Commiting my sins during the Goo-Invasion a long, long time ago

[wirsinds]

The first goo-invasion in witherings

There is an awful, unforgiven and unforgiving sin I have committed once. I cannot bear to keep silent about it any longer! I have to tell you, even if it hurts now, but I know I will feel better afterwards...

Sometimes visions of my awful deeds come up to haunt me, it's a memory of a former life, I will share with you. In my visions I see myself, my dear friend Wina and some other Zoraï, called Notblueatall, Thorak and Siranon, also there was a Fyros-fighter named Magatan... Maybe you know one of these names?

I am sure the place everything started was Hoi-Cho. I still see these strange events before me quite clearly. We were bargaining with a raw materials merchant, but suddenly he ducked behind his counter and vanished (perhaps into a secret hideout below his shop through a trap-door)! Irritated we looked outside the shop and saw: all the population of Hoi-Cho had run and hid themselves! Only some volunteers had gathered their weaponry and were now patrolling on their guard. I knew it in an instant: an invasion must have been sighted and the city was on alarm!

We ran into the direction of Mektoub waterhole and could see “morbid gibbai” and “morbid gingos” in the far off distance! The goo had infected some creatures and the goo-disease had already begun to spread! Magatan courageously started to fight against them, the rest of us did not waste time but tried to reach the other cities instead to warn our other friends, gather weapons and ammo from our packers in the stables. On our way we could see that even the Karavan-guide has gone into hiding, all the tribes and even the cowardly bandits! As we ran we shouted telepathically: “An invasion is to come! Morbid gibbai and morbid gingos are swarming from mektoub waterhole!” At last we reached Zora, where life was still normal, because the invasion was still far away. So some of our friends started to trade fast to craft lots of ammo for their launchers.

Most of the homins didn’t care much at first when they heard about the coming invasion. Others swam with the flow:
Siranon *with shivering voice* “We will all DIE”
Wina: “the end is near”
Siranon: “a wave will come that will wash away all the unpure-ness from the face of Atys”
Blueshifty: “fog is rising”
Siranon: “fog of horror/dread”
Blueshifty: “they will come, under the cover of the fog they will come to extinguish us from the surface of the world”
Notblue: “I hear them calling me! They want me to join them, I shall be their leader... No, I have to restrain!”

While Wina was crafting one pack of ammo after another, shared it with the others and was provided with dappers and mats from them, Magatan held out against his goo-infested opponents, which were surprisingly weak - but more and more of them seemed to rise from the ground like a neverending swarm of insects!

I was the first to run back, wanting to take a look at Min-Cho. As I passed mossy scarp, there I found the first big goo-cone of my life! I always felt devoted to goo-fighting in this life, but maybe I was fascinated by fighting this disease in this last life too? The goo was white-reddish and hard after blubbing out of the ground, thick hardened drops on its sides. I tried to harvest it away, since I had harvested small amounts before - but no raw materials could be detected? Seemingly my prospection-skills were too inferior. So I tried to kick the goo-thingie, move it or cast spells on it, but couldn’t do anything with it... So I at least mentally informed the others about my findings and moved on.

In Min-Cho I met some higher ranking fighters and godly messengers (GMs) - but at the same time as I arrived also the first invasors swarmed into the city and the big fight began! Goo-infected gibbai, ragus’ (called regus) and gingos (called chonari), also yelks and slaveni-like plants (called symbiontes) were cast into the city with the invasion! Every infected creature looked VERY unhealty with violett-pinkish blisters, like their skin was peeling off, making them zombie-like. Yubos at the entrance of the city started to act aggressive next to them and attacked us homins! From Hopedell and still waters more goo-infected creatures reached Jen-Lai and Hoi-Cho, and every member of our team was drawn into fighting.

Wina arrived and attacked the monsters with her launcher, but suddenly the area-effect wounded one of the volunteers. His colleagues attacked her angrily and very soon I had to ressurect her... Rendels telepatic message reached me: she had found another goo-lump, but couldn’t do anything useful with/to it. This brought an idea to my head: maybe there was something like a main-goo-cone somewhere? Wina suggested: “Then you should search in the direction where the creatures are coming from.” Isn’t she wonderful? So I started to run east again. Magatan informed us, that some of the infected creatures didn’t even seem to notice him, and I realized the same thing soon: most of the sick were not aggressive, they only were drawn into the cities by their sickness which seemed to affect their minds badly. But maybe somewhere in their sub-conciousness they wanted us to help them - to free them from their suffering? Were they perhaps hoping for their own death to release them?

Only the poisonous and stinking creatures seemed to be quite dangerous, but they were not very strong as fighters. In the meantime even Zora got filled with the goo-mob, and all the lands between the cities was full of them - there were hundreds of goo-infected zombies all around! The godly messengers started to teleport other fighters from the Burning Desert, from Aeden Aqueous and from Verdant Heights (We won’t tell you that the secret password for the teleport is “goo”)...

Matis and Fyros spammed the telepathic channel with complaints, why they should even help us Zoraï fighting these weak opponents (as if we Zoraï even wanted help from such arrogant creeps), and that they would have liked to stay in their countries (why didn’t they just leave then instead of pestering us with their whining?) - but they really seemed to love the bloodshed and slaughtered the poor sick creatures like mad! Well, I still avoided the fight as much as possible, because even then I didn’t enjoy killing and thought it rather unspiritual. It was rather easy to reach mektoub waterhole, where we had spotted the goo-infection first. There I found one or two goo-lumps at the rims of the plateaus, but no harvesting or any other action was possible for me there either.

But then: north-east of the waterhole I could see a really big brighter goo-cone standing in the grass, and it looked somehow different than the small ones too! Well, harvesting at it also didn’t bring any results, but this time I could take the whole thing into my focus; it even highlighted and surprise: I could attack it! Was it alive?

While I chopped it down, I was suddenly attacked by some poisonous gibbai from behind and sady was felled myself, looking at gibbai toes from below. Too bad! While the mighty kami-magic was resurrecting me I told the others about the events, using our telepatic ablities and offered to lead some homins to the big cone. Not many homins were interested at all, most of them were totally absorbed in their fighting, which was very sad to realize. Especially the Matis and Fyros, even though they bragged about their great deeds and fighting-skills all the while did not want to get rid of the source of evil.

So I tried to reach the goo-lump with only Wina and Magatan following me. While getting closer to the spot the invasion ebbed away for a sort time. Another group of homins came from the direction of the goo, but my questions about it were not answered by anyone... Had someone done anything important? Had a boss-goo-creature been slain? Had someone “killed” the goo-lump? I could not even remember if I myself had perhaps already slain it last time before I had been killed...

But right away another wave of invasors started to swarm, and there were even more creatures this time - most members of our group had used up their launcher ammo and the fight got pretty hard because of the masses of opponents. The Zoraï -volunteers were very helpful, but even they died away one by one. As I tried to heal one of them I could not, a divine voice in my head told me that only “players” could be treated by healing-magic... After reaching the big goo-cone I was surprised: as I tried to attack the goo-thing again, a divine voice told me “you cannot enter combat or use offensive actions against another player in this area.” I tried several things, but the telepathic message was only repeated again.

And at that time I committed my unforgivable sin, which I will regret for the rest of my life! You have to know: I always wished to be a healer of the land, I also suggested to “heal” goo instead of harvesting it away. Rendel had reminded me at the time I found the first goo-cone, that I should try to cast healing-spells on it, Desseja had told me stories of his mother who had tried to heal goo-infections - but as soon as I had the chance to try to heal the goo, I could not remember anything, my mind had gone blank! I only tried to attack it again and was annoyed that it didn't work. All I could think of was: “THIS MUST BE A BUG!”

I telepathically informed all the other homins, but they couldn’t care less. And so - very unfortunately - I didn’t try to HEAL the goo... Well, maybe it wouldn’t have worked, who knows. It was also rather unlogical that I had been able to attack it first and now should heal it!? But goo doesn’t seem to be logical at all.. Still I believe, if the divine message would have shown up at the first time instead of enabling me to attack the goo-thing, I would have tried to start healing... Or if a red life-bar had shown up above the goo, even better a dark red one like the ones hoovering over a dead homin, seeming to cry out : “heal me fast” - no, there wasn’t.

So instead of healing I thought of a rather wicked plan to get rid of the BUG once and forever! I attacked some gibbai directly next to the goo with my launcher and killed the goo-cone with the stray fire, including it in the explosion - like it had happened to Wina with the volunteer. But I did it WITH PURPOSE! What Karavan-spirit must have lead me? Senseless violence... The goo-lump did not highlight anymore after some shots and seemed quite dead. So instead of healing it I had killed it. Unforgivable! How could I have been so dumb???

The goo-infected creatures still respawned and swarmed and all homins fought on - and all of the dying and suffering from this moment an was my fault! I had the chance, but I threw it away! There was no other way now than to fight like the other homins did. Of course the goo-infection wouldn’t have vanished with the goo-healing, so the homins still would have had to kill the sick creatures, but who knows what else would have happened? Maybe I will never know now, for I missed my chance. Woe is me! It took quite a long time till the invasion ebbed away by itself, and then the goo also vanished. Must have been the Kamis with their mighty magic, compensating my failure.

Afterwards the godly messengers thanked all “brave helpers” in the name of the Zoraï. So of course the Matis and Fyros showed off and told us that we Zoraï would have been lost without them - ha! The Tryker also had helped a lot with the fight, but modestly kept quiet afterwards - and with this rose in my esteem a lot! But I myself had brought shame upon all of the Zoraï culture on this black day! My whole family will surely be cursed into the seventh generation because of this error I made! Will I be able to make it good again? Will there be another chance? Hopefully I will be there to try again one day...