The Gods knows how much we slept through the night or day, but it had to be several hours even though it feel like only a few. As far as I can speak, mostly in my case but the others also speak of it, the nightmares started just as our shift ended that assaulted us during our sleep did not get us a good night’s sleep, most of us while dreaming were aware of our surroundings, feeling the thousands upon thousands of piercing eyes watching and readying to strike while we were vulnerable in our sleep. Well it was not a completely sleepless night, but we are definitely more tired than we were yesterday or the day before that when we started our journey.
Yon-Krathy and Runa cast rejuvenating spells on us during the longer than planned breakfast, that I extended just so that we can rest a bit more and gain some energy especially now that we enter the more dangerous Stratum of the Upper Layer of the mountain, filled with stronger than your average monster living outside the plains and hills of the Northern Basin.
After that we pack up our stuff and leave, maybe an hour or two passed by, I’m not sure anymore, one of the effects of delving deeper into the mountain. While most of us got used to it already thanks to previous expedition and hunts, the newbies of the group even, including Gyda are getting a bit more nervous so to speak as the loss of feeling the passage of time kicks in to them mixed with the previous nightmares that creepily assaulted us.
**
We finally reached the crossroads after hours of walking that got slowed down by each monster pack we ran into during the way, slowly picking our regained energy that we barely managed to recover from the previous day. While we mostly just ran into a few more packs of goblins and a few other larger beasts that hunt in packs, it was enough to drain of our energies with the lack of good sleep.
Originally I was planning to just continue on, but even our mages are exhausted that leans the scales towards the decision of setting another camp up here for the rest of the day or night. After slowly setting up the camp, the same group of mine including Runa one of our mages that also lives with our clans, her parents were originally citizens of the northern kingdom which’s name got lost over the decades since the Nightscale rained its dark holy fire upon it, and Igareo a centaur that has been with us since I was a child, a very old and dear friend of mine who was once tried to taught me archery, but I gave up on it at the age of 24 when I realized it that I have zero aptitude for it.
Runa’s fiery red hair is enhanced even more by the glow of the campfire with her basilisk leather hood of her winter robe’s pulled down while also showing the bags of her, the result of the previous days or the ones before that sleepless nights, yet it does not ruin her natural beauty the Gods of the North blessed her with besides her strong magical prowess. She is still young and when she first joined us a few years ago, maybe four if this old one remembers right, I was hesitant to bring her with us to the mountain knowing its dangers, and previous experiences with younger members of our clan losing their lives and some even their sanity as we delved deeper and deeper, culling the monsters that would come out at night for food. While I still believe that a glorious death in any battle is preferable over dying of old age, I still wish for her to find some happiness beside her fervent love of the arcane and the exploration of this place. Maybe one day.
As we continue our talk for the rest of the watch duty of ours, the group that changed with us at the den of the goblins we first ran into, come to replace us. Hopefully the nightmares stay away from us this time, but I have my doubts, looking at the trio of middle-aged orcs, bags and forced smiles plastered on their faces when I ask about their sleep and if they feel rested, answering in sweet lies to me to make me feel less worried about them. Fools.
**
We are walking in the pathway of the mountain’s Upper Layer Lower Stratum, dimly lit in a mix of dark violet and red light giving an ominous look to the dark cave, our mages Runa and Yon-Krathy not using Magelight this time to keep their mana reserves on a preferable amount for the coming battle.
While we walk onwards in a slow pace, watching all our sides feeling the thousands eyes piercing stare unseen to us. As we approach the end of the straight pathway reaching the dwarven structure of a gate leading into their outpost like temple, members of the group slowly disappear into nothingness, a darkness that follows us slowly swallowing them up one by one each of us ignoring the ones who disappear in a heart wrenching and scream that fills us with an uneasy feeling close to the cold shivering terror a child feels when it is surrounded by wild barghests of the North.
Then when it is only me in the suffocating darkness that snuffed out the dim lights of the path, that Thing appears. A creature whose flesh like skin is made of the darkness of the starless night sky, standing on two legs, four arms sprouting from its armpits each different kind. One being the muscled hand of a human, the other the slender arm of some elven kin, the third a slender elven like weirdly mutated making it remind me of the frontal legs of a Basilisk while the fourth one has carapaces on it ending in demonic claws similar to the previously mentioned one with unevenly long fingers. Long eerie warm red lines forming into veins that offers a faint light in the dark courses through its tall torso resembling the World Tree with its roots continuing down its muscled legs with a an exoskeleton that is only visible when the red veins pulse with a thin loincloth extending from the waist part of the exoskeleton made of shadows
The Thing standing several heads above me almost touching the sharp ceiling of the path that is slowly enveloped, eaten by the darkness, with its bald deathly skull like head adored only with two eyeholes with small horns forming into a crown under its shade made hood emitting the empty dark that eats all in its path and hundreds of different pupils in each of them, some human like, some that belong the spiders, basilisks and bats while its mouth is separated, or more like cut in two revealing the layered red glow that is warmer to the insides of its endless throat filled with arms wailing to the outside on the sides and a tongue between them made up of various tongues of creatures and intelligent races both made of the same darkness that makes up its skin and scaled slender yet muscled body.
As it walks towards me I feel the non-existent ground beneath us silently shake, a terror that tells me that my imminent doom is approaching me fills my body, making me unable to move even my fingers while six spider like legs protrude from the back of the Thing each of its ends shaping into faces in the darkness made legs that slowly lose their mass becoming tendril like, with one being an elderly human with a strange moustache on its face, a beautiful moon elven woman with parts of her fringes that frame her ethereally beautiful face flow down reaching the darkness under us, another moon elf, this one with a youngish looking man with bat like monstrous features, long fangs appearing in its eerily smiling face and the rest resembling a basilisk, a face of giant kin, the Dekatoncheires to be precise and the crude face of mountain ogres, all of their fleshy faces sprouting like the middle part of flowers between the petals, surrounded by dark reddish rows of teeth circling around them.
As it reaches me frozen in place, it hunches down with its enormous body that feels even taller from this distance, its maw opening even wider while the six faces on its tendrils surround and fill the edges of my vision with their ever creeping smiles and pitch black eyes filled with the hundreds of pupils like its main head’s. They are slowly pushed out of my vision as the hands made of shadowy mist reach towards me, the light in its maw starting to pulse and silently drumming, piercing my earlobes, making a headache that wants me to bash it split open just to end it while the cold palms touch my face, head and shoulders pulling me into the light where hundreds, maybe even thousands float in an endless sea of void with something even more terrifying slumbering in the deep.
As I start to make out its details, I wake up in cold sweat, almost screaming but still having some power in me to not so the others won’t wake up to it, while also stopping the seeds of terrors from spreading from me to the others. I look at my shaking hands, while trying to make sense of the thing, a fly with a horrible stench flies off of it and I clean off my sweat with a cloth I bring myself to these ventures. I lay back to the makeshift bed I made in my small tent, closing and opening my eyes at least five times before I decide to just not close them, feeling the same terror slowly subsiding and after a few hours I managed to drift back to a dreamless sleep this time.
**
After getting an hour or two sleep we pack up the tent, everyone visible still tired, but no one is willing to talk about the nightmares. I want to ask them if they dreamt about the same Thing as me, but I decide against it, remembering that we are here to subjugate the vampires that taken up residence in the dwarves place. I’m no longer sure if we are capable of fighting them, and the thought of just returning home enters my mind.
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But in the end I decide against it, thanks to Runa and Yon-Krathy casting a rejuvenating spell on me and then the others, knowing that failure would taint the reputation of our clans, giving chance to one of the smaller ones to rise in the favor of the Pentarch including those Dhau-Íssz folks. That is the last thing we need. I give the order and we all start heading up the elevating path leading to the middle archway where the road leads down into the Lower Stratum.
**
Before we entered the road to the Lower Stratum I gave the newbies one final warning that they can turn back here, telling them that from here on, while the High Exarch of the Nightscale keeps some of his undead here, the Lower Stratum is still filled with monsters that are beyond what they are used to hunting on the surface. Most of the creatures living down here are monsters mutated by necrotic energies flowing in the veins and paths of the mountain, slowly making even the goblins to much deadlier than they usually are down here, while also enhancing certain death affiliated ones like the basilisks, where even the children are capable of instantly killing an adult orc or human with their gaze.
They all replied unanimously that they will stick with us in a clearly forced cheerful manner, making me proud of them while also finding my courage that was lost during the night. We slowly made our way down the long twisty road while also staying on alert, but weirdly for the first time in my long lifetime and few decades of exploring and hunting down here, not a single monster attacked or even just approached us.
While usually it would make me glad, I recalled the dream and what Vhro-Ghakh said to me a few days ago or maybe even a week ago. The doubts of continuing on raise in me once again, pushing the courage once again into the deep. It could be also the vampires hunting or maybe something else. Like the spiders living near. It could be anything. With these thoughts I manage to calm myself once again while we continue on slowly reaching our destination.
**
As we got closer and closer to the end of the long road, finally turning horizontal indicating we reached the Lower Stratum after hours maybe even days after Runa and then Yon-Krathy cast Rejuvenation on us, eliminating the need for sleep and eating, we reached the exit where me and a few others started noticing the walking decaying corpses of various monsters and even some dark elves. At that moment I felt glad realizing that the lack of monsters was probably because of the undead, probably sent by the High Exarch himself just to be sure the vampires are cleaned out. A sigh of relief my mouth unconsciously followed by the senior members of our group.
But the relief we felt is quickly shattered by the abnormal scream of the undead as they rush towards us with speed not typical to them, not even to the High Exarch’s undead, while I also notice the same darkness floating within their decaying cadavers. As I quickly give them their orders to stand in a defensive formation, I notice the same terror plastered on their faces finally confirming that we saw the same thing the last sleep we had in this cursed place.
Then I hear Vrarig, one of our ogres scream as a web connects to his gray furred chest covered by a light armor of ours and then quickly pulled out of the formation, kicking over a few of them on the right and quickly disappears in the swarm of undead his deep screams muffled by the undead’s. Then Everon screams in pain as his upper human like body likes up in flames that quickly spread towards his lower horse body kicking all over the place, damaging many of the ones nearby himself. Chaos slowly spreads in our formation as the swarm of undead slowly approaches us.
Then Runa and Yon-Krathy start firing their offensive fire and shock element spells in tandem with the archers, managing to take down a few dozen of the undead, who then quickly get crushed by the other undead trampling over them like wild barghests that haven’t been fed in weeks. Then another round of spells and arrows reap the numbers of undead, giving me some time to think things through, coming to the conclusion after noticing some undead retaining bat-like features on their faces that the vampires are no longer amongst the living, effectively making our mission completed in a sense. I decide that with our current numbers and the state we are in with the two mages already getting slower in casting, the archers arms getting weaker with many of the arrows now not even hitting the undead, we stand no chance against the undead.
I scream as loudly as I can for them to retreat at the back, and the few newbies at the front, ordering Runa to lead the way for them to the outside while we keep the undead far behind while also keeping up with them.
After watching the back half disappear running in the distance I turn back seeing Yon-Krathy and Igareo keeping the spirit of the remaining ones while ordering them to take one step to the back as we slowly retreat. Sadly the undead have no intention of slowing down and they are almost meeting with the shields and spears of the vanguard. Then as I ready my battle axe dozens of undead forming a mass fall on top of the spears and shields, those who experience their second demise are used as stepping stones for the ones behind them quickly jumping down on the warriors with close range weapons and smaller shields behind them, some being too slow to react and gets torn into by one or more undead at the same time.
A few of those quickly get up and start running towards me readying their sharp claws mutated by the necrotic energies flowing inside their moving cadavers, but they get quickly taken down by my reliably axe that I have been using the past 30 years now. We manage to keep most of the undead on the other side of the shieldwall while cutting down the ones that leap over it. Then the undead on top of the fallen ones stand to the sides in the middle leaving a gap for a coming ball of flames to fly past through it hitting Igareo behind me a few meters while he was preparing another arrow, quickly turning his war experienced body to a charred carcass.
I raise my shield to protect myself from the next one clearly aimed at me. I feel the hotness of the flames spread over the edges of the shield, even burning my legs through the bone and metal made plates protecting it, with the only reason for me being still alive is Yon-Krathy quickly erecting a ward in front of me after he noticed the coming spell, putting the last of his efforts into the protective spell. Then in the next moment a spear shaped necrotic energy hits him straight in the chest, his body quickly drying up, his yellowish eyes turning to dust falling out from the sockets, his tusks cracking and the sharp tops falling down to the floor of the wide and high ceilinged floor, his mummified remains kicking up some dust as it hits the floor.
As I turn back facing the swarm of undead still standing on the sides tearing the spearmen of our group to pieces now, a small ball of lightning with speed that makes it barely visible hits my body, sending a painful shockwave through my body making me groan, then I slowly feel my consciousness fade with the last thing I see is the slim yet quite fit elven figure with mixed snow and dark like the night skin looking down on me with a motionless cold look on his elven face while he is crouching down to me slowly, touching my chest then a burst of necrotic energy enters my body, making me feel cold and calm before I enter the Halls of Valhalla.
**
Post Chapter Notes: Orcs
Orcs a race of humanoid life forms within the multiverse with monstrous, almost boar like features were originally the unfinished project of the Aesir, namely Thor and Odin who were designing a perfect race for war and battles, with a much more fairer form in mind than the one they currently possess. But as with most of their earlier projects, this one was meddled with by a certain Trickster God, many times which then lead to it being shelved so to speak for many centuries before a now forgotten dead God, one that as far as we know was a God of War and Glory that swore loyalty to the Ur-Reaper not long before the war broke out between his faction and the rest of the multiverse at the time. Technically this God made very little changes to the original design that was meddled with, only adding a few more things making the orcs one of the best warriors of the Ur-Reapers forces, leading to many of their early victories.
As the war went on, the Aesir who recognized their earlier discarded project, began to harbor feelings of regret after seeing what the orcs are capable of. They began to tempt the orcs with great promises, one of them being an entry to the halls of Valhalla the moment their life ends in battle, which is not so rare for a race like the orcs. For many of the orcs, this single promise sounded well compared to the alternative, a plain old afterlife, especially after their God was slain somewhere in the middle of the conflict. At first only a few clans of theirs joined the side of the Gods, then these numbers began to grow exponentially after the forces of the Ur-Reaper suffered losses upon losses.
After the Banishment of the Ur-Reaper behind the Veil, and with the end of the war that ravaged the multiverse, the orcs as per their agreement with the Gods gained their own world, while those who remained loyal to the Ur-Reaper hid in various worlds, bidding time for the return of their master. Then as Elysium finally finished, they were amongst the many races whose some members were granted the opportunity to settle down in that world.
There most remained loyal to the Aesir and various Gods of Battle while also worshipping less violent ones, some even starting to worship Gods of Crafts, which then led to their blacksmithing being one of the best in Elysium just behind humans and dwarves. Their orcish scaled armor is heavily liked by adventurers, while their warhammers are said to be capable of breaking the scales of dragonic kinds.
But as mentioned previously, there are still some orcs who worship the Ur-Reaper to this day, believing in the day he returns to fulfill what he started eons ago. Most of these orcs are currently found in the North, in the ruined Kingdom of Viðr idolizing the dreaded enormous black dragon the Deadfire, one of the remnants of the Ur-Reaper’s legions, which survived the war while terrorizing numerous worlds, finally settling in Elysium where allegedly he found something in the cursed Mount Dhaugrúz’s dark heart.