8:10am, January 19
The freezing wind tore into me as I trudged through yet another mile of snow blown wilderness. Snow piled on my winter goggles and my coat snapped in the wind behind me. Despite the cold resistance the coat afforded, it still wasn’t high enough to completely cancel out the cold without an expensive fire rune, so my fingers and toes ached with a vicious chill.
The wind picked up, its roaring scream deafening me to any potential threats, though I didn’t think anything would even be hunting out here. Anything sensible was taking shelter as Finkar spent its wrath on the mountainous plateau.
Unlike me. Another wind blast hit me, slowing me to a halt until it blew itself out. At least Elin isn’t out here.
It had taken quite a bit of convincing in order to make Elin let me go alone. According to Regen, the boy who got back, his friends only had another four days of rations, so there hadn’t been time to find someone else who would go with me. I wouldn’t really want someone I didn’t trust to be with me in this weather either, as it was all too easy to lose sight of someone in the blinding snow. I would’ve been able to trust Elin of course, but the simple fact was that the one combat skill she had was exceedingly low level since she only rarely left the city. She would almost be more of a liability in Shardin.
I had set out in a short lapse of the storm, one that lasted almost an entire day. It had made me hopeful that I would find other players on the way there, but that hope was long lost when another storm had hit during my second day of travel. Unfortunately for me that storm was still going, with no sign of stopping.
I need to find a windbreak somewhere. These snowdrifts will bury me alive if I stay in flat ground. The elements weren’t the only thing I had to worry about the plains either. There had been numerous rumors in Paelgard recently about secret and dangerous monsters stalking the blizzards. That was probably all they were of course- just rumors -but I didn’t want to be the one to find them if they turned out to be real. There could be nothing worse than fighting in this horrid weather, and I wasn’t even sure I would even be able to pull off my normal abilities in this wind. The gas grenades would certainly be useless in any case.
I wiped my goggles free of snow and pulled my telescope and compass out of my side bag. Thankfully I had the foresight to put a few more items in my bag, so that I wouldn’t have to open up the inventory menu to get them out in these conditions. Though I wasn’t sure if I would be able to use the telescope at all, since all I could see was snow in all directions.
I cursed at the sky and threw the telescope back into the bag. Looking at the compass and finding that I had horribly misaligned myself, I turned until I was heading straight north-east and began pushing through the snow again.
How long was I going the wrong way? I didn’t remember turning at all. I kept walking, every step a new challenge. My aching legs moved robotically, and I tried not to think too much about my freezing hands and feet. Raise right foot. Push forward. Lower right foot. Raise left foot...
…
The wind seemed to die down some time later, increasing visibility just a little. Jumping on the chance, I pulled out my telescope once again and looked around to find a landmark against the whitened sky. My heart almost jumped with joy when I saw the vague outline of a pine forest at the base of the mountain ahead.
I checked the compass and noted down the direction of the forest just in case the storm picked up again on the way there. Then I climbed to the top of the snow layer, tightened the laces on my snowshoes, and began to walk in the direction of that forest, where I would be somewhat sheltered if another wave hit.
As I walked across the snow, I found that just a few feet to my left a smokestack was sticking through the snow, still billowing white smoke. I suddenly realized why I hadn’t seen any of the waystations that were normally a common sight throughout the Paelgard Plateau: they were all buried under meters of snow.
I hope they like that cabin. They’ll probably be there for a while longer. If the snow was reaching to the top of the smoke stacks then that would mean it was piling up at least four meters in height. I shivered at the thought of being buried in that, though it did make me admire the structural integrity of these houses. There must’ve been hundreds of pounds of snow on top of that roof.
Unable to help without specialized tools, I kept going, leaving whoever was in that cabin to their own devices. I’ll check up on them on the way back. If I can find them of course.
I continued my march on top of the snow towards the forest. With the majority of the wind gone and the loss of needing to fight to move, the journey was almost fun. As the skies cleared I finally had a good look at the landscape around me, and I could only be impressed by its beauty.
Pristine, snowy trees covered the valley behind me, though many were completely covered. Even still, the cliffs and rock formations made a stark contrast with the glittering snow around it. Far to the west the western mountain’s peaks jutted into the air impressively, a bastion against the sky. Somewhere on the side of that tall western peak, Paelgard sat carved into the rock, though I couldn’t see it from this distance.
To the east the largest mountain in Finkar stood, so high that it appeared to disappear from view even from where I was standing on the plateau. In front of me the tall pines of Shardin covered the land, obscuring the base from view. When I looked to the north I could see the tail end of the storm retreating over the pass, a tall dark mass of clouds moving swiftly over the land. It reminded me of the retreating wave after a tsunami, churning as it did.
Although all of the plateau was high in the air compared to the land around, the plateau itself was completely surrounded with mountains with the exception of the northern pass, which supposedly led down to the Lecanth Highlands, though no player from Paelgard had been there due to the danger. This particular geography meant we had almost no views of the land around us, leaving those in the Paelgard Plateau in our own little bubble of the world.
Eventually I made it to the edges of the forest. Through magic or geography only a light layer of snow covered the forest floor, so I slid down from the tall snowbank I had traveled upon, landing with a soft thud at the bottom. Sending one last forlorn glance back at the snow-covered world behind me, I walked into the darkness of the forest.
The trees were tall and their branches so thick that little light reached the base of the trees. I pulled my goggles from my eyes and lowered my face mask so I could breath, though I kept the hood up to cover my ears. The air was crisp and fresh, and I breathed it in in an effort to stay awake a little longer. It had been a stifling few days, with little time or desire to eat or sleep in the snow, and it was starting to catch up with me. I would want to find a place to camp soon or I would start suffering the effects of exhaustion, if I wasn’t already.
I was probably suffering from exhaustion when I agreed to do this. I thought tiredly. That's probably the reason I volunteered so readily.
A few notes of birdsong rang out, the first I’d heard since yesterday morning. It sounded somewhat sad, as if it was in the process of mourning some foul event. As I looked around for the source idly, I noticed a small grey wren perched on a nearby pine branch. It yawned, its small head feathers fluttering as it woke up from its nap. As it tilted its head at me, I tilted mine back.
After a few seconds of watching it, the bird flew off the branch and circled me twice before flying down a game trail to the northeast. As I was heading that way anyway, I followed its advice and plodded down that dark and narrow path.
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As I continued through the forest I briefly wondered if this was intended behavior from the game, or if I was just going insane from the storm. Deciding that it was probably sleep-deprived insanity, I kept walking regardless.
The wren eventually landed on a stump in a small clearing, and I sat down on a fallen log next to it. Finding that it made as good a resting location as any, I gave a thumbs up to the bird to which it squawked and flew away. Within a few minutes of activating stealth and laying down in the sleeping bag I drifted off into a deep sleep.
…
I awoke to the sounds of sword blows on wood just a little distance from my location. Jumping up in a sudden hurry I dumped my sleeping bag back into my inventory as quickly as I could.
Is a player in danger? I didn’t think players would’ve already gotten this far after the retreat of the last storm, so it was probably a group returning from being stuck. That could mean that their supplies and health were diminished, which could put them in danger. I kept stealth activated and raced towards the source of the sound, telling myself it was just to observe.
I’ll only help if it's really dire. No point expending too much energy on randoms. I jumped over a fallen log and kept running despite my thoughts. Pulling a fire bomb from my side pouch as I grew closer to the sounds, I slackened my pace to hide behind a tree close to the main path.
In the clearing ahead I saw a dire combat unfolding.
Four individuals wearing winter cloaks and holding blades fought off at least five wooden beasts as they attempted to tear them apart, only kept back by flashes of silver and steel. Of the four, it seemed obvious that only two of them wielded swords, while a black haired guy holding a dagger drew explosive runes in the air to defend the mage from the flailing branches of the murderous monsters.
Dryads? This far from Shardin? Players in Paelgard had a pretty surprising lack of information on monster habitats and patterns given our occupation, but I had always thought that Dryads normally stayed in their respective dungeons and sheltered groves. To know they wandered the forests at large was slightly distressing given their appearance.
Dryads in Finkar weren’t like the average depiction in the media of soft humanoid tree spirits. Instead they looked like uprooted saplings whose spindly roots propelled them. Each one dragged their canopy of leaves across the ground, and a simple three wooden knots constituted an eye, ear, and nose while a long birdlike beak was embedded at the base of the trunk. Almost like giant cyclopean ticks covered in bark. My skin crawled just seeing them move and skitter across the ground.
The closest to me wore a grey officers cap and held a silvery short sword in his left hand. As I watched, his sword twitched in a signal to the purple cloaked figure beside him, and she darted to her left to unleash a Red Slash on one of the creatures he fought as he struck hers, confusing the dryads they had been dueling. These two were disconnected from the other two by the rest of their foes however, and the mage began to take on small amounts of damage as the gylphworker was forced to defend against three at once.
This isn’t good. I thought calmly. Their formation is terrible for this type of fighting. The mage group will be overwhelmed any time now. Even as I watched another two enemies came out of the woods to join the assault on the isolated swords wielders, twisting and screaming all the way. A sigh escaped my lips as I decided on a plan of action, consigning myself to the waste in resources. I couldn’t just let these players die though, not when they could be risking their lives to advance the game like they were. Putting my seconds of deliberation behind me, I took aim at the two who had just appeared and threw my bomb as I ran out to help.
The bomb exploded at the feet of the forest spirits, a burst of fire burning an almost perfect sphere around the impact site. The two newly burning bugs instantly changed their focus to me and charged, enraged by my attack. I was silent as I ran, activating [Pinpoint] along the way.
Upon getting into range I rolled hard to the right of one and released [Pinpoint] on its leg. Then, landing back into a standing position I swiftly turned, activating [Red Slash] without waiting from them to reset. Following a practiced maneuver I jumped as I did so, using the momentum of the ability to carry myself high into the air and out of counterattack range. I landed next to the guy wearing the hat, my sword pointed towards the two burning dryads.
“Need help?” I asked.
To his credit he wasted little time in confusion, and turned back to his dryad to parry one of its swiping blows.
“Thanks.” He replied snappily, as would be expected from someone fighting to the death.
I responded by pulling another fire bomb from my satchel.
The burning pair approached menacingly, creaking side by side. They did noticeably separate however, just far enough that one bomb wouldn’t be able to hit both at once. That would be no problem of course.
I dashed forward with no intention of fighting them at the same time. Diving recklessly between them as they both swung from different directions in what would normally be an unparryable combo, I came up on the other side and jumped onto the back of the left-most dryad. Though my cooldowns weren’t done, my sword still found the dryad’s neck, purging the last of the yellow from its health bar. Then I kicked off the dryad, throwing it into the other one as I threw the bomb clutched in my left hand. It exploded on top of them, bursting with a vibrant red explosion as they shattered into white cubes, their health finally drained to 0.
I almost felt tempted to sheath my sword as I got my feet, suddenly a little embarrassed after that show of strength. Not the time.
Glancing back at the other combatants I found a disaster unfolding. The purple swordswoman lay on the ground while above her the guy with the silver sword fended off two of them. On the other side of the clearing the mage now grappled in hand to hand combat with his own foe besides the glyphworker, though now only two dryads assailed them.
I sprinted towards the swordsman after confirming that the other two were holding their own. As I came close however, one suddenly spun a hundred and eighty and lunged, startling me enough that I failed to dodge in time. The dryad bowled over me easily, the force of its tackle forcing me to the ground encaged by its limbs and I let out a small yelp of surprise.
The beak of the monster was crowlike, the tip sharpened to a point and blackened like it was covered in a deep soot. The knot making up the eye seemed to stare right into me as I struggled to escape, full of hatred despite the lack of pupil. From inches away the beak opened to whistle at me as the dryad attempted to stab me with its mouth, each near miss blasting a handful of dirt into the air as I rolled in between the cage formed by its skittering legs.
Taking the chance as it reared up its head to echo a loud whistle I instantly unsheathed the dagger I kept next to my sword scabbard and drove it into the side of the dryad’s head with all my might. Seemingly only becoming angrier, it slammed its left branch into my arm, causing me to cry out at the sudden sharp force. Then the beak embedded itself into my shoulder for a second as it stabbed me, the two attacks blasting away almost a quarter of my health.
My health slipped into the yellow as another attack hit its mark. The only reason it wasn’t lower was the fact that my alchemy skill gave me constitution points, but even then I knew I couldn’t last more than one or two more unmitigated attacks from this close. I closed my eyes as the dryad dropped another stabbing blow, this time unavoidably towards my face as the legs caged me in.
My ears were filled with fire and wind.
Suddenly there was no longer a dryad on top of me. Stunned, I looked to the left and saw its body separating into white cubes beside me as embers sat in the disturbed snow. Sitting up, I found the swordsman offering his hand, a worried expression on his face. After looking at it for a second, I ignored it and climbed to my feet with my own power.
“Thanks.” I said abruptly. And to think that I planned on saving you.
He shook his head seriously, his face filled with intense relief.
“I didn’t do anything. That was Cetal over there.” He pointed his thumb at the mage now inspecting the unconscious player. “But I’d say you’re more deserving of thanks. You practically handled two or three of them by yourself.”
He looked at the fallen player. “She might’ve died if not for you.”
I didn’t feel particularly deserving of that thanks, but I accepted it anyway. I sheathed my dagger and sword and clipped my satchel shut again before talking again.
“My name’s Pao.”
“Mine’s Svite.” He pointed to others. “The one in the purple cloak is Kyoura and the one by that tree in the white is Honsol.”
Only now that the fighting was stopped did I study the players I had just attempted to save. His green eyes and short blonde hair also left him as fairly attractive, though most players were in Finkar. The mage, Cetal, wore pretty standard Paelgard winter gear with its hood and matching coat, though it was dyed a muted yellow. His white hair was also cut short in a practical hairstyle above his sharp green eyes.
Kyoura was of average height and build, and was dressed in a faded purple cloak over a white coat, skirt, and leggings, which were most probably enchanted with warmth runes from back in Paelgard. She had short brown hair, green eyes and a small, slightly rounded face. This was contrasted with Honsol, who had a very pointed face and yellow eyes. He wore the standard winter gear as well, but only a single dagger scabbard was attached to his belt next to his black messenger bag. Under his raised hood I could see short black hair cleanly combed to the side.
Svite watched as Cetal dragged Kyoura into a sleeping bag before turning back to me.
“Why don’t you join us for lunch, as thanks?”