the horizon in a bloody haze. The city, once prosperous, now looked like a shadow of itself, plunged into darkness and despair.
Sinister dark figures, resembling zombies, wandered through the streets with a swaying, uneven gait. Their movements were slow and unnatural, as if they were puppets in the hands of an invisible puppeteer. Max felt a chill run down his spine as one of these figures raised its head, and he saw empty, lifeless eyes looking in his direction.
The background music, previously quiet and unobtrusive, became gloomy, with booming drum beats that sounded like a harbinger of trouble. Each beat echoed in his heart, urging him to action.
“Damn… Where am I? -Max thought, – and where to go next?”
The heavy fog and monsters did not cause any desire to go down and explore the area.
“Faster Darriel, take him down!” – someone’s rough voice pierced the fog.
Max’s body worked faster than his brain and he collapsed down, pressed against the roof. The string of the crossbow snapped and a dark figure at the end of the street fell down with an arrow in its head.
“It could have been a screamer… we won’t be able to withstand the second aggro. Be on the lookout woman!” – warned the voice.
“Don’t whine Red. We’ll rest when we get to the temple. According to the location that Max sent you, he should be somewhere here. Monsters can’t go to holy ground.” – another voice replied.
The speakers finally appeared in the area of visibility, which was severely limited by the gray fog. They were a broad-shouldered shorty, a little shorter even than Max himself in a horned helmet, with a mace in his hands and a huge shield – a typical fantasy dwarf, and a honed, flexible female figure with a crossbow dressed in dark, form-fitting leather armor. Pointed ears and light hair made her look like an elf, but eyes shining with red lights and ash-gray skin did not allow to understand exactly what fantasy race she belongs to. The girl squatted over the monster lying on the pavement and pulled her arrow out of it.
“We should have arrived already, maybe we should go back a little?” – asked the dwarf.
The girl took out a piece of parchment from her bag and leaned over it.
“Where are we going, bearded one?” Darriel asked, as if continuing a dispute that had begun long before this. “We’ve already passed the leatherworker’s shop, so that means…”
A dark figure dangerously approached the adventurers from around the corner of the building, which they could not see…
The monster was not like the others. His size was impressive, and his movements were swift and clumsy, which only increased the sense of anxiety. Huge muscles under the black-haired body tensed with his every attempt to take a step, and his eyes flashed with a wild gleam. This jerky and uncoordinated gait inspired an inexplicable animal horror, as if nature itself had created him to sow fear.
Suddenly, the monster stopped, sensing the presence of adventurers. He sniffed the air, his breath was heavy and intermittent. Then, he let out a piercing roar that stunned everything around, like an alarm bell calling for action. The sounds spread throughout the city, causing the stones to tremble, and the birds to soar into the sky.
Reacting to his scream, all the black figures within the block, as if enraged and suddenly gaining unprecedented strength and speed, ran out of the fog and rushed towards the adventurers from all sides. More and more monsters appeared from the surrounding houses, foggy streets and dark alleys, one of them even jumped down from the second floor of the building opposite. The sound of breaking glass was replaced by a smacking sound after it landed on the pavement. The monster could not get up, but he crawled forward on his hands with a muffled growl.
The travelers were forced to retreat back into a narrow dead-end alley, trying to avoid being surrounded.
Quest received: “Allies\Enemies”
Description: In the cursed city you met a group of adventurers, unite with them or destroy them.
Type: Random event.
Reward: Variable.
Penalty for failure: No.
The crossbowwoman brought down two monsters with accurate shots, and first of all the “Screamer” that signaled the attack to the others, before the dark figures from all sides huddled the dwarf covering her with a shield. The dwarf, skillfully wielding his mace, laid down three, and deftly dropped several zombies that clung to the shield, but when creatures of another type began to appear in the crowd of attackers, even faster and larger, more like animals than former people, the green health bar that appeared above his head quickly crept down. Probably, when it reaches zero, the dwarf will simply fall on the stone pavement of the pavement and it will be torn to pieces.
“Quickly here!” – Max did not recognize his voice, changed by the game to a higher one. “The temple is here!”
The girl reacted first, she took a short run, pushed off her foot from the wall of the building and in one jump jumped over both the dwarf and the zombies surrounding him, spectacularly landed on the crawling monster, piercing his head with the studs of her heels and simultaneously plunging short curved blades from both hands into the two nearest enemies. The Darks hit in the head did not get up. After that, she rushed to run to the temple. The dwarf made a lunge, clearly fueled by some kind of magic, scattering opponents and ran after her.
Breathing heavily, they burst into the temple, slamming the massive doors shut behind them.
The dwarf was bleeding, the elven woman didn’t look much better than him. Dozens of dark figures surrounded the temple, and their number was growing rapidly, they fought and howled behind the doors of the temple, but none of them was able to step on its territory. They hissed and raged outside, reaching out to the strangers, but were not able to set foot on the sacred ground.
“How did you get here? The location is not easy. What can a lonely, unarmed child do in a temple in the middle of a cursed city?” Darriel pointed the crossbow at Max. “What class do you have and what tasks did the system give you?”
“Wait, wait,” the dwarf stood between her and the boy, “We came here to help, to help him level up, remember?” The dwarf smoothed his red beard, taking another sip from a bottle of green potion, which caused his health bar to fill up quickly. Although his iron armor and chain mail still clearly needed repair.
“Maybe he lured us here on purpose,” Darriel continued, “It’s ‘Dream’, they can’t do without unexpected twists and crazy quests. Something is clearly wrong here Redbird. Maybe it’s a hidden monster killing quest. And he’s that monster. The temple is clearly damaged, look at the shards of glass. This clearly happened recently, most likely during the shelling of the city by wall-battering machines of the Lights before the next assault. That’s how he woke up. If he’s the ghost-keeper of this place, he’s just waiting for us to turn away so he can tear our throats.”
“You see monster hunting quests in everything, calm down already. We are on holy ground.” The dwarf objected, trying to calm her panic.
“In a cursed city,” Darriel did not give up.
“But we don’t receive damage from the cursed land here, which means the place is still sacred. And the cursed cannot enter here, which means he is normal. Look at those,” the dwarf waved towards the crowd of zombies outside the temple area, which had become noticeably larger during the conversation and was in no hurry to disperse, “they are not able to go to the holy land.”
“And by the way, yes, this is another argument against him,” said Darriel, “they don’t react to him.”
“What?” the dwarf was surprised, “how is that?”
“Even now, when we move around the temple, the damned feel