Zeke slotted the final piece into the item, then held it up before him. It blazed with ethereal light, dispersing the fog directly in front of him. Instantly, his mind cleared, and he remembered where he was, what he was doing, and why.
“The Lantern of Clarity,” said Eveline. “Another myth made real.”
Zeke nodded, studying the item. It was well named, considering it looked like an old oil lantern, though one made entirely of glass. For what felt like an eternity, Zeke had wandered through the Plains of the Forgotten, slowly gathering pieces of that lantern. At first, he’d had no idea what those pieces represented, but during a few idle moments, he’d noticed that two fit perfectly together. Since then, he’d gathered more than a hundred pieces, putting them together until, at last, they formed what Eveline had referred to as the Lantern of Clarity.
Just as it had earned the first part of its name, so too was the latter part appropriate, because it dispersed the fog and returned his memories. For the first time in a long time, he remembered his companions. The tower. His history. And those memories weren’t ephemeral and wispy things, as they had been before. Now, they were just as solid as they had been before he’d leaped into the Pit.
It brought tears to his eyes.
“How long have I been down here, Eveline?” he asked.
“Years. Beyond that, I have no idea,” she answered.
“Do…do you think they’re okay? Back in the tower, I mean.”
“I don’t know, Ezekiel. Probably,” she replied. “You left them with every advantage. They have all the resources they could ever want, and your friends are all capable leaders. You have to trust them.”
Zeke did, but more than once, during moments of weakness, he’d tried to summon a gate to the tower. The idea was to flee the purgatory in which he’d found himself, but he knew that underlying those desires was a need to see his companions. Of course, it hadn’t worked. Whatever magic governed the Pit prevented him from escaping back to his old life. There was only way out, and that meant descending through every circle until he found himself on the other side.
But just because he acknowledged that didn’t mean he was happy about it. In any case, Zeke was forced to confront those suddenly clear feelings, and that almost made him throw the Lantern of Clarity aside. He refrained from such a ridiculous and pointless action, instead focusing on the opportunity it afforded him.
Suddenly, he wouldn’t need to just wander from one obelisk to another. He could plan. He could chart a course across the Plains of the Forgotten and defeat the guardian of the gate to the next circle of hell.
With that in mind, he set off, full of purpose. It was only after the first hundred steps that he recognized a couple of serious issues. First, he still didn’t know which way to go. The obelisks were still necessary in that respect, and he would need their guidance if he was going to find his way to the other side. Second, the lantern did not possess an infinite source of fuel.
Which meant he was on a timer.
So, he wasted no more time thinking. He simply felt. It wasn’t easy, as he was unused to casting his senses outward. However, he was quick to realize that his wandering hadn’t been quite as random as he’d thought. Instead, he’d been following his metaphysical senses the entire time. Now that he had clarity of thought, he could feel them even more keenly.
Gradually, as the power in the lantern was continuously spent, Zeke made his way across the plain. Along the way, he fought more of the Forgotten Keepers. However, he could now harness far more of his strength, so dealing with them was much easier. He still couldn’t shatter them in a single blow – not like he thought he should’ve been capable of doing – but he could definitely crack their stone bodies.
And he did.
Over and over again until, eventually, he managed to destroy the leg of one of the statues. It toppled to the ground, hitting with a massive thud, and Zeke immediately pounced. A moment later, he was atop it and using Voromir like a sledgehammer. The first ten blows didn’t do much, but the next ten cracked its head. The next ten shattered it to pieces.
That’s when Zeke felt a surge of strength.
“What the hell?” he asked aloud, staggering backward. But he already knew the answer to his question.
So did Eveline, who said, “They’re holding your attributes captive. Kill them, and you will regain your full power.”
Zeke had already suspected as much, so he immediately set out to find more Keepers. He knew he didn’t have much power left in the lantern, but he also suspected that if he was less than full power when he challenged the warden of the Forgotten Plains, he would be destroyed.
With that in mind, he added another task to his to-do list. Recover his strength. Find his way through the Forgotten Plains. Then defeat the Warden.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
In a way, his previous supposition was correct. The shards of memory had shown him the way to restore his strength. By assembling into the lantern, they had lit the path to full recovery. But as seemed to be the case with everything in the Pit, there was more to it than it seemed at first glance.
Doubtless, his next steps would be dogged with misconceptions and false paths. But what else could he do? He couldn’t make himself stop and investigate every facet of his descent. That was a sure path to ruin, just as any other failure. No – he needed to keep it in mind and adjust accordingly. Anything less, and he would fall prey to the many dangers of the Pit.
After killing the Keeper, Zeke continued on, following his instincts as he stalked the others. The second kill came far more easily than the first – probably because of how much his strength had been restored. However, it was by no means easy. Just as before, his victory was rewarded with another sliver of his power.
Like that, Zeke’s trek across the Plains of the Forgotten continued. Even though he’d regained his wits, he still lost track of time. There was nothing to help him mark the days, but he felt certain that months passed. With each day spent, the lantern’s power dipped a little lower.
Eventually, he found more shards, which he used to replace spent portions of the lantern. Because of that, his timer extended much further than he would have thought possible.
Dozens of Keepers fell by his hand, and with every kill, he regained a little more of his power. Finally, he started to feel more like himself. Not entirely, but he could feel a connection with his strength that had been absent for far too long. Once he reached that point, the battles against the Keepers became trivial.
Then, at last, he found his way to something new.
“A maze?” he asked aloud.
“Seems that way,” Eveline answered. She was his only companion, and he knew that he would have long since gone insane without her living in his mind.
He shrugged. “Any lore about this I should know?” he asked. So far, she had been an invaluable source of information. Her input only came at the last second – when her own memory was jogged by events – but Zeke would have succumbed to his trials long ago without her help.
“No. This is entirely alien to me.”
“Oh. Fantastic,” Zeke murmured.
Then, he stepped forward into the maze. Inside, the fog was even denser, and the lantern’s power began to dissipate faster than ever before.
“At this rate, it’ll be gone in a few hours at most,” he said.
“Then you’d better make it through this maze by then.”
At that, Zeke took off at a jog. When that proved too slow, he decided to take a chance and simply ram his shoulder into the stone wall. It didn’t fall, but it didn’t seem entirely impregnable, either. So, Zeke took a bigger lead-up, then charged. He pushed himself as hard as he could, and when he collided with thew all, there was a brief struggle. Then, the wall lost.
It crumbled before him, and his momentum kept him going. Without hesitation, he leveraged his strength into another charge, knocking down the next wall in his way. Then, the next.
It was highly unlikely that was the strategy meant to overcome the challenge, but Zeke couldn’t have cared less about that. All he cared about was results, and he’d gotten precisely that. So, he kept going, ramming through the walls like an out-of-control train.
Then, suddenly, there was no wall before him. Instead, a huge figure – probably fifty feet tall and dressed like an armored knight – loomed before him. Its armor was pitch black and filigreed in gold, and it carried a sword to match its enormous size. The entire figure glistened with so much mana that Zeke very nearly fell to his knees in reverence.
It wasn’t a god like Shar Maelaine or the dragon’s mother, but it was a step above anything else he’d ever seen.
“You make a mockery of my preparations,” the thing intoned. Its voice was androgynous, but louder than anything Zeke had ever heard before.
Zeke craned his neck to look up at the thing. It was perhaps even larger than his first impressions suggested, but it was by no means the largest creature he’d ever seen. That label still belonged to the cyclops he’d killed in his first dungeon. That thing had been the size of a mountain, and Zeke had managed to take it down. So, despite its obvious power, Zeke wasn’t even remotely intimidated by its presence.
He looked back at the rubble he’d left in his wake, then said, “You shouldn’t have put them in my way, then.” He hefted his hammer onto one shoulder. “So, are we doing this thing, then?”
“Are you so eager for a true death, Descender?”
Zeke shrugged. “Maybe. If it gets me out of this damned fog, then sure,” he admitted. He could deal with a lot, but having his mind toyed with held a uniquely detestable spot in the list of things that bugged him. “You could always just step aside, though.”
“That is not possible.”
“Didn’t think so,” Zeke admitted. “So, what are you, anyway? You’re the warden, right? Does that make you a god?”
“I am no deity,” it stated. “I am the Warden of Lost Souls, as you well know. My inmates have shown you the way, hoping that you would free them. Naïve spirits. Their efforts will only serve to add another to their number.”
“Are they in pain?”
“They feel nothing. They know nothing. They are blank,” said the Warden.
Zeke didn’t believe that, even for a second. The fact that those whispers had guided him – albeit, in a roundabout way – to a pending fight with the Warden suggested that they were aware. Not entirely, but enough. Far more than the Warden gave them credit for, in any case.
“Do you truly believe you can defeat me?” it asked.
Zeke wasn’t sure how to answer that. The enormous creature was clearly powerful. Far more so than he was, especially without access to his skills. The Pit had sealed even [Hand of Divinity] away, leaving Zeke with only his attributes and mettle to rely upon. But that would have to be enough.
“And if it isn’t?” asked Eveline.
“Then this little vacation will be cut short.”
“Is that how you see this?”
“Of course not. It’s Hell, Eveline, and it’s everything that name implies. You call that place up above Hell, but it’s not. At best, it’s Hell-adjacent. This is the real thing,” he stated inwardly. “Besides, like I keep saying – there’s no turning back. This is the path I’ve chosen, and I need to walk it.”
So, without further hesitation, he stepped forward, saying aloud, “I’ve killed bigger and badder things than you. Let’s get this thing over with. I want to see what the next circle has in store.”
“You do not know what you are saying. This is nothing compared to the Tempest.”
“I’ll figure out how to overcome that, too. Now, quit stalling. You’re not getting out of this fight.”