Scott decided that he'd dealt with reality long enough for one day. It was time to prepare for re-entry into a far more interesting place.

He quickly prepared the house by unplugging various things that might make noise, and locking his doors. A quick meal and drink were downed. He avoided soft drinks, however. He had lived on caffeine for a long time, but in the last few days he banished it from his life. The headaches proved intense at first, but he wanted to be able to sleep for as long as possible in the future. Caffeinated beverages would be the bane of his preferred existence.

In truth, the cold medicine was not just to ensure drowsiness, or his illness. The lack of carbonated beverages in his system was tough to endure. The medicine would help with headaches from that, while it also provided a means of staying drowsy.

It would be roughly another half hour before the eight hour mark would pass. That was enough time to study the dream world and the information that other people were providing about it.

Scott checked a few of his favorite online forums. His eyes lit up. There were many updates since morning. Most involved complaints about various national governments. It seemed that America was not alone in its efforts to try to control its citizenry even in their dreams.

Those types of threads were ignored in favor of more useful ones. Scott opened up his cold medicine then poured a capful of the stuff, the recommended dosage. He took a big drink of the minty tasting substance then sat it all to the side.

Something interesting popped up. “An auction house?”

Scott read through the information then snorted. Corporations were already moving in to exploit the world. Right now it seemed to just be rumors, but there were several game companies that seemed to be in the process of creating a method for people to trade items and Jerin.

Had he missed something? If the first dream was included, then at most people would have been able to access to the dream for roughly four days. A lot of time and money was being expended toward exploiting the phenomenon. He would have thought that people might wait a few weeks to see if it would fade away, like all good things in life.

“Whatever, I’ll worry about that later,” said Scott before he bookmarked the thread. He did not have enough money to even care about that sort of thing at the moment. What he did care about was actual dream related things.

He looked through the various websites that he frequented and culled what information he could. Each person seemed to level their skills at different rates, even if they held the same skill. There were hidden stats that could not be seen, such as stamina. Several more people claimed to be level two now, but many people disbelieved their stories.

"Two weeks in the dream world and most people aren't even level two, yet. I wonder if it's just slow, or if we're missing something," said Scott. There was a great deal of speculation, actually. No one knew anything for certain, but a large number of people still tried to sound like experts on the dream world.

Before he shut down for the day, he found one more topic thread that became wildly popular during his outing. “Death penalties? Now we’re talking...”

No one on the sites that he visited admitted to dying in the dream until now. Scott was greatly surprised about that to be honest. If an onion was dangerous, there must be people unfortunate enough to arrive in that world, at a location that was not safe for noobs. His growing suspicion was that death in the dream meant death in the real world.

However, there were no officially reported deaths due to abnormal circumstances in the news outside of the norm shown after the first dream. Scott read through the original post and his left eyebrow rose into the air. "Damn, really?"

Death came with a fairly stiff penalty, though not as stiff as it would have been a week ago. He read the information on screen once more to see if he understood it properly.

It’s true, people! I died earlier. It was terrifying at the time. I mean, ya’ll know how real that place feels.

Anyway, I was eaten alive by this big ugly guy. When my vitality hit zero, I collapsed but I didn't die immediately. Ogre guy tore my arm off, and I had to watch him eat it raw. I couldn't do anything, but scream. When I finally died, it was actually a relief.

This is where it gets weird!

I woke up here! It took me a while to calm down, but I told myself that it was only a dream.

I managed to get back to sleep a few hours later, but when I woke up in the dream I was at some weird cemetery. I was naked and the world looked sort of weird, like everything was in black and white with splashes of color.

I wandered around for a few minutes then met a guy in a black robe who carried a scythe. He stretched out a hand and demanded that I pay the fee if I wanted to live again.

After talking to him for a few minutes, a new information screen became available. This dream world... it... If you die, you have to pay the grim reaper a token! If you don’t have one, then he’ll take you to the underworld... The way he spoke of it, it sounded like permanent death.

I don’t know if that just means that we’ll never be able to dream in the dream again, or if we’ll die for real. All I know is that I had three of those token things in my new status window.

The grim reaper took the token and returned me to the other side, but... I was in a completely different place and still naked! I looked online later and found out that I respawned in an entirely different region, and without any of my equipment.

If you die in that world, you’ll be randomly transported to a different part of the world without any of your equipment! Worse, without tokens, the grim reaper will take your soul to the underworld.

My stats seemed fine, but I have to start completely over and I have nothing. Even my money was gone.

It was like, I died but a token gave me one more chance... but all I got was a chance. None of my old stuff came with me.

Scott shuddered after reading that account. It made things far more real to him, however. It was not like some online game where everything was balanced. There seemed to be real consequences to actions made.

He read through the responses. Most of them called the original poster a liar, but none of those shitposters claimed to have died, so they could not really know for certain. A few of them asked how they could acquire tokens. The original poster did not know the answer to that. He simply counseled people not to take more risks than they could easily handle. Explorers needed to be careful, especially when engaging enemies.

As Scott read through the responses a few more people came out of the woodwork to add in their supposed evidence. "Interesting, some are claiming that losing all life force just takes your strength away and you end up crawling around after a short time. Others claim, that you can actually stand up and walk if you rest long enough."

It was impossible to know the truth without experiencing it. But even if life force depletion did not equal instant death it would still leave someone quite vulnerable. If nothing else, falling to the ground and being reduced to crawling would be deadly in a fight.

The cold medicine had begun to take effect not long after he finished reading through the responses. It was only a slightly weak sensation in his body, but he knew what it signaled.

Scott closed down his computer then headed toward the bathroom. He would take care of natural business before he went to sleep. He did not want to be disturbed by his real life needs while he adventured in that other land.

Once he was done in the bathroom, he stripped down. Done and ready to be about his truly desired business, he walked into his room and crawled under his quilt.

For a time his thoughts raced. What wonders would the dream world hold? Would it last? Could he just move there altogether? There was literally nothing for him on Earth save for grief and bad memories.

He became drowsier, and drowsier, as time passed. The thoughts whirling around inside his head began to slow their pace. Soon, he closed his eyes. Not long after that, Scott left this world behind. It would soon be time for Blackthorne to make the scene.