by Scott Seier
Someone was feeling themselves...but I couldn't disagree. I would take me if I needed an extra set of eyes to survive the night. Although I may be biased. We headed down and into the woods which, despite the sun still being up, were much dimmer than the hills had been.
It didn't take as long as I thought to reach the camp and it was damn good that it didn't. If it'd been much later there wouldn't have been enough light to notice the creepy gray cloaks that everyone was wearing. Honestly it didn't bother me too much at first. I saw them through the trees clearly enough to note the strange attire, but I continued without pause thinking that it was a traveling band of NPCs that had some off style choices. Maybe they were all missionaries or something. It wasn't until I was within a hundred yards of them that I noticed that these weren't NPCs.
Players had a different feel about them. It was hard to explain, and impossible to prove unless I got close enough to inspect one of them, but the idea that this was a group of about a hundred players all wearing creepy culty robes was enough to stop me dead and send me behind the nearest tree.
The imp, who'd thankfully followed me into hiding, was looking around happily as I sized him up, wondering if he would be enough to sneak into the camp to see what the deal was before I risked myself or Vigil. I do not believe that plan would be very productive. No surprise Vigil had guessed at my general train of thought.
I knew that I was being a little insensitive, he had his life on the line in a more tangible way than mine, I would assuredly come back, while his return hinged on the limits of a spell I just learned or my ability to battle an army of minds in the Veil again. I tried to not let on how absolutely terrifying it had been to be crushed by the hundreds of lights the last time, or how close I'd been to failing completely and being pushed out of the Veil without him. If he knew how uncertain I was he would certainly be pushing harder for a plan that involved me walking into the camp of creepy cloaked wing-nuts. Safety in numbers sure, but in the real world if you stumbled across a bunch of people in cloaks in the middle of the woods you had better run the hell away as fast as you can. I was not about to test how close Acrion was to reality.
All that I am attempting to convey is that there will be a chance that if you die, I will be permanently banished to the Veil. It had been nearly ten minutes of this bickering back and forth.
A figure disconnected itself from the mass of shadows above and dropped down to the ground in one fluid motion. She moved quickly, sliding into the shadows of the tree, shoving me slightly so that we could both be concealed. She appraised at me with one perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised above the other. "That's one..." she muttered, more to herself than to me I suspected. "I wasn't stalking you, I was just following you." She explained sensibly. "I was watching from a distance...to see if you would be worth recruiting." She said this with about as much shame as a cat shows after killing a mouse. Her breath smelled like a brisk and bright winter day, however that worked, and now that she was right in front of me I could easily see her name. "Milenta, the Tactician". I grinned inwardly at Vigil's frustration.
"Yeah, that sounds like stalking to me." I said offhandedly but waved her off before she could respond, trying to make some space between us so I could glance around the tree again to check if our conversation was drawing unwanted attention. "I'm flattered, but I'm not the joining type. Although I'm sure the Eleventh Division is a very nice guild." I added diplomatically. She looked confused at my statement, but instead of saying anything, took the initiative to check if our cover was blown herself. That was nice of her. Although I would rather she just gave me some space so I could look for myself.
"I don't suppose you know who these weirdos are, do you?" I asked, trying not to inhale some of the girl's hair as I spoke. Milenta leaned, with one hand bracing against the tree, and watched the gray cloaks closely, leaving me with my back pressed flat against the tree and staring at the side of her head. She seemed very unconcerned with our proximity, but her hair smelled like leather a
nd dust, which, surprisingly, turned out to be rather pleasant to me, so I didn't complain.
"I've never seen players group up like this. Guilds, sure. But these guys don't have any affiliation tags and they're all level 1." I sent a mental 'told you so' to Vigil while I thought about how Milenta could inspect the cult people from this distance and I couldn't. I guess she had some high level skill to help her out in that department.
"A bunch of creepy shit has been happening since the Cascade, but this particular type of occurrence hasn't been reported yet." She said this while reaching into her bags, producing a ping-pong sized orb. She held the sphere to her lips and whispered something to it. The thing promptly lit up and flew off in the direction of Four Flags. "Ferry Orb?" I asked. She just nodded and pulled back slightly to look at my face instead of the camp.
It was making me very uncomfortable the longer she looked at me without speaking. After a few seconds I thought she was going to kiss me, no matter how fantastical of a thought it was. Then a couple more seconds passed and I was sure she was looking in her player menus and not even paying attention to me even though her eyes weren't glazed over. After another thirty seconds I was just feeling bored and awkward. "Anyone home?" I prompted. Milenta's eyes widened for a second and she blinked twice. "Sorry I was just thinking." She said. "Yeah, got that. Come up with anything good? Any chance you can kill the giants up in the hills so I can try to make it back to Four Flags without dealing with the cult of the damned over there?" She shook her head. "No, the forest and mountain giants have been warring for weeks in this zone. Tonight's their peace summit, no way I'm breaking that up." It was my turn to blink. "Are you messing with me? " Milenta rubbed her left earlobe and looked back towards the hills. "It's my job to know what's going on in the world, sometimes I get a little invested." I remembered back to Hael's reports that he always referred to. I always thought that they were a guide to the area that was standard issue for his guild, but now I was thinking that maybe Milenta herself put together those briefings.
You should ask her if she knows the whereabouts of your party. Vigil quipped suddenly. Milenta's attention was at least partially on me, but she kept staring at Vigil's cloud of iron sand with a smile on her face. No wonder he wanted to change the subject, he didn't like being the center of attention.
"Milenta?" Her eyes snapped to me so fast that they looked like they were looking in two directions at once. I ignored the hyper human movement and pressed on. "Any idea where Hael and the group ended up?" I asked casually. She nodded and her eyes looked up and to the left while she tilted her head. Her response was like she was reciting the answer to an equation in a four hundred level mathematics class.
"The Hunter got away from the Arachkidar, but was killed by the waiting players. Will, the Lycan, was completely unaffected by the knockout venom that was used on your group, he is just a deep sleeper apparently, and woke up as they were carrying you all to the dungeons. He changed forms, at least partially, and fought his way to freedom. He did make it past the players, outrunning them and relying on his impressive regeneration. They are both currently in Four Flags. Gleer, the mage, was taken to the Arachkidar priests when they discovered the breadth of knowledge that her spellbooks contained. They restrained her and attempted to convince her to turn over ownership of the books so that they could read them properly. She simply killed herself with a powerful fire spell, burning a large section of the priest's library in the process. She is currently being evaluated by a high level mage at the nearest guild castle, mako I believe.
Hael escaped after they chained him up. He slipped out of his cell and stealthed his way out of the complex and back into town. The only reason he got past the outlaw players was because they were still scattered searching for the lycan. He is avoiding me at the moment and is going through some agility training at the guild's main castle. And then there is you. Last seen level 12, currently level 18, two full days in enemy hands, but far the better for it. A new custom title and a race that has never been seen before. Not to mention that you have a construct that is operating well above its level's projected strength and an imp, which should be impossible seeing as summoners need to specialize before they can command more than one minion at a time and you are obviously unspecialized."
Milenta was staring with a look that was demanding an explanation for my strange state, but she wasn't about to get one. And it wasn't because I was trying to be mysterious or a dick. It was because there was a man standing behind her wearing a plain gray cloak and a sick smile that told me I was sooooooo fucking right about them being bad news.
His name was blank, his Level was 1, and his hands were around Milenta's neck before I could react to his sudden appearance. I bolted. She was probably level three million, she could handle herself. I ran ten paces before I noticed that the sound of a level 1 body hitting the ground, as I was expecting, never happened. I glanced back and slid to a stop. The gray cloak was standing behind Milenta. His hands wrapped completely around her neck and she was...just standing there. Staring at the spot I had vacated. The cloak was giggling sickeningly as he dug his nails into her throat, or rather he would have if her skin was anything other than the super human stuff that high level Acrion players were wrapped in. For now, she was physically unharmed, the force that the cloak was applying to her windpipe didn't seem to be depressing it in the slightest, but that didn't change the fact that she was frozen with a look of absolute loathing and disgust on her face.
I took a step back, raising my hand to take out the bastard, but my line of sight was instantly impeded by the literal materialization of yet another cloaked asshole. He was just there, in a blink. It didn't look like he even moved when he grabbed me. One second I was staring at his grinning face and the next his hands were around my neck.
Unlike Milenta's, my level 18 body wasn't immune to the pressure even a level 1 could exert on my airway. I was immediately suffocating, but it wasn't the lack of oxygen that was worrying. My skin began to tingle. My toes went numb, my fingers were pins and needles. My fear of dying, my confusion, even the thrill of excitement that I tried to ignore every time I fought and killed something in Acrion, it was all being washed away. A gray, bland wave of numbing energy was being injected into my body by the hands of the cloaked man. Like Novocaine over my entire body. Like the Terminal.
It had only been a few seconds, but I couldn't raise my arms anymore to struggle against his grip, I couldn't even properly feel the pain of him crushing my larynx. I was even having trouble being angry at this guy. My whole mind was just bland, uncaring, compliant. It was only then that I noticed my level had dropped to 17. After another couple seconds it was at 16. A distant voice was rubbing at the edges of my mind. The numb feeling made the contact unpleasant. Lyst! I can't attack unless you want me to. Fight back! Vigil was in the distance. I'd never heard him so angry before. I noncommittally raised my hand and rested it on top of my attackers arm. I couldn't even begin to try breaking his grip. Fight back! So help me, if you get de-leveled I'm going to go get the Arachkidar and have them capture you again. We worked too hard for you to just give up. A spark of annoyance. We? Come on Vig, we all know I'm doing the heavy lifting here. I waited for a response, but realized I hadn't even had the strength to send the friendly jab across our mental link.
Level 15. Something was seriously wrong. I couldn't think, my mind wasn't allowing thoughts to coalesce. I hated this. It was like feeling dumb and drunk. I could hear laughter echoing from the dark corners of my mind. Who the hell was laughing? Get UP!!! Vigil screamed into the
abyss that was my mind. "They're laughing at me..." I choked out. My tongue and lips so numb that I could barely form the words.
"Of course they're laughing. You're a stupid little piece of trash, you deserve to be ridiculed and shamed for the rest of you're useless life!" The words cut through the numbness. Who the fuck thinks they can talk to me like that? I forced my eyes open, the dim light of the falling sun barely enough to illuminate the sneering face of the gray cloaked man that was choking the life out of me. This guy? I weakly raised my hand and grabbed his wrist again. His poisonous smile spreading further, threatening to split his smug cheeks. "You think you can get away? No one escapes the gray lands. I'll send you back and then I'll keep sending you ignorant little dumbasses back until there isn't anyone left in this shithole of a video game. Stay safe bitch." His grip tightened and I dropped to level 14. His eyes shining menacingly as I lost the level.
Send me back? Where does he think he's sending me? This disgusting fogginess was making it hard to think. The numbness was the only thing my brain could focus on...wait. Stay safe? My eyes snapped wide open. Without thinking I released my feeble grip on his arm and instead brought my hands together. "Praying won't help!" He laughed in my face, flecks of saliva raining down. "Not...praying..." I struggled. The lack of air was really taking it's toll now. My hands began to feel warm, then a shard of heat bloomed in my chest. My spirit roared to life, blasting through the sickening feeling that was coming from the cloaked guy.
I watched as he noticed clarity quickly returning to me, the sheer happiness and glee that was shining in his eyes drained away slowly. The strength in my legs came back, allowing me to stand up straighter. His grip was nothing now, weak and insignificant, but his touch was still doing something. It was locking me down, hindering my movements. I'd been so preoccupied by the vile feelings that I hadn't noticed the claustrophobic sensation of being restrained, pushed down by a force that was just too heavy. The more I struggled the more the feeling tightened, pressing into me.
