“She does now. In fact, once you’ve finished your quest, she requested that you visit. She’s going to reach out to some of the others who were permanent employees, to let them know what’s happened. It would help if everyone from your world had some sort of way to communicate, because now that the Syms are fully autonomous, the monsters of this world will be truly deadly.” Otsiano turned to the Glass Unicorn. “The rest can wait till after they’ve settled the matter of the key?—”
“There’s no way you can help me?” I asked. “You can’t get rid of it for me?”
The Glass Unicorn whinnied. “No, because magic in this world is very real. The spells aren’t theatrics for a game. And the Necromancer is all too real, and so is his magic. I can fight him, but I can’t break his spells. And the curse on the key is one that he placed. You’ll have to move, and move quickly, since he’snow on your tail. We’ve saved you enough time that you’ll have a decent head start, but you need to leave the Crystal Forest now, and may the gods go with you.”
We didn’t have time to discuss things further, and I figured we’d do plenty of that on the road, but they steered us toward an oak that was massive, and below it, a crystal arch crackled with energy.
“We’ll be in touch,” Otsiano said. He put his hand on Reggie’s shoulder. “I’m genuinely sorry that you were caught in this trap. We would not have had this happen, but we couldn’t prevent it.”
“Please say hello to Liesel for us,” I said. “I look forward to seeing her—and Star—again.”
With that, before we could ask any further questions, they hustled us to the portal and through it.
And just like that, we were standing at the edge of the Cryptic Marshes.
CHAPTER 39: CRYPTIC IS THE WORD, ALL RIGHT
I was still reelingfrom the information the Glass Unicorn and Otsiano had given us. We knew that we were likely stuck in the game for a while, but now it had suddenly become so much more. We were here for good, unless a portal could be created back to our world. The Syms were no longer Syms—not even autonomous ones—but very real creatures, and if we died here, we died for good.
“I’m not sure what to say.” Thornhold stared ahead at the marshes. We were on the edge of the swamp, which stretched unendingly across the horizon. It was far too wide to see a way around it, and we had at least fifty miles of bog ahead of us. In the distant mist, we could see the silhouette of massive mountains, dark against the morning sky. They rose to craggy heights that scared me even from here. At least we’d reach the village of Tyrnis before we entered the mountain range. And at least we’d cut about a week off our travels by going through the Crystal Forest. But the knowledge that Zaran was on our heels cast a somber shroud over the party.
“I’m not sure either.” I crinkled my nose.
The marshes smelled—not quite like skunk, but pungent. If it continued, we’d be in for at least two or three days of nasty smells.
“We need walking sticks, or we might end up in some quicksand,” Brynn said.
“There are a couple of large trees to the left,” Ray said, pointing toward a couple of massive yew trees.
“I don’t know,” Reggie said. “That’s yew—and yew is a dangerous wood, magically.”
“We don’t have much choice,” I said, glancing around. Behind us, the Dark Woodland ended at least a mile back. And between the forest and the marsh was a stretch of grassland, until moss began to take over from the grass, and scrub brush started up near the edge of the water.
Patches of knee-high cordgrass interspersed with what looked like peat and dark muddy soil, with short bushes covered in thorns, made up what we could see of the Cryptic Marshes. No flowers were out at this point, given we were nearing winter, but the thorny brambles were thick; their leaves had withered away, but the thorns were just as sharp as during the summer. The canes looked as if they had burrowed through the ground, popping up every few steps.
“This is going to be tricky,” I said. “Those thorns look nasty.”
In fact, they did look dangerous. They glistened, which meant they were either super sharp, or they had something on them.
“Does anybody remember these from playing the game?” Brynn asked.
“I think so,” Reggie said. “In one of my solo online campaigns, I think I encountered these at one point, and the thorns are poisonous, but I don’t think they were fatal. They caused some sort of nasty reaction, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what.”
“Well, at least it’s not fatal, if your memories are correct,” Ray said. “Have we got everything? Except for the walking sticks?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Let’s grab some branches and get moving.”
We headed toward the nearest yew tree, reluctantly ready to enter the marshes.
An hour later,I was reconsidering how bad the Necromancer had to be. Maybe 15thlevel meant he was just really good at talking to zombies. Or maybe he had the anti-hero thing going on and we could redeem him.
I paused, ankle-deep in swampy water, chilled, covered with bites from the swarming insects that even a cold autumn day couldn’t kill. We’d struggled through about two miles in the past hour, barely, and I was already exhausted. Given I was now an Elf, I shouldn’t be tired, but I was. I stopped, leaning on my walking stick.
“You okay?” Thornhold asked, struggling even worse than me. He was short and stout, and that combined with boggy fens made the rest of us look graceful.
“No, I’m not. I’m already tired, I’m cold, and I hate the stench of this marsh.” I lowered my head, staring at the cordgrass spreading over the spongy ground. Everything felt bleak. I almost wished we hadn’t gone through the Crystal Forest. That we still had several days before we came to the Cryptic Marshes. “Isn’t there a way around this freaking place?”
Reggie shook his head. “No, I’m sorry, Erenye, there isn’t. We could go around, I suppose, but winter would set in long before we reached the mountains. We have forty or so miles tocross this fen, but it’s far wider than it is deep, so it would take us a long time to pick our way around. And the map doesn’t show much of what lies on either end.”
