***Inside the Ash Elf palace, in the military wing***
Rapid steps could be heard pattering on the stone floor. A knock on the door followed.
Sitting behind his desk, the General that had replaced Kloud Stryph was reading quarterly reports. He had been smiling at how the army was quickly expanding, before the knock made him frown.
“Enter,” the man said.
A messenger opened the door before bowing at a ninety-degree angle. He held in his hand a rolled-up scroll.
“Sir! A report came in from the eastern border, sir! You need to see this, sir!” the messenger said, staying bowed.
The General clicked his tongue. He did not recall sending anything bigger than a company near that border.
Why was a Captain sending a report to him?
“Why isn’t the Colonel assigned to that front taking care of this? You are disturbing my day with matters that are beneath me, soldier!” The General barked.
“Sir, the Colonel asked me to bring this to your attention. He said you would want to see this, sir!” The messenger replied, hoping he wouldn’t be trialled for following orders.
The General’s frown deepened. What kind of report would be important enough for a Colonel to judge this was an urgent matter enough to disturb his work?
The General glared at the messenger.
“Well, come on then. Give me the damned report!” He barked out.
“Sir, yes sir!” the soldier yelped, before handing him the report and quickly backing away.
The General promptly shooed him away before unrolling the scroll. He slowly read through the contents until his face reddened with anger.
*Bang!*
The soldiers guarding the General’s door jumped when a desk came blasting through the door, crashing into the hall. There was a fuming hole in it, as if a small meteor had impacted it.
“Two! Hundred! Men! Against! One! And they lost! Fucking weaklings!” The General yelled from inside his office.
The two guards gulped as they turned to face the door, awaiting orders that were sure to come.
“You!” the steaming man said, pointing to the guard on the left.
“Get me that coward of a captain here, right now!”
The man bowed swiftly and departed in a sprint. He did not want to stay a second more.
“And you! Fetch me that damned Court Mage. He has questions to answer!” the General growled.
The second guard bowed and left just as fast as the first one, in a different direction. They had worked under the General long enough to know they shouldn’t be near when he blew up.
The General was pacing inside his office, fists clenched, murmuring the same words over and over.
“I’m gonna kill you, runt!”
***Back in neutral territory***
Astaroth suddenly shivered. He felt a sense of dread wash over him, like a predator was watching him.
Yet he couldn’t see or sense anyone nearby that could give him this vibe. He shrugged his shoulders and brushed the thought away.
He and Violette were now halfway to their destination, and they had yet to cross another situation that was remotely as despairing as the burning village.
Along the way, the pair had completed a few quests, killing monsters and saving people. They even took an escort quest that went in the same direction they did, killing two birds with one stone.
This gave them some extra coin that they used to pay for more comfortable rest than sleeping under the stars. With this money, they could log out without worrying about reappearing surrounded by monsters.
Or worse. Players.
Astaroth had heard about a rising trend that some PVP players liked to do. They would stalk their prey until they stopped moving and logged out, and then would hide and wait.
When their prey came back online, they would force them to give all their coins and gear, or kill them and loot their bodies, anyway. This had worried him at first.
What if they logged out of the game, and Violette came back before he did and was ambushed? But his worries were unfounded.
They were stalked by a group of players once, and when they attacked, Violette wiped them out in seconds, drowning some, and freezing the others to death.
Astaroth had only slowly clapped at the result, thoroughly impressed. Apparently, Violette had no scruple about killing other players if they attacked her first.
‘It’s just a game.’ She had told him, shrugging.
Her mentality wasn’t wrong, but he would still have offered the players a chance to leave.
‘Seems like pity isn’t in her character,’ Astaroth had thought, shrugging it off.
The day before they reached Sunpeak, he messaged his friends again, telling them he would arrive the next day. He didn’t know if they were still there, but he didn’t mind.
He had yet to fully explore any city, as the last city he visited had been chasing him all over the place. So visiting Sunpeak was on his to-do list, anyway.
He wondered what a major city would look like, both from the outside and the inside. He had seen images on the net, of places inside the principal cities, but never the complete view.
The next day, when they reconnected around dinner time, Astaroth and Violette quickly left the town they were in. They almost ran through the forest that was left between them and the city.
When they reached the outskirts of the forest, they stopped running, and their jaws hung agape.
Before them was a gigantic plain, filled with fields of different crops, surrounding a mountain in the distance. The mountain was high enough that the peak disappeared into the clouds.
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The city that was sprawled at its foot was at least three times larger than the Ash Elf capital, by Astaroth’s calculations. Words to describe the scene escaped him and Violette.
They stood there, in awe, for minutes on end, taking in the sight. They eventually snapped out of their daze and walked toward it.
Astaroth had gotten confirmation from Phoenix and the others of their presence in the city when he logged it. They were waiting for them in a cafe near the city center.
Excitement filled the pair’s hearts as they walked forward.