by Max Jager
The girl seemed fascinated with his information on the city, and flipped to a blank page as she began writing incredibly fast. "So this is a human city, from the human planet called the 'real world', is the technology here human technology?" She asked, ignoring his other statement.
"Yes, it is. It is not working in the city's current state of abandonment, but it is all human technology." Zanath replied.
"How can a civilization have such advanced technology, yet be so uncivilized?" She commented. "How does it work? The technology? This city has existed since the beginning of time, but has always been completely abandoned and has never decayed, well until recently when the goblins found it. But there has never been any explanation for how it got here. We suspected dwarves or fairies, but they are just as confused by it and nobody understands the technology here. Over the centuries we have deciphered some of the technology, but other parts of it continue to elude us." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a light bulb and held it up. "This, what is it? How does it work. What does it do? These are everywhere in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Why is there so many?" She was so curious and so absorbed in trying to get answers to all of her questions that she was asking them too quickly for him to actually answer before she moved on to the next question. But she finally stopped and waited for a response.
"We are civilized…" Zanath sighed quietly. Obviously he was not going to change her opinion on that "That is a light bulb. When it is turned on it emits a light, we usually turn them on at night so it does not get too dark."
"Like a candle but with no flame?" The girl interrupted. "How does it work?"
"Yes, exactly. And we often have a lot of them all connected to a switch, so we can light up an entire large area with the flip of one switch." Zanath said. "It works with electricity. Lightning, from storms, the lightning goes in through the bottom part. Well not real lightning because that much power would make the bulb explode, but we create small amounts of lightning in other machines, and transport it through these wires, the things that look like strings connecting everything, and the wires eventually connect to the bulbs. This small amount of lightning, which we call electricity, is what makes almost all human technology work. Well, it is much more complicated than that, but if I went into the complicated details you likely would not understand it since your race does not have the technology. That is the simple explanation."
She put the lightbulb down for a moment and hurriedly wrote down more on her notebook, once done she picked it back up and held it by the bottom part and seemed to focus. A bolt of electricity shot down her arm, down her hand, down her fingers, and into the light bulb. For a brief moment it lit up, but then the bulb shattered and went out. The girl shouted in pain and surprise as several shards of glass stabbed into her and she dropped what remained of the bulb.
"Are you okay? I said it would explode if too much was put in." Zanath said quickly as he moved to stand up.
As soon as he started to move the girl grabbed her bow again, "Don't move!" Once Zanath sat back down she let go of her bow and began pulling out the shards of glass. Silently watching him, once the glass was removed she hovered her hand over the cuts and her hand emitted a green glow and the cuts rapidly healed. They were tiny cuts, and within a few seconds she was healed.
"You have healing powers. We need your help, we have one wounded person and one poisoned person down there." Zanath said.
The girl shook her head. "Go back to your home planet if you need help. If there is one thing I learned from you all is that humans are dangerous and not trustworthy. I will not heal your friends."
"I told you the light would explode if it received too much energy." Zanath countered.
"I wasn't talking about the light. You were upfront and honest with that, and what you said worked. It turned on for a brief moment and it did make light. The information you gave me will no doubt help the elves figure out this human technology so we can use it ourselves. I am very thankful for that. But that does not excuse your murdering spree. You are not to be trusted." She stated.
"We can't go back to the real world. That is why we needed to talk to you so badly. We need your help getting back, really since we got here all we have wanted was to go back." Zanath said.
"You teleported here, didn't you? Why not go back the same way you came, teleport, I do not know how you did that, we elves have not left our own planet before. I don't think any race has. I can't help you." The girl replied.
Zanath shook his head. "We did not teleport. This is a game, a fake world. Humans have a lot of these games in which fake worlds exist, but normally the human does not enter the world of the game. Each game tells a story, like a book, and the human presses buttons to make the story progress, and since it is interactive like that the human can change the outcome of the story a little bit. We do it for fun. But this human in the real world, he made a game unlike any other, it was supposed to make you feel like you really were in the fake game world, not just watching it but actually in it. Me and my friends went to play, and we ended up here. This is that fake game world, but we can't find the button to get out."
The girl scowled and glared at him. "I take offense to that human. I thought your reference to the real world was just an issue with stupid planet names, but you seriously think this world is fake? The elves have been here thousands of years, you have not even existed for more than a week and you claim you are real but we are not? This world is real, I am real, if anything here is not real, it is you, human. You have no place claiming our world, our home, and the things living here are fake." She scolded him. "I can not help you return to your world, and I have all the information I need for the encyclopedia. Goodbye human." She finished as she turned to leave.
"Wait!" Zanath called out, he went to stand but thought better of it and sat down again. "Take us to the elven city then. Our friend is poisoned and dying, and we need shelter. Please."
The girl shook her head. "No." She stated. "Humans are dangerous and are not to be trusted, I told you that. I am sorry, I may dislike you but I do not wish for any of you to come to harm or die, despite that I will not endanger the lives of my village by allowing dangerous and violent creatures to follow me home."
Zanath hesitated, trying to think of some way to make her stay. "I can help! I can teach your people about human technology, I know how a lot of this stuff works. I can teach the elves how to build these things and use human technology."
The girl hesitated, it was a good offer. But she shook her head again. "We will figure it out, you helped us enough, we don't need you."
"At least repay me for the help I have given you. Use your healing powers to cure my friend of poison and we will call it even." Zanath pleaded.
She hesitated again, "I'm sorry. I do not trust you, any of you. I have seen you kill too many creatures, when you did not need to. Self defense is one thing, seeking out fights and killing is murder no matter what you are killing. I will not allow a murderer near me, you are already far closer than I am comfortable with." She stated and resumed walking away. But she stopped and hesitated, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a potion. She placed the potion on the ground and resumed walking towards the edge of the roof. "If I had an antidote I would give it to you, but I don't. This is a standard healing potion. It will not cure poison, but it will heal the damage the poison has done to their body and buy them a few more hours. I am sorry, that's all I can give. The elves have scavenged this city and taken most of the valuables already. I doubt you will find anything else here, unless the goblins brought it from somewhere else or we missed something. But we don't miss much, the only areas we didn't loot were areas the dragon was in when we came. But it moves so we eventually got to almost everything."
Zanath sighed and looked at the potion. "Thank you, it's something at least. What is your name? I am Zanath, my friends are Kaden, Estellese, and Mendelen." She seemed friendly, she had hesitated when she decided not to help which made it obvious that part of her w
anted to help, it showed that not helping was difficult for her. Zanath hoped that maybe, if he made her connection to the group a more personal one by giving her everyone's names, maybe it would be harder for her to leave them without help.
"Lillith." The girl replied. "Good luck." She added before she leapt down from the roof, and with superhuman speeds she bolted down the street in a south west direction. From the roof Zanath could see the city limit, where it turned into an open field. He quickly got up and rushed to the edge of the roof where he watched her run out of the city and off into the field, keeping that straight south-west direction the entire way.
Zanath picked up the potion she left behind once she was out of sight, then started climbing back down. 'She must be returning home. Which means, the elven settlement is outside the city in a south west direction. Thankfully, she didn't think to avoid my line of sight. The elves must not be used to dealing with intelligent creatures, based on the prevalence of goblins everywhere.' He thought.
As Zanath returned to the group he spotted Kaden in front of the store, still building something with random junk from the ground. "Kaden? The girl is gone, you can stop trying to distract her now."
"I know." Kaden replied. "I'm bored."
Zanath looked over what Kaden was building as he entered the pharmacy, upon a closer look he realized that Kaden had built a gravestone out of a tire, a stick, some cardboard, and duct tape. And in front of the grave, he was now arranging some old and stale cheerios into the words
"R.I.P.
Fluffy & Peggy
They will live on forever in our hearts and our exp points…
Do we have exp points?"
Zanath shook his head and sighed softly, then continued on his way into the building. Kaden followed him in a moment later but remained in the doorway.
Mendelen hopefully looked up at Zanath when he heard the man enter, but then sighed quietly and lowered his head when he saw that Zanath was alone. "You were gone for a while, I was hoping you reached out to her."
"I sort of did." Zanath answered, then took a seat near Mendelen and Estellese. He took out the potion he was given and handed it to Estellese. "It is a normal healing potion, she said it will not cure poison, but it will repair the damage the poison has done to your body. Or in other words, it will delay the effects of the poison by a few more hours." He said.
Estellese shook her head and handed it back to Zanath. "Kaden is injured. He needs it. I'll hold out for an antidote, we must be close to finding one." She replied.
"Nope." Kaden responded. "Too busy mourning the death of my friends, Fluffy and Peggy, to drink a potion. Can't drink it now. You take it." He said, glancing back at the group with a concerned look on his face.
"Kaden…" Estellese replied. "You are seriously hurt."
"I had only just met them…" Kaden sobbed out, so incredibly over dramatically that it seemed more silly than sad. "But I know… I know we could have been friends… I will cherish our memories forever. Like that time they tried to kill me… Or that other time they tried to kill me… Or that other time… They also tried to kill me." He acted as if he didn't hear her.
"Estellese," Mendelen started. "you are also in critical condition, and we both know he is stubborn and won't take it. Just drink it." He said. He caught Kaden giving them another concerned look out of the corner of his eye, he felt like he was starting to understand Kaden a little better. Mendelen whispered to Estellese "I think he will take a potion once you are safe and not dying on us. Just a hunch. Please just drink it, we are all worried."
Estellese hesitated, but then took the potion and drank it. "Thank you. But I am concerned about him, I saw him when he killed the goblins. He is hurt a lot more than he is letting on."
Mendelen rested his hand on his own forehead and sighed in frustration, shaking his head a little. "I know." He murmured. "I'm trying my best to make the right decisions. But it is hard, especially when put on the spot like this."
"Exactly, we all agree. That's why we look to you as our leader." Zanath joined in. "There is a lot to discuss about my meeting with the girl, when we have time."
Mendelen nodded and took a seat nearby. "We have five minutes before Estellese can move again, that enough time?"
"Yes." Zanath replied.
"Listen up Kaden! Zanath has important things to discuss." Mendelen called to Kaden, then gestured for Zanath to start.
"Alright, where to start. I was able to speak to her, she is not human. She is an Elf, however she does speak English. She has given me the information that humans do not exist, we are the first, this city has been a mystery to the creatures of this world. Apparently it's been here since the beginning of time and never decayed until recently. The elf saw us appear when we logged in and has been tracking us since. Documenting us in an encyclopedia as a new type of monster for, I would assume, her elven village. The elves must be primitive in their technology, she asked me to explain what a light bulb was. However she did say the elves had been researching the human technology, and that they had figured out some of it and now use it in their village. She does not know this is a video game, she believes this is the real world and was insulted when I said it was not real. So she can not help us log out. She had healing magic and I asked her to heal us, but she refused and she also refused to bring us to her village. Claiming that we were dangerous and untrustworthy. She was unhappy with us killing things. However, I watched her leave. She left this city, went out into the field, and traveled south west. I would bet the elven village is that way. She said the elves had already picked this city clean of resources, our best bet of finding an antidote would be going to the elven village. We won't find one in this city." Zanath explained.
Over the next five minutes he went into greater detail, mentioning how the girl was clearly feeling threatened by his presence, yet she had the kindness to stay and speak to him anyways. How she left him the potion for Estellese, and how he did not believe the elves were bad people, despite her refusing to help. And so on. Once Estellese was finally recovered they all stood up and prepared to leave.
"Alright. We head out of the city and travel south west." Mendelen stated. "We move as fast as we can, if we do not find this elven village by noon we will stop wherever we are and sleep for a couple hours. We are going on 24 hours without sleep, and while normally that wouldn't be a problem, we are also seriously pushing our bodies way beyond their limits here. We can't afford to lose sleep, if we are tired we will make mistakes and one mistake could mean the death of us all. Everyone good?"
"All good." The other three all replied almost in unison.
"Estellese, how well did the potion work?" Mendelen asked.
"I still feel numb everywhere. But the pain is gone, the numbness is dulled, and I can breathe normally again." Estellese replied.
"Good. Keep me updated if anything changes." Mendelen stated. "Sunrise is coming soon, we need to get out of the city before the masses of goblins wake up again. Let's go"
The others nodded and agreed, and with that they rushed out of the building and in a south west direction. They had already been traveling in that direction for quite a while since leaving the dungeon so they were already very close to the city limits. They were slowed down by Estellese and Kaden's conditions, but despite that moved as quickly as their slowest members could go. It was a little past sunrise when they reached the city limits and crossed out into the hilly plains surrounding the city. It was all tall grass and hills as far as they could see, and that was not all they could see. Now that they had time to look around, and now that there was almost nothing obstructing their view, they could see things that were quite far away they saw how dangerous this world really was. They saw numerous minotaurs wandering the plains, they saw at least two dragons far off in the distance and they were unsure if those were two new dragons or if one of them was the same one that was in the city. There was giant spiders, giant wasps, slime creatures, hound-like creatures that they could tell were not norma
l animals, tribes of goblins traveling together. The city was relatively safe in comparison, there was not an overwhelming infestation of monsters out here like there was in the city, they could be easily navigated around, but the monsters out here were much scarier than simple goblins.
The fields were big and open, there was plenty of space to just not go near the other creatures. It made their journey longer having to stray off the straight path to avoid monsters, but they were slowly crossing the field. As they traveled they saw the mountains to the east fading away into the distance, and saw the ocean to the south coming into view. Along with that, another relatively small forest was directly south west of the city they had left, the forest was much closer than the ocean was, it was the halfway marker between the northern city and the southern ocean, but it was pushed off to the west so it was not directly between them. Like a random clump of trees in the middle of the plains.
"We are searching for Elves, so we should probably check the forest" Zanath stated.