Portal space.

The sound of rushing water, so familiar, but this time…somehow different. A fuzzy sound crackled in the background, like analog static from an antique stereo. The electric, purple-blue walls swirled around me, carrying me back to Carrethen, the world I’d fought for months to escape and was now returning to—voluntarily.

This is taking longer than it should, I thought. I should be there by now.

Was something wrong with the world backup? My Wellspring device? Suddenly, the edge of the portal cracked beside me, exposing flecks of black like the insulation of a wire. My body felt strained, like a thousand separate forces were trying to tear me apart.

Finally, just as I was starting to freak out, the portal began to peel apart and the world appeared beneath me, bowed and distorted as though seen through a fisheye lens. My feet hit the ground and the portal disappeared beneath me with a snap like an electric shock. I glanced quickly around, trying to find some landmarks, but didn’t recognize anything.

I was standing in the bottom of a small basin with dark hills rising up around me on all sides. It was definitely Carrethen, but there was something off about it. Thunder crashed above me, so loud I actually jumped, and when I looked up, I couldn’t believe what I saw.

Monstrous dark clouds hung ominously in the air like coal colored jelly fish. Lightning rippled everywhere like stripped wires and I could see a torrential downpour in the distance over the mountains—mountains I didn’t recognize.

Something moved in my peripheral vision, and I spun around to see a group of Horngrin Ravagers making their way across the slope, staggering back and forth in a sickly manner.

I heard a sound behind me and whirled around to see an enormous Magnascar charging loping across the flat ground behind me. Quickly, I inspected it.

Frenzied Magnascar—level 150.

“One hundred and fifty…” I whispered to myself. Spinning around, I inspected the Horngrin.

Horngrin Ravage—level 8.

“What…?”

It should have been impossible for two monsters of such different levels to be anywhere near each other. Call of Carrethen, like every other MMORPG, made sure that specific areas and zones of the map contained similar level mobs for players to level. Level 8s should be nowhere near a level 150.

But there was no time to think. An arrow whizzed past my head and slammed into the slope in front of me. I spun around, instinctively reaching for my bow and finding nothing.

Another arrow hurtled towards me and struck me in the chest, decimating more than half of my HP. But beyond that, it hurt.

It actually hurt.

I cried out and threw myself out of the way as another soared through the air towards my head.

How is that possible!?

I looked up to see three enormous monsters I’d never seen before racing towards me. They were at least eight feet tall, muscled, dark blue and covered in a white crust that looked like tiny shards of ice or some other kind of crystal.

I checked again for my bow, but found nothing. Throwing myself behind a rock for cover, I checked my inventory.

Empty.

“Are you kidding me!?”

An arrow struck the rock, sending stone splinters into the air. Whatever those guys were, they were powerful.

I’ve got to get out of here, I thought. There was no time to mess around, and I wasn’t about to go toe to toe with the Magnascar, so I took off in the direction of the Horngrin.

Arrows whistled through the air behind me as I ran, faster than I’d ever run before.

Why am I so fast! What’s going on!? D was fast, but not this fast!

The Horngrin spun around as I dashed up the hill. One of them leapt at me, swinging a spiked mace at my head. I ducked and rolled, narrowly avoiding the block, before throwing myself back to my feet and pressing on.

Another arrow struck my shoulder. Pain flared through me as a quarter of my remaining health was gone instantly. I was dangerously low with nowhere to hide, no Health Kits, no Healing Potions, and absolutely nothing in my inventory.

The ground in front of me was rough, forcing me to jump from rock to rock to make any progress. Arrows zipped through the air, snapping against the stone all around me. The Horngrin screeched behind me but I was too fast for them. Thunder clapped in the sky above as if the very world itself was roaring down at me.

My foot slipped on a wet rock and I came crashing down on a jagged boulder in front of me. I hit the ground hard, and unbelievably, it knocked the breath out of me.

It shouldn’t have been possible! Call of Carrethen had specific controls built into its engine that specifically prohibited any real-world sensations like pain. The developers wanted the game to be immersive, but not that immersive. But something was wrong. I’d felt those two arrows, and I’d felt that fall.

What happens if we die in your world? That’s what I’d asked Wintermute before coming here. And its response?

Death.

Another arrow hit the rock just inches from me. I scrambled to my feet, spilling stone down the hill as I raced toward the peak. Lightning flashed in the sky as I reached it, and without hesitation, I hurled myself over the ridge towards whatever lay below.

It felt like I was flying as I realized what I’d just done—which was throw myself off of a cliff.

It had to have been at least two hundred feet high, but it was impossible to judge as I plummeted through the air like a meteor. For a second, I thought I was surely dead. The falling damage would certainly kill me, but then I realized that what I’d thought was a plane of black rocks beneath me, was actually a lake of black water with white capped waves crashing across its surface.

Far, far in the distance, I spotted what looked like a town. But there was no time to take anything in. I slammed into the water like a ten-ton anchor.

Thankfully, the impact had no effect on my remaining health, but I plummeted deep causing my breath meter to appear. My feet found the bottom of the lake and I kicked hard, swimming for the surface. My air was ticking down fast as I swam as fast as I could.

You’ll make it, I told myself, keeping my eyes on the surface that raged above me like a storm.

Then, something grabbed my leg.

I looked down and saw a slimy purple tentacle wrapped around my ankle. Spikes sprang out and sliced into my skin, chipping away even more of my remaining health. Pain flared as they tore into my flesh.

I kicked hard, fighting against the tentacle’s iron grip, but it was just too strong and continued to pull me back down, deeper into the water. My breath meter was already at half and dropping quickly. I tried to kick with my other leg, but underwater it was completely futile. It was like trying to run in a dream.

My breath was falling, almost at 25 percent. My lungs felt like they were on fire. I felt my abdomen twitch and my throat spasm. My body was fighting to force me to take a breath. None of what was happening should have been possible.

I heard a roar through the water beneath me and looked down to see rows and rows of teeth as an enormous mouth emerging from the darkness, rising from the floor of the lake itself. I inspected it quickly.

Lake Beast—level 250.

No…no that can’t be! I though as full blown panic set in. Monsters of this high level shouldn’t even exist in Call of Carrethen, let alone in an area close to low level Horngrin.

Everything is wrong…I thought as the Lake Beast pulled me down into the murky depths.

The sky above should have been clear blue.

My trip through portal space shouldn’t have taken so long or sounded the way it did. The walls of portal space shouldn’t have been splintering away like stripped electrical wire.

The Carrethen I was in was not the Carrethen I knew. Whatever had happened when Wintermute created its backup had changed things, corrupted and twisted them somehow, and now I was lost in a world I had no handle on. And I was about to pay for it.

I looked down at the rows of teeth, gleaming like knives, a perverted version of the Pit of Sarlacc, and knew that by returning to Carrethen I had mad a big, big mistake.