So, there I was. Ankle deep in mud with sawgrass up to my knees. Insects and birds were swelling in their songs as night approached. The air had gone from hospital disinfectant to just infectant. Somewhere below me was the sleek white tile of the hologrid from where the dirt had spawned, which had shifted me upward. Now, my boots were catching in the mud, suctioned into my own footprint.

  Since my new phaseplate didn’t provide any actual exterior armor—a fact I really wish Coach would have let me know—I was still in my slacks and coat. Yellow stains were forming on my collar and armpits; the heat and humidity in the training sim had been cranked through the roof. My hair and beard were quickly becoming a frizzy mess.

  In the half hour since entering, I had almost racked up two new respawn claims. The first time, Coach had saved me when I nearly stepped on a Snapline, a snake he described as: If you step on that, just put your sword through your belly. Apparently poisoned, drowned, and strangulated whilst waiting to be ingested was a poor use of time and money.

  More cautious of the ground, I had attempted to climb a tree to get a view of the path ahead. Perhaps it was a shift in gravity, perhaps I was just out of shape. Either way, the tree-limb cracked. I broke my neck again as I landed headfirst into a rock, the branch following me down to reinforce my bodily destruction.

  “CRITICAL BIOLOGY FAILURE :: Fractures detected at cranial vault dot parietal, spinal injuries localized to C6, C7”

  I could feel fluid sloshing through my sinuses when Coach yelled, “Menu! Get’ta MediDrones out!” He quickly taught me how to pull the canisters from my inventory, a much cheaper alternative to waking up refreshed in the respawn bed. A canister belt arrived cleanly around my waist, five tennis-ball containers of fix-em-up bots ready to save my life.

  The first one popped open like a Pringle’s can.

  They flooded through my face, a swarm of angry bees ripping out and replacing flesh from places I had never felt before. They travelled through my skull, into my spine, around my veins, nerves, and wherever-the-fuck they felt like. I tried to scream out, but the weight of the branch and my torso had my neck pinched precariously. Instead, I honked out a glob of the nanobots, which immediately set back to flight, forcing their way through my tear ducts.

  Once repaired, I rolled the branch off while righting myself—a slow and painful process worsened by the slick mud around the rock that had just brained me. I touched the top of my head and could feel the blood still soaking my scalp, but I was otherwise good to go. With only four canisters left, I knew caution would be essential. These training sims were clearly built to prepare you to deal with high stress, high risk scenarios. It reminded me of bootcamp on steroids, with Disney production value and a budget larger than Earth.

  Slop came to inspect the situation, mud already dripping from his belly fur. He still had his neckerchief on, framing a wide smiling mouth as he panted. I was a little worried when he arrived with me in the sim, but Coach had reassured me his respawn was attached to me.

  Still… I couldn’t watch Marley and Me. How could I watch him-

  I would deal with that when—if it came.

  “I’m okay, buddy,” I said to Slop while cracking my back.

  Ahead of us, the boggy wetlands stretched back into treelines and foliage that blocked my view. Vines sagged from the mossy and webbed trees, trailing down to a thick underbrush that gave me a sense of being on a linear path. Water was softly flowing in from my left, forking around a small island built upon roots in front of me. To my right, I could see the glimmer of the wall’s tilegrid, a skybox covering the white with a deep sunset.

  “The only way out is through,” I thought to myself.

  I tested the depth of the water to the isle of moss with a long stick from the larger branch that fell. It was at least chest deep—and probably full of things I didn’t want to learn about.

  “Coach, what if I turn around and use Retreat. I’ll clear the gap, right?”

  Cautiously, he said, “Sure… but don’t phase into a tree or nothin’. Plus, it’ll be down for a bit. Just… keep that in mind. I don’t know what we’re dealing with, yet.”

  “What about the water, anything in it?”

  Coach replied, “Don’t know. We’ll need to get you a Macker with a scanner. With your credit line and stipend coming up, that shouldn’t be a problem. Until then, I only see what you see, hear what you hear.”

  “The cool little drone guy, right?” On our way to the sim, we had passed by another one of the blue tentacle-faced men in heavy armor straight out of Halo. A little orb had been zipping around him, never going too far—an overly stimmed security droid of sorts. Coach had said they were crucial but expensive, and I tucked it away as one of the millions of things I still needed to figure out.

  Coach said, “Ya know, with your added Agility, you’re probably fine to jump the stream. And Slop… well, Slop’s a dog, he loves the mud!”

  I hadn’t thought of the implications of increasing my core stats, or how it even worked. Coach had previously mentioned that the Client was storing energy in me, syncing, whatever. That energy probably gave me a boost.

  “Coach, before we get too far, I should probably figure out my Shadows skill. Is it like clones, or the blurry Collector guy?”

  Coach said, “Good call! I always say, ‘Practice makes-”

  “Yeah, yeah. How do I do it?”

  Coach grumbled, “However you want. Like with the tiger in the jungle, you just need to know you can do it. If you need to wave your hands around or say something that gets your mind into the right frame, then do that. And don’t forget to pull out a tuner every time. You don’t need to hold it—throw it in the ground or something. But the forks have to be able to resonate.”

  I thought about it for a minute. If the Harness was always translating things to match what I knew, then I should probably just go with something my Client would easily recognize. I hoped that was the case, anyways.

  “Alright, let’s try this out.” I pulled out one of the little tuning fork-like devices and poked the single-rod end into the ground. Taking a deep breath, I spread my legs to shoulder width and shouted “Shadows!” while thrusting my right palm forward like some poorly trained taekwondo move.

  Nothing happened.

  I tried again, this time throwing my hands into the air and pretending three clones were going to pop up around me.

  “Shadows!”

  Again. Nothing happened.

  “Shadows!” I threw my arms out like a Power Ranger.

  “Shadows!” I said over and over, trying everything I could think of. I kicked, I squatted, I stood still. Nothing.

  Coach said, “The tuner looks fine. Maybe try a different word…”

  “Okay, you said it's all about frame of mind, right? Let’s try this.”

  I quickly opened up my inventory and pulled out the odachi. It felt good in my hands, better than I had remembered. It was still ridiculously large and heavy, but it somehow seemed familiar to me.

  Holding it vertically in my left hand, a feat that took a few attempts, I pointed forward with my right and calmly, firmly, said, “Shadows,” as if commanding a team forward.

  Three wispy clouds formed around my body simultaneously, each an exact proportion to me, bending and shifting the light around their edges. The tuner went wild, resonating to something I couldn’t hear, visibly shaking the air in a stream towards the shades. They shot forward in an even spread, laying flat on every surface they cast themselves upon as if three large spotlights had just been lit behind me. They were hard to see, a pulsing two-dimensional being occupying a vibrating three-dimensional space. A dull sensation began to fill my ears, like the flutter of hummingbirds.

  I turned about to see how they responded, but they wandered freely.

  Coach said, “When a hit is coming in that you can’t avoid, you can either choose to eat it, or let the shadow soak it for you. You’ll lose the shadow in the process, but that’s what they’re here for. You can control where they’re at, as well. Otherwise, they'll move about freely, looking to put themselves between you and any threats—pretty damned handy since they are obscuring the vision of said threat.”

  I looked to an area between two of the shadows and thought about them running to that spot. As if on command, they both shot toward the designated area and clouded out the visibility, a visual double-edged sword. After about forty-five seconds of trying different plays and tactics, they each popped out of existence with a snapping chirp.

  “That… doesn’t seem long enough, Coach.”

  “Well, with your current Sync Level, the Client’ll restore that system’s Capacity in about two minutes.”

  “W-What?”

  Coach sighed, "It's a two minute cooldown for a forty-five second duration.”

  “Oh. Okay…” It felt a little sketchy to rely on. “I’m going to need some real armor, Coach.”

  “Don’t worry, kid. With even a little bit of boosted agility, your phaseplate is giving you heightened evasion. You’re not gonna be dodging bullets, but you’ll find even your pudgy ass can get out of the way—if you try.”

  “Even my…?” I looked down at my gut, still bullying the bottom button of my shirt. “Right. Come on, Slop.”

  I stepped back and took a running leap at the stream, clearing the eight-foot gap with two to spare. Turning around, I watched Slop splash into the edge of the water, handily plodding through the sludge and up to me. He smelled foul, the decay of a hundred years stirred up, staining his fur.

  “You’re gonna need another bath.”

  The way forward led to the other fork of the stream, another easy hop but with a tighter landing space surrounded by bushes. I could see the trail turn abruptly past the sharp vegetation, and worried about landing blind. I’d played enough games to know that was where to expect waiting enemies.

  Once across, I attempted to peek around the bushes, but movement forced me to quickly pull my head back.

  Coach said, “Stay quiet. I don’t know what that was, but it's likely gonna pick a fight with ya.”

  I could hear the birds in the background singing while I stared at Slop, wondering what to do next. He made the first move, crouching down and sneaking around the corner, out of sight.

  A few moments later, I heard a guttural squeal let loose. It was quickly followed by Slop’s low growl, ending in a bark and a whimper. Swearing to myself, I bolted around the corner to find Slop with what looked to be several crochet needles sticking out of his muzzle. He was squared off with some kind of green porcupine boar—planting its feet to prepare another charge.

  The creature must have been four-hundred pounds, with a huge belly and bigger tusks. Instead of the standard course body hair, it was covered in spines that were highlighter green on the tips, fading to brown towards the roots. I threw up my barrier between the beast and the dog, opening my menu to freeze time. I just needed a moment to think.

  “Coach, what the hell is that thing?”

  Coach, nearly laughing, said, “It's a… pig-u-pine. No, no, a poison pork-u-pine! Green spines and ham!” He finally burst out into knee-slapping whoops.

  “Mother-fucker!” I shouted at him, moving to my inventory to see if I could get something out for Slop. “He’s poisoned?!”

  Coach, still laughing, said, “Sorry. Seriously, sorry. Not cool. This guy’s not even a real enemy, just a regular ol’ skallarunkus. And it's a swamp sim, of course he’s poisoned. We just need some antidotes. Xiamiti’s All-Purpose Injectors should fix ‘em right up.”

  Through my teeth, I asked, “Then why didn’t we bring any?”

  “Why didn’t you bring any,” he corrected.

  “God-damnit, Coach. What’s the play?”

  “Alright, that Collector opened up your Market Mod when he granted you the credit line. You can purchase stuff off the market and have it delivered through your inventory.”

  We spent the next few frozen minutes exploring the market system, a user-to-user-to-supplier interface that coupled with the inventory system. Suspiciously, there were other brands of antidotes available at a far reduced cost, but Coach insisted that they would be inferior to Xiamiti’s, and I didn’t want to take the risk. A case ran me fifty-thousand florins; another grand per phase-delivery. With five strapped to my belt near the MediDrones, I dropped the menu and resumed the simulation.

  Immediately, the pig-u-pine charged forward with a guttural roar, its spines bristling from the motion. In a spray of muck and shattered roots, it smashed into my hastily erected barrier, throwing itself against the wall of earth with frenzied determination. The creature’s enraged squeals ripped through the swamp as its tusks latched onto a thick root, mud slowly suffocating it with each thrash of its bulk.

  I quickly snatched an antidote from my belt and knelt beside Slop, still whimpering in pain. “I’m sorry, buddy,” I said as I slid the needle into his shoulder and depressed the plunger. With trembling hands, I carefully but quickly plucked out the few spines from his muzzle, each slick with green and red.

  Slop endured.

  As I backed away, clumsily unsheathing my sword in preparation for dropping my barrier, Coach’s voice crackled in my ear, “Hold on! Why the hells would you drop the wall now? That beast is already drowning itself!”

  But the boar was far from finished. With a monstrous display of strength, it began to gnaw and tear at the roots, devouring its way to freedom with single-minded rage. Putrid mud sprayed from its flabby jaws as it ripped through the barrier, its eyes burning with hate.

  I couldn’t hesitate any longer. Gripping my odachi tightly, I lunged forward and thrust the blade through the weakening wall of earth. The razor-sharp edge found its mark, plunging deep into the creature’s throat. Hot sticky blood gushed over the hilt as it let loose a shrill scream of agony, sending a flock of strange heron-like birds into the sky.

  I grunted as I bore down on the sword, putting my entire weight behind the strike. The beast convulsed, its massive body shuddering as the life drained from its eyes. Gritting my teeth, I wrenched the odachi free, a spray of crimson splashing over me.

  As the spined beast collapsed into the mud with a final, gurgling breath, a wave of exhaustion and fear washed over me.

  “That… That was brutal. I don’t think I can do this, Coach.”

  “Part of the gig, kid,” he calmly replied. “Looked pretty easy, if you ask me.”

  I stood over the skalla-, skallarump-. I stood over the beast, breathing deep to slow my racing heart. The stench of its blood and the fetid odor of the swamp were making my stomach run for my ass. Glancing over at Slop, I was relieved to see him standing, even if a bit unsteadily.

  The sun was about to sink under the horizon, long shadows reaching out to the brackish water. The trees—or, moreso, the black spaces between them—were making me anxious. My eyes were stuck between day and night, my vision completely obscured.

  Coach said, “Alright. Let’s get movi-”

  Before he could finish the sentence, I was ripped off my feet by my ankles. The breath exploded from my lungs as I slapped the ground, and I could feel myself being dragged toward the water. It coiled around my legs, over my slacks and under my coat. Scraping the ground with both hands, I lost the grip of my sword as I slithered into the bayou.

  I sucked in my last breath as my diaphragm spasmed. Bubbles began trailing in a brown soup as I was pulled under. I struggled to free myself, but the vines latched onto my left arm. I could feel them squeezing, the flow of water gently pulling my hair, a juxtaposition of sensations and emotions. Panic rose in my chest.

  I was not going to die.

  Not again.

  With precious time ticking, I desperately opened my menu. I needed something to cut myself free—and not a giant fucking katana. I tried to call on Coach, but apparently underwater, my voice came out in a wet mess.

  “Coa-l-l-l-r-r-rr-b-b-ch,” I screamed. Bubbles rained to the surface.

  Coach’s voice crackled in my ear, barely audible over the pounding of my heart and the flowing water. He, too, sounded underwater, distant.

  “Okay, kid,” I could hear him echoing and washing away. “Let’s think fast. A knife’s gonna be your best bet. Cheap, easy to handle, and you can keep it close.”

  Together, we quickly scanned the market, searching for a suitable option. My lungs burned, screaming for air, but I forced myself to focus.

  “Th-l-l-l-e-e-r-re!”

  Coach was highlighting a Xiamiti All-Purpose, Military Grade, Tactical Knife, but I went with something a little less… pricey. I mentally pressed on the “500f” button, then swapped to my inventory. Within, I found the Simple Knife with the signature, “Crafted by Kil Kellen” and a delivery option to my belt for 1000f. Compared to the 8MMf fee of a respawn, this was nothing.

  “It's phaseshifting now,” Coach said, his voice still distorted but urgent. “Hang on, Zach,” his voice echoing away.

  I felt the knife materialize on my belt. Dropping the menu, I fumbled for the handle, ripping the blade free of its sheath. I began hacking at the vines with desperate strength, but the killer aquatic plant was dense and fibrous, resisting my frantic slashes.

  System’s warnings blared in my head, my oxygen levels dipping dangerously low, subsystem alarms going offline. Dark spots began dancing in the cloud of brown as I sawed through the last of the clinging tendrils, slipping it out of my shirt.

  As I rolled to claw my way back to air, a massive shadow lurched through the brackish waters, its jaws lined with wickedly sharp teeth. An alligator-like horror, its eyes glinting with predatory hunger.

  I had no time to react before the powerful jaws clamped down on my torso, crushing the breath from my lungs in a rush of bubbles and blood. Agony exploded through me as my ribs cracked under the immense pressure. The creature thrashed its head from side to side, shaking me like a ragdoll. Choking on the fetid waters, my strength fading, I made one last attempt to plunge my knife into the beast’s eye.

  It was too late.

  System was going crazy about debuffs, poisons, viruses… my HUD was flooding with icons I had never seen.

  I could taste the iron in the water.

  My iron.

  As the life drained from my battered body, she called out one more log.

  “CRITICAL BIOLOGY FAILURE :: Initiating Respawn Protocol”

  I gasped back to awareness on a hard slab, my body intact but my mind still reeling from the trauma. I was breathing manually, my skin numb, unable to focus. Then it hit me.

  “Where’s Slop?! SLOP!”

  Coach quickly said, “He’s still back there… Let’s get moving. Come on. Double time!”

  I quickly and cautiously returned to where the vines had dragged me down, growing a hesitation to press on. But when I found Slop, he was covered in blood, his fur clumping together where it dripped off. He was wagging his tail, uninjured.

  A flood of questions came pouring out, “What happened, boy?! Holy shit, what did you kill? Are you okay?”

  Coach said, “Jeez. Looks like he was hungry…”

  I followed him to the edge of the river where the maw of the alligator-thing lay belly-to-the-sky. It was dead. Very dead. Slop had torn its whole belly off, now looking like wavy canvas lapping in the stream. On closer inspection, I realized that the vines had come from the beast. A series of thick, rootlike stems protruded from its sides, going from scales to something like bark.

  Coach said, “It can be grizzly work, but I suggest you start taking materials off what you and Slop kill. The poison on those spines over there and the skin and roots from the garilist have uses.”

  “Won’t they just disappear from my inventory or something when I leave the sim?”

  Coach said, “Nope! Xiamiti understands that training motivation stems from more than a desire for syncing and practice. And these are better than trophies. They’re real materials you can use or sell on the market.”

  I stared at the garilist’s corpse, processing Coach’s words. The idea of scavenging body parts from these monstrous creatures sent a shiver down my spine. But I couldn’t deny the practicality of it. If the universe was out to nickel and dime me, I couldn’t afford to let squeamishness hold me back.

  “Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath to steady myself. “How do I do this? I’m not exactly an expert in alien anatomies.”

  Coach chuckled, “Don’t worry, kid. Just get your knife out and do what I tell ya.”

  Nodding, I approached the fallen boar. The beast’s glassy eyes stared unseeing into the swamp’s canopy, its final expression frozen in a snarl. Carefully, I began to cut away the venomous spines under Coach’s direction, marveling at their iridescent sheen as I dropped them in a pile.

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  Next, I moved to the garilist, its torn belly still oozing dark bile into the stream. The stench was overwhelming, but I forced myself to ignore it as I dragged it out of the water line before slicing through the thick, bark-like roots protruding from its sides. They felt oddly warm to the touch, pulsing faintly as if clinging to some remnant of life.

  As I worked, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe at Slop’s handiwork. The little guy had taken down this fearsome predator single-handedly. I wondered how he did it.

  “Glad you’re on my side…”

  With the last of the useful materials harvested, I straightened up and wiped the sweat from my brow. My inventory pinged with each new addition, a satisfying confirmation of my efforts. The price to load gathered items into my inventory was substantially lower, apparently an incentive for us to keep the market supplies steady.

  “Alright, good job,” Coach said. “Those materials will fetch a tidy sum on the market. Might even save your ass down the line if you figure out what to do with them. Might not.”

  “Speaking of the market,” I replied, “I think I need a new sword. This thing is…”

  “I don’t know why you picked that turd of a sword!” Coach barked. “It’s a weebs wet-dream but-”

  “Did you just say ‘weeb’?”

  Coach continued, “It's not practical. Hell, the O-dachi is the ceremonial version of the No-dachi—the combat version. And that thing is for cutting off horse legs. Anti-calvary and such. Not lugging around the universe looking for bugs in the damn swamp.”

  “I was panicking…”

  Coach said, “Just remember to either stab or cut from overhead. Or the little hip-swingy thing.”

  “What-”

  I was cut off by a distant, ululating cry that echoed through the swamp, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. Slop stood perfectly still except for his ears, triangulating the area it came from. It was a sound unlike anything I’d ever heard before, a primal howl of hunger and madness.

  “Ah, shit. That’s not good,” Coach muttered, his voice a little tighter with tension. “We need to move, now! That’s the call of the Chaotic. And trust me, you don’t want to be around when—not if—they run through. They’re always hungry, and mean as hell.”

  As the shrieks faded off into the distance, Slop and I pushed deeper into the swamp, our senses on high alert. The air grew thick around us, the stench of death and an acrid, chemical odor that burned if I breathed in too heavily.

  A rustling in the underbrush caught my attention. I whirled around, odachi clumsily coming to the ready, as a pair of creatures emerged from the foliage. They were roughly the size of large dogs, with sleek, amphibious bodies and wide, tooth-filled maws. Their skin glistened with a sickly, greenish sheen. Four muscled legs ended in flippers with talons.

  “Careful, kid,” Coach warned. “Those are Ghialimin—murkmutts. They secrete a neurotoxin that’ll slow your reactions and make your vision blur. Gotta take ‘em out quick before they get too close.”

  I nodded, adjusting my grip. As they began to charge, I lunged forward, aiming a slash at the nearest one’s neck. But the creature was faster than I anticipated, dodging the blow with a sinuous twist of its body.

  Its companion leapt at me from the side, its jaws snapping dangerously close to my arm. I felt a spray of warm, sticky liquid splatter across my skin, and immediately, a wave of dizziness washed over me.

  “Fight through it, Zach!” Coach urged. “Use your shadows to make space. Antidotes won’t work for this—you gotta will your way out.”

  Gritting my teeth, I drunkenly threw a tuner at the ground, nearly toppling myself over in the process. The three shadows appeared, camouflaged in my acid trip, and I tried to send them circling around the murkmutts. The creatures hissed in confusion, their attention divided between me and the shifting, spectral figures.

  I was on a roller-coaster of colors and hills, compression and loss of gravity, expansion and crushing weight. My blade waved in front of me, nearly making it into an ‘S’ before wriggling its way toward a ‘Z’. The shadows zipped about, blending the trees into streaks like angry hands frustrated with oil paints.

  I lunged forward again, this time aiming low. My blade sliced through the first one’s leg, sending it tumbling to the ground. Slop was on it in an instant, his mouth clamping down on its throat. The continued momentum pulled me along, the tip of the sword hitting the dirt as I awkwardly pole-vaulted over nothing—a literal Grand Canyon in my mind.

  The second murkmutt let out a shriek of rage, charging at me with reckless abandon. But my shadows were already in position, forming a barrier between us. The creature slammed into the shadowy wall, both of us momentarily confused as it popped out of existence.

  I slow-blinked, each eye moving independently, as I realized what Coach had said. I tried to shake the rainbow fog, whipping my head, and its grip loosened. The colors were muting, the full-on hallucinations receding.

  I leapt forward, light tracers stretching across my peripheral, driving my odachi down through the top of its skull. It twitched once, twice, then lay still.

  Breathing hard, I staggered back, shaking my head to clear the lingering effects of the neurotoxin. There was a purple icon of a brain flashing on my HUD, and I assumed that was the indicator System had been logging about.

  “Good call with the shadows, Coach,” I panted.

  It took another few minutes before I felt well enough to move again. There was no way I was going to touch those things to scavenge materials, not without some proper protection. Though, the thought did cross my mind that the toxins would make a great coating on my sword, but that was for another day.

  We continued on, the swamp’s trees looming overhead like grasping fingers. The sound of crickets was deafening, drowning out most other noises. Before long, we came upon a clearing dominated by a shimmering, iridescent pool.

  As I approached the water’s edge, a flurry of movement caught my eye. A swarm of small, winged creatures burst from the surface, their gossamer wings glinting in the dim light.

  “Razorflies!” Coach shouted. “They’ll slice you to ribbons if you’re not careful. Your phaseplate gives you that massive evasion boost off your agility, but you still need to try not to get hit. Shadows aren’t going to help here.”

  “Coach, I’ve got an idea… A really dumb idea.”

  There was no way in hell I was ever going to be able to hit these things with my giant sword. I was really regretting my decision on that one. But I wasn’t helpless.

  As the swarm dove in on me, I checked for clearance over my shoulder and shouted, “Retreat!” I shot backwards in a blink, barely catching myself as I leaned forward and slid backwards.

  “Blitzkrieg!” I shouted again, this time phasing back to my original location. A flash-bang of sound and light scattered through the razorflies as thunder clapped, several arcs of lightning passing through me in excruciating pain. The giant wasplike, saw-bladed insects fell to the ground as a whole. Disoriented, I slipped and fell on my ass with a groan.

  Coach cheered, “Shit yeah, kid! That was awesome. That’s what I’m looking for!”

  System chirped out a few logs about Sync Levels and process changes.

  Aloud, I said, “Yeah, that felt good. A little scary. There was no way I was going to hit them with the sword.”

  I carefully plucked the wings from a dozen of the little creatures. Once in my hand, I realized they were more fairy-like than insectoid. Their wings were like tiny rounded razors, hands and feet ending in needles. In death, they looked quite peaceful.

  As I carefully stored the razor-sharp wings in my inventory, a sudden, massive THUMP shook the ground beneath my feet. The swamp water rippled and splashed, and the trees swayed as if caught in a gale. Slop whined, pressing close to my leg.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked in terror.

  Coach’s response was drowned out by a cacophony of shrieks and howls, the horrifying cries of what Coach had called the Chaotic. The sounds seemed to be coming from somewhere to the north, beyond a dense thicket of foliage.

  I exchanged a wary glance with Slop, then began to push my way through the tangled undergrowth. Thorny vines tugged at my clothes, and the putrid water seeped into my boots. But I pressed on, driven by a morbid curiosity to discover the source of the disturbance.

  As I neared the edge of the thicket, a stampede of creatures burst from the shadows, their eyes wide with terror. Skallarunkus, antlered beavers, and various other alien mammals I couldn’t begin to identify surged past me, heedless of my presence in their desperate flight.

  I pressed myself against a gnarled tree trunk, my heart pounding as I watched the panicked exodus.

  A massive, serpentine head rose from the murky water, its scales glistening as the water ran off. Another head appeared, then another, until a dozen or more snake-like necks writhed and twisted above the surface. They continued to rise, six-inch tubes with fangs hovering ten-feet off the ground, multiple forks all coming to a single junction in the water.

  The creature’s body emerged next, a grotesque fusion of reptilian and dinosaurian features. It moved with a jerky, unnatural gait, its four legs struggling to support its elongated set of necks as it hauled itself onto the bank.

  I stood transfixed, my grip tightening on my odachi as the beast’s heads swiveled in my direction. A hundred eyes gleamed with predatory hunger as the stench of blood and chemicals wafted from their gaping maws.

  One of the heads lashed out, its fangs shining with venom. I barely managed to dodge the strike, stumbling backward as Coach’s voice rang out in my ear.

  “Zach, your shadows are back online! Throw out a tuner and get some breathing room!”

  Fumbling for the spares in my pocket, I grabbed a tuner and tossed it to the ground. At the same time, I thrust my hand forward and up, erecting a barrier of muck and roots between myself and what I thought of as the Medusa Hydra.

  “Stay back, Slop!” I called out, my gaze never leaving the swarm of snarling heads as they snapped and lunged around the makeshift wall.

  I could feel my heart racing, my breath coming in short, panicked gasps. The hydra’s movements were erratic, unpredictable. I didn’t know how to fight something like this.

  I heard the pop of one of my shadows, quickly followed by the other two.

  You’re going to fucking die. What the fuck are you doing. You’re not some kind of super hero. You should just let it…

  And then, like a switch being flipped, a wave of calm washed over me. System’s voice chimed in my head.

  “EMOTION OVERRIDE REBALANCED :: Panic suppression resumed”

  With a newfound clarity, I surged forward, ducking under a writhing neck and seizing one the hydra’s head. My odachi flashed, and the head fell to the ground, its jaws still snapping reflexively.

  I firmly grasped the hilt with both hands and crossed my wrists over, the blade whistling through the air in an arc I didn’t know I could do. A dozen more heads hit the dirt, one long enough to gain a slithering motion before I stabbed it through the skull with the remaining momentum.

  There was nearly no light at this point, and I felt myself acting on instinct—a fact I didn’t like, as my instincts were generally terrible. I cut down three more heads creeping in around the wall from the right, stupidly peeking around the corner. The stumps were rapidly regenerating, forking into additional necks with little, bulbous sacs that would soon turn into more heads.

  “It’s no good!” Coach shouted over the chaos. “You have to target the torso. This thing’s just a tutorial trick, meant to teach you that some enemies have specific weak points.”

  Gritting my teeth, I changed tactics. “Slop, here boy!” I called out, grabbing one of the flailing heads from above the wall and pulling it taut.

  Slop leapt forward, his jaws clamping down on the scaly flesh. With a strength far beyond what he should possess, Slop pulled, dragging the hydra’s bulk against the barrier.

  I dove out from behind the barrier, dodging between snapping heads while trying to slash. Multiple times, fangs tore into my flesh, tearing away at my forearms.

  Searing pain exploded in the left side of my face, my vision on that side getting blurry and confused. I could feel it tug at my skull. One of the snakes had me by the face.

  System went crazy.

  Half-blind and reeling, I thrust my odachi forward, feeling the blade sink deep into the hydra’s torso. With a savage twist, I ripped the sword free, a gush of foul-smelling ichor splattering me from head to toe.

  I could feel the snakehead dragging me away, a snapping sound ringing through my skull as it broke the orbital socket away. Hot blood was rapidly gushing from its mouth. My blood.

  I drove my sword deep, twisting again, but this time slicing my way out.

  “We can both fucking die! How ‘bout that?!” I yelled.

  It convulsed, the heads starting to flail wildly without targets. They slowed and lowered. When the torso finally crashed back to the ground, the head holding mine finally let go.

  I was already popping a MediDrone canister which I would follow up with an antidote. There were several flashing red icons across my HUD, no doubt poisons and debuffs.

  I took a deep breath as the drones began swarming around my eye. The pain was incredible, worse than I could have ever withstood before all this began. That was only just a few days ago. I knew System had rewired my thoughts, but I could feel them deep in there, locked away. The desire to sit at my desk, to bullshit with Derrick. Raid night. That stupid skeletal scarab mount.

  When they finished, I said, “Coach, is there a way to get some kind of numbing agent for this stuff? It really fuckin’ hurts.”

  “Don’t worry, kid,” he replied. “As your Sync Level goes up, you’ll build up more and more constitution and that will very quickly make all of this trivial. Pain tolerance and such.”

  After harvesting some of the hydra’s fangs and hide, I turned my attention back to the direction the stampede had come from. The oppressive silence that had fallen over the swamp was broken only by the distant bubbling of water and the occasional cry of some of the unseen chaotic.

  Steeling myself, I pushed forward, following the trail of trampled vegetation and churned mud. The coppery scent of blood grew stronger with each step. A nausea inducing effect hit me, setting off an indicator flashing in the top-right of my vision.

  In the clearing beyond the dense brush and trees, the enormous carcass of a mammoth lay half-submerged in the stagnant water. Its hide was a patchwork of decay, mottled black, green, and grey. Dark, viscous fluid oozed from its empty eye sockets. The exposed ribcage rose from the water like a macabre cave entrance, massive bubbles slipping around the bones and popping with a green mist.

  “Careful, Zach,” Coach warned. “I don’t like the look of this.”

  I nodded, my grip tightening on my sword. Whatever had killed this behemoth, I had a feeling it wasn’t done with its grisly work.

  A low groan echoed through the clearing, rumbling the ground. The mammoth’s trunk twitched, and its massive head began to rise from the water, strings of rotten flesh trailing from its tusks.

  As the mammoth’s massive form rose from the sickly water, a wave of nausea washed over me again. The stench of the decay was overwhelming, the creature’s rotten flesh sloughing off in great, putrid sheets. Its empty eye sockets wept a viscous, black fluid that oozed down its tusks and dripped into the swamp in sickening clumps. Waves crashed against the shore, the water turbulent and angry.

  I barely had time to react before the behemoth charged, its movements far more agile than its bulk would suggest. The ground shook with each thunderous step, and I found myself struggling to maintain my footing on the spongy, uneven terrain.

  “Move!” Coach yelled, his voice barely cutting through the thunderclaps. “Get to the outer rim and find a vantage point. This thing’s too big to take head-on.”

  I sprinted for the edge of the clearing, leaping over the narrow streams that cut through the marshy ground. Slop bounded alongside me, his fur bristled in agitation. Behind us, the mammoth bellowed, a sound that seemed to shake the very air. I risked a glance over my shoulder and immediately wished I hadn’t.

  The undead monstrosity was charging straight for us, its rotting trunk extended like a grotesque battering ram. Massive feet churned the swamp water into frothy, noxious spray, and I could see thick, wriggling shapes writhing in the exposed cavity of its ribcage plopping out as it ran.

  “It’s gaining on us!” I panted, pushing myself to my limit for a small burst of extra speed. Without hesitation, I hurled myself to the side, rolling into a tangle of roots and vines at the base of a large tree.

  The mammoth thundered past, unable to change direction in time. It plowed into the dense foliage at the clearing's edge, its momentum carrying it forward in a wake of splintered wood and torn vegetation.

  I summoned my shadows, tossing a tuner into the ground at my feet. The spectral figures sprang to life, their forms wavering like black heat mirages.

  “Flank it!” I commanded, pointing with my sword. “Keep its attention divided.” The shadows darted forward, circling wide to approach the mammoth from either side. The beast let out a frustrated roar as it thrashed its way free of the undergrowth, its head swinging from side to side as it tried to focus on the new threats.

  I charged in from behind, my sword flashing in the dim light. I aimed for the mammoth’s hind leg, hoping to hamstring the beast and slow its relentless advance. But just as my blade was about to connect, the mammoth’s trunk lashed out with blinding speed. It coiled around my waist like a python, lifting me off my feet and slamming me into the ground with bone-jarring force.

  Stars exploded across my vision, and I felt the air whoosh from my lungs in a painful rush. The mammoth’s trunk tightened its grip, and I could feel my ribs creaking under the pressure.

  Desperate, I lashed out with the odachi, hacking at the appendage with frenzied strokes. The blade finally bit deep into the rotten flesh, and a spray of black, noxious fluid spurted from the wounds. It trumpeted in rage, flinging me away with a powerful sweep of its trunk. I hit the ground hard, rolling to a stop at the edge of the clearing.

  Gasping for breath, I staggered to my feet, wincing at the stabbing pain in my side. The mammoth was advancing again, its eyes blazing with an unnatural, malevolent light.

  “Coach,” I wheezed, “I need an opening. This thing’s too fast; way too strong.”

  “Use your shadows!” he replied with urgency. “Have them go in front while you strike from the rear.”

  I nodded, wiping the sweat from my eyes. I could feel another wave of nausea about to hit, and could feel something coursing through my veins, making me weaker. Time was running out. I had to do something.

  With a thought, I sent my shadows darting in front of the mammoth, deforming it into outlines through their blur. At the same time, I charged forward and around it, a ridiculous battle cry tearing from my throat. The mammoth dragged its trunk along the ground in a sweep to punt me, but I hurtled over it. I heard the pop of one of my shadows as I got into position.

  It reared up on two legs, its ass pressing down on me. Before it could stomp, I threw myself to the side, running my blade across its calf. It sank deep, connecting with enough tendons to drop the beast to its side.

  It collapsed with earthquaking ripples, repeatedly bouncing me off the flotant. I heard Slop running around to its back, attempting to bite him from a safe angle.

  It only took a few seconds for the mammoth to kick its feet under itself, rising back to its massive height. It was mobile but limping. Enraged, it wildly swung its trunk towards me, splashing a wave of oily water. I was halfway standing up and tried to dive out of the way. Hot pain seared my left leg as I landed awkwardly on a broken tree’s stump. The water hit me anyways, and another set of icons hit my HUD.

  The pain was effectively counter-acting a portion of the debuffs, so I forced myself to stand, putting most of my weight on my good leg. The mammoth was recovering, lifting its trunk to its mouth in a bizarre, unsettling motion.

  “Get BACK!” Coach shouted. “Its gonna-”

  But it was too late. The mammoth trumpeted into its closed mouth, lips wrapping its trunk, a sound that seemed to rip through the very fabric of reality. A spray of black mist erupted from its eyes, showering the clearing in a fine, noxious mist. Breadloaf-sized maggots rained from its body, fleeing for the safety of the water.

  I felt the mist’s droplets burn as they touched my skin, a searing agony that spread like wildfire through my veins. Chest pounding, my vision blurred as another wave of dizziness washed over me, this one threatening to drag me down into unconsciousness.

  Through the haze of pain, I saw Slop leap at the mammoth, his jaws clamping down on its trunk with savage ferocity. The beast thrashed and bellowed, trying to shake off the determined dog, but Slop held fast, his teeth sinking deeper into the rotten flesh. Like a ragdoll, he flew through the air, finally letting go in an end-over-end cartwheel.

  He lay there motionless but still breathing.

  “Your health is in the red,” Coach reminded me. “Either get some drones out or end this.”

  I wobbled and staggered forward, sword raised for one final, desperate strike. The mammoth’s head swung towards me, its empty eye sockets seeming to bore into my soul. It wrapped my waist with its trunk again, but my arms were free.

  With a roar of defiance, I plunged my blade into the beast’s eye socket at an angle, feeling the sword grate against bone as it sank to the hilt. I fulcrum it upwards on the lip of the bone, unsure if there was even a brain to stir. The mammoth convulsed, a shudder that seemed to run through its entire frame.

  For a moment, we remained locked in death’s embrace, the mammoth’s foul breath washing over me as it snorted and twitched. With a final, shuddering groan, the beast collapsed, its massive form crashing to the ground in a spray of water and blackened flesh.

  I slumped to my knees in its loosely wrapped trunk, my strength utterly spent. Slop limped over to me, his muzzle, neck, and shoulders stained with the mammoth’s black blood.

  Limping over to Slop, I said, “Good boy,” before I stuck an antidote into him. “We did it. I don’t know how, but we did it.”

  Cries to the east sounded, a reminder we weren’t done. Not yet.

  I popped a third MediDrone canister and refilled my belt with injectors. Slop and I were mended, our seared and flayed flesh back to normal, bones reset and the debuff indicators on my screen removed. We were filthy, bloody, oily, and exhausted.

  A voice I hadn’t heard since the first time I was in the simulation filled my ears and mind, soft elevator music playing in the background.

  “Achievement unlocked! Mammoth of a Task! You’ve defeated an Undead Tuundrabel—that’s not even a real thing! In order to prepare you for whatever the universe might throw at you, we here at Xiamiti prepare countless encounters with real and imagined beasties. But be warned, the Chaotic roaming about may be a nightmare, but they’re nothing we’ve dreamed up. While everything in the simulation is exactly that, these Chaotic replicas are designed to be just as fearsome as the real deal. So be careful, and strike fast.

  Reward! We succeed when you succeed. In an effort to aid that cause, please accept this supply box to aid you in your adventures.”

  “XIAMITI TRANSMISSION SYNC :: Inventory deposit complete”

  I opened my inventory and found the supply crate. It had free phase-delivery but with a timer counting down in a timestamp I didn’t understand. It didn’t matter. I phased it in, landing smoothly at my feet.

  Within, I found a set of MediDrone balls, more compact and operated like a grenade. The bandolier had six hooks for the balls and a tag that read “Combat Ready.” I draped it over my jacket shoulder and leaned back into the box.

  A flare gun with the label “Escape!” was tucked next to a hard-plastic box. I closed the reward box and set the smaller one on top to inspect. Inside, I found another pistol-like gun, a smooth parallelogram with a grip and a metal cap. It looked like something from a lazer-tag game you’d find in the back of an old skating rink.

  “Coach?”

  “Well damn, they must really like you,” Coach said. “Capacity Pistol, very handy for someone who tends to fight up close. Your Client will recharge it over time. The more sync’d you become, the more shots and faster charge you’ll have.”

  On the back of the pistol was a square of a different texture. By focusing on the area, I must have triggered it, as it lit up and projected a small hologram an inch off the surface, a small monitor of charge rate and available shots.

  “One?!”

  Coach said, “Remember when you decided to pick melee instead of ranged when I was in the middle of-”

  “Okay, Coach. Got it.” My patience was wearing thin. This simulator needed to end. “How much further do we have to go?”

  “Not much, most likely. Usually these mini-bosses are pretty close to the end fight.”

  “End fight?” I asked, fearing for what could be worse than the undead mammoth.

  “Step at a time. And remember, it's not real, right?”

  “It feels real…”

  The next few fights were fairly uneventful, a handful of enemies that seemed strategically placed to teach me some new tactics and mechanics. Different elements and debuffs seemed to go together, attacks needed to go to the right spot or it often made things worse. I was getting comfortable with my skillset, my sword, and really appreciated having the pistol at my side. The holster it came with was just a simple sling hanging from my belt, but it had a decent button-cover that I hoped would keep it in place.

  I finally came to a large stone structure resembling a ruined church. The windows were too high, too crowded with thorns to see in. The front door was smashed outwards and buried under the collapsed forward wall, revealing a partitioned interior of the rafters and attic space. Against the ceiling, a pink light pulsed.

  I slowly approached, cautious but curious. I would need to climb up the rubble to peer in, but wet, squirming sounds from within gave me hesitation.

  “Spawn pit,” Coach said. “Wonder where the rest are.”

  “Rest of what? Spawn pit?!”

  “Chaotic. They grow out of these gross cracks in the ground, little flesh balls that fall out of the walls. Down in the “pit”, they eat each other until one of them gets enough energy to sprout legs or arms and claw its way out. Once out, they start eating everything. Meat, trees, bushes, grass. They feed in different ways, and constantly change the longer they’re alive.

  These are the Great Enemy of our universe, Zach. The Chaotic.”

  From either side, the dense undergrowth began to shake, snarling filling the space between—the space where Slop and I stood. Slop barked, growling from side to side.

  I quickly threw down a tuner and moved to get my back to the rubble hill, reducing my flanks.

  “Good, good,” called Coach. “Throw up your wall on one side—the side with rocks there, so it's more solid—and attack the other. Slop seems to know what he’s doing, so just watch out for yourself.”

  I asked, “Got any music?”

  “Uh, music? You okay, Zach?”

  Six demon-dogs emerged in unison. Perhaps it was panic, or flow state, or a cut-scene, but I swear I watched it from above, in third-person.

  I snorted with a smirk, “Yeah, why not?”

  “Uh… alright.”

  As they circled in on me, I heard, “Big L, rest in peace,” and Full Clip by Gang Starr filled my ears, above the ambience, but below the present sounds. I smiled wide.

  With my back facing the ruins, I threw up my wall to the right, blocking three of the advancing hellhounds. To my left, my shadows burst into existence, each moving towards their own target. Slop quickly picked one off, distracted by the shadow it failed to bite.

  I ripped out my Capacity Pistol and took aim. It didn’t have sights or a scope like I was used to—shooting wasn’t anything new to me. My days in the Navy weren’t full of guns like the Army guys, but I had my training and went to the range every couple of months. I don’t think it mattered, the gun seemed to aim for itself.

  As if understanding my intention, it aimed over Slop and picked off the furthest dog with a plasma-like dart. In the night with only a false moonlighting, I could still see through the clean hole it bore through the dog's skull, in the front and out behind the ear. It instantly fell, dead and unmoving.

  The shadow nearest me popped, and through the blur came one of the hounds, fully in focus now as it tackled me. I dropped my weapons and grabbed its neck out of instinct, my fingers sliding into what felt like cooked hamburger. The maw of razor-teeth extended out past its face, snapping and opening as the lips stretched beyond what should be possible.

  It had no eyes, not even sockets, and the ears looked like burned stubs. In my peripheral vision, I could see the other dogs coming around the wall. Slop had just finished off his opponent, but would soon be overrun.

  There was nothing left to do. My last shadow quickly popped, Slop cornered, and myself pinned.

  I let the demon-dog grab my left arm. It shook violently, cracking my forearm and sending System into panic mode. With my right, I dug under my jacket and retrieved the flare.

  I thought about shooting it straight into the air. To be done with this hellish nightmare. But something came over me. A feeling of wanting this. Of wanting more.

  I stuck the flare between my arm and the dog's teeth, aiming down its throat. With an angry smile, I squeezed.

  “Full clip,” the song continued.

  The flare lit the inside of the beast up like a lamp just as time froze. The hellspawns disappeared, the church, the swamp, the music, all of it.

  Slop and I were dropped a few inches to the hologrid, the tile was impossibly close compared to the depth of the muck we were just sinking in.

  “God damnit!” Coach and I both yelled at the same time. I continued with, “I didn’t want it to end.”

  Coach finished with, “The hell’d ya do that for?!”

  a lot of things. Mechanics for phaseshifting is just the start.

  Behind the scenes, I have a roll20 campaign complete with maps I make on Inkarnate, tokens representing Zach and his enemies, and a massive custom character sheet built in excel (its out of hand and highly automated).

  I have dice on my desk, and roll for Zach, the environment, and the enemies, balancing results against a loose table of thresholds. That doesn't mean the dice write the story, I just let them tell me how rough its going to get for Zach (neck break was nat 1... sometimes the dice are pushy).

  Anyways, I have a lot planned, and hope to be dropping new chapters every 2 weeks.

  Hope to hear from you,

  Developesque