ThumpTHUMP

All eyes are on me as I race forward.

ThumpTHUMP

Ghost eyes, the remnants of hope from beyond the grave.

ThumpTHUMP

As the lone survivor here, it is more than a wish, but a duty to kill the beast that ravages our lands.

ThumpTHUMP

Up ahead, the scales on its face glitter in the firelight spread across the previously prosperous port of Omnen-Amur.

ThumpTHUMP

Its teeth are coated in the charred blood and guts of my fellows.

ThumpTHUMP

Its eyes are slitted and flaming with an eldrich gleam.

ThumpTHUMP

It has no wings like most of its kin, nor is it as towering.

ThumpTHUMP

It barely can peek over the fifteen foot wall enclosing this fair city, not that the wall stopped it.

ThumpTHUMP

Claws and bulging muscles helped it help itself to the cattle, the people, and the gold.

ThumpTHUMP

Here I am with two dainty swords, a grim smile, and the hopes of all those dead bodies on the ground.

ThumpTHUMP

It moves, charging.

ThumpTHUMP

I tense, sweat slick on my sword hilt.

ThumpTHUMP

ThumpTHUMP

A leap.

ThumpTHUMP

ThumpTHUMP

A thrust.

ThumpTHUMP

ThumpTHUMP

It disappeared.

ThumpTHUMP

ThumpTHUMP

Teleportation.

ThumpTHUMP

ThumpTHUMP

Hot breath on my neck.

ThumpTHUMP

ThumpTHUMP

ThumpTHUMP

I’m still smiling because

ThumpTHUMP

I

ThumpTHUMP

Already knew

ThumpTHUMP

It

ThumpTHUMP

was there.

ThumpTHUMP

And with that, my blade goes through the beasts eye. The fires flicker out as it screams a final scream.

ThumpTHUMP

Did I say scream? I meant

ThumpTHUMP

ThumpTHUMP

ThumpTHUMP

ThumpTHUMP

firebreath!

ThumpTHUMP

Thump-blip-

You Have Died

Respawn available in one hour.

Proceed to lobby?

Yes/No

. . .Well, that could have gone better. Hopefully we still get credit for killing it. If we don’t, everybody is going to be super pissed off. All that work we put into our settlement and one damn teleporting dragon comes to screw us over. The guild leader is going to give me hell no matter what, I’m sure. Something like “Why didn’t you just shoot it with an arrow before it charged?” or “Why weren’t you at the town in the beginning when it started to attack like the rest of the guild?”

Lets hope that I can get away from her by logging out and then hiding for a while. I poke the No option.

Initiating logout procedure.

And then I lost a whole lot of weight.

Literally.

I’m living in half-earth gravity right now, so all the mass is still there, but the weight that comes with it is magically gone. Not that I get to be super happy about that. Even up in space, especially up in space, I have to stay in shape instead of pigging out on ice-cream and cake and becoming a nice ball of fat that can float amongst the stars.

I don’t have a six-pack, mostly because I, like everyone else on the Outlook spend a vast portion of my time in this pod that I’m waking up in right now. Can’t exactly cross the space between stars without long naps, right? In fact, most people don’t even get to wake up because they are termed passengers to be stowed away and live out the magnificence of fifty year-old state of the art virtual reality simulations. I like to call them videogames, but all the techy people on-board frown upon such an oversimplification.

I’m not really that popular to be honest, what with the fact that I have one to two PHD’s less than practically everyone else aboard. Doesn’t really dampen my spirits with the fact that most of my job is playing videogames all day every day.

As if determined to prove me wrong on my popularity, a bright-green, flashy call notice is blinking on the inside of my capsule as I de-frost. Interestingly, not from my guild-leader. She must be the smaller blinking icon that tells me that I have a new message. No, the call is from someone with more power, a being that heralds dread tidings: my Boss. I hit the accept call button. This can only mean one thing.

“Jackson, impressive timing as usual. Get up to the command module, we need your eyes.”

Work calls, ugh.