by Edward Brody
“Thanks,” I said.
I felt bitter thanking him. I had always been a steadfast and stubborn type of person. I didn’t like people to get the upper hand on me or to be taken advantage of, and Liam seemed to be doing just that. Back on Earth, I probably would’ve refused to hand over loot to another player who not too long ago was calling ‘finders keepers’ and looking out only for himself. It wasn’t fair for him to have his cake and eat it too.
But I had changed quite a bit since entering Eden’s Gate. The more time I spent with my friends, the less stubborn I had become. I was able to let things go more easily, and I wanted to see everyone succeed. I didn’t like Liam’s demeanor sometimes, but I wasn’t going to hold a grudge against him. I didn’t want animosity with someone who I’d likely be spending a lot of time with in the future, given that we were both studying under Darion.
I tucked my old staff in my bag and grabbed a few extra low-level magic items to fill all the slots in my bag. Even though I wouldn’t be able to use them, they would fetch a decent amount of gold at our shop. Adeelee and Liam grabbed as many items as they could carry as well.
“Ready to head out?” I asked.
Liam nodded and sighed. “A fairly disappointing haul, but at least I got a new staff. Let’s get out of here.”
“Are you returning to Mist Vale?” Adeelee asked.
I shrugged. “I think I’ll head back to the Mages Guild. Now that I’ve gained three levels, I’m due a new spell.”
“Oh, I see. Well, congratulations.” Adeelee looked disappointed, and her bottom lip drooped a bit as if she were about to pout. In a strange way, seeing signs that the Princess didn’t want me to leave kind of turned me on. Was she really into me? I was still hard for me to believe that we had kissed, and I couldn’t help but want more… maybe even more than a kiss. Did I really need a new spell right away?
“Actually, I might stick around a while. Perhaps we can go off and do some more hunting somewhere?”
Adeelee perked up and smiled.
I glanced at Liam, hoping that he didn’t ask to join, but not wanting him to feel left out. Luckily, he seemed anxious to get away. “I’d love to join you and the—” Liam raised his chin to Adeelee and puffed his chest. “—beautiful Princess, but I have other things to do at the guild.”
It was the perfect response. Now I’d have the whole rest of the day with the Adeelee. Just me and her… alone.
Chapter Eighteen
2/10/0001
I stretched my arms wide when we emerged from the gnoll den and took a big breath of fresh air. I usually wasn’t too bothered by the air whenever I went on dungeon dives in Eden’s Gate, but it was always obvious how fresh and more breathable it was outside when we emerged.
“It’s good to be back out on the surface,” I said.
“I feel the forest calling me,” Adeelee said. “Even the shortest dungeon crawl makes me feel uneasy. I wouldn’t want to become a—”
“Hey, who are those…” Liam trailed, cutting Adeelee off.
We both turned to Liam, then looked over to a nearby area where he was staring. Standing only ten meters away from us were three people all dressed in black robes. They looked like mages robes, but their belts were also all black, and their hood was pulled over their heads, shading most of their faces.
The three men stood side by side, silent and unmoving. They were looking directly at us but didn’t say anything.
“Do you know them?” I asked
Liam shook his head. “No… but I believe I know who they may be.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Magi…” Liam said.
Adeelee gulped. “Magi? You don’t think they followed us here, do you?”
Liam didn’t answer the question. He just yelled out at the three figures. “Do you need something?!”
“Who are the Magi?” I asked.
“They are—” Liam began to explain, before stopping mid-sentence when the three men started to move.
The centermost figure thrust out his palm, and blue energy in the shape of a hand came rushing in our direction.
The hand held its fingers out as if it were making a claw, and it remained connected to the caster’s palm by a thick band of magic energy. It was moving at nearly the speed of a Fireblast, and we all had to jump away from each other to avoid the attack.
We each began reaching for our weapons.
The hand retracted a little, then thrust back towards us, this time seemingly aiming for me. I rolled, barely missing getting hit, and the hand snapped a small tree in two as it lashed out past me.
“What the hell?!” I yelled.
You have failed to inspect your target!
You have failed to inspect your target!
You have failed to inspect your target!
I couldn’t seem to get a read on any one of them. They were clearly higher level than us, and judging by the force of the one attack we had seen so far, they may have been a much higher level.
“Stay alert!” Adeelee yelled as the two at the flank of the center man started running for us.
My heart started beating hard as the men approached. I had no idea what I was dealing with, who these people were, or what they wanted from us. But I had a pretty bad feeling that things weren’t going to end well for us alone.
Sora, I thought. Sora, can you hear me?!
I let a blast of energy from my staff fly as one of the men jumped athletically in the air towards me, then followed it up with a Fire Blast. The man somehow spun while still in the air, dodging both of the blasts. As he came down, his hand thrust forward, but rather than releasing magic, a black dagger was in his hand.
I held my staff up and backed up, trying to both hit him with the tip and keep him at a distance with its length. It worked, and he landed just short of me, but continued his effort to get past my staff.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Liam shoot ice from his hand toward the magic hand that was rushing in his direction, but the magic hand ignored the attack and trampled Liam as it smashed into him. On Liam’s other side, Adeelee was feverishly ducking and dodging attacks from the other robed man who was swinging at her with a scimitar glowing with energy.
Each time the man swung at her with his scimitar, the blade left trails of purple in the air that dispersed a few seconds earlier. Adeelee was managing to avoid the attacks, but just barely.
Clumsy, I attempted to cast, but I heard no twanging noise, and as the man twirled past my staff and tried to hit me with a backhanded dagger, I cast a circular Fire Curtain directly over him to try to ward him away.
I ducked the back hand, then turned to avoid another slash, stepping right into the flames myself. It hurt and immediately started burning my robe, but it wasn’t as bad as the dagger would have felt.
The man ignored the fire he was stepping in at first but eventually groaned in pain, jumped back, and started swatting wildly. His robe hadn’t caught fire, but he was clearly affected.
I fell to the ground and rolled, removing the small fire that had caught on the bottom of my robe. I turned, not wanting to waste time and immediately shot another Fireblast towards the man.
Though the man was hurt by the Fire Curtain, at least a little—he was still aware enough to see the Fireblast incoming and ducked subtlety out of the way. I wasn’t having much success at all.
“Adeelee! Tsarra!” I yelled. I wasn’t sure if Sora had heard what I previously projected to her, but we needed as much help fast.
“Already on it!” Adeelee yelled, but just as she finished, the man she was fighting dodged her overhead slash attack, spun in a circle, and hit her with a roundhouse to her gut.
Adeelee went flying and skidded across the ground, hard. Her sword fell out of her hand.
“Adeelee!” I cried.
Father, I heard in my head, and I looked behind the man I had been fighting to see Sora crouched in the grass. Tsarra was right beside her.
Help! I mentally yelled. We n
eed help!
Not needing any further prompt, both Sora and Tsarra started running for the men. I glanced to the side and saw Liam struggling to get to his feet.
I shot another on-cast from my staff, released an Arcane Missile, then quickly dropped my staff and reached for my sword. It was another situation where I’d need to put my training aside and fight using everything that I had learned.
The man leaned back slightly as the magic approached him, but then he held out his palm. Immediately in front of him, thin strings of magic appeared, all connected to create what looked like a hexagonal, grey spiderweb right in front of him.
The energy from my attack smacked into the web and seemed to be absorbed somehow. The web glowed bright, and when the glow disappeared, a round ball of dark energy flew out of the center of the web and in my direction, twice the speed of my magic.
I attempted to duck the dark ball, but it was impossibly fast. Instead of the ball hitting my center of mass, it smacked me on the side of my temple, and threw me back and into a hard turn. I lost grip of my sword.
Pain erupted on the side of my head, and for a moment I almost forgot where I was. I heard booms and screams in the background, but there was a loud ringing in my ears, and it was hard to focus on anything but my pain.
When I reached up to feel the area of impact, I flinched and jerked my hand back when I touched what felt like bone instead of flesh. I tried to open my eyes, but the eye nearest to my wound was very blurry. When I looked down with my good eye, I could see that skin was grotesquely hanging down from my face.
I didn’t appear to be bleeding. It was as if whatever magic had hit me had sealed my arteries shut like a burn, not allowing blood to flow out.
I glanced up to see that I was at only around 15% of my health, and I tried my hardest to will myself through the pain and pull myself back up to fight. What may have been only seconds felt like hours on the ground.
When I finally pulled myself to my knees and looked over to our attackers, I saw Sora biting viciously on the leg of the guy who had harmed me. She was swinging her head hard, dragging the man across the ground.
The man with the magic hand turned to his friend and immediately thrust his hand towards Sora.
Sora roared loudly when the claw of the hand slammed into her, both lodging its claws deep in her body and pushing her across the ground and into a thick tree. The man squeezed his real hand, and in turn, the magic hand squeezed as well, crushing Sora’s body and causing her to give out one final whine before slumping her head and going limp.
“Noooooo!” I yelled, and pulled myself up, ignoring my agony. I rushed to my sword a few feet away, lifted it off the ground, and immediately cast Boiling Blood.
Hate filled my veins. They had hurt Sora! Could they have killed her? I wasn’t sure. But I had never wanted to kill someone in Eden’s Gate so bad, and if I wanted to save Sora, I needed to defeat them.
I ran for the men in my boiling state, but I paused when from the side I saw the man with the glowing sword slash Adeelee across the chest, causing her to stagger back.
Off to the side was Liam, who stuck his hand out to cast a spell, but the man with the sword sensed it, turned, and threw his sword in Liam’s direction. The sword seemed to curve through the air as it rotated, and ultimately landed in Liam’s chest. The blade went all the way through his body and the point stuck out the other side.
Liam’s health bar dropped to zero.
Adeelee! I thought. Liam!
I was even more alarmed when I saw Tsarra’s bloodied, mangled body laying nearby. What had they done to her?
The man with the magic hand turned and swung it towards Adeelee, but a sprout shot up out of the ground, swelled into a plant, and encapsulated Adeelee inside in an instant—just like I had witnessed in the palace.
The magic hand slammed into the plant, putting a huge scuff on its outer shell, and causing the plant to rock back as if it weren’t prepared for the pressure.
My heart was pounding out of my chest, and I didn’t know what to do. Liam was dead. Tsarra was dead. Sora was probably dead, and Adeelee and I were about to die. The three men were just too strong.
I wanted to fight ‘til the end and save Adeelee somehow, but I knew whatever tricks I could muster weren’t going to be enough to defeat the three robed men. One thing I did know was that if we all died, it was over.
There was a two-hour resurrection window.
Because it took two hours for me to respawn as a Reborn, and there was a two-hour time limit to resurrection spells. If I died, Adeelee and Liam would be gone forever. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to see Adeelee gone, and as annoying as Liam was, he was still on our side. The only way that I had any possibility of saving them was to get away.
With Boiling Blood still in effect, I turned and darted down a steep side of the hill covered in weeds and dead brush.
Chapter Nineteen
2/10/0001
I ran hard down the hill and skidded on the loose dirt several times, then tripped and rolled, knocking another 1% off my health. I continued running, ignoring the thick brush slapping me in the face every few seconds, knocking another 1% off each time anything rubbed against my wound.
Boiling Blood was ticking down, and I reached into my bag as I continued to run to fetch a health potion.
The sound of branches crackling behind me was loud, and I looked back to see that one of the robed men was following.
I slowed back to my normal running pace as Boiling Blood wore off, popped the cork of a health potion, and sloppily poured it down my throat. The wounds on my face began to heal.
Recall Home, I thought, trying to easily get away.
You must be in a peaceful state to Recall. You cannot Recall in the middle of combat.
Of course, I thought. I should have known that would be the case.
I glanced back several more times and could see that the man was still chasing but wasn’t gaining much ground. He may have been more powerful, but he wasn’t much faster in a general run.
Clumsy, I thought when I glanced back to him again, but heard no affirmation sound.
Adeelee Vost is too far from your party and has automatically been disbanded!
I continued running for a long time until eventually, my stamina ran out. When I looked behind me, fearful my pursuer would be closing the distance, the man was pushing forward much slower as well. I paced myself, trying to regain stamina, and as soon as I heard the man behind me increase his speed, I broke out into a run again.
Clumsy, I thought again when we entered a thick forested area. Once more, nothing happened.
As we continued, I tried to cast the Clumsy spell one last time, but this time, I heard the twanging noise in my head, knowing that my spell had worked. Remembering the caustic potions I had looted from the den, I reached in my bag, but one of them slipped out of my hand and tumbled onto the ground. Luckily, the vial didn’t break, but I didn’t have time to pick it up.
I reached for the other and lobbed it behind me towards the man. It fell quite a few feet short of him and exploded into a cloud of green smoke.
Several seconds later, the man behind me tripped on a branch or rock or something, and as I continued forward, he lost quite a bit more ground. When I glanced back, he was standing in the same spot, staring at me from afar, but it didn’t seem like he was following me anymore.
After a few more minutes of running and gaining enough distance that I was unable to see the man, I ducked down under a nearby ditch, took several deep breaths, and tried my Recall Home spell again.
I felt a familiar energy encompass me, and everything in front of me began to disappear as I was finally transported back to Edgewood.
When I reappeared at the rune near Edgewood mine, I took a moment to breath and close my eyes. I was exhausted, physically and mentally.
Sora was dead? Was Adeelee dead too? I couldn’t believe it.
I shook my head and fought back tears at the thought.
I clenched my teeth and rolled my shoulders, trying to keep my composure. I burst into yet another run towards Edgewood Village.
I needed to save Adeelee. I wasn’t even sure if Great Beasts could be resurrected, but I was holding out hope that we could save Sora too.
Would Sora’s body even be there if I returned? I wondered. Would someone make her into a meal like they had Aaron’s horse? My stomach turned at the idea.
And who the fuck were the black-robed men? Some kind of bandits? Why the hell had they randomly attacked us?
Chapter Twenty
2/10/0001
“Hey, what’s up Gunnar?!” Aaron yelled out as he dropped a stack of wood near his crafting stations. When I didn’t reply, he continued with, “What are you running so fast for?! Everything okay?!”
“Rina!” I shouted exasperatedly. “Where’s Rina?!”
“Rina? She headed out with the gang to do a little hunting.”
“Where?!” I asked.
Aaron raised his eyebrow. “What’s wrong, brother?”
“Dude, really,” I said harshly. “Sora’s dead. Adeelee may be dead. I need a healer now.”
“Oh shit…” Jeremy cursed. His jaw loosened, and he shook his head. “I’m not sure where they went, to be honest.”
“To the beach,” Sung said from a log he was sitting on near our fire pit. I hadn’t even noticed him there ‘til he said something.
“The beach?” I asked.
Sung nodded. “Just northeast of here. Part of Edgewood, actually. I checked it out yesterday. Would’ve went there today, but I had some other things to do.”