“Hey,” I whispered. It was loud enough to gain their attention, but not so loud to draw aggro on any of the ghouls deeper in the cave.
The same dumb batch of lesser ghouls looked around, but none of them even came close to looking in my direction.
“Okay, forget this.” I stood, then descended the steep stairs. One of the ghouls finally looked my way and shrieked an alarm to the rest of the pack. About time.
I drew my battle axe and went to work chopping at them like a mad lumberjack. Each went down with a single hit. As expected, they didn’t stand any real chance of hurting me — not unless they could mob me with greater numbers. Honestly, I was a little bit disappointed in what MythRune had thrown at me thus far.
As if in response to my cockiness, one of the surviving lesser ghouls let out a panicked screech as I brought the top of my axe down on its head. I only had an instant to ponder the change in its tone before my vision instantly flooded with more aggroed green-text-bearing ghouls. Too many to count. I’d ask for a challenge and it seemed I’d been answered.
I widened my stance and readied to take the mob on. It was like something out of a horror movie, dozens of pale-skinned, bouncing rat-things streaming toward me. For a brief instant, the self-preservation instinct screamed at me to run. I had to force myself to hold my ground. I couldn’t die, after all…hopefully? There was only one way to find out if God Mode was working, and now seemed as good a time as any.
Bellowing out my challenge, I waded into the seething mass of squeals and angry pink eyes.
Hack!
Screech!
+1 Two-Handed Battle Axe Skill Point
Smash!
Shriek!
+1 Two-Handed Battle Axe Skill Point
It didn’t take me long to find my old rhythm. After the first few swings, I triggered my Cyclone ability and let muscle memory take over. I spun like…well, like a cyclone, cutting down cave ghouls left and right like a mad gardener pruning her roses. A small pile of albino corpses started to fill the vicinity around me. I laughed, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I was a god of destruction among these pathetic beasts. I was unbeatable!
…And then fatigue set in.
In MythRune, skills outside of the magic or, as the game called it, Arcane Pursuit didn’t require “mana.” Instead, you triggered them and only had to wait for the standard cooldown before you could activate them again. With one important catch: using special skills in combat often wore you down faster unless they were specifically intended to restore your energy. The cherry on top? MythRune didn’t give you a handy fatigue bar, so you could only judge your fatigue level by how your body felt.
This was all a terrible reminder as my stomach dropped out of me and my legs instantly transformed to Jell-O. Noob mistake, Zane. Noob mistake.
I swung at a ghoul launching at my side, somehow missing it altogether. It latched onto my bare shoulder and bit down. Hard.
“Ow!”
Ignoring the flash of pain, I pawed at it with my hand and managed to tear it off. What a big mistake that was. With its teeth latched into me, all my yanking did was rip open the bite. I saw my HP take an unexpected hit, but even after, the stinging pain remained.
Another lesser cave ghoul saw its opportunity and leaped onto my other shoulder, sinking its teeth into the side of my neck.
Rather than trying to pull it out, I punched it with my hand, stunning the ghoul enough to smack it off like some kind of giant mosquito rat.
Congratulations! You have unlocked the Unarmed Combat Pursuit Sphere! Open your Pursuits Menu for more information.
+1 Unarmed Combat Skill Point
I ignored the notification in the midst of sheer terror. My bravado faded and I backpedaled as best I could on shaking legs.
Something was wrong here. Really wrong. For the first time ever in a game, I felt true fear. Not fear of losing, fear of being eaten alive. Forever. Because I couldn’t die. I couldn’t end the fight if I couldn’t die. If I felt every one of those bites, what would it be like to experience dozens all at once without the sweet release of death?
My mind raced, trying to understand what was happening. With each bite, I not only saw my HP inch toward the three-quarter mark, but I felt the all-too-realistic pain of what it would have been like to be munched on by a giant zombie kangaroo rat.
I had to get away. Punching, slashing, and swinging every which way, I willed my exhausted body to battle on. A primal scream, born of rage and pain, ripped from my throat.
The next wave of lesser cave ghouls preparing to attack stopped in their tracks. I stomped my feet on the ground, stepping on a few of their wounded and dying comrades, and they retreated, the little green names floating over their heads fading into the darkness with them.
“That’s right!” I yelled between gasping breaths. “You’d better run, you little creeps!”
Without wasting a beat, I opened up the settings menu and quickly found the Realism Settings. Usually, the pain setting defaulted to 10% — enough to get you to feel something, like the equivalent of a friendly zap, but not enough to ruin the experience as it had for me. My stomach flipped when it saw it wasn’t where I’d left it:
Pain Setting: 100%
When had that changed? I vividly remembered the number resetting to ten after I’d maxed it out at the end of character creation to enable the glitch.
“Command: Reduce pain setting to ten percent.”
An obnoxious buzz was the only response.
“What?” I said, panic rising in my chest. My voice quickened. “Command: Reduce pain setting to ten percent!”
The buzz sounded again. The settings didn’t change, not even a single percent. This was impossible. The game didn’t allow you to play above the fifty-percent pain threshold. And I was double that. I then tried manually, flicking away at the translucent screen with my hand, but to no effect.
“Oh no,” I said aloud.
Brandon had warned me about this. Because we had only worked with the beta version of the game, there was no way of knowing how the millions of coding differences would affect God Mode after the official launch. Technically, I didn’t even know if it was working, as my hit points had yet to drop below ten. But I knew one thing: I was feeling every scrape, cut, and bite just like real life. I shuddered thinking about taking a sword through the side or an arrow in the guts.
In beta, enabling God Mode had been relatively simple. Simple enough that Brandon and I were surprised the devs hadn’t patched it. You created a new character, raised the pain setting to one hundred, and then started your journey. Although there was some fancy coding explanation behind it, basically what happened was the pain setting then defaulted back to ten percent when you spawned for the first time after character creation. Then, as long as you didn’t log out, your HP wouldn’t drop below one. The only catch was if you did log out, you couldn’t repeat the process. God Mode was a one-shot deal.
But something had gone terribly wrong. We’d circumvented the parameters alright. Now it had come back to literally bite me in the neck.
I pulled up a message menu. I had to let Brandon know as soon as possible. I hadn’t the faintest idea how or if he could help me, but this was a wrinkle we didn’t expect.
I opened my mouth to draft the message, and the words caught in my throat as another, even more horrible reality surfaced in my mind. At one hundred percent pain threshold, dying — or coming within an inch of death’s door, where God Mode should have stopped me — was going to hurt as bad as dying in real life. Could I handle that kind of pain without putting my physical body in danger? Would I give myself a heart attack or a seizure? What about permanent brain damage? I had no idea and knew of only one morbid way to find out.
“Calm down, calm down, calm down,” I whispered over and over. My massive Urok hands shook and I felt sweat beading on my forehead. Apparently, even big bad warriors could suffer panic attacks in MythRune.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood the
re in a trembling mess. But one thought finally drew me from the nightmare. Sure, I didn’t know what would happen to me anymore while I was in this game, but I knew one thing in the real world for sure: Brandon was going to die if I didn’t come through for him. And there was no way I would let that happen.
I tipped my head back and roared defiantly into the depths of the cave before me. It was mostly for show, but it helped my mind stop thinking about what could happen to me at one hundred percent pain. I wouldn’t let Brandon down.
Unfortunately, as my battle cry echoed into the void, something answered.
8
They Have A Cave Ghoul
A shape grew out of the darkness, but I couldn’t tell if it was another mob of lesser cave ghouls or something much more sinister. It certainly sounded like something much more sinister. I wasn’t sure if I should stand my ground or beat it out of the cave. As painful as the lesser cave ghoul bites were, they had only chipped away at my health. Every passing second dulled the pain and fatigue and regenerated my health. I tried not to reconsider my courage. If I was just dealing with one creature here, I could probably hang.
And then the new beast emerged in the neon light of the moss. The text above it indicated he was a Cave Ghoul. As one would expect, he looked an awful lot like his “lesser” brethren, only a heck of a lot bigger. And angrier. This guy was roughly the size of a donkey and packed with enough muscle to make a bodybuilder envious. It snarled, and a mouthful of crooked fangs the length of my Urok fingers jutted from its mouth, dripping with what I hoped was only saliva and not some kind of venom.
After staring down the cave ghoul for a few seconds, the white text above his name turned to orange. My Combat Assessment skill was telling me to proceed with caution. No duh?
+1 Combat Assessment Skill Point!
Wow, you’ve just identified a much stronger enemy than you. Hope you brought your running shoes!
“Crap.”
I’d been hoping for a yellow designation — something I could handle. But an orange? That was the third-hardest difficulty. I hadn’t even had a chance to take on a yellow yet, for crying out loud. Did I even truly stand a chance? And was I ready to experience whatever it had in store for me at full pain?
The answer was no. A resounding hell no. I turned to make a break for it, but was met with another growing mob of lesser cave ghouls. Great, somehow these guys had trapped me in to help their big brother snag his next meal. A chill went up my spine as the image of being eaten alive pushed to the front of my mind. I turned to face the larger cave ghoul once again. It bared its neon-yellow teeth and hunkered down. I knew from fighting the lesser cave ghouls that meant it was about to use a leaping attack. There was no escaping this one.
This is really gonna hurt, I thought as I widened my stance and readied my battle axe.
As if on cue, I heard a screech from behind me. Great, the lesser cave ghouls were attacking, too. On instinct, I triggered a Cyclone spin, my battle axe soaring through the air as I pivoted around on my right foot. Parts of lesser cave ghouls splattered all around.
+1 Two-Handed Battle Axe Skill Point
I barely noticed the skill point alert as the full-sized cave ghoul chose that instant to attack.
Instead of pouncing, it bull-rushed me like a defensive end from the underworld. Its wrinkled rat heat hit me right in the diaphragm. The pain just as bad as — if not worse than— I’d imagined, completely stunned me. Flying through the air, I felt a brief pity for all of the running backs and quarterbacks I’d leveled back in the day. I never imagined I’d be on the receiving end of a full-on truck stick.
I slammed into the cavern wall behind me, sharp rocks digging into my back and eliciting a sickening crunch in the process. I somehow let out even more air as I fell to my knees, only to find out that it wasn’t air coming out of my mouth, but blood.
Debuff Added — Broken Ribs! Your movement is restricted, and you will gradually lose health for the next 60 seconds.
Oh, great, I thought, half-wondering if I could tell the cave ghoul to chill out for the next sixty seconds as the countdown timer popped up. I gritted my teeth and tried to stand. The cave ghoul snorted and tossed its head. No such luck on the timeout, then. Its lesser brethren hopped and shrieked around it, like this was some kind of twisted professional wrestling match and they were all spectators.
+1 Medium Armor Skill Point
Wow! You’re really putting your armor to the test! Maybe it’s time to take a break?
I wish I could, I thought.
The cave ghoul launched itself at me again, but this time I had a better idea of the timing of the attack. With all the grace of a drunken homeless man, I half-stepped, half-turned aside just enough for the cave ghoul’s charge attack to miss me. I watched in pure bliss as it crashed face-first into the wall. I saw a sizable chunk of his health bar tick down, but didn’t wait around for him to recover. I swung my axe overhead with all my might, fighting the fading pain in my ribs, and brought it down on the creature’s neck.
Tick!
My axe rebounded in my hand as though I’d just hit a concrete wall. The amount of health loss caused by the axe blow was almost indistinguishable on my enemy’s health bar. The cave ghoul lost more health hurting itself than I had actually trying to sever its neck. Not good.
Still dazed, the cave ghoul managed to swing its head around, knocking me down to one knee and bringing my health well below one-half. It lashed out with its strong kangaroo-like feet, landing a painful blow on my chest that sent me flying across the cavern again. The lesser cave ghouls tried to scatter, but I landed on a couple, crushing them in the process.
Debuff Reset — Broken Ribs! Your movement is restricted, and you will gradually lose health for the next 60 seconds.
+1 Medium Armor Skill Point
Well, if I was a glutton for punishment, at least I was being rewarded for it.
Debuff Added — Concussion! Health regeneration is slowed, and attacks based on Intelligence will do half-damage for 30 seconds.
On the bright side, I didn’t have any Intelligence-based attacks, but that didn’t mean I was totally unscathed. In the middle of reading the debuff, my vision spun and literal stars exploded in my line of sight. Damn, this was annoying. For the life of me, I couldn’t connect two thoughts in my head, and I felt another sharp blow to my head and a ringing sound as my HP dwindled down into the red.
Wow, it’s cool they have HP bars for football now, I thought, my punch-drunken brain somehow forgetting about the ghoul that was physically assaulting me and sending me back in time to a high school football field. Before I could figure out the absurdity of my thoughts, I felt another sharp pain around my neck, constricting my already feeble breathing.
Forget everything that came before. That was the most painful moment of my entire existence. If you had told me that one moment was the sum of all the pain I’d feel in my entire life merged together, I would have believed you. The agony brought my mind to focus, and my vision cleared to show the cave ghoul standing over me, one clawed hand wrapped around my neck. Its grip tightened and my entire body went limp as it lifted me overhead.
I don’t remember what happened next.
9
Death on Repeat
I slowly drifted back into consciousness, my mind filled with images of football — I’d really gotten hurt on that tackle and…
No, that wasn’t right. I looked down and, in the dim light, saw my blue-gray Urok hand. Ah, yes.
Just a few seconds ago, I had been on the verge of death. I was pinned against the wall by a cave ghoul then —
Oh no. Had I died?
Usually when you died, you spawned at a base location you’d chosen beforehand or in a town that you’d set as your bind point. Given that I hadn’t bothered to do either yet, that meant I would have spawned in the outcropping of trees near the Horuk hunting camp.
But no. I was lying on a cave floor. My health bar was full, and any semblance I
felt of pain was gone. It might not have been perfect — oh, was it a long way from perfect — but apparently God Mode worked.
Even though I felt one hundred percent pain, the game apparently compensated by forcing me to pass out as I reached the point where I should have died. The cave ghoul must have lost interest after —
Wait, the cave ghoul!
I fought my instinct to leap to my feet and run blind. There was no telling where the thing was, and I didn’t want to incite its wrath once again. It was a good thing I followed my head, because when I ventured to roll over, I saw the bastard a few yards away.
Luckily, the noise of the beast gorging itself on dead lesser cave ghouls covered any sound I might have involuntarily made. Apparently the cave ghoul had chased off its minions for the feast — or started eating them as appetizers — and decided to save me for the main course. Gross. At least it was facing away from me and hadn’t noticed I was still alive.
The orange text hovering above the cave ghoul’s head warned me of the threat it posed. I was literally backed into a corner with no good way out. I had to get past it if I ever wanted out of this hell. I spotted my axe, just out of arm’s reach, and began to formulate a plan.
The cave ghoul was completely off guard. In MythRune, backstabs were quite lethal, almost to the point of being OP. If I could execute one, would it be possible for me to actually take it out?
It was worth a try. This was what we’d intended God Mode for, after all. If there was a way for me to level up quicker, I had to take it. I would face this foe head-on. Or from behind. Whatever.
God Mode: A LitRPG Adventure (Mythrune Online Book 1) Page 7