"They're so noisy."
"What are they babbling about?"
The five players had been tied up and hauled all the way back to the Kobold village. A crowd of Kobolds surrounded them, pointing and chattering in their incomprehensible language, giving the players a splitting headache.
One of the girls tried to struggle, but the ropes around her were so tight she couldn't move at all. "Why haven't they released us yet?"
One hotheaded guy checked the time and snapped, "It's been half an hour, and we're still tied up! I'm logging out and filing a complaint with the game company. Fuck!"
Seeing that someone wanted to log out, the party leader hurried to persuade him. "Don't log out just yet. Maybe we've triggered a hidden quest!"
The hotheaded guy and the bound girl froze for a moment.
That actually sounded plausible.
They had never encountered anything in other games that kept them restrained for this long.
Maybe they had triggered a legendary hidden quest and were about to witness the opening of an epic storyline.
At that thought, the five players couldn't help feeling a little giddy.
Even the ugly Kobolds suddenly looked much more pleasant.
No matter how loudly they babbled, the players no longer found them noisy. Instead, they believed their chatter contained clues to the hidden storyline.
The five players listened intently. Some switched on the game's built-in screen recorder to capture the Kobolds chatting. Unfortunately, they couldn't understand their language.
This was a newly released online game without many players. The game itself leaned toward the hardcore end of the spectrum and was rather difficult to play.
Without the written instructions in the quest list, nobody would have known what the monsters were saying.
The game had no translation feature, which was one of its shortcomings.
Just then, an elite monster with "Kobold Strategist" floating above his head crouched down and carefully searched the male party leader. Soon, the Kobold unfastened the dagger at his waist.
The party leader made a startled noise and glanced at his equipment panel. His weapon slot was empty.
Where did my equipment go?
The party leader stared, dumbfounded, as the Kobold Strategist took his dagger away.
"The mob's stealing my equipment!" the party leader blurted out. This was the first time he had discovered that mobs could steal his gear.
His four teammates were equally stunned.
Were this game's interaction mechanics really that advanced? Mobs could actually remove a player's equipment!
The Kobold Strategist muttered something, tossed the dagger aside, then reached into the little pouch on the party leader's belt and began pulling out small health potions, mana potions, and other items...
Players had inventory slots, and all their belongings were stored in their inventory space. Normally, nobody could steal anything from that space.
But he had never imagined that a Kobold could pull items from his inventory space through the pouch on his belt.
The adventurer party leader felt as though he was about to fall apart.
Why were the mobs here so ridiculously capable?
In fact, the Kobold Strategist himself was also amazed that these adventurers' pouches could hold so many things.
They looked like nothing more than tiny bags.
The Kobold Strategist grew excited. Perhaps this was an extremely rare piece of clothing. He decided to offer the adventurer's clothes to Great Cthulhu... No, wait. He couldn't do that.
The pocket was so small, while the evil god was such an enormous being. If He had hands, He probably wouldn't even be able to fit one inside.
So this item couldn't serve as an offering. It was simply too small, with a pocket only three or four centimeters wide.
After emptying one player's belongings, the Kobold Strategist moved on to the next and repeated the process, removing the weapon and reaching into the pocket to pull out the items inside.
The other three players exchanged glances, feeling that things were going very badly.
"I'll log out first. I don't want him touching me." The girl frowned, afraid the Kobold would start feeling her body next.
This was a virtual reality game, and the experience felt quite realistic. Although she could turn her bodily sensations down to the minimum, the thought still made her uncomfortable.
"I don't want to be touched either," the other girl said in the chat window.
"I don't really care. If I lose my stuff, so be it. I want to see what happens next in the hidden storyline. Log out if you want."
The assassin player, Qing, seemed very excited. This was his first time encountering a mob that stole equipment-and it was taking absolutely everything.
Once he recorded the entire experience of being captured and posted it online, he was sure to get a huge amount of attention.
Before long, the two girls in the five-person party had forcibly logged out.
Under normal game rules, players couldn't log out while in combat.
But they were playing a virtual reality game, where personal safety took priority over everything else, so the developers allowed forced logouts.
Because they had forcibly logged out, their characters remained in the game world. Death would cost them levels and had a chance of dropping equipment, but in front of these Kobolds, that chance was effectively one hundred percent.
The three who remained were all guys. The Kobolds had stripped them of all their equipment and spread everything across the ground.
The party leader and the other two players looked at their equipment and items, their hearts bleeding.
But at the thought of the upcoming hidden storyline, all three grew excited again.
A group of Kobolds picked through the things on the ground, muttering in their incomprehensible language. They seemed to be appraising the players' belongings.
The leather-armored assassin made idle conversation. "Say, why do you think they're taking our equipment? It's not like they know how to use it."
"How do you know they don't?" The party leader glanced at the assassin player.
"I'm just guessing. It's not like we have anything else to do."
"Yeah, we've been restrained for at least an hour now. If they don't release us, are we going to be stuck like this forever?"
The three lay on the ground, waiting for the storyline event to begin.
Several hours later, the sky gradually darkened, and crows cawed overhead.
"It's starting, it's starting! They've all changed into weird outfits."
By now, darkness had enveloped the little mountain village.
The Kobolds hadn't lit any torches. They simply stood beside the well in complete silence.
They wore matching black robes, each with a dog-face mask. Once they pulled their hoods over their heads, their faces were completely hidden.
The sky grew darker still. Dozens of Kobolds stood in the clearing before the well. The three adventurers and the two logged-out players were tied up beside it, with their heads facing the well.
A black-robed figure with "Kobold Priest" floating above his head approached, holding a small purple bag.
He took some luminous material from the bag. It looked like blue powder and had no smell.
He gently shook it onto the ground, forming a circular magic array with an eight-pointed star. He lit a candle at each of the eight points and placed strange spices there.
Behind him, the villagers opened their mouths and sang with emotion in an incomprehensible language.
Their voices were initially loud and resonant, beginning on a high note. Although the players couldn't understand a word, it still sounded impressive.
After several minutes of chanting, the villagers' voices grew chaotic and disordered. A ringing filled the players' ears, and they heard hundreds of people reciting ritual chants.
For some reason, the three players felt their heads buzzing and their whole bodies turning cold.
"Why did the temperature drop?" The party leader stiffly raised his head and saw the moon swallowed by dark clouds, vanishing from sight.
The little village grew even gloomier.
The crows calling at the village entrance suddenly fell silent. They perched on the treetops with their eyes closed, playing dead.
The luminous powder around the well shone like open flames in the darkness. It seemed to have come alive, breathing in and out as its light alternately brightened and dimmed.
Wearing his Kobold mask, the Kobold Priest walked, leaped, and danced along the edge of the magic circle, shaking wind chimes and loudly singing praises to His divine name.
Then everyone saw the candle flames suddenly flicker violently and turn an eerie green.
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