It took us a couple of hours to reach the ski resort on foot. The waypoint for the EDGE Force facility was even further away on the other side of the deep valley. Now that we were almost at the resort I could see the ski lifts that headed up and down the mountainside. That wasn’t the best thing, though. Not only did the resort have ski lifts, but it also had a cable car that would ferry us right across the valley to the other side, putting us closer to where we needed to be.

“Do you see what I see?” I asked as we walked. “There’s a cable car.”

“I see it,” Khopesh said.

“There’s just one problem,” Xiphos added. “Neither the cable car nor the ski lifts are moving.”

“That doesn’t bode well,” I said.

A feeling of unease gnawed at me as we headed toward the resort. The main lodge was off to the left, right at the top of the slope that led down to the bottom of the valley. It was a grand old lodge, with a couple of wings that stretched out to either side.

Cars were parked outside the lodge and across the street, in front of what looked like a cluster of shops. I couldn’t read the signs, but they no doubt included a general store, a pharmacy, a tourist trap that sold overpriced novelties, and a charming but run-down restaurant run by equally charming but run-down locals.

The problem was that the whole place looked abandoned.

Nothing moved in the street except for the leafless boughs of trees shaking in the wind.

Gentler ski slopes stretched up behind the cluster of stores. There were some chalets perched up on the mountainside with another ski lift heading up to the top of that slope. These looked like more family friendly ski locations than the huge drop off down into the valley.

What I wouldn’t give to be here under other circumstances. I’d love nothing more than to curl up by a warm fire with a good whiskey in one hand and my laptop ready for me to wordspew my bullshit onto an empty page.

“This is just like the village,” Stiletto said.

“Is this resort meant to be in business right now, Rho?” Xiphos asked.

The reply came back after a small delay. “I can’t find anything about it being closed right now. Proceed with caution.”

I gripped my new SMG a little tighter as Kaiser whined, echoing my concern.

“So how do we do this? Just go up and knock on the front door?” I asked.

Xiphos didn’t take the bait. “Stiletto, I want you to take up position in one of those trees,” she said, pointing to a copse of trees off to one side of the lodge. “Cover Khopesh and I as we approach the cable car platform from the rear. Naginata and Hatchet, I want you to investigate the resort. See if we’ve got anyone alive in there. Contact us via comms the moment you find someone who’s still breathing.”

“Yes, sir,” Naginata said.

Stiletto activated his class ability and disappeared from view. The way the stealth field wrapped around him and warped the light reminded me of the way invisibility worked for those Predator horror movies.

Khopesh and Xiphos followed the tracks Stiletto left in the snow as he rushed away. Even though he was stealthed, you could still make out the direction the sniper travelled by following his tracks.

Naginata and I walked around the front of the lodge. The front doors were open, so my quip earlier about knocking on the front door seemed even dumber now. The atrium beyond the open doors was backlit by a huge open window which showed glimpses of a gorgeous vista overlooking the valley.

“Looks like the lobby is open plan,” I said.

“Yes, and it appears as though this building has a basement. You see the windows at ground level?” Naginata asked.

They were half covered with snow, but I saw them. Basements were a rarity in Queensland. All of our big cities were built by rivers, and those rivers tended to flood. Regular flooding generally didn’t play well with below-ground living.

“That means that anyone still on the ground level of the resort wouldn’t be buried in the dirt, because there’s no dirt to be buried in,” I said, making the connection that Naginata inferred. “Smart.”

She swung around, aiming her assault rifle behind us. She stepped behind me and I felt the warmth of her back touch mine. I was about the make a joke about personal space, then remembered that Naginata’s first skill increased the edged weapon damage of anyone she fought back-to-back with. The little icon that appeared in my view, which looked like an axe with a little upwards-pointing arrow next to it confirmed this.

“I will protect the rear,” she said.

Which meant that Kaiser and I were taking point.

It was hard to stop my draw from dropping at the view as we entered the ski lodge. Floor to ceiling windows covered the back wall, showing the kind of view you’d pay thousands of dollars a night for. The valley curved away in the distance, giving a new perspective to where we needed to go. The waypoint for the facility hovered over an outcropping of rock across the other side of the valley, not too far away from where the cable car would deliver us.

A fire burned in the hearth to our right. Crackling flame was the only sound that broke the agonising silence. It felt like it was getting late in the day, so maybe the guests were all in their rooms or the restaurant or something. I knew the thought was stupid the moment it flittered into my head. I was just bargaining to get the outcome I wanted.

I didn’t want to come into another place full of normal everyday men and women who’d been turned into monsters.

“All clear,” I said into my comms. My voice echoed through the open space of the lodge. “No sign of the guests here.”

“That’s not a great sign,” Xiphos said. “The cable car is at the other side of the valley right now. It looks like the power’s out.”

“Just to the cable car, or to the whole lodge?” I asked.

“No idea,” Xiphos said. “Can you see anything with power over there?”

There was a check-in desk off to our left with a couple of computer monitors sitting on it. The screens faced away from me, so I jumped the desk and tried to turn the computer towers on. I pressed the power button on one tower, then the other, but neither of them worked.

“Looks like power’s out all over the lodge,” I said.

“Places like this have back-up generators to use even when the main power is cut,” Xiphos said. “We need to find the generator and get it back online.”

A new mission notification appeared.

New Mission Received: Power up

Objective: Restore power to the ski resort and the cable car

Secondary objective: Locate any infected guests and destroy them

Reward: 750 experience points and a supply drop

Another directive to destroy infected guests, and another promise of a supply drop.

“How do they know there are infected here?” Stiletto asked.

Rho’s voice crackled in almost immediately, like he was waiting for the question. “We’re detecting more of that same anima signature. This time it’s a little different though. We keep getting different readings. Stronger in some places, weaker in others, then different again when we re-scan. We don’t know what it means, but you need to be wary. If you see any infected, they must be destroyed.”

EDGE Force really had a hard-on for destroying things this time around. I almost missed being on my own and being able to figure stuff out for myself. If I was here with my family, minding my own business, then I got infected with some kind of crazy shit, I’d hope that the people who were sent in were going to help me get better.

Not execute me before exploring other options.

I’d cut my teeth on watching horror movies, and I knew for damn sure that the guys who got sent in and killed everything without asking questions were just as bad as the monsters.

“I don’t want to kill anyone unless we have absolutely no other choice,” I said.

The silence that followed that statement was deafening. I wasn’t just telling my superior officer that I didn’t want to follow direct orders, but I wanted to ignore mission directives from EDGE Force itself.

“I share your concerns, Hatchet,” Xiphos replied. “Rho, do we have any other options?”

“One moment,” Rho replied.

I looked over at Naginata, who met my gaze and nodded in appreciation.

Rho came back after a few moments. “We don’t know enough about what’s happening there to make rescue a possibility, but EDGE Command are willing to make an allowance under one condition. If the infected are hostile, they must be destroyed. If the infected can be restrained or contained, then you may leave them alive. We’ll send in a secondary crew once we know more. I’m sending you a further mission in addition to the one you have now.”

New Mission Received: Investigate the infection

Objective: Uncover the origins of this infection and find a way to treat it

Reward: 1500 experience points and a prestige supply drop

“If you can get to the bottom of what’s happening there, we can decide the best way forward,” Rho said.

“Message received,” Xiphos said. “Stiletto, come down from your perch and join us. Did you see anything from up there?”

“Nothing, and that’s what worries me,” Stiletto said. “No movement anywhere.”

“Hatchet, Naginata, I need you both to head down into the lodge’s basement to find that generator,” Xiphos said. “Keep a look out for any survivors.”

“Copy that,” I said, then did a quick sweep of drawers and cupboards behind the desk.

I found another few regular shotgun shells, a dozen 9mm rounds, some assault rifle rounds which I passed over to Naginata, some generic armour parts and some miscellaneous parts. It wasn’t until I checked the little cabinet next to the office door that I found what I was looking for.

A set of keys hung from a tiny metal hook. I grabbed the keyring and held it up to show Naginata. I jingled it back and forth before slipping it into my inventory. Places like this always kept a set of spare keys for all the locked doors safe with the folks at reception so they could get wherever they needed to in an emergency.

“Just in case,” I said.

It was tempting to use those armour parts to upgrade my gear, but there would be time for that when the group was all together again. Once we found the generator and got it started.

Somewhere in the lodge, a floorboard creaked. It sounded like it came from above us, maybe in one of the guest rooms. Sounds echoed so strangely in this place that it was impossible to be sure.

“Do you see anything?” I asked.

“No,” Naginata said. “I think we’re safe for the moment.”

“I’m going to see what other loot we can find before we leave.”

The door at the side of the reception desk led to the lodge’s tourist shop. I headed out there and found that Kaiser was waiting for me. He’d found the food section and was joyfully snuffling the scents of local made treats. The labels were all written in Romanian, but scents transcend the boundaries of language.

Kaiser stopped at the beef jerky and whined.

“All right mate,” I said. “We can’t have you going into battle on an empty stomach, can we?”

Two barks. No.

I tore the top of the jerky package off and tipped it all out onto the floor. Kaiser might be as smart as a human, but when it came to table manners, he had none. One package of jerky disappeared into his maw and Kaiser looked up at me expectantly.

“Okay, one more. I’ll take some with us too,” I said.

I slipped a couple packages of jerky into my inventory and was happy to see that they stacked, which meant that multiples of the same item only took up a single inventory slot. They stacked to a maximum of five, so I took five before emptying another one out for Kaiser.

Naginata grabbed a selection of foodstuffs as well. She favoured the sweeter options and chose what looked to be honey cakes and candied peanuts.

“Sweet tooth?” I asked.

She smiled. “My parents never let me eat sweets growing up. Now I can do whatever I like and they can’t tell me no.”

“That’s true. There’s no law against eating an entire cake for dinner.”

Naginata laughed. “No, but I’m sure I would regret it the next day.”

“I’d regret it as I ate it,” I said, remembering just how much I’d abused my body after my marriage broke down.

On one of the days where I did not give a fuck about anything, I’d gone down to the local Cheesecake Shop in Clontarf and bought myself a full size New York baked cheesecake. By the time I was ready to roll into bed after midnight the whole damn thing was gone.

That night was filled with the most bizarre nightmares I’d ever had.

Kaiser gave me a weird look, then levelled the same strange look at Naginata. It was almost like he was accusing us of something, or keeping him out of an inside joke.

“You want some sweets? Is that it?” I asked.

Kaiser whined.

“I’m not giving you chocolate,” I said. “I’ve grown pretty attached to you, you big furry bugger.”

Kaiser let his tongue hang out of his mouth in amusement.

The rest of the store was filled with other handmade items, like plates, bowls and mugs painted in kaleidoscopic patterns of greens, blues and oranges. Art inspired by the mountains, valleys and snow-draped landscapes around us hung from the walls. I couldn’t read most of the labels, but this wasn’t so different from what you’d find in a tourist trap in Maleny or Montville up in the Glasshouse Mountains back home.

There was a wide range of jewellery, scarves and other warm clothes nearby. I found a warm jacket in my size and slipped it over my chest armour. It didn’t have any stats associated with it aside from a resistance to the cold.

“How do I look?” I asked as I turned to face Naginata and Kaiser.

Kaiser made his feelings very clear by dramatically faking a sneeze.

Naginata cocked her head to the side. “Is this the sort of thing you like?”

“I’m making the best of a bad situation, okay?” I said with a chuckle. “Besides, it’ll protect against the cold. You should probably grab one too.”

“Ah yes!” Naginata said, then headed over to look through the racks of warm clothes.

As she did that, I noticed a book on the other side of the room with a distinctive image on the front cover. It showed a crude picture of a dragon, but it was unlike most dragons you’d see in popular culture.

This one had seven heads, kind of like Tiamat, the five-headed queen of chromatic dragons from Dungeons & Dragons.

Suddenly I remembered something that Mosul, the wandering crazy dude said.

“The dragon has seven heads, but all of them are asleep,” I whispered, repeating Mosul’s words.

“I’m sorry?” Naginata said.

I didn’t reply. I crossed the room and picked up the book. This was too much of a coincidence for it to not mean anything. Mosul mentioned a dragon with seven sleeping heads, and this book in the gift shop had one on the front cover?

It had to be connected.

I opened the book and flicked through it, but I couldn’t read a word. It was all in Romanian.

Level 12 couldn’t come soon enough. The moment I hit that milestone I’d unlock the Learned Scribe skill and unlock the secrets within this book.

As I flicked through the pages, I saw a couple of things that stood out. The word nemorti appeared there, next to something that looked like a traditional zombie rising from the dirt. Another page showed a creepy wolf type creature, which was labelled as a pricolici, which was pretty similar to EDGE Force’s enemy designation of prykolic.

The monsters we faced here almost seemed like they’d been pulled straight out of Romanian folklore.

I flicked through the book and saw a couple of other monsters that stood out. A varcolac was the Romanian word for werewolf, which appeared soon after the pricolici. It had combined the bestial savagery of the wolf with the shape of a man. Both strigoi and upyr appeared as well. Both the strigoi and the upyr were often confused for vampires. Supposedly they lived on the stolen the life force of their victims through the consumption of flesh and blood respectively.

Did that mean we were going to face those as well? The legend of Vlad Dracula started in Transylvania, a land which sat to the east of our current position.

Eventually I came to a picture of the dragon with seven heads. I couldn’t read the content of the pages, but the name was clear.

Balaur.

Naginata cleared her throat. “Does this suit me?”

She’d picked a beige jacket with a curling green and orange pattern embroidered along the sleeves and onto the back. The collar was a ruff of fur, which accentuated the sharp angle of Naginata’s jawline.

Kaiser barked once. Yes.

“It does suit you. Hey, how about we grab some more for the others just in case we don’t come back this way?”

“Hai. Good idea.”

We selected three more jackets that we thought would fit the others. Naginata put them into her inventory before we left. With the extra weapon, the jerky and the seven-headed dragon book I didn’t have much room to spare in my bags.

Before we left, I unequipped my new SMG and re-equipped Gravedigger. Claustrophobic hallways and close-quarters rooms needed something with stopping power. I knew what Xiphos was saying about tactics in a group, but with just Naginata and myself we needed to play things a little differently.

“Hatchet, here!” Naginata called from outside the gift shop.

She stood in front of an emergency evacuation map which showed the layouts of all four floors of the lodge. Naginata pointed at a stairwell that led down into the basement.

“This is where we need to go,” she said, pointing off to the right.

With that, we set out. Xiphos, Khopesh and Stiletto would catch up.