An intimidating air loomed in tandem with overgrown walls above her. Towering ramparts and wooden fortifications covered in a layer of arrows of all sizes crowned near fifty feet of stacked rock. The walls betrayed considerable damage where large boulders had carved out their pound of stone or still lay embedded into the wall, though crawling vines of autumn colors obscured most like a heavy blanket.
The moat in front of it was the first thing that made Elia pause, possibly even play with the idea of turning around.
Holy grug.
Corpses filled the moat so deep they couldn’t see the bottom, the same reddish goop, so dark it was black, resting in between.
“It’s a fuckin slaughterhouse.”
It didn’t hit her as odd that despite the revolting appearance, none of the corpses were blooming with mold or rot. Undead corpses made for instant mummies more times than not, but these just seemed… empty, drained of all but the flesh and bones. Even the eyes were missing. With a shudder, she turned her attention elsewhere.
Elia was glad that this was the last bit of her journey. Climbing up and then walking along the top of the inner walls was her best bet. This was going to take a lot of lives to get past, but Loften was somewhere on the other side of the castle keep rising halfway to the twin peaks ahead, or so she was led to believe. Maybe it was the outlook for revenge, for getting her own body or for just laying her eyes on something else than overgrown stone walls, but a quiet bubbling anticipation had settled in her chest and was refusing to pay rent.
Her gaze drifted from the scattered dead ogres surrounded by heaps of mulched militia to the tilted siege towers and the damaged though closed gate. She was right below the walls, weren’t any defenders going to poke their heads out yet?
“Multiple routes. So Rye, door or ladders? Any preference?”
… have you tried knocking?
A surprisingly reasonable suggestion. Why didn’t any of these other people try it? “Big fuck-off door it is! Let’s hope it opens from this side.”
The door was a large chunk of metal, easily three times as tall as Elia and decorated in worn albeit still legible scenes of knights, of hunt and a few other things she noted down under cultural or religious grandstanding.
“Oh no, you don’t want to go past this gate, the knights kill monsters thrice their size. The pictures on the door say so.” She muttered.
Elia climbed over a large corpse blocking the single bridge that traversed the deathpit. It was no less of a deathtrap for the invaders than the moat itself and since she was keeping an eye out for loot, a small twinkle rewarded her efforts.
You have gained: Small drizzled Soul
Small drizzled Soul
A collection of souls once possessed by an undead or a dreg. Can be crushed in hand for a small number of souls.
Though unable to continue their journey, many souls cling together by their very nature, for life seeks life even in death.
“Smaller soul collection, but same type and description as before.” She closed her hand around them, feeling warmth but also like she was trying to force two magnets with the same pole to touch. If she pressed harder, she was sure to reach a breaking point. Souls were like cracking eggs in that way. “Hey Rye, any ideas why I can hold these in my hand, but the others just automatically flow into me?”
Possibly because they’re… stickier? Life seeks death and vice versa, meaning you attract both as an undead. Though since life also seeks life, the larger ones seek to hold together more than they seek to become part of you, unless you… crush their bindings and pull them apart.
“Huh.” It was kind of like gravity then, or like some other smaller physical force. Elia couldn’t say, she got up to tenth grade physics with a solid D. “What a surprisingly reasonable explanation. I hereby promote you to head soul person. You may count my souls. Your pay stays the same.”
But you don’t pay me– oh, haha. Joke funny. I’m still waiting for us to get arrested for crimes against humanity and gods. The mass of undead are a sign that SOMETHING is really, really wrong, but I don’t know if that justifies all this soul sucking we’re doing.
Rye worried too much. The fantasy cops would have to catch her first if they wanted to arrest her. Actually, they might have boons for that. Magical handcuffs, with lasers and unpickable mechanisms. Anti-magic metals, truth serums that actually worked. Shit, they might make her confess how many games and movies she had torrented.
Elia pocketed the soul and sauntered over to the castle gates. They were huge. “Those sure are a big pair of knockers.”
They were giant sized, possibly even impracticably tall for them. She wouldn’t reach them even with three stools stacked on top of each other. It fit oddly well with the massive scale of architecture. Every bit of it existed to make her feel small and insignificant.
… aren’t you going to make an innuendo?
“Hmm, what?” She blinked herself out of her thoughts. “Oh, no, I was just marveling at the beauteous vista.”
There are corpses everywhere, Elia. Somehow, I don’t believe even you could find this appealing.
She threw up her hands in defeat. “Well, you got me. I was admiring the graeco-roman style human figures. But looks like the door’s a bust.”
Alright. What about the small door?
“Silly you, there is no small–“ A small door-shaped indent on the right wing stood with its own, human sized knocker. “Huh.”
Listen to me. I know you’ve had a bad time being in the maze and that you might be a bit paranoid when it comes to people, but these people can help you, can help us. They’re knights!
“And knights are awesome by definition.” That she had come to know first hand. “Gotcha, I’ll try the pacifist route first.”
Elia pulled the metal knocker back and knocked twice, loudly. To her unending surprise, a voice answered from the canine mouth holding the ring between its jaws.
“Leave.” It said, fearful voice entirely at odds with the intimidating lupine figure. “O-on Lord Captain Hall’s orders, n-no one in, no one o-out.”
“Huh. A talking door.” And one someone bothered to give a stutter. “You got a name?”
“D-d-dorothy.” The door sounded like it was about to implode from a combination of embarrassment, awkwardness, and abject terror. “P-please just l-leave. A-and don’t knock! They will hear you.”
“That’s kind of the point?” Elia asked. “Also, who’s they. More ogres?”
The door sounded like it was trying to un-hyperventilate itself. It should get some pointers from Rye, she did it on the regular. Elia would have laughed at the ridiculousness of this situation if she didn’t feel a cold breath crawl out of the canine head and over her body.
“Something terrible lurks beyond me. I-I am but a door, I cannot turn around and see it. Sometimes, I feel them clamor at my back. S-scratching. C-c-clawing. A-as the door to our holy empire, I cannot let you pass. it is f-fo-forbidden.”
Oh, this poor… door. Elia, could you ask to speak with someone else, preferably someone who could help us along?
“Nah, I’ve heard enough.” Elia turned on her heels, eyeing the many ladders and siege towers. “Pacifist route failed, time to commit a crime.”
You didn’t even try! You are such an anti-people person.
“Yes!”
Much to the displeasure of her cranial companion, Elia sauntered over to the nearest free shortcut over the walls. Whoever assaulted this fortress left some adventurously constructed ladders, but they were preferable to climbing barehanded as long as she didn’t look down.
I… I think I saw something move down there.
“No you didn’t.” She tore her gaze back skywards, vowing not to look down a second time.
I did though.
“Nope. You’re wrong, sorry.”
… you really have a problem with heights.
The ladder swayed for an uneasy moment. “I have a problem with falling down in that human abattoir and then having to get our souls back from it, which just so happens to involve heights. I ain’t afraid of shit.”
It’s always souls this, boons that. Is there ever anything else on your mind?
“Food.” She gave a look to her soul count. “I could buy five bags of fruit with these.”
Or you could not do that. I see the way you look at your souls with irreverent eyes. They aren’t anything more than numbers to you.
“Well, maybe numbers are holy to me. Maybe I worship them. Eh, ever thought of that?”
I… I don’t believe you.
Elia couldn’t shrug as she was forty feet off the ground and her confidence in the constantly swaying construct of wood and fraying rope was dropping, harshly.
“Math is cool.”
Math is cool. While I am glad we agree, that doesn’t–
“Hey look, we’re up on the wall.” Elia pulled herself over, winded mostly from unease at her lacking grip strength rather than exertion. This part was clear of wooden roofs, though corpses lying scattered or leaned against the parapet showed that the violence extended beyond them as well. At least half of them probably weren’t even corpses, just dregs taking a quick century-long nap.
The moment she took more than a step, one of the undead sat up, wooden tower shield and spear in hand.
– doesn’t mean you–
“Oh no, the undead is attacking! Egad, I must fight to save the both of us, and our souls!”
The undead gurgled, it did want her souls and sundry. Standing back to wait for a fatal mistake proved not to be the simple solution it normally was. Instead of launching into relentless aggression, it hid behind its shield, waiting for her to approach within melee range. Which for it meant within six to seven feet and for Elia three less.
–doesn’t–
“Shit, this is genuinely annoying.” She imitated the undead, hiding behind her oaken heater. “Now I want a spear.”
… Nevermind. Just try to treat life with some reverence. Please?
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A throwing knife dinked off the shield, the undead behind entirely content to stand in the way until the end of time.
“Yeah, no, god kind of ruined that for me when he put me here. Or one of your gods. Y’know what, you can tell me about them while I find a way forward. Who knows, you may even convince me to relinquish some precepts of my anti-theism.”
That… is a great idea! I honestly thought you’d never ask and between Crossroad Temple and here so many things happened that I just forgot about my duties as a civilized human to educate you from your barbaric ways.
Barbaric. Not that Rye knew how a gun worked. Or how to make cement. Or how to code a Super Mario world 2 Rom-hack. Technically, Elia only knew how to do two of these things but being born in 21st century Oregon left her with so much passively acquired knowledge that she had to be superiorly civilized in most ways that counted.
“I bet you don’t even have flushing toilets.” She mumbled, baiting out a spear stab and advancing into the opening until she could dome the undead with a two-handed strike.
You have gained: Soul x89
“Holy shit, this thing destroys helmets. Rye, did you see that?” she eyed the spear, but found its tip so bent and rusted she didn’t know why she was worried about it in the first place.
There’s – urk – brain stuck to your weapon and, and… you know what, I’m just going to close my eyes again. Anyhow, the gods are a family, with many members. The inner family is divided into three sons and seven daughters headed by their mother and father, the two great gods Ruthe and Worga. Beneath them are the outer gods and demigods, those immortals who have touched upon a mote of divinity or were granted purpose and with their responsibilities a relevant power. Beneath them are the divine servants, ascended mortals who live to fulfill the will of the gods.
“Ascended?” she asked, checking three undead bodies that surprised her by being completely honest in their cadaverific presentation.
When a mortal ascends, they became immortal, unageing. Myths and legends tell of people who overcame impossible challenges for which they were acknowledged by the gods and lifted up into their realm. It could be fighting a dangerous mythical beast and winning, inventing some important thingmabob or even just being so ridiculously good at dance and entertainment the gods give you this gift after inviting you to one of their banquets. Rarely is it a single task that makes a legend and there are many who purposely undergo excruciating labors in a bid for having their worth be acknowledged. Any questions so far?
Many. “No, continue.”
Alright then, the gods. You might know them under other names, but these are the only true ones so listen close. First is Ruthe, father of metal and civilization. He’s the god of peace as well as ingenuity. If you need a good idea, wish for the protection of your home or just want your neighbors to quiet down, pray to him.
“Huh. You can just petition a god and they’ll show up on your front lawn, fix your broken relationship with your family and move on?” She smiled when Rye didn’t answer with a stutter and a curse. She was starting to learn when Elia was joking.
Whether they answer or not is entirely up to if you are worth their attention and have made the correct sacrifice. All things have a price, as per the law of sacrifice. If you do catch their attention, best pray it isn’t for malign reasons. That’s a lot easier and it’s why I’ve been telling you to stop challenging them, to stop cursing. You never know who might be listening and while smitings aren’t a weekly occurrence, that’s because they mostly send divine servants in their place or find more subtle ways to pay you back for your transgressions.
“Figures. If I had a cockroach in my living room that kept on insulting me I would step on it too.” She was the cockroach in this case. Best stay in the darker corners then, not make a fuss until she could stomp back. “Though with undeath, I guess we’re kind of immortal now too, eh?”
W-well… maybe? I don’t think undeath is quite the same as divine unending life. I’ve never heard of an undead surviving decades without decaying to become a dreg, though I guess that can in part be put down to the… weird circumstance we’ve found ourselves in. Anyhow, on to the second goddess and his wife: Worga.
Elia continued her jaunt along the wall, occasionally taking the time to dome an undead mid-standing up or to look ahead and plan her further advance. The slaughter within the field to her right still felt much too close. The intersecting and interlocking walls to her left filled her with unease. No friendly faces showed themselves yet, just more dregs. The castle bared too much resemblance to the maze, though thankfully it was not as expansive and walking along the walls was considered legal, incentivized even.
Still, the odd knight covered entirely in plate she spied from up top was already an abundance of dangers. The way they moved one clanking step at a time didn’t leave her with a good impression of her chances. The strength upgrade to her giant’s soul was turning more and more into a necessity before she could think of exploring this place in any depth.
“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. Worga who?”
… Worga. Goddess of conquest and control. Gave birth to the sun. Fought back the moonwell, and the dark forest. You know what that is at least, right?
“Uh-huh.” She dodged an undead that looked much too tall for the breastplate it was squeezed in and had a lot more enthusiasm for bisecting her with a massive axe than she preferred. The part about the sun was probably just myth. “Forest. Save the trees. Global warming bad.”
A smack to its helmet left it dazed, but it surprised her with its sturdiness by almost knocking her over the parapet with a backhand strike. It too died after she crippled its knees, just in time for a bolt to clang off her mismatched pauldrons.
You have gained: Soul x200
…will you be ok?
“I’m fine! This is–“ she threw a dagger as she dodged a bolt from a second crossbowman, hitting the first straight through the eye. “Wooh! Still got it.”
Alright. Well, what you probably know under a different name we call the dark forest. It is a massive, world-spanning expanse of giant trees that give shelter and nourishment to the most horrid of beasts.
“The whole world?” As in, land and ocean? “Seems like a bit of a dramatic overreach.”
No. From the highest mountains to the deepest seas, wherever you stray too far from the gods’ grace, there loom roots like spears, trunks like mountains, leaves like green roofs. It is a forest so dark it might as well be eternal night beneath its canopy. It is the epitome of danger, with a capital ‘D’. Anything that comes from the forest has only one purpose: to destroy all civilized lands and take away what the gods have bestowed upon us and we have built from there. Of the fifty-four legions of our eternal empire, forty-six are tangled up in the far provinces to keep it at bay and there is no world in which we aren’t better off with that stupid forest burnt to the ground!
You have gained: Soul x67
“Funny, you sound like the exact opposite of some professional tree huggers I know. It’s all ‘wah, save the rainforest’ and ‘we have to reduce our carbon footprint’, but then they hop in their SUV’s, eat a full meal at taco bell for under eight dollars and order half a metric ton of pants and dresses that couldn’t have been made anywhere but an Asian sweatshop with same-day delivery.”
That seemed to hit a nerve.
What, do they think talking with trees will convince them to grow any less fast? It’s not the trees that are evil, it’s the entire gods–darn forest. It made flies that lay eggs under your skin and eat your heart. It made mawlocks, slimy creatures that wait in pools of water to drown kids in or turn them into mawlocks themselves. It made gouging-pox. Would your traitorous barbarian friends still be hug-buddies with trees if they knew how many people die in gouging–pox outbreaks?
You have gained: Bone shards [Common] x1
Elia quirked an eyebrow as she finished looting an already fallen corpse. “Easy there on the heat, brain bud, you’re approaching un-Rye-like levels of anger there. I’m just saying, where I come from people burn down forests for short-lived profits while on your end, weeding is apparently a patriotic duty.”
Elia flexed her right arm, feeling an odd sting in her elbow after these last few swings of her mace. It was too early for a break, she only had fifty feet to go until this end of the wall ended in a tower that would hopefully open up some further routes.
…my grandda’ and his da’ died fighting the forest creatures. I never got to see their faces and Da’ was only pulled out of the legions because first uncle Morrisius died in a mugging and second uncle Ingenius invoked divine retribution when he offered a bag of glass gems instead of real ones at a temple. It wasn’t his fault; it was that dirty merchant from overseas. Ingenius’ only fault was that he was too stingy to have them checked but dead he was and Da’ inherited. And then, when I was sixteen, the pox came.
Wow was that a landmine she just stepped in. “Shit, girl.” And it just didn’t seem to stop, Rye endlessly caught between mania and quiet apathy.
My parents adopted a lot of children. Gouging pox kills adults, bursts their eyes and bellies, but kids it only disfigures most of the time. Something within the lymph I hear, or some say it’s the gases, though you probably know how high the chance is for them to succumb to some other stupid infection until adulthood.
The inexplicable wisdom hit her that she probably shouldn’t tell Rye that in the states child mortality was measured in the per-mille.
I have seventeen younger siblings, Elia, no matter what happens, what happened. When I saw those people in the moat, something just– her breath hitched and there was the faint sound of sniffling. It took a while for her to compose herself. I just– I need to make it back. I’m the firstborn, what will they do without me? What if the entire world is like this as you say, what if we don’t make it? What if we fail?
“Rye, did you forget who I am? I am Elia the awesome, conqueror of the endless maze and friend to toads.” An undead walked up from a nearby stairwell, shield and spear in hand but Elia kicked it off the wall before it had time to process her presence. Quibbles croaked, mocking the undead for its lack of situational awareness and ability to bounce. She left him to it, he was the expert on bouncing. “Now look up, I’ll take you to Loften and we’ll find a way back as well. Don’t worry about the way, just think about what souvenir you want to bring your family with you from Loften. Not every day you get to break into the city of the gods, eh?”
Great. Yeah, that’s good, uh-huh. To Elia’s surprise, Rye sounded much calmer after one final sniffle. I just remembered some bad memories. Sorry. For burdening you with my own misery.
“No problemo. I can’t really relate, but I probably will the next time you dream about it. Now, tell me more about those silly gods…“ An undead stood atop the wide-set stone tower up ahead, the same as all the others. Almost the same. “Is that a seashell?”
The undead threw a seashell large as her own head and out of reflex Elia tried to block it. She had a new fancy shield and all. It was made of heavy wood, too.
The next thing she knew, the world exploded with sound and light, and she was lying on the ground, pain arching up her arm. Through muted sounds she found her left hand broken and her shield pasted with still smoking soot. She stood even without Rye yelling into her ear, plucked a shard of shell from her cheek that had pierced right through and froze.
That was a grenade. The undead was throwing explosive seashells at her. And he had more than one.
ELIA, HE’S GOT–
She burst into motion, as far as staggering forward over shards of shell could be counted as much, running closer to the stunted tower to break line of sight. She managed, found a winding stairway on her left, and ran up, up and up. The fear of being hit again crawled across the back of her neck but when she reached the top a few steps earlier than expected she found that the undead wasn’t even bothering with her anymore.
It was still standing where it had before, dumbly staring along the wall while holding an entire crate of shells. Stupid undead.
While Elia couldn’t walk up to it without being heard, the dreg soon found out that turning around was not the right move against a kick to center mass. It toppled and fell, a sharp boom and crack echoing along the wall below.
The conflagration shook her to the bone. She could feel the heat up to here. She really had to up her expectations of this medieval world.
“Motherfucker.” She spat after it. “The hell are these things filled with, nitroglycerin?”
I-I’ve heard of these, urns and other things filled with dramatic fire. Also, language, again.
She sighed. “No, not language. Shit, If I knew gunpowder existed, I’d have actively hunted for bombs but hey, we’re not in the maze and regret is not my style. No strings, no ties, it’s a whole new fantastic world and a whole new fantastic me.”
…I haven’t by any chance managed to convince you of the grace of our good lord Ruthe, god of peace and civilization, have I?
“Nope, fuck the gods. Or one god in particular. Say, you don’t happen to have a god of abducting adolescents from other worlds, do you?”
Rye sighed. I think this is going to take some time. And no, that is a silly thing to be a god of. Be careful what you say, the gods hear everything.
“Good.”
And then the tower exploded. A cloud of dust enveloped everything in sight as Elia was thrown off her feet again, tumbling towards the stairs, then – unluckily – falling two dozen steps down them. Stars flooded her vision, acknowledging how painful the fall felt. Good thing she was wearing a helmet.
T-t-here’s something in the dust!
Elia coughed as she drew in a breath of pulverized limestone. Through squinting eyes the figure rose, two gigantic limbs spreading out like the wings of an angel. This was no savior of hers and when she beheld its visage behind settling dust, she was certain that death had come.
It’s a roc! With a… sword…head?
“Fuck.” Elia scrambled on her back like a flipped turtle. It wasn’t the long heavy sword that disturbed her, silly as it looked with its hilt embedded through the marble bird’s white forehead. Nor was she scared by its size, larger than an elephant, or the numerous nicks and cracks revealing its experience in fighting off trespassers like her.
It was the feeling of utter helplessness, as if faced by a natural disaster shrunk down to a dreadfully personal scale.
Elia? ELIA!?
Elia ran. She turned and left without a second to look back. The marble bird screeched. She caught herself screaming in turn, flailing to get just one step further, just one second of extended life.
The bird never failed to kill her. The bird never failed to find her. Even in her dreams, nothing she could do ever changed that simple fact that the bird would always be there, watching, judging, terrifying.
A thundering impact.
A jump propelled her over a crate, narrowly evading a thousand-pound wing-strike.
A roll, too late to save her arm now severed at the elbow while her other searched her pockets with frantic mania for anything helpful at all.
The pain was as much motivator as it was an obstruction to her escape. Blood loss put her on a timer, but she didn’t need to survive, just die where her souls could be safely recollected, or get the ring but where was the ring, the damn ring where the hell was it!?
She reached the ladder, took one peek back and jumped.
Talons closed around her legs, putting an uncomfortable pressure on the bones before they snapped. In an action that defied physics, the bird swooped up, flung her mangled body into the air and with a single peck of its sword-beak hewed Elia from shoulder to hip. Her shield did not even slow it down.
Her legs fell towards the inner keep. Her upper torso managed to just barely miss the walls, tumbling past the outer parapets to join the thousand bodies in the moat below. She muttered a muted curse as she failed to clasp one hand around the ring in her pocket and closed her eyes before the impact shook her awake.
You have died