The road to Silt was more of the same rolling green hills and sparse trees that I was used to, but, after about an hour, it started to even out, before eventually it was like we were walking down a gentle incline as we neared the vast body of water in the distance. The lake itself was oval, with a few small rivers and streams leading away from it, and at one end passed the great Riven that, akin to its name, tore through the landscape with its tumultuous waters.
Silt Lake was visible for a while before we noticed its namesake village. Silt blended in with the landscape quite well as it had been constructed entirely of the same grey-brown wood, which made it almost disappear when viewed from afar, thanks to the grey shoreline of the lake. As the village’s name indicated, it had been constructed atop the shore, where the ground was porous and the sediment easily shifted, which was evident from the handful of old houses that lay partially swallowed in the gravel and sand. The rest of the village stood upon stilts and great beams that must’ve been driven ten-metres-or-more into the ground, and the strategy seemed to have mostly worked, although, even with the stilts upon which the houses and walkways stood, parts of the village were sunken to the point that reaching them by the many crisscrossing walkways was impossible, and thus the residents of these unfortunate homes had to rely on rope ladders.
“What a shithole,” Patrik commented.
“I think it’s quite charming,” said Jakob.
As we came near, I noticed that the village was completely abandoned, or at least I couldn’t see any people going about. It immediately brought to mind the farmstead, where the Red Runners had killed and tortured all the former residents.
“There’s no one here,” I said. “If it’s a fishing village, there should be people out on the lake and on the piers, right?”
“I actually don’t know what to expect here,” Jakob replied, as if that wasn’t a normal thing. I guessed he was used to relying on the information he bought from other players.
“Now entering Stage ‘A Looming Shadow’.” Alongside the Stage banner came a melancholic refrain of a violin that sounded very similar to the one that’d been playing during the Farmstead Stage, although more ‘haunted’.[1]
“I’ll take vanguard,” Patrik announced, stepping onto the tilted walkway that led to the first of the many small houses on stilts. As he walked, decked out in armour just like Jakob’s, though with a soldier’s Barbute on his head, the boards of the walkway creaked in unison with the sounds made by his chainmail and shifting leather underneath. He held a kite shield in his left hand, similar to Jakob, but in his right fist he gripped a spiked mace.
Jakob had taken up the rear, his kite shield strapped to his left forearm, but his bow in hand. The shield wouldn’t interfere with his aim, but he lost some flexibility and dexterity at the cost of being able to immediately respond to an up-close attack.
“Careful where you step,” Patrik warned, as we passed by the first of the many houses. “The floorboards here are rotted through.”
The house we passed was very modest, to the point that those of the Forgotten Village were almost luxurious by comparison. It had a thatch roof that smelled strongly of fermentation. It was probably many seasons overdue for a replacement.
As we moved through the village, we walked up-and-down many of the walkways between the stilt platforms upon which singular houses stood, but eventually we reached the heart of Silt, where a bunch of the platforms stood close together, and the houses were bigger.
When we drew close to the biggest of the houses, one that looked like a longhouse or something, we heard sounds of splashing water, like people jumping in puddles, and loud slurping and gorging noises. I tried to imagine what exactly would be making such sounds, but it only brought to mind a pigsty, where hogs would frolic in the mud.
Patrik slowed as we neared the barn-like door to the longhouse, and, before he opened it, he looked back at us for confirmation. Jakob and I both nodded. Patrik had only just put his weight on the large door, when it smashed opened from within, breaking off its rusted hinges and slamming him backwards.
The violin changed its pace and became a frantic cacophony that sent my heart into a stressed-out flutter.
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The creature that landed before us immediately went for Patrik, but I rushed forward and whacked it with the flat of my blade, sending it tumbling away. We all looked at it in horror, while I quickly helped Patrik stand.
Once it might have been a human, but its slate-grey skin and prominent black veins set it apart, add to that its big eyes and outward-jutting teeth that seemed to go back three rows, plus the fact that it moved on all fours, and it was clear that all humanity had left its body. What made it truly horrifying however, was the large shadowy arm growing from its back like a parasitic serpent.
An arrow immediately settled itself in one of its large protruding eyes and foul purple-black blood spattered the floorboards and the shattered barn door. Without skipping a beat, Patrik surged forward and slammed his mace into its head, instantly killing it… or so I thought, but then the long shadowy limb swung for him and he only barely managed to catch the blow on his shield.
As he was pushed back, I moved forward and used my newly-acquired Lacerate. With two lightning-quick slashes, I carved into the flank and back of the crawling figure, scattering more of its foul blood. I dodged around the shadow arm as it tried to gut me with its claws, and, as I watched the crawling and corrupted Red Runner move along with the movements of the supernatural limb, it reminded me of the second fight with Red Rian. Whatever power it was that they were possessed by, it was utterly controlling their bodies and minds.
Another arrow slammed into the ruined leather jacket of the figure, just next to where my Lacerate had torn into its body. A moment later, Patrik moved forward again, landing another crushing blow to the creature’s head.
“I think you have to fully sever the head!” Jakob yelled.
Patrik gave him a quick look, as if to say: “What do you think I’m trying to do??” But then again, he was wielding a mace, so severing anything was out of the equation.
I ducked under a slash of shadow claws aimed at my head, and then flung my katana upwards, chopping off the head from below. As the ruined head fell away and the neck started sputtering the putrid blood all over the boards of the platform, the shadowy limb seemed to retreat back into the shadow of the creature.
“Shit. There’s another two inside…” Patrik commented. I wasn’t sure if we could handle two at the same time, especially considering the fact that the one we’d fought hadn’t actually been that aggressive.
However, we didn’t really have an option, so the three of us went through the ruined doorway and entered into a gruesome charnel house. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all utterly drenched in putrid purple-black blood, and in the corners of the rooms were piles of dead bodies, some former Red Runners by the looks of them, and the others no doubt the unfortunate fishermen who’d once called Silt their home. The discarded bodies all had one thing in common: they’d been cannibalised.
The two figures that Patrik had seen were laying on the floor, writhing in pain as their shadows collected and coalesced into shadowy arms. One of them had an arm growing from the back of his elbow, and the other had one clawing its way out from just below his clavicle.
I quickly ran towards the closest one and chopped its head off, killing it before the disturbing evolution could finish. A moment later, Jakob used his sword the decapitate the other.
We both breathed a sigh of relief, and he cast me a quick smile.
“Holy tits,” Patrik profaned.
I turned to look at what he’d found. There, just past the creatures we’d slain, was a taller figure, hung on meat hooks, its arms and legs shredded. I would’ve noticed it before on my cursory glance, if not for the fact that the discolouration of the corpse’s skin, and the buckets’-worth of purple-black blood it was covered in, camouflaged it amongst the spatter of gore around it.
“What is that?” I asked. The thing looked nothing like the Red Runners. It was almost like the corrupted slate-grey bandits were imitating this figure, since its skin was in an even worse state than theirs, held between death-and-life in some sort of permanent decay. Its head was covered by a close-helm that, judging by the scratch marks on its metal and the neck of the corpse, had been left on it after several failed attempts to pull it off. Most disturbing of all, was the fact that blood continued to slowly drip from its ruined limbs and the many deep gashes in its body, and where it landed, it sounded like rain dripping into puddles. But it wasn’t puddles that the blood was dripping into, rather, it was falling into big troughs that were already filled to near the brim.
“They’re collecting its blood,” Jakob said, realising at the same time I did.
“Is this how the Red Runners are getting their power? By drinking its blood?”
“I think this must be one of the Forlorn Knights,” he then said. “They’re possessed by some kind of shadow power. A lot of the information brokers talk about it openly, but I didn’t realise it was tied to the Red Runners and their madness…”
Patrik nodded, “Yeah, you’re right. But how are they organising this? Clearly they’re going mad as soon as they imbibe the blood.”
“Maybe it was different when Red Rian was alive. He seemed like he could control it, somehow,” I noted.
“So, what do we do?” Jakob asked.
“We’ve gotta clear out the remaining Red Runners here. They’re the reason why the roads are blocked.”
“And the corpse?” I asked, looking at the hooked body.
Jakob smiled sadistically. “We could feed it to Barney.”
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[1] Less aaaah, more ooooUuuuOOooo. You know what I mean?