Despite my best efforts, I wasn’t keeping up with those elves. The problem is very simple; I have very short legs, and I’m pretty sure they’re hacking. Only reasonable explanation for why they could disappear the moment they turned the corner. Not that I need them. With FrostBorn still ticking, I’m starting to feel my face again, which begs the question... how strong are those guys?

I am, or was, playing a wizard, and spell casters, in general, aren’t known for their durability...and if I think about it, I’ve never taken a punch head-on either. Fighting monsters versus fighting a player is usually a spike in difficulty, even if the monsters have better stats. People min-max; often pressing advantages or exploiting weaknesses. I have to assume that in a world where giant spiders and snakes exist, ‘normal people’ must have taken levels to survive. And now the better question is, just how weak am I?

Very

The Void chimes in, a smile that feels like someone’s walking over my grandma’s grave seeps into my awareness and causes me to involuntarily shiver.

“Well fuck you! You and or the System only gave me 1 Spell. Started me off at Level 1 and rushed every decision I’ve made so far, or better yet, you didn’t give me one in the first place!”

Such is the fate of all who have made this journey.

“That doesn’t make it better!”

I have glimpsed your...earth culture. You value equality, yes? Well, you have received what you deserve. And by your own admission, you don’t deserve much.

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

There’s a pause, then a weird scratching as if a cassette tape is churning in the background. Then a voice, my voice, echoes around me in a mocking tone.

“I’m a loser who lives at home with his mom and never had a girlfriend. I don’t even have a job and can’t admit to my friends that I dropped out of school a year ago. I’m a waste of space and don’t deserve to liv—"

“SHUT UP!” I scream, but the voice is laughing now in a distorted, gleeful holler that rings with all the hate and self-loathing I feel for myself.

They may not be my words, but they were my thoughts, my feelings. Words that I knew were true because my actions supported it; my lack of anything meaningful in life outside of merely existing. Of course, those feelings and that life would follow me here. Why would I suddenly get lucky? Me, unable to land a real job, make real friends, and have genuine confidence, why would that change? I haven’t even told my mom I dropped out of school a year ago. I’m pathetic...

But alive. Somehow beyond just being too much of a coward to simply end it in the real world, maybe here I could...try? But I have been trying! No choice but to try! But that’s never been my problem when there is a lack of choices... when it’s do this or that or suffer immediate consequences. Anyone can do that. But when there’s nothing immediately on the line, when there are real decisions you have to make to determine your future, what do you really do? What do I really do?

If what I am now is the sum of the last 21 years of my life, should I really be surprised? I laugh, a long wheezing sound that hurts more than comforts, but what else is there to do? In the face of alien worlds and entities that can bring up your deep, dark, depressing thoughts? What did I possibly do to deserve this?

Nothing, and that’s the only small comfort I can take in this situation. That, for once, everything bad that has happened from the time I watched that YouTube video till now is not my fault.

“So fucking try, Mike.”

And so I do, so, first things first, is my current situation. One, between that healing potion and FrostBorn, I’m just above 80 health. I also have full Mana and regular walking doesn’t seem to drain Stamina. And I don’t have a problem seeing down here thanks to Dark Vision. Sure, a straight fight will end in a brutal one-sided beat down, but on the other hand... I really don’t have a choice in the matter.

Legolas and his girlfriend might be more qualified to fight a giant snake monster, but something tells me that they’re more concerned with rescuing their people above anything else. And if I leave all the fighting to them and they don’t break the curse...

The fact that I don’t even remember what it felt like exactly to be under that thing’s control bothers me. I shudder thinking about it, how the status screen filled with line after line of its thoughts, its will, and nothing else. Nothing beyond that all-encompassing feeling of being molded into this small insignificant thing that only exists for the sole purpose of being food...

It would have been easy to have yielded to that. It would have been a painless way to go. I chose not to. And that choice, that positive decision, is something I’m going to hold on to. I gotta try.

So I hold on to this thread of positivity as I creep up on naked dudes, my back pressed against the wall and my body crouched low. It took me a while to walk this far down, between the twists and turns and my own trepidation. But there are no branching paths, just a few openings that feed into the main road, like disconnected streams feeding a river. The further down I go, the hotter it seems, and the more an orange glow seems to permeate the otherwise green-tinted darkness. And as I descend the unmistakable musk of men and other things not quite human seems to waft up and greet me as well as the persistent smell of rot and decay. And that last smell disturbs me the most because there’s a sweetness to it that nauseates the senses and conjures the image of large dead animals being butchered and left to spoil.

But down I go into the darkness, hoping against hope that I have the element of surprise, or at least go unnoticed. It was in these thoughts that I found relief, turning another winding corner, waiting for the proverbial ax to drop with a brand-new horror.

The horror comes with the sudden appearance of a patrol. Two men, unarmed but incredibly well built, waltzing up the cave while I was heading down. I pressed myself tight against the wall as they walked past me, their blinded faces dour and looking straight ahead and hopefully oblivious to a four-foot man only a few feet away. Then a thought came to me, a maddening hypothesis, about how these blind men actually see the world. When I was cursed, I walked among them without an issue, wasn’t tied up or knocked around. I was one of them. But when I broke the curse... then they noticed, as if...

They walked past me then stopped. Then turned their heads in my direction until their ruined eyes were staring right at me. Their backs straightened, and their shoulders relaxed as a smile spread lazily from ear to ear on both men.

“They didn’t see me, they didn’t see me...”

I was so perfectly still. I didn’t even breathe, but still, they turned to face me, slowly and cautiously, as if trying not to disturb an unaware field mouse, with glee building on their faces. And before the panic set in, my hypothesis completed itself, like a professor making an anthropological observation.

“It’s as if they only see the world as those who are cursed and those who aren’t.”

And then they charge, but instead of panicking and running, I stand my ground,

“Frost Armor!” my brain clicked Multicast and Extended Touch Range. The combo met the rushing men head-on, and instead of doing the smart thing and casting both versions of Frost Armor on myself, I gave it to the charging psychos. There was no impact from the spell or recognition on their crazed faces, and that’s a good thing. Because what I’m going to do next requires them to think I’m not a threat.

I punch myself in the face and send myself flying backward, hitting the wall behind me with an exaggerated thunk. As I slide down the rocky surface, I can feel them approaching me with a measure of caution. But not too much. With my eyes closed shut, they didn’t take any time standing over me, so now is the moment of truth.

Will they pound me into the dirt or assume I’m unconscious? I’ve been practicing wrestling moves since I was in middle school; fake punching, fake falling, fake chokeslams and DDTs (it’s when you put someone in a headlock and fall backward), and countless other moves that have sent scores of unlucky kids to the hospital or worse across the country. My favorite pro-wrestlers were Brock Lesner, Dave Bastita, and SM Punk. And now I’m betting my life on my ability to imitate them, hoping that these assholes never had access to Thursday Night Smackdown.

And also hoping they don’t use Identify. When they grab me, I feel the panic and desperation spike as they lift me up and off the ground. How much I wanted to scream, kick, and fight, but I forced all that down, biting my lip and squeezing my eyes shut in a desperate plea for self-control.

“Be a log, be a sack of potatoes, be anything that doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, doesn’t think about how they smell like unwashed armpits and the world’s most used porta john!” I chant to myself as the body odor doesn’t get better and the feeling of being manhandled gets worse, as they have me bent over one knee getting my hands tied up with my own cape and then, in the ultimate act of disrespect, remove my pants and tie it around my ankles.

Now having secured the dwarven package, they hoist me on one of their shoulders before marching back down the cave. Ok, not dead. I eye the cooldown of Frost Armor and cast it the moment it leaves cooldown in a wordless whisper, keeping one real eye open just barely open, making sure I hit both men.

Considering how hard I was hit last time, Frost Armor could have helped me tank a hit or two before I got my head knocked clean from my shoulders. And they’re faster than me by a significant amount. My guess is that high Dex helps with reflexes and not even counting that I’m short and they’re not. They’ll naturally run faster than me in a dead sprint, and they know this cave better than I do. So what’s left? Well, Frost Armor costs Stamina, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m not exactly sure what naturally drains it in this world’s logic. I lost more from Frost Armor than actually running last time, and I’m pretty sure I’m not an Olympic athlete even in this body.

So the only thing I can think of is that Stamina is a lot like Mana. A cost metric for exceptional physical feats, where Mana is spent when performing extraordinary spiritual or metaphysical. Now how that explains Frost Armor costing Stamina to maintain? I don’t know, but considering the wearer is drained 3 Stamina per second, and I just doubled up on the layers of Frost Armor each goon is under...

My mind uses Identity, but in its abbreviated version, the spell shows me red, blue, and green bars to denote Health, Mana, and Stamina, respectively. I fear seeing the exact numbers will cause me to freak out like I did with the elf. Which doesn’t make sense, but I think naturally assuming giant monsters have better stats than you is one thing. Seeing someone who, for lack of a better word, is essentially a player character, reinforces the power disparity is a bit too much right now. Not even the thought of them being under mind control helps.

So I watch the bars intently, seeing the Stamina bar drain slowly but visibly, which gives me a little bit of hope. And then we suddenly veer off course from the main passage, taking a side opening that is narrow enough that I bump into every jutting rock and stalagmite. To my credit, I don’t cry out, though I want to, and the System records each hit as a few points of damage that FrostBorn is quietly healing. Speaking of which, why hasn’t the guy holding my wrench let go of it yet? Does he not notice the wrench giving him Frostbite? It has to hurt at this rate, so how durable are these guys? More questions I don’t want the answers for.

More walking in silence, more twists and turns, and bumping into walls and ceilings. I cast Frost Armor three more times, getting more satisfied watching the green stamina bar drain faster. The only question left is what happens when it reaches zero? Now in a video game, when your Stamina reaches zero, you simply stop moving. Which in most games is pretty bad, but isn’t all too punishing the first few times it happens. But in this universe...

The man holding me stops abruptly as he leans forward and then falls. I roll off his shoulders as he lets go of me and clutches his stomach, his face warped by pain and misery. I see the red of his full health bar gets cut in half.

“Oh fuck!”

I instantly regret saying that aloud as the other goon tries to step over his friend to reach me. I almost resign myself to getting to shit kicked out of me when he suddenly keels over, his face twisted in a wordless scream as he drops to the ground next to his friend, still writhing in pain.

“What the fuck is happening?”

The System clicks in to chime a response,

Exhaustion :: When Stamina reaches 0, current health is dropped to 50% of its current value.

Thinking back to when I decided to turn off Frost Armor to conserve Stamina, I shudder at how close I was to finding out what Exhaustion was first hand. But I can’t relax now, half health isn’t dead, and they’ll get up eventually and probably put two and two together, so I try to untie myself as quickly as possible. Cursing myself for not trying to make a little headway while they thought I was unconscious, I frantically tried to move my wrist and tug at the giant knot they tied using my cloak. All while keeping my giant naked friends at the corner of my eye, hoping that they stay in agony a little while longer but knowing that I don’t have a lot of time.

Fuck! I think again and remember that the knot they made out of my pants can’t be very good and try to undo that instead in a hurry. I can feel sweat rolling down my forehead and taste the combination of salt and accumulated grim as I become more desperate, more pleading for one fucking break in this shit-stained universe! And then the knot comes free, and elation and hope spread from my stiff ankles up to my bruises and cuts as my body senses a bit of freedom. Then I see one of the men get up, and all hope is dashed.

***********

Character Sheet

Name: Mike Sammons

Race: Dwarf

Origin : Hills

Character Status

Health : 98/104

Stamina : 56/56

Mana : 113/130

Conditions : Curse of Grave Water - Partial Resistance (You have extended the time until insanity takes your mind, body, and soul. Use it wisely.)

Class Sheet

Class : Necromancer (Wizard Lv_5) (Cleric Lv_2)

Spells Book : Tome of Mike

Cold Extremities_Lv 3:: Active Spell_Cost 14 Mana_ 1 Second Cooldown_You remove the warmth from things you touch. Deal 26 Cold Damage per second with a 25% chance of causing Chill and Frostbite. Lose 3 health per second the longer this ability is active. You can activate this ability on each extremity. Scales with Intelligence and Constitution.

Frost Armor. _Lv 3:: Active Spell_Cost 25 Mana_ 5 Second Cooldown_ Give a protective layer of Ice on a target object or creature you touch. Target gains 117 points of Elemental Armor however they lose 3 Stamina per second. Has a 50% chance of applying Chill and a 15% chance of applying Frostbite to Melee attackers. Scales with Intelligence and Wisdom.

Cause Fear. _Lv 1:: Active Spell _ Cost 10 Mana_ 3 second Cooldown_ Your perceived combat prowess has allowed you to manipulate the hidden Stat Will. Enemies you target within a short cone are forced to reconsider attacking you and have a 20% chance of being effected by Terror. Scales with Wisdom and Charisma.

Passive Skills

Identify Lv 2 :: Allows you to see the first page of a Character Stat sheet. At second level you can perceive details of monsters by knowing their name. Glossary is unlocked.

Reduced Spell Cost Lv 1 :: Spells you cast cost 5 Mana less.

FrostBorn :: You have an increased chance of applying FrostBite and Chill. Also anytime you apply FrostBite or Chill to a target above 3x stacks gain 1 Health, 1 Stamina, and 3 Mana.

Extended Touch Range :: Spells in touch range can either remain touch spells or shoot out in a straight line for 1 meter (about the size of a baseball bat).

Multicast :: Reduce the effectiveness of a spell by 40% to increase the number of times that spell is cast by 2 at no additional cost.

Resist Disease :: You have achieved a greater than normal resistance to biological agents like diseases and toxins. You gain XP once foreign ailments have been overcome.

Resist Curse :: You possess a supernatural resistance to the effect of Curses. You gain XP from breaking curses.