After the nerve-wracking chase through the lands of the undead, Vance and Eleanor finally reached relative safety. They crossed Dunaliathan and landed on solid ground again. Then they continued to gallop forward until the sand gave way to brown dirt and black soil. This change of terrain meant that they could finally stop to catch their breath. Agatha, the three-headed mount, decelerated into a gentle walk. Then they dismounted. Eleanor went around looking for dry kindling to start a fire, while Vance sat on the ground and began to tend to his minor chest injury.
During the chase, a bone shard had hit his left pectoral. It didn’t penetrate too deep, but it had left a puncture wound. He opened his bag and applied an antiseptic to prevent it from festering into any unknown Banes. A burning sensation traveled through his body. Then he began to think of ways to stop the minor bleeding. If I don’t take care of this now, it might get worse and cost me HP later. He was about to search for bandages in his bag, but then he noticed that Eleanor had returned. She dropped the dry kindling on the ground and turned toward him with some apparent interest.
“You won’t lose HP from something that small,” she said.
“I still don’t want to leave the wound like this.”
“What are you planning to do?”
“I’ll wrap some recuperative bandages around it.”
“That’s a waste. You should save them for more serious stuff.”
“What other option do I have?”
“Well, I’ve got a needle. Want me to stitch you up until you see a healer?”
Vance was surprised.
“I did it before,” Eleanor added.
“All right … If it’s not asking for too much.”
“Don’t worry. The thread isn’t made of gold or anything,” Eleanor laughed. She opened a small bag and fetched a needle and a roll of sewing thread. “Try to relax.” She threaded her tool. “You’re not afraid of needles, are you?”
“Not really,” Vance said, taking off his shirt.
“Believe it or not, I used to be.” She leaned closer to him.
“It’s all right if you don’t wanna do this.”
“No, no, I meant as a child,” she laughed again. “I got over it long ago.”
The painful needlework began. To distract himself, Vance cast a distant look toward the dusky horizon and began to think about all that had happened to him. With a strange sense of detachment, he analyzed the events of the past hours and wondered what awaited him next. It seemed that his ascension quest wouldn’t be a straightforward matter. Perhaps it would take longer than he had thought. Perhaps it would involve much more than a single man-versus-beast confrontation. In such a case, he would need to have patience and stamina. He would also need the flexibility to cope in a volatile environment. Power comes at a price … I have to be ready for whatever Middlerift might throw at me.
“And … we’re done,” Eleanor announced.
“Thank you,” Vance said, emerging from his contemplations.
He checked his stitched wound and wore his shirt again. Then he watched as Eleanor started a campfire. She gathered the kindling in one place, built a circle of stones around it, and then used two flints to generate a spark. After a source of warmth had been secured, she sat down opposite him and rubbed her hands together. A few silent moments followed. Black-dotted white worms surfaced and burrowed; a thin green-blue pollen danced through the air; small bat-like beasts flew overhead and melted into the palette of dusk. Then the eerie silence finally receded and gave way for a curious question.
“So … What’s your story?” Eleanor said.
She threw a pebble into the fire. Before this pebble settled, Vance had begun to speak. He told her about the surprise at the shrine of Thurvik, about Rust Lake and the three annoying monkeys, and about his trek through the desert. He wasn’t trying to pass time or make a new friend. In fact, he was very careful not to give any details about his personal life. His real goal in this conversation was to collect new information about Middlerift. Eleanor seemed like a reliable source—at least more reliable than the three monkeys—and Vance felt that he could use her to reorient himself.
“Let me get this straight. Your Blood Pilgrimage ended in Rust Lake,” Eleanor finally said. “You remember passing out at the shrine, but you don’t remember anything about the pilgrimage itself. Not even the nightmare.”
“That pretty much sums it up,” Vance said.
“Weird … All the Headbound I know woke up at Haraldr’s Spring.”
“Is that another haven?”
“Yeah,” Eleanor said. “It’s the largest in Middlerift and the starting point for all Class Ascensions. Normally, you should’ve woken up there … You should’ve met Haraldr the Sage and received his guidance.”
“Instead I had to deal with those three monkeys.”
“Yeah,” Eleanor laughed. “I imagine that was a pain.”
“Pain is an understatement.”
“But it’s still good you met them. At least they warned you about the Galvanic Mist. It would’ve been really dangerous for you to traverse the Witch’s Lands with that mist obscuring your view. You would’ve been crunched and spat out.”
“I guess you’re right,” Vance sighed.
“You’ve had a rough start, but it’s no reason to surrender or quit,” Eleanor said, with cheerful positivity. “Let me give you a helping hand. I’m no sage, but I can explain the important stuff. I’ll read you the Middlerift primer.”
“Is that a real book?”
“No,” Eleanor laughed. “But I’ll author it just for you.”
“Well, I’d appreciate any information.”
The fire crackled as perpendicular twigs collapsed.
Eleanor grew silent for a moment. She was preparing to give Vance his first real lesson about Middlerift. Where should she start, and which facts should she include? It was difficult to introduce a foreigner to a new world, but she seemed confident that she could do a decent job. After she chained a few words together in her mind, she began, “First things first, you have to know that the Honeydew Flies aren’t our enemies. They didn’t take your head away out of spite. They’re just doing their job, just as Thurvik told them.”
“Their job?” Vance felt slightly amused.
“Yeah,” Eleanor said. “Their job is to take your head away and deliver it to a Middlerift Beast. This beast fills your head with the ancient knowledge that you need for your Class Ascension. Then you slay the beast and recover your head. You snatch your prize and return to the human world.”
“So … This is how the ascension works.” Vance felt some relief. “I don’t have two objectives … Finding my missing head is the same as finding my prey.”
“Exactly,” Eleanor confirmed.
“And how do I find my prey?”
“You follow the guidance of Thurvik.”
The bloodstained footprints … I was on the right track.
“It’s all so simple, really,” Eleanor continued. “But you have to be quick on your feet, or you might run out of time.”
“Run out of time? Is that a thing?”
“Sadly, yes,” Eleanor said. “Do you see the dark flame burning on top of your neck and mine?” She pointed at hers. “It’s called the Flame of Revival. It’s a gift that we all receive from the Maiden of Revival. Our ticket back to the human world, if you will. It starts out super strong, but it grows weak over time. You could think of it as a timer. If you stay in Middlerift for too long, it might just up and go out; so you have to finish your ascension as fast as possible.”
“What happens if my flame goes out?” Vance asked the difficult question.
“Not much in the grand scheme of things,” Eleanor answered, with a hint of sarcasm and cynicism. “You die. The Middlerift Beast gets to keep your head as a prize. Thurvik loses one of his human followers. Oh, but I don’t know what happens exactly to your soul. It depends on so many other factors. Let’s just try to finish our ascensions, yeah? So that we don’t have to think about it.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Agreed,” Vance laughed a little.
It felt refreshing to finally know more about Middlerift as a whole and about his ascension objective in particular. With this information in hand, he could now think about the other technicalities that he had ignored so far: food, water, sleep, healing. He wanted to know the basic demands of life in Middlerift—his life without a head. He also noticed afresh that Eleanor had a mount, and he wanted to understand how she had gotten it, since she couldn’t have brought it here with her from the human world. There were many questions to ask and not enough time for answers.
“Do we need to eat or drink?” he began.
“Not really,” Eleanor said.
“Do we have to feed the Flame of Revival?”
“No, it burns on its own.”
“What about sleep?”
“We don’t need it either, but it helps us heal and improves our concentration. I’d say you could sleep if you had the time, and if you had a safe enough place.”
“So … Sleeping still has its regenerative properties,” Vance concluded. Then, after a pensive pause, he said, “It’s not reliable enough, though … Is there any other way to heal? Something more efficient?”
“There are potion patches,” Eleanor said. She took some out of her pocket and showed them to him—rectangular transdermal patches that contained the essence of a healing potion. “You stick them to your skin and wait till your body absorbs them.” Using her own arm, she showed him how they could be applied. “Be careful, though, they don’t work exactly like potions. They heal you over time, and there’s often a delay before their effect kicks in.”
“I see … And where do I find these patches?”
“You can buy them at Argilstead.”
“Where?” Vance felt slightly confused.
“Argilstead,” Eleanor repeated plainly. Then she had a realization. “Oh, shit! I forgot you’ve never been there before.” She laughed at her own silly mistake. “Listen, armor, weapons, healers, mounts, patches, you’ll find them all in one place, and that’s Argilstead—the only city in Middlerift. It’s the place where all the Headbound prepare for their hunts.”
“And how do I get to this … Argilstead?” Vance asked.
“Hmm … Well, I’m not that great at giving directions,” Eleanor said, rather humbly. “But I’m gonna be heading there now. If you’re not already tired of my company, maybe I can give you a ride. Agatha can take us there in no time.”
Vance hesitated a little. On the one hand, it seemed that Argilstead was the perfect place to gear up and prepare for future fights. On the other, the idea of a city full of Adventurer Slayers didn’t seem very appealing. Trust is the basis of peaceful coexistence. Before there were towns and cities in the human world, there was first trust. So a functional city of two-faced murderers seemed to him like a paradoxical entity—P and not P. In the end, however, he realized that he didn’t have any other alternatives. If not Argilstead, then where? And so he reluctantly decided to accept Eleanor’s offer.
***
The campfire turned into ashes and embers, and the journey to Argilstead began. Vance found himself advancing through endless plains. The ground was a carpet of knee-high blue-green grass, whose tapering stalks ended with black rubber-like seeds. Seeing this thick grass, Vance surmised that one or more ugly abominations must be skulking somewhere near—in sunken lairs, hidden holes, or even unimpressive burrows. What he did see, however, was a distant group of gargantuan mantises—each the same size as a two-story building. He thought that they were beasts, but Eleanor told him that they were in fact the vehicles of a trade caravan: “They’re traveling to the same destination as ours.”
Vance continued to watch them for a while longer, wondering what kind of merchants sat on their backs. Then he shifted his attention to another set of creatures, which were appearing much closer to him and which seemed more alarming than a group of oversized insects. As Agatha galloped fast, dark beings were emerging from the soil. Their amorphous bodies would rise like water from a fountain, and then they would sink again after Agatha had passed by. They had hundreds of red eyes that stared with a disturbing glare, and tens of oval toothless mouths that groaned without cease. More often than not, they congregated near pools of pitch-black tar.
“What are those things?”
“We call them Targhouls,” Eleanor said. “No one knows what they are. They appear in groups and attack travelers. But Agatha is too fast for them, so there’s really nothing to worry about. Just pretend they’re not there.”
Vance did as told.
The journey to Argilstead continued, and Middlerift began to open up to him more and more. He saw rivers dotted with the light of fireflies, skeletal towers that rose in the far distance, and sinkholes that led to an underground network of caves. He heard the distant roars of beasts and the close gurgle of streams. With every stimulus, his curiosity grew more and more until he started to ask questions. These quizzical questions were great conversation starters. Eleanor heard them with amusement and laughed at her bright-eyed tourist. Then she answered with a sweet blend of trivia and essentials:
“The plant covering these plains is called Targrass. I heard about a guy who took it back to our world. The poor fella inhaled its poisonous pollen and almost died. It’s great we don’t have a nose in this world, right?”
“The caravans we saw earlier belong to the Fly Merchants. No one knows for sure where they come from, but they stop at Argilstead and trade goods with us. They’re a weird bunch. You’ll soon get what I mean.”
“No, the skeletal towers are actually outposts built by the forces of Decay. If you climb them, you’ll find all sorts of nasty undead. Zombies. Liches. Skeletal Dragons. We try to clear as many outposts as we can, but it’s no easy business.”
“The Witch of Decay? She wants us dead, and we want her dead. Why? I don’t know. It’s always been like this. The creatures of this world don’t really explain themselves before they snatch at your entrails. It would be funny if they did.”
As Eleanor talked, Vance began to form a first impression of her character. She seemed to be the serious, self-motivated type—powered by an internal engine that seldom stopped for maintenance. Her sociability, however, set her apart from the rest of her kind, whose goal-oriented attitude often degenerated into curtness toward others. She never forgot what she set out to achieve, but she smiled, laughed, and even appreciated a distraction. Her personality had all these attractive qualities and more. She seemed perfect—until you remembered that she was also an Adventurer Slayer. How many people had she murdered so far? And how many had she tricked with her persona?
Vance asked himself these questions, but he developed neither mistrust nor animosity toward her. She had saved his life from the Skull Jaws and asked for nothing in return. She was also much higher in level, so if she had wanted to rob him blind or feed him to hungry beasts, she would’ve been able to do so without trickery or deceit. Perhaps she only maintained her fake persona out of habit, or perhaps she was being overcautious around him. Either way, Vance couldn’t really blame her. If she was guilty of insincerity and pretense, he was also far from any claim to innocence.
“Yeah, it’s always dusky here. I have a friend who loves to meditate while he looks up at this eternal sunset. He loses himself in these colors. They bring back all sorts of memories, and he weeps without tears. Then he remembers that he needs to hunt a beast, and the sobs quiet down on their own. I tell him to try to smile more, but he just ignores me. Or maybe he thinks I’m messing with him.”
“I’ve always wondered about the dark spheres, too. No one knows what keeps them up in the sky, but some of the, um, more creative Headbound have started a pseudo-religion centered around them. They say the world will end when the spheres crash down. Every other week—yes, week!—they predict that the real end’s tomorrow. It’s even funnier because their followership is growing. Me? I like to focus on the future I can control.”
“No. No one lives in Argilstead. I know I called it a city, but ‘city’ isn’t really the right word. It’s a shared base where the Headbound can meet and help each other out. Some call it ‘the haven Haraldr never built,’ but that’s just another exaggeration. The place isn’t protected by a barrier; we band together and keep it safe. That’s how the ancient Headbound came to trust one another, or so says one legend. I know, I know, old legends aren’t always true, but I feel this one’s different. It makes me want to give back, you know, so I often volunteer for the Dullahans, the cavalry who protect Argilstead.”
Vance was about to ask for more information about the Dullahans, but at that moment, as the Targrass swayed in the wind and released its pollen, he noticed that the ground ahead came to an abrupt end. The plains continued to roll until a sundering line, and then the soil and grass disappeared—they were obsoleted and replaced by an emptiness that was neither ocean nor sea. Vance waited to see where Eleanor would steer her mount. He noticed her hands tensing up on the snaky mane, but she didn’t pull the snakes right or left: she tugged them back and forced Agatha to decelerate to a stop.
On the edge of a vertiginous drop, as the gusts blew at him with a breath of enlightenment, Vance realized that the uncanny void was in fact an impact crater—a circular depression in the ground that seemed to have been caused by the ancient crash of a meteor. Argilstead was there in the center of that wide crater, located as if it were the falling star that had remodeled the landscape. From far away, Vance could see the silhouette of its buildings, which were made of clay and colored like pottery, and its branching dirt roads, which curved like the decorative lines on an earthenware vase.
“It doesn’t look that impressive, does it?” Eleanor said. “No fancy buildings. No paved streets. No magical crystals or orbs floating in the sky. Nothing.”
“It looks like a primitive village,” Vance said.
“Or an unplanned slum, if you want to be brutally honest,” Eleanor laughed. “But you have to remember: it was built by Headbound like us. They fought the beasts for this land, and their Flames of Revival grew weaker as they piled up one mud brick onto the other. When I think of their efforts, I find these slums much more impressive than the cities of the human world.”
“Things are only valuable because of what you sacrifice to create them.”
“You put it nicely.”
“But sacrifice too much, and you end up with nothing.”
“Yeah … You’re right.”
The two continued to watch Argilstead from afar. They could see the flames of the Headbound who roamed the streets. Every faint light that tread in that dusky gloom was associated with an untold sacrifice, for such was the fate that awaited anyone who rejected the gods and chose Thurvik. But there was no telling which of these wandering flames had made a lucrative sacrifice and which had ended up empty-handed. In the clay village, they all roamed as one, and in the cold eyes of the Master of Middlerift, there were neither winners nor losers—only Adventurer Slayers.
“So, Eleanor …” Vance averted his gaze from the lights and shifted it to the daunting precipice. “How do we go down from here? Do you have an elevator or something? Hopefully not slime-infested?”
Eleanor laughed and said, “You still haven’t noticed, huh?”
“Noticed what exactly?”
“I thought you had an eye for detail.”
Vance searched the dangerous drop for any signs of a mechanism.
Eleanor laughed again and said, “Hang on tight.”
The moment Vance grabbed her waist, she whipped the snaky mane. Agatha galloped forward and off the edge of the crater. They started falling, just as they had fallen into the valleys that Dunaliathan shaped. When they were about to hit the ground, however, Agatha’s glass hooves began to sparkle with a subtle but beautiful glow. The mount glided in the air for a few scary seconds, touched down on a scree with graceful steps, and continued to gallop toward Argilstead, where a caravan of Fly Merchants was just arriving.