Morning. Each morning, the receding count of my brain cells gets scrambled by horrors of nausea and migraine. My body wasn't real, it certainly didn't feel like it, yet the pain was. It subsided over time, mornings became tolerable, still the thought of not sleeping at all threw itself all around against the inside walls of my skull. Yet, deprived of sleep, I would be gone out of my sanity within few days, so nothing was left for me but to endure.
As my eyes opened to the morning's light, the room's dust spiraled around in sun rays. Timid breaths of wind crashed against the window. I stood up from the bed, hands to head, trying to catch a moment of tranquility in the sands of a hurting mind. A heavy hissing sigh left my lungs, and in the same moment I heard the strumming of notes coming from down the hall, which made my temples pulsate with sharp pain. "Who the fuck plays a piano at six in the morning?" I thought to myself. I swung my fingers, and the menu phased out of nonexistence before me. In a few taps the set of chain mail armor with the coif appeared on my body. It was covered with a tar-black surcoat with a scarf-like piece of dense cloth of the same color lying on my shoulders, wrapping around my neck. The corner mirror glittered out the few fallen on it sun rays, trying to charm me for a look inside, yet no want I had to see that face.
I walked out into the inn's hallway, filled with calm-breaking piano sounds. I strode my way further into the main hall of the place, where the reception desk, the bar, tables and chairs, and finally this devilish piano stood. Someone of a small figure occupied the place in front of the instrument. Sharp tricorne hat and the exquisite outfit comprised of light grey and white cloth garments resembling something of a noble finesse.
I stepped closer to the figure, and the melody suddenly shifted, not in reality but in my own mind; it became pleasant, calming, and ordered. Music entered harmony, which somehow ceased my headache. It was a young woman who played the thing. Long and thin fingers of hers roamed across the keyboard. Her composure was slightly moving, matching the rhythm. The music she played was calming and elegant yet melancholic in a way. Abruptly, the sound broke.
— Who plays the piano at six in the morning? — I asked her.
— I can't really play when someone's around… I am so sorry to wake you up. — she sighed in reply.
— You seem quite good at it.
— Yeah? Thanks…
— So, what are you doing here so early, besides that?
As I asked, she turned herself away from the piano, facing me. Two shining emeralds, which were her eyes, stared at me right away. Her face plump and rosy was covered in freckles, and her hair of chocolate shade lay upon her shoulders.
— Uh… Headhunting… I'm not in any guild right now, so it would be nice to find someone to help me with a few things.
— Why so early?
— Someone told me a while ago that the most skilled guys get up before the dawn even breaks.
— Huh, interesting… — I laughed. — So, do you want a hand? I need to kill some time anyways.
— Yes, thanks, that would be really great. By the way, my nickname's Airy, what's yours?
— Leer, nice to meet you, Airy.
Blueish morning haze engulfed the town's streets, the sun had not yet risen, the sky was full of murky clouds, and weak gusts of chilling wind made themselves felt upon the skin. We were headed to the northern gates of the town, and Airy asked me to help her with slaying a few mobs she needed materials from. Streets, as always, felt eerily silent, not a living thing beside us roamed them at this time of day, only our awkward small talk occasionally broke the layers of quiet.
— What are you playing with? — I asked her.
— What you mean?
— A weapon.
— Uh… daggers mostly, maybe rapiers, something light, I put all my points into dexterity at the start of the game, so I don't really have any other choice.
— Oh… grave mistake, but you could try using something heavier than these, like estocs, bows, or katanas maybe.
— Nah, bows are out of the way, I also put everything into the melee branch. Katanas too, I don't like big swords, I prefer to keep a distance with piercing weapons, so yeah, maybe estocs are good, or spears even. — she said, imitating a thrust attack with her empty hand.
— You're funny.
— Hmm… why? — she tilted her head in a question.
— Forget it. — I laughed.
Beyond the gates lay, accustomed to us all, a vastness of tall, shrilling green grass, tritely called The Great Plains. Destination of ours was miles across them in a less monumental, somewhat unsettling, and deprived of sunlight place. Murkshade Woods stood tall and crooked right on the edge of the plains. From afar it looked like a wall of sombre purplish composition of sickly spiraling foliage. You could imagine the terror on many faces looking at this abomination of a forest just a month ago. The sheer contrast of the two locations maybe struck as absurd if not even funny, yet the inside abyss of the forest at times seemed to be looking right back at you.
There lay the vast dirt road across the plains, on which we walked upon. The plains were monotonous in their design, a desert all covered in green, mixed by bits in there were lonely trees, sparkling rivulets, and a few shallow ponds. It felt peaceful here, not a common feeling for the rest of the worldly realm, the only action here took deer and boars and some other wildlife roaming about the place, nothing eldritch did not abide on this emerald plane.
As we drew ourselves closer to the woods, a thought glimpsed across my mind. It was not so long ago when I first entered the shadows of this forest and how those days used to be excruciatingly long, confusing, and disorienting, and how now I seemed to be accustomed to not leaving this world at all; it felt as if I didn't even know what my life before all of that looked like. All those things raced around in my head again and again.
We crossed the smeared edge of two contrasting soils and entered the Murkshade Woods. As it was, in an instant, the day's light ceased to be, eclipsed by the branching bulk of charcoal crowns of extensively twisting trees. Pitch darkness was not the case anyways, it would be totally unplayable, instead the game shaders shifted the lighting scheme into something of a full moon twilight with fireflies roaming around under the leaf ceiling.
We traveled inside of this place of eternal dusk and dark for a good half an hour. Both of us strolled between densely growing bushes and shrubs of the same purplish shade as everything all around was. As I stepped forward once more, a sudden screech lashed out as if I had stumbled on a dry branch or thin sheet of ice.
— Here! Look!
It was Airy who screamed, it was her voice. My head whirled instantaneously to the source of the sound, but not Airy, and not a single other soul was in sight. Again, a new screech, but of another nature, broke the air. My sight shifted once more, and I saw an extremely rapid metallic glimpse flying right towards my head. The arrow it was, as I only caught that, my shoulder caught it first. In the corner of my sight, the red-filled bar dropped down a few inches, it was my health bar.
— Scheisse! — I shouted.
I tore the thing out, blood sprayed out of the wound, and my body pulsated with pinches of tame pain. Another arrow was shot, and another and a few more, yet none I let pierce myself again. I flew and strafed and danced among them, not leaving them a chance to hit right. They flew from the same one direction in depths of grass and trees, so there I rushed. I floated through the bushes and weeds, and dashed betwixt the wood, and in one final burst, I saw the damned silhouette.
Nor tall, nor short, nor with a face, nor without one. Nor armored, nor at ease to be scathed. The only things I saw were the eyes full of naked fear and the treacherous head of a man. As I appeared in his sight, the bow flew out of his hands to the side, and with a swift clank, he drew his sword out. With not a speck of mind, I threw myself across the vastness between us and struck down, harsh and impudent. He swung his sword against mine, not letting my blade through, yet it did not crush or let my sword slit inside its blade even a little, only the metal shrilly screeched in gnashing agony. I pushed and pushed downwards, trying to break his sword or to fail his arms, yet nothing yielded a slight. I turned against the angle of his attack and swirled around myself. He missed his strike, in one swift move, I struck upwards and cleaved his head in two.
The now lifeless body fell, blood spits painted the soil, and smashed brains slowly dangled from the half-hollow cranium. In a minute, this man's body will be turned to cinder and gusted away. It is not uncommon to see the bodies of monsters disappear this way, yet it was somewhat eerie to look at fellow men fade away like this. Like the moments before, he was alive and breathing, and a few seconds later, it was just a pile of lifeless flesh.
The pain fused across me once more, my chest flooded with it, and as I looked down, a straight, puny dagger pierced my whole stature through. My health bar was now drained to the half of it. On sheer reflex my elbow alike a hammer's fall, struck behind my back. It met another skull, now much more pitiful, a skull of a girl. She and her blade flew over a good meter, landing with a sound of soil scratching. I swiftly cut the distance between us, kneeled to her, and grabbed her by the hair. She pierced me again, now with a shrill look, with her green eyes frantically roaming around my physique, her face lined with stressed mimics. Small shining crystal droplets curled up at the corners of her trembling oculi.
— Why the fuck would you do something like this? — I asked her.
Airy just stressfully hissed back at me. A tiresome sigh poured out of my lungs, and then I said:
— Listen here… If I see you once more, if I catch your slightest presence anywhere near me, I will take your shitty dagger and shove it up sideways into your miserable asshole. Verstehen?
In a moment, her face shriveled inside and out, her eyes sparked with flames, and an ear-bleeding scream tore everything apart.
— Fuck you! You murderer!!! — she wept, as if somebody was trying to skin her alive.
She rapidly drew out another dagger of hers from behind her back, now crooked and shining toxic green. A poisonous blade cut the air and stabbed my other shoulder. Once more my health began running out swiftly, and an icon of a green toxic orb appeared below the bar.
— Fick dich du ficken Hure! — creaked out of my throat.
With my health vanishing, my mind slipped, cracked, and dove into turmoil. My vision began its dive into disarray as if it was heavily snowing right on my retina. My head fully deluged with ragged whispers, noise, and hisses. Impenetrable dizziness, anguish, and vertigo combined. In that moment I had not the slightest idea of what was going on. I lost it there. The only real thing I felt were violent jerks of my arms; everything else went numb. A few seconds later… I sat in a puddle of steaming insides, holding a piece of bloodstained cranium bone. Airy lay beneath me, with not a face, but a mash of meat, bone, brain, and hair. Her only glassy emerald eye stared at me again.
— Scheissdreck… — I breathed out heavily.
* * *
In front of me on the table stood a dull wooden bowl, inside it was a steaming hot red sauce coating a cut meatloaf strewn with some greens.
— What's up with that? Why aren't you eating? — said Thomas, sitting across the table.
His plump face was cheerful and calm as always, only a brow of his shifted up in a question. He licked his wooden spoon clean and struck inside his half-hollow bowl with it.
— Nothing, I just don't have an appetite right now.
— Uhh, these PK's… You can't get enough of them, huh? — he smirked at me.
— Mhm. — I nodded in response, lining through the stew with my spoon.
— So how's Hennessey? You slipped to her last night, didn't you?
— Yeah, she's still distressed about all this, but she's doing good, even invited me to raid the Smoldering Depths alongside Baldwin's guys.
— Oh, this guy?! He's a shithead, Juni!
— Yeah, that's what I said!
— Hmm… and when?
— In a few hours, but I really need to be out right around now. Need to empty my head before that.
— Leave me your meatloaf, would you please?
— Yeah, mahlzeit Thomas.
In a few quick moments I escaped the tavern's quarters, heavy wooden door slammed shut behind my back. I turned my head upwards, the closing afternoon heavens were splashed with shades of crystallite blue and almost rid of any presence amongst them, except for a few thin flimsy clouds. Sunlight array flooded the hollows and the depths of town, the sun slipped past the summit, and facades of stone structures, formulating the streets, became indistinguishable, all of rough and polished granite and limestone shone alike jewel gems, like glares on a waving sea.
Blinded by the shine, I strolled to the town's center, to the plaza. It is not usually that sunlit here, November was on the calendar, and a rain or just a gloomysky would be much more suitable right now. The whole town's edifices carried the resemblance of some old European structures, yet they did not quite possess the peculiarity of real ones, they were without broaches and vitrages, and they were much more subtle, yet defined, and colored in a palette of gray, white, and hues of brick red. Onto a style like that, I reminisce gazing upon back on the other side.
Light felt familiarly warm falling upon my head. The sheer passion poured into making this world as real as possible was astonishing to me. Never had I, and probably no one else, thought that this level of man-made physical complexity was going to be achieved and felt with our own senses, yet here it was, day to day. I played VR games previously, for quite a time, but they felt like they were supposed to, like games, but this… this level of vividness, it feels much more like a lucid dream, and sometimes like a fever one.
One hour and a half remained for me to arrive at the meeting place beside the dungeon's entrance. It wasn't quite a long walk, the place had a waystone nearby I could teleport to. I for sure needed to come up with something to ease the wait. A good idea was to check through my inventory for how many necessities I had in stock on me. I swooshed my two fingers amidst the air, opening the game menu, and tapped the [Inventory] segment. On top of the inventory screen, floating in the air in front of me, were differently pictured tabs lined up. They presented categories of items I could choose to see only, from all of them to, for example, only consumables, which I was eager to inspect, and then I pressed on that tab. Healing brews and mana-restoring ones, teleportation idols, and different sorts of status remedies and uppers were not so much present in comparison to the days before. Some of them remained in scarce amounts, but for the most part they had been completely used up. The best way to replenish the stock was to brew and craft and forage all of them by myself, and surely I didn't have any sufficient quantity of reagents on me either. The only option left was to find fine vendors to purchase the stuff, fortunately money wasn't the problem for now.
There were a number of market squares and alleys scattered around town, the problem with them, why most people resorted to obtaining the consumables themselves instead of buying them, were that all the things that you could purchase were pretty much low-grade and inefficient, sometimes not even worth the price they were sold for, yet these items somewhat did their job as a last resort measures. The number one priority were healing potions, for which I was in dire need.
Wandering from the town's plaza, up east, I found myself at the feet of a not-so-large square, packed with a few lines of colorful booths housing NPC merchants and outlined with rustic timber-framed houses, each one serving as a shop of its own. Without any hurry I flung from stall to stall, reviewing what merchants were offering. Same old overpriced shit as I remembered seeing and buying, storefronts changed with time, some items appeared, some disappeared, yet all of it remained a scam anyways. Just look at it. I tapped at the tabletop at some old gray-haired merchant's booth, and the screen with all the things he was selling appeared.
— Vigorwort three hundred solids a piece!? Are you fucking insane?! — said I to that senile guy.
He didn't answer, NPCs can't really keep up the dialog besides some prerecorded phrases, he just viciously smiled at me and fingered his white mustache. For God's sake, they made the entire game so damn well, made it feel absolutely astonishing, but they suddenly grew incredibly lazy when it came to making NPCs feel truly alive, comparing to every other aspect of development, instilling some kind of artificial intelligence into them so I could exchange a few nice words with these fucks, probably would be quick and effortless. Anyways, I bought five, fifteen hundred solids firmly spent.
Vigorwort was an herb you could freely forage out in the wilds, not really having a hard time finding it, it was pretty abundant, surely not worth the sum I bought it for. Appearance-wise, Vigorwort was your usual, real-world arugula, green, but instead of white, the leaf veins were the color of scarlet. The herb, when eaten, slightly raised status resistances and gave appreciable uplift to stamina regeneration, rendering you less chances getting stunned mid-fight.
Next up, three pieces of Spiced Rageboar Ribs, twelve hundred solids spent. This thing sounded like a delicacy at first, but when eaten, scorched the living hell out of the insides of your mouth, leaving your whole face blood-flushed for a few good minutes. I am somewhat exaggerating this, of course, but a level of discomfort was surely there. The ribs primarily raised overall physical attack damage, slightly boosted poise, and barely increased the attack potential, as for how much the weapon could cut through anything and not get stuck midway.
Charred Pine Bark Lumps, small tar-black boluses with a reek of burnt wood, each one cost a hundred apiece. I purchased ten, one thousand out of my pocket. These lumps for sure seemed nothing more than chunks of charcoal, but they were one of the most important items in the game at the moment. They were the only way currently to get rid of the poisoning debuff. Pretty much real-world activated carbon. The only alternative to using these boluses was trying to overheal the poison damage, drinking away all your healing supply in a wait for a debuff comedown, which was tragically impractical.
The last things to acquire were healing potions, none I found at the stalls, but with a quick look around about, a tablet, latching on the one of the houses' facades, caught my eye. A dull picture of a herb and a vial was engraved on the tablet, probably an alchemist's or herbman's or healer's abode it was.
The heavy wooden door, as most of them were, creaked and swept wide open before me. The herbal smell, the spicy fragrant reek immediately filled my nostrils, it was not unpleasant, quite the opposite, but this medley of shrilling aromas stirred me up none the worse than the stench of ammonia. Numerous shelves and cabinets stood along the perimeter of the shop's premise, on them, an uncountable array of vials, bottles, jars, and jugs were neatly organized. In them, thyme, cinnamon, vigorwort, agaric, rosemary, wood bark, firemint, tarragon, thundersage, and seemingly everything else growing and sprouting under the sun. The place was dimly lit, as all the windows there were draped almost shut with lime green curtains and entwined with pots of lush foliage standing before them. It felt uniquely welcoming, and the haze of aroma and dust filling this lodge from the floor to the ceiling I found somewhat pleasantly intoxicating. Right from the entrance stood a simple dark wooden stall, complete with the same arsenal of precious peculiar containers and a few flowery plants on top, behind it a young lady sat, dressed in a pleated rich red and blue gown, her long fluffy chestnut hair lying on her shoulders, with slim-framed round glasses trickling down slightly under her nose bridge. I strode closer to the stall, her eyes shifted onto my statue, and her high, gentle voice broke the silence.
— Greetings, traveler, what brings you here?
— A dire need of healing potions, ma'am. — I answered her.
No response came along, only a soulless stare of hers remained. I sighed inwardly, in my mind, and tapped the tabletop of the stall with my finger. The catalog showed up before my face, everything, every herb you could find in this place, was listed here. I scrolled the list down until I found a few excelling positions, a weak healing potion, a weak potion of regeneration, a weak arcane potion, and a weak potion of endurance, five hundred, four hundred, five hundred, and four hundred solids apiece, respectively. I purchased three healing potions and two potions of regeneration, a deal of twenty-three hundred solids. No need I had for the other two types for the reasons of my lack of use of sorceries and incantations, for stamina, vigorwort complied enough with my playstyle, and after this purchase I found myself completely broke with only a hundred solids and a cobweb remaining in my account. To the Lord I pray these five bottles of puny scarlet fluid would be enough to withstand the raid. All in all, the preparation for the dungeon dive of these poor-quality consumables set me financially back pretty harshly — six thousand solids, frankly speaking, down the drain. If only I had a few more spare hours and a focused mind, I would obtain much more, much better things for almost free of charge. There now lingered a murky obsession inside my brood for me to always be a full-on hundred percent aware of every and every other aspect of everything under the sun… this had never been a place for the lighthearted.
* * *
The entrance to the ominous Smoldering Depths stood right before me, the first raid dungeon people happened to stumble upon just a week ago, and here was I, standing beneath it, one in the not quite present band of twenty men first to take a glimpse at the earliest instance of true hardships this world would be offering us ad nauseam.
A ten-foot-tall arch of dark brown slate lining out a huge wall of fluid fiery red light, which was collapsing onto itself, flowing into the vortex set in its middle. The gates of doom, in all their glory, incut into the heavens-eclipsing wall of rock, the devilish ridge, which encircled the lower plains where we abode, creating a continent-long impasse, stumbling men's strive for the worldend. Yet hope of theirs persisted. This struggle would lead them to the other side of the ridge, they were assured, and there was I to witness it.
I tore off my gaze from the dungeon's entrance, turned and focused to the south, and found myself engulfed in shrilling hues of the melting skyline. The hills dissolved within meadows and valleys, all covered in golden weeds, greased with sunlight the color of rose water and honey stirred together, with rare patches of scarlet pulp, which were the wood groves scattered. The Aspen Gardens lay vast. Across and behind them, everything else, gloomy and shining, somber and bathed in sun, all of it of a thousand shades, but at the end of the scope, the sea firmed out, the ocean, and at its feet, the old town rose, enormous in front, yet from here, no larger than a dime. A month just passed by, it came to thought.
— Mesmerizing, isn't it? — a gentle, masculine voice resonated from behind my back.
My sight shifted right, in it stood a shining, radiant figure, dressed in an attire somewhat resembling that of mine, a chainmail, but with a breastplate, plated gloves, and metallic boots and with fabric the color of not black but ashen gray. Long and blond and wavy locks of silk-smooth hair hovered over the figure's wide shoulders. The golden mane, reachless in its ethereal luster, surrounded a soft, round, rouge face, in its midst, the eyes the color of the ocean depths sparkled, appraising my stature from feet to the head, and a subtle smile slightly trembling at its corners. One of the thick blond brows was raised above the other.
— I didn't scare you, didn't I? — once again, the enchanting voice echoed out from behind those neat rose lips.
— Uh… uh… no, no you didn't. — I stuttered, blinking rapidly a few times.
— Good! Umm… I don't actually know you, do I? I had never seen you before. Are you with the Strikers? — the man's head slightly tilted to the side, his lock swayed loose from his shoulders, and his finger was pointing at me.
— Uh… yes… no, no, no, I'm not. I'm unguilded actually. I'm Hennessey's friend, she invited me. She said you had a slot to fill up.
— Oh, so you're that plus one she was talking about. Interesting… hmm…
— Leer, the name.
— Baldwin, it is very nice to meet you, Leer.
His hand, covered in a shining gauntlet, gently reached to me in a fist. An act of peace and trust it was, an invitation for a fist bump. Accept it I did, I bumped my leather-gloved fist against his metal one. His smile glittered anew.
— Why are you here so early? — he asked.
— If there is anything good in me, it is my punctuality. Same question to you. — I answered plainly.
— Uh… Maybe to ease up a little bit, just prepare myself mentally, you know?
His torso turned to the the fiery gates, chin raised, hands on the belt, the eyes of his were piercing the blazing vortex.
— I'm a guildmaster, a leader, you know? I'm commanding people, I'm leading them, I'm responsible for them and their lives… I need to make them feel sure in me and in themselves, and then how is it gonna work if my own mind is in shambles, hmm? — he continued, gesturing out with his arms, his open palms and bent fingers steered to the sky, like he was holding some invisible orbs in his hands.
— Yeah, I know what you talking about.
He turned his face to me, with eyes wide open and that blond brow still higher than the other, and then he uttered:
— Oh… Were you a guildmaster yourself?
— Yeah, but not here, in the other game. Have you played WoY?
— Worlds of Yore? Yeah, for some time.
— Seventy-one men I had at my disposal. We were a good medium-sized guild. It sure was a less stressful deal in there than in here to lead a guild, so at least…
I narrated my thoughts and suddenly noticed how my hands were mimicking his previous gestures. I stood there, words flowing out of my mouth, and in my palms I held those same two invisible spheres.
— At least in WoY you knew what happened after you died…
— Yeah… at least in WoY you could fucking log out, ha.
We shared a quick laugh, his smile was beyond hypnotizing. I couldn't comprehend even the slightest bit why his looks and why his manners and mimics were so enchanting to me, especially after everything I heard people were saying about him behind his back, about his womanizer nature and short psychotic temper. Baldwin sure seemed to me not so simple of a man after all.
— Mmm… I actually wanted to ask you something. Do you have a hammer or mace or a club on you, or anything with striking damage really? — he asked.
— No, probably not. I auction off or sell mostly everything I loot, just… let me see — I swiped my two fingers amidst air and tapped upon my inventory tab — Anyways, why you ask?
— Oh, it's just a hunch, see… We're going into Smoldering Depths, so there is gonna be lava and stuff because it is called smoldering and it is in depths, so probably some rocky or scaly mobs or skeletons escpecially also gonna be there, hard guys, literally…
— So there is nothing better against them than something you can crush them with?
— Exactly. — the man smirked, snapping his fingers, his thumb and index ones molded into the shape of a handgun, aimed at me.
— Uhh… I only have a stout pick on me.
— It's okay, you really shouldn't worry, it is just a hunch anyways. Few of my guys play with maces, so we're all set in any case… — his voice dimmed slightly at the end of the sentence as he was slowly angling his stature, trying to take sight of something behind me. — Oh… speak of the devil… here they come! — the man shouted into the distance, pointing his finger at someone behind my back.
I turned my body against the clock and saw a small horde of players heading straight towards us, divided the band was in two. The first half was dressed alike and similar to the blond man standing at my side, plated armor they carried on themselves, or some of them wore chainmail, and all of them were coated in cloth and rags of white and gray. The rest were colorful, unridden with uniformity, in the midst of them was the blazing red flock of hair, which hovered above the cheerful gleaming face.
— Heyah! — the crimson beast waved at us, her arm stretched as far into the skies as it could.
Idly I waved back, some subtle, gentle warmth surfaced and spread across my chest.
The army of the few stood at our front, all of them roughly of the same height, all of them armed, but armed they were differently. A few held onto their weaponry in sheaths, some had it seated on their belts, others bore it on their shoulders. Longswords and shortswords, daggers… warhammers and maces a few of the men carried, as Baldwin said, halberds, waraxes, and hatchets, and some bows and shields here and there. A certain few of those cold steel remarked themselves out of an inert gush of successive metal, each with its own vista — a sword engraved with azure fringe, a poleaxe which edge swerved with a fiery glow, and a pole strapped with glossy scarlet flannel, a mace molded out of volcanic glass into the shape of a raging star, and an angular shield of iron simmered in the shades of bog and pine, etched with floral coils the color of tar — those outstanding pieces pertained to the rarities, alike the blade I procured the day before. Yet some men… and women held lustrous wooden staffs in their hands, those beams of shimmering timber jeweled with opalescing gemstones were catalysts for sorceries. A few others of the band hold onto talismans and seals strapped to their palms, miracle catalysts, those pieces of ivory cloth and tarnished iron were.
— Two… four… six… eight… — the man beside me began counting the heads in front — sixteen, eighteen, and… nineteen… Who are we missing? — he addressed the mass, examining with his eyes each of their faces.
— Airy went offline this morning. — a guy with that rare poleaxe, who stood in the front row, plainly delivered the news.
— Shit… Fucking great, we can't apply no poison then… without her, unless… — the first time it was I heard the man curse, it seemed not at all becoming for him, especially with his right foot vigorously pestering. — Maybe you guys have any poison weapons or spells on you? — He turned to Hennessey, with a fleeting scent of desperation shrouding his words. — We weren't very lucky with that. — he continued.
— No, not that I know of. — she answered calmly, her shoulders slightly shrugged.
His face now faced mine, a silent question of the same content came ringing in the air. I shook my head, and his cheerful visage, it seemed, melted away even more so. The poisonous dagger, the "Putrefied Viper Fang" securely reposed in a nook of my inventory, seized away from the purged scum.
— Uh… goddammit, never mind, let's not waste any more fucking time. — the man's stature suddenly ordered, his back set straight, hands hung on the belt, and face was bespoken to the crowd. — This dungeon… this dungeon is a dozen times greater in its size and difficulty than anything you happened to clear before! So, on account of that, I want to see pure due diligence from all of you… — His eyes scrolled and scanned around the crowd's faces — meticulous and thorough execution of my and Hennessey's orders, extreme attentiveness, prudence and caution, and everything that comes with that. Do you understand!?
— Yeah! — the crowd cheered almost in unison, each voice of different passion.
— Fucking A then! Assemble the raid! — Baldwin commanded the men, with his right arm raised to the heavens.