Chapter 9: Looped

The door of the Drunken Misfit burst open, slamming into the wall with a loud bang as Sam Walker stepped out, squinting into the flickering world beyond. The streets were empty, except for the thick air buzzing with static. Just beyond the tavern’s threshold, the horizon was filled with grotesque figures that warped in and out of focus like a glitching video game screen.

The Trorcs were coming. WTF, Sam thought, Trorcs?

They were a nightmare—trolls and orcs fused into one horrific form, their bodies corrupted by glitches. Some had limbs missing, their stumps replaced by glitchy, jagged fragments of code. Others had heads twisted grotesquely to where their feet should be, dragging their distorted bodies forward in sickening bursts. Their roars echoed like garbled transmissions through busted speakers, rising and falling in pitch like a broken record stuck on repeat.

“Yep, this is gonna suck,” Sam muttered, gripping his Itchy Dagger tighter. “Never thought I’d miss regular orcs.”

Eli the Brogre stomped up beside him, his massive bulk blocking part of Sam’s view. “Bro, this is gonna be epic! Look at those glitchy bastards. I’m gonna smash so many heads and party hard!”

Glitch, hanging from Sam’s belt, snickered. “Or maybe they’ll smash yours. Brogre brain soup, anyone?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Glad to see you’re as helpful as ever, Glitch.”

Behind them, Trinket shuffled nervously, clearly trying to keep her composure as she watched the horde approach. Her face was tense, lips pursed, as if she was struggling with something. But she stayed quiet, not offering any spells or abilities, which Sam found odd—until now, no one had really questioned what her class even was. Trinket mostly healed people, but no one had ever seen her in full action.

As the first Trorc stumbled closer, its mismatched arms swinging wildly, Sam readied himself. He activated Butt of Shadows, half expecting it to finally work the way it was supposed to. But no—only his legs flickered out of existence, leaving his torso completely visible. “Fucking glitch.”

The Trorc charged, a distorted roar vibrating through the air. Sam dodged to the side just in time, the creature’s massive fist crashing down where he had stood, sending a shockwave through the ground.

Suddenly, Pixel darted forward, flickering through several different forms in the blink of an eye. One second she was a two-headed dragon, then a floating toaster, and then a giant mechanical octopus. She finally settled into a glitchy cloud of floating pixels, hovering above the fray.

S the Smelf screamed. “What the fuck is happening?!”

In his panic, he accidentally unleashed Stank Cloud, and thick green fog erupted around them, smelling of rot and festering garbage. Sam gagged as the smell hit him like a punch to the face.

“Goddammit, S!” Sam coughed, covering his nose. “Why now?!”

“I panicked! Blame your fucking glitchy pet!” S shouted, waving his hands helplessly.

Eli, on the other hand, was totally unfazed. He grinned, hefting his warhammer with one meaty hand. “Bro, this is awesome! Trorcs and a stank cloud? Let’s go!”

The first Trorc swung at Sam again, its massive, glitching limbs distorting with each step. Sam ducked low, barely avoiding a blow that could have taken his head off. He activated Meh, Close Enough, slicing through the creature’s torso with one of his daggers. The blade connected, glitchy blood spraying everywhere as the Trorc let out a garbled cry of pain.

Before Sam could strike again, another Trorc lunged at him from the side. He rolled away, his daggers flashing as he sliced through the air toward its distorted face. The sound of metal cutting through flesh was satisfying, but the roar of the creature was even better.

Behind him, Eli was in full Bro-zerk Mode, swinging his hammer with reckless abandon. He smashed through the first Trorc’s head like it was a watermelon at a frat party, bits of corrupted code and blood spraying everywhere. “Bro, did you see that?!” Eli shouted, his voice full of excitement.

“Less talking, more killing,” Sam called back, dodging another Trorc’s wild swing.

But the chaos didn’t stop there. As the Misfits fought their way through the glitchy horrors, Trinket, who had been hanging back, finally stepped forward. Her hands glowed faintly as she prepared to cast a spell.

Sam wasn’t sure what to expect. Honestly, he had no idea what her class was—and neither did anyone else. But what happened next shocked them all.

Trinket raised her hand toward Sam, who had just taken a blow to the side from a massive Trorc fist. Her voice trembled as she started a healing incantation in a silky, sultry and very sexy tone, “Let me… caress your… deep, throbbing wound.”

Sam froze, staring at her in disbelief. “What the hell did you just say?”

Trinket’s face went beet red, mortification written all over her features. “I—I didn’t mean to—”

But the spell worked. Warm, glowing energy enveloped Sam’s body, healing his wounds almost instantly. The discomfort of the innuendo was overshadowed by the relief of not being in pain.

Before anyone could comment, she cast another spell, this time on Eli, giving him the “Fuck me” eyes,. “Let me wrap you up… thick and tight.”

Eli blinked, his eyes widening as the words sunk in. He glanced over at her with a grin. “Yo, Trinket, that’s hot. Why haven’t you said that before?”

Her face flushed an even deeper shade of red. “Stop Eli!”

But Eli wasn’t fazed. In fact, he looked downright giddy. “I dunno, babe, I kinda like it. You make healing sound sexy as hell.”

Sam groaned. “For the love of god, Eli, focus!”

The fight continued, but now the awkwardness between Trinket’s spells and Eli’s enthusiasm was palpable. Trinket could barely cast without stumbling over her words or turning bright red. “I—I didn’t mean it like that!” she kept repeating, but it did nothing to stop the flow of embarrassing innuendos.

At one point, she tried to heal Sam again, her voice a sexy, soft purr.. “Let me… stroke you back to full health…”

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Sam nearly tripped. “Trinket, please!”

Despite the awkwardness, the Misfits were still making progress. Sam ducked and weaved through the battlefield, slicing through Trorcs with deadly precision, his daggers a blur of motion. Eli, still riding the high of Trinket’s sultry spells, smashed through enemy after enemy, his warhammer practically glowing with the glitchy blood of the Trorcs.

Just as things seemed to be going in their favor, a massive Trorc—twice the size of the others—burst through the glitchy horde, roaring like a corrupted engine.

“Shit,” Sam muttered, bracing himself.

The giant Trorc swung its massive arm, distorting the air around it as if reality itself was struggling to keep up with its movements. Sam ducked just in time, rolling under the creature’s legs and slashing at its knees. But the creature barely noticed, its glitchy skin absorbing the damage like a sponge.

Eli charged, letting out a roar as he swung his warhammer at the beast’s chest. The impact sent a shockwave through the air, but the creature barely staggered. “Bro, what the fuck is this thing made of?!” Eli shouted, his eyes wide.

“Glitched-up bullshit, that’s what,” Sam replied, dodging another swipe.

In the chaos, Loop suddenly perked up, his eyes wide and frantic. “Do… you… quest?”

“Not now, Loop!” Sam shouted, slicing through another Trorc.

But Loop didn’t stop. “Do… you… quest?” he repeated, louder this time.

The others groaned, clearly annoyed by Loop’s persistent question.

Glitch, hanging from Sam’s side, burst into hysterical laughter, and with a sarcastic tone asked. “Hey Loop, what about you? Do you quest?”

That’s when everything went wrong. Time almost stopped.

Loop, who had been his usual muttering self, twitched violently. His entire body spasmed like a malfunctioning glitch in the game world they inhabited. Error messages began to flash all around him, floating in jagged red text, breaking the flow of reality itself. The symbols warped the air around him, flickering like shards of glass caught in a vortex.

“What the actual fuck…?” Sam muttered, daggers raised but frozen in place as he watched Loop’s form begin to distort. His skin shifted like static on an old TV, his appearance flickering through a spectrum of colors and forms. His once-human shape twisted into an incoherent mass of pixels, reshaping and shifting at random.

The ground beneath him cracked, the earth splitting as if Loop’s very existence was unraveling the world itself. Reality warped, unable to handle the raw energy radiating from him. Symbols and numbers—like the fragmented code of a broken universe—floated around him in intricate, alien patterns. They pulsed and rearranged as though rewriting the very rules of existence.

“Is this... normal dude?” Eli asked, voice thick with confusion as his warhammer hovered mid-air, uncertain whether to smash or just watch.

Trinket’s eyes were wide with shock, her hand hovering near her lips, unsure if she should cast a spell or run. “I... I don’t think so…”

Glitch, for once, seemed at a loss for words. "Well, shit," he finally muttered, clearly unnerved. “What the hell is happening with Loop? Did he fucking eat a bug or something?”

Loop let out a guttural scream that tore through the air, the sound vibrating at a frequency so intense it seemed to physically shred the space around him. The scream fractured reality the space around him, warping the battlefield into a distorted mess of colors and static.

The Trorcs, even with their glitched, corrupted forms, paused. Their grotesque limbs twitched in confusion as if they, too, sensed the power surging from Loop. Their roars turned to garbled, broken static, like a corrupted transmission over a busted speaker.

And then, without warning, Loop exploded into motion.

He moved like a force of nature, charging into the horde of Trorcs with a speed and ferocity that defied the very concept of physics. Each step he took cracked the ground beneath him, static crackling in the air as reality itself struggled to keep pace with him.

With a roar that sounded like both triumph and madness, Loop slammed his fist into the nearest Trorc. His fingers glowed with raw, destructive energy, and when they connected, the Trorc didn’t just die—it unraveled. The creature’s entire being disintegrated into a flurry of pixels and fragmented code, its form shredded from existence as if it had never been there in the first place.

“Holy fucking shit, he just Thanos-snapped that thing!” Glitch shouted, the usual sarcastic tone now mixed with genuine awe. “I mean, I’ve seen some freaky shit, but Loop’s over here fucking shit up like a woman on a bad Tinder date!!”

Loop didn’t stop. His movements were a blur, his hands glowing with the same energy that had just vaporized the Trorc. He tore through the horde with surgical precision, each strike sending shockwaves of distorted power through the battlefield. His blows weren’t just hitting the Trorcs—they were undoing them, unraveling their very existence.

“Look at this psycho!” Glitch cackled, his voice somehow both impressed and terrified. “He’s not just glitching the fuck out—he’s rewriting reality itself! Someone get this guy a goddamn manual before he breaks everything!”

Loop’s body moved with an inhuman speed, his distorted form flickering as he unleashed a whirlwind of chaos. He slammed his glowing hands into another Trorc, its body convulsing violently before shattering into a cascade of glitchy pixels. The sound was like a thousand TV screens smashing all at once—a digital apocalypse of destruction.

Trorcs rushed him from every direction, but it didn’t matter. Loop was untouchable, moving with the fluidity of a god tearing through a playground of broken toys. His eyes glowed with madness, wide and unblinking, locked onto his enemies with terrifying focus. Every strike seemed to bend the world around him, sending ripples through the fabric of their glitchy existence.

Eli, usually the one smashing heads, stood frozen, his hammer useless in his hands as he stared in open-mouthed disbelief. “Bro… he’s like... fucking unstoppable.”

Loop ripped through the Trorcs with brutal efficiency, each of his strikes decimating multiple enemies at once. A single swipe of his hand sent three Trorcs flying into the air, their bodies glitching and warping mid-flight before they exploded into showers of code. They burst like glitch-ridden fireworks, disintegrating into nothingness before they could even hit the ground.

“Okay, I’ll admit it,” Glitch said, his voice tinged with something that almost sounded like respect. “That’s some god-tier shit right there. The dude’s leveling these assholes faster than a speedrun on meth!”

The Trorcs, massive and warped as they were, stood no chance. Loop’s hands became a whirlwind of destruction, his strikes cutting through them like they were made of tissue paper. Each blow sent glitchy shockwaves rippling through the air, the battlefield flickering with every impact.

The Misfits could only watch in stunned silence as Loop continued his rampage, his glowing fists tearing through the horde with reckless abandon. He moved so fast that even the static of the world struggled to keep up with him, his form a blur of color and code as he decimated the enemy ranks.

With every punch, every strike, another Trorc exploded into pixels, their bodies disintegrating as if they had never existed. Loop’s movements were so fast, so violent, that it was impossible to track him—one moment he was here, the next he was across the battlefield, leaving a wake of destruction in his path.

“He’s... he’s fucking insane,” Trinket whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of awe and terror.

“Not insane, babe,” Eli said, looking hungrily at Trinket now, after her healing innuendos, voice tinged with admiration. “He’s on a goddamn mission.”

Loop’s body crackled with raw energy, his hands glowing brighter with each strike. The ground around him continued to split and crack, the air warping as the glitchy symbols and numbers twisted around him in chaotic patterns.

And then, as quickly as it had begun, it ended.

Loop stood alone in the center of the battlefield, surrounded by the shattered remnants of the Trorcs—broken fragments of code and disintegrated pixels. His chest heaved with each breath, his glowing hands slowly dimming as the energy drained from his body.

He wobbled on his feet, his face pale and drenched in sweat. Slowly, he turned to the Misfits, his eyes glassy and distant.

“Yes... I... quest,” he whispered, the words barely escaping his lips before he collapsed to the ground.

For a long moment, the battlefield was eerily silent, the Misfits too stunned to move.

“Okay,” Glitch finally said, his voice low. “I take back every shitty thing I’ve ever said about him.”

Sam glanced down at his HUD, which had just pinged with a new notification.

NEW QUEST UNLOCKED: THE LOOP OF MADNESS.