[https://i.imgur.com/f8GRgOZ.gif]
CHAPTER 28: HAVE A GOOD DEATH…
…and in case I don’t see you later, a good afterlife, a good reincarnation and a good next ride.
Warning:
Your [Bloodthirst] has reached 100%
The window pops up and everything fades to black. Still, I receive no death notification, so it seems I didn’t croak just yet, just fainted. Now the question is, did I lose consciousness from the bloodthirst reaching maximum or from slamming brutally into the floor… Probably the former, I don’t think I’d have survived the latter.
Floating in the dark, I wait for one of two counters to appear, either a countdown to awakening or to death. Which one you get depends on how you fell into limbo, really.
However, neither appears. Instead, the darkness fizzles like a grainy old television and I suddenly wake up to a sound reminiscent of the lovechild between a harp and an acoustic guitar. Below me is a hard surface, but not the cold stone I’d expect from the floor of a cave where there isn’t even a single pool of lava. Nor is there the smell I would expect from a fresh-skewered undead. And, frankly, I don’t peg Thena as the type to play the guitar.
Dreading what my brain already half-know, I crack open an eyelid.
I immediately close it again.
“Oh, for the love of…” I groan.
I’m in a small, antiquated and posh octagonal room like you’d imagine seeing in an old renaissance castle. So far, nothing out of the ordinary—if you omit the fact the whole room is tilted at a ninety-degree angle and I’m currently lying down on my back on one of the eight walls, with the ceiling to my left and the floor a distance away to my right.
Slowly, I drag both hands over my face. Then I open my eyes again and get up, a hand against the… well, the ceiling to support me. I certainly don’t want to trip and fall through that window I see over there. The landscape outside is equally tilted and the gravity around here obviously cannot be trusted to bring me back to the ground. I don’t think I’d actually die… but I still trust nothing in this place.
In the centre of the room—on the floor to my right thus—stands a strange contraption that has been making the soft and, I’ll admit, not unpleasant music I’ve been hearing. Although, the object itself looks like a bunch of string instruments got caught in a space distortion and started melting together but stopped halfway before growing tiny wooden mechanical fingers which were now playing the music.
(AN: For those who can’t picture it, go and have a look at the video in the top note.)
It was both creepy and elegant, like watching a spider in slow motion with a background of opera music.
It also cemented my certainty this was the place I feared this was.
“As if the fucked up gravity hadn’t been enough.”
“Shut up.”
Only two places had this sort of things. One was the internet. And this wasn’t the internet.
“And the cat casually drinking tea at a table next to the nightmarish instrument may have been a clue.” I shot the floating goth woman sitting cross-legged and slowly drifting and spinning across the room a glare. She shrugs. “Just sayin’.”
I ignore her and address the cat.
“What do you want? It’s been a while, I almost thought you were done with bothering me.”
“Ah, but wouldn’t you be bored without some Chaos in your life? Hmmm?”
Of course, it’s the teapot who answers.
Typical.
This guy gives me headaches.
The teapot suddenly shakes and a jack-in-the-box looking much like Laughing Jack—google it—suddenly pops out. “Good morning!!”
I gratify the clown with my most heartfelt deadpan glare and a lovingly disdainful raised eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
The clown blinks and tilts his head. “What?”
“Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not, or that you feel good this morning, or that it is a morning to be good on?"
“…are you trying to steal my job?”
“No, just to trigger the copyright sensors.”
“……”
*poof*
The clown vanishes in a puff of smoke and is replaced by a huge grinning chicken with teeth, wearing a bowtie and a top hat and hovering in the room of a flying skateboard.
I roll my eyes. “If you want my opinion, I think you do your job alright.”
“Aw. Happy birthday too.”
“………So, is there a reason for you summoning me? Or are you just bored? Also, why does she have a corporeal form in this place.” I point at the floating goth woman, who grins, revealing sharp fangs and waves. “I get why this one’s there.” I point at another figure—a little girl covered in blood who sits curled up in a corner, shaking her head back and forth and mumbling a litany of curses—then return my finger to the floating woman. “But isn’t that one just a figment of my imagination?”
“Hey! I take issue in that.”
Apparently, the floating thing takes issue in that.
“I heard that.”
“Then shut up.”
She gives me the middle finger, with both hands, does a backflip and starts swimming the breaststroke around the room.
How silly.
“Well,” the chicken starts, picking spinach from his large square teeth with his claws, “this place is half my domain, half your imagination, half the game filling in the gaps.”
“There’s something wrong in that equation.”
“Your imagination probably.”
“…I’ll give you that one.”
“Happy Hanukkah.”
“So, are you—What are you doing?” I’m distracted mid-question by that woman coming to hug me from behind and resting her chin on my head.
“I’m bored.”
“Well, I’m not a resting pole!” There is something fundamentally wrong in having the breasts of a manifestation of my own subconscious pressed against my back. However, since she doesn’t seem to want to move, I chose not to let it bother me.
Although, this does bring to my attention that I’m pretty short, for her to be able to do this. Only now does it dawns on me I’m still in Victoria’s appearance… even though last time I came to the Realm of Chaos, I had my Elric avatar… which made a sort of sense, since I come here only when I’m unconscious… and the real Victoria is mumbling over there…
I think I shouldn’t try to make sense of things in the domain of Chaos.
“Seems like the right choice.”
“Did I ask for your input?”
“No?”
“Then shut up!” I turn back to the chicken, who now is pink, for some reason. “…So, I wanted to ask, did you just call—Will you stop nibbling my ears!!”
“But it’s fun!”
“It tickles!”
“I know!”
“You’re insufferable.”
“I’m you.”
“That doesn’t make my point invalid.”
“Erm, not to interrupt you lovebird…” The godly chicken wedges in.
““I’m not a lovebird!”” Both of my glare at the divine poultry, which is covered in green polka dots now, for some reason.
I turn back to Other Me. “How would that even work?”
“Narcissism,” she nods wisely.
“Oh.” I nod as well. “Make senses.” I tilt my head. “Am I narcissistic?”
“Err, sometimes? Especially when in that body.” She looks me up and down with something like lust in her red eyes. Then she shrugs. “You are more egocentric, though.”
“Cuckoo!! Will you two—you one listen to me?!”
We both glance at the big chicken, who is gold-coloured now, for some reason.
I raise an eyebrow at me. “I think we’re upsetting the Chicken God.”
“Can I roast it?” She smiles predatorily.
I shrug. “Sure. But I call dibs on the wings.”
“No problem.” She turns, rubbing her hands and grinning madly. “I’ve always wanted to pluck a chicken alive by hand. To get in touch with my farming ancestry, you know?”
“You’re crazy.”
“I’m your repressed childhood memories.” She rolls her brown eyes. Where they brown? Why are they brown? “Of course I’m messed up.”
“……Is there something I should know?”
She shrugs. “Meh. Can’t tell. That’s why I’m repressed. Now let’s get to that chick—” *poof*
“That’s enough!! Nobody is plucking anybody!”
I blink, still staring at the place where my female alter-ego just went poof and disappeared.
Still blinking, I slowly turn back to the chicken… who is now on fire… for some reason.
“You poofed her.”
“She wanted to pluck me. Cuckoo!!”
“……”
“……”
“…fair enough. So—”
“Enough with this talking. I did not summon you only because I was bored.”
“THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN TRYING TO ASK!!”
“Well, ask faster.”
“……”
The flaming chicken explodes in a rain of popcorn and the tilted room distorts to be replaced by a prison cell. I’m outside the cell. Inside is a spanner with a bowtie.
“……” I don’t even feel like commenting.
The spanner talks. “I wanted to warn you that I’m quite restrained in what I can and can’t do in the mortal realm.”
“And thank God for that,” I mumble.
“You’re welcome.”
“……”
“And that’s why you, as my champion, are there to act in my name.”
“I never agreed to that job.”
I didn’t think a spanner could seem like it was rolling its eyes, but somehow this one manages it… even I am not sure how.
“Details, details—cuckoo!!”
Are you a spanner or a chicken?!
“Point is, if I meddle too much, the program becomes more restrictive as a countermeasure, and I’ve been meddling quite a lot lately.”
“May I know why—”
“Some things, that should not have been forgotten, were lost. History became legend. Legend became a myth. And for seven and a half thousand years, the continent gradually reconstructed itself anew from its ashes. Today, little to no memory remains of what fire had burned the land down in the first pla—”
“I read that quest description!”
“Then why are you asking?!”
Uuuuugh!!
“And now it’s you who’s messing with copyright sensors!”
The spanner grows arms and shrugs. “Meh. Kansas slipped through. I bet we can get away with anything.”
“Probably…” My shoulder drops dejectedly.
“Point is. Shit’s about to go down, serious shit, that’ll need fixin’, your fixin’, boya. Forget ‘bout this little undead invasion by Traitor McBackstabby the undead. That’s wet fireworks compared to the A-bomb that’s about to fall on everyone’s collective brain box. I’ve already done everything I could to shift things in yer favour. Even that little bit I just did there so that you didn’t hit that stone at a shitty angle was already pushing the limits of my damn programmin’.”
“You did something?”
“You think you can survive being thrown like that at a feckin’ rock when a little while ago you died by tripping, eh?”
“Err…” To tell the truth, I had a real hard time taking this conversation seriously when my interlocutor was a penguin with an eyepatch holding a giant cigar—somehow—and speaking in the fakest American accent possible.
When did he even change appearance again? This guy really makes my brain sluggish.
“Seriously, kid.” The penguin cartoon mobster is still going on. And when did it get a mohawk?! “Ye should have at least suffered brain damage when hittin’ that big ass stone. I should’av feckin’ let you fall to yar death for pulling off a stunt like that. But I didn’t, because I’m in yar corner, kid. And now, I’ll have the God of Death on my ass for this.”
“The God of Death?” There’s one I never met. And I really should have, since I’m me.
“Yeah, Gravelord. Nit-picky bastard. Always forcing me to come up with excuses.”
“……”
Do you even need to justify yourself? You’re the God of Chaos!
“Don’t underestimate Chaos, kid! Chaos needs a methodology! You can’t just throw everything into a mess and call it a day! That would be cha—wait a minute. I’ve lost my chain of arguments.”
“……”
“Anyway! Point is, I won’t be able to help you much from here on out, so good luck! Hahaha. Get it? Luck! I’m genius. Okay, seems like you’re coming to. Bye Bye. And Merry Christmas!”
“Wait, at least give me a—”
* * *
“—hint. Shit, that basta—Buaaaaaargh!!”
The first thing I do when coming to, in the underground cave this time, is to yawn a big bright chunky rainbow.
Although, to tell the truth, what comes out of my mouth is neither bright nor rainbow, nor even that chunky. It looks more like a bucket of red tar, and it tastes like sewage.
*ting*
You have levelled up!
You have levelled up!
You have levelled up!
You have levelled up!
I want to laugh, but I think I’d just puke.
I retch, cough and spit for at the very least much too long, then I pull my tongue out and attempt to rub it to get rid of that horrid taste. “Uh… hiss is ho’ible! Wha’ ‘he hell ‘id I d’ink! Erk. Pwaah. Urk.” I have tasted so pretty fishy stuff in my virtual life, but this is close to the worse.
Eventually, I fall onto my back, panting and grimacing, and feeling all around terrible.
Then, to make everything worse, a princely prim and blond face appears above me, nearly blinding me with his sparkly smile. “Good morning, sunshine! Eh. Sunshine. Get it? Because you are a vampire.”
Ugh. When it’s not one, it’s the other…
“Get the fuck away from me, old fart.”
Can I please go back to fainting and puking clotted blood? “Why was I puking blood anyway?”
“It would seem you drank quite an amount of the monster’s corrupted blood while unconscious. Your stomach had to separate the corrupted blood from the blood you could actually ingest and assimilate, then it rejected the useless portion.”
“Ugh… grand…”
“Kekekeke. Do not act so grumpy, Young One. You should be celebrating! You did it! You vanquished the soul eater and subsequently freed the soul of the moth demigod from its terrible torment!”
“What about my torment?!—Wait. Did you say we won? When?”
“While you had lost consciousness and went on a rampage from bloodthirst.”
“When I…” My eyes snap wide and I jump on my feet. To my surprise, I feel completely fine. None of the aches from the fight or the dizziness from bloodthirst. The last traces of nausea vanish almost instantaneously. “What happened? Where is Thena?” I look frantically around and spot her lying on her back a short distance away. I run over. “Thena!”
“Do not fear, Young One. She is merely unconscious. The battle drained her, then she had to feed you as well. She is strong, however. Orcs recover fast, even those not of pure-blooded descent. Did you know orcs were originally created from humans in an attempt to grant soldiers regenerative abilities comparable to the trolls? While the results were not optimal—”
“I honestly don’t give a shit right now.”
He shakes his head dejectedly. “Well, you certainly are grumpy when you wake up.”
I ignore him and focus on Thena. After checking nothing is wrong with her—she is only sleeping and she isn’t wearing her armour for some reason—I look away from Thena’s sleeping form and glare at the old ghost. In passing, I catch sight of the remains of Monarch. The boss monster has been reduced to little more than a sorry puddle of gore and broken bits.
Now, that’s my Thena.
I allow myself a quick smirk of pride then refocus on the Elder. My eyes narrow accusingly. “And where were you, huh? You just disappeared and then we were attacked by a bunch of [Death Knights] and some kind of dark mage. Care to explain that one?”
“Ah, yes. The [Shadow Fiend], a darkness elemental corrupted by necromantic spells. A very powerful foe indeed, as well as Jafar Rasputin’s right-hand. You did well escaping it. Even I would have been in danger against this creature. You would have stood no chan—ugh!”
My glowing hands wrap around his throat before he can finish his sentence. [Soul Grasp] is quickly becoming my favourite spell. I’m running high on my post-feeding rush and he can’t react in time to escape me. I start shaking him as if trying to make fruits fall off a tree. “You—Then why the hell didn’t you warn us before bolting?! Huh?! We nearly died because of you! Thena almost drowned because you didn’t fucking bother to give us a small head start!!”
“We-ell, te-ech-ni-ca-a-a-a-a-lly. You-ou-ou a-are the-he oo-oo-oo-one who-oo used tha-a-at rit-tu-a-ugh!!”
“Can a ghost choke to death, I wonder?” I tighten my grip, a grin on my face.
*ting*
Bob the GOC: “Well, no. He’s already dead. But it still hurts.”
“…You two are insufferable.”
An unbearable pair of arseholes!
Hey, you’re back.
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That bastard pooffed me!!
Yeah, yeah. We’ll make him pay…eventually.
Annoyed, and unwilling to waste more time on something pointless, I toss Ambrose aside. He flies a couple feet before stabilising and floating down to the stone floor and back to pretending he’s actually walking on the ground. Why is he doing this? Don’t ask me, I have no clue.
I’m quickly distracted by a groan.
“Thena!” I rush back to the semi-orc, who is slowly sitting up while rubbing her eyes. “Thena, are you alright?” Her golden eyes move briefly to me. She sighs and pushes me away, not harshly though.
“I’m fine. Don’t make such a fuss.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to rest a little longer?”
“I’m fine, I tell you.” Standing up, she towers above me. Her calculative gaze scans the room—looking for more enemies, I presume. “I’ll rest when we find a safer place.”
More sensible than your own motto.
Hey!? What’s wrong with ‘I’ll sleep when I am dead’?
And speaking of dead…
“The monster’s dead, though. Here shouldn’t be too dangerous.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t feel comfortable resting in a dungeon.”
“I see…” I glance around as well. “By the way, what happened after I lost consciousness?” A strange expression flashes across the semi-orc’s heavy features. I narrow my eyes in suspicion. “Thena?”
“……”
“…Thena?”
“……”
~ Flashback from Athena’s PoV ~
The kneeling [Shield Bearer] watched with widening eyes as Victoria slammed into the large stalactite, then used a spell to sever the pointed rock from its base. Both dhampir and stone started falling. Athena waited for her to turn into a bat and fly away, but she didn’t. In fact, the pale woman was limp and unmoving.
And falling to her death. There was no way someone frail like her would survive such a fall. In fact, it was already a miracle she didn’t break her head against the stalactite in the first place! Dammit! I knew this plan was fucking stupid! Why do I even listen to that girl’s ideas?!
Athena was still unable to move much due to depleting her Stamina with the use of [One-Man Fortress]. The skill hugely boosted her defence at the cost of mobility and also substituted Stamina for Health. A useful skill, but with obvious downsides. Now Victoria was falling to certain death, and she didn’t have the strength left to rush there and catch her. At most she could force out a few steps, but that was hardly enough.
Thinking fast, she made a split decision. She took a small medallion out of her Inventory, looked towards the spot Victoria was most likely to hit the ground, and she broke the medallion in her grasp.
The world blurred around her, and suddenly she was right under the falling Victoria. Acting on auto-pilot, she caught the princess and let her small weight bring them into a roll, away from the monster and the falling rock. Before the former could notice and attack them, the latter impaled it in a loud crash of torn skin and shattered stone.
As small pebbles pelted her back, Athena… tried not to think of how much money she’d just used. Her character’s main weakness being speed, so she’d bought a bunch of short-distance teleportation talismans to palliate to that shortcoming, but every single one of them was so freaking damn expensive!! She only used them in extreme life-and-death situations.
“You albino bitch owe me,” she grumbled, her voice covered by the loud screams of a giant undead moth being skewered by a stalactite. Not quite dead yet, the boss was screeching in agony, making the semi-orc’s sensitive ears ring. She glared down at the woman in her arms, only to become stunned.
*nom-nom-nom-nom-nom*
Normally, Victoria’s eyes were a strange shifting mixture of blood red around her pupils and royal blue around the edges of her iris, both colours seemingly warring for supremacy. Now, however, the blue was nowhere to be found, and a dazed glaze covered the dhampir red eyes.
*nom-nom-nom-nom-nom*
The strangest part, however, which gave Athena pause, was that… Victoria was busy munching on Athena’s forearm, like a child trying to swallow a giant lollipop in one bite, but only succeeding in slobbering all over Athena’s armguard.
The semi-orc’s green eyebrows furrowed. What is she doing? She didn’t know if she should be confused or angry. A recurring theme with this irritating crazy girl. Wait, didn’t she say something about being low on blood before? Is this a side-effect? Victoria indeed didn’t seem fully conscious.
However, Athena didn’t have the time to ponder about that because a high-pitch gargling shriek reminded her she was in the middle of a fight. Turning around, she saw the monster was still not finished. It was in a very bad shape—yes—but still not fully dead. Some of her Stamina had returned by now. Enough to put that miserable beast to rest.
Athena stood up… then frowned when Victoria’s kept weighing her arm down. “Vicky, let go. I’ll give you blood later.” The princess didn’t seem to hear her. Groaning, Athena forcibly pulled her off her arm and pushed her away.
That flipped a switch.
As soon as they were separated, Victoria yowled and pounced on Athena like a mindless beast. The semi-orc had no trouble catching her mid-jump, though, and she easily held the feral princess at bay. “You are too troublesome,” the green woman grumbled. As if she’d heard Athena this time, in just a few seconds after being caught, Victoria stopped struggling. She purred and wrapped herself around Athena’s arm like a contented koala, before resuming her ineffectual munching of her arm guard. Athena’s eyebrows twitched.
“GRAAAAAAAAAAAA!!” The monster seemed vexed at being ignored in its own boss room.
“Oh bloody fucking hell.” Athena’s annoyance rose another notch. She looked at the struggling pierced monster then back at the munching dhampir. With a resigned sigh, she walked towards the monster with her purring passenger.
In the mess that followed, Athena was doused copiously in clotted undead blood. The monster didn’t pause a threat anymore, but it still proved harrowingly tedious to kill. Dazed, Victoria lapped the blood unconsciously, although her face would occasionally twitch in disgust.
After the pitiful Monarch wheezed its last breath, and Athena received a notification the fight had ended, she finally removed her armour and properly fed the dhampir, enduring the weird sensations it caused by opposing it a headstrong anger. Victoria fell blissfully asleep once sated, and Athena—too exhausted to feel ashamed of the awkward lingering pleasure of the feed—walked a distance away before lying down and losing consciousness.
~ End of Flashback ~
“…I finished the monster off.”
“Too short!!”
That answer is way too succinct! I want to know what happened with that Bloodthirst! I can’t believe I just blacked out!? That’s way too anti-climactic!!!
“Ahem, on that subject…” A certain annoying ghost edges in. Athena turns around and I glare his way, but he only sparkles a smile and directs his attention to Thena. “Congratulation on defeating the boss of the [Maze of the Soul Eater]. You completed it much faster than I expected.”
Well, someone felt original on naming this place.
Sarcasm.
“We were lucky.” Thena freely admits while I keep glaring at the shrewd spectre. I still haven’t forgiven him for risking Thena’s life. Mine? Hah. Who cares about that? I bare my teeth and let out a low hiss. “Stop that,” Athena admonishes me, and a karate chop on my head snaps my mouth shut.
“Ow! That hurt…” Rubbing my head, I pout up at the tall woman, but she ignores me and retrieves from her Inventory a small black stone surrounded by a faint greenish glow. I squint my eyes at it.
System Command. Inspect.
Item: [ Moth Demigod’s Corrupted Heart ] Type: Magical Ingredient Restriction: None. Durability: 76/100 The crystallized heart of a being once pure and close to the divine, fallen and corrupted by a dark power. Even though the being was defeated and its soul freed, the darkened essence of the creature still lingers in this gem, seeking revenge and attempting to corrupt others.
Eh. Every time I read “magical ingredient”, I think “magical cooking.”
It’s not that kind of ingredient, Nick.
Still think it’d be fun to eat… like with onion soup.
You’re hopeless.
“Is that what you wanted?” Thena asks.
Ambrose’s eyes sparkle. “Oh! Yes, yes indeed.”
Oh, no, you don’t.
He reaches for the gem, but I’m faster and snatch the heart from Thena’s hand before his hooked fingers can wrap around it. I ignore Thena’s annoyed look and narrow my eyes at Ambrose. “And what do you want with a condensed crystal of dark corrupting magic?”
He smiles innocently. “What? Don’t you trust me?”
“I would rather trust a starved berserk goblin with a crossbow pointed at my face and a finger already on the trigger,” I retort flatly.
Ambrose cringes and he shots a glance at Thena, as if asking for help, but the semi-orc only crosses her arms and returns a stern gaze. Apparently, she also wishes for an explanation. Figures. Backed with her tacit support, I stand straighter and address the ghost a smug smirk.
His own smile slowly drops and his expression turns serious. “Ahhh… Well, I suppose I cannot fault you for that.”
“No. You really can’t.” My tone is cold enough to freeze Hell—I would know, I’ve been there… It’s vastly overhyped, if you ask me. Thena shots me a brief look but quickly returns to staring down Ambrose. The old ghost coughs again—which is weird considering… well, he’s a ghost. He doesn’t need to breathe, let alone cough.
He caresses his chin. “Hmmm… It is indeed a core of corrupted power, young one, but corruption is not its only use. For an expert [Soul Mage] such as myself, the heart of a powerful undead is an extremely useful tool. From it, I can easily extract pure essence to fuel Soul Magic rituals.” His expression turns sober. “Truth is, young one, my own reserves of power have dwindled. If I use too much, my very existence will be in danger. I cannot allow it to happen, not yet. I still have things I need to do.” He pauses and turns to me. “Moreover, if I vanish now, those others souls I host within me will be lost as well.”
Other souls—Dorothy, Martha and the other villagers. My eyes narrow to slits. He raises a hand to forestall my invective. “This is why I needed this core. With the power of Monarch’s heart, I can open a rift to the afterlife and free those souls without exhausting myself.”
The words hit me like a punch. My hands clutch the heart tighter. I stare at his face, but for once I don’t think Ambrose is lying. Even when he “tricked” me in the past, truth is I mostly let myself be tricked for the heck of it. He never was a very good liar.
Besides, what he says makes sense. Dorothy and the others should have died a long time ago. Granting them peace would only be right. If his power really is dwindling, he probably intends to keep what he has left to do something about Victoria’s soul, who I can still here muttering intermittently at the back of my mind. Using the heart to palliate to his weakness seems sound.
However… I suddenly realise that a part of me doesn’t want that to happen.
In the back of my mind, I still hope I would get to meet and play with Dorothy, like before.
Since she’s a ghost, maybe I could make her some kind of familiar, like Toto and Appleseed…
“I—”
“Vicky. Give him the heart.” I’m about to voice my selfish desire when Thena’s voice stops me. I look at her. She returns a stern gaze, not harsh but still unyielding. I struggle a little more, trying to come up with excuses.
Eventually, I sigh.
What am I even thinking…?
Toto and Appleseed are one thing, but I wouldn’t want to put Dorothy through the dangers I’m sure I’ll face in the future. Sure, she’s only an NPC, but it still wouldn’t feel right. I’ve fought liches whom I’m sure could hurt souls much worse than any physical injury. She might even have her existence erased with no chance of reincarnation. My knowledge of this world’s afterlife is incomplete, but I know there is something beyond death for the NPCs. As much as I’d love to persuade myself otherwise, I don’t have the confidence to protect her.
Under Thena’s gaze, and with a reluctant frown, I wordlessly hold up the pulsing black crystal heart. Ambrose takes it delicately with a nod of gratitude. “Thank you, young one.” I ignore him and turn away.
I notice Thena looking at something I can’t see. Likely the completion notification for her quest. We aren’t officially in a Party, so it isn’t shared with me. I should feel cheated, but I don’t really feel like caring at the moment. Besides, it’s mostly my fault for still keeping up that stupid joke which even I don’t feel amused by anymore.
I take a step back and watch Ambrose put the heart down on the ground and start writing spiralling runes with it as their centre. He’s tracing the glyphs with a viscous and dark red fluid. I soon realise it’s the blood from the undead boss Thena and I slew.
Thena comes standing beside me. I don’t turn to look at her, but from the corner of my eye, I can see her hand twitch as if she hesitated to pat me on the shoulder or something. I chuckle through a half-smile. Even though she can pass for a bit of a self-centred brute at times, deep down she’s very sensible to other’s distress and doesn’t know how to handle it.
I find endearing how relatable that is.
Some time passes, and Ambrose starts a long-winded incantation. I recognise ancient [Edenic Soul Language], but he is mumbling the words in a low whispery voice. I only catch some isolated terms while the overall meaning escapes me. Something about gateway and safe passage, which makes sense, really.
Suddenly, the air… quakes. I have no other word for it. The air, or maybe space itself, just trembles. My eyebrows twitch and I bring a hand to my temple.
The spacequake intensifies, making my head ache worse until abruptly, Ambrose claps his hands. The space before him tears.
I hear Thena muffle a surprised curse, and even I have to admit the sight is pretty impressive.
Beyond the crack, dark colours are swirling. Otherworldly whispers and flashes of colour come through, but somehow I don’t have the impression of either hearing or seeing anything. It’s a very peculiar feeling, both fascinating and unnerving, very hard to explain. As if my brain is trying to interpret things beyond my senses in ways I can apprehend.
Something both fascinating and unnerving… Just like I love them. Normally, I would be all over this thing. Maybe I’d be cartwheeling around the portal and shouting excitedly. Who knows. I’m not known for my predictability. I’ll admit I overact on purpose sometimes too. I’m a bit of a showman, and I do enjoy the attention… but right now… Right now, I just feel awkward.
Unconsciously, I reach for Thena’s hand. I can see her face distort in a complex grimace when I hold two of her large fingers, but she doesn’t move away. Instead, her large green hand engulfs my own, making it completely disappear. It’s strangely comforting, to have someone to lean on, someone stronger. Usually, I’m always the one who’s supposed to be the jovial moral support.
Being always happy can get tiring sometimes… I think… I don’t really like to think about it.
Ambrose’s figure becomes increasingly translucent until he’s little more than a dully coloured blur around a core of shining light. That light is a bright sky blue, and inside, I can distinguish wisps of red.
More bright sparks float out of this shining core. They bear all the colours of the rainbow, all in light pastel tones. The villagers. Even without their human… projections? …illusions? Even without human bodies, not even ghastly shapes like Ambrose’s current appearance, there is no doubt it’s them.
They float slowly, sluggishly, to a little distance away from Ambrose, then seem to hesitate. They remain to hover in a dense cloud halfway between the Elder and the rift. I can almost sense their uncertainty. Their reluctance. It’s understandable, they were people who followed their lord even in death, after all. It takes a strong shooing motion from the old ghost to get the cloud of souls to again start drifting slowly towards the crack between the planes.
Eyeing the mass of lights, I try to distinguish which one is Dorothy. Unfortunately, I gained my [Soul Sense] after I last saw her, so I wouldn’t know the feeling of her soul. I tighten my fist in Athena’s grasp and grit my teeth.
An iron taste fills my mouth.
I think I bit my tongue.
Bloody fangs.
There is one soul which seems bigger than the others and which gives me the impression of frozen blood. Somehow, I think that’s Martha. But I can’t be sure.
Suddenly, one of the souls stops, others parting to avoid it. Through my new senses, I feel something like its focus shift to me. I feel confusion, then realisation, then a mixture of ecstatic feelings.
Gaining speed abruptly, the soul darts in my direction. It’s big and bright, and carries the smell of summer, grass and… burnt food…
I recognise her immediately.
A few steps away from me, a small hazy figure shimmers into existence around the soul. I can barely distinguish facial features and unmistakable twin tails. The translucent little girl launches herself at me.
I only have the time to rush through the [Soul Grasp] incantation before Dorothy collides with me. Had she been material, such a powerful jump would have sent the current me tumbling. Maybe bruised a rib or two. I clearly recall the abnormal strength she used to display when she was able to take physical form.
However, the rules governing [Soul Grasp] make me—as the magically superior one—the strongest between the both of us right now. I quickly release Thena’s hand just in time to receive Dorothy and swing the little girl around. I laugh, half in disbelief. She laughs too, but no sound is coming out. I guess, in her current state, that’s as much as she can manifest. She seems to quickly realise that shortcoming. Her face twitches, halfway between downcast and frustrated.
But her smile quickly returns. She looks at me and slowly, with great care for articulation, she mouths, “I knew you would come back.” Then she smiles.
Damn…
I’m not going to cry…
Eh, shit, I’m crying.
Dorothy doesn’t seem to mind the tears of blood, though. Even I find it creepy, but she keeps smiling, unbothered. Then again, she is Martha’s adoptive daughter. It would probably require someone to be brutally murdered and tortured right before her very eyes to get as much as a frown out of her…
I chuckle at my thoughts.
At my laugh, her smiles brighten.
Aw~
This cute little sociopath.
She mouths another sentence, still carefully articulating each word. “You’re not bald anymore!” She raises her hands in a show of overacted shock, while her eyes widen as if she couldn’t believe it.
“Cheeky brat.” I flick her forehead, sending her floating several feet away.
Oops… Respective strengths.
Keeping track of magical rules make perspective hurt.
After a couple backflips, she stabilises and floats back, her cheeky grin still in place.
“I like it. You’re pretty.”
Is it okay if that makes me happy?
“Of course I am.” I scoff and roll my eyes to hide my embracement.
Aw, who’s turning into a tsundere now?
Shut up.
Dorothy is about to mouth something else, but she suddenly stops and turns around, as if she heard someone calling for her. I didn’t hear anything, but I’m not a ghost. Who knows how spirits sense the world? What I can see, however, is that another soul has separated from the flow entering the rift.
It is the larger soul I noticed earlier, the one that reeks of blood and emits a sensation of icy cold that freezes me to my bones despite the distance between us. Beside me, Thena tenses, her gaze riveted to the soul. I quickly put a hand on her forearm to stop her from doing anything rash. I’ve seen her look like that at monsters just before bashing them with her shield.
The soul bobs up and down, as if communicating some kind of intent. Dorothy pouts, but eventually nods. She turns back to me, smiles and mouths, “I have to go. It was fun playing with you… Goodbye.” Her smile seems a bit strained at the end, but it doesn’t waver.
I want to reply, but the words get stuck in my throat. I can only smile sadly, wipe some more blood tears from my face, and give a weak awkward wave. I’m not good with goodbyes. I think, when it comes to sad moments, I’m even worse than Thena. I’m just better at covering it up.
Dorothy seems to get my meaning anyway. She always was a smart kid. She turns around and her form starts blurring…
Suddenly, she spins back in the air and darts back to me. I catch her in my open arms. She squeezes me with what I assume is all her ghastly strength. I reply in kind, but more softly.
Only now do I notice we’re about the same height. She can actually wrap her arms fully around my back when hugging me like this. Previously, before the curse, she could only awkwardly hug my stomach while I patted her head. I don’t dislike the shift in perspective. In other circumstances, I might have laughed my head off. Right now, though, I only hug her in silence. I don’t feel much like laughing.
She is the one who eventually untangles herself from my arms.
She turns around and floats away in silence. This time, she doesn’t look back. Her translucent human form vanishes for good and her soul joins the languid flow of souls leaving through the rift. Almost all of them have already left by this point.
The rift itself seems smaller—and shrinking. A quick glance at the ritual circle, under Ambrose’ feet, confirms that the heart which powers the ritual has lost almost all of its previous pulsing glow. The energy must be close to depleted. Even a demigod’s core has only so much energy it seems. I can only imagine the cost for ripping a hole between life and death to be cheap.
As Dorothy’s soul passes by the larger soul, the other one doesn’t immediately follow. For the briefest moment, the silhouette of a tall and lean woman shimmers into reality. When I meet her eyes, they are as cold and frightening as I remember them being, maybe worse with the pallor of her ghastly form. She closes them, puts a hand above her heart. She bows ever so slightly before vanishing in a burst of light that darts towards the closing space-crack.
The rift closes just after Martha’s soul crossed over, leaving the cave feeling strangely empty. And dark.
Only the three of us remain. Ambrose, Thena, and I. None of us speak.
This feels like we just witnessed a funeral.
I don’t like funerals.
Never did.
I’m not sure why...
To distract myself, so that I don’t start crying again, I turn to the river that is flowing through the cave. To my surprise, it hasn’t lost its unsightly appearance. I thought this had been caused by the Soul Eater’s magic. Like a sushi-go-round. The Soul Eater is no more. Shouldn’t the ghost go free?
On second look though, I see a couple of the ghosts which were previously trapped in the river very slowly drifting up. The current carries them away before they can fully detach themselves from the flow, but it also brings more struggling spirits into the cave through the waterfall. If this keeps up and they really manage to escape, I guess that by this time tomorrow, the river would once again look like a normal river… Well, a river that flows backwards—but I’m too mentally and emotionally exhausted right to question the physics of magical rivers.
“What about them?” Unable to endure the silence any longer, I glance at Ambrose and point at the river. Ambrose’s gaze follows my finger. He has yet to return to his more corporeal form. Even with the heart, this ritual still took quite a lot out of him. The heart itself has broken down and crumpled to dust when the portal closed.
“Ah… them.” He shakes his head sadly. “Unfortunately, they are still trapped, ensnared by the foul curse that at the moment claims any who dies in this fallen country. Even if I had the power to reopen the path to the netherworld—which I do not—they would not be able to tear themselves from the web of power in which they are entangled. Even if they escape the river, they will keep erring until they are destroyed or the curse is broken.”
“Is there a way? To break the curse, I mean.”
Truth be told, I’m not really interested in trying. I’m feeling rather apathetic at the moment. Drained maybe. Too much emotion in a short span of time. My batteries are out. Maybe if Thena feels like it. Right now I just asked to keep the conversation going. That awkward silence is far worse than awkward talk.
Ambrose shrugs. “Obviously. In this world, there is no problem without a solution. It is not a question of whether the way to lift the curse exists, but rather if that solution can be achieved.”
“Stop with the semantics. I’m not in the mood.”
“Kekeke. Ahhh…” he sighs. Even for a ghost, he looks exhausted. “I am not certain, but I reckon this curse is anchored in both its creators. So the way to lift it could be… to destroy both Sirius and Jafar.”
“The mad king and the traitor… Sounds epic,” I drop sarcastically. Of course, the way to lift a giant curse is to kill a pair of ridiculously powerful undead mages with millennia of experience.
Why can curse never be broken by napping?
I’d like to save a kingdom through the power of naps.
Ambrose chuckles without much joy. He shakes his head. He turns aside and his gaze becomes distant. “I need to leave, young ones. I will have to rest, save what little strength I have left, and recover what little I can. One last piece of advice before I go. Head for Cali, to the West. There you might find what you are looking for. Farewell. We will meet again.” Leaving behind those words, he waves and disappears. No flashy effects. Not even a puff of smoke. One moment he was there, the next he was just… gone.
How unhelpful.
As usual. What am I even supposed to be looking for?
Yeah. There’s a shit-ton of things we want. Money, power, sex, that last one preferably with a certain green muscl—
Not helping.
Do I need to?
You… frustrate me, sometimes.
Only sometimes?
……
Hehehe. Anyway, speaking of sexy semi-orc woman… she’s been pretty quiet since earlier.
Huh? Ah, now that you mention it…
I turn around and look at said sexy— at said semi-orc woman. She is still staring at the place the rift had been a few moments earlier. She looks dazed.
“Hey, Thena. Are you okay?” When she doesn’t answer, I step closer and poke her arm. “Hey. Ground to big girl. Someone up there?”
“Do you think there’s also a place like that in our world?” She asks out of nowhere without looking down.
I blink in confusion. “…huh?” What is she saying?
Maybe she hurt her head during the fight.
Thena eventually seems to notice that she’s acting weird. She shakes her head, like someone trying to wake up, and turn towards me. There is something in her gaze that I can’t quite read. Not that I’m that great at reading people, but I usually can tell what this one is thinking. Usually. Right now, it’s like staring at a wall, and I don’t like it.
“Hey… Vicky?” she asks, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain.
“Yes?”
What’s up with her right now, seriously?
“You’re not—”
“““Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhh!!!”””
“OH, WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK NOW?!!!”
Before the big green girl can finish her sentence, a chorus of loud groans fills the previously silent cave. She seems rather… upset at being interrupted, to say the least. Both of our heads snap to the side, towards the entrance of the cave, where the river of souls flows out through a large and obscure opening. A wide path beside the right shore goes off into the darkness. That path is now being occupied by a tightly packed horde of ghouls covered in plates of insectoid chitin, and some with wings, and some other sorts of undead abominations.
They are approaching rather fast, for the undead. Not threatening to catch us anytime soon, but still fast enough that we’ll get swarmed if we don’t get moving quickly.
“Fucking—Where did those come from?!”
Athena has already completely snapped out of her previous strange daze.
I scratch my nose pensively. “Well… One can assume they come from the tunnels normally leading to this place.” We did, after all, bypass the entire dungeon and directly dropped into the boss room. In consequence, all the mobs we should have cleared are still alive…or as alive as a bunch of undead can be—which is just enough to be a royal pain in my royal derriere.
Thena glares at me. “No shit?” I smell sarcasm… “I’m asking why they came now and not before? If they were afraid of the boss, it’s been a while since it’s been dead.”
“Now that you mention it, that’s—Ah.”
“What?” Her glare sharpens.
“Ambrose… He performed one big Soul ritual, didn’t he?”
“…Oh, for the fucking love of…” Of course, Thena is smart. She immediately gets it. Soul magic is to undead what a flame is to a moth, or more like what a foghorn is to a lost ship. “Vicky!!!” She hisses through gritted tusks.
“What?! It is genuinely not my fault this time!”
She clicks her tongue. “……I’m going to kill that ghost.”
The rage in her tone dissuades me from pointing out the flaw in her semantical logic there, all the more so as I find myself totally agreeing with her.
“But how are we getting out?” That’s the main issue right now. “I don’t think we can fight our way out against that.” I wave at the incoming mob of mobs. Even as I speak, we are slowly backing off while looking around the room. There is still the option of jumping into the river again, but I think both of us would rather abstain.
I can’t believe it. You, of all people, are being practical?
I know, I know. I’m shocked myself. But desperate situations…
“There!” Thena suddenly brings my attention to a large crack in the wall, hidden in the shadow of a huge stalagmite. It’s small compared to the scale of the cave, but in truth two Thena’s could walk side by side and still have room to spare. Monsters are also coming from there, but their numbers are noticeably less and their horde more scarcely packed. A secret passage, maybe? There are often shortcuts to the boss room in most dungeons, some more deadly than others.
It might not be much better in the end, but we are short on options.
“Let’s go.”
As soon as I voice my agreement, and without asking, Thena grabs me and throws me over her shoulder before going off in a light jog. Instead of wasting time with complaining, I focus on the enemies before us and prepare some spells.
I’m starting to get used to this…
* * *
It takes us about half an hour to get away from the undead by running and fighting our way through numerous tunnels. And now that we’re temporary safe, I can safely say that…
We’re completely lost!
“This place is a freaking labyrinth!!” After Thena lets me down on the ground, I manifest my anger by raising my fists to the ceiling and shouting my powerless rage towards the unhearing heavens.
*ting*
Bob: It’s more like an anthill, really.
…the not-unhearing-enough heavens.
Didn’t he just say he couldn’t be intervening much anymore?
Apparently, not intervening doesn’t include pointless comments.
“Shush!” Thena snaps, having finished inspecting the small alcove we’ve found refuge in and the tunnel further down. “Stop screaming, for fuck’s sake!”
You’re not exactly a model of quietness either, Miss Sexy Abs.
I sigh. “I told you. Undead are deaf. They can’t hear us that way. Thus please allow me to pointlessly express my frustration in any way I deem suitable.” I look down the tunnel then back the way we came from. I see nothing but darkness, which is good. “If we’re going to rest here. I’d better go put up some wards to camouflage our presences.”
“You can do that?”
“Yeah.” Runes are great for that sort of thing. And indoors or underground where the paths the enemy can use are limited, wards are much more efficient than outside in the open. “Should delay them some, and give us forewarning. I think my blood should suffice for temporary wards.” I glance back at her. “Wait here. You’re still exhausted and I don’t like our chances with you in that state. I’ll be back in a second… I’m confident I can at least outrun any undead over a few hundred meters.”
That is, if you don’t trip, you clumsy princess.
Oh, shut up.
“…Victoria?”
I pause mid-step and glance over my shoulder. Even with my vampiric night vision, shadows seem to fall on the tall semi-orc’s face as she looks down at me. For some reason, a foreboding feeling worms its way in my guts. “Yes?” I gulp, trying to be discreet about it.
She hesitates, and again, a strange light passes through her golden eyes, which seem to darken. When she finally speaks, her tone is flat, even devoid of even the simmering anger I expected.
“You’re not… actually an NPC, are you?”
* * * * *