Chapter 17: Demon Event 1

  Fay finally experienced his first dream since being on the island, it wasn’t the kind that would make someone wish for a better future, a dream of a new job or finding love, it wasn’t even a dream that made no sense, those in which someone could fly, or fall from high distances and survive. It wasn’t a nightmare, maybe, it wasn't him being chased by a monster or him experiencing a disaster. It was just a replay of the day's events, the feeling of his arms swinging into a punch, the tension he felt when a knife slid across an animal's skin, the feeling of his ribs pressing against his lungs from being slammed.

  He didn’t dream visually, it was just a feeling, he could barely pick out anything within the dream, whatever his opponent was mixed into several others and whatever his skills were mixed with others, it was like his brain was training him, trying to focus on what worked today and what didn't. It was feverish in intensity, and when he woke up, he felt like he hadn’t slept at all.

  “Urgh…” Fay felt his back aching from his sleeping posture, the light above stabbed into his eyes, the sky was yellow in hue but was quickly becoming black. He had imprints of the stairs along his arms and neck, and disgusting tasting drool slipping down his chin to his cloak. He groaned as he lifted upwards, and could feel that sharp pain feeling that every inhale gave him. He pressed his hand to his chest and felt that one side wasn’t moving with his exhales and inhales. “Shit…” he had a burning feeling alongside his heart that lasted upwards of a minute or two, and his stomach was begging for food. His tongue, just as well, was begging for water, dry and coarse along his mouth.

  He could feel the placement of bone along the floor of his mouth, his tongue could swipe across it and feel the useless clump of calcified flesh. It didn’t feel good, and kept drying out his mouth from picking up moisture.

  “Will you shut up!” Lily screamed, “Fay’s trying to sleep!”

  “You’re being just as loud, dumbass!” Bark responded, “you’re being louder than me!”

  Fay rubbed the sleep from his eyes, laughing as he lowered the hood and lifted up, Bark was in better spirits clearly, hopefully because he had made some equipment Fay could use… “Psychopath…” He whispered and brushed his hair out of his eyes, he had the dizziness of being woken abruptly so when he walked up the steps he felt as if he would fall backwards and break his entire body.

  He didn’t, luckily, and opened up the door. The smell of snake meat permeated throughout the air, Millie was stoking a small flame into an iron pan, apparently having some sort of flame skill, as well. Okay, whatever.

  “Oh you’re awake!” Lily was leaning over the crafting station and watching Bark work with a bored intensity, she couldn’t find anything better to do. “Bark has a surprise!” She patted his back.

  Bark looked over, his eyes were red and sickly, his hands were covered in blisters and his skin had a pale quality to it, stress, a lot of it. “Oh…” He smiled and picked up a ring item, with a jewel in the middle, “it’s… It's a crown thing that Millie said I could make… was really hard to make… had to use the snake king's heart… thing… was gross…”

  The gem in the roughly forged crown had a pulsating glow to it, “it's uncommon… but! It has a special skill… uh, adds poison to any weapon, uncommon.” He put it into Fay's hand, “but! You can throw away that knife you have because I made something new that I think works better.” He took out some gloves made of cloth, they looked unremarkable, “these… are uncommon too.” He held them out and dangled them, “they wrap around your hands… kinda like your cloak… I won’t tell you how I made them because it's very disgusting but uh… they can grow claws.”

  [Snake King Crown (UNCOMMON)]

  Passed down from zero generations, chipped and tattered, this Crown is a recreation of what was once a great empire.

  [Special]

  Make any stabbing attack inflict Uncommon poison.

  [Snake King Gloves (UNCOMMON)]

  Passed down from zero generations, ripped and boiled, these gloves are a recreation of what was once a great empire.

  [Special]

  Cloak sticks to the hands like glue, can sharpen by the tips and sharpness scales with Defense.

  Oh. Fay was very pleasantly surprised, it was like these were made just for his fighting style, he tested the gloves out by sharpening them, it spread out the once soft cloth into claws, sharp enough to pierce Fay’s skin. The scaling was nice, though his defense was by far his worst stat, next to strength. The no stat increases were annoying, but the specials were surely enough to add variety to his fighting. “Is that all?”

  “Oh…” he looked embarrassed, manically going through the drawer of a table, “no, no sorry, I have a ton of failed stuff, but they are only common, so yeah, yeah sorry.”

  Millie walked over and patted Bark on the head, “you did good, now rest, good job.”

  “Th-thanks.” He shut his eyes and almost broke into tears, “I’ll sleep, goodnight, sorry, sorry…” he found a corner to curl up in and within a second of shut-eye he passed out. Snoring very loudly in the quiet cabin.

  Millie watched him for a moment, and Fay caught her doing a small prayer before bowing, looking quite sad at the whole ordeal. Has she been forcing him to make this for me? The thought crept into his mind, entirely useless. But it would make sense why she wanted him to have Graft so badly.

  “Well…” Lily groaned, “chop chop witch lady, make some food.”

  They ate, mostly Fay who had been slowly, too slowly, regenerating his HP. The atmosphere of the cabin was awkward, Millie kept staring right at Fay, feeding him food and making him drink water. “You’ll need it.” She kept saying, over and over again until it grew annoying. So when Fay heard the sound of Joey’s group arriving at the cabin he jumped up and left instantly.

  “Fay!” Marx laughed as he walked from out of the trees, “we’re here to return Jason.” He was followed by Joey, Jacky and Eddy. No Grace this time. Jason was right beside him and held his axe firmly in his hand, looking tired.

  “Hi!” Fay hopped down the steps to greet them, Joey and Jacky stayed back, wary of the place for some strange reason. They both looked terrible, tired and not at all ready for whatever event was going to happen tonight.

  Jason walked up to Fay and stopped a meter away, “Fay.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to leave your group and… and join theirs.” He said all stoic-like, like the decision was similar to quitting a job, or to break up with someone.

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  “Yeah sure.” Fay sighed, “go for it, I don’t own you.”

  He nodded, looking angry at himself and walked back, “well, that’s all.” He went to chat with Eddy and Joey, they were much closer than before with how they treated each other, even Joey, who Fay took to be a closed off person, was standing quite close to Jason as they exchanged words.

  Marx groaned, “nice gloves.” He pointed at them and sat on the cabin’s steps, “I only got like 600 XP more, Eddy and Jason leveled up to level 4.”

  Wow. Fay stayed standing, “right…” that didn’t mean much, levels meant almost nothing but 3 input points, something that really wasn’t all too beneficial with all the stats you’d get from skills, professions and armour

  Joey waved at Marx, “come on! We’re going!” He said with an overtly annoyed tone.

  “Asshole… Nah I’m gonna stay here with Fay!” He shouted back, “I’ll come back soon!”

  Joey and his squad, now including Jason, walked off without another word, they were going towards the magical forest yet again to scratch away at whatever XP they needed for level 5.

  “They’re just too much for me right now, too much.” He groaned at his hands, which were burnt severely, second degree, “Joey wanted to keep going but I’m just so tired, you know? So, I thought I’d hang out with you, my friend.”

  “Right…”

  He stretched as he stood, “wanna walk? That woman is staring right at me.”

  Fay looked behind him and saw the pale eyes of Millie by the door, she was holding the frame and stood at a slant. “Feel free to stay.”

  “No thanks.” Marx hopped back, “come on, let’s talk Fay.” He took his hand and dragged him away from the cabin, in the opposite direction Joey and his group went. “Need to talk to you about a plan.” He whispered conspiratorily, “so.”

  They got deep enough into the forest where the afternoon light stopped peeking through, the sky was a greyish purple now, dark and brooding. “What plan?”

  “I wanna get out of here, across the mountains, to escape.” He held both of Fay’s hands, “everyone else said it was stupid, so stupid, but I don’t think so.”

  Fay didn’t respond, if he was going to even entertain the idea he would have to bring Bark and Lily, that was a given. But it just didn’t seem like it could be possible, all sorts of things could happen, a barrier that would stop them, dangerous monsters, dragons even, it just didn’t seem right in his head, they wouldn’t make it that easy.

  “Fay…” Marx was desperate, “come on, just say yes, come on.” He squeezed both of Fay's hands, his brown eyes were burning almost red out of stress. “I just want out, I do.”

  Fay took a small breath in, a long suck of air that relaxed his muscles, “Marx-”

  [Day 3 Demon Event started]

  [You have five hours to destroy 0/5 Lower Common Demons]

  Oh. That doesn’t seem so bad?

  —

  “Shit! Where is Fay?” Lily scrambled immediately at the event, getting up from her chair and to the door. Right before she could get out Millie shut it, leaning on the wooden door with her other hand to her side.

  “Now now.” She leaned further on the door and smiled, just softly, finally showing her teeth which had a sharp canine to them. “Sit, Lily.”

  Lily backed off quickly, slipped backwards away from Millie’s striking range and sat on a chair Bark used for crafting, she held both hands to her knees and treated Millie like an authority figure. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Millie sighed, “I wish I didn’t have to do this, it’s always such a hassle.” She paced up and down the cabin, touching every surface she could.

  “Do what…?” Lily asked.

  “Just the whole thing, you wouldn’t understand.” She was showing more emotion than ever, “but that’s just how it is, we slaughter our pigs for pork, we skin our sheep for clothes and we…” she sighed again, tapping along the rotting wooden floorboards until she was standing over Bark, she crouched down and her smile quickly became more sanitised, softer even. She pinched his cheek playfully until he woke up.

  “Hm…? Huh…? Oh… Millie…” he smiled, “what is…?”

  “Sh.” Millie pressed her finger to his lips and brought her thumb to his forehead, he blushed immediately, “you’ve been good… I’m proud of you… you’re going to go to sleep forever now, okay?”

  “Mmm!?” Bark tried moving but Millie pushed him back and cradled his neck.

  “It won't be painful… and I know you’re just so tired after today, you did well Bark.” She said in a soothing buttery voice, "it'll last just a moment, look at me…” her smile dimmed out as her thumb simply flashed a blinding white glow, making the boy limp and lifeless on the floor. His eyes turned a pale white, no pupils in sight, “was hoping to cultivate you, Lily.” She sighed and turned towards her, standing confidently while Lily was still sitting on the seat, “those demons, let me explain, they are on par with the bosses in the dungeon, a higher level three, so keeping you around would be detrimental to Fay’s progress, I’m sure you understand… you called yourself a curse. Isn’t that what you told him?”

  She was listening?! Lily scrambled towards the door yet again, yanking the knob. She felt the wind disturb her cheek, like Millie had stepped four steps in a second, right before feeling a burn on the entire middle part of her body. TIMEOUT, TIMEOUT TIMEOUT TIMEOUT TIMEOUT TIMEOUT TIMEOUT. She screamed in her mind, she felt the burn barely miss her heart, she opened the knob and rolled down the steps and into the night. Feeling the side of her melting off and connecting to her simple clothes.

  “Tricky skill.” Millie tapped towards the door, watching Lily run into the forest. She wasn’t even worth any XP, so she would likely die to one of those demons. Millie decided to head back inside, ignoring the screams for help that were coming from Lily in the forest. She had a whole tomorrow to plan for.

  Lily continued to run and scream, her side had finally cooled off, but she couldn’t help but feel lopsided and wrong, all wrong, like the attack had touched the very essence of her soul. She was deformed in some way, but couldn’t tell without a mirror. “FAY!” She shouted, “FAY!”

  She stumbled into an opening of the trees and saw Marx looking amused at her behavior, Fay was more serious, but not alarmed, that was until they both saw her side and their eyes sharpened. “Did a demon attack?” Fay asked as he ran over.

  It looks like a goddamn demon attacked me? God, God this isn’t good, this isn’t good. She shook her hair, “Millie, Millie she killed b-b-b-Bark and… and…”

  Fay grabbed her shoulders and looked into her eyes, she could see the browns in his eyes dim out a bit, like he wasn’t quite there. Has he ever been there? She wondered.

  “She killed Bark?” He didn’t seem at all surprised. He didn’t even look like he was grieving the person he knew. “Okay… okay… Marx, we need to get out of here.”

  Marx nodded along, not quite understanding it, who Bark was even, “okay… to the mountains?”

  “Anywhere.” Fay held Lily up, “Lily does your side hurt?”

  “No?”

  “Okay.” He nodded, “don’t worry about it.” He looked at the hand sized chunk that was taken out of Lily’s side, it wasn’t bleeding, it looked cauterised and closed off. It didn’t seem to make her any less able to walk, so they ignored it and went on.

  “Yes!” Marx pumped his fist, “I already have a path, we can go around the magical forest and get there easily, maybe avoid the demons all together.”

  Bark was dead… Fay kept thinking, Bark was dead… Bark. Was. Dead… it didn't hit him like it should. To the point where Fay assumed some human part of him was missing completely, lost in the constant bruising and stabbing of battle. Was he even himself anymore? He wondered. Maybe he didn’t feel much because he still felt Lily was lying, Millie had spent hours with Bark, even a villain wouldn’t just end someone's life right after they exhausted themselves to craft, that would be stupid, silly, nonsensical.

  They began to run, as fast as Lily’s pace would take them, which was surprisingly fast, she was by no means a weak person, just compared to the things here it would seem that way. She was stressing to herself, that Millie was right behind her, that she would soon finish her off, that she would soon put her thumb on her forehead and make her eyes go that glossy white.

  Her breathing was terrible, it was not reaching her head, she was losing her mind, it felt, she was losing her mind and nothing was left of it but dust. Was she already dead? Is this all a dream? Is she a corpse right now? Her mind was thumping desperately, two migraines at once, her teeth were clicking together and her heart was pulsating like she was being attacked.

  [You have been invited into the Oizys Class (RARE)]

  [Every level]

  +2 agility.

  +2 perception

  +2 Intelligence

  +1 vitality

  [Skill]

  Free Motion (RARE: LVL 1): Control your body like a doll, with invisible strings to make impossible motions.

  I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m surely dead. Lily kept running. Accept.