Terry didn’t storm through the halls of the quasi-castle he’d found himself in. Storms break things, he assured himself. I’m just moving with purpose. Intense purpose. That’s all. Several attempts to get him to stop had happened, but it seemed his display against the two brutes had left its mark. While lots of people kept talking at him, nobody tried to physically stop him. Of course, that was of only limited value to him because he didn’t actually remember the way out. In hindsight, he realized that he’d been taken on a very roundabout path to get to that room they stuck him in. Stupid, he thought. Always pay attention to how to get back out. Come on, self. That’s like survival 101.

Not that Terry could be too hard on himself. He’d had a baptism by fire out in the forest. The threats were very direct. That had made survival there very straightforward. Kill everything that threatened him. If he’d needed to run away, there was a great big forest in every direction. Retreating just meant picking a direction. He’d been lulled a bit by the return to civilization. He hadn’t let his guard down completely, but the rules for surviving were a bit different. The things he had to pay attention to were different. Even so, he wanted to give other-Terry a swift kick in the balls for telling him to play along in the first place. Being stuck in this place was not his idea of a good time.

On top of that, he couldn’t even find a damn staircase to get to the ground floor. He knew there had to be one around somewhere. He’d walked up them, for God’s sake. He harbored a suspicion that they were hidden behind one of the seemingly infinite identical doors in this architectural Escher-scape. Terry had the growing worry that if things kept going this way, he was going to round a corner, bump into himself, and cause some kind of Terry-destroying paradox. That’s not going to happen, he assured himself. This isn’t that kind of world. That kind of shit only happens in a Douglas Adams’ novel. He lost a few moments thinking about that. Not the ones about galactic hitchhikers. The ones with that chubby detective. Thinking about those silly books that he’d read as escapism from the rigors of college finals birthed such an intense moment of homesickness that he stopped moving. I’ll never read those books again, he thought.

Whatever patience he’d managed to desperately cling to evaporated in the anger that followed that upswell of homesickness. He glared at the row of doors that all looked exactly the same to him in a corridor that looked like every other corridor in the stupid quasi-castle. Thoughts of the inescapable labyrinths that featured so heavily in those LitRPG novels sprang to his mind. Oh, hell fucking no! I’m not gonna spend eternity in this place. He started opening kicking open doors one after the next to the shock and horror of the servants and guards who had been following him around. One of the servants, a greasy man with a thin mustache, raced up to him with his arms waving.

“Please! You must stop!”

Terry whirled on the man with maybe a little bit of murder in his eyes.

“Then tell me where the goddamn stairs are!”

The greasy guy froze in place, apparently torn about what to do. Terry gave him more than enough time – at least one full second – before he kicked open another door. The sound of wood splintering as some kind of lock ripped through the door frame seemed to dislodge the servant’s hesitation.

“This way, sir!” cried the servant, racing down the hall and opening a door.

Terry stalked to the open door and glared at the servant, the corridor, and the stupid, stupid doors before he started down the stairs. He only became aware that he was muttering death threats under his breath when he kicked open a door and came face-to-face with a maid of some kind. She stared at him in surprise that turned to abject fear.

“Why would you do that?” she asked as she stumbled back.

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He rapidly blinked as he tried to understand what the hell she was talking about. He thought back and realized he’d been talking about cutting people’s heads off when he kicked open the door. He did his best to give the woman an apologetic look.

“Not you. You’re fine,” he muttered as he strode out of the stairs into another fucking corridor. “Where’s the door out?”

The woman lifted a trembling hand and pointed.

“It’s that way.”

“Thanks,” he said, resuming his quest to get free.

It took a couple more wrong turns and possibly a few broken doors, but he finally found the entryway. Freedom, he thought. Screw you, other-Terry. It absolutely would have been worth the fight to avoid all of this. He felt a stirring in that spot where the other-knowledge and other-Terry seemed to live. A voice that was his and not his answered him. Well, how was I supposed to know that backbone you seemed to grow was permanent? You’re pretty squeamish most of the time. Regular-Terry wanted to say that other-Terry was exaggerating, but he wasn’t. Terry still wasn’t on board with murderhobo-ing his way through life and killing random human beings for fun and profit. With the Church no doubt not that far behind, though, this huge waste of time had the potential to put him into a situation where he had to kill people anyway. Fucking Catch-22, thought Terry.

“You know,” called out a feminine voice, “you’re being a terrible guest.”

Terry closed his eyes and counted backward from ten before he turned to see who was talking to him. Looking down at him from a balcony on the second floor was an elegant woman in something that vaguely reminded Terry of formal gowns he’d seen celebrities wearing to big events. Well, gowns that he’d seen pictures of online. He was firmly in the group of people who didn’t care about things like award shows. He’d never watched one. But it had gotten damn hard in recent years to avoid seeing pictures of celebrities if you did anything at all online. That was particularly true with the scourge that was social media sharing becoming so ubiquitous. He shook off that line of thought to offer the woman his best “we are not amused” look.

“Guest can decline the invitation. For that matter, guests don’t get invitations at swordpoint.”

The woman didn’t speak for a moment and a faint crease appeared between her eyes.

“Swordpoint?” she asked in a baffled tone. “What sword?”

Terry stared up at her and tried to decide if this woman was playing dumb or if she actually didn’t know what bullshit her own servants were up to. She had seemed genuine in her confusion, but Terry was beyond caring. The man who had stopped him at the gate walked into the entryway looking very angry. He opened his mouth to say something, but Terry beat him to the punch.

“Take it up with that guy,” he said, pointing at the man.

“Gilvane,” said the woman in a sharp tone.

Gilvane froze before he reluctantly turned and looked up to face the woman.

“Yes, my lady?”

“Why am I hearing stories about you forcing people here at sword point?” she demanded.

A little bit of Terry’s anger faded into schadenfreude as he finally got to watch someone else’s day turn to shit. It wouldn’t get him back all the time he’d lost in this place, but at least that Gilvane guy looked like someone had put crushed safety glass into his cereal. That almost made this whole thing worth it.

“My lady,” said Gilvane, dragging the words out in a clear attempt to buy himself a second to think.

“Explain,” she said.

Gilvane flinched. At that, a little piece of Terry that he thought probably looked a bit like a goblin danced in glee inside of him. Serves you right, fucker. Gilvane slumped a little.

“It was the young mistress’s orders that he be brought here and kept here.”

The woman on the balcony closed her eyes and started to rub at her left temple.

“I will beat that girl senseless,” said the woman.

Terry didn’t think he was supposed to hear it, but at least whoever set this misery in motion was going to get chewed out. Still, he figured that this was as good a time to exit as any. He turned and started walking toward the door.

“A moment if you will,” said the woman.

Terry wanted to just run. He’d been blaming everything and everyone in this place for his situation, but it seemed that this woman, probably one of the owners of this place, had no clue what was happening. That wasn’t really a ringing endorsement of her, but it wasn’t like he’d been there for days. Anyone could miss something that had only been going on for an hour or two in a place as big as the almost-castle. And he’d been breaking things and scaring people. He wanted to run so badly, but he thought he probably owed her at least an explanation and maybe an apology. I know what this is. It’s some kind of instant karma for my schadenfreude, thought Terry. Feeling his own shoulders slump, he turned and waited to meet someone he didn’t want to meet.