We had soon turned in for the night as it was getting late, when I woke up, I sat down near the campfire and waited for someone to wake up. Lorraine is still in a deep slumber, Abby crawled out of her tent and sat down across from me.
She yawned and stretched, “How are you doing, Steve?”
“I am doing fine, I have not slept this well in a long time.”
She tilted her head and smiled at me, “That is good to hear, Lorraine is really having a major impact on you.”
“Yes, I know, it feels, strange, how are you doing, with your wounds and all?”
Abby moved her hands over her wounds, “Not too bad, if I say so myself, the pain is there, but I feel like I can breathe normally again. However, my body is very sore, I just need to handle the ranged attacks and avoid getting close in combat for a while.”
I handed her a sandwich, and some water, she smiled as she took the food, “How are our supplies?”
“They are actually good, Talia also gave Lorraine a bag with some supplies.”
Abby nodded, “That was a brief visit, who knew they despised your race that much?”
“Not me, to be fair, If Lorraine is with me, I don’t care what I am, nor do I care for power. I just want to save this reality and call it quits.”
Abby stared at me for a moment while taking bites from her sandwich, “Are you certain?”
“Yes, this adventuring life, it is fun and all, but I rather go somewhere calm with Lorraine and just live out my days.”
Abby nodded, “That can be a good plan,” I saw her grab her water bottle. From her wrists came black tentacles, I decided to let it be, that is not my business, and they didn't seem to be hurting her.
Funk came out of his tent while stretching, “I heard that, Steve.” He sat down next to Abby, “Evil never sleeps, you know that, right?”
“Yes, but who says I have been chosen to keep smashing evil every time it awakes? Yes, I feel like the hero of this story, but like any other hero, once evil has been slain, I want to rest.”
Funk nodded, “Alright, if that is what you want.”
Abby smiled, “I have to agree with Steve here, I have not been made to be a chew toy for dinosaurs.” We all laughed, waking Lorraine up.
She crawled out of our tent and sat down to lean against me, Her left ear bent a little the wrong way, I have noticed it does that sometimes. I scratched her behind her ear while putting her left ear in a normal position. Her wolf ears were big, she wrapped her tail around me.
Funk handed Lorraine some water, she yawned and took it, then she looked at me, “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, I did, you were gone in seconds.”
She nodded, “Yesterday tired me out, are we heading into the voidlands soon?”
“That is the plan, we should start cleaning up camp, while these ores are fun to look at, I am not planning on mining iron ore anytime soon.”
Abby giggled, “It is not like we have many skills to train, like in some MMORPG’s.”
Funk looked at me, I sighed. “She means massive multiplayer online role-playing games, we used to play those back home, you needed to create a character and in most of them, you had a ton of skills you needed to train. Since it was online, I could see Abby in the game, while she was at her home.”
Funk smiled, “And it is called massive since there are many players?”
“Yes, that is correct, but it also depends on how popular the game is, the bad thing with these kinds of games were, that if they do not earn enough money, the servers will go down and bam, all your progress would be lost.”
Lorraine grunted and looked at me, “I would be bummed if you lost a lot of progress.”
Abby nodded, “Some games would allow you to play on a private server with your file, but you will only be playing with people you know, sometimes, this would give you a tether, meaning people could not go too far away from each other.”
I got up, “We should clean up our camp and go on, when we make a new campsite, we can talk more about this.” Together, we cleaned up our camp and took the necessary items with us.
Lorraine walked over to me while I finished cleaning up the last remnants of our camp, “How are you doing?”
I smiled at her, “I am doing fine, actually.”
“What about your rage?”
“It is as good as gone, it is still there, but it’s under control. I think you have a good influence on me.”
She gave me an affiliate smile, “Good!”
I walked over to her and caressed her cheek, “I like your human skin, it blends perfectly with your animal attributes.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Lorraine blushed, “You are not just messing around?”
I gently kissed her, “When it comes to you, I don’t fuck around, you look beautiful, even with your shredded clothes.”
She giggled, “You are such a flirt.”
“I know, but I only have eyes for you.”
After cleaning up the camp, we made our way north, and it did not take long to come across a purple wall, Funk looked at me, “This is it, people that go inside these lands get vaporized.”
Lorraine clenched her hand, squeezing mine, Abby looked at me, “You are supposedly what we need to go through this place. You can go first.”
I did a step forward, but Lorraine stopped me, “Are you sure of this?”
“Not at all, what do you think?”
She smiled at me, “I trust you.”
After nodding, I walked forward and as I stepped through the wall with Lorraine, I felt a force push me down, I did not turn to ash or something. Lorraine looked at me, then she looked around. Funk and Abby soon followed me.
Funk looked around, “I barely feel any different compared to a few seconds ago.”
Abby looked at him, “Me neither.”
I sighed, ignoring them, “We need to be careful, we have no clue what is awaiting us in this place.”
We slowly made our way forward, as I looked around, the whole place seemed to be decayed, there were no trees, not even rocks. It is, just, purple everywhere I look. As if the mist ate everything. The wind did not even blow here, nor could I smell anything. I could see Lorraine was on edge. She just wanted to get out of this place as fast as possible.
Funk, however, he looked like he was taking a stroll through the park, maybe it has something to with being an Insectine, but it did kill other Insectines. Perhaps he has some kind of barrier? Funk suddenly spoke up, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I am just thinking.”
He sighed, “Anything good?”
“Nah, just wondering what kind of barrier you have to stop the pressing feeling.”
Funk just shrugged, “Abby is also not bothered by the void,” before I could react to his comment, I heard a squelching sound and I stopped walking.
As I raised my left foot, it looked as if I had stepped on some kind of small purple worm, Lorraine looked at it, “There is actually life in this place?”
The entire ground started to shake, and suddenly a giant worm came out of the ground in front of us, “My baby! My baby!”
Abby sighed, “you’ve done it again, Steve.”
“What? This time I swear I did not do it on purpose, I was looking at what Funk was doing. It is his fault.”
He chuckled, “How is it my fault?”
“It just is.”
Lorraine cleared her throat, “Maybe we should focus on the giant worm with two heads?”
“Oh, yeah.” It came closer and all of us spawned a weapon.
The worm screeched loudly, “Why did you step on my baby?”
“It was an accident?”
Funk looked at me and Lorraine, “Do you guys read the power level on this thing?”
Abby looked at him, “I can’t, it is too high.”
Funk nodded, “Just make sure to get out of this place alive.”
Lorraine looked at him, “What are you going to do?”
Funk smirked, “You will see.” He ran over towards the worm, “Hey there, I challenge you.” The worm immediately looked at Funk squashing another purple worm, then another. Funk ran away while the worm chased him. We saw him jump on the worm’s back, then a massive blast of wind as a purple portal opened, and they went through.
Abby looked at me, “What the fuck just happened?”
Lorraine sighed, “I think Funk gave us some time to get to the other side of the voidlands.”
As we kept walking, I looked at where Funk had disappeared to, “Is he, dead?”
Abby looked at me, “I hope not, but that was reckless.”
Lorraine pulled me along with her, “Onwards we go.”
I nodded, and we started running, Abby followed us, luckily, the voidlands were not too big. We soon saw the exit already, as we came out of the purple wall, night had already fallen.
Abby looked around, “We did not spend that much time in the void, did we?”
Lorraine looked back, “Time must work differently there.”
I crossed my arms, “Could you guys, please set up camp?”
Lorraine nodded, “And what are you going to do?”
I gathered silver energy and drew a circle to try to make a portal, but the energy evaporated. I grunted, “Once more with tact,” Once again, I tried to make another portal, it evaporated instantly.
Lorraine walked over, “You wield portal magic?”
“Yes, I think so, I want to make a portal to get Funk back, but I am having trouble making it work properly.”
Abby gasped, I looked at her as she had wandered off to what seemed to be the edge of this reality, “What is it Abby?”
“This earth is flat!”