They came out in the top portion of the wagon. Door behind, hatch above and a dozen arrow slits around them. Stepping to the nearest one and looking out he could see trees flying by at a frightening speed.
“Well I did tell him to take us South as quick as possible,” said Mort.
“We need to go 88 Mort, 88!”
Drecksis started shouting “Jerry! Jerry you boob slow down now!”
Suddenly the small group found themselves hurtling into the walls of the wagon.
“Dam Dreck when did you get so fat? Your heavy.”
“That’s almost all my core stats in strength. Wish I had my armor on, then you wouldn’t be complaining. You’d be dead.”
Thinking of his armor Serion silently agreed. Drecksis was already tall for a character, nearly seven feet tall and muscles built like an olympian. With his demon forged armor he was a nightmare to his enemies and sometimes his allies if the demon blade took too much of a hold. Drecksis had killed people by hugging them or slamming them against his armor.
“Mort you’re a genius, go talk to Jerry. Figure out if he’s after players blood too. If not remind him we are the only thing standing between him and a gruesome death. At our hands but still.”
“No deal, I think my arms are broken. And my brain.”
“Your brains always been broken.” Said Drecksis.
Untaggling themselves Drecksis opened the hatch above them and climbed outside. Giving the Necromancer a glance as he retreated back to the guild hall Serion climbed topside. Outside it was sunny with not a cloud in the azure sky. Trees were on both sides of the country road they had been traveling on and he could hear birds singing.
“Adventurers log: First day in new world. Picture perfect weather and fuzzy animals abound. Make sure to burn forest and hunt all woodland animal creatures to extinction.”
After chuckling Drecksis sighed. “Makes me miss the city.”
“Don’t worry buddy, eventually this world will be covered in grey and chock full of fumes. Just like home.”
The wagon was now traveling at an easy walking pace. Too fast then too slow. Jerry was mocking them, he knew it. Even before the game had gone crazy the dammed thing was always doing something irritating. No one believed him of course but Drecksis noticed it too. Anytime they gave an order Jerry would take it to the extreme and follow too well. Anyone else he did a great job. The bastard.
Getting to the front Serion sat beside their NPC driver Jerry. Drecksis did the same on the opposite side. He was wrapped in a long black cloak complete with hood. It waved back and forth in the slight wind. Where exposed flesh would have been were black bandages covering every part of him. Serion had still never seen a bit of Jerry without his cloak. At night one could faintly see his red burning eyes driving the horses on.
“How are you Jerry? Enjoy trying to kill us Jerry? What’s next a cliff or rope bridge Jerry?” Silence was his only answer. Glancing at Drecksis he got a shrug and his blank expression seemed to say what now? Do something, he mouthed.
Drecksis looked to the sky and after a moment a dark grin spread across his face. “Alright Jerry this has been a long time coming. We know you’ve gone traitor so now you die,” he said maniacally holding his sword next to Jerry’s throat. Jerry just sat still holding the reins.
After several seconds Serion looked at Drecksis. “Nothing, same old Jerry. Gotta love him.”
They sat there for a moment. At least something from the game was the same old. A sign came up and passed by.
“Go faster Jerry.” The reins in Jerry’s hands snapped and the four horses pulling the wagon leapt to obey. The wagon was now at running speed. “It’ll be dark soon, we need to make camp eventually. I know where we are Dreck, that sign we passed is for one of the starting cities about an hour south. Fire Town is also down this road.”
“Get us to Fire Town Jerry. Fast as possible.”
It took them both by surprise when a woman’s voice spoke up behind them. “You two, quit playing with our zombie cab driver and come below. Meeting time. I know you know about knowing but there’s more. Everyone’s below.”
“On our way.”
Drecksis and Serion started climbing back inside. Suddenly the wagon took a sharp turn nearly toppling over. It rode on its two left wheels before slamming back down. Groans could be heard from the back with loud threats towards a ‘despicable dead head.’ With a snap the wagon raced on.
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“In less than a day we’ve all been in a titanic fight, witnessed the great mana vortex, died horribly at the hands of our NPC allies, lost our soul shards and unbound equipment. Finally we can’t leave and are stuck here for the foreseeable future. Truly this is a tragic day. Does anyone have good news?” spoke Serion.
“We’re headed to Fire Town,” spoke Drecksis. A few chuckles and quit laughs came out.
“Thank you Dreck. What I mean is we are heading away from the army site. We’ve seen no signs of pursuit and are at the moment possibly safe. Fire Town can be our haven for now. We will stop there to rest and assess.
“Good plan, I approve. Nays anyone? Well then I believe the first order of business is to level up. Anyone can take us on right now and wipe the floor with us. I don’t have to tell you all that a lot of people, players and NPCs would happily do unspeakable things to us.” The nodding heads and thoughtful looks around the table told Serion they understood perfectly.
Standing up Griggs the guilds engineer spoke “We need to figure out a way back. I have a huge meeting planned for next week. I’ll be announced as a team leader.” “My wife and two kids...” “I have steaks defrosting…” “I need to finish and publish my book.” “Not parked legally…”
“Enough!” Serion shouted. “We all have worries. I understand I truly do but here’s the thing. We survived thanks to dumb luck by having soul shards and a guild hall on wheels. We could have died back there, possibly permanently. Who knows where we would have ended up? The nearest crossroads or temples like the game or worse, true death? Who knows what the players back at the camp are going through.”
For a moment their masks slipped, the panicked looks he saw revealed the terror each one truly felt inside.
“So here’s what I think. Hear me out. We hold off on figuring out a way back home. Thanks to game time compression which may or may not still be affecting us time goes much slower here. Even this worlds rotation based on the sun and stars is a single Earth day is three here."
"We start by making camp in Fire Town. Gear up and level, do whatever we need to. Then we move on further South. Currently most of Reckett’s forces are North of us but we may see them soon. Heading East we’d still be in their lands and getting closer to the religious zealots who would happily burn us all at the stake but hey we did it to a fair amount of their own priests. West has Gear Peak and unclaimed territory, rather high level though and we are not ready for that yet. North if we could get around two of the largest armies in this world is elven forest and the pointy eared bastards would kill us with all with arrows before we saw them or we’d run into a clan and die promptly. By getting to the border of the Dread Lands we can follow them. Few soldiers will follow us there lest they piss off the Dread Masters. Near the untamed lands by the coast is a fortress, low level dungeon great for gaining experience. There’s also a town, some mines and caves. I loved leveling there and wouldn’t mind seeing it again, plenty of stuff to kill and very few high level NPCs. As we gather information we can replan as new things come up."
Ayes?
Thirteen Ayes rang out.
The town lay in sight. Morthius and Serion sat up front with Jerry.
“Mort he listens to you the best, tell Jerry to slow down a little before we plow through some buildings.”
“That only happened the one time.”
“And the one other time.”
“Fine whatever.”
Serion watched the town growing closer. A stone wall lay mostly in ruins surrounding numerous dilapidated town houses. Many of them were charred black from a past fire. The odd house here and there lay in a pile of ash and rubble.
After examining the area he spotted the perfect spot for their camp. What was left of the stone wall came together at an angle forming a V. It would be easy to block the open part using the wagon and then setup the camp inside. It wasn’t perfect as they had nowhere to retreat to but it beat having to roam the destroyed town in hopes of finding something intact. They also had no idea what could be calling the town home now.
“We’ll set up camp there,” he told Mort.
Mort started talking to Jerry and motioned to the spot. The horses suddenly steered the wagon straight at the wall keeping staying way too fast. They were going to crash. He was on top of the wagon. He was level one now. Serion stomach dropped somewhere near his feet and he scrambled to get inside the guild hall. At the door he felt the wagon lurch sideways tipping and the hatch that was above him was now in front of him.
“Ohhhhhh shh….!”
He found himself flying through the air. The ground rose up and sucker punched him. Pain. Ground. Rock. Sky. Pain. Ground. Pain. More pain. When it was over he was surprised he was still alive. Death would have been nice though, no more pain…maybe. He tried reaching for a healing potion but his right arm didn’t seem to work anymore. His left moved, he could feel his bones grinding against each other.
He took a health potion from his belt and brought it to his lips. Ah sweet nectar of the Gods. The second helped more. Under his skin the bones came together, tears repaired and he felt whole again. Sitting up he could see the wagon perfectly set in the opening. Jerry had somehow done a perfect job in doing exactly what he wanted while also launching him to almost certain death.
Making his way to the wagon took more than a few wobbly steps. Even though his body was repaired his head seemed to need more time. These new ‘real’ sensations would take some time to get used to. Mort hopped off the wagon and was waiting for Serion. When he opened his mouth Serion cut him off.
“Not. One. Word.”
Nodding his head he looked like he really wanted to say something. Though his smirk gave away what he had to say.
Serion opened and went through the door. As it closed he could just make out the start of a laugh.
After Mort was done laughing he stood there alone in what would be their new camp. It wasn’t much to look at currently. Surrounded by a crumbling stone wall that had seen better days there stood but a lone tree.
“Assemble,” he commanded.
The hatches on the coach rattled and opened. Bones started dropping out at an alarming rate. After a moment the bones shifted and they started to assemble into skeleton warriors. They reached into the cart taking weapons and armor.
“This is our camp, guard it.”