In the end, the Twelve and Dominion guilds agreed to send representatives from each side to go together to Lava County in order to find out whether my vision inside the Dark Fairy raid proved to be true. Just to be safe, only those with Angel Wings should go.
That being said, only two people in Twelve had Angel Wings. No one in Dominion had any. HinoKun thus asked us for some time to get Angel Feathers together to make two pairs of Angel Wings from his side.
There was only one problem with the Angel Feathers. Their price had risen a lot in the past weeks. It was a public secret that the Angel Wings proved to be very important during the perilous time ahead of us. Alone the fact that they had helped a lot in recovering Fairy Forest was impressive enough. I remembered how DragonTalon lamented day in and day out about the skyrocketing price, and how much he regretted not buying them when he still had the chance.
That was why it was good that HinoKun was practically swimming in gold. Other people would never be able to afford it.
Incessant advertisements were thus made every thirty minutes for the rest of the day and continued the next morning. Those who still had any Angel Feathers, no matter how many should contact HinoKun. The latter was ready to make an offer that they could not refuse. In the very words.
"Guy is filthy rich," Cecilia commented that morning when Aurendiria and I showed up at Oakstone Tavern for breakfast.
"No doubt about that," I agreed.
The 10.00 AM time slot for the Dark Fairy raid belonged to Dominion, so all of us were free until 16.00. Free from the raid, I meant. Some of us had something else planned that morning, and it was to find DragonTalon.
Truthfully, we had been trying to lure him out for hours. Our initial attempt was to type good things in the guild chat, saying that the Dominion guild was not going to murder us anymore and that the 16.00 raid was going to be the last Dark Fairy raid before it was deactivated, but for some reason, DragonTalon did not make any sound in response. It was unclear whether or not he planned to join.
Private messages were sent to him successfully by many people but he replied to none of them. His behavior did not make sense to any of us.
If I was not convinced that DragonTalon still existed inside the game, I would have thought that he too like BlackPuma, Suzuran, and the others had disappeared from the game. Nevertheless, we tried to remain positive and stuck with the theory that he was simply a sulking little child.
Aurendiria, Cecilia, Ingenious, and I decided to search for DragonTalon and find him before the 16.00 raid happened. Conveniently, Cecilia never disbanded the squad raid. DragonTalon also never left the squad. This gave Cecilia a method to locate DragonTalon.
"Okay, so this is the idea," Cecilia announced after we were done with breakfast. "Each of us will sweep the whole Afterlife Dream realm, going from map to map to find DragonTalon. Please check whether his button lit up when you enter the map. If it does, then just click on him and use auto-move."
It was a convenient tool for party mates to quickly move toward each other once they got scattered inside a vast map.
"Clear?" Cecilia asked, looking between Aurendiria, Ingenious, and me. Ingenious burst into laughter.
"Clear," the three of us answered in unison.
And so we three split the maps in Afterlife Dream among us. I got the beginner maps from Dai City up to Paradise Island. Cecilia got Chinatown and the surrounding areas. Aurendiria and Ingenious got Frozen Tundra Land and the surrounding maps.
I doubted that DragonTalon would run off to Frozen Tundra Land, but who knew what was going on in that head of his. After we split ways, I made my way to the ship port and waited for the ship to Fairy Forest to arrive.
When the ship docked by the port, as usual the passengers waited until the players inside the ship got off before boarding the ship. I lazily watched as players of various levels, colorful clothing, and shiny weapons got off happily. It was as if they were not affected by what happened at all. And then, my jaw dropped.
Out came Witcheria and her two friends, SteveGoesWild and RickshawMan. They were chatting happily with each other.
"I can't believe that I am finally on Paradise Island!"
"Yes, shucks that the raids are not available!"
"Awww mannn, I want to join a raid so bad..."
"Forget about the raid, we don't even have the party quests anymore!"
"Oh, I am already happy that we can finally do the Second Job Advancement. Shut up, you guys."
RickshawMan was too busy with his two friends that he almost bumped into me, who was frozen to my spot.
"Oops, sorry man," he said to me with a smile.
I grabbed his arm right away. His mouth parted in confusion. "Ummm... why are you holding onto me?"
"Don't you remember me?" I demanded. "It's me!"
RickshawMan stared at me with furrowed brows. "Who are you? Have we met?"
Witcheria and SteveGoesWild who already walked off a few steps away stopped and went back when they noticed that RickshawMan was not behind them anymore.
Witcheria approached us and put a hand on RickshawMan's shoulder.
"I am sorry, but who are you? Do you have something to say to Ricky here?"
I could not believe it. They were alive. They were alive all along! Did that mean that...
I grabbed Witcheria's arm as well and made her shriek from terror. "Witcheria! What happened to Suzuran and the others at Lava County?? How did you make it out there safely?"
Witcheria trembled from fear. "Lava County? What?"
SteveGoesWild shoved me away rudely. "He meant the level 50 raid dungeon map," he explained to Witcheria before he glared in my direction. "Dude, what the hell? What are you talking about? Witchy has never been in Lava County. None of us have."
"Liar!" I shouted. "You three led us there! To the crumbling Lava County map! You said that you were training there and that you found something weird so you asked us to come along!"
All three of them shook their heads at me in bewilderment.
"Dude, I seriously have no idea what you are talking about!"
"Us?? Lava County??? Are you mad, man???"
Witcheria held on to her two friends and whimpered, "Guys, I am scared... Can we please just talk to our guild leader? Look, he is from Twelve... I don't want to get bullied by Twelve..."
I rubbed at my forehead, trying to calm myself down. I read their character IDs over and over again. There was no mistake. It was indeed these three people who led us to Lava County that fateful day. I was about to argue further and call these three players out for lying, but then I noticed something amiss.
Their levels.
All of them were level 50. Exactly.
I did not remember the exact levels of the three players who lured us to Lava County that day, but I swore that they were a lot higher than 50. 60 - 70. Or even more. Players leveled up but never leveled down. What the hell was going on?
I did not know what to say.
"Umm... are you okay?" Witcheria asked, waving her hand in front of my eyes.
It was the incessant dinging sounds from my user interface screen which ultimately brought me back to reality. The three players took the opportunity to run away from me. Not that I had the desire to hold them back. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Had I been hallucinating? Had all of us been hallucinating?
Cecilia was the one who messaged me.
"Antares, the Dominion guild just finished their raid. They said that they saw DragonTalon."
My heart jumped to my throat.
DragonTalon was seen??? Oh my God!
I quickly replied back, "Wonderful! Where is he? Is he alright???"
The answer came rather grim.
ραпdα nᴏνɐ| сom "They saw him, but... To be exact, they saw him disappear."
My heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach. What? They saw him what...?
"Come to Oakstone Tavern, please."
Cecilia ended the conversation there. I stared at my screen in disbelief. Disappear? Disappear like... Like the others?
I did not want to believe it.
It was impossible, right?
My head was buzzing as my fingers randomly flew around the screen, clicking any button I could click. I vaguely felt that I wanted to do something but I was too shocked to remember what it was I wanted to do. In the end, I opened the friend list and saw DragonTalon's name.
I wrote him another message.
"DragonTalon?"
That was it.
I clicked enter and the system popped up with the dreadful message.
"The player is currently inaccessible."
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