Chapter 3: Chapter 2: New Thoughts, New [Shadow Inventory]?

The night had become my ally. My headache was vanquished, and my already sharp senses became even sharper. If I felt like I had energy earlier, it was nowhere near comparable to this. Simply put it brought me jubilation. The world around me shrouded in darkness was beautiful. Sounds, sights and smells that were already vivid were even further enhanced. The creatures of the night made different noises. The crickets played their tune, and the owls sang their hoot. It was time for me to play a different noise as well because I was surrounded. 

I heard them howling before and coming towards me as I strolled, but now they were encircling me from the thistle. They were adept at stealth, but they couldn’t fool my newfound hearing capabilities. 5 “Forest Wolves” entrapped me. They were one of the lowest level enemies in-game and easily beatable by any skilled player, but there was a 6th wolf here unlike the others. He stared straight into my eyes from in front while the rest waited. He was their alpha, the “Dire Forest Wolf”. 

There was of course a major difference between them. The surrounding wolves were probably around 3ft at the shoulder, but this guy was an impressive 8ft. He towered before me snarling while slowly making his way forward. This brought a thought to my head. If this was all reality, then meeting those teeth would probably not end well for me. I felt a tiny amount of trepidation from the thought, but even more than that I felt anticipation. I grinned widely, my heart pounding. “Well, don’t you think it is time?”

No sooner than I said that did the large leader let out a vicious growl. The 5 surrounding wolves leapt from the undergrowth with an intensity only a savage beast could muster. It was quite impressive their coordination, but they lacked something important. “A quick lesson on wisdom…”

My shadow enhanced by the night answered my call and spread out over the ground around me. [Shadow Tendrils] launched from the ground like flailing sharp tentacles. The 5 wolves who had dared to charge in let out whimpers and cries of agony  as their bodies were skewered in midair. The [Shadow Tendrils] easily stabbed into their flesh. The scent of their fresh blood as it dripped onto the ground filled my nostrils. Their cries were cut short as their bodies dropped lifelessly once the spell disappeared. “It feels a bit different than the game, but it is similar enough.”

The alpha of the group wasn’t going to listen to my spiel, as he roared in anger and lunged towards me. Time seemed to slow as his massive maw opened towards my neck. I obviously didn't want to be devoured, so instead of waiting I stepped to the side of his face before launching my shadow forward as I had practiced many times on innocent trees.

The fist sized shadow slammed into the side of his neck, and I heard a loud cracking sound. I could tell that the impact had likely severed the connection of his brain to the rest of his body. His body instantly went limp as his head crashed into the ground. In the same instance that his body flopped over itself at a disgusting angle, I retracted the shadow.

The wolves I skewered had a few drops of their blood land on my face and the scent was overpowering. It attacked my nose like a tsunami and soon drowned out all other smells. 2 of my teeth started aching. Even though I had never before experienced a sensation like this with such an intensity, I knew what this was. It was the vampire's hunger.

In the game such a thing mainly existed as lore bits, but this was just as real to me as if someone had starved me for a week only to lay food right in front of me. Every part of this being was screaming at me to start sucking the blood out of their bodies right here and now. I closed my eyes as to no longer watch the blood drift away from their corpses. It took all of my will power to focus inwards. I calmed my rapid breathing. 

I wasn’t sure if vampires were even supposed to have a heart pumping blood throughout the body, but focusing on myself helped me to calm down. One thing I prided myself on as one of the elite in the game was my ability to maintain rationality. I would have never made it as far as I did if I succumbed to every single urge my collectors mind had. I also felt as if I followed my whim here than I would lose my dignity. I took one last long exhale as I opened my eyes. 

My exercise in restraint seemed to reward me because the corpses didn’t look as appetizing now that I calmed down. The smell of blood seemed to still drown out many others, but it was more manageable. “It also seems the corpses haven’t disappeared. Though I suppose this much is expected at this point… Now what to do with these?”

I didn’t know if there would be a future use for them, and even though I had just talked about restraint, my collector brain wanted to do something with them. “I think maybe this problem is intrinsic to all MMO players. It also seems wasteful to just leave them here, but I haven’t figured out how to use my inventory yet. What would a shadow inventory even look like in reality?”

So far with magic the spells had easily answered my thoughts (at least the basic ones), but I had to have a thought that matched the outcome. To create a [Shadow Spike] from the {Shadow Mold} tree I had to imagine the shadow being molded into black spikes, and the same was true for the [Shadow Tendrils]. For those I had to imagine the shadows forming into tentacles that ended in sharp points. When I thought that it really was a simple thing, but [Shadow Inventory] was a bit different. 

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For one it didn’t use the same {Shadow Mold} tree. It was a part of both the {Shadow Walk} and {Shadow Mastery} trees respectively, and so far I hadn’t used a single spell from either one. {Shadow walk} was the passive tree for the element, and {Shadow Mastery} were the complicated skills and spells unlocked later. It was quite rare for a spell/skill to be a branch member of two trees under an element, but there were some exceptions. [Shadow Inventory] and other inventory skills like it were similar in this regard. “Maybe I am overthinking all of this?”

“The spells seem to all react fine to my own imagination and will, so what if I just thought of an inventory?” I tried doing just that. I remembered the small boxes that would appear on my screen containing items; however, doing this didn’t yield any results. “What else was there?”

Everytime I opened the [Shadow Inventory] in-game there was always a small puffy black cloud effect surrounding what looked like a backpack in other MMOs. I tried to imagine that picture vividly from memory, which was simple due to how much I played the game. Sadly, this also didn’t produce the desired effect.

“Maybe my line of thinking is too rigid? For starters say this was reality… I don’t really want to think of it as the main possibility, but if it is… Then magical spells and effects could differ wildly from the game. The thought process seems to matter the most here. I want my shadows to become spikes that launch away from me and so…” I launched several [Shadow Spikes] at a tree, and they pierced the trunk with ease. “If I were to formulate an entire shadow like space to contain items, how would I go about it?”

“First off, space would need to be cut off from the world.” I used my will and extended a shadow away from me. I closed my eyes.  This time I imagined that the shadow was its own dimension. A place where time flows differently. A place in which a living being would have its senses deprived. A place that could extend beyond its own size. Maybe the inside could have an incredible volume while the surface is just a ripple. I heard a strange warping sound, and when I opened my eyes something unbelievable sat in front of me. 

It was a black spiral shape, and just as I had imagined, my senses were cut off from whatever it was. I couldn’t hear past it. Seeing inside of it was like astronomers trying to peek within a black hole. Unlike a black hole the thing wasn’t trying to suck in its surroundings, and it wasn’t radiating its mass either. “This is intriguing. Is this really what the shadow inventory looks like? Only one way to find out..”

I was dreading what I was about to do, but this needed to be done. For science! I thought as I stuck my hand inside. My hand easily passed through some inexplicable barrier like a thin bubble. It was to my benefit that my hand was still attached; instead, new information assailed my brain. There was so much here, and the massive info dump was a welcome one. I smiled wider than when my headache was remedied. “Oh, how I missed you.” It was all there! Everything that I had collected was all inside of that little space. “Hahahahaha!...Hahahaha!...Hahaha…!”

I had no idea what I even found so funny, but the laughter wouldn’t stop until I smacked my own cheek with my free hand. The laugh halted, but I was still grinning like a crazed idiot. Everything I had ever worked for had not disappeared. Sure there were things missing, mostly the things which had sat around my castle. It was the things that I hadn’t relegated to my inventory, but still the fact that I still had everything I was carrying when my character died was welcome. “Oh right!... How do I put the wolves inside?”

I took my hand out, and this time I imagined the wolves being sucked into the vortex. This time what happened was similar to a black hole, in that all the corpses were ominously sucked in. Even the “Dire Forest Wolf” got sucked in, despite seeming like he wouldn’t fit. Much to my own benefit, even their blood was sucked in that space. “Haah” I sighed in content as I let the portal close. I was beginning to come down from the extreme amount of joy I felt.

“This is a much welcome boon, but it still raises more questions. Why would I even be able to keep my inventory in the first place? I really need to find out where I am, and on that note…” I could hear something way off in the distance. It was faint, but it sounded like the rumbling of hooves (or coconuts smashing together). I couldn’t pinpoint exactly how far the sound was. It was hard to tell the distance of sounds and get used to things when I could hear as well as I did, but I could tell it was  quite far. Luckily, it was coming from the direction I had already been heading, so in my curiosity I sprinted forward this time. My body was easily able to navigate through the dark wilderness, and it was as agile as during the game. I easily leapt over fallen logs and avoided thorns like it was nothing. The noise of the horses was trailing away, but I headed forwards anyway. Before long I shot from the undergrowth and ended up on a cobble road which cut right through the middle of the forest.

The road was sizable enough to fit a car and a half, and the sound which the horses were making fled towards the right side from where I was facing. “If the setting sun had been anything to go by that direction would be north. There has to be a city in that direction…” I decided to listen to my gut in this instance and followed after the trotting. Only I trailed behind slowly as I opted to walk instead of continuing to run.

By the time they had either gone out of ear shot or stopped trotting altogether I came over a large hill, and when I did I was finally peeking out of the edge of the forest. Large plains spread out before me, and off in the distance a massive fort stood out. I had finally spotted my first city resting on a flat landscape free of the forest.

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