Fantasy Game: Infinite City

The time goes back to an earlier time, when Han Zu had just released the swarm of bees.

At the other end of the old city, on the dim pier.

There were a large number of wooden cargo boxes piled on the dilapidated dock. Perhaps due to the moisture, the boxes had rotted to a great extent and gave off a smell of rotten wood.

In the management room of the dock, there were four players squatting in the dark, motionless. They all squinted their eyes, holding weapons in their hands, quietly observing outside, as if waiting for something.

After a while, the door of the management office was opened, and an old man in a sailor suit walked in carrying a somewhat worn crate.

"Where is he? Wasn't he here just now?"

One of the four players slowly walked out from the dark corner and patted the old man on the shoulder.

"Oh, you are here. Here, this is an oil lamp and some torches."

"Thanks, can you tell me how to get into the old town?"

"Just follow the path outside the pier."

"I can then reach the Old Town?"

"No, you can only go to the factory area. The old town and the dock are not adjacent, so you can't go directly into the old town from the dock, and vice versa. You can only go in and out through the factory area."

"Thanks."

The other three players came out and prepared to enter the city according to the direction given by the old man, but just as they opened the door of the management office, the old man called them from behind.

"Hey!"

"what happened?"

"As an old man, I don't know why you four came to this kind of hellish place, but this place, including the entire old city, is not normal. I may not be able to stop you, but I still have to tell you about this."

"Thank you very much."

After bidding farewell to the old man, the four players quickly disappeared outside the management room. The old man shook his head, walked out of the management room, came to a small boat by the dock, started the motor, and left.

"Any ideas?"

"Not at the moment, we need to look further ahead."

"There's a locked iron gate in front."

"Go over and have a look."

At the end of the path, there is a huge metal fence with a locked iron gate in the middle. All the gaps in the metal fence are covered with two layers of thick barbed wire. Except for some small insects, nothing can get out, not even mice.

“There’s a sign hanging here.”

"What did you write?"

"It's too dark to see. Give me the crate."

"Give."

Opening the crate, they found two old-fashioned fuel lanterns and several torches of varying lengths. They took out a lantern and lit it, illuminating a small area in front of the four players.

The four players were wearing neat black combat uniforms. Apart from their weapons and appearances, there was almost no difference between them. There was a Velcro on the shoulder of their combat uniforms. For the player holding the lantern, the Velcro had "Twenty-Four" written on it.

The other three are "Six", "Twelve" and "Eighteen".

"The sign says... Dangerous area, no entry, violators will be at their own risk."

"This should be the entrance to the factory area."

I walked to the locked gate, where there was a sign hanging on it. The words on it were very blurry due to rust. I simply cleaned it up and from the relatively clear words I could tell that the title should be "Annual Statistics of Missing Persons", but the specific numbers and other information were too severely rusted to be seen clearly.

There was an iron chain hanging on the gate, locked with several different padlocks. The iron chain was covered with notes with the same words written on them, "No trespassing."

Several of the locks looked severely rusted, and the locking holes were all rusted shut. However, precisely because of the severe rust, these locks were very fragile and could be easily smashed open by simply finding a stone on the ground nearby.

“There’s also a sign here.”

"What did you write?"

"Give me the lantern."

"Thanks. It says... Trespassers will be cursed. The word 'curse' was sprayed on with red paint. It was not what was supposed to be written."

This area was blocked by the fence of the factory area. If they didn't enter the factory area, they could only return the same way. No. 12 picked up a stone from the ground and easily smashed the padlocks open without even much effort.

The four men checked their weapons, and after confirming that they were correct, they untied the chain on the door, pushed the door open, and walked in. The severely rusted door hinges made a harsh friction sound when they were pushed open.

"Ah~ah~"

The bloody fog in the factory area became thicker. The four players heard some sound. Under the influence of the fog, the four people could hardly see anything. However, the two old oil lamps seemed to be very useful. Within their lighting range, the vision was still relatively clear.

"What is that sound?"

"It should be the cry of crows."

"That's good."

"Let's speed up. This thick fog might be a problem."

The four people also felt that their movements seemed to have slowed down a little. If this feeling were to be described in words, it would be like when the brain issues a command, there would be a delay of about half a second between the body and the brain's command when the body executes it.

Because of the thick fog, the four people could only move forward along the road in the factory area and the buildings on both sides. Not long after walking, the four people stopped in unison, as if something was holding them back.

"Do you feel it?"

"Ah."

“This feeling…”

"It seemed like something had grabbed our ankles."

They tried to break free from the invisible restraints. Fortunately, without much effort, the four people regained their freedom of movement. Just as they were about to move forward, they saw several figures not far away. The four of them raised their weapons almost at the same time, aimed at those figures, and slowly approached them in unison. However, before they took a few steps, a street lamp suddenly fell in front of them, stopping them in their tracks and scaring away those figures.

"Are you hurt?"

"No, the spot where the street lamp hit was a few body lengths away from me."

"Maybe we should follow those figures."

"There's something hanging from the streetlight. Come and take a look."

At the top of the street lamp, two skeletons were tied to the lamp with iron chains. The chains seemed to have penetrated the skeleton's shoulders and were firmly locked to the lamp. There was a wooden sign hanging around the skeleton's neck, but the words on it had weathered away, and because of the collision just now, the wooden sign was broken into debris.

"They have a mark on their skulls that looks like..."

"A rat's head with two lines crossed out?"

"Yes, that's it."

"It could be some kind of organization, or it could be... a rat extermination company."

Leaving the street lights, the four of them chased in the direction where the figures disappeared.

It didn't take long for them to catch up with those figures, but as soon as they saw them, those figures quickly moved away from them and disappeared into the thick fog. In order to get information, the four people chased after them again until they came to a huge lighthouse.

“Why is there a lighthouse in the factory area?”

“It stands to reason that it should be built near the dock.”

"There is no road here. Going up from the lighthouse should be the only way."

"Let's go."

The door at the bottom of the lighthouse was missing for some unknown reason. Following the stairs of the lighthouse, the four people quickly reached the top floor. The old-fashioned searchlight was covered with dust, and the glass lampshade was completely broken with debris scattered on the ground. It seemed that no one had been here for a long time.

"There were no footprints or tracks in the dust."

"But those figures should be the same as us. This is the only way to go."

"Then this instance should have some kind of supernatural phenomenon or rules, and the sign on the factory gate also says 'curse'."

"Be careful, this type of enemy is not easy to deal with."

There is a door on the top floor of the lighthouse. Generally speaking, it leads to the observation deck of the lighthouse, but this lighthouse is a little different. Outside this door is a suspension bridge several meters long, leading to somewhere on the opposite side. The suspension bridge is surprisingly strong and there is not much rust on it.

After crossing the suspension bridge, I arrived at the old town on the other side.

"It seems that the terrain of the old city has been specially elevated."

"It may be to prevent tsunamis or floods, which were common in some European cities in the past."

"I can understand why the docks were excluded, but why the factory area was also excluded? If a tsunami or flood occurred, wouldn't the factory area be flooded?"

"And the height of this scaffold is too ridiculous. The lighthouse must be at least 15 meters high, and this place is almost completely parallel to the top of the lighthouse."

However, this information is not as important as the human figures they saw before. However, they have temporarily lost the location of the human figures. Fortunately, the thick fog here seems to have become much thinner due to the altitude.

"It seems that the street lights in the old city are still working. Although they are not very bright, they are better than the lanterns we have."

"Put away the lanterns first to save some fuel."

"There seemed to be no one on the street..."

"Come and take a look!"

As Twenty-Four called, the four people walked to the window of the nearest building. It was very dark inside the window, without any light, and the window seemed to be nailed shut from the inside. The surrounding buildings were all like this, giving people a dead feeling.

Continuing forward, the four found a bench under a street lamp with unstable power. Most of the wooden bench had been weathered away. Next to the bench, there was a road sign made of a mixture of metal and wood. It was relatively well preserved, and at least the words on it could be recognized after careful observation.

"It says... The left fork leads to Fountain Square."

"The one on the right is... I can't see it clearly. The writing is too blurry."

"In front of us is the road to... Garden No. 9, maybe a cemetery. So, where should we go first?"

"Let's go to the square first. Maybe the view there will be wider."

Following the fork on the left, the four people headed to the Fountain Square.

On the way to the square, the four people found a newsstand that was out of place in the old town because it was very clean and tidy, as if someone had cleaned it specially. The shelves of the newsstand were empty, not a single newspaper, and there was no chair for the newspaper seller inside, but there was an old-fashioned rotary dial telephone on the stand.

"The phone is usable, but I don't know the phone number."

"Common sense suggests that this kind of old-fashioned telephone usually has a four-digit number."

"But there weren't any numbers written on the newsstand."

"Remember this location first. This phone number should be an important clue. Let's go to other places first. Maybe we can find a number we can call."

After leaving the newsstand, the four people quickly arrived at their destination, the Fountain Square. The fountain had dried up, and there were some dried bones of small animals and some mummified rat corpses inside. In the center of the fountain stood a statue that could be seen everywhere in the old city. On the base of the statue was written "Red Tongue God".