Beta || Iancorn (NaNoWriMo 2018)

Level Five

As soon as David stepped out the door, the barn disappeared, disintegrating into thin air and leaving no evidence that it had ever been there behind. What took its place was grass, as far as he could see, spanning in every direction. Every strand was the same dark green colour and reflected the sunlight beautifully. Above them, the sun burned brightly, and yet it wasn't too hot.

Everything looked insanely realistic, from the plants to the sky to the unevenness of the ground. If David didn't know better, he would've thought that he was in a real grassland.

"Plains," Mari sighed. "This is what, the third time?"

"For us? Yes," Joven replied, stabbing the ground with his machete.

"Landscapes repeat?" David asked. He'd been expecting that they'd never see the same one twice.

"There's only one hundred levels," Mari sighed. "Each landscape has its own difficulty, so there's only five that you can start in. We've seen them all."

"Though we can run into beginning landscapes on other levels," Joven chipped in. "They only made one hundred landscapes, to go with the levels. You can't do that without reusing some of them every once in a while. For how long we've been in here, it'd be impossible for them not to."

"And how long has that been, exactly?" David questioned.

Before Joven could respond, a strong wind hit them, knocking David over. By the time he'd climbed back to his feet, everyone else was holding their breath.

A few seconds later, a deep, booming voice surrounded them. "First objective: there is one tree in these plains. In its leaves are six amulets. Find them and bring them back to spawn point to advance."

There was a brief pause to make sure the voice was done. Finding a tree? David could see why this was the first level.

"Well, that sounds easy," he announced.

Mari frowned. "Nothing is easy here. There's always a catch."

"Do you know where the tree is?" Matthew asked hopefully, pulling on the string of his bow. "From one of your past times?"

"We never get the same objective twice," Joven turned to look at David. "Noah didn't lie to you about that part."

"The anthill was North last time," Mari suggested. "They might have just replaced it with a tree. It's as much of a lead as we're going to get."

"North, then," Wes agreed. Mari nodded at him, and then started walking forward. Everyone followed her. Seeing no other options, David followed as well.

»•«

It took three hours to find the tree. Those three hours had been the most boring of his life. After spending so much time waiting for this, having to wait an extra three damn hours was almost more than he could take. David had been about to suggest that they'd been going in the wrong direction when it appeared in front of them.

The tree was the most massive one he'd ever seen. The trunk was as thick as the width of three of his arms, and the branches reached so high that they went above the clouds, and looked like they spanned for miles. From his viewpoint, it seemed that their task was impossible. How the hell were they going to find one amulet in that monstrosity, let alone six?

"Should we just start?" Joven asked after everyone had enough time to take the sight in.

"I don't see why not," Mari replied. "It's impossible to guess whatever's hiding up there. We don't have any other options."

"It's a plan, then," Wes sighed. "Damien and I will go first. Everyone, don't leave the group. Until we know what's up there, we stay within sight of each other. Understood?"