The town of Chiba was a bit bigger than we thought it was. Upon first entering the town, there was only a single intersection, but now it's endless. Four streets meet and the intersection, 1st street, 18th street, 9th street, and 12th street. Going down one street puts you at the end of another street. The whole area appears to have non-euclidean properties, or in layman's terms, it doesn't make sense. The area seems to operate on its own plane of existence.
"Correct me if I'm wrong but you said the person that we were looking for is called Aria right?" Rex asks.
"Yeah why?" I reply.
"Well then wouldn't these numbers represent the numerical position of the letters A-R-I-A in the alphabet?" he says.
"Wouldn't 12 be L?" Lily says.
"Maybe it's not 12 but 1'2. Meaning that it's the second A." Rex replies.
"If you're right then that just might work," Syn says, "what's your take Lukas?"
"Knowing my grandfather, it sounds like something he would do." I say.
We followed the roads in the order that spelled Aria. Once we went down 12th street, the buildings began to warp and turn into a box, encasing us inside. The sides unfold and show a city more than 10 times larger than it was before the large expanse puts several things other than the buildings into view. Several humanoid creatures stood before us in the surrounding area and beyond. They look like walking corpses, zombies of course, this couldn't get any worse could it. They aimlessly wander the streets. Despite their random wandering, they seem like they're searching for something, something about them makes it seem like they're hunting. I grab a nearby rock and chuck it at a building. The rock hits the wall and a loud bang sounds out across the area. All of the zombies whip their heads to the direction of the sound and begin to charge it. They dogpile on top of each other trying to find the source of the sound. After a while they give up and continue their search.
"What the hell are you doing," James says," are you trying to get us all killed."
"I'm trying to figure out how to avoid them," I say, "from that test it would seem that they can't see but they can hear. We can use that info for avoiding them more easily in the future. Plus it's better to know that they can't see us now rather than trying to sneak around them when they're blind."
We continue on looking for Aria in Chiba. The streets are filled with zombies on the prowl. The streets seem endless but at least this time all of the street names are different so we know that we're not looping anymore. Each building looks the same so it's hard to tell exactly where we are.
"Hey," Syn says, "I got a message from the group following us. One of their members went ahead of them and might be nearby."
"Do you really think she got through that first puzzle," Lily says,"we only got through cuz we made the connection from Aria. Besides, do they even know where Chiba is?"
"I've been keeping them updated so they'll know where it is." Syn says.
"Send her a message to see where she is and we'll go from there."
All of a sudden, all of the zombies in the area begin to move and form a pack moving east. We stand in silence in the middle of the intersection, trying to avoid them. The horde starts converging down the street and we decide to give chase to see what caught their attention. A few blocks away, a girl stands on a rooftop swinging a dagger around frantically. The zombies are piling in around each other so much that they begin to trip over each other, forming a step to climb up to her. They begin to pile on top of one another effectively stacking themselves up to reach her. She spots us and shouts.
"Syn help me!!!"