49 Factions Abound: Dark Forest

Dungeons Below was a strange game. While there were areas that the game referred to as open-world areas or zones, it was not truly an open-world game. The effort and effect that went into the game made it seem completely open but it actually reminded Merrick of an old game called Fable. The world of Fable had seemed so open and explorable when Merrick had found a working copy of the code.

It seemed like everything his little character did truly affected the world and that he could go anywhere. Soon he learned that Fable was full of fences that his character was unable to make a simple hop over. Those boundaries then forced the player to go from one area to the next through particular paths.

It was the same with Dungeons Below. Hypothetically, one could vault the walls of Als Atbor, but no one had succeeded at that yet. To get into or out, Adventurers had to pass through one of the city's gates. Then once outside of the city, there were roads that headed off in various directions.

Those roads, if followed, would lead an Adventurer through the City Plains zone to one of the more dangerous areas of the game. Dungeons themselves were dangerous but that was to be expected. There would be monsters, traps, and other dangers that were there to make it difficult for the Adventurer to reach the Dungeon Boss.

The open-world areas of Dungeons Below were dangerous because there were no set dangers. There could be monsters, there could be traps, or there could be nothing. It was just an open zone where anything could happen.

The risk of most of the open zones in Dungeons Below was death. If an Adventurer died inside of a dungeon, they respawned automatically at their respawn point. If they died in the open areas of the game, however, they respawned back at the last safe haven that they visited. In Merrick's instance, that would be his office back at the Curious Glades.

On top of that, when an Adventurer died in a dungeon, they respawned with all of their items. In contrast to that, when an Adventurer died in certain zones they lost between three and ten random items. This was as a way to caution Adventurers from traveling but also to reward those who risked PvP. Unfortunately, the Dark Forest zone was one of the few areas that allowed those PvP actions.

While Merrick was riding in the back of a carriage through the Dark Forest zone, he was sure that something was going to happen. His thoughts probably did not manifest what happened next. As the carriage driver was slowing them down to carefully cross a small wooden bridge, there was a loud snapping noise followed by a shout.

Merrick got up from his seat as quickly as he could and went for the carriage door. A system menu warned him that leaving the carriage early could result in him being left behind by the driver. Ignoring the warning, Merrick opened the door just as the carriage shot forward. The horses pulled the carriage out over the bridge and something struck the opposite side just as Merrick tried to get down.

The carriage hit him in the back like a horse kicking with its hind legs. The wind was knocked from his chest and he was knocked from the carriage, over the railing of the small wooden bridge, and into the stream below. The fall hurt, but not in an injuring way.

There was more shouting, crashing, and then an explosion. Merrick could barely make out the sounds as he fought to get out of the stream and back up to the path. By the time he made it, the encounter had already ended.

The carriage driver was lying dead on the path with a set of arrows sticking from their side. The carriage had careened out of control without the driver and crashed into a line of trees. There was a small fire growing from the inside where Merrick had just been sitting. The horses must have been cut loose because they were nowhere to be seen.

Crudle appeared at Merrick's side without hesitation. Merrick ordered his mephit companion to smother the flames in dirt to keep them from spreading as he scanned for danger. It only took a second for Crudle to end the flames and for Merrick to realize there were no more attacks coming.

With no immediate danger, Merrick checked to see if the carriage driver was actually dead and then moved the corpse to the side of the road near the crashed carriage. The NPC would take a few hours, in-game, to disappear. In the meantime, Merrick did not want the scene to stop anyone else from their adventure.

He did not hide the body, but he did move it behind a tree so that it was not visible from the path. Once that was done, he realized something that bothered him. The arrows that had killed the carriage driver were not the standard arrows that a monster would fire off. At first, Merrick thought of Kobalk because the Ranger used the same arrows. However, they were common among the Adventurers of larger Factions.

The arrows meant one thing: Merrick had been the target. With that knowledge, he looked around again but found no one lurking nearby. If they had been hanging around at first, they were gone now.

On edge and now on foot, Merrick decided to make some preparations before going further into the Dark Forest zone. The carriage driver had a key in their pocket that unlocked the emergency supplies locked up beneath the driver's seat. Merrick took a few moments to craft a duffel-bag style pack from the partially burnt canvas and scorched cloth inside the carriage.

Once the pack was made, Merrick filled it with rations and survival items from under the driver's seat. With the pack slung over his shoulder, Merrick walked off down the path through the Dark Forest zone knowing that this would not be the only encounter. As he left the carriage behind, Crudle followed one last order and sunk the crashed carriage into the earth below. Whether it was an effect of the game or the mephit's sense of humor, a rough X was left in the dirt where the carriage was buried.