“Excuse me, sir. May I have a minute of your time,” Rye asked a man with a brimless pointy hat
“I… who… you…,” the man babbled, half curled up on the stone floor. His hat sloughed off the side and he went to grab it with slow, jittery hands.
“Hello? Are you alright?” The man was clearly not alright. He looked like a scholar, clad in flowy robes that ended above curled toenails and dirty feet. The way he shivered, and his eyes rolled up and down, something was definitely the matter. “Can you understand me? I am looking for a way to Arvale.”
“Stone… wand… beach… berry…”
“Ar-val-e! Without an ‘M’. Can you tell me how I can get there from here?”
“Marble… my… marble…” The undead man let out a hollow moan. He returned to drawing jagged circles in the dust.
This was the worst. Every person she tried talking to was either incapable of answering, talked in tongues she didn’t understand or proved entirely too insane for conversation. Degrading faculties came to every undead when they lived for too long or came back more than once. It seemed less cruel then that a person returned from the grave was expected to stay not more than one night with their loved ones before submitting themselves to priests or the nearest guard for their true final rest.
They were supposed to ensure they didn’t come back a second time. Or a third, fourth, fifth…
“Elia, can I ask you a question?”
Long as it doesn’t involve me doing anything on my vacation, sure.
She took a deep breath, steadying her mind for what was to come. “We’re… not like the other undead, are we? They don’t wake up at the bowl-thingies when they die, heck, most of them can’t even string two words together.”
It took a long silence until Elia had gathered her thoughts.
We’re not. As I said before, whenever we die, we turn back time, back to the last checkpoint we touched with everything on our person as broken or whole as the moment we croaked.
“But that’s ridiculous! The whole world turns back? That’s unheard of, even for a boon of any kind.” And Elia did not have a single useful boon besides her [Psychometry], Rye was sure. “You must be mistaken.”
An ethereal shrug tickled against her real shoulders. Unlike her, Elia seemed entirely at ease, which meant she either believed she was telling the truth or she was a big fat liar.
I don’t know what to tell you, other than some things don’t reset with us. I once found this absolutely wicked shield, metal, thin and light as paper. I used it for like… I dunno, five years maybe? Realized I’d walked in a huge ass circle by the end of it, got a bit pissed and did something stupid. In the end, I got yeeted by this great fuckoff bird–
“Birds don’t exist,” Rye grumped. Definitely a liar.
–Sh-shush-shush, you can learn something from this little story. Anyhow, I got yeeted and when I woke up, I thought ‘crap, I let go of my shield’. I don’t know what counts as ‘on my person’, but when I got to the place I dropped it, no shield. Went back to where I initially found it, and–
“No shield, either.”
Bingo. Took it off a corpse to begin with, so I went back to that and – you guessed it – nada, nothing. No respawn for things I pick up from the ground, but if it's on a person, live or undead? Yeah, that comes back, because rules don’t need to make sense to be followed. Anyhoo, if some dude had been carrying it, I could have just yoinked another one since they do respawn with all their gear, but that’s just one of the many idiosyncrasies.
“What? That’s… why…?” Rye groaned, the inside of her head like a swirling thunderstorm. “This isn’t another one of your horrible jokes. Why me? Did I do something horrible; did I disrespect a god in mortal form? Oh gods, I’m stuck in a cautionary tale about hubris and, and cowardice and… no, I’m not special enough for that… this is horrible. This is the worst.”
Listening to Elia talk just made the wish to go home all the more powerful. Having to worry about this whole… loopy business only added to the hollowness growing in her stomach. She missed out on breakfast, if anybody even served breakfast to undead. They definitely should.
“I just… let’s focus on getting home, alright?”
You’re the boss. I can’t exactly say no, can I?
“Good. Great– I mean, well, not so great, but now you know what it feels like being me.” She sighed, wistfully and drank another mouthful of the bowl of respite water. It tasted like berries this time, with a hint of sugar. Tasty. “It’s been so long; I can barely remember what ‘home’ looks like. Actually, I don’t remember what it looks like at all. Oh gods, is this normal? Am I sick?”
Now that, that’s the undeath speaking. Probably a side effect of having a rotten brain. Or the repeated decapitations and concussions are at fault. Meh, what can you do?
Probably the concussions and decapitations, judging by recent experiences. Losing a head every hour could not be healthy at all.
Rye slapped her cheeks to regain focus, chanting her ocean-mantra all the way as she discerned a group of three men talking somewhere on the first floor. Their mutterings sounded coherent, and her pace quickened as she got close enough to make out entire sentences spoken in the language of her homeland, empyrean.
“… an’ I’m tellin’ ya, we do it like in 177 an’ build a wall to starve ‘em out. An’ then a wall behind us so we don’ get ambushed up th’ rear.” The first voice was, low, loud and had an accent so thick she could stir it.
A second, puffy voice chimed in. “Yer an idiot, Tertius, and a double one at that. They’re all undead, they don’t need no food, no water, and what do you wanna make the wall out of? Got an axe, but no carpenter, no engi-neers, no slaves to carry wood and such. Would take weeks. Months. De-ca-dees.”
I bet a thousand souls these guys are planning a coup.
“Shh, quiet, we are not establishing souls as stakes for a wager,” Rye hissed as she rounded the corner, coming face to face with a triplet of legion soldiers, the smallest at least a head taller than her
“Hello! Hi! How are you? What are you doing?” Rye nervously waved at the three, the same hallmarks of undeath as her own marring their faces. Their armor marked them as low-ranking troops and compared to the officers, those were always known for being loyal, supportive people. Her Da’ said so; he was a soldier and so was his father and therefore it had to be true.
They are clearly playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons. I can’t believe you don’t recognize it. See, they even made their own models out of twigs and pebbles.
The rather stout one turned from their extensive model of a castle to her, but a larger one interrupted him before he could get a word out.
“We’re plannin’ a siege!” Rye jumped back a bit, the voice just that hair too hard and loud. “Oh, ‘pologies miss. Th’ names Sextus. Soldier o’ the 41st legion ever since I been twelve. An’ this is me decurion Tertius–”
“41st best legion!” The rather portly soldier bumped fists with the silent one swaddled in his scarf, who flashed a complicated array of signs and – oh, he was mute.
“41st best legion!” Sextus echoed. “Th’ silent one’s me mate Alexander, like th’ famous poet. C’mon, after me: 41st best legion!”
“41st… best legion?” Rye was immediately greeted with a riotous clamor and whatever the hand sign for whoop-whoop was as the three broke out into a marching song. It was loud, they smelled as mucky as all undead but the way they took one look and let her partake in their comradery made some of her tenseness bleed away.
That was of course, only if she ignored the riotous laughter echoing inside her head. What a time to remind her that she was odd, that she was different and would likely never fit in anywhere again, ever.
“Stop laughing, Elia,” she hissed. “I promised not to interfere when you were fighting so the least you can do is show some respect and not distract me while trying to mingle.”
B-b-but his name is SEXtus! SEXTUS!
Ugh. What a child.
“You said you were planning a siege?” she asked.
“More of an infiltration actually,” the rotund one, who cultivated more of an air of command than the brute and the mute, said. “Glenrock castle blocks the way to Loften. Headed by some lord or knight or whatother, with mages, war hounds and a horde of guards. We heard our capital was under attack, came here, but that rat-bastard closed the gates. Won’t let any undead pass which is just right screwed I say. Who cares if we died before, we can still give a life or three for our home when duty calls, isn’t that right boys?”
The boys nodded and Sextus broke out into an impromptu marching song. Rye thought it might have been a fine tune if someone with a sense for rhythm and volume had sung it and the rather raunchy lyrics turned her head into a beet by the end of it.
“Ya can see th’ castle if ya take a step out along the temple pass,” Sextus said as he finished the last refrain. “Right next to th’ damned swamp, can’t miss it. ‘S one of a few ways in, but we ‘aven’t ‘eard ‘bout the others but in rumor.”
“’aven’t ‘eard?” Rye asked.
“Not a word.” The grim expression littering his battle-scarred face said it all, a small mercy in face of his rather rustic enunciation.
“Oh.” Right, she was talking to them for a reason. “Well, this is all very interesting. But I need to go home. Do you know how to get from here to Arvale? Actually, where even is here?”
“Edge o’ the great maze.” Tertius gestured on the faded map they had built their model on. “Past the mountains, there lies Loften, city o’ the gods. We, we’re here. Next to the northern highroad.”
“The northern highroad? I have to go to the southern one. That’s thousands of kilometers away from home!” Rye rummaged through her memory, trying to remember all the geography she once had to learn long ago. The great maze didn’t pop up anywhere on it, but the quickest way was not around the mountain range cradling the empire’s and gods’ capital, but straight through regardless.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
With a sigh, she buried her head in her hands and despaired. This was the worst day of her life. How did she even get here? Even if she was found to have the mark of undeath, she should have been buried near her hometown which was south of Loften by a good bit. Getting this far up north wouldn’t have been easy, even on the most direct route. Elia couldn’t have walked thousands of miles through a deadly maze. It was just impossible.
For the time, she set her mind on idle questions to stave off the encroaching apathy. “Don’t you need more people for a siege?”
The three looked between each other, as if they hadn’t considered it. The mute Alexander made a gesture and at that, a grin spread on their faces.
Sextus put two meaty hands on her shoulder. “Ay, glad ya’ volunteered yourself. We were missin’ a scout an’ ya’ look weaselly ‘nough. Reckon most o’ th’ dregs’ll just look right over yeh, eh? Together, we’ll forge th’ way forward an’ retake our capital yet.”
Rye blinked in disbelief as Elia’s cackle renewed in the background. These people only appeared sane but in truth they were as kooky as the rest. Better to politely excuse herself and not talk with them again than take part in something as suicidal as a three-man assault on a whole hecking castle.
“I… well, I will think about it. Think about this siege business very long and hard. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must prepare my… scouty things.”
Quibbles croaked from the side and together, they excused themselves from the group of lucid lunatics.
H-holy shit, I’m dying. These people are delusional AND hilarious. Can we keep them?
“We are not taking part in a siege, Elia. Sieges are an unproductive use of our time. They involve little talk and a lot of unsolicited killing.”
Sure, sure. And Rome was built on the back of handshakes and mutually beneficial business deals. Rye somehow got the impression of someone wiping a tear from their eye. Hey, at least we’re making friends, right?
That set Elia off on another bout of laughter as Rye grumbled on her way to the next person. They couldn’t all be terminally insane. There had to be at least a single reasonable person among them.
----------------------------------------
The bedsheet dress was just not doing it for Rye. It was dirty, it constantly slipped down her shoulders and worst of all, it didn’t technically belong to her and was borrowed without permission. The belt with two pouches containing shards and about thirty pebbles (who needed so many of them and why?) in one and a now sufficiently moisturized toad (thanks to her care) in the other was the last line of defense in the fight for her decency. A sorry state for any true civilized citizen of the empire.
The torn mail and padding was gone and she almost felt regret. Instead, she let Elia convince herself to at least peruse the merchant’s assorted wares. He had everything, from weapons and armors to jars of bugs, salt, and ground herbs. Lavender, black poppy, spikeweed, cribsrest. She made a mental note to find out how much an undead differed from a live human. They could still bleed but, as an example, could they catch a fever, could they heal wounds without the miracle water, could they get pregnant?
She poked the merchant. Sadly, he was fast asleep and no amount of hello’s and polite prodding shook him awake.
Oh well, guess we’re not trading our common shards for some uncommon ones. I really wanted to feel the disappointment of rolling a useless uncommon boon for a change, too.
“Shush, you. We have no money and we are not buying anything with souls. That would not be ethical. Or moral.”
Also, it would be breaking the cycle of souls, the turn of life to death to life. A great taboo, the kind that would find quite a few people asking quite a few uncomfortable questions in uncomfortable ways. She wanted no part in that, not for all the massages and apple-lemon juice in the world.
She knew how to get back home, though her knowledge didn’t reach beyond ‘follow the highroad south’. For a journey that far, she would need funds and lacking the will to do something drastic, she decided on trying to see if anyone was willing to help her or would pay for her help. She was willing to do near anything, as long as it didn’t involve murdering people or whoring herself out.
“Hello? Can you understand me?”
Rye tried to enunciate every word as slow and clear as empirically possible. This pigmy woman could talk, which truly came as a surprise, but like so many others spoke in some barbarous tongue. She excused herself, mind empty with exhaustion born in part from frustration and in part from the constant fever-like existence of an undead.
Alright, I’m starting to get bored. Let’s go and find some food.
As tempting as the idea was, Rye didn’t let that keep her from trying. One last person.
“Hello? Excuse me, miss?”
The tall woman finally reacted, looking up from where she had been staring at a puddle. Her hair fell in a long stream down her shoulders and every part of it was white from the head to the brows and whimpers, though two pale blue eyes floated beneath like reflections on the water’s surface. Her deathly pale face made for a frightening first impression were she not oozing a steady stream of melancholy. Two arms cradled a used spear and a third the smooth stone mask, round and pockmarked like the moon. It looked more impractical than anything, especially given the lack of any eyeslits.
Two left hands?
“Yeah?” Rye whispered. “She’s a pasty. They have three arms.”
Woah, woah, hold it right there. Is that a slur?
“It’s what my Mum called them.” And perhaps that meant a lot, or it meant nothing. She could not remember and at the moment, she had rather more important things to concentrate on. “Now shush, you’re making me look weird again.”
“Oh. Apologies. I did not see you arrive,” the woman said in a morose yet perfect empyrean. “Though I’d say that today is a poor day indeed for celebrating newcomers. My companion has left me. Without him, I find myself unable to carry on. I suppose I will sit here and wallow in my misery if the world allows it. Hm.”
Great. She’s all doom, gloom, and goth in spirit.
“Oh. Oh no. You poor… is there something, anything I can do to help?”
Draw a mustache on her mask. I’m sure it’ll cheer one of us up.
The woman stared longingly at her stone carved mask “Perhaps. Could you sing something for me?”
Rye shook her head.
“Pity. I haven’t heard a song in ages.”
“B-but I can dance.” Rye tried to lower her hips and shift her balance on the balls of her feet. She nearly fell over from the attempt and tried not to show her shock that she both lacked the strength and had somehow forgotten how to dance altogether. “I cannot dance.”
With a sigh, she sat next to the woman and brooded. And brooded. And brooded. The woman looked like she could use a hug, but she couldn’t hug a person she had just met; Mum would never approve no matter how much the hug might be necessary for either party. What could she even say to take the edge off of a bit of the tragedy of losing a loved one?
By the end it felt like steam was coming out of her ears. She shot back up and turned to face the woman.
“I’m sorry, but maybe you will find a new companion and another way. ‘Life goes on and on’ goes the saying. Who knows, maybe the gods will reincarnate him or her as an animal nearby, to watch over you in their second life?”
The woman seemed lost in thought as she didn’t even bother to turn her head. When Rye was standing there long enough to have made it awkward three times over, the woman finally spoke up.
“Perhaps, knowing that he has passed on I may return on my path, ‘tis true. However, I find myself clinging to strings of the past. He asked to smell the roses one last time. He is still there, I fear, in the garden out back, gone in all ways that matter. Please, put an end to his sorry existence. I don’t have the heart to do it myself.”
Hah! This place has side quests. What next, a door that says ‘you need to be level thirty to enter’? An in-game shop for cosmetics and funny little pets? Microtransactions?
Rye touched her throat, finding it dry. “He is gone. But he is still here?”
“He is undead, but not like us. He is a ‘dreg’, I suppose you’d call him. A mindless, shambling undead without purpose or place, yet still a danger to people like us. I suppose it is the fate of all undead, to lose their minds. Like you. Like me.”
A cold shiver dripped down her spine. If this was true, then Rye herself was already well on her way to the end. The dull sickness, loss of memory, and the way she was shriveled and wrinkled like a knotted oak could be explained by a decay of her body, now little more than a vessel for an errant soul.
Or two souls. Though the way Elia was handling all this was lending credence to the idea that she either didn’t have one, was ignorant of it all or simply didn’t care. None of these answers was in the least comforting, none of them would explain the idiosyncrasies, the horror of being stuck in a hoop of time, the…
C’mon, this is an easy one. In and out, five minute sidequest. Maybe we’ll get some good loot.
The lack of fear for inflicting death and dying herself. Even if it was an undead, Rye could not do the deed. She started crying every time they had to butcher a chicken, how could anyone expect her to grant the final mercy to a person?
“I’m sorry.” Rye said and got up to leave.
“Don’t be.” The woman said. “Not all of us are set to complete our journey. It appears I was simply not enough, hm.”
“I… I need a moment to myself.”
She half flew up the stairs, stumbling over a curled up undead muttering nonsense in a disjointed prayer as she gasped for fresh air. Vertigo played a drumbeat inside her skull. They were out of the maze, but the nightmare wasn’t over.
The outside greeted her with a fresh breeze. A terrace spread around the back of the temple and a once great tree stood hanging off the infinite drop. Its trunk was flayed by wind, dead like all the plants around it. Here and there slightly green ivy searched for purchase between the brittle mortar of the wall.
It must have taken an immense number of chance encounters just right for that plant to grow here where it could find barely enough to survive. She could almost imagine the invisible struggle of the vines and roots, prodding and running up against solid rock all around until finally a hair-crack gave it purchase. How many seeds must have come this far, but failed on the steps below, on the swamped gardens outside or been simply blown off the edge without a chance for recourse?
Rye stared at the it for much too long before tearing her gaze away and out to the endless maze that stretched beyond the horizon. Now was not the time to be empathizing with plants.
“Elia?”
Myeah?
She swallowed heavily. “You sound awfully chipper for being stuck in my mind. Why aren’t you angrier?”
Oh, y’know, I wasn’t expecting your inevitable betrayal this soon, but I did get to sleep in a bed so that’s worth it. I don’t have to worry about any spiders crawling over me while I sleep. Could probably organize some food from somewhere. All in all, I’ve achieved the dream. I’m quite happy as things are.
There was a pause, interrupted only by a gust of wind and an awkward cough.
…also, I might be in need of a major vacation. A break from all the everything. The undead, the life-or-death struggles, the concept of birds. Real nice of you not to threaten to get rid of all my hard-earned souls and shards. If living inside your head every now and then is the price to pay for this life, then I sure as hell am not gonna skimp out. Not being inside that godawful maze is the life, everything else is dressing.
Rye’s guilt for trapping Elia didn’t fade, not much. Who knew, maybe she’d be insane too if their roles had been reversed. Still, no matter how much she wanted to believe her, there was always a nagging feeling that Elia was lying, or at least withholding a part of the story. It just seemed like so little to desire.
She chose not to dig further.
“I see.” She took in a deep breath. “Are you responsible for possessing my body?”
I’m not the one who’s responsible for landing me inside you, that maze, or this depressing medieval zombie apocalypse shit. That dirt’s on God’s hands, or whatever bitter architect decided it would be fun to make an escape room the size of Texas and fill it with every hostile intention the world could cook up. This isn’t the afterlife I was dragged to church for.
The answer was delivered with a familiar bitterness, bitterness that spoke of honesty, Rye hoped.
“You aren’t then. I didn’t want this either and you just want revenge.” She hemmed and hawed, head tilting back and forth. “You’re not a bad person. Just… unlucky. Grown up under bad circumstances.”
Rye.
“No, you listen to me. Let me help you. Get you your own body, fix your bad attitude, your murderyness and all those weird words you keep on using. I don’t know how I’ll help you do it, but I promise I will.”
Rye, left.
“Education! That’s all you need. The pen cuts as deep as any sword and violence is… a last resort. Take me as a good example to follow: I’m happy to exhaust every other option before I even think about taking up arms. Don’t you worry, I’ll make a good, civilized person out of you yet. And then you can help me get home and everyone will be happy.”
RYE, DODGE!
Rye jumped in place, which was not an effective measure for dodging the spear thrust coming from her left. She fell to the ground, clutching the oddly wet side of her stomach. Her hand came back nearly black with blood.
Then the pain hit, and she screamed. Her right arm moved on its own, scrabbling for a rock to throw at her assailant but the blinding pain caused her to convulse, the stone to miss and her assailant to gain an easy kill.
A second stab grated along the vertebra of her neck as darkness crept in until it was all she could see, feel, or hear.
You have died
You have lost: Soul x11176
You have lost: Bone shard [Common] x9
You have lost: Bone shard [Uncommon] x6