2:00pm, The Twenty-Sixth Day

“That’s quite the tale.”

Our new acquaintance shifted uncomfortably under our attention. She was shorter than me, though not egregiously so, and her long blonde hair almost making it to her waist bound with a hair tie. Her thick eyebrows and angled eyes made her look overly serious and calculating outward appearance, though from what I caught of the battle with the dryad I wasn’t sure how true that actually was. The sword and dagger scabbards hanging at her hip looked expensive, but none of the rest of her equipment seemed to match as she wore only an embroidered red cloak over a thick coat and simple clothes. She seemed to be optimized for speed and power, a reckless choice given the current popular opinions about respawning.

All of us sat around a small fire as we ate small strips of meat the mage had cooked up. I sat across the sputtering fire from Pao while Svite sat next to an injured Kyoura reading the in-game manual for the medical kit while she fidgeted. Artel had disappeared right after the fight while talking about patrolling the forest around.

“And so you went all by yourself?” Svite looked up at Pao. “Going to Shardin by yourself would be tantamount to suicide.”

“That last scuffle was a fluke.” Pao said defensively. “I was about to get out of it fine anyway.”

“Don’t get me wrong Pao, I mean I saw how you fought the earlier two.” Kyo said. “But ya really shouldn’t leave Paelgard by yourself. Everyone’s stronger together, ya know?”

“I didn’t really have a choice. The time window was too short to wait out the storm completely, and I couldn’t get anyone else strong enough for Shardin to come with. The storm only let up today, and I’m not even sure if it will stay that way.”

“Then why don’t we go with ya?” Kyo asked helpfully. “We just got through Stonepit, I’m sure we’d be able to handle Shardin.”

“Do you not remember what just happened Kyoura?” The mage scolded. “You have a major injury from going down, we have to get you back to Paelgard as soon as we can.”

“Awww come on, don’t be like that. Didn’t the manual just say it was constant damage? Don’t you have a healing spell? We wouldn’t even have to waste potions if you stayed with me!”

The mage glared at her before responding. “I’d have to stay up every time you slept to heal that, and what would you do when I finally sleep?” He shook his head resolutely. “We’ll be burning supplies each night until we get back.”

Kyo bit her lip before turning to Svite. “We can’t just let her go by herself though, can we?” She leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. “I mean, ya all saw how she handled that dryad.”

“You know I can hear you right?”

Svite looked pained, obviously wanting to help. “I guess we might be able to split up...:”

“How would we do that?” The mage refuted. “I’ll need to stay with Kyoura, and I’ll definitely want an uninjured melee fighter with me, the only one among us being you.” He glanced at me. “Well equipped one at least.”

I crossed my arms as I considered our options. The mage was right in that we’d need most of the party to go back to make sure Kyo got back safely, especially with how weak the injuries made her. One possibility was that Artel and I could go with Pao, but then again I wasn’t sure if only Svite and the mage would be enough. More selfishly I definitely didn’t want her to get carried up in some long plot again. We couldn’t just leave Pao to go by herself though, and we definitely couldn’t let her fail if three lives were on the line.That left only one option.

“You aren’t looking to clear it right?” I finally asked.

“Hans…” Svite said softly.

“Just looking for the captives.” Pao confirmed. “I’m not crazy enough to think I can take on a dungeon boss by myself.”

“Then how about I go alone?” I turned towards the others. “I wouldn’t be too much help getting home anyway.”

“I can’t make you do that.” Svite began.

“You won’t be making me, I volunteer for it.” I straightened my coat. “It's only a little bit away from here anyway.”

Svite didn’t answer, a more concerned expression on his face than I would’ve thought. The mage nodded in agreement, though he didn’t look particularly happy about it. Kyo only raised her eyebrows critically.

“Yu’re only armed with a dagger Hans.” Kyo said. “A borrowed dagger I might add.”

“You know I use the glyphs more Kyo.” I said. “We wouldn’t be working on killing bosses, and weren’t you just telling me yesterday how good I was at surviving?”

“That was different, you’re talking about an entire dungeon!” Kyo objected. “You were stuck in Stonepit for almost a month straight! Are you sure you want to dive into another?”

“Shardin is reputed to be nowhere near as long as Stonepit. It’s not even officially a dungeon.” I responded calmly. “And I could ask the same of you. Weren’t you just in Stonepit for almost a week?”

Kyo looked away, unable to come up with more arguments. The campfire fell into silence as I looked from each one. Finally Pao stood up and nodded at me.

“Another person’s fine with me, but we’ll need to leave as soon as we can.” Pao said. “I’ll handle the supplies: I should have enough for five if we don’t take longer than a week or so.”

I nodded as I stood up, everyone else following. For a few short minutes we exchanged limited supplies and goodbyes as Pao waited by the forest clearing. At one point Kyo walked up to me.

“Ya better bring that dagger back to me personally.” Kyo said, worry evident on her face. “It cost me like twenty soler.”

“Why doubt me now? I’ll be back before the end of the next week.”

“I’ll be counting on it.”

Svite and the mage shook my hand as I turned to leave, Svite offering good luck while the mage handed me a small parcel of dried meat smelling of bacon.

“We’ll wait to celebrate until you get back to Paelgard.” Svite promised. “So don’t be too late.”

“Wouldn’t dream about it.” I gave him a regretful smile. “Don’t let Artel leave you guys, alright?”

Svite looked taken aback as he looked around before suddenly looking to understand. “Right, I’ll tell her when she gets back from patrol.”

Then with a wave I turned to leave with Pao, the fire disappearing behind trees behind me. As the silence returned I thought back on my three new companions, committing each of their faces to memory.

I still don’t know the mage’s name.

…

We ran through the forest silently after a quick exchange of skills and equipment. Thankfully we both had Stealth equipped, so we made good time without getting into any ambushes or fights. I was thankful that I had experience running like this from my time in Stonepit as Pao didn’t let up, not even a little. Instead she pointed straight at her goal like a loose arrow, never slowing or deviating from her prescribed course.

The forest pines got thicker as we came into the older grounds of the forest, their trunks eventually becoming wider than I was with arms outstretched. As we started to reach the inner forest, the trees became too clustered to run through, and we were forced to slow as so to avoid unwanted attention. A mist began to coalesce around the pines until we were wreathed in fog and darkness from the extensive canopy. The atmosphere took on an eerie note as imagined malign sounds echoed around the forest paths while darting shadows danced in the snow around us leaving only their still tracks when approached.

The sounds grew louder as we stole further down the increasingly dim trail, until they reached an almost tempestuous screaming which left me thoroughly unnerved despite what I told myself. Even Pao was affected, her earlier cold demeanor cracking as she began to paranoidly scan the surroundings in a constant search. Though as we continued I began to doubt that her actions were entirely in the realm of overreaction.

Suddenly Pao stopped ahead of me and crouched down, causing me to do so immediately.

“At least two monsters nearby.” She whispered.

“What direction?” With the cacophony around us I couldn’t begin to guess how she knew they were close, for the sounds seemed to come from everywhere at the same time.

“No idea, but listen to the sounds.” She said seriously.

How could I do anything else? I tried to listen to the sounds, to differentiate them from each other somehow. Crow calls, cat screeches, and titanic roars filled the air. They just sound like screaming… Wait. Something wasn’t right about the noise. As I listened the sounds seemed to all flow simultaneously as if they all came from the same pair of lungs despite the apparent differences. Even further, it sounded like there were two distinct compilations of screams which changed in pitch and volume at the same time.

“Is all this sound coming from two creatures?”

She nodded. “I can’t pin down the directions though, it doesn’t really sound like they are coming from distinct directions.”

“Do you think they can throw their voice?” I asked. “Or voices I guess.”

“Shhh.” Pao put a finger up, drawing her sword with her other hand. “They are close.”

We waited along the trail and listened, trying to pinpoint exactly where they were coming from. It didn’t take long until I glimpsed a bush rustling in front of me, but when I went to nudge Pao she grabbed my shoulder to point out another disturbance behind me. Two shadowed shapes stalked out of the underbrush.

Clad in a mantle of dry grass and twig, I couldn’t quite decide if the wolves surrounding us were entirely natural looking like the wolves that stalked the snow plains around the city. In most other aspects they were normal giant wolves with the usual accompanying claws and fangs, but in some parts they seemed to differ slightly. Their face in particular looked off in that grass lay over the eyes blocking peripheral vision while the snout lay shorter and stouter on the front than normal. As they approached from both sides their tails flicked from side to side as the voices and screams around us took on a more vicious bent consisting of barks and gargles.

“Mystery solved.” I shouted over the din. “One each?”

Pao nodded a second before dashing towards the one closest to her, closing the gap in mere seconds. After watching her jump into the air I turned back to mine as it approached menacingly.

Flourishing my dagger as I walked towards it calmly, I began to draw the standard [Air Ward]. The wolf charged as I made it into a certain distance and I released the glyph, letting the wolf slam into the small shield as I fashioned another [Trap Glyph] in front of the stunned dog. As it exploded I jumped into action, quickly flicking my dagger across the stunned wolf to chip up as much damage as possible.

As soon as it resolved the hay-shod monster jumped back warily, the screams and howls around me turning into yelps and wing flaps. I continued to calmly approach as it backed away slowly before it eventually turned to run back where it had come from.

“Huh…” I watched it dart through the trees, the cacophony around me dying away. Suddenly I realized that both were gone and looking behind me to find Pao standing over a bonfire. Before long she looked up and beaconed me over, and I went over sighing.

“They burn easily.” She said simply before the blaze.

“I see that.”

“I’m kind of disappointed really.” She shook her head solemnly. “Elin and your group were hyping up this forest way too much.”

“Don’t get too confident.” I warned. “We only just entered.”

“Come on Honsol, those things went down in a single hit.” She snorted. “We might actually be overleveled for this.”

She looked around the fire as it slowly died before turning back towards the road. Watching as she disappeared into the forest, I felt a sudden chill run down my back, as if some secret flag had been tripped. Shrugging the feeling away I followed after her into the trees.

…

My ears rang as I pulled my dagger out of another wolf and tiredly jumped backwards as it dissolved. Around me fourteen tiny piles of furs marked the graves of the pack that had assaulted us. Besides me Pao sat against a tree panting heavily, red gashes all over her avatar and her own verifiable graveyard of wolfskin in front.

Finally giving into exhaustion I fell to my back and closed my eyes to catch my breath. For a solid minute we lay there hoping nothing else came by to finish us off.

Holy Hell. I thought as my breathing began to stabilize. How many wolves are there in this godforsaken wood?

That had been the twenty-first pack that had assaulted us since we had crossed a stream only an hour ago. Every time we had downed another and continued our march more had come screaming onto our path, each one seemingly larger and louder than the one before. The last eight attacks had even overlapped with each other, the end result being an almost fifteen minute long fight leaving us exhausted and battered.

“I’m… o... ry…” Pao said between pants.

“What?” The ringing in my ears continued to drown out the sounds around me.

“I’m sorry!” She shouted. “I jinxed it!”

I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of that, but only managed a few weezing chuckles. Eventually I sat up against a nearby fallen log entirely physically recovered, but I didn’t stand up; such was my mental fatigue. Pao did the same, only managing a faint curse when the bushes began to rustle in front of us again.

“I was going to save the rest of these for the actual dungeon.” Pao said as she rifled through her sidebag. “But I honestly don’t care anymore.”

She threw a bomb, and I lazily tracked it through the air as it sailed directly into the offending bushes, bursting into a wide splash of fire. Yelping ensued as a flaming form dashed panickedly towards us, setting the grass behind it on fire as it ran before the wolf dissolved.

We watched as another wolf strode into the clearing, stopping clear of the flames between us and barking at the smoke in fear. Scared of a little smoke eh? As the wolf continued to bark at the billows of black clouds an idea began to form in my mind.

“Think we can just jump from tree to tree?” Pao glared at the wolves across the flames “Or set the whole forest on fire?”

“That’d probably kill us too.” I opened my menu and navigated to the skills page, clicking of Glyphwork.

“Yeah but it’d kill a crapton of them first.” Pao shouted over the din. “I think that’d be a good trade.”

I tapped on the level sixteen pop up and looked over my options again. The same two options of [Lesser Augment] and [Smoke Ward] appeared. I made to tap on [Lesser Augment], but as the confirmation pop up appeared a certain conversation I had in the beta came to mind, and I declined to select [Smoke Ward] instead. A small window explaining the mechanics apperated into view under my health bar and I blinked it away.

“I’m just saying I think it might actually be our duty to purge this place, so that no one has to…”

I drew the glyph towards Pao as she shouted, and a faint purple letter crackled into the air.

“Wait what are you…”

I waved my hand in front of the glyph to trigger it, and instantly a thick column of smoke blasted out towards Pao, leaving her covered in a thick layer of soot and ash. She blinked the dust out of her eyes as she stared at me without emotion for a second before her thick brow furrowed into a glare.

“What the hell was that for.”

Without explaining I drew the glyph in front of me as well, only backwards so that the blasting end faced towards me. Closing my eyes as the billow of smoke showered over me, the strong smell of fire and smoke entered my nostrils.

"Ah so you’ve lost it.”

I got up to walk towards the rapidly dying fire where the wolves sat. At first they began to charge, but peeled off as they caught the strong smell of smoke upon me. Their faces quickly changed to display horror and fear as they turned tail to run, and the horrible cries and barks quickly died with their departure.

I turned to face Pao with a grin on my face. I must look like a maniac. I thought as a few crumbles of ash fell off my face. I had learned that little trick in the beta, where someone had told me about the average woodland creature’s fear of smoke and the explosive nature of [Smoke Ward]. I wasn’t sure if it would work on the larger and more aggressive monsters such as these wolves, but I had figured it would at least mask our smell if anything. Thankfully however it had worked far better than even I had anticipated.

Pao stared at me wide-eyed for a second before she nodded and stood up.

“I’ll forgive you this time, but don’t do it again.”

I laughed as I jogged up beside her and we continued our stroll towards the glade.

“Can’t promise anything!”