Luna, Rachel, Adam and Lily were exhausted. They didn’t know why or how but they felt that it was getting harder and harder to keep their eyes open.
Lily was the first to fall asleep. She simply leaned back with the egg cradled to her stomach like it was her precious baby. Her head hit the dirt and she began to snore.
"Lily...you can’t sleep here" Luna stumbled over to her friend but before she could reach her and shake her awake, her knees buckled and she passed out.
Adam rubbed his eyes, shaking his head to clear the growing haze in his mind. Every muscle in his body felt like it weighed twice as much, his limbs sluggish, his balance slightly off.
"This isn’t right," he muttered, glancing toward Lily and Luna, both already unconscious on the grass near the pond. Moku had curled up next to Lily, blinking slowly, clearly fighting the same creeping exhaustion.
Rachel was swaying on her feet, her usual chaotic energy now dulled into a slow, tired blink. "Okay, what the hell..." she slurred. "I’m like, too pretty to die ."
Adam turned toward her. "We’re not dying," he said, though even he wasn’t sure anymore. His voice was lower now, the words harder to form. "But... something’s... off..."
Rachel staggered, then plopped down beside Luna with a dramatic sigh. "Nap time it is," she mumbled, curling her arms around her knees before slumping sideways into the grass.
"Rachel?" Adam took one step forward but stumbled. He barely caught himself, his knees buckling under him. His vision blurred, darkness edging into his sight like ink in water. "Tch. Damn it..."
He collapsed to the ground, his hand the last part of him to fall, reaching toward the others before it, too, went still.
The pond rippled quietly.
It was the sound of unread messages that woke up Adam. His head jerked up with a start as he shouted out names in a panic.
"Luna! Lily! Rachel!"
Ahead of him, the three girls were slowly but groggily stirring as if they had woken up from a long nap. However, thankfully they were unharmed.
Looking around the clearing, there wasn’t any immediate danger, only the open field of grass and trees.
’Wait a second...Grass and trees? Where’s the pond?!’
Taking a second look, he realized that the pond itself had completely disappeared...as if it had never been there in the first place.
Adam shot to his feet, his pulse thudding in his ears as he scanned the now-dry clearing. No water, no shimmer, no sign the pond had ever existed. Only a faint dampness in the earth beneath their feet hinted that something had once been there.
"This... this doesn’t make sense," he muttered under his breath. "It was right here."
Luna groaned and sat up, brushing strands of hair from her face. "Why do I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck?" She blinked, then looked around with growing confusion. "Wait... where’s the pond?"
Rachel yawned loudly, stretching out with the grace of a cat before flopping back onto the grass. "Gone," she said simply. "Which is weird because I’m like ninety-nine percent sure I didn’t dream that water."
Lily stirred next, still clutching the egg protectively to her chest as she slowly opened her eyes. "What happened?" she mumbled. Then she sat up quickly, eyes wide. "Is the egg okay?"
"It’s fine," Adam said quickly, his eyes flicking to the egg. It was still glowing faintly, unharmed. "But something’s not right. The pond vanished. And we all blacked out."
Luna frowned deeply, her warrior instincts kicking in. "Are we under a spell? Some kind of illusion trap?"
"No. If it was an illusion, we’d still be seeing it," Adam said. He pulled up his menu, flipping through system logs. "Wait... I’ve got messages."
Adam’s brow furrowed as he tapped open the blinking notification. His eyes scanned quickly over the system message, but it wasn’t from the system itself.
"It’s from Leo," he muttered.
That got everyone’s attention. Luna quickly pulled up her own interface, and Rachel sat up straighter. Lily tightened her hold on the egg but still managed to flick her wrist and bring up her message screen.
[Guild Message – From Leo]
Urgent. We need everyone. A Hidden Quest was triggered. It’s raid-level. No time to explain in detail. Meet us here as soon as you can. It’s the Goblin Forest Quest all over again. But much worse.
As soon as Adam read those last words, he began to swear.
"Shit! Shit! Shit! This is not good."
Luna’s own face went utterly pale as his words matched exactly how she was feeling.
"Anyone care to fill me in on what he meant by Goblin Forest Quest?" Rachel asked, sensing the other’s unease but not understanding why.
Lily was the one who spoke, her voice trembling a bit.
"It was a quest that determined the fate of the village. If we failed, the entire village was going to be destroyed and our characters were going to be deleted."
Luna quickly followed up.
"But for Leo. That’s a whole lot worse. Deleting his character means he loses any chance of recovery and he will die. Now he’s gotten himself involved in another literal life and death situation!"
Rachel’s eyes went wide as Adam chimed in as well
"Not one of us other than Leo was able to make any headway in that final boss fight. I was taken out before the fight even began."
Rachel’s eyes widened in disbelief. Adam was a very competent rogue and she couldn’t imagine him getting defeated by mere goblins!
As if to answer the questions that lingered in her mind, he growled while looking ashamed of himself
"I was caught off guard and was caught by a throwing spear that skewered me and pinned me to a tree. I barely survived, without my regeneration I would have been sent back to spawn."
Rachel blinked at him, clearly struggling to imagine it. "You? Taken out before the fight? That’s... actually terrifying."
Adam nodded grimly. "And if Leo says this is worse than that quest, we’re in deep."
Lily looked down at the egg in her arms. The glow from it pulsed faintly, almost as if reacting to the rising tension around them.
"We need to move," Luna said, getting to her feet with a newfound urgency. "Now. If they’ve already triggered the quest, they might be walking into something none of us are prepared for."
Rachel stood up as well, dusting herself off. "Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go save our guild leader before he ends up six feet under."
Lily nodded her head and tried to crack a joke as she stood up to ease the rising tension.
"And we’re off? I guess there really is no rest for the chaotic."