SAVE POINT 29

Rosabella

To be honest, I wasn’t sure how long it'd been since the zombie-tree attack. I wasn’t sure how many miles my aching feet had trod or how many freaking trees my throbbing head had seen. All I knew was we were, now, in a hollowed-out, tree canoe, captained by Joy, and, if we didn't find land soon, I was going to grab the oar and row us right back to the other side so I could get a decent night's sleep while there was still daylight. The navy sea rolled around us, glassy and reflective like a lie meant to keep us in its lulling trap. The back-and-forth movement of the canoe was making me a little green—

"Do you hear that?" The pink-haired girl strained at the helm, cocking her head to the side to listen. The salty breeze, that'd been making my eyes water, pushed back strands of her hair from her neck like invisible fingers. Just being real, I didn't want to strain to hear whatever damn sound the girl was so intent on. All I'd been doing lately was straining—trying to survive...trying to convince myself to take one more step. My HP was 52/107, and I was moody as hell which didn’t help. Hormones especially sucked in parallel dimension Game worlds…

If Joy didn't want to tell me what she was hearing, that was fine. I'd just finally close my eyes and get some rest—well, whatever rest could be had with the wood sides of this solid canoe digging into my back. I'd begun to let my eyelids flutter closed when she had to talk again.

"Windchimes," she breathed.

Windchimes? My eyes sprung open in sudden hope. Because they didn't have windchimes at sea. They had windchimes on—

"Land?" I blurted.

She nodded.

And I looked out into the billowing, gray mist that haunted the top of the ocean with more optimism than I'd had in days. The green-blue torrents of dipping waves rocked the boat with every paddle Joy made. The moisture in the air and the water spraying up from Joy's movement flecked my cheeks and hands. I could barely breathe—finally for the right reasons and not shitty ones. …Yet, my stomach twisted with the realization that I could be entirely wrong about that; I’d been wrong about a lot of other things before.

"We must be right here," Joy's face constricted in confused ripples, "Literally—"

The bottom of the canoe scraped. I'd never been more excited for a sound in my life.

"Finally!" I shouted, jumping upwards.

But, just as quick, Joy stood and wrapped a constrictive hand over my mouth, pinning me to the side of the canoe. Not fucking again. Not like with the zombies. Her dark eyes leered way too close for comfort as she leaned over me. "Don't celebrate yet," she hissed, "We don't know what we're dealing with here. Keep your eyes sharp and your dagger sharper."

I swallowed against her hand, which finally released its stifling hold. And, with far more caution this time, I stepped out of the boat, feeling the glorious-glorious sandbar underneath the soles of my boots and the thick water pushing against my legs and seeping into my body armor. The wind on my neck felt kinder just now—like maybe we'd found what we'd been looking for, but just in case we hadn’t...

“System,” I commanded, “Equip dagger.”

[System Understands Query…Loading Response…]

The weapon’s smooth, wood handle flew to my palm. Damn, that was SO much easier than messing with the sheath and everything…

[System Alert: Weapon Equipped.]

I sloshed towards shore, per Joy's warning, with my dagger curled tightly in my fist. ...Well, her dagger; I'd borrowed it earlier. The metal handle bit into the flesh of my palm like a reminder that whatever lay behind this heavy mist just might not be a warm welcome. Ocean spray kicked up into my mouth and soaked my armor.

"We go together," Joy warned quietly, marching up behind me. That girl was quick. I nodded.

Fear and dread mixed the downfall of warriors deep in my stomach as my boots crunched onto dry land. The mist lifted and—

Wow. This place looked like a movie—like I'd literally just stepped foot into full-screen emersion on some Pirates of the Caribbean set. ...Damn.

On the way here, Joy had kept calling the place the 'Dragon's Sea Town'. Well, hello, Dragon's Sea Town. Making perfect sense for our trek here, the place looked like the port city of an island. Thatched roofs covered circular buildings which had clearly seen their moment of wear and tear either by hurricanes, darkness or both. What could be a tourist attraction or vacation spot if cleaned up properly was, instead, trashed. Wood boards, pieces of aluminum and waste scattered dirt pathways leading around the buildings. There were rubble piles and cracks in the dry, sandy dirt. It smelled like smoke and ash and...fallen things. ...And the place was silent.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The kind that made your skin crawl if you listened too hard.

Especially when you heard those distant windchimes:

Cling-ca-cling-cling...

And nothing else but the wind, whistling around me and the buildings.

"What happened here?" I murmured, lowering my weapon. Joy was wrong to be so worried. The place looked absolutely desolate.

But the girl was still high on guard; her thigh-high boots scrabbled in the dry soil as she shifted. Her eyes raked over every corner, and she turned without lowering her weapon. "Being so close to the Dark Woods, they got the worst of the darkness and Darken," she whispered, "I'd heard they ravaged the place but...well, they must have the root powder you need somewhere..."

"Should we search the buildings?" I asked, stepping towards a wood door that was nearly flapping open due to a broken hinge.

Joy's lips tightened. "I'm not sure. Let's see if it's inhabited."

"Doesn't look like it to me," I shook my head, letting my boots crunch over the path around one of the first buildings. The windows there were dark, dirty and empty. It didn't take a rocket scientist to tell that no one'd been around here for a while. "Hello?" I called loudly, knocking on the nearest door.

"Don't—"

I whirled around to see Joy flying at me from behind—

But it was too late.

Whizz!

I heard it before I felt it.

The thud.

Against my neck.

The prick of a needle.

I looked down and saw the wavering shaft of a dart. Shit of all shits. Really? Joy was going to KILL me.

The world blurred. My body swayed. My knees gave out. And a blurry figure leaned—was it a man or a woman?—into my face before everything went pitch black.

[Reloading Still A Very Uncertain Amount of Time Later…22%]

...God, my head. I clutched at it, feeling the world spin with each pulsing pain. I whimpered quietly, pressing my hands against my ears and scalp. Fuck! What the fuck happened?

It came flashing back like a nightmare I didn't necessarily want replayed:

Island.

Huts.

Dart. …Obviously, not a portal dart. A poisoned dart? A sedative? Who knew.

My vision came back too...slowly. I blinked blearily at my boots, noticing the thick tread of them stood firmly against a cobblestone floor. That must be what was making my backside hurt so much—the polished stones jutted in there. ...Oh, and, of course, I noticed the thick, steel cuffs wrapping around each ankle and the massive chain links connecting them. My wrists too? My wrists were chained together. I followed the chain to where it connected in the cement wall.

Motherfuckers.

What kind of people would just chain us up? No 'hello'. No 'welcome to our land'. Just chains? Fuck it all, Joy had been right, although I wouldn't be admitting that to her face...ever.

I saw the pink-haired girl slumped on the freezing floor next to me. I nudged her gently with the toe of my boot to wake her before realizing I could have just asked the system for her HP stats to make sure she was okay—opps.

"Fuck off—get out of my face!" she used a hand to shove my foot back.

Alive and feisty.

Check.

All the breath whooshed out of me in relief.

I watched Joy take in her surroundings with a scowl etched into her fine features. Unfortunately, the scowl only deepened when she saw me.

"You, you had to shout—" she griped, looking like she might very well attack me.

I held up my hands in protest, jingling the chains, " I didn't know they'd stick us in a dungeon! I thought the place was abandoned!"

My words echoed in the large room, bouncing off the walls like, just to remind us that, regardless of what I'd thought, those solid walls were still there...locking us in.

"Clearly it's inhabited," Joy sneered.

And I saw even more evidence of it as I looked around. The cement room we were chained in wasn't empty. There were wood crates and metal cages. There were others chained here too. A scared woman with a child backed away from us, her bare feet scrabbling on the stone floor and her eyes like glassy, bulging marbles—frightened. A man in tattered clothing looked like he'd been chained here for a while, evidenced by his scruffy, unwashed beard.

...But there was a familiar smell in the air. I sniffed at it, trying to pin it down. Where had I smelled it before...?

"It's the dragons," another woman further away, dressed in long, purple robes and chained to the side wall, told me, noticing my expression.

"Drag—?" I barely got the question out before a thunderous roar reverberated through the room, shaking it. Fire billowed from a wire mesh cage that was the entire far wall. Heat seared my face as I scrabbled backwards, out of range.

It's no use, Ratadon!

A female voice snarled inside my head. A dragon…here?

The ground shuttered as an enormous, burgundy dragon threw itself against the wire mesh, its snout attempting to push through and its colossal claws scraping at both metal and earth.

I will fight it to the day they kill us!

Snarled the burgundy one—Ratadon—in my mind.

It's been years.

A third voice—high-pitched, child-like and female—trilled.

You won't get out that way; they've made sure of it but...Grand Dragon...do you see that?

As I continued to stare in the direction of the mesh, I began to realize that something was staring back. The huge, pink, almond-shaped eyes of a blinking...of a blinking, yellow dragon? She cocked her head at me, a smile spreading over her black lips.

Grand Dragon, it is.

The yellow beast whispered in my mindspace nearly reverently.

We won't have to die in here, after all.

She continued to squeak.

It's Rosabella the Second—the one I saw in my prophesy. She will free us all.