CHAPTER 510: THE WHISPERING WOOD

Mason was so busy chasing Stag through the winding paths of the fey, he hardly realized everything had changed. The ‘Unseelie’ lands were a shock to the senses.

Just as Stag said, the surroundings of perpetual spring life transformed to a dark, cold winter. Mason was leaving a trail of footsteps in shallow snow, his breath misting in the air. The trees were barren and still, asleep to his senses and powers.

But it wasn’t a disturbing place. In fact, it was beautiful. He saw a frozen waterfall, the water locked in place like jagged glass, as if it had instantly turned to ice as it was falling. The lake below was still as the snow, all the noise and clutter and dancing lights of the fey completely gone.

Mason felt the urge to lie down and sleep. He blinked and shook his head, slapping himself until it went away.

This is a place of death and ending, Stag told him. The creatures here are not subtle. They would rather tear you apart than trick you. The treants and dryads are hostile to anything that disturbs them. And if you sleep, you may never wake.

Mason didn’t doubt it for a second. And he had enough context to understand ‘dryads and treants’ meant different versions of ‘walking treemen’. He had no intention of ruffling any feathers. Er, bark.

“Let’s be quick and quiet, then. Are we past the ocean?”

Stag looked towards the frozen lake and nodded.

The ice was too thin before. Your timing is impressive.

Mason snorted, thinking that answered his question about whether he could have crossed or not. Apparently the system was ready to prevent him if he tried, or at least ready to make it real difficult.

But now that the phase had changed, the ‘ice’ had conveniently thickened. At least it meant he could go back and forth without a beacon.

He and Stag searched for ‘mountains’, or at least their representations. Something enormous in the prime meant a subdued version in the fey. There were a few hills here and there, but nothing that screamed ‘mountain range’.

Mason saw another, almost disconnected copse of trees, humming as if with subdued voices. He was about to point it out when his guide turned and stared.

The Whispering Wood, Stag explained. The court of the Unseelie. Even I don’t go inside. I suggest you keep a wide berth.

Mason saw no reason to ignore that advice. They kept searching, the terrain still oddly comforting, the cool air crisp and pleasant to breathe. Mason stopped once or twice just to close his eyes and inhale. A voice startled him out of it.

You do not belong here, life maker. Not yet. Go back with the other children of spring.

Mason opened his eyes and glanced at Stag, who seemed oblivious.

“I, uh, heard a voice. You catch that?”

The animal stopped and turned.

There are no voices here, Ranger. Unless… his head quirked as if he were thinking or listening, then he turned and bolted. Mason chased without asking questions. They took a good fifty fast ‘fey steps’ before spotting a series of hills that looked like more than a small rise of earth. As far as fey representations went, it was as close to a mountain as anything.

Mason walked right up and put his hand on the frozen ground before he took the time to ask Stag when he’d run.

Not here, Ranger. Ask me in the prime.

Mason activated his power, the white world blinking and replacing with something much darker. He realized he’d stepped into the mountain the moment he felt the warm and fetid air. There was life in here, and not all of it natural.

A red, circular portal glowed before his eyes. For a terrible moment he was afraid it was some kind of…giant pupil. Like he’d stepped out in front of a dragon the size of a stadium.

But his eyes adjusted, and he could see it was a portal—a teleportation beacon currently open to some fiery landscape. A horned demon with an axe stood on the far side of the small room. Two goblins in goggles sat beside the portal at a control panel. They noticed Mason, and stared with slack jawed incomprehension.

He saw chains on their legs, and put a finger to his lips. Then he drew his bow, and put a Power Shot into the demon’s throat.

The thing’s head actually came off. The body slumped to the floor with a loud thid, and Mason winced as the goblin shrieked in terror and scrambled before their chains went taut. They fell to the ground, goggles trembling and clacking together.

“I won’t hurt you,” Mason said, kneeling and unsummoning his bow. “Is there an easy way out of this mountain? A secret…goblin way? To avoid those demons?”

The creatures took a minute, but one eventually got enough moisture in his mouth to talk.

“Mountain…taken. Trapped. Only beacon.” It pointed. “Only portal to…” it swallowed. “To hell.”

“Do you mean the abyss?”

The goblin shook its head, and Mason wasn’t sure what to think. Blake had mentioned something about a portal to hell when he was trapped in the orc tower. Mason had kind of assumed it was…figurative. An exaggeration.

But the smell in this mountain wasn’t like the abyss. And it hadn’t triggered any of his abyssal titles. At least not yet. So maybe demons could come from different planes of awful. Which was just great.

He sighed and looked at the solitary exit—a large pair of metallic, double doors. He sighed, pretty sure he knew what was coming. But he te touched it anyway to confirm.

[Hidden Raid Discovery! ‘The Mountain Infestation’ is a raid dungeon designed for two full groups, or a maximum of twelve players. Non-mortal. Non-repeatable.]

A ‘raid’ dungeon? The biggest number of players Mason had ever seen possible was six. So this was definitely something new. ‘Non-mortal’ was a pleasant change. It meant they could go in and try, but run out if things got too nasty. And it definitely had his attention.

Yes, it was a distraction, strictly speaking. But Nassau had the people and the opportunity. It would give the weaker players a chance to see danger good and close, with the stronger ones there to look out for them. Not to mention what sort of rewards you might get from a ‘raid’.

And if the mountain was locked down and swarming with demons, then Jeong and his people definitely wouldn’t have any plan to go in. Yet it had the portal. If they cleared it, it could be their base of operations. Likely it would even be a proper resource with new things to gather. Or who knew what.

“Want me to free you?” he said, remembering the goblins. The creatures shook their heads almost violently.

“Nowhere to go. Lucky to be here. Can’t escape through mountain.”

Mason nodded and stood. “If they come back, tell them what happened. I’ll be back soon. Then I’ll deal with them.”

“Uh, y-yes, mighty champion,” said the goblin like you might to a small child. “As you say.”

Mason didn’t really care what they thought or did. He feywalked back out, ignoring a confused and annoyed looking Stag, racing across the ‘Unseelie’ lands and back towards home.

He was moving faster and faster with every trip, the blur of the terrain not even phasing his eyes now. Most of the Fey creatures that liked following him either couldn’t or gave up. In what felt like minutes, he stepped back through the great tree in Nassau.

**

It didn’t take long to convince the players to do the ‘raid’ dungeon. There were a few questions, and Phuong very reasonably pointed out they could check other portals and have far less difficulty.

But Mason could see in his eyes the comment was just obligation—a soldier pointing out options to his commanding officer. The man wanted to get in there and slaughter some demons. And his class made him ideal for the job.

“Man, I bet the rewards from a thing like that will be even better.” Garet in particular could hardly restrain himself. He practically bounced around the meeting hall shaking people. “I was a gamer, guys. Raids are always where the best stuff is. Special items. Plenty of experience. OK not always experience. But the loot!”

“Giant monstrous creatures looking to kill us all, probably trapped in some fucking mountain,” Tommaso added.

“Aw come on, man.” Garet just about shoved the smaller Italian out of his chair. “There’s gonna be like twelve of us. You can hide in the back.”

They didn’t actually have twelve people. So the numbers comment was a bit of a concern. Mason also really preferred to leave at least one player behind, though he knew Haley could operate the Nexus as if she was him.

“When I walked into Carl’s old settlement and there were no players left it just…gave it to me,” he told her before he met with the others. “Don’t I have to leave someone?” She’d shaken her head.

“Your House changes things. And so does the Nexus. They can’t take your settlements without destroying all your defences, which means the tree guards, and the walls. Probably the pack of wolves and whatever else you have in that menagerie. And even then it goes into a kind of ‘neutral’ status for days. And they can’t take the Nexus, especially because of your ‘Defenders’ choice. They have to beat your house in a fight. You’d have to retreat, surrender, or die. Until then, the best anyone can do is put it in a ‘challenged’ mode where it just sits there waiting.”

It reminded him yet again how much information civilians had, and to ask more questions.

“Can I bring civilians into this ‘raid’ dungeon?”

Haley shook her head. “Not unless it said so. Raids are different. More dangerous. You should know that going in. There will be some kind of final challenge that might take more than just brute force.”

Mason clenched his jaw. “Is there any way we can get in touch with Blake? Talk to him through a beacon? He should be in there with us.”

“I don’t know. We can try.”

He had, sitting at their communication beacon and realizing the orc tower now had some kind of device. They opened it and let it ‘ring’ for a good hour before Seul-ki appeared on a damn video screen and bowed her head.

“Good afternoon, Mason. Very nice to see you again.”

“Hi, Seul-ki. I’m looking for Blake, is he there?”

The Korean was a bit like a more pleasant Alex. You couldn’t read her face no matter how hard you tried. She stared for a moment like she was thinking before she answered.

“Very sorry, but, Blake is unavailable.”

“Sorry for the language, Seul-ki, but what the fuck does that mean? I need to talk to him.”

Again the woman stared and didn’t answer, looking off screen for a moment before giving the barest hint of a frown.

“Blake has…left the tower. We believe he used our teleporter beacon to go east. I’m afraid we aren’t sure what to do in his absence.”

Mason found himself at a loss for words. Seul-ki and Annie had been utterly loyal to his brother. The only people who could make that claim. And he’d just…left them sitting in a tower full of orcs? Hadn’t even told them before popping off somewhere?

“Jesus Christ,” he said, glancing at Haley. “Are you safe? I mean can you…do you need help or…”

“We’re quite safe,” Seul-ki said, smiling politely. “Thank you. Though…perhaps, since the teleporters are active, we might visit Nassau for a little while. I’m sure Annie would benefit from some company other than my own.”

Mason could hear Annie whispering angrily somewhere off screen, but he smiled.

“Of course. You’re always welcome. Though…” he shrugged, not sure how to explain. “We’re actually leaving for a bit. But come on over and we’ll talk.”

They had the portal glowing with arcane power in a few minutes, then flashing as the two girls popped into the cube like in a damn sci-fi movie. The Nexus had no ‘incoming’ cooldown. You could literally teleport a million people to it if you had the ‘outgoing’ power elsewhere.

Mason had Haley unlock the barrier, and Annie and Seul-ki came through with anxious and polite smiles respectively. They looked good, healthy, doing fine. So that was at least one check in Blake’s favor.

A few awkward hugs were exchanged between some of the women. Mason eventually decided to explain his plan in the east, and in their immediate decision to handle the raid.

“We would be happy to guard the settlement for you,” Seul-ki said. “So you can take all your players.”

Mason was torn between touched and paranoid. Seul-ki was far too cunning and like Blake to be really trusted. He had no real reason to feel that way except intuition, but he usually had a good sense for people. Also Annie didn’t look at all like she agreed.

“I’d like to come,” she said, voice wavering. “If there’s room. We can help. I mean I can help.”

Mason wasn’t sure he could trust Annie, either, though for different reasons. She was a loose cannon. A weapon, to be sure, but something like a (tiny) elephant of the ancient battlefield.

Sure, it might rampage through your enemies. Or it might get confused or panicked and hit your own line. And he didn’t have Blake the Annie mahout.

On the other hand, they currently had Mason, Becky, Alex, Jason, Garet, Phuong, Carl, Seamus, John, Tommaso, and now Demi. With Mason’s bonded animal companions no longer taking an extra spot, that made eleven. Annie would make twelve.

Mason sure as hell would have preferred the swiss army knife that was Blake. But sometimes all you had was an axe.

“OK,” he said, giving her a smile. “We’ll be glad to have you. But there’s gonna be a team leader—probably Phuong. You’ll follow him and do exactly what he says. This is important, Annie, and we might not have room for mistakes. Can you do that?”

“We can,” she said, then went pink. “I can. Don’t worry, I’m not crazy.”

Mason did his best to hold his smile. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not crazy’, wasn’t generally the sort of thing sane people went around saying. But not all soldiers were Iceman. You had to use what you had to win a war.

“OK,” he said, snorting as the words popped into his head. He wasn’t trying to be dramatic. It was just their reality. “Let’s get the others, then we head down to hell.”

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