A gentle breeze whistled past the mouth of the cave, not having the strength to move the stagnant air sitting inside. Along with that air, sat a figure bundled in heavy brown and black robes. Woven from an unknown material, with a glowing green trim of runes flowing up the legs and hugging the hem that bespoke an unholy source of power. Strange for a robe wearer, a mixture of hardened leather and a dark metal were sitting atop the shoulders in the form of pauldron similarly lit with nefarious green energy. From between the layered spikes atop the pauldron oozed tangible shadow tinged with a poisonous dark green flame. Bone spurs poked out from the back of the robe and pierced partially through the back of the pauldrons, fusing the two pieces together. The tips of these spikes of bone were currently scraping the rock from the wall in time with the rise and fall of the unconscious wearer’s chest.

A hood covered the head and a mask covered the face, hiding all features from the world. In fact, the entire body was covered; where the hands exited the voluminous sleeves, gloves covered hand and wrist. Where feet poked out from beneath the hem, sturdy slippers coated exposed skin. Despite the covering nature of the outfit, where not even eyes could be seen behind the green tinted visor that sat within the lining of the mask, no obvious injuries were present to speak to the unconscious state of the figure. The breadth of shoulder and back, the flat of the chest and the impressions of corded thews from within the folds of the robes hinted that the figure was male.

Despite the vulnerability of the figure, clearly unconscious against the visible wall of the cave’s mouth, any beasts that approached out of the forest that started twenty metres beyond quickly turned tail and fled. If any person was present they would not blame the beasts, the weight of danger and death pressing down upon any in the vicinity.

With a flare of that aura of promised violence, the different types of birds that called the trees their home took to the skies in a cacophonous screeching. The beat of wings in terrified flight as natural enemies flocked together in their escape, to flee that flare of danger. A flaring that coincided with the cracking open of the figure’s tired eyelids. With the fluttering of the eyes beneath the mask, and the surging return of clarity to an unconscious mind, that aura swiftly withdrew into the figure with an almost audible SNAP. A groan accompanied stretching of stiff muscles, something that usually accompanied exiting the dive rig after a longer session of play time. With the pop of joints and the stiffness thoroughly stretched out, the figure finally froze in place before glancing sharply at the surrounding scenery. The realisation that something was wrong came first from being in a sitting position despite supposedly just exiting a dive, and the distinct lack of the pod that would normally encase the person exiting.

‘What the shit’, Liam slowly thought. Swiftly standing up and smoothing out the robes that were the armour he had crafted, and subsequently worn, out of a variety of materials from some of the highest-level bosses in the game, ones not well known to the wider player base as they were within a hidden rift that was a doorway to an area called Helheim. Now he knew something was wrong. You could always tell you were within the game, the constantly visible and not able to be disabled HUD at all times let you know that very fact to prevent players from confusing virtual with reality and losing track of their actual lives.

Strange, then, that the familiar armour and body of his virtual avatar would be present where the HUD was not. Not only was the HUD not the only hint but certain senses were removed from the game in order to assist with keeping reality sickness to a minimum. Temperature was unable to be felt as it normally would, the only idea given on if it was too hot or cold was the sensation of pain and the context of the environment to figure out which one it was. But the surprising heat of the inside of the robes, not to the level of sweating though, told of reality and not virtual despite the armours presence. A strangely familiar yet completely foreign body was also what Liam found himself in, and he knew both from the familiarity of the feeling and the armour he had draped over him that he was in his Ashes avatar, Ammanas.

Once that realisation that something had gone very wrong with the server shutdown fully settled in, Liam quickly checked his surroundings for threats before trying to activate his HUD. What greeted him was not a burst of relief upon the return of his HUD. Instead, blinding white pain surged through his mind, a searing pain with a pressure that was building dangerously. Liam grunted, all the action possible before he was totally paralysed from the abject agony, before pitching forward and smacking into the ground in a heap, trying to clutch at his head with his useless arms. The pressure kept building and Liam was positive there was about to be a messy, cranial-themed splash art along the cave’s walls. Upon reaching a torturous crescendo, a loud ~ding~ rang within his mind before the pressure just dropped away.

With it, a gasp sounded in the cave as the pain slowly faded, until he could roll onto his back and finally clutch at his head. He tried to remove the hood and mask, now claustrophobic in the wake of his suffering, but the heavy material absolutely refused to be removed. Now frantically tearing at his head, he scrabbled with the lip of the mask but despite prying his fingers just barely under it, it would not lift no matter how much force he applied.

“GET OFF ME”, he finally yelled out. The sound of his voice an echo that thundered through the cave. The yell also echoed within his mind as he fell into panic. As the last word was thought, as if it were never there at all, the mask dropped off his face and disappeared. Liam heaved a deep breath, finally free of the face hugger. Scrabbling his feet to push his back against the wall, the floor of the cave was carved out in furrows wherever he pushed his foot and his back slammed against the cave wall. Instead of pain, there was only the surprise and the sensation that the wall was touching his back even as disturbed dust and small rocks fell from the roof. The panic clouded his mind, making him momentarily forget that currently he was not Liam Rowe the 24-year-old from Melbourne, Australia. He was Ammanas, Master Warlock and True Ancestor Vampire, an immortal being with the created body of a 20-year-old Drow male.

Drow was the race he chose to begin with, but one of the mechanics of the game was being able to be infected with vampirism or lycanthropy should the respective being bite you and you survive it but don’t seek a cure. He actually sought out vampirism because the advantages meshed well with his playstyle. The changes came with both advantages and disadvantages and even had their own skills and upgrades to the racial tree. The biggest disadvantage, a painful weakness to sunlight, he nullified with covering his skin with clothing of a magical make, doubling as cover to keep his appearance hidden from other players. He became a True Ancestor vampire as a reward from a hidden questline which eliminated almost all disadvantages to the race, other than the weakness to silver though that was slightly reduced too. He was the only player that he knew of with the race and he spent a great deal of time and effort, as well as a generous helping of blood, sweat and the occasional watery eye in maxing out the skill trees that came with it. It could be noted that the majority of the blood generously though unwillingly came from other people.

Sitting contemplatively within the furrows carved out of the ground, Liam settled his attention upon the cause of the ~ding~ that saved him from a messy and explosive end. His HUD was back, though not visibly. He could sense all of the information that it normally gave him as a sort of sixth sense. The menus were there, and he was now aware at all times of the status of his health and mana pools, though the numbers were so mindbogglingly high that it was a moot point. His inventory apparently still functioned, since the focus and mental command he yelled out freeing himself of his mask was what unequipped it into his storage and with some mental focus he found his entire collection within his inventory still pristine and accounted for. With a thought, he could pull anything out of it or put what he owned into it.

The shock came when he thought about the menu options that would take him to the log out button, a button and option that was glaringly absent from his mental list. Apparently, he was stuck, stuck in whatever crazy place this cave happened to be. To prevent the onset of panic, he figured it was time to orient himself in this world to properly get a grasp of the situation and for that he needed to embrace his adventurous alter-ego. No longer thinking of himself as Liam, he fully stepped into his role as Ammanas and decided that the first thing he would have to test is if his magic still worked. Second on his list was trying to summon one of his contracted demons, then a mount and a pet. Then he figured some exploration would be in order, hopefully meeting some form of life to check the relative strength of the realm, and then onwards to civilisation! If it existed that is.

Well, no time like the present Ammanas thought, bounding to his feet. He looked further into the cave and decided to start small with his magic. There was a pillar of rock further in that joined floor and ceiling together, and he set that as his target. With a thought and a point of his finger, a shadow coalesced on its end. The darkness rapidly expanded and condensed into an almost solid form before hurling itself at the pillar. The resulting BOOM that blasted shredded rock and a wall of air out of the mouth of the cave was certainly unexpected though it did nothing to damage or even move him slightly. Any normal being in the vicinity would have been shredded into unrecognisable pulp by the shrapnel before being picked up and thrown several meters back. The ceiling of the cave above what used to be a pillar had caved in, and rubble and clouds of dust replaced what used to be the back of the cave.

He realised that despite shadow bolt being one of the weakest spells in the game, with his stats it was comparable to some high tier spells of other players. Despite the destruction that was caused, it showed him that his magic still worked just the same as it did and that the environment he was in was very fragile compared to the high-level areas in the game world. There was the option of shortening power by reducing the mana put into a spell down to tier 1, or the starting level of a spell, so he figured that any recreational magic use in the near future would be scaled down unless he wanted to do some serious remodelling. A success was a success, looks like it was time to summon a demon.