When I fled the temple grounds I had run in the opposite direction of my beloved room. Bleeding, bruised, crippled, desperate, and low on mp, I had run in the direction that was the only viable option at the time and even after I had retreated into the foliage, I had continued fleeing in the wrong direction, doing my utmost to get away from the mage and its minions in a blind panic. I don’t blame myself, but it is really screwing up my sense of direction.

  I need a place to hide and lick my wounds. I haven't cleansed myself in a while and I can feel the signs of the infection spreading inside of me, a stiffness in my muscles and joints. Surely, all the bites from the zombies had accelerated the sickness. This creeping paralysis is terrifying, like you are slowly being eaten alive. As soon as I had felt I had enough mp, I cleansed myself, while still on the move. The warming sensation spread throughout my body, consuming almost all my mana again, but I was able to sigh in relief. Although I had many painful wounds on me, they were minor compared to the threat of death by infection. I crashed through the rotten foliage, knowing that even if I wanted to be quiet I didn’t have the skills to do so. I am sure from my breathing alone elves could shoot me in the dark.

  The zombies here have historically showed a stunning targeting ability, able to zero in from anywhere once they had gotten a visual on me. I am not sure how the mechanics of that works, but I am expecting the rest of the mindless zombies that had seen me at the temple to come following me. The guardian probably won’t follow, though, if only due to its own injuries. That bastard, I am sure I’ll see him again. The mage doesn’t seem like the type to leave his spot but I’ll keep that possibility alive in my head. I am going to have to find somewhere to prepare to meet and massacre the remaining zombies. Hopefully, the two skeleton soldiers won’t make an appearance.

…

  Oh man, my arm, I can’t feel anything in it. Oh God, my cleanse hadn’t fixed it. I’ll try a concentrated dose later when I can, but it is freaking me out. I have to hold it down with my left arm as I run to keep it from flopping around. Unbidden, my thoughts go towards amputation. I try not to think about it, if I have to chop it off like a trapped rock climber I might be able to grow it back. I sure hope it doesn’t come to that.

  I am noticing changes in the landscape as I run. It easy to notice them when you trip and fall face first into a lively pricker bush that then tries to strangle you. That is certainly a new feature to look out for. In addition, there were more random wilderness items lying about, boulders, ditches, fallen trees, dense brushes, and stagnant pools. Clearly, this place has gotten an upgrade, and besides the new flies, multiples of other wilderness sounds could be heard. While before the place before had a silence like the grave, now it was filled with the sounds of a night in a horror movie, disconcerting russells, erie bird calls, and low growls filled the place. Surely, new creatures were ready and willing to kill me. During my journey, I noticed several black, skeltal birds, following me, hopping from one dead branch to another. For a dead forest, it certainly seems to be alive with horrors.

  Oh my God, I hope there are not dog sized spiders in here. Ugly crows I can handle, but large hairy arachnids with glittering eyes will cause me to lose whatever sanity I have left.

  Feeling like I cannot run anymore, I stop by a particularly large fallen dead tree and collapse into a crouch. My breaths are coming in large grasping painful pulls, my lungs screaming at me from the exertion its been forced to endure. I can feel my exercise induced asthma kicking in too, the toxic spores and bacteria in the air certainly don't help the irritation in my lungs and esophagus. Between my gasping breaths I struggle to spit out the gathering phlegm and mucus. I have a splitting headache and I can feel my teeth ache. Despite a twin who runs 14 miles a week for fun, I hate running.

  Each large breath I take in infects me again, I have to give myself a light cleanse every other minute now. God, I hate this place.

  My mp is struggling to keep up with my expenditures and I know the zombies will be here soon. I am not ready to take them on, plus those crow things are eyeing me like dinner. I look up and cast identify on them.

Carrion Bird: Level 1

  Gotcha, I think that means they are scavenger types. At that low a level, they can only mean to be a harassing threat, nothing too serious, I hope. I'll keep an eye on them, but they are out of range for me to actually do anything.

  When I feel like I am not dying anymore, I get ready to move again. Despite the heavy and cumbersome weight of my backpack, I am happy to have it with me. I take out my jug and gulp down the water, thankfully still fresh. I am hungry too, but I will have to wait to sait that.

  I take out Thor’s hammer and move out, this time at a sustainable hiking pace so my lungs can catch a break and my arm doesn’t flop around too much. I got lucky during my mad dash, but considering there are new threats in this vile forest, I probably should be on the lookout for more trouble. The carrion birds follow me closely, they caw out over and over again as if expecting me to keel over at any moment. It’s very irritating and they are giving away my position. Those dirty dogs, if I get a chance, I'm going to take them out. I wonder if the bird meat would taste any better wynot. Considering they are mostly skin and bones, I guess not.

  I've got a bunch of notifications in my top left view now, all but two of them being various forms of infection notices. Standard, airborne, and even bloodborne types that are probably even more deadly than the others assail me. Considering my still fresh and bleeding wounds I am not surprised. I still don't have enough to comfortably heal my wounds, they sting and burn as I walk. I had bandaged up the bad ones as best as I could.

  One if the notifications was the level up screen, which was nice to see. I was now level 6. At least I gained that from this mess.

  The last notification was a surprise.

Congratulations! You have unlocked a class sub-skill early.

Edge

  Hot dog. I pull up my status with interest.

Inner Light: (level 6)

A unique light attribute class able to learn every light attribute skill and uses mana directly for every skill. Class locks all other potential attributes and skill types. Skill usage limited only to quantity of Mana available

Mana:

10/62.208

Regen: 3.07556352 per minute

Skills:

Cleanse

Clear body of foreign influences

Heal

Enhances natural healing

Flare

Coat external surfaces with light energy to give a light attribute to object

Edge:Sub-Skill of Flare

Coat the edge of a blade with light energy to give a specialized offensive light attribute to object

  Nice. I'm glad to see that I will not be limited to just the three starting skills. I had assumed after I had unlocked identify at level 5 that I would periodically learn other skills or attributes. This confirms that and since I learned the skill early it means that I'm not limited to the handouts of the system. Edge looks useful too, legitimizing my efforts. It also gives me some ideas on other potential skills to try out. Some sort of flare barrier would be nice, let me tell you. That stupid shield I had grabbed from the guardian skeleton was worse than useless.

  As I was walking, contemplating my new status, a small brown scaly creature suddenly rushed out of the underbrush and clamped its jaws onto my right leg. I leapt up and howled in pain and surprise before instinctively striking it down at it with Thors Hammer. Its small head caves in and splats dark red blood over me. Gross.

  I stand still for a second, taking in the sight of the reptilian corpse still clamped to my right leg, like a comical dog on a mailman. The teeth hurt.

  What the hell is this? Isn't this just harassment? What was this little creature hoping to accomplish with its suicidal run at me other than pissing me off?

  All my other frustrations come boiling up as well, my loss at the temple, the pains on my body, the uncertainty of my arm, and of course, the absurdity of this situation where only two days ago my biggest worry was what to have for dinner. Take out or make something at home? One fast and easy, one healthy and cost effective. Staring down at the suicidal lizard I loose a nice scream of anger. Dang, I can feel my throat burn from the exertion. I hadn’t been this angry since my sister accidentally knocked down my sand castle I had worked on for a couple hours.

  Once I am done venting, I glance around quickly to make sure that there is not a whole tribe of these lizard things coming down on me, but no, it appears to have been alone. Behind me, the cawing of the carrion birds sound like laughter. Please, just leave me alone in my misery, I don't need a peanut gallery.

  I reach down and try to pry off the little devil, awkwardly with only one working arm. Thankfully, although its teeth are sharp they are small and do not dig deep into my calf after breaking through my jeans. I guess these pants do offer a modicum of protection.

  The lizard creature looks like a tiny alligator with a short snout and stumpy tail. It also had practically no flesh, just a mesh of bones and tendons like the birds. It would look like a cute companion in a Tim Burton movie if not for my blood oozing inside its clamped maw. I end up having to break its jaws in order to pry it off my leg. I killed the creature before I could identify it, but it's got to be low leveled. As this place grows I am seeing new types of creatures, I wonder if I'll start seeing high level ones too. I need to stay alert.

  I used up the blasted mp I had been saving with my flare strike, so I still can't heal myself yet. I had panicked and just hit it with all I had. I don't think I could use edge on Thor's Hammer anyway, considering the skills description. I really need to just sit down and restore my mana before I do anything else. My new bloody leg now is adding to my misery; the flies around me are especially drawn by open wounds.

  My destination is just over the next hill ride though. I ignore the cawing birds and the pain as best as possible and I limp onwards. As soon as I get ten feet away from the remains of the lizard creature the three birds dive down in a shriek. I turn back in alarm only to see the birds gobbling down the bones of the dead like rock candy.

  Weird. Was there any nutritional value in that thing? It looked to me to be an undead type.

...

  Whatever, maybe this will distract the birds enough for me to get away.

  Leaving the birds behind, I drag myself over the small hollow and see what I have been aiming for, one of the old ruins. The building is mostly nonexistent, just some stone walls and an outline of a foundation. Either this is a super old stone structure or something made to look super old. Most likely the latter. I reach a short four foot wall and slump down next to it, taking it easy on my leg. My dead right arm adds to my difficulty.

  I am very worried about my arm, it feels like it does when I fall asleep on it awkwardly at night. There is zero feeling in it and it feels like a foreign attachment on my body. I can’t bring myself to look at it.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  It takes about a half an hour to regenerate my mp to max, but I have no idea what other monsters will come at me. I estimate it will take a good thirty more minutes for the zombies to reach me. I feel exposed and vulnerable, like I am walking naked through a prickly forest. Besides all the scratches, ticks would surely come for my easy and delectable blood.

  I start healing my wounds as the mp comes in. The icy uncomfortable sensations flow across my body, causing me to twitch and flex uncontrollably. I keep a sharp eye on my mp too, making sure I don’t drop below five. Thankfully, none of my wounds, except for my arm which I can sense to be a black hole for mana, are relatively minor. While super stressful, as soon as 23 mp are used up I feel whole and hale again, a sweet relief from the pain and ice. Since my arm is still numb, I feel completely fine and a comfortable sense of drowsiness washes over me. I guess I really have been working hard.

  Now is not the time to rest though, now that I am out of immediate danger, I need to prepare for a wave of zombie mobs. The little ruin should do nicely to help obfuscate their approach. If I can find a stable section of this low wall, I should be able to smite them from on high too.

  Experiencing the sensation of wanting to stay in a warm comfortable bed, I brace myself and get up anyway. I’ve got some zombies to kill.

  Once I get up, I hear a flopping sound from beside me, like a dropped book bag. I look down and see my arm lying there, black and rotting.

....

  I start to whimper. Oh God, this is too horrible. Please, take me from this place, your tribulations for me are more than I can bear.

  I turn to the side and vomit out the half digested wynots. I hear the cawing of the carrion birds and look up to see three sets of greedy eyes. I think they want to have my arm.

  I look back at it again and see that it is still slowly rotting, deteriorating before my eyes. They can have it I guess, I hope they choke and die from it. Or that its poison kills them from the inside.

  I turn to look at my now stump of a shoulder in alarm, but I am relieved to see that it had fallen off cleanly. I hadn’t realized before, but I guess the arm has been dead a while. My heal skill was what cut the dead limb away from me ultimately, a fresh patch of pink skin covered the wound. Unable to help myself, I waste some mana and start feeding healing mp to the limb. Would I be able to grow it back like a starfish?

  Again, I feel the black hole sensation of it, like I was just dumping the mana down a drain. I actually take that as a good sign, as it means it's just a matter of quantity. I sigh in relief and step away from the dissolving arm, bone now appearing in it, bright and white. I am sure it would stink if all the other smells here weren’t just as bad or worse.

  As I walk around the ruin, I can feel my smouldering rage start to replace the horror and fear inside of me. That mage, this is all his fault, and I don’t think I am exaggerating. My precious right arm and a part of my sanity, this enemy has taken them away from me. If I were a crazy person I would be thinking now that blood, only rivers of blood can assuage my grief. For now, I think I would be content with just a swift exit from this place. As my escape seems to be through the death of the mage, all the better for it.

  While I may not be outclassed, I am clearly out leveled. Not to mention outskilled by that guardian, his way with that spear will be difficult to overcome. I think my only option is to get high leveled, and just fling my light attribute around like a barbarian ogre, steamrolling all of my opponents in a flood of flare. Brute force is really the only option I can think of, for everything the system is giving me, increased agility, strength, or weapon skills are not any of them. I’m an office worker, what do you want from me?

  So my new plan is to level up and then assault the temple again, surviving the waves of attacks of the enemies on me in the meantime, not the least being Pesos. Blast, rising inflation is going to decrease the value of my current skills. I’m going to have to try to get ahead of this place's growth curve.

  I make my way up towards a nice section of the wall that looks sturdy, aggroing another lizard creature along the way. I see it coming and a swift kick with a shoe covered in flare, ends the threat before it can get me. Most of these creatures here are only a threat if they can get the drop on you, wynot included. As long as I am vigilent, I should be able to hold them off.

  I climb up on the stone platform and look out in a frown. On the other side of the ruin I can hear the carrion birds cawing and feasting, probably on my arm. I can feel nausea try to come back to me, but I fight it off. They aren’t dying from the cursed arm either an soon I see one fly up and towards the lizard thing I had killed. The others soon follow and their cawing is grating my already frayed nerves. I want to take them out, but considering how hard it is to catch geese, much less these agile monsters, I weather the temptations.

  From the vantage point up here, I notice the changed landscape, and shake my head in despair. It’s only been an hour I think since I had looked around from the tree before pesos attacked me, but already so much has changed. The area itself is bigger, I can no longer see the edge of it like before and I am noticing differences in terrain now, as if different regional types of sprouting. Off to what I believe is west, an actual forest has appeared. Black and dead, yes, but none of the trees are fallen down, they all stand up straight, tall, and leafless. I can see the bowl shaped depression from here to, where my house should be located. Once I finish up the zombies, assuming they show up in the next hour, I should be able to find my way home.

  Speaking of the devils, here they are coming now. Like a drunken party, I see the small parade of zombies making a beeline at me, not taking any effort to avoid obstacles in there way. That explains what took them so long to reach here, their single minded determination was admirable, even if it was a determination to kill me. I’m not sure how much control the mage has over these things, or if he has any beyond just summoning them, but their spaced out groups will make this a relatively easy job. I count them up, and there appear to be only about thirteen of them. More are probably straggling behind.

  My mp is at 52, so I do not hesitate to start pounding them as they come, literally. My height makes them easy targets as they lack any awareness of defense. As long as I pace myself, I should be able to clear them about without too much trouble.

  As I smash their skulls in, doing my best to avoid getting splattered by their gore, the only problems I face is my lack of accuracy with my left arm and the piling of bodies at my platform. Seriously, I feel like an incompetent idiot as my swings hit shoulders instead of heads just as often as not. The blow still kills them for the most part, but the unbalanced swings had left me open for some bites and grabs several times during the exchange. Thankfully, I wasn’t about to run out of mana at this rate.

  The carrion birds, I notice, are having a feast. Their gluttony amazes me as they seem able to scarf down metric pounds of zombie flesh without any problem. My irritation with them vanishes when I see that they are the cleanup crew.

  Does this mean all the zombies bodies around my house will get taken care of too? I sure hope so. If nothing else, I’ll try to leads these three birds back to my place. I’ll be able to stand their racket if they can take care of the body problem.

  The battle with the zombies was very unexciting and I was able to put all of them down without significant incident. A few stragglers had joined the party midway, but these things do not pose a challenge to me as long as I have some mana. The large pile of bodies, even partially eaten by the birds, makes me uneasy, but I suppose as summoned creatures, they are not really people, even zombified people. I try not to think about it.

  I wait at the ruins, making sure all aggroed zombies meet their end. As the zombies started thinning out, I stowed Thor’s Hammer and took out a skeleton knife to try out the edge skill again. It worked just as I expected it would.

  What other skills can be unlocked, early or otherwise? The system says I am limited to light based skills, but how much does that actually limit me? My flare skill seems to be a pretty cover all skill, so far it has had many applications. If more sub-skills are available it it, it’s surely specialized ones like edge.

  The last zombie falls to my blade and I sit down on the wall, exhausted and hungry. I really don’t feel like more stale wynot meat, but isn’t any other option. I chew on the rubbery meat, doing my best to choke down the calories with water. It is not an easy task.

…

  Although I got my butt kicked and lost an arm, I am now able to see clearly a way out of this place. Probably. I haven’t received a convenient revelation or gotten instructed by a fairy creature, but I am still assuming the temple is the key out of here, and I am sticking to that assumption. It the only hope I have. Help me, temple-kenobi, you are my only hope.

  It doesn't look like I will make it back to Earth today though, unless I unlikely level up another five times. It probably means people are going to start questioning my disappearance tomorrow. Even if I do make it back eventually, it's going to cause a hell-a-baloo. If I am lucky, they won’t put me into an insane asylum.

  I can’t imagine the worry my family will have. I wonder how long it will take for them to give up on me, assuming my room has disappeared completely. Will they wait weeks or months with a missing person’s case even after seeing the “destruction” of my missing room?

  I look up to the timer indicating the return of Pesos. At least if I return after they are all scared of my demise, the death of my brother's dog will be the least of their concerns. That’s a plus, if any exisits.

  When my mp reaches max, after taking out a couple more stragglers of zombies, I try my hand at healing my arm again. I invest 55 mp in it and cast heal.

  Immediately, my shoulder burns with an icy cold and I have to grit my teeth to keep from yelling out. The feeling lasts for several seconds, and I start shuddering, fighting off the urge to end the spell immediately. After it is over, I wipe the sweat off my brow and look down at my arm. Sure enough, a good solid inch of flesh and bone has been regrown. Though shaken at the unexpected pain of the treatment, I am overjoyed to know I can grow it back. Clearly, replacing flesh rather than just mending it is far more costly. But that’s to be expected.

  I wait for my mp to max out again, fending off flies as much as possible. I hadn’t spent so much time outside yet as I have now, and I am desiring the feeling of safety my room gives me. Although, it's not that safe considering I got assassinated there last night, it's still my room and it is far better than the noisy, ugly, and dead world outside. Also, it's been awhile since I cleansed it and I am worried it might fall apart on me. If I do make it back, I ardently hope that my room will come back with me. If it gets destroyed, I can’t imagine what I would say to my insurance company.

  Confident that the last of my zombie pursuers have been destroyed, I hop down from my perch after double checking the way home. This place is now more dangerous than ever before and the loss of my arm is making me super uncoordinated, so I take my time going home, inspecting any suspicious foliage, den, or tree. Several times along the way I got attacked by the strange lizard creatures, but I easily offended them off, only getting injured once. The flies are worse than the lizards, I’ve gotten bit by those dozens of times already today, even after I killed double that. I was able to cast and identify once on the lizard thing before I killed it.

Agruimen: Level 1

  Hmmmm…. Identify has failed me for the first time. I really can’t get any good information at this level. I have never heard of an Agruimen before, its sounds like something made up.

  I put it to the side. I tried cleansing one of them and ended up with a piece of meat the size of a marble. Upon tasting it, I couldn’t differentiate it from the wynot meat. While Arguimen meat might be easier to obtain and reduces the risk of getting my face melted off, the process of acquiring it isn’t cost effective for the amount obtained. It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to replace my source of food.

  Eventually, I find the crooked stream again and follow its route down into the valley. I keep an eye out for Wynots jumping at me and hope that the terrain hasn’t changed so much that the stream is no longer next to my house. That would really stink, because at this point, the stream is my lifeline, providing me both food and water.

…

  Wow, considering its a toxic sludge creek filled with face eating squid monsters, that’s really odd to think about.

…

  As I get closer to my house, after I fended off two Wynot attacks and added them to my dwindling food collections (much harder to to with only one hand), I notice a dark smoke curling up in the air. AS I get closer, I can taste the black smog, it hangs around like fog as there is no wind to disperse it. Something is on fire.

  An ominous premonition hits me and I move forward with more haste, praying it is not what I think it is. A knot forms in my stomach as I fear the worst.

  My fear is made reality as I finally make it to my house. I fall to my knees at the sight.

  Oh my God, my room is aflame, a bright smokey blaze consumeing everything inside.

  Its gone, its all gone now, practically everything that connected me to my world besides what I am carrying. My home, my security, my comfort, my bastion of light, going up in smoke and ash. I feel sick in my heath and my vision is swimming as if in vertigo. The sense of loss is greater than anything I have ever experienced, topping the destruction of my arm only an hour ago now. At least my arm would grow back.

  At our moving company there was a story about a truck full of household goods catching fire and destroying the entirety of the customer’s worldly possessions in the process. It was an event that left the family sorting through the partially salvaged goods, sobbing as if no amount of insurance money could ever placate their loss. I now understand those feelings.

  Surrounding my house like a lynch mob were zombies and skeletons, staring transfixed at the flames as if performing some arcane ritual. In one of the skeleton soldier’s hand was a flaming torch. After their failed ambush last night, looks like they are resorting to different tactics. How great is that, they are imortal and learn from their mistakes?

  Behind them all, I see the skeleton guardian, overseeing the burning of my house like Saul persecuting the early church. His left arm is still missing, but the damage to his main body appears to have been repaired. He is holding steady to his spear at least and when the zombies in the clearing all turn to look at me with their radar detection abilities, he too follows their gaze. Our eyes meet and I swear I can feel his malice emanating from his empty sockets. As the mass of zombies moves out at me, he stays behind.

  I am crying now, still slumped to my knees. The loss of my home is hitting me hard, I can feel the tentacles of despair draining me, like a wynot sucking my blood. I don’t move even as the new zombies close in on me.

  Judas Maude, how many zombies can the mage generate?

  The two skeleton soldiers move at me as well, coming up on either said in a blatant attempt to surround me and cut off my escape. Their white grins glint in the fire light, mocking smiles, exultant in my doom and despair.

  Before they can surround me, I finally get up and flee. I am not mentally ready to take on another tough fight, even with maxed out mp. All I want to do is find a nice dark corner to hide in and bawl my eyes out. I can hear the carrions birds around me, cawng out in their hollow laughter again.

  As I flee the scene of arson, I cast a look back at the guardian. What I see is him marching away, his task complete in burning down my habitat, not sparing a glance at his fleeing foe. Curse him, curse these skeletons, curse this place, and most improtantly, curse that mage! He’ll pay for this, I swear to God. I'm going to burn down his temple too, if stone could burn. I wipe the tears clouding my vision furiously and keep running.

  Hands down, this is the worst day of my life, even more so than yesterday, and its only mid-afternoon. I fear now, the new evils that I will have to face tomorrow.