The sound, or lack of sound, of the forest wasn't creepy until I realized there was something wrong. Then it was as if I was seeing the forest in a whole new light. Well, a darkness that made everthing look strange. There were no shadows, and nothing moved. I started to feel like I was in a horror movie around the time the main character realizes she's in a bad situation. I expected something to start screeching, or to see shadows moving around, or something equally horror movie themed. But nothing happened. I was alone in a dark forest. Surrounded by dark trees. Smothered in silence.

 I probably stood in the forest for a few minutes before I felt comfortable moving in the direction I saw light. I was pretty sure if a monster was going to eat me it would have already done it, so even though I still felt uncomfortable I was able to overcome my fear. At least the paralyzing part of it. I was still on high alert, scanning every direction. My head and eyes didn't stop moving, and just to be safe, I would randomly turn around to make sure nothing was following me.

Walking like that was tiring and after what felt like hours, I decided to stop. My legs were getting sore, and I just wanted to sit down for a short moment. So I picked a thick looking tree and after examining every part of it (that I could reach) I sat down with my back to the tree. I still paid attention to everything around me, but I was able to stretch out my legs, and get my weight of my feet. Plus I didn't have to worry about what was behind me. Nothing could sneak up on me through a tree. That I knew of.

I only sat there for a few minutes, but it was enough to renew my energy. Before I headed off, I decided to climb the tree. I wanted to get an idea of where the lights of the city were and it made sense that I might be able to see them from the top of a tree. I didn't waste any time with actually climbing the tree though. I just used Shadow Step to go as high as I could see, and then again to get to the top of the tree. It was a massive oak tree, with no leaves (like the rest of the trees in the forest), so I had a great view of the dark sky. I also saw the light from the city shinning into the sky. I couldn't quite see the city, but the light was very noticable in the darkness.

Once I got my bearings, I continued on my way. In the same paranoid fashion. I didn't want to risk dying here. I wasn't sure where here was, but I was pretty sure it was some kind of secret zone. I was hoping for cool rewards, and if I died I'd respawn back in the city.

It took me a several more hours, and a few breaks with tree climbing to spot the light, to make it to the city. Or at least where I could see the city. I stepped out of the forest and saw open fields. Probably about five miles of open fields before the city. I was on the edge of a cliff, looking down into the fields, and I could see movement in the fields. It wasn't close enough for me to see exactly what was moving, but it looked like a lot of things moving around. The ground sloped gently upward towards the city, and the city itself was lit up with more light than anyone really needs. It was bright enough that it could have been daylight over there.

The city was also much bigger than I expected. Though I was really able to get a good idea of its size when I was falling, or from seing the light from the trees. Now that I was looking directly at it from a fairly close point, I could tell that the city was bigger than any city I had ever seen in the game. And not by a small margin. It was at least ten times bigger, and had massive walls surrounding it. It was almost like they were trying to keep titans out. And every part of the wall was lit up with bright light. The walls weren't the only things that were covered in light, the light also spread out over about a quarter of the fields. I was pretty sure that my Cloak of Shadows would not work in all that light.

I almost decided not to go to the city, but when I looked around, I realized it was really the only option that I had. Especially since my stomach had started grumbling.

So, I activated Cloak of Shadows and used Shadow Step to get down the cliff, then I started walking towards the city. It didn't take me too long to approach some of the figures that were moving around. It also didn't take me too long to realize there was something very wrong with them. They were generally human shaped. Two arms, two legs, a head, average human height, but the way they moved was wrong. It was as if they were extremely stiff, and some of them looke a little messed up. Like half a head, or legs twisted in a wierd way.

It was very obvious that they were zombies. I had watched enough movies to know what that looked like. So being confident that my stealth would be good enough to walk right through a group of zombies, I walked straight through a group of zombies. At first it worked, and then it didn't. I probably got past a couple zombies before they started looking at me, and once they started looking at me they started groaning/shrieking/making noise. That got more zombies looking at me, and then they swarmed me.

Shadow Step

Fireball

The zombies exploaded. It was extremely gross. Bits of zombie went everywhere. Luckily I was far enough away that nothing hit me, but I could still smell burning zombie. Which does not smell as good as burning rat. It was almost like someone took some rotten eggs and decided to fry them. Combined with the exploading zombies it was enough to make me puke. Or dry heave, since my stomach was empty.

When I was done dry heaving, I was surrounded again. This time I decided to use a different tactic. I used Fire Shield and started running through them. It was kind of cool, because I was completely surrounded by fire, but it didn't hurt. It felt like a warm blanket, snugly wrapped around me. When the zombies hit me, or got too close I got to smell the fried rotten eggs, and they sometimes lit on fire.

 For the most part they didn't really hurt when they hit me. The fire seemed to slow them down, so there was no force behind their attacks. Until one of them bit me. It almost looked like it fell over as I ran by, but instead of hitting the ground, it twisted in an impossible way (for a living person) and bit my wrist.

I felt its teeth pierce my skin, and since I was running and just got a bunch of extra weight added to my arm, it felt like my arm was pulled out of its socket. The zombie didn't let go, even as it burst into flame, and the pain of its bite was so bad it felt like my wrist was on fire. With all the thoughts of fire, I just kind of reacted with more fire.

Fireball

The zombies around me exploaded, but since I was at the center of the blast most of them disintigrated, or were thrown away from me. My wrist still hurt, but I was free from the zombies for a while. I didn't waste any time, and I just started running towards the city. Whenever I saw a large group of zombies in front of me I preemptively blew them up and just kept running. I think it might have been adreneline, or something, but after the first time I puked, I didn't puke again.

My strategy worked pretty well, until I started getting closer to the city. There were a lot more zombies near the city, and I was worried about using too much mana and passing out. Luckily, I saw help coming. The people of the city had probably seen my explosions, and sent someone out to investigate. I couldn't quite see what was coming, but they had a bright light, and they were also good at making explosions. I decided it didn't matter if I passed out so long as I could get to them, so I went a little crazy. Charged straight towards the light, and everytime a zombie got close to me I set off a Fireball on myself. It kept them away, and cleared my path, plus it kept me warm (not that I was cold in the first place).

By the time I reached the light I was exhausted. I was pretty sure I was about to pass out from mana use, but somehow I was able to stumble into the light and speak.

"I'm not a dea..."

Then everything went dark.