Almost in a daze, the Drakling stumbles through a narrow street, her inhuman feet all but dragging across loose cobblestone.

  The excitement of that unexpected meeting dims with each increasingly shallow breath she takes, leaving a hollow feeling in its pce. That emptiness gnaws at her very being. The stress swirling at the edges of her mind grows thicker and heavier, steadily drowning her anger and adrenaline alike beneath its unrelenting advance.

  “Hnngh...” Krvavy staggers forwards, falling into a cramped alleyway and smming her palms into a nearby wall, just barely keeping herself from crumpling to the ground. “Hghhkn...!” She struggles to breath, her throat so tight and dry that her tongue alone seems to be enough to choke the life from her. “Hkkahnh...!”

  Her heart clenches uncomfortably as the cold cws of dread dig into it.

  Without her rage... there is nothing stopping Krvavy’s traitorous brain from thinking of thoughts she would rather remain buried away in the dusty corners of her mind. Her stomach churns as the bitter taste of bile lingers at the back of her throat.

  Thmmp.

  The Drakling’s upper horns bump into the pstered wall, the muscles in her back flexing and tensing up as she rests so much of her weight against this random building. Her mind races against her will, unable to ignore the ramifications of what just happened.

  She didn’t expect to meet someone like Shadow. She didn’t expect to meet someone like herself. Someone who is also the Champion of a God.

  Of course, Krvavy never assumed that she was the only one out there. But... That sudden meeting was a shock to her. It caught her off guard in... in so many ways. And it doesn’t help that she was so easily lured into it. She very well could have been killed. Again. Or worse...

  Really, death would have been a mercy compared to what could have happened to her. So many horrible fates flit in and out of her mind, each worse than the st. To be permanently imprisoned, forever bound and unable to move, unable to take her own life... To be puppeted by magic, a prisoner in her own body as it moves against her will... To have her mind remade, her memories altered and the love she feels for her girls stripped away...

  Her girls...

  Would... would her girls have been dragged into that hell as well...? Would they be made to suffer because of her recklessness?! The one source of happiness that she has ever had in her miserable life could have been taken from her, twisted and corrupted and broken!

  Fuck! Why did she agree to go to that party?! She is just letting herself get led into another potential trap! And for what? The chance to get a bit of information that she isn’t in any position to use!?

  Krvavy tenses and trembles as she presses up against the worn wall, alone and out of sight in this empty alleyway.

  “Stupid...!” The barbarian berates herself, her tail thrashing back and forth behind her.

  Why does she always make stupid, impulsive decisions like that!?

  Should she just skip out on that party? Should she just get what she came here for... those spices and supplies... and then leave?

  That would be the smart thing to do.

  But...

  Krvavy can hardly trust herself right now. Her mind is spinning, circling the drain. Her gut is twisted and unsettled, but... it isn’t uncertain. Her instincts are telling her to go to this party. To test Shadow’s sincerity. If that other Champion is being sincere, then she has nothing to worry about. But if that damned hooded figure is lying, leading her into a trap... Then...

  Then she will teach the servant of that pathetic night Goddess a lesson...! She’ll level this entire city...! Reduce it to ash and cinders...! A smouldering crater...! A reminder to all of the insects who roam this nd, so that they know well the consequences of crossing a Dragon...!

  Wisps of hissing steam billow through the Drakling’s bared teeth. Her heartbeat is near deafening, frantically drumming away inside her ears. A burning heat courses through her veins. Bits and pieces of pster rain down from the wall, her cw-like nails leaving gouges deep enough to reveal and scar the bricks hidden away beneath that fa?ade.

  The fire and fury filling her very being is... weak. Hollow and empty. Because that damned brain of hers, her greatest enemy by far, won’t let her rage return. Not at full strength. Not strong enough to keep Krvavy distracted from what is truly bothering her, what is nearly causing her to break down.

  It isn’t the unknown risk of this party. It is something so much simpler.

  Shadow said respawn.

  That... That one single word has some implications that really aren’t helping Krvavy maintain her grip on reality. If this even is reality... Or a reality...

  In the aftermath of Krvavy’s first and so far only death, her mind desperately grasped at anything to try to expin what happened. She had a few theories, and while they didn’t exactly make the situation any better they at least gave her something to ground herself with.

  Is this reality just her imagination? Is nothing here truly real? Is it all a result of her... no, of the woman she used to be... Is it all a result of Leanna’s mind having one st gasp before truly dying?

  Is this reality really just a game like she initially thought? Is Leanna in some sort of coma, her mind supported by her computer and the IVR device’s programming? Or was a copy of her mind somehow made, getting baked into a corrupted save?

  Krvavy has done her best not to think about those theories. Those possibilities that are so, so very much out of her control. No matter what she could ever hope to do, everything around her would inevitably come to an abrupt end at some point, either through Leanna’s death or through the deletion of data. She couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t free herself. There is nothing she could have done but wait for the end.

  And wait she has.

  She has been here, she has been Krvavy, for a few months now. She hasn’t exactly been keeping track, but it has been weeks and weeks and weeks for her. And each day that passes whittles away at her faith in those theories. She supposes that, in time, she would have come to accept that neither possibilities are the truth. Any nagging doubts about that would have slowly faded from her mind.

  But Krvavy didn’t get that chance. Because Shadow said respawn.

  That immediately invalidates both of those theories that a part of her mind has been clinging to.

  If this was all just her imagination, then any other champions would be of this world. Just like her girls, they wouldn’t say respawn. They would refer to it in some other manner, such as coming back to life or returning from the dead. And that would also be the case if she was simply stuck inside a game.

  Why?

  Because the game she initially pyed, the uncreatively named Tabu Rasa, was a single pyer game. One that she could pause and resume, exit out and reenter whenever she wished. One that didn’t have an active internet connection. One that was focused on being as immersive as possible. One that didn’t use the word respawn in any of the many, many notifications regarding her death.

  The only theory she still has was her craziest one, one that she didn’t want to delude herself into believing. One that a part of her still doesn’t want to believe... Even if her mind has been slowly moving towards accepting it. That final theory is... that this world is real.

  Even now it feels almost insane to consider that. But Krvavy can’t think of any other reason why Shadow would have said respawn. If this was just a game that she was trapped in, then Shadow would have used the same terms that are used elsewhere in this game. If this was all just in her head, then Shadow would have used a term that she would expect to hear, like what is used in her notifications.

  But instead Shadow acted like a... a person who came into this thinking it was just a game. A person just like Krvavy.

  Has Shadow even died yet? Can they still... exit out?

  For some reason, Krvavy is certain that Shadow has died before. That the hooded figure is trapped in this world just as Krvavy is. There was something about Shadow’s tone when they asked if the Duke killed Krvavy. Some unspoken question buried beneath that guess. It is little more than a feeling, a hunch, but she fully believes it. Funnily enough, that is the only thing she actually trusts about this Shadow person.

  So... Does that mean Krvavy is willing to believe that this is all really real? That she is currently in some other world, some other reality?

  Maybe.

  She honestly doesn’t want to think about it.

  If everything here is real... Well, that is both an amazingly happy possibility, and an incredibly devastating one.

  If everything here is real... Then that means all of the horrible things that Krvavy has done were done to real people.

  One of the first things she did in this world was kill a couple Orcs and violently rape the woman Khalia used to be into a mindbroken husk. The two men might have deserved to die, but that female Orc... she didn’t deserve to be broken and turned into Krvavy’s pet.

  She can justify killing the bandits that kidnapped Thea, but did she really need to be so cruel to the bratty girl? For the sake of her sanity, Krvavy will simply say that, in the end, it all worked out. Thea is better off with her than in a loveless political marriage with that damned Duke.

  But can she say the same for Beryl? That the Wood Elf is better off now than before? Had Krvavy not killed the sketchy fire mage, then Beryl almost certainly would have been ensved by him. That would’ve been a worse fate, no doubt, but does that make Beryl’s current situation any better...? She was still ensved. Not on purpose. Because of an accident that Beryl herself made. Does that make it better...?

  And what of Inanna? Krvavy didn’t stick around to see how the attack on that Dwarven caravan ended, so maybe she saved Inanna’s life? Or maybe she just kidnapped the Dwarf. At least Inanna wasn’t all that happy with her life before, so that does alleviate some of Krvavy’s guilt...

  How about Adeline? The poor girl was just going to visit her family. Family that she may never see again. Not only has Krvavy hurt that cute Halfling, but she has also hurt all those who cared for Adeline as well. Those many siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, grandparents, and her parents must all think that Adeline is dead. So many people, entire families, grieving over the loss of that timid girl...

  And of course Krvavy can’t forget the various innocent travellers that she killed while raiding wagons. All of which were also real people, with real families.

  But, even then.... At least... at least it isn’t all bad.

  If everything here is real... Then that means the love she has for her girls, and the love they have for her, is real as well. Except... not entirely.

  Beryl and Khalia both love Krvavy because of that damned colr forcing them to. Thea’s feelings are probably from Stockholm syndrome, or something like that. Inanna... Well, again, at least Inanna’s love is probably real enough...?

  The Drakling’s shoulders slump even further as she lets out a tired sigh. Her heart still beats wildly, pounding away at her ears, but panic isn’t what is driving it anymore. Her fear has been slowly fading, becoming a dull numbness surrounding her heart, and taking its pce is a growing feeling of existential dread.

  Krvavy doesn’t know what to do.

  Why has this even shaken her so much?

  Krvavy doesn’t want to return to her life as Leanna. She really doesn’t. Leanna was a miserable nobody with pretty much no reason to live beyond spite. So why, why, does she feel like being trapped in this world is a bad thing?!

  Is it because she has already fucked everything up with her monstrous actions?

  She had a chance to start over with a bnk ste but, because it was all a game to her, she did some horrible things that she regrets doing. Is that it? Or is it because, out of all of those horrible things she did, Krvavy only truly cares about the ones that hurt her girls?

  Those innocent travellers that she killed... They are pretty much footnotes in her mind. Krvavy is more upset with the fact that she was the one who killed then, rather than the fact that they died at all.

  “Hhhh...!” Hot air rushes through Krvavy’s nose as she forcibly pushes herself off the wall, legs wobbling but ultimately holding her weight.

  In her fucked up mind the people she wronged the most are her girls. Or at least they are the people she cares the most about having wronged. And while that kind of hurts – both for what that says about her and because the thought of hurting her girls is like poison to Krvavy – it is also a slightly good thing. Not that she wronged them, but that this gives her a chance to come clean. About who she is. About what she is. About where she is actually from.

  She won’t ask them for forgiveness or anything of the sort. There is simply no point in that.

  Instead, Krvavy will expin her... situation... to them. They will likely think she is crazy, rightfully so, but it might help soothe her worries. If not... at least the women who mean more than anything in the world to her will know the truth.

  As much as Krvavy would want to just bottle this up and forget about it, she can’t. This retively minor mental breakdown is showing how dangerous it is to repress and ignore these horrid feelings. What would happen if all of this dread and panic came bursting out during a battle? Or during an otherwise calm conversation?

  The thought of opening up to her girls may be terrifying, but it needs to be done.

  And, at the very least, this pn lets her procrastinate and dey dealing with... all of this... until she gets home. Granted, it will still hang over her head for the week it’ll take to return to her girls, but that is easier than trying to deal with it all right now in a random alleyway.

  Krvavy takes a deep breath and nods her head, finding her resolve. She will open up to her girls. She will tell them about the woman she used to be, about Leanna. She will expin how she ended up here. She will push this existential dread aside and deal with it ter. She is good at that, at least.

  But first, before she pulls herself together, there is one st thing she needs to check. Something she hasn’t done in... well over a month. Probably around two months, by now.

  < ERROR: SOUL-LINK CONNECTION LOST. UNABLE TO ESTABLISH CONNECTION WITH ORIGINAL FORM >

  Seeing that notification pop up in her vision is like a stab to the heart, even though she fully expected it. But... reading those words doesn’t hurt quite as much as it used to. She is starting to ever so slowly grow numb to it. And she doesn’t know if that is a good thing or not.

  With a sigh, Krvavy dismisses the notification.

  The barbarian slowly closes her eyes and tries to rex, even if just a bit. She is still far too tense. A part of Krvavy expected to feel some sort of relief or satisfaction now that she has decided to deal with this issue.

  But that doesn’t seem to be the case.

  Krvavy... doesn’t exactly feel worse, but she wouldn’t say she feels better either. It just... isn’t as bad?

  Whatever.

  She came to this city for a reason, and right now she is just... she is just wasting her time.

  The barbarian idly pats herself down, making sure that she still has her coins and everything else that she brought with her, before turning towards the entrance to this random alleyway she has found herself in. She takes a deep breath and steps out into the narrow street beyond.

  Krvavy has a tailor to go find.