June spreads her hands out and looks absolutely confused. “You didn’t even tell me pn A? And of course we aren’t fighting the boar! They’re one of the local hard stops against people just leaving. The designers didn’t want to put up invisible walls, so they have patrols on the roads, restrictions on the gate options, and stuff like these boars filling in the wilderness. We haven’t even leveled once and you want to fight the thing?!”

  Gem, “Oh? Didn’t know you were level one as well!”

  June nods, “Yes, so if you were depending on me being high enough level to make a difference, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  Gem shrugs, “I wasn’t, but I can see why you would think that. Now, how often can you cast that buff of yours?”

  June sighs, “They don’t make it easy in buffers in this game. Right now, using the buff reserves half my control and I can only have one buff at a time. As in, even if I had other buffs, I can only have a single active buff.”

  Gem, “Well, that’s one way of doing things. How about you toss it on me and I see what it feels like?”

  “Eh, why not? It isn’t like I’m using it.” And June pulls a glowing ball of light out of her body and tosses it at Gem.

  That ball of light smacks into Gem and absorbs into their body. And right from the get go, Gem can notice the difference. Sure, it isn’t the biggest buff, but Gem feels like they could do a backflip or some such.

  Gem looks June in the eyes. Something that is supremely uncomfortable for them, but they felt the situation called for it. “Be ready to run.”

  June panics, “What are you pnning? Where would I run to?”

  Gem cracks a devil may care smile and jumps out of their tree with a flip thrown in. Because why not? “Follow me if you like!” They hit the ground in a crouch.

  The boar’s head whips around, eyes lock onto them and it charges. Gem’s eyes close as they listen closely. June up in the tree wants to shout out a warning, but freezes.

  Gem can hear the thudding of the monster’s hooves get closer. Then Gem springs to the side, grabbing a young tree to swing themselves behind a much rger tree. The boar had committed to its charge and so could not slow down. It sms through one leg thick tree and into a waist thick tree.

  Gem waves up at June, “Boars stunned! Let’s get some distance before it recovers.”

  June hops down and stumbles a little as they hit the ground, “This won’t stop it from chasing us! Also, how did you do that jump?”

  Gem ughs as June follows behind, though they have to watch their speed as June’s body stat seems to be lower. “You’re the one who just buffed my agility. What were you expecting? For me to not use it?”

  June huffs, “As if the damn spell lets you become a professional acrobat! It only increases your agility. You don’t get the experience to use that agility. The spell is meant to make you smoother at what you’re already able to do.”

  Behind them, the boar squeals in fury.

  Gem gnces over their shoulder, “Huh, recovered quicker than I thought it would?”

  June, “Did you think only we get stats? That thing. Has Stamina for days!”

  Gem, “Don’t you mean body?”

  June, “Stun recovery. Is under Stamina. Stun resistance. That’s Body.”

  Gem, “Why are you already getting out of breath? I’ve only got C tier stamina and I’m doing fine.”

  June gres at the back of Gem’s head. “C, as well. Slow down, running too fast!”

  Gem realizes what happened and cuts their speed, allowing June to set the pace best for their Body stat. Though with that, the boar is catching up much faster now. “Well, that puts a crimp in my pn.”

  June dodges a bush, “You had a pn?”

  Gem looks over their shoulder again, “Wellll, I had an idea, but the boar is going to catch up before it would have worked. There aren’t any other monsters to use as meat shields.”

  June, “What does that even mean? You’d just end up with a monster train!”

  They both duck under a branch as Gem responds that, “It should work. The SAI made the monsters pretty realistic compared to older games. Getting the boar to sm into another monster should aggro them. Or kill them. Either or.” And they shrug.

  June sighs, “So this is how my first death happens.”

  Gem, “Oh yeah, high chance of that now! Haven’t you noticed where we’ve been heading?”

  June whips her head around, taking in the surroundings which had turned into an old growth forest. “How are we here?! Why haven’t we been stopped by some other monster?”

  Gem, “Eh, we’re only a bit deeper and I think the boar behind us is scaring off the weaker monsters.”

  June, “We really are going to die! Why would you run this way?”

  Gem, “Well, my pn wasn’t going to work before, but now? We simply need to find another monster.”

  June’s face goes bnk for a moment, then responds in a calm voice. “Fair enough. The city’s map of the forest would indicate we need to head further to the left. This is boar territory and they are likely keeping out of the way out of respect.”

  Gem gnces over to the side as they begin angling left, “Attitude change much?”

  June shakes her head, “If you want to try this pn, the least a friend can do is allow you to fail spectacurly to make up for the fact it won’t work.”

  Gem smiles almost to their ears, “Oh, don’t worry! Heheheheeh, I think it will work! SoulDive isn’t just any other game. A look at how the SAI’s foray into SciFi worked out shows this.”

  June nods, “I’ll support you, but you’re making it up to me when we die.”

  Gem, “Hey, I understand, we just met so how could you trust me? How about this, if it does look like we’ll kick the bucket, I’ll ‘meat shields’ it up and try to let you escape.”

  June, “We’ll have to see how things turn out.”

  Gem, “In our favor, of course! Be a little optimistic, not like death is the end. This is still a game, after all! So turn that frown upside down, we’ve got a boar to bamboozle.”

  June sighs, “Well, I guess the only way out is through.”

  Gem nods and points forward, “Onward, to victory!”

  Akhier

  Dungeon's Path

  So the world ended. Whoopsie? We didn’t even see it coming. Quite literally as it came at us faster than the speed of light. Don’t worry though, it got better. Also, I am not joking about the world ending. Most people say that and mean humans are inconvenienced for some reason. Nope, all matter disintegrated at the atomic scale there for a few moments. Apparently the local universe wasn’t actually stable? Don’t ask me to go into too much detail. It would require both of us to have a few more college degrees than sense, and I at least ck them (both the degrees and the sense). Anyway, the energy/matter/wibbly wobbly strings were at a local minimum and not the universal minimum. Basically, what we took for sea level was actually a nice little mountain ke and when the dam busted so did, well, everything.

  Now here is where things go a bit off track with what normal meant before. You see magic is real, qi is real, gods are real. Not on old Earth mind you but souls pay little attention to time and space so we dreamed of it. In fact, the closer the shift in reality got to Earth, the closer our dreams got to the new reality. This is basically me tip toeing around the fact that it was a ‘System Apocalypse’. Reality became a video game, I became a dungeon, and this is my story.

  Doyle Huxley just wanted a normal life but as the above might clue you in on that just isn’t in the cards. He gets to experience a “Path Based System Apocalypse” and some early paths he takes, both literally and figuratively, lead to him becoming a dungeon.

  The aim is to release chapters once a week on Friday.

  Cursing will be avoided and no naughty adult action will take pce in the story.

  NeoRealm

  Jason has just turned 18 and will be finally be able to py The biggest VR game out there, NeoRealm. Using a bit of knowledge from his past (life) he wants to start his adult life with a bang. Taking the road less traveled will sound quiant compare to where he wants to go.

  ~NeoRealm~ the most realistic VR game to date. A Fantasy world which even after years of exploration is still mostly unknown. Want to experience the mysteries of the Arcane? Become one of the many types of Magic Users and work to improve your ranking till you can move mountains, or just ftten them if you prefer. Do you just desire to wield sheer physical power? Then train your melee skills beyond all others and decimate towns with a single swing. Or maybe you just want to know what its like to be a cat person. We have those too. Come on in and join us at 5x the speed of boring old reality (you heard us right, not your average everyday 4x time compression!). *WARNING - limited to those age 18 and up, we are not responsible for any minor losing their grasp on reality, sanity, or species

  Banished Talent

  There were things hidden in the darkness and they’re about to introduce themselves to the hood of my car. Not that the knowledge will do me much good. Some Talents aren’t too appreciated by the Powers That Be, and with magic? Sometimes the best option is to just Banish the problem.

  I’m Alvin Smithson and let me tell you my story.

  Alvin grew up on Earth, or at least one shockingly simir to what you’re familiar with. Except for the magic. And Alvin? Despite never having experienced magic before, he believed in magic a little too much. So when magic found him, he was past the point of being returned to his boring modern life. Then things got worse when they tested him to see if he had any magic of his own.

  Join me, as we get a front-row seat to Alvin being banished from Earth and as he descend into a painful rebirth. He won’t be leaving the pnet alone, though. Much to his misfortune, a person going along has decided this is all Alin’s fault and is more than willing to make their displeasure known. So now Alvin only has a limited time to learn about his power in a pce actively trying to kill him.

  Can Alvin adapt fast enough? Gain the power needed? Or will he be just another life snuffed out in a realm where no one has ever escaped from?

  This novel has been finished and while you can read it in the entirety here and on my Patreon, there is a more polished version avaible for purchase as an ebook for 3.99 on both Amazon and my Patreon. I will get more of the cut if you buy it on my Patreon shop, but I understand that getting an ebook on kindle can be a hassle so feel free to use Amazon. If anything, it will help boost the story in the algo.

  [colpse]