The Real RPG of Life Series: Memoirs of Friendship [FIN]

Chapter 16: Exposed (Natasha)

That night, a cold grip of fear made its way into my heart. Logging out of Grandiel Online, I look face up onto my ceiling, thinking back on what had happened. All I could do was pray, and hopefully figure out how I’ll deal with things tomorrow.

I was up till 1 in the morning, and by the time I fell asleep, I was still dreaming about the events earlier in Grandiel. It felt like a nightmare and soon I woke up, looking at my wall clock, it was 4:50 in the morning. I had the urge to tell someone; I need to confide this to someone or else I might break into panic.

As I had just finished eating breakfast and was about to leave the front door, I walk pass my neighbor – Sara’s house, and soon saw my best friend leaving.

“Oh, Tasha. Good—“ I ran towards her and held her tight. A bit surprised, she asks, “W-what’s wrong?”

“W-what should I do? I think I really screwed up this time… Help me, Sara!”

“Just calm down first, and tell me what happened.”

As we head down towards school, I start narrating what had happened last night.

Kathy, Alicia and I, found ourselves a new dungeon to explore with permission from their Guild, the Nova Raiders. As we embark into the uncharted cavern, we found an edge which gave us vision down below. From the looks of it, this new quest requires us to reach the bottom.

Compared to mining shafts, this cavern seems ancient, as if this were a shrine forgotten, buried under the ground only to be found decades later, well at least that’s what the mission description says. A few glowing inscriptions over crystals I have never seen before, I could guess you can harvest them as raw materials for equipment construction and refining.

We three tried sticking together as much as possible, being lost in a new map is really tough, since you can still see the other player’s location but not having the means to going where they are since the map is still unexplored. Especially in this cavern, only with a few mysterious glowing inscriptions on the walls acting as the only light source.

Yulene, Kathy’s avatar, rushes in the cavern, without any care about the dangers that might lie ahead. Faylin, Alicia’s avatar, constantly tries to keep up with her enthusiastic friend, while I follow them closely trying not to get lost myself. To our surprise, we found no enemies in the dungeon. Normally, there would be a few ones roaming around as you approach the boss, but all the way down to the base of the dungeon, we found none.

“Hmm don’t you think it’s strange, Natasha?” Faylin asks me as we moved along.

“What is?”

“There… aren’t any enemies here.”

“A glitch maybe? It’s a new map and all.” Basing my reply with my theory.

“Yeah, but still…” we soon were take notice of Yulene when she calls out to us, “Hey guys! Look!”

In front of us, was another gate, tangled by thick roots and clay just like the first one. The only difference was the pedestal sitting in front of the gate. I point out towards the said pedestal, Faylin and Yulene noticing it as well, we make our move towards it.

“Let’s see…” Faylin reads out the inscription:

“Hair of braided roots, soft hands like soil,

The mother of all, kind to all her children.

Though kind, she is mistreated and uncared,

Her broken heart shatters the very earth.”

After Faylin reads the words, the entangled wooden gate began moving, the roots uprooting its grasp on the gates; the clay crumbling like dust.