The moment I stepped in front of the building I was overcome with a dark, sinister feeling. It loomed over me intimidatingly, almost as if it was baring its teeth. The dark wood that held the place together creaked and groaned often to the point where I thought the building was laughing at me. Even the brooding sky crackled at me, the mist of grey clouds making it harder to see the stars.
The trees were tilted in my direction, their branches taunting me. 'Come in Xavier. We won't hurt you' they'd say. It was obviously a lie, but I'd oblige anyway. As I waited, I grew uncomfortable, but I knew that whatever was inside the building would match that feeling tenfold.
"You guys coming?, " I asked my favorite group of stragglers. The more I waited, the more I thought ghosts and scary creatures were staring at me from in between the trees.
"I honestly forgot we were supposed to be doing that. No one was talking for so long," C confessed. It didn't take long for him to pop up beside me, followed by the Willow and Kingsley.
Widow spoke next, laughter laced in her voice. "Sorry about that! I'm in the same boat as C. Kinda forgot."
"I got distracted in general," Kingsley said. "Did King say he was coming?" A small smile grew on my face.
"Let me see." King and I had gotten closer the past few days. Although we didn't have another call, we texted as often as either of us could with college and his job getting in the way. He was the sweetest really. I felt comfortable talking to him. I found out cool things about him like the fact that he collects swords and enjoys cooking whenever he isn't busy with work and gaming. Before I could pick up my phone and send him a quick text, he joined the voice chat.
Kingsley was the first to speak. "Wow, your timing is amazing. We were just talking about you."
"King saving the day once again!"
"Saving the day? What happened?" His low baritone beautifully crackled over the mic.
C piped up again, "We need your shiny character to lead the way through this..what is this? An asylum? It's made out of wood though?"
"It could be an old asylum. Like a small one. Ancient," I suggested.
Widow sighed, "True, anyway, are you guys going to grind for the special skin drop?" Gauntlet was having its annual Halloween event. It was a two to three week long event where players could take on Halloween themed challenges and dungeons to get special items. Personally, I didn't care for a new skin. I had my eyes set on the skeleton dragon blade set. They weren't katanas, which is what I was used to, but they were a sexy pair of black tactical swords that had a moving skeleton dragon on them. The swords were also in Gauntlet's store, but lord knows that I wouldn't let myself buy anything.
"Nah, I don't really care for the skin as much as the new blade set." I was looking at said blade set in the store, visibly pouting at the whopping $68.99 that it would cost to retrieve them. It seemed to be a ridiculous price for the special swords, but it also came with a little skeleton dragon pet and a rare chest that would have anything from health potions to ultra-rare gear materials. "The pet is so cute too."
"They do look nice, but I heard they are almost impossible to get. You'd possibly have to play the events quite a bit." I pouted even further at C's comment.
"I know," I closed the store menu and was faced with my character, Xavr. "I doubt I'd be able to get it too, especially with college taking up quite a bit of time lately. I definitely can't buy it either."
"Ah, broke college student vibes. I feel your pain." Kingsley sighed dramatically. Kingsley was also in college, although I couldn't remember what his major was. All I knew was that computers were involved, and he was too smart for his own good.
"I feel...so old right now," King announced, groaning.
"Don't tell me you are like 50 man," Widow spoke this time.
"How did you know?" He answered, quickly followed by an 'I'm kidding'. Someone snorted, followed by a fit of laughter. King had officially joined our little group. He stayed in contact with us and joined us whenever we had fun gaming sessions over the weekend. King fit into the group well, matching our humor and vibes right off the bat. "I'm not an old and decrepit man if you were all wondering though," he continued.
"That's good to know," I mumbled the words to myself before making Xavr run around in circles.
CTheKing:
Don't worry ;)
My neck was immediately inflamed in a searing heat when the message popped up on the screen. I didn't know how to respond so I just sent back a smiling cat face.
"You guys ready to go in? If it's short, we can do it a couple of times to increase our luck chances," Widow said, excitement evident in her voice. "Sure," I answered first. It was early enough in the evening that if it was a long raid, I wouldn't be too tired in the morning for staying up too late. Even if it was late at night, I would sacrifice sleep to play this event with my friends. As soon as the rest of us agreed, we were entering the building.
The interior was just as creepy as the exterior. Upon entering, it was clear that it was an asylum. There were metal rolling tables littered around the room as well as a few wheelchairs with empty IVs standing next to them. Some of the wheelchairs were broken or missing a wheel or two. The atmosphere was eerie. You could hear the whistle of the wind sweep through the building and the dustiness of the inside made it harder to see. There were little to no working lights inside, so it was nice for King to be here with his shiny armor. The extra boost of light was definitely needed. The cracked walls were a dusty grey color which juxtaposed the battered green and white tiled floor. It was almost too hard to figure out what colors were there because the ground was so dirty.
There was a receptionist desk in the middle of the entrance room where the skeleton of an employee was sitting; cobwebs covering their bones. I walked around the desk and found that there were large signs above three hallway entrances. One on either side of me and one directly behind the reception desk. The two hallway signs on the sides were deteriorating, whilst the one ahead of us was flickering dimly. The sign was scratched out completely although it was lit up around the edges. It was obvious that we had to enter that particular hallway. I thought that It would be cool if the other hallway entrances opened up after we cleared the first.
"Let's get going. We don't know how long this will take," I murmured into my mic. I readied my swords and began walking down the hallway.
"Aye, aye mister rank number 3." I rolled my eyes at that.
"Yeah, yeah."
The first enemy we encountered was a skeleton. Its bones rattled as it smacked its hand onto the floor, attempting to pull itself in our direction to fight us. I almost didn't see it and could have taken damage, but was quick to slice it with my sword.
"What was that thing gonna do?" C scoffed and ran ahead of the group a little to peek into a few of the rooms. As we looked around, we found that most of the rooms were there for decoration. There were lit candles on the floor, jack o' lanterns, and bones littered across the floor of each one and it was clear that they were patient's rooms at some point in time.
"Bite my ankles," I replied, "It can still do damage though."
"OH FUCK!" A sudden shout from Kingsley had me jumping in my chair. "Oh my god please tell me you see that." He was a little further ahead of me, standing just outside of a room.
"See what!? Where!?" C's character swiveled around and jogged to where Kingsley stood, all the while I inched forward, trying to figure out what was going on.
"There is something in the room just standing there. I can see it smiling, man."
"That's creepy as hell. Should we try to fight it? Let it be?" Once I reached the door I could finally see it; a silhouette of what seemed to be a girl with shoulder-length hair with a gruesome smile on her face. She was swaying in place ever so slowly, her tattered gown swaying with her.
"Uhh...let's leave her there for now. She is pretty far back in the room. Might just be there to scare us," I suggested, backing up and walking forward again towards a set of double doors.
"Okay, but can we talk about how scared Kingsley just got?" I could hear Widow snickering.
Kingsley replied, "Can we not talk about how scared Kingsley just got?"
"Awwwh c'mon," She teased, "Did you do a lil' bounce, Kingsley? I felt like you did a lil' scaredy bounce."
"And what about it?" An ugly snort came out of me but I quickly covered it up with a cough.
"His scream was more terrifying than the lady in the room. I did a lil' scaredy bounce because of him," C said. I continued down the hallway and opened a set of double doors once I knew everyone was behind me.
"I didn't do a little bounce. I did more of a head jerk? A head thrust backward thing," King slowly sounded out his words, struggling to figure out exactly what he wanted to say. "I was trying to get away from my headset because it was loud, but moving my head did nothing...because of the headset on my head."
"Valid, valid," Window answered.
"Holy fuck." The room we entered was large and filled with ghosts roaming around. A lot of the floor was gone, only a dark abyss waiting under the missing floor pieces. We'd have to parkour our way to the other side, and who's to say that the ghosts were harmless? We might fall a lot.
"This is pretty cool. Wonder what will happen if we fall through." A small whine bubbled from my throat. "I hope those floorboards are stable too."
"I hate to break it to ya but-" King began until he was interrupted by C.
"Wait, you know? You've played it already?"
"Uhh yeah." He mumbled something inaudible. It kind of sounded like 'shit' but I couldn't figure it out.
King began first, leading us like the little light fairy he was across the room. It was difficult and I almost died, but we did it. The ghosts were there to try and distract us but my eyes diligently flickered from King right back to the floor.
In the next few rooms, we finally had to fight. Each one offering up more difficult monsters. Zombie nurses and doctors, screaming banshee patients that would flat out run at us, and these slimy poisonous leech-looking things that gave not only the poison damage but the blood leeching damage as well. Usually, this game was a breeze for small monsters like that, but that thing was truly a killer. We went through a maze and I made sure to make mental note of how we got through it since King knew exactly where to go. He must have played it a couple of times before playing it with us.
The final room was a pumpkin boss. He wasn't as hard as those leeches to kill but he took quite a bit of time to beat with all of us putting up our best efforts.
Widow was the first to speak when we finished. "That was fun! Kind of long but they want to make us work for those prizes. I only got a few Halloween stickers for game chat and a rare ring...which is fine! I'll just have to grind more on these challenges to get what I want."
I took a brief look in my inventory and found three unlocked Halloween stickers there with some sort of staff that had a pumpkin on top. I was pleased with my rewards and decided that I'd look at them more later.
"I agree! So...again?" I asked, hoping that we could run the mission a few more times.
"Again!"
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I'm not gonna lie yall...me and this chapter have AND had some major issues. I'm not sure I like it but I'm gonna push through so that you guys can have something. The next few chapters are good though! I promise!
Happy Halloweeeeen!!!!!