Afterlife Dream

Both DragonTalon and I ripped our eyes open in disbelief.

"That can happen? I thought that we are immune to attacks from squadmates!" I said.

HellWitch turned her head and gave us a sour smile.

"We are. But the Queen Spider has a move called 'Puppeteer Strings' that can be used to turn allies into enemies. It can also manipulate player moves. Just like puppets in the hands of a puppeteer."

Basically, the Queen Spider could turn the squadmates against each other. DragonTalon and I had to cringe when horrid, imaginary scenes started to pop into our minds.

"Don't even think about it," HellWitch said while stabbing through a spider's abdomen and flinging it some distance away. "It will be horrible. Count on it."

Aggrieved, DragonTalon started to attack more aggressively and burned more and more spiders. The unique thing that I noticed was that the fire did not spread throughout the whole web structure. It quickly died together with the target. If it were not the case, I imagined that having a lot of Fire Elemental Mages would work wonders on the Queen Spider. Just burn everything to the ground before it could use its puppet strings to control the players.

The spider camp took the longest of all camps to destroy. My totem-killing speed was extra slow because I had to purify and heal the whole time. After what felt like ages, the totem pole crumbled down. The precursor raid concluded after all the remaining monsters had been defeated.

A definitely happier Helene spoke to us to express her gratitude right afterward.

"Dear Adventurers, I thank you very much for your contribution to maintaining peace in Paradise Island. After the camps have been destroyed, it is time to defeat the Queen Spider in her lair. Please follow the path to the end of the map in order to enter the Queen Spider lair."

"Do you guys want to see the entry point?" HellWitch asked me and DragonTalon.

"Sure."

"Why not."

We walked along the path and arrived in front of an NPC. She wore a native islander set with a flower crown settling on her bright auburn, curly hair. I read her name. It was Helene.

"To enter, we just need to go back here and click on the NPC to enter. It is exactly the same with the Fire Golem raid."

"Wait a second," DragonTalon said with a frown. "The precursor raids are reset every day, right? Does this mean we have to do this again tomorrow???"

"Oh, no no. God, no," HellWitch laughed.

"When you click on the NPC tomorrow, it will ask if you wish to redo the raid or enter the level 70 raid. Make sure you didn't click the redo option by mistake, or the 60 raid will be reset for you."

I shuddered.

"That would be a nightmare," I said. "Imagine the excitement to enter into a level 70 raid only to be ruined by accidentally clicking the reset option."

HellWitch roared with laughter.

"Well, it happens to the best of us. In that case, the squad leader will go frantic because where can you find a replacement runner on such short notice??"

Chatting and laughing, we made our way to the exit door. I noticed that there was only a STAY door, and no LEAVE door.

Before we went out, each of us got a Life Point box. I opened it and got one point only. Meh. It's fine.

After we were done, we went to Paradise Island to spend the night. Aurendiria used a megaphone to remind all area representatives to be there the next day at 7 AM for a second meeting. We found the beautiful girl pacing restlessly back and forth in Oakstone Tavern. Cecilia kept talking to her in a soothing voice, but the tension on Aurendiria's face did not lessen even a bit.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

As soon as they noticed us, Aurendiria started sobbing.

"I can not get through to BlackPuma!" she wailed. "I am worried that something might have happened to him!"

Blood quickly drained from our faces.

"Where was he seen last time?" DragonTalon inquired hastily.

"He went to Dimensional Sphere to check out the new map. Also went to the raid alone just to take a first look at the raid boss."

Aurendiria pressed a handkerchief against her beautiful face and sniffled.

"The last message that he sent me was before he entered the raid. After he went inside, I could not reach him anymore!"

I opened my user interface screen and typed down a private message to BlackPuma.

"Yo, man, how are you doing? Is everything alright?"

As soon as I hit enter, an error message with a red x sign was shown on my screen.

"The player is currently inaccessible."

...

How could a player be inaccessible? Even in the original game, it was still possible to message an offline player, only that the message would only be received after said player came online.

I tried again and the result was the same.

DragonTalon, HellWitch, and Lazarus also tried but they got the same error message.

"What happened?"

"Is reception impossible when the player is on Dimensional Master's map?"

Aurendiria sighed.

"I don't know anymore, this is so tiring. The whole job to organize raids, mitigate mini-bosses' attacks, prepare traps... I am so, so, tired. Now BlackPuma goes missing. I seriously don't know anymore."

HellWitch and Cecilia each took Aurendiria by an elbow and led her to the nearest seat.

"Don't worry, babe... Drink a lemon juice, okay?"

Aurendiria nodded and then stared into the distance in a daze.

A sudden ding from my user interface screen caused all of us to jump off our feet. My heart was pounding so hard when I frantically opened my screen. BlackPuma! It had to be BlackPuma!

It was not.

It was Wolfhound.

And he did not have great news.

"Antares, we have a few people here who are trying to cross to Fairy Forest. Greenwood and I want to head to Paradise Island for the meeting tomorrow while the others wanted to do their second job advancement.

Dude, we cannot cross at all. I don't know what is happening."

I looked up from my screen and found that everyone was staring at me. Aurendiria looked so hopeful that I felt sorry to break down the bad news to them.

"And?" she softly whispered in a questioning tone.

"Nope, not BlackPuma."

"Oh."

She slumped back in her seat.

I looked at the others one by one.

"It was Wolfhound. He represents Marsh City. He just said that he and a few other people could not cross to Fairy Forest. I will go and take a look."

"Okay," DragonTalon said.

"Wait," HellWitch stopped me.

"We don't know what happened with BlackPuma yet. I believe it is not wise to go alone anywhere at this point. Why don't we all go together?"

Lazarus and DragonTalon shrugged.

"Sure. Nothing to do here anyway."

"Ok."

And so the four of us went to board the ship from Paradise Island to Fairy Forest. There was nothing unusual during the ride. We landed at Fairy Forest's port and walked toward the portal to enter Fairy Forest. We stepped into the light column but it did not get us through at all.

DragonTalon whispered, "This is exactly the same with the Giant Mushroom map..."

The Fairy Forest map had been locked from both Marsh City's side and port side.

I quickly notified Wolfhound about my discovery.

He read my message, but he didn't reply.

I turned to my friends who were already engrossed in an animated discussion.

"I think I know what happened," I slowly said.

I cursed myself for not realizing it sooner, but it was too late by now.

"What?" they all looked at me full of curiosity.

"In Marsh City, when the Giant Mushroom ran rampage, it did cause damage to the map. Later on, it got killed fairly quickly again and again so it did not cause further damage.

Fairy Forest was abandoned.

No player killed the Undead Tree Stumps, leaving four of them running amok in Fairy Forest for a day."

Their facial expressions changed as soon as it dawned on them.

"Oh. So the Undead Tree Stumps destroyed Fairy Forest. That's why it was locked. The map was literally destroyed," DragonTalon concluded.

All four of us stood at the port in silence before Lazarus found his voice again.

"Do we have any more of the deserted maps?"

"I don't think so."

"All the others were fairly occupied."

Not long after, the world chat exploded with anguished cries from the players that were trapped in Dai City and Marsh City. We could only helplessly look at the chat, unable to do anything.

"WE CAN NO LONGER CROSS TO FAIRY FOREST."

"I DON'T EVEN WANT TO DO THE SECOND JOB ADVANCEMENT ANYMORE. I JUST WANT OUT OF THIS GAME."

"GAME MASTERS PLEASE JUST MOVE US ALL TO PARADISE ISLAND."

"The ones who went with us to Paradise Island must consider themselves very lucky right now," DragonTalon said with a touch of irony.

"Anyway, in light of the current situation, we have no choice but move forward."

The ship from Paradise Island arrived not long after, and we all boarded the ships. I threw one last glance at the dock before turning around and looking in the direction of Paradise Island.