Going into the shadows was hard. There was an instinctive aversion that Sasha had to going into the darkness, and it was being pulled over into his new bunny form. “Alright gang, we can do this.” He said, looking at the camera. Sure, he’d have to cut this up, but this was a crazy start.

With his glowing paw, Coney moved through the dark corridors. It was cold down there, and he marveled at his ability to tighten his robes around him to keep warm. Many games pretended to have physics engines, but something this complex was only ever done in proof of concept games. This was, kind of, a first.

The undercroft was empty, it felt odd to him because his instincts screamed there should be tombs and undead down here, but for now all he saw around every corner were the dusty underground passageways that had been left too long. All that dust proved to be his downfall, or at least his fall down as he began to sneeze.

“Ah, ahh, ahhh.” He tried to hold it in, his nose twitching. It was weird, feeling the inside of his nose shaped differently as well as the outside. That didn’t help, as he sneezed and stumbled. “Choo!” His sneeze echoed, as he did his best to hold his feet on a slope that he’d stumbled onto.

Finally Coney did land on his ass, dazed and confused. “What the hell.” He said, looking around. He’d stumbled nearly ten feet, through a door, and down a ramp. Now he was somewhere completely different. This room didn’t look like the rest of the undercroft he’d been in so far, instead this looked like a reading room. The walls were covered in books and scrolls, and though he landed on the floor there were several couches,

“Wow, that’s amazing.” He said out loud. “Why was this place abandoned?” He asked the air. That was what you did while recording, though he quickly realized his folly at making so much noise. There was a sound, coming from out in the hallway above, something reminiscent of footsteps, and… a marimba? It could be the wind, but in a place like this he wasn’t sure.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He muttered to himself, looking around the room for some kind of weapon. There wasn’t a way he was getting out of this safely, he just knew it, so he needed to find something he could use as a weapon. He looked everywhere. On the bookshelves, under the couch cushions, around the desk. There was nothing he could use. “Well, I’m boned.” He said, completely convinced he had nothing to protect himself with. Finally he saw something, there was an umbrella stand by the entrance.

Before he could walk towards it he found the entrance blocked by an enemy. It was a skeleton, scraps of robes still hanging off its bones. “It’s a… male.” He said, looking at the tell tale pelvis. “Well, finally my forensic anthropology training was good for something.” The skeleton began to walk towards him and Coney ran.

Coney ducked behind a couch, hoping that he could get the skeleton to lose sight of him. He was short after all, it wasn’t hard for him to hide behind things. Still the skeleton walked on. The clattering noise the skeleton made was deadoned somewhat by the carpet that most of the room had, but still his sensitive hearing could pick up how the bones clattered against each other without any ligaments or cartilage.

As the Skeleton approached Coney began to crawl around the couch, trying to keep out of sight. His best bet was to get on the other side of the skeleton, because that’s where the weapons were. He crawled, sneaky as could be, but glancing up he saw the skeleton watching him. “Shit. Maybe sneaking while glowing is a bad idea.” He said impulsively. “I mean, how could I know? This sort of thing doesn’t usually come up!” He jumped to his feet and ran.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

The skeleton was just a couple feet behind him, if he hesitated for even a second it could attack him. Without hesitation he grabbed at whatever was in the umbrella stand, and smacked it against the skull of his enemy. There was the sound of shattering glass as pieces of bone fell to the floor. The skeleton began to claw at him, and he felt as he took damage.

“Huh, no notifications.” He said, as he took another swing, this time caving in the skeleton’s rib cage and making it crumble into big chunks. “I suppose it’s not distracting, but damn if this doesn’t hurt.” It was true, his flesh had gashes where the sharp bone fingers of the skeleton had torn into his fur and skin. He was bleeding and he felt it, the stinging painful sensation.

Finally Coney managed to slam his weapon into the Skeleton’s head, and when it was completely destroyed the rest of the skeleton crumbled at his feet into a pile of bones. “Well, that’s a mess.” Looking at his hands he finally found what he was fighting with, it was nothing more than a walking cane. But it was better than nothing.

Leaning down, Coney moved a paw over the bones and tried to focus on looting, but nothing happened. “Uh… Loot.” He said the outlet with a confused voice. “Harvest?” Again, nothing happened but him making a fool of himself. “Help, Looting.” He said hoping that something would pull up. Amazingly, it did.

Looting. Looting is the process of gathering materials and objects from an enemy. When a player has a looting skill, they may use it to automatically gather what they want. Otherwise, they must do it manually.

“What? Are you serious right now? I have to manually search bodies for loot?” He sighed. “Well, I suppose I’ve done it before…” He said, frowning. Sure, in realistic games like Forestry Online they hated having any kind of tooltips, which meant manually doing most things. But this was a fantasy game, and frankly he didn’t know if he’d have the heart to loot some of the enemies that showed up. “I really hope clerics can get a skill like that, because this is… kinda gross.”

Leaning down, Coney looked through the skeleton’s remains. First he checked the pockets, which were surprisingly empty, no silver coins anywhere random. He did see something glinting, and finally he picked up what looked like a ring. It was way too big for his fingers, but it was an odd symbol. It looked like the letter T, but part of it was curved at the bottom making it look like a J but backwards. With a shrug he pocketed it, supposing it might be important later.

Looking around the room, he dusted off his hands on his robes and began to walk around looking at the books. None of them had labels, and in fact they were placed oddly. Every single one that was a bound book, rather than a scroll, had its bending backwards. Facing him was not the spine, but instead the other pages. He pulled one down and began to read from a middle page.

Elder God cults have begun to crop up once more, declaring themself as parts of the third heresy, declaring worship for something not under the overgod. These cults enjoy the benefits of worship while performing depraved actions against our people…

Well, that was interesting. With a thought he started to pull up an inventory system. Again, nothing happened. “Oh come on.” He said, sighing. “Inventory? Bag?” Nothing. “Help, inventory.” He said, resigned. This was going to become a habit.

Inventory. Inventory is a menu only accessible when a player gains some form of dimensional inventory. Either an item, or through a skill, dimensional inventories can allow a player to carry more than their strength allows. Otherwise, the player must make due with normal bags and other storage solutions.

“Yup. This game really doesn’t hold your hand.” Coney said, looking at the camera. “Well, whatever.” He put his book back and stretched. “I think I have more undead to beat. Maybe when I level up I can get some kind of skill for this.” Without further ado he started leaving the room again. “I wish I could stay here, but I’m starving already.”