“Why the hell are we doing this again?” Ted asked, his voice hollow over the coms.

Gabe shuffled through the bushes as silently as he could, rifle in his hands. There was a new pair of bars at the left side of his HUD, sitting right below his health bar. The name “Ted” was displayed right above them, proof of his membership as part of their impromptu party. There was a small map at the bottom right hand

Gabe tapped the side of his visor to respond.

“Training, I assume,” he said, keeping his voice low.

“Right,” Ted said dryly, “I’m sure it's just Irwin being a lazy ass. He does that.”

“Glad to hear you have so much confidence,’ Gabe said, “but let’s focus, I’m sure he’ll have plenty of time for complaints later.”

Ted huffed over the coms, but didn’t say much else.

“We got four, one on your end, three on mine, how do you want to do this?”

He was staring into another clearing, nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the forest aside from one factor. The presence of four Scalehounds. Three were crowded over the body of an Elk on the ground, chewing on its carcass as one stood away from them. It looked to be on guard, but it was just more likely that the hound was muscled out of a meal. Gabe took note of the fact that the Elk had not faded into dust, even when dead, and the only explanation of that he could think of was that the creature was not linked to Eulora, but he’d have more time to learn about that later.

Ted’s name was visible on his HUD, located near the lone Scalehound at the other side of the clearing.

“You tell me, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” Ted said.

Gabe rolled his eyes. Some input would be nice.

“Focus on the one near you, simple sneak attack.”

“And the other three?”

“I’ll figure something out, just focus on your target.”

Gabe didn’t get an answer, and instead heard a loud wail as Ted jumped from the forest brush and onto the back of the Scalehound, short sword in hand. He stabbed at the beast’s back wildly, the blade sliding off of the scales numerous times before finding purchase once or twice. The beast snarled and tried to shake Ted off, but surprisingly the man held on, still stabbing. It’s health bar was steadily draining, but slowly. Ted was probably going to win that fight, were it not for the three Scalehounds that were now closing in on him.

“For Christ’s sake,” Gabe muttered under his breath.

He stood up from his position, rifle ready. Taking aim, he fired between the three beasts and Ted, stopping their advance as the bullets kicked up specks of dirt. He flipped his firing mode to full auto, shifting his sights to the Scalehound on the left. The steady crack of gunfire faded into dull thuds as the stream of bullets pierced into their target. The beast’s body lurched over from the impact of the bullets, and it puffed into dust before it could turn around. It’s companions, did, however, and charged at him. He brought his gun up to fire again, but held off when he saw Ted flailing around behind them. His rifle wasn’t perfectly accurate, and fully automatic fire increased of a stray bullet striking his party member. He let his rifle drop to his side and switched to his sword, shifting to a stance Cera showed him.

The faster of the two Scalehounds leapt at him, fangs bared. Rather than swing at the beast, Gabe knelt down and braced himself as his pointed the sword forward, towards the hounds scaleless stomach. The beast impaled itself on his blade, the impact almost knocking him off his feet. The hound’s snarls soon turned to whimpers, but before Gabe could follow up on the attack its companion clipped him in the shoulders, knocking him back. Before he could get to his feet, a Scalehound struck again, this time managing to wrap its jaws around his arm. It kept running, dragging Gabe with it and slamming him against a tree. Virtual Air knocked out of him, Gabe coughed, only for the Scalehound jump on top of him. He held his arm up catching the majority of the beast’s teeth with his armguard. Red lines traced where the teeth did grace him, and his upper left arm was littered with red dots from the previous attack. His sword still stuck in the beast, he grabbed it and twisted it, the movement draining the last few bits of the Scalehound’s health. It burst to ash in front of him, clouding the approach of the final Scalehound. It burst through the ash, fangs bared, ready to avenge its companion as they aimed for Gabe’s throat. Gabe already had a grip on his gun, and fired as soon as he saw the beast. The bullets pierced its fleshy underbelly, bursting through the scales on the other side. They trailed up as his followed the recoil of his rifle, tracing a dotted line that ended at the beast’s skull. With a final shot, that beast also burst to dust, its spoils landing in Gabe’s lap.

He stood up, letting the loot fall, looking around for Ted. He found him lying at the center of the clearing, not moving, but the absence of a Scalehound told him that his reckless attack had worked. Ted’s health bar didn’t move, which meant that Ted was either being dramatic, or he was just tired. Gabe was feeling much of the later. It wasn’t a long fight, but the Scalehounds managed to do a number on him, bring his health down to about one fourth of his total, indicated by the health bar that was blinking at him. He nudged Ted, who groaned in response.

“My man,” He began, “the hell was that?”

Ted rolled over and glared at him, “You said sneak attack.”

“So you leapt from the bushes screaming like a mad man?”

“Hey, it worked didn’t it?”

Gabe frowned, but didn’t press further, “Let’s just pick up the loot and head back. I’m sure Iriwin has everything ready by now.”

“Maybe, guy likes to fart around more than work,” Ted grumbled.

They gathered up the spoils from their skirmish, some more scales and meat, and made their way back to camp. The sun was close to coming down now, which meant that the Emerald forest was gradually getting darker to the point that Gabe could barely see what was in front of his face. Their camp was simple enough to find from the orange glow that bled through the trees. Irwin started a small campfire in their absence, and had placed a griddle on top of it. At the center of the griddle rested three pieces of Scalehound meat, two pots flanking them at the sides. Irwin stood near the fire, stirring one of the pots, sprinkling what looked to be salt into the pot. His helmet was off, revealing a youthful face framed by locks of brown hair. The rest of his hair was tied back into a ponytail. He flashed Ted a grin as he walked into camp, placing a piece of meat onto a tray and pouring whatever he was making on top of it.

“Went well?” he asked.

Ted grunted and grabbed his tray, spooning the food into his mouth before walking off. Irwin shrugged and handed Gabe his meal, a pile of rice with a piece of Scalehound meat on top of it, smothered in gravy.

“It went well,” Gabe said, “Could use a little work on the ‘surprise’ part of surprise attack, but we’re alive.”

Ted shugged and kept eating. Gabe took a bite of his own food. It tasted pretty much how he expected it, like rice smothered in gravy. It wasn’t particularly savory, and tasted mostly like canned food, but it was satisfying in its own way.

“He’ll get used to things,” Irwin said, “You seem pretty well adjusted though.”

“Different strokes, different folks,” Gabe said, “I think I’ve done enough breaking in though,” he followed, his voice not so subtly hinting.

Irwin grinned at him, “Eager are we? But it's not my call,” he pointed towards Ted, “It’s him you gotta convince.”

“I’m right here you know,” Ted said, voice sullen.

“Well have some more presence!” Irwin exclaimed, throwing an arm up, “You might as well be ghosting on me for as much as you talk.”

Ted grunted again.

“That’s what I mean!”

“Anyways,” Gabe interjected, “I think we should think of a game plan, just in case.”

“How?” Ted asked, “We’ve got no way of knowing what to expect other than the fact that it's an Alpha, which could mean anything.”

“Still, can’t hurt to plan with what we know, and that's what we’re capable of,” Gabe said, “Irwin is the most experienced with this, so he should probably be taking point on this.”

“Eh, I’m not much of an in your face kind of guy. Armor is more suited to hiding than taking a blow,” Irwin said.

Ted shot him a look.

“I’ll help,” Irwin added hastily, “I’m just saying that you’ll get more use from me when I’m not in the enemy’s sights.”

“So that leaves,” he looked over at Ted, “...me then.” Dammit.

“Well what the hell am I supposed to do?” Ted asked.

“Not what you did earlier,” Gabe said bluntly, “Just stay in cover and take pot shots. Hopefully Irwin and I can distract it enough so it doesn’t pay attention to you.”

“If I do my job right… you’ll be the only one it sees Gabe.”

“...right.”

“Hope you last,” Ted said, with absolutely no confidence in his voice.

Gabe sighed, “Right, I guess I’ll be the distraction.”

“So there’s the battle plan,” Irwin said. He took a bite of his Scalehound steak, “But here’s a question, do we hunt it tonight or wait until daybreak?”

Gabe looked at Irwin, his expression unreadable in the flickering light of the campfire,

“Tonight would be a terrible choice. I’ve got time, I can wait.”

“Eight hours though? Maybe if this wasn’t a game, then sure, but… this is a game,” He stood up, setting his now empty food tray down, “We should strike now, if we mess up, then at most all we do is respawn at our spawn point. No harm done, right?”

“Spawn point?” Gabriel said, “When was that ever set?”

He was no stranger to the concept of a spawn point, but he had also skipped much of the orientation that new players get by choosing to be a Freelancer. He’d done some research, but that was mainly concerning skills and how they worked. Everything else, while mostly familiar, behaved slightly differently in Aelios Online, and while a Spawn Point was a pretty self explanatory concept, he was sure there was something that was different about its execution.

Before he could ponder any longer, Irwin waved him off, “Not important,” he said, “We got a decision to make.”

“I say we go,” Ted said. There was a calmness to his voice, a stark contrast to the temperamental tone he held before, “Last thing I want to do in a video game is waiting, so we find it tonight, kill it, and sleep in our beds.”

“Well our characters would sleep, we can’t reall-” Irwin started

“I get it,” Ted said, usual aggravated tone returning, “I just want to get this shit over with, alright?”

They both turned to Gabe, waiting for an answer.

"I wouldn’t mind waiting, “ he said, “but,” he threw his hands up in surrender, “I don’t want to keep the group waiting either. I just go back to spawn after dropping to zero right? Seems pretty low risk to me.

Irwin grinned, his teeth gleaming in the fire light, “Excellent.”

“We still need to find the Alpha,” Gabe pointed out, “and I’ve no idea of where to start.”

“I may have an idea,” Ted said, “We can sync our HUDs to better detect Scalehounds

through their materials. If we’re lucky, that should help narrow down his location.”

“There are a ton of Scalehounds in the area though,” Gabe said, “To filter out one Alpha among all that is gonna take some time.”

“Maybe but it’s better than nothing,” Irwin said, which Gabe had to agree with.

With no other options available, Gabe synced his HUD to detect Scalehound scales. Rather than a leaf symbol next to his health bar, a brown paw print appeared instead. The light pulsed from him again, highlighting three separate symbols off to the distance, steadily fading into the distance. He opened his map, and saw that syncing to the material also made various materials appear as small blips on the map. A larger blip appeared on the map, not too far from their location, and when he looked up, he saw a larger paw print symbol off to the distance, but instead of brown, this one was silver.

“Well… that’s convenient,” Irwin said, looking in the same direction as Gabe.

“Think it’s approaching?” Ted asked.

“No, just passing by from the looks of it, but if we were looking for an opportunity, I’d say we just got it.”

“Looks like its alone too,” Gabe said, “If we had some daylight this would be perfect.”

“Here,” Irwin tossed him a set of goggles. They had black lenses and a thick, gray frame that would fit snugly around his head. He was familiar with these, as their design wasn’t too far off from their real life counterparts.

+++

Night Vision Goggles

Stats:

+1 to Defense

Night Vision

Integration with Smart Box

Don’t let a little darkness get in the way of adventure.

+++

Irwin tossed Ted a pair as well and tapped on his Smart Box, digitizing his helmet into his hands, “That should solve the vision problem, right?”

Gabe rolled the goggles around his hands before finally putting them on, replacing the visor he had before. His HUD did not change after switching his gear, but his vision had changed. It was as if someone had just slapped a brighter filter over his vision, and there was now the added benefit of major obstacles and objects, including other beings, were now outlined by a faint white line. He could now make shapes out in locations where he’d previously only saw darkness, but it wasn’t perfect. It was certainly an improvement, but he’d still be able to see much better during the day.

“These are nice,” Gabe admitted.

“That settles it then,” Irwin said.

“Well, there is one more thing,” Ted said. He tapped on his Smart Box and summoned 4 small darts to his hand. At the center of each dart was a vial containing a transparent blue liquid, “There is apparently a bonus objective, to bring in it in alive.”

“I don’t think that’s gonna be possible,” Gabe said without hesitation, “Especially with those. You think you’re gonna get through its scales with darts?”

“He has a point,” Irwin admitted, “If we find an opening we’ll take it,” he looked intently at Ted as he said that, “If we can’t, then we’ll just take it down.”

Ted nodded, “Just figured I would let you guys know.”

“Well that everything then, correct? We better start moving,” Irwin said in an urging tone.

Gabe brought up his inventory and pulled some extra magazines from it. Something told him he’d be needing them.

The group headed out of the camp after snuffing out the campfire. Packing up the rest of the camp was a relatively effortless task, as all of the equipment was just scanned into Irwin’s Smart Box. Irwin was still not in the party, but he didn’t find the time to tell Ted to add him. He supposed it didn’t really matter, the only thing that he could tell that forming a party for was just keeping an eye on the health and mana bars of party members and communication. While Gabe would have preferred to remain in contact with Irwin, he looked to be experienced enough to handle himself, and looked reliable. Ted was different, for obvious reasons.

Like they planned, Gabe took point when heading to the beast. As they approached closer to the silver paw symbol, Irwin and Ted flanked off, with Irwin disappearing into nothingness as he slipped into the bushes. Ted was surprisingly quiet this time, the absence of curses doing much to hide his presence.

Gabe kept moving forward, rifle now resting in his hands. As he approached the symbol, he heard movements, specifically, foot falls. It wasn’t some earth shaking thump like that of some abnormally large beast, like an elephant, but they were heavy, lurking.

He eventually spotted what it was that was making the noise. It was a Scalehound, but much larger, big enough to bite his legs off without any effort. Instead of the greenish scales of the small beasts, it shimmered in a dull red and yellow, like autumn leaves. There was no clearing to fight the beast in this time, but instead the crowded areas of the forest to deal with, which was giving Gabe mixed signals. Should he keep his distance, there would be a better chance for him to keep the Alpha at bay, but the moment it closed that gap he’d have little place to run. There was no threat of true death, but he imagined that getting savaged by a large wolf-like entity in a forest wasn’t going to feel good either.

Taking in a deep breath, he calmed himself before his thoughts could wander.

“Execution, you’ve got the plan… well it's not much of a plan b-” he shook his head, “Just execute,” he muttered to himself.

He looked around, noticing that Ted, or his name at least, was off on the opposite side of the Alpha. There was no reaction on the part of the wolf, which meant that he’d yet to be noticed.

Gabe readied his rifle and stepped from cover. The wolf’s back was to him, sniffing at the air, but before it could do more he whistled and flipped his rifle to full auto. The Alpha’s ears perked up, but before it could turn around it was met by a hail of gunfire that bounced off of its scales. He could not see the Alpha’s health bar, but judging from the lack of red spots across its body, he knew the attack wasn’t effective. The wolf turned to look at him, its eyes glowing with a fierce yellow as it focused its eyes on him.

“Well shit,” Gabe cursed, raising his rifle to fire again.

Before he could, the beast hunched down, fangs bared. An overwhelming amount of pressure settled around Gabe, and instead of fire, he dove to the side. The beast closed the gap between them in and instant, missing Gabe just barely as its jaws wrapped around the trunk of a tree. It clamped down, biting off a large chunk of the wood as it pulled its head back. Gabe was already gone, sprinting away as he fired behind him wildly. The beast gave chase, any chance of a direct charge dashed by the sporadic pattern of the trees around them. Almost drowned out by the sound of Gabe’s own weapons fire, a faint gunshot rang throughout the trees. A moment later, a bullet pierced into Alpha’s flank. It made the beast stagger momentarily, but it continued on, eyes still focused on the only prey it could see.

Gabe spun around after getting far enough away from the beast, firing another burst from his rifle, aiming at its head. The spread was too wide to strike any precise spots, but it was enough to keep it agitated. He noticed bullets were peppering it from the sides, meaning Ted was at least trying, even his attack wasn’t working.

The Alpha, unable to catch Gabe by chasing him directly, veered off to the side, already struck three more times by Irwin. If those were doing any damage, Gabe was not seeing it, but he was in no position to dwell on that.

The Alpha, clearly more used to forest terrain than Gabe, found a straight enough clearing to again do a leap attack, this one almost landing as Gabe ducked below it. It crashed into a tree with a thunderous boom, sinking its claws into another tree. Its bare belly exposed, Gabe fired the remainder of his magazine into the beast before reloading. It howled in pain and tore its claws from the wood, snarling at Gabe as he rolled from under it and ran off into the woods again.

Before he could make it that far, he felt something wisp past him, sinking into the trees around him. It would have been dumb of him to turn around, but the reddish glint of the projectiles told him that it was the scales of the Alpha. He turned to shake off the beast’s sight, but a scale caught him in the shoulder, landing with enough force to throw him off of his feet.

He rolled as he hit the ground, pulling his rifle up and firing as it charged at him. The numb, tingling sensation in his shoulder prevented him from properly aiming, but enough of his shots hit the beast to maintain it’s attention while Irwin and Ted fired at it from its flanks. The Alpha flinched as the bullets struck it this time, allowing Gabe enough time to roll out of its way and onto its feet. It caught itself before running into anything this time, but when it turned to face Gabe he saw that it was breathing heavily. Blood poured from the holes where Irwin had shot it, and the scales around its face were scuffed enough to look worn.

Gabe was in no better shape. The hit from that one scale alone took him down to half health, and while he was no stranger to endurance running, he was already taking in some sharp breaths.

The Alpha howled into the sky, its call echoing throughout the Emerald Forest. As soon as it did, Gabe noticed two paw print symbols move out of the corner of his vision. They were moving towards him.

“Aw hell,” he cursed.

Another gunshot rang out, a single bullet striking the Alpha in its knee. The wolf cried out as it fell, the rest of its legs unable to support its weight. It rolled over enough to expose its bare belly, which made sure to fire into before running off again. The Alpha took a moment to get back on its feet, but it gave chase once again. It was slower, limping as it kept its wounded leg from hitting the ground too much, but even then it was able to easily keep pace with Gabe.

The two Scalehounds it called before were now closing in on him. He could just barely make out their outlines through the forest brush, but his HUD was doing a good enough job of identifying them from the environment. As one was about to spring at him, Ted caught it from the side, driving his short sword into the beast neck as they rolled out of sight. Gabe turned towards the other Scalehound, letting his rifle drop to the side as he drew his sword, just in time to catch the beast in its underside when it leapt at him. Though he caught the Scalehound mid leap, the beast carried enough momentum to knock him off his feet, causing him to be yanked by the hound’s body as it fell to the ground. He tangled with the beast and rolled with it, ending on top of it by the time they stopped. He pulled his sword from the Scalehound, the act enough to deplete its remaining health.

He didn’t have time to waste, however, for as soon as the beast burst to ash the Alpha charged in. He managed to avoid the snap of the wolf’s jaws, but it managed to turn on its one good front leg and catch him with its hind claws.

Gabe’s rifle ended up between him and the attack, blocking most of the damage, but there was still enough force to throw him into a nearby tree, knocking the wind out of him. He coughed as he struggled to his feet, only for a new text box to appear in front of him.

+++

N32 Automatic Rifle has been broken!

It has been unequipped from you and stored in your inventory automatically. Broken items cannot be used until they are repaired

+++

He waved the text box out of the way with a groan, barely standing on his feet and a numbness washed over him. He supposed this was the game telling him that he was hurt all over, the near empty state of his health bar only driving that fact home, but he was still alive. The Alpha was as well, and it was looking directly at him.

Gabe drew his sword, panting as he held it out weakly in front of him. He was too tired to run, but from the desperate way that the beast was looking at him he could tell that it was on it’s last legs as well. There was a noticeable absence from Irwin and Ted, so it was up to him to take down the Alpha. Or live long enough to them to back him up.

The Alpha hunched down again, wincing as it placed its injured foot back on the ground. It was definitely desperate all right.

Gabe swallowed, sucking in a deep breath as he controlled his breathing. He held the sword out in front of him, pointed in the best “stance” that he could manage.

Silence hung between the two, thick enough that it sucked in the rest of the forest to them. With no signal, the Alpha charged, jaws open.

Gabe flicked his blade up, his sword catching the Alpha in its mouth. The blade sunk in effortlessly as the beast impaled itself, but it wasn’t enough to finish the beast off. It continued to push, driving Gabe back against the tree. Gabe managed place his foot on the beast’s lower jaw, preventing it from clamping, down, and to his fortune the tree was providing enough protection from the Alpha’s claws that it left the two at another stalemate.

“Why. Won’t. You. Just-” Gabe twisted the blade, ramming it further into the beast’s skull. The Alpha went slack, and a moment later, burst into a cloud of dust.

“Die,” he gasped, stumbling forward, but managing to catch himself with his feet.

He was too exhausted to celebrate, but he tapped the side of his goggles.

“Alpha’s down, sorry Ted I had to-”

Before he could finish, he felt something hit his neck. On instinct he quickly yanked it out and looked at it. It was one of Ted’s darts, except now the vial was empty.

Gabe looked around, trying to catch sight of his party member, only now realizing that Ted’s name was no longer on his HUD.

Irwin emerged from the bushes, hand raised to his ear.

“Yeah, looks like we got one, could prove to be pretty useful,” he said, ignoring Gabe for the most part, “I’ll drop him off at the Ruins soon.”

“Ruins? What-” he couldn’t say anything more, because he lost all sensation of his lips soon after opening his mouth.

Ted appeared, re-materializing in front of Gabe out of thin air. He recognized the effect. It was the same thing that Irwin did.

Before he could attempt to say anything else, another textbox popped in front of him.

+++

You have been tranquilized!

Under the eff-

+++

Before he could finish reading it, he fell to the ground. Then, there was nothing.