There was no path, no clearing, no marking, not a hint of direction. Trees constantly blocked our path, with thick foliage filling the space between them. I used my claymore to cut them down as we slowly progressed further.
Suddenly, Urvi placed her hand on my shoulder, making me stop mid-motion. "What happened?" I asked her.
She pointed her finger ahead of me. In the distance we saw a beautiful golden deer, chewing on the leaves of a plant next to it. It looked young, with its antlers barely jetting out of its skull.
Urvi pushed me aside before taking a step forward. She had a look of awe on her face, her eyes shimmering at the sight of the deer. She got down low and slowly stepped forward. The deer peacefully chewed on the leaves, unaware that two humans were approaching it, that is until a loud whiplash crackled in the air.
The deer didn't even bother looking around to see where the sound came from. It leaped ahead and vanished into the thicket of the forest.
"No... no!" Urvi exclaimed. She got on her feet and stomped the ground furiously. "Where the fuck did that come from?" she asked as she looked around.
I too was caught off guard by the sound. I looked around, observing very closely to see from where the sound came, but all I could see were just more trees. Suddenly, my blood went cold. Maybe it was because the rush had died out or the realization this was not someone's backyard, but all of a sudden, I felt deep fear instilled in my heart.
"You know. I think we have been taking things a bit too for granted," I said.
"What do you mean?" She had an annoyed look on her face.
"Like, we aren't exactly in a safe space. This is the jungle. Anything and everything can kill us."
"Fuck? Don't scare me like that." Her annoyed expression was melting away, revealing a more cautious look in her eyes.
"All I am saying is..." Suddenly the creaking of the wood filled the air around us. All the crickets had suddenly gone quiet. From the corner of my left eye, I spotted something moving. Turning towards it, I lay witness to a tree seemingly breaking apart.
"Karna, what is that?" Urvi asked. I felt the tremble in her voice.
"My guess. Our first enemy." I tightened my grip on the sword, bowing low and ready to face off. "Get ready to fight."
"Uhh... Karna. It isn't alone."
I turned around and saw that we were surrounded, in all directions. They looked the same. Life forms made out of the wood from living trees, twisted and mutated into unrecognizable shapes. The only familiar feature was that they had what appeared to be four legs, also made out of tree trunks. I remembered seeing something like this in a game.
"Karna, what the fuck are these?"
"Treants. Walking trees," I replied.
"Will they hurt us?"
"I don't know."
"Then how do we kill them?"
"Got to try and figure out." I lunged forward, at the treant that stood before me, pulling my sword back to deliver a swift slash. The treant countered by shooting one of its arms toward me. The arm traveled so fast that before I could even see it, it had pierced through my right shoulder.
Blinding pain radiated from the point of impact, almost making me drop my sword. But I held on. I could still feel the arm and fortunately, still move it. In quick motion, I swung the sword in a circular motion letting the weight of the sword carry forward and slice the treant's arm off. Without slowing down, I swung the sword upwards, just as the creature tried to use its other arm to defend itself, but my blade cut through it and what looked like the head. The treant crumbled and fell apart.
Blood oozed down my arm and the pain made me slightly dizzy. I used the sword to balance myself as I caught my breath again.
"Be careful. They are weak but move incredibly fast," I tried warning Urvi.
"No shit!"
I turned back to see her taking on three of them at once. Bleeding cuts covered her body as she mindlessly swung the sword, trying to hit it.
"Urvi!" I shouted before charging in to save her. My right had lost a lot of its power, it was barely able to lift a sword, forcing me to drag it along the ground.
I came to a dead stop before the treants, whose focus was on Urvi. Grabbing hold of the handle with both arms, I slashed one of the creatures with an uppercut, decimating it.
Urvi, not having to protect her back anymore, turned around and swung the axe down onto another one, turning it dust.
The last remaining treant shot its arm towards Urvi who was still recovering from the previous swing. The arm pierced through her left breast.
"Urvi!" I shouted.
Her eyes widened as blood squirted from the wound. I immediately charged towards the treant and cut it down with yet another two-handed uppercut, finishing it off.
Urvi fell on her knee and bent over, puking out blood for a few good seconds. I limped over to her before kneeling to aid her. "Are you okay?" I asked as I placed my hand on her back.
"I am fine. I am fine. Just a little pain," Urvi replied. She held onto my knee with her right hand, showing the band on her wrist. It was about thirty percent shorter. Urvi breathed in slowly as she got back up. She looked me in the eye and smiled, blood still dripping over her lower lip. "Rough learning, huh?"
I couldn't stop myself from smiling. "Nothing like a good round of beating to give us a reality check." I stood back up before helping her get up on her feet.
I checked my own band. It too had shortened, but not by much. It was manageable.
"What do we do now?" Urvi asked.
"We move forward."
"Did that girl say we will find treasure chests around here? We walked for quite a while and not one has shown up."
"Treasure chests are rarely in the open. We need to dig a little deeper," I said.
She placed her hand on her right hip and said, "But I am guessing they are hidden. Check the map now. Maybe it will show us something."
Not a bad idea! I pulled out the journal and opened up the map. It now showed us the path we had forged. An almost straight line traveling down south. However, further down south there is a small "X" mark drawn on the map. "This is interesting!"
"What is it?"
"There is something more in that direction," I said pointing ahead.
"Any idea what it is?"
"It just shows an "x", so not sure. Come on."
"I hope it isn't another nasty surprise."
We slowly forged ahead, toward the mark. The thicket didn't clear up, forcing us once again to use our weapons to clear the way. However, using heavy weapons constantly quickly became exhausting. Thankfully, we reached the spot.
"There is nothing here," Urvi said as she scanned the ground around us. "Is it under the ground?"
I looked up, just in case, and saw something hanging from a tree branch. "Or above us."
She looked up and the booty instantly cheered her up. She began taking steps backward before asking me, "Stand back." I did as I was told.
Once she got far enough, she gripped the handle with both her hands and lifted it over her head, ready to throw.
"That won't cut the rope. Unless your plan is to smash the chest," I said.
She realized I was right and brought the axe back down. However, before I could say anything else, she had already changed her stance. Now, she pulled the axe back with just one arm, twisting her body back. "Better?" She asked.
I simply nodded.
She let out a loud grunt as she swung the axe, eyeballing the rope. The axe spun like a saw blade as it sliced through the thick vine before flying off into the thick canopy. The booty plummeted to the ground, landing with a loud thud. Urvi, meanwhile, continued looking for the axe. "I can't lose that thing, right?" She asked.
I shook my head smiling. "Come on. We will look for it once we check out the chest."
We gathered above the chest, which sat half buried in the ground. It was made of dark brown wood, appearing to be rotting in places and covered in moss and leaves. Thick vines coiled it but didn't appear to be holding it tight. I knelt and used my sword to cut through them, freeing the chest.
The lid of the chest broke free with ease, revealing the content inside. There were a bunch of things inside, however, one particular item caught my eye. It was the size of my hand and shaped like a diamond, glowing a dull green shade. I picked it up and held it in the air as both Urvi and I marveled at it.
"What is that?" She asked.
"It must be the magic shard Faeren told us about."
"Well. How do we use it?"
"Don't know. But the guide should tell us."
Suddenly the ground beneath us shook as a loud thud echoed through the woods. Fear gripped my heart as we stared into each other's eyes. We heard the sound of something wailing and as I turned around to see what it was, a flock of birds scurried past, forcing us to the ground.
I looked back up to see what it was but nothing, but the forest lay in front of us. However, it didn't take me long to realize that it was the forest itself that was moving.
"Mother of treants!" Urvi said. Before she could even complete the sentence, something shot past us. When I turned toward her, I found a bloody geyser in place of her head, spraying blood all over me before her body slumped to the floor.
"Urvi?" I mumbled as I choked on my own words. I stared at her corpse as the creature reached me. I looked back up to see a giant tree trunk come down upon me as I stood still like a light pole and then everything went blank.
Bright rays of sunlight cut through my blurry vision, most of which was obscured by shades of green... Hang on. I snapped open my eyes before sitting upright.
I looked to my left and saw that Urvi was already awake, still sitting on the ground with her legs crossed and with an irritated look on her face. "You still remember everything?" She asked.
"I think so..." I said. "Details are a little blurry."
"Then I guess you don't know what killed us."
I shut my eyes, squeezing them as I tried to remember what had happened. The last thing I remembered was... the last thing was... I remember the ground shaking and something moving. But what was moving? I think. I think it was the forest itself... I remember now!
"Mother of the treants!" I said aloud as I opened my eyes again. "She was huge!"
"What the fuck Karna! She took us out in one shot! Unless I missed you fighting that thing."
I had an awkward smile on my face. "No. Don't worry. I pretty much died seconds later when it stomped on me."
She grunted hard, looking down at the ground, almost like she was going to throw up.
"Are you okay?" I asked. We seemed to have resurrected back in the center, next to the great oak. The clothes we were given were still on, so I guess this is going to be our base armour. I looked around us and saw the weapons leaning against the oak tree as well. All is good, I guess. Though, the shard was nowhere to be seen.
"I am fine," she said, pressing her palm against her forehead. "Just... I never felt death." She looked at me, a little puzzled. "You don't seem fazed at all!"
"My head is a little dizzy, but I didn't feel any pain when I got crushed. So, it just felt like I blanked out," I said.
Suddenly I felt a calming tone, like the keys of a piano whisper in the air. I looked around me, to see where they were coming from. But I didn't know from where. "Did you hear a piano tune?"
Urvi crossed her legs and sat silently. "No..." Suddenly her eyes lit up too. "Wait! I did too!" She said looking at me. "What was that?"
Piano tune... both heard but separately... could it be? If it was, where do I see it?
I looked at my arm and saw the experience band had increased. "Check your arm."
She did as she was told when a huge smile appeared on her face. She looked back at me and said, "I got experience!" Pointing at her arm.
"We progressed!" I replied, raising my arms in the air.
"You know what would be better?" Her expression changed to that of anger. "If we didn't die to get it!"
"Baby steps Urvi. Baby steps."
She pushed herself off the ground with a grunt. Looking around, her eyes caught the location of the axe, and she immediately began to pace towards it. "I am going to fucking kill that thing."
"Whoa there babe!" I said as I got up myself. "We need a plan."
"A plan? For what?"
"To deal with it. Trying to take it head on, will not end well."
She stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me with a tired expression. "Okay. Go ahead. What do you entail us to do?"
This is probably where the super smart gamer brain should have started working and in a way it did. But the problem was that none of my plans really worked.
Plan A - Get to the chest without provoking the treants. The mother must have clearly been pissed off that we killed the treants. So, this time we decided to not kill any and find the chest. We found the chest exactly where we had left it, half buried in the ground. No treants approached us and the shard was in the chest. All looked good until the loud thundering began. The forest moved and this time Urvi sprinted towards the thing swinging her axe like a madwoman. Only this time, the thing wacked her into the atmosphere while I was once again crushed to death by it.
Plan B - Stealth our way to the chest and stealth our way out. Once again, no treants. The chest was where it was supposed to be. We stuck close to the ground, staying below the shrubs. I picked up the shard when suddenly Urvi disappeared from beside me with a loud scream. "Oh no..." I felt something sharp pierce me and before I knew it, I was back near the oak.
Plan C - Take a different route. This time we will go up north. It only took five steps outside the circle for the ground to start shaking again. "What the actual fuck?" Urvi cursed. "Is the forest full of these fucking things?" "That sounds plausible," I replied. The tree moved and two crushing blows later, we were back in the circle.
Plan D - I wonder what is towards the east. Same fucking thing.
Plan E - West looks normal. Nope. Same disaster was walking.
Plan F, G, H, I, J, K, L, I, lost track - Charge at that thing with everything we got. Even if it is not working.
***
"What are we missing?" I said aloud. We sat beneath the great oak. Contemplating what to do next.
"I will tell you what we are missing, actual skill. Two fucking losers came to a new world with big hopes and dreams and look at us! Pathetic pieces of shit!" Urvi looked to be on the verge of tears.
"Ouch. You didn't have to be so harsh..."
"What is wrong with us? What is wrong with me? Why am I such a waste of breath!?" She shouted.
"Urvi... what is going on?" I asked, looking concerned.
She remained silent. "Sorry. I got emotional there."
The two of us sat quietly. I wished to solve her problem, but she will not open up. But not opening up is looking to cause a lot more problems than we would want right now.
"Urvi... Please tell me what happened between you and your daughter," I asked politely.
She remained silent. Looking into the distance mournfully. I didn't ask her again, instead chose to remain silent as well.
"We fought. Badly," She finally said.
"What happened?" I asked.
"She must have found out about my whoring. Though I do not know how or what exactly she knew. She appeared to be very frustrated with me. Angry. I tried to pry her open and she exploded." She bowed her head down.
I pushed myself closer to her, before placing my right arm around her shoulders. "What did she say?"
"Things a mother wouldn't want to hear. Called me unfaithful, selfish, and ugly on the inside."
So, just short of calling her own mother a whore. That is just plain bad. "She just doesn't know that you did it for her."
"That shouldn't matter. So, what if I did sleep with other men? I never preached to her. Always trusted her, never judged her. Even when her father forbade her from marrying her boyfriend, it was I who stood beside her. Why... why would anyone do that to someone who has been so supportive?" She swallowed hard. Small drops of tears formed on her eyelashes while her pink lips trembled. "No. It is me. I always thought I was doing this for her. But I can't deny it anymore. I enjoyed it way more than I was allowed to."
Oh, Urvi. Still bogged down by social norms.
Tears streamed down her cheeks which she wiped away immediately. "I am sorry Karna."
"For what?"
"For using you. After my daughter was married. I felt so lonely. I couldn't stop myself from getting back into it. I will admit, my first thought was other men. I spent a month, every other night with one or the other. But by the end of it, that hollowness was never filled. That is when I finally walked back to your apartment."
My heart shrunk a little. I cannot deny that. I never had any luck with women. Even then, it hurts every time you hear such things. This was two months ago. I worked from home and so I was couped up in that apartment room all day. It felt safe, away from the world, but it also felt lonely. But after that day, I began to feel less lonely.
"Found something in your room that I didn't find anywhere else."
"What is that?"
"Comfort."
However, she never really stopped. I was aware of this, but if there was one thing, we both shared, it was an insatiable lust. Every night should be walk out but would be back by dawn.
"And I used it. I never stopped; you know?" She asked.
"I know. But you are just like me. So, I understand."
She snorted as she shook her head. "No. Even now you are just defending me."
"It is true. You know deep down I am even worse. I just never had the looks."
"Even if you did, you wouldn't do it. You are just too humble," She interrupted.
"So are you. Look, I am a degenerate with no wants or needs for marriage. But, if there was anyone in this world I would ask to marry, it is you," I declared.
Her eyes widened; and her jaw dropped slightly. My heart began to swell as I stared back at her with an awkward smile.
Suddenly there was this piano tune again, only this time, it was accompanied by a soothing voice which said, "destinies linked."