"I don't know how to thank you," the lady said.
"All right, I'll be back with good news hopefully," Emile said.
He stood up from the seat and walked back towards the party.
"I found the information," Emile said. They stood outside feeling the slight cold temperatures that existed in the city.
"See, you are good at talking to girls," Scarlet Sunset said with a laugh.
"I bet they could have done the same job," Emile pointed at the FBS Fulcron, Nimble Rod, and Severn who stood by awkwardly.
"They don't have any luck with the females unlike you. Well, maybe Severn has luck with them," Scarlet Sunset said.
Emile ignored her comments and began relaying the information to the party.
"So they're both in White Tree Forest, how hard would it be to complete the quest," Nimble Rod couldn't understand where the difficulty lay. They already found the location and now they needed to convince them to come back.
"Don't speak so soon, it's too early. We haven't completed the quest, so there could always be random difficulty spikes," Emile said.
"I expect that," Nimble Rod said.
"Well, do we wait for Time Walker to log on or go on without him," Emile asked.
"You should call him since he's your friend," Flower Queen said.
"All right," Emile said.
Emile logged out of Nirvana and called Steve who was Time Walker. He called him whilst inside the gaming cabin.
"Hey, what's up," Steve said.
"Where are you?" Emile asked.
"I'm at a business meeting with my dad. He wants to continue his work inside the game since the game has lots of future prospect due to the abilities it could give," Time Walker said. He was in the bathroom when he picked up the call.
"All right. We're doing an SS ranked quest right now. Finish your thing and you could help us out," Emile said.
"Okay, I'll log on after the meeting ends. Peace," Steve replied before ending the call.
Emile logged onto Nirvana and told the part about what occurred and why Time Walker couldn't make it.
"His dad could sponsor us and we could get lots of money," FBS Fulcron said with excitement in his voice.
"That's probably not going to happen," Emile replied.
"Let's hope," FBS Fulcron said. He would gladly play the game for someone to pay him.
"Let's go to White Tree Forest," Severn said. He didn't talk too much since they talked about a lot of terms he was unfamiliar with. He didn't want to barge into the conversation, but he was feeling bored.
"Okay," the party replied.
They walked towards the north gate. Emile and the party took out their compasses and pointed towards 227 degrees.
They followed their own compass so that when someone messed up, it wouldn't cause the entire party to mess up and waste time. They each had their own compass since it was a good way to prevent being lost.
They continued walking and arrived in White Tree Forest. The party didn't stop walking as they trekked through the snow. Each step left behind a footprint. It wasn't snowing in the forest, so the track wouldn't disappear for a while.
They arrived at the small clearing which didn't have any snow. There was brown dirt that could be seen. It was a unique phenomenon because everywhere around the dirt was snow. Clear white snow. Something was heating up the dirt causing the snow to melt.
The party looked around the dirt scavenging for anything that resembled a hatch.
Nimble Rod accidentally bumped his hand into something hard. He looked over to where he hurt his hand and saw a metal handler.
"Guys, I found it," Nimble Rod said.
He pulled open the hatch. The hatch was colored brown like the dirt around it so that it could blend it. If it was another color, then any random person could find it and want to explore it.
Emile decided to enter first. As he was about to put his foot on the first step of the metal stair, he received a notification.
[You are about to enter a cursed region. The people inside are calm unless you speak a few phrases]
"Uh guys, I don't think this notification is a good thing," Emile said. He shared the notification with the party.
"Well, I expected something like this," Flower Queen said. She walked down the staircase without a second thought. There was no use in waiting.
The party followed her. Emile took back the lead and reached the bottom step. It seemed like the Alchemist Headquarters. There were people sitting in the lounge, and there were side chambers for people to do alchemy.
"Let me test out what phrases are banned," FBS Fulcron said. He wanted to do something.
"Hey, are you guys going to join back with the Lyria City?" FBS Fulcron said.
Almost instantaneously, everyone in the room looked at him with dark black eyes. They're eye color changed as they peered into FBS Fulcron.
"I was joking. It was just a joke," FBS Fulcron said as he put his hands up. It was terrifying when they all looked at him with deadpan eyes.
"That was so scary," FBS Fulcron said as he wiped the sweat of his brow.
"I think something possessed them causing them to have black eyes for a short period," Emile said.
"Yeah," the party responded.
"We don't have a clue on what to do now," Emile said as he felt baffled. No one told him how to move on if something possessed the people.
"Emile, remember the statues? What if it's the same statue that possessed people, but like a lot stronger? It could also be a strong person with the power of mind control," Severn said to Emile.
"Yeah. Are there any other ways to curse these people since this is a cursed zone," Emile said.
"Ow... my head hurts really bad," Severn said as he held his head. He was feeling better a few moments ago, but now something was affecting him.
"I think... something is trying... to posses-"
Severn's eyes turned black for a few moments before turning back to normal. He walked away from the party.
"Severn! Come back here," Emile shouted out.
Severn ignored him and talked to the people in the Alchemist Guild. They seemed like long time friends that haven't met in months.
"Listen to me Severn! As your master I order you to come back," Emile yelled out in frustration. Severn had become possessed and Emile couldn't do anything to stop it.
"God damn it," Emile clenched his fist in anger.
"Not Severn..." FBS Fulcron said with his head down. They talked a few times and were on good terms with each other.
The atmosphere at the party went down severely. Everyone felt demotivated. The cursed zone amplified this demotivation which caused it to last for a few minutes. Some broke free of this shackle while others remained.
Emile brainstormed ideas hoping to free Severn. He broke free of the negative atmosphere.
"Let's go back and save Severn another day," FBS Fulcron said out of the blue.
"You want to abandon Severn?" Emile asked with shock.
"Yeah," FBS Fulcron replied. The cursed zone was affecting their decisions. FBS Fulcron wasn't the brightest in the party, so the possession took control of his emotions. Though it couldn't do a full control since the players would get mad if they couldn't control their own bodies. He wanted to leave the area and come back another day since they didn't know what to do, but his wording made it sound a lot worse.
"I am shocked that you would say that- wait the curse is affecting you as well," Emile couldn't believe that FBS Fulcron would say that until he realized that they were in a cursed zone. He must have been cursed.
Emile continued brainstormed ideas whilst ignoring FBS Fulcron. He would free FBS Fulcron from the curse as well. The players had a certain level of immunity towards the possession or else he would have walked towards the alchemists with Severn.