We could hear the clatter of footsteps just outside the thin wall, everyone held their breath until the rumbling stopped and things fell to a standstill.
I opened my menu to offer whatever light I could, and a slew of messages came forth. I read some of them while also watching the internalized clock tick the minutes away.
[3:55 a.m.]
[You are Under the Effects of a Primordial Skill 'A Pointless Dream']
[Multiple Readers dislike character 'Kaleb' for his cowardice]
[Readers wonder why Character ?Jon? is acting weird]
[A Reader questions how your group could fall for such a trap]
[Seven Readers are surprised you made it out alive]
Besides the distasteful comments, it had barely been about forty minutes since we had found this cramped spot. After leaving the miniature colosseum, we had gone through a collection of twist and turns, the place was littered with empty hallways that ran like highways with no destination.
Thinking back, maybe they were roads that allowed the natives to traverse freely around the tree. There was no evidence of cars or carriages but there were the occasional over hanging branch that had distinctive carvings. Now they were desolate with the occasional collection of wooden or stone rubble covered by moss and lichen alike. I doubt these strange enemies made such things.
In time, we found a carved hole in one of the walls, we scurried in there like a pack of rats and sealed it shut with whatever we could find.
It was once a small room, at least I'd like to think that because it was bare, but something tells me we were not the first to hide in here.
While resting to formulate a plan, we began to question the main topic of what we hallucinated back there, where Jon actually was and what exactly are the Tarot slots in our character information or better yet, who's?
The conversation went a little something like this.
"I just have to say, thanks whoever's skill or whatever that was back there, this could have ended badly if we started fighting each other as well" I cited.
The thought of fighting one other was on the last of everyone's mind, I'm sure I would have been dead to any of the others. However, looking back at the logs, we have apparently been under this hallucination ability from the start! I guess that explains the fake Jon, but how can a skill run for so long?
"So who's tarot card, was it? They saved us all" Clay kindly asked while I was lost on a voyage.
Everyone looked at their menus, I even checked mine just in case, the most surprising one to answer was Peter.
"It was mine. I do not know why it activated though; I was so stressed in that situation then this peculiar announcement came in, stating my 'Tarot' had awakened"
"What exactly is a tarot card?" Aideen asked.
We all shook our heads as none of us knew exactly what it was, I always thought those things were like horoscopes and all that were nonsense. Even so, it helped us big time, but another question arose from that.
"What does your tarot do for you exactly? Because when it was in effect, a message said that it nullified a 'Primordial' skill or whatever, and us contestants are the only ones with skills as far as I know of"
"I did not see message of any sorts, it felt as if mist came over my eyes and I could see truly. If that makes any sense" Peter added.
Everyone agreed with his statement, with the exception of Clay and Kaleb. They saw the message too and backed up the fact. A realization came to pass as we were the only ones with the 'Gaming Hud' ability.
"It appears that your 'Gaming Hud' ability allows you too see notifications we are unlikely to see. If that is the case, I only ponder what those without it have been missing" Peter ranted with a small shiver.
■He seemed distressed. After all, he hated being left in the dark■
"Well, If our gamers have the ability to see stuff we can't, I vote we have them tell us if anything comes up, only if they want to and if it's not a nuisance" Scott suggested passively between.
The others looked to us three for confirmation and we three agreed without hesitation, the group could die if we don't alert them of the dangers and I'm glad that I could be some form of help to the group.
Peter cleared his throat, going back to the question at hand.
"To answer the first question, this Tarot called 'The Moon' gives me the ability to see through illusions or negate 'debuffs' involving 'mental' afflictions, whatever that means"
"Maybe we could now know where Jon is when he does his clone thingy" Bridgette added in.
"As for the second question, if that specific word was used, the term 'Primordial' signifies that it was there since the beginning, so whatever we are facing is not a contester, but something far older"
The thought of some being that has been here before us spooked me out, that brought more theories about the place we were transported. It's obvious we are not on earth anymore, but what type of planet are we on? Is this some fantasy world filled with magic or different races? Are we going to go on a classics fantasy adventure-
I shook my head, now is no time to think about that stuff, we just need to find a way out of here.
*Bo-Woo*
Our eyes met to see a small blob of metal squeezing through a crack in our homemade wall and forming back into a bracer on Clay's arm, we were curious to where it had went because it suddenly left when Bridgette jokingly asked for a map of the place.
It made this strange noise as the blue hologram ball turned off, leaving us in the dark. It then turned back on, but this time returned in its interface form showing the outline of something.
Peter quickly snagged the robot and examined it, his eyes grew wide behind his large glasses as he proudly stated that it was an actual layout to possible exits.
Clay got excited and congratulated Alec, however, we gave it to Peter to see if he can make anything out of the puzzled labyrinth of hallways. He eventually learned the major entrances and corridors we needed to go to get out of here, so we all got ready, because the nearest exit was somehow up this gigantic tree.
After careful listening, Marcus cleared the door and we creped ever so carefully through the dim lighted path, illuminated by those pale flowers scattered around the walls. Not knowing if those were the flowers that made us hallucinate, we kept our distance.
There were no patrols for this floor, hopefully they think we are either at the entrance we came from, or still running around.
We made it to a stairway that will take us to an atrium of sorts in the shape of a 'T', there we can go to another hallway to another big room, after that room is where we will find our escape. It seemed easier said than done as it took us around twenty minutes just to get up the stairs, they were rather big and some of us needed to lift ourselves up, it was like this place was built for people the size of one-story buildings.
After climbing to the top, we found ourselves going down another hallway. That's all this place seems to be! All hallways, whoever the interior architect was, I'm going to give them a piece of my mind.
We finally made it to the bottom side of the Atrium, it was brightened by the light of the two moons from a huge hole in the side of the tree. Looking up, they seemed really close together in the sky.
I then glanced around the sides as it almost looked like a city carved into the walls, there were appearances of what I believe were market stands with some pots and other accessories still left behind. Some of the carvings looked to be a sort of blocked-shaped housing with small holes into the hollow interior, I took a gander inside and it was completely devoid of life. Not even furniture.
We started making up theories as to what this place was and how it was abandoned. My theory was this place was once ruled by elves or giants, but those bug things scared them out.
Scott joked that maybe it was a colony of ill-architectural termites.
Even Peter joined in with his hypotheses that the bugs were people once, as they are humanoid in nature, but they somehow turned into bug and plant people.
Nobody liked that theory, as all of us have killed these things.
We reached the end of the long Atrium to turn onto the right, but in that moment, I wished we had turned left instead, because littering this entire place were the strange looking cocoons, dozens, no, almost hundreds were placed like a minefield.
We tried to slowly backtrack to not disturb anything but Peter was the only one to go towards one of the cocoons, Kai was trying to stop him, but he did something unexpected.
He brought out Alec and opened up that same interface I saw him use when we first got him, after messing with the screen for a little bit, Alec's map went away, and Peter pointed the bracer to a cocoon. I was worried at first, but he seemed to be under control.
A light projected from the bracer and went over the cocoon like a type of scan. After scanning the cocoon, a small ding was made and the interface was brought up again, Peter walked back to us while reading something from it in a whisper.
"From what I am reading, there nicknamed 'Hominoid Mothra's' and what I can gather, we want to be very careful, because they only hatch after a couple hundred years on the night where the two moons align, of course the chances of that happening would have too pure coincident-"
He was interrupted as the cocoon he scanned began to vibrate. Then, a multitude of small red dots formed on the top of every cocoon.
[Gaming Hud has revealed hostile opponents!]
I've seen plenty of horror movies to know what's coming next.
"Break for it!" I yelled as I dashed for the other side, which was at least half-a-mile long.
[Skill activated: Light Weight: Lvl. 2]
[Skill activated: Leg work: Lvl. 1]
[Character 'Marcus' has used Personal Skill 'Bears Endurance' Lvl. 1]
[Character 'Kaleb' has used Personal Skill 'Tactical Retreat' Lvl. 3]
All these notifications filled my view as I turned to see Kai scoop up Peter in a hurry, she was the fastest amongst us even with the added weight, Scott looked like a bunny rabbit scurrying past a field, Kaleb was decently behind Scott, Marcus literally fireman carried Clay across at a good pace, and here I was, even though I got the head start, I was lagging behind by a hundred yards or so. I knew I should have at least tried during middle school track.
Bridgette got to the entrance first and gently let down Peter, then Scott, then Kaleb, then Clay and Marcus. I was three-hundred yards away when I heard the most terrifying shrieks of my life, they echoed into the Atrium and the sounds of numorous cocoons hatching all at once rattled my eardrums.
As I made it to my friends, I stupidly turned my back and saw the horrific sight of thousands of flying creatures circulating as a group in the air, now swarming to our direction.
With no time to waste or catch a breath, we continued through the new path, instead of the marketplace, this hallway was filled with archways on each side, leading into different rooms filled with assorted items and themes I wish I could get a better look, though the buzzing was all I could focus on because it was like being next to the rumbling engine of a Monster Truck.
Their speeds were impeccable, we couldn't keep this up, In the close distance the hallway split into another corner. When we finally made it around, they lost sight of us for a split second, and all of us saw the gigantic double doors at the end.
"Get inside!" I huffed out, even though we were all thinking the same thing.
Bridge got there first and tried to push it open, but it wouldn't budge. With the momentum of both Scott and Marcus, we broke through and rushed inside. Finding random rubble, rocks or pieces of large branches, we barricaded it as much as we could.
The buzzing sounds stopped in front of the door, then they started barging at it, trying to open it by brute force, but we already left by the time to find a solution.
We found out there was ANOTHER hallway leading to a singular room, it looked like a storeroom of sorts, there were lots of regular looking urns and crates filled with bags, we checked the contents of the bags and it seemed to be a powdery, white substance. Peter scanned the substance which revealed to be made up of a crop that resembled milled grain back on Earth.
We stopped with the crates and looked for any way to escape this room, but there was nothing except a hole on the top of the ceiling, we tried stacking some crates to get up there, they were old and rotten however, so they broke by just standing on them. Eventually we just moved the crates in a formation as barricades, if this is our last stand, then we are going to make it tilt a little bit more on our side, though not by much.
[A Reader exclaims this is your end!]
[Some Readers are willing to bet on it]
I swear this guy who keeps wishing for our demise is the same one. What the hell did we do to upset them?
All of us had a worried face, no matter how many plans we could come up with, we don't have the necessary skills or power to stop a huge army of bugs. There was no hope, at least that's what my pessimistic mind told me.
■Little did he know■
"-aaaaAAAHHH!"
The high-pitched screaming of a little girl could be heard, it almost sounded like it was coming from the hole in the ceiling, then a person actually did fall from inside the hole and into the piles of crates and powder, which puffed into the air like a misty cloud.
■There was a Fool who gave such feelings■