Zreng looked at be with confusion in his eyes. “Party? We are having a party?”

“Sorry,” I replied. “That’s slang from my world. What I meant to say was let’s get this show on the road.”

Zreng’s confusion seemed to deepen.

I tried one more time. “Let me bind you and inflict the necessary injuries so that I can make my escape.” That he understood.

I ordered all the kobolds to return to the room where I had entered this world. I spent the next few minutes duct taping and zip-tying kobolds. Once I perfected my system, the process started to speed up. I would use my zip ties to secure the kobolds’ arms behind their backs, then duct taped their legs together, gagged them and put more tape around their snouts. While I was doing this, they laughed and joked with each other. I doubt I would be half as jovial if I knew I was headed to a beat down.

While I was securing the other kobolds, I continued to talk to Zreng. “So, where are the valuables kept in this place?” I asked.

“They are in a small vault attached to the back of the harvesting floor,” he replied. Reaching below his roughly made shirt, he pulled out a key that was hanging on a chain around his neck.

I walked over and grabbed the key, ripping it from his neck. He grunted in pain and annoyance, rubbing the back of his neck where the links of the chain had dug in and lacerated his skin.

“Sorry,” I said, not at all sorry. “We need to make this look real. I assume I am not the only one who brought items with him when I was transported to this place. Are those items in the vault as well?”

“Yes,” Zreng said. “Also, the completed essence crystals are stored there until they are collected by the Clan once a week. You should probably know that today is collection day, so hurry!”

I nodded and resumed restraining the remaining kobolds. Finally, only Zreng was left unbound.

“Your turn,” I said, pointing towards the floor.

After he lowered himself to the floor and found a comfortable position, I quickly restrained him as well. I had gone through quite a bit of my supply of duct tape and zip ties. When I purchased them, I was thinking about restraining a few individuals, not a small street gang.

Then the beatings began. In retrospect, after spending much more time in this world, I am not proud of what I did. But I was confused and stressed, and I was so very angry.

I punted heads. I stomped on hands and feet. I bashed skulls against the unyielding stone floor. I heard the sharp crack of bones breaking and the muffled cries and screams of the kobolds. Drawing my knife from my belt, I inflicted some cuts and a stab wound or two. And I have to say, at the time it made me feel pretty damn good, as I avenged the pain, deaths and suffering that these creatures had dished out to others like me. I enjoyed every second of it.

But looking back, I know that beating and torturing a group of bound and gagged creatures the size of children was not my finest moment. Honestly, I am not sure what that enjoyment says about me, but I know it is nothing good.

Soon, it was over. My whole body ached from the exertion, and blood stained my hands, my feet, my clothing. I turned from the room and walked through the door. As I pulled the door shut, I couldn’t resist one final verbal jab at the room of groaning and crying creatures.

“Remember, you reap what you sow.”

Just as it was true for them, I am sure it will be true for me.

I walked back down to the resource harvesting floor. What a horrible euphemism for a slaughterhouse. I started glancing around the walls and noticed that there was a pair of double doors on the far wall and a single door with a large keyhole just outside the area with all of the pallets. I headed that direction.

As I walked, I started thinking about all of the fantasy games that I had played. Doors to vaults and other treasure rooms were usually trapped. Should I have forced Zreng to open the vault before I bound and gagged him? Well, it was too late now. He was no longer in good enough shape to walk down the stairs and open a vault. As I approached the vault, how screwed I was started to sink in. Sure, I was armed with a decent weapon, but my that weapon had very limited ammunition and it is not as if I could nip on down to the nearest sporting goods store to buy more. I had arrived with five magazines that each contained fifteen rounds. I had wasted one of those rounds, so I was down to seventy-four shots. In my boot, I had a four inch folding knife. At my belt, I had a KA-BAR style sheath knife. And I was in a world where magic was real, where creatures came equipped with natural weapons like teeth and claws that could end me in a heartbeat. Although I hadn’t seen any yet, I was sure that there had to be swords and spears, longbows and crossbows, armor, polearms and axes. And I was blundering through the world in a t-shirt and jeans, a light jacket, a pair of combat boots, and my last clean pair of underwear.

“Here goes nothing,” I said aloud as I reached the door, shrugging my shoulders. I held my breath and I placed the key in the lock, turned it and dove away from the door, landing on my elbows and knees.

The door popped open slightly, swinging inward. There were no traps. How anticlimactic.

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I pushed open the door and entered the room. It was about the size of a large walk-in closet. Shelves lined the side walls and at the back of the room a large bin the size of an industrial laundry cart stood next to a small desk. On the desk was a small chest with its lid flipped open. Multicolored light from what were clearly harvested essence crystals played across the ceiling of the room. The only other light in the room was from two glowing runes on either side of the door.

I quickly surveyed the contents of the vault. Peering into the chest, I noticed that it did contain six essence crystals. The bin was full of what the kobolds must have considered trash. It mostly held clothing and other personal effects like purses and wallets, their contents emptied out into the bottom of the cart. The shelves contained personal items that the kobolds must have considered valuable. One shelf held jewelry and precious metals. I recognized everything from hair clips, broaches and necklaces and modern wedding rings to a thing that looked like a small jewel-encrusted diadem. Other shelves held more useful items – personal weapons, bottles of labeled medication and other drugs, backpacks, tools, bedrolls, even a large glass bottle of teeth with precious metal fillings. There was a lot of empty space on the shelves. Maybe it was a slow week.

I started ransacking the room. Although there was a lot of useful stuff in there, and even though I thought much of it would be helpful to me, I knew I could only carry a small portion of it if I was to escape. I decided to gather the things that I needed first, those that would help me survive. Then, I would fill whatever space I had remaining to things that looked valuable, things that I might be able to sell or trade.

First, I grabbed a large leather backpack and a battered nylon fanny pack from the shelf. The fanny pack was just large enough to carry my spare magazines for my pistol. I transferred the magazines over and lashed the strap around my waist. I looked down and thought great, now I look like I am ready to go to the casino. I tied a bedroll onto the bottom of the backpack. Looking through the shelf of weapons, I saw numerous knives, hand axes, and even a sword or two. I shoved a small axe into the pack and belted a thin basket-hilted rapier on my waist. On one shelf, I recognized what I thought to be a flint and steel. Those went to the bottom of the pack as well. In the trash bin, I found a leather biker’s jacket that looked like it would fit, even though the sleeves were a little short. I shoved my light jacket into the pack and put on the biker jacket. Also in the trash, I found a long brown cloak that I decided to take.

While I was going through the trash bin I saw a lot of disturbing things. There were photographs of loved ones, some with the fidelity of modern photography and others that had the grainy look of a photograph taken before the dawn of the twentieth century. I pawed my way through a pile of empty condom wrappers, briefly wondering where all of the condoms had gone. I found all kinds of documents, drivers licenses and identification cards. And some of those documents made me think I was losing my mind. There was a modern-looking drivers license that had been issued under the authority of the Republic of West Texas. There was the stub of a concert ticket from a Beatles show in Chicago dated 1983. And a lot of the paper currency was issued from governments I had never heard of. I may not be the smartest person in the world, but I know that that the Ottoman Empire did not issue paper money dated 2008. Maybe Rocky wasn’t bullshitting me when he told me that there were many different realities, some more closely related than others. There was a lot of other stuff that I had no frame of reference to interpret, even with the gift of tongues. I lacked the basic context to even begin to determine what they meant.

Realizing that I was becoming sidetracked, I got back to the task at hand. I noticed none of the shelves contained any food or water, and beyond a few protein bars that I had tucked into my original backpack I had nothing to eat or drink. I grabbed a carpenter’s hammer and a pair of crude pliers from the shelf. Into the backpack they went. Glancing into the backpack, I realized I had some room left over for valuables, so I started sorting through the jewelry, trying to find things that looked small and valuable. I filled my pockets with rings and necklaces and placed some of the more impressive pieces, like the diadem and a fancy goblet that had what appeared to be rubies inset in its base in the backpack, and then I turned my attention to the essence crystals.

The essence crystals themselves weren’t very large. Each of them reminded me of the twelve-sided dice that I used for my tabletop roleplaying games. Dodecahedron I think the shape was called. Unlike small dice, however, each essence crystal was nearly the size of my clenched fist. I had no idea what they could be used for or how to use them. Some of you must be thinking that it would be hypocritical for me to take them or to make use of them, and I think that in some respect I agree. By all rights, given what those crystals represented and how they were made, I should probably have found a way to destroy them. But I also knew that they must be valuable and perhaps even powerful, because if they they weren’t powerful, then what would their use be to anyone else? I also knew that I wanted to survive, and if I had to trip over some of my ethical sensibilities on the way then I would just have to deal with it. After all, the people that they had been harvested from were dead, and I was not the one who killed them. It was better for me to have them than it was for me to leave them and let them enrich their murderers. I grabbed them and stuffed them into my backpack.

I slung the backpack over my shoulders. It was heavy and the straps were not padded. They dug into my already sore shoulders causing me to wince in pain. I felt slow and loaded down with everything that I was carrying, but everything I had grabbed I had chosen for a purpose. Suck it up, I thought to myself.

My eyes swept the room one final time. Was there anything I was missing? Then my gaze landed on the shelf of medication. Some of the drugs on the shelf were unknown or incomprehensible to me, but others I recognized. Ibuprofen? In the bag. Antibiotics? In the bag. Sun screen? That went in too. A small baggie of crystal meth. Oh, man. I wanted to put it in the bag. I really wanted to. I started bargaining with myself. This little bit won’t hurt. It will help me stay awake.

But then I thought of Sara the last time that I saw her. I thought about the cockamamie plans I would make that seemed perfectly logical when I was high, and I knew I would need all of my wits to survive. With a deep breath, I dropped the bag. I forced myself to turn towards the door. Just as I was about to step out into the main room, I heard the double doors, the main room’s other exit, open. There was a pause. I imagined someone scanning the room, taking in the destroyed harvesting operation and the lack of workers.

Suddenly, I flinched as a guttural bellow filled the room.

“Zreng, where are you! What happened here!”

I inched up to the door and peeked out briefly. There were two creatures standing just inside the door. Gray-green in color, they were heavily muscled and stood more than six feet tall. Although humanoid in appearance, they appeared bestial, with small tusks protruding from between their lips. Dressed in chainmail, they had wicked-looking axes at their belts. And wow did they ever look pissed off.

I guess that I had spent too much time looting the room and the orcs had arrived. If they made it out of the room to summon reinforcements, it was game over for me. There was only one thing to do.

I drew my pistol, stepped into the room, and started sending some bullets down range.