As the demon charged again, I took a grab at its ear after I dodged. It didn’t do anything to STOP the hippo, of course, but I think I got it angry. Probably not helpful - it’s not like it can stun itself any harder, right?
I took my booty as it charged, (not my ass, you sick pervs. The shard.) and hit the hippo in the eye, which started oozing. Yay!

Author's Note:So much time, so little output. Sorry. This stuff is kinda spawned from depression in class, and I've been channeling that into Linerider recently. Also, I downed Icehowl AFTER writing this. Hell, I'm pretty sure I wrote that part pre-3.2. If you're not a WoW player, ignore everything after Linerider. Except the story. Which you should totally commend on.
After a few more circuits of the room, it became pretty clear there wasn’t a way out. I found a piece of ribbon, oddly enough… it was kinda bloodstained, though. I inexpertly tied my hair in a low ponytail in the hope it’d let me look a little more boyish. Oh, yeah, there was a little puddle of SOMETHING black and reflective… maybe it was the ooze from before… near the edge. Turns out I’ve sprouted a couple of tiny horns from my forehead, and my hair’s gone back to normal. Simple enough to work out, now I’m a tiefling. Huzzah. A relatively human demon-type thing. Urgh.
Then there was the growl.
I turned around, and it was a very inhuman demon-type thing. How it got here, I don’t know, I’m in a room with no exits or entrances. But it was there now. Which was KINDA a problem.
It lowered its head, and charged, smashing me against a wall before I knew what had happened. I heard a few ribs snap then. And it HURT.
It backed off, and I got a proper look at it as my wounds inexplicably healed themselves.
Okay, felboars are pretty annoying beyotches, with their charge, knock back, chain-stuns, fire breath… there’s a reason most quests to kill them were designated as “group” quests. There first boss in crumbled tombs was a 3 headed felboar who had this annoying tendency to have half the raid stunned with a damage-over-time burn effect at all times. That was why we wiped the other night, the useless pickup tank didn’t have enough health to survive even one round of the stun… urgh. Anyways, back to the felboar in front of me.
I looked at the demonic thing, noted its glowing red eyes, its creepy green crystal spikes, it’s rounded snout, but most importantly of all… its yawning mouth.
Well, not felboar, as such. It looked like… okay, this is kinda dumb, but… it’s a felhippo. Yeah. Seriously.
Okay, they LOOK ridiculous. Imagine a black hippo with glowing green spikes poking out of it’s skin. Yeah, this was what I was fighting.
Fighting’s probably the wrong word, I realised as it charged me again for another round of downtiefling. (Downball… downtiefling… get it? No? Screw you), it was really more like… well, being charged by a super powered spiky hippo repeatedly. I fail at similes. Blame the aspergers. If I still have it.
I managed to dodge its charge this time, and it charged into a wall, becoming stunned for a few seconds before it charged me again. Hm.
This time I went on the offensive, throwing a kick at its snout. 2 ribs broken and something in my leg snapped. A bone this time, I think, but of course, I had apparently unlimited regeneration, so unless I got taken down from 100% to 0 in about 4 seconds, or got hit with an Aimed Strike or Mortal Shot or something else that reduced healing, I’m more-or-less invincible. But, apparently, not very high defence (No armour) and not very high attack (no weapons). Woot.
Another wall slam, damnit. I was ready for the next charge, though, and the hippo got stunned again. Apparently the AI is a little crappy. I once again jumped out of the way as it charged into the wall, before - urgh - shoving my hand up its nose, grabbing what seemed to be a rock up there, and pulling it out. The demon roared in pain (hippo roar?) as I inspected my (fortunately unmucused) booty - a green crystal shard like the kind that had been in its back.
I watched as the demon started oozing from the hole in it’s nose I’d left. And I worked it out - this is a minigame more than an actual boss fight. Remove the shards.
As the demon charged again, I took a grab at its ear after I dodged. It didn’t do anything to STOP the hippo, of course, but I think I got it angry. Probably not helpful - it’s not like it can stun itself any harder, right?
I took my booty as it charged, (not my ass, you sick pervs. The shard.) and hit the hippo in the eye, which started oozing. Yay!
I took advantage of this and wrenched out another couple of shards from its back, which I reapplied in its gums. The hippo had slowed down, buuut… the remaining shards were on its stomach. And thus began phase two. The hippo plodded over to the center of the room, ejected the shards from its stomach so quickly they stuck in the floor

The adrenaline had faded. I fell to my knees, looked at my ooze-stained hands, and realised I’d slowly, deliberately, and painfully killed something. I’d never done that before. I’d accidentally stood on insects in the past (though I tried not to) and I’d clicked on my fair share of monsters in Netherworlds, but I’d never deliberately ended ANY life.
There was a brief swirl of bluish lights and I found myself in a much smaller room. This one was rectangular, maybe eight metres by three, and was pretty clearly a jail cell, although they’d apparently decided to replace the bars with greeny-yellow fire. Looking around the cell, there was a mat that was evidently meant to be used as a bed, a bowl of some vaguely-breadish thing next to a jug of a strangely coloured liquid (Silvery-greeny-orange?) and what looked like the leather armour they’d taken from me earlier. Too exhausted to even think (again, urgh…) I collapsed on to the mat, bruising myself lightly, but managing to fall asleep. Sorta.

RANDOM LANGUAGE FACT #1338
I just looked it up on the internet and it turns out that homo means “same” in latin and “man” in greek. Or maybe the other way round, I’ve already forgotten.

“Lara… wake up… please?”
“No’ my name…” I mumbled.
I could practically hear the eye roll.
“Fine, Aaron. Wake up.”
“Meh.”
Someone poked me in the stomach.
“Maaaah…”
“You’re out of Netherworlds. Just get up.”
I groggily opened my eyes and saw the pod-room again. All the people on the other levels had woken up - the animals and the other classes. The green gel I’d been in had moulded into my shape… which I noticed, rather irritably, was about as hourglass as you could get without removing any internal organs. I mean, I’d imagine it’d be worse for Leeroy. Effing DDs at 15. DDs that were looming above me.
Leeroy… or Lisa. Sarah or Mike… Chris or Brittany. Rachel was still Rachel inside, Sam and Tom stayed the same… and I was still Aaron.
The nanobots must’ve totally fucked up Sarah’s brain, seeing as she thought she WAS a guy now. I dunno about Brittany, maybe she is a girl inside, I dunno. But I’d known Sarah for years and she’d never acted like a guy. I mean, sure, she never wore skirts or whatever, and she never really did anything with her hair other than tie it into a ponytail, but she DID wear her hair long and…
… um. Yeah. She had long hair. But so did a lot of guys, didn’t they?
I stopped thinking about her. How about Leeroy? He… she… um… THEY were a totally different person now. So… wait, was it actually a hidden part of the old Leeroy that I’d never seen? Was he closeted like Chris had been? Or was it because of the… stuff… with his father? It really doesn’t sound that bad, though. So his father was a little neglectful. Big whoop. I wish my father was…
Sam’s in more-or-less the same situation as me, as are Tom and Rachel. Leeroy and Sarah have gone insane, as have all the girls… boys… on the bus. Except Yvonne. Speaking of…
“Hey, Lara?” she said, grabbing my hand and helping me out of the podule.
“Not my name.”
“Aaron. Whatever. Can I chat to you in private?”
I glanced at Mi- Sarah.
“Yeah, sure.”
I followed her down the platform (You can see so far down it’s effing TERRIFYING) until we came to a closet. It was small. It was private.
“Wait, what?” I said.
Yvonne facepalmed.
“Just come inside, okay? It’s not anything NSFW.”
“Enn ess…”
“Not safe for work. Seriously. Just get over here.”
“You’re a bigger nerd than I am…”
“Leave it.”
“But seriously, half expecting you to-”
“I said leave it.”