Pete felt his feet leave the ground for only a moment before he was seemingly in a different place. Where he was once in his bedroom, now he seemed to be in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by forest. The air was humid and hot, and some trees seemed to stretch almost 300 feet straight up into the canopy. There were vines hanging on almost every tree within sight and there was the sound of rain droplets hitting the leaves.

‘Wait, what?’

Pete went to look up but as he did a raindrop fell on his forehead. Up in the air, no sky could be seen through the thick veneer of clouds overhead. The clouds, dark and low, gave everything a deeper shadow than it would otherwise have.

Pete noticed that the rain was starting to drop more frequently and decided the first thing he needed to do was find shelter before he got soaked.

‘Can’t get hypothermia out here, gotta find shelter’

Pete started frantically looking around his immediate vicinity, looking for some sort of respite from the rain but still not leaving the spot in the clearing upon which he had arrived, when he saw a towering figure in the distance. A mountain that pierced the very sky, extending above the line of clouds into the unknown. Pete had obviously seen footage of Mt. Everest on tv before, and even if it was hard to understand the scale through the tv, it was still obvious that this mountain dwarfed Everest.

A line of mountains ran along the sides of the behemoth as well, but none were even a drop in the bucket to the monster of snow and ice. The mountain was host to jagged spires of ice and its shadow threw whatever part of the forest its shadowy fingers could get a hold of into darkness.

Pete decided then and there that he would stay far away from it. And so, deciding that he’d have to actually walk into the forest to find shelter, Pete took the first step towards the forest (and away from the mountain.)

Breaking through the tree line, Pete was greeted by a world of roots, vines and bushes, all there to hinder his path. Moving through the foliage - and avoiding the weird red colored bushes - was hard enough even without the ground being wet, but Pete soldered on until eventually, he came upon a little stream. The water was clear and bright, with the stones and other debris in the stream bed making beautiful ripples in the water. Pete was looking for a way to cross it when something came out of the water right in front of him. A little blue ball of what seemed like water that had been dyed blue lazily rolled itself towards Pete. Pete was frozen with fear, being in an unfamiliar and alien place was already enough to make him want to cry, but a ball of water just getting up and walking away was just about his last straw.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

While Pete was freaking out internally, he never let his eyes wander from the weird orb, which is how he noticed when it stopped. Not turn into a puddle or wash away or anything that could loosely be described as normal, but just stopped moving. Pete still had no idea what he wanted to do, should he turn and run away? Would that just make him a target? Should he see if it was friendly? Or if it even had any sort of intelligence to begin with?

Just then though, the orb leaped at Pete. He scrambled out of the way, moving on instinct alone. However, instinct didn’t seem to account for the root that he tripped on while throwing himself to the side, and so he fell, landing on his shoulder. Now that he was eye-level (or whatever this thing had that counted as eyes) he could see that there was a crystal smack dab in the middle of the creature. It was smooth all over but shined in the light. The thing jumped at Pete again and with no other way to defend himself he threw out a kick towards it. The kick served more to halt its momentum than to do any damage as it just seemed to bend around his foot then bounce back and aways a little bit. Now with a little more room, Pete quickly scampered to standing, with the intention of running away from that thing, when it leaped a third time, this time it’s apex at around waist height.

Pete decided to kick it again, this time kicking like he was punting a football. But where as before the orb just bounced off harmlessly, this time his shoe connected with the crystal. There was a cracking sound and then the orb just kind of melted away, all of the weird goop (that was definitely too thick to be water) just falling away onto the ground. And on Pete’s foot.

Before Pete could celebrate, or lament his goopy shoe, another screen showed up in front of his face.

[Level 1 Slime killed]

[Experience points being distributed]

[+5 XP]

‘What?’