After the girls had gotten dressed in some more decent clothes we were allowed back in. They had changed into some simple clothes with Elizabeth grabbing only a simple dagger.
We then went to work packing some of the food we had found in the storeroom in some spare bags. Leaving the place behind as the sun rose further up we walked down the steep mountain trail down into the forest below.
The forest didn’t look that special from afar, but as we got closer I felt my gut telling me that this wasn’t a great idea. I had to agree as we kept getting closer as the trees gave a decayed look and most of the trees stood bare even in the midst of the spring time weather and view we had seen earlier.
I drew my sword as we got the forest’s edge and rested it on my shoulder. Matt looked similarly uneasy at the way things looked, but remained quiet and collected. Giving no sign of fear, but knowing we were in for a fight.
(J) “Well this forest definitely has seen better days.” John commented while equipping his shield that was strung across his back. We all knew something was in here, but were unsure what to do. As going around didn’t seem like a good idea because when we looked down earlier the forest looked to cover the entire base of the mountain. So it was going to be infinitely faster to just go through the forest and I for sure didn’t want to spend the night out in the open not knowing what was out there to get us. Especially after having to deal with that lunatic earlier.
(B) “Lets just get this over with guys the sooner we get to civilization the better. We don’t know what we are dealing with here so the faster the better.”
Grabbing our weapons we proceeded into the forest. The forest seemed to grow around us chocking the Sun’s light as it tried to pierce the dense foliage above us. After about twenty minutes of walking we saw signs of old stone structures scattered about. They seemed to be old with foliage growing over them wearing away the stone exterior.
Hearing a growl from behind us we turned to see that we had been surrounded by wolves they looked rabid with red glowing eyes with the biggest ‘Alpha’ standing on top of the rock in front of us growling at us as the rest of his pack continued to circle us.
(B) “John grab Lydia and follow behind us. Teague you and me are going to pierce a hole in this line and clear a path for them to follow.”
I then bolted towards the nearest wolf and tried to stab him, but it nimbly moved out of my blades reach. Teague also charged at another with his axe achieving similar results.
Fighting these wolves was going to be tougher than the slow and weak skeletons we had faced earlier. They looked seasoned and were easily able to dodge our novice attempts at killing them, and Teague stumbling in his oversized clothes didn’t help.
Our opening attack opened a path though and we hastily seized the opportunity running away from the pack. The leader then howled at us claiming us as their prey to all around. They then proceeded to chase after us. They were going to toy with us and enjoy their hunt by the looks of it.
(M) “Well what’s the plan guys we can’t outrun them.” As Matt slammed his staff into the skull of a wolf that had lunged at Holly.
(B) “Just keep going we need to find somewhere where we could hold up and fight back. We can’t fight these things out in the open.”
We keep running forward with the wolves hot on our heels with the strange ruins appearing more frequently until we see some type of old temple in front of us. There is an open doorway ahead of us and we release a burst of speed to get inside.
The wolves see what we were thinking and try to cut us off but I jump ahead and dissuade them with the swing of my sword. But, I miss that another wolf had gotten behind Elizabeth and proceeded to bite down on her ankle and dragging her back.
All of us feel the same pain as she is drug back towards their pack. She starts screaming as she is drug back away from us with more wolves converging on her.
(B) “John get them inside quick. Matt and Teage let's go.”
(T) “Right behind you.”
We run to catch up to the wolf with me arriving first and stabbing the wolf dragging Elizabeth in the side. The wolf lets go of Elizabeth and Matt picks her up as more wolves jump towards us. Since they are on the offensive in such numbers we were forced to quickly retreat and watch our backs as we made our way to the entrance.
(T) “Haha this is quite a good fight we’ve gotten ourselves into is it not.” as Teage slams his axe into a wolf that tried to jump him from the side. While Matt knocked another across the head with his quarterstaff that had gotten to close.
They see that we are stronger than they first suspected and back up a bit, but it also seems that they are being repelled by the temple as they all stopped at a certain distance from it. We all entered the temple as a large stone crashes into where the entrance was a moment before.
(J) “That should keep us safe for the moment.”
John jumps down from a ledge that the rock had been on prior. Some light is let through but for the most part his actions had just plunged us into darkness with no light sources and only minimal supplies.
A light soon appears and I turn to see Holly with her hand held out with an open flame appearing above it.
(M) “How are you doing that?” Matt asked he looked amazed at the stunt and wanted to know how she was doing it probably.
“You mean this? This is just a simple flame spell. Do you guys not know about magic?”
This had to sound strange to her when five young adults don’t know their fundamentals. But there was nothing we could do about that as no tutorial seemed to be helping us out here.
(B) “You could say we were all kind of new to this.”
“You mean you’ve never seen magic before?”
(E) “Guys can I get some help here. I just got bit by a wolf you know. Don’t they have diseases? Does that mean I’ll catch whatever they had?”
(T) “Calm ms. princess you’ll be fine. Matt your the smart one right so why don’t you go play doctor for a bit.”
(M) “Personally I’d rather figure out how this magic of Holly’s works it seems infinitely more interesting than some flesh wound.”
(J) “You gentlemen know no chivalry do you. I’ll fix you up in a gif madam just give me a minute to get a better look at what we got here.”
(E) “Thanks John unlike some people.” She then stuck her tongue out at Matt who didn’t seem to care in the least when something like magic was brought up.
Now that Elizabeth's leg is being taken care of by John let's get back to our magic lesson. I turn back to Holly to see that her eyes are now glazed over and she looks like she is in a daze. Damn it is this temple haunted or something. Lydia then screams and faints for some reason.
“There now it's just the five of us. Welcome to the soul temple.”
Soul Temple? What the heck is this thing saying and why is it in Holly’s body.
“You all probably have many questions for me, but I must be brief as I can’t hold this form for long. There is a room further into this temple which will show you all the answers to what you seek. For your road will be full of danger and will play an important part in this world more than you all can imagine.”
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With that her eyes cleared and she slumped over with me catching her before she hit the ground.
(T) “Well this definitely getting weird. What are we going to do with them now.”
(M) “I would like to investigate these ruins further to investigate if that apparition was telling us the truth.” Matt then produced a flame from his hand that flickered barely staying lit in his hand. He looked strained in doing so and it flickered out within a second.
(E) “Was that magic just now?”
(M) “Yeah I felt the energy that Holly was using earlier and tried to replicate it. But I must have done something wrong or she just has better control because that definitely took a lot out of me.” He took out an apple from his pack. Sitting down to eat and catch his breath.
(T) “What energy I don't feel anything?”
(M) “That's because I think my race is more sensitive to magic. Not that it helps with controlling magic.”
(J) “Alright all done that should last until we get to an actual healer, but at least it was superficial at best. Those scales sure aren't just for show.” John had finally finished treating her leg having wrapped it in some makeshift bandages from some spare clothes he had in his backpack.
(E) “They sure did help though it still hurts getting bit no matter what.”
(T) “I think we can all agree to that.”
(B) “Is it okay with you if stay we explore this temple while you watch these two.”
(E) “Yeah that's fine I'd rather stay off my leg anyways. You guys just need to figure out what the hell is going on.”
(T) “There better be some decent loot in here as well. We’ll need whatever we can get our hands on if our luck keeps up”
I saw a old unlit torch on the wall and pull it off it’s pedestal to inspect it. It looked old but still able to hold a flame so I turn towards Matt.
(B) “Hey Matt can you try lighting this torch with your magic so we can see down here. That way you aren’t having to constantly keep your magic going.”
(M) “Give me a second I’m still winded from using it earlier.”
(J) “Do you think she is going to be okay?”
(B) “Who? Holly? I think she’s okay but I’ve never been possessed before so I can’t really say for sure I guess we’ll find out when she wakes up.”
Matt then lights the torch and we descended into the temple. Our surroundings dimmed as we delved deeper inside. With our only light being the dim light of the old torch flickering and sputtering threatening to go out at any moment. After about a minute of walking we saw a strange blue light ahead coming from a doorway.
We all walked through as our torch was just about at its limit as we didn’t want to be plunged into darkness with no idea how to get back. The doorway opened up to a room full of pictures illuminated by blue crystals found throughout the room. There was no loot or monsters just strange pictures and some weird writing at the end of the room.
I walked towards the writing leaving the rest to their bickering over not finding any loot to scavenge. As I got closer the words flowed from the wall into my mind and telling me the what was written on the wall.
Five that are one, but five that are their own
Lost and alone will find unlikely allies
With many trials to test their might and knowledge
They will proceed on a path masked in darkness
With the light seeking to burn everything away
An unholy flame darkens the world
The shadows will bring about a new light
Merging two worlds to become one
A wave of fatigue soon takes my body and I fall over with everyone else following suit.
Unknown energy surge detected causing sensory overload.
Need one hour to purge energy surge from core systems.
Great it’s locked me out for an hour might as well eat dinner I guess. I slowly take off the head mount and set it on my nightstand and slowly get up. Ahg my head hurt but it wasn’t that bad. Wait what? I felt like I had some new memory, but it didn’t feel like a memory. It felt like a vivid picture that I could perfectly recall and it held the words I’d seen earlier.
(E) ‘Wait what happened why are we back?’
(T) ‘Dang it kid what did you do?’
(M) ‘It must have been some kind of feedback from whatever magic was on the wall.’
(T) ‘So we’re stuck like this again?’
(J) ‘At least until he gets back in the game which will be in an hour.’
(B) ‘Did you all see those words?’
(M) ‘Those were some cryptic writings it almost seemed like a prophecy.’
(J) ‘Maybe it was a special quest or something.’
(M) ‘That’s the only thing I can think of.’
(B) ‘Well I guess I’ll start dinner then. Seeing as we can’t do anything right now.’
I start walking to the kitchen looking at the clock on the wall. It showed that it was 6:00. Six? How was it only six when it felt like I’d been playing for over four hours. This is what I get for not reading the user manual. No wonder my friends told stories about day long fights on a school night. I had just thought that the game just had a faster day night cycle.
(M) ‘There is probably a brain accelerator in the helmet.’
(T) ‘What the hell are you talking about Matt?’
(M) ‘A brain accelerator or a BA.‘
(B) ‘That’s a really cruddy acronym.’
(M) ‘Anyways it speeds up the brain’s thought processors allowing for one minute to feel like two. I remember reading a fiction book that had something like that. That would also help explain the mass appeal of the game.’
(J) ‘Wouldn’t there be side effects from hyper stimulating the brain though?’
(M) ‘It does tire out the user quite a bit and can cause massive migraines if used for extended length of time like a full day's use. But most people quit out from the fatigue before that ever becomes an issue.’
(T) ‘I don’t care either way as long as we get to move around the science doesn’t matter.’’
(E) ‘I guess but that really is amazing that it does that.’
I was the head cook of the house as both my parents worked and my older sister was in college. This left me with a lot of free time at home which helped me from accidentally spilling about the voices in my head (Though it might explain how they appeared).
She is currently a senior in college studying biomedical engineering. But even in highschool she always had something going on which left all the household chores to me.
I prepared a simple meal of spaghetti and meat sauce. Serving it onto three plates I took one for myself and stuck the other two into the warming drawer. I then walked to my room plate in tow to my computer to see what I could find out online about my situation.
I had made a vow to play the game blind, but with all the stuff happening in the game so far I decided I was going to need all the help I could get.
I opened up the game’s site on my internet browser and made my way to the forums to see if it had a newb guide I could utilize. I was in unknown territory and if I wanted to survive. I wanted to find a map or anything to base our location and how best to get back to a more friendly starter area.
I couldn’t figure out where I was though. Looking through all the maps I couldn’t find any mountains near a forest with a river or more accurately a small town that had a mountain that had a forest and a river. The forums talked about how the mountains were dangerous and that the mountains had lots of dangerous creatures.
So all town near mountains and a forest had to have at least some kind of wall to defend themselves from the monsters that would come from them.
I also checked the game’s lore looking for prophecies like the one I’d read. But to my dismay there weren’t any. Only mentions of some kind of armageddon war that was supposed to happen in the future (I hope these prophecies aren’t correlated to mine that would suck).
It didn't make much sense to me. It just seemed like your average prophecy talking about some evil and something about the five of us. I didn’t really understand it that much.
The alarm on my watch then went off signalling our freedom from the energy surge. I bolted from my desk chair and sat back down on my bed grabbing the headset and putting it on starting the boot up sequence.
(B) ’Well whatever happens we’ll deal with it. It’s only a game so let's try our best and see what happens.’
(J) ‘I always do love a good adventure.’
(M) ‘I hope we get some help though. Cause at the moment I think we quite need it.’
The system finished booting up and after a second we were back in. But boy was Matt right. We were going to need all the help we could get.