Prologue - How I got here: Part 4

"Drake, we are missing three people. Who were supposed to have come with us to go down the cave. Yet, they didn't return on time to get down here." I hear Brad mumble out as it seems he is only down here with Alexis, which is more than worrying.

"Where are Azure, Lake, and Kiara, they were supposed to be with you two." I ask the two of them since at least two out of the three know how dangerous portal delving is. And on top of that, one of those two people is Azure. That kid knows how dangerous portals are. He has experienced it first hand too. He might have gone away a bit too far but he should know the best out of all of them. Lake might be a bit annoyed at the fact that he wasn't allowed to go down there with us. Yet it seemed like the safest option to do at the time. The wildcard however is Kiara, I have absolutely no idea what she might do in these stressful situations. How excitable she might seem, I do think she is more than capable to even join a guild. I am even more certain that if she looks at her power from another point of view, she will be able to unlock some more water spells.

"They ran off a couple of hours ago, sir. Azure seemed to have smelled something that was useful for collecting." Alexis replies as we are walking the pretty calm corridor at the moment. It somehow is a bit reassuring that the three of them got lost by collecting things and not fighting off a random zombie that popped out too early.

"Don't worry about it, you two. Lake and Kiara are not really pushovers. And from what I have heard, it seems like they didn't go down in the cave with us. They went with Azure who was simply collecting things, like usual." I reassure the both of them and myself a bit. I just hope those three don't separate from each other too much during the night. It is still a zombie portal after all, so it is nothing too much to worry about.

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As I look around the room more I try and avoid even looking at the stone on the altar. It simply is terrifying how much I want to touch that thing and look at it. I know it is probably my curiosity but as the saying goes 'Curiosity killed the cat'. And honestly, I am not ready to be either cursed or killed. But something I find even stranger is the fact that neither Lake nor Kiara "has noticed it when they were in here before. I could try and fall asleep right now, but I got to be honest I am not at all tired right now. I guess when I passed out I was actually asleep or something. Because I start to feel rather well-rested.

As I am walking around a bit in this room still I feel it starting to cool down. Not cooling down as something should be during the night. It is normal for things to cool down at the night. But not if it was actually not even that cold to begin. It shouldn't be cooling down this quickly and not even this harshly. As I see my own breath go up in little clouds I already knew I was in trouble. Yet as I look around the room nothing seems to be actually there. How did I even get myself into such a bad mess? Like I couldn't have tried to run further and back to the portal. But by the simple fact that, that dire wolf was so close to biting me already, that would've been impossible. Why didn't I join any other group that was going to delve yesterday? Or is it technically speaking still today? If I didn't pass out I would've known it at least a tad bit better. But of course, I actually joined the team with people I knew. Why have I been doing this for five years now?

"I probably should go downstairs to check on those two. It probably doesn't hurt to have someone keep watch." I say to myself as I walk back to the stairs. Trying to keep my thoughts in order and the stone in particular out of it. But as I am about to reach the staircase, I hear something. At first, I am not sure what I heard. But whatever it was it stopped me in my tracks. As I just wait for it to come back and listen to it. And it does come back, as I recognise what it actually is. It sounds like whistling. The whistling doesn't sound like it comes from a human though. Neither does it sound like just wind that is rushing between the stones. As I am trying to figure out what could be making that sound the tune of the whistling starts to change. At first, it sounded very neutral but that was quickly twisted into a mocking one.

I try to make a run towards the staircase to at least try and warn Lake and Kiara. But as I am about to reach it, I just stop. I don't know why I stopped but I just feel this fear boiling up inside of me. I am the weakest here clearly in the weakest in physical power but whatever this thing is, it is also more powerful than me in a mental sense. But as I try to at least scream out to save those two. I just can't, nothing comes out. I might not like Lake doesn't mean he deserves to be killed for me not liking him. And Kiara is just a newbie who happened to join the wrong group. Yet as I try to scream out nothing comes out of my throat.

As the whistling stops and yet my mind keeps running. I can't shout or even whisper something out loud. Nor can I actually move forward or backward. I feel like if I even move an inch I would just die. As I finally get enough courage to turn around to actually see what is going on. I see it, the darkness doesn't let me completely see the monster. Yet I could already see enough of it to be scared. It barely fits inside of this room. It also looks very powerful. It could probably kill me without even lifting a finger if it has a finger. I can't actually see that in the dark right now.

Something this powerful shouldn't be in the D+ rank gate. Even I, who is weak can feel how powerful it is just by standing in its presence. And then it starts speaking. I of course can't understand any monster language. But as far as I know, monsters don't to attempt to communicate with us humans. I don't even know at what rank portal they start doing that.

It looks at me intrigued as if it had expected that I could understand it. Yet I of course couldn't understand monster speech. Suddenly I feel something razor-sharp slice my cheek. I try to scream out in pain, yet nothing comes out. That simple cut nearly cut through my cheek. It hurts so much. As I look up I see the thing lick the blood from its knife. Every time this thing breathes out the room feels colder. This thing is very tall, as I am looking at it better I see how large this thing might actually might be. From what I could guess it might be 12 feet. Which is just disturbing at this point. What is even scarier is that this thing came in here undetected. Then the most scariest thing happened, it began to speak a human language "You filthy humans, will have to realise the dangers more." It then pauses for a second seemingly observing my reaction. I can kind of see my own reaction in its eyes. I also see its tails coiled around one of the few pillars in the room.

"What dangers" I manage to mumble out, I have to hold back my tears. My blue eyes were somehow able to hold them back. Not only because I am so terrified of this thing, but also because of the pain in my cheek. This thing could kill me without Lake or Kiara knowing till morning. As I say this however its tail suddenly coils around me as I get thrown. I immediately get disoriented as my head hits something. As I look around at what I actually hit, I saw it was the altar.

"You will see." It says with its raspy voice. I try to grab the altar to get back up. "You are not even worth killing." It says as I hear that dammed raspy voice again. However, with every word it speaks, it gets less and less clear. But all I could wish is that I never heard that voice. As suddenly as that thing had appeared here, it was gone. As it is gone the tears start flowing down my cheeks. The salt in them hurts as they roll over the still bleeding slash wound on my cheek. As I use the altar to stand up. My mind is racing and for some reason. Probably the fact I have a lot of adrenaline rushing through my veins right now I grab the stone that is laying on the altar. I take off my right glove to actually feel if it is something worth selling.

But as I lay the stone in my now bare hand it feels like I lay nothing in it. I look at my hand palm, the stone is not there.As I look around to see if I had dropped it. But as I searched the floor, I didn't see a thing around me. I laugh out loud thinking I might have gone a bit crazy thinking there was still something of value here even though Lake and Kiara already got everything of value there. But as I looked back at my hand I was completely convinced I might have a concussion. As seemingly a pulse came out of my hand, the same colour as the stone.

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"Alex, how far can you see? We should be getting by the boss room any time, shouldn't we?" Michael asks Alex as we all are still travelling deeper and deeper down the cave system. It has been quite a while now since we have been going down in the cave systems. Neither, have we been taking a long enough rest to actually sleep. But we did manage to take a few quick breaks which allowed us to get some energy back. But right now we are probably unable to take any breaks until we have defeated the boss since the zombies are coming at us faster and faster. But that does also make it safe to assume that we are getting closer to the head of the zombie village.

"Well, by the fact that we are getting more and more zombies. And for the rest, everything goes pretty normal for a D+ rank portal. The area might have seen a tad bit odd but to be honest, everything is normal." Alex replies as he puts some more zombies on fire. Which gives us a pretty decent light source for us to actually move ahead.

"Yet, focusing is still our best course of action right now. The less we talk the quicker we are getting through this. The quicker we can get back home and relax." I yell out to everyone which did seem to lift everyone's spirits a bit more. This is good since we might actually encounter some warrior zombies soon. And normal zombies are pretty easy to deal with. But those warrior zombies are a tad bit more difficult to deal with. But honestly, Alex's fire magic does still make quick work of those. Since it basically cooks those zombies alive in their armour.

As we are still traversing down the cave system with some more than occasional zombies, I notice the air get significantly colder. We probably are quite a bit underground. But it is also quite suspicious that the cold suddenly came up. But as everyone seemed to have realised the air grow so cold, so sudden. And we tried to inform each other, but we noticed that nothing seemed to come out. As if we all suddenly forgot how to talk. But then thanks to Alex's fire I saw it. I am pretty sure because I was in the back I was one of the last people to actually see it. A large being hunched over a bit further to where we were going. It must be at least 10 feet tall yet it is hunched over. But its eyes, its black eyes feel like you are staring down into an endless void. It clearly signalled death.

End Prologue - How I got here: Part 4

Completed.

You got a character card

Name: Lake Westview

Ability: Enhanced strength

Class: Fighter

Date of birth: 05/13/2001

Age: 22 years old

Nationality: American

Hair style: Short blonde hair

Eye colour: Blue/ greyish eyes

Likes: American Football, College, Teasing people

Dislikes: Sitting still, Reading books, first person shooter games