Chapter 30

  Instead of finding myself on the ground like I thought I would, I reappeared falling about a foot until my boots hit the ground. My dead body had seemingly floated up and reformed, then reequipped my dropped gear on the completion of the resurrection cast.

  As my feet touched the ground I saw an electrical looking net zipping in my direction. I shoved Fred, unfortunately touching his naked sweaty butt, and shifted to my Wind Rogue. I blinked toward the bio mech who had shot the net ability. The net passed by where Fred and I had been standing a moment before.

  I appeared among the three enemy combatants, shifted back to my Warden, and cast Hammer Smash before any of them could react. The already broken ground broke again as I brought my hammer down. The trees that had fallen earlier shifted, and the ground heaved. All three players were stunned for ten seconds each, but Frankie popped some kind of stun cleanse ability and kept moving. The dwarf scrambled up as bits of rock continued to settle around us. I shifted again and Spinal Tapped, appearing behind him, dealing seventy-five percent of his health in damage, and immobilizing him for five seconds. I could probably do more damage with my Rogue, but I shifted again, hammer popping back into my hand.

  “What the hell are you?!” Frankie sputtered as he swung his axe. I glanced at his life credits, a cold sadness forming in my chest. He had zero credits left.

  “Sixteen levels higher than you,” I said. Then I swung my hammer down and caved his head in. He went to all fours, Knocked. I quickly turned, not wasting time, and let out a “TO ARMS!” At my direction, the five guards fell in on the bio mech. I shifted and started stacking Spirit Bleed on the shade via my new condensed Wind Spear throw. It was overkill, as each wind spear on its own notched his health down a significant amount. Both the bio mech and the shade Knocked before the ten-second stun was even up. The level difference between us was too great.

  Their immunity timers were ticking down, so I said, “We’ll deal with you in a moment.”

  I took a deep steadying breath as Mie rose into the air when Fred completed another Resurrection Stone cast. Her arms and legs, which had been blasted off, flew back and reconnected to her body, and she dropped to the ground whole.

  “Fred. What the hell man?” she said the instant her mouth could move.

  “What?” he said innocently.

  A vein on Mie’s forehead started to turn purple.

  A moment ago, that had been me. I had been red with rage at Fred . . . but we were still here. We were still alive. Somehow . . . he had pulled it off. So, I cut in as Mie’s mouth twisted savagely and started to open. “It wasn’t the best performance I have ever seen, but you know what? It’s over. Everything is great. We are still alive.”

  “It wasn’t the best performance you have ever seen?!” Mie said, astounded. “Sam, Fred did everything possible wrong back there.”

  “But I got it done. All is well!” Fred said to defend himself. But I noticed his voice quavering slightly.

  I cocked my head at Fred. “Like I said. Not the best, but we’re all still here.” I went over to Fred and grasped his shoulder and whispered to him. “I thought we talked about not using that coin ability.”

  “You said to reserve it for ‘dire situations.’ That felt dire,” Fred whispered back.

  I gave him a quizzical look and said, “Like I said. I’m over it. Thank you for saving us yet again.” I clapped him on the shoulder and moved to the three Knocked enemies, who had all crawled over to each other. I looked at each of their nameplates. They all had zero credits left, and their invincibility timers were almost up.

  Fred rezzed Clara, and she came up next to me and knelt. Then she touched one of the Knocked players, the dwarf Frankie, and there was a black glow around her hand as she used Void Track, the ability to track players that were part of the same party. It would show Clara–on her global map–the location of every other player that existed in the party of the player she touched.

  “Three red dots here, and . . . I assume that one is Mike. He is way up north, close to the white ring.”

  “I’m not sure that means much. With his teleportation traps, I’m sure he could show up in a heartbeat,” I said; however, I didn’t actually know if this was true. I had no idea what the range of his teleports even was, but I had a hunch that the little shit wouldn’t have journeyed so far from his backup if he didn’t have a path back.

  “Wait what?” Frankie said, clearly in intense pain. “He’s that far north?!” He coughed up some blood, and I saw his immunity timer fall to zero and wink away.

  An uneasy feeling seeped into my chest as realization sprouted in my mind. We had just revealed to Mike’s party members our tracking ability . . . Shit. I watched for a split second as Frankie’s eyes moved around in his interface. It looked like he was writing out a message. My arm felt like lead as I swung my hammer and crushed his half-reformed head in. He flopped over dead. I swallowed.

  “Gah!” Hank, the shade exclaimed.

  “Sam, what the hell?!” Mie said. “They might have information on this Mike guy.”

  I looked into Hank’s eyes. My eyes were watering as I saw the fear in his. A moment later, he dropped to the ground fully dead. I pulled my hammer out from where it had gotten stuck in Hank’s skull. “I’ll explain,” I said roughly as Mie tried to stop me from moving to the bio mech. He took two swings to bring down.

  Mie and Fred were looking at me as if I was some sort of alien.

  “Look,” I said, avoiding their gazes. “I obviously did not want to do that.” My voice was gruff, as if I had been in meetings all day where I had been the only one talking, and then right after that chain-smoked an entire pack of cigarettes. “But . . . think about it. We have a chance at having an advantage on this guy. If they had time to warn him that we were aware of his location . . . ” I looked at my hand that was holding the hammer. It was shaking. I knew the players lying before me were back in their Soul Spaces, still alive. But if Mike kicked them from his party . . . they would for real be dead.

  I looked up. Clara was standing in front of me. She wrapped her arms around me and said softly, “It’s okay, Sam. I understand.”

  I looked over to Mie and Fred. They both nodded grimly with understanding. They too understood that if Mike kept the dead party members in his party, we would be able to track him with Clara’s ability. That piece of shit was solely responsible for my loss of life on Earth and for seven of our party’s credits. We desperately needed an edge against him, even if it was at the cost of others’ lives. I sat down, feeling weak and remembering my little girls. I need to survive. For them. I was so tired of getting jumped by Mike. So tired of getting one shot with no warning. Clara’s tracking ability . . . should help, and he didn’t have any other party members in our area left. How did he know we were coming this way? Is his guide’s perception ability . . . stronger? I growled, frustrated at the unbalanced nature of guides.

  “But Sam . . .” Mie said, a sudden realization dawning on her face. “I’m not carrying three dead bodies for you, man.” She was right, I sighed.

  We ended up taking a leaf out of little Charlie’s handbook. Damn this place. How was chopping off hands officially a normal thing? God. Why is this my reality? God damn it all.

  I looked at my map, frustrated with the lost time and travel. “Come on. Let’s loot and keep moving.”

  The next six days were literal hell as we pressed northward, staying just slightly ahead of the Black Zone. Like I figured, our side of the Black Zone was moving the fastest compared to the rest. If we had been in that small sliver on the north side of the white ring, the Black Zone there would hardly be moving, since it didn’t have nearly as far to go to reach its target. We passed from area to area, city to city. We traveled across treacherous mountain ranges, rolling hills, swathes of forests, a few deserts—which sucked—and even a couple zones that had similar effects as the late Black Domain.

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  We recruited as we went, aiming to replenish horses and gather followers, but I was starting to throttle that back since it was such a time sink, and the results were not great. One of the many problems we faced was that a lot of the areas had already been cleared of mounts by other players ahead of us. We took a longer path that kept us in lower-level areas. The recommended levels, I realized, went up the closer you got to the center of the continent. The ones near the center recommended level ninety to one hundred. So logically, to avoid the high-level areas, it made sense to take a path that took us northwest—well, logical outside of the fact that we were not taking the most direct route when time was already against us.

  As for other players, our party hadn’t come across any during the journey since Mike’s elaborate asshole ambush. But Matt gave me a daily report of player movements when we broke for camp each morning. The Black Zone was pushing everyone together, and as a result, our scouts had seen countless parties headed in the same direction as us. Generally, they stayed clear and avoided our massive force. There had been one or two parties who attempted to steal horses, but Matt's guard was sound, and those on watch raised the alarm to prevent any major losses.

  But back to why the journey was so god awful. The Black Zone pressed us forward, always creeping closer. After an interval of rest, we found ourselves right at the edge of its deadly corruption. During those days I began to fully comprehend what we were dealing with. It towered over us and rose to the heavens. When the Black Zone passed over the grass . . . it withered and died. The trees groaned, fell, and disintegrated away as it reached them. Anything alive perished. When I looked into its depths, it looked like a thick black fog hung in the air, and I knew instinctively that visibility would be low if we got caught in it.

  A sentient NPC in our battalion—to my bewilderment—volunteered to walk in for us to better understand its effects, and I was happy to see it didn’t instantly kill the man.

  Instead, his skin grew loose, went black and purple, and started leaking blood and pus. The rotting effect was a terrible sight to behold, and apparently painful from the fact that the man started screaming after about five minutes. Half of his health had ticked away, and he came back out looking like a bloated corpse after a day in the hot sun. Mie was able to heal him with a flash heal, and he went back to normal to everyone’s relief. As terrible as it had looked . . . it could have been worse. It could have killed him in seconds. And if the Black Zone was moving any faster, we wouldn’t have been able to outpace it. It moved slightly slower than an average walking pace.

  This meant we were all either walking fast, running, or riding to stay in front of it, and we had to do the latter two in order to buy ourselves enough time and distance to catch some sleep. Because of this, the days were long, and the nights short. Our horses were tired, and as the days passed our ability to move away from it weakened.

  Now, we were about a day’s ride away from the Safe Zone.

  But today . . . today was a bad day.

  The sentient NPCs—unlike the players—were not able to ignore their physical exhaustion. I wasn’t sure why that was, but thought it might have been something to do with not having a Soul Space body . . . or maybe that was just how it worked. I didn’t know. But either way . . .

  Today was the day a large number of our men’s strength gave out.

  We traveled in an open plains area called Grayman’s Fields. It was completely flat, and it let our troops march in their default block formations. I myself had moved to the rear guard in grim anticipation. I had tried everything . . . but we didn’t have enough mounts to go around. I looked away as the shouting started. I kept my eyes trained on the back of a mass of children who sat on my men’s horses. The children were unable to stay on their feet more than a minute at a time now. Unable to continue swapping with their fathers and mothers. Exhausted to the max.

  Gathering my strength, I turned to watch the group’s end. There was nothing I could do. They couldn’t outpace the wall of darkness any longer.

  The wives and children, despite not having been enlisted in my army . . . had followed their husbands and fathers. I wasn’t sure what I had been thinking, way back when I had put together my plan for enlisting an army . . . but I hadn’t thought of this. I hadn’t thought of this horrid experience.

  The shouts and cries turned to screams and bellowing roars. The men’s pleas for help flayed against my back, each one felt like a stroke from a whip.

  A small girl was shaking in front of me, and in that moment, as I watched the silent tears fall off her cheeks, I realized that this really was Hell. A torture chamber with no way out but one . . . and I didn’t mean being the last party standing, nor succumbing to the darkness behind and getting squished.

  No . . . the only way out of this moment . . . was to shove my humanity aside. I let the screams wash over me, and it was like trying to ignore an infant’s cries during sleep training. I should have been able to help. I could go help. I looked back again at the dying men and stopped myself. There were so many struggling to outpace the creeping rot.

  It had been a mistake to ride at the back to witness their transformation. But I had to know what we were dealing with.

  I watched as the health of one man—who had been trying his best to get back out of the fog—fell to zero and was surprised to see it refill to full. However, instead of being a red health bar, it was black. His shoulders slumped, and his back arched. His eyes turned red, and his blistering dead skin, which had been rotting and dying, reached its final form. Skin dried and cracked as it thinned. It tightened with strength over muscles now powered by hunger. I could see bones, and tendons, and part of his skull.

  It was as I feared. He had turned into a zombie. The black fog rushed into his mouth and wisped away from his eyes. He gnashed his teeth and darted forward. It was a fast, rabid movement. Not like some dumbass slow zombie from The Walking Dead. No . . . this was a fucking World War Z zombie . . . more like a ghoul. Faster than a cheetah and built to kill. I raised my shield in anticipation of a fight, watching it charge forward on all fours, blackness streaming from him. He jumped toward me at the edge of the zone, but he never reached me. As if he was part of the fog itself, he hit the zone boundary and bounced away. The cloudy barrier went black where he struck it and rippled outward and away from the point of impact. The strike sounded like a bass drum.

  BOOM!

  The ghoul shrieked—not in pain—but in frustration. With some relief as he tried to rush at me again and again bounced away, I realized he couldn’t pass out of the Black Zone.

  I watched his black health bar and saw it steadily falling. Curious, and continuing to outpace the circle, I stayed to watch. My strength was far superior to these NPCs—not to mention, my party had stayed on horseback the most out of anyone, saving our strength at the sacrifice of others . . . and my butt. Damn thing was bruised beyond repair.

  The black bar continued to fall, and as it did, I saw the nightmare creature start to dissolve. Specks came off of him in small streams and wisped away into the wind until he completely disintegrated. It took about ten minutes.

  The screaming was growing in volume as more voices joined the others. Only now it was mixed. I heard fear and pain in those screams, but also a bloodthirsty desire to kill and shrieks of anger. In the distance, I saw a couple of the rabid ghouls streak across the field and tear into an NPC who had still been alive. A few seconds later, he rose as one of them.

  Jesus.

  Matt and Mie rode up next to me.

  “Is there nothing else we can do?” I asked.

  Matt grimaced and shook his head. We had run out of options, and the only ones left were bad. “Should have left the children, sir.”

  It was a horrible thing to say. But Matt was a smart man. He understood the situation. They would all be dead in just a few short days, children and women included. Why keep the children alive, when good men could survive to help us get to the end?

  Logically I knew these people were not real. That this had happened thousands of times in countless other Hearth instances. But what if they are real? What if they are trapped souls? What if . . . they are all just like Greg? I guess they would have the advantage over him; at least their memories got reset, or so I assumed. Still, I just couldn’t shove all my humanity aside. There were still plenty of men who had been single and without children. About five battalions’ worth. But Matt had a point. We needed to shed the women and children. I couldn’t stand having them as a responsibility any longer.

  “Give the women and children the freshest horses and have them head out ahead of the army. Have them make for the center of the white ring.”

  “There are no fresh horses, sir, and I’m afraid the horses themselves are going to give out soon.”

  “We should just farm them,” Mie cut in.

  We both looked at her in bewilderment. “The horses?” I asked, already knowing this was going somewhere I didn’t like.

  “Nah. The women and children.” She said it so matter-of-factly that for a second, I didn’t respond at all.

  When she didn’t elaborate further, I said, “Wait. You’re serious?”

  “I mean no. Maybe . . . No, no, no . . . obviously not,” she said slowly, watching our expressions as she said it. “Oh, come on, it’s fat XP just sitting there.”

  “What are we talking about?” Clara asked as she rode up. Matt, feeling uncomfortable, fell away slightly.

  “Nothing,” I said, but Mie as always . . . self-sabotaged.

  “Slaughtering the children for the XP.”

  That one caught Clara off guard, but then she thought about it . . . and nodded.

  No one spoke for a minute, so I broke the lull in the conversation. “What is going on here?! We can’t,” I looked around, and made sure Matt had retreated away a far enough distance, "kill . . . the women and children.” I whispered that last part as I saw the girl whose father had just died looking at us with a curious expression. “And even if we did, I’m certain we would start losing followers. This is a dumb conversation. We are not killing the children. I don’t care if they are not technically real. We are not doing it. End of story.”

  Fred came riding up to us. “What are we talking about?”

  “Slaughtering the—" Mie cut off as she caught me glaring at her. Finally, she said, “Oh fine. Nothing. We’re talking about nothing ‘cuz we’re boring and lame.”