Chapter 13
Zack shuttered as he entered the umbra forest. He had heard tails of this forest while he was growing up. It was sad that people could walk into this forest, and never be seen again.
More recently Zack had heard that a new cult had started up in this forest. They appear to worship the night itself, and for sake the sun. To his knowledge they had done nothing overt against anybody else to this point, but he knew that probably wouldn't last.
The Forest itself had a single path that ran between the two trees on either side of the path heading north. Zach followed the path until he came to a split in the path. Looking behind him Zach realized that the path was closing as he walked along.
"Hum, I wonder how I'll get out of here."
Zach studied the paths in front of him. To the left he saw the path wined off into the darkness disappearing beyond his site. To the right the path ran straight as far as he could see, although at the very end of the path that he could see he saw that it turned right. Deciding that he did not like the path on the left at this point, Zack followed the path to the right to the corner, and walking around the corner was surprised when three women jumped out of the brush at him. They were dressed in yellow robes and held a quarterstaff in 1 hand.
"Well, hello there" Zack said hiding his nervousness. "Something I can do for you ladies?"
None of the women responded, at least not with words. The woman in the lead swung her quarterstaff at Zack's head. Ducking the strike Zack drew his steel saber and sliced her quarterstaff neatly in half.
"Well, it seems instead of a quarterstaff, you have now half of a quarterstaff."
Zach was uncertain where this privado was coming from. It wasn't like him at all. He rarely engaged in banter with someone who is trying to knock him out or kill him. Zack wasn't sure which it was here, although given the fact that he was ambushed or nearly ambushed more than once on this journey he was thinking this was going for a knockout. Otherwise, why did they use a quarter staff? After all it was difficult to kill a person with one, unless they were unconscious. Zach thought to himself that that might be why there were three of them, instead of just one.
The other two women attacked him at the same time, so Zack quickly returned his attention to the battle, and pointed his sword at their staves.
"Cross cut strike"
As Zach uttered these words his sword seemed to split in half, a beam firing out of each half of his sword. and Striking each of the women's staves, Zach cut the staves completely in half. "Now what are you 3 doing here?"
In response all three women rushed him. Zack used his sword training to knock the staves away, and every chance he got went for a strike with the flat of his blade. He wasn't out to kill anyone if he could help it. After knocking there, the apparent leader out, Zach found it easier to handle the other two. Their skill was nowhere near as good as their leader, and Zach quickly knocked the other two out.
"Well, that was a workout" he said, sheathing his sword.
Zach followed the path past the ambush point and continued on until he came to another intersection. The path continued straight ahead, while another turned left disappearing into the forest. Following his mental map that he had been making ever since entering the forest he realized that if he turned left, he would eventually cross through the other path that he had seen back at the entrance. Curious, however, he continues forward ignoring the path on the left for now.
It was not to be, however. The path that he was following eventually ended up at a dead end. The path in front of him was blocked by a wall of trees that extended a good 60 feet high. They also had overarching branches that made it even harder to see the sunlight.
For some reason Zack felt that he wasn't anywhere near as strong as usual while in this forest. Encouraging himself to hurry, Zack backtracked the steps to the intersection, and now turning right, followed the path to another intersection. To his surprise this intersection turned right now sending him back to the entrance of the forest, or he could backtrack and look for another path. There was no path in front of him, however. It was simply a curve in the path that put him back on the original path he had been following. Deciding to see where the first path he had ignored lead, Zack walked around the corner and continued his journey.
It was 10 minutes later, when three men stepped out of the brush ahead of him. "Something I can do for you gentlemen" Zach asked raising an eyebrow.
Just as with the women on the other path none of the men answered him with words. Instead, all three of them drew short swords, and without warning all three of them struck.
Zach was hard-pressed to fight these three off. Their swords couldn't be cut in half like the staves could, but Zack was still able to knock them away. Just as with the women that he fought on the other path, Zach found knocking out their leader with a strike with the flat of the blade to the back of the head plunge the other two into indecision. This made it easy for Zack to knock the other two out in one-on-one combat.
Dragging the three into the underbrush off the path, Zack continued forward until he reached a hut in the middle of the forest.
"This must be the Cults headquarters; I wonder why they were attacking me."
Zack did not long to think about this, however, four without warning an enormous individual stepped out of the hut, raised his hand, and fired a black beam at Zach. Zach had no time to react, and the beam struck Zack in the chest.
The pain was incredible. Zack's chest felt like it was on fire. What was worse was that Zach could feel his energy being drained.
"Can't get hit by that again." Zach thought dodging out of the way of the individuals fist.
Zach held up his sword, and the next time the beam was fired, attempted to deflect it back at him. To Zack's surprise, the beam sliced through his sword, continuing on and striking him again in the chest. The pain was too much. Zack found himself slipping to the ground and blacking out.
Zack's last thought as unconsciousness claimed him was, "I'm sorry Alain. And Chris, I'm sorry as well. It looks like I failed."