I thought *Identify*

Blood GemAbsorbs lifeblood and releases as mana

Oh my. Mana you say?

It seemed that indeed it would be handy to have after all.

Grimacing, I slowly stepped into the pool, the blood rising to cover my ankles. I won't tell you how it felt, but it was very icky. I eventually wade out to the gem and plucked it, it felt warm and slippery to the touch. Opening my inventory, I removed the taser and replaced the slot with the blood gem. I waded out and stood on the side of the basin, the cold sticky blood running off my feet. It was disgusting, but I refused to think about it. I had to finish this. I looked towards the shimmering mess of color in the centre of the room and thought *Identify*

RiftPortal to another dimension

Normally stabilised, the mana source has been removed.

Will revert to unstable state in 1 minute, 23 seconds

This was far beyond anything I had expected.

As I looked at it with awe, I noticed that the colors were getting brighter and the edges growing jagged. And to my horror I heard Talok yell on the other side of the door, apparently assuming I stood next to the door lying in wait. "James! Give yourself up!". Having no time to decide, I started running for the rift as Talok burst through the door.

Jumping in, my ears popped and my chest felt pain. The uzi in my hand grew mangled and warped in my grip as the taser in my pocket burned against my skin. Shivering and shaking in that roaring tunnel of colors, I popped out into a world of quiet and peace. The uzi in my hand was no more, ripped away by the forces inside the rift while my pocket held a deformed piece of plastic. The room was dark, but the shimmering lights of the rift made it easy to see. Surrounding the rift were high walls of stone bricks with moss and weeds growing in the cracks, in the corner behind the rift was a hole in the wall where they had fallen down. The walls stretched up high, almost 3 meters and looking up I could see no roof, just stars. The only exit was the open doorway at the end of the room. Overall, the room was a long single building, with the rift at one end next to a broken wall, and the doorway at the other.

Just where was I?

Looking back at the rift I had just entered, it was now a jagged mess of sharp colors. It looked nothing like anything you would want to enter. I used *Identify*

RiftUnstable rift

Normally stable, there is no mana source on the other side

Deals 10,000 DMG

Welp. Guess Talok isn't coming.

Moving to the doorway, I looked outside to see lit torches inside a camp of tents, men walked around oblivious to my presence, a lot of them carried weapons I had expected to see only in a medieval setting. This place had people, however I didn't want to meet and greet. I had a feeling that these were Talok's people. The Boligian Empire.

Moving carefully away from the doorway, I went to the broken wall and looked outside. The view was staggering, where I had previously been in a city, before me I saw a barren wasteland with brown stunted trees and- just joking. What I was were plains of green grass with jagged snowcapped mountains visible in the distance. Though looking around, I couldn't see any buildings or cities. Realising something, I looked at the text windows that had appeared while I was distracted by my scenery.

You have entered a slightly unstable rift

HP -10

Rift is poorly made, magnetic currents are in effect.

Carried items have been effected.

1 x Handgun destroyed

1 x Taser badly damaged

Discovered new world: Yonda

You have entered Cragged Castle

My heart fell and I felt dismay.

Then as if it wanted to insult me, a window popped up.

LUK +1