It's really surprising what a man can do when his back is against the wall.

  He punched the first goblin that reached him, adrenaline and fear putting all his power behind it in hopes of knocking the first one away. He caved through it like it was a meat pinata with organs instead of candy inside. Bone fragments burst out the creature's back like shrapnel, apparently the physics of this world weren't entirely like Earth's, and they dug into the goblins that had been behind the unfortunate forerunner. For a moment, the other goblins froze, and Brom freaked out. His arm was stuck in the goblin, and he kept shaking at it, like it was a piece of tape stuck to his fingers and not a living creature he'd just snuffed like a candle. Nope, he couldn't think about that, or he'd freeze. He froze, and he was going to die.

  He gave his arm a violent shake, and the body finally dislodged with a wet squelch to go flying off at a decent speed. It limned a graceful arc in the air, orange blood trailing like liquid streamers as it tumbled end over end before hitting with a soft thud a dozen yards distant. The goblins had stopped screaming. They'd all watched that body fly in unison, their heads tracking it in one smooth motion, flinching en masse when it had landed. The sleeve of his hoodie was covered in that viscous orange, reminding him of the Gak toy he'd had as a kid. Great, now he'd tainted perfectly good childhood memories!

  Then they all slowly looked back at him.

  +1 XP

  Brom had been in a nightclub riot once before. It was a lot like this, only less lethal. There was nowhere for him to go, the pressure on him came from all sides, preventing him from toppling over, even though they were all pulling at him. He just locked his stance and started swatting at them. It was disgustingly effective, he discovered, slapping the top of a goblin's head clean off. Just shearing it at the hinge of the jaw and spraying the crowd with that orange blood. The back ranks, in their fervor to reach him, were creating a crush situation that was, in all honesty, a boon for him. This world was still governed somewhat by physics, enemies couldn't just noclip into each other. He lost track of the XP notifications as they piled up.

  Stabbing motions were the only effective ones they could make, the space was not wide enough for slashing. Spears couldn't be brought to bear as he just ripped them away from their owners, sometimes bringing the arms of unfortunate goblins with them when they didn't let go fast enough. His brain went numb to it, his soul just covering its eyes. He had to do what he had to do. He'd have a moral panic about it later.

  HP: 83/100

  He was acutely aware of his HP ticking down. They weren't doing a lot of damage, but there were a lot of them. He was losing health steadily. He couldn't just keep standing here and letting them chip away at him. They were like the teeth in a shark's jaw, for each one he ripped out, there was a fresh one ready to rotate in and take its place. Brom almost lost his balance, grabbing for anything to steady himself. Fingers punched right through the skull of a goblin and stuck in the brain matter below. Sharp bone fragments locked them in, and he windmilled the twitching corpse like a makeshift flail. It turned out to be rather effective, although incredibly fragile, with the force he was swinging it.

  HP: 72/100

  His hand finally came free, the shredded corpse flung somewhere in the seething mass of goblin bodies. Sharp pain ripped up his back. One enterprising little fucker with a couple of shanks made from street signs had launched itself from the shoulders of its fellows at his blind spot. Those razor-sharp bits of metal had raked him good, one sticking into his shoulder. The little beast clung like a climber on a mountain face, raising its free dagger and bringing it back in with force. Brom had been reaching back at just that moment in hope of dislodging it, taking the dagger through the hand.

  "Fuck!" It was the first actual thing he'd said in the minute since the fight had started. It wasn't like the goblins understood. Now he yanked his hand back, ripped the shank free, and hurled it away. Somewhere, a goblin caught it with its throat, reaching trembling hands toward the projectile as it's breaths turned into nasty dying gurgles. The sharp motion of the hurl had finally dislodged the goblin clinging to him, dropping it into the crowd of its fellows. Like a swarm of sharks, in their frenzy to gain glory in the fight, they all shoved the fallen one off them. It was quickly pushed down and trampled to a pulp under swarming goblin feet.

  - Poison

  - Disease

  - Bleeding

  HP: 66/100

  This hearty Barbarian body of his was really coming in clutch. Were it not for his passive no doubt he'd be dead by now. He could taste his own blood in his mouth. Worse, he could taste goblin blood in his mouth. The two of them together tasted like honey-coated blue cheese crumbs over the top of raw liver. He spat to clear his mouth, went to punch another goblin, and realized something.

  The goblins had paused their attack. One of the ones wielding a stick with the glass and the feathers was gesturing wildly, an oddly pulsing screech coming from its mouth. The previously bloodthirsty mob suddenly busied themselves with grabbing hold of the bodies of their fallen, well, the ones that were in condition to be picked up and carried, and started to escape. They just left Brom standing there, coated in two colors of blood and a whole lot of viscera. He stared after them for a moment before turning back in the direction the goblin had been gesturing.

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  The skeletons hadn't given up, it seemed. They were shambling toward Brom with the single-minded determination of a Karen who'd spotted a manager. Worse, there were more of them. The first group was climbing over the cars at the bottom of the hill, the second marching midway down the hill, the third group just passing the chain link, and there were the skulls of a fourth group further back. Four dozen skeletons instead of the simple dozen he'd originally run from.

  His shoulders slumped, a look of weary despair making itself at home on his face. "You have got to be kidding me."

  I told you to return to the Tutorial area.

  The System sounded incredibly smug.

  Brom was in no mood to be mocked by a voice that sounded like a goddamn GPS with a personality. "Shut the fuck up. I don't want to hear it." He rolled his shoulders, trying to psych himself up. The motion pulled the shank embedded in his back muscle, the metal scraping against the bone and drawing a bellow of raw agony from him. A moment later, the bloody bit hit the pavement by his soaked sneakers with a merry little tinkle, forced from his flesh by the raw power of his muscles bunching.

  Looks like that hurts. You know, we have a Tutorial for healing?

  "You passive-aggressive piece of shit, please pray to whatever god in the machine created you that I never find you. Because if I do, I'm going to shove you in a Magic 8 Ball and hand you to a kindergarten class that has pre-gamed on pixie stix and double-shot mochas." It seemed that panic situations made him very creative with the kind of insults he threw out. Who knew Brom had this kind of hidden talent!

  The skeletons were in no rush to get to him, thankfully. Or maybe they were, but without muscles and sinews could only walk toward him at half the speed of hair growing. Either way, it gave Brom a few moments to get himself together and get a plan in his head. He picked up one of the shields the goblins had been carrying. It looked comically tiny in Brom's hands, sized for a small creature, but anything was better for blocking those rusty knives than his bare skin.

  He rummaged through the fallen weapons, finding a spear dropped near the back that looked like it had been made out of a hunk of rusty rebar. Likely, it had belonged to a goblin that had gotten trampled, or maybe the one that had caught the shank to the throat. Either way, it had never made it to Brom stabbing range. Sucker would have hurt. Now he was satisfied with the heft of it, sturdy and perfect for splitting bone, he hoped.

  Brom took a deep breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Once, twice, okay...he was ready. Gripping his spear tight, he took a step toward the skeletons. The skeletons, as one, tossed back their skulls and let out a noise that should have been impossible considering they had no vocal cords or lungs. An eerie croaking noise.

  From behind the rise of the hill where they were all appearing, a green flash went up. Green ball lightning shot forward, touching each skeleton and then rushing forward from the ones in front. It crawled across the goblin remains, causing pulped flesh and splintered bone to shudder. Dismembered limbs twitched and severed tongues flopped. Discarded eyes rolled, and Brom could only watch in horror as the brutalized goblin remains began to pull themselves back together.

  "Oh hell no."

  It was back to running. Wounds forgotten. Pain pushed down. Full stride and no shame as he abandoned that parking lot at a speed that would have made a racehorse flinch. He ran like a man trying to catch the last bus out of a dead-end town, wind singing through the holes in his hoodie. The sound of his heart was loud in his ears, hammering away at his eardrums. Unfortunately, it still wasn't loud enough to drown out the incredibly bored sounding voice of the System.

  I am once again encouraging you to return to the Tutorial area. It's only going to get worse for you.

  Brom turned his blood-spattered face skyward. "Read my lips, I am injured and armed with a club. Thank god skeletons don't do cardio. I'm no-"

  Really, he should have learned his lesson about not watching where he was going when he trampled over the goblin. This time, there was no hapless creature in his way. Instead, he ploughed straight into and through a brick wall. He came to a halt, coughing brick dust out of his mouth, blinking his eyes against the grit in him. "Fucking, ow."

  Five goblins had been huddled in the sweet, safe darkness. A tunnel crew, busy repairing the outer passages of the Warren sheltered by the building. They had been minding their business, unaware of the carnage that had happened less than a block away. These weren't combatants, they were more akin to civil servants. A humble construction crew. They'd never faced danger in their little grey-green lives. Which is why they were wholly unprepared when the wall exploded inward. There, backlit by the light of the dying suns, dust swirling around it, was the black, shadowy shape of a blood-soaked monster. It made awful, guttural noises and turned wetly glinting white-rimmed eyes toward them.

  In perfect unison, their five little hearts gave out, removing them from this world and delivered them from that evil.

  + 5 XP

  Congratulations, Brom Jones! You've reached level 2!

  HP: 200/200

  Levelling up fully heals you, so...about that Tutorial area?

  A resigned sigh rippled out of him as Brom gazed at the small bodies of the collapsed tunnel crew. "Fine. I'll go back."