Allen was never a brave man, when things got tough he ran, when there was nowhere to run he hid, and when hiding stopped being possible he surrendered.

A gargantuan dragon blows up the mountain, Allen's first action was to bail out, running as fast as he could to where every warmongering Player was gathered.

His allies turned their back on him, he made a turn to pull the monster right into the cannon maws of their mutual enemies.

The pirates proving to be just as weak, Allen took his dive into the water, when the NPC controlling the beast caught him there was no more fight left in his soul, but when that bitch Player bullied him he got a chance to spit in her eye, and that made him a happy man.

 Waking up on an abandoned piece of rock in the middle of absolute nowhere with his wing and leg ripped off was a pretty strong wake up call, he never wanted fame or power, helping some kids get on their feet and standing up to small time bullies was one thing, but all out war with the most powerful faction of sadistic Players in a virtual world was not his dish at all.

Closing his eyes and scanning his personalized interface Allen found the right buttons to push and regenerated his body, after a second look at everything he decided it was about time for some changes and as much fun as it was to play a dragon it was much too conspicuous to walk anywhere, his stupid whore class was tagged by that crazy admin so he couldn't touch it without alerting the authorities, but with the right build it was not a bad class, a little overbearing on skills instead of magic or abilities, but after playing for years as an ability purist and then running around as a heavy magical creature, it suited him just fine to make that change.

A new road to follow, with a small hitch of being a special race and a bigger problem with a tagged name and class he could still make this work with a bit of said race's magic, scanning the interface again got him to the spell section and he added the Polymorph spell to his list and cast it on himself.

Just a short light show and some minor inconvinces and Allen walked a changed woman, giving all the attributes to be random in the normal range he appeared as just another woman, naked in the middle of nowhere.

 The character creation menu supplied basic clothes and a strong suggestion to find a shop to really enjoy the game's fashion repertoire, Allen smirked and closed the automatic message before putting his back to the ocean and walking away.

 The human body has seven hundred muscles and the game made each and every one of them ache in Allen's tired and starving animated marvelous machine of creation, with two hundred bones and three hundred and fifty joints according to the game's encyclopedia, she could collapse at any minute after walking non stop for two hours.

A soft shimmer was all the warning Allen had before the creature pounced, her leg collapsing as she tried to dodge put her right under the belly of the beast, rolling to her knees she lunged to the right, barely avoiding a slash by its paw and dropping between two large rocks, she needed time to think, the thing was almost half the size of her dragon form, which made it several times bigger than her current puny size.

The comparison put an idea in Allen's head and she quickly just pulled her armor out between them, a roar and a leap by the monster trying to evade the new enemy, before it realised what happened she scampered up its one still attached left front leg, leaning into the shoulder cannon and using her whole body for a counterweight she aimed and fired the blaster at the confused beast, the whining sound and flashing light made her temporary deaf and blind, praying she hit the monster with that awkward attempt, at worst she will die soon and there was nothing she could do about it.

Panting and cowering behind the shoulder cannon for a few minutes calmed her pounding heart and short breaths before the din in her ears faded and she could make out shadows in the bright noon sunlight, leaning against the siege weapon and waiting for the world to become coherent again she heard more growls in the nearby crags which got her thinking about slef defense against self pity, and though the latter was more comfortable, the former was more practical and she was leaning toward its application. 

A second look at the scaly lizard head and leathery wings helped identifying the manticore, unwilling to bother and physically strip the beast of its valuable parts, she had to wait for the whole decomposition animation to play before looting it for a vial of its blood and two pieces of adult manticore fur.

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Modifying the gun from her dragon armor was the best she could do without a workshop, and right now she was very sorry for not stashing some heavy duty equipment in her near infinite inventory.

Salvaging the weapon ruined the shoulder holster and bashed the auto aim system, Allen knew there wasn't a real AI behind his modifications but she would be the last person to bother and tell anyone about the Neuro Psychology Care system, if people chose to believe political rivals were sent to gaming camps she wasn't one to burst their bubble.

Thoughts of salvaging the wings from the armor reminded her how they were ripped off and discarded, a phantom pain coursing through her shoulder blades like electric shockwaves and pushing her to the ground, another potion of healing took her hunger and thirst away but the fatigue from running, fighting and walking away was building up fast as the sun started setting down with her still hiding inside the huge now empty armor made for a dragon with lazerpunk themes.

Allen missed logging off, checking forums for interesting things around her location, calling her friends to chat, meeting for a lunch or dinner, these thoughts carried her away into darker hours, another stumble on an invisible rock and she decided to call it off, curling where she fell and sleeping in the cold night, hidden in a small ditch between two rocks.

Morning was just a cold reminder of the miserable night, using absorption pads from the armor for bedding and some ripped cloth sheets for a blanket was much worse than even the prison pod.

Strapping the wrecked gun to her back she stored what was left of her once magnificent arnor in her inventory and pulled her makeshift blanket as a cape to ward off the morning chill and soon to rise heat from the sun.

Walking away from where she heard the grunts and roars last night seemed the prudent choice so she skated the crag area and a few hours and another healing potion later found herself at the foot of a steep hill, to her right were the crags and on her left was the way back to the sea, so climbing seemed like her only choice.

Half an hour later Allen could push no more, leaning forward and rolling to put her back to the slope she closed her eyes to let them rest for a while, pulling the gun around her shoulder before it bore a hole in her back she finally opened her eyes and let herself bask in the majestic view of the ocean, with rocky untamed beaches, she even noticed a single sail cresting the horizon, the game animation played freaky visuals on globe trained minds, with horizons defined by programmed borders instead of lateral distances, being on a high elevation forced the game engine to display a much longer view than would be in the real world.

Silly thoughts taking her back to the days when she was just a crystal, devoid of all senses beside time and space, reading infinite manuals and scripts just to differentiate one moment from another, they were simpler times, measured equally in mitutes and decades, could she go back to them? Did she want to go back? To forget the past year with Meroa and all her other friends.

It hurt to remember, thinking of them pulled her down a long and dark tunnel, thinking about their debts to the clans and guilds, many of them dying in those first few minutes of the mountain exploding, losing their high end avatars and classes and either falling into huge debts to revive them of being forced to pick a generic avatar and a free class just to survive in a game infested world where even the game was turned into a post apocalyptic wasteland ruled by a new queen of the skies.

Shrugging off those thoughts and taking a more active role to scout around she passed her gaze on where the mountainous dragon crashed to the ground and then left her stranded, she sweeped from left to right, noticing the crag area was much more spread out than she initially thought, stretching from the see all the way to the rocky hills, in front of her were some shallow lagoons clustered together and far to her right she could see, between two cresting hills a group of plumes fading into the clouds.

Picking up her rifle she looked through its magnifying sight, and zoomed in on the distant smoke, by the way she set her gear up it was not an optical application, to cheat and get a better, faster result she abused the NPC system, so what she was seeing was literally viewed through the eyes of some poor person forced to be linked to her contraption and used as a calculation aid.

Just a few tweaks of the hardware  got her the desired result of a Birdseye view of a bustling town that seemed like it escaped the wrath of the titan unscathed, surrounded by stone walls even  separating the main town from its river docks, there were gates and towers spread all around providing ample protection from all directions, following a few people going about their day watching a blacksmith making a plough she was startled by a scraping sound from behind her and turned still holding the gun to her shoulder.

Falling, flailing her arms and screaming before planting her face in the dirt and reorienting her vision to her eyes, looking up it seemed her drop saved her from a severe pecking by a giant bird monster, happy to find the gun still gripped in ger fingers she layed it on the sloping ground and before it lifted off again she blasted it to a red cloud of blood vapour and feathers.

Leaning her cheek to her shoulder she decided to go check that town out and maybe rest there for a while before deciding on what to do next.