Hello, my lovely players. I have your anticipated chapter ready for you to read, so gobble this writing up! I spent a lovely arfternoon on a warm Sunday after a nice time in a pool, so I'm pretty sure it's amazing. Maybe. I may be a little over-confident in my abilities, but I think it's better than the last one. Emotional parts? Ugh. I don't enjoy writing those points, as you might see. Sorry it's a little late, but final touches... But enough rambling on about bollocks. Read on!

The street of this town were different than any Zeke had seen so far. The steampunk style of the second floor was strange. Zeke never really had a taste for steampunk, so he didn't really enjoy the noise of released steam or the clang of machinery. All the NPCs, strangely all of them, had monocles and a hat. Some were top hats, others were hairbands. All stretched between and all had some piece of clockwork brass and bronze in it. Even worse was the smell. The stench of burnt oil and grease was everywhere on the second floor. It was hardly a distant guess that the boss of the floor was some sort of steampunk monstrosity.

Against the gleaming yellow-ish gold of the cities, Zeke's flowing red scale coat stood out like a sore thumb. He kinda looked like one too. The red coat streaked by the buildings as Zeke ran through the shining city. The past few days had been a little wild, with all the Frontliners and the cowards fighting. The Frontline players (most) wanted the cowards back in floor one to start fighting up top with the rest of them. Zeke fully agreed, only he didn't get involved. He'd rather be on his own, nothing held back. He just had to beat the game. Even if he died trying...

But it's not like he wanted to die. Who would? Those who commit suicide, he believed, didn't want to die, but escape. Zeke did not want to escape his life. He already had and it cost him his heart. He could remember how he used to joke around in the starting town and laugh with Amelia. Now... Nothing. No rush of pleasure from the wind in his face, no smiles. He hardly felt anything anymore. The worst part was that he didn't miss it.

No one in either side really remembered the date. Only if you looked could anyone see the time. People still died. Zeke didn't really care anymore. As if he'd kept track. He didn't plan on having anyone die with him, so he didn't team up exactly. Only monsters and attackers died with him. It was better this way.

He was headed to the out-lying caves of the town. Gone were the open fields and the sunshine, replaced with caves and underground cities of brass and bronze. His sword never left his back, even when people and NPCs asked his to remove his effects. It didn't matter anyways, as he was currently on a mission for the Miners Guild of the town. He needed a little extra coin. The miners were no fighters and they couldn't harvest any bone materials, nor any hides. Bones and leather played part just as big as brass and bronze. That is the mission he was offered...

"Hello, young traveler! Would you mind helping out a few old miners like us?" It was a stout, bearded man with a pickaxe who spoke. Zeke had happened to be in the tavern to get a drink. Luckily nobody got drunk from tavern-offered drink. You just had to convince the bar tender, as Zeke found out the day he got up to this floor.

"No, I'm fine. I don't really enjoy mining that much." Zeke paused by their table non-the-less.

"Well, it's not the kind of Mining you're thinking of. We need some drops from some Spiders and stuff and we can't fight too well. You get the drift?" Zeke nodded and, before he knew it, he'd accepted the mission to retrieve Spider Plates, Dead Man Bones, and The Hides of a Sabre Cat. All to be found in the caves, the wilderness of the second floor.

It really wasn't that much of a surprise. Not very many monsters could be found inside towns and cities. Angry pigeons, shop vendors you've stolen from, stray cats, ect. Heading into the caves wasn't so bad. Until Zeke reached them. He first realized his mistake when he found he couldn't see very well. No torch, no lighting spells. Nothing. No light was equipped. Zeke didn't have a clue where he was stepping. He immediately stepped back into the light of shining brass and opened his inventory. He had a spell just for this and he wanted to test it.

Zeke opened his palm and a light was there. It was the spell called Candle. Now he was prepared. Zeke raised his hand sharply and released the floating light. It stayed above his head and drifted along with him. He wrapped his fingers over the leather-bound hilt behind him and drew the weighted blade. It was comfortable there. Soon, Zeke was immersed in a cocoon of darkness, the only light inside the shell, as he wandered into the maze of caverns...

*CLANG*

Zeke finished an elaborate stroke against the Plated Spider. The armor encasing it was hard, almost too hard to breach. But not for Zeke's Dragon's Blood sword cleaved a foot deep gash into it's back. The monster dropped but didn't vanish, almost sensing his mission in his quest log. Which it was. Zeke knelt down and ripped two or three 1" thick plates from it's back before it shattered into pixels.

Congratulations!

Gil: 342

EXP: 400

Item: Spider Venom

Zeke hated spiders. Why did it always have to be spiders? He put the silvery metal into his inventory and left the cavern he was in, to search for a Hide of a Sabre Cat or dead mens' bones. Whatever came first. It felt better to fight than to think. To think of her. Of what happened on that day.

But Zeke was starting to get his mind back from fight mode. He was walking like normal but he didn't really know where he was going. He was already thinking back to what happened a week ago. He hardly noticed that a skeleton was standing in his path. He only really saw it when an arrow shot him in the shoulder and his health dropped by a quarter. The reduce pain was what shook him from his thoughts.

The red blade in his hands glowed a bright blue as he activated a sword skill. The spin from the skill cut the cluster of bones as he jumped at it. The bottom of skeleton exploded into pixels as the top half crawled towards Zeke's blade. He held a stone expression as he stabbed the tip through the bone of it's skull. The rest of the body of bones shattered and turned to pixels. Well, most of it. There were a few bones left.

The Bones of a Dead Man...

Zeke picked up a few of the fallen bones and put them in his inventory. Two out of the three down...

The Sabre Cat was more of a challenge to find. He had to travel deep into the maze of caverns. The built-in map was explored all around the first town and a few caves he'd been through. The cavern Zeke was wandering down had a long distance separating the town and him, the longest yet. He'd probably gone the farthest down this way. Probably the only one.

If he explored enough, this map could sell for a pretty coin. Although, the one who finds the boss room will probably earn a couple thousand off that map. That's the whole point. And the want to find the next boss is at an all time high since the defeat of Akon. There was also a want for the Blood-Red Dragon Swordsman, who defeated the boss. There was also the legend that he'd done it himself. Rumors were always twisted when passed from one air-head to another.

The dark of the caverns were only touched by the Candle spell occasionally, sometimes confusing him and letting him run into walls. But that only happened once!

The light did often flicker now, as his magic dropped. The spell had to feed off of something. The bar of mana he had was dropping, it seemed, faster and faster. It now sat at around an eighth of capacity and still fell lower. Zeke had to find that cat soon or he'd run out of magic. He didn't really spend much time with magic so his skill wasn't very high.

He still thought of Amelia. He could never forget her. The pain only really went away when he was fighting, but it always found him. His sleep hadn't exactly been sunshine and candy. Usually he woke up with his face lying against a wet pillow. Some nights he didn't even go to the Inns. Instead he hunted on the lower floor, bathed in moonlight.

He was walking down a corridor of smooth, black stone when a feral growl sounded behind him. Zeke whirled around. His light drooped and flickered. The walls of darkness closed in.

I need more light, Zeke thought. His mana would run out if he burned up too much, but he couldn't fight a cat if the light only showed him the cat when it was on top of him. He had to risk it. After all, that was how this game worked, right. Risk.

The borders of the darkness started to recede as Zeke willed his remaining mana into fueling the spell. The light expanded to five meters all around, revealing the walls, ceiling, and floor. At the boundary, movement caught Zeke's eye. It was only there for a moment, but he got a clear image of what it looked like.

It was a pure white leopard, like a snow leopard, and it's fangs over hung it's jaw. They glinted strangely in the light. It's yellow eyes had squinted in the bright light above Zeke's head. It retreated quickly into the darkness to escape the harsh glare of the light. On the off-hand, Zeke's mana was dropping quickly. He released the magic to a point where it weakly glowed. He didn't have much time left.

"Alright, you coward! Come out and fight." His voice was louder than he meant. It's sound reverberated off the smooth walls and multiplied several times. It was like he shouted. The feral growl sounded and he turned towards it. It sounded like it was next to him and behind him.

Please not two, he asked God. He willed the light to expand. Then, he ran at the sound. The light engulfed the cat faster than it could react and it tried to shield it's eyes. That moment, it knew. It had messed up. The red blade glowed a brighter red and crashed into the cat. It hissed at Zeke, but he wasn't done. An instant later the blade withdrew and and uppercut sliced into the cat's front legs.

The beautiful predator fell and Zeke pulled his blade out. He noticed that it's fangs were blades and had sunken into the stone. The usual pixel gashes were left on the hide, but a knife for skinning appeared in his hand. It wasn't his but Zeke still proceeded to cut into the animal. The skin was easily removed and the smell that usually accompanied blood was absent. Still the sight of a half-skinned, half pixelated brought bile to his mouth. He retched behind him, but nothing came out. Game logic.

When the game decided he'd had enough, the Leopard vanished with a poof and pixels. He double tapped the skins he had and the menu dropped down. He selected the option to put the fur into his inventory. Then he closed his battle results. The glow of a level up surrounded him and, for a second, he could see the cave. At the end, he glimpsed a large set of brass steampunk doors. The rose to about two meters tall and half as wide. And he knew what they were.

It was the Boss Room. He was the one who found it. Then, the glow vanished and the cave darkened. After a few seconds, his spell flickered and vanished, bathing him in darkness...

GUYS! I'm so happy! I'm free! I finished my finals! I have a cool theme song right now and it's called 'Keep your Weapons Aimed'. It goes so well with my mood, this upbeat song. But all that is important is this: I'M FREE!

Leave any comments or reviews or any suggestions below. If you need to discuss something, feel free to PM me or message me on my Google account.

But now my pillow calls for me. I must heed her sweet tones. LowePlays, signing out!