Village saving

The team set out, Mark and Ethan groaning at the fact that they would lose precious time and Jason with his eyes bright with expectation.

They traversed through the forest completely undisturbed. Boops didn't detect anything on the map and the wolves didn't smell anything near them too.

The villages were on the other side of the forest so they had to travel through the entire forest to reach them.

The forest was still pitch black but it seemed more natural like the darkness of midnight instead of the creepy atmosphere it gave. Along with the ball of light that was always in front of them that acted as a guiding beacon things seemed to be easier.

Boops whispered to Jason

'hey, Jay remember when you said you would get me that subsystem?'

"yeah?"

'can you get it now? I'm kinda bored'

"Really, you know it hurts right?"

'pain is relative, and I'm bored, so yeah do it'

Jason sighed and opened up the shop while walking. It had been a while since he visited it. He clicked on the subsystem icon and scrolled through them.

He quickly found the one he was looking for. It was labeled as the map extender subsystem

The system description read

[map extender subsystem]

[description: a subsystem to extend the range of the (map) function on a system]

[range: range is increased from 100 meters to 500 meters]

[items unlocked: (long-range analyzation) (mapmaker) (economic map) (political map) (military map) (mining map) (natural resources map) (influence map)]

[more items are unlocked on the next map class subsystem]

Jason looked at the new items with surprise. Those would be extremely helpful for managing an organization. Which was kinda what Jason was aiming for.

Jason hovered his finger over the buy button. It cost 6000 points and he currently had 6542 so he would be pretty much broke after that. It made sense, he was barely getting a source of points and the stuff he did, in reality, were quickly fading away from the public eye.

He just needed to wait until the public went into the world of WOW then he could really show them who was boss.

Jason pressed the purchase button and the notifications came up.

[you have bought the map extender sub system]

[implementing into system]

Boops let out a yell and started to swear like a drunken sailor.

The percentage bar slowly rose up

[1%]

[5%]

[50%]

[70%]

[90%]

[100%]

Finally, the bar filled up and Boops let out a sigh of relief.

He said in a relived voice

'holy crap, that actually hurt, but I mean, I can see so much further now so it was totally worth it.'

"What's it like?"

'It's like being at 5/20 vision and then being upgraded suddenly to 20/20 vision. I don't think I can go back to that crappy map from before, I mean the wolves had a longer range than me! Wolves! my pride is being broken here.'

Jason and Boops engaged in more conversation as the group moved forward.

They all moved silently but quickly for a few hours until finally, they spotted light leaking out from behind the tree trunks.

Lyle gave out a shout of happiness and rushed to the exit of the forest. The rest of the group followed suit all of them had grins on their faces. It was nice to get out of that dreary darkness. Jason especially.

Lyle was the first one to break through the forest and greet the clean air and the bright sun. It had been only a few days, but Lyle grasped at the light like it was a physical thing and kissed it like a long lost lover.

Jason ran in next and just lay face down on the green grass and breathed in mouthfuls of dirt like it was the most precious thing in the world.

The rest of the group calmly walked through the exit of the forest and into the bright clearing. The wolves were happily rolling around on the grass and playing around and Lyle was still cheering and kissing the air.

Charlie walked up and looked around.

"the village should be just ahead, brace yourselves we might come upon something that we don't want to see"

The mood considerably settled down, Lyle tentatively stopped kissing the air and joined the rest of the group as they slowly headed towards the village.

Charlie started to talk as they walked over

"the village that should be ahead of us is the Draycott village, their main export was wood because of well,"

Charlie nodded towards the forest they just left and then continued.

" This village is a small one about 300 inhabitants, and it has been ruled by a generation of village chiefs for as long as I can remember, contact was lost a few months ago when both travelers and frequent visits by the chief suddenly stopped. We aren't sure what completely happened it was like they were wiped off the face of the eart..."

Charlie and the rest of the group suddenly stopped. The clearing that they were on went up on a small inclination constantly. And they stood on a small hill looking down at what was once the Draycott village.

Jason didn't even recognize that the ruins in front of him were ruins. Sure there were some taller structures but they were so disfigured and wrecked Jason thought they were just the aftermath of a natural disaster.

Mark and Ethan looked at Jason and Colby with eyes that said I told you so

But Jason stopped them by raising a hand

"wait"

Jason then seemed to communicate with somebody in his head and he rushed off to a part of the destroyed village.

Colby followed Jason while the rest of the group stayed back. Mark and Ethan surveyed the ruined village. Mark squatted down and picked up a piece of wood that somehow ended up there.

He examed it and said in a low voice

"it was broken with a blunt force, fists or a blunt weapon of some sort"

Ethan let his eyes roam over the village and said in a low voice

"just like ours huh"

Mark let the wooden piece slowly fall to the ground and said in a sad voice

"let's hope Arch finds something or somebody useful, I didn't want to look at a scene like this ever again."

The two settled in silence a somber silence that seemed like they were mourning for people. Both of their eyes seemed to be clouded by a mist of memories and they just silently relived them.

Their happy times as a family, the sudden attack, the sacrifice of the various villagers, and finally the sacrifice of their parents.

A shout came from the ruins. Turning both Mark and Ethans attention to where the sound came from. Colby was lifting up the rubble with his bare hands, a rare sense of urgency in his movements. Jason was also helping, lifting up chunks of rock, and desperately digging into the rubble.

For a few seconds, it seemed like the two were just digging for no reason. But eventually, Jason reached his hands in and pulled out the figure of a human. It was a small one a child. Jason tried to pull harder, but something stopped him.

It was another pair of hands they were weakly pulling the child back protectively. Jason looked into it and even from the distance Mark and Ethan were they could see his eye widen. He gave out a shout to Colby who hurriedly ran over to lift more rubble with Jason.

Lyle and Charlie rushed over to help. Jeffery and the rest of the wolves tried to join taking out bits of rubble with their mouths.

Finally, Jason and Colby carried out from the rubble two human figures. They were sickly and bone thin.

It was a mother and her child. Jason pulled food and water out of know where and immediately gave some to the mother. The mother weakly lifted up her withered hand and pointed towards the child, Jason quickly tossed the food to Charlie who was already casting healing magic, and pulled out another batch of food.

Mark and Ethan stood on the hill, amazement was the only thing that was shown on their faces. Mark said in a low voice

"impossible, its been a few months since they were cut off from communication, they would have starved to death"

Mark gripped his fists

"It's impossible! how could they survive?"

The twins watched as the rest of the group took care of the two survivors of the Draycott village. Jason sent out the wolves to see if they could sniff out any more survivors though he already knew that they were the only two left.

Ethan and Mark seemed to change as they witnessed the child who had slowly recovered with the food and Charlie's healing spells crawl to where they had been excavated from the rubble. The child reached into the hole like somebody was still in the hole. But Jason grabbed the child with a somber expression and brought the kicking and screaming child back to the mother.

Something in Ethan and Mark seemed to resonate with that crying child. They both instantly saw themselves in that kid. That child who cried and kicked while crying out in a loud voice

"papa"