3:42pm, The Twenty-Seventh Day

The last portion of Shardin Glade involved simply climbing a massive twisting tree, with a singular massive passage winding up the side. A hard climb as well, as the hallway felt like someone just bored into the tree with no consideration of traversing it. In some places the walls even came close to seventy degree walls, forcing us to bring out grappling hooks and rope to scale them. This geography became particularly problematic when we came across one such wall twenty meters in height.

“I really hate this place.” I joked as we gazed at the colossal wall. “This has to be the steepest one yet.

“I never was too great at the rock wall in school.” Pao answered back.

Quickly looking around for any way to avoid this fate and finding nothing, we again got out climbing hooks and rope. It didn’t look like we’d be able to just hurl our hooks straight to the top as we had before, so we’d need some sort of plan. Working out the logistics quickly, I tossed the other end of my rope to Pao and got some pitons out of my inventory.

“What are those?” Pao asked as she tied my rope around her waist.

“Climbing pitons, I’ll drive them into the tree face as we climb to make it easier.”

She looked strangely at me. “Why do you even have these? They’re not included in the adventurer’s pack.”

“I got them separately from a dungeoneering store before I left.” I mentally counted out nineteen and put them in my side bag. “We do live in a giant mountain range after all.”

“You’d think they’d include them in the kits they sell then.”

I shrugged as I locked the bag. I knew the reason why of course, but telling people that the beginning merchants around town were ripping them off never resulted in good feelings. For a collection of ones and zeros they were actually pretty monetarily bloodthirsty, and the adventuring stalls in the main squares were more so than most. Most so called ‘adventurer’s packs’ toted as official were anything but, and included only the thinnest of ropes and the weakest of lanterns.

Taking out a small climbing hammer I grabbed the wall, signalling Pao to follow. I went first, with Pao following just a few meters below me.

The climb itself was more long than hard, but we still took it slowly. Every few feet I hammered another piton in to make it easier, but even without them the climb would’ve been doable. It almost felt like a tutorial in stamina management more than it did a challenge.

This wouldn’t even be feasible to climb in the real world. After only a minute or two I looked down, surprised to find that we were already many meters off the ground. Even against an almost vertical cliff we made progress at a superhuman pace- it was no wonder people had flocked to the game, despite the fears. If what felt like physical achievement was this easy to accomplish, why would anyone stay in the real world?

I almost expected a massive trap to spring to life as we climbed, but those fears proved unfounded as we clambered over the massive wall unmolested. In fact not only were enemies absent, it was instead an entirely different sight that met us over the precipice.

A wide and tall room scaling the rest of the tree sat in front of us. It was several stories tall, and many scores of meters wide, with swirling branches of bark and bundles of leaves throughout, creating a dangerous looking ascent that I assumed had to be navigated by jumping and climbing. Periodically along this circular ‘path’ large and vibrant white and red mushroom caps burst from the walls, their girth roughly the same as two men laying down. Around a few of these small groups of those large bees floated, representing unavoidable fights on the way up. One of these groups occupied a chokepoint on the way up, a large swarm of at least ten resting on a leaf.

Near the top of the skyscraper sized room a small stream of water flooded over the top to flow into a multitude of leaves until eventually it sprinkled all around the bottom of the room to gather in a deep pool. Smaller and bright fungal growths populated the inside of the tree and reflected off the falling water, sending glittering motes of light to dance upon the walls and ceiling.

The splashing and roaring of water filled the room, an almost deafening cascade of noise.

“So that actually was a tutorial..” I commented idly.

It made more sense as I thought about it more. Most players probably wouldn’t have touched the climbing aspect of this game before this, so it would be reasonable to include a sort of tutorial to inclement them to the process before this room was thrown at them. Though, even with the primer I felt a little overwhelmed as I stared at the climb ahead. Glancing behind me as Pao clambered over the edge, I saw that she felt the same way.

“What the hell.”

“Yeah I’m not too keen on climbing that either.” I squinted at the roof studiously to find that a thick layer of sunlit leaves was above. As well, a small grey squirrel sat next on a high up leaf next to one of the bees, eyeing some berries next to it. Ignoring the squirrel, I pointed out the leaves to Pao hopefully. “That looks like the top of the tree, so where the boss is. Didn’t you say that they got trapped way before they got to the boss?”

“They…?” Pao blinked at me a few times. “Oh yeah, the party. Supposedly. Though I’ve been checking every trap to no avail.”

“We must’ve just missed a path.” The squirrel darted forward, causing the bee to aggro and charge at it. “Because this area is bringing some pretty major ‘final area’ vibes to mind.”

“I’ve kept a pretty wide eye out, and it’s not like Shardin has many branching roads.” She grimaced. “Unless there’s a secret thicket somewhere I’d bet they’re up there.”

“We’ll just have to be careful with the ascent then.” As I watched the small squirrel lost its footing and tumbled down from the roof, causing me to cringe as it landed in the pool of water. A few seconds later it surfaced and began to paddle away. “Nice.” I whispered.

“What?”

“I said, do you think they would’ve even been able to climb this?”

She sideeyed me for a second before considering my statement. “No, from the level of the guy who got back they were pretty low level. It would’ve been difficult to say the least. Especially with how many bees are in here.”

“Then how could we find them by going up there? They can’t get trapped in a place they can’t reach.”

“I’m pretty sure noobs could accidentally stumble into Mount Doom if they tried. They must’ve found a way up if we haven’t found them yet.”

“I’m not sure most people could climb this on purpose, let alone accidentally.” I trained my vision on one of the groups of bees as I thought of how to phrase my next statement. “Have you considered that we might be too late?”

I felt her eyes boring into the back of my head. “Are you saying you want to give up on them?”

“I’m just being realistic.”

“Well, then realistically they should still be here. They only got trapped here five or six days ago. Including the supplies they had, they should still be alive if nothing’s stabbed them.”

“That’s a long time for them to not get stabbed.”

“In a pitfall trap? They’d have to actively attract something’s attention to get found out, and the quest giver told me they got trapped in a hallway far from enemies. The only threat they would’ve had would be death from boredom.”

“I guess so.” I said unconvincingly.

“Now what should our strategy be in climbing this?” Pao deftly changed the subject. “We’ll want to avoid skills that propel us forward, and my bombs will be pretty useless once we get into close range with those bees. Should we just attempt to stealth our way through it?”

I shook my head. “Definitely won’t be able to. You see that portion right there?” I directed her attention to the largest group of bees halfway up the room. “A verifiable hive of bees sits on top of that leaf, and there’s no way up unless we climb up it. Though to be honest I’m not entirely sure our stealth would even be able to make it past the other groups without an incredible amount of luck. They just fly too close.”

Pao pouted for half a second before taking out a firebomb to mess with. “Well then we’ll just have to fight carefully as we go up.”

I carefully scanned the room, looking for any way to either bypass or thin out the swarms. From the aggro ranges of the bees in the flower clearing I knew we would only be fighting one or two groups at a time, but with the larger swarms I couldn’t see any way to split them up. Fighting ten at once would be a definite death sentence on the small branches and mushroom we would be fighting on.

“I wish I specced into ranger.” I said wistfully. “We could draw some of those larger groups down and fight them here.”

Pao snorted. “You’d need a sniper rifle to hit them from this distance.”

At Pao’s words an idea suddenly flashed into my mind, and I ran the engineering through my head quickly. Looking around and finding tons of twigs and grass around the ground, I tried to suppress my excitement from Pao.

“Hey Pao, how many bombs did you say you had again?”

…

Kneeling on the soft ground by the pond, I finished weaved grass and sticks into a vaguely cylindrical shape while Pao kept watch for the patrolling bees. It had taken way longer than I had thought it would to do so, but thankfully the more rigid game physics kept it together better than it had any right to.

“We’ll have to think of a way to fight the boss if it comes to it.” Pao continued to stare into the air. “Or at least keep an avenue of escape in mind.”

“You should probably be thinking of how we’re gonna get down from here if this blows up in my hands.”

“Why don’t we just lob it then?”

“Aggro range.” I looped another strand around. “These bees only have an aggro range a little farther than shortbow range. With this we can probably fire multiple times without them assaulting us.”

“And doing this won’t attract all of them?” She asked skeptically.

“Aggro depends where you are, not where what you are attacking is.” I suppressed a small laugh. “Though I’m not entirely sure if the game would count this as an attack.”

I finished up the twig tube satisfactorily. It was simply two dozen or so long sticks tied together roughly in the shape of a cylinder, but I knew it would still fulfill its purpose- at least once at least. Then I drew a trap glyph covering the back of the cylinder pointing into it. Swinging it around to test, I found that the glyph moved with it as I had expected. Then, holding it as far from my body as possible, I aimed it at the hive of bees.

“Put her in.”

“You don’t want to make a mortar stand or something?” Pao said skeptically. “If you’re that scared of it backfiring.”

“Before I change my mind please.”

Pao took out a striker and held a bomb over the tube as she lit it. Despite her worlds, she wasn’t any more keen on standing next to it than I was, so once she dropped it in she jumped backwards. Focusing on aiming, I nonetheless closed an eye and leaned away as I felt the bomb roll down the tube.

BOOM

I jerked as the trap glyph violently exploded with a screaming burst, sending the bomb rocketing out of the dingy stick launcher and flying into the bark several meters to the right of the hive before it burst into a flowery explosion against the wall. Wings rustling and buzzing, the bees lifted up for a few seconds as they scanned their surroundings. Finding nothing within aggro distance, they settled back down as Pao and I stared at the blackened impact zone.

“Holy hell…”

“What the..”

Almost of one mind, we both looked at each other and then at the intact stick tube before erupting into laughter. Entirely surprised, it took a while before we had calmed down enough to wipe the tears from our eyes.

“That really shouldn’t’ve worked.” I said between chuckles. “I mean the thing is made of twigs.”

“I honestly expected it to blow up in your hands.”

“It should’ve. It was so much louder than a normal trap glyph too…”

Pao picked up the launcher and offered it to me. “Wanna try one more time?”

Grinning, I accepted and flipped it around to draw another trap on it. Taking some time to carefully aim it, I held it how I would an rpg.

Pao dropped the bomb in and I braced myself for the noise as I fell down the tube.

I only twitched a little as It went off next to my head, and watched silently as the bomb shot straight into the center of the hive, the blast and fire sending the insects flying like shrapnel from a grenade. Each one far enough away to survive the initial explosion flew through the air, only stopping to burst into cubes upon slamming into a branch or the tree wall.

“HA!”

I thrust my fist into the air as I watched flaming cubes fall around me in a devilish imitation of rain. After a few seconds Pao walked up beside me to watch the chunks fall.

“This is so broken.” Pao said. “Want to abuse it more?”

...

“You’ve got to be faster.” came Pao’s voice from the sidelines. She had finished fighting her dryad a few seconds ago and was now apparently content to just sit and watch me.

“Hmm?” I dove to the right to dodge the dryad’s spear again, its driving impact sending up a cloud of splinters where I had just stood.

The climb had been much simpler once we had blown through most of our bombs using the mortar, only ten minutes or so, but we’d been forced to leave the tube behind us. Despite various attempts I couldn’t climb with such a cumbersome device, and the game didn’t allow me to put it in my inventory.

On top of that room had been another large room, though this one was more horizontal than vertical. On the sides of the hall large stoic trunks stood every five meters, though holding up nothing but leaves. The ground was constructed of gnarled bark, a horrible mess that looked specifically designed to trip anyone meaning to cross it. At the far end of the passage a noble gate stood several lengths tall, its doors guarded by twin spear wielding dryads who had attacked us as soon as we had finished ascending.

If I had to pinpoint one of my weaknesses it would definitely be spear users, as with the small footprint of their stabs it was almost guaranteed they would miss my Air Ward. One of the reasons I had chosen the Polearms skill in the beginning was actually to counter them.

“You’re too slow if you want to be using a dagger.”

I quickly sketched a trap glyph as the dryad recovered from its attack, jumping back before the resulting explosion pushed it back further to give me some space to breathe.

“Only two of my skills give Dex.” I said without turning my head as I ran back for another attack.

“Dexterity only increases how fast you move.” Pao explained. “Your actual reflexes also matter.”

I sidestepped the spear thrust as I ran up, using the pause to leap at the dryad’s throat. Bowling it to the ground, I sunk my dagger deep into its wood, only the slight resistance of the game keeping my knife from going straight through. After a second the monster dissolved, and I fell a few inches to the ground.

“Not everyone can match your superhuman speed, you know.”

Dusting a few leaves off my lower coat as I got up, I picked up my dagger and started walking towards the boss room after Pao several meters ahead. Reflexes huh? I thought back on my combats over the last month.

The only type of enemy I’d fought in Finkar, both in the short beta and in the live version, had been lesser monster types. They made up the majority of mobs in the game apparently, and were noticeably slower than players to make the game fun. Otherwise every combat would be an exhausting affair, forcing extremely defensive fighting styles to counter the difficulty of getting inside an enemy’s guard. Combat with an equally fast opponent was chaotic and deadly with practice.

Greater monsters would match that description from what I’d heard on message boards before the game started. Supposedly there existed special quests in the town hall of each town to hunt down these frighteningly fast monstrosities, but I’d never bothered with them back in the beta.

“I should be fast enough for just about anything anyway.” I said. “I’m not really planning on taking on super hard quests any time soon.”

Pao glanced back for only half a second, her face unreadable. “You never know when you’ll need it.”

“I mean, boss doors are pretty obvious.” I retorted. “And world bosses are not exactly sneaky.”

“I don’t mean monsters Honsol.” She said, exasperated. “I mean players. There’s bound to be mass pvp at some point in this mess.”

Mass pvp? I was at a loss as to why she thought that was a forgone conclusion. Every other player town was over the pass, and though admittedly I hadn’t been in Paelgard for a while I still couldn’t imagine that tensions had grown hot enough for open conflict. Especially with everyone convinced that it would be actual murder if they killed someone in-game.

“People can only take so much before they get psychotic.” She replied when questioned. “I’m sure someone is insane enough to do it at some point, if it’s not happening already .”

I frowned. “That’s a pretty paranoid way of living.”

She shrugged in response, not bothering to reply.

Soon enough we came upon the boss door, a massive wooden construct several times my height. Together we put our shoulders on the door and prepared to push.

“Still have time to go back.” I warned.

She rolled her eyes. “We’re just having a quick look, we aren’t going to fight it unless it’s necessary. Alright?”

I nodded and pushed as hard as I could against the door beside her. After a second it began to inch forward, and we stopped once we had created a space large enough for us to squeeze through. Simultaneously we peaked our heads around the door to gaze into the boss’s throne room.

The room was actually a huge overhanging balcony high in the air. Snow gently drifted down from the heavens and piled up over the twisted brambles covering the floor, and a vicious chill settled over my face as the howling wind hit. Far above the balcony I could see the tip of the great tree defiant in the sky, its massive green needles a striking figure against the white sky. At the other end of the field sized platform stood a stark white fir tree, its trunk deformed and twisting. More distressing however was the group of wooden cages sitting under the tree, inside which several human sized shapes slumped.

“They’re not dead…” Pao took a deep breath.

“How’d they even get here?” I asked. “I didn’t know monsters kept prisoners.”

“I dunno. Maybe the dryads brought them up for some reason.” Pao replied. “Don’t really matter, we just need to go get them before the boss comes back.”

She began to move into the room, and hand shot out to grab her shoulder, causing her to jump in shock.

“What?”

“Look at that tree.” I pointed to the far side of the balcony.

Her gaze followed my arm. “Yeah it’s creepy. What about it?”

I shook my head with a frown. “Thats the boss, stupid.”

Her eyes widened as she crouched back down. “Ahh, that makes things a bit more difficult...”

My mind raced as I tried to think of a plan. Now that we’d seen the captives in the flesh, I didn’t think I would be able to convince her to not go in, thought I wasn’t sure if I would if I could. Leaving at this point would be tantamount to damning them ourselves. But we couldn’t fight it head on, we just didn’t have the power, and we couldn’t rely on the captives either without knowing their conditions. That left only kiting and deception. That didn’t leave us with many avenues of attack, especially not safe ones when we didn’t know the boss’s speed.

As I agonized over thinking up a plan, Pao suddenly nudged me from beside. Looking at her smug grin, a chill suddenly ran down my spine as she uttered some horrifying words, especially from her.

“Alright, so this is going to sound a little dangerous…”