GadielMay 6, 4:12 pm, Queanbeyan, Australia
A cool breeze swept through the streets. The trees swayed, their brown leaves rustling under the force of the wind. Gray buildings decorated themselves with colorful signage on their windows, and yet there was no one around to appreciate the tacky displays.
The town of Queanbeyan was mostly silent. Every fifteen minutes or so, a bus would pa.s.s by, dropping off or picking up some people, who all seemed to disappear within a minute or so.
"This place sucks," grumbled Gadiel as he stepped off the bus. He felt at odds with the place, mainly because he was wearing a neon green tank top hoodie and black shorts. Wearing so much color in such a drab place just felt...wrong.
"It"s Queanbeyan," said Tarik. "What did you expect?"
In Gadiel"s opinion, Tarik was also out of place here. With his bright purple dress s.h.i.+rt and vest, coupled with his leather boots and black slacks, Gadiel felt that Tarik fit more in a renfair than anywhere else, honestly. But like, a modern renfair. Like...if renfair fas.h.i.+on had somehow made it to modern times.
Gadiel opened his mouth to speak.
"It"s not all bad," said Medina, jumping off the bus and coming in between them. For some reason, Gadiel felt incredibly annoyed by this.
"They"ve actually got a really nice pizza place here," she went on, completely oblivious to Gadiel"s mood. Instead of listening, Gadiel just looked over her.
She was dressed more like an over-prepared hiker; with a green sun hat and a comically large camper"s backpack, a fisherman"s vest and cargo pants. It looked like all her pockets were full too.
Gadiel sighed. He supposed that she too, was also out of place here. The three of them made an odd trio, none of them fitting with the dull vibe of Queanbeyan, but all in different directions.
"So...which way?" Tarik asked when Medina finally stopped talking.
The reason they had come here, to this barren wasteland of a town, was to defeat the Monster Nest that had destroyed Medina"s team. Ai"s nest.
They had spend the past few days going over all the information they had on Ai, and the Nest. Medina had even booked one of the lecture rooms at the university to go through everything.
"There are three main sections to the nest, as far as we could tell," she had said, projecting a map onto the screen. Well, "map" was a generous description; it looked more like two squared leading to a circle. Gadiel and Tarik sat on the desks, looking up at the crudely drawn map.
"The first section is actually pretty standard," said Medina, pointing to the first square. "It"s a guard room, of sorts. Lots of monster, lots of fighting. We managed to get through this part without any casualties, but it was pretty difficult."
Gadiel and Tarik nodded, biting their tongues until Medina would be finished with her explanation.
"The second room is where we got...well," she took a deep breath, and pressed on.
"It"s a labyrinth, basically. With all sorts of traps and stuff," said Medina. "We managed to get through most of it but..."
She faltered, but didn"t need to say more. Gadiel could already imagine how terrible it must"ve been, fighting through a labyrinth while all your companions died around you. For the first time in a while, he felt a twinge of sympathy for the girl.
"So we already know the way through?" asked Tarik, snapping Medina out of her mini-funk.
"Y-yes," she said, pus.h.i.+ng her gla.s.ses up her nose. "Yes. We have a map. Unless the labyrinth changed, in which case it would be useless."
Gadiel and Tarik stared at Medina. She seemed to realize she had said something wrong.
"Oh, don"t worry, I don"t think the labyrinth would change," she said, waving their concerns away. "Monster Nests don"t usually change like that."
"So you haven"t ever run into a changing Monster Nest?" asked Gadiel.
"Well, technically...I"ve never actually been to a Monster Nest," she said, going a little pink. "I mean, I"ve always been watching from the livestream."
Gadiel and Tarik shared a look. There was a whole lot to unpack there.
"Okay first, livestream?" Gadiel asked, rubbing his temples.
Medina explained that it was a way to record the expedition and everything they saw objectively.
"I was the one at the base that checked to make sure everything was recording and streaming well," she said proudly. "So, yeah, I haven"t actually been to a Monster Nest...but I feel like I have."
Gadiel narrowed his eyes.
"You know that you could die, right?" he asked. "This isn"t something you can just do on a whim."
Medina didn"t say anything for a while.
"I"m well aware," she said. "I did just sit by and watch as all my friends died in a Monster Nest."
Silence.
"And," she added, "I can"t help but wonder...if I had been there...could I have done something? Could I have...saved them?"
Gadiel didn"t have a response to that.
"What"s the final room?" asked Tarik, a little awkwardly. Taking the hint, Medina moved on.
She went on to explain that although they had never actually escaped from the labyrinth, it was clear that the next room was the final room.
"The inscriptions, the look," Medina explained. "I mean...you"ll get it when you see it."
"Why is it a circle?" Tarik asked.
"I grew tired of drawing squares, so I just drew a circle," Medina replied simply.
…
For some reason, Gadiel felt an incredible urge to hit his head against a wall. He refrained, but only because Tarik gave him a look that said "be nice."
And so, here they were walking down the streets of Queanbeyan. The bus stop was actually quite close to the Riverside Plaza where the Nest had sp.a.w.ned.
While they walked, Medina chatted animatedly about how excited she was about her first Monster Nest. It was starting to get on Gadiel"s nerves. Before he could say anything, however, Tarik shot him a look.
To anyone else, the look would mean something like "give her a break." But Gadiel understood the deeper meaning.
"She"s just as nervous as you are."
Gadiel was about to scoff at the idea, but then looked back at Medina. He noticed how tightly she was gripping the straps of her backpack, to the point where her knuckles were getting pale.
He swallowed his witty retort, and simply listened to Medina chatter. Understanding that it was nervous chatter did help calm Gadiel down a bit.
But it was still pretty annoying.
After a while, the arrived in front of a large shopping complex. At first glance, Gadiel would have guessed that the building was closed. As they got closer however, it looked like the lights inside were actually on.
Gadiel glanced over at Medina, who had stopped talking. She simply walked on into the building, the automatic doors sliding open as if she were a normal customer. Not one to question his good luck now that Medina had finally gone silent, Gadiel followed.
The shopping center was quite ordinary, if completely empty. In front of them was a large Kmart, with what looked like a fruit stand in front. The right was blocked off with miscellaneous other stores, and to the left was a large open s.p.a.ce leading to other stores and the rest of the shopping center.
The ceiling was quite a lot higher to the left. From here, Gadiel could see that this shopping center had at least two more floors above them.
The lights glared on, despite the lack of people. Even thought everything was open, electronic signs blaring and TV ads playing, the fact that no one was around to see it made it all seem strangely off-putting. As if the ads were there for their own sake, not for the consumption of customers.
The trio walked left, towards the rest of the shopping center.
"We have to get to Target," said Medina, sliding her bag off. Much to Gadiel"s surprise she took out a gun.
"Whoa, do you have a license for that?" Gadiel immediately asked.
Both Medina and Tarik looked at him like he was crazy. He immediately felt stupid for asking the question.
"Yeah, I do," said Medina. "I"m actually quite a good shot."
"I"ll take your word for it," Gadiel muttered.
She then went on to explain the route. Target was on the other side of the shopping center, on the second floor. The path was pretty much a straight line, up the escalators, then on the left.
"Technically, the Target itself is the labyrinth," she said, sliding her backpack back on. "If we run into too many monsters, we should just run for the Target. They can"t get us once we"re in there."
Gadiel and Tarik looked around, wary.
"Were there a lot of monsters last time?" Tarik asked.
"Nothing we couldn"t handle," said Medina, markedly more relaxed than the boys.
"But there were more of you than us," said Gadiel. "You sure we"ll be okay?"
"I mean, we did kill a lot of monsters last time," said Medina. "It"d take some time to replenish their numbers."
That made sense. This wasn"t a video game with endlessly sp.a.w.ning monsters after all.
The trio walked through the empty shopping center, silent. Lights and ads flashed around them, bright colors and merchandise all ready for taking and consuming. Gadiel felt like it was weird, as if this shopping center had become a little world, just for them.
"Would it be stealing if I took something while the place is like this?" He wondered aloud.
"Yes," said Medina and Tarik in unison. They looked at each other, surprised.
"Alright, if you say so," Gadiel grumbled.
"Why wouldn"t it be stealing?" Tarik reasoned. "It"s not as if these things just appeared out of-"
"I already said you"re right, no need to-"
"SKRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"
A boar monster screeched from the second floor, looking down at them. Immediately, Medina covered her ears. Gadiel formed an ice spear.
BOOM!
Tarik on the other hand, was already near the boar monster. He had used his fire to propel himself upwards with an explosion. He was headed straight for the boar.
"DIE!" he yelled, swinging a firey fist down at the boar.
Instantly, the boar"s head was crushed and burnt and the same time. Tarik didn"t manage to land all that steadily, but he did find his feet after a couple moments.
"I"m good!" he called out, just as he felt something appear behind him.
SCHLUCK!
Tarik turned, only to find a bear-monster with an ice spear sticking out of its head. The monster slowly fell, and Tarik looked over the railing to see Gadiel and Medina still downstairs.
"Thanks!" he yelled to Gadiel.
"Be more careful!" Gadiel yelled back.
"There"s more!" Medina added in.
Gadiel and Tarik looked around to see that it was true. Monsters were coming out of stores, from the ceiling…
Suddenly, the shopping center didn"t seem all that deserted anymore.
"Takes time to replenish numbers my a.s.s," Gadiel muttered. They were surrounded by a h.o.a.rd of monsters more numerous than the time in the library. Gadiel wasn"t sure he could freeze this many, even in his...traumatized...state.
"The boar monster is a signaller," said Medina. "It calls the other monsters to it."
"Good to know. Do you know any tricks to get past them?" asked Gadiel. It seemed like for now, the monsters were content just watching them, trying to see what they would do. It would be foolish not to use this time to strategize.
"Or some way to beat them all so that we can close this Monster Nest?" Gadiel asked.
Medina bit her lip.
"We have to fight our way through," she said, lifting her gun.
Gadiel sighed.
"I was worried you"d say that."
"Don"t worry about killing them all though," she said. "We need to stick to the plan."
"Tell that to Tarik," Gadiel muttered.
"Oh yeah," she said, then:
"Tarik! Stick to the plan"
"Dude!" Gadiel yelled, but it was too late.
As if they had received some signal, all the monsters attacked at once.