Certainly one of the gloomier haunts I’ve seen in my time, the forsaken town called Dusty Hills is not a destination for the faint, or anyone who isn’t willing to risk their life to face down the endless undead.

Now, you may look at this map and think it resembles a rather cliché ghost town overrun with skeletons. And you would be right. It is exactly that kind of place. Why it’s overrun with skeletons, some of them gigantic and carrying iron swords or scimitars, and, better yet, why some choose to travel there to battle them despite their endlessness, is a question I will set out with neutrality to address.

For one, I never got a straight answer from anyone in town when or why Dusty Hills was doomed, of the few who would speak to me behind closed doors. They were quite frightened at the sight, but the ones who shared their fates were quick to disregard any sense of strangeness, finding value in the presence of someone willing to hear their story.

Nor could I glean the precise source of the dense maroon haze that hangs ever over the town, widely considered its namesake. As for the undead and other monsters who harrow the sad dimension, there was no doubt among the townsfolk the evils all stagger and crawl from the same apparent origin: The wispy thread-like shadows that surround the region in all directions. Anyone who tried to go inside the black fog to find its source never returned. You’d think this is some cheesy made-up horror story until you find yourself living there one day. One of the folk told me as much.

He claimed he was a barkeep in the overworld. One night, after he’d gotten particularly hammered on some nasty old rum he’d left forgotten up in the cobwebs on the top shelf, he stumbled past the edge of town lost on his way home. He doesn’t remember exactly what happened. All he recalls is the cold coiling of dark enigmas enwrapping his limbs. He felt pulled somewhere below. When he awoke, he was here, in Dusty Hills, he said.

At first look, it’s a rotten span of small red rolling hills with odd ruined houses and odder scattered junk. This map, I’ve noticed, doesn’t do it much justice. It’s the closest our supercomputer could approximate of its database. We often find maps are old-fashioned impressions of lands, contrasting with the sharp vividness of lived experience. When you’ve stepped foot there, it all becomes very clear.

Dusty Hills is among the first hardcore regions discovered in the outer limits of Otherworld. There is a certain dark magic here that binds one’s soul to one’s body, making death extremely permanent.

Wanderers come to Dusty Hills for all manner of pursuits. They voyage here as a Solo, Duo, or Trio in search of exotics, essence, quests, and personal challenge. Monster Slayers who’re sent to Dusty Hills compete for seasonal rank, seeing who can slay the most without dying.

Each time the town is cleared of monsters, new ones inevitably emerge from the shadowy threads at the town’s edge. Every wave of horrors brings with it stronger, viler sicklies who assail any living in sight.

I’ve noticed something odd about Dusty Hills. It’s not like other zombie-infested places I’ve seen. You’ll see when you go there are lights on in some of the homes. This is because the townsfolk have learned the undead don’t venture into their houses.

This is in turn because the blights have learned if they try to break in, they’re met with a shotgun blast to the face. At some point, they stopped trying and began shambling aimlessly about the dead slopes. As for why new undead seem to bear the memories of their kin, it is theorized this is due to the massive shadow besieging the town being a nightmare hive mind. The nightmare itself remembers all.

There seems to be another reason for this abnormal behavior. Whatever maroon haze lies suspended over the town appears to spellbind the horrors into a hypnotic trance. They wander obsessed with the maroon, breathing it in and walking in circles in its midst. So bewitched they act under its sway, the misshapen houses of the hiding locals become as blurry phantoms in the peripheral.

Other sorts of high strangeness abounds. Aside from years-long supplies some folk stockpiled in the past, preparing for an apocalyptic event like this, I’ve observed travelling merchants pass through. There is more than one way they avoid detection by the undead. Of them, I’ve recorded three.

Merchants in Dusty Hills avoid falling prey to its blights by either clever stealth, moving under the cloak of a fog machine that draws and mimics the haze, or being undead themselves. One lich merchant I spoke to didn’t have anything to tell me about the town other than its residents “pay good” and that’s all that matters. He didn’t seem to know one way or the other what the ruckus was all about.

Don’t let the lich merchant’s exploit of its undeathliness fool you. People like you who travel there with transporters are swarmed by the monstrosities whether they’re undead or not. It’s something about being an outsider, we think, unadapted to the region. We don’t know how some of the friendly undead we’ve seen get there, or what else they do to be so unappetizing. And they aren’t all invisible to every monster that dwells in the Hills, mostly the weaker skeletons. Maybe there’s something in them that’s deader than most.

If you’re thinking about taking a trip to the Hills, remember to bring plenty of ammo and potions, if you use them. Your dimensional transporter will take you to and from the Hills, but if you want to use it to leave, you’ll have to be out of combat for some time and you won’t be able to return shortly. And before you ask, we’ve tried seeing if the residents can use transporters. Whenever they attempt to activate one, the device malfunctions.

I can’t say you’ll have anyone else to blame but yourself if you choose to try your hand at clearing the town only to forget the evils who spawn from the darkness aren’t all simple skeletons. You’ll be boned, no pun intended, and it’s a one way ticket to the grave. Think you got what it takes? Get in line. You survive to some of the deeper waves, and live to tell the tale, and we’ll talk. We might even like to have a chat about how they could be deadlier.