Chapter 13 – Floor 1: Part 5
“You’re leaving now?” Mathew asked. His voice was filled with a mixture of surprise and disbelief.
He and Maria were sitting in front of the house she had claimed for her own, eating breakfast after a long night of battling the Undead. The sun had risen only a few minutes ago, and this was the time they would sit and chat before going their separate ways for the day.
For Mathew, his daytime usually involved a few hours of sleep and an afternoon of gathering materials for his fires. For Maria, she usually slept until late midafternoon, which would then be followed by a few hours of hard drinking with some companions of hers in a large building converted into a tavern.
“In a couple of hours. We want to be in August City by noon. Things should be easier at that time, with the sunlight driving the undead back into their hiding holes.” Maria said, taking a bite of dried jerky with a grimace.
“I’ll be in heaven if the next floor offers something better than jerky and crackers.” Maria complained, taking a pull from her bottle of hard spirits beside her.
The shop was lacking when it came to items for sale, with the more premium products being restricted behind higher levels and large amounts of Aether. Someone had set up a still in the town, a lifesaver for the bored players who wanted to drink the hours away that they weren’t fighting or sleeping.
“Don’t you want to take some more time to plan this?” Mathew asked. It had only been a week since he reached level two, and he didn’t even have half the amount of Aether needed for the next level.
He still had a month or more on the floor before he could tackle August City, but he had been hoping that Maria and a few other high-level people would hold off a little while and wait for him to catch up.
That hope had been dashed with her announcement that they were leaving soon.
“What’s there to plan? We’re all fifth level and capped out. Aether is too thin for us to make any progress now. We should have left last week, but we held off for some of the weaker in the group to prepare. This is as good of a time as any.” Maria shrugged off the question, tossing the remaining scraps of her jerky to a nearby bird.
“Don’t you need a bigger group? There are only fourteen of you. If you wait a few more weeks, you could double that number. You’re going to be clearing an entire city.” Mathew pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter for August City. A bigger group just means more undead. People have watched the clearing parties before, so we reasonably know what to expect. The undead seem to scale with how many you send. Fourteen is more than enough, maybe even too many. You can only fit so many people in those buildings anyway.” Maria explained.
The goal would be to enter dozens of large structures and destroy all the undead you find before night fell. Arriving at noon, they would have over six hours to accomplish their goal or return to the small town to hide behind the walls to try again another day.
“I don’t know. There could be thousands of undead in August City.” Mathew replied, wiping away the crumbs of the cracker he was eating that had fallen onto his pant leg.
“Take it one piece at a time. You work in groups, cycling people to the front and taking breaks in the sunlight. The hardest part is at the end, when the sun’s about to go down. Do you stay and try to finish in time, or play it safely and retreat? You’ll know if we made the right choice if no undead shows up tonight or we come back screaming with our tails tucked between our legs.” Maria finished, standing up and stretching.
“Take care of yourself while I’m gone, Firstie. Oh wait, I guess I can’t call you that anymore. Take care of yourself, Mattie.” Maria grinned, slapping him hard on the arm as she walked into her house to grab an hour or so sleep and get ready for the final assault on the City.
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“You to.” Mathew replied, staring at her closed door for a long time.
Page Break
Mathew stood on the edge of the forest, taking a break after hauling a large bundle of sticks and branches, when he saw the group of men and women leave the town. Heavily armed, with backpacks and bundles on their backs, the fourteen looked like a company setting out for battle and adventure with no intentions of returning.
Maria was head and shoulders above the two people around her, the long spear with its iron tip resting against her shoulder. She had added armour to the thick quilted jacket he had first seen her wearing. Wide shoulder and arm pads provided additional protection, and a set of shin guards completed the outfit.
He watched them for a moment, and Maria turned to look toward the tree line. He caught her eye, and she waved merrily at him, her hand extended far above her head. He returned it and hoped he conveyed just how appreciative he was for her help over the past few weeks.
Mathew wasn’t sure how he would have handled everything without someone to show him the ropes, calm his nerves, and guide him on what to do. She was right, looking back on his arrival. A level one newcomer like him wouldn’t have made it a single night without others backing him up, and he hoped to return the favour to her one day.
Wishing them luck, he returned to his task.
As the sun crept across the sky, Mathew filled the trench in front of the wall with an assortment of tree limbs and leaves, along with a few scraps of wood that he had found discarded in the forest. There never seemed to be an end to the material he could find. It was like the undead, they returned every day.
He had a decent system working, with designated areas marked by black soot and scorch marks. The struggling undead that would fall into his trap would damage the ditch he had widened and deepened, meaning he had to spend an hour or so every day reinforcing and repairing it.
But all of his hard work was worth it. With his level increase came increased skill with his Blessing, meaning he could maintain the fire longer and spread its flames wider. He wouldn’t be fighting on the front lines anytime soon, but with adequate preparation, he was as dangerous as any of the other people around him.
The sun crested the horizon, a slim piece dying the clouded sky a deep red when he finished. Wiping his hands on the legs of his pants, Mathew took a final look at his work before nodding in satisfaction.
It was hard to believe that he was working in his family’s law firm two weeks ago, reviewing contracts and finding his life incomplete. Now, he was hauling timber to create magical fires that would burn undead zombies for Aether in order to grow stronger.
It was surreal.
Chuckling at the thought, Mathew headed back to his house. With Maria and the others destroying the undead in August City, it meant that he would be free for this evening. He could sleep the entire night and have a rare day off tomorrow. Perhaps he would get cleaned up and head over to the tavern for a few drinks.
Maria was gone, and Mathew would need to find new partners for when he was ready to go to August City.
He had just begun walking down the dirt road to the tavern with a few of the others who still remained in the town when a noise interrupted their conversation. The horrid wailing sound that was always a prelude for an undead assault erupted in the night.
But Maria had said that when a group conquered August City and defeated all of the undead there, the following night would be peaceful.
“They failed.” Mathew whispered in disbelief. Looking around at the others who seemed equally as shocked, dozens of people emerged from the tavern where they had been preparing for an uncomplicated night, drinking and laughing.
Nearly a hundred people, all that remained in the small town, pelted down the dirt road toward the wall. Slinging on armour and equipment that they didn’t think they needed as they ran.
Climbing the stairs to the scaffolding two at a time, Mathew pushed his way through the crowd to a clear spot along the top. In moments, the shouting from the undead had reached a crescendo as the first figure was visible on the tree line where the road curved toward August City.
Red eyes glowed in the darkness, and the shambling horde descended the small hill and across the grassy plain.
Mathew couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Was it possible that Maria had been wrong? Perhaps the undead came regardless of whether they won or lost. Maybe the previous groups that cleared the floor had done something different to earn a reprieve for the town.
He couldn’t believe that a group as strong as theirs, with Maria and fourteen other level-five people, had failed. It was inconceivable.
“No, they made it. She was just wrong.” Mathew muttered, still holding onto hope.
That feeling faded when the first undead entered the torchlight, and Mathew could see that they were recently deceased. Wearing the same clothing as they had when they had left, the group of ‘Players’ that had such confidence in themselves were now assaulting the town they had defended in life.
Mathew stared at them, his breath short, and a pain gripped his chest. In the center, her quilted jacket ripped and hanging off her body, Maria’s face was twisted with hatred, her eyes glowing with the same red light as her companions.