The horrid anomaly had gotten to the rest of the party. The once endless swarm of blackened shapes in the sky that plagued this planet had been whittled down to just one last creature.

Notails and aliens alike were scattered along the ground, items they once held dropped to the wayside.

Only two stood left to neutralize the anomalous wave.

O-11 shoots forward, his cursed weapon imbued with the "healed" shadow dragon anomaly, one he has neutralized himself. He slashes at the beast before him!

But the sword falls to the ground, he's been hit by the creature's own shadows from its inky body. It grabs him, dragging him in to suffer the same fate as the others.

Green smoke leaks out of the gaps of O-8's mask as she swaps weapons, turning her bone staff into a poisoner gun. She's forced to sacrifice her own health to shoot out fumes towards the anomaly.....

But it uses its wing to kick back the fumes. O-8's own poison is now her demise as she falls.

O-11, O-8, and the rest of the party spawn back in town. O-11 turns off his shadow skin for his armor.

The rest of the guild has already shuffled off. They make excuses like "I have to go rebuy a Sword of Endless Death," or "My virtual capture creatures eggs need to be hatched," but the real reason was "My guild leader is an annoyance."

O-11 is not listening.

O-11 pulls out the worm cords from the back of his skull, closing the ports hidden under his hair and placing the creatures into a tube filled with food.

In the game, he was free and nimble. His body felt secure, and most of all, whole.

In the real world, he was a mangled mess of body parts. Notails easily replace their bodies after injury, but it didn't come without downsides. His whole body ached...in fact, it already did before the event, before he was plagued by a "blessing" from the gods that ruined his life.

Pulling himself out of his chair he shuffles past the mounds of anomalous items and knickknacks he has gathered throughout the years. Some call him a "hoarder", but he figures himself a protector.

Many of these anomalies in the wrong hands could cause destruction, rupture cities to pieces, kill-

He opens his fridge. Everything within is meal shakes. He feared eating solid foods after he choked many years ago.

It was terrifying. He had enough air to not die, but not enough to not feel the endless dark-

He shuffles back to his chair, sits and pulls his knees towards his head. He's not going to be able to escape back into the digital world for a little bit. His teammates need time to restock from the loss, and his plug worms need to finish eating.

He goes from chat to chat, reading, looking for something to comment on, or work he needs to do, but nothing catches his eyes. He had to have spent an hour doing nothing but hopping from recent message to recent message when he gets a private message from his boyfriend.

But as he hovered over he felt a pang of guilt. See... He was actually married to this drattle prince as part of a "mutual cease fire", though he rather liked him. The only issue is....

They've never met. Not just because he's a blackhole of anomalous death (well, ok, that's a big reason) but because well.....

He might have lied about his looks.

Just a little bit.

A lot of a bit.

In the game he was whole, had all his body parts together, and stood tall.

In real life, he'd be quicker mistaken for a monster than he would a notail. He shakes constantly, and any height he had was nerfed by his slouch.

He couldn't do it. He just couldn't stop thinking-

"Then come on down to the best circus in the universe!!!!"

O-11 realizes that it wasn't his thoughts, but an ad from the game open on his screen.

"Not only will you see the most awesome show of your life, we can change it! Hate your body? Change it! Have too many of those mess ups in the nogging? Change it! We can even get rid of anomalous ailments! Gods be gone, for our team of clown experts will scare them off!!!!"

O-11 searches the place up, expecting to see negative reviews so he could go back into one of his chats and complain about the nonsense ad he just got.

But all he finds are positive reviews.

O-11 looks at the clowns dancing around on the screen...

He kept checking. He went from review site to review site. There were live interviews with people who were cured, and photos, videos... It just seemed perfect, and it even said "You don't have to pay unless you're cured!"

If it was a scam, surely they would take the money upfront... He had to text the only person he trusted.