The door behind them slammed shut and they could hear it lock them inside as the snake rushed at them. It was huge, at least a hundred and thirty feet long and as wide as a bus.
"Close your eyes and move! Don't look at the snake, it's a basilisk!" Zanath shouted. While his eyes were closed he moved his hand up to block out the snake's eyes, like you would use your hand to cover the glaring sun when looking at clouds. Opening them again when he was sure his hand blocked the line of sight between his own eyes and the snake's. This broke the paralysis and he ran out of the snake's way.
"What??" Estellese shouted back. Kadin and Mendores both closed their eyes and suddenly they could move again, they immediately ran to the side to get out of the giant snake's path. Estellese hesitated, afraid to lose her vision when there was a giant snake coming at her, her breathing became heavier as she started to panic, and couldn't help but to stare back at the snake as it grew closer and closer.
Then she finally closed her eyes and tried to move, but she was still frozen in place. "It doesn't work!!" She shouted back.
Zanath grabbed Estellese's arm and yanked her out of the way, to his side. He then moved his hand and looked at the snake for a moment, and tried moving. At first he could move but with every millisecond that passed the paralysis became stronger and stronger. He quickly closed his eyes before becoming paralyzed.
"You stared at it too long" Zanath stated. "The longer you look at it, the stronger the paralysis gets! Do NOT stare at it for more than a second or two, or the paralysis may get so bad you can't close your eyes!" He shouted to the others.
Now that everyone had moved the snake stopped and straightened it's back so that its head was so high up it almost hit the ceiling. It looked down at the others and let out a loud and long hiss, and moved more towards the center of the room where it was close to everyone.
"How the hell do we fight it if we can't look at it?" Estellese questioned.
"It is a giant snake," Zanath stated "it can't exactly move quietly nor is it smart enough to use stealth. Listen to where it is, and only open your eyes for brief moments to check on things you can't hear."
"Split up, it can't look at all of us at the same time!" Mendores added
"It's got scales" Kadin pointed out as he ran to the north side of the room, leaving Mendores on the west side. Zanath and Estell remained on the east side and the snake was on the south side.
"Good point. Our swords won't be able to hurt it through the scales." Mendores thought out loud. You could almost see the gears in his head turning as he tried to figure out what to do now. They were not prepared for this, nor were they equipped to fight this thing.
"Well what is the plan?" Kadin asked, watching Mendores and waiting for some sort of idea or plan from him specifically. You could almost see the gears in his own head turning as he too tried thinking of some way out of this.
"I don't know, just hold out until I can think of something." Mendores called out. He watched as the snake spun around and glared down at Estellese and Zanath again, as it turned to them the snake flicked its tail at Mendores trying to slam him into the wall with its bus-sized tail. Keeping its eyes locked on Zanath and Estellese it charged at them.
Mendores dropped flat onto the ground to duck under the snake's tail. It was close, he could feel the gust of air rush over him as the tail just barely went over his head. And he could hear the pillars around him being smashed apart as dust and debris were thrown everywhere. He sprung onto his feet once the tail passed and got ready for the next attack.
"Eyes! Closed! And move left!" Zanath shouted when the snake looked at them, shutting his eyes as he ran left towards the south side of the room. Memorizing the positions of the pillars so he would not run into them, and opening his eyes only when he was sure the snake was not in front of him.
Estellese hesitated, again not comfortable with losing her vision in such a dangerous situation, but she closed her eyes and ran with Zanath to the south side of the room to kite around the snake.
The giant snake lowered its head to get into position to bite them and hissed loudly, then turned to chase after the two as they ran. Zanath heard it turn and when it hissed he noticed that the sound came from a little lower then it had been before. In a flash he spun around to face the snake, keeping his eyes open as he flung one of his knives at the snake's eye. His body locked up and froze in place when he made direct eye contact with the beast, the paralysis was much stronger when he looked straight back into the snake's eyes. But the knife was deadly accurate and stabbed the snake in the eye, causing it to let out a loud and pained hiss. The snake recoiled its head back a little but kept moving forwards, crashing its body into Zanath before he could break free and move.
Zanath screamed out as his legs were crushed under the snake's body, the weight of the snake broke both of his legs. He would not be able to walk in this condition. He started using his arms to drag himself out from under the snake and away from the creature while the others moved in.
Mendores and Kadin grabbed Zanath's shoulders and helped drag him back, and when Estellese saw them she slammed her axe into the snake's side. Even with her strength the blow from the axe did nothing, although it caught the snake's attention and made it turn on her, which was exactly what she wanted.
Once it turned on her she turned and ran away from it, trying not to look at it again but at the same time feeling panicked and tense with every second she couldn't see it and didn't know what it was doing.
There was only so much space in that small room, it wasn't long before she reached the wall and the basilisk was right behind her. She was out of ideas, with no way to harm the beast and no place left to run she didn't know what to do now. She knew she couldn't turn around to face it or she'd be paralyzed, and she knew it would strike at her any moment, she could hear the hissing right behind her. She could feel her muscles tensing up, begging her to turn around even though she knew she couldn't look at it.
"Dodge left!" Mendores shouted out, and she knew he was talking to her. Who else would need to dodge? She immediately dove to her left just in time for the snake's fangs and the rest of its head to slam into the ground where she had been. She immediately spun around and slammed the blade of her axe into the snake's open mouth, striking at any non-scale covered flesh she could reach. After her quick swing she spun around and ran away from the snake, back to where she had come from. She didn't need to see to know that her attack worked, the snake recoiled and hissed loudly, and she could hear the blood pouring out of its mouth. But even so, to a creature as big as the basilisk a cleave from an axe was just a scratch, it was more pissed off then hurt by such a blow.
With Zanath safely placed in a corner of the room Mendores and Kadin took advantage of the snake being distracted and threw everything they had into an attack on the back end of the snake's body. They hit it as hard as they could with their blades, kicked and slammed the hilts into the scales, Mendores even tried slamming a small broken piece of a pillar into the scales, all to no effect. They had nothing they could use to pierce or break the scales. The snake whipped around and turned its attention to the guys attacking it from behind, lunging for Kadin and Mendores. Kadin dove out of the way to dodge the snake's attempt to swallow them, but Mendores stood his ground. He waited until the last second before he jumped to the side of the snake's wounded eye. Dodging the bite and grabbing Zanath's knife from the snake's eye mid-jump.
Mendores threw the knife to Zanath, and the knife landed on the ground just a few feet away from where Zanath was sitting. "Think you can hit the other eye if I distract it?" Mendores called out.
"I can try. No promises" Zanath replied. He crawled over to the knife and grabbed it then forced himself to stand on his broken legs, cringing and hissing in pain but toughing it out as best as he could.
"Estell and Kadin once Zanath makes his move distract it and get it off me" Mendores ordered as the snake turned to him again and lunged at him. And this time he didn't move.
As the snake lunged at him, trying to swallow the tiny human, he jumped back just far enough to line himself up with the snake's teeth, so that it would bite him instead of swallowing him. Then Mendores activated the barrier spell, it's teeth sunk into the barrier and got stuck in it, keeping him jammed in the snake's mouth until the barrier breaks.
The snake bit down harder, trying to crush him in its jaw and the barrier started to crack. Mendores only had a very brief moment before it would break. "Now!" He called out. He himself immediately began wildly slashing and stabbing his swords at everything he could reach in the snake's mouth. Tearing the inside of its mouth apart with his blades.
Zanath took aim and flung his knife at the snake's other eye. With the deadly accuracy he was known for his knife struck the snake in the eye, blinding it in both eyes and taking away its ability to paralyze them. As Zanath did his part Kadin and Estellese rushed in and started hammering on the snake's back half as hard as they could to try and draw its attention.
The snake threw its head back and screeched in pain. Estellese continued slamming her axe against the snake's tail end as hard as she could and eventually the scale cracked and broke off. Seeing her opening she took her axe and cleaved into the small exposed part of the snake's body again and again, hacking away at any piece of flesh she could strike. She couldn't hit anything vital this way, inflict a few more slashes and deep cuts into it's skin. It would be near impossible to kill the snake this way. It lashed out in pain, snapping its tail back then slammed it forwards into Estellese and Kadin. It hit them hard enough to throw them into the wall, snapping their ribs on impact, and giving them both a severe concussion as their heads hit the wall. Kadin's head was bleeding badly, his skull was cracked in the back. They were both in extreme pain and badly hurt, but Estellese was immediately back on her feet almost immediately, and Kadin got up aswell although he took a few moments longer, he was not as easily able to tough out severe pain and injury. Three of them were wounded now and rendered almost unable to fight in their condition, but the basilisk was only blinded and slightly injured in one small area on its massively long body. This barely hindered the beast.
As the blind snake whipped its tail around trying to strike at someone, it smashed several more pillars as it flailed. It eventually swung at Mendores whom upon seeing it coming stabbed his sword into the vulnerable spot Estellese had struck and used the sword as a step to jump over the snake's tail. Losing one of his swords but leaving another, deeper wound on the beast. Mendores planned to wear it down, one blow at a time keep chipping away at it until blood loss set in. But with everyone injured... They had just lost all hope of surviving a prolonged battle like that.
Estellese and Kadin moved over to Zanath as the snake was distracted by Mendores. "I need a healing potion." Estellese said.
"We can't use them in combat, remember?" Zanath replied.
"Shit, that's right. What do we do?" Estellese replied.
Kadin stared at the snake, with a thoughtful expression on his face. He watched as Mendores tried to fend off the snake by himself.
The blindness of the snake only hindered it for a very short time, it had adjusted to the loss of sight and now knew exactly where Mendores was. It would stick out its tongue every few seconds, using its other senses specifically its sense of smell, to track the human. It lunged at Mendores who dove out of the way, barely dodging the snake's head. But as Mendores dodged the snake whipped its tail at him, forcing him to hastily try and jump over it again, using the remains of a broken pillar as a stepping stone. Jumping over something that big was no easy task and this time he wasn't lucky enough to make it. The tail slammed into his legs as he jumped causing him to flip and crash into the ground and seriously injuring his legs. Thankfully they were not broken, but they were badly fractured in several places. He pushed down the pain as he forced himself back into his feet, determined to keep the snake distracted so the others would be safe.
The snake again lunged at him and he dove to the side to evade it, throwing his sword at its eye in an attempt to hit any flesh he could. But his skill in knife throwing was not as good as Zanath's, and throwing a sword was harder than it looked. His sword hit the snake's eye but the side of the blade hit the eye instead of the point, effectively doing nothing to the snake and leaving him weaponless as the snake turned on him again.
"Estell, give me your bag" Kadin stated firmly.
"Why?" Estellese asked as she handed Kadin the bag of potions. She watched as Kadin took all four of the potions they had found in the dungeon out of the bag.
"I'ma gonna heal the snake" Kadin stated in a dead serious tone.
"What the hell Kadin! Don't-" Estellese started to shout before being cut off by a cough and the need to puke again. This time she held it back, but she was rapidly getting sicker.
"The poor snakey is hurt! If I heal him he will become my best friend and we will ride into battle together and he will love me and I will call him fluffy and we shall take over the world together." Kadin replied.
"Are you an idiot? It will kill us if you heal it! We just damaged the damn thing we will lose all the ground we gained in this fight! Give me that!" Estellese went to grab the potions but before she could Kadin sprinted off after the snake.
Estellese was going to try and stop Kadin, but as she started moving towards them Zanath told her to stop. "Estell. Stay here and let him do his thing." Zanath stated. "There is no way we are surviving this doing things the way we were. If we don't do something new, we can't win this. It's just impossible. Better to try something than to do nothing and die." He stated.
Kadin uncorked a potion bottle and waited for the snake to attack Mendores, once it lunged at Mendores and opened its mouth to swallow him again Kadin made his move. He threw the bottle down the snake's throat. Mendores dodged out of the way and Kadin retreated to keep the snake's attention on Mendores, the only one in good enough health to dodge the snake. Even if he was just barely able to dodge.
Mendores noticed what Kadin was doing, he did not know what Kadin was throwing since he missed that conversation but he assumed Kadin had a reason for feeding the snake whatever it was he was throwing. So Mendores worked with Kadin to repeat the maneuver three more times, setting the snake up for Kadin to throw the potions in.
As the snake ate the next two potions its wounds slowly started to scab over and heal. It was regaining its eyesight, the bleeding was stopping, it was healing. Slowly, the potions took five minutes to fully heal their target, but it was working. "Uh... Kadin...?" Mendores questioned him unsurely and cautiously. He took a glance back at his ally to see Kadin throwing the last healing potion at the snake. Then he looked back at the snake and thought about it for a moment. Observing the snake's slow and heavy movements. "Genius." He murmured.
Estellese had noticed the snake slowing down and had come to rejoin the fight, thinking it was getting worn out she felt like she could safely dodge these slower attacks with her injuries. "You mean that sarcastically, right?" She questioned.
"No. Well, Kadin definitely is not a genius but the idea is." Mendores answered. They watched as the giant snake slowly started backing off.
"Did you hit your head too?" Estellese questioned. "It's healing, if we couldn't kill it while we were unharmed how will we kill it now? Kadin thinks it'll be friendly now."
"Did you forget the side effects of the potions?" Mendores asked. "They paralyze the drinker. The snake may be healing but he basically tranquilized it, even the snake can tell something is wrong and is backing off. Once the paralysis sets in we need to move in quick and make a killing blow. It may be healing, but if we kill it while it's healing the potion shouldn't bring it back from the dead. Hopefully." He stated. "Whether or not Kadin did this on purpose or for his own reasons is up for question though." He added. He watched as the snake backed away into the corner, it looked scared. Its movements were rapidly slowing down until eventually it collapsed to the ground.
Mendores and Estellese watched as Kadin walked up to the snake once it collapsed and began petting its head. "Good snakey. Relax. Stop trying to eat us." He whispered to it in a soft tone, and the snake violently hissed back at him. "Bad!" Kadin snapped and swatted it on the nose. "You will not use such language! Bad snakey!"
Mendores sighed and decided to ignore Kadin as he walked over to the snake's head. It had not regained enough of its vision to paralyze them yet so he needed to move quickly. As he approached Kadin held out his sword, handing it to Mendores as he passed. "You'll need this." Kadin replied. "Since you lost both of yours."
"Thanks" Mendores took the sword and stepped closer, before stabbing it into the snake's eye. He knew it would take more than just that, the thrown knives had not killed the snake earlier, but then again the thrown knives had not pierced that deeply into the basilisk's eye due to them being thrown. Mendores shoved the sword in as deeply as it could reach, then he took a step back and kicked the hilt as hard as he could to force the blade in even deeper. The snake let out a loud screech of pain, then it's body went limp. It was finally dead, although the sword was now buried so deeply in the snake's eye that it could not be taken back out. Not that it mattered, they had spare swords.
Moments after the basilisk was killed the door opened again and a hatch could be heard opening in the ceiling above them. Suddenly a treasure chest just fell out of the ceiling and landed in the middle of the room.
Mendores looked around, everyone was badly injured, this fight had almost been the end of all four of them. Zanath's legs were broken; several of Kadin's ribs were broken and his head was still bleeding very badly, he possibly had a cracked skull; Estellese also had several broken ribs and was off throwing up in the corner of the room again, Mendores himself was also injured. He knew Kadin just threw away several of their potions and he wondered how many they had left now. He hoped Kadin didn't use them all on the snake, he had thrown several of them and they didn't have many to begin with. He turned to the chest and sighed softly, hoping that whatever was inside would be worth it. Although, inwardly he knew nothing that chest could offer would be worth all four of them almost dying.
"How many potions did Kadin take?" Mendores asked.
"All of them" Estellese replied between coughing fits.
"Zanath, please tell me we still have some herbs left to make our own potions?" Mendores asked.
"We do." Zanath replied. "But only enough for three. Not enough for everyone, and if we all use one there will be none left to save us from something bad happening later. And I'm sure I don't need to say, no matter what someone's going to get hurt again eventually. And we are in no condition to risk fighting the werewolves, we can't go back to the forest we got the herbs in."
"You guys drink the potions." Kadin spoke up. "I'm not taking one. We can hope to find more in the chest, or in that room we passed by on the way here." He said. "Surely the dungeon will give us some extra potions in that room before the boss. We didn't check it out, so we can go there now." He said as he walked over to the chest and opened it.
Zanath limped over to the others, having already mixed the herbs into the water bottles while the others were fighting. He handed one to Mendores and Estellese, then sat down and drank the last one himself. Estellese drank hers and also sat down. Mendores looked at his and hesitated, he wanted to save one for an emergency, but also knew that if he didn't drink it his wounds would slow him down and that could result in him being unable to protect his friends. Kadin also needed it more than he did, but at the same time Kadin was not as good of a fighter as he was. The team was safer if Mendores was not injured. Plus Kadin had already stated his opinion, Mendores knew the stubborn man wouldn't drink it unless forced to. After a moment of contemplation, he drank his and sat down and spoke to Kadin. "Next potion we find is yours. Stick close to me and Estellese for protection"
Although right as he said that Estellese began coughing heavily and nearly threw up again. "Scratch that, stay near me, both of you. If that illness is not cured by the potion." Mendores corrected himself. "
"Uh, I'm not sure if you guys are gonna like this chest" Kadin interrupted.
"Why?" Mendores questioned as he turned to Kadin.
Kadin took a deep breath, then sighed. "It's empty."
"Of course. Just our luck." Mendores sighed, he lowered his head a little and looked almost defeated. If the game was this cruel, surviving would be even harder than they thought. "All that for nothing, this game is brutal."
Estellese shook her head. "Really?? We almost died for that and it's empty. Are you freaking kidding me?!-"
"Yes, I am" Kadin interrupted.
Estellese continued "I mean, Why the hell would they put an empty-" She stopped as Kadin's words registered in her mind. "You're an asshole, you know that?"
"I am aware." Kadin chuckled. "But I'm a loveable asshole so that makes it okay." He added. Mendores and Zanath remained quiet, but they both smirked a little and Mendores briefly chuckled. They were both relieved, and slightly amused by the joke.
Kadin started pulling the items out of the chest, holding each one up for a moment so the others could see before placing them on the ground. Since the others were paralyzed by the healing potions and would be unable to check the chest themselves. He pulled out a bow, a quiver with 6 arrows in it, and a chainmail chestpiece that protected both the torso and arms of the wearer, although the metals used to make the chainmail seemed weak and flimsy. Kadin grabbed what looked like a necklace with a large diamond and gold pendant, however as he touched it he felt this bizarre sensation of energy emanating from it. The strange feeling made him gasp and drop it, as he yanked his hand back as if he had just grabbed something thorny. After seeing that the necklace did not do anything aside from give off that odd feeling, he reached in and picked it up again then promptly put the strange thing around his neck.
The others were giving Kadin an odd look, wondering why he had jumped. Although, knowing Kadin and knowing that any time he found something unknown he used it straight away, they assumed there was something abnormal about the necklace he was now wearing. "Kadin," Mendores stated. "One of these days that curiosity of yours is going to be the death of you. be careful." He said simply.
"One of us was going to have to try it out and see what it did. Otherwise we'd never learn" Kadin replied just as simply. "But I appreciate the concern. However I can't tell what it does or why it gives off this funny feeling." He added as he pulled out the last few items. There was what looked like a bag of coins, and two marble sized diamonds along with one golfball sized ruby. He placed these miscellaneous things in that magic bag Mendores had to save them some space. Then he laid down on his back to wait for the potions to work on the others. The second he laid down he hissed and cringed, the back of his head touched the ground and sent a sharp pain through him causing him to jump. He had forgotten about that injury, in the rush of adrenaline from the fight or flight reflex the pain from his wounds had almost been unnoticable. But now that he was unwinding, everything hurt. Especially his head and ribs.
Kadin rolled over and laid face-down on the ground. "How bad is my head?" He asked.
"Pretty bad." Mendores answered. "Well, it looks pretty bad. But then again you're still conscious and able to function so I guess it can't be that bad. Otherwise you'd be knocked out or dead."
"Not necessarily" Zanath spoke up, "Some pretty bad brain injuries won't knock you out or kill you. But then again, without a doctor here to check it we wouldn't be able to tell. The bleeding seems to have stopped at least."
"True, true." Mendores replied, "With just us the best we can do is judge by what it looks like. And it looks okay. Aside from all the blood." He looked back at Kadin, however Kadin was now gone. Mendores looked around the room and couldn't see Kadin anywhere. "Where'd he go?"
"Dunno, wasn't watching him." Estellese replied. She was just lying on her back while the potion healed her injuries.
"I have no idea." Zanath stated. "He could not have gone far. I didn't even hear him move."
"Who are we looking for?" Kadin asked.
"You" Mendores replied. "Where are you?"
"Still laying where I was before." Kadin replied as he raised his hand to wave at the others. As soon as he raised his hand he suddenly appeared in the middle of the room, still lying exactly where he was.
"Kadin" Zanath started. "I think that necklace turns you invisible." He stated. The only explanation for that was that Kadin had been invisible, and logically the only thing that had changed about Kadin was the necklace he put on. "It must turn you invisible when you are still."
"Huh." Kadin mused. He put his hand down and just laid there, and sure enough he turned invisible after two seconds.
"Hey! It works." Mendores laughed. "That could be useful."
"Very." Kadin replied with a bit of a smirk, although nobody could see it.
"A necklace that makes him invisible." Estellese mused. "Can we find a ring that makes him mute too? Combining both would be pretty awesome."
"Hey!" Kadin pouted, but then chuckled lightly along with everyone else.
They waited out the five minute duration of the potions, and once it was over everyone but Kadin had recovered from all of their injuries.
Mendores looked over the items, assuming Kadin was going to take the necklace no matter what. "I don't think anyone has any arguments against giving the bow and arrows to Zanath, right?" He asked.
"I do not know how to use a bow" Zanath stated.
"Does anyone else know how?" Mendores asked, and when there was no answer he turned back to Zanath. "Well, nobody does. You have the best aim, so it's best in your hands. And I think Estell should have the chainmail, since she's our front line." He added.
Zanath took the bow and arrows and began fiddling with them, testing them out and taking a few practice shots across the room.
"You are also our front line Mendores." Estellese stated. "You take it, I will be fine without it." She still felt very numb and sick, the potion healed her wounds but it did not cure her of whatever illness she had.
"You sure?" Mendores asked. And upon seeing her nod he took the armor and put it on himself, now he had both a helmet and a chestpiece."Let's go, we have one more room to check then we can get out of here."
Mendores lead the way, and everyone followed after him. Kadin was limping and lagging behind a little bit due to his injuries but he was able to somewhat keep up with the others. And Estellese was still coughing and getting sick as they traveled back to the room they had passed up. It was empty, but had another room leading off to the west, That room was also free of monsters but contained one treasure chest. Mendores opened this chest, fearing it may be a trap but it was not. Inside was three more small bags of coins, 4 marble-sized topaz gems, and an odd looking ring. Like the necklace the ring gave off this strange aura, like it was emitting energy. It was a plain golden ring and the top of it where a gem would normally be instead had a flat and blank surface. Since Estellese was the only one to not get an item from the previous chest, Mendores passed her the ring, assuming it had some sort of magical properties to it. Kadin was both surprised and concerned that there had been no extra potions in the side room as he had hoped.
With that, the dungeon was fully explored. Or at least they did not know of any other rooms remaining so they assumed that was it. The four Alphas backtracked through the tunnels, looking over the destruction that was left behind from all of their previous battles. Now, they return to the surface armed and at least not completely defenseless anymore. Although, with Kadin and Estellese's conditions taken into consideration, Mendores wondered if they were better off or worse off than when they entered, They were armed, but half of their group was also unable to fight effectively due to injury or illness.
They exited through the massive spiked doors that started their dungeon run, passing by the goblin corpses, and began making their way up the stairs, back to the subway entrance. "Estellese, what symptoms are you experiencing? From your illness?" Mendores asked. He figured that since there was a lull in the combat, now was a good time to figure out what was going on.
"Well, throwing up constantly for one. My stomach and throat are burning like hell from that." Estellese replied. "I felt numbness in my right arm, which has spread through most of my body now. There are times where I can not breathe, like, I can't inhale or exhale, my lungs just won't work." Estellese started
"That is very concerning." Mendores thought out loud.
"And now I feel a very sharp pain in my arm, where the numbness started. That too seems to be spreading." Estellese finished.
"Where?" Zanath asked. "I mean, where on your arm."
"Here." Estellese said as she pulled back her sleeve. Revealing that a spot on her arm was turning a dark shade of purple, while the area around the purple was a very dark red and all swollen. "Oh shit!" She gasped. "I didn't think it was that bad. What the hell is going on?"
"Estellese." Zanath started. "Were you at any time bitten by a snake? Or the snake end of any of those hybrid creatures?"
"Yes." Estellese replied. Then her eyes widened as she realized what he was implying. "Wait! Were those things poisonous? I used my healing spell, and a potion, does that not cure poison?"
"Yes, those were poisonous snakes. And I would assume a normal healing potion won't remove poison. Going by video game logic, we would need an antidote potion." Zanath answered. "And we need to find an antidote fast, that poison has been in you for a while now. Judging by the symptoms you described I think the poison is causing your lungs to periodically fail. We need to cure this before your lungs permanently fail or you experience heart failure."
Estellese's eyes widened in fear, but only for a moment before she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she reopened her eyes she was calm and collected, on the outside at least. On the inside she was afraid that she would die here, she knew the chances of them finding an antidote in this overrun and looted city was near impossible. "Where do we go? A pharmacy?"
Mendores spoke up as they reached the top of the stairs and stepped out of the subway. "The first potions we found earlier were in a pharmacy section of a grocery store. So a real pharmacy may be our best bet."
As soon as they all stepped out of the subway suddenly a massive earthquake shook the city. Birds shot up into the sky, the dragon who was on the other side of town was startled awake and flew high into the air trying to figure out what happened, and a girl who got startled by the sudden earthquake fell off a nearby rooftop.
Kadin looked behind him at the source of the earthquake, only to see the stairs in the subway vanish, and he felt as if something massive underground suddenly tunneled off to the east. Did the dungeon just tunnel away?
The other three spotted the young girl falling from the roof. The girl flipped herself up-right in mid-air and landed on her feet in a surprising show of agility. She was short, had incredibly pale skin, very long, straight blue hair, carried a bow and arrows on her back, and she wore what looked like blue and white colored clothing that looked like it belonged to some royal medieval family. Her sharp blue eyes locked on the four Alpha testers, and when she noticed that they had seen her she cussed, grabbed her bow and an arrow and immediately notched the arrow and prepared to fire.
Mendores and Estellese quickly stepped closer to the subway, preparing to use it for cover just incase they needed to evade fire. But she did not fire straight away. Zanath also grabbed his bow and an arrow, but was not nearly as fast as the girl was. He aimed back at her but also did not fire.
"Lower your weapon!" Mendores called out. "We are not here to fight! We're actually really happy we found another human. Please lower your weapon, we are peaceful."
"You know..." Kadin started. "Saying 'we are peaceful' while we are covered in the blood and guts of a bunch of different monsters doesn't really look honest."
"Kadin. Not now." Mendores stated sternly.
"Another human...?" The girl murmured, pausing for a moment to think. "Human...?" She murmured again before giving them a confused and distrusting look. Then she suddenly bolted off in a west-ward direction.
As soon as she started to run Zanath fired an arrow at her, aiming for her leg with the intent to stop her from escaping. He didn't really want to hurt the girl, but she was another person in this world, they had to find out what she knew and if she knew how to get out of this game. Or, if possible, where the other humans were so they could try to survive within a city or something. They could always heal her later when they found some potions. However as soon as the girl saw his arrow coming at her she stopped running and spun to face them, in an instant she took aim and shot his arrow out of the air with her own., and a split second after that she had notched a second arrow and fired it straight at Zanath.
Zanath quickly dove to the side to get out of the way, narrowly dodging the arrow. But in the time it took him to dodge she had already notched a third arrow and fired again while he was mid-dodge. This arrow, he could not dodge. But it also was not aimed at Zanath, but instead was aimed at the quiver on his back. It struck the strap of his quiver with pinpoint accuracy, cutting through the strap and sending Zanath's quiver along with the rest of his arrows spilling out onto the ground. The move accomplished two things, it prevented him from firing back but also made it very clear that she could have killed him had she aimed for his head instead of his quiver.
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As soon as she saw her arrow hit its mark she spun around and bolted off to the west again. Zanath, being the fastest in the group tried to chase after her, but the girl was far too fast. Zanath, despite being incredibly fast himself, didn't even come close to matching her speed. She was long gone before he could see where she went, and he returned to the group.
"Daang" Kadin sighed. "She's a really good shot. I can see how she is surviving out here on her own. Where'd she go?"
"West." Zanath stated. "South west I think. And we don't know for sure she's alone"
"Should we follow her?" Kadin stated.
"I would, if we were not in such dire need for an antidote. She and the other humans, if any, may have antidotes with them. But searching in a random south west-ish direction doesn't mean we will find them. We might, we might not, it would be very risky to bet everything on that."
"It's also risky betting everything on a pharmacy not being looted though." Kadin replied.
"Why did you shoot her?" Estellese spoke up.
"Our lives are depending on us getting out of this game, or at the very least finding some supplies so we don't die right here. She was a chance we had to get out of here, or get supplies. I couldn't let her just run off. I was aiming for her leg anyways. Figured it would stop her from fleeing, and we could just give her a potion to fix the wound when we find one. I know, not the best idea, but her fleeing has a very high probability of being the death of us. I had to try." Zanath stated.
"Oh, I guess it makes sense. But I don't like the idea still." Estellese stated. "Now what?"
"I'm sorry." Zanath replied.
"We find a pharmacy." Mendores stated. "And as a last resort, we follow the girl. It will be easier and quicker to find one pharmacy in a city, then it is to find one girl who could be anywhere in the world." He said. "So let's place our bets on the easy one, but also search for a pharmacy in a south-west-ish direction so if it doesn't work out we are at least a little closer to plan B."
Zanath nodded "Works for me." he picked up his arrows and the ones the girl had fired at him. The girl's arrows had a very sleek and elegant design to them, he looked them over for a moment before putting them in the quiver with his other ones.
"Lets go." Mendores said as he again lead the way.
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-- Next Chapter: The Deadline. --
