I stepped out of the locker room and back into the frigid brutality of the Arctic. The Ghost Detector scanned outward from the center of my map, sweeping in a rippling circle, showing no dots of any kind. I was sure that Krivlax was tracking my movements, but at least there were no assassins in our immediate vicinity.
Despite its thin and lightweight fabric, I was surprised at how well the Invisi-Built armor maintained my core body temperature. More importantly, its invisible thermal and damage protections extended to Count B, as long as he stayed close to my body in the quest sack.
COUNT BASIL: Leaf!
He happily rode piggy back style, leafy head and arms out, elated to no longer be scrunched inside the bag.
“Alright, ERNI, you remember our plan. We only get one shot at this.”
“I understand,” he said.
I pressed a button on the gauntlet. A small slot opened on the side, ejecting the DNF disc. I clutched it in my right palm. Either our digital surgery was going to be a resounding success or I wouldn’t live long enough to know it failed.
There was only one way to find out.
“You ready, Count B?”
He flashed a leaf’s up.
COUNT BASIL: Leaf.
“Alright, team, let’s do this!”
I slapped the DNF disc against my chest and pressed the button. I felt the sensation of a million needles puncturing my body all at once.
And suddenly, the world around us fell away.
We were encased in plasmic goo as my body hurtled through a series of wormholes. The G-forces were near unbearable.
The skin on my face rippled backward as if being pushed by a giant fan. Count B’s vines were flailing as well. Despite the Invisi-Built armor holding up, he chickened out, retreating inside the quest sack, slamming its lid closed.
I couldn’t even laugh. My lips flapped. My cheeks rippled from the pressure. I watched on the HUD as my heart rate and blood pressure skyrocketed. I tried to take deep breaths to remain calm.
Up ahead, the cosmic tunnels split off in two different directions.
“Alright, ERNI, it’s the jump point. You know what to do.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
Ahhh, ERNI and his movie vocabulary.
As we neared the fork, my body naturally started to gravitate towards the right. My HUD flashed with a series of geometric calculations as ERNI used his glitch to hack into the master game system. There was so much code I could barely make out anything. But I did catch a few lines—
’DNF Exit Transport Protocol’ Override.
Game Reinsertion @ Spawn Point 14.2410, 40.2784
At the last moment, my body veered to the left, spiraling into an alternate tunnel like a pinball smacked by a flipper. We accelerated, the backdrop around us blurring to star lines. It felt as though every cell in my body might explode. And then…
----
…I must have passed out. The next thing I remember was someone slapping my helmet visor.
PCHHT! PCHHT! PCHHT!
“…wh-what the hell…?”
I blinked my eyes open to find Count B hunched over me, shaking my shoulders.
COUNT BASIL: Leaf! Leaf!
“…okay… Okay, dude, I’m up!”
I was flat on my back. I blinked a few times, my vision blurry.
“Good. You are conscious,” ERNI noted, “and still molecularly intact. I can even confirm that you still have your testicles.”
Dizzy, I reached down and cupped my crotch.
“Yeah… whew… looks like it.”
The sky above wasn’t blue, but rather, a sickly yellow, smothered in rolling fumes. Even with the improved thermal protection of the new armor, I could still feel the oppressive heat in the atmosphere.
“Who’s having the cookout?”
I sat up and looked around. The land stretched out in jagged, obsidian ridges, carved with molten, flowing veins of fire.
Neon-green pits churned violently, vomiting thick clouds of sulfuric steam. The horizon wavered with heat distortions—the air twisting as if writhing in agony.
I felt the ground beneath me tremor as my HUD flashed a series of warnings.
Location: Danakil Depression, Ethiopia
Caution - Extreme Conditions!
Temperature: 122°F.
Toxic Gases Detected.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Geothermal Instability.
Armor Climate Control +Rebreather Activated.
“Great job, ERNI. You teleported us straight to Hell.”
“Not quite. I am happy to report that we successfully re-entered the global game map. The bad news is we are right in the middle of a volcanic wasteland. The Danakil Depression is one of the hottest and most unforgiving places on Earth.”
“Fantastic. Looks just like the brochure.“
“My directive was to hack you back into the game. I did not have the luxury of booking a five star resort.”
I remember when ERNI couldn’t even grasp a joke. Now, I was traveling with a regular stand-up comedian.
I rolled over, touching a button on my helmet. The Veil-Rift Visor retracted and I puked my guts out.
I tapped the button again. The visor quickly resealed over my face, but not in time to prevent the overwhelming, burning stench of sulfur in my nostrils.
“Gaaak!”
I stood up, legs shaky as the ground continued to rumble.
“I’m never booking through this flight service again! They lost my luggage and I didn’t even get a bag of peanuts!”
“Oh, I get it,” ERNI replied. “An airline joke. Humorous.”
Count Basil shook his head, unamused.
COUNT BASIL: …leaf.
“Okay, fine… everyone’s a critic. You know what? We’ve got some business to attend to.”
I brought up the ISSN feed and unmuted it.
Blink and Gill were busy covering early action of the 3rd Quarter. They were showing footage of a winged, insectoid warrior battling a horde of gelatinous, blue, blob monsters.
“Uh-oh… looks like a winged Dravelk has stumbled into a hive of OozeFlayers,” Blink exclaimed. “I had just one OozeFlayer over for a meal once.”
“Is that so?” Gill smirked.
“Yeah, I lost half the family.”
“You don’t say?”
“Fortunately, the OozeFlayer is transparent, so they weren’t very hard to find.”
The two of them chuckled it up as the Dravelk flapped its wings and swiped its claws at the swarm of gooey creatures. The first one enveloped his arm, its acid internals melting away the appendage. The Dravelk screamed as other OozeFlayers closed in—their jellylike bodies spreading over and around him.
One by one, they enshrouded him in their translucent bodies, instantly eroding his flesh. Their see-through thoraxes offered a grisly aquarium view of live digestion. Blink and Gill smiled, with front row seats. The Dravelk screamed bubbles inside the gel, its antennas burning away, its eyes liquifying. Finally, its head plinking away from its burnt stump of a neck.
Shit, what a way to go. It reminded me of the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
”Shut your eyes, Marion. Don’t look at it, no matter what happens…”
Blink smiled at camera, just as chipper as ever, “You just gotta love Slayer Bowl.”
Mute.
“All right, ERNI, we ready?”
He gave me a nod from the gauntlet screen.
“I’ve rewritten my core codebase to bypass the broadcast lockout protocols. Just say the word.”
“Let’s do it.”
A notification popped on my HUD.
Going Live On The Wormhole…Loading…
A camera interface overlaid my HUD. A blinking red dot appeared in the corner along with the word—
LIVE!
Thousands of small boxes popped up in my view as I used the SackUpSam handle to reach out directly to viewers.
I had thought long and hard about what I would say in this pivotal moment—letting fans know that I was still alive, despite Krivlax’s deepfake attempt.
What could I say to them? What would be the appropriate message? What deep and profound wisdom or insight could I share about what I had endured?
And there was only one thing I could say—
”Guess who’s back?! Back again! Sammy’s back! Tell a friend!”
I busted a few dance moves as trillions of viewers tuned in, star tags flying all over the place.
? OhShitItsSam
? PizzaGuyDidn’tDie
? CheesusIsRisen
? CountBIsBack
? ERNIHaveMyBaby
The comments and tags flooded my screen, coming in too fast to process. There was so much posting activity, the screen started to glitch and the system almost crashed.
“In all seriousness… I just wanted to let you guys know that I’m okay. I’m alive. But sadly, my teammate, G, had to DNF due to an unfortunate injury. And, if you’re out there watching Big Purppa… don’t worry. I’m gonna stick it out for you, big fella. I’m gonna finish what we started!”
Blink and Gill stopped their commentary mid-sentence, immediately cutting over to my feed, patching me into a direct line their studio.
“This is unbelievable!!!” Blink gasped.”Unless my many eyes are deceiving me, SackUpSam is not dead and he’s here in the flesh!!!”
“Oh, goody,” Gill sneered, sour as ever.
“SackUpSam, is that really you?!”
“Indeed it is, Blink. Thanks for having me!”
“You must tell us what happened. We saw footage of you and your teammate, Gnarltharr, plummeting to your deaths.”
“Yeah… well, about that…”
I cracked my knuckles, and prepared to make my 10th grade English teacher, Mr. Mac, proud.
“It seems the reports of my death were greatly exaggerated. Shout-out to Mark Twain, y’all.”
Gill flexed his flipper-like fists, his orange skin turning a more reddish hue.
“So what does this mean?” Blink asked.
“It means I never killed my teammate. And I never quit on the game. It was all fake.”
More star-tags flew across the screen—
? KnewDatShitWuzFake
? ToldUPizzaBoyAReal1
? KrivlaxGotEem
? SupremeToppingHasSpoken
“Wait just a minute! This changes everything!” Blink exclaimed. He flipped through a holographic rule book, tracing a finger down a translucent page, finding a passage.
“According to the Official Rule Book of the ISL Warrior Code… ‘without tangible proof of willful warrior termination,’ a player remains eligible to continue in the tournament!’”
“Let me see that damned thing!”
Gill snatched it out of the air, flipping through the pages, an alien fish on a mission. “There’s no way we let him back in! There’s gotta be some kinda penalty or something!”
Blink touched the side of his head. “Wait a minute… Looks like we’ve got an incoming message, direct from the commissioner.”
The screen split, and Krivlax appeared on the right-hand side, stroking his spiky, lizard pet.
“Commissioner Krivlax!” Blink cleared his throat. “This entire situation is unprecedented. Do you want to weigh in?”
I could tell Krivlax was seething with rage. It was the first time I hadn’t seen him amused, with his needle-point teeth in that sardonic smile.
“As I mentioned at an earlier press conference, my office became aware of independent, rogue warriors and their efforts to discredit and disqualify certain combatants. I am pleased to see that… SackUpSam is alive and intact. Hopefully, for his sake, he will remain so.”
“Does that mean he’s back in the game?” Blink gulped.
There was a long silence. I could feel Krivlax’s blood boiling.
“Per the warrior code… he is fully reinstated. And, as a bonus gesture, I’ve already sent along a few things to welcome him back to the game.”
Krivlax furrowed his brow, one of his teeth drawing blood from his bottom lip.
The feed went back full-screen to Blink and Gill. Blink excitedly added my name back to the scoreboard, while an exasperated Gill poured himself a drink.
“You heard it here first, folks! SackUpSame is back in the game!”
The feed cut to reaction shots across the multiverse. The results were mixed. Some cheering my reentry. Others hissing with hate.
I didn’t give a shit.
A notification popped up on my HUD.
”You made your choice. So be it.”
I had made my choice. And I had outmaneuvered the commissioner, knowing full well, that his wrath was coming my way.
That was okay.
Mine was coming towards him as well.
I muted the feed as new notifications flashed.
Player Status Change: “SackUpSam” Fully Reinstated Into Slayer Bowl.
Mission: Retrieve Orb.
The pulsing white dot appeared on my map. It was 20 kilometers away.
But that wasn’t all. Krivlax had made good on his promise. His welcome wagon was on its way. Four yellow warrior dots appeared on my map.
COUNT BASIL: Leaf!
“I see ‘em, B.”
Each of them were approaching from a different direction. And they were closing in fast.
