Chapter 30: The Forest Dwellers
Felix took in the sight of the Dark Acres as he finished dismantling the shelter, and he realized the region lived up to the name.
It was still early in the morning, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but no light seemed to shine through the thick treetops. The group hadn't even entered the forest yet, but it was clear they'd be moving in almost total darkness once inside. And where there was darkness, there would be mobs.
He wasn't helpless, at least: he still had a new set of iron armor and an axe, both made from the ingots TOEC had provided. There was also the Diamond Core, still within his body… but given the group had very few diamonds on hand it would be all but useless, and he'd already tested whether he could conjure up new ones on the spot to no avail. It appeared Celia's Fire Core, which let her control existing flames or make them herself, worked by some different logic. He would have liked to study the matter further, but his notebook was gone and he had nothing to record his findings in.
"I've taken down the wall. Is there anything I can help with over here?"
Melissa was at his side, holding a stack of dirt blocks. Felix stored the last of the cobblestone in his inventory, then took the dirt from her.
"Thank you, Miss Beryl. You didn't need to do this for me."
"You don't have to call me that. I'm not that much older," she said with a grin. "Besides, I said I'd pull my weight. I already told Celia I wouldn't just take up space here."
Felix didn't argue the point, remembering his talk with Blake the night before. However complicated his friendship with the Countess might have been, at least he had more leniency with Melissa. She wasn't nobility, even if her position was still higher than his, practically speaking.
"Well, I think everything's taken care of. We're ready to move out."
"Actually, there is one more thing I wanted to say." To his surprise, she gave him a quick bow. "Thank you again, for keeping her safe."
Felix wasn't sure how to react.
"I'm sure it wasn't easy to handle her," Melissa continued. "She's my dear friend, but… well, you know how she can be sometimes. Always running off, never thinking things through."
At that, he couldn't resist a small grin of his own. "Yeah, I know. I've gotten used to it. Speaking of which, we should catch up to her and Blake before they wind up arguing over what route to take."
Melissa frowned. "Have you gotten used to that, too?"
"Not quite. But they're getting better about it."
The pair found their other two companions by the edge of the forest. Fortunately, the disagreements didn't seem to have begun just yet- instead, they were silently peering into the undergrowth, where it was almost impossible to see more than a chunk in.
"I don't suppose you have any more potions of night vision?" Blake asked Melissa.
"Sorry, no. I don't have a brewing stand or the ingredients for any potions, either."
Celia lit a torch and held it up. "We will have to make do with these. Should we leave a trail, in case we need to find our way out in a hurry?"
"It'll be easy for someone to follow us, if any Usurpation soldiers come by," Blake replied. "No trail- let's just try going straight first, so we know where we've been."
"So be it," she said. "Stay close, everyone."
They set off into the forest, where problems arose almost immediately. A zombie or skeleton seemed to be in hiding behind every single tree, and the rustling of spiders in the lower branches had the group- Blake especially- on edge. None of the mobs were especially difficult to handle alone, but the never-ending surprise attacks and poor visibility slowed their progress to a crawl.
To make matters worse, Felix wasn't the only one with subpar equipment: Melissa only had iron armor like he did, Celia's suit was a mishmash of materials in various conditions (a new iron helmet and boots, the poor-fitting enchanted Usurpation chestplate, and a pair of damaged Netherite leggings), and Blake's diamond armor looked to be on its last legs. They were lucky only the less dangerous mobs were attacking; if something like a creeper got the jump on them, the results could be disastrous.
"Is everyone okay?" Felix asked at one point, during a rare lull in ambushes. He'd put his axe to use multiple times, and the wear on it was beginning to show. "How are your weapons doing?"
"My sword broke. Can I get a new one?" replied Blake, who was covering the rear.
Melissa retrieved a fresh iron blade from the shulker box and handed it to him. She and Celia didn't look hurt, but their armor was already showing signs of damage.
"Why don't we use the electric Genesis Core? It could deal with the mobs easily," she said.
"We have no safe way to remove them," Celia answered. "We shouldn't bind another one unless it's absolutely necessary."
Blake gestured to the innumerable trees around them. "Not to mention, we really shouldn't risk starting a fire in here of all places."
That also ruled out the use of the Fire Core, meaning none of the three Genesis Cores in their possession would help them in the slightest.
The leaves rustled overhead. Felix looked up, bracing himself for another spider to pounce at them. What he saw was arguably worse: there was something watching the group in the treetops, a barely visible silhouette in the darkness. The thing must have realized he'd spotted it, because it leaped across a few branches and disappeared from sight.
"Did anyone else see that?" he asked with a shiver. "Something was just above us."
"I saw it move. I didn't get a good look at it, though," said Melissa. Her expression was composed, but her sword was clutched with trembling hands. Though she had taken down a few zombies, it was clear she'd never had any real training with the weapon.
Felix pulled the stack of dirt blocks from his inventory and divided it between the four of them. "I know. Let's try walking on top of the trees too. At least there we won't have to worry about the mobs down here."
They towered up to the canopy and broke through the thick leaf blocks, eventually reaching the surface and climbing out into the sunlight. Felix had decided the "Dark" was accurate, but "Acres" wasn't doing the woods justice; for as far as the eye could see, they were surrounded by trees. Climbing to the top may have reduced the risk of monster attacks, but the hidden village would be impossible to spot from up there.
"Hey… what's that?"
Blake was pointing to something in the distance. It wasn't a village- Felix didn't think so- but rather a gargantuan building made of dark wood with a stone frame. Even from that distance, the sheer size of it was daunting: it might have been as large as the Luxmouth palace, so why it had been built in the middle of nowhere was beyond him.
"Could that be Teras?" asked Celia.
"Galen said it was a small village, and there's nothing small about that," said Melissa. "I don't know what it is. Should we investigate it?"
Before they could decide, something moved near them again. In the sunlight, Felix spotted a green shape skulking just beneath the highest branches, jumping from tree to tree away from them.
"I saw that this time!" exclaimed Blake. "What was it?"
Felix gulped. "I almost thought it was a creeper, but I've never seen them move like tha-"
The leaf blocks underfoot disappeared. His brain didn't process that he was falling until he'd hit the ground.
Blake wasn't hurt- in fact, none of them were. They'd landed in a ditch full of water, one block deep, which definitely hadn't been there before. The safe fall hadn't gotten them out of danger- in fact, it might have put them in more, because their mobility was hampered and more dark shapes were emerging from behind the trees to encircle them. Two were also perched in the branches above, presumably the ones who'd dropped them back into the woods. He raised his sword, but paused when they came close enough to be visible in the newly-made clearing. The party been surrounded by about fifteen…
Well, they looked like other people. The group had a mixture of men and women who didn't seem that much older than them- in fact, some appeared even younger. They definitely weren't Illagers, and Blake didn't pin them as Usurpation soldiers, but there was just something about them which struck him as off. As the strangers tightened their circle, he realized what was so uncanny: they were garbed in such a way that, at a glance, they could be mistaken for mobs.
A good number of them were dressed in little more than rags akin to those found on zombies, wielding swords of noticeably shoddy craftsmanship. Others held bows, their extremely thin arms exposed under dull white clothing. A few wore patchy black cowls which Blake swore had been designed to have patterns just like a spider's. At the sight of them, he nearly whimpered aloud, swapping the sword for his bow.
"Well! Who've we got here?"
The thing he'd seen in the treetops had appeared again, dangling its feet off of a lower-hanging branch. It- or, apparently, she- spoke with a light, casual tone of voice. Blake hesitated to take aim, worried her cohorts would rush them if provoked.
"We mean you no harm!" Celia yelled back. "We can settle this in a more civilized manner, can't we? If you are not with the Usurpation-"
"You talk a lot, don't you?" heckled the unseen girl. "Just sum up whatever you're saying quickly."
"What she means is we don't have to fight. Why don't you come down here and we just talk it out?" Blake said, before Celia could respond.
"I guess that's fair, as long as you don't try walking on the surface again. Stand down, everyone!"
As the people around them all lowered their weapons, the ringleader grabbed onto a vine and climbed down the trunk, getting close enough to be visible in the minimal light. She was about their age, with a head of long auburn hair and matching eyes. Like the rest of her companions, she wore a bizarre wool patchwork stylized after a mob: in her case, a hooded cloak that reached her knees, made to resemble the mossy hide of a creeper. A bow was haphazardly slung over her shoulder.
"We don't get a lot of strangers in these woods," she said. "They're dark and full of creatures, so most people stay away. What're you doing here?"
"We have been traveling together, trying to escape the Usurpation's notice," Celia explained, while the four of them climbed out of the water. "We are looking for a village called Teras."
"I… see. I'll pretend I know what the Separation's supposed to be, and just ask who you are for now."
Blake stared. She really hadn't heard of the war?
"My name is Celia Lumis. I am the Countess of Luxmouth, to the west."
"Countess? What's that?"
Every second that went by made Blake more bewildered at the girl's cluelessness. Felix and Melissa looked similarly confused, while Celia took it in stride the best she could.
"Er… it means I am the next in line to lead the city. My father is the Duke, the current leader…"
That, at least, she understood. Even better, a huge smile crossed her face. The girl approached, completely ignoring the weapons they still had drawn, and vigorously shook Celia's hand.
"A chicken of a feather! My friends and I are from a nice little town deeper in the woods where my dads are the chiefs- and that means, one day, I'll be the chief. The name's Cupa, by the way."
Melissa perked up. "You're Cupa? Then you must know my brother, Galen Beryl. I'm here on his behalf; my name is Melissa."
"Suuure! I know him. He's a good guy, I met him a while back and he gave us some supplies."
She took Melissa's hand and shook it too. Blake had met his share of heirs and heiresses across the journey- Celia, Galen and Melissa, he even supposed Felix counted. All of them shared at least some degree of professionalism, but Cupa had no such esteem.
"I-I see…!" Celia eventually managed to say, cradling her noticeably redder hand. "We've come to meet the people of Teras. That would be you, then?"
"There's nobody else here, unless you're looking for Illagers- we've got plenty of those in the neighborhood. What brings you out here?"
Melissa and Celia presented her with the donation from TOEC and explained the situation. The rest of the Terasi listened closely to their plight, but as Blake sized them up he began to wonder if asking them for help was a good idea. They seemed to be a hunting or scouting party, yet every one of them looked both underequipped and underfed. Would they even be able to fight in the war?
He must not have been the only one to realize the problem. Only after hearing the explanation did Cupa's smile falter a little. She gestured to her companions, and the poor state of their equipment.
"Not sure how much we can offer you, since we don't have a lot ourselves. We can at least give you an escort to the village, where you'll be safer when the sun goes down. Maybe you can work something out with my dads…"
She held up one of the iron ingots, inspecting and even sniffing it. Apparently satisfied with the donation, she collected the rest and distributed them among her friends.
"That would be appreciated," Celia replied. "We hate to impose, but the situation is most dire."
As they set off, following the Terasi, Felix asked one of several questions Blake had been wondering about. "You said we should stay beneath the treetops. Why?"
She pointed vaguely in the air behind them. "I'm sure you saw that huge building in the distance. That's where the Illagers live- it's their hideout. They have some people locked up, and I've been trying to break them out for a while now. We have to stay in the cover of the forest, otherwise we'll be spotted."
It was a good point, but Blake wasn't sure how they navigated the woods so easily. None of Cupa's band carried torches, and there weren't any placed to light the way. They were basically asking to be attacked by mobs, yet nothing had approached the group.
"I'm curious," he heard Celia say. "You mentioned not having many supplies, but you live in a forest overrun by mobs and near an Illager base. How have you managed to maintain a town under these conditions, if you don't mind me asking?"
"The Illagers haven't found our town, not for lack of trying. And the mobs just… leave us alone."
This was the first time she'd sounded anything but assured in her answer, and all of them caught onto it. Cupa's companions gave each other uneasy looks.
"How so?" Melissa asked.
"It's thanks to these disguises. Since we're dressed like them, they don't attack us."
Blake almost thought it made sense, but further scrutiny raised a few problems with her claim. "Are they tricked that easily? I don't think anyone here smells enough like a zombie for them not to tell the difference. And your archers definitely don't look like skeletons."
"To be fair, the undead do not have much in the way of intelligence," Celia remarked.
He heard a Teras scout whisper something to one of his allies. Blake didn't make out what was said, but he could tell they were looking at her.
"That makes it easier for us. We can go unnoticed." Cupa's tone had chilled just a bit. A shiver went down Blake's spine- was she offended? By what?
"How did you make your cloak so realistic? It's just wool, but it actually looks like creeper hide." Felix had come to the rescue, picking up the pace to walk beside Cupa.
She smiled at the compliment. "It took a lot of practice. Working with hands can be tough, and I have a whole pile of failed attempts back home. I could never kill a real creeper to get the moss, so this was my only option."
Blake didn't speak up again, deciding not to push his luck. But he couldn't ignore how strange her phrasing had sounded.
Melissa disentangled her foot from another overgrown clump of weeds. It was just getting frustrating by then; she'd lived in an underground city for years, why was it so hard for her to see in the woods? She thought her eyes were used to the dark, but there she was, having just as much trouble with the terrain as her companions. So much for bringing something unique to the group.
She didn't want to be dead weight, something she'd reminded Celia of a few times already. But with little experience in tactics or strategy, and even less in swordplay, Melissa had spent the majority of their trek from Tenebyss to the Dark Acres just staying close to the others for protection. The one useful talent she could have employed was brewing; she'd taken an interest in the craft a few months before the war and didn't think she was half bad at it. If only she had the materials for it…
"Watch your step. You can trip pretty easily," Cupa advised them, after seeing the group do just that a few times already. A few of the Teras scouts also stumbled every now and then, but she kept up a brisk stride with ease. Sometimes she would even walk backwards to speak with them, not paying any attention to what was ahead yet always keeping her footing.
"You don't seem to have any trouble with it," Blake said. "You must know the terrain very well."
"I've never left these woods in my whole life, but I haven't memorized the layout. It's more like… I just have a feeling for how the forest works. The way the ground is shaped, how the grass grows, things like that. It's very organized. Does that make sense?"
To Melissa, it didn't really. Everything just looked random to her, not like the carefully planned out tunnels and mine shafts she knew from home. And even she wouldn't claim to understand how the caves "worked." Blake caught her eye when Cupa looked away, and the two of them shared a quick shrug.
"If I may ask, how old are you?" Celia's question was about as simple as one could be, but it took Cupa a moment to answer. Her fingers even twitched, like she had to count manually.
"Seventeen years old."
"And you've been in the Dark Acres for that long?" Melissa asked. "How did you meet Galen? He never mentioned you or a hidden town before he told us to come here the other day."
"It was about a year ago when he dug out of a tunnel and wound up right in the middle of the woods. I ran into him while on patrol for Illagers. He was pretty close to the town, but some of the scouts and I convinced him not to go any further. When he saw we didn't have much, he gave us a bunch of stuff like metal and tools. Then he promised not to tell anyone about us… guess you must be desperate after all."
"He told us you were the leader of the village, but you said your parents are," said Felix. "Which is it?"
Cupa giggled. "I might've played up my role a little bit for him. Besides, it's not untrue. Whenever my dads are busy, it's up to me to call the shots."
Melissa turned to Celia, who was walking beside her. She had a distant expression- had a chord had been struck with the strange girl guiding their party?
But Blake reacted differently. He stopped in his tracks, arms folded, and stared right at Cupa. "Okay, wait. He said he'd keep this place a secret, but from who? Not the Illagers, it's not like anyone has friendly relations with them. This was before the Usurpation War began, so it couldn't be them either. Was it just from the outside world in general? Why all the secrecy?"
"Blake! Don't be rude!" Celia hissed.
It was too late. The atmosphere had become tense, with their group now under close scrutiny from all sides by the Terasi. Melissa didn't see suspicion or anger in their faces, though; they looked more worried than anything. Cupa, meanwhile, had a conflicted expression.
"Who are you really?" Blake pressed.
"…guess I have to come clean."
"Cupa!" gasped one of the scouts dressed in zombie rags. "You know if your fathers hear about this-"
"I'll take responsibility for that," she replied. "But if we want to branch out, we need to start making friends- and to do that, we'll have to tell the truth."
Melissa tensed up. What was about to happen?
"The truth is," Cupa began, with her head bowed and her hood over her eyes, "that we're mobs. Or, we used to be."
Celia stepped between her and Melissa. Her grip on her sword had tightened. At their sides, Felix and Blake also kept their weapons close. Nobody had made any hostile gestures yet, but they and the Teras scouts alike were on edge. Melissa gulped, looking in every direction for an escape route.
"We don't want to fight," Cupa all but begged. "Just hear me out."
"'Used' to be? You're gonna have to explain what that even means," Blake said. He was glancing at each of the people around them as if sizing them up. Given their thinness and poor equipment, Melissa didn't think they would be too dangerous individually, but her group was surrounded.
"I agree. Are you trying to pull something over us?"
Celia hadn't looked away from Cupa. Her voice was firm.
"N-not at all. Look, I wouldn't have just told you that if I'd been planning to spring a trap, would I?" Cupa had both hands up and was giving her a nervous smile. "Here, I'll come clean to prove it: I'm a creeper, or I was. I've been a human for most of my life. My friends were zombies, skeletons, and spiders, but none of them want to hurt you. Right?"
The Terasi each muttered their own agreements, and none were raising their weapons. Melissa only felt a bit more at ease.
"You still haven't explained how you got like this," Blake said. He lowered his sword, but just by a little.
"It was the Illagers. They wanted someone to spy on humans in the outside world, but they knew nobody would trust one of them, so they had to get creative. The plan was to make human-looking bodies for mobs, who could be trusted to sneak into villages to collect information. Make it easier to raid them and stuff… all of us in Teras are what came out of it."
"How's that possible?" asked Melissa.
Cupa sighed. "Enchantments? Potions? I have no idea; they're the evil geniuses, not us. All I know is it hasn't worked. Hostile mobs usually want to fight the Illagers' enemies, but when we were given these new bodies, we lost that instinct. They tried and tried to make us do their bidding, but we never did."
"This has been happening for years?" Celia asked. "How have we never known about it?"
Felix scratched his head. "The Dark Acres are dangerous, Lady Celia. It's no wonder such a secret never got out; nobody comes here."
"And we knew if anyone on the outside learned who we are- what we were- we'd never be accepted anywhere," Cupa added. "But I'm telling you the truth, we aren't dangerous!"
Everyone finally put their weapons away after some hesitation. Melissa was still tense, but at least she didn't think they were about to be attacked.
"So, you're not gonna kill us," Blake said. "But if you were that scared of anyone learning the truth, why invite us into the woods? You could've just told us to get lost."
Cupa paused, shoulders slumping. "Plenty of us escaped the Illagers' base, but there's still a lot more turned mobs inside. I want to raid it and free them all- and I could really use your help."