“Dammit, it’s been a week, and Harrian hasn’t come out of his box,” Atogin told the group while scratching his head.

“He can store food; maybe he feasts off that,” Nicko replied.

“Harrian never said anything about if his items go into stasis,” Enar interrupted.

“That’s because he can choose between either it being affected by time or not.” A familiar female voice came from the tophat they were surrounding.

Harrian came out, gently humming the scales of music. Everyone was surprised that he had just appeared, and he always appeared when everyone was talking, a habit which no one liked.

“Harrian at your service, and are we here?” Everyone turned their heads to the left, a forest as far as the eye could see there in front of them. Grandage, home of the [Nature Bound], standing as old as the earth itself.

The forest is impenetrable by weak [Magic], and physical attacks, not even [Decay] would leave a dent. All history was linked to the kingdom, from the beginning of [Humans] to [Monsters], everything was suspected that Grandage was its origin.

It was a quiet land, only declaring war twice in three thousand years, only for artifacts, not for land or dominance, just its culture. Although it didn’t cause any battles, it decided them, with it’s natural [Magic], the crops it would produce could last millennia and would use it to their advantage, keeping their country free of war mostly.

The latest king, Oberon, was friends with the king of Kilvi, being three times his age at his death, one hundred and ninety. The king had directly felt it; a friend was murdered, something called [Royals Wrath]. A [Curse] that was present in any kind of born royalty, feeling the murders of who they hold dear even if they were half the world away, and could tell by the pain.

The king immediately sent out the [Heroes Party], waiting at Alves, a small town at the border of both kingdoms. There they would meet with a [High Elf] which would guide them towards the king. After seeing the corpse, they would come back, that was the mission.

Everyone was silent for a while, still marvelling at the sight of a forest as far as the eye could see, although one thing that they couldn’t let go of.

“Kaloko would’ve loved it here,” Nicko broke the silence, then looking down, his fists clenched “If only Ligo didn’t have that [Orb]!”

“Calm down Nicko, we will still find Ligo and bring him to justice, you just need to wait,” Atogin said, slowly coating his feathers with a paralyzing liquid.

“Dammit you’re right, I need to purge everything about [Elves] from my memory,”

“Might be a bit hard, cause, you know, we are going into a country filled to the brim with them,”

“Atogin just shushes, Nicko just needs some ti- *Cough*.” Harrian began to gag, sounding like a cat, his nostrils began to flare.

He almost fell over, gagging so much, before smoke began to come out of his orifices. After half a minute of gagging, the smoke then turned into a person which only Harrian knew. Macbeth had appeared out of Harrians body, still a bit steamy. Everyone was on guard, taking an attack position.

Harrian then turned around and backed up towards Macbeth protecting her.

“I should’ve addressed this before, but this is Macbeth Steam, a vague accomplice that was helping with my new [Skills], she’s here by her own free will,” Harrian explained.

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner!” Enar withdrew her rapier back into its sheath “A woman was inside you for an entire week!”

“Actually no, she just wanted to fool everyone,”

“Exactly,” Macbeth agreed “Harrian and I have only met once, while Gold who was there at the first meeting, and Gold and I have met many times after that, now if you may excuse me.”

Macbeth turned back into the smoke and gently drifted on the light wind towards the village of Alves. They just slowly watched the smoke gently drift into the distance, and the group looked back at Harrian, deciding not to ask him any more questions.

Instead, they decided to spar with each other or eat. The group was on edge; they had a bad feeling, especially Nicko. He was on the side; all he wanted was to play a world with game mechanics not see the death of those he was close to.

Many said that ‘The Creator’ allowed the [Players] character to survive or not, all with a simple yes or no question. If it were a no, they would move onto the next life, but if they didn’t, the [Player] would just reset, like wiping a save file, a restart.

It depended on the [Species] of the person, but the system would find a way to put them back, in fact, some people say that it comes with steps, if the [Player] would like to reunite with their old party.

Nicko believed in that, but he didn’t know what Kaloko chose. Did she decide to stay or go, it was confusing for him, as he was still so very connected towards Kaloko. Everyone was worried, Nicko was sparring with Enar, and subconsciously, he activated [Draconic Rage], and immediately terraformed the area around the clear area everyone was using.

Nicko missed the punch, and it hit the ground, as soon as it made contact, a shudder was heard, and dust blinded everyone’s vision. Enar and Atogin dashed away while Harrian subdued the angered [Dragon-kin].

He jumped onto Nicko and then used [Magic] to calm him down, not even a crack was heard. Nicko then snapped out of his rage and looked at the small crater. It was a metre deep and would have torn Enar’s limb off if it made contact.

Harrian jumped off Nicko and began to twist his hands, pain in his eyes. Nicko had become afraid of what he just did, and panicked. Everyone calmed him down, but we’re all now scared of him. Nicko shook everyone off and created a rock pillar and began to punch it. It was like seeing a child have a fit, everyone was not sure why Nicko was acting up like this, but it was weird.

By the time Nicko and destroyed his tenth pillar, a man had appeared in the distance. As the man got closer and closer, the group was able to piece more and more of him. Wearing a light suit of armour, constructed by [Elves], it’s the colour of maple red and amber. His hair and eyes were crimson, and his ears were as long as his head, sticking out like a sore thumb. The man was tall, about a leader higher than Nicko and looked around his late thirties.

As he approached a talking distance, everyone was slightly on guard, but they did expect someone to come to pick them up. The [Elf] then took his final steps and was three metres in between him and the group. Very cautiously, he pulled out a piece of parchment that was strapped to his waist, looking over at the group four times.

“Enar Agne, Atogin Tyre, Harrian Stave, and Nicko Jern, are you these four individuals?” The [Elf] asked them slowly.

Atogin stepped forward, opening his mouth.

“Indeed we are, Ummm, who are you?”

“Muspel, one of the nine Yggdrasil Guards,”

“So it’s based off the world tree,” Nicko began to mutter.

“The what now?” Atogin asked.

“He’s saying that this man’s name is based on Norse Mythology, one of the nine worlds of Yggdrasil, the world tree, so I wonder,” Nicko continued.

“Just shut it Nicko, now mister Muspel, shall we follow you?”

“Of course, although we will be going another way than you saw me,”

“And where is that?”

Muspel pointed towards the west “A secret passage where only the higher elven nobles know or use, not even the soldiers know where it is, and only some of them, like me, do, so follow me.”

Everyone began to walk behind the [Elf] in silence, still wondering who he was. Harrian with his [Magical Eye] knew something was up, sensing the [Magic] around him like he was under a [Spell] or [Curse]. Harrian already had his staff on his waist unclipped, ready to start the attack.

Everyone took Harrians small nod towards a fight and began to ready themselves. Enar slightly unsheathes her rapier, while Atogin and Nicko quietly change parts of their bodies to certain metals.

Muspel took notice but didn’t say a thing since he was also begging for an assault. His hair began to sway a bit more, looking a little brighter, his veins popping around his hands. But the weird thing was his eyes, changing colour from a glorious crimson to a greenish-white, similar to the colour of mould.

The group did not notice that Muspel was also on guard, but they did suspect him to be. After another fifteen minutes of walking, they finally made their way to the secret entrance, where Muspel opened.

It was a small hatch underneath the root of a tree, which they crawled through to get to it, before walking yet another fifteen minutes. There, they finally made it towards an open space, a large circular clearing, with even clear ground on the floor, no roots, which surprised everyone.

Looking around, it seemed as though the trees were commanded not to grow in the circle, which was even more suspicious. After a while of looking around, Harrian noticed a canopy in the trees, he didn’t say anything, but he did have a small cough.

Hearing that small cough, Muspel’s mouth turned into a grin that covered almost half of his face. He then took a deep breath, before breathing out, making his disfigured face go back to normal. No one noticed the smile; they were all clueless about what was happening.

Everyone was just waiting for the other to begin their assault, except each other had already started, and very slowly, the group started to cough, all except Muspel. It became so bad that Harrian had to kneel and fell face-first to the ground.

Everyone noticed it, and Harrian slowly looked up. Muspel knelt and held out his hand to him, the weird smile grinning in his mind.

“That was a nasty cough, let me help you up,” Muspel closed his eyes and had a small grin on his face.

“Thank *Cough* you.” Harrian grabbed Muspels right hand, before quickly putting his tophat through his hand, chopping it off with [Chaos Column].

Muspel dashed back, looking at his now severed right arm, only half of his shoulder remained, but the weird thing was, that there was no bleeding. Everyone noticed immediately, and quickly, a cloudy green fungus came from his wound and formed a new arm in less than a second.

Muspels face looked up, laughing before looking down, his smile covering half of his face again, his eyes filled with bloodlust. Everyone drew their weapons, waiting to face an [Elf], that’s murder plan had failed.