Down in the forgotten land of old Viln, three factions were embroiled in a snail-pace war. One side was marked by its mixed crests of a dozen god-fearing groups subservient to the passing knight in the palace. The other was easier to suss out, as they all had three arms and there were comparatively few giants among them. They were Vili, the crafted race that called Viln their home, and they fought a silent war interrupted by bouts of violence cast in fire and ice. Everyone was undead, dregs even, and neither Vili nor divine loyalists bothered to differentiate between invaders and visitors.
And then there was Rye’s group.
They had to fight. The only respite they found was in the bowl sequestered away inside the old church Sam had pointed out earlier on. She seemed insistent on taking the slow, steady route through the caves, avoiding unnecessary confrontations, and gathering souls and shards along the way. Rye agreed, though for entirely different reasons.
Rye wanted to put the final confrontation off. She had tried to goad her party into going over every nook and cranny with a fine comb. It worked at first, and everyone was happy. But there were only so many ‘critical clues’ she could find without showing a hint of progress until Hannah and Sam caught on.
So. Now she was here, on a decorative part of the palace’s inner façade, looking down ten meters at the last obstacle they needed to overcome.
“Are we really going to do this?” she asked. “Kill him, I mean. That’s a passing knight.”
“Bean, I can’t see a way past him,” Sam said. “And we’ve checked the entire undercity for a way out, every place but here.”
“And he’s just standing there!” Hannah whispered, peering over the edge as they waited for the passing knight to pass right below them. “Clearly, that’s a boss. I can’t believe that I’m saying this, but Erik was right. This world feels a bit like a video game. And by that logic, that dude is hiding something.”
Rye looked between her, and her love. Sam was adjusting the last straps on her armor, taking this with a cool collected demeanor. Hannah was a lot more antsy, fussing over their positioning. They weren’t the only ones who were nervous. Rye’s nerves were practically frayed already.
“Cast the spell, do the thing,” she muttered to herself. “Cast the spell, do the thing.”
Yo, chill down. It’s just a bossfight. Sure, the boss in question is a millenia’s old assassin, and yes, every cut of that huge-ass dagger is permanent, but you have the element of surprise. It will be easy.
Rye made a nervous sound.
“Rhuna~,” she sung, “you’re not helping~.”
With a hand on the railing, she quietly hopped onto the balcony only a few meters below.
Rye would have adored this place if she could have visited any other time. The palace was already seemingly made for creatures twice her size – the chandeliers alone must have weighed ten tons– but every look outside the stained-glass windows made her truly feel enchanted. Impossible architecture grew larger than any practical reason could necessitate, arches and aqueducts stretching from high above the ice down to where it grew too dark to see through. It gave this place a certain timelessness, if one ignored the ruins and weapons littering the ground like flower seeds.
A hand entwined with hers as she stared at the giant candelabra above.
“Head outta the clouds, sleepybean.” Sam squeezed her hand. “Nervous?”
“Worried.” Rye squeezed back. “Aren’t you?”
“Oh, I’m full to bursting,” she said, as if she wasn’t the perfect picture of calm. “But I’m hopefully optimistic. I wouldn’t be standing here if we hadn’t trained against him in your dream over and over again.”
“That was an imperfect copy. This could really cost us.” She gestured around with her handsy wand. It was very good at making a point, or prodding people into action. Sam apparently thought it made her look adorable because she turned away to hide a grin.
“I’m sure that between your conjuration, my steel, and Hannah’s… also conjuration, we can muscle through. We just need to endure this one last hurdle.”
“Sammy, I’m serious. Seventeen wins out of twenty-one attempts.” That was their end result, under optimal conditions. These were not optimal conditions because the knight was accompanied by more rabble than the last time they’d seen him, and their losses had all come from when he managed to turn what was supposed to be a three on one into a one on one. “I just want you to promise me that you’ll run if things get bad.”
After a moment, Sam nodded. “I will.”
And then she was off to pat Hannah on the back too. Rye was not jealous. But she did feel the sudden visceral urge to take Sam by her hand and run off to a far away land, or the other end of the massive cavern. Really, as long as she wasn’t in a position where one mistake could cost something very dear to her, it was fine.
Hannah stood up. “He’s coming. Ready?”
“Ready,” Sam said.
Rye walked up and gave her hand another squeeze. “Love you.”
“Love you too, bean.”
Blegh. You guys are so sappy.
They jumped and Rye plugged her ears right before Hannah used her new boon.
“Slow!”
Her voice, barely a whisper, told reality how it ought to be, and reality submitted. Their descent slowed as they floated their way towards the knight. Rye couldn’t join them, her [Threat music] would give them away. Nevertheless, she had an important role to fill.
Rye adjusted her footing atop the tribune’s baluster. She had always wondered if an adulation’s user had to learn an effect separately from how to reverse it. But Hannah’s boon had come with a handy solution.
“Slow’nt!” she whispered three meters above their quarry.
The passing knight understandably looked right up. That was when Rye’s hailstone javelin hit it and the three closest dregs right in the head.
You have challenged: Passing knight Paulus
The ice shattered as it cut them down, but their main target simply walked it off as it shattered against his visor. Rye hadn’t expected to take him out with that, and so she had filled her bolt with the stickiest, slushiest ice imaginable, gunking up his face and forcing him to bring a hand up to wipe it. That bought them the sliver of time they needed. Sam and Hannah descended on him, and the knight was forced to choose which one to block with his single free hand
He chose the obvious threat, the knight in battle-worn armor. Sam’s blade screeched along the flat of the shard-blade while Hannah’s hammer – a big icy knob extending from her staff – smashed right into the knight’s helmet.
There was a ringing sound as they were both buffeted away, the passing knight staggering a step back. But only one.
Rye could already see the first of the dregs patrolling the palace strolling in to see what the noise was. She smashed the first one straight through the chest, then froze a giant-sized one to the ground before finishing him off with a hailstone javelin to the face. But the palace was big and they kept on coming. Those mobs, as Hannah called them, needed to get out of the picture fast. If only she could cast as fast with one hand as she once had with two.
One dreg she thought she had killed suddenly got up and sped on a direct line towards Sam’s back.
“Sammy, behind!” she yelled, not getting a spell out quick enough.
Sam turned quick enough this time. She slapped the undead across the head with her fold-out shield but had to disengage as the passing knight swiped at her, then swiped again and again. He had recovered from Hannah’s hammer blow and was now proving which part of their assumptions had been inaccurate: He was fast. Faster than Elia, even, though not faster than her [Frog leap]s.
Hannah couldn’t keep up and Sam was instantly on the defensive.
Man, she’s getting her shit kicked in.
“Shut up, Rhuna!”
She was barely able to hold him back with sword and shield as the shard-blade tore chunks out of the latter. That was the second unknown. The blade was sharp beyond sharp, catching on even the slightest touch and ripping its way through any material, be it ground, stone, or unfortunately positioned dregs.
Behind a cluster of columns, another desperate fight was developing. Rye didn’t have time to watch Hannah maneuvering against two dregs, all she knew was that they had large shields and that from this angle, she had no hope of helping.
She pelted the passing knight with another barrage of bolts. He finally backed off, yet not without pulling a spear of golden sunlight from the air and hurling it at her. It struck the baluster like a thunderbolt, and for a moment, Rye thought she was going to lose balance. But the ground beneath her only gave away reluctantly, and she simply stepped aside.
“That was close.”
Hmph. I’d have dodged the moment I saw him glowing and shit. You didn’t even throw out a counterattack.
“If you’re going to be a critic, at least be helpful.
Sure. Your girlfriend is flagging. If you don’t give her some good support, she’ll probably die within thirty seconds.
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Rye’s heart sank. Rhuna’s pessimism was starting to feel more and more grounded in reality. The battle was playing entirely outside of their predictions. In all their victories, they had inflicted a lethal blow early on, but the knight was still prancing and jumping around, entirely unbothered. Either he was tougher than expected, or Rye really should have conjured an iceberg on top of them, even if that would bring the entire palace down on their heads, burying whatever secrets it held with it.
Something had to change, but what could she do from up here?
She watched the crumbling tribune crash to the ground.
“I think I have an idea.”
***
Sam was not the best fighter.
Her instructors had always said she had no talent for anything but dumb labor and rote memorization. So, she had capitalized on her strengths, and trained twice as hard and three times as long. She had picked up [Magnetic parry] in her second life, and it seemed like the answer to at least half of her sword-shaped problems. But as the dagger hooked around her guard, she knew that all she ever would amount to was a failure.
Dagger eyes, her classmates echoed. Barbarian. Maid-knight.
She ducked away as the jagged weapon tore a rent into her shield. She needed to concentrate.
Funny, she thought, they’re trying to screw me even from the afterlife.
It was almost like they were concerned with her advance into knighthood more than their own. It was such a stupid kind of jealousy, and even then it had hurt. However, what had started as a sore point had quickly turned into a badge of pride, though she never dared to wear it openly. Jealousy was a bitch but combined with a pride wounded by one supposedly so low it became a dangerous mixture.
Maybe if she hadn’t spent all that time comparing herself to them and instead strived to contend with the highest ones she wouldn’t be having so much trouble.
He grabbed for her head, a glowing ball inside his hand, and she decided not to find out what kind of magic that was. She bashed it aside and the glow dispersed. In exchange, she was thrown across the room until she slammed right into a wooden throne, exploding it and the corpse atop it.
“Crap,” she muttered, every bone in her body aching as she scrambled back to her feet. The knight was already approaching.
Where was Hannah?
Engaged with a different set of mobs, it seemed. And thank the gods for that because Sam could not handle any distractions. In seconds, he was there. The blows came and came and came until it was just her sword, and the line between parry and decapitation.
Shield’s useless.
Steady stance, balanced core.
Rye’s ok.
Where magic?
No, focus.
A moment of hesitation was enough.
Among the blows raining down on her, a jagged streak of sharpness came from an unexpected angle. It cut through her vambrace and only grazed her skin. But the pain was like ten thousand needles jammed into her bones and then jostled around. She dropped her guard and thought that perhaps her pride was more brittle than she had thought.
That was when the ceiling came down. A massive chandelier crashed on top of both of them, cracking flagstones weighing tons in two. Her knees buckled and gave away, sparks flew everywhere. And somewhere among the dust, a triumphant fanfare of music added to the visual cacophony.
“Did I get him?” her bean asked, emerging from a cushioning comet. She had cast a semicircle of translucent ice around herself and Sam as well, protecting both from stone shrapnel and dust. It was the only reason her eyes were open, and why she saw the shadow behind her twitch.
“Rye!” she called, but the reaper was already on her. Everything moved in slow motion then.
Rye was down here. That bastard wanted to kill her. None of this was part of the plan, but, well, Sam lunged regardless.
Her blade met the enemies’. She had never thought to use [Magnetic parry] to pull herself towards the enemy. It went against everything she had ever been taught. But it worked and instead of slashing across her love’s neck, it drew a maddening streak up her face.
But now he was off balance, and she was not.
A precision draw-cut left his hand limp and when he swapped hands again, Sam had already stuck her sword under his armpit and pulled.
The other limb went flying.
A half-breath later, an icicle the size of her arm pierced up his gut and exploded inside his torso. He gurgled, blood spilling out of his skull mask and fell limp. Sam finally noticed that during all that time, she hadn’t even had the time to take a breath.
Immortal slain
You have gained: Soul x45,000
Sam locked eyes with her Bean, forcing a smile as she sucked in air like a beached fish.
“You owe me one cuddle,” she said, slightly concussed.
“Why didn’t you run!?”
Sam gulped. That was not a happy face. “I… didn’t think I could?”
“You promised me!”
And you promised to stay out of danger, but here you are.
“Let’s call it even, okay?” All this arguing was giving her a headache. Sam rubbed her face. Her hand came back wet. “I think I lost an eye.”
“Let me look.” Rye’s scaly hand felt cold to her face. When she backed away with teary eyes, Sam knew that it was as bad as it felt.
“Help!” Hannah cried, sandwiched in between tower shields. “A little – ack!”
Two bolts curved around the pillars and her two opponents dropped dead. Sam’s instructions with melee combat had kept her alive long enough. Rye twirled back to face Sam and hugged her tight, her ghostly face only slightly phasing through her chest.
“That was so, so stupid of you, my love.”
“It was worth it,” she mumbled.
Rye drew back.
“I’m not angry that you did. I had a plan. My dead hand would have taken the hit, and then he would’ve eaten ice.” Her still hand tensed. “No Rhuna, that was not an attempt to kill you. I trusted that you could run away in time.”
Sam frowned. In the short time since they’d found each other again, all of Rye’s plans included a certain sense of… unsafety. Like she wasn’t concerned what happened to herself, and only what happened to others. It was so like her, and at the same time, it was frightening.
Not that Sam had been thinking more about herself than her bean during her lunge.
She sighed and grabbed an offered bottle of water. As expected, the healing didn’t fully reach into her eye.
Ah crap. That’s what I get for being a prideful hypocrite. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
“So,” she said, “was this ordeal worth it?”
She looked to Hannah, who seemed busy rummaging through the passing knight’s corpse.
“We gained quite a few shards.” She flicked her a bag and it was full of glistening greens, a handful of blues, and one, shining purple. “As for if there’s anything secret…”
She swerved around the wreck of the giant chandelier, between toppled thrones and tattered corpses. The old throne room must have once looked fit for even a council of kings, though with their arrangement it could have also been some sort of oligarchy. The large picture of that same woman they’d seen everywhere hung at the far end of the room, overlooking it all like an observer, or a reminder.
Hannahs eyes glowed. “There.”
Right, she did have some sort of boon for secret entrances. All the more embarrassing that she hadn’t even needed to use it in the chapel above. Sam and Rye watched as she moved into some sort of one footed, arm-raised stance as if mimicking an extra pair of arms.
Suddenly, the eyes on the woman in the painting burst into flame. The tongues ate their way out– and downwards until they had consumed it entirely, leaving a second picture that was almost the same as the first one. Except in this one, the roles were reversed. The bird was now cradling a human child.
“Mother of the father of,” Rye muttered.
“Creepy,” Sam said.
“That’s because… it’s a bird. And birds aren’t real. I think. But then why do I know what one even looks like?”
“I think someone screwed with the shard of birds. Which shouldn’t exist.”
A rumbling filled the air. The altar before them slowly receded into the wall, revealing a flight of stairs lit by ghostly candles.
“Well, if looking for answers, they’re likely down there,” Hannah said.
“Right.” Rye looked to the path, then back up at her. “Are you really ok, Sammy?”
“More than ok. I have you.” She smiled and tried to cup her chin, but her hand just went through. “We are getting you a new head though. We can’t kiss like this.”
“Roger that.” She saluted and then they were off.
Sam didn’t know what she had expected from a hidden passage inside a palace. A crypt would have been out of place, as those tended to be built under religious buildings, and this under-city already had a large enough one further outside. But here they were, inside a crypt with rows and rows of old graves. There was dust and cobwebs everywhere, as well as those fiery and icy apparitions they had seen far above.
“Shit.” Sam swore as she missed another parry, and an icy sword screeched along her plate armor. Losing one eye meant she couldn’t gauge distances as well, and at these ranges a small misjudgment meant death. She couldn’t rely on her armor forever either as it was starting to show rents and cracks just about everywhere.
But she only had to delay them for a second, before either Rye or Hannah could swat them away with their conjuration. It was mostly Rye though. With how fast and how much she was casting, it wasn’t like she really needed a frontliner either.
This is fine. You’re injured, you’re tired.
She swallowed a bit of that sour taste in her mouth and pressed on.
Besides the residents, the traps, and the smell, the biggest hurdle they came across was a large double-winged door made of stone.
“So, how do we unlock these?” Sam asked, looking at Hannah.
“See that statue? Put a bit of fire in one hand and a bit of ice in the other.”
“Ooh, symbolism,” Rye cooed. “Maybe there’s a conjurer hiding behind this door, with cool conjuring stuff! The ice is easy. But how do we get the fire? The fire-people completely disappear when they die.”
Sam and Hannah stared at her.
“We can just… start a normal fire. With flint and steel.”
Rye blinked. “Oh. Right. We have those.”
They did so, the door opened, and once again they went deeper into the dungeon. Though by this point, calling it a dungeon was definitely an insult to someone. This area had old yet well-kept rugs covering living areas that must have once been enough for a dozen people. A book was cracked open on an old armchair. This place felt homey, and that more than anything set her hairs on end.
Who wanted to have to go though so many secret passages just to get home? Evidently, the passing knight implied that the security was warranted. But how did they know?
They breached another set of doors and were awestruck. A natural cavern stretched as far as the palace’s ceiling, and more than its footprint in width and depth. The floor was made out of the same translucent ice as the ceiling, a crystal so pure it could have been glass. Trees stretched from bottom to top, all naked trunks – more resembling branches, really – growing up and up like a forest of pillars.
“Woah.”
This place was an impossibility, like the ginormous bridge that must have been built by the gods themselves. A single path grew through the thicket, on ground where the trees did not dare tread.
“Should we follow it?” Rye asked.
Sam didn’t hesitate. “No other place to go. Just keep your weapons ready.”
In case we’re trespassing.
They walked under arched branches and over glittering gravel, and the oppressive feeling soon lightened up. With every step Sam’s grip around her weapon grew sweatier.
But they popped out of the thicket and noticed the slumbering beast much too late. It had beaks and a claw, three wings and legs, and feathers black as night. It grew halfway to the ceiling, though part of that was just its plumage, and the way it lay sprawled against the wall.
“Greetings.”
They all jumped at the woman who raised from where she was resting against a wing. She was relatively small, compared to the bird. If she stood up, Sam had no doubt she would be twice as tall as herself.
The beast’s keeper? It’s warden?
Rye pointed at her. “You’re the lady from the statues.”
The woman nodded, smiling sagely.
“This is the truth. It is I, Uovis, former goddess of umbral knowledge.” She stroked the giant thing, gently. “To those born of erudition, I bid thee welcome, to our sanctuary.”