Waking up on top of a stony floor, the first thing that hits me is the mana. It's dark and oppressive, like it's actively trying to hurt me, or like it's agitated by something.
Standing up, I get my bearings and do my checklist.
Both hands? Check.
Both legs AND feet? Check.
One head and other body parts? Check.
Tail and horns? Check!
Realizing I have another appendage and two familiar adornments on my head, I check them out. The tail is long and thin, with a spade-shaped end. Feeling the texture, it feels like scales. Moving to my horns, they are about 6 inches tall, with sharp, pointed ends.
All these points to me not being human, so I inspect the rest of my body. For the most part, I feel human, but closer inspection proves otherwise. Besides the tail and horns, I can feel two small nubs between my shoulder blades, probably for wings that haven't come in yet.
Moving past that, my skin feels a bit rougher than human skin. The strange part is the color, stark white chest, body, and head. Yet from the elbow down, the skin becomes dark, as if I reached into the abyss and came out stained by it. The same applies to my legs from the knee joint down.
After getting familiar with this new body and pricking my tongue on my much sharper teeth, I start to wander.
To say this world was bleak was an understatement; there was no life. No trees, no animals, not even any grass was growing. This didn't bother me, but it was getting annoying to see the same thing for however long I had been walking.
Time also felt funny, sometimes the landscape seemed to blur past, other times it barely moved at it. I didn't have any landmarks, however, so for all I know, I could be going in a massive circle.
After walking around for who knows how long, I finally heard something other than the wind and my own footsteps, shouting.
Picking up the pace, I crest a small hill and come across a crowd of monstrous-looking beings. At first, I prepare for a fight, but then notice that they are too busy fighting amongst themselves over something, so I take a seat and just watch them.
The creatures down below really are gross; some look like a bad child's drawing of a monster, others didn't even look humanoid, just blobs of flesh and fangs. They weren't the same size either; some were almost twice as big as me, others not much taller than my waist.
The interesting one was the one in the middle, that and the creature they were fighting over. The bigger one looked more human than the others, but the proportions were wrong. The arms were too long and the feet too big, plus it had this unnaturally wide smile.
The more interesting one to me was the little creature it had grasped in its large hand, a small humanoid that didn't seem to have any mana at all. Maybe this was the one that Dave warned him about.
My eyes lost focus as I thought more about that, then, coming back, I saw that the creatures had moved to the side some, but what caught my attention now was what was behind the creatures, a gate.
It was huge, and the mana pouring off of it dispelled any thought of trying to break it down. As I wondered why such a gate was placed here, a new mana signature landed beside me as I froze, 'I never felt it get closer.'
Looking up, I saw a creature that looked the most human, with the only tell it wasn't being the massive bat wings behind it, and the massive horns on its head. "Hmm, what a strange devil you are? To think you are the one who doesn't belong." It mused.
The rational part of my mind was screaming at me to kill this thing before it could expose me, but with my instincts screaming that any sign of hostility would be death, I sat calmly and shrugged. "I just got here, wherever 'here' is."
"This is the Underworld, strange devil, everyone knows that." The devil chided as I motioned for it to sit; it remained standing. "Well, what do you want then?" I asked as the devil grinned. I didn't like how its mana pressed down on me further when it did that.
"I wanted to see what the strange new mana signature coming from the first level was all about. I'm glad I did leave since you are the most peculiar thing to appear here in centuries, other than that thing that is." The devil said, flicking its tail towards the small devil being fought over down below.
"Yeah, I noticed that thing, no mana at all. I'm surprised they haven't ripped it apart yet." I agreed and decided to get up, dusting myself off before walking towards the crowd of devils. As I got closer, some of them started to sense my approach and hissed at me to back away. I just kept walking as one of them got brave and rushed at me.
Feeling the mana in the air and my body, I reinforced my body as much as was comfortable before side-stepping the charging devil. This just enraged it as it ran at me again, all muscle and no magic.
Leaping towards it, I slammed my foot into its head, forcing it down as I landed on its wide back and spun around to grab it by the horns. The other devils started to move forward until I twisted the devil's head violently, snapping its neck. The rest cleared the way as I noticed my mana increased slightly from killing, interesting.
As I walked through the crowd, the fighting died down as the taller devil threw off a smaller devil clinging to its leg, scratching uselessly to keep a grip. "What do you want, whelp?" It snarled, clutching its prize closer as I peered at the little devil, still struggling to free itself.
I pointed at the devil, "Give it to me. I want to see it up close." It snarled out a no before hurling it at me. I moved to let it fly past me as the larger devil charged at me.
'This one is smarter. Actually using its mana to try and slow me down. Still no attribute, I noticed as I pushed more mana into my body, feeling a slight strain as I still wasn't used to this violent mana.
Though slower than I would have liked, it made no difference against this oaf as I tripped the devil and kicked its side and winced. It felt like kicking hard plastic like a normal human. The devil was up in an instant as it coated its fists in a dark mana, striking the ground before charging at me.
Now I had to take this more seriously as the devil's fists could probably hurt me if they hit me like that. I didn't stay still long enough for it to strike me as I dodged wild haymakers and threw punches and kicks of my own.
Though it staggered the devil a bit, no worthwhile damage was done, so I pushed more mana through my body, focusing it slightly more around my fists as I started to match the devil blow for blow.
The fighting felt great after doing nothing but lazing around in the last world. The only downside was the air being forced away from us as we fought, as the devils around us had to channel mana into their claws and feet to keep from being swept away by the air pressure.
The only one unable to do this was the small mana-less devil, as its small body was thrown around by the wind, before it eventually flew towards the gate. The other devil paused, so I did as well, as the others around us got excited, something about seeing another death?
The talking stopped when the little mana-less devil passed right through the gate. Several other devils then charged the gate madly, only to be vaporized upon touching it, as I reinforced the notion of never touching the thing.
With the other devil still distracted, I lunged forward and slammed my fist into the side of its head, dropping it as I started wailing on the back of its head for a good few seconds, then I got off its bloodied body and walked back to where I had been sitting a few minutes ago.
I half expected the devil to be there waiting for me, but instead I found a small note on the ground that I picked up, which read. "Not bad, strange devil. I'm sure you have plenty of questions, and I happen to have lots of answers. Below is a map; follow it down to the bottom layer. I'll be waiting."