by Edward Brody
The birds stopped in front of us, turned their heads our way, and stared.
You have failed to inspect your target!
You have failed to inspect your target!
Sora entered a pouncing stance, and Fenris growled.
After a few seconds, the birds turned their heads back the direction they were headed and continued running off. Sora made a motion as if she were going to give chase, but I placed a hand on her which seemed to calm her down.
We all seemed to breathe a sigh of relief that the birds weren’t hostile.
When we were thirty or so meters from the mountain, the soft ground below started to turn to thick mud. Our feet sank several inches with each step we took, and I was beginning to worry that there could be a trap or quicksand somewhere beneath us.
Fenris and Sora raised their paws awkwardly as they took each step, and Rina seemed particularly upset, holding her robe up to avoid getting it soaked.
I could see at the base of the mountains there were heavy rocks that mud wouldn’t be able to support, so I knew the mud wouldn’t be a factor for much longer. “We’re almost there,” I said.
Several low, somber moans could suddenly be heard all around that caused us to stop in our tracks. Once again, we all tensed up and reached for our weapons.
The moans persisted, along with the unsettling sound of shifting mud, and then brown bulges started to appear from the ground.
The bulges of mud continued to slowly rise until each bulge formed a tall effigy, and as the mud slowly dripped from each figure, something along the lines of a humanoid appeared.
The humanoids were completely covered in the thick mud, and each one of them had a round head, a slight neck, and unshapely body.
Name: a forgotten one
Race: humanoid
Level: 22
Health/Mana/Stamina: 400/100/500
Status: aggressive
The strange creatures had one thin, muddy arm, but their other arms ended where the elbow should have been, and in place of an elbow was a single muddy finger that was wrapped around a thin, pointy, mud-covered stick or staff of some sort. They had no eyes, mouth, ears or other facial features.
“What the hell are these?!” I yelled.
Before I got an answer, a stick slammed into the back of my head, and sent me falling straight into the ground. One of them must have appeared behind me without me noticing.
Mud shot into my ear during the fall, and I heard Keysia yell my name through the other ear as I tried to regain my orientation. I pushed myself onto my knees and shook my head to clear some of the mud off my face. When I looked up, everyone was fighting with the so-called ‘forgotten ones’.
Jax swung his sword at one of the monsters, and despite the being having a slow-moving appearance, it swiftly ducked his attack and whipped its stick at Jax just as fast when it rose from the dodge. Jax barely managed to lean back to avoid the blow.
Rina and Keysia both had their backs to each other and were surrounded by three forgotten ones. They were turning in circles with their staves in their hands as the monsters inched closer. Each time the monsters took a step, their bodies twitched and made a clicking noise like stiff wooden twigs snapping together. Their dodging and attacks were fast, but their walking movements were awkward and slow.
There were at least ten strange beings, and Fenris and Sora were having the best success at abating them. Sora clamped on to the back of one of the monster’s necks and dragged it through the mud, and Fenris was standing over top of one of the beings that he had fallen, ripping it apart. There was some sort of blackish blood and grey flesh that he pulled up with every bite he ripped from the monster, so they definitely weren’t any type of elemental as they first appeared.
I reached my hand out and shot a Fireblast at one of the three monsters that were attacking Rina and Keysia, but it only seemed to jolt the being forward a bit and there was no sign of damage. There was a dark mark in the mud where the Fireblast had landed, but the being didn’t seem to care.
I fired an Arcane Missile at the same monster, but again, it jolted forward and showed no signs of damage. The Arcane Missile actually made the monster turn around and look at me—at least I think it was looking at me, since it had no visible eyes—but otherwise, it was unaffected.
Thunk!
Before I could stand, I was again hit in the back of the head with another hard stick, and this time I was sent face-first into the mud. My ears rang, and the shock of the blow caused me to inhale a nose full of mud.
Being unable to breathe, I quickly pulled myself back up and blew out my nose as hard as possible to dislodge the mud, then wiped my hand across my eyes.
I was hit again, this time across the back, but I was expecting another attack, and just yelped at the pain without falling back into the mud.
Divine Sight, I thought, trying to get some sort of vision through the mud on my face that I couldn’t immediately clear. When the spell took effect, I turned to see yet another stick attack rushing towards me.
I instinctively cast an Arcane Missile at the monster and hit it in its strange, half arm. The attack hit the arm and knocked its attack back, but it pulled back and thrust the stick at me again.
I rolled, dodging the attack, and sloppily tried to scramble away in the mud.
“Fire doesn’t work!” I yelled. “Neither does arcane!”
Rina raised her staff, and sparkles of energy fell from the sky on two of the effigies in front of her. They jerked back at the impact and groaned, so her magic obviously had an effect.
Sora jumped onto one of the beings that Rina had stunned, slamming it to the ground.
I managed to get my footing as I watch Jax parry one of the being’s sticks, turn, and stab the monster in its gut with a reverse sword thrust. It paused and moaned, and when Jax pulled out his sword, the being just stood there, seemingly disabled a moment as Jax swung his sword around and lopped its head off.
Dark liquid squirted from where the monster’s neck should have been, and the body fell to the ground.
Keysia held out her hand and cast the same AOE [area of effect] lighting attack that I had seen her use in the Edgewood mine towards one of the monsters, and immediately everyone—the monsters, our group, and pets—started shaking uncontrollably. Only Keysia seemed unaffected.
I felt as if I lost control of my limbs and all thought was lost in the brief moment before Keysia released the spell. Her attack was strong enough that Rina fell to the ground, while Jax and I both dropped to a knee.
“Nooo!” Keysia screamed. “My spell must have transferred through the mud!”
I heard a thwack and saw Jax take a stick to the forehead and get knocked onto his back, and a monster was clacking as it began stepping towards the fallen Rina.
Sora and Fenris both shook their heads and seemed to recover from Keysia’s lighting faster than the rest of us, and they each quickly jumped on a monster.
The two stick hits plus the lightning attack had brought me down to 35% health, and I was really proving ineffective during the battle. I had yet to draw my sword, and since both my fire and arcane wasn’t working, I had basically done nothing but slip and slide through the mud since the monsters appeared.
I took the opportunity to cast Boiling Blood, and I felt my temperature rise.
I pulled myself up and unsheathed my sword, just as another one of the monsters attacked me from its flank. This time, I was fast enough to dodge, and my counterattack was fast enough that the monster couldn’t. I whipped my falchion right at the shoulder connected to the monster’s incomplete arm, and the strange limb and stick was severed and fell to the ground. The monster just looked down to it in dismay and then back up to me. It took a step towards me but didn’t attack. It seemed like it didn’t know what to do.
Seeing that the monster was disabled, I ignored it and charged for the monster that was clattering towards Rina. Rina was getting to her feet, but she seemed wobbly and disoriented.
/> My movement through the mud was still slower than it normally would be with Boiling Blood activated, but the spell offered enough advantage that I was fighting a little faster than I would be on normal ground without any sort of buff.
I dashed in front of Rina and pushed her back, as the monster in front of her thrust his stick her way, then swung my sword up, again aiming for the monster’s shoulder and severing its strange arm.
I turned and ran behind a monster that Keysia was exchanging attacks with, and when I reached back, I cut its shoulder from behind.
I turned my head, looking for another target, to only see Fenris and Sora tearing two more monsters apart. The only other monsters standing were the three whose arms I’d cut. They clacked and twitched as they moved as close to us as possible, but once they were close enough to launch an attack, they just stood there and twitched intermittently.
I leaned over and caught my breath as I felt Boiling Blood starting to fade. “What the hell?”
Jax held his sword out to one of the armless beings that was standing in front of him and looked at it curiously. “They don’t attack?”
“Not without their stump, apparently,” I said.
Sora jumped on the one of the other disabled monsters, ripped its head off, then turned and pounced on another.
When Fenris rushed up to Jax to protect him from the last remaining monster, Jax held out a calming hand to him. “Wait,” he said.
Jax moved his sword closer to the being, and it ducked as if Jax were attacking. When he pulled his sword back, the monster rose back up. Again, Jax moved his sword closer to the being, this time moving slower and more deliberately. The monster’s head followed the tip of his sword but didn’t duck, and when Jax’s blade made contact with the monster’s chest, he rubbed it up and down, dislodging some mud from its chest.
The monster watched and twitched occasionally until Jax had removed just enough of the mud that shredded, waterlogged leather could be seen underneath.
“It looks like they have some sort of armor,” Jax said. “Maybe elven.”
Keysia lifted one of monster’s sticks in her hands that still had a severed half arm attached. “Some of the first elven fighters who turned dark were punished by the Queen if they showed aggression towards another elf. Before they were banished, their arms were severed as punishment… at least that’s how the story goes. When more and more elves started to turn, the Queen removed us before we had a chance to harm anyone, or we left on our own in shame.”
“I’ve heard the story,” Jax said. “Those who had a limb removed were too ashamed to join the other dark elves even. But that would’ve been ages ago.”
Keysia dropped the stick. “Indeed. And if these are those elves, why would they be under the mud? And how? It makes no sense.”
“Witchcraft or necromancy,” I suspect Jax said.
“Or a curse of some sort,” Rina said.
Jax jabbed his sword in the remaining monster’s gut, and the monster looked down at its wound as Jax pulled his sword back, and swung it at the monster’s throat.
You have gained 3500 XP!
Advancement! You have reached level 19 and gained 3 ability points. To assign your ability points, open your status page. You can also increase any of your known skills by 1 level. Choose wisely, as your choices cannot be undone.
“If it’s a curse,” Jax said as the monster’s head flopped into the mud, “then I suppose it’s best we’ve freed them.” He slid the broad side of his blade against his leggings, trying to remove the blood and mud.
“Is everyone okay?” I asked.
“Other than being weighed down in mud, I suppose I’m fine,” Rina said. She raised her hand and cast heal on those of us who had taken damage.
“Sorry again for the shock,” Keysia said. “First time fighting in mud.”
“Well, now you know it travels,” I said.
Keysia reached a muddy hand up and shyly nodded as she scratched the side of her head.
There was another loud screeching noise overhead, and this time it sounded very close.
I lifted my chin to the dry land at the base of the mountain. “Let’s loot up and get out of this mess.”
Chapter Seventeen
1/27/0001
“Looting up” on the forgotten ones was a fruitless exercise. Digging around their bodies produced nothing but rotten, slimy, pieces of flesh and fragments of leather and cloth. There were no good weapons or usable loot that we could find. While the sticks they were holding had decent enough damage stats, they all were down to a durability rating of 1 or 2, so they would’ve been too hard to sell.
When we made it to solid ground, we all did our best to shake away as much mud as possible, and Rina and I took a moment of meditation to restore our mana pool. I was surprised when I managed to meditate on my first try.
You have reached level 2 in Meditation!
I took a moment to open my stats and assign the points I gained from my last level. The Heritage armor was giving me a great boost to my strength, dexterity, and vitality, so I decided to put all of my ability points into intelligence for higher magic damage, and since I hadn’t had time to train Inscription lately, I put my LP in that skill.
We stood at the base of a small mountain that had several smaller mountains on either side. Nudged between the mountain in front of us and closest to the right was a small incline that seemed to lead behind them. There was also a path leading up and around the closest mountain and additional flat paths running left and right.
I pulled out my compass and turned several times to get a feel for where we needed to go, and it was clear the way was forward, but with both the path leading up the mountain and the incline leading behind it, it wasn’t clear which was the best direction.
“Let’s try the path between the two,” I said, indicating the incline.
“Brrr,” Rina said as we trudged up the gradual, rocky incline. She rubbed her shoulders and shivered a little. “I’m used to the hot weather of the Sands. It never gets this cold over there.”
Keysia looked up to the sky. “It’s a bit colder here than Edgewood, but I suspect Edgewood will see snow soon.”
“What are the seasons like here?” I asked.
“Mostly warm,” Jax said. “Quite pleasant, actually. But the cold times like this come and go randomly. It’s mostly unpredictable.”
I squeezed my hands and focused on the chill of the air transferring through my metal gloves. It was cold enough outside that I would’ve been shivering and desperate to get inside if I were on Earth, but the cold I was experiencing didn’t seem to have much of an effect on my body. I noticed it, but it wasn’t slowing me down or bothering me. Come to think of it, some days were scorching hot in the Sands, but I managed through it in full armor. “So, I don’t need seasonal gear?”
“If you ever head north to Tillos or somewhere with extreme colds, warm gear will better keep you comfortable,” Jax explained. “But at these temperatures, special armor isn’t necessary. Over here it never gets cold enough that a few mugs of ale can’t warm you right up.”
Another perk of Eden’s Gate, I thought. Though I did find it odd that Dr. Winston had kept pain in the game but lowered the impact of hot and cold weather.
When we reached the top of the incline, we could see a few smaller hills and mountains on the other side, and surprisingly there were several healthy, large trees. At the center of the arrangement was the tallest mountain, and directly beside the tallest mountain was a skinny mountain peak, no more than twenty meters wide. While it wasn’t as tall or wide as the tallest mountain, it rose high in the sky, and at the top of the peak, several massive birds were flying in circles around it. The peak was covered in vegetation.
There was another loud shriek, and it was clear at that point that the sound was coming from the birds.
We slid down the incline to the few square meters of gravelly flat land that ran between the hills and mountains, and when I checked my c
ompass, I knew that we were getting close to the treasure.
I turned to the left, and led the group in direction of the skinny mountain peak.
Keysia held her hand above her forehead to shield her eyes from the sunlight in the sky as we proceeded. “Guys, those things flying in the air aren’t just birds.”
I squinted against the light and held my hand up to my forehead as Keysia did, but whatever was flying around the peak still looked like giant birds to me. I attempted to use inspect on them, but I didn’t even get a failure message.
“Harpies,” Jax said. I turned to see him looking up and squinting. “Too far away to inspect but definitely harpies.”
At the mention of harpies, I recalled the shopkeeper in Highcastle telling me those type of monsters were in the area. Whatever the case, they still looked like birds from afar, and birds didn’t sound too dangerous after the sudden attack from the strange, one-armed creatures in the mud. Bring on the birds! I thought.
We continued forward another half minute as I studied my compass, and then I held up a hand to stop our group. “Here,” I said. I opened the treasure map and double-checked the coordinates with the compass, and they matched up exactly. “According to the map, the treasure should be around here.”
I held the map up high and scanned the area. The ‘X’ was placed near a large rock and was close to a body of water. As I looked around, there was only one large rock in the area, about fifty meters away, and closer to the skinny mountain peak. I saw no body of water.
“I see a rock that matches, but I’m not sure if that’s the right one,” I said.
