He offered me false freedom, so I chose my own path.
Tonight, I attempt a surreal, high-speed escape from a pit lord, followed by a beautiful ending.
night of november 15th, 2022
Within the depths of a terrifying cave, littered with green pools of flesh-devouring acid, Mannoroth awaits. The huge Pitlord from World of Warcraft wants to play with us, to send us to our deaths for his amusement. I have other plans.
I am standing here, in the deepest corner of this cavern, together with a few other sad blokes who wish they had woken up in their comfortable bed, rather than on these cold, hard rocks. All we are wearing is a loincloth; the rest of our bodies are completely exposed to the dangers that await. Together with the acid that eats into this place, there are deadly spikes and unpredictable holes in the terrain, leading to a long drop.
Staring at us is this beast of a demon, maybe 5 meters tall and equally long, filling up most of the large cave room we are in. With his 4 legs holding up his massive body, plus the big arms he uses to wield a spear, he technically has the anatomy of a centaur, albeit a ridiculously overgrown and overweight one.
In between his keckles and his heavy breathing, he ushers us to follow the path and exit the cave. It is about as insincere as can be. “Go on, you pathetic little virmin! Can’t you see? The exit you long for so much is right there. If you don’t go now, I will eat you little ants,” he says, smashing the back of his spear against the ground.
We really can see the exit right in front of us… but something’s very off. It’s like I have two visions at once. At the same time, I can see before me two versions of the same area. One is the exit I long for so desperately, an inspiring, large opening in the cave, leading to an open wood in bright sunlight. The other is just a spiked wall with corpses on it. The corpses looked like they couldn’t have been old, yet they looked unusually dead, like the life had been sucked right out of them. Now I notice there’s even more off about this wall. It’s not rock, it looks like… bones. Like demonic bones. It’s almost like it’s breathing.
It’s a weird sensation, no matter how hard I squint and try, I can’t figure out which one is the real version, even if my life depended on it… Well, it does. But I suppose judging from the situation, I had a pretty strong suspicion which one it was.
One from our group tried his luck, though, and I can’t blame him. A 50/50 chance to live is better than staying here and being devoured by the jaws of the most grotesque monster these men must have ever seen. And Mannoroth’s patience was running thin. The man moved along the track and… I couldn’t see what happened. Did he escape? Did he die? He was just gone. I had a very bad feeling. Like someone just died in front of me, and I couldn’t even see it.
I won’t die like this. There has to be another way. I notice a path through the rocks, no exit in sight, but a path… Only that it is right behind Mannoroth.
As the creature is still distracted by his amusement over our despair, I make a run for it. An instant burst from my legs, pushing me from a standing position into dashing straight past him. I have to cut it close. If I go around him at a safer distance, he’ll have more time to react. As his eyes notice me, the smile on his face vanishes, and his expression becomes pitch black. Faster than should be allowed for something of this size, he turns around and reaches for me with his meaty arm. I only barely escape his grasp and immediately run down the cave hallway. Again, this is definitely cheating, but the creature the size of a whale starts running after me at top speed with its stout 4 legs, and as it does, the cave shudders as if a massive earthquake erupted. Everything shakes, and small rocks come down from the ceiling. But I can’t worry about that now, because in addition to my incessant pursuer, the cave is booby-trapped.
Sets of metal bars close in around me as I run. I have to react instantly. The first one I can just run past, but they close in faster and faster, leaving less and less room for me to get through. I dodge, jump, and slide along the cave floor to survive in a detailed and immersive escape through the cave. Filled with adrenaline, pushing my concentration to its limits, I can’t deny that, despite the stakes of the situation, I am having a massive amount of fun right now.
To be honest, I feel like I hadn’t reacted well enough in these situations, and some of the traps should have hit me, but I made it through anyway, on willpower alone, you could say. Guess my subconscious was watching me with an eye closed for this one.
As I make it through another trap, I finally see the sunlight breaking through. The cave entrance is in sight, and with just a few more quick strides, I’m out.
Mannoroth disappears, defeated.
As the light hits my face, after having gone through that dark tunnel before, it’s almost blinding. But as my eyes adjust, I see before me a large Greek village with houses, large pillars, and warm braziers to light up the place. It also appears to me that we’re not outside. We’re still in a cave complex, but this one is much larger. It’s almost 100 meters high and wide enough to fit a whole village in it, with houses following the structure of the many rocks that make up this place. Everyone living here, of course, also in these old Greek garments, has come out, only for me. They want to celebrate the success of my daring escape with me. Everywhere I am met with warm smiles and cheers. In this very moment, I am so happy. I’m truly in awe of the beauty and the excitement of this experience. I’m amazed by what is possible inside the mind and grateful I get to feel and see so much. I revel in the warmth of the fires and the people as the dream comes to a close.
Lately, I’ve had many experiences where it felt like my subconscious was actively trying to deny me everything I wanted to happen. There’s a reason why there’s such a large gap between the date of the last story and this one. Sometimes there were periods in my life where my dreams were just a letdown. Often, that directly relates to how my life is going at the time. That’s why I was so happy to have a really smooth and exciting experience like that tonight.