Wyatt woke with a start. The difference between the nightmare before and the world he woke to was made blurry by the weight that refused to lift from his chest. After some time, he realized the weight was not physical heaviness at all, simply the persistent pain of injury.
This realization brought comfort to the human. Physical pain was easy to explain, easy to ignore.
As his breathing began to slow, Wyatt tried taking stock of his situation. As before when he fell through the floor, he could see nothing, but was acutely aware of the mounting injuries to his body. His mind had become clearer, surprising to the mage who had always heard that sleeping with a concussion was a terrible idea.
Wyatt wondered for a moment where his pursuers had gone to and why he was still alive. It was impossible for him to have only been asleep for mere moments.
And yet, if the bodies were still coming, he would have heard the shuffling. When he listened, he was greeted with silence, the lack of sound deafening to him in a darkness now too familiar.
It was then that he realized he was still gripping the rock in his hand. Looking at it, or rather in the direction of where he knew it to be, the mage decided he needed to see. Whether through impatience, or the need to use one of his senses beside the feeling of pain, he withdrew his quill from his cloak.
As he inscribed the rune for permanent light onto the stone, the lines glowed faintly, thanks to the magical nature of the ink. When he finished, he held the stone up and closed his eyes. Taking a breath, Wyatt flowed his mana into the rune, activating its effect.
Wyatt could see the light from behind his closed eyes, the blinding brightness of the rune the only thing he regretted about not being able to properly control the rune-based magic of this particular symbol. He slowly opened his eyes, letting them adjust as he did. When he opened them fully, he looked to the doorway he had crawled through. What he saw made him drop his glowing rock.
Corpses were staring back.
Wyatt stared in shock at the undead that had so recently tried killing him, as motionless as they were. They stood, still animated by whatever magic brought them back to unlife; their numbers amassed just beyond the arched door frame.
After several tense moments, Wyatt’s curious nature began to take hold. He summoned a wooden staff from his cloak and used it to pull himself to his feet. His ankle ached, just like the rest of his body, but already his injuries were beginning the slow process of healing.
Wyatt walked to the side, watching as the undead faces followed his movements, even taking a few steps to follow, but always remaining beyond the door. Wyatt moved to the other side, repeating his experiment with similar results.
The mage examined the door frame, looking for some reason these things stayed just beyond. He saw the reason immediately: a set of runes inlaid into the top of the frame. There were two of them set within two circles, similar to what he had seen before. The runes were new to Wyatt, and he quickly jotted them down on a piece of paper he withdrew from his cloak, before returning his attention to the bodies standing before him.
He stepped towards them, examining them closer. They were different from the orc-based corpses that had chased them in the cave. Those undead seemed to match the skeletons in the maze. These ones were something else. They were shorter than he was, standing just higher than his waist; the thought eliciting a chortle from the human as he realized his concussion addled mind hadn’t noticed this before.
Their heads were large for their bodies, but it was difficult to make out what their original form looked like through the decay caused by countless years of undeath. Their noses and ears had all rotted away, the skin that remained hanging loosely from their skulls. They wore strange clothing, and Wyatt realized that at one point their clothes would have been considered exotic, with bright and various colors long since faded into mocking shades of what they once were.
The bodies were reminiscent of dwarves, but Wyatt ignored that thought. They were short, that was sure, but their build was much more slender to what he remembered seeing in the mural flashbacks he had seen in the tower, if his own stereotypes of the stout race couldn’t be trusted.
Deciding not to press his luck, Wyatt turned from his research subjects to survey the room he was in. It was small, especially compared to the massive room of pillars he had fallen into. The stones were similarly decayed, and now that he looked closer at them he realized the architecture was different from the maze above.
Are these ruins on top of ruins?
Wyatt was never the archeological type, preferring instead to look to the future rather than the past, but the implications of this new set of ruins were immense. He made a mental note to share this information if he ever encountered someone else with a penchant for history.
Maybe archeologists exist in this world. Who knows?
There was one exit to the room that didn’t lead to a horde of living corpses. It was a door opposite the large room, leading to a long hallway. Wyatt followed this hallway, his pace slowed by injury and wariness. The ceiling of the hall was rounded, a stark contrast to the square topped hallway in the ruins above. The walls also looked like they were painted at one point, but even what color they used to be was a mystery to the human as he walked past.
There were no doors on either wall, even after several minutes of walking, slow as his pace was. The air that had been stale since he awoke was now almost choking Wyatt, and he soon realized it was not the air that had become thick, but the mana within it. Using Analyze Mana, Wyatt saw a kind of magic that he hadn’t felt before, one that involuntarily made him feel a sense of dread.
Death mana? Necromancy? It would fit given everything else here.
Your skill has leveled up:
Analyze – Level 9
Soon, Wyatt could see a door at the end of the hall. He examined it briefly, making sure there were no runes or obvious traps that could hurt him. Feeling the door was safe, Wyatt opened it and stepped inside. As he did, lanterns that lined the walls began to ignite, filling the room with light.
Wyatt smiled, not realizing how much he had missed being able to see. He placed his light rock into his cloak and began to examine the room. It looked like it was a library at one point, with walls lined with shelves for books. On closer inspection, Wyatt was dismayed to find that few of these books seemed to have survived the years.
As he looked at the state of the room, it was obvious to the mage that the destruction to the books had not entirely come from time, as marks of battle became more and more apparent. Some of the books that littered the floor had claw marks ripping open the leather covers, while others had been burnt to uselessness.
Still, some of the books seemed legible to the human, their secrets intact behind the barrier of language. Wyatt took as many of these books as he could, storing them on his own shelves in his spatial storage. They were few, and more than half were at least partially destroyed.
Knowledge is important, Wyatt though, unswayed by the prospect of deciphering a potentially dead language. My intelligence has grown considerably since coming here. I will learn what I can from these. Maybe I won’t feel so ignorant if I read these.
There wasn’t much else in the room but the destroyed literature, and Wyatt was more than a little disappointed that he couldn’t loot any useful equipment from these ruins. He tempered his expectations; not sure an ancient civilization would hide enchanted weapons or armor in a chest like they did in games.
Wyatt was walking towards the door in the back of the library when something caught his eye.
Your skill has leveled up:
Perception – Level 9
On the wall between two bookshelves was a frame. The glass of the frame was still intact, preserving the paper within.
A map.
Wyatt hadn’t seen much of the region he was in, much less the world as a whole. He could only assume that the map depicted this region, and he hoped he could make use of it. The map was delicately drawn, the details breathtaking even to Wyatt’s untrained eye. He could see what looked like towns and castles drawn on the map in various locations, but he would need more information if he was to determine which was the castle he was in.
Wyatt took the map, frame and all, and put it into his storage, hoping Gus or Alindra would have more insight for him. If they were still alive, that is.
He stopped for a moment, thinking about what just happened. Gus and Alindra were his allies, and he had fought beside them several times already, Gus even more so. And yet, when he thought of the possibility of their deaths, Wyatt thought only of the necessity of finding someone else to help him decipher the map. He shrugged the thought away, not wanting to delve too deep into his own psyche at this point.
Or ever.
Wyatt turned his attention back to his original destination, ready to find a way out of these depressing ruins.
Beyond the door was another room, this one decorated with old and rotted cloths hanging from various walls. The faded fabric reminded Wyatt of banners, each one with a different symbol and color now barely discernible from one another.
Wyatt paid them little heed, his full attention on the center of the room.
There before him sat a skeleton, unmoving and hunched over atop an ornate throne. The diminutive skeleton was clad in robes, their extravagance still obvious to Wyatt even through the signs of their age. The throne the skeleton sat on made it apparent that this was at one time an important individual.
Wyatt took in the figure that hunched before him, but his eyes remained fixed on only one thing: the staff held in its bony hands.
The staff was built of a dark wood with designs etched in gold along its length. The bottom end was capped with a metal spike, with studs lining its base. At the top was a large blue gem that formed a point, almost like that of a spear.
As Wyatt approached the throne, intent on examining the staff closer, the gem began to glow with a purple light emanating from inside of it. The purple of the magical light, coupled with the vibrant blue of the gem, created an otherworldly effect on the viewer, making it seem almost surreal against the backdrop of reality.
Wyatt found himself reaching for the staff, and had to consciously pull his hand back, the obvious danger of the skeleton bringing his mind back to the present. Now that he was only a few feet away, he got a better look at the skull. The general shape matched that of the other undead of this floor, but had a peculiar mark burned into the top that stretched all around the skull, with cracks spreading along the length of it.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Wyatt realized the shape of the burn mark matched perfectly with a crown. More importantly, the crown that now adorned his own head, and he surmised that this was once the ruler of this race.
Wyatt looked around the room, understanding the implications of its placement. This race, with the entrance to a throne room being a library of comparable size, meant that they valued intellect incredibly highly, and he lamented that he could not meet these people in life.
“Impressive, is it not?”
Wyatt dropped to a crouch, moving his staff to a defensive position as he turned toward the skeleton sitting on the throne. Only it was not a skeleton that stared back at him, but the face of a living woman. Her nose was large, even for her disproportionately large head, but the ears looked similar to his own. Her eyes were a light blue, with dark brown hair pulled back into braids. A green crown, similar to his but for the color, adorned her head, bringing together the perfect image of royalty.
“Who are you?” Wyatt asked, not moving from the defensive posture he had taken before.
“I am Ellaria, once queen of this land,” came the answer to Wyatt’s mind, the woman’s lips never moving from the smile she wore.
“How can I understand you?”
“Simply put? Magic,” the woman chuckled softly, a lighthearted noise that almost made Wyatt smile in response.
Wyatt cocked his head to the side, examining the woman more closely than before. She cocked her own head, mimicking his action. As he stared at the strange figure, he could almost see the skull behind the visage, its position still slumped and unmoved.
“An illusion?” Wyatt asked, apprehension replaced by curiosity.
“Correct,” was the telepathic response, the ghost of her head nodding slowly, “my race is rather gifted in illusions.”
“Were you gnomes, by chance?”
“That was one word we were known by, yes. Though it has been a long time since I have heard the word.”
“I imagine it’s been a long time since you heard any word,” came Wyatts response, colder than he intended. He placed the end of his staff on the floor, once more using it to support his weight.
The gnome chuckled again, unoffended. “That is true. Most don’t speak to the dead.”
“How is it you can speak?”
“In life, I had a strong affinity for necromancy.”
“That explains some things.” Wyatt looked at the green metal crown that adorned the ghost’s head and pointed at the crown on his own head. “What happened to your crown?”
“Taken,” the gnome’s smile faded for a moment, the peacefulness she exuded fading with it, “My people were hunted across our lands, pushed back to our stronghold here. Many of my people were killed to defend me, but I knew what our enemy wanted. I used the power of the crown to buy time for as many of my people to escape as possible.”
“Did they make it out?”
“Some did, yes. And they are alive to this day, I am happy to say.”
“How do you know?” A cynical question, Wyatt knew, but a valid one.
“Because I am still here,” the apparition smiled again, wider than before. “My crown could only be wielded by one of my race, and the spell I cast to defend this place is still in effect, which means the crown, wherever it may be, is still mine. Only when the last of us falls will others be able to claim its power.”
“Your spell to bring the dead to life?”
“Yes. The mana of my kingdom will fuel the spell as long as the crown belongs to me. It cannot be undone otherwise.”
“And as the orcs died to claim it, their bodies added to your defense.”
“Not at first. The spell was meant for the inhabitants of these lands to rise in its defense. Eventually, the orcs built upon our own collapsed and forgotten ruins, claiming the land as their own. Soon, they too were affected, and their dead began to rise. But they are not what we feared, they were only a tool for the one responsible for my death.”
“They were led by someone? It’s clear what they wanted, but who was it?”
“I do not know. I only know the single-minded focus they had in their goal. That kind of desire can spur any to do great and terrible things.
“The orcs came back to settle later, after they were released from their leashes. I sensed their presence many years ago. They must have believed the power that protected this place had passed, and soon fell victim to it. An unfortunate outcome.” She closed her eyes, clearly distraught at the unforeseen side effect of her spell.
Wyatt did not waste the mental energy in trying to figure out why she was sad to see those that destroyed her people falling prey to her spell.
“But you are here,” the gnome queen continued, looking Wyatt in the eyes, “This illusion is held in place by my own mana, and it is fading rapidly. It will be quite some time before I regain enough to manifest again. I cannot speak for much longer, though I yearn to, so long have I been imprisoned here.”
“I get the feeling you’re about to ask me to do something.” The response to his question came in the form of a prompt.
Quest Updated:
Cursed Dead
Conditions:
Uncover the source of the undead (Complete)
Make a decision
Rewards:
Experience
Description:
This once grand castle is now the tomb of a long dead civilization. At its heart lies the source of the undead hordes.
You must decide whether you will help the dead to rest.
“There it is,” Wyatt said with a smile as he read the prompt.
The gnome chuckled. “Was it obvious? When I first enacted the spell, it bound the souls of those that died to their bodies, allowing them to continue fighting after death. It was a powerful spell, made possible only by the power of my crown.”
“They fought as they were in life then, not as they are now?”
“Precisely.” The queen’s enthusiasm at being able to talk about her spell seeped through the seriousness of her request for a moment before she composed herself and continued. “An army of bodies, as they are now, has its uses, but an army of risen champions with the determination to defend their families is a much more powerful weapon.
“However, to push back death is not natural. Over time, their minds began to rot with their bodies, as the constant pain they felt from being denied their rest drove them to madness. The spell I cast held only one command: Fight. An error on my part, perhaps, but I did not have much time to prepare. Now, that word is the only thing that drives them. I believe they would kill their own kin, if given a chance.”
The queen closed her eyes, the pain of her decision evident on her ghostly face. After a few moments, she opened them, looking Wyatt in the eyes with the determination that only someone who understands the burden of ruling could understand.
“My people have defended this castle for countless years, enduring an unending pain you could not possibly imagine.”
“Can you not release them?”
“I cannot. My own spirit is held here by the staff I hold, a final, desperate measure to ensure the spell continued after my death, so my people could be safe after I was slain. Because of this, my body no longer responds to my will.” The apparition began to fade, the magic holding the illusion growing weak.
“How is that possible to bind yourself to an object?”
“Soulbound objects are destroyed when those they are bound to are killed,” she answered, her voice now reminding the young mage of the teachers he had a lifetime ago. “However, I was able to reverse that soul binding, tying my fate to that of the staff, instead of the other way around.
“Originally, the head of our arcane university was meant to destroy the staff when she herself rose from the dead, after the danger had passed. Alas, her magic was much weaker than we theorized after her resurrection, and she was unable to accomplish the task. For a time, she stayed with me, keeping me from falling into despair at our fate. When her mind began to rot, too, however, she knew she could not stay. In an effort to preserve the knowledge held in our library, she drew the runes that now keep the dead at bay.” The queen motioned back where Wyatt had entered this wing of the complex.
“How is it your mind is still whole?” Wyatt asked quietly, the air still heavy with the magnitude of the queen’s tale.
“Willpower, perhaps.” The queen looked away, contemplating a subject that had clearly been on her mind often. “I always had a high willpower. It is necessary to master necromancy. Perhaps it is because I am not inside of my body, though the pain that the others feel is also a constant friend of mine.
“Perhaps,” her voice softened, her eyes filling with illusory tears, “Perhaps my lucidity is my punishment.”
“You must destroy the staff and release my spirit,” she continued, looking back to the human before her, “Without me, the spell will end, and my people will finally be freed from their torture.”
The look of desperation on her ghostly face was replaced by a skull as her magic ebbed. Wyatt removed the staff from her hand and analyzed it.
Name:
Dragon Heart Staff [Legendary]
Durability:
100/100
Requirements:
None
Description:
This staff was crafted for the gnome queen Ellaria. The gem adorning the staff is made from the heart of a dragon, whose magic pulses to the beat of the wielder’s heart. It hoards power with the greed of its race.
Enchantment:
As mana-based abilities are used, the gem atop this staff builds power. The mana stored can be unleashed, allowing the wielder to utter a command affecting any within range. Strength of the effect is dependent on the willpower of the wielder along with the amount of mana stored.
This staff is powerful.
Wyatt stared into the gem adorning the top of the staff, the mana within him being pulled toward it immediately. The world around the gem seemed to fade into the background, as the light within began to glow. It pulsed faster and faster, and Wyatt’s heartrate began to increase, its rhythm syncing with that of the powerful artifact.
Is this thing trying to control me?
Wyatt dropped to a knee, his will straining to gain control of the semi-sentient artifact he held.
“Destroy it.” The voice of the queen was weak, fading into the background as the staff’s own power began to build. Wyatt strained against the gem’s intrusion; mana ripped from within him as the dragon heart’s hunger grew. Wyatt saw his MP pool draining rapidly, feeding the gem.
No.
Thoughts began to form in the mage’s mind, concepts not of his own creation as the dragon heart tried to take over. Wyatt struggled to push against the thoughts with all the strength he had left within him. The pain of his body began to fade, as the pain in his mind erupted to an agony he had never felt before.
NO!
Wyatt had felt worse pain before. Every second of his lonely existence was pain. Every waking moment a reminder of his failure, a reminder of the vengeance he would have on those that slaughtered the human race.
This pain is nothing.
Wyatt fought back, pushing the parasitic thoughts from his mind.
I. Am. In. CONTROL!
Wyatt pushed his will unto the dragon’s heart. He reached for it with his mind, his mana. He reached into the gem, exerting his dominance.
“Submit.”
The mage whispered the word, the sound exploding from his lungs like a crack of thunder.
Wyatt opened his eyes, only faintly aware of having closed them. The gem was dim now, the fading light pulsing softly as Wyatt took back control, the rhythm matching that of his own heart, and not the other way around.
Wyatt grinned.
“I am in control.”
A faint voice rang in his mind, One last desperate plea. “Please, set my people free,” it said, the sound pitifully quiet before falling silent altogether.
The mage looked at the image before him, his chest heaving as he struggled to regain his breath. The beautiful and lively visage of the queen replaced by the decrepit skeleton. He thought absently that he wished he could have known her before she had fallen. Impressive as she was in death, she would have been a queen worth following in life, her intelligence matched only by her dedication to her people and willing to make difficult decisions to ensure the survival of her kingdom and its people.
Wyatt stared for long seconds, his mind racing down two possible paths as he sought to find the outcome of the difficult choice he found himself in.
In the end, it was the queen’s sacrifice that helped him make his decision.
Wyatt turned from the throne and the long dead queen sitting motionless upon it. With her mana gone, Wyatt could no longer hear the queen’s words. He only felt the trace feelings of remorse mixed with a growing hatred as he strode from the throne room with his prize, ignoring her final plea as he pushed against the large doors that lead Wyatt away from his consequences.
As he walked down the hall lit only by the torch he held in his hand, Wyatt could still feel the hate building behind him. He continued forward heedlessly, his resolve unwavering as he willed his injured body not to stop until he knew he was safe from reprisal.
A ghostly scream pierced through the thick wooden doors as they slammed shut behind Wyatt, the sound echoing across the ruins as the queen flailed uselessly against her fate.
With all traces of remorse gone from his mind, the lone king only smiled at what his own fate would have in store.