Chapter 9

“Existence has to be life but life does not have to be existence. If life would only consist of existing then what would you call the comparison of existence?”

Warwalker

Moonlight enlightened the groove in which the group had finally found shelter after a troublesome day. They had walked since sunrise, only to find out that they had just passed by a city where an event similar to the forest happened. Someone broke through the defense line and murdered almost every guard at the barrack. The few witnesses that were found were so shocked that they couldn’t tell one thing apart from the other. They were just frightened. So frightened that they couldn’t even talk anymore. As if dead would grasp them if they talked.

But the problem on hand was, that they had walked too far to easily walk back to the city. They were on a high level ground, a very high level ground, and through the night bonus, the entire area was suicidal dangerous. For now they had found this free spot between the huge trees, spruces to be correct. Sleepiness lay itself upon consciousness of the members, and Markus declared that he would take the first watch.

A campfire spread warmth and everyone was rather quickly asleep. The moment was just right for Markus who had waited for this the entire time. The thought that something was wrong with Failariél was just too overwhelming inside his head. He could not believe it himself but there was something about her, something weird. There was definitely something wrong. And he was responsible for the safety of his friends. Nobody knew of his plan to keep an eye on the beautiful elf.

Something was quite suspicious. She didn’t know what happened. The forest did not wake any memories and she herself had none. On top of that she couldn’t log out. The Bull and the twins had already bets running, that she was a NPC, sent to us for a quest. But I just couldn’t believe it.

Instead of watching the area, he held an eye on Failariél, who, at the moment, slept.

The shadows that enveloped the camp, were neither noticed by Markus nor by any other member of the group. Formed steelheads fall on their heads without a warning, the first still unnoticed, but as the second wave came the group was, as you could say, already ready for war. Everyone heaved their heavy blue coloured armors up in no time, and held their shields, or whatever they found at the moment to deflect the arrows in the direction of the arrows. You could hear steel hammering on steel. Bushes rustled and enemies swept forward. Bandits to be exact. Iron, steel and bronze shone in the bluish light of the moon. Shouts, roars and cries of pain filled the night. Birds crossed above their heads out of the trees, woken up by the tremendous noise.

“Back to back guys. Hold the position, we may be terribly outnumbered but we are still the legendary sapphire brigade! We, the blue jewels, won’t be stopped by a mere group of bandits. Even in death we may be triumphant!”

They formed a circle. Back to back they stood, slashing and cutting, shooting arrows to hear another cry of pain, for just another moin of death. This endless span of death was, frankly said, normal for mankind. Since the beginning of man humans fought battles for the possession of others. At the beginning it were thoughts like: Why can’t I have a cave so big and warm? later they changed to more trivial things. People fought for land they didn’t need just to shine more brightly afterward, or if it went wrong, to have no shine anymore.

The bandit group, having lost a huge amount of thieves and robbers, tried to retreat into the protection of the night and the shadows of the trees.

“After them”, Markus shouted to the group.”No more shall these people terrorize other travelers.”

They ran after them, unaware of the danger lurking behind the trees. Maybe it was fate, maybe it was coincidence, nonetheless it happened. With blue armor and raised arms still in the heat the battle, they didn’t notice, that the cries of the bandits had long ended. Despite they followed.

“Where are they?”, Markus hissed to the group with an icy cloud coming out.

“They can’t be so fast!”, answered the Bull on that. “They must be hiding somewhere.”

One of the twins stepped forward. “I can see something,” he pointed inside the forest.

The other twin agreed with bis brother. “Then what are we waiting around here?”, whispered Markus silently to the group, like a breath it reached the ears. The breath let Failarié’s blood run cold. Was it the sound of his voice, or is something wrong here, she thought.

Steadily they went deeper into the forest. One of them always seeing another thing to lead them deeper and deeper into the darkness. The further they got, the darker it became. The forest was silence. Too silent for the perception of Markus. But he didn’t say anything. With hushed steps they came onto a clearing.

To the shock of everyone, they found another massacre. The bandits they had chased, lay around, torn apart by brute force. Ponds of blood formed and somehow were connected to each other by small lines of blood. None of them noticed that the blood looked like a circle for a ritual. Even if someone of them would have seen it now, it was too late for them. the once so beautiful clearing was suddenly shining in the crimson red of blood. It was even more beautiful than before but on the other hand it was horrible. All this blood, all this guts, entrails still dripping blood was something that was not compatible with Failarièl’s stomach. She throw up in front of the group but no one could take it bad on her. This scene was just cruel.

But they still didn’t know why everything was enlightened just now. The Bull stepped forward into the circle, unaware of the danger. “It’s alright guys, nothing is here anymore.” He searched the ground for a trail but to his misfortune he didn’t find anything.

Slowly everyone of the group except of Failariél, who still recovered from her shock, walked onto the clearing. Aöö at once mayhem broke out. The earth began to shake, trees snapped somewhere in the distance, storm clouds gathered above their heads and the symbol began to shine bright red.

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I looked around unhealthy fast. My worry were the skeletons which chased me through the entire complex. I slipped past many corners and didn’t know where I were at the moment. As I looked out for any approaching enemies and noticed that there were none, I sighed. The corridor was

long and covered with moss one the right side. There were no visible entrances or windows on the sides. The air had an old smell to it. Dust whirled everywhere. A light breeze could be felt.

My breathing was heavy and I needed time to recover the stamina that I had lost on the run. Actually I had to overcome the shock of nearly getting killed as well. That was definitely not my plan! As I stood there I thought about what happened. I had gained so stat points while I were running and avoiding monsters. Was there something else? Mmh, I had nearly forgotten the loot of the head skeleton.

“Open Inventory”

I scrambled through the options, saw what I possessed at the moment, which was actually not much. The dagger from Orin. My body vest. The beginner clothes. And the katana. And the new items, marked up, were as far as I could say at the moment, leather leg armor, the helmet he wore, boots and gloves. I was surprised that one enemy dropped that much of equipment. But then I knew why I obtained so many items. It was the first-visit buff from before, which gave the rarest drop for the first kill. All items were still unidentified.

Identification!

It only made the stats visible for the gloves at the moment. Seems like I have to work on that skill in the future.

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Hard Leather Gloves of the Immortal Wanderer

Defense: 8

Stats: Agility + 5

Stamina + 5

Vitality + 5

Magic Resistance +5%

Description: Once this were gloves of great virtue.

Now after they are long forgotten you have the honor to

gain fame with them, so that they can shine bright again!

Special Effect: Raises stats according to your quests and fame.

Stops at some point.

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Wow. That were some great gloves. And it seems they will get even greater over time! If all the items I got are this awesome I have nothing to fear. Come at me! You undead scum.

The gloves were black leather and protected the underarm as well. They offered warmth through fur and gave advanced protection through engraved ruins. They looked nice and were very comfortable to wear.

Almost three hours were gone since I fall through the ceiling. I thought it was a trap-door but, when I was on the upper floor there was no sign of any trap door or anything like that. Maybe I just fell through the ceiling or magic warped me down. That reminds me of magic. I was in RoyalRoad and I still haven’t seen any real magic. Like fireballs or blizzards. Maybe I should stop at the library or buy me some magic tomes for traveling.

After all this time I had spent here, did the dark atmosphere not give me the creeps anymore.

Actually it felt really nice to know that you could see just as bad as others down here. Obviously I didn’t know at that time that I could pierce the darkness better than most other people.

My health was still not recovered to the fullest as a black figure appeared on one end of the corridor. I still didn’t feel that well but I thought why not give it a try. It would be boring if I just keep on running through this old and dusty corridors. With my katana at one side and well nothing on my other side except maybe my wits I confronted the enemy. Or whatever it was. it made a slurfing sound and as it came nearer I saw that it was a fully covered skeleton with bandages. A mummy! With no notice of my presence I waited inside a crack to let it pass to sneak up on it from behind.

As it went past my hiding place, I came out and followed slowly. To our both surprise did I accidentally step on one of the bandages. The mummy fall to the hard ground and lost most of the bandages as it roll down the corridor. As I heard a loud crash, I couldn’t see it anymore, I kept track of the bandages which I picked up on the way and found a broken skeleton at the end of the corridor. I swept over the loot, it wasn’t much, just some bone dust and eight copper coins. I examined the bandages.

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Item: Dusty bandages

Used to cover wounds and to stop bleedings.

It may infect the user as it is now covered with dust.

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Well if it’s dusty than I can make it clean. I tried to clean the bandages but came to no success. The air was already too dusty or I don’T know why but the dust didn’t want to come of. What a pity!

Many skeletons blocked my way but no strong enemy popped up. As I eliminated this low-bobs I reached some levels. Starter levels can be gained fast just as in every other game.

One corridor was actually very tricky. I almost died there. the corridor stretched over many hundreds of meters and it looked like it had no end. I heard a click beneath my right foot. “Oh crap!” A trap! The words came out of my mouth and suddenly dust whirled down from the ceiling alongside small stones. I could hear something smashing down the corridor behind me and I grabbed all of my belongings and runned down,faster than I normally could have, the corridor.

Just as I reached the end of the corridor and a big boulder was close behind me I tripped. I crashed headfirst into the wall but it gave way. I rolled out of instinct fast to the side. Just then did the boulder come after me. It nearly got me! That were not more than one or two inches actually.

While I stood up and tapped down the dust from my clothes, I looked around. It was a huge dome. From above I could see rays of light entering - changing the atmosphere completely.

It looked like a fantasy movie or a great spectacular picture.

You could hear the clagging of my shoes echoing of the walls. As I got a better look of the entire circular room I could see four pillars holding the ceiling. They were formed like ancient titans.

Strong and powerful they did their job for a long time. You could see it.

Click.

I intuitively jumped to the side and rolled over the floor to catch some of the impact of.

“You ain’t as bad as I thought. From your looks you seem to be someone who has just arrived on this continent.” Lying I could see who spoke in such a harsh tone. It was some sort of guardian. He wear studded leather and had claws attached to his hands. “How I hate guys like you. Scum like you doesn’t deserve to live another day,” he jumped forward and proppeled like a tornado towards me. I could swear that I could hear the wind being sliced apart.

I raised my sword and blocked his attack at the last second by deflecting his tornado strike to the top and spinning to the side. But my sword didn’t stop at that moment, it came down right after I blocked the attack.

Critical Hit!

After I hit I slashed again but he was already away. “Who are you?” That had to sound stupid but nothing else came to my mind. “Why are you attacking me out of nowhere?” At least I could get some answers.

“For you to ask such questions, tztz. You broke into this holy sanctuary! Not me, you!”

His left arm was bleeding but that didn’t stop him from channeling power. A red orb formed in front of his hands. Before I could react he shoot it toward me. A bright red light blended my eyes. Pain numbed my senses and I was pushed back against the wall in a wide arc.

Something warm ran down my stomach. I touched it with my blood and realized that it was blood. My HP were at a critical point and without fast treatment I would die.

The weird thing was that he vanished in thin air. He wasn’t there anymore.

I took out the old bandages and treated myself with them. It stopped the bleeding temporarily. I definitely had to use it again to change the bandage later on.

After the bleeding stopped my HP went slowly up again. I took out something to eat from my backpack to recover some stamina and reduce my fatigue.

There had to be something here if there are guardians so powerful.

I went on and stepped into the middle again. The room seemed different than before. After some time I knew why. The sun had set and left behind a dark room. I examined the floor and the walls but didn’t find any clues about the place or who he was.

After spending some time doing that my wound began to bleed again. The bandages were soaked wet with blood and it hurt like hell to take them off.

I had still some left from before and put them on.

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You got infected with Vampirism.

The first stage will give you bonuses on

night vision and agility.

+25% Nightvision

Agility +5

You may suck blood to replenish health.

The longer you stay a vampire, the more do the effects do.

Beware!

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What the bloody hell? I just put some bandages on. Ohhh- The mummy must have been a vampire before and by applying the bandages on my wound I got the infected cells into my body.