“This, is quite peculiar…” Talia was standing at the center of the gigantic ‘Archean Bridge’, which connected the two halves of the continent together. It was over three-hundred meters wide and when she ‘Scanned’ it, she discovered that it was entirely constructed out of pure ‘Golden Mithril’.

However, what she found puzzling was a totally different matter; there was some sort of mirror-like barrier preventing her from crossing over. In fact, since she had never actually seen the other side of the river before, she didn’t notice that what she saw during the day was merely a distant illusion.

As she pressed against her reflection with her right hand, she stared at the beautiful High-Elven woman and smiled wryly. Her bright-green irises were glowing, and her long blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Under her unzipped leather jacket, she was wearing a white tank-top and even a sports-bra, though neither of those articles of clothing actually provided any stats or armor. Talia straightened out the wrinkles in her black mini-skirt; with her high-heeled leather boots, she was nearly seven feet tall.

“Now how do I reach the other side of this bridge?” The Huntress walked back and forth, but there wasn’t any signs of an opening in the seemingly unbreakable membrane.

It was late in the evening when she reached the bridge, so the sun was slowly going down over the western horizon. Nekoshire was an hour ahead of her current position; although it was an underground city, the giant ball of fire near the outrageously high ‘ceiling’ would turn off during the night.

As soon as the sun went down, the barrier that was blocking the irritated High-Elf completely vanished. It was at that moment, when a horribly foul stench wafted into her nostrils and she gagged loudly.

“Hung-ry~… So~… hung-ry~…” A myriad of voices were coming from the northern half of the bridge. With her twenty-six Perception, even in the darkness, she could still see four or five miles. Thus, she was able to witness the truly astonishing and deeply disturbing scene before her radiant, bright-green eyes.

There were piles of Human, Orc and Goblin corpses everywhere, and they seemed to be purposefully set-up into a ‘maze’ of sorts. The Huntress immediately flew up into the air, and gazed down at the enormous labyrinth of the somewhat-living dead.

Those Zombies and Skeletons were so exhausted and starving that they couldn’t move, but they also wouldn’t die. The worst part was that they still had their souls and consciousness, so they were essentially trapped in an undead hell, from which the only escape was if someone was ‘kind’ enough to kill them all.

Unfortunately, Talia didn’t particularly care and it wasn’t as if they were begging for death; what they truly desired was ‘food’. She murmured “Someone went through all of this effort… I suppose the era that Miguel warned me about is soon to arise. If that is the case, then I must locate Jonathan Carelia… before it is too late.”

Even as the wind whipped around her soaring body, she couldn’t avoid the horrendous stench of the rotting damned. Within the corridors below her, she could see skeletal and zombified rats, wolves, and even gigantic carrion beetles. They were patrolling around and occasionally began fighting amongst themselves.

Once she made it to the other side, there was an enormous city spread out in every direction. “You have discovered The Ruins of Toronto City.” A twenty-meter high wall of solid granite was surrounding the entire exterior of the four-mile in diameter metropolis.

Even though it was considered ‘destroyed’, that was in name only. After all, most of the undead that passed through, simply went around to the sides without attempting to break through those ridiculous defenses.

Wormwood’s aura of Darkness and his draconic legion had massacred every single person throughout the entire city, without actually dealing any damage to the infrastructure. In fact, as Talia flew over it, she gasped in shock as she witnessed millions of undead Goblins, Orcs and even Ogres, wandering around the crowded streets.

The strongest creatures were merely level-twenty or so, rank-D, Raid Bosses, so she wasn’t too concerned about being discovered. Dozens of child-like Wraiths and Ghosts began heading towards her, full of curiosity and completely absent of any malice or fear.

The radiant green ‘kids’ were giggling and whispering among themselves, while floating around her hovering body. However, they were unable to approach any closer than ten meters, because the heavy winds that were keeping her airborne, were incredibly violent and powerful. Their weightless translucent forms were flung away, but they treated it as if it were some sort of game.

Talia sighed, shaking her head, and noticing a huge Bone Wyvern soaring up into the sky. A surprisingly handsome man, with long flowing white hair, pale green skin and crimson irises was sitting upon the enormous beast’s back.

“Guard Captain Jonathan, Level-21 Vampiric High-Goblin Aerial Knight, Rank-D, Boss.” He wasn’t a ‘Monster’ but still technically a ‘Humanoid’; the method used to ‘create’ that particular undead was clearly much more delicate and meticulous, than simply killing him and bombarding his corpse with copious amounts of Darkness aura.

If he had been standing, his body would have been six-feet tall and he was covered in pure-white armor, which seemed to have been crafted from bleached bones. There were giant ogre-skulls on each of his shoulders and fairly long, pointed ears extended from the sides of his head. His muscles were incredibly bulky compared to his elven facial structure, and sheathed across his back was a pitch-black greatsword.

With a single ‘Identification’, each of them already knew a decent amount about each other, so there was no need for interrogation or introductions. Talia muttered “How long ago did Elina receive this Quest? Sarah’s father is clearly no longer a mere Undead Hobgoblin…”

Jonathan glared at her for a moment, but then started grinning and shouted “Oi, you annoying brats! Get the hell outta here! Scram!” His surprisingly potent aura of Darkness clashed against that barrier of Wind, and the little Ghosts swiftly dispersed back down into the city.

The Huntress smiled wryly and asked “Mister Carelia… are you perhaps, interested in visiting your daughter?”

He chuckled for a few moments, before shaking his head, yelling “If Sarah wants to see me, she’ll have ta come here herself!”

“Quest Complete: You have found Jonathan Carelia, but instead of being in some sort of peril, he appears to be doing fairly well. His personal power has improved dramatically, and his status within The Ruins of Toronto is second only to the mayor of the city. Reward: Five-hundred experience points and two-hundred gold coins.”

 

[Currency

Copper: 17
Silver: 45
Gold: 735]

Talia grinned cheerfully as she saw the ‘easy money’ she had just made, but then noticed something completely absurd.

 

[Michael

Copper: 71
Silver: 16
Gold: 6,750
White Jade: 71
Obsidian: 1]

[Jasmine

Copper: 99
Silver: 52
Gold: 75
White Jade: 85]

 

“How?! What in the name of Aeris have those two been doing?!” In her hometown, there were plenty of extremely old and wealthy High-Elves, such as her grandfather and the Matriarch. Each of them obviously accumulated millions of gold over the course of nearly a thousand years, and their expenses were fairly high as well.

However, most of the money that was created in Aeris Village was taken by their ‘Goddess of Storms’, and the taxes were absurd. Talia had never been in possession of over a single White Jade coin, in her entire life; still, she could be considered as ‘rich’, compared to most of the population.

She once performed a concert for forty-thousand people, though she wasn’t the only musician, she still only earned two-hundred gold. Her old Rare, level-ten bow, had cost her five-hundred gold in an expensive archery shop.

Suddenly, she received a ‘Summoning Invitation’ from Michael, along with a message “Oh hey~, I haven’t seen you in a while… Are you mad at me for something? Is it because I didn’t invite you to come with us to Nekoshire? Cause, no offense, but I don’t think a two-meter tall High-Elf would be able to pass for a Dwarf… I mean, you might be able to go tiny Dryad-Form, but you were too much of a pussy to put up with a tinsy~ bit of pain. Anyway, I’m inviting you now, cause it doesn’t really matter anymore. Our cover was blown a while ago and now, ugh, well, we could use your help. I tried Summoning Sarah, but she’s being a lazy cunt; Alice is stoned, like literally and metaphorically… Elina’s babysitting Rachael and yeah, I just got the notification that you finished your Quest, so come play with us~!”

Talia groaned, wondering “What exactly do you require my assistance with? I refuse to ‘perform’ one of those pornographic videos…”

Michael snickered, briefly explaining “So yeah, apparently~, there’s a lot of people who aren’t very fond of me and Jasmine… Okay, to be more specific, there’s a giant motherfucking Aqua Dragon trying to eat us! It’s a goddamn rank-B Raid Boss and there’s like an army of really pissed off Angels who wanna crucify us! Then there’s the squadron of Storm Bitches… Aside from that though, Nekoshire is actually pretty awesome. I usually don’t like big cities, or people, or leaving my house, but it’s nice to go out sometimes, sell some drugs, play some slots and-Holy fucking cuntsauce! Why haven’t you accepted the invitation yet!? I’ve already had my head blown off once today, I don’t wanna die a second time!”

She hesitated for at least ten seconds, before sighing dramatically and grumbling “Fine…” before vanishing from the darkened sky.