A downward slash from my new iron sword quickly bisected the creature, its head still clamped around the unfortunate Ferrin it had attacked. I turned to Orion who was staring in shock at the two halves of the tardog, “What does that bell mean?!” I yelled at him, snapping him out of his shock.

“That bell means that the village is under attack.” All around us people were running for their houses. Looking towards the center of town I could see that the village was overrun with tardogs. In my narrow line of sight alone I could count three, two of which were under attack from what looked to be desperate villagers.

The extent of the battle wasn’t clear, how had they bypassed the village palisades? The only explanation was that the situation was far worse than originally anticipated. I motioned to Orion to follow me, hoping that I could count on him to come with me to make an escape, “We have to leave! What direction is the nearest city?”

Following me with his spear at the ready his response was filled with surprise, “Escape?! We need to help them!”

“The situation is a lot worse than we know if they made it through the gate. With only a few guards in town it's likely that we couldn’t affect the outcome of this battle if we tried. So right now we need to focus on survival.” Just as I’d finished speaking a tardog had focused in on me and lunged. Ducking, I narrowly avoided the attack and the creature impaled itself on the tip of Orion's spear. He used the momentum to pin the creature down while thrusting into it. When the creature was dead we continued running in the direction of the gate.

“Which direction is the nearest city?!” I yelled again while we ran, jumping over corpses of both dead Ferrin and Tardogs. The number of bodies scattered throughout the village staggered even my initial estimation of the attack.

Orion pointed north as the sounds of battle around us made it difficult to hear anything spoken. Rounding the bend near the gate we were met with an awful sight. The bodies of two guards that had accompanied Capitan rust out to meet us were strewn inside the gate’s entrance. One body was missing a leg completely while the other had landed next to its ripped off arm. Just beyond the gate was the Captain and two other guards, battered and bloodied, their weapons and armor tinted red and black with the secretions of the horrifying monster they were fighting.

The monstrosity was a black armored, 8 foot tall giant. Its maw contained rows of circular spiked protrusions and dripped with black tar-like fluid while its body was covered head to toe in jet black chiten-like armor. On its thick shoulders and tail were blades made of the same material as its armor. The leg of the aforementioned guard still clung to one of the protrusions as its flesh had tightened around it. The monster’s claws were foot long razors attached to each of the creature's ten fingers while the huge rounded soles of its feet anchored the creature to the ground.

One of the guards doing battle with the monster made a valiant attempt to stab its side with a bronze spear. However, upon coming into contact with the creature’s armor, the metal tip harmlessly slid off, exposing the Ferrin’s side to the monster as he was thrown off balance.

True horror showed upon my face when I saw the monster move with lightning speed, grabbing its assailant around the torso. Struggling the Ferrin tried in vain to thrust his spear again before screaming in pain as the monster’s grip tightened. In an instant his screams were silenced as the creature’s maw swiftly closed around his chest. The lower half of the corpse fell from the monster’s grip as its focus shifted back to the Capitan.

“Dammit! Stay away from its sides and don't strike unless it has its back turned to you! It’s a tarspewer not a tardog!” Rust was trying in vain to keep his guards alive. As broken and battered as they were, running was likely not an option for the guards at this point. They’d be chased down by this monstrosity if they tried.

I took Orion by the arm and pulled him out and to the left of the gate making a run for the treeline. This thing was way too powerful for us to fight, it had killed at least three guards and was winning against a veteran soldier. There was nothing we could do to help them now. As I ran, I looked over my shoulder to see Capitan Rust thrusting his weapon at the tarspewer’s back as it ripped another one of his guards in half. I doubled my pace, nearly dragging Orion with me until our sightline was blocked by the foliage of the forest. I looked up at my stamina and realized I was running on fumes. Letting go of Orion, I slowed to a walk in an attempt to recover it while sitll moving.

Orion wasn’t talking, I looked at him shivering next to me as we continued north in the direction he’d pointed before leaving the village, “Hey, there was nothing we could do except escape. If we’d tried to fight that thing we would’ve died. We got lucky with the other two monsters we fought, no amount of luck would have saved us from that.” I tried to reassure Orion. His face said everything, he had observed people he’d talked to everyday lying dead on the ground, he’d seen his friends ripped in half and hadn’t been able to help. His home was being destroyed as we fled and he was struggling to come to terms with that fact.

We continued to walk as my stamina slowly recovered. I heard a soft voice mumble something beside me, “Why is this all happening… Monsters have never been this big of a problem around here so why did that change so suddenly?”

I continued walking without answering him. I had an idea of what the reason might be but was struggling with the answer myself. I had chosen to spawn in through a rift. Had my choice spawned a new rift or had I been birthed from an existing one? I did not know… If the former was true then I had caused all of this death and destruction. It gnawed at me that I didn’t feel more remorse for that choice. In my prior life I would have felt personally responsible for what’s happened but now, in this body, that was suppressed. It felt as if my prior emotions were being overruled by this body. I would need to be aware of this fact when making decisions in the future if I wanted to retain at least some of my humanity.

“Why did we run!” Orion had stopped and was screaming at me, “We could have helped but you were more worried about yourself than anyone else! That was my home, those people were my friends and we just abandoned them to die!” Tears were streaming down his face as he clenched his fists around his spear, it’s bloodsoaked tip sinking into the ground beside him as he drove it into the soil. He pointed a finger at me, “Who are you to pull me away from defending my home!”

I stood there considering his words. Why had I dragged him along? I could have left him there to die with the rest of them and it would have arguably made my escape easier. But he was the only person I knew in this world, the only person I’d met so far, so I had instinctually dragged him to safety. I realized only now after the adrenaline had faded that the ease of pulling him along hadn’t been because he’d offered no resistance but rather, solely due to the fact that I was much bigger than him. Without realizing that he’d been struggling the whole time, I had literally dragged him out of danger.

I stood there realizing this as I looked into his tear filled eyes, “I don’t know the people in your village. I haven’t lived there my entire life. I don’t pass those people every day wondering how they’re children are doing. You are the first person I’ve talked to in a long while and the only person who I’ve come to give a portion of my trust to. You on the other hand seem to love your village and its people. And that love would have gotten you killed. Your death would’ve done nothing to save Fenroot from that monster and you know it. I understand that you’re mad at me but if we don’t get to the nearest city to report it won't more people die?”

At this he collapsed to his hands and knees. The heartbreak inflicted by this world was much more sudden and violent than the world I had come from. It’s triumphs less sweet and it’s defeats more bitter, the true victories not coming without some sort of sacrifice. As with us, this was not a defeat for him and I, it was a victory stolen off the backs of those who sacrificed everything to permit our survival. Coming to terms with this concept was jarring to say the least, blunted only by the unique suppression of my former human emotions. For Orion, who might not possess that same suppression, it must have been traumatizing, especially since it hit so close to home.

I offered him my hand, hoping that he would be able to keep moving. I wanted to understand his pain, my human brain knowing how he felt while my wrorine brain struggled to empathize. A part of me that knew he needed time to emotionally heal from this trauma battled with the part that wanted him to keep moving, to get as far away from this place as possible. Eventually, one of the sides won over and I sat down next to him, embracing him with a hug.

His response was a waterfall of tears that succeeded in thoroughly soaking the cloth sections of my armor. After roughly 15 minutes the sobbing ceased and he slowly stood up, wiping his eyes with his arm to clear his vision, “Alright, we need to keep moving. Maybe if we can make it to the city they’ll be able to send reinforcements.”

I watched him start walking north before getting to my feet and following him. There would be no one left alive in the village by the end of the day. Perhaps a few had escaped like us but, judging by the power of that monster, there would be no survivors within the village itself. Orion was working his way through the stages of grief rather quickly though. Hopefully, we could make it somewhere safe before he hit the next.

I followed the resilient Ferrin through the forest, still not feeling the empathy I should have been. It made me wonder just how much of my humanity I risked losing to this world.

Tarspewer (Level 20)

0/10000 Experience

200/200 Health ----

110/110 Stamina ------

0/0 Mana --

50/50 Spirit ---

‘0’ Stat Points Available

Racial Ability - Tarshot

Skills: (Tar Fang D) (Devour Health) (Enhance Agility E) (Reinforce Armor F)