“Room…there’s simply no more room for them…”

unknown

Night seemed ever present as we made our way up the crooked path North out of town. The stars seemed less like far off celestial bodies than tiny pin pricks letting light through a swathe of black velvet that wrapped the entire world in darkness. A bird called in the distance—well, called would be one way of describing it. A death gurgle would be more appropriate, like something with wings and gobs of flesh and muck stuck in its throat.

The woods lay on either side of us as we navigated the dusty road that seemed like it could have once been a small stream that had long since dried up. Sharp roots exploded from the grey, clay-like ground, which made progress slow and difficult. More than once, my boots caught and tripped me up. I caught myself on Jacob’s back and cracked a joke as we pressed on. We cut down a few Corrupted Villagers and Jacob was down a couple percent on his death penalty, and it wasn’t long before the shape of the woods began to change.

The skeletal branches thickened and swelled, wrapped in dense flecked sheets of bark that peeled and fell, scattering down among the scrub and low brush every time the wind blew. The stench of the old woods subsided as we continued on and was replaced by a thick, humid air that seemed to want to settle in my nostrils and lungs causing me to exhale angrily every couple of minutes it seemed.

“Thick,” Fujiko muttered, her boots kicking a dead root cluster from the ground before her.

“How much longer?” I asked.

“Nearly there,” Altarus replied.

I stopped suddenly, causing Jacob to slam into me and puff out his breath with irritation, but I held out a hand and pointed into the darkness. Something lay still among the shadows—a player, unmoving, almost as though they’d lay down to take a nap—but what kind of sense would that have made? You don’t rest in the middle of the woods. You rest back in town where it’s safe—or at least safer. But still, there was definitely a player on the ground less than twenty feet away, and whoever it was, they weren’t moving.

Forley—Level 5

“What the Hell?” Jacob whispered. I sensed the rest of my party ready themselves. Slowly, I began inching forward, my axe held high and my finger on the trigger of my Blunderbuss. “What’s he doing?!”

I held up my hand again for silence. Still, there was no sign of movement as we approached. A soft wind blew, temporarily causing a break in the canopy and allowing a few dotted patches of moonlight to illuminate whoever it was. I saw a young looking man, still wearing mostly starter clothes, a Bloodletter draped lazily across his chest. At first glance, it seemed like he was sleeping—except for the fact that his eyes were open wide, staring, vacant and unmoving.

“Is he—dead?” Jacob asked.

“He’d be back at a lamppost if he was,” Fujiko replied.

“Bloodless maybe,” I suggested.

“No,” Altarus said firmly, stepping up so he was standing tall over Forley as he lay motionless at the base of the tree. “He lives alone.”

Altarus’ words hung in the air like a poison. We all heard him, but it was just too hard to process something like that. I understand what my mom had told me about players being unable to log out and the hospitals being overwhelmed, but it hadn’t really sunk in until now.

Did Forley’s position in the game mirror that of his in real life? Had he died back there, in the real world, and this was the result?

“No…” I muttered. No one replied.

Maybe he was one of the Bloodless and something had gone wrong—at least then we’d know he was okay—breathing somewhere with people watching over him. I was probably kidding myself though.

“He—he can’t be dead!” Jacob protested. “It hasn’t been long enough!”

“That’s true,” Fujiko added. “He couldn’t have starved in this amount of time.”

“He could be sick though,” Altarus reminded us.

“Or tired,” I suggested. “Maybe he’s just asleep.”

Altarus hesitated. “It is possible.”

“We’ll come check on him when we’re done,” I said, eager to get away “Come on.”

Leaving Forley behind, we pressed on. It was long before I heard the sound of running water ahead of us and we soon came upon a single arch stone bridge spanning a stream of water so dark it was impossible to see through. Part of me wondered if it wasn’t actually water.

“The other edge of the stream,” Fujiko gestured, leading the way across the stone.

“Hang on a second,” I said, stopping in my tracks. The others slowed and turned to face me. Cocking my head to the side, I listened.

“What do you hear, Rand?” Altarus asked.

It sounded like a person—a woman speaking softly, possibly muttering to herself, her voice like a muted chain of bells striking gently against one another. The voice seemed to be coming from below the bridge.

The bank to the right was a sheer drop about twenty feet down to the water. To my left however, was what appeared to be a path through the spear-like roots that burst from the earth. Gripping the gaps in the stone, I made my way down to the water, bits of rock and dark sand cascading down the slope beneath my feet. The voice grew louder as I descended and felt the humidity in the air increase until it was so thick I felt as though I was almost drinking it. My feet found steady ground on a slab stone alongside the water, and as I peered into the shadows beneath the bridge, I saw the owner of the voice.

A beautiful pale woman sat atop a wicker basket, her snow white hair long and straight, fell carelessly across her neck and shoulders. She wore a corset-like top the color of rose petals that had fallen into the mud. A white ribbon was tied around her neck and a red stone broach was pinned to her chest. A veil covered her face, but as I approached, she slowly turned to me.

“Seeker,” she said, almost sadly. “How happy I am to see a friendly face among the darkness—”

She stopped suddenly, as though she’d made a mistake in her speech.

“You are friendly aren’t you? You’re not here to kill me?”

“Of course not!” I stammered, shocked by her question. The woman breathed a sigh of relief and almost smiled.

“Of course you’re not,” she said, almost to herself. “How silly of me.”

I heard the rest of my group come down the slope behind me, and saw her eyes flicker to them.

“Your companions?” she asked. I nodded. “Welcome to you all. I would offer you something, but I am afraid I am out of everything, as I have been forced to relocate for the time being.”

“Are you from the Hills?” I asked. She shook her head but did not elaborate, and I did not press her.

“I—I wonder if you may be of some assistance,” she continued. “If you are able to help me, I may be able to help you.”

“Of course,” I replied quickly, almost naturally. There was something about her that just made me want to help, which was strange. I knew she was a quest giver, and that whatever I did for her would benefit me, but I also actually cared about helping her too.

“In the graveyard above us, there are many a dangerous beast,” she explained, almost sadly. “They are too much for me, but if you bring me their bones, I will reward you handsomely. Will you do this for me, Seeker?”

I nodded firmly and the brilliant golden letters exploded into existence before me.

NEW TASK!

Smiling, I opened my Tasks tab and read the description to my group.

“Bones for Victoria,” I said with a smile. “Victoria Blossom has asked you to bring her some bones from the beasts of the Swollen Cemetery. Return with 10 Old Bones for a handsome reward.”

“Yeah, we have it in our tasks tab too, Rand,” Fujiko told me.

I closed my character sheet and fixed my eyes on the peculiar woman before me. Her beauty stood in such sharp contrast to the grim setting around her, but at the same time, she seemed to fit right in, as though she’d been born from the womb of this dark world. In most games, the NPCs had that sort of uncanny valley of consciousness; they were real, but they weren’t real. Victoria felt real, and I felt obliged to help her.

“We’ll be back,” I told her. The hint of a smile curled at the edges of her thin pale lips. She nodded.

“Thank you, young Seeker. Fair well.”

I nodded and turned back to my group, giving Fujiko a friendly sneer. “Missed her on your way here, huh?” She curled her lip in response. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Oh, Seeker?” Victoria said softly. I turned, met her grave eyes as she spoke. “Beware the Gravekeeper. He is not accustomed to outsiders.”

“Thank you, Victoria,” I replied. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

I led the way back up the steep bank, the sound of the dark river gurgling behind me as we made our way back up to the road. It faded completely as we crossed the bridge into the strange woods beyond. The trees began to thin out and we found ourselves walking on the remnants of an ancient road of crooked stone pavers, some missing, others scattered into piles set by the trunks of trees. The stones themselves were concave, as though thousands of feet had worn them down from years of travel. The road itself continued, but to our right, fixed steady atop the trunks of two fallen trees, was a wrought iron gate, the massive sheet of metal rods hanging broken and twisted off its hinges. The path led down into a very disturbing sight.

“I see why they call it the Swollen Cemetery,” Jacob remarked as he stepped up behind me.

“You can say that again.”

Countless headstones littered the ground that sloped violently like the waves of the deep ocean, rising and falling like the buried corpses were struggling to emerge from their dark prisons beneath the earth. Some headstones seemed to have simply been strewn about with little care across the undulating hills. Cracked tombs crumbled and slabs of stone were stacked atop each other as though signaling several bodies all buried in the same place, crowding the same grave with no respect or dignity.

It was so bloated and crowded with grave markers and pavers that no grass, no vegetation, no sign of actual earth or dirt could be seen. It went on and on into the distance, rippling through a thick mist that stank of death and decay so heavily, that I could taste its foul zest against my tongue with every breath.

“Ten bones,” I muttered as I watched them move—animated corpses, rotting and dripping flesh and skin across the stone beneath their feet, many of which were missing toes or worse.

Rotting Corpse—Level 7

There were tons of them. We were going to have our hands full, especially Jacob.

“You should hang back a bit,” I told him. “Just shoot arrows for as long as you can and try not to draw their attention.”

He scowled, not happy with my advice, but finally nodded. I was right and he knew it.

“Yeah.”

“Rand,” Altarus said, stepping up beside me and pointing beyond the second cyst of stony ground. Something dark moved there, low, moving on all fours like a dog. As it moved past a set of fallen graves and came into view, I saw it fully.

Corpse Eater—Level 8.

If a horrible scientist had found a way to cross a man with a rabid dog, the Corpse Eater would have been the result. I felt as though I’d stepped into a horror film as I stared at the thing as it slinked across the jagged terrain, its vicious eyes searching for something—

It moved like half of it wasn’t listening, and snatched one of the walking corpses before it with its horrible claw, seizing it around the torso with claws the size of one of those big machines they used to pickup fallen trees, and with a single furious snapping of its jaws, tore the sickly corpse in two.

“Shit!” Jacob gasped as the aptly named beast began devouring the pile of flesh and bones which snapped between its massive teeth like pieces of dry kindling.

“Shit is right,” I muttered in reply. I’d never seen monsters attacking each other in unscripted events in an MMO. But the vicious dog had torn that thing apart like it was second nature, without an ounce of hesitation or any apparent trigger. That’s just what it did and would have been doing had we been there or not. I felt a little bit guilty as I marveled at the incredible depth of Mizaguchi’s world—Rey was still out there, possessed or taken or whatever she was, and this was no time for me to be sitting around.

“Come on,” I growled, gripping my axe tightly. “We’ve got bones to collect!”