“Are you gorram kidding me?” The shout from the back of the barracks room echoed up the hall, making Pham wince. He’d been on his own since the blast, waiting for the meatheads to respawn and get back here. It had given him plenty of time to play with the parts he’d found on the ground in the room, time to poke and prod at the control room buttons and levers, and time to find the respawn pool cleverly disguised as a hot tub and set up a sign pointing to it. With simple instructions. With no words over five letters long, just in case.

Warren stomped into the control room and punched the wall. He raised a finger to yell at Pham, who merely shrugged and made the “I told you so” face.

“Don’t start with me,” Warren warned. “Billy’s never coming back.”

Pham sat upright in an instant. “The game killed him?”

“What? No,” Warren growled. “Don’t be stupid. His parents heard him screaming from the party wipe and banned him from online gaming. Forever.”

“Oh, but that’s worse.” Pham gathered up everything he had scattered on the control panel and stuffed it into his inventory. “You see how that’s worse, right?”

“You think I’d be this happy right now if it didn’t? Come on, I’m guessing you’ve already bound to the pool so we’re about to head deeper in. Be ready.” Warren stomped out of the room again. Losing a teammate always put him in a foul mood, moreso because when it was not the member’s choice but one imposed on them by an outside force. It was one of the chief reasons he did everything he could to help when one was in need. Bad grades make the teachers want to pull you from practice? The whole team studies until you pass. Girl/guy/theyfriend problems? Either help the friend shape up or the team mate get over the loss. Legal problems? A bit harder, but if it couldn’t be sorted under the table then Warren knew some very expensive lawyers that were happy to do pro bono work for up and coming sports stars. With the understanding that there would be some reciprocation once they had up and come.

Phrasing! Warren thought to himself, mostly to avoid thinking about how that part of his life was likely over forever. Unless they found a way to fix more than 90% of his injuries the only way he was ever going to experience simply walking ever again was in this game. He shook off the feeling, determined to get to the bottom of this dungeon, physically and metaphorically.

Up ahead, the guys who had made it back were standing in the middle of the hall and tossing bits of debris ahead of them. A pool of blood spreading slowly back towards them hinted at why, but he still had to ask.

“What have we got? We’ve seen guns, so… lasers? Monofilament wires? Robotic T-rex head?”

They all turned to the skald to explain. “Yeah, no. Only the classics are in play today. This one’s a pendulum blade. Cut Steve right down the middle. John fell into a pit full of spikes. That weird guy who only answers to “haxxor”, he lost an arm when the walls smashed together. That said, we managed to trigger a drop ceiling just at the corner up ahead while nobody was under that one. Still not sure what the triggers are, no visible tripwires, no obvious pressure plates. Might be photoelectric cells like in supermarket doors, the kind they had back in grandad’s day, but I can’t see any in the walls. The tech is about what you’d expect from the late 1900s.”

The garbled sound of what the system did to swearing erupted from behind them. It was assumed that once you hit the age of majority the censor system would disable, but until then any attempt to utter profanity sounded like you’d just punched a Decepticon in the junk. Steve staggered out and leaned on the wall dramatically, clutching his chest and abdomen and looking rather pale. “This…” [another wave of 90’s modem connection noise] “place can eat a” [80s untuned TV sound] “and” [2020s Zoom call] “I tell you that for free.”

“Come one Steve, pull yourself together,” one of the guys quipped.

“I’ll bet that didn’t hurt half as much as you’re making out,” another added.

“Look, if you can’t hack it, you can always split.”

Steve just glared. “I hate each and every one of you.”

Warren approached Steve with concern. He laid a heavy hand on Steve’s shoulder and looked him in the eyes. “I know it sucks. This game extracts a heavy toll for each respawn. I respect your dedication and persistence.”

Steve relaxed a bit and stood straighter.

“And if you’d made it to the corner I’d have been even more impressed.” Warren added with a smile.

[Sound of a metal bench being dragged the length of a concrete courtyard.]

“See? Feeling better already. Now, where’s the geek?” Warren looked up and down the hall, wondering where Pham had gotten to in the ruckus.

“The geek is waiting for you lot to get moving,” Pham poked his head around the far corner. “I’ve disabled the blade entirely, but step over the bar down here. There’s a UV beam below it you don’t want to break.”

Warren grabbed a chunk of charcoal from the ruined barracks and made a sign on the wall opposite to let any stragglers or respawners know which way to go. He added a note to step over the bar at the corner and followed Pham into the complex.

Around the corner, the corridor opened out into a wide two level chamber. There were what looked to be truck unloading bays down a short set of stairs and more heavy metal doors like the ones they had already passed through. The bays were delineated by white lines on the sunken floor, but all were empty. Overhead gems lit the space with a bright orange light, giving the effect of a carpark after midnight. A ramp that would have led out of the chamber, or into it for delivery drivers, ended abruptly in a rockfall. There would never be another delivery. Even Amazon Prime couldn’t get through.

Pham was already fiddling with an open box on the wall beside the door, cursing under his breath. Sparks would occasionally fly over his shoulder, at which point he’d curse over his breath.

“Any time today, we’re not in a hurry,” Warren called.

The only response was a fresh shower of sparks and another round of muttering. Clearly whatever puzzle the devs had put in place for this door was a bit more challenging than the external ones. Warren leapt down into the sunken area and wandered over to the collapsed tunnel entrance, curiosity piqued. He picked up one of the smaller rocks and tossed it over his shoulder, then kicked a bigger one. A gentle draught tickled the hairs on his shins and he once more revelled in the joy of having such sensations. Somewhere behind the wall of scree and boulders he heard something shift, then a noise like a bubbling stream. He stepped back, looking around but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Behind him his team were trying to boost each other up to stea… Strategically acquire the light gems on the basis that even if they couldn’t find a use for them somebody would buy them. Warren turned and watched the show for a bit, a smile playing on his face. Eventually all the remaining crew who would be turning up had done so and were either joining in the fun or jeering from the sideline in the gathering gloom.

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“Right you lot, we still need some light to see by, knock it off.” Warren shouted through hands cupped around his mouth. He stepped forward to join them but jerked to a halt as something wrapped around his ankle and began to sizzle. Looking down, he found that he was standing beside a pool of goop that hadn’t been there before. A pool that had sprouted a translucent arm. That arm was now gripping his leg and smoke drifted out between the fingers as his leather shinguard rapidly dissolved. He yanked himself free with a scream, throwing himself into the classic “army roll”, a manoeuvre practised by zero armies ever. Still, it got him back up to his feet and facing the goop as it flowed out of the pile of rock before separating into five individual pools.

The centre of the pools bulged upwards, drawing the edges in but as all five were still being fed from somewhere up the blocked tunnel they weren’t shrinking at all. The centre blob developed some definition, colour staining the surface and insides to resemble organs and hair. As horrified eyes watched, entranced, arms formed out of the torso and it flexed with a gurgling, hissing roar. The fists slammed into the ground in front of it, a hulking gorilla-like monstrosity.

The outer two flowed up, tall and thin, then leg-like appendages separated from a quasi-head, smacked into the ground as the rear rose and two more legs burst apart. The hunched, gurgling with menace aforethought, resembling something between a wolf with a bulbous tail and a horse that decided meat was back on the menu.

The final two sucked themselves up into a ball, bounced into the air and hit the ground with a splash, smashing themselves into four smaller puddles that oozed apart then gathered themselves up into the humanoid shapes they had encountered in the entrance hall.

Warren’s crew stared agape at the show, while he tore the ruined shinguard off and threw it back at the middle creature, roaring “That bloody hurt!”. The leather stuck to the faux-musculature of the thing’s chest, smoking and dissolving. The skin of his leg had five large red welts that wept clear liquid that bubbled slightly like limestone in vinegar. “I’ll [sound of blank cassette tape] END you!” He threw himself at the beast, swinging his katana wildly.

Seeing this as a call to action, everyone else charged in. The gurgling hisses of the beasts mingled with the battle cries of teenaged boys with enough imagination to get around the censorship program.

“Imma cancel your subscription to breathing!”

“HISS!”

“Omae wa mou shinderoooo!”

“GWAAAAGH!”

“You’re about to get unalived, pal!”

However, it didn’t take long to realise they were having little effect. Cuts healed almost instantly. Removed limbs splashed on the floor and were reabsorbed and regrown. Blunt weapons like warhammers and the monk’s brass knuckles had more effect, but the beasts had no bones to break, nor any morale. Worse yet, every time they were struck or struck back, splashes of their goo that landed on biological materials like leather or skin were corroded.

Battle cries turned to ones of pain and Warren was forced to concede this was not a fight they could win. “We need an exit plan! Are those doors open yet?” he shouted, clumsily attempting to parry a haymaker from a silverback. Warren hadn’t needed to learn to parry before and the blow almost tore the blade from his grip.

“Not yet!” Pham called back. “Without a key I have to disable ALL the security systems. The blasted box is fighting back.”

“Well, hurry up or we’re all going for a very painful respawn!”

“Do YOU want to come up here and give it a try? ARGH!” A particularly bright shower of sparks engulfed his face. “Quit distracting me!”

The wolf/horse hybrid on the end picked someone up by the leg and tossed them across the front of the battle line with a twist that sent them spinning as though they were doing a horizontal cartwheel. They screamed as their arms and legs smashed into their compatriots before ragdolling straight into Warren. Both went down in a tangle of arms and legs that drove the air out of Warren's lungs, but was the last straw for the one thrown. Warren didn’t even have time to identify who it was who had been launched so before they despawned.

“Fall back!” Warren screamed over the sounds of the battle. “Back to the doors!” He scrambled to his feet and jumped back into the fray. “I’ll get their attention! Get back!”

While Warren jammed his blade into as many of the things as he could, everyone else disengaged and ran for the stairs. One even leapt up and mantled his way to the next level in a show of parkour rarely seen from one in full plate armour. Even if it was made of wooden plates.

“Gottem!” Pham shouted over the din. “Doors are opening, go, go, go!”

As the door slowly retracted into the roof with an ear destroying screech, anyone that could scrabbled through the gap. Heedless of what was on the other side, they traded the unknown for the horrors of the known. Light shone through, illuminating Pham’s shoes with a flickering sodium lamp orange that could have come from a very large fire or possibly the mouth of hell.

Warren risked a glance over his shoulder to see if his gambit had paid off. Anyone not sent for respawn was at least on the raised area if not through already. Past them he could see row upon row of racking filled with metal sided containers taller than he was. The door itself was now about waist height and Pham was on the other side waving everyone past into the labyrinth. He decided it was time to cut and run, so he cut the nearest limb off the closest goop monster and legged it. The tactic wasn’t particularly effective, as it merely spalshed on the floor and began schlurping back to the main body like an incredibly gross T1000.

The running part of the plan didn’t work out so well either. The moment Warren’s back was turned a cold burning weight slammed into the back of his legs. He pitched forward, unable to even stumble as his feet were inexplicably bound to the floor. He roared in pain as his ankles snapped. Looking back he could see that two smaller creatures had been thrown at him and were now wrapped around his legs and slowly inching upwards. Hands scrabbling for his weapon, Warren wrenched his feet free with a roar. He rolled onto his back in time to see the largest of the beast flowing towards him as an inner glow lit up its gelatinous mass, casting red flickering shadows across the floor.

Pain tore through Warren's elbows as he dug them into the ground to haul himself away from the threat but the things gripping and burning his legs refused to give up. They slowly parted from the floor like malicious mozzarella, strands snapping audibly. Warren considered trying to pry them off with his blade before discarding the idea as a fruitless waste of time he didn’t have. He rolled prone again and leopard crawled at top speed, knees and elbows scrubbed raw in his desperation.

It wasn’t enough. He felt the thud and splash as the argent wave hit his legs just below the knees. His calves burned white hot for a moment then ice cold, before fading to numbness.

Flash. Warren was back in the driver’s seat. He could see the approaching headlights of the oncoming truck. He could hear the blaring of the horn.

Flash. Warren shook his head to clear it. He rolled again, narrowly avoiding taking another strike directly, but the splash scattered droplets that burned his side. He struck out wildly with his sword, cutting off a questing pseudopod that sought to grab him and pull him into the creature’s body. Two more took its place, slapping onto his thighs.

Flash. Screaming tyres. Busting glass. Warren felt his femurs shatter.

Flash. The pseudopods dragged Warren to the base of the creature, it having given up any semblance of form and gone for pure function. It gathered itself up into a wall, tilted, and fell, coating Warren to the neck. His nerves caught fire, as though dipped in lava, then extinguished.

Flash. Warren flew to the left then caught as the seatbelt arrested his motion. His head snapped around and he heard and felt the crunch at the same time. The pain in his body vanished.

Flash. Warren felt himself plunged into cold water. He sat up, spluttering, in the respawn font for a moment. His heart was pounding. His head was pounding. He wanted to throw up but had nothing in his stomach. He tried to breathe but couldn’t.

User distress exceeds maximum allowable limit. Disconnecting.

Warren’s eyes snapped open. He still couldn’t move. He couldn't think. But he did have a mouth, and so he screamed.