The sun was bright but covered by the thick gray clouds, it was still in the swamps, not a piece of tree limb brushed by the air. The sun is barely visible, while light rain drops gently and faintly hit the swamp water, the only sounds are frogs, flies, and other flying critters that roam the area.
The sloshing of there legs knee deep in the water as they pushes through the current, “You said this area would be easier than the last” she shouts from behind her peers, “Easier doesn’t always be mean easier” Eza says looking back at Tar with a huge smile, “yes it does, it quite literally does mean that. What the F….” her reply interrupted by their third member “ you two need to do this back at the hub not, out on a job” he then places his finger up to his lips to showcase he wanted them to shut up.
The chirping of crickets and the howling of birds in the sky do nothing to the third member, who keeps moving forward quietly. The only noise is the sloshing his legs give off from the water as he pushes through, creating small waves. After a few moments, they finally climb out of the water; only to hear a low and deep bellow, coming from within the forest of the swamps. “That….That doesn’t sound good”, “well, a Boarerdile isn’t known for being cute, now it’s it?”, “Geez, what’s your problem manual?” Eza asks, clearing her throat, “You two.” He says, looking around “You two can’t stop arguing for a second…” There it was that bellow happening deep within the woods. Manual unsheathes his hilt but no blade comes with it, he flicks his wrist downward, and a plasma blade shoots out, making a sharp piercing sound that settles on a low hum. “Ohhh, when did you get that?” Tar stumbles her words through a mess of stringy words and short breaths, her soggy brunette hair falling in front of her eyes, causing her to keep sliding her hand up and down like a windshield wiper.
He slightly lifts his arm, “this? It came from another S-rank dungeon I had done with Sid the other month. Though it wasn’t that easy to obtain, plus it also came with various task attached to it before I could even properly us it with it’s seals.” The hilt of the weapon glows in unrecognizable runes, Eza’s eyes light up “So, can we get another one or…”, “No, but here….I don’t have a need for this,” he opens his inventory and scrolls through the screen in front of him but to his guild mates it looks as if he is just tapping air, but they knew different, it was goofy looking sure but that’s just how things were. A few seconds go by before Eza gets a notification that she has received a gift from a guild leader. She hits “Accept” and “Equip” on here menu, causing her outfit to glow as it rematerializes as an all-around light armor set, a set of hoodie and jeans if you didn’t get a good look at it. But it was slick and metallic, sturdy while the gifted weapon was two swords, one long and the other was short like a dagger. “ugh, you know I don’t specialize in dagger combat”, “you probably should, we don’t need two tanks on the team and with the new gear, you should be able to specialize a little more freely especially if you want to bump up from a B-rank to a A-rank.” Eza knew he was right, not breaking eye contact with him the bugs around them go quite as the ground rumbles, a shaking so deep in the earth they could see it on the surface of the murky swamp water.
Tar taps Manual on the shoulder, not showing any concern for the environment around her. “ You wouldn’t happen to have a trade for an amulet, would you?” she asked, Manual giving her a once-over before opening his inventory to inspect her wares. “A few things you have on seem to be highly out of rank, honestly. Kinda hard to be a top rank when your purchasing cheap/ low quality gear? No,” he says stoneface, not a sign of emotion as he looks at her before breaking character and slightly laughing. “You know nothing pays until you reach A, S, or rarely X rank.”, “Yeah, forget about X rank. Only about thousand people out of all of humanity, that’s 2.5 billion people mind you that are X rank and that’s throughout all our history, so who knows how many exist today could be ten or could be hundred.” He says slowly scrolling through and clicking on different items to send her before swiping his arm to the side “ight, there you go. Can we get moving now?” he asks, a bit a irritation scratching at the back of his throat. “Hang on, hang on” Tar says as she swifts through and finds the gifts. Equipping them immediately, her old armor set and weapons are transformed into a regular t-shirt and sweatpants for Tar with two cotton wrist bands. “Where did you get all of this low S-rank gear from?” she ask, but he stares before turning around and walking towards the sound of the bellow from earlier. “Well, it’s just out of curiosity, Manual, like who has this much gear stored away?”, “I do.” He says not even a hint of humor around him, “I like to collect rare or high-class items, you just called it lower-tier S-rank gear. You should’ve read the perks on the equipment I have you wear before just putting it on.”, “You can’t rush me and expect me to take my time. At the same time, Manual. That doesn….”, “shhhh!” Eza says as she pushes in front of Tar, “You hear that?” she whispers, as they all come to a halt.
They could hear it, the deep hum, before the bellow came again. The water around this portion of the swamp was steaming, the ecosystem around it visibly different from the giant trees the deeper they went, but the swamp insects and creatures from before in this area were all hardened with a shell. Birds over this area don’t fly as low to the swamp, instead majority of them are high up in the big trees until the Bellowing happens again, and the birds above scatter once again. Eza’s legs begin to shake, “steady,” Manual says clear and dominate “You said you wanted an S-rank mission, and now that you’re in front of one, you buckle?” he smirks, cutting his eyes over to her. “ No, not scared, just nervous,” she replies, “Clear your mind, no need to go in yet if you’re just going to overthink yourself. Trapping you for death from the start.” Eza looks to him, then to Tar, before taking a deep breath and shaking off the goosebumps. “You good?” he says with a thumbs up. She reciprocates the gesture.
Walking further into the swamp, “finally”, he says, stopping at the edge of a mini cliff, the landscape bridge under the cliff with more swamp, but this part was shallow, about only knee high. In front of them, a large tree no…. it was a construct of many small thick trees, forced together to form some kind of den, or old castle that had now fallen into rubble. The entrance to at the base of the tree, dark with only a few spots of light, gleaming on the inside here and there. A loud bellow happens again, but this time a wave of wind comes from the darkness within the tree. Manual steady his plasma sword, “unit, ready !” he raises the blade getting into stance.
…..To Be continued
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