Chapter 16

Grace of the Fallen [https://imageshack.com/i/pmUgdD0Ip]

All four Mad Dogs were standing around the rift in front of them with weapons ready to strike any Delver who goes through it after them. But no Delver followed them, and Ferris didn’t show his face either.

Mad Dogs stood ready for a fight for a long time. Weapons were aimed at the rift, and they stood around it in half circle silent as mice. The last thing they wished was to attract any unnecessary attention to them in the place they were right now.

They stood on the weird murky ground with no plant or rock in their field of view. Their vision was covered by the thick fog which seemed to block every sound around them. The loudest sound around them in this foggy alien land was their own breathing and heartbeat.

Suddenly rift started shaking and flickering and after a second it closed in front of them for a good. They stood there for a brief moment in silent disbelief. Rift they took to get here wasn’t there anymore and the fog around them suddenly felt so much more suffocating and dreadful.

“What in Divine's sake is this?” Linus was the first to speak.

“Linus, voice down!” Orla whispered to him angrily.

“Sorry! What in Divine's sake is this?” Linus repeated in a whisper, “What do we do now?”

Around them were silence and silence only. Jack tapped on the Zaun’s shield to get his attention.

“Hear anything lad?” he asked.

Zaun just shook his head. Even his sharp sense didn’t pick up even a whisper of the sound. There was not even a hint of the movement around them.

“I thought so,” Jack said, “Nothing good is going to happen from standing around like that. Let’s go.”

“Where?” Linus asked in confusion.

“Forward,” Jack smiled and started moving towards the fog.

“Hey! Wait! Let’s catch a breath,” Orla said to Jack making him stop in his tracks, “I am falling off my legs. This expensive armor is as much a blessing as a curse.”

“So be it! But we shouldn’t stay in the open more than necessary,” Jack agreed.

“I want to die from the fighting, not from the exhaustion,” Orla said sitting down on the ground.

“Sit back-to-back. Each of us will pay attention in a different direction. If we rest in the open like this, we can at least do our due diligence,” Jack said settling down himself.

“Why are you so calm? Do you even understand that we will not leave this place alive?” Linus asked Jack.

“Oh, we will. There always is a way,” Jack answered him with unshakable confidence.

“No, that is a lie, and you know it. We have no way out,” Linus shook his head.

“If there was one rift there must be others. Next rift we find will be our way out,” Jack said, “Do rifts lead to any other place except Rosmorre?”

“Not as far as I know. Rosmorre is the human name for our plane. Plane’s real name is Plane in Between, with all it entails,” Orla said rummaging in her bag for their rations.

“Well! Then our goals are crystal clear. We must survive and find any rift out of here.”

“Simple, right?” Linus cut in sharply, “Going through the fog blind like moles and fighting every rifkin in this cursed place until we find a rift. And for how long? Months? Years? We don’t even know what level riftkin resides here. We might be dead before we gonna see what hit us.”

Jack took off his helmet and slowly walked closer to Linus. He approached Linus and stopped a step away from him looking right into his eyes. Linus was forced to look up to see the face of the taller man looming over him. Jack didn't try to intimidate him, but it was the first men stood eye to eye so close to each other.

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“Linus, why are you here?”

“We went through the rift and…”

“No! Why did you leave your home? Why did you come here?” Jack asked.

Jack’s questions hit like a hammer on the anvil.

“Were you clueless about the risks in venturing out here? Did you face half a year of travel to the border of Empire, without knowing that you are going to put your life on the line?”

Orla and Zaun watch their interaction in silence.

“No,” Linus said.

“Then tell me, why are you here?” Jack asked again the same question he asked earlier.

The simple question made Linus think about things he never stopped to ruminate about. He thought about all they went through in the past few days traveling in Riftlands. About his pain and exhaustion. His fear and weakness.

And then he thought about his whole life as a whole and felt a different set of emotions. It was not the pain of the flesh he feared, but the pain of his soul. In this moment of self-reflection, Linus felt love, sadness, sorrow, and anger.

He turned his head to look at his old friends which always stood by his side. When imperial soldiers escaped their punishment for their sins, they were here to comfort him. They were here to save his sanity. Even his life. Zaun and Orla were both watching him, and their expressions were hidden behind the steel.

“I came here to protect my friends,” Linus said.

“Is it all?” Jack smiled seeing and recognizing the darkness in Linus' eyes, “Is there really nothing more?”

The smiling faces of his lost parents flashed in front of Linus' eyes. They whispered to him. His hands trembled and his breath became ragged.

“Revenge,” Linus whispered.

“Say it louder,” Jacks smiled even wider, “Any riftkin who will hear us can go fuck themselves.”

“I want the power to take my revenge,” Linus said loudly looking into Jack’s eyes.

“You chose this path, and nobody said this path will be an easy one. Right now, we are right here and now, and whining about useless things will not get us out. If you have a better plan share it with us. If not, then go forward and face whatever comes your way with head high,” Jack said, “While you breathe, you fight! You hear me?”

“Yes!” Jack said with a trembling voice, “I will not be weak anymore.”

“Good. You are not alone here, Linus,” Jack said and turned towards Zaun and Orla, “When we met for the first time, Orla called us Mad Dogs of Rosmorre.”

“Ha!” Orla let out a quick snarl.

“I have no idea why you chose this name, but I love it. Names hold the power of their own,” Jack said with a smile, “But if we are Mad Dogs we better start acting like ones. When faced with certain death, I want you to smile in its face and do your best to shift the odds.”

“You just love death and can’t wait to die yourself, old moron,” Orla laughed.

“Maybe. But that also suits our name, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” she was forced to agree.

They sat down in circle back-to-back and took out their rations, and water, and rested overlooking the white thick fog around them.

“You all got to level 11 from the deaths of those Delvers. Pick your perks. We will need everything we can get, to get over our current circumstances,” Jack said after checking his own notifications.

“Wow! In all the rush I almost forgot,” Orla grinned chewing on beef jerky, “With all this danger we progress at an abnormal speed.”

Zaun’s, Orla’s, and Linus’ eyes unfocused as they dived deeper into their respective perk lists. Jack watched them fall in contemplation of their possible choices and coughed to get their attention once more.

“One more thing,” Jack said with a sinister smirk, “Look at the earth!”

Mad Dogs looked down at the brown murky dirt below them. It seemed alien to them, but nothing stood out to them. The ground even seemed quite ordinary for the earth in a plane populated with bloodthirsty Eldritch monsters.

“What’s about it?”

“Look at it like you would look at a person, or an animal,” Jack said, “Or riftkin.”

All three of Jack’s party members shoot back up on their legs with haste. They strapped their helmets and readied their weapons for a fight. Only they didn’t look at the fog around them, but at the ground under their feet.

“Divine fuck!” Linus said as a blue screen popped in front of him.

Fallen Eldritch Forebear - ???

“It’s a riftkin! Everything around us! We stand on it!” Orla said clenching her spear in shock.

“Calm down! Sit down, children,” Jack said without ever moving from his spot, ”I thought you wanted to rest. If so, then do so.”

Jack kept resting in a relaxed manner and sipped water from his canteen with small sips. His nonchalance somewhat reassured and calmed down the rest of his party members.

Zaun was first to sit back down with his legs crossed in his previous spot with his back pressed against the back of Jack. After a slight hesitation, Orla and Linus followed his example. Only now they were very conscious of the monster under them.

"I swear! We keep getting in deeper and deeper shit by the day," Orla laughed and dived into her perk screen.

Dogs Of Rosmorre rested and prepared for their journey in a fog.