Unexpected Healer Book 2 -- Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Bending over and putting his hands on his knees, Kyler finally stopped running after hours on the road.  As he attempted to catch his breath, his heaving lungs filling his ears with their labored inhalation and exhalation, he shifted himself slightly so that he was looking behind him.

Nothing.  Thank goodness.

The Archer Trainee couldn’t help but feel a wave of relief pass through him as the panic he’d felt since running for his life from Forgestone started to fade.  He pulled up the Quest again to see if anyone was still alive fighting those Magma Worms, which he doubted, but it turned out he was wrong when he received even more messages saying that it was completed – and that it was all part of a chain of Quests that went all the way up to Level 100!  Being only Level 18, there was no way he’d have a chance to even attempt a Quest like that, even if the rewards were amazing.

Though the PICK multiplier he received from his newest Achievement, What’s Next?, would certainly go a long way toward that goal.  He just didn’t understand how all this happened in the first place.

Feeling his breathing come back under control, he looked up toward where he was going, seeing the town of Northbend in the distance.  I ran all the way here already?  His panicked flight had brought him much further than he had thought it had; then again, he didn’t have a party to have to slow down for… at least, not anymore.

As he began walking toward the same, familiar town he had come into the world of Tarth nearby, Kyler couldn’t help but reflect on what had happened – even if he didn’t want to remember the horror of it all.  It all began when he was running through the beginning rooms of the Goblin Mine Dungeon with his three other party members (as they were never able to find a Support Class to join them), when they passed through a room’s exit to find themselves outside the Mine’s entrance. 

And they weren’t the only ones.  Apparently, the dungeon had essentially kicked everyone inside out of it and the few people who attempted to re-enter were rebuffed at the entrance.  It was only about 20 seconds after the hundreds of Contenders that had been delving through the dungeon were kicked out, mingling around in anger at their run cut short, that the announcement overwhelmed them all. 

It was only seconds after they finished reading over it that a Level 55 Magma Worm burst through the floor beneath the large group of confused and now frightened Contenders, swallowing a dozen of them in an instant.  It rose up into the air and collapsed on even more, before moving faster than just about anyone in the entrance cavern to munch on dozens of the scattering parties as they attempted to run for the exit.

A slight bout of guilt rose up at the memory because Kyler ran as fast as he could, leaving his party behind him by about a dozen feet… which was just enough space that he was spared when a second Worm appeared out of the wall, engulfing his party in a second in its teeth- and magma-filled maw.  He was only consoled by knowing that he couldn’t have done anything to prevent it and would’ve died with them if he had stayed nearby, but it still bothered him.

It also helped that he didn’t particularly like any of them all that much; the three of them were what he called “bros” and had a very limited viewpoint of the world.  Namely, women, booze, and sports; the latter wasn’t as prevalent, but they seemed to crave competition and constantly challenged other parties in ridiculous contests to see who could finish a dungeon faster or kill a specific monster using only their fists or a staff.

It was sometimes funny, but their personalities were more annoying than anything.  Still, they weren’t necessarily bad people and he was beginning to warm up to them a bit; once he got past their deliberate rudeness, they were alright.

Whatever friendship might have grown from all that wasn’t going to happen now, though.  As much as he didn’t necessarily care for them at that point, he hadn’t wanted to see them die, either.

After they were swallowed and likely melted from the magma that seemed to encompass the entire Worm’s mouth and throat, Kyler ran out of the dungeon offshoot tunnel leading to the main thoroughfare.  He nearly died at that point when he almost ran into yet another Magma Worm that was apparently trying to eat more people but couldn’t, and they were fleeing toward the Goblin Mine Dungeon; his warning words caught in his throat as he was knocked to the ground but not hurt by Worm’s lunge, and it was at that point that he noticed a sparkle in the air.

He had no idea what it was, but he put things together quickly enough to realized that it was the only thing that prevented him from being hurt.  Scrambling to his feet, Kyler managed to avoid the screaming Contenders as they ran every which way, before flat-out sprinting toward the exit.  He arrived just as another Worm did, and he watched as it fell upon two other parties that were understandably shocked by its appearance, and he mentally cheered them on as half of them managed to move out of the way to avoid being swallowed up.  He didn’t stop, of course, because panic had taken hold to the point where all he could do was run, but he at least noticed some things as he passed by other Contenders arriving on the scene. 

He saw at least 60 of them join together to try and take down one of the Worms, but after seemingly doing very little damage to it within the first few seconds, they scattered after their front line was scooped up and crunched by the monster’s long, sharp teeth.  He didn’t stay longer to see what happened to them after that, but he couldn’t imagine that it was anything good; a 40-Level difference, even with much greater numbers, wasn’t something that was easy to overcome. 

He also saw many of the local Charee fleeing along with him, their things packed and ready to go in record time.  In fact, they were just organized enough that he was almost confident that this was something that they had been planning to do for years, though those closest to the emerging Worms weren’t nearly as lucky as they were flattened in their homes and places of work when the high-Level monsters started tearing the city apart.  This much he saw from the few times he glanced back behind him to make sure he wasn’t being chased down, but he was sure there was much more that he didn’t see.

There was a traffic jam at the gate as both Charee and Contenders shoved and pushed their way outside of the walls, but the City Guards helped to regulate the flow of people within seconds and got everyone moving fairly quickly.  The moment he saw the Guards, he was immediately angry as he saw that they were doing nothing to stop the Worms from rampaging all over the city, killing its citizens, but then he remembered what he learned in his Training.

The locals, even the Guards, were unable to help against monster attacks; they were there to keep order and enforce the rules, but the monsters of the world were the responsibility of the Contenders.  From what he understood from Training, there was some sort of reward for the locals like the Charee preparing the world for the arrival of those from Earth, though he wasn’t exactly sure what it was; there was a tradeoff for them being here, though, and that was that they had their own rules and restrictions when it came to dealing with monsters and Contenders – and what was happening was evidently one of them.

Once he was free of the Forgestone walls, he didn’t look back until he stopped just a few moments ago.  Along the way, he glimpsed hundreds or even thousands of other people – both Charee and Contenders like himself – getting as far from the city as possible, but that was all he paid attention to.  Now that he had a chance to think about it, he thought that the majority of the city’s citizens had likely escaped before they could be killed, and unless they were stupid and stayed to fight those things, he would guess that 80% to 90% of the Contenders that were still in the city and not near the dungeons had survived. 

The number of survivors near the dungeons, like himself, was most definitely a lot less.

Walking into town, he discovered that he wasn’t the first to arrive from Forgestone, as there were at least a dozen Contenders gathered around the entrance. 

“What news?  Do you know if Marcus made it out?”

“What about Kelly?  I lost her in the confusion of our escape.”

“…saw Ahmed get swallowed up instantly – he didn’t even have a chance to scream.”

Kyler just shook his head at the few questions that were directed his way, as he didn’t have anything to add.  He hadn’t stuck around to watch the results of the attack, and he didn’t know many other people other than his own party – which he knew for a fact were all dead, as they had left his party almost instantly upon being eaten.  Training told him that when something like that happened, there was no possibility of a Resurrection, so he could only assume their bodies were destroyed so badly that there was nothing left for the spell to work from.

With no comfort to give them, he passed the questioning group and headed toward the Adventurer Coalition building, his steps walking the familiar path that he’d trekked dozens of times after he arrived on Tarth.  He’d spent weeks there before moving on to Forgestone with his party, as it had a wider selection of dungeons available and better access to just about everything.

Still, it was with a bit of sad nostalgia that he arrived at the entrance to the Adventurer Coalition branch.  Walking inside, he saw that he wasn’t the only one there, though based on their lower Levels and slightly familiar faces, he was fairly confident that they were simply those who hadn’t moved on from the town quite yet.  All of them, however, were talking about the recent developments.

Namely, the PICK-boosting Achievement, the notifications about the second phase of development starting earlier than it was supposed to, and the two Quests they had been automatically assigned.  There was also speculation as to who could’ve been the one to complete the previous Quests with the Magma Worms, because the messages indicated that there was only one person left.  Such speculation didn’t last long, however, as everyone knew who it had to be: #32599999-E.

While the Rankings hadn’t been updated since a week after arrival, everyone was aware of the strange-named Contender, who seemed more like a glitch or some sort of AI than a real person.  The fact that they came from their Region brought even more attention to this individual, but no one seemed to know where they were; he doubted they were still in the Town of Ashcleft, which was somewhere to the south, but he should’ve guessed that they would’ve gone to the closest city.

It could only be this particular Contender that would be able to take down 30 Magma Worms by themselves; because the official Ranking came out a couple of weeks ago, who knew what Level they had managed to achieve by this point that would allow them to do something like that? 

“Hey, Varney.  Have any more rooms available?”

Ignoring the rest of the people in the lobby, Kyler had walked over to the Coalition Receptionist at the counter. 

“Kyler?  Are you… alright?”

He shook his head, his throat a bit tight when he answered.  “No, but I will be.”

“Is it just you?” the Charee asked, but then winced when he realized what the answer might be.

“Yeah, just me.”  He didn’t feel like explaining what happened to his party, and was glad that Varney didn’t ask anything after that.

“Well, uh, we have your old room if that works for you?” the Receptionist asked.  “We haven’t gotten too many visitors lately that have stayed for more than night, so we’ve got plenty of vacancies.”

“Sure, that’ll work.  I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying, but this should cover me for a little bit,” Kyler said, materializing two silver coins from his Inventory and placing them on the counter.  The process of storing and taking out items from his inventory space used to fascinate him to no end, but at the moment he did it automatically without really paying attention to what he was doing.  The stress and horror of the night and early morning was catching up to him, and even though it wasn’t even noon, he could barely hold his eyes open.

“That’ll do just fine,” Varney said, handing over the same key he had turned in when he left town nearly a week before.  “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”

Kyler nearly said no, but he stopped himself.  “Yeah, uh, could you put a notice up on the board for a Level 18 Archer Trainee that’s looking for a new party?”  Just saying that brought back the memory of what happened to his old party members, but he knew that he better be proactive if he was going to find another group of people to join up with.  

If he guessed correctly, then there were going to be quite a few parties in the near future that were going to need to replace more than a few members; as morbid as it was, he could only hope that some of those openings came from other Scout Classes that had died in Forgestone.  However, there was a fairly good chance that many of those who survived the Magma Worm attack initially had been fast enough to escape, which likely put them in his own Class; if that was the case, then it was better to put his name out there quickly before any potential spots were filled.

“I can do that,” Varney said.  Kyler was halfway expecting the Charee to offer some sort of empathetic condolences, but he didn’t – for which the Contender was thankful.  That was the last thing he wanted right now.

With a nod at the Receptionist, Kyler took off toward the back stairs, his feet taking him up the familiar path toward his room.  Walking inside after unlocking it, the room appeared just the same as it had when he left, other than the bed being made up with clean sheets and the few pieces of trash he’d left behind had been swept up.  Taking off his boots, he climbed on top of the bed without undressing any further, laying himself across the blanket on top instead of dirtying the sheets, because he was too tired to do more than that.

He was out within seconds.

Somehow, even though he was expecting to have nightmares day long while he slept, he woke up feeling refreshed – and extremely hungry.  With his stomach rumbling the whole while, he quickly fixed himself up and got ready to leave, on the hunt to grab some grub before he did anything else.

When he arrived downstairs, he walked into the nightmare that he had thankfully avoided in his sleep.  At least a thousand or more Contenders were inside the lobby and little café inside the building, all trying to talk over each other, to the point where it simply sounded like a loud nightclub – without all the dim lighting and thumping music.  Based on what he could see out the windows, it was early evening; he couldn’t imagine how busy it was during the day.

Snippets of conversations passed through his ears as he made his way through the packed crowd toward the doors, knowing that he wouldn’t be getting a meal of any kind in the Coalition building.

“—no, the Coalition branch I usually frequented was entirely destroyed.  I checked, and all of the item listings on the Market are still up; it’s only the services based out of Forgestone that were de-listed.  We shouldn’t have—”

“—told him to run, but did he listen?  No, of course not.  Stupid idiot, always thinking with his muscles instead of his brain—”

“—you saw her?  I was sure she would make it, but I’m glad to hear confirmation—”

“—don’t know who it was, but I can’t say that I’m not happy about this PICK buff.  Fortunately, none of my party died, so we’ll be able to—”

“—we supposed to do now?  The dungeons in Forgestone are closed until they can start rebuilding the city, but who knows how long that’s going to take?  I suppose we can head toward—”

“—must be that number dude who did all this.  Sure, it could be a chick, but I doubt it—"

“—find more people for our party, but everything is in such chaos that I don’t know where—”

The latter conversation caught his attention, but Kyler had no desire to stick around that place with how crowded it was at the moment.  He was too hungry to try to negotiate his way into an existing party, but he knew he’d have to at some point.  Maybe after I eat.

With relief, he managed to escape without being pulled into a conversation or being trapped inside the building for any other reason, and he quickly made his way to the tavern down the street.  He’d always thought that the Pickled Wagon was a strange name for a tavern, but right now it looked – and smelled – heavenly as he pushed his way through the double doors. 

As he halfway expected, it was packed.  Not as bad as the Coalition building, but it was fuller than he’d ever seen before, and he struggled to find someplace to sit.  He finally spotted a place at the bar near the end where someone was just getting up to leave, and he swiftly took the spot before it disappeared.  Sitting down, he caught the bartender’s eye and had to shout simply, “Food!”, at him to relay his order; normally, that might seem rude, but with how busy it was, he could tell that the bartender appreciated the swiftness of the order – and the fact that Kyler didn’t care what he ate as long as it was filling.

While he waited for whatever food was coming to finally arrive, he breathed a long sigh of relief as he looked around.  To his left was a big mountain of a man turned sideways so that his back was to Kyler, essentially creating a wall that shut him off from any conversation.  To his right, and near the wall, was the last seat at the bar, and it was filled with someone consumed with eating their own meal – which had his mouth watering as he saw the baked chicken and fresh bread. 

“Here, it looks like you need it,” the individual eating said abruptly, ripping off a piece of his bread and handing it to Kyler.  For the first time, the Archer Trainee looked at the man, seeing that he was wearing a dirty, blood-stained white robe and ridiculous-looking hat on his head.

“Thank you, I’m starving,” Kyler said, shoving the bread in his mouth with absolutely no manners whatsoever.  “You can have some of mine once it arrives.”

“No worries, I’m nearly finished anyway.  I find that I don’t have much of an appetite after, well, you know.”

The Archer Trainee nodded.  “I don’t blame you.  I felt that way when I first arrived back in town, but now I’m practically wasting away from hunger.”

“Then I think you need this more than I,” the man said, pushing over his half-eaten meal.  “The name’s, uh, Angelo.”  Kyler heard him mutter something like, “at least I think it still is,” but it was loud enough in the tavern that he could’ve been mistaken.  “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” he said in between bites.  “I just wish it were under different circumstances.”

“Believe me, Kyler, I wish things had turned out differently, too.”