November 2, 2022
Day 13
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"I don't want to be here. I want my mom. I want my dad. I want to go home. "
Maya was in tears, inconsolable, and Rahul wasn't sure what to do.
Maya had gone into shock. They had tried to talk to her. Rahul had tried to talk to her. To reason with her. They tried and tried for what felt like forever, but she wouldn't move, wouldn't speak.
She just looked straight ahead with a cold empty gaze.
Eventually, they all gave up. They weren't experts and they didn't know what to do. Their technology was gone. They didn't have any internet to tell them what to do. Not like the dungeon would have wifi.
So they just sat around her, made sure she was safe, and waited. And time passed, until suddenly something changed.
She started speaking. Not sentences, just singular words.
Names.
She started recalling the names of the ones who had died. And she spoke them aloud.
Not all 159 names, not everyone who had died. But too many. For someone who had been so shy and reserved, Rahul did not expect Maya to know so many people. But she had known them. Too many of them. And one by one, she spoke their names.
At first, she spoke quickly, one name escaping her tongue after another. But then she slowed down. Going silent for long periods. Until another name left her lips.
Just like that. Another name. Another person who had died.
A real living person, just like them. Just like that.
And as Maya spoke the names out loud, Rahul remembered. They all did. The events of the day. And the culmination of it all after Martin had left.
After Martin had left, Daniel forbade them all from looking at the bodies of the fallen. For the sake of their sanity. But they had already seen the bodies. They had been in the outer walls of the castle, shooting arrows at the retreating albatrosses, but their eyes had spotted the bodies strewn around the castle, not all of them in one piece. Some bodies had not been carried far, the hawks had dropped them within the outer walls of the castle, in the courtyard. But the team had not gone to that part of the courtyard. None of them had seen those bodies up close. Small mercies.
None of them save Rahul and Matt. The two had fallen in the courtyard amid the bodies. Matt had been too disoriented by pain, but Rahul saw them. Only from the corner of his eyes, but Rahul saw. The hawks had carried his colleagues far above the roof before dropping them. The result was gruesome.
So when Martin left, Daniel had the sentinels build graves for them all. Not mass graves, individual graves for each of them. He had then instructed the sentinels to bury the bodies respectfully. Only after the sentinels had filled in the graves and hidden any signs of the horrors that transpired on Laysan Island, had Daniel taken the team to pay their respects to the dead.
But only for a few short moments. Daniel didn't let them linger. They must keep going, or they would soon join their colleagues.
And they wouldn't have anyone left to bury them.
And so they left behind the graves and the island and entered the dungeon. What they couldn't leave behind were the memories.
And so for half an hour, Maya had recited names. Rahul had wondered if he too should recite, if that would give him some kind of catharsis, but he couldn't do it.
Maya kept on reciting.
Captain Seki.
As Rahul heard that name spoken, he remembered. In their concern for their colleauges, they had all forgotten about the others - the pilot, the air hostesses, the other passengers...
But Maya had remembered. She recited all their names, taking pauses in between. But every pause, no matter how long, was always followed by a name.
Until it wasn't. Until there was a pause that went on for what felt like forever.
After that maddeningly long pause, she took 8 more names.
She knew those names well.
But she still paused after every single one.
It wouldn't have been right otherwise.
Alex
Charlie
Matt
Helena
Ivan
Daniel
Rahul
Maya
Then, she spoke.
"We will all die. "
"Nothing's going to happen to us", Rahul implored.
"We will all die. We will all fall into the jaws of crocodiles and be crunched to our deaths", Maya tonelessly spoke.
"We can fight the crocodiles, you saw how we dealt with the ambush", Charlie said emphatically.
"One by one, we will all die. ", Maya stated
"We won't let anyone die, Maya. Not one more among us will die. " Matt said pleadingly.
"We will all die. We will all die. We will all die. "
Maya kept chanting the same words again and again, without pause. Her voice reduced to a whisper and then died down to nothing, but her lips kept moving inaudibly.
They all told her how they would figure out how to exit the dungeon, and then leave immediately. They wouldn't try to win the dungeon, they would get to safety and run. They would take things slow. They were strong. They had potions. They could recover from almost any injury. They said everything they could think of to assuage her fears.
But all their assurances and reassurances fell on deaf ears.
Until Rahul kneeled right in front of her, held her hands, and looked at her.
Her lips stopped moving, and she looked up and met his eyes.
"I will not let anything happen to you. Not to you, not to anyone of us. We will walk out of here alive. All four of us. I promise. "
Maya stared into his eyes for a moment longer, as if considering.
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Then she raised her pinky finger in a gesture that Rahul had not seen since he was 5. But he complied, crossing her pinky finger in his.
"Pinky promise", he said solemnly, not letting his embarrassment show.
She slowly nodded, wiping away her tears.
At this moment, she let herself be a kid, she let herself believe him.
"You feeling better now? ", Rahul asked.
She nodded, then looked around herself, as if noticing the strange mangrove she was in for the first time.
And then she was crying again. This time a new line repeated on her lips.
"I don't want to be here. I want my mom. I want my dad. I want to go home. "
But this time, she was not repeating lines in an unhinged manner. She was repeating them with meaning. She did want her parents, she wanted the safety of home. She didn't want to be fighting against crocodiles. She didn't want to be anywhere near crocodiles.
Maya was in tears, inconsolable, and Rahul wasn't sure what to do.
And then he realized, he didn't have to do anything. Maya had faced her fears. She had let out the emotions that they all had repressed since this morning.
No, not since this morning. Since the integration began. Since that damned airplane disappeared from under their damned asses. Since they flew uncontrollably in the air. Since they slept out in the open, in the sand, and had to forage and fish for food. Since they had been drinking salt water. Since they had been massacring frogs and birds.
The last 13 days had fucked them all up. The death of all their colleagues had been the last straw. Until they were alive, Rahul could almost delude himself that he was just waking up and doing his job. A new assignment. After all, it was his manager giving him orders, who in turn was receiving orders from his director Mark.
As if all that wasn't enough, that damned crocodile surely became the straw that broke the camel's back.
All this and so much more was raging within Rahul. It had been raging within Maya too.
Rahul didn't feel what happened to Maya was normal, or healthy, but in her own way, she had let it all out. But who's to say what's healthy, what's normal, in a situation like this? And whatever she had done, it was better than what Rahul was doing, what they were all doing. Keeping it in, suppressing it. Granted, many cried quietly alone at night, but not like this.
Rahul looked into Maya's eyes and he could see a heavy burden had been lifted from her. It was not catharsis, not really. But it had helped her. Rahul's promise, genuine as it was, was just that, a promise. He knew he couldn't guarantee anyone's safety. Maya knew it too. But she had chosen to believe it. And in believing it, she has found a sliver of hope to cling to.
Rahul only wished he could do the same.
But he had always been taught that boys don't cry, grown ups don't cry, men don't cry.
Now more than ever before, Rahul wished they could cry.
And as he thought about all this, he put words to the two emotions he had been feeling toward Maya this whole time.
Relief. He cared about her and was genuinely happy she was feeling better. It didn't look like it, not now, but she was going to be fine.
And envy.
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It was slow and it was nerve-wracking, but once they got the hang of it, killing crocodiles was not that much different from killing frogs or killing hawks.
When you're at a safe distance with a bow in your hands, crocodiles are just as dangerous as frogs and birds. Which is to say, not dangerous at all.
The team spotted another crocodile hiding in the swamps, and all 4 nocked their arrows and released. This time, Helena's arrow penetrated its hide the deepest, giving her the lion's share of the experience.
As they took down the reptiles one by one, they all wondered why they needed a balance of classes at all. In every battle so far, ranged combat had served them best. But sooner or later, the enemies would come close, so they couldn't all be archers.
It had been a slow grind so far, but the team didn't let themselves fall into a false sense of safety. The crocodiles were still ferocious beasts, and they only took them on one at a time, and from a distance. If their shots set too many of the reptiles in motion, they would flee and attack another area.
The crocodiles were content to go back to their rest, and never followed them too far.
Humans on the other hand weren't the kind to stay content for long.
After two hours of killing crocodiles, they barely managed to eliminate 100 of them. That was around 6000 experience distributed between the four of them. And as Ivan looked at his experience bar, he realized he was no closer to leveling up than when he had first entered the dungeon.
13360/50000 experience to the next level.
So, as the group ran towards the next float of crocodiles, Ivan held up his hands to stop everyone, then spoke.
"I have managed to get barely over 1500 experience after 2 hours of killing the reptiles. I'm sure it's more or less the same for all of you. At this rate, it'll take days to get to level 10 and class selection. And we have just been running the circumference of the same patch of land that we spawned in. We have no idea how to exit the dungeon, no idea what dungeon points Martin had asked us to get, and no idea what other beasts live here. We need to step up. "
"What do you propose? " Daniel replied, not entirely opposed to a change of pace.
"We need to up the ante, one step at a time. For starters, let's take two crocodiles at a time, and not flee the moment we get the attention of more than one crocodile. " Ivan said.
"I don't think there's any harm going two at a time. We have been consistently getting the crocodiles with our first volley anyways. As for not fleeing, we'll wait till the crocodiles step into dry land before we run. Is that a good enough compromise? "
"That works." Ivan nodded.
With that, they continued their run toward their next target.
"I and Helena will take this one, you and Alex take that one", Ivan said, and they all nocked their arrows.
Four arrows flew, and both crocodiles died instantly.
All four humans nocked their arrows again with a hint of a smile on their faces. Ivan and Daniel called dibs on two crocodiles and soon four arrows flew again.
Only one crocodile died. The remaining one was pelted with a volley of four arrows the next instant, and this time it too died.
Half a dozen crocodiles had started stirring by now, and the group fired with more urgency, calling dibs and killing most pairs of crocodiles in the first volley.
A minute passed, and close to twenty crocodiles were dead. But by now, the crocodiles had actively started moving toward them. This was the point where they would usually have started retreating, with eight to ten kills under their belt. Then they would run until they lost the crocodiles and then look for another appropriate spot to hunt.
Not this time. This time they kept firing, and the notifications kept coming in.
In less than half a minute, the first crocodiles set foot on dry land, but they were moving leisurely and were still a good 80 feet away. Ivan and Daniel exchanged glances and nodded.
Calling out which crocodile they would target next was taking too long.
"You take the right, I'll take the left", Ivan said.
And then the volley of arrows continued, alongside the sweet chimes of notifications.
When the crocodiles were 30 feet away, they suddenly picked up their pace, and without exchanging a word, all 4 humans knew it was time to run.
And as they did, there was a smile on all four faces.
As he ran, Ivan spoke again
"We got 21. What about you? "
Daniel replied, with mock defeat on his face.
"We got 20. "
Then, Ivan turned around and noticed that most crocodiles had given up the chase and counted only 15 following them in the distance.
Daniel looked back too, curious was Ivan was thinking.
"They are few and far enough from us. There's still a chance for you to catch up. "
Daniel grinned widely as he replied.
"Why not. "
And they all turned around and readied their arrows again.
9 volleys and less than a minute later, all 15 crocodiles were dead. Unfortunately for Daniel, Helena had gotten really good at hitting the spot between the scales, and Team Ivan's lead only got wider.
"We won. 29 to 27. ", Ivan said confidently.
Daniel replied immediately, with a challenging smile.
"Of course you did. You've got a designated marksman on your side. Swap her for Alex and then we'll see. "
Alex promptly protested.
"Hey! I'm a designated marksman too."
Daniel replied,
"Yeah, but ranged siege doesn't count. Unless you have already figured out how to make your arrows go boom? "
As he said that last part, Daniel closed both his fists in front of his face and then opened them wide.
"No... "
Alex replied, trying to make a hurt face as he did, But he couldn't hold his laughter.
"Was that gesture supposed to indicate an explosion?"
Alex said, still laughing, as he copied Daniel.
Daniel looked at that absurd hand gesture, paused for a second, and then he too started laughing. Soon, they were all laughing. Making 'boom' gestures with their hands and laughing.
Really laughing.
For a moment, all was forgotten, everything that had happened since the integration began.
They laughed some more, but too soon, the moment ended, and Daniel spoke.
"Jokes aside, this new strategy was very productive. We killed half as many of the reptiles in five minutes as we did in two hours. More than all of us targeting a single crocodile, the retreating and running around was slowing us down. But let us not get too carefree. They are still apex predators. "
As Daniel said that, he looked at the crocodile which had managed to come the nearest, lying only twenty feet away, with 6 arrows sticking to its body.
"Yeah, let's not cut it that close. "
Helena agreed.
"We won't"
Ivan agreed, then looking back in the direction they ran from, spoke again.
"Why don't we go back to the same spot and clear up some more of the crocodiles. If any stragglers are going back, we can pick them off too. "
Not seeing any problems with the plan, Daniel agreed.
"Okay, we can go back there, but move slowly and carefully, and keep a watch out for any crocodiles lying in ambush. "
And they did keep a watch out. Not just now, but every time they had been running, retreating and repositioning in the past two hours. Because while the crocodiles in the swamp were dangerous, the ones lying in wait in their ostensibly safe paths were the ones to watch out for.
Thankfully, despite their excitement and ardor, the 4 adventurers, yes adventurers, cause that's what they were now, had their eyes and ears open while they ran back.
Two crocodiles lay hidden in their path, the two that had chosen not to return to their swamp but wait for their prey to make this journey again. Those two didn't even have a chance to move a muscle before the arrows penetrated deep into their hide and killed them, their ambush foiled before it even had a chance to begin.