A Path of Bone and Poison 69 Survive

The Instance we entered this time was different from any of the others we had entered before. We had recieved a question upon entry. The quest was simply called Survive.

u003cSurviveu003e Rank u003cErroru003e

You are being hunted by an Unknown enemy. Survive until dawn or become it's food.

Time left: 18 hours

Rewards: Unique Growth ranked item, spell, or skill

Failure: Death

We had to survive until dawn, but had a timer of 18 hours. The daylight lasted for roughly 16 hours where we were on Kaos, this meant that our location was either a long ways north or south of where we were. When I looked at the sky I noticed that the sun was just setting, which meant this place had 18 hours of night.

The error by the name told me that this is not an instance we should have been able to enter. It's rank far exceeded that of a C rank dungeon, which is why we were only meant to survive, not kill what was hunting us.

I looked back at my party. The seemed to have come to the same conclusion that I had. They looked at me and nodded. Hylia jumped on to my shoulder, turning to watch my back. I quickly entered stealth, and informing Leisha that she would be taking vanguard. I would be taking the rear, With Hylia watching behing us as we walked.

My stealthed form made my presence dampened, but I was not foolish enough to believe that it would be enough to hide me from whatever was hunting us. I would simply be less noticable than the other two. Perhaps this would give me an advantage.

The area around us was a vast open plains, covered in snow. It would be difficult to find a place to hide. The sky above us was filled with storm clouds, blocking any light that would have been gifted by the stars and moon.

A bitter cold wind blew across the plains, blowing soft powdery snow into our faces. Behind me I could see my tracks clearly in the snow. This meant that my stealth would be useless. I sighed, nothing about this quest was going to be easy.

We began to walk through the snow, we had no direction, and simply decided to walk to the left. We decided to do this because our natural instinct was to go forward, but knowing we were being hunted we decided to change directions.

It was odd, but Hylia noticed the further we walked the more we tended to veer to the right. It was not very apparent if one looked at our surroundings, as everything looked the same. But Hylia was looking behind us, and was able to see trail we had left. The change of directions was slight, but with time it would become a bigger change.

I did not correct our path, nor did I say anything about it. It was almost like something was drawing us there, and if I said something then perhaps whatever was supposed to happen wouldn't happen. Yes, it was good that we were going forward.

Inside my head I could head Hylia talking. She seemed really panicky about something, but I was to focused on walking to pay attention. We needed to get to where we were supposed to be. That was the only way we could be warm. The only way this damned cold would go away.

I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. It felt like someone had jammed two daggers into it. They pain woke me up from my daze.

I stopped walking. In front of me I watched as the other two continued to walk. They were no longer walking to the left at all, but I could see them visibly walking towards to the right, attempting to bring us to the direction we had originally been facing when we arrived.

I yelled for them to stop, but they continued to walk, completely ignoring my words. I sighed, knowing that they were in the same state I was in before Hylia had awoken me. Whatever it was did not effect her.

I discussed it for a moment with Hylia, and eventually I used shadow movement to appear behind them as I gave each of them a slap. My strength did not seem to be enough, as they were completely oblivious to the blows.

With the relatively peaceful method being not effective we went with the more drastic route. Hylia jumped on their shoulders, giving each of them a bite.

Both of them screamed. But when I pointed out what had happened their faces visibly paled. They looked back at our trail to confirm what I had already said. They continued to stare, their mouths opening wide.

Not getting a response I turned around to look as well. What greeted me was not an endless field of snow, marred only by our trail. Our trail had completely vanished.

That was not even the worst part. The worst part was the group of creatures that were following us. They looked life hollowed out humans. A Thin Ice covered their bodies, or rather had becoming the skin of these beasts. Their hair had become a frozen mess. Their eyes had the hollow look of a person who had deprived of the most basic of human needs. Love.

I could not stop the scream that escaped my mouth. The entire plains were filled with these creatures. Thousands of these living frozen corpses just stared at us, as we stared back at them.

As I slowly turned around I became more away of how filled the plains were. Their was only a single path clear for us to advance. That path headed directly towards the area that was calling us. The area that would be certain death if we were to approach.

The girls around me drew in close to me, trying to put as much distance as they could between us and the advancing horde.

Chapter end