Naturally, the journey wasn’t quiet at all - quite the contrary; we faced hordes of Floaters again. Our hellish fight raged the entire way to the island, but as soon as we got near it, they finally stopped climbing up.
With the last floater slain, the captain said his favorite line, “I have a bad feeling about this.” After shaking my head and giving him an annoyed glance, I kicked the body of the Floater back to the sea as the captain did a day before, and peered into the distance. Very annoying smoke-white mist obscured the island, so only a tip of a needle-shaped mountain pierced through.
When I was busy studying the mist, a shadow fell on me, but before I could start worrying, the captain placed his big hand on my shoulder and his usual grin darkened. “We can’t go near the island. The waters are dangerous. We can’t navigate love through it without a magic aid.”
“Love?” I ducked away from his hug and faced him, disturbed by the change of his mood.
“That’s the name of our ship! Take the Briggit. She’ll get ya there safely.” He grinned and then waved at a random sailor and yelled, “Hey, Mason! Briggit down!”
Sailor’s muscles swelled and his silver chain, hanging around his neck, bounced a few times as he was rolling down a pathetic excuse for a boat. The boat slammed down onto the water, sending salty waves spraying in all directions. Wonderful.
I jumped in with Don close behind and we heard the wishes of good luck and an apology from above the ship. You don’t say; I knew for sure they could sail to the island, but I held back, because their Love missed a few sails. Yeah, and officially, I didn’t know it in this life.
I winked at my knight and sat in the rear while he grunted and kicked a paddle. “Come on, Don. The boat won’t row itself.” A storm erupted in his eyes, but despite his obvious anger, he grasped paddles and rowed. A praise good boy almost escaped my lips, but I only smirked and diverted my gaze at the system menu.
My fifty-five of intelligence was on the better half of all players, and the ranked priests probably accumulated near one hundred. To catch up with them, I direly needed at least one epic item. What a foolish thing this journey was. Yes, the xp was useful, but I knew about exceptional items which would strengthen me more than any XP. The only other option besides the items was to exploit the game. Easy, right?
When we entered the mist, a strange feeling pierced my heart, and a wave of tiredness overcome my consciousness. It was as if I was entering icy cold water in winter, but only my heart reacted to it.
Thanks to this alien feeling, my breath turned heavy, and my mind wandered to the past. What? An illusion?
I was back at the top of a Mountain of the Shrieks, wore shining black armor and a legendary dark sword, as I stood in front of an enormous cave entering. As a guy, so I stood there with a big something down there; thank god I couldn’t control this vision, or else I would do something else, before examining the cave.
Edges of the cave were rough, as if a gigantic creature forced its way in. That confirmed what I learned before - a nasty dragon nest. I strolled in with confident steps, not trying to be sneaky at the least. Although the dragon was for players around level two hundred, I strode in with twenty levels less and alone. Wah, do you think that could stop me?
Ten heavily armored knights surged out of the cave, and when the dim light revealed their face, I offered them a big smile.
“Stop, stranger, you have no business here. My name is Ry Baradeer and leader of our order. Walk away when you still can,” Ry said, and his men flanked me. Pointing my sword at him, I noticed how his chain-mail was practically falling apart.
“Ry, if you bite the dust now, your family will be crushed. Don’t guard that old stupid beast, you don’t owe him anything.” After I said that, I readied my shield, but sweat formed on my forehead, because ten knights weren’t something I could take head on. Ry furrowed his brows and angrily waved with his Warhammer of Storms.
“My master is the mighty dragon protecting our people! Your derogatory remarks will not go unpunished! Dragon knights! Kill him!” he yelled, slashed at me and scored a hit; the tremendous impact on my shield vibrated my entire hand. I hadn’t expected that amount of power behind the strike and staggered a few steps back. The group of knights moved in a perfect harmony and surrounded me, as if they had one mind.
“And here I thought I found a bug… Damn,” I whispered and closed my eyes. Their attacks weren’t that painful, and I died in a flash.
“Princess!” Don’s voice woke me up from my slumber. “What happened? Why are you sleeping?”
He continued to fire questions at me, but my mind was hazy and sluggish. What the hell? Why did I sleep and dreamed about a random test run? The interface popped up with only my thought.
Ah, I‘ve been playing for an entire day, that’s why. There was no way the clock would glitch, would it? Anyhow, it revealed I slept for two hours.
While I was re-living my past test runs, Don was working really hard and rowed us closer to the island. The white beach was a stark contrast to the massive mountain that rose behind it, casting a shadow all around the area. Sadly, because of all the fog that surrounded the island, I could only see up there.
“So, how are you enjoying our trip so far, Don?” No answer.
I shrugged and watched him as he dragged our boat on the beach and tied it to a rock, and then complained, “Princess… Not funny.” That was all he said before he plunged onto the beach. Leaving him to his deserved rest, I sat down just next to him and examined my minimap. That’s strange. One thing always should work - a minimap, but according to it, we sat in the middle of the sea; there was no island.
What to do when things turned strange? Continue onwards! “Don, stop wasting time and let’s go. Somewhere on this island is an army of undead soldiers. Let’s find it.”
Although he grunted, he rose with me and looked around. “Where? With this damn fog, I can’t see even your butt.” Slap. After injuring my palm over his face, I stomped to the mountain.
Oh, did I mention that the heat on this island was almost unbearable and my clothes clung to my body because of all that sweat? These small things couldn’t bother such game veteran, small things such as malfunctioning minimap.
Or heat. Or brats. Okay, it was a little annoying. A lot. My frustration boiled over, and I kicked the sand with enough force to send it flying in all directions. What the hell is wrong with me?
Maybe I overestimated myself, because there wasn’t such a thing as a dungeon entrance. Neither trees nor any plants. For all we could see, there stretched a barren, rocky land. Yeah, and a mountain piercing above the fog. Maybe I need to stop thinking as a gamer for now - the main quests are always an exception.
Where the entrance should be? Probably somewhere down the mountain, so the players could fight their way inside the dungeon up to the peak. I was so desperate, so I tried to bash at the rock; no reaction.
No way.
“Don, how good are you at climbing?” I asked him while I gazed at the steep mountain.
Blinking a few times, he followed my stare, and his face turned pale. “Bad? Look,” he exclaimed, sprinting towards the nearly vertical rock face. Naturally, he failed and crashed down.
I was glaring at him with an awe. “Have I slapped you that hard, or perhaps you wanted to show me how stupid you are?”
“You are stupid! You can’t go up, I just wanted to show you that. Now let’s go back to the ship,” he said as soon as he scrambled back to his feet and turned around. As he turned, the ground beneath our feet rumbled, reminding me of the time I stumbled upon an active volcano.
Mountain’s rock wall cracked open, and its stones screeched as they opened a passage. That easy, huh? It was only a moment, not more than a few blinks, and an entrance opened in front of us. How could I forget? This is a low level main quest. Not an end-game epic battle.
Don stopped his confident stride mid-step and only glanced back with his mouth open.
“Look at that, knight Don. Your blood sliced open the rock and cleared a passage for us!” I said and winked at him, caressing his cheek. “I mean it. Good job you opened it.”
Don finally woke up from his stupor and sprinted between me and the entrance. “Perhaps I did something, perhaps not. My promise still stands; I will protect you.”
His bravery lasted only until we examined it closer, because a pitch-black barrier at the front prevented any light from coming out, almost as if it formed a black hole. We both shivered at the thought of monsters.
“Let’s go.”
