“Why shouldn’t I just report you two?” Bidane demanded. “You’re breaking all sorts of rules, just by being here.”
“Report us? Do you have any proof?” Sang asked.
“I’ll have proof when I catch you hacking again,” Bidane said as she followed the pair forward.
They walked in silence for some time, and reached the peak of the mountain area pretty quickly; this one wasn’t nearly as large as some of the other regions. The castle wasn’t too far from them now. It was heavily fortified, with walls that seemed to be made of steel. Van could see the movement of the soldiers below.
“Van!” Sang hissed as she pointed over to the right of Castle Ceren. Van squinted to see that there was a Kyrissian army flag raised high. “Why are they here?”
“No idea,” Van muttered. “Are they fighting?”
“They can’t be,” Sang said. “If they were, they wouldn’t be camping right now. It’s not like they can lay siege to a place this powerful.” She frowned. “Actually, you know what... I intercepted a message that one of the pro players was supposed to be moving over there. I think his name was Zac.”
“Zac? Oh, he’s one of the leaders for the Kyrissians. A Draco pro…” Van’s words trailed off once he realized the enormity of the problem facing him. If Zac actually was there, then it meant that Draco was expecting Van and his team to arrive. The army would be strong enough to fight against Van without King Lemuel being anywhere close to the battle.
“Crap,” Sang said. “If he’s a pro, then we’re in trouble.”
“I really wish you had told me about this sooner!” Van chided.
“I completely forgot,” Sang said as she shook her head. “Sorry, with all of this pressure and the not sleeping, it’s starting to get to me. I told you about the sleeper, right?”
“Yeah, you mentioned him,” Van replied. This information didn’t really change anything, but it would have been nice to know ahead of time.
“Sorry,” Sang quietly mumbled. Van opened his mouth to lambast her, but realized how exhausted she looked. He chose instead to just brush past it and focus on the problem at hand.
“How are we supposed to get close to Lemuel with two armies against us?” Van asked.
“What are you two talking about?” Bidane asked. “We don’t have a big enough force to take even one army. Why are we even here?”
Van gritted his teeth. He had no idea what to do. As he stared intently at the army several miles away, his eyes drifted to the left. There was a forest that was right next to the castle. The front of the castle was completely clear of all trees, but the forest was connected to the side of the castle walls. It would make for the perfect cover for the army to move through. They could scale the walls early in the morning and surprise Lemuel. The Iron Dragons didn’t need to defeat the army, after alclass="underline" they just needed to capture the king.
“Alright, I have a plan. Sang, we’ll need to scout ahead. Bidane, for the love of God, please stay behind and set up the camp so that everyone can log in right here in the morning,” Van said.
“You’re crazy if you think I’m staying here,” Bidane replied.
Sang walked away from them and began to head down the slope leading toward the forest. It seemed that she had come to the same conclusion as Van.
“Bidane, you’ve got two options; stick around here or leave the group. It’s up to you,” Van said as he crossed his arms.
Bidane growled at him, but said nothing. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at Van. “I’m not going anywhere. So fine, I’ll stay here and get the camp going. If you think you can ditch me, though, you’re in for hell. I’ll march right down there and talk to those pros and tell them all about the two hackers I’ve been working with.”
“We’re coming right back,” Van said. He turned and began walking after his partner. The two walked down the slope wordlessly. Eventually, when they were out of range, Sang began to speak.
“The clock is ticking here,” she said. “An hour to go before Sleep Time. Then we’re done. How in the hell are we supposed to find anything here?”
“Don’t ask me,” Van replied. “It’s not like we were expecting some kind of big bookshelf that said ‘Draco’s Evil Plans’ on it.”
“So, you’re thinking about using the forest to ambush Lemuel? Scout the area and find a path to an unprotected place on the wall?”
“Exactly,” Van said. “It’s kind of cool how we’re thinking on the same wavelength.”
“It would be better if this operation wasn’t tanking in an hour,” Sang said.
“I thought you said we’d have some kind of chance to keep going after this.”
“I don’t know what I said,” Sang replied with a long, heavy sigh. “I’m really tired, Van. I’m exhausted and I don’t know what to do.”
“Just keep pushing forward, I guess,” Van said as they walked up to a sign that was sticking out of the ground. It was placed at the mouth of the path leading into the forest. It was in a foreign language that Van didn’t know.
“Crap, what does this say?” Van asked.
“No idea. Doesn’t look like any language I’ve seen before,” Sang said. “Almost like an alien language. I wish Jet were here; he could read it.”
“Yeah,” Van said, thinking briefly about the cave they had passed on the way up the mountain. He’d been glad that Jet hadn’t been with him at the time, because the more he thought about the chances of dying, the more scared he was becoming. It would have been really easy to buckle in a moment of weakness.
“Well, let’s go,” Sang said. “We’re burning moonlight.”
They walked into the forest and, at once, Van could feel a powerful chill washing over him. The words You Have Entered A Dangerous Place floated above them. “Holy crap, this forest is freezing,” he muttered.
“No kidding,” Sang replied as they walked. “It’s almost like someone turned the air conditioning on.”
There was something off about the trees. They were broken and warped, bending forward as if they were rotting. Moss hung from them and they seemed to sway in the breeze. The entire area was devoid of all life, though. No birds chirped; no creatures rustled around. They were walking in a dead and barren forest.
“Something about this place is really off,” Sang said.
“Tell me about it,” Van replied as he looked around. A very long snake slithered through one of the roots on the ground, causing Van to pause. He watched as the creature slid across the ground effortlessly. It seemed to be most at home in this weird place. It looked at him for a moment, and Van realized that the snake had no eyes. The words Snake ??? hovered above its head and, when Van tried to access the creature’s character sheet, it didn’t have any additional information other than two stats.
“The hell?” Sang asked, watching the snake in curiosity.
“Probably some kind of bug. Maybe this area is under construction. That would explain why it’s so weird,” Van reasoned as they continued down the path. The forest was growing denser with each step and Van could scarcely see in front of him. Sang’s lantern was dimly lit, for fear of attracting unwanted attention.
A loud clucking sound caught both of their attention at once. In the distance, by one of the trees, there was a single chicken. It clucked as it hopped around.
“This is no place for a chicken,” Sang chuckled as she continued forward. Van frowned and decided to investigate further. He slowly walked over to where it was, only to hear the snapping of the twigs on the ground. He leapt behind a tree just in time as a woman appeared next to the chicken.
“There ya are,” the woman said with a raspy voice. She was wearing tattered robes and her hair was long and wild. Dirt was smeared across her face, and the torch she carried in her left hand illuminated a very nasty sneer.