“Thank you, Princess.” David said. Taking the magic stone from her, he carefully tucked it away into his pocket. “I told you to hide, but I guess you're not going to listen. You need to stay behind me, support me from the back.” 

 

He grabbed a bandage from a pouch at his side and quickly bandaged his cuts, walking over he picked his bag off the ground and put it on his back. David was doing some math in his head, with the Wight, the Butcher Ghoul, and now the Skeletal Fiend dead, what nasty creature would start to eye this large open building as its new lair? They needed to leave before they had time to find out.

 

The club was now badly damaged, and it had long served its purpose, David tossed this weapon to the side and walked through the reception area with his flail. Reaching down he pulled the cord and contracted it to its mace form. Once the chain was retracted he twisted the top into its locked position using a knife. David then moved this into his less dominant hand, leaving his arm with the ballistic baton at the ready.

 

“Alright, let’s go.” David said.

 

Holding the mace in front of him like a torch, they began to make their way down the hallway.

 

“Everything has been looted, I feel like the Skeletal Fiend didn’t do this though.” David said, “Look at the blood splatter here, this was caused by a bullet.”

 

The hallway was wide, and it showed signs that people had lived in here. A bloodstain and a bullet hole caught his attention. David looked back at the blonde woman who was silently following him, her face was dull but her eyes seemed bright. He had tried talking to her many times but she hadn't spoken to him once.

 

Coming up to a closed door on his left, he reached forward and pushed it open. It was empty and a weak smell of sewage coming from it. Taking a step forward he found a small bathroom with something shocking.

 

Drip… drip… drip…

 

Reaching over with his empty hand, he discovered that the water worked. This would also mean that the toilet flushed. David looked over at the blonde girl behind him.

 

“Do you need to use the toilet?” He asked.

 

She looked at him and nodded her head slightly, David smiled and started to trade places with her.  He walked out of the bathroom and closed the door behind him, he then looked at the other rooms in the hallway.

 

A meeting room, some offices, and double doors… What are the double doors for?

 

David slowly walked towards the end of the hallway, the meeting room was empty and looked like it was used as another sleeping area. The office caused him to pause as it was the most intact room. Stepping in and searching with his torch he discovered that someone had lived here. He also found a dirty stained journal in one of the drawers on the desk.

 

Walking out of the office he saw the blonde woman walking out of the bathroom. She looked around and seemed panicked for a moment until she saw his torch at the end of the hallway. David waved it at her, as she quickly walked over to him.

 

“I found a journal, I am guessing it will tell us what happened here.” David said. “Let’s see what is outside before we figure out where to go from here.”

 

David walked down the wide hallway towards the double doors and pushed them open. What appeared in his sight was a black metal machine with a large rotor on top. David blinked several times and was forced to rub his eyes with his palms to verify that what he was seeing was real but it didn’t disappear after several tries.

 

There must be something wrong with it!

 

This was the only thing he could conclude, why else would it be left all alone here like this? David looked around at the building and what he saw were help signs painted with what looked like spray paint. Walking forward carefully to the small black helicopter, he placed his hand on it and began to tap on it with his hand.

 

The fuel is low, only enough to get out of the city… the key is missing and the battery is really low... 

 

“Why didn’t they use this?” David muttered as he walked back to the building.

Walking back to the building, the blonde woman was waiting by the doorway. She could also see the helicopter but didn’t seem to show any excitement by it. David walked inside and closed the door behind him, he then decided to summarize his findings.

 

“There is a helicopter out there that I think I could get flying, but I want to read this journal and see why they didn’t use it.” David said. David walked into the office and pulled open the window behind him as he sat on the desk. He then started to open the journal and go through it.

 

“They lost track of the dates, I guess there was a blizzard,” David muttered “They then lost power and the undead started to appear around the complex. All of the electronics in the compound stopped working for the course of a month. This started in February and continued through March, this is why the reports stopped all of a sudden.”

 

David was reading a terrible picture, one where they had a lot of weapons and military but no way to contact the outside. The snowstorm was sudden and heavy, and they decided to use several tanks to try to make the journey to Peterson Air Force Base, but those soldiers didn’t make it back. The entire time they were trying to find out what happened they were being besieged by the undead.

 

David was imagining entire graveyards rising due to the sheer amount of corpses that could be risen. Humans on Earth did not burn the dead to the same level as people on Edea did. The bodies also weren’t buried deep enough that the mana of the new moon would not affect them. Anywhere with corpses would become an incredibly dangerous place.

 

“The Willow of the End is what caused the base to fall, there are three of them here.” David said in horror. “There are two more of them growing on the actual airfield, there is also a giant skeletal creature that can fly that is living in one of the hangers. Several people from the other building had tried to escape using helicopters, but it killed all of them.”

 

This was a horror story filled with desperation where these people had been forced to barricade themselves on the second floor after the first floor was lost to the undead. Electronics started working again at this time but they were unable to use their phones to call anyone. The long and short-range radios were only getting interference. 

 

When did mana enter our world?

 

This question was ringing around in David’s mind violently, as he tried to carefully reason it out. Mana will interfere with delicate electronics, and it would make sense if there was a mana tide that electronics wouldn’t work for a while. David kept skimming over the journal but all he was getting was more details of all of the fighting that was happening. 

 

“Alright, we can’t use the helicopter,” David said as he reached the end of the journal. “Instead the elevator shaft attaches to old tunnels that run under the area.”

 

David looked at this and sighed out angrily when he saw where these tunnels came from. Denver, Pueblo, Grand Junction, and Canon City all had a very deep history with an evil group called the ‘Ku Klux Klan’ who was known for their white supremacy. What they believed in wasn’t important though as much as what they used to get around.

 

They were disgusting in every way possible… but they loved the idea of being able to come and go like ghosts, they always built extensive tunnel networks.

 

“One of the guards was an initiated member, he knew his way through the tunnels,” David muttered, “He led them out of the city, or at least he was supposed to. They rigged this place with traps before they left in case some undead came after them. Alright, Princess, we have to make a difficult choice.

 

“We can try to use the helicopter, but if the flying creature is out there then we will be dead to rights with no way of escaping. The other option is to go through the tunnels, but there is a good chance that they collapsed the tunnels behind them. We could end up wandering around down there for hours, or days, both options are equally bad.

 

David sighed out sadly as he tossed the journal into a corner, he reached up and began to mess with his hair.

 

“This situation keeps getting worse and worse, I am almost positive this place is going to become a forbidden zone within a couple of years. At that point, this place will be too dangerous to even think of subjugating. This was also old information, it was very likely that even more threats have appeared since this paper was written.”

 

The third Willow of the End hadn’t been around when this was first written, that was proof that the situation had gotten worse. There were countless flying undead, even Walking Corpses can gain the ability to fly if they evolve enough. David’s mind was rolling rapidly as he tried to decide which was safer when he felt a frail hand pat his head softly.

 

Looking up David saw the blonde woman with a flat expression, her hand was softly running through his hair. David took a deep breath and breathed out, he imagined all of his fears and hesitations floating away. He ran through all of the various types of monsters he could expect to see with how much time had passed. Looking towards the double doors then towards the elevator shaft, he made his decision.

 

“I don’t like the idea of crawling around in dark tunnels, I feel like it is safer to go through the air.” David said to the blonde woman. “If that third Willow of the End was not so close to the building, I would risk the tunnels. There is a really good chance that its roots have already encroached the tunnels, that is its main form of attack. I can make the helicopter silent for a short time, long enough to get away from the military base.”

 

David could feel her hand continuing to play with his hair, it was strange but kind of nice at the same time. He had spent two nights in this world, and neither of them had been pleasant, he really wanted to take a warm shower and eat a hot meal. Everything had been one battle after another, and he was getting tired of it.

 

David heard a scratching noise coming from outside and peeked out the window to try to find the source of it. What he saw was a large undead creature climbing over the wall of the building to try and get inside of it. This was a large walking bear creature with a skull showing on its face, bright blue flames could be seen coming from its eye sockets.

 

“Oh no, it’s a Dire Ghoul!” David said in horror. 

 

It looked like a large humanoid bear that walked on two legs, it was the reverse of a Butcher Ghoul. It was not evolved to be strong offensively, it was incredibly good at taking an insane amount of damage before it would fall. Large moose horns could be seen when it crested the top of the wall using its long bony limbs.

 

“Alright, we need to go!” David said to her.

 

Standing from the desk he took the blonde woman's hand that was in his hair, he saw a light blush come to her face for a moment then disappear. David wasn’t sure if what he saw was real or not, but he didn’t have time to care at the moment, as he pulled her with him to the helicopter outside. Her hand was small compared to his, and her skin was slightly dry.

 

Leading her through the double doors, he could see the black and red helicopter that was used for emergency flights. It had room for a pilot, a co-pilot, and room for a stretcher and emergency medical equipment. David walked right up to the side of it and began to attack the lock he had found earlier with his pick and tension tool.

 

It didn’t take long for him to get it open as it was a small key with low security. Most helicopters weren’t left in places where lockpickers could get to them easily, so they didn’t invest in heavier locks or security. Opening the sliding door, he pulled the blonde woman into the body of the helicopter with him and slid the door closed behind him.

 

“We should be safe here long enough for me to finish the enchantment. I plan to set up a field that will silence everything within a short distance of its center, which will be this small cabin.” David explained to her as he took his backpack off and took out one of the toolboxes.”If we can leave while it is still daytime, we should be able to slip away from any flying undead if we don’t alert them.”

 

The small helicopter they were in was sealed, smell was the main way that the undead hunted the living. Taking out a few chisels he made from the Butcher’s blades, he used the rubber mallet to begin carving lines. A silence enchantment was the maximum that a low-tier magic stone could power, it was a strong control spell.

 

Silence acted like creating a field that sound had issues traveling in, it did not completely stop all sound like its name would imply. It was a very uncommon enchantment, the Machine Lord used it to make rooms with loud machinery much more tolerable. That is mostly because the sound did not travel inside of the field either, so the people inside had no idea what was happening outside of it.

 

The upgraded version at mid-tier will dampen the sound inside and allow you to hear everything outside perfectly, most adventures on Edea had it put on their tents.

 

David sighed as he continued to finish carving out the enchantment onto the floor. The Machine Lord had been a genius when it came to the field of enchanting, he took it to entirely new extremes. David was convinced that the man probably had Asperger Syndrome or some form of higher-level autism.

 

David carefully inspected the large round print he had carved onto the floor, it almost looked like an atom. The primary symbol was in the center and surrounded by all of its supporting symbols, it had rounded lines creating orbits around the primary symbol are carefully calculated lines. Mathematically, it was as dense as it was possible to get it without the enchantment failing.

 

David reached into his toolbox and took out a small torch and some silver solder. He then heated it and began to drip it into the carvings he made into the floor, it would be messy but very effective. This was the same way he did the enchantment on his mace head, so far it had worked much better than he had expected.

 

“I’m almost done, once I activate it then we won’t be able to talk to each other anymore. I think this enchantment will hold for about an hour using the mana from the Skeletal FIend’s stone.” David said, “I want to get out of the city, my family comes from a tiny place called Ward that is an hour outside of Boulder. What about you Princess, do you have anyone?”

 

He looked at her closely as he asked this question, but he didn’t get any reaction from her. David sighed unhappily as he finished inlaying the silver into the carvings he made. Digging through his pocket he took out the magic stone and a piece of duct tape, he then used it to join the two and make the enchantment. 

 

The sound inside the helicopter was instantly muted, and as David started throwing his tool into the toolbox it created an eerie scene. Packing away the tools and belting the toolbox back to his makeshift backpack, he looked at the blonde woman and moved his lips silently. Realizing the enchantment was already messing with him he moved to the pilot's seat and led her to the co-pilot's seat.

 

Alright, time to hotwire a helicopter…

 

Reaching down he began to rip the wires from the ignition and stripping them with a knife, it didn’t take him longer than a few minutes before the engine turned over and the lights on the dashboard powered up. David then started going through the startup sequence that he felt was correct based on how everything worked. David was watching the RPM on the main rotor start to increase when he felt tugging on his sleeve.

 

David looked over with a large smile on his face at the blonde woman, but she wasn’t paying attention to him. David followed her sight and looked down the hallway and through the double doors. What he saw was the black, hairy, Dire Ghoul shambling down the hallway towards them. 

 

David looked at the RPM and then over at the Ghoul that was rushing towards the helicopter.

 

“....” He uttered silently in rage.