11:52pm, January 19

  We sat around a small campfire in a small clearing a respectable distance from the main path. On the fire a potato soup stewed, one of the lowest level meals a player could make. Honsol performed routine maintenance on a dagger as he sat on a fallen log, looking somewhat troubled.

  It had been a long trek through the forest, though if I was honest it was more mentally exhausting than anything. It had gotten better after Honsol had doused us in ash of course, but it still took all my might to not just fall asleep immediately.

  Honsol himself was something of an enigma. As we had talked over the last few hours it had become incredibly obvious that he only had a second or third hand account of the events that had occurred in Paelgard, and when I had finally asked he had told me he had spent the entire game level in Stonepit. It was a very large claim, one I wouldn’t have believed if it wasn’t for his glyphwork and stealth levels, which were similar to my own despite my horrendous amount of grinding in the forests near Paelgard.

  Even then I found his experience hard to comprehend. There were so many resources and supplies I relied on the shops and markets in the city to get, and I could imagine fighting for weeks without them. While Honsol obviously didn’t use Alchemy and bombs like I did, there was still the matters of repairs, food, health potions, matches, and rope to contend with. How had he survived without those?

  That wasn’t the only thing that confused me however. According to himself he had been with his sister the whole time, but I definitely hadn’t seen her at the battle with the dryads despite Honsol’s implications that she was there. And I couldn’t quite understand why he would part with her so easily after going through that. Why did he insist on her staying with the party he had just met a week ago?

  These questions and more swam through my mind, but I neglected to ask upon them. I didn’t want to irritate him with an interrogation, and more, it just wasn’t my business. It was good enough that I had someone competent with me, and I didn’t need to know all of his backstory.

  Though I had tried not to be, I had been ecstatic when he had volunteered to help with this player quest. Though I had on some level thought the rumors exaggerated, I had still been pretty apprehensive about snooping around Shardin Glade alone. Especially because the very reason I was going was because of a captive party.

  This is probably one of the first times something like this has happened. I thought suddenly. How likely was it that most of a party got trapped in some dungeon, but one somehow escaped and made it back to town alone? With Regen’s skill levels I wasn’t sure how he had made it through the forest we had just passed through at all, let alone made the several day trek to Paelgard in blizzard conditions. A more sinister thought came to mind. What if this was all a trap?

  The thought stood out in my mind like the air raid sirens I’d heard all my childhood. What if a party was waiting inside the Glade to gank us and steal our gear? Regen definitely knew that most people wouldn’t be willing to go on such a trip in the middle of a storm, so what if he was actually just trying to bait well-equipped players to brave the journey just to kill them after they made it all the way alone, when they were weaken from the journey? He could even have agents along the road watching me.

  I shot a glance at Honsol as he fiddled with a whetstone. What if that agent is already with me? It made quite a bit of sense. The scene with the dryads even made sense with this. They might’ve expected more than one player to go towards Shardin. Therefore, the fact that one of Honsol’s party members had just so happened to be injured made sense. Then they could split up and have Honsol make sure I made it to the ganking spot in Shardin while they gathered more hapless players.

  Could this be Gabrial’s doing? I studied Honsol’s face, trying to remember if I had ever seen him with Gabrial’s party before. Nothing came to mind. That doesn’t prove anything though, he could just have been in deep cover. Gabrial had definitely used some political tactics in his proselytising of the deathlogger idea. This whole operation could even be some sort of sick way to continue the practice, just pvp deaths would log people out just the same as suicide would in their minds.

  I could be in quite a bit of danger. I had known Gabrial was evil, that much was evident from how hard he had pushed his preaching in the second week, but to fall to these lows was a new extreme. If he was willing to do this there was probably nothing out of his reach. I have to warn Paelgard.

  I stood up and looked around, alarmed to find that Honsol was nowhere in sight. Panicking, I almost slashed behind me when a hand touched my shoulder.

  “Woah, woah, woah!” Honsol put his hands out in front of him as he jumped back. “What’s wrong?”

  “Sorry, you spooked me, that's all.” I lowered my sword, but kept an eye on him. “What do you need?”

  “Just wanted to know what you were thinking.” Honsol said warily. “You were looking pretty dour right there.”

  I shook my head, admonishing myself for my earlier thoughts. I couldn’t afford to be doubting Honsol now, not when there had been so many opportunities for him to have killed me already. It was just foolish.

  “I’m just worried about tomorrow.” I said truthfully.

  “We’ll be fine.” He looked relieved. “We just have to be careful.”

  I sat back down and tried to relax. Already the tiredness of before started creeping back, and I found myself looking longingly at the sleeping roll I’d brought with me.

  “I’ll take the first watch.” He said after noticing.

  Simply nodding, I laid down and fell into an instant sleep to prepare myself for tomorrow.

…

  We stood stock still in front of a tangled growth, the entrance to Shardin Glade. Tall, snow flecked trees to the left and right rose into the sky, unimaginably tall and unimaginably ancient, at least as depicted by the game. Although with how the time dilation worked, I remembered that they honestly could be thousands of years old for the people of this world.

  While I had waited at the camp, I had the good sense to switch over all of my bombs to the explosive fire variant most efficient here. If I had brought more supplies and time I would’ve made a few more for Honsol, but we were already on a tight schedule as it was.

  In what might be seen as a strange contradiction, most of Shardin Glade was a brambly thicket, not much of a glade at all. The tunnels connecting the few clearings throughout the dungeon were narrow and filled with vines and icelike flower bulbs. On numerous occasions pitfall traps, falling frozen vines, and poison laden tulips littered the path blocking our way, but these were all easily found with a careful watch. I made sure to check every pitfall for survivors, but each one was reset with no one in them.

  In fact, as we walked I kept a careful eye out for anything strange including hidden players or secret paths, but I quickly found that the dungeon was almost a completely straight shot to the end, with very few branching paths, all of which came to dead ends soon after splitting off. All of that, combined with the fact that neither of us had the Discovery skill, made things take quite a bit longer than usual, and by mid day we were only approaching the midpoint.

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  Eventually we came into a larger field surrounded by thick trunks. It was open to the sky, and radiant sunbeams filtered in over the treetops illuminating the snow laden ground. Upon the ground was a mesmerizing sight of thousands of white-blue tulips standing resolutely despite the snowdrifts around them. Each bulb seemed to be relatively sealed on the sides, only a top down view revealing that they were filled with a strange black liquid to contrast their bright petals.

  Visible above the treetops on the other side of the clearing was a massive warped pine tree, large enough to fit several large warehouses inside of it. The branches were thick and winding, not following how one would expect from the straight trees around. Through the ominous air surrounding it I immediately figured it as the boss tower, and found a small entrance to a root on the other side of our current clearing. First though would be getting across the field.

  Several meters above the flowering ground floated bee-like animals each roughly a foot long. Their fur gleamed white in the sun, almost camouflaging them against the winter ground while two larger eyes were affixed in the front of their heads. The dull gray stinger of each one was sharpened to a point.

  That was the only obvious threat in the clearing however, not the one most worrying. In small groves littered around the clearing almost haphazardly were patches of four to six trees, each one wily and thin. To my eye they screamed of being dryads, though their faces were concealed in the folded bark. As if only to confirm my suspicions a long road devoid of flowers winded through the clearing, approaching each and every grove of trees.

  “We’ll want to stay away from the path with the trees.” I pointed out the closest of the dryads to Honsol, who nodded in understanding.

  “Yeah, we would probably bee safer in the flowers.” He responded, a little too quickly.

  I rolled my eyes before returning my gaze to the flower plain. From my watching of the bees I found that they seemed to patrol in set paths, but as I watched I began to care less and less about avoiding them. Judging from their slow floating and idle corrections it didn’t look like they were very dangerous unless they had some special mechanic to them. The stinger drew my eye of course, but I still had a large store of anti-venom from a quest I did a while ago. I wouldn’t go so far as to go out of my way to start fights of course, but this did mean that I chose the riskier path cutting through the clearing instead of skirting the edges. It wouldn’t do to have my target starve because I was too cautious, especially if I had help with me.

  “We could move through there.” I pointed out an opening between patrolling groups of bees.

  “That could put us between three swarms.” Honsol sounded unsurprised by my reckless suggestion, which stung just a little. “It would be tough handling more than one group at a time.”

  “Then we won’t get caught.” I waved his dry concern away. “There’s plenty of room in their patrol window.”

  “And there’s the flag.”

  Ignoring him, I got up to stalk through the flowers, keeping my head low in a vain attempt to keep my stealth percentage above ten percent among the colourful ground. We avoided anything living, but halfway to the first swarm Honsol stopped me by tugging on my coat sleeve.

  “Take a look at these flowers.” He said seriously.

  Stopping a sarcastic comment upon seeing his face, I bent down to carefully examine the bulbs. Plucking one from the ground, I found that the fluid pooled up inside the flower ran through the stem as well, and a small amount squirted out of the stalk once the bulb came free. Once closer to the liquid, a certain familiar smell wafted towards me, causing me to snap back to Honsol for confirmation.

  “Oil I think."

  Suddenly understanding, I lifted my foot to find the same liquid there. In fact, I found that the flowers had hidden that a large amount of the oil was splattered across the ground in the clearing. Looking at my side bag in sudden horror, I realized that if I had thrown a fire bomb before realizing this I could’ve set the whole clearing ablaze around us.

  "I have like six fire bombs on me.” I said warningly “Let’s get out of this.”

  He nodded and we picked up our pace. Avoiding the first group by staying far away, we found that the bees had a more convoluted patrol pattern than I had originally thought. We zig zagged around the three groups as much as we could, but found that we got cut off whenever we attempted to break out from in between them all. Eventually we decided to just charge at one of them in an effort to fight only one group instead of all of them. Reluctantly pulling out our weapons, we got as close to the group nearest the exit as well could before we charged.

  Despite my moniker of ‘bee’ I found that they had even more differences from them than I had thought. Their eyes were more similar to larger predators then they were to a real bee, with mammalian eyes instead of compound ones, and bushy eyebrows to accompany them. Their fur was very thick as well, sticking out like a persian cat. In fact, if they weren’t trying to kill us I might even call them cute.

  They came at us three in a horizontal line, each one stopping a few meters away to fairly initiate a charge. Silently, I pumped myself up for the coming combat. We hadn’t had to fight on the approach to the glade at all, so I called forward the ability names I had and tried to imagine how I would attack the one in front of me.

  The bees charged, sharpened stinger tips pointed straight for our throats. Instead of dodging, I grabbed the base of the blade with my other hand, and batted at the stinger as it approached. The flat of the blade made contact with the stinger and pushed it aside as I sidestepped, canceling the attack entirely. Honsol simply ducked out of his enemies’ path, letting it zip by without obstruction.

  Tracking my foe’s movement as it started to fly around for another charge, I drew my sword back as if I was about to stab into the air. As the bee attacked again I stabbed forward and leaped towards it, activating the skill [Pinpoint] in an attempt to find it off guard. My sword flashed a brilliant white as it made contact with the bee and I flew past it unharmed while the bee floundered from the sudden damage. Landing on my feet, I quickly turned back towards the insect and dashed forward before it could fly away again.

  Again I jumped into the air, slashing my sword from my lower left to the upper right of my vision and then back to the left with a twirl. A red flash slammed into the bee causing it to wildly tumble through the air. Apparently out of health, the bee careened into the ground, where it exploded dramatically into white cubes. Glancing back at Honsol, I found him still struggling with his own foes.

  After glancing around to confirm the locations other bee squadrons I turned my attention to Honsol, but instead of helping I watched, wondering just how he would handle flying foes. The other fights I had been in with him had been pretty chaotic, and I hadn’t been able to spectate how he fought, so I figured now was as good a time as any. It became apparent rather quickly that he really didn’t have One-Handed equipped as he ineffectually swung the dagger with basic attacks alone. As the bee came at him again and again, I had to wonder just how he had survived these weeks with how he was.

  Finally, Honsol’s seemed to change out of dodging as he switched tack. Invisibly marking a small triangle into the air right in front of his face, and then squatting down and marking one above him he stopped and stood still to my immense confusion. As the first bee charged from the front and the second came from behind I saw that they switched their previous targets to his face, falling for whatever bait he was pulling. As it drew ever nearer, I began to worry about it striking his seemingly unguarded face, which would certainly inflict a critical hit.

  “Honsol…” I warned.

  He ignored me, and I started sprinting forward to see if I could kill the back one at least.

  I cringed as the first bee slammed into his head, but quickly found my fears unfounded. Instead of piercing Honsol, the bee seemed to gently bounce backwards from him as if it had hit some sort of invisible wall. Taking no time to let it reset, Honsol jumped on top of it and plunged his dagger into its body again and again, until eventually it dissipated into small white cubes. The second bee adjusted its course to strike him from behind but, bizarrely, exploded suddenly and violently right before it reached him, obliterating it almost instantly.

  So that’s the strength of a good Glyphworker. I’d never seen someone use the skill since my time in Finkar, as it wasn’t seen as a particularly great skill. To see someone actually use the [Air Ward] well firmly displayed its overlooked strength, but I could only think of how accurate you would have to be with the placement of it, especially with small enemies like this.

  I clapped only a little sarcastically as he got up from the ground, the bottom of his coat soaked in flower oil. He began to respond, but upon sighting something behind me instantly started running towards the exit and after a confused second I joined him. Behind us another bee patrol drifted towards the battle site.

  Once we got to the exit and he saw my expression, he grinned with a pollen covered face. “It’s hard to utilize against small, fast targets like that unless you bait them into it.”

  Wait one second… didn’t he use an explosive back there? My thoughts went from silent admiration to anger as I realized what he had just risked. He could’ve killed us both!

  “That was so reckless!” I scolded. “What would you’ve done if you lit the ground alight?”

  “There wasn’t any chance of that.” He glanced reflexively towards the flower field we had just left. “The explosion from Trap only affects its front, and those bees didn’t have enough health to survive more than one hit.” He turned to walk down the passageway. “Therefore even if the bee had caught fire it would’ve died before it hit the ground.”

  “How could you possibly know that‽” I asked perplexedly. “You’ve never fought them before!”

  Honsol pretended to ignore me, electing to continue down the passage unabated. After taking one last glance behind me I followed as well, sighing I went.

  “I wonder if this is how Elin feels about me all the time…”