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--TheirWorld--

Inevitably, Tea’s hopes for his quest to be as simple as Zen’s went dashed as the group wandered the halls passed the golden hall of the catacombs — but it wasn’t awful. In fact, they had handled it rather well, Guin thought.

Though she hadn’t been paying attention to it, she dinged level 9 soon after the third or fourth round of skeletons, and was already a good ways to level 10. The experience from killing the monsters may have been shared, but she was so low level compared to them she was practically a sponge. Then at ten I can take the quest Amikavi put on my cloak...

“Stop daydreaming, Guin, on your left!” Athariel shouted.

The feeling of sharp cold grazed her as a Skeleton Warrior’s short sword grazed her arm as she pulled back. Ibraxis’s HoT quickly stitched the wound together in a green light as she moved into a defensive position, gripping her dagger.

Fighting in narrow halls was not her forte.

“Wahhh!” Tea came running back from the other side of the hall, shouting, “Two skeles, inc! Two skeles, inc!”

“I told you not to run that way!” Zen shouted back as he did a leg swipe to knock the warrior they were already dealing with off balance - in bad combination with Ath, as just seconds after her arrow went flying, now targetless as the skeleton struggled on the ground.

Ath stomped her foot. “You couldn’t have waited like, ten more seconds? I told you that shot has a ten second cast time!”

Punching the Skeleton Warriors head, breaking it into pieces, he answered, “I told you, your methods aren’t efficient.”

“They aren’t going to become efficient unless I get the chance to use them!” the blonde woman shouted.

“Uhh, guys?” Tea went meekly as the archer and the monk argued. “I-Incoming?”

As he shook his head, Ibraxis walked over and finished the Skeleton warrior off with a quick stomp on its spine. “What kind of skeletons?”

“Not more of these warriors I hope…” Guin grumbled.

“You are shit with that dagger,” Ibraxis noted. “In the future, you should probably look into… something else.

“Gee, thanks,” she muttered. “But using it again these things isn’t exactly the best way to display my talents.” He grunted.

“U-Uhhm,” Tea went, hugging his lute. “A warrior and a rouge. I think.”

Sighing heavily through his nostrils, Ibraxis asked, “How much further till your quest location?”

Ducking his head, the little garule answered, “I’m not really sure… I’ve never been this way before…”

“This seems… a little beyond a ‘C’ rank, doesn’t it?” Guin asked, looking down the hall from which she could hear the clattering of the skeletons echoing through. “Zen’s was much easier disproportionately so.”

“I am wondering if we may have taken a wrong turn somewhere,” Ibraxis scratched at his chin, then looked back at Ath and Zen, who were still fighting. “Are you two going to keep this bickering up all day, or do you want to fight the enemy before us?”

Though Zen glared, he took a rare moment to think before he spoke, and conceded. “Let’s do this…”

“Yes,” Ath grumbled. “If there is one thing that makes him happy it’s hitting things with his fists. That fixes everything.”

“You—”

“And I’m stopping this conversation here,” Guin put up her hands between them. Ath’s face was indignant, while Zen’s expression clouded over. “Put that negative energy out over there,” she pointed to where the skeletons finally jiggered over to save them from the awkward that had fallen on the team.

Without a word, Zen pushed forward toward them, shouting obscenities as he ran at them.

“If I hit you, I’m not sorry!” Ath called behind them.

Guin exchanged glances with the two garule, who stood on either side of her.

“D-Do we get involved in this?” Tea asked, his head tilting.

“...Every now and again, I am reminded of reasons I left home,” Ibraxis said, crossing his arms.

Tea snorted with laughter, “You think he lost that badly, huh?”

“What does that even mean?” Guin asked, raising an eyebrow.

Ibraxis yawned. “I am far too lazy — and tired — to lecture anyone anymore today. Come. The faster we finish these quests, the sooner we get to sleep!”

“What are you, an old man?” she asked, though she didn’t wait for him to respond as she ran forward toward the skeletons.

The hall afforded her very little room to maneuver, so she focused on using her [Dance], [Trip], and [Backstab] abilities to distract and mostly annoy the skeletons, mitigating the damage done to Zen as he served as a wall between Ath, Ibraxis, and Tea.

Getting through the hall involved a ew more skeletons and a few more mouse hordes, and Guin’s experience bar was getting nice and filled.

“What class are you going to take once you hit level ten?” Athariel asked as they entered a wide, dark chamber. The boys fanned out with torches to explore the ill-lit room, and Guin switched out her dagger in favor of her spear.

“I’m honestly not sure,” she chuckled nervously. “Most of the abilities I have are very rougish-based, but I am quite fond of my spear. I’ve also been considering magic classes. The Witch class looks like fun — but I’m not so keen on the outfits…”

Ath laughed, “Yeah. I have a friend who plays a Witch; she doesn’t really understand how they ended up the way that they did.”

“Who does, in games like these?” Guin smirked, looking down at her current attire of short shorts, worn, brown leather shoes, and a simple tank top. Her fox skin cloak was the most adventurer-like thing that she was wearing, and she couldn’t keep the hood up because she didn’t like how it restricted her vision.

Guin’s nose twitched, catching the sickly sweet scent of rot as she and Ath stepped further into the room. She tried to ignore it; it was a catacomb filled with dead and dying things after all. It was safe to assume that the whole place would have stank if it weren’t for the incense that seemed to burn from the torches.

Now, however, it had started to become overpowering.

She tried to ignore it, even as the hairs on the back of her neck began to stand.

“Goddess,” Ath went. “What’s that smell? Where is it coming from?”

Guin clamped her lips tight and struggled to maintain her breathing. She knew that her senses would adjust if she let them, but the smells in this game had always been too much for her. For a girl who could barely stand around people with perfume without going dizzy, smells of this potency served as a far greater detriment to her ability than any game-given trait she may or may not possess.

Her eyes fell on Zen, a few paces in front of them, freeze in his place. In the dim light, she caught his body visibly jerk and stumble back. Guin grabbed Ath’s arm and lightly tugged her back as they watched the monk turn and run back passed them, near the entrance of the hall they had come in from.

“Z-Zen?” Ath went, pulling herself out of Guin’s grasp as the they back over to him. He propped himself up against the wall, coughing, gagging, sputtering nonsense as Athariel rubbed his back. Her face was pale in the firelight.

So it’s not just my sensitivity, Guin noted, looking back into the room; but the strength of the smell was taking its toll on her, as the world warped, ever so slightly, at her quick movement. She let her eyes focus on one of the flickering torches along the walls to steady herself.

Catching movement out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Tea and Ibraxis were backing toward them slowly.

“Wha—,” She started to ask, but Ibraxis held a hand up, clenching into a fist as he glared at her, his head half cocked in her direction.

“Shh!” he went, placing a finger on his lips, hissing, “Back. Slowly. They haven’t noticed us yet. They are still docile.”

“Who are ‘they’?” Guin hissed back.

“We went the very, very wrong way,” he answered in warm tones, motioning her attention forward with his nose.

The room was mostly filled with shadows, but she could just make out what it was Ibraxis and Tea were being so careful about as they edged closer.

The corpses lurched slowly towards them, their limbs at awkward angles; shoulders limp, feet dragging. Though their eyes were clouded, shining like glass, their expression seemed oddly curious; seeking, probing as their mouths gaped like fish. Patches of movement across greyish flesh pronounced the presence of maggots, swarming on the rank feast they rode on. There were areas on each of the three Guin could see the pale color of bone where rotting flesh had been gnawed away. Purple and brown ichor glistened in the light, seeping out through every hole in the corpses’ bodies. Horrible splooshing sounds echoed with every movement.

Guin’s stomach churned, and her vision swam as the smell crashed over her in waves with each inch they got closer. “You. Have. Got. To be kidding me!” she muttered, as she took an uneasy step back. “Uh uh. Nope. Mmm…”

“It’s only some zombies,” Tea chuckled nervously. “Not too bad once you adjust to the smell…”

“And the sound. And the… sight,” Ath whimpered from just behind Guin.

“And the fact they are level 20,” Ibraxis mumbled.

“I mean,” Tea went. “Aren’t they kind of…. Cute?”

Guin narrowed her eyes at him. “I am starting to doubt your tastes…”

“And his sanity,” Ibraxis added as he moved further back toward them. “Ath, get Zen up and slowly — quietly — head back into the hall.”

“Huh?” Zen went, staggering toward them at his name. “What the hell —”

“Shut up!” Ibraxis snapped, a bit too loudly. The Zombies perked up. “Mother Mountain from which I came…”

Instantly, the zombies straightened up, through their limbs were still at awkward angles. They hummed a dull ‘huuuuuu’ that grew into a hungry growl. The one in front lifted its hand toward them, bones protruding from its fingertips like claws. Frozen, Guin waited for someone to act, but no one did, and she watched as one of the creatures fell in closer.

“Hhuuuuuuuun…,” it breathed out, the putrid stench of its breath washing over them as it stepped forward. Guin felt her body sway, and she summoned out her spear, more for its use as a crutch than as a weapon. “Hhhhuuuuunnnnn…..Guhh… Guhhhhh…. Hunnnnguuu — UURY!” The creature’s face turned sharp as it screamed; Its jaw dropping unnaturally wide as it unhinged like a snake. It charged forward, moving faster than Guin thought it could — but it could have simply been the state of her condition. She saw Ibraxis dodge out of the way as she went to step back — but she tripped over her own two feet, falling back to the ground.

“Tea!” she heard Ibraxis shout, and Guin’s eyes snapped to where Tea was standing, seemingly fascinated by the horrific creatures as they rushed toward him.

Clenching her teeth, Guin took her spear and went to whack the smaller blue garule on the leg to break his apparent daze. She wasn’t fast enough, and instead ended up watching in horror as Tea was knocked beneath the leading wretch. Scrambling to her feet, Guin took her spear in hand, stabbing at the creature in the head with an unsettling squelch.

The zombie reared up with a screech, and Tea squirmed out from under it.

“Not cute!” Tea shouted, scrambling to hide behind Guin. “Not cute at all!”

The zombie quieted and grabbed the spear lodged in its skull. It stared at her. Her vision swimming, and her stomach twisting, Guin tried to pull her spear out. It wouldn’t budge.

“Hungry?” it went, jerking the spear head out all on its own. Guin yelped and stabbed at it again — this time, though, losing her balance and falling to the ground. A loud crack resounded through the room as she tried to break her fall with her spear. She watched as brown and yellow seepage dripped onto her hand, her body freezing over. Looking up, the zombie looked at her. “Huungry?” it asked her.

“G-Guin…” Tea whimpered behind her.

They had gone the very wrong way indeed.