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PC: "There they are." Darlia's voice rang in his head as she pointed at a close knitting of trees upon a grassy knoll.
Meliadol squinted, and it took several seconds for his eyes to decipher the forms of a group hidden within the curtain of branches and leaves. But sure enough, once he knew where to look, there was an entire camp nestled in there with surprising craftiness.
PC: "I see them." he affirmed in voice party chat.
Darlia didn't say anything else, instead cutting crosswise in the underbrush, moving with all the deftness of a snake. She continued to maneuver parallel to the camp, looking for a better vantage point . Despite his earlier words, Meliadol let her lead. She had the experience, and there was much he could probably learn from her. Silently he followed the Blade Dancer.
Progression was slow. There is a natural rhythm to a forest, a certain primordial cadence, and everyone, even intruders like Meliadol and Darlia, are beholden to it. They had to pause frequently when the beat slowed down, coming to a stop when silence took over, and only moving when the forest came alive again.
Still, eventually they had got themselves closer to where they could see in greater detail.
Elves?
From his vantage point, the pointed ears and lean forms gave away their identity clearly to Meliadol. It went against all his years of fantasy game experience that elves would ever work together with orcs. Meliadol could almost feel Tolkien turning over in his grave. Though this would explain how at ease their opponents acted in the forest, and how they had hidden themselves so well.
They seemed well-armed, with graceful longbows and wickedly edged short-swords. The clothing was the most striking part, for they were comfortable looking, obviously designed for use in the forest, with patterns of mottled grays and greens to break up a person's outline when surrounded by trees.
There was a small ding and an alert popped up in the corner of his vision. Pulling up his UI revealed a quest timer that had materialized.
Time until Camp Leaves: 12 minutes, 0 seconds
It began to count down, and almost as if triggered, the elves began to hastily break camp, tearing down the tents they erected. So they were to remain low and follow the procession as they left the forest? Seemed easy enough. Meliadol closed his UI and returned his attention back to the elves.
Without Darlia here, Meliadol had to quietly admit to himself that he'd had probably stumbled recklessly into them and either died or have failed his mission. He glanced at the Sword Dancer from the corner of his vision.
Her one visible eye was relaxed, yet observant, focused on the spectacle before them. Darlia had that presence about her, as if she knew exactly where she was and the rest of the world would inevitably bend itself to make her assertion true. She was just so poised, with a cool confidence that could only result from truly believing any course of action she undertook was the correct one, that Meliadol felt inadequate in her presence, like he wasn't worthy of even looking at her.
Almost as an act of defiance, he looked anyway.
Focusing, he could see the sweat upon her temple, the individual strands of red hair that made up her eyebrow, the way her face creased as she considered the predicament before them. Once again, not for the first time, Meliadol wondered exactly at what point did a video game become reality. Was it odd for him to desire to reach out and touch her face?
PC: "Pay attention to the camp." Darlia admonished, her voice quiet in his head.
Ears red at being caught staring, he snapped his eyes back like a whip, but the Sword Dancer must have seen everything she needed to, because after a long moment, she faded back into the underbrush like a ghost with only a whispered 'follow me' to alert Meliadol she was leaving.
The pair made their way through the dense foliage for a few minutes before Darlia felt safe enough to signal that they stop. Without preamble, the two slumped against a pair of stumps. He wasn't physically tired, but remaining on alert that long, taut like a bowstring, was mentally exhausting.
The first thing he did was pull up his UI and turn off voice party chat.
"So what do you want to do?" Meliadol asked, feeling unexpectedly relieved to be able to talk aloud again. He could understand why some people didn't like using voice party chat. It was disconcerting to have a voice in your head that wasn't your own. From the blue glow of her eyes, Darlia did the same. She must feel the same way, because why else would she lead him away from the camp to talk?
She considered the question for a moment before answering, "I thought you were in charge?" But Meliadol knew her well enough by now to recognize her teasing deadpan mannerisms.
"I am, and as the guy in charge, I'm ordering you to give me advice in what to do."
"Oh, I see." She crossed her arms, "Well, we have a bit of time before they break camp and leave. We're supposed to keep pace with them, so as long as we don't fuck up, should be easy. We did get kinda boned by RNG though."
"What do you mean?"
"The location of the camp is spawned randomly each time this scenario is attempted." Darlia explained, "And if you look on your map, this time we're right in the middle. We have to follow them until they reach the end of the map."
Meliadol pulled up his map and sure enough the Blade Dancer was right. His location, a blinking green dot, stared back at him firmly within the middle map square.
"I see."
"Anyway," Darlia continued, "We should split up, that way we can keep close enough to follow them while they leave, no matter which direction they take."
Meliadol nodded, made sense. "Anything else?"
"Just one more thing. One of us has to remain close enough to keep an eye on them at all times. If both of us get too far away, you'll fail the quest and have to start all over again. Don't worry too much though, a warning will flash across the clock if we both get too far."
He nodded. As much as he hated to admit it, now that he had long calmed down from his initial anger, he was glad at having brought the Blade Dancer along. She was pricklier than Bast, but had her own way of helping that he appreciated.
Both of them turned voice party chat back on before picking their way back through the forest.
"We split here." Darlia intoned to him as they approached.
With no further words the pair went their own way, Meliadol along the copse to the left and Darlia to the far right, using a field of tall grasses to mask her passage.
Now that he was alone, Meliadol took the time to get into place. With his Move Silently Thief trait, he had more leeway than even Darlia had, and wasn't too worried at being caught as long as he didn't try anything too crazy. Before long, he was comfortably braced against a tree, watching the the elves finish up their packing.
One of them, a tall elf with piercing eyes, kicked dirt over the camp fire, smothering it as one of his shorter companions began littering the surrounding ground with forest debris, things like twigs and leaves. The entire group of four elves worked together like a well-oiled machine to remove any trace of their presence.
Meliadol was amazed at the detail put into this quest, at making the elves seem like actual living beings. At times, it was difficult to see this as just a game. He took a deep, quiet, breath, the earthy smell of a vibrant forest overriding any logic to the contrary.
The timer hit zero and the group of elves set off into forest.
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