"Buff up first, then Dinethal goes in first. I follow second, Scarlet third and then you two."
The portal only gave us one option: The Dark Glade. There was no trivia or basic information available on it whatsoever, just a button with a name. I accepted and got pulled into the maelstrom of whirlwinds and crushing forces that threatened to skin me alive. The painful sensation was unlike the first time I’d gotten stuck in a teleporter, painful, but more like a dull toothache. A forced flash of light blinded me one moment, and the next, I stood behind my new Orc friend.
"There’s no enemy in sight," he said and stepped further in. His enormous bulk and shield out of my face, I could finally see where we were. I didn’t like it at all. The trees, the grass and flowers, everything was dead and dry. I looked behind me and frowned. An enormous wall of stone stood stalwart behind us, and in front a dead wasteland. Just then, the girls appeared one by one. The expressions on their faces said all I needed to know: no, I wasn’t blind.
"Is this actually a part of the game? I mean, there’s a lot of areas to go through, but there’s nothing like this out there," Katya whispered. "And I’ve seen a lot of the continent."
"Say, who sent you to the portal?" I asked and put my hand on Dineth’s shoulder.
"Didn’t she tell you? I thought the three of you and… the two of us were the same."
"The same? As in you’re no longer... out there?" I asked with a half-assed smile. I couldn’t help it but not to mouth the words no longer alive.
"Yes. We were playing when the pods overloaded somehow and electrocuted us. We both… died out there, but our minds were saved by a miracle," Renee said weakly. Her eyes looked like they were about to burst out with tears as her lower lip trembled.
"A miracle called Sylvia?" I asked and crossed my arms. The two nodded slowly.
"She said that there’s more like us in here. Didn’t give us an exact number, but we’re in the dozens. Freak accidents kept on occurring after the latest patch went live. At least that’s what she told us."
"I see. I’ll have to ask Natalia about that once we’re back out there," I said more to myself than replied to Dinethal. "Anyway, we should talk more about this later on at our island. I don’t think this is the place and time," I said and moved past the Orc. I flexed my muscles and cracked my neck, then my fingers.
"You have an I-Island?" Renee squealed. "As in a real island, with water and sand and stuff?"
"You should see the lake," Scarlet said as she put her arm around the young woman. "It’s crystal clear and you can see at least a dozen feet down. It’s always warm, and we have our own house!" The three women giggled and jumped around enthusiastically, but I didn’t like it a bit. We were in an area Sylvia had no control over. Just what did that mean?
"Come on boss," Dinethal interrupted my train of thought. "We need to scout the area before they can follow. There can be traps, monsters and debuffs waiting up ahead."
I nodded once at the Orc and followed in the shade of his shield. The dead leaves, grass and branches cracked underneath us, and the muddy soil caused our feet to get stuck, impeding our progress. I barely caught myself as the ground shook for a few seconds at most, but strong enough to rock us around. Dineth planted his shield on the ground and held tight, so I placed my hand on his ridiculously muscled arm. He looked back at me with a raised eyebrow, but I waved him off and turned away as the shaking subsided.
"Earthquake? Or a tremor?" he asked.
I shook my head. I didn’t even know the difference, if I were to be honest.
"No idea. But it felt linear to me. As if it called for us specifically." I sighed and tapped the brute on his left shoulder. He moved ahead again without as much as a grunt. The forest sprawled before us, a desolate place void of any life. I couldn’t sense a living thing, be it animal or monster, no matter how deep we went. Before I knew it, the outer edge of the forest was barely visible and our three girls only dots against the faint light.
"I don’t like this at all," I whispered as I turned toward Dinethal again.
"Neither do I. There’s a stench up ahead though. It’s nothing like dead flesh, but more like rotten fruit? I don’t know how to explain exactly."
"Yeah. No shit. I can smell it as well. My sense of smell is quite… strong."
"Call the girls?"
"No, not yet," I said and motioned for him to move on. He took out a sphere like object and shook it violently. A bright light erupted from the ball and spread out in all directions.
"And let there be light!" Dineth roared in laughter. I sighed and pushed him on. At least we could see where we were going now. Maybe it would have been a good thing if we hadn’t, as what had been seen, could never been unseen.
"What… is that?" I whispered. "Is that even alive? Or human for that matter?"
"I have no idea, but I don’t like it one bit. Wait, I need to record this for Sylvia," he replied and closed in. An icon of a camera appeared above his head as he circled the creature that lay in front of us. It was a biped, had two hands and a head. From what I could see, it was genderless, but looked like a living plant creature. Its chest rose and fell as it breathed. It was barely visible however, and the creature didn’t look like it was in a good condition. Parts of what looked like its legs seemed rotten and gave off this strange stench.
"By god," I said in disbelief. "What the hell did this to you?"
I knelt down beside the thing and stared in its lifeless eyes. No, they weren’t lifeless. The creature barely held on to whatever anchored it here. I put my hand on what looked like a healthy part of its body. A slick sort of moss covered thick, bark-like skin all along its body. The moss was missing on the rotting limbs, and the edge between the rot and healthy looked strange. It was as if new moss was trying to regrow, but wasn’t doing so fast enough.
"Ladies, you can come over," Dineth said in party chat and knelt next to me. "This is horrible. How the hell can someone come up with such morbid creations?"
"I don’t know mate, but we either need to try and help or kill the thing. If someone found me rotting away, I’d pray for them to do the same."
"Kill what?" Renee asked. I turned around, expecting them to be standing behind us, only to find empty space. In the distance, three dark shapes made their way toward me. I cursed inwardly when I noticed it was team chat. I wasn’t that used to speaking in there yet, as the three of us were always together since the day we came back to Paradise Lost.
"You’ll see when you arrive. I’ll try a potion on the thing."
I didn’t have anything but the starter potions on me Scarlet bought for us weeks ago, but a potion was a potion. I selected a potion and targeted the creature. Nothing.
"Did it work?" he asked. I shook my head.
"Oh my god! What the hell is that?" Scarlet cried out and fell beside the thing. "It’s a type of Dryad I think," she added.
"Try to heal it," I said as the other two women huddled around us.
"It’s not working. I can’t get a target lock."
I sighed and sat back on my ass, then looked back at the creature. It looked like the legs had regressed even further in the last few minutes. I thought hard and fast what I knew about Dryads. They were forest folk, part nature and part… living creatures. They flourished in lush forests, meadows and glades.
"Dineth, cut off its legs just above the rot and take it in your arms. I have an idea, but god knows if we just killed it or saved the poor thing."
"No! Don’t you dare hurt it!" Scarlet cried and shielded its legs with her body. "It’s alive just as we are!"
"No, it’s not. It’s a program first and foremost, but we’ll still try and save it." I could see that she wasn’t buying my talk, so I tried to explain quickly. "Dryads are part of living nature, right? So what happens to them if there’s only death around them?"
"They… wither away?" she replied questioningly.
"Fuck if I know. It’s not like they existed outside of this game, in the real worl
d. Anyway, I think if we manage to find a patch of grass or some living, breathing plant life that it could regenerate. Maybe not the legs, but it would live."
"Maybe we should vote on it?" Katya said after a long moment of silence.
The brother and sister voted for, Katya and me as well. Only Scarlet was against it, no matter what. She stopped fighting it eventually when she saw that the rot was spreading and turned away. I motioned for all of them to face away except him and me. I would hold it still while he cut.
"Shit, this is insane," I murmured. The Orc looked back at me and shrugged as if asking me if I had a better plan. "Do it."
He raised his ax up high and aimed. A red line appeared a few inches above the rot, which had progressed up above the knees. With a loud sloshing sound, the ax cut crushed through the bark and moss. Green liquid spurted in all directions as the creature came to life again. It thrashed around and wailed, clawed at us and slammed its tree-like fists against the Orc, but it was far too weak. A health-bar appeared above its head. It was much wider than ours and yellow instead of green.
"Give me one of those glowing orbs and pick it up. Katya, please take a second and do the same. You’re a Ranger, so you should be able to outrun anything.I’ll scout north-east of here, you take north-west. "
She nodded and took one of the two orbs Dineth produced, while I took the second. I took a deep breath and shook the orb. With a low humming noise, it sprang to life, along with my legs that carried me like the wind.
5
The darkness became worse with each step. I had the light ball on and it made enough light so I wouldn’t trip, but not at this speed. Tree trunks, boulders, quicksand and mud were there in abundance. Something in me cried at the sight of so muchdeath, but there was nothing I could do about it until we found either the source, or a solution for the Dryad.
"Anything?" I asked over team chat.
"Not yet," Katya replied. "I’m quite far out, but there’s nothing at all that could be called life."
I sighed and breathed in an out, trying to calm my nerves. I knew it was stupid, because the Dryad was just code, but I couldn’t help it. If nothing else, the five of us were also just code, in a way.
Faint light from up ahead drew my attention as I darted in between wood and stone, jumped over pits and slid down a slope. With every step, I could see more and more.
"I think I got something," I notified the group. "There’s light up ahead. Give me a few to check it out."
The group cheered pre-emptively, but I couldn’t help and smile. I did the same, deep inside, until I saw something move up ahead. There was no obvious bloodlust in the air, otherwise I’d have tasted it, nor was there the metallic smell of blood.
"I’m outside," I said as I burst from the forest edge and stopped in my tracks. There had been movement alright, but not the kind I’d hoped for. Hundreds of lifeless, bipedal creatures walked zombie-like toward me. Their grey skin reminded me of dust and cobblestone. Most of them were missing limbs or their heads, yet they still came for me. I had suddenly become prey.
"I’m under attack. Zombie-like creatures, at least fifty of them. I have no idea about their power. But in the distance, I see some kind of palisade. Maybe there’s someone there."
"Hold on, we’re on our way. ETA three minutes from what I see on the map," Dinethal replied. I opened the map as well and checked the distance between us. It would take them much longer than three minutes no matter what.
"I’m there in two," Katya added to the conversation. "Don’t die on me."
I chuckled and stepped back toward the forest edge, but quickly figured I had less chance of escaping these things than a turkey dinner. They were everywhere. The one bane of a vampire was crowd control. I’d walked straight into my own funeral.
"I’ll try not to, babe."
I could hear the ladies giggle in the background, especially Renee. She’d remained quiet until now, when she decided I had said something funny. It wasn’t very funny from my point of view.
I popped open the newest buff potions we’d bought from Gobi, which added forty percent to attack and defense in PVE and buffed up. My stats skyrocketed once I finished, and I was ready to take on the dead scourge.
Two pairs of arms grabbed me from behind. Instinctively, I threw myself forward and turned in mid-air, slashed at the limbs that held me and landed in a somersault. The stench of death became even worse as some type of grey liquid oozed from their stumps. I wanted to throw up and gagged multiple times, before I managed to get up and evade another group of the dead.
"This is fucking nasty! I almost threw up from the horrible stench of the dead!"
"Hold on, I’m almost there! Try to gather them all up in a group and lead them my way!" Katya replied. She was out of breath, but giving it her all.
I smirked and pressed my arm against my nose.
"Very well," I agreed and lunged into their midst. Hands pulled and clawed at me, broken off by the sheer power behind my pull. I kept running through their ranks, attacking them all once with a normal slash to get aggro. Within a couple seconds, there were ten of them, honest to god, running after me. Not scurrying, but running. I shook my head in disbelief and ran in between the horde.
Multiple slashing wounds and bites scarred my body and had brought my health down to about half of my total. Numerous debuffs had made me slower, less nimble and less accurate among other things. I opened my mini-map and saw Katya only half a minute out. I had to make my way toward her and hope that she could take care of them with her AoE skill.
"Almost there," she said as I saw the light of her ball at the edge of the clearing.
"Vine them first? I don’t dare stop running, and if I got hit by your stone shower, I doubt I’d live."
She chuckled and drew her bow. She took three arrows from her quiver and notched them in her bow. With delicate fingers, she pulled them back and targeted straight at me.
"W-wait now, that wasn’t the deal!" I pleaded and put my hands up. She shrugged and then winked before she let go of the arrows. I closed my eyes and looked away, mentally cursing at my own weakness for women. But the arrows never hit me. As if in a magician’s trick, they wound around me and slammed into the line behind.
"Woohoo!" I shrieked and jumped over a felled tree. The line slammed into the large stump and got caught in the vines that sprung up from the ground. They couldn’t hold all of them, but a good two thirds stood still, with a dozen more stuck in between the bodies. I dared a glance at Katya and saw her already familiar stance. A gigantic spiritual arrow was notched in the bow and aimed at the sky while she knelt with one knee on the dead ground. With a grunt, she let go of the arrow.
"You go girl!" I cheered and followed the light blue trail as it connected with the sky. A rumbling noise filled my ears as lightning flashed across the sky and connected with the dead horde on the ground. Rotten flesh burned and exploded in all directions, causing a chain reaction. The lightning passed from one zombie-ish creature to the next in a zig-zag pattern that was hard to follow with the naked eye. All I could see was explosion after explosion. Within moments, the same gut-wrenching stench assailed me anew. This time, I couldn’t hold it in and threw up everything I’d eaten mere hours ago.
Katya’s laughter in the background made it all just worse since I had no idea if it was meant for me, or for the dead zombies. A gust of wind blew fresh air our way, and the stench toward the forest. I looked up and saw Renee standing at the clearing. She was breathing hard, as if she’d ran a marathon. Her hand was barely raised.
"Oh, that’s great. She has the stamina of a snail," I murmured. Luckily, no one could read close chat from this distance.
"Are you all right?" she asked in team chat. She sounded worried and relieved at the same time, which was a good thing. This girl seemed to have an admiration for me, which I could use to my advantage. But I better find Orc bro an Orcette to trade for his sister. Oh shit, this wasn’t the time for these thoughts!
&n
bsp; "Yeah, thanks! Was that your spell?" I asked as I got up and breathed in.
"Yep! It’s a basic skill. We mages have a few useless skills that can be combined with attack spells to solve certain quest lines early on and we get to keep them. One of them is Gust of Wind."
I nodded my head and walked around the large tree stump. A few of the dead creatures still twitched around, clinging to life or whatever mattered to them. Scarlet and Dineth cleared the forest just then and seemed just as out of breath.
"I’ll run up ahead. I think that palisade might be hiding some life. Rest up and loot the corpses if they have anything of worth," I ordered and ran off. In all honesty, I would have preferred some rest first, but I wanted to get this over with if possible. Then we could rest.
The rot and decay were much less the further I ran. Only a minute in, and it was almost gone. Ahead of me, I saw yellow and brown grass. Even further in, I saw light and dark greenery. So the whole place wasn’t dead yet, there was still hope.
"There’s still some life here, about four minutes out. Make way toward the big palisade," I said and climbed atop a rock formation. The wooden construct was about two foot taller than the rocks, so I couldn’t see in, but I could clearly hear footsteps and loud whispers. Above the wall, five heads appeared and stared right back at me.
"Halt!" the tallest among them called out as he trained a strange looking bow at me. No, it wasn’t a bow, more like a self-made crossbow. It was firmly trained on me. Four more crossbows found their way pointed at my face.
"Greetings," I said firmly, faking the trembling fear in my voice. "I need your help, good people."
The five looked around, as if searching for a hidden army beneath the walls. They looked vaguely human, but nothing like the Hazard ones, rather more similar to Neanderthals. Large foreheads and chins, long, black hair that flowed down their backs. Their chests were wide, but their waists thin.
"Greetings, strangeling. What kind of help do you need?" the male asked.
Hazard Online 2: Revenge Page 3