Mark thought this was coming, and had been thinking of ways to let her down gently. He’d intended to stop her before she made it this far. However, she’d moved faster than he expected, not being shy at all about climbing into his bedroll. All he could do now was try to gently extricate himself from her, as her lips sought his.

“Penny, what are you doing? This is wildly inappropriate.” He moved his head back, causing her questing lips to find his neck. “It was an exciting day, and we’re all tired” he continued, fighting his own desires now, in addition to hers.

“You’re right,” she said her breath tickling his neck. “Watching you battling a beast straight out of a fairytale was very…exciting.” He was having a difficult time restraining her exploratory hands, and keeping her lips away from his neck. “As for what I’m doing, well…isn’t it obvious?” She punctuated her words with a flick of her tongue, which made Mark jump.

“Listen Penny,” He tried again. “I know the last few weeks have been hard on you. But you really should go back to bed. I really don’t want to take advantage of…” his words were stopped with a finger against his lips. Penny pulled away slightly to look him in the eyes, or as close to his eyes as she could see in the darkness anyway.

“Don’t get the wrong idea here, Mark.” She said with a serious tone. “I was in college for two years, and was even engaged to be married before my life went to hell. I’m not a child you need to look out for.” Moving her head back to his neck she continued, her voice taking on a playful tone. “Besides, it’s dangerous over there, and it’s cold. Look at me, I’m shivering.” Another tongue flick gave him a shiver of his own. “Plus, I’ve been through so much. Why don’t you let me stay here where it’s safe?… let me show you something I’m good at, while we warm up.”

Something about her words sounded familiar. Mark struggled, with his rapidly fading sense of reason, to place them. Then it clicked; they were almost word for word, the same excuses he’d used on her a week ago to get her to come back to camp. It seemed he hadn’t fooled her quite as much as he’d thought. While he was thinking, her hands slipped out of his grasp and began exploring under the covers again.

“Well… when you put it like that.” He said, giving in at last.

The next morning; Penny hummed to herself as she moved about the camp, preparing breakfast. She practically glowed whenever she looked at Mark. In stark contrast, the air around Garret seemed to have grown icier than even the winter weather warranted. He didn’t say anything however, only making his displeasure known by giving Mark the dirtiest jobs when they started processing the troll again.

His mood picked up notably when Mark offered to split the troll hide with him. He even offered the troll head as a trophy, since he wouldn’t be taking it back with him. He still shot Mark the odd glare, but his demeanor went back to normal. Mark even swore he heard the old man whistling a tune, whenever he looked at the massive troll head. When the group stopped for lunch, Mark moved away to a secluded spot around behind the mound of trees.

The troll’s insane regenerative powers had been nagging at his mind, and he decided to try a little experiment. He sat cross legged near a small fire he’d just built, naked from the waist up. In front of him he’d spread out parts he had harvested from the troll. He had pulled all the organs, including what was left of the heart. Some muscled flesh from varied locations, as well as a bladder filled with the beast’s blood. Taking the Broken blade in hand, Mark took a deep breath, before using the sharp blade to open a deep laceration in his chest.

He repeated the move; one, two, three more times before setting the blade to the side and triggering his parasitic regeneration. He waited as long as he could, while the worms of hunger creeped their way throughout his body. He wanted to get a feeling for how the parasite worked while outside of combat, so he could better understand the process. Before the hunger turned to pain, he started eating the troll flesh and drinking its blood.

He remembered both the shop and Lilly telling him the parasite might mutate over time. So the goal of this experiment, was to force a parasitic mutation. If there was something in the troll flesh that caused the regenerative effect; he reasoned that if the parasite consumed it while healing him and growing, maybe it would incorporate some of that power into its own growth.

He didn’t notice much difference at first. It was hard to quantify how eating something felt. However, he could have sworn the troll flesh actually wanted to merge with the parasite, they seemed to be working together to heal his wounds even faster. Thinking that was a good sign, Mark reopened the wounds. He was starting to feel hot, like what he was doing now was more important than anything he’d ever done before. He felt like he simply couldn’t waste this opportunity, and resolved to cut himself as much as he needed to until he had eaten everything he’d set out.

After a time of eating, cutting and healing, he started seeing diminishing returns. As the parasite absorbed the troll flesh, he could tell that it wasn’t satisfied, that it needed to grow to strengthen him. Having that urge to go farther, Mark picked up a rock with his prosthetic left hand and smashed it down onto his right hand. He did his best to hold in his screams, but there was no covering the sound of breaking bones. Somehow hearing his bones shatter, made the pain even worse. He whimpered as he took another swig from the blood-filled bladder. He could feel that he was on the right track.

The sound of his fingers popping back into place was drowned out by the blood rushing in his ears. Without stopping to think, he continued on with sheer will power, smashing the stone into his legs next, then his feet. He didn’t know how many times he repeated the morbid cycle, until he had consumed everything. He was pretty sure he blacked out at some point too, because he didn’t even remember eating the liver.

After everything was gone, the urge to consume retracted its claws from his mind. When he finished cleaning himself up, he returned to camp. His body felt flush with energy and processing the troll proceeded even faster than before. Mark was able to peel the elephantine hide from the troll’s limbs now, where before he had been forced to cut with his broken blade to free every inch of the tough hide.

He could see Garret and Penny looking at him, shock written plain on their faces as his strength increased. That shock turned to concern as the hours passed and Mark showed no signs of tiring or slowing down.

“Are you ok, lad? You’re looking… a little green.” Garret asked at one point, looking at Mark with worry tinging on fear in his eyes. Mark who had just caught himself licking troll blood from his fingers while he worked, paused at the question.

“Honestly, I feel amazing.” He said, flexing his hands. He reveled in the feeling of power that was running through his veins. “I’ve never felt better.” Without another word, he attacked the troll hide again. That green hide was tough, it had to be valuable and he didn’t want to miss out on any of the profit. The promise he had made to share the hide with Garret long forgotten by now. After that the pair avoided him, keeping to themselves during and after dinner. Mark hardly noticed, as he’d collected another round of troll meat and moved back to his secluded lunch spot.

Mark had the first watch again; he spent the time running in circles around the clearing. He was hoping madly that something would attack them now. He wanted, needed, to fight. His blood boiled, actually feeling hot in his veins. Unfortunately, nothing dared approach on his watch.

When his shift ended, he approached the tent with eagerness. To his disappointment, Penny had decided to accompany Garret on his watch. Saying that it wasn’t fair that the two of them had been doing all the work and that she needed to pull her own weight. Mark considered arguing, but the energy that had filled him all day had started to wane. So, instead he climbed into his bedroll and passed out almost instantly.

His sleep was troubled, and filled with bad dreams. He was burning, his entire body felt aflame with heat. He was also hungry, hungrier than he had ever been before. He writhed in agony, wishing for the pain to stop. This dream was terrible, the pain worse than anything he had experienced while awake.

“…ark…Mark… Wake up.” he heard the voice through the fog of pain. Eventually he recognized it as belonging to Penny. He opened his eyes, to find himself in the tent, Garret and Penny kneeling to either side of him. “You’re awake!” Penny exclaimed again, “Here, drink this. You’ve been asleep for two days.”

Mark accepted the drink, which turned out to be water. It didn’t sit well however, once the liquid reached his belly he vomited violently. His body spasmed and he fell unconscious again. From there he drifted in and out of reality. Seeing things that couldn’t be there, hearing conversations he didn’t understand.

“Hold on handsome,” it was Terra’s voice. He was laying on the ground in the park where they had picnicked. He stared at the koi fish creatures, unable to move. Terra picked him up in a princess carry and effortlessly took him back to his room. “You really put your foot in it this time didn’t you big boy…”

“What is wrong with surface dweller Mark?” Time had passed, how much, Mark didn’t know. He was in his bedroom, Terra and Tinker talking over his bed. “I have nearly finished the project he asked me to work on and now he does this to himself? I will have to start over again!” The dog sized ant person waved its forelimbs around angrily. Mark blinked.

“…I don’t think it’s a good idea either…but…do we have a choice?” When he opened his eyes this time, he was floating in his med pod, looking out through the liquid filled tank at a pair of white lab coated people. They were talking with Terra and Tinker’s voices as they manipulated holographic screens.

“…But you know the rules, and…” This from the lab coat with Tinker’s voice.

“Yes, I do know the rules.” Snapped Terra’s voice from the other coated individual as it franticly swiped at the screen. “I…” Mark blinked again.

“Mark? What’s the matter?” Lilly asked from her seat across from him in their underground city below the swamp. “Is your tea cold? Here let me give you a warm up.” she said with a smile, extending her old pot out to him.

He blinked again; the pain was unbearable, and his mind was fading. When he opened his eyes this time it was to complete void. It was just like the endlessness he had experienced when the pilot had first come to talk to him…how long ago had that been now? Wait, where was he…Who was he? His thoughts blanked, and he was no more.

* * *

When he woke up again, he was seated at the picnic table in the inner-city park. Terra sat across from him, a glass of wine in her hand. He looked around, taking in the scene. His eye caught on the koi pond, for the briefest second, he saw himself floating in his med tank again. Except he looked…strange. It was replaced before he could confirm he had even seen anything.

Everything else looked exactly the same as he remembered, except the glass case surrounded by a cloth screen. It looked just like the mannequin screen from the shop, only blocked from view. Having taken in his surroundings, and the blessed lack of pain, Mark turned to Terra.

“What did I do this time?” he asked in a resigned tone, picking up his wine glass. It smelled amazing, even better than he remembered, and he took a sip. “What happened… I saw…” his hand shook, sending ripples through the wine. He set it back down, clasping his hands together in his lap.

“Don’t worry about what you saw, stud.” Terra looked the same as always, sitting there with her self-assured grin. Only, she seemed… reduced, somehow. Like she wasn’t entirely here anymore, and he was talking to a shadow of the woman who had carried him to this point. “I don’t have a lot of time, so we are gunna have to do this quick.” She smiled at him, but he could see the tension in her eyes.

“What’s wrong, Terra?” he asked, fear for her replacing the fear he’d felt for himself.

“Always with the questions, but never the right ones.” She said with a soft chuckle. “You were dying, did you know that?” she asked with a smirk. “Don’t you want to hear about that? Its more interesting than little old me anyway.”

Mark, could tell she didn’t want to talk about, whatever it was. So, he played along.

“What happened to me, how did I almost die, and how did I get here?” he asked several questions at once, having a feeling she was going to answer whatever question she wanted to regardless of if he asked it or not. That was just, Terra.

“Troll’s regenerative abilities are insanely powerful. If any part of them is alive, hasn’t been burned and has the resources, it will do everything it can to put the troll back together again. It’s a lot like a virus. By eating it, you invited that virus right into your body. Where that parasite of yours helped it regenerate itself to fast for me to stop. Before you went full Forest troll.” She stopped speaking to take a finish off her wine. On reflex, Mark refilled her glass from the bottle.

“Trying to get me drunk?” she asked with a wink, which looked a little forced. “Technically, I suppose you did die.” Mark blanched at those words, nearly spilling the wine. “Easy there stud, red is impossible to get out of this fabric. Anyway, the troll was overwriting your mind. So, using a little trick I picked up, I made a quick copy of your brain and sent you to reload. After the troll took control of your body completely, I did some insanely complicated gene mods that you wouldn’t understand, to make you compatible with the troll ‘virus’ and loaded your consciousness back in your new troll body.”

She did a seated bow after speaking, like what she had just done was the most amazing thing in the world. For all Mark knew, it was, but he didn’t understand half of it. Taking a second, he recounted what had happened. He kept waking up in different places from his memory, was that the copy? Then he had entered that void… the reboot, must be. During his musing he looked at Terra, she was even more reduced than before, she was even becoming transparent.

“What is happening to you?” he asked in horror. Knowing that it was his fault, even though he didn’t understand why or how. She only smiled and took another sip of wine.

“The simulation we are in right now has rules. I’m allowed to be here as long as I don’t break any of those rules. Although I didn’t actually break the rules, I bent them far enough that the ship’s AI noticed my presence… it’s erasing me from the system as we speak.”

“What! Why would you risk that just to help me? It was my own fault that this happened in the first place.” He couldn’t grasp everything. It was like a dream; one moment he was ending a quest and saving lives, basking in the afterglow of a lovely evening. The next, his entire world was shifted, he’s a troll apparently, and now his first real friend is fading away.

“Like I said, this place has rules. We don’t have time to go into it, but I wasn’t lying before. If you die in here than you go back to the crash, entering a new instance and you never see me again. I’ve invested too much time and effort into you to let that happen.” she was even fainter now, her voice getting harder to hear.

“But, what do I do now? What does it matter if I’m safe but you’re gone?” he was starting to panic now.

“Relax, it’s not like I’m dying. I’m just getting kicked from the tutorial… now, chin up butter cup. I need you to listen. Everything you need to know should be in your interface, you were being a real grandpa and never set them up properly… so, I went ahead and did it for you. Hopefully it will be easier for you to follow along with now. Honestly, did you really plan to leave the tutorial with all your screens in bullet point format?”

Mark stared at her apparent non sequitur. Trying to think beyond how she was becoming fainter by the second. His frazzled mind latched onto that last comment though, making him feel frustration in addition to worry.

“Damn it Terra,” he said in a growl. “You told me to ignore them. You said several times that they didn’t matter and that I shouldn’t waste my time on them.”

“Did I?” she asked, a bashful look on her face. “Come on now my guy, I say all kinds of things. Are you really going to hold me accountable for all of them? I mean, some noob shows up totally clueless and takes everything I say at face value… totally not my fault if he never bothered to look that shit up himself… am I right?”

After taking a deep breath, Mark has to concede her point. He’d even come to the same conclusion, although it hadn’t stopped him from ignoring all that stuff.

“Ok, so what do I do now?” he asked having settled down as much as he could under the circumstances. Terra picked up her wine again, or tried to. When her fingers reached the glass, they passed right through. She frowned, standing up and moving toward Mark.

“Now,” she said nearing him. “You read your interface, open the curtain, and finish the tutorial… you might even have to do some thinking for yourself in there somewhere.” She said that last part with a wink, now right in front of him.

Bending down, she placed her lips to his. She had gone almost completely insubstantial, and he could barely feel her.

“…For luck.” She whispered. Mark blinked, and she was gone.

Picking up the bottle of wine, Mark took a swig. It was likely the best wine he had ever tasted, yet it was like chalk on his tongue. He set the bottle down, still confused. He wanted to believe that she was ok, that she had just left the tutorial like she said. But he didn’t believe it; she lied to him all the time, why would now be any different.

Not knowing what else to do, he opened his interface and looked at his attribute screen. It did look different, there was no doubting that. He was so caught up looking at the formatting that he nearly missed the attribute numbers.

Attribute Screen

Name

Mark Lee

Age

96 years old

attributes

(Forest Troll standard = 20)

Strength

20

Endurance

20

Agility

15

Mind

12

How had his attributes increased that much? Forest troll standard, not human standard, did that mean he wasn’t a human anymore? As exciting as the higher attributes were, he wasn’t in the mood for celebrating, so he moved on to his skills.

Skills

Skill name

Skill level

Human firearms, long guns

5

Human firearms, hand guns

1

Earth Military knowledge

2

Business acumen

8

Appliance / drone repair

5

Bludgeoning weapons

1

Broken blade

1

Field dressing / butchering

1

Hide processing / tanning

1

small / medium game trapping / tracking

1

He hadn’t looked at this screen in several weeks. It looked like his trip to the trapper’s mountain hadn’t been a complete waste at least. He still didn’t know what the skill level indicated, or if there was a max or even any particular reason to have skill levels. So, he just shrugged this one off and moved on to body augmentations.

Body augmentations

Forest Troll

You consumed the flesh and blood of a forest troll to gain its power. The powerful regenerative abilities of the forest troll combined and mutated with your regeneration parasite and took over your body. Transforming your body and mind into a Forest Troll. (Your mind was restored by Terra, say thank you Terra!) All prior augmentations were rejected. troll regeneration is so powerful that any future body augmentation is now impossible without extensive DNA modifications

Physical Attributes reset to forest troll standard 20/20/15. Forest trolls increase attributes by consuming the flesh of creatures stronger than themselves.

Gift of Terra (improved ocular, control implant)

This implant, (selflessly provided by Terra) reduces mind cost of mind controlled technological devices, increases mind attribute and improves vision. (Terra specially modified your DNA to allow you to keep her present)

Reduce device mind attribute cost by 75%, increases mind attribute by 100% (option locked), provide; night vision, infrared vision, telescoping vision & Terra vision. Video and audio recording feature. (You’re welcome, stud)

Cosmetic reset (one time use) will be replaced with appearance once selected

Fix that ugly face before anyone else sees you. Transition to forest troll is still underway. Can modify surface appearance (within reason) before process completes and your stuck green and warty.

Finalize your appearance. Can change things light skin tone and texture, eye color, hair length and color. Cannot change physical makeup, things like height and wight, bone structure

He smiled as he read this page. He could see Terra’s fingerprints all over it, and it made him feel just a little less alone. He took another sip of the wine, and this time it didn’t taste quite so bad… until what he was reading actually registered.

He could fix his appearance. That must be what the curtain covered glass case was for. So that he could change what he looked like before leaving this place…whatever this place was. He had to wonder though; just how bad did he look that Terra hid his own appearance from him?

As for the ‘Gift of Terra’ he didn’t know why its main function was locked but he loved the eye. His thinking about it, drew his attention to the fact that he was rubbing the metal plating around the eye again. He didn’t force himself to stop this time though.

As for the forest troll, he didn’t know. It sounded good but there was always a catch with things like this. Next he moved on to his equipment list.

Equipment

Item

Description

Effects / extra information

Mark III

High tech energy weapon used by an unknown of humanoid force as a standard issue rifle. Has 10 power cells chained together for maximum fire power and versatility. Found in crashing shuttle, only one encountered to date.

Bulky weapon with 3 power settings. Low = 100 low power shots, medium = 50 medium power shots, high = 10 high power shots.

Broken blade

Broken naginata pole arm. Has a 12" blade, a nearly 24" handle. Wrapped in frog kin elite hide. Has a frog kin elite hide harness. Was improved with augmentation points for added durability

A blade with sentimental value to Mark. Almost killed him in battle, reworked and bestowed as gift by Tinker

Swamp Rat suede Robe

High quality robe made from swamp rat hide, trimmed in swamp rat fur. A luxury export from swamp rat valley. Worth a high price

A gift from Lilly of Swamp rat valley. Bernard handed it over with his other gifts but he said who it was from. It has sentimental value

Lilly's Gold token

A token gifted by Lilly of swamp rat valley. Redeemable at the shop for two Trog eggs.

Species is nearly extinct in swamp rat valley. These eggs where gifted in the hope they would be settled in a safe area

Solar powered recharge kit. X3

A solar charger can recharge a power cell in the field. Each kit comes with a 12' x 12' solar collection blanket and a charging station

1 power cell can be recharged in 12 hours of full sun

Billy club

18" long modern club, designed as a non-lethal side arm for unknown humanoid force shuttle pilots

picked it up on the shuttle, only one encountered to date

Olive drab jumpsuit / smart boots

An outfit created from smart fabric. Has low power nano machines inside that adjust the fit to wearer once before going dormant. Useful for any armed force as a one size fits all uniform option. Used by unknown humanoid force.

This outfit was originally found on the shuttle. Terra has found several to replace the damaged ones from somewhere

Mark narrowed his eyes at this page. He had more equipment than what was listed here, a lot more. He assumed that the things he had given Tinker to work on for him wouldn’t show up, but still. He would have to look into this later as well. Lastly, he looked at the tutorial requirements page. There were more tabs in his vision but he felt like he needed to move, so he skipped them for now.

Requirements to pass tutorial

complete 3 easy difficulty quests

Easy quest 1 = Goblin Forest

complete

Completed on a technicality. due to path taken from crash site

Easy quest 2 = Trapper Mountain

open

In progress

Easy quest 3 =

unselected

Complete 2 medium difficulty quests

Medium quest 1 = Swamp rat valley

complete

Higher difficulty quest already complete. Counts as medium quest

Medium quest 2 =

unselected

Complete 1 height difficulty quest

High difficulty quest = Bloody Hive

complete

Completed on a technicality. due to path taken from crash site

Spend 2,500 augmentation points, to upgrade body in shop

Points spent = 2,500

complete

augmentations lost in forest troll transformation does not negatively affect this total

He was close. The fact that his Trapper’s Mountain quest was still in progress gave him pause however. Was that because he hadn’t touched the teleportation sphere, or… a sinking feeling entered his gut. Closing the interface, he moved over to the curtain. A new sense of urgency in his movements. His body modification table said it would update once he set his appearance. He had a feeling he would get his answer once he did.

Ripping aside the cloth, his breath caught at what he saw staring back at him.