After clearing the dungeon, I slept a good nine hours before I awoke to the chime on my windup watch going off, it was turning out to be one of the best items I owned. Stretching, I got up and got my gear ready.
I wanted to stick around and see what happened to a dungeon after it ceased to be, instead of just reset like Frathsar said they should do but perhaps that was only for normal dungeons and not the horde style. So I made my way to a nearby small hill, to wait the last few hours.
As the time ended the ground started to rumble a bit and dust poured from the dungeon entrance before the whole section collapsed in on itself.
"Well that was anticlimactic," I said, getting up from my spot and moving back south along the winding ravines.
It took me all day to cross The Scar, mostly because of a few weak monster encounters I had to deal with and one very large one that I had to hide from. There were also the switchbacks and dead ends.
Now that I was at the end of The Scar I had to figure out how to climb out, something that had completely slipped my mind until just now.
"Well this is just great," I said, kicking a rock and grumbling at my stupidity.
I had some rope left but it wasn't nearly enough to scale these cliffs. My only other option was to locate a less steep exit. I walked along the cliff keeping it to my right side for an hour before I found a rock slide that looked promising. There appeared to be plenty of downed trees and boulders to get a footing on and make my way up the slope so I started climbing.
I huffed and puffed pulling myself over the edge of the cliff finally. I just rolled over on my back and lay there trying to catch my breath.
"That...Sucked," I said through gulps of air. My body ached from the climb, who knew scaling a 100-foot cliff with only your hands and feet would be so arduous.
"Never seen anyone do that before," A voice to my side said.
I bolted upright despite my aching body making a karate motion as my staff was tucked into my pack webbing. Standing there was a three-foot-tall man with a long nose and pointy ears wearing loose traveling gear and no weapon that I could see. If he was green and warty I would have assumed he was a goblin, my guess was on Gnome.
"Don't sneak up on someone like that," I squeaked out, "You're liable to get hurt."
I needed to get some skill or up my perception even more; this was the second time someone had inadvertently snuck up on me.
"Ol' Drang ain't too worried about being hurt by some exhausted traveler like yourself."
"Let me guess you're Drang?" I said using identify on the man.
Ol' Drang | Wanderer | Level XX
"I be," The man said simply, spitting out something he had been chewing on. "And who might you be?"
"You can call me Paul," I said, eyeing the mysterious man and his high level warily, "I was trying to head south to a town I knew."
"So yer a native?"
"Of this world? Yes," I replied, assuming that was what he meant.
"And this here?" he said, waving to The Scar.
"Well, not from this world that's for sure. I named it The Scar."
"Fitting name, don't suppose you know how far around?" he said in his odd drawling voice.
"Unfortunately, no, I kind of fell down on one end and came back up this end. If I had to guess three to four days at least."
Ol' Drang just harrumphed as he stared at The Scar in contemplation.
"Um, if you're thinking about going down there I would advise against it. There is something big and nasty in those valleys."
The man just waved away my concern.
"If you be looking for the road south it be about half an hour in that direction," he said pointing me back the way I had come. "Best to stay off that road though, foul things be traveling it."
"Hmm, Um thanks," I said, "I... Um... I guess good luck," I said, stumbling over my words not knowing what to say to the man as I left.
He just harrumphed again and waved me to go.
'Odd man,' I thought, starting back towards the road so I could get my bearings and head south again.
I should have a decent lead on Fiona or the group that I suspected to be those Black Dragons I ran into up north. As long as they kept to this route, there were a few other ways they could go but this was the most direct path towards any of the larger cities. The going was easy outside of The Scar and I made good time to the road. I could see many more abandoned and burned-out vehicles and smoldering ruins of houses in the distance on this side of The Scar.
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"Geez someone really didn't like houses," I said, scanning the surroundings. I doubt there would be many people living outside of walled towns or villages within a year from now if this kept up.
The road was almost eerie with how quiet it was. I remembered to pull out my staff so I had it at hand in case of attack. The land on this side of The Scar had returned to the flat farmland it had been from before the system.
I was far enough south now that the dense trees of the Northwoods were long behind me. I knew that there were some small hills and minor rock outcroppings that the road cut through on its way southwest before turning again to the south on an adjacent highway.
Glancing at the nearest mile marker and figured I had sixty miles to go, at least on the old highway. I knew the route well from my frequent trips north. That is unless I run into another transplanted landmass which seemed likely at this point.
Sighing at the realization that this trip would probably take me at least 5 more days of hard travel didn't excite me one bit. I hefted my pack and got moving, daylight was burning.
I only traveled along the road for a few minutes before I saw figures in the distance and I decided to hide near a burned-out house close to the road. The figures turned out to be a group of men and women, human men and women wearing leather motorcycle outfits and sporting an array of nasty looking knives, bats, and other assorted weapons. There were six of them in total and they stopped about 100 feet from the house.
"I'm telling you, Frank, I saw something moving around the road near here," A tall lanky man sporting a baseball bat said.
"Yeah, well where did they go Squirrel, hmm, you going to track them through the countryside?" A burly man with a full beard said. "Bad enough we got them damn Orcs attacking our campsite," The man said, grumbling, "We don't need any more monsters coming around here."
That one had to be Frank. I decided to test my luck with this group, partly because they were the first pre-system humans I had come across that seemed combat-capable, that weren't outright hostile. Plus it would just be nice to talk to someone from before the world turned into a hell hole of crazy beasts and ridiculously powerful lunatics that only seemed to want to kill me for my sweet, sweet experience.
I decided to risk it; at worst I believed I could escape this group. I stood up slowly from behind the house and the group instantly spotted me gripping their weapons tight. I kept my hands high as I approached the group stopping well away from them, mostly because they told me if I got any closer they would shoot me, rude.
"Hold it right there stranger," Frank said, pointing a shotgun at me.
I wasn't overly worried about the shotgun, and I was even close enough to get a read on the group.
Frank Castallino | Rider | Level 4
Perry 'Squirrel' Mathis | Scout | Level 3
I couldn't see the other names as they were outside my range but I expected similar levels to these two. My anxiety ratcheted down at seeing the levels.
"Whoa there, just passing through, trying to go south," I said calmly. I knew from before the System this area had an uptick in Meth and biker gangs in the last decade and if that's who these people were I didn't want to anger them if it could be helped. Since they weren't shooting first I figured they probably weren't meth dealers or meth heads.
"He ain't wearing one of those black armbands," Squirrel said helpfully.
"I can see that stupid," Frank replied in irritation, "Why are you alone?" he said, using the shotgun barrel to make his point.
"Well, I was given a mission-" I started to say but got interrupted by Frank.
"A mission by who? The Government? Are they the ones who made the world go topsy-turvey like this?"
With each question, the man asked I could hear more anger seeping into his voice.
"What? No. no, no. I met a group of um... how should I put this. Outsiders? Yeah, I guess that's the best way to describe them for now. They were transported here along with god knows what else, these other humans were soldiers and asked me to get into contact with their leadership through something called the Bazaar."
The group looked at me with blank stares. This was going to be harder to explain than I thought.
"So these soldiers?" Frank asked, "They have a safe zone?"
"I wouldn't exactly call it safe but they have a walled-off barracks with some pretty high-level individuals."
"You hear that fellas, we can move the civilians finally," Frank said to his party and I could almost see the tension drain from the group at this news.
"Your friend there mentioned black armbands?" I asked almost dreading the answer.
"Yea steer clear of those nut jobs. They have been rounding up locals and driving them like cattle to the south. We saved as many as we could and tucked them away in a safe location for now, but the Orcs found us and have been harassing our campsite for a few days now."
I groaned, "You wouldn't be referring to the Black Dragons would you?"
"Yeah, that's what we overheard one of them call themselves."
Looks like there were more of them than I thought, at least I knew I was on the correct path.
"Well, Shit," I said, not caring if they saw my distress.
"Had a run-in with them already?" Frank asked, a worried look in his eyes.
"Yeah, the same town the barracks is in, seems they had a smaller group up there possibly 10-20 people. I met their lunatic of a leader in the area; she was a level 17 mage when I last saw her and that was what, four or five days ago. I believe they might be heading this way though. I can show you where the town is and where I suspect those other Black Dragons might be, on my map if you like."
Frank thought it over before deciding to lower his shotgun and wave me closer. I showed him the general area of the town, where the barracks were located, and where I was told her territory was. I told him I could only guess at which direction the group possibly went in and they may want to wait it out a few more days before heading north. I also told him about the Frogmen or Sulid that seemed to infest the area, as well as the other locals that I assumed, were just angry men with guns.
I pointed out The Scar and that they should travel around it and pack as much food as they could carry. He said the food wasn't an issue as apparently Orc taste just like a pig. I gagged a little at the thought of eating an intelligent creature, but it was good to know.
He thanked me for my information and gave me some of his own. Frank said the road south now ran through a dense forest or what was left of the road did. He said that's where the Orc's had first appeared and that there were other monsters. There was also apparently now a mountain range in the state that could be seen from some of the taller hills far to the west, that seemed to stretch from north to south.
He told me to be careful of the Black Dragon patrols as they roamed in groups and collected anyone that they spotted. I nodded my thanks and the group quickly headed off to the east.
I decided to mull over my options. I could stay on the road and head south, which sounded to me like the fastest route and the likeliest that I would be caught out by the Black Dragon search squads. They could only be collecting people for one purpose if what the Commander said was true and it wasn't good.
The other option was to just cut straight south from here and cross country it to my destination. This would probably be the safest route but would likely take me quite a bit longer as I would have to cut across farmland, the small streams in the area, and the clumps of forest that still dotted the landscape. I made my choice and decided to veer off the road taking a straighter if more difficult path.