Unchosen Champion

Buck took Coop away from the city, further into the suburban sprawl that extended outward from the metropolitan hub. Despite Coop’s assumptions based on his appearance, the big man was talkative. Coop learned that the three brothers were each a year apart and the youngest was 10 years older than Elly. Buck took his position as elder of the family quite seriously, but the brothers knew they were hard to distinguish from each other and didn’t mind when they were confused for each other. They shared a pleasant conversation about their past lives while they traveled. Coop learned more about farm machinery than he really needed, but Buck was interesting enough to pass the time.

They trekked along a state road that continued for hundreds of miles. Pleasant company or not, Coop didn’t want to spend all of his time walking, so after half an hour he was already getting worried about the distance. Thankfully, they didn’t need to travel that much longer. Their destination was still within the city limits and wasn’t all the way beyond the agricultural lands that spread even further inland. Buck directed him into the entrance of an 18 hole golf course and country club. They stopped next to the driving range.

“They come out from over there.” Buck stated, pointing past a group of putting greens to what Coop assumed was the first hole of the golf course. Sure enough, a pack wandered out just as they were arriving. The Primal Trackers walked along the golf cart path and headed toward the edge of the country club.

“Thanks, Buck. I’ll check it out.” Coop said.

“Good luck, boss man.” Buck grunted and headed back the way they came with a wave to Coop.

Coop went after the pack that they had already spotted, following a path that took him around the main building. The country club had been designed to look aged, like an old chateau, so he wasn’t sure what had been caused by the assimilation and what was intentional, but either way it remained fancy. It was the kind of place where industry leaders had expensive dinners rubbing elbows with politicians. He followed the pack of Primal Trackers along the rear of the structure, past a stone landing with a dry white fountain in the center and toward a series of overgrown flower gardens.

He used Salvation to summon his ethereal armor and jogged to catch the monsters. He didn’t let them get any further, managing to attack them by surprise and eliminate one before they could form their characteristic half circle. He pressed the advantage he had taken by striking first and quickly defeated the other four. Coop was still amused by the idea of tracking the Trackers.

He traced the monster’s path back toward the first hole’s teeing ground and came face to face with another pack of monsters. This second pack was exactly like the first, lacking an elite leader and merely a group of five regular level 20ish monsters. The result was also exactly the same, with Coop quickly clearing the pack and moving forward.

Coop continued tracing the monster’s path and eliminating them group by group. The frequency of the packs slowly increased until he was well into the fairway of the third hole. The golf course had formed an interesting environment where the fairways were still short, but the rough had overgrown into wild grasses and thick groves of trees created grassy corridors in between. Coop felt like he was moving through a classic dungeon, except it was open to the sky and very green and pleasant. The monsters appeared to prefer the border between the ankle high fairway grass and the head high rough grass.

By the fourth hole the density of the monsters had become even higher than Peacock Park’s had been. Coop didn’t need to gather huge groups to continuously fight. They were so densely grouped the monsters came to him as it was impossible to ignore when he eliminated their neighbors. His movement through the course may have slowed down, but his quest progress in defeating the Trackers had picked right back up.

Coop’s glaive mowed through the monsters as he gradually cleared each fairway and moved to the next. The golf course had only taken him in one direction so far, but he anticipated the trail wrapping back on itself after only a few more holes.

Coming to this golf course had been a good idea. At the rate he was currently defeating the monsters, if he had another day and a half of grinding he would be able to complete the quest chain. He only had maybe eight hours before he would head back to the park to see how Camila and Charlie’s scouting trip had fared, so he wouldn’t be finishing during this hunt. He’d just have to make the best of his time for now, and come back to finish the quest when he had the chance. If everything went well he would come back that night and finish during the next day.