Early morning and the sun had just peeked over the horizon. It was a fresh day, and the best time for us to be adventuring into the unknown.

Our group was trapped inside the walls of a special game event by a crowd of players eager to kill us to get our gear. But we had a way out, a scroll with a group teleport spell on it: Close your eyes and count to five. Those were the instructions which were listed on the item. It also mentioned that the whole group would be teleported, but just to be sure I had everyone hold hands and close their eyes. Then we counted up to five together. It would be terrible if anyone was left behind, we had become a close-knit group: Thomas was our healer, with a superb sense of how to maximize cures without getting aggro; Alan was our tank and stoic in the face of the onslaught of our enemies; Lucas was like a rogue, who would enter battle from the flanks to get sneak attacks; Maria was an archer and so too was Jessica. Jessica was the true star of our group. We’d met soon after the apocalypse and she’d partnered me all the way up to our current level of 21.

Most of my time had been spent with Jessica and focusing on our own progress. The others I hadn’t known so long but I had seen them in a crisis. Lucas was arguably the person I knew second best. How would I describe him I wondered? Calculating? He seemed to be cautious in that he weighed most of his options pretty well. A good head on his shoulders and an eye for danger.

The rest… I couldn’t be too sure. Alan put himself into the way of monsters without showing any fear, and I’d even seen a smile on his face when he stepped up. Adventurous? Daring? Thrill seeking?

Maria was timid, even a bit shy. There was an anxiousness to her that she tried to hide, but which had clearly come out during the Sphinx encounter. All of it was hidden pretty well behind a thorny exterior. I was probably leaning too hard into the armchair psychology.

Thomas was… mysterious. He talked very little, never complained, and to me… it seemed like nothing mattered to him. I couldn’t tell if he didn’t care at all about what happened, or he was an expert at not showing it. Was this who he was? Or was he wearing a façade that never dropped?

After casting the teleport spell, I couldn’t feel anything happen at all, but when we chanted ‘five’, the background soundscape around me changed and I felt warmer. I opened my eyes carefully and realized I was in a dense, jungle-like place. The entire area was over-run with rampant plant growth.

The humidity was awful and little insects buzzed around us while the nearby birds sang. “Where are we?” Thomas asked. If someone had said we were in the Brazilian rainforest I’d have believed them.

The spell’s description was that we would land somewhere nearby… but the humidity was so intense and plant-life so rich that I’d question if whether we were on a different continent.

“I can see the dot for the Secret Shop on the map,” Lucas said.

And sure enough, it was there, but was it our secret shop? “Can we be sure that’s even the one we ported from?” Jessica also had the same thought I did. There was no indication at all where we were.

The term ‘nearby’ was loosely defined by the system, clearly. There was no sign of any human activity around here; the jungle was wild for at least this patch at least. “Can you lead the way Alan?” I asked.

No one had any way to cut this dense foliage we were now trapped within so it was a case of hacking our way out.

“Towards the dot?” Alan asked.

“I don’t see any other way.”

“We’ve got nothing else to go on,” added Jessica. “Hopefully, we’ll eventually run into a road or some other sign of civilization.”

“Come on then, the sooner we get out of this insect infected hell-hole, the better.” Alan drew his sword and started chopping through branches and fronds.

I could feel preying eyes all around us as we walked. The chirping of the birds stopped abruptly, and I just knew that predators were lurking in the area. As far as I was aware, animal life had remained more or less the same after the apocalypse, with the only noticeable change an increase in how aggressive they were.

A deer was still a deer, a bear a bear, a wolf a wolf. None that I’d seen had become more powerful, but I hadn’t done any due diligence. I doubted whether any of us had truly pushed into the dense wilderness that stretched for dozens of miles to the west of our hometown.

Another thought occurred to me. What if we were still near our point of departure like the spell had described? Perhaps a part of the Earth in the vicinity of the Special Vendor had vanished and been replaced by whatever this was. If that was the case, then whatever resided inside this jungle wasn’t a naturally occurring animal, but something placed here by the system.

Branches cracked around us as predators stalked our movements. “Can you feel anything?” I asked Jessica. Despite constantly scanning the surroundings, and my Sixth Sense ability, I was coming up completely empty.

“No, I can’t. It doesn’t feel like there is anything near us.” That just couldn’t be a possibility, the movement in the underbrush was not up for debate. I heard it clear as day. We were being stalked by whatever it was that had taken a fancy to us. That or the jungle itself was alive.

“Let’s get into a formation and keep moving forward,” I said. “Alan and I will lead the front. Thomas you remain behind us and everyone else behind Thomas.” It was sort of a protect the healer type formation with Thomas remaining sandwiched between everyone.

Alan and I were the least likely to come into trouble if we walked upon something dangerous. With Bone Armor and my current HP I was close to Alan in terms of effective HP. He gave a nod and as we cleared the vines and branches in front of us and we stepped forward together.

Within twenty paces, the once solid terrain beneath our feet morphed into unsteady terrain and I studied the ground in front of me carefully so as to not plant myself face first into what looked and smelled like peat.

The trek through the jungle would have been a nightmare if it wasn’t for my squad of summoned undead. The thick underbrush was overwhelming to say the least, and individually it would have been exhausting and tedious to struggle through it.

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Even my abominations couldn’t force their way through the vegetation by brute power, despite their strength. My two skeleton generals, however, along with several skeleton warriors took up the task to clear a way for us with their sharp blades.

Whatever was stalking us didn’t give up, despite the strength we were showing as a unit. The bushes around us still shook and the occasional crack of a branch came from either side. Worst of all though were the bugs.

The mosquitoes tore away at us, “Gah, I wish there had been a repellent in the shop.” Maria constantly swatted at her skin to fend off the biting insects. My concealing clothing was showing its value more so than ever before.

The long sleeves and almost trench-coat like clothing was keeping everything but my ankles and wrists protected. The bites to that area alone though were enough to drive me crazy with anger. I couldn’t imagine just how the others were managing to hold up with this onslaught of pests.

Our surroundings slowly transformed into somewhat of a swamp, with a few paths of dry land surrounded by ankle-to-knee high water. Algae ranging from white to brown floated upon the surface. I immediately missed that mushy peat. At least it had kept my feet dry.

Dragonflies and other insects landed on pads of green before buzzing off into the dim light, and a stench of earthly decay filled my nostrils. The dense swarms of mosquitoes were thick enough it was possible to hear and see the clouds buzzing about.

“Can we change direction?” Jessica asked. Her face was scrunched into one of discomfort and the visible skin upon her arms and legs was already red with swollen bites. None of us were equipped to be walking through water either.

We broke formation as a group and turning to the left I walked as far forward as I felt safe, I was looking for a possible path while also taking in the bushes and groves for signs of predators. Visibility wasn’t great, but it was clear that the swamp continued for an unknown distance.

At least there was a path on the route we were on that we could take that would keep us above the water.

“Doesn’t seem like it will be any faster or more rewarding to go around,” Alan observed.

“As much as I don’t want to travel through this, I have to agree with Alan,” I said. “We can’t be sure there will be a break in the swamp. If there isn’t, we won’t have any guarantee we’ll have a path through like this one.”

I didn’t immediately set forward and instead waited for any objections. We were a group and while I had a lot of authority from my success at levelling, we shared the responsibility of calls like this one. In the end though, no one disagreed despite the reluctance on their faces.

We were stuck between a rock and a hard place, and the hard place ended up being the most logical solution. At least we could see what we were getting into here. No one could be sure it wouldn’t be even worse if we set out to either side. There was the bonus of not having to forge a path through the swamp as well.

“I’ll go first,” I said trying to sound positive. I sent my skeletons on the path ahead, just in case the ground wasn’t quite as solid as it looked. To my pleasant surprise though, their boney feet didn’t sink into the dirt at all. The abominations, on the other hand, were too large for the path, so I just had them traverse through the swamp water carefully so as to not soak us in their wake.

The soil was spongy and each step caused sewage-like smells to be emitted that seared the nostrils. The thick trees growing from the knee-deep water were bleached by the sun, and were white and brittle and covered in algae that had no doubt remained from when the water was a higher level.

Even after an hour of walking nothing about the swamp had changed. The only thing letting us know we had made any progress was the sun slowly gaining distance in the sky. We were moving: time was passing.

My feeling that I was being watched by a predator slowly disappeared but that didn’t offer any relief as my thoughts were now filled with the constant droning of insects, and the pressure of the sun pounding me from above. Our decision to sleep before transporting was the right one, no doubt. This would have been even more nightmarish after dark.

Every step through this murky land was arduous. My feet sank lower and lower with each step, and the peat gripped my ankles like panicked hands. I moved without much thought, only traveling where solid land took me.

My eyes spotted some swamp animals around, alligators mostly, but none so daring as to venture close. They stood locked in place like statues, their dark eyes peering with trepidation and curiosity. My abominations would take a relatively large step towards them, and the resulting wave that rushed ahead would send our admirers rushing away as if they had never existed.

“The map really is no help,” Lucas complained. “I’ve been trying to get a grasp on where we are exactly and it’s really just of no use.”

“Well, at least it seems to be populating,” Jessica chirped in from behind me. I checked. The map was completely blank ahead of us, but behind us and for a short distance on either side it had filled in with a small colored area illustrating the swamp. It was an interesting phenomena, and potentially very helpful. At least we wouldn’t get lost and – horrible though the thought was – could retrace our route to the jungle. Trees and ponds showed on the map in an animated fashion, even when I couldn’t immediately see them.

“Was it doing this before?” I called over my shoulder. “I don’t recall the map populating anything before…” Was this a new feature? Or if my theory that this might be a special game instance was right, perhaps it had unusual features including that of automating mapping.

“I was checking before,” Lucas said. “This is definitely something new.” I accepted his statement as fact and the conversation stopped there.

Finally, after we had walked another hour something changed.

“Look at the map!” cried Thomas and I did. There was something different there besides the mass of trees and the bending pond water. There was a structure, or was it a structure? I couldn’t be sure.

“What is it?” Maria asked. “I’m still not very good with this map thing.”

“I don’t know.” I confessed. There was a grey blob on the map, with a black dot. It looked like the entrance to some underground tomb. It was nearby, but I couldn’t see it with my eyes; we must have come close enough for the map to show us its existence.

How had I not noticed this mapping feature before? Was I so negligent that I had never noticed this while we battled in the city streets? I shook that thought off almost instantly: Lucas said it was new, an extra feature either added when the Special Shop was implemented or because we were in a special zone. I told myself I should trust him.

“It doesn’t look so inviting,” Jessica said. “It’s not natural, that’s for sure.”

“I agree.” Lucas chimed in. A stone building or entranceway wouldn’t be in this swamp naturally. “Can we just avoid it?”

“I think so too…,” Maria said. She looked around nervously while rubbing her arms. The temperature was hot and humid, so the gesture definitely wasn’t for warmth. She was clearly still shaken from her recent close encounter with death.

“I think it’s worth the look.” Alan said. “What if it’s the location of a great treasure? We could all find skills and new equipment inside.” His voice sounded so reassuring, but I wasn’t reassured at all. No one could know what lay ahead.

I looked at the alligators in the distance, “This area doesn’t seem to be too high level. A look might not be a bad idea.”

“I’m for looking as well,” Thomas said matter-of-factly. There was no excitement or fear upon his face, just a stoic expression, like nothing could affect him at all.

Everyone paused in deep thought. Treasure was enticing, but our lives were more valuable than any treasure… but then again treasure might help to keep us alive.

“…Just a look…” Maria agreed with a bit of hesitation.

“A small peek…” Lucas agreed reluctantly.

I turned to Jessica and gauged her reaction. Her eyes met mine and there was no fear or worry, just confidence, blind or not.

“I’m fine with checking it out.” My answer came from her look, and she nodded to agree with me as well. “There doesn’t seem to be any clear path that way though, so we’ll have to wade through some water.” Everyone’s face immediately soured, “But think of the possible treasure.” And my comment changed the mood immediately.