It was getting dark in the forest. Jack had completed the quest a couple of hours ago and was now traveling back home. After killing the witch and getting the message about being cursed, Jack pulled up the Status Effects bar. There was a line saying that he had a curse, but it didn’t specify what kind of curse it was or in what way it affected him.
He tried to use his identification spell on the curse only to receive a system message telling him the level of his spell was too low to identify the curse. It was annoying as hell. But what pissed him off even more than that was the fact that the witch had been able to put a curse on him after he severed her head. She should have been dead by then, but somehow she’d managed to curse him just before she finally died. It’d been some crazy black magic at play.
For a few minutes after failing to identify the curse, Jack just monitored his condition but didn’t notice any changes in himself. Whatever the curse was had no effect on him. Or so it seemed. Jack was pretty much sure that the curse wasn’t as harmless as it seemed and that sooner or later, he would find out what the witch had done to him.
After giving up his attempts to learn anything about the curse, Jack took some time to examine the reward for completing the quest. There were three items to choose from, a light armor set, a two-handed sword, and a crossbow. All of the three items were of epic rarity. He could pick only one, though. After giving it some thought, he decided to pick the light armor set. It had good protection quality, increasing every type of resistance by 10 percent. The two-handed sword was of no use to him because he didn’t have the skill for it. Besides, he preferred to use one-handed weapons. He would love to lay his hands on the epic crossbow, though. Then again, he didn’t have the skill for ranged weapons yet, and one-handed swords were his main weapons for now.
He switched into the epic light armor he’d received for completing the quest and made his way to the exit from the ancient catacombs. On his way through the corridors and rooms, he encountered mutants that he’d once killed. They had revived before he killed the witch, but now that she was dead and her resurrection spell was no longer active, the mutants couldn’t revive anymore. They died for good when he slew them again, and now he was finally receiving XP for killing them.
After getting out of the catacombs, Jack set off for the Great Tree Cottage, the treehouse that he’d built a few days ago and that had become his home. He really liked that place and couldn’t wait to get back there. However, he soon realized he wouldn’t be able to make it home before nightfall. He was still in the Darkwoods, and the trip to the Sungrove where his home was located would take a few hours. Jack wasn’t willing to make such a trip after the sunset. Dangerous creatures hunted at night, and while Jack could take care of himself by that point, there was no reason to take unnecessary chances. So after consulting the map, he changed direction and set off for Storage One, the small wooden house he’d built in the Darkwoods many weeks ago when the Store was still available for use. In the past, he’d kept his self-heating meals in that small building. But he’d long since brought all of them to his treehouse, so other than a bed there wasn’t anything else in the small building now.
Jack made it to the building just before nightfall. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The fight with the witch and her minions had been exhausting. Jack would love to eat something to restore some of his energy, but, alas, there was no food in the Storage One anymore. So he just lay on his bed and closed his eyes, falling asleep almost immediately.
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Only he didn’t get much sleep. He woke up to the sound of some creatures shuffling around just outside the small building. At first, he thought it might have been some cave rats that, as he already knew, crawled out of their lairs at night. However, he quickly realized he was wrong. It didn’t sound like them. He sat up just as the door rattled in the doorframe as somebody, something, tried to open it from the other side.
Jack stood up and drew his sword. The door shook violently as somebody tried to get inside. It was obvious that it wouldn’t be long before they managed to do so. Jack turned out to be right. Just a few seconds later, the wooden bolt cracked and the door flew inwards, slamming against the wall. A figure stood in the doorway. Just as it lurched inside, Jack held out a hand toward it and launched a fireball. The magical projectile slammed into the creature, the force of the explosion hurtling it back outside. Raising his sword, Jack ran out of the building too. What he saw outside astounded him.
There was enough moonlight to see by, so he saw that the small building was surrounded by those creatures he’d fought in the ancient catacombs.
What the hell, Jack thought. Where the hell did you come from? Didn’t I kill you all in the catacombs?
He quickly looked around expecting the witch to be among the blind mutants, but she was nowhere to be found. Only her minions were there. And there were so many of them around him, much more than he’d encountered in the catacombs. He was surrounded by the blind mutants from all sides, and before he could come up with a plan of action, the nearest mutants attacked him from different directions.
Jack fought relentlessly, killing one mutant after another, but every single one he killed seemed to spawn two more. There was no way he could kill them all, and at some point, he had to retreat back into the small building behind him. He was bleeding from the numerous wounds the mutants had just inflicted on him. It wasn’t a good idea to trap himself inside the small building, but being outside surrounded by dozens of those mutants was even worse.
Jack killed a mutant that ran into the building and immediately took on another one that came next. Suddenly, a board was torn off from one of the walls. Then another one from the other side, then another and another. That flimsy building hadn’t been built to withstand a direct attack. It was a simple shelter, just a storage and sleeping area. It was no fortress. Blind mutants filled the newly made holes in the walls, fighting among themselves, each trying to be the first one inside. The whole house was shaking violently. It wouldn’t be long before it collapsed in on itself.
Jack killed a few more mutants in front of him before he finally managed to run back outside. As soon as he did so, the building behind him completely broke down, the walls and the roof crashing in shattered pieces down to the ground.
Jack spent the rest of the night fighting the blind mutants. There was no way he could run away from them. There were so many of them he was surrounded by them all the time. It was a miracle by itself that he managed to get through the night alive. When the first beams of sunlight shone through the canopy, something began to happen to the mutants. Their movements became sluggish, their bodies seemed to shrink and get transparent as if they were melting. A few seconds later, all the mutants, both alive and dead, disappeared without a trace as if the violent night attack had never happened. Had it not been for the ruins of the destroyed house, Jack would have thought that he’d imagined the whole thing.
“What the fuck was that,” he muttered to himself.
One thing was clear–whatever it was had something to do with the witch’s curse.
The gore-caked sword slipped from his grip and dropped to the ground. The world swam before Jack’s eyes and he collapsed as he lost consciousness.