153 chapter 5

As I explored the dark room my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. I could vaguely sense the outlines of things around me. The room was filled with several cages like the one I had spawned in. There were also several of the strange board cuffs filling the room.

More importantly I was able to see the corpse of the creature I had slain. It was much smaller than a human, and had large floppy ears. It's face was slightly beastial and had large eyes and sharp teeth. I could not see the color of its skin, but I knew the creature before me was a goblin.

In most games goblins were semi-intelligent creatures. The usually traveled in groups, and were extremely weak. Their biggest features were their obsession with all things shiny and their uncontrollable lust.

I shuddered as I thought of the fate that would befall me if I failed to escape. I would not let that happen. If only I had a gun, I could easily escape from this mess. Alas, the game had spawned me with nothing. I did not even have the clothes on my back, as the goblins had obviously seen no need for them.

I quickly took stock of my situation. I was butt naked, and the only thing I had in my possession was the metal chain I was using as a weapon. I had skills that I could not use, or rather did not know how to use.

I looked at the woman who was currently leaning against her prior imprisonment while sitting. "Do you know how to use skills?"

The woman looked at me strongly for a moment, and I quickly had to come up with an excuse. "I think the goblins did something to me, I cannot remember anything."

The woman nodded. "Consider yourself lucky, I wish I could forget all the things they have done to me.." The woman trailed off. her thoughts had obviously taken a dark turn based on what I could make out of the expression on her face.

I did not have time to be patient. While enlisted I had encountered many people who had been traumatized by the things they had witnessed, or the things that they had one or where done to them. I knew the girl needed time, but that is not a luxury we currently had.

I approached the girl and squatted in front of her. I looked into her eyes for a few moments as I put my hand on her shoulder. "My name is Yuri, what's yours?"

"L...Laurel my name is Laurel."

I nodded. Her condition was much as I had expected. "We need to get out of here Laurel. A lot of bad things have happened to you, but we do not have time to recover. More goblins will come soon."

The woman looked deeply into my eyes. The fear.. no fear was not a strong enough word to describe it, the absolute terror she felt was plastered all over her face. I attempted to give her a comforting smile.

"We need to escape. I have a rather awesome skill, but I need to know how I can activate it."

Laurel shook her head. "You really don't remember anything do you Yuri?" she sighed softly. "Your ability is truly top notch. It's not even something you need to activate, it is just subconsciously used. However it has a major drawback. You need a firearm to be able to use it. They took our weapons Yuri, unless we can recover them Your ability is useless."

I nodded. This actually made sense. I had tried all sorts of tricks to get my ability to activate, but nothing had even caused a stir. I needed a gun. Without one, this character was just as normal as any random person you picked off the streets. Well almost, I still had my abundance of experience that I had recieved from the special forces.

"OK, I will as you how you know so much about me later. For now, our main goal is to escape this place."

I walked to the nearest of the empty cages and began to kick the gate. Not long after the gate had fallen, and I grabbed the chain that was an exact copy of my own. I tossed it to Laurel, who managed to easily catch it.

"Will you be able to use this?"

Laurel raised her eyebrow at me, as if to imply I was stupid. "Who do you think taught you to make use of your surroundings?"

I looked at her for a moment before turning away. I had learned from my time in the army, I do not know what she was talking about. A thought crossed my mind. Perhaps the NPC's of this game adapted to the players around them? If I had spawned here, she must be the AI that would establish my place in this world.

With this thought in mind vowed to find out more about her. It was important to know the background of your character, especially in virtual games such as these. It would help you to integrate into the virtual society. Virtual games were after all like a whole different world. In this regard, man kind had truly begun to play god.

I helped laurel to her feet. "If you are ready we will need to go. I am surprised the goblins have not already reacted to the noise we have caused in here."

Laurel nodded at me. "My thoughts exactly."