You are standing by a tree
There are 3 paths.
One appears to go to a jungle,
one appears to go to a cave,
one appears to go to a beach,
you could try and climb the tree,
there is a nearby shop you could go in,
or you could do something else.
So what's its going to be?
Written by catprog on 01 April 2003
In the shop
There is a table with a sign saying
<strong>Free Sample:</strong>
Take one
On the table there is a fridge with a range of liquids. Also on the table are various magical trinkets including costumes. What would you like to take, or would you like to buy something?
Written by catprog on 10 April 2003
Other
You decide to get something else. But what?
Written by catprog on 13 December 2005
Play the VR Game
You find a pair of vr googles.
You put them on and you find yourself in a game, but which one?
Written by on 06 August 2005
Adventure Game
For a moment, you sit staring at the computer screen. The game loaded so quickly, that now you’re waiting in of an opening screen. The pixels quickly formulate themselves into the backdrop of an open field on all sides of you. The faintest motion of wind rustling the thick landscape of grasses ripples across your vision, but even as the distant landscape formats with the loading page, nothing but the field is there. You shift your head, turning your gaze within the virtual reality of the game to check to your sides, but find only more of the same rippling landscape there as well. The same, golden shade of grass sprouted up from the Earth on all four sides of your body.
Eyebrows knitting together, you try to figure out what is supposed to be happening. “There’s nothing here” you mutter, considering trying to remove the goggles you’d placed on until you notice a selection screen. “Choose your character” flashed as fading white letters in the distant backdrop of blue sky. You read it, though you’re not sure what character to select or even how to do that.
You eyes scanned over everything again, noticing that a sign had been added to the game off to the left, font sketched into its surface: “Random.”
Written by Picklessauce69 on 08 December 2015
Chakat
With a jolt, the waiting screen began to fade away quickly around you. The pixels of the open field, each blade of grass began to whiten until nothing. Your eyes jolted around side to side, seeing the selections start to turn into the same white nothingness.
"I guess I picked something?!" you tried to shout, but nothing came out as suddenly the whole world was flashing away. The comforting, fluttering motion of the grass was rapidly replaced by a whirring, whistling wind that shrieked in your ears.
"Ah!" Your hands jerked instinctively, trying to grab your headphones down from your head, but instead, you just saw your generating body flutter in front of your face. "Why!? Why am I trapped? How am I trapped?!"
You squinted, noticing something in the fleeting glimpse of your hands as they shifted around the fringe of your vision. You raised them once again, suddenly dropping your bottom jaw.
Instead of the familiar shade of your flesh and the simple, smooth surface of your skin your fingers were coated in short, velveteen strands of fur. "W-what..." you muttered to yourself, lifting your gaze up with building confusion.
All around you, the new location, the new world had filled in. Instead of grass, thick and crumbling dirt filled in the ground around you. Rocks were stacked in random, falling piles at different splashes across the dark, dank terrain. Pockmarks were twisted in the dirt, dragging out deep scars in the earth as dust whispered and skidded across the nearly flat landscape.
Above, dark clouds swirled like vultures through the sky. Gray fringed all edges cut the cloud out from the equally bleak sky they floated against. You furtively glanced around, feeling a tingly, nagging feeling of danger at your back.
With a squawk, a creature lunged out from behind you. Stepping back and turning, your legs seemed to roll together. Something usually so natural, so effortless and smooth became a challenge as you looked down to see four legs swimming beneath your furred torso.
"W-what the fuck!?"
Crawwkkk!
You flinch, an electric jolt zapping your shoulder at the sound of the bird startling you. You swat at it, noticing the claws that mark the end of each of your slender, furry fingers. "Aha, a weapon at least!"
"Take that!" you shout, throwing another swatting punch at the depressive crow until it fluttered off into the dark sky, leaving you huffing and confused.
"What am I?"
Your usual legs had been utterly changed. No longer did you see the round of your knee and two regular length shooting down to your feet. Now there was two sets of legs beneath you, both of them entirely drenched in the thick orange fur that covered every finger as well.
"S-so... what?" You tried to run through the list of animals you knew. "Tiger?" You spotted the telltale stripes curling towards your backside around a thigh. "B-but tigers don't have so many... limbs?"
"That's because you're a Chakat-"
Written by Picklessauce69 on 13 November 2016
Friend and a town
"Ack!" You leapt away from the sudden voice breaking the silence on your opposite side. "What the heck? Who are you?" Your eyes found the speaker, a mirror of your strange form, though his fur was midnight black with the dusty sheen of dirt muting its glossy shine. His hands hung loose at his sides, knuckles all torn and bloodied.
"My name isn't important-" he grunted, voice gruff and deep. "You're exposed. You freshly spawned or a respawn?"
"Spawned? Respawned? What?" you blinked, overwhelmed with his familiarity and speed as he shot off his questions. "Who are you?!"
"I'm just another player, like you. All the citizens of Zared."
"Zared?" you asked, realizing you'd have to start walking to keep up with the other chakat. Your legs stumbled together, kicking the front feet with the back as you struggled to the find the rhythm.
"Zared, Trap... Our town." He glanced over one shoulder, rolling his eyes at your stumbling. "We don't have all day! Get a move on!"
"Where are we even going?"
"Zared! Town! Night is coming! We have to be in the town at night to protect everything and for protection! You will learn as we have learned-"
Scrambling to keep up, you stumbled clumsily behind the other centauroid feline. Your feet feel too big. You body is unwieldy and differently balanced. Your feet seem to kick up dust with every step which sprays into the air, clogging the air around you.
With every step that you made, every foot the pair of you made it, the darker the sky grew. Shadows began to multiply and fade inwards, narrowing the line of vision until only a thin tunnel of fleeting light seemed to fill the space only the very nearest to you.
Only then did you stumble onto the edge of the town the nameless guide had mentioned. A decrepit sign staked into the earth, marking out a 'town' though no buildings truly supported the claim. "Where's the town?" you shouted, struggling to hear your voice over a rising, mounting wind whistling all around.
The other chakat only waved his hand, gesturing at a few rough lean-tos constructed from thin trees and piled grasses. You scowled, seeing a cluttering of familiar copies of your shared, oversized body shape. "That's it?"
"Yes, and it will be even less if you do not prepare yourself to fight!"
As if on cue, a horrifying shriek broke through the air. One of the other feline's had lunged backwards suddenly from the attacking claws of a massive, shadowy monster.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 29 November 2016
First Monster
"What is that?" you screamed, following the rushing party towards the beast while your pounding heart and the churning nausea in your stomach told you to do the opposite.
"A ghoul! Their ghastly abominations!" With a hollering call, several more of them attacked, throwing their bare claws and fangs in waves at the shifting body of the spirit. Their attacks were mixed, some of them didn't even seem to land on the shifting, half-invisible sides of the creature while others landed to howling calls of pain from each blow.
You joined the throe. You struggled, nearly tripping with each attempt, but instinct began to slow take hold of the alien form as you lunged for the beast, scraping and clawing at the mere black shadow that marked its arms. "Die! Die!" you screamed, a fierce survival instinct grabbing ahold of you as the night and the unfamiliarity of the place shot fear streaking through your mind. Blood pounded in your head, in your ears with a steady thuh-damp, thad-dump, thuh-dump! With each pulse of your heart, you threw out your claws again, screaming and crying with confusion and fright.
That feeling wouldn't fade until night fell away.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 12 December 2016
In the morning
"Wake up, wake up!" A loud, demanding voice pounded down from above in hard, bursting phrases until your eyelids fluttered open to reveal a muddied mug fur of the guide from the day before.
"W-wha!?" Blinking rapidly, you tried to figure out when you'd even fallen asleep. "W-when did I-"
"You passed out when the sun rose, like most of us. Only time we can seem to sleep." He paused, hacking out a rough cough into his arm before he offered a furred hand down. For a second, you jolted at the sight of your own body spilling across the dusty patch you'd slept on. You wondered, to yourself, "How can that be me?" But, when you shifted to get up, the sudden ache that pulsed through every muscle sent the message sinking home: those were yours and they were tired.
"Up. We have to rebuild-" they demanded again. You yanked yourself upright, teetering slightly as you stared around the space. The rough structures from before were all weathered and slumping towards the ground with slates of wood broken through and dangling off the stacked lean-tos.
"Ugh..." Working by hand, every chakat in the small group, who you were starting to recognize, began to re-stack the pieces of their basic shelters. As the day stretched one, by mid-day, you realized that the size of the group was growing. More stragglers began to stumble into town all with the same shared dazed expressions plastered over their faces.
"My fingers... are aching!" you whined, looking down at the scuffed and mangled fur from a morning of labor.
"We're almost done... The shelters look as they were at least-"
"So... a nap maybe?"
A laugh was all that responded to your question.
"Now we explore, newbie." A chortle followed. "Unless you'd like to survive doing this endless cycle forever and never find a way to sign out."
Written by Picklessauce69 on 29 December 2016
Exploring
"Oh..." So, with a long and tired sigh, you set off.
"Who's in the exploration party?" a shout sounded before a small group began to stumble together. You followed some of the unfamiliar feline faces towards the edge of town. A few people lingered behind to watch the town, but a majority of people followed along beside you.
"Tail High!" Chorused those who lingered behind.
"Huh?"
"Goodbye, it means. Someone just blurted it one day... Apparently, it's a common phrase of the species" the adventurer to your right explained. "I'm Elda by the way."
"Oh. How long have you been here?"
"I can't even remember" she responded, her voice dulling at the topic. She hesitated a moment, but after a long stretch without anyone talking, she spoke up again. "At first, I was alone. I spent the whole time just running, trying to defend myself..." Her eyes looked distant, far away. Her tail behind her drooped sadly. "Finally, a few more people began to arrive, spawning outside of town, but always a bit close. Then, with more people, we were able to start exploring."
"So far, we've found a lake-" Another voice cut in.
"Holy sh-"
"Guys! Over here!" came a sudden interrupting holler from the front of the pack. Everyone rushed, your long four limbs thundering against the ground until you arrived in the clustered group gathered around a dusty trunk tucked back against a tree.
"Is that a treasure chest?" you whispered, almost to yourself.
"What's inside?"
Written by Picklessauce69 on 10 January 2017
Tools
"Let's see!" With a sudden, hard yank they lifted the hefty lid of the trunk up to reveal a single tool inside. A hammer built from a simplistic combination of wood and a solid rock tethered to its top.
"A hammer!" everyone gasped, realizing the importance of anything to replace their sore, tender hands in the constant battle of rebuilding.
"There's only one!"
"Yeah, but can't we make that!?" A genius among the gathered, clamoring noise pointed out. You swiveled, staring at the bright green of the speaker.
"Athalmus-" came a harsh whisper to your side, you turned to see the familiar face from earlier, once again explaining the world around you that seemed so new, so challenging. "He's been here for a bit longer than you. Very smart, it was him who thought up the lean-tos."
"We just need sticks, rocks, and something like a vine or thick grasses!" he explained, sending people off in a clamor of activity to build themselves a hammer. You joined the thick of them, losing yourself to the task.
"Wow! My own hammer! This will be great for rebuilding!" But, suddenly, as everyone finished their hammers and hefted them into the air, that night was once again falling. The sun, high above, had started to sink down in the sky and you'd accomplished nothing but find a single, makeshift tool.
"I'm not a single step closer to leaving this place..." you whispered to yourself, bitterly starting to rushed march home just in time for the same wave of monsters to hit, spawning one after another just outside of the small town's walls.
Bashing, swinging your hammer with your upper arms while you rushed around the perimeter with pounding, strong legs; you fell into the rhythm of battle again. But, in that rush, another night was lost.
"Plus..." you thought as the sun began to rise and you collapsed beneath a dusty lean to to sleep fitfully. "How long is a day here in the real world?"
Written by Picklessauce69 on 24 January 2017
Newcommer
Beginning to learn and adapt to the strange form of the feline and human hybrid creature you'd become, the days began to blur together in a stream of wakefulness filled with fitful exploration, crafting, and then fighting until the sun bled across the sky and you'd pass out, exhausted.
Some days had sparks, brief moments where the monotony lifted for a brief flash of novelty, but even those were becoming few and far between as one week led into two and eventually, you'd lost time of when you had even first spawned.
The moments came when someone de-spawned, dying essentially only to wake once again somewhere out in the dusty nothingness that surrounded the town. They'd stomp back into camp, soured and stripped of anything they'd managed to craft or find.
Others came in the opposite time, when a new player would suddenly spawn.
"Hey! I spotted a newbie! Someone should march out and fetch them!" A shout echoed through their makeshift camp, sending one friendly face out to guide the player in before they just senselessly died and began a cycle of misunderstanding and death over and over until they realized the chakrat form came fit with natural claws that acted as their only defense.
The introduction speech became second nature.
"W-what am I?"
"A Chakrat-"
"What the fuck is that?"
"It's a feline hybrid breed. You'll get used to it-"
"D-do I-"
"Yes. You have four legs. You have both reproductive organs. You have claws, use those to attack. Don't die or you'll jus-" Sigh. "Do that again."
"W-what happened!?"
"You died. You de-spawned and re-spawned, thankfully close by. This time, don't die."
Written by Picklessauce69 on 06 February 2017
Trying to build
And so introductions would go, trying to help anyone new settle into the strange four-legged form faster than the original players had, which only made their structures faster to re-build. Aided by hammers and pitchforks, they had just started attempts at making an entire wall.
It wasn't an easy process.
"Why don't we just tie these sticks together and put them on top of a rock pile? That's essentially a wall and roof right?"
"Oh fuck! There's a mongrel!"
Then, right in front of their eyes, all the preparation and building was destroyed as one of the hairy, ground-hugging canine-esque attack dogs threw itself into their camp. Teeth stained with spilled blood glinted from their mouths. Chaos flooded their space, defense taking importance over building and another afternoon would be lost to rebuilding again.
It became a montage, set to the sounds of wailing souls and wind in equal portions, of flickering scenes of stacking carefully formed clay bricks into walls, watching them crumble in the dim light of falling evening, sleeping restlessly on hard straw cots, and waking to repeat it all again.
Finally, on God knows what day, a spark broke the endless gray dullness.
A thundering roar shredded through the perimeter of camp, turning all attention to its source. A towering Ettin stomped towards camp. His size dwarfed the chakrats, standing well above them from his raised stance.
"Giant! Giant!" Came the warning shouts around the small camp, everyone began to race to and fro, grabbing their spears and taking off in sprints to face the beast. However, one worker, set much to close to the giant, caught his attention from behind the half-build stack of his to-be wall.
"Garrggghhh!" The ettin crowed, leaning suddenly towards the builder with outreached fingers, but with a sudden crumble, the feline kicked over his wall and the stones tumbled down atop the tall creature. Shrieks, bursting shouts of pain left the burly beast's mouth, but he stilled eventually beneath the broken shards of rock.
"W-we killed it!" A cheer burst forth from everyone who'd watched the wall fall- almost in slow motion.
"That's it! Traps!"
Written by Picklessauce69 on 14 February 2017
Improved Defenses
Traps revolutionized the night. The late afternoon was sacrificed to setting up teetering walls and rough rope circles to try and slow the onslaught that the moon brought, but it meant their structures within the perimeter often went undamaged.
"Ta dah!" You rose with excitement from a work bench, turning to see a familiar feline mug grinning across the dirt space at you.
"You finish, Jaimine?"
"Yes! Our first, official shack!" With a flourish, they presented the building. The walls were short, only barely standing taller than the chakrat itself standing in front, but they were long in an attempt to provide lots of shelter. A single door stood cut out from the clay bricks, but a roof covered the space and blocked the howling wind.
That night, they all clustered together within the cramped walls. Tails curled into each other's, legs stood pressed to the one next to them. Shifts formed to guard the perimeter, no longer needing every available body to protect from the consistent flow of evening monsters; so, you slept an inaugural night in the dark.
The faint hum of a shared purr from every chest filled the space with a comforting, ebbing aura as every feline shared in the moment of pride and comfort.
Outside, battle cries still sounded; but for a few hours at least, you got to rest.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 22 February 2017
New monsters
"Help! Help!" Fierce, yelping cries echoed through camp suddenly, breaking the comfort of the sleeping party. Everyone broke into motion at the same moment, the oversized hybrids tangling each other in the fit to escape through the single doorway.
One by one, they burst into the dim moonlight to see the Earth opening in a yawning hole in the center of camp.
Bursting forth in a spray of dirt came a stretched jaw of layered teeth, one after another stacked together until it seemed the beast was nothing but jagged, yellowing teeth.
"Is that a shark?" you blurted, seeing the familiar broad forehead and jutting nose that seemed to mark a characteristic shark face. Yet, it wore giant boney claws on front legs, obviously not a water creature.
"A Bulette! A land shark!" came a horrified, but knowing shriek.
"I think it's hungry!" Its jaws swung to the side, yawning open at the sight of the groggy, but waking chakrats all around it.
"Everyone, attack!"
You shouldered your hammer, hefting it up into the air. You felt the female breasts against your chest give a heave with the motion- the one part of your change that you couldn't ever seen to get used to no matter how long you wore the body around you.
"Ahhh!" A shriek burst from your lips, some sort of instinctual call as you flung yourself towards the roaring beast that splashed through the dust as if it was water, sniffing out the blood still, thankfully, rushing through your veins.
The chakrats fell onto the torn dirt, swinging hammers and pickaxes among actually spears, everyone using whatever had been closest.
"Ahhh! Fuck!" A sudden empty space opened to your left as one character pixelated out of the battle, despawning.
"No! No one die! We can't afford to lose anyone's tools!" you hollered, realizing that every person who fell brought with them their weapons, and the supply was quickly dwindling.
With a groan, you swung both arms with all your might down towards the rows of glittering teeth, hitting them with a sickening crunch.
"Urrraaaawwwww!" Pain shot through the monster's body visibly as it recoiled from the attack. The broken shards of teeth littered across the ground as the opposite wall of feline's threw down their hammers as well, aiming for the beady eyes, then another took to his wide mouth from the opposite angle. The howls of pain grew louder until they suddenly stopped.
The rounded creature dropped to the ground in a slump. Cheers erupted.
"We did it!"
"We won!"
The celebration suddenly dimmed when another roar shot up from the opposite edge of town.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 04 March 2017
Moving on
Eventually, monsters like the bulette had become commonplace. Spear crafting had gotten easier and much sophisticated. "Practice makes perfect..." you muttered to yourself, slumping onto a tree stump, using it as a stool. No longer was every day a race. The entire tribe had exhausted the resources in the near surroundings and learned to manage the monsters that night brought with some routine now. Traps were built and fixed in the morning, supplies gathered after lunch, then a long stretch of nothing filled the eves.
"How are we ever going to get out of here?" you asked the air, staring towards the open dust that every new player walked across to entire this monotonous home.
"I don't even know how long I've been here... how many times I've fought... Death was only an irritation now, since respawning became so expected. To die just meant spending the next day re-creating all your tools and weapons, being mocked by the survivors; nothing more.
They'd expanded the camp. It was now truly a town. A sign had been painted with staining berries out front, welcoming new players and announcing its name. The first brick building now looked like a shed compared to the growing complexes where everyone gathered to sleep. Furs lined beds instead of straw. Fires burned around the clock, providing warmth, better food.
"We even have wagons...." you muttered, spotting one of the revolutionary transportation methods slumped against a building. At first, the wheel had brought them faster resource collection in tenfolds, they'd celebrated it thoroughly. But now, they'd managed to capture some of the mongrels that used to attack and use them to drive makeshift sleds across the dust, leaving the wagon too hefty and bulky to be worthwhile now.
"I have to get out of here..." you think, picturing home again outside of this virtual reality that is slowly becoming your only reality. Suddenly, in your words, you find something.
"Get out of here!"
"Guys!" you leapt up, rushing back into camp where several of the long time players are dozing around a flickering flame. "We have to go! Perhaps, the way to sign off, to logout, to escape... I think it's out there somewhere. There's got to be more than just this dusty place, right? So, we have to go find it!"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean leave, pack up. There's more to this game, this map, whatever we are in. There has to be a key out somewhere. If this is like a game, maybe we just have to beat it?"
"How? How would we leave? How could we, this is where everyone spawns?" Questioning you, they still stared with attentiveness. Your idea had struck them, clearly the cogs of their minds were turning contemplating it.
You locked eyes with Celeste, the most mothering of you all who'd often volunteered to walk in the new spawns, help them learn what you'd all struggled to learn. "Celeste, we can leave scrolls in trunks scattered around the dusty range, with tools and spears in the trunks - like the first one we found. They will learn, find camp, and be just fine like we were."
"Mardock-" you swiveled, meeting the war torn chakrat face to face, a constant snarl seemed to hold their bottom lip notched up slightly. "You've noticed the monsters here, they've become the same every night, they are easy... too easy? It's gotta be a sign."
You turned through the group, noting each concern pushing for this chance. Something burned inside of you, you knew somehow that the only way to ever escape was to leave the only place where you'd learned to feel safe.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 16 March 2017
Start of the expedition
The next day, everyone packed. Painstakingly, trunks were built from wooden slats. Each person rose at down, building two each and writing out a scroll on an oversized leaf with crushed beetle ink- a glamorous task. Then, each person chose a few tools to build and leave inside.
One by one, each trunk was hiked out, left as a helpful gift to some new spawn. Signs were staked around camp in each direction, welcoming people warning them of the dangers of night time.
Finally, running out of excuses to stay, everyone lit a torch and stomped into the night.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 25 March 2017
Cold
"I-I've never been so cold in my life!"
"M-M-Me neither!"
Everyone's teeth chattered, but otherwise they made very little noise save for the crunch of snow beneath their feet on every step. They trudged through the bitter landscape, searching for trunks or signs of other players.
"There's gotta be something here!"
"Oh, there is something," an unfamiliar voice boomed from behind the group. They swiveled, guts dropped together at the sight of the massive, long-bearded giant towering over them.
"There is the frost giants!" The reaver boomed, snarling a glinting grin down at everyone as he hefted up a massive battle ax in one hand.
"Which little kitty would like to die first?" His laugh echoed in the open, frozen space before he swung down. The feline hybrids scattered, cries bursting out in puffs of visible breath. Their frozen feet sudden became limber and quick once again as the battle broke out.
Within an hour, the white ground was red.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 04 April 2017
Caves
"Lord, I feel like we haven't seen the sun in days..."
"Days? How can you even call them that, it's pitch black down here!"
After the snowy plains, the exploration party had taken to the caves that dove into the mountain. Markedly warmer, they still came with no sunlight and only the constant, dank dripping of the rocky runoff oozing onto their back in a constant trickle.
"I'm so tired..."
"And we still haven't found a single sign that we can ever get out of here..."
"Just new sorts of terror-"
"Our numbers are dwindling-"
They'd learned, as they walked, no one spawned nearby. They could only hope the fallen spawned near their original home instead, but even the faith in that idea was starting to fade.
"Don't worry" you encouraged, trying to act chipper though every pad on your foot was throbbing with each step down.
Only aching groans responded to you, but onwards you marched together until, at long last, you spotted something in the distance.
"Is... is that a city?"
"Underground? It can't be!"
"We're seeing things!"
"Why... Greetings strange felines-" Everyone froze at once at the chocolatey voice calling out to them from the archway framing the beautiful expanse of architecture within. They turned to see a slender elf, body garbed in loose robes laid beneath accenting armor plates. "Welcome to Underrealm. What brings you here to us?" Her eyes shifted from each chakrat to the next, sizing them up like she was imagining what their weight in gold would be.
"Please, let me welcome you into our beautiful city... I'll be happy to offer refreshments-"
"Food?" A hushed voice of awe escaped one of your party, the pure delight and surprise in the outburst enough to make the drow giggle to herself before she waved the group forward. "Yes, yes. Food, water, plentiful rest!" She led the way through long winding paths until they passed through doorways of heavy metal and carved rock designs to enter a massive open hall.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 13 April 2017
Sacrifice
"Mistress! Queen of Demons and Spiders! Lolth! I bring thee a sacrifice!" she hollered, her voice no longer silken but harsh and shrieking as she called out to her deity. She turned to your group, teeth glittering in a sharp smile before a wave of bodies fell upon them.
"Slaughter them all! I'll drink their blood with my supper!" came a booming, flooding voice that seemed to flow over the chamber like spilled wine. Then, the drow followed.
Wave after wave of the determined dark elves attacked. The tight corridors leading out of the hall only made matters worse. The excess of limbs and oversized design of the feline hybrids meant within the fight, they were tripping, stumbling over themselves and wedging their bodies into the slim space.
Nearly everyone was lost to the evil elves within the mountain.
As they crossed into the next region, only three of the original troupe remained.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 21 April 2017
Skeleton
"What do you think happened to them?" Celeste asked, voice soft and worried.
"I'm sure they respawned like everyone else did back home-"
"Or they respawned somewhere new, unexpected" Mardock replied, voice harsh and tired.
They'd been walking for ages. They passed through a forest, but the monsters of the night drove them out, hoping to avoid such cramped fighting spaces again. They continued on into a rocky, barren terrain instead, searching for hidden treasure in the rock that would show them some way to free everyone in the game.
However, the longer they trudged on, the less hope they had to find anything at all except for new enemies in new places.
That night, lying beneath a blanket of the same pixelated stars in the distance, you rolled over to suddenly see a face staring out from the darkness.
"Hello, distant stranger..." The voice whispered, barely audible to you, certainly hidden to your companions. You could vaguely in the shadows make out the shape of a skeletal face, though a glittering piece of gold hung around it's brittle, boney neck and shining crimson sparkled in the empty hole where its eyes would have once been. A cloak or cape fluttered behind it in the evening breeze. "I hear you are searching for the lost knowledge..."
You blinked, squinting at the creature. You hand gripped onto your spear tighter.
"Do not fear me. For I fear not death. Death is a figment of mortal imaginations. I am not mortal. I live only to know."
"I don't understand..."
"I must know all. More than all. I must know more than all those who know." He stepped closer, his eyes glowing brighter. Your mind, still racked with sleep and exhaustion from the day, raced at his words. "He's talking about the way to sign out?" you thought to yourself, trying to catch up. You couldn't decipher entirely if his appearance meant you were closer or farther than ever.
"If you ever learn of the escape... I will return-"
Written by Picklessauce69 on 29 April 2017
Supprise Attack
Suddenly, before you have a chance to realize what's happening, you see a claw glint in the corner of your eye. You squint, but you don't have a chance to respond before the flash is gone from your vision.
A cloudy spot flares in your vision, fuzzing the landscape. Your eyes strain, trying to see the details of what's in front of you. A hot spurt splashes onto your cheek, sinking its liquidus sensation against your skin through the layer of fur before you feel the stabbing pain sinking into your gut.
Your eyes drop down to see your belly sliced open. For a brief second, you linger there witnessing your own death. There's the dull background of the fight still happening on behind you. Voices are overlapping, clashing and fighting together like their owners are fighting each other. The sounds fall back though, they matter little to you now.
All you hear instead, eventually, is the full throbbing pulse of your heartbeat pounding into your ears. You imagine you're hearing the actual watery rush of your blood through your veins, only to find their path has been sliced like the train tracks in an old child's cartoon where the train unknowingly stumbles onto a broken path and cannot stop and simply flies off the edge without even attempting to save itself.
Your blood is the train. It charges through your head, your body, and meets the broken track where the wound in your gut spreads out. Your eyes are hazy, trying to turn around and see everyone, try to communicate that you'll be going soon.
Then, before you truly can, you see the pixelation as the scene breaks.
You die.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 02 May 2017