Chapter 13: Debugging?

With Ami typing away at the debug terminal, the rest of the group explore the nearby area while remaining close enough to keep an eye an Ami in case any monsters come and attack her. After finding nothing interesting nearby the four unoccupied members of Shin’ya returned to where Ami was occupied with the terminal still, with Arano and Ilev both taking a look at the gear they bought from the merchant’s guild, Aromi was studying the scroll he had bought for clues on how to write his own magic and Lexa was testing out some of her low-tier magic on a small scale within her hands, sometimes combining spells to see if anything interesting happens when she does so. And to her surprise some spells do interact but to properly gauge their effectiveness she needs targets, but there is currently nothing around that would be a suitable target for her to test the combinations out on. After hours of typing at the keyboard Ami finally takes a break and joins the others to eat some of the food they had been given for their travels in Daphnie, over their scrappy dinner she tells the group about what she has found out so far. The void beasts are indeed spawning by error from an incomplete spawner and the voids are unlit because of a lighting error created by the boundary object they had placed around what was planned to be the void zones, she couldn’t find out anything on the void energy Isla had warned them about or anything about the rest of the world, but will continue to try and dig up information until they eventually get tired and go to sleep. The rest decided on a sleep-watch arrangement that would see two people sleep with the other two on watch and every four hours they would both switch over the course of the night, so that they could get some rest while also having people alert to any potential danger that might try and attack during the night. With Ami getting up and turning back to the debug terminal it fell to the others to get to deciding on what the shift partners would be, in the end they put Ilev and Aromi together and then Arano and Lexa would be together as well so that both shifts had a guaranteed way to kill off any threat without needing to wake the others. With a best of 3 match of rock, paper, scissors played between the two pairs it was decided that Lexa and Arano would be pulling the first shift of the night. Those four hours lasted what felt like a lifetime but by the time it was done the low glow from the debug window had long since faded with Ami telling them that she had some interesting information to share in the morning, but with the first shift going without incident Aromi and Ilev were awakened and started their own shift. Once again nothing occurs as Lexa and Arano are awoken for their final four-hour stint watching over the rest of the party, about halfway through rustling can be heard, but it’s just Ami waking up and trying to find any more information on the terminal before they head back to Daphnie. The pair on watch notice as time goes on Ami making more excited noises from the terminal, just as it seems like she’s going to make a significant breakthrough a void wolf appears and lunges at her back. Without any time to think or case a spell Lexa dashes over and takes the attack herself, with the void wolf clamped onto her left ankle she recites the plant element spell from earlier through gritted teeth causing the void wolf to release it’s bite and go into an elemental overload, the fighting has woken the other pair up and has Ami’s full attention now that they know there are monsters about. As the void wolf succumbs to the elemental overload, Ami turns to the group to reveal the massive new piece of information she had found shortly before the attack had happened.

“So, I got up a while after you had switched for the second time, and got back to looking through the terminal and found out that the game is currently in play mode. Meaning that if we either beat the game or find a way to take it out of play mode we should be ejected from the game and return to the real-world. Better yet…”

As she attempts to give out even more news more void wolfs turn up in a similar way to what had happened within the void, before Lexa could get the plant element spell off the closest of the beasts lunched itself at Ami’s as it was completely open, and she had no idea it was even there. Lexa being the closest again was able to get in the way only to take an attack to her right ankle, as she blocked for Ami, the rest of the guild drew their swords or prepared their own magic and began to fight off the attacking monsters. Once all the monsters were firmly dealt with and killed, the party looked to start moving back to Daphnie to get out of danger, but as they turned to leave a blood curdling scream was heard behind them. As the party turned around they saw Lexa on the ground writing in pain as a black energy was pulsing from her two wounds, no one knew for sure what was happening but Ilev suggested that it could be the beginning of an elemental overload and this is what it looks like for human beings but unable to say for sure they decided that instead of Daphnie they would head back to the Merchant’s Guild to get Evie to take a look at Lexa. Being the only one that doesn’t have any offensive capabilities Ilev put Lexa on his back like he was giving her a piggyback ride and the entire party set of hastily back towards the Merchant Guild as the only person that knew about magic, they had contact with was hopefully still there and would be willing to help them out one more time. Knowing that time was most likely against them the party agreed that while more dangerous they had to go back through the void in order to have a chance at getting back to the Merchant’s Guild with Lexa still being alive and able to be saved. As they re-entered the void this time not taking any ginger steps but nearly taking the route unseen, because of the night-time and void lighting bug, at a full sprint relying on their earlier excursion through the void to guide them back to where they had entered from, and from that point back past the decaying tree back to the boulder that marked the northern edge of the forest was near but the location of the Merchant’s Guild. But for now, their full focus was on getting through the void once more.