When their vision cleared, their eyes were exposed to a disturbing landscape around them.

An island dotted with hills of corpses, writhing trees which oozed blood and puss.

The ground itself was littered with all sorts of insects and traps; there was broken glass, daggers, razors, syringes, beartraps, brandless building blocks and more.

JohnWillStab felt a shiver at the thought of being in this hellscape in person.

“This must be an illusion created by the boss… what do we do…” he thought.

JohnWillStab looked around, seeing none of his party members.

“JohnWillStab: Hello?!”

“JohnWillStab: Anybody?!”

JohnWillStab looked up and saw the sky was pitch black except for the massive eyes that looked down on him.

In the distance, John could see a lighthouse sticking out from what looked like a beach located near the edge of the island they were on.

“Arch-Coward: Gaze upon an invisible reality!” muttered one of the spectres from before, its cloak was a dark green colour, in its hand was a cage carrying a small, skeletal bird.

It stood a fair distance away from JohnWillStab, behind one of the flesh-trees.

John spun around to face the creature, prompting it to flee.

“I bet if I kill it, I’ll be able to leave this illusion…” he thought, drawing his daggers.

Seeing this, the arch-coward began to shiver as it ran off into the demonic forest.

“JohnWillStab: Get back here, as#*ole!” he exclaimed breaking into a sprint after the vulture-like creature.

As John ran off into the distance woods, doing his best not to lose a leg to any of the traps, XxFoxlyxX was travelling along one of the beaches of the island.

“XxFoxlyxX: I DON’T LIKE THIS!” he exclaimed turning his camera around to see an old, rickety scarecrow standing behind him.

The scarecrow’s head was a sack with a painted-on face.

Foxly looked forward and took a few steps before turning back only to see that the scarecrow moved after him.

Its face was now a “:|“

Foxly ran forward for a few seconds, he looked back and saw the scarecrow was already only a meter or two away from him.

Its face was a “:-)”.

XxFoxlyxX clenched his fists.

“XxFoxlyxX: STOP FOLLOWING ME!”

Without saying anything else, XxFoxlyxX stomped forward.

As he walked, he could hear the single, wooden leg dragging its way through the sand as the scarecrow slowly followed him.

He spun around, seeing the scarecrow was about three meters away and angled towards the sea with a “o_o” painted on its face.

“XxFoxlyxX: Stop acting innocent! I know you’re still following me!”

“:O”

“XxFoxlyxX: OF COURSE I NOTICED! YOU’RE LEAVING A TRAIL IN THE SAND!” he cried, pointing to the long line stretching from the abandoned farm to the scarecrow’s current spot.

“:(”

“XxFoxlyxX: …”

The scarecrow turned away from XxFoxlyxX and bent down towards the ground.

“XxFoxlyxX: Come on… you didn’t really think I’d be afraid of a scarecrow… I’m not a kid…”

“;(”

“XxFoxlyxX: A-are you crying?”

The scarecrow shook its entire body, its face never changed.

“XxFoxlyxX: …”

“XxFoxlyxX: I feel kind of bad…”

“T_T”

Foxly breathed a sigh.

“XxFoxlyxX: Fine… if you really want to, you can follow me around…” he relented.

The scarecrow turned to face him.

“:0”

“XxFoxlyxX: I said you can follow me if you really want to…” he repeated with slumped shoulders.

“:D“

XxFoxlyxX cracked a smile.

“XxFoxlyxX: But no funny business! No backstabbing or any other kind of stabbing!” he warned.

“:)” It nodded with its entire body.

The two headed further along the beach in hopes of meeting up with another team member at the lighthouse.

Across the island, in the large, ruined town stood Bonifacius.

“Bonifacius: Hello?” he called out, travelling through the empty streets and alleys.

“Bonifacius: JohnWillStab?”

He tried to enter his private messages but they were blocked, they had no way of communicating without meeting up.

“Bonifacius: How unfortunate…”

Bonifacius made his way out to what looked like a courtyard, the cobblestone ground was littered with broken crates, dropped weapons, abandoned carts and stalls filled with ancient, rotten fruits and vegetables.

Bonifacius searched the area for any allies or foes until he came across the small well, above which an arch-coward levitated.

It looked larger than the others, in its hand was a steel crate which trashed violently as if some terrifying best hid within.

“Bonifacius: There you are, creature of darkness!” he exclaimed.

He ran up to the spectre.

Realising it didn’t move, he clicked on it and initiated a dialogue window.

“Arch-Coward: Mortal…”

“Bonifacius: YES! Tis me, Bonifacius!” he exclaimed boldly.

“Arch-Coward: Mmm… I’m not ready to fight just yet…” it turned away from Bonifacius and began slowly drifting away.

“Bonifacius: If thou wish to remain unharmed, thou need but release my friends and I!” he exclaimed; his offer was ignored by the coward.

The creature didn’t react, it passed through the walls of a building with no visible doors.

After circling the building and seeing no other way in, Bonifacius charged into the wall, shattering it.

As soon as the dust disappeared, he noticed the small creature that lay on the ground.

It was a dying dog with a chunk of the wall Bonifacius smashed through laying in its gaping gut-wound.

“Bonifacius: My apologies!” he exclaimed.

Bonifacius reached into his inventory in search of any healing items he knew he didn’t have.

The room was completely barren except for the dog, what was a dog doing in a closed, doorless, windowless room.

“Arch-Coward: Mmm… I’m not ready to fight just yet…”

He turned to the wall which he saw the arch-coward phase through once more.

“Tis all part of this trail… yet I wish I could approach the issue differently…” he remarked.

Bonifacius charged into the next room, seeing that this time his wall-shattering entrance resulted in the death of an old woman, who was just sitting by the fire and drinking a cup of tea.

“Bonifacius: OH NO!”

Seeing that there was nothing else he could do, Bonifacius looked at the ghost moving into another room.

“Arch-Coward: Mmm… I’m not ready to fight just yet…”

“Bonifacius: I SHALL AVENGE THEE, DOG AND OLD WOMAN!” he exclaimed charging towards the next wall.

When he smashed through it, he noticed a that he was once again outside.

“Phew… I was worried something bad would happen agai-” his thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a collection of domino-like wall he didn’t see before, walls that began collapsing one after the other towards a large building.

Bonifacius focused his eyes on the wooden sign above its door reading: “Orphanage”

Before he could react, the final domino fell onto the building, lightly cracking the wall but otherwise not having any effect.

BOOM!

Suddenly it erupted into flames as chunks or orphans and puppies rained down onto the town.

“WHAT IS THIS?!” he demanded, looking absolutely horrified.

Seeing the spectre moving towards another building, Bonifacius sat down.

“Bonifacius: I see what thou are doing!” he exclaimed.

“Bonifacius: If thou need my aid to cause evil, I shan’t move from this very spot!” he exclaimed.

The arch-coward shrugged listlessly before it continued to the next building.

That’s when Bonifacius noticed the piece of burning shrapnel land atop the nearby building.

Slowly the fire spread as within mere moments, the whole structure was engulfed in fire.

Bonifacius sat still, unmoved by the act of divine - or perhaps demonic, arson.

Suddenly a scream came from within the fire-filled building.

“Blood Donor: Oh no! I’m on fire! If only somebody could have stopped this fire so my donated blood could go to the ill children in the orphanage next door!” he exclaimed as the building exploded.

Bonifacius began to sweat.

“WHAT IS THIS NIGHTHMARE?!”

Suddenly, from one of the as-of-yet not burning building, ran out a child.

“Child: Father!” he exclaimed, falling to his knees before the burning building.

“Blood Donor: Son? Is that you? I can’t tell because my face is melting because of this preventable fire!” he replied.

“Child: Somebody! Anybody! Please save my father!”

Knowing that this was still a trap, Bonifacius sat on the ground motionless.

“Child: …”

“Child (Orphan): …”

“TIS TAKING THINGS TOO FAR!” Bonifacius jumped to his feet only for the child to burst into flames and then explode into gruesome chunks.

“Bonifacius: …”

Bonifacius stood there, mouth agape, with a look of utter dread.

Meanwhile, the healer of the group, ♛, was wandering through the forest near the centre of the island.

“♛: I hope they figured out they need to kill the arch-cowards… I really should have told them about it earlier, but I forgot…”

She breathed a sigh.

“♛: I mean, it’s been a while since I’ve done this dungeon…”

She looked around and spotted the ghastly spectre hovering about two meters above the ground.

Surrounding them was a dense maze of trees with twisted branches that had bones and hanging bodies dangling down like macabre windchimes.

“Arch-Coward: Frogwoman…” it remarked.

Its cloak was a white colour, with patches of other colour sewn in, it carried a glass vial within which was a small chameleon suspended in liquid.

Immediately, it was forced to dodge a flurry of projectiles.

♛ cast [Fairy Flies] at the apparition, from her hand flew a swarm of neon-green insects that bit and stung anything they touched.

Unluckily for ♛, the creature was swift and dodged the attacks without any problems.

“♛: Stay still!”

Seeing that her mana was getting low, ♛ used her cheating software to set her mana value to one-hundred percent.

She targeted the creature and used her [Nature’s Binding] spell to use roots and vines which manifested from the bark of the nearby trees to hold the arch-coward still.

Much like before, it simply flew out of its living cage.

“Shit…”

“Arch-Coward: Leave me alone…”

“♛: THE F#*K I WILL!”

Seeing no end to the magical assault, the spectre simply began to flee.

It didn’t take long for ♛ to lose sight of the creature in the thick fog and labyrinth-like forest.

“JohnWillStab: Hello?!” he called out, dagger in hand.

♛ jumped through a patch of thorny bushes with scraps of decaying skin hanging off its branches like trophies.

Immediately she could spot the pale undead facing away from her.

“♛: John?”

He spun around.

“JohnWillStab: Oh s#*t! Crown!”

She looked at him suspiciously.

“♛: What are you doing here?” she questioned.

“JohnWillStab: I followed one of those arch-cowards and got lost.” He explained.

♛ nodded uncertainly.

“That’s not him…” she thought.

“It’s talking normally… no dialogue box or anything… but it could just be scanning my messages for keywords like ‘why’ or ‘where’…” she thought.

“Still… I should make sure… Can’t have them getting suspicious before the third boss…”

“♛: Hey, mind answering a quick question for me?” she began.

“JohnWillStab: Sure,” he shrugged.

“♛: √25”

“JohnWillStab: …”

JohnWillStab looked at what he assumed as some sort of ancient glyph sent to him.

He was beginning to sweat in real life.

“The fuck is that?”

“A tick? A correct twenty-five?”

“…”

His face lit up.

“OH! I get it! It’s like one of those maths jokes maths-people tell each other that nobody else gets!”

“She’s trying to lighten the mood!”

It is important to keep in mind, JohnWillStab has not graduated from high school, or your local equivalent of a high school.

His maths skills were terrible at best.

“JohnWillStab: Aha, yes, haha!”

“♛: …”

♛ scratched her chin.

“He’s an idiot like the original… but what if… what if he’s just a very convincing copy?”

She looked at him curiously, much to John’s confusion.

John had no idea what was going on, he finally met up with a party member only for her to act so strange.

“It is a horror-island… maybe it’s an NPC pretending to be her?” he thought.

“…I could kill her and check…”

“Nah… She’s not talking inside that NPC dialogue menu…”

John didn’t entertain such a far-fetched idea for long.

In such a hard time, he decided to turn to the nicest person he could think of.

“Mmm… what would Bonifacius say?”

After a few seconds of getting into the Bonifacius mindset, JohnWillStab understood her behaviour perfectly.

“She’s spooked by this zone! I guess she’s not so tough after all!” he thought, realizing this, John grinned from ear to ear.

JohnWillStab turned to ♛ with an expression of pity.

“JohnWillStab: Fear not! Let’s go find the others!”

♛’s expression was that of confusion and disgust.

“IT MIXED UP THE JOHNWILLSTAB AND BONIFACIUS SPEECH!” she realized.

“IT’S SO OBVIOUSLY A BOT!”

Just as she was about to attack the creature, she remembered something.

The last time she was in this dungeon, they were stuck fighting these arch-cowards off for ages.

Each individual coward had its own solution.

“It has to meet the original!” she thought, remembering the solution her group figured out in the past.

“As soon as this fake meets the real John, it’ll disappear!”

A smug smile spread across her face in real life as a plan began to hatch in her brain.

A polite smile spread across her in-game self.

“♛: Alright! You lead the way!”

The two travelled with a feeling of uneasy peace, no insults, no desperate pleading for safety, just a nice stroll.

“XxFoxlyxX: What the fuck is going on?!” he demanded.

XxFoxlyxX knelt behind a spiky bush with the scarecrow that followed him all the way from the beach.

“:|”

As always, the scarecrow didn’t say a word, instead, a picture appeared on its face, representing its mood.

XxFoxlyxX looked at the face and interpreted it to mean “Is it really that weird?”

“XxFoxlyxX: Trust me, it is weird!”

“XxFoxlyxX: Those two never get along… I find it hard to believe ♛ would become all nice in fifteen minutes!” he said, turning back to ♛ and John.

“XxFoxlyxX: I have no idea what could be wrong though…”

The Scarecrow took a second to process what XxFoxlyxX was implying.

“o_O?”

Foxly turned to see the scarecrow’s expression only to suddenly be struck with a fit of laughter.

“XxFoxlyxX: AS F#*KING IF!” he fell to the ground gasping for air.

“:)”

After a few more seconds of hysterical laughter, XxFoxlyxX got back up and wiped a single tear from his eye.

“XxFoxlyxX: Heh…”

“XD”

Still wearing a smile, Foxly turned to where JohnWillStab and ♛ were only moments before.

“XxFoxlyxX: Alright, let’s follow them…” he suggested.

The scarecrow didn’t reply as XxFoxlyxX began his pursuit.

Not hearing the sound of the scarecrow moving behind him, XxFoxlyxX turned around and saw the shape of a massive wolf with red, bulging eyes that beamed ray of light onto its target, the seal-using frogman.

In an instant, the wolf lunged at Foxly, moments before the frogman could become additional scenery on the nightmare island, the scarecrow leapt in to block the wolf.

“XxFoxlyxX: SACRECROW!” he exclaimed.

The wooden creature snapped in two under the colossal weight of the wolf’s maw.

Foxly used one of his seal to ignite the demonic creature, it panicked.

The wolf charged at Foxly in a frenzy only to be penetrated by a massive spike of ice, flying straight through the creature’s mouth and out it’s rear.

With his mana nearing five percent, Foxly reached into his inventory and took out a potion of mana regeneration.

JohnWillStab and ♛ travelled down the gentle slope of the island towards the beach.

“JohnWillStab: This place sure looks edgy!” he remarked, trying to start a conversation.

“♛: Yup.”

She walked with the same blank smile.

John breathed a sigh in real life.

“She’s really not cooperating… Did I piss her off already?”

“JohnWillStab: The weather sure is nice!” he remarked, looking up to the overcast mess of a skybox above.

“♛: Yup.”

“COME ON! WORK WITH ME!” John pleaded internally.

“JohnWillStab: So… I heard you’re a druid, how’s that working out?”

“♛: Ok.”

JohnWillStab was seriously considering giving up and walking in silence.

“HOW FUCKING TALKATIVE IS THIS NPC!?” ♛ thought, desperately looking around for the real JohnWillStab.

A wild gust of wind spread across the forest as the earth began to tremble.

JohnWillStab, XxFoxlyxX and ♛ saw the black trail of smoke that spiralled up into the sky, at a certain altitude, it burst into violet flames, like a hellish firework.

“Somebody killed one!” ♛ thought, looking to the particles in the sky like a flair telling her where to look for another party member.

She looked to JohnWillStab with the same, blank smile as before.

“♛: Let’s go there.” She instructed.

“JohnWillStab: OF COURSE!”

“Finally! She said something! THE SILENCE HAS ENDED!”

“JohnWillStab: Why are we going there anyway?” he asked eagerly.

♛ shrugged.

“♛: Just cause…”

JohnWillStab didn’t reply, waiting for her to elaborate, when no reply came, he finally spoke up himself.

“JohnWillStab: Oh…”

“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”

The one who defeated the first arch-coward was Bonifacius.

He stood, blade in hand, in a burning city, some building were flooded, others collapsed, some exploded, others were cut into oddly-even slices.

Around him lay dozens of dead NPCs.

His predicament of directly or indirectly causing harm to innocents spiralled out of control, until he simply decided to put an end to the ghastly creature haunting him no matter the cost.

“Tis over…” he thought, breathing a sigh.

Bonifacius stood up and gazed into the sky to see the falling sparks from the defeated arch-coward.

“Perhaps I should remain here, the others may have seen the creature’s death.” He thought, turning back to one of the collapsed buildings.

He sat down on a cracked staircase and awaited his party, occasionally calling out things like “Can anybody hear me?!” or “I am here, friends!”.