Beyond a small grove of twisted trees with gnarled branches, the path opened up in a clearing. Decades earlier, it had been a hotly contested combat chokepoint. Thousands had died to secure a small stone bridge that crossed over a thin river.
The only remaining building was a simple military outpost situated on the banks of a dead river. The upper floors were once used as a lookout post and built using sheetrock with aluminum scaffolding. The basement, on the other hand, was crafted out of stone and concrete which did a good job of keeping the cold out.
The party had made it relatively easily to the outpost with the exception of a single small group of Frostbite. Under normal circumstances, Seunghyo and Willow could have made short work of the monster players, but Willow was still suffering from mana-sickness while Seunghyo was still out of arrows. Cold and exhausted from the trek, the battle had taken longer than it should have. And while everyone came through unscathed, it had made rough an already difficult journey.
Jinyoung stared at the trees. Thankfully, the frigid wind wasn’t nearly as bad as they got further from the mountains, but this place felt wrong. The weather was far from autumn and much closer to winter, but the trees still had leaves on their branches. Green leaves.
The longer he looked, the harder it was to look away.
“You gonna stay out here?” Seunghyo asked, interrupting his thoughts.
Jinyoung blinked rapidly and shook his head. They’re just trees, he told himself.
“The lack of arrows seems like an oversight,” Jinyoung muttered once they were out of the cold.
The outpost was far from warm, but it was enough. Seunghyo moved to a corner and moved towards a supply chest. Unlike the rest of the furniture and objects around it, it was relatively clean and unencumbered by days of dust and debris brought in by the wind.
"An oversight is only an oversight if you're not prepared," Seunghyo said, revealing a quiver of arrows. "I stashed these here on my last time through."
Jinyoung did his best not to twitch. He's lying.
For their part, neither Willow nor Hana reacted in the slightest.
Which part?
The party was rummaging through different corners of the basement, or at least one of them was while the other three were doing their best impression of doing so.
I can't tell. He could be lying about having come through here earlier or having stashed these here then. Or a million other things.
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Or, Willow offered, he could be lying about having been the one to have stashed them here.
A cold wind blew through the structure upstairs, rattling the loose rafters and sending a small pile of debris clattering across the floor.
"We should hunker down here for the night," Seunghyo suggested. "The next shelter is seven hours away and the sun'll be setting in two."
The thought of stumbling around in the dark for five hours looking for shelter was a daunting one. While the cold was bearable during the day, the party's brief experience of the freezing cold at night after the battle with the wraith had left an imprint. And that had only been for half an hour. No one wanted to experience that for five hours.
One glance at Willow and Jinyoung's faces and Hana knew there was no point in discussing the matter. "Agreed, Jinyoung and I'll take first watch while-"
"Actually," Willow piped up. "Sunbae, I was hoping that I could take watch with Jinyoung. He was helpful with my casting back in Seorak and I had some questions."
Surprisingly, Hana didn't even attempt to argue against it.
"Fine, we have two hours. Let's prep and hunker down for the night."
There wasn’t much to scavenge in the outpost. Whatever supplies had been here were long since gone leaving only detritus behind.
There was a brief discussion of a campfire, but it was quickly dismissed. Jinyoung scanned the horizon around them and saw nothing, but that was no guarantee of safety.
Soon, the two younger players were asleep in the basement while Hana and Seunghyo took up a position in the upper floor of the outpost proper.
The two sat in silence for an hour before Hana opened her mouth. Aside from a nod of her head or a grim look in her eyes, she’d kept her communication with him at a minimum. At this point, Seunghyo couldn’t blame her.
"Why didn't you go back for the arrows?"
Forgemasters has long since crafted arrows and crossbow bolts that could be fired at monsters, pierce concrete walls and stand up to spells but still be reused in future battles.
"You mean the wraith?" he asked. "I did but they were unusable."
When Seunghyo went back to retrieve the arrows he'd used on the wraith, he found that them brittle and in most cases shattered.
“You think it was the ‘sin’?” she asked.
For a second, the cold air felt colder still. Seunghyo smiled and looked lovingly at his wife.
“Hana, you remember the hero’s game don’t you?”
The memory came to her unbidden. During their years together, Seunghyo had revealed himself to be a consummate historian. He had loved reading literature and learning about historical cultures.
The Hero’s Game was something that came up in many different histories he had told her. It showed up in epic poems and stories of honorable knights and warriors around the world. Storytellers separated by oceans and continents called it by different names, but it was always played the same way.
“Three questions, three answers,” she repeated from memory. “And one of them has to be a lie.”
Her ex-husband nodded. “You remember who goes first then, right?”
Hana nodded and thought carefully.
Jinyoung, are you awake?
There was no response but she preferred it that way. Having a human lie detector was helpful, but she wanted this game between them.