“Old and decrepit!”
A shout rang out across the workshop as the small chasing hammer clanged on the floor.
“These darn hands of mind!”
Setting hunched over on his stool, Sesel looked dejected at his pair of hands. The pair of hands he carried for over 89 years. The hands that allowed him to build a wealthy empire. The hands that, as of now, are calling it quits.
The fatigue from multiple decades of constant work over the bench. Taking precious metals and rare gemstones and turning them into works of art. Now, the most precious tools in the workshop are as useless as his belligerent cursing. Veiny and shaking, those two hands had literally timed out.
Sesel was already told by the doctors, although medical technology has advanced, he did have a time limit.
“You just can’t trust any quacks nowadays!”
“There is no reason for me to be able to keep going, I just got the surgery the other day…or was it a month ago…”
Sesel sat there pondering, not noticing his past due invoice from that particular surgery with a date of more than 6 months ago. Unfortunately, Sesel’s mind was also fading. Still lost in his thoughts, Sesel’s mind started racing. He started remembering the time he started his business, his marriage, and of course, his three boys.
As a tear dripped down his cheek, he was startled and stretched out his body. His arms turned the torch he had on his desk up. Not hearing the familiar wind cutting noise his torch makes (his hearing was fading also), he snapped back to reality.
“What the hell was that!”
Ignoring the recent outburst, Sesel starts looking for his hammer he dropped. At that same moment Sesel felt a sharp pain starting at his heart. He instinctively grabbed his chest. The pain was so intense that he backed into his rack of gas mixtures knocking off the loose tubings.
“Darn, this one really hurts”
Groaning, trying to calm himself, Sesel noticed a black shadow on the floor. The shadow started to morph and a small white figure emerged. The object grew into a pale white boney hand.
Sesel's eyes grew wide.
“Shoot!”
The boney small hand only protruded out past the forearm then stopped. Then the hand turned slowly 180 degrees turning into a fist. Sesel was still gasping for air and holding his chest paused. At the same time, the boney hand’s middle finger shot up like lightning.
“You son of a…!”
Those were the last words Sesel was able to deliver as the pain in his chest quickly moved down to his intestine. After a large rumble and a massive horn sound that could wake the gods erupted. The brown cloud did not have far to go. The torch was still in arms reach. The spark set off a chain reaction engulfed the entire workshop in an instant.
Gasp!! Cough cough cough
Sesel rolled over while on the ground, trying to catch his breath. He was still grabbing his chest, but suddenly noticed that there was no pain. This revelation caused him to slow his heart beat to a normal pace then calm down.
He rolled over and set up. He immediately started. The first thing he noticed was his hands.
“Dear lawd, what on earth is this!?”
Sesel noticed his hands were youthful. Not a sign of aging at all. No cracks or arthritis to be seen. In complete shock, Sesel jumped up.
“I just can’t believe this!”
Failing to see the thousands of dark shapes moving in unison towards him, Sesel takes off running towards what looks like a small puddle. Sesel figured he was in a cave, but cared more about what his reflection would reveal.
Sesel nervously moved his head over to the small puddle being illuminated by the moonlight. Slowly he saw a round jet black shape. It eventually moved to cover his face. Sesel's eyes were so big it almost startled him.
“My body! My body!”
“I have gotten younger!”
After the shock wore off and the exhaustion of jumping and yelling set in, Sesel knelt down to look at his face again.
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“For the life of me, I have no clue what happened. I can’t faintly remember an explosion”
“Good lawd, what on earth is this?”
Sesel’s reflection rippled then changed into the reflection of a skeleton with a hood on. As Sesel’s rage boiled over and before he was able to shout. A deep voice echoed in the cave.
“Lawd, or shal I say…lord, has no business in this place!”
The previous rubbing that was ignored by Sesel became more and more pronounced. Sesel shot up and noticed a sea of black objects about three feet tall marching towards him. Looking down at the reflection of the skeleton, he noticed the shape of the entity's finger. The particular middle finger in a very familiar pose.
“You son of a….”
Sesel was cut off by a loud roar that shook him to his core. The roar was so loud, he instinctively ran. The cave was dark and only small beams of moonlight light around him. At that time he just knew he had to get away from all the ominous looking figures. He clearly felt the rumble behind him and knew that he could not stop.
As he turned through one of the passageways, he had to dodge a shiny object sticking out of the wall. After being impressed with his new found agility, he noticed an orange flash passed his vision as he grazed the odd stone with his hand. The scene was so odd, curiosity got the better of him.
Slowly he reached his hand out to the stone. When his hand was about 1 inch from the object. A small transparent orange screen popped up from his left peripheral.
“Ahh! Lawd help me!”
The motion of the screen was so fluid and quick, Sesel assumed it was an enemy and started swinging like his life depended on it. While swinging his fists with his eyes closed he noticed that the orange object would pop in and out of his view as he punched the stone.
After calming down and dropping his hands, Sesel started blankly for a bit not knowing his next move. He eventually gathered his courage and grabbed the stone. He then noticed the same image shoot out from the left side of his vision and hovered to the bottom left of his eyesight.
No matter where he moved his head the image would stay there. He finally stopped and looked.
Unknown item, you need more experience to identify
After a moment of taking his hand off and on the stone several times he gave up. He knew by the vibrations, he didn’t have much time to figure things out. Sesel then decided to leave the odd looking stone and took off running once more.
Heavily breathing, he noticed more and more of these odd looking stones the more he ran.
Not sure what this weird screen I keep seeing but maybe constantly touching these rocks will help me get out of this situation.
While running, Sesel noticed another oddity. There was a small progress bar barely visible towards the center of Sesels vision. Sesel noticed that when he touched the odd stones, the progress bar would fill up. It was Sesel’s only hope he clung to.
“Darn, these things seem to be catching up to me. Also, I have nowhere to go”
Unfortunately due to the darkness, Sesel did not see the hole on his path.
“Ah!!!”
The sound of Sesel’s voice echoed as he fell down the shaft. He slammed against the walls as his forward momentum was at top speed due to his fear. Trying to grab onto anything in a panic, there was nothing but the weird shaped rocks.
The texture of the rocks were very smooth and hard. Sesel could tell from the feeling that the objects were very dense. Another quality of the rocks was that fact that they were in no shape or form a good form to grab on to.
“Oof!”
Sesel landed on the cold hard ground with barely any resistance.
“Cough cough!.
“Ugh”
Sesel fell backwards after his hard landing on his feet.
“Lawd, shoot!”
Patting his legs, expecting shattered bones, Sesel was shocked. Not only was his legs in one piece, he only experienced a small amount of pain and numbness.
“Ain't no way I aint in to dream! How would anyone survive something like that fall!?”
ROAR!!!!!
Sesel’s hair stood on end as he quickly turned around. For the millionth time, Sesel’s eyes widened as far as they could. There it was, a towering beast. A massive creature that shook the reality back into him. Sesel knew he was not in his world anymore, and just maybe, this is not a dream.
Whiddle whiddle wihddle
Sesel was hard pressed to take his eyes off the gigantic monster in front of him, but good thing he did. Looking up, he saw those black creatures that were chasing him pouring out of the hole he fell through. Taking all of his energy to focus, Sesel shot out of the way as the small creatures landed where he just was.
Sesel kept running as fast as he could.
Smash
A loud thud echoed in the cavern as Sesel slammed into a wall. The area he was now in was darker than any part of the cave he had been in. The moonlight only shined down in a small concentrated area around the huge monster, who was still roaring.
Progress 99%
Sesel in his fright did not notice the progress bar, nor the screen from earlier. For over an hour, Sesel was running for his life. As Sesel rolled over and turned towards his adversaries, he looked up. Although it was very dark and difficult to see. He could tell there were more of the small black creatures, much much more.
“These darned things are everywhere!”
What the hell am I going to do now?
Sesel instinctively started backing up towards the wall. He could sense that the creatures were pouring into the cavern he was in. The noise they made plus his adrenaline was deafening.
Come on Sesel, think!
Focusing in on the huge monster, he noticed a familiar black shadow. It was the skeleton reaper in all his glory. The reaper was floating above the huge monster in a lazy pose, seeming to be enjoying the whole debacle.
“Is that darn thing smiling at me?”
“I’ll show you dammit!”
In Sesel’s rage, he reached for the nearest stone. Although these weird stones he saw all around him were embedded deeply and would take a super human level of effort to pull out. Sesel did not care. All he cared about right now was getting a good hit in.
You darn skull fool, Just you watch.
I may die here, but I will die with a smile on my face.
CRACK
While gripping the stone firmly, Sesel’s fingers dug into the stone. Sesel was in such a rage, his teeth started grinding.
CRACK CRACK
After several cracks at the base of the stone that Sesel had a hold of, it tore away from the wall. With a strong grip and bulging veins, Sesel stretched his arm back. He aimed for the hooded skeleton.
With the army of black creatures close enough, he could see their eyes. Sesel was preparing to focus for one last strike at his constant eyesoar.
BEEP BEEP
BEEP BEEP
The small beeping sound threw his focus off. The sound was almost as it would coming from inside his head. It forced him to look at the little orange screen in his view. He had been so focused on his situation, he completely ignored it.
Sesel focused on the change in the screen and all he saw was a ton of text. Instinctively he moved his thoughts around the mini UI. He did not understand what was going on. His UI landed on one of many pop ups.
Use all materials in max range (1mile)
Confirm YES / NO
This prompt made Sesel confused. Almost like sensing his thoughts, the confusion highlights NO.
SNAP
Sesel felt a small amount of pain on his right leg and then looked down. It was already too late. There were so many creatures surrounding him, he could barely make out the skeleton. In a fit of rage, Sesel took a deep breath and yelled. He was focus on launching his projectile at the skeleton
Confirming Yes
As Sesel was halfway through his swing. The entire room lit up with a bright orange light that engulfed everything. Sesel could have sworn he saw the skeleton creature have an expression of interest on his face. Sesel’s thoughts were not focused because the orange light eventually turned to white and all his senses left him.
BOOM