Despite my long history of—very valid—paranoia, I never believed in conspiracy or the supernatural. With the apocalypse etched into my mind, it seemed pointless to say that I wasn’t scared of ghosts. They didn’t exist… on Earth. While the world had changed, conventional fears were thrown out the window. Now anything could exist, beyond normal reason.

  Even as I watched the door of the cottage slowly shut in front of us, I tried not to jump to conclusions. Maybe it was the wind or a change in air pressure. Sometimes doors just closed by themselves.

  Although, with the way the pair of us remained frozen in place, our bodies believed that something clearly wasn’t normal. I realized now that I could no longer hear the rain. It was eerily silent, and as my eyes went to the window, it looked unnaturally dark outside.

  I took three soft steps over to it and looked out. Dark, like nighttime, but not fully. Down to the right, where the village square and larger buildings were, was the flickering flame of a campfire. No, much larger than that - a bonfire. Shadowed figures passed across it against the backdrop of thick fog further out.

  “This is some Silent Hill shit,” I whispered to the dog, who seemed nonplussed.

  Before I could lament not having the waitress around to share the reference with, movement caught my eyes. Two orbs of light were moving away from the larger fire and toward us, illuminating shoulders and the shapes of faces.

  “Another desecrates the protected land!”

  “The pyre hungers for further sacrifice.”

  I rolled my eyes at the voices shouting at each other from down the street. Even though I was cold from the rain-soaked clothing, I wasn’t keen to get thrown into the bonfire. It was nice of them to shout their plans out loud, though. I backtracked to the kitchen to gather my thoughts before I was found, and unsurprisingly, the System decided to butt in.

  [Quest Complete: Investigate Hammergate]

  [Affinity Skillbook]

  [200 Gold]

  [Mystery Chest (3)]

  [New Quest: Prevent the Summoning]

  [Recommended Players: 5 (Level 5+)]

  “Motherfuckers,” I murmured. Either Richard or the aliens would be getting an earful once I got out of this. If I got out of this. The reward just for investigating the village seemed overblown, but considering the follow-up, it was something of a bait and switch.

  Any further pondering over why this was set up this way would have to wait until later, as the sound of boots against the cobblestone left me no time for deliberation.

  “They’re in this one!”

  I took out the skillbook and used it.

  [Sow Panic]

  [Skills that inflict targets with Fear also apply Panic]

  [Panic: -5% Stats (Max stack: 5)]

  There it was. I had rolled the dice and played into the hand of the STAR. Now every Killing Blow reduced the threshold for another to activate, alongside the Vitality and thus HP of my targets. With Threadcutter also increasing the chance, I was only a few cheat codes away from being a living monster.

  Assuming I survived escaping this cursed village, anyway. But was this a test? An opportunity to run that-

  I gripped the handle of my axe tighter as the front door swung open. The smell of burning wafted through the house, along with the sound of chanting. Heavy boots stomped into the dining room and I held my breath. Bucky was statuesque, stance rigid and teeth bared, but silent.

  “You can’t hide from the Lord of Nails,” the gruff voice came from the other room. Their held torch illuminated the small cottage. “Come out and-”

  At this point, I wasn’t sure how the System expected me to abandon the quest after finding out this was something for a whole group to deal with. Maybe I was shit out of luck and had missed some key piece of information from the tavern that should have warned me about even attempting this.

  Either way, I was pissed off. Before the man could finish his search for me, I stepped out of the kitchen and approached with my weapon held ready.

  [Nail Cultist (Level 4)]

  The man had clearly been a villager at some point, but now his simple clothing was covered with both ash and lashings of blood. Even his face was marred by soot, as if he had been rolling around in the remnants of the fire. In one hand, he held the flaming torch, and in the other was a long, thin dagger.

  More of a large nail, almost. It was only briefly in his grip, as Threadcutter disarmed him as I swung in to attack. He stumbled back, almost knocking into the second cultist coming in through the door, and collided with the wall. They had assembled a group of four to come retrieve me.

  As the second moved in to assist, I hit them with Deny Life. The sledgehammer appeared in my hands as I leveled a heavy upswing at the cultist on the threshold. It caught him in the chest, shattering his ribs with a hefty crunch. He fell back onto the third in their precession, just as I turned to the first cultist with Threadcutter back in my hands.

  He had used the momentary distraction to stumble past behind me and pick up his weapon. Just as he reached for the odd blade, Bucky leaped out from under the table and latched onto his hand.

  The dog growled as the cultist tried waving the held torch at him, but before he could get in any real danger, I was there. My first strike hit the back of the man’s knee, and he dropped, sprawling out across the floorboards.

  “It doesn’t matter what you-” he began, before my axe came down on the back of his head.

  I turned in place toward the open street, but nobody was keen to come fight me indoors. In fact, the increased yelling probably meant that they were running for reinforcements.

  “Don’t suppose you know the way out of here, Bucks?” I raised an eyebrow at the dog, who had a bloody mouth. No response other than a blank stare.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  [Nail Blade]

  [More of an ice pick, really, but that’s what you get for carrying around hammers]

  No stats on the slim weapon, but I could imagine they would be very effective at piercing - but little else. Into my collection, it went.

  So far, I had worked out a few of the questions behind the malady that had befallen Hammergate. Oh, I just realized the irony of that name. The villagers had been corrupted and became a cult to this ‘Lord of Nails’, sacrificing any adventurer or other neutral party that ended up in this area.

  That didn’t explain how it had happened, or for what purpose they were sacrificing people. Luckily, I was nearly level 6, and hungry to do some learning.

  I stepped out of the house and back into the village. Out here, the smell was overpowering. The air was thick with smoke and the sickly smell of burned flesh. There was an uncomfortable warmth that waved along the slight breeze from the direction of the large pyre.

  There was no desert back out the way we had come. At the edge of the village, there was a thick rolling fog, making me feel claustrophobic. Trapped in an oven. Could we just run through it and escape? Probably worth a try, as the alternative was…

  A glance back toward the fire revealed dozens of figures gathering to march on my position. Like a proper mob. Pitchforks, torches, and those nail daggers. Men and women alike, frothing at the mouth as their eyes burned with fury. Each of them dirtied by charcoal and dust, the evidence of their barbaric murders splattered in crimson across their normal garb.

  My fate was a spinning coin. Heads and we’d make a break for the fog. Tails and we’d commit to the bit and see what we were made of. I realized now that the silver coin I had found didn’t have roman numerals on it - the two lines were nails. A piece of a puzzle that I didn’t yet understand, but I had to admit I was glad of one thing…

  At least it wasn’t raining here.

  More fool me to want to stick around to dry off, but I had already slapped the spinning coin flat inside my mind. Didn’t even look at how it landed, because I knew only one answer would satisfy me.

  “I did my due diligence with Sally,” I said to Bucky, as we watched the angry crowd approached. “Now we fight our way.”

  His tail wagged a little, but he kept his eyes on the roving mob coming for us. Maybe he just perked up at hearing the waitress’ name. It was a lot to ask him to face death alongside me, but there would be no dissuading him. He’d even hit level 2 just from that brief skirmish.

  “C’mon,” I told him. “We aren’t fighting out in the open.”

  Not without Deny Life to give me that initial advantage, anyway. A faux pas to use the overpowered skill on such a low threat, but I had expected more of a brawl rather than for half of the hunters to turn tail.

  I jogged over to the houses across the street and filtered in through the alley between them, coming out into their garden. Much less spacious than out on the street, and the cultists could only reach me via either side of the cottage due to the wall surrounding the garden. Several parts of the ground were rough and cut down for growing vegetables, and there were a few heavy log benches breaking up the approach to me.

  Just a little further back from the center of the garden, I waited to see how intelligence these System cultists actually were.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  Even without their screeches and wails for me to be brought to justice, the lights they all carried illuminated the side alleys as if they were filling with lava. I rotated Threadcutter in my hands and prepared myself.

  “There she is!” The first to clamber through the thin space called out. “Get the sacrificial lamb. The Lord demands it!”

  I steeled my nerve and took one last breath. Then it was nothing but pure chaos.

  Despite my usual bravado, it was clear that taking the fight out in the street would have left me overwhelmed almost instantly. Even funneling the mob into this enclosed space had me on my toes from the outset.

  I clashed with a pitchfork and hopped back to avoid the stab of one of their nails. Twisted my weapon and swung awkwardly to not leave my flank open. A large wound landed, but not enough to kill. That cultist sunk back and let fresh bodies fill the gap.

  Threadcutter lashed around and struck someone in the hand, cutting through their palm and embedding several inches into their wrist. I swung the axe out into a wide arc, but the next target dodged backward. It was starting to look like I would be eating humble pie shortly, but at least I’d be warm. Oh fuck, I was hungry.

  Next cultist would have easily moved away from my next desperate slash, but they wavered in place - almost tripping over Bucky right behind them. My blade connected with their face, breaking bone and rending it open. Too much of a one-shot to activate my skill.

  And therein lay the problem with my build. Without getting a Killing Blow off, I was just a warrior that had no weapon abilities. Someone with way too much confidence in their luck.

  I had been cold a few minutes ago, but now I was sweating like a stuck pig. A nail drove into my left arm, my reflexive kick the only thing preventing the other cultists from dogpiling me with more needle-like daggers. I twisted, and I caught a pitchfork between the prongs with the shaft of my weapon. Taking a stupid risk, I spun around, lashing out.

  For my efforts, I received a needle to my back. Thankfully, my movement had it only piercing my skin at a shallow angle, but it drew down, tearing through my shirt as it split my skin.

  In reaction to the pain, I used Actually Competent to give me +5 Morale and +1 Vitality for five seconds. It wasn’t healing my HP, but it had the effect of numbing the wound temporarily. It was enough of a boost for me to attempt a follow-up attack. Bucky gave me the assist, and I sliced through the torso of the pitchfork wielding woman.

  Still no conditional activation. I was tiring fast, and had been pushed almost all the way back to the wall as the garden filled with cultists eager for my blood.

  I blocked one, then two, three attacks. The time for me to get in an attack was shrinking rapidly. In a detour from the normal, the only person I blamed for this was myself.

  Yet the growling caught my attention. Even with my senses shot from the sounds and smells of the ruined village, my focus switched to the cultist I had slashed already. Bucky had grabbed her by the bottom of her skirt and was pulling back to stop her from backing into the crowd to be healed.

  Instead, she struggled in place, out of strength and quickly losing blood. Right up to the point where…

  I smiled as I darted the short distance toward her, before driving the nail dagger I had taken through her eye and into her brain. In addition to the usual icon showing the monsters were afraid of me, Panic now showed up as well. It looked like the scream mask, white on a dark blue square.

  The icons rippled out through the crowd.

  Perhaps with their fealty to this Lord of Nails, they weren’t so susceptible to Morale-based effects. That made sense to me on the surface. Just as much as I knew this was probably the best—and possibly only—chance I had of making it out of here alive.

  In the momentary shock of my attack, I switched to the new bladed knuckles and turned, leveling a punch out at the nearest cultist. Cut open their face. In the midst of battle, someone had dropped their torch, and now a fire had started near the left alley. I grabbed my opponent by the shirt and spun him around, using him as a shield briefly.

  “Kill her!”

  “She’s just one person. Get stuck in.”

  My ears rang, my head filled with far too much noise. I twisted the cultist away, slashing out with the side blade of my fist weapon to cut through their throat. A flash of red.

  With the normal knuckleduster now on my left hand, I landed a punch to his gut. He hunched over, winded, and I stabbed him in the back with the bladed one - piercing his lungs.

  Second stack of Panic on all observers - but also something different.

  Firstly, killing the man had gotten me to level 6. Something to celebrate when I was less pressed. The other—more important—thing was that three other cultists also flashed red.

  Killing Blow burned through my system, giving me the necessary energy to act. First victim took a punch to the face before I slipped a nail through their heart. As I turned, Doomchain lashed out, wrapping around the knee of the next monster. The pain caused them to drop down, right in range for Bucky to leap up and latch onto their throat. I let go of the chain and moved as if I was in a dance, the only one moving in this sea of depraved lunatics.

  With a twist, I lopped the third cultist’s head off with Threadcutter.

  As I watched the Panic icons rack up to stacks of five, I realized one final thing.

  After living in fear for so much of my life, I had conquered it in a way I never thought possible.

  I had become fear itself.