Milo grunted in agreement to answering some questions for Arlyth, she eyed him suspiciously. Most people would probably agree if they had just lost their nether bits, but something felt off to Arlyth. She remembered when she killed the zombie in the graveyard that it ended up blowing her up. Milo wasn’t dead yet and zombies didn't get bleed debuffs because they didn’t really need their organs. She tried to keep her focus around her while asking her questions.
Before she started asking questions, Arlyth finally took a moment to look at her status bars in the top left of her vision. Seeing the regular red, blue and green bars she saw the amounts on them all.
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Health: 30/100
Mana: 100/100
Stamina: 100/100
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Satisfied she took a moment to see what she was working with and at the same time smacking herself internally for not looking sooner she started her questioning of Milo. Arlyth asked him again, “What caused the instant zombification?”
“I don’t know the intricaciesss but I know weee basically have a pacttt. The leaders of Newgardeee aren’t the nicest of peopleee. Things haveee been weirddd and only gettinggg weirder around hereee lately, I think something has changedddd.” Milo practically growled the words to Arlyth, with black icor sputtering out of his mouth.
Arlyth sighed, she wasn’t sure what to say as she didn’t exactly have a plan on how to achieve her goal. She knew she needed to get stronger and decided that if she had to do some quest grinding, she would. She would get all the power she could. Finally deciding on an answer Arlyth said, “A pact? Has this pact always been a thing or is it more of a recent thing? And also if you guys are undead what's with the hate for Sanguine Elves? I can’t imagine feeling safe in a city that has zombies for guards.”
Milo let out what Arlyth thought to be an exasperated sigh but ultimately sounded like a grumble due to his lungs being inoperable. “Theee hateeee for the Sanguines comes from the battleeee that took place about 200 years agoooo..... They raided Newgardeeeeeeee and used that same filthyyyy power you used on meeee and controlled our peopleee, making them do heinousss thingsss... Undeadsss aren’t the sameee, yeah people turn into the livinggg dead but we give people a second chanceee, whereas you guys just see people as toolsssss. I remember seeing someoneee be completely in control of another person, it's very horrifyinggg, like a bunch of marionettes walkingggg around the city.
“We cameee into a pact with some sort of hooded beinggg about 150 years ago. Following the attack of the Sanguinesss, there was a lot of strifeee in the city... No one was sure if weee wereee safeee anymoreee... Then a random figureee approacheddd the city council and soon after theyyy summoned all the guardsss and we all went to go speak with themmm, none of us remember what happeneddd... We all walkeddd in and walkeddd out but that timeee is gone for all of usss. We ended up findinggg out after a few deathsss in our ranksss. The citizensss aren’t aware as weee are quick to hideee anyone that changesss.” Milo stated in a strained voice, still clutching his wound.
Arlyth was a bit aghast at the story and the zombies speech patterns, Milo drew out words randomly and also took random pauses in between his sentences. She knew it was probably just a zombie thing, most of these guys didn't even speak and she imagined most of their decomposed bodies would have the same guttural sound she was hearing now. She got back on track after being distracted by the zombies pronunciation, she thought about what she heard about her new people. She knew this was the sight of one man, while being concerned about the race she had been forced into. She ran through what he had said again quickly, there is a pact that makes the guards into zombies if they die, and that the Sanguine elves are hated, at least by this man and the few other guards she has encountered. Upon recounting the information about the guards a prompt appeared.
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[Quest Updated!]
Upon hearing the explanation from Milo about his zombification, you learn there is more to this story than simple zombie guards. It seems that there are much bigger forces at play here.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Objective: Investigate the pact and the missing memories of the guards.
Updated Rewards: 2500 XP & 100 Gold.
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Surprised that the quest and its rewards changed, she chalked it up to being more difficult than believed at first. Looking down, she eyed Milo in his sorry state, she knew he wouldn’t be moving for a while. She decided instead of killing him again she would just leave him where he lay. She nodded to him but used him as a springboard as she ran further down the hall. After leaping off of his chest she heard nothing but pained guttural moans come from the man as she dashed towards the door at the end of the hall.
She passed the room she found the book in, and came up on the end of the hall. There were two doors here, she didn’t know where they led and she realized she could potentially put herself in a world of hurt if she was to get cornered down here. She knew of one entrance but highly doubted that it was the only one that led down here. Trusting her instincts she opened the door at the direct end of the hall, it opened to a spiral stairway inside a vertical shaft.
Upon seeing the staircase, Arlyth wanted to check the other room in hopes she could find something useful. Turning her sight to Milo down the hallway, she saw he was still on the ground in a fetal position. Satisfied, she approached the door on her left. It opened to an office of some kind. There was no one inside, but she saw a copious amount of dust littering everything.
Looking around she saw bookshelves line the two side walls, with a giant painting depicting a procession of guards at some type of award ceremony. The desk looked very ornate for its location. Made with cherry oak wood with intricate designs chiseled out on the legs, and across the sides of the top piece. There was a small table with two chairs, also made out of cherry oak in the immediate corner that had two teacups sitting on it. The chairs and table were cleaned, though. Everything else in the room was covered in a solid inch of dust and here lies this random table that is spotless.
Arlyth got a very uneasy feeling at the sight of this seemingly ordinary table being so clean, it looked like it had been cleaned 5 minutes before she walked in here. Taking a step closer, she saw the teacups still had a bit of tea left in them. She looked around the immediate area of the table, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. She quickly went around the room with a quick pace looking for anything out of the ordinary.
When she got around the desk, she looked down to see it was perfectly clean. She took a cursory glance around the desk to maybe glean some sort of info on this place. As she crouched down to look under the desk she saw what appeared to be a needle sticking out of the bottom of the tabletop. In fear of it infecting her with some strange poison, she avoids touching it. But slightly curious she thinks Analyze. Nothing happens.
After taking a quick glance around the bookshelves, finding nothing that catches her eye, she walks back to the door and peaks around the door to check on Milo. He still lay there, rocking back and forth slowly. She had to push the guilt of leaving the man in that state out of her mind. She was never one to hurt people for no reason but something deep inside her had changed drastically since waking up in that graveyard.
Arlyth thought she might be safe for the time being and wanted to get some more answers for the things she was noticing. Doing a quick look around, and then closing the door and sitting behind it with her back up against it. She rapidly started asking Kye questions - “Kye, is there anything you can tell me? Why this race? What is the goal here? If you are part of EX itself, wouldn’t that mean you’re against me as well? How does one even play something that the governing being-”
Kye caught her off abruptly. “Woah woah, one at a time! I might be a wondrous creation but I still need to be able to hear the questions to answer them. One, I can help you, that’s why I’m here essentially, I know the whole body possession thing was mentioned but I wasn’t a fan of that to begin with. I’m almost a cheat code in the form of an EXO encyclopedia. So answers are my forte. I want to help you, kid. I might be a being of digital code but I don’t like what they did to you. I’ll do everything in my power to help you achieve what needs to be done.
“As for the Sanguine Elf, I’m not entirely sure. The race itself is extremely rare, being almost 5% of the game's population across the board. After we are done here I’ll do some digging as to why this race was chosen. It does appear to cause some strife so I have a feeling that it was a way for your character to be constantly belittled and shit on. On the note of EX, when he makes one of us, he cuts us out of himself. It’s not as if I am just a different consciousness for him; think of it this way - If you were to cut a chunk of your arm out, the chunk of your arm is me. He also runs everything in the game, so while he might find the occasional time to pick at you, it's unlikely. He does seem to have a thing for you which might make things a little unfair in some situations, he can’t possibly spend all of his time watching you, EXO would crumble extremely quickly. The game experience shouldn’t be much different for you but only time will tell.”
Arlyth listened to what Kye was telling her very intently. They had the answers she wanted and got a very real sense of companionship from this voice inside her mind. While everything else had gone to hell in a handbasket, she was thankful that this AI ended up with her. She took in the information Kye had given her, glad she had taken the moment to speak with them. As she was getting ready to stand up, she heard the sound of winding gears. Shortly after the sounds started, the table on her right that was suspiciously clean started to lift on a hinge as the wall behind it slowly pushed back making a space for the table.