[Player Log Start!]

[Log Holder: Jared Caliber]

[Level: 2]

It felt almost like a lifetime since Jared had seen the cave he had designated as a base. He expected the whole place to be flooded and ransacked at this point, and the Console to be destroyed with how irresponsibly they had treated it this Level, compared to the way the Gamers from Delica had treated theirs. It would only be fair, after all.

But no, when they stepped inside, the place was completely dry.

Well, not completely dry. There were still plenty of wet and damp patches which had built up in their absence. But the Console was kept in a plastic covering in Feathertooth’s cage, and it was completely unharmed, which was all that mattered in the long run.

They all watched nervously as Ben picked it up and began looking through the settings.

“Well, good news.” She announced, after some cursory examination, “All eight of our Party members seem to be alive and well. Lucinda has joined the Party, too, and she’s listed as an… well, I don’t know how to interpret this, an alt account almost? Like a mode switch between characters.”

“Interesting. And also not how plurality works, in my experience.” Lucinda noted from next to her, looking at the Console with the fascination of someone newly introduced to such things. So her, and the one penguin that had managed to get inside.

“I mean, you’re not an alter, but a person’s consciousness stored and transferred in a pile of goo. Of course it won’t act much like medical plurality.” Ben pointed out.

“Anything on Michael?” Jared asked, nervously. While they were making the boat ride here, they had received a few DMs from Michael, who had so far gotten into the Cephalopods’ home base and had discovered Harbingers or something there. Jared trusted him, but it was still a very dangerous task to carry out alone.

“He’s not suffering from any status effects or anything, and his HP is looking good, so I say he’s doing fine.” Ben told him, her voice dismissive, “Our main priority is finding the location of the others. Michael said that they were attempting to reverse summon them into that city down in the ocean depths, right? Locations are displayed on a separate menu, but let me look through this…”

She clicked through each one alphabetically. Asadullah was still being reported as being in Delica. The next one, however, Tench, came back as being in CephaloRaven.

“Was he holding the Console at the time, and there was a range limit?” Lucinda asked, watching Ben tap the Location menu for Terry, the only one left since Lucky had their own Console. He was also still in Delica. Had they been split up in some manner?

“Either way, at least Tench is down there and needs saving.” Jared replied, “We gotta warn Michael to swoop in and get them out of there.”

Ben was already typing. She clicked Send with brisk finality, until…

[Error! Message Unsent!]

“The hell?” She swore, looking through it. No further explanation was given to them, and there wasn’t time to search for one either, as Feathertooth came barreling down in a flurry of inky feathers, trailing behind it… smoke?

“I don’t suppose the human outside has anything to do with you?” It asked, landing on a perch and not even bothering to tame its feathers into something respectable.

Jared didn’t even need to do a quick headcount to know that no, they did not. Lucinda, on the other hand, looked up curiously at the trapdoor entryway, “What human?” She asked, “I don’t see- are those birds?”

“The birds, too, yes, have descended upon this location.” Feathertooth agreed, “I find myself drawn to support them, as even though you have done all this with the best of intentions, you have destroyed our way of living and our greatest treasures.”

“Feathertooth, your greatest treasure had to something other than a vat of digestive acid and mud.” Ben told him sharply, grabbing the extremely rough spear that they had lying around as she began to climb up. Jared would have followed her, but he was short a Compulsion Card, which he used for his best work. Without it, he was useless.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Lucinda shoved a gun into his hands and threw him towards the ladder, muttering about how ‘she didn’t know how to use it anyways’. So he was staggering up anyway, trying to keep a steady mind.

In the open air, it was easier for the birds to congregate. There were hundreds, if not thousands of them, clustered together until they seemed to almost be parts to a much bigger creature. But no. He couldn’t let their numbers intimidate him. He had to hold his aim and fire. One after the other.

But where was the human Feathertooth had mentioned? If they were controlling these corvids, then he could cut this off at the source, and the whole issue would be smoothed out from there, no problem.

He didn’t get to find them, or the source of the smoke that Feathertooth had brought in with it. For now, he focused on the birds who were their main threat.

“Verity Monroe!” The one at the front yelled out, and its voice was amplified by the thousand swarming birds repeating after it, voices overlapping in a cacophony that was almost perfectly synchronized. Yet it was obvious that the one at the front was leading the proclamation, as it continued, “I am Lapika, of the Avian Judicial Enforcement Wing! And I am here to testify against you for crimes committed on the safety of us corvids.”

Lucinda poked her head out of the trapdoor, wearing a sheepish expression that looked completely wrong on Verity’s face. She raised a hand and waved at Lapika, “Er, hi?”

A bird lunged from him out of his blind side, and Jared reached the gun up to shoot it, but it moved too fast, piercing the flesh of his upper arm and taking down with it chunk slightly bigger than a mouthful. Blood spurted onto the sand as he screamed, pulling the trigger blindly.

Another bird fell to the ground, splayed wings making it spiral until it dropped down in front of his feet, in Jared’s pool of blood. For a moment, none of the birds spoke.

Jared didn’t care, as he grabbed at his arm and tried to staunch the bleeding, but maybe he should have. Because soon after, they began to spin.

All around them, the black birds had formed a dome that blotted out even the sun, and they began to spin, locking the three of them in a tight circle filled with flickering lights and wretched screaming.

Jared forced himself to stay calm and breathe through it, even as the voices came from every direction, “You will pay for your crimes. You will all pay for what you have wrought upon us!”

He couldn’t even tell where Lapika was. Suddenly, coming back here and finding the Console wasn’t as relieving as he thought it was. They should’ve waited longer. Known there would be spies on the place where they had been discovered by the birds. Should have expected this.

He should be paying attention to the situation at hand.

Another bird came out from the tornado around him, this time piercing his left hand, and Jared could only feel the stab of pain, and the wetness of the blood, yet had no way to check what the damage was before the perpetrator was darting away again.

The attacks were quick and distracting, coming from all directions. A chunk of hair. More skin. More muscle. Pinpricks of pain from pointed beaks and sharp claws slashing and stabbing and not even bothering to rip off proper chunks.

Jared tried to scramble over to Ben and Lucinda, if only to have one side where the gnashing beaks and claws couldn’t come from, but he found himself separated from them by a wall of birds. They were sealed off, and none of them had noticed.

He collapsed on the gritty sand of the beach, and the injuries burnt at the contact. The birds gave him no respite, and soon the sound of ripping fabric gave way to more pain, as they found more vital areas to continue their attack.

Someone was screaming. Was it him?

It was. But only in part. Either Ben or Lucinda was screaming, too. Them and…

The birds.

The birds had also begun screaming.

His vision had become slightly tinted with blood, though that didn’t mean much, since he couldn’t see at all with the constantly shifting lights between the gaps of the birds. But as he squinted, the lights were becoming less sharp. Mellowing out between each other.

The birds appeared to be less solid objects, but one great monolith, flowing in between each other, until they almost looked like smoke. Or maybe they really were smoke. He wasn’t sure, his mind fried from the fear and the pain and the delirium.

Why was he here? He just wanted to save people. He wanted Wayside to be livable. He wanted the world to be good. Why were they doing this to him?

“You.” A voice snarled from above him, and there was a silhouette hanging in front of him, ringed by the few faint sunbeams which had managed to fight their way into the dome. He could see blue hair being lit up on the sides, and the cut of some sort of fancy coat, but he couldn’t think of anyone he had ever met or wronged who looked like that. Yet this person was here, and they were behind the smoke, and they didn’t seem happy about it.

“You were the one it all started with.” They mused, and something cold and sharp rested on his jugular. It would be the end, he felt like, and almost wept with relief at a quick one, unlike what the birds were intent on giving him.

“I don’t know what you mean.” He choked out, when it was clear they weren’t handing it over just yet.

“Ciera. I had the Tracklands under my thumb.” She explained, smug pride in her voice at the thought, though it quickly turned to bitterness, “Until your party ruined it. And it all started with you.”

The Sub-Levels from Level One. He wanted to puke at the memory.

“Please, I don’t know who you are.” He said, even though he now realized who he was talking to. The inimitable Boss from the end of that Sub-Level adventure.

“I think you do.” She replied, voice crooning, “And as much as I love to see how vicious these birds can get, you lot humiliated me. Put me on the same level as that embarrassment, Burks. Now all of your lives are going to be snuffed out by me.”

With that, she swung her sword. He didn’t see it, but he could hear it, whistling by his ear as it went for his neck.

[Player Log End]