Yep, I was beginning to wish that I’d chosen the ‘delete’ option, back when I’d first arrived. It couldn’t possibly have been any more painful than what this ugly lot had in store for me.

I turned to Grom. I couldn’t imagine that life as a building foreman had prepared him for this. But to give him his due, if he was quietly urinating into his loin-cloth, he didn’t show it. Perhaps his impressive perception was giving him a truer measure of our opponents, and he’d found some hidden weakness.

“Kriabal, any chance yeh can dominate these things?” he asked.

“Nope,” came the warlock’s blunt reply. “Best I can tell, the mobs are like parasites. They fuse with their hosts on a level I couldn’t hope to compete with. It isn’t a skill for them, it’s their way of life.”

“Then there’s nothin’ for it,” he replied with a sigh. “We’re gonna haveta kill the poor bastards they’ve hijacked.” He turned to face us, his face more troubled than I’d like. “Aim fer the big fat vein runnin’ down the side of their heads. That’s how they link to the host’s nervous system.”

Yep, that confirmed it. The ability to ‘read’ weaknesses was definitely worth having.

“You mean they’re still alive?” cried a youthful barbarian whose face I didn’t recognize. His long hair was tied in a bob, and his sword was as basic as they came, lacking embellishment of any kind.

“Fraid so. They have two sets of stats, poor bastards. Never seen anythin’ like it.”

“How dare you wear DungeonDestroyer like that,” bellowed another fresh-faced barbarian, adding: “He’s my bro. Gonna kill you, bastard.”

Without further warning, the two warriors’ broke ranks and rushed the enemy, their noob-level weapons swinging wildly overhead as they charged to deliver a death that I could only imagine would be their own.

“No,” cried Grom, “hold yer damn position.”

The order fell on deaf ears, or perhaps it was simply drowned out by their high-pitched battle cries. We watched with morbid curiosity as they closed in on the warrior who (I could only assume) had once been known as ‘DungeonDestroyer.’ And just as suddenly as the pair had darted from our own formation, two thick tentacles lashed out from the darkness, exploding through their unprotected flesh and stopping them both dead in their tracks. The warrior with the hair-bob hung before us, impaled, whimpering and coughing crimson with his haggard final breaths. The other fell to the ground, his head completely obliterated by the impact of the strike. A second later, he was impaled on the tentacles bone-laden tip, like a cocktail sausage on a stick. Just as suddenly as they’d been struck down, both were pulled into the darkness.

“Do not step into range of that bastards’ tentacles,” demanded Grom, addressing us all. “That’s an order. Let them come to us.”

You don’t have to tell me twice. Hrrmp. So much for the value of ‘leadership’, eh? Now if they’d been your slaves, on the other hand, that wouldn’t have- NO! Don’t even let yourself go there…

As the enemy slowly advanced, I allowed my attention to fall upon the crumpled heap of corpses that still lay in the center of the room: the broken remains of the raid party. Definitely a trap, then. You clever bastard. Smarter than those two noob barbarians, that’s for sure. And Poor Nyx. She was bleeding heavily and looking dazed, but she was alive. As general of a raid party she was probably the only player in the chamber with the experience to lead us to victory, and we couldn’t even get to her. I wanted to play the hero and rescue her. Hell, it couldn’t hurt my chances with Kronan, either. But I’d seen the speed of those tentacles, and I knew better than to go racing into the middle of the room alone. Shutting down that train of thought I held my ground, and waited for the lumbering pack of franken-barbarians to reach us.

Grom better know what the fuck he’s doing.

A ping distracted me. A translucent panel had opened up before my avatar, similar to the one that appears when I look into my inventory, or when challenged to a dual. Well, speak of the digital devil. It was Grom, and he’d sent me a request. Without hesitation, I opened it.

OFFER – Alliance request from Grom.

Grom has requested that you join a temporary war-party. As the combatant with the strongest leadership of all present, Grom is offering to lead us to victory.

Goal: Survival.

Type of alliance: Temporary.

Reward: Survival. Possible favor with Clan Kronan if successful in protecting their investment.

Click here for Grom’s full profile.

Profile? What the fuck? Is this a VRMMORPG, or a damn dating app?

Curious, I clicked it. What followed next read pretty much like a CV. He had included all his stats, accomplishments and even his hobbies, all to aid even the most perceptually challenged player (like me) that he was a lot worthier to lead than the rest of us.

USERNAME: GROM

PRIMARY SKILL: BARBARIAN TANK – LEVEL 3

PERCENTAGE REMAINING UNTIL NEXT LEVEL IS UNLOCKED – 72%

Rep: -10/25

HP: 290/290

Mana: 0/120

Alliances: Clan Kronan (Contractor)

PHYSICAL STATS -

Strength: 6 (Cap 8)

Agility: 1 (Cap 5)

Speed: 2 (Cap 5)

Stamina: 6 (Cap 8)

Resilience: 6 (Cap 8)

Accuracy: 4 (Cap 7)

Defence: 1 (Cap 5)

Armed combat: 3 (Cap 8)

Unarmed combat: 2 (Cap 6)

Carrying capacity: 4 (Cap 4)

Building: 8 (Cap 8)

INTANGIBLE STATS -

Magical attack: 1 (Cap 3)

Perception: 6 (Cap 6)

Charisma: 3 (Cap 3)

Disguise: 0 (Cap 1)

Luck: 2 (Cap 2)

Healing: 0 (Cap 0)

Mana generation: 2 (Cap 8)

Leadership: 4 (Cap 5)

Homemaking: 1 (Cap 2)

OUTSTANDING QUESTS – Get rid of that awkward rash (ongoing)

The next screen had obviously been pre-prepared, should the opportunity for self-promotion ever arise. I skipped past the oddly in-depth list of his accomplishments in the building trade, his hobbies (crochet of all things) and ridiculous boasts of his sexual prowess IRL, until I got to the important bit.

Accept Y/N?

Without a second thought, I accepted the offer.

-[ You have joined the temporary war-party ‘Grom’s Guerrillas’. This party’s leader possesses superior stats to your own, and you shall benefit from this for the duration of your party membership, or until Grom’s own levels drop. Building +3. Perception +2. Rep +2. Strength +1. Resilience +1. Charisma +1. Luck +1. ]-

Well, that was unexpected. Apparently, it wasn’t only reputation that trickled down from the group’s leader. A few of my other stats had been bolstered too, just by joining his ‘party’. It was a shame that the boost was only temporary, but oh well. At least I hadn’t developed the barbarian’s ‘awkward rash.’ That was one quest I wouldn’t be asking to assist with, regardless of the payoff. But with a quick glance to my updated stats, now, more than ever, I understood why Samusk was so keen to get me into a gang with a powerful leader. The boost permitted me to push beyond my current level cap, and it was boosting a few of my weaker stats quite nicely, too.

PHYSICAL STATS -

Strength: 5+1 (Cap 5+1)

Agility: 1 (Cap 4)

Speed: 3 (Cap 4)

Stamina: 3 (Cap 5)

Resilience: 4+1 (Cap 4+1)

Accuracy: 1 (Cap 5)

Defence: 1 (Cap 5)

Armed combat: 3 (Cap 6)

Unarmed combat: 1 (Cap 3)

Carrying capacity: 1 (Cap 2)

Building: 1+3 (Cap 3+3)

INTANGIBLE STATS -

Magical attack: 0 (Cap 1)

Perception: 1+2 (Cap 4+2)

Charisma: 0+1 (Cap 2+1)

Disguise: 0 (Cap 1)

Luck: 1+1 (Cap 2+1)

Healing: 0 (Cap 0)

Mana generation: 1 (Cap 3)

Leadership: 0+2 (Cap 2+2)

Homemaking: 0 (Cap 2)

Hmmm. Shame the big guy is so lacking in agility, I could really have used a lift in that area, too. But hot damn, two bonus points in perception? Temporary, admittedly, but the knowledge of this fast-track to power offered exciting new possibilities… for example, if it were Samusk who received such a boost, he could easily spot the wardens weaknesses for me.

There was another unexpected surprise to be gained from my joining the makeshift war-party. A new tab had appeared in my status menu, containing the stats of every other prisoner who’d joined thus far. I could read the full stat sheet of just over half the combatants in the room, just by selecting them from the menu. But why so few? I wondered. A quick scan told me that our party numbered nineteen fighters in total. The NPC’s had (rather predictably) remained in their own unit, so that accounted for another ten. But by my tally that still left eleven other players who were not accounted for.

I closed the window and attempted to figure it out the old-fashioned way, smiling as I realized that I could now see everyone’s HP hanging above their head, along with their primary skill level. It wasn’t as in-depth as the ‘war-party’ tab, but it was a hell of a lot handier to access, and not simply limited to my ‘allies’.

I quickly spotted the problem. Five of the remaining combatants had formed their own unit around a leader of their own choosing: Tiny. It made sense, I supposed. The rabble’s allegiance was evidently now to him, and he had no love for the foreman who now led us. I was surprised to see that Grom’s assistant (SkullFucker) had joined them, and not his boss. Equally surprisingly, that still left four others who had chosen to remain solo. So much for a united front, eh?

There was no point focusing on the others. I finally had allies, albeit temporary ones. And thanks to the slow advance of the bastardized barbarians (who were still trying to draw us into the bosses reach out of sheer frustration with their snail-like advance) I still had a little time to prepare myself. So, I quickly scanned the details of those I could, giving me an overview of what we had to work with. I stuck to the ‘basic’ view, grouping the warriors by race. Besides Grom, Kriabal and myself, there were six barbarians, four swordsmen, five half-orcs and one apprentice. And as I expected, every single one of them was noob-level. Fuck!

I wanted to read their individual stats, but alas, study-time was over. The possessed players were now within spitting-distance of our formation. Up close they looked even more frightening, their raid-party class weaponry glinting with the now unmistakable glint of mana. Our front line began to tense, readying itself for a clash that was all but inevitable.