A visitor and a chase

John rubbed his eyes, did he just, did he just flash white? ‘Oh god. I really AM a game character!’ He bemoaned until he started to laugh, thinking how absurd his life had gotten in just a few hours. "So, is there a loot mechanic?" he asked out loud a few minutes of laughter later, regaining his breath as he walked up to the dead boar, putting his backpack where it belonged: on his back. He prodded the boar with his foot, jumping back half a meter just in case it was not dead; however, the boar stayed motionless. A few seconds later, the boar disintegrated into a puff of black smoke, leaving behind a small tusk, a small piece of leather and a pork chop. John gathered them all and tossed them into his inventory. He walked towards a nearby rock, wiping it off with his hand and sat down. He noticed that he had got five stat points for his level up. While the stat points seemed tantalizing to spend, his gaming instincts prevented him from just spending them willy nilly. He would first need to think of what he wanted to do with these powers and preferably find out more about who or whatever gave them to him.

John then proceeded to his inventory. His eyes fell on the one thing he did not remember putting in there. His hand reached into his inventory, pulling it out. It was a horn; more precisely, it looked like a ram's horn. His fingers ran over the smoothed surface as he cast Observe on it.

While john was busy inspecting his quest reward, a tear appeared in the air a few meters behind him. A sickly pale man walked out of it, possessively clutching an orb in his hands. He looked around as a group of hunched creatures followed him out of the tear. "This is not one of the local biospheres," the man mumbled at his orb. His eyes quickly fell onto John. John felt a chill run down his spine, looking around only to see the man's yellow eyes staring at him, surrounded by a dozen or so hunched monsters. John somehow knew that the man did not appear here to talk about the weather.

The man started to cackle maniacally as he spoke out. His voice sounded like he had smoked a pack of cigarettes every day for a century. "Who would have thought that getting send off on an errand would allow me to stumble upon a fresh test subject." The man licked his lips before bursting into a coughing fit. John shuddered as he felt the man's gaze on him, clutching the horn in his hand as he got off of the rock, slowly trying to back away. The man affectionately petted one of the monsters, scratching it's malformed head as he gestured at John with the orb. "Get him, my pretties!" the man ordered before he started to chant, raising the orb in his claw-like hand, black gas starting to effuse from it as the monsters let out menacing howls and slamming their hands onto the ground before they broke into a run, dashing towards John.

John turned in place and broke into a frantic dash, hearing the monster's howls resonating through the forest. He did not know where he was running, just trying to get away from the man. As John ran around a tree, a black ball of goo slammed into the place he had just been. A hissing sound emanated from the spot as a foul smell of decay filled John's nose. ‘Holy shit, he's actually trying to kill me!’ John thought. His feet trampling the dirt in a rapid pace, the amount of foliage and leaves at least somewhat muffling his footsteps. John dared to look over his shoulder, not seeing any of the monsters or what must have been a mage.

John decided to run in a different direction than before, not even having thoughts about fighting the man. How was he going to fight a mage and his pet monsters if he almost got killed by a boar just moments ago!? After running for what seemed like an hour but must have been five minutes, John felt his lungs start to burn, gasping for air as he crouched behind a large fallen tree. "Fuck, why did I not put more effort into those stupid PE classes," he cursed under his breath as he tried to fight the urge to pass out. It was at this moment that he realized he was still clutching the horn. John thought about it. Would he be able to get away on his own? No, he would not. Those monsters looked tough, let alone that mage. Yes, blowing a horn would alert them all to his location, and no, there would not be any guarantee that anyone would even show up to help him. On the other hand, he had no real weapons, and sooner or later, he would be found anyway. ‘Better to try every option than to just give in and die.’ John rationalized to himself.

John took a deep breath, raising the horn to his lips, and blew into it. The sound of a bugle horn rang out through the forest, a loud, echoing sound. A few leaves fell from the nearby trees as John lowered the horn, looking around, hoping for something to happen. Sadly, silence was all that greeted him. John cursed his luck, popping his head out of his hiding place. One of the monsters was approaching in the distance. John swallowed, saying a prayer to whatever god would hear it as he once more removed his backpack. "If I am going to go down, it will be on my own terms," he said morbidly, stepping out from his hiding spot, backpack wrapped around his wrists. The monster spotted him a few seconds later, drool flowing from his mouth as it charged at him. John swung his backpack, one of the arms of the monsters swinging out at the same time. The warped creature had surprising strength in his arms, grabbing the backpack and simply tossing it aside, an almost mocking grin on its maw as it tossed the backpack away. The monster reached out to John; he closed his eyes, thinking that, within hours of gaining his powers, it would be game over.