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Death by any other name
Chapter One: Whats my name?

Chapter One: Whats my name?

My name is Mortus, For the life of me, I cannot remember my last name. The farthest back I can remember is a couple of days ago when I woke up in a dark and gloomy dungeon surrounded by the corpses of fallen adventurers.

"Was I the one who did this?" I remember asking myself.

The most memorable thing about all of this was the feeling of the ground squishing beneath my hands and feet as I tried to get up. Blood covered the ground causing my hands to slip. The floor wasn't the only thing covered in blood; my clothes were drenched. My body had no wounds on it so it must be the blood from the dead adventurers, or so I had thought.

At the time I was wearing a tattered shirt with long pants. Apparently, I wasn't an adventurer like the ones on the ground, they all were equipped with armour and weapons. Looking at my body and lack of armour and weapon I seemed more like a slave if anything. I struggled for a short while to get on my feet because of the blood, and for some reason, I felt weak.

Though I felt weak, I couldn't just sit on the ground all day I had to find my way out. But finding my way out would turn out to be difficult there was no light in the hall I was in only moonlight shined through a small grate above my head. I grabbed the grate and pulled with as much force as I could, but to no avail, it was too tightly in place. Having no idea where I was, why I was there, or if it was dangerous or not I grabbed a sword lying next to one of the dead adventurers and started my walk down the hallway.

The hallway was long and narrow only wide enough to fit two people standing side by side. Dripping water could be heard echoing off the walls. It had felt like an hour before I made it to the end of the hall where it split off into two directions. To my right was pitch black and to my left was pretty much the same thing either direction I went it would be in the dark. Just as I turned my body to go left, I could hear the sound of metal clinking on the ground to the right of me. I darted toward the sound without a second thought later I would come to regret that immensely.

As I sprinted farther down the right hallway, even more, clanking of metal could be heard. The sounds grew even louder the closer I got. I passed through an archway and entered a large room that was filled with shelves and desks, in the centre of the room two men fought. One man suited in full plate armour painted black swung a massive claymore around like it was as light as a feather, the other was a man no older than twenty who wore chainmail and a kite shield. The young fighter was clearly no match for the black knight but fought with all his might to survive.

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The black knight swung his claymore against the man's shield knocking it into the air but the man recovered quickly and blocked another mighty blow, but this blow knocked him into shelving. Just as he brought the claymore up to deal the final blow, he looked over at me. The slots in his helmet glowed red with an evil light.

"who is this? A stray? A friend? Or perhaps a foe?" he asked, his voice echoed as if it came from the nether.

"well worm, speak your name!" he demanded, bringing his claymore down on the young man with a crash causing his chest to cave in.

I had no idea what to say the pressure this man gave off was terrifying if I wasn't frozen in fear I may have been shaking. He advanced closer to me pointing his sword at me with one arm.

"if you do not speak I will cut you down here and now!"

"I.....I don't..... my name is Mortus." I stammered before telling him my name.

His eyes looked as if they were examining me.

"what have you come for? to challenge me like this fool? or for something else?"

"Did this man live down here? If so what did he eat to survive?" these thoughts raced through my head as I stood frozen in fear. If I didn't come up with a suitable answer, he might do to me what he did to that adventurer just a second ago.

I then came to the conclusion there was no more appropriate answer than what actually happened to me. Clearing my throat and clenching my fists to keep my nerves in check I answered.

"I woke up in this dungeon with no recollection of what happened to me. I do not even know what my last name is or why I was in a pool of blood." I braced myself for an immediate reaction, but he did nothing.

He stared at me with those fiery eyes. He started to walk a circle around me examining me from head to toe. Stopping a few times to look up and down. After a few full circles around me, he stopped and looked at my sword and shook his head then continued to walk around me. After five minutes or so of walking around me, he stopped and walked away while humming to himself. He walked over to a shelf and bent over rummaging through the junk that was stored there. The black knight stood up after grabbing a box and wiping the dust off of it. He then promptly handed me the box and began rummaging through the junk again looking for something else.

I was confused, about what this man was doing. But I kept my mouth shut and waited for him to return. This time he came back with something behind his back.

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