The platoon emerged from the long, upward-sloping tunnel into the sunlight and hesitated, shielding their eyes against the sudden brightness. They’d been underground for almost two days straight, according to Jerik’s tablet. Not good timing. They should have cleared their first raid in two days if they’d wanted to keep to schedule. Now, a full day behind, he had to pause and recalculate their supplies. That meant taking another long rest.
“Might as well set up camp,” he called. “Morgan, get the summoning rings ready.”
She nodded and walked a fair distance away from where the platoon was setting up for a long rest, and began tracing a wide circle on the ground. Once it was complete, she muttered an incantation, and a wagon appeared there. She repeated the process three more times, summoning the rest. The Toads came over at once to refill their sacks, but Jerik held them off with a raised hand.
“It can wait,” he said, in reply to their questioning looks. “We’re behind schedule, so we need to recount supplies.”
The older of the two Toads tilted their head, more confused. “Why don’t you apport more if you’re behind schedule?”
Morgan answered them, saving Jerik from the potential distraction. “We didn’t have enough to set up a store or apportation runes. I’m the only one who knows how, and I have to reserve my mana for combat.”
The Toads simply shrugged their acceptance of the explanation, and returned to the rest of the platoon, taking off their packs and sprawling comfortably on the grass. They both fell asleep almost at once, their heads resting on the packs, their chests rising and falling peacefully. Jerik spared them half a glance. “You’d think they were on holiday.”
Morgan laughed. “Looks like we have eleven days of full rations. Ten, counting today’s meals.”
Jerik pursed his lips. “That’s a problem. We can’t really afford to cut down to half rations.”
Even though the humans summoned to Menora were functionally immortal, they still had to take care of things like food and rest. If the rations were cut down to half of a full supply per member, they’d experience serious debuffs. More experienced players could counteract these buffs with their higher-tier gear, but Smoke Brigade had only the minimum equipment required. Hunger debuffs would be too severe. He stared out across the expanse of green below them. From here, they could see into the valley itself, where the path to the final raid boss was.
“What if we took a detour into the Hunting Grounds?” He asked. “We could refill on supplies there.”
“We could,” she agreed, but she seemed hesitant. When she caught him looking inquisitively at her, she said, “It’s just… that’s the direction that the dragon flew off to.”
“That’s true. But do you think it’s likely that it’d stay there this long?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “There shouldn’t even be a dragon in this mountain range, so I have no way of predicting its behavior.”
“That’s not the only unpredictable thing,” he said quietly.
“The Menoran?” She asked, and he nodded.
They’d been able to clear the rest of the raid zone in just under a day, killing the minotaur at the end that was the first raid boss. It had killed seven of their members leaving them with forty revival crystals. But in all the paths of the sprawling dungeon, they hadn’t seen a single sign of the green-skinned challenger. They’d covered every square inch of the zone too, so they were sure.
“He must have moved on ahead,” Morgan said. “Either that, or he teleported away entirely and abandoned his boss.”
“Is it possible that the Minotaur wasn’t his boss?”
“It is possible. But the Minotaur wouldn’t have let him move through the dungeon if he was a minion of one of the bosses up ahead.”
“What if he’s a minion of the final boss?”
That thought clearly hadn’t occurred to her. As if to give herself time to think, she too stared out across the valley. “He could be. But if that’s the case, then he’s stronger than we thought. If he reports to the final boss, he could have wiped us out with some serious effort.”
He didn’t say anything, but privately, he agreed. Which, of course, made the fact that the Menoran had vied for peace all the more confusing. Why would an enemy, rumored to be hell-bent on destroying the civilization Menora had enjoyed, call for peace? He tried to push the thought from his head, but it was a doomed effort. Even as he returned to the platoon to eat his mid-day meal, he found himself drifting back to the series of questions that had dominated his mind.
He was so distracted that Nicholas had to remind him that the two-hour break was over, and ask if he should get everyone moving. Jerik shook himself vigorously, a little ashamed at the lapse of concentration. “Yes. Let’s get moving. Time to tackle the second raid zone.”
Except that, when they reached the peak of the mountain, where the second raid zone began, they found that there were no monsters in sight. The platoon advanced down the other side of the mountain, their guard up and looking for any sign of flying monsters or the dragon. Nothing. It wasn’t until they reached the base of the mountain two hours later that Jerik called them to a halt, casting a slightly worried glance up the slope. He gestured the members of the command group over to him.
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“What the hell is going on?” He asked once they’d gathered around him and were out of earshot of the platoon. “We’re almost through the second raid zone. Where are all the monsters?”
In normal times, the second raid zone was supposed to be an endurance contest, where the platoon would pause at certain points, defending themselves against waves of flying and climbing monsters. There should have been at least four attacks, one for each of the flat points on the path down from the peak. But the entire way down, they hadn’t seen a sign of even one monster, weak or strong.
“I don’t know,” Morgan said, frowning. She looked just as worried as he felt. Benji and Katrina looked uncertain as well. Only Nicholas looked neutral, as the one member of the group that had no experience with the raid zone. “I can understand some parts being empty to lull us into a false sense of confidence, but not an entire raid zone abandoned.”
“You’re sure we cleared the entire zone?” Benji asked. “What if the area expanded, and there’s a nasty fight ahead?”
Jerik hadn’t thought of that. He pulled out his tablet and checked the connection. He could see all the information he normally had access to, which meant he was in an open zone. “No. It ended. We cleared it.”
Just to be sure, he checked his point balance. For each player that cleared a raid zone without dying, they earned a reward of fifty thousand points. He was at seven hundred and eighty-four points, exactly one hundred thousand more than when they’d begun. “I got the reward for it.”
“So did I,” Morgan confirmed, her eyes glancing to the top-right of her vision where the points would be displayed.”
Jerik disengaged his helmet, settling the cowl around his neck. “This is eerie.”
“No arguments here,” Benji said.
“This is bad, isn’t it?” Nicholas asked. The other three didn’t answer, so Jerik did.
“I don’t know. There are only two reasons that a raid zone would be empty. One is if it was cleared within the last week. The other is if the boss moved.”
“Moved?” Nick asked. “Not killed?”
“No way of knowing which it is. Not without completing the last raid zone, that is.”
“Another question,” Morgan said, interrupting their thought processes. She was pointing down into the valley. “Is it just me, or does that look like a town?”
“What?” Jerik asked loudly, hurrying over to the edge of the path. It was harder to see across the entire valley now that they weren’t at the peak, but they could also see further into the valley now. He thought he detected a glimpse of a stone building off in the distance, but he couldn’t be sure. “That might just be the castle at the end.”
Morgan shook her head and pointed in the opposite direction, to the other end of the valley. “The castle’s in that direction. That’s the end of the valley.”
“You’re right,” Katrina muttered, looking in the direction of the building they’d spotted. “That’s where the Hunting Grounds is.”
“But the Hunting Grounds is open plains,” Morgan said. “It’s not supposed to have actual buildings.”
“What if they’re player-made?” Nick asked. “Some people could have decided to settle in the valley.”
Jerik shook his head. “You don’t understand. That area’s flooded with monsters. It’s a bad idea for players to settle there. The defense would be constant, and they’d never have enough time to build a town.”
“Well, there’s something there,” Nick said bluntly. “That means that someone built it. Do monsters ever build cities?”
“Not that we know of,” Morgan replied. “Jerik, I think we should investigate that.”
“We won’t reach it until after the third raid zone,” he said. “But I agree.”
Pike and Meredith chose that moment to reappear. They’d gone ahead of the platoon as soon as they reached the end of the winding path down the mountain, to scout ahead. Seeing the command group a short distance away, they made a beeline directly over.
“Okay, this is going to sound crazy,” Pike said, “But Treachery Pass is empty.”
Treachery Pass, the third raid zone, was the last barrier to the valley that held the final boss. It consisted of a series of long dashes through narrow defiles and treacherously thin walkways that led to a lethal fall if you slipped. Jerik stared at them incredulously. “You went into the pass without us? What if you’d been attacked by moles?”
“We were prepared to run,” Meredith said quickly, taking over the report. “We were ready to disengage at any moment. But when we didn’t see any ranged monsters on the cliffs above the defiles, we started thinking-”
“That the entire pass might be empty,” Jerik said, finishing the thought. Meredith nodded, a grin forming on her face. He shook his head for what felt like the hundredth time today. Different monster ecology was one thing. But to have two entire raid passes be deserted? He couldn’t process it, at least not sitting there at the start of a raid zone. “Alright. I’m not risking this. Morgan, get them to march ahead.”
“What are you going to do?” She asked, her voice suddenly sharp. “You’re surely not thinking of flying ahead, are you?”
“Not ahead,” Jerik corrected her. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the building he’d seen. “I’m going to see what that’s about.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed. “That’s suicide.”
“Only if I’m caught. I’ll run at the first sign of danger, I promise.”
“Jerik! You have two legendary shards! If you die, those go away, you know!”
“I know,” he said, waving his hands in a downward fashion. “But even you have to admit that none of this makes sense. If the monsters aren’t here, then that means they can only be up ahead. We need to know exactly what we’re walking into. So I’ll go check out that building, and whatever else might be there. Once I know what it is, I’ll fly around and meet you at the end of the pass.”
Morgan opened her mouth to argue further, but Nicholas stepped in, raising his hands in a pacifying gesture. “We understand your concerns, Morgan. But if he says he can do it, I think we should trust him.”
Morgan switched her glare to Nick, then threw up her hands in irritation. “Fine! But if you die, don’t come complaining to me that you lost everything.”
She strode away to join the platoon, every line of her body stiff with anger. Jerik took a deep breath. “Thanks, Nick. Help her keep them moving and in formation. If you run into trouble, rely on her commands. If you encounter something you can’t handle on your own, send me a message.”
Nick gave him a brief salute, then hurried off in Morgan’s wake. Jerik re-activated his helmet, then jumped off the steep cliff they’d been standing alongside. Several of the platoon saw him jump and called for him to be careful, but their words were lost to his ears in the rush of wind around him. Engaging his armor’s flight mode, he made a straight line for the building in the distance.