Life for me didn't start from a bang. It started from a sword slashing through my body. I could feel as the two pieces of me started to slide apart. I had no will to scream in pain. I watched as something that vaguely resembled a creature in armor rolled away from my corpse. Instead of a scream I could feel a single tear drip down my cheek. That was how life first started for me. I felt my vision darken and then finally cut out.
The jolting feeling of being brought back to the place I was standing just moments ago—most certainly not cut in half—instead I was standing there whole.
I felt a familiar sense of Deja Vu as the door that lay before me swung open. A familiar looking being clad in armor stepped forward. It yet again swung a blade bisecting me in two. Same as before. I realized the horror, as I felt myself slide apart, splatting on the floor, I was stuck in a loop of pain and horror. As the darkness settled in on my vision again I could faintly hear a voice.
Resistance to Slashing EXP +15
Darkness consumed me again.
I wasn't quite as shocked when the door opened this time. I gripped my sword as the being clad in armor stepped forward. I attempted to run backwards but I could feel an invisible wall push me back towards the cladly armored individual. I wasn't able to make a sound in protest. My mouth felt wired shut. I gripped my sword tightly in my hands. The pain of having a sword cut me asunder not once but twice still freshly burned into my memory.
The creature's gait was unchanged—a heavy, scraping patrol. It paid me no mind, as if I were a piece of furniture to be dealt with on its route. But the voice, that disembodied whisper, had changed everything. It wasn't just a loop. It was a lesson. Resistance to Slashing. I was being taught, brutally and without consent, how to endure.
My knuckles were white on the hilt of my own blade. Where had it come from? It felt as if it had been in my hand all along, an extension of my arm I had only just noticed. It was a simple, unadorned shortsword, but it was real. It was an answer. The invisible wall at my back and the seal on my lips made the options brutally clear: I could not run, and I could not plead. I could only stand my ground. The creature turned, its helm fixing on me. Its advance was slow, deliberate. It was not a mindless beast; it was an executioner, and my turn had come again.
This time, there was no tear. The pain from the last two deaths was a fire in my nerves, but the voice's message was a cold stone of purpose in my gut. The creature's massive blade came down, a blur of steel. I brought my own sword up, a desperate, clumsy block. The impact was jarring, a shockwave that ran up my arms and rattled my teeth. My blade didn't break, but it was knocked aside as if it were a twig. The flat of the enemy's sword slammed into my waist.
Tears blurring my vision, I was thrown against the wall instead of being sliced in two. I felt my body liquify upon impact, the majority of my bones being crushed in the process.
"Huh, I thought the beginning enemies were supposed to die in one hit!" The armored being stomped forward. I could only look up in horror as it drove its sword through my fleshy face.
Stabbing EXP +15Blunt Force Trauma EXP +15
Darkness consumed me again, but the creature's words echoed in the void long after the pain faded. Beginning enemies? It wasn't just a mindless warden. It was following its own set of rules and expectations. And I had just broken them.
The darkness receded, the familiar jolt pulling me back to my feet. I was whole again, sword in hand. The armored being strode forward again. I watched, not moving. I watched as it drew its sword. I held mine firmly in place. Instead of attempting at clumsily holding my ground I adjusted my stance to match his. He swung and I met him this time. Instead of being flung into a wall, my sword was flung from my hands. The sting on my hands felt just as real. I looked down to see bits of blackish liquid ooze from my palms. I looked up in time to meet the edge of his blade careen into my face.
Darkness again. Voice again.
Resistance to Slashing EXP +15Blocking EXP +15
I returned. The blackish liquid on my palms was gone. My hands were whole. The pain was a ghost. But the knowledge remained. Each death was a lesson. Each agony, a point of data. I was no longer a victim in a loop of horror. I was a student. And class was in session.