Things were never easy. One battle after another, one enemy always waiting and hiding beneath whatever monster was currently trying to kill me.

And for what? Levels? Experiance? This new world, this new existance I’d been thrusted into seemed to revolve around murder.

Fighting was fun. Until it wasn’t. I could still barely feel Gwen stirring within my soulcore; she was hurt--and she was hurt badly.

I growled to myself, just barely stopping the sound from becoming too loud at the last moment, as the mosquitto looking drone pulling my grappling spear from the large pipe it’d punctured into.

The machine’s yanking of my grappling line into it's own grasp, of course, brought me along with it.

I felt the bug flitter and strain a bit under my weight. How much did I weigh now? I wondered; I hadn’t seen a scale in a while, but I didn’t feel too out of place in my new form, although I was now taller.

Hardly the most pressing concern though.

My mana was still low. My runes were all used up too. I was barely in any condition to fight if this shiny bug pressed the issue.

I bit my teeth and glanced down with one eye. I was still a far way off from where the pillar of light from above entered into the dome below.

There were plenty of pipes and gears inbetween me and my best shot at getting further into the tower and escaping.

This bug was apparently trying to get in the way though. Was it some kind of guardian or more of a maintance bot? I had put a hole in one of the steam filled pipes; that’d probably piss off any mechanic.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Really no way to know just by looking at it what kind of monster the drone was though. One thing was sure, regardless: it needed to let me go.

I was tired of being, quite literally, tossed around.

I clenched my fist. My grappling spear responded to my will near immideately.

The drone who’d grabbed it was not so fast to react. It clittered it's small metallic hands, but the length of my spear was too quick and its surface too polished, letting it slip free.

My shoulder ached in its joint as I immidetely flicked it and my arm foreward, directing my spear line to fly toward where my half open first now pointed.

The metalic cording that my grappling spear was attatched to shifted in mid-air, before snapping with a fury to follow my commands. This time my aim was much more focused than before. I wasn’t nearly as blinded as when I’d been falling within the pillar of light and my stomach was no longer possesed of much of a huge gaping wound.

My spear tore into the metal of another pipe and I rode the line that connected to it in a swoowping arc through the cluttered air.

A few moments later, and at the highest point of the arc through the air, my fist now clinched, I gave the order for my spear to begin to retract, as I lifted slightly towards a large, flatly spinning gear.

And by large I do mean, big. The thing was at least the size of your average basketball court and it rotated on a massive metal spindle of sorts.

My spear tip and its cord returned into the gauntlet like housing mounted atop my wrist as my feet plummted towards the gear’s surface.

The elation of gravity taking over my body surged through me and, before I knew it, I was break rolling across the metal of the gear and into a now-practied crouch.

The effort of the role had my heart pumping and abdomen wincing. I still felt light-headed. Mana could restore both blood and tissue, but too much physical or spell exertion still left behind a feeling of lacking. I was currently feeling that odd sensation and also still physical pain, as my HP was only just now touching the halfway point.

I didn’t have much time to dwell on the fact, however, as more buzzing entered my ears and I saw the first few rapiddly flapping, winged shapes appear from behind the nearest turning gears aside from the one I stood on.

“Can’t there just be somewhere to take a nap,” I groaned aloud.