Afterlife Dream

"Goddamn it, how annoying!"

DragonTalon slammed a big mug of ginger ale against the bar counter. It was 9 o'clock in the morning and a combined raid squad of Twelve and Dominion members already left for the raid. DragonTalon and I sat at the bar at Oakstone Tavern, trying to console ourselves from losing the chance to get the Dark Fairy Gloves.

I was no less distraught, but it was not like we were the only ones who could not get the next end-game equipment.

"Cheer up, " I said while patting DragonTalon's shoulder. "The gloves are not everything."

DragonTalon heaved a sigh that was as heavy as heaven and earth combined.

"What is your plan, Antares?" he asked. "Will you stop leveling before 129 just so that you can get the gloves after the Dimensional Master is defeated?"

Well, that was a very good question indeed.

"It depends," I shrugged. "Honestly I am a support class. In raids where it matters the most, what my party mates need from me is not some godly damage but my Heal and my Resurrection. That being said, the end-game equipment merely help me survive, that's all. In my opinion, my Dark Moon set is already doing a very good job in that respect."

"Maybe I should switch to a High Priest or something," DragonTalon muttered darkly.

"That is not what I meant. You are doing very well as a fire mage. You just need to let go of the end-game equipment instead of brooding over it endlessly."

DragonTalon held his hands up in resignation. "Fine, fine. I know that you are right. Why don't we go and..."

"Umm... excuse me..."

A female mage at level 65 stood behind us, squeezing her fingers nervously.

"You two are level 90+. If you have nothing else to do, do you mind helping a little bit?"

"Help with what?" I asked.

"It's like this," the female mage by the ID Witcheria hastily explained. "My friends and I were playing at the Lava County yesterday, and we discovered something strange. We did not dare to explore further, so we just returned to Paradise Island. Can you come with us?"

I exchanged glances with DragonTalon and we both shrugged. We had nothing to do anyway so why not?

We thus took the ancient rusty train from Paradise Island and soon landed at Lava County. The NPC at the train exit handed us our gas masks as usual.

I furrowed my brows as soon as I stepped out of the train.

I was wearing my gas mask as usual, but I could smell the sulphur still.

"Why is it so smelly around here?" DragonTalon's voice was muffled even more as he pressed the gas mask against his face in an attempt to seal away any opening.

"It has been like this since we first came in, so... I really don't know," Witcheria answered helplessly while we walked away from the train.

"Doesn't matter," I said. "What is it that you want to show us?"

DragonTalon grabbed my wrist all of a sudden. I turned to look at him, and he had his mouth open in amazement. I followed the line of his sight and my eyes landed on the scene in front of us. We were standing at the edge of the map although we had only walked for a short time.

That was not normal, because the Lava County area was one huge map with the entrance cave to Fire Golem at the end of the map. Said cave was now cut off from the rest of the map by a river of hot, flowing lava that flowed incessantly from a volcano and fell down from the edge of the map. The lava river used to be non-existent at all.

"..."

"..."

We were not the only people who were marveling at the sudden appearance of the lava river.

"This lava river did not exist before," I told Witcheria.

"It was there when we first came in here," the girl said. "But it used to be a small stream instead of a river."

Just as she said that, we heard a slow creaking sound.

"Watch out!" I shouted, pulling Witcheria away from the edge.

The edge of the ground started to crumble, sending bits and pieces of rocky ground into the river of hot and melted lava.

Behind us, a group of players approached and they were chatting in low voices.

Witcheria's face lit up when she recognized familiar faces.

"Ricky! Steven! Over here!"

"Hey Amanda, we brought some help!"

"I did too!"

"What is happening here anyway?"

That last voice sounded very familiar. DragonTalon and I turned around with a frown on our foreheads. It was Suzuran from Dominion. She pulled a face when she saw us.

"It's you guys."

Behind her were MaiseyChi and Rankichi, both also from Dominion. I reckoned that all of them were there because they were excluded from the ongoing Dark Fairy raid.

"The ground crumbled again!" Witcheria announced to the newcomers. Her friends, a Sword Master by the ID SteveGoesWild and an Ice Elemental Mage by the ID RickshawMan sighed in unison. "Again???"

Suzuran stepped closer to the edge of the lava river and hummed. "Lava County sure changes a lot ever since the Fire Golem raid was deactivated."

"But why is the map getting destroyed?" Rankichi asked.

"Probably due to the same reason Fairy Forest was?" I offered.

We all looked at the volcano that was still spewing lava and ash endlessly in the background.

"This is the map for Fire Golem," DragonTalon slowly said. "Don't tell me that Fire Golem is also going to run rampage on the map."

Should that happen, I fear that it was impossible to save the Lava County map.

Suzuran gritted her teeth.

"If that's the case then let us do something. We must prevent the maps from getting destroyed! I don't think we will have another bridge event or train event in the future to restore the map."

"We should also check on the Summer Rainforest map," I suggested. "Is anyone even checking?"

I knew the answer before I even asked. Of course not. The only reason why Witcheria and her friends even came to Lava County was to grind. Otherwise, they also would know nothing about the destruction in Lava County. No one grinded in Summer Rainforest yet. There was a huge gap between the players who finished the Third Job Advancement before and after the Dimensional Master's appearance.

"Write in the guild," Suzuran said.

I opened my user interface screen and started typing.

"Everyone, we have discovered that the Lava County map was slowly getting destroyed. Can someone please go check at the Summer Rainforest map?"

DragonTalon on the other side wrote the same message in the world chat.

"No need to depend only on Twelve and Dominion players," DragonTalon pointed out. "There are a lot of players out there who can help us."

Ding

Ding

Ding

"Roger! I am going to check there! Hey, who is coming with me??" a player by the ID TerryWalker piped up.

"Me, I am level 80," said 7eetMage

"I can also go, I am level 78," replied GoldenBow.

The destruction of the Fairy Forest had one good thing. It united the players in an attempt to preserve the Afterlife Dream realm.

"Okay, leave the Summer Rainforest to them. Let's check out the Lava County for now," DragonTalon said while tapping my shoulder.

"Ok," I said, switching my screen off.

"Umm..." MaiseyChi raised her hand and spoke up. "Why don't we make a party? In case anything happens, it will be easier to communicate."

"Sure, but we are eight people altogether."

We all looked at each other.

"Well... we three cannot contribute to anything. Why don't you five make a party and we three make a second one?" Witcheria offered.

"Why not," I said with a shrug.

Next to me, DragonTalon looked more and more like an Ice Elemental Mage.

"I'll make the party then, alright?"

DragonTalon and Suzuran did not bother to answer me. Thankfully both MaiseyChi and Rankichi were cooperative.

After we finished setting up the party, we spread around the map to find any clues to help restore the Lava County map. DragonTalon and I moved to the left side while the three players from Dominion moved to the right side.

We trod the edge of the ground while looking at the river of hot, bright burning lava that split the map into two. When we arrived at the end of the map, we saw that the river of lava in the middle of the map pooled into a lake of lava.

"Wow," DragonTalon said in amazement.

Wow indeed, but that was not all. Something was bubbling in the middle of the burning lake.

We both leaned forward and squinted.

"What the hell is that?"

"Not sure..."

The bubbling became more and more intense. We both retreated and held our staff ready to attack.

Just then, something big jumped out of the lava lake and landed in front of us with a loud thud.