Two days passed, and there was still no sign of mobs reappearing, or even other people. As far as the eye could see was nothing but a bleak landscape. Hunger was starting to get to me. Others could survive off Rations, but I no longer had that luxury. It was only hunger though. I wasn’t starving just yet.

Based on my experience so far, I could go for quite a while without food, so I pushed the hunger to the back of my mind. The nearest city was still another hundred miles ahead of us. We wouldn’t reach it till nightfall at the earliest.

On the way there were plenty of turnoffs that led to small communities: a farm here or there, and plenty of gas stations. None of them had survived the quaking though. They were shredded through and through. It was hard to imagine how the suburban areas would look, considering how devastated were these farmlands. Even the wooden fences for keeping cattle corralled were tipped over and more often than not destroyed.

Around midday we made it past the rural farmlands and now walked through a dense pine forest. There were no exits or turnoffs for miles. This was a timber farm that previously would have been producing lumber daily, but now it was desolate.

Many trees had fallen into the road and completely blocked the path for anyone not on foot. Not that there was a drivable road here anymore anyway. It still slowed us considerably, having to climb up and over each fallen tree.

“Did you guys hear that?” Alan suddenly asked while climbing up and over a log. He was the closest to where the forest edge once was. I paused for a moment and heard nothing at all before climbing over: nothing but the sound of roaring winds and crackling branches. So many branches dangled by a hair’s breadth. The trees were full of torn remnants from the quaking, it only needed a single gust to send branches falling below.

“All I hear is the trees,” Richard responded bluntly. They had walked side by side, and he was the closest to Alan at the time. When the last of us – Maria – had hopped over our current obstacle we all set off again; even Alan accepted he was probably just hearing whispers of the wind.

It wasn’t even fifteen seconds after that when I heard what resembled a scream. Not heart wrenching, but definitely the sound of someone panicking, screaming for help in the distance. A trail nearby led to what looked like the clearing of a lumber yard and the cry was from that direction.

“See?” Alan said, “told you so.”

Whomever was screaming was probably only a couple hundred feet away. That their cries sounded further away than the lumber yard was probably on account of how dense the trees were packed together.

“It’s unlikely to be a trap,” Lucas said, “thoughts?” I appreciated that he didn’t just look to me for a lead but made sure to include everyone. I could see that reactions were mixed. Everyone was battle-hardened by now, and some of the sympathy that I would have previously experienced for someone in trouble had been washed away while watching hundreds die to the fiend. None of us were knee-jerk heroes in this unforgiving world. Help others? Sure. Run blindly into danger? We’d learned better.

“Let’s go see,” Jessica brought her bow around into a firing position. “It’s not a big detour, and if there are mobs, I should be able to pick them up when we get close enough.”

I was curious as well as moved by the shouts. As far as I understood, there weren’t any monsters currently populating the earth, or at least we hadn’t seen any. This unknown person meant at least we weren’t alone. But what was the danger they were facing? “I agree,” I pulled up my mask. “Let’s go but at a steady pace, ready to back off.”

Alan nodded and hacked a path through some branches of fallen trees before leading us along the trail and to the clearer area. Not that it was much brighter ahead, a towering canopy blotted out the sunlight. The echoes of the yells sounded out all around me, and they made discovering the source more difficult than I expected. Even Jessica needed several minutes to finally pinpoint the place it was coming from.

We walked in our regular formation: Alan and Richard at the front with Jessica just behind them; Thomas remained dead center with Mark and Glenn on his side—not to protect him, but to be protected as they were still too low level; I remained at the very back with Lucas, Anna, and Maria just in front of me. My near sixth-sense made me the safest choice for dealing with an unsuspecting ambush, as hopefully I’d feel something coming; that plus my undead squad provided a great buffer for our vulnerable damage dealers.

After three or four minutes from leaving the trail and entering the timber yard I was still struggling to see beyond all the debris and half-chopped logs scattered around the grounds. A sudden parting of the canopy and shaft of sunlight left my eyes stinging.

“Across,” Jessica said curtly. Her bow gestured upwards.

A wide group of cut trees stood in front of us. Just stumps protruding from the earth, some with menacing splinters sticking out of the top. They formed a thicket more than a hundred feet across, and sure enough on the other side, twenty or thirty feet in the air was a man hanging for his life from a tree limb.

“Why’s he in a tree in the first place?” Maria said with some haughtiness. I stepped out of the shaft of sunlight and back into shade. There was a spring to my every step, almost as if I were walking on marshmallows. The wood chips that lay everywhere had deteriorated and created a soft spongy surface atop the earth.

We only walked a few feet before Jessica stopped everyone. “He’s injured,” she said. Her intonation was clear: be careful.

“How badly?” I asked. “Is it from a monster?” A lot could be deduced from a wound.

“It’s a slash or gash, potentially from a sword,” Jessica answered.

“Other people?” Anna asked. Everyone immediately went to high alert. Humans were as vicious as monsters these days, and several times craftier. The possibility this was a setup increased several times over.

Everyone stopped speaking as we made our way through the damaged tree trunks at a snail’s pace. It was reassuring that we had Jessica constantly scanning the surrounding and I spent as much time looking back as forward. As we came about halfway through the thicket the man noticed us. “Oh God, thank God! HELP ME.” He screamed even louder now at us.

He wailed nonstop for a dozen seconds but we remained fixed in place. Lucas’s pleas for him to be quiet with our fingers and hand signs proved futile.

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“PLEASE. SHUT UP!” Maria suddenly exploded. Her shout was no louder than his own yelling, but her outburst left the man stupefied. He didn’t respond after that, so it seemed he got the point.

We were just thirty feet away from the tree he perched in and by now I could see him clearly. His face was dirt covered, or maybe blood covered. The brown, curly hair atop his head was tattered and filled with dirt and debris. His blue shirt was ripped clear down the side, exposing a massive gash along his ribs.

The wound was clean as Jessica said. A straight cut without much deviation, no doubt the work of a blade. “Can you climb down?” I asked him from below.

His face showed relief as he gave a nod. He made to move and a groan escaped his throat involuntarily. I could tell it was a fresh wound, but it still hurt like hell no doubt. “I can heal you when you’re down.” Thomas said. That wound wasn’t life threatening now that we had found him.

“Wait!” Jessica shouted, spinning around. “Enemies coming! Five or Six.” I looked in the direction she was staring and could see nothing, but soon I heard them. There was a menacing laugh, like the sound of a hyena, but a bit more high-pitched. Every little cackle ended up with a corresponding growl that made me shiver.

The man in the tree immediately hugged the branches despite the pain and stopped coming down. It was better for us this way anyway. Alan and Richard waited determinedly in the front for a dozen seconds before the trees in front began to sway.

Branches audibly cracked, and not from falling. My view was obstructed, but I soon sensed the incoming monsters with Necrotic Vision. They were man-sized dog creatures wielding swords, maces, and even bows and staffs. We faced a pack of them.

I could hear the man above me whimpering, “oh God, oh God, oh God.” Over and over again. His eyes were closed as he prayed. The sympathy I may have felt months ago wasn’t there. No God would save you now.

“Level twenty-eight gnolls,” Jessica called out. She didn’t have time to detail their skills, as they rushed at us without fear. Their cackling was skin crawling, more intimidating than any battle drum or war chant. It seemed that they had noticed us after we noticed them and perhaps it was the man’s yelling which had drawn their attention; probably these gnolls were the cause of his current wounds.

They stopped as soon as they realized we were not running but were stood braced, waiting for them. The hyena-like laughter ceased. There was a moment of dead silence, and then high-pitched yelping as if they were communicating. Then they started to snarl at us.

“These… might not be monsters.” I spoke my thought aloud. “These are more like demi-humans.” This was an entirely new race. A species intelligent enough to possess speech and culture. The restructuring was turning into more than what I had bargained for.

“Don’t hesitate!” Jessica yelled while releasing an arrow. There were six dog-men in total, four of those were melee, while two were ranged. It looked similar to a party you might see other players make. A staff-wielder wore tribal headgear, his staff was adorned with squirrel or chipmunk skulls. This was no doubt a shaman, which I equated to their healer.

The other ranged opponent was simply an archer, while the four melee in front were no different than Alan or Richard or Lucas. Two held thick maces, one wielded a sword, and the fourth wielded a sword and shield.

They had a slight height advantage, but we were the better prepared. They only had a moment to realize we were a serious challenge. Richard and Alan rushed forward on Jessica’s call as my swathe of undead troops charged down either flank. My warriors skirted their melee types and headed for their backline immediately, and already there was no time for them to fall back in a protective formation.

Maria had already rooted their melee firmly in place while Anna rained glacial hell from above. The combination made it impossible for them to retaliate at all. Richard and Alan stepped in to lash repeated blows without fear, which kept the two sword-wielding gnolls fully occupied.

With no immediate threat, Lucas sent out Wind Slash after Wind Slash. With the restrictive movement caused by Maria and Anna, the two mace wielders were cleanly bisected and died almost immediately. This was the first fight in some time that I’d seen Lucas fully let loose, and he certainly did. Every swing saw blood fly.

In the backline, the shaman I set my sights on had his face explode into carnage. He was dead before my skeleton warriors could even reach him, which was a result of Jessica’s marksmanship, specifically her Godless Arrow.

Merely three or four seconds had passed, and victory was already decided. I couldn’t help but feel awed. We had taken a break for almost two months, and yet now we were better than ever. It seemed that during that time people were still thinking hard about the efficiency of their skill use, even though we hadn’t had a single group battle since then.

My focus shifted to the archer, who to my surprise, was already darting off into the trees. “They’re fleeing!” I yelled out. My eyes scanned the sword-wielding gnolls, who were firmly locked in place. They didn’t make it past the ten second mark.

I was hesitant to chase the archer, as it seemed almost futile. The dog-man was faster than me without a doubt. No one else seemed to want to chase it through the dense forest either. We had a wounded man above us we needed to rescue, too.

“Aghh.” Suddenly, our friend in the trees let out a strong groan. The gnolls had been dispatched and as a result I hadn’t been as alert as I should have been. There was an arrow projecting out of the side of his ribs.

“Shit!” I couldn’t help but curse aloud. I turned to where the archer had fled and started to sprint, calling my undead troops after me. Above me was another groan, and then another after that. The archer who had fled had turned around and put three arrows deep into the man’s chest. I could hear the dog-man cackling as it raced into the distance. I couldn’t keep up no matter how hard I ran, and any further away from my party among all these trees might find me lost.

I walked back in dejection. The actions of these enemies did prove one thing, though. This was a new race entirely. These were not pre-programmed AI. They did not fight to the death. They clearly felt fear, and could strategize. These were similar to the fiend in that respect, arguably even more intelligent as they had some form of language.

Despite Thomas’s best attempt to heal the man I returned to find him on the ground, dying. The three arrows were deeply embedded into his chest, and no amount of healing would save you from critical wounds of that nature.

“Is everyone else okay?” I asked, specifically looking towards Mark and Glenn.

“Don’t go there.” The man on the ground managed to whisper. Each word came out slow and full of pain. He barely managed to raise his arm and point in the direction that archer had fled.

“Why not go there?” Lucas kneeled down and asked the man. We were all silent, listening as intently as we could. His breathing was growing fainter. Thomas repeatedly healed him to ease some of his suffering and potentially get a few more words out of him.

“…gnoll empire.” His eyes closed gradually before he slumped and lay motionless.

“Gnoll empire?” Richard repeated. “An empire of these things?”

“That is what he said,” Maria said sarcastically. Her fiery attitude had never dissipated despite all of our setbacks.

“Empire is a big word, though.” Lucas said. “He didn’t say camp, or city, or dwelling, he said ‘empire’” Lucas emphasized. That meant the scale we were talking about was astronomical.

Thinking about armies of these enemies left shivers down my spine. While we dealt with a small group quite easily, what would it mean if they had armies? If they had much higher level classes? Here we had the upper hand completely. Our sudden appearance and swift action left them without much room for maneuver.

A pre-programmed monster would react instantly and, in fact, the fight may have been more difficult if they had been unintelligent. But what would the fight have been like if they were prepared, and if they had taken proper precaution to protect their healer? Their reactions would be more impressive, unexpected, and almost certainly deadlier than their scripted counterparts. As it was, the gnoll group had maintained a basic formation when they approached.

I also had a concern about the gnoll shaman. Although it hadn’t healed or cast any ability, enemies that practiced voodoo-like rituals often had terrible curse or debuffing abilities.

Thinking about hordes of these enemies moving through our world… they could annihilate the remaining human population. While I didn’t think our group would be the highest level among humans, there was no doubt we would be ranked in an elite bracket. These enemies were level twenty-eight. Did that mean the gnolls were well ahead of humanity?