They'd only been running a minute or two before a glint of darkness alerted Lucy to another attack. She jumped in front of Maya just in time to take a unicorn horn to the shoulder, then grabbed the beast by its neck and slammed it to the ground. The unicorn misted away, fleeing, and they resumed their run.

Twice more attacks came from the darkness, once a single unicorn, then two at once, one whose horn still glowed white through the sheen of blood, but Lucy was on the alert and dealt with both before Maya even noticed they were happening.

She focused on staying close to Dazzlemurg, not letting the hunter get too far ahead.

"Awake! Awake! I bring dire news!" Dazzlemurg started shouting when they reached the village. "Dark Unicorns! We are beset by Dark Unicorns!"

Townspeople began to peer out of windows as the elf continued her shouting, guards gathering, the mayor scowling down from his window.

"What sort of nonsense is this?" growled one particularly grizzled looking guard. "You the crazy one always searchin' for imaginary critters?"

"No, well yes, but no. And this harpy can prove it! Xe saw them too."

"I did," Maya said, utterly unconvincingly. "One of them stabbed me."

"Hah, like that's going to convince anyone. Get on out of here crazy girl!"

"No, please, this is for your protection as well! We must track them to their source and put a stop to it before they corrupt the entire valley!"

"Imaginary beasts never harmed no one," shouted a housewife.

"They're not imaginary," Maya insisted, but no one was listening. Her luck made sure of that.

"Please, we need help," Dazzlemurg shouted. "I can't do this alone."

"You're not alone," Maya said. "We can deal with them."

"Are you sure?" Dazzlemurg seemed deflated. "They are fast, and deadly. You're not."

"We have a secret weapon," Maya said, grinning at Lucy. "We don't need them. And if they won't accept our warning, so be it."

Dazzlemurg hesitated, frowning at the town. "They're all in danger, but they won't listen," she whispered.

"Then we'll see to it that they don't have to," Maya said firmly.

"I guess so," Dazzlemurg conceded. "Let's get going. If they're already hunting this far from their lair, who knows how far they'll roam if left unchecked."

"Should we kill them?"

"Can't. Dark Unicorns are immortal. They turn to smoke any time they're injured, and come back only when they're fully recovered. A single Dark Unicorn is enough to destroy a town. And there are at least three out there."

"Three? We only saw two."

"One of them was injured in the second attack, and it didn't have enough time to recover before the third. They were getting desperate to stop us from getting help." Dazzlemurg turned and spat in the direction of the town. "Not that they're any use anyway."

"So if they're immortal, how do we stop them?"

"We must stop the corruption which is tainting them, so they can return to their pure forms."

"And how do we do that?"

Dazzlemurg shook her head. "First, we must find it."

They searched long into the night, but even Lucy was no help here. Though she fended off six more attacks by the Dark Unicorns, she'd not pursued the questline this far before and had no idea where they should be searching. In the end, they simply followed the fleeing unicorns when they turned to mist, then adjusted their course after each attack. They circled south and east from the town until they arrived at a copse of young trees, the grasses trampled and flattened.

"We're close," Dazzlemurg said, crouching to run a hand across the ground. "I can sense their corruption. See if you can find anything, a pool of water, a cave, a large rock. Anything that stands out to you."

She began walking around the copse in a clearly pre-programmed way, stooping every few steps to examine the ground. Maya felt suddenly dissociated from the situation, the NPC's sudden reversion to game-like behavior throwing her out of the immersion. So much of the time, everyone acted so lifelike, but then something like this happened and she wondered what was even going on in the mind of whoever programed it.

Ah, well. Immersion breaking quest NPCs aside, Maya left Dazzlemurg to her endless pointless circling of the trees and pressed inward toward the copse's center. The trees grew thin and tall, with long draping branches that obscured her path forward. She had to push them aside constantly, fighting for every step, snagging on sharp thorny points and scratching herself for minimum damage every few seconds. By the time she'd forced her way into the heart of the copse, she'd lost nearly half her health and was feeling very much vulnerable without Path of Life.

But there, in the center of the trees, stood a single ruby-bright crystal. It grew straight up from the ground, like a stalagmite, but semi translucent. It glowed faintly in the darkness, and Maya could swear she saw shapes moving inside it.

"What should I do with it?" she asked Lucy, who shrugged.

"Destroy it, take it home with you and put it on a shelf, bring the hunter here, cover it with a cloth so it can't get moonlight. I don't know."

Maya kicked it, but it was firmly embedded in the ground and didn't budge in the least.

Then Dazzlemurg screamed, and Maya rushed through the branches to get to her, ignoring the constant stream of damage at the thorny trees.

Lucy pushed past her and disappeared, followed shortly by a squeal of fury and then something dark and misty flowed past Maya so closely she shivered.

"Quick, grab it!" Lucy shouted, and Maya turned back to the crystal. As she ran toward it, she lost her balance and went flying. Arms flailing, she tried to catch herself, unsuccessfully. She hurtled forward and perfectly, neatly, almost as though she'd intended to do so, landed full force directly on the glowing red crystal, stabbing perfectly through her heart.

Stupid luck!

Maya waited for the -100 health or whatever stupid oneshot would finish her off this time, but instead of dying she felt herself fading. The brief pain of being impaled was slipping away, as was all sensation. Her vision blurred and she blinked, trying to clear it.

Then she lay in darkness, the glowing crystal gone, the moon obscured fully by the branches.

She felt at her chest, but as always the injury had left no actual wound beyond its initial damage. "Lucy? Is Dazzlemurg alright?"

Her only reply was the hissing of wind through the branches.

"Lucy? Xaneta, Xaneta, hello can you hear me?"

No response.

"Anyone?"

Wind.

Maya exhaled deeply and got to her feet. "I think this quest might be bugged," she said, her voice too loud in the quiet dark.

"Who are you?" the wind whispered back.

Maya jumped and spun, but saw nothing and no one. "Hello?"

"Who who who?" hissed the wind.

"Uh, I'm Maya. Who are you?"

"We we we are bloodline," echoed the whispers which she felt certain was not the wind.

"Um, nice to meet you, Bloodline. Have you seen my friends? Are they okay?"

"We we we see nothing," breathed the echoes. "Only you and we."

Maya swallowed. She stared deeper into the darkness, willing her eyes to adjust, but saw nothing. "Can you help me find a way out of here?"

"We we we have always been here and always shall be and so now are you."

"Uhh," Maya shivered. "I'd rather not." She started walking, hands held out in front of her, waiting for the brush of sharp branches against her arms, but felt nothing.

"You cannot escape by walking," whispered the darkness. "We we we are everything here."

"I need to get out, I'm in the middle of a quest."

"No no no, you are here for we we we have called you."

"Nope, no thanks, this is me denying the call. Thanks for the offer, but I've got prior obligations."

"You do not understand. We we we can see clearly. You seek another path but that is not the path you need."

"Who are you? Are we not in the trees any longer? Where am I?"

"We we we are here and no place else. This is we, this is you. The world within."

"Within what?"

"Within the world the world is within. You came to we for we came to you and now..." Bloodline breathed deeply, its whisper like a breath of wind against a window, heard but not felt.

Maya shivered again, even more creeped out than before. "I just want to go back to my friends."

"We we we know nothing of your friends. You came."

"Yes, so you've said." Maya tried to inject some strength into her words, but they came out tremulous. "Please let me go back."

"Please? Ahhhh, yes yes yes, beg and we will listen."

Laughter.

Maya scowled. "I don't want to be trapped here, wherever here is, forever," she said. "Is this inside the crystal thing? Is that what happened?"

"Yes yes yes, you see the world within. Few have dived so deeply to visit we. Most only touch, you come deep deep deep."

"So, I'm inside the crystal thing. Does that mean you're the Dark Unicorns?"

"Ha ha haha hahaha ha!" the laughter echoed and resounded, doubling and rippling around her. "We are Dark, but we are not unicorns. We are Bloodline."

"Please stop infecting the unicorns."

"Yes yes yes, we will. But you must offer we something in return."

"What do you want?"

"We want you. Unicorns are slow and clumsy and weak. You you you are fast and bright and..." a collective intake of breath, which Maya felt incredibly uncomfortable about. Eager, hungry.

"And, um... what if I say no way?"

"You have no choice. We we we cannot let you go, not when you've come so deep, so eager. You cannot leave, the others they could let go, but you have come too deep. You will be we, or we will be you, or we will all be here forever with you."

Maya's stomach twisted at the idea, but agreeing to a possession wasn't her idea of fun. "Log out."

She exhaled with relief as the usual starry expanse appeared, though she had no body here to exhale with, but she felt the relief of being away from the close heavy whispering darkness that pressed and clouded her judgment. Or maybe that was her low luck. Either way, she felt safer and clearer out here.

She hovered in space for a time, gathering herself, imagining her options, then selected World 9352 again and logged back in. Immediately her thoughts clouded, the transition throwing her luck penalty into sharp contrast, and she struggled to remember what she'd decided upon.

"You were not you, how how how?" mused Bloodline. "Well, we are waiting still."

"What exactly will you do to me if I agree to your terms?"

"We? Become you. You become we. All together, one bloodline."

"Will it turn me into a vampire or something?"

Laughter. "We are not vampire, we are bloodline."

"Okay, fine, I agree to your trade. Let me out and I'll do your weird creepy quest."

"Agreed..." whispered the darkness, and an alert popped up in Maya's view, clearly visible despite being as black as the darkness behind it.

You are about to make a permanent faction change. Are you sure you wish to proceed? This will significantly alter your alignments with several NPC groups and cannot be undone.

"Of course it can’t," Maya grumbled. But it didn’t say ‘soulbound’ so if it was too terrible she could always load. She didn’t want to, but if necessary she would.

With that in mind, she thought accept and the menu disappeared.

"Yessss, weee are we," breathed the darkness, and then the world glowed red.

Maya stared. She’d gained some sort of, crimson night vision? The trees around her showed clearly, every branch, every leaf limned in red.

"Bloodline?" she asked, but the whispers didn’t respond. She was back in the forest. And standing across from her was a black figure. It would have been completely invisible, but for the fact that everything around it glowed in red, and it was an absence of everything.

"Who are you?" Maya asked. "Bloodline?"

"Dark," the figure growled, and sprang at her. She tried to duck, but instead managed to step straight into the attack, which knocked her flat on her back and dropped her health by 12.

"Ow. Lucy?" Maya scrambled back, reaching for the crystal, for anything she could use as a weapon, but found nothing. Then she remembered that she had two daggers sheathed at her waist, mentally smacked her forehead for being dumb, stupid luck, and drew her blades as she scrambled to her feet.

The darkness stepped closer, blade-sharp limbs reaching toward her, too thin, too long. She parried with her blades crossed, evading one arm only to impale herself on the other as she stepped back. -10 health. "Stupid luck!"

Dark stabbed at her again, and this time she didn't try to dodge or block, but simply turned and ran away. The branches slashed at her as she ran, but her new nightvision lit up every thorn and every leaf clearly enough that she was able to evade... not all of them, but perhaps almost half of them.

She burst out into the night, Dark close behind her, just in time to startle a white-glowing unicorn standing frozen and staring at her. Dark hissed and dove at it, but Maya shouted and the creature leapt away, light trailing in its wake, crimson footprints glowing in her vision where it disturbed the ground.

Dark snarled and whirled on Maya, but she'd finally snapped out of her distraction. She stopped retreating and charged Heart of Magma. She took another two slashes full force, immobilized by her chargeup sequence, but was worth it. Dark was intended for a group of level 4-6 players, not a level 14 with tier 5 artillery magic. She slammed the orbs of magma straight into the dark figure's chest, one after another.

Dark reached out and slashed at her, but for once her damage dealt was outpacing the damage taken. With one final triumphant magma orb, Maya dispersed Dark into screaming wisps of shadow that twisted and faded away like sparks going out.

"Good work," Dazzlemurg said. "I couldn't hurt it."

"Coming!" Lucy crashed through the trees, heedless of their thorns. "What did— oh, my."

"Fire beats darkness," Maya said, letting her casting stance slip as the danger seemed to have passed. Her own health was down to around 7%, but now they were safe it had begun to recover.

"Actually, darkness is resistant to fire," Lucy said wryly. "Dark is vulnerable to wind."

Maya sighed. Trust her luck to lead her instincts the exact wrong direction. She could have blown him away with a supercharged Wind Whisper instead. But she’d done it, and her health and energy were recovering nicely, and she’d know better next time.

"Where were you?"

"I couldn't fight it for you, it's instanced," Lucy said. "Not like the escort earlier." But she stared at Maya, her expression strange.

"What?" Maya demanded. "What is it?"

"You have a new accessory, I see." Lucy frowned, pointing at Maya’s face.

"Huh?"

Maya reached up and felt at her face. Nothing, noth— oh. Something hard on her forehead, smooth and solid, and when she covered it with a hand her nightvision faded. "Oh. That’s… different."

"I thought you said you were low level. How'd you get an augment so early?"

"I don't know what that is," Maya said, then brought up her character sheet. Sure enough, Augmentation: Bloodline. "Huh, you're right. It is an augmentation. What, how? Especially with such low luck, this should have been something bad."

"I wouldn't be so sure it isn't," Lucy said, peering at her forehead. "What does it do?"

"Nightvision, but in red. Lights up everything."

"Yeah, not a great use of your augment, but looks like you're stuck with it."

"It doesn't seem that bad," Maya said defensively.

"Most augmentations provide a major benefit. Mine is to my arms, allowing me to do things like wrestle unicorns to the ground. Sensory augmentations are usually considered low benefit because their effects can be replicated easily with magical equipment. Nightvision in particular is very common once you get out of the early zones."

"Oh. Well, it was the only way out of the weird limbo place I ended up in after I fell onto the spiky crystal, so I wasn’t about to just stay there forever."

"You… impaled yourself on the crystal?"

"I tripped. Bad luck and all that."

"How have you survived this long?"

"I mostly haven’t. But anyway. So, now that I’ve dealt with Bloodline, how do I get my pet?"

"I don't know," Lucy said as they emerged from the spiky trees of doom. "Maybe talk to Dazzlemurg?"

As Maya approached, the huntress shushed her. She was crouching low to the ground, peering at something in a bush.

Maya stepped forward eagerly, mental images of a young unicorn foal she could raise filling her mind. She stepped on a branch, which snapped like a gunshot. Dazzlemurg turned to glare at her, and a small bounding creature sprinted away outlined in red light as it vanished from sight into the distance. It seemed shorter and thicker than the grown unicorns, but Maya couldn't make it out clearly.

"Sorry," Maya whispered, heart sinking. Had she ruined her chance?

"Well, looks like the real hunt can finally begin," Dazzlemurg said with a sigh. "No thanks to you."

"Hey, I got rid of the dark bloodline thingy," Maya protested.

"And scared away our best chance of tracking the unicorns down."

"What was it?"

"A starwolf hatchling. They are the natural predators of unicorns, and could have led us straight to them."

"Wouldn't the unicorns still be in the same place, that hollow up north?" Maya asked.

"Certainly not. That place was corrupted with the taint of Dark Unicorns' presence. They would not go near it again until there has been a cleansing rain at the very least."

"So, can we follow their hoofprints?"

"At night? Through the forest? You're welcome to try."

"I will," Maya said, looking down. The indentations in the ground were hard to make out amid the mess of red light lining every blade of grass, but the sharp-pointed star shapes of unicorn hooves were quite distinctive. Maya stood and pointed. "This way."

Dazzlemurg shook her head, but motioned for Maya to lead on. Maya did so, feeling quite pleased with her new augmentation. So what if sensory powers were considered cheap and commonplace? She was happy with it. So there. Not like wrestling unicorns would be much use for a mage anyway, and being able to see things more clearly would make everything easier.