You have lost: Soul x5741
You have lost: Bone shards [Common] x13
You have lost: Bone shards [Uncommon] x1
Elia stared wordlessly at the sky. Such a matted blue thing. Such an offensive color. Why couldn’t it be purple, or green, or something else properly fantastic? Why was it that the moment she encountered something straight out of a movie or a video game that it was usually followed by her brutal and unapologetic evisceration?
The birds. They were at fault. Little wonder then that Rye denied their existence. They were a horror beyond comprehension, better left unknowable like some eldritch god, the recipe for the krabby patty or what a McNugget was made of.
E-elia? Are you alright?
She let out a low groan that devolved into a scream as she punched and kicked the air, flailing in directionless anger. Getting over the walls wasn’t supposed to be a cakewalk. Now, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to get to the other side. New area, same horrors.
A shadow fell over her head.
“Y’alright, miss?” Sextus asked.
“Birds are evil.” She said, though her heart wasn’t in it. He was definitely staring at her, at least where her chainmail was parted from the right shoulder down to her left hip. “I’m not gonna stand up and give you something to look at, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”
In all fairness, he stopped staring right away and left after a muttered apology.
Time until lost items and souls dissipate: 13 min
Welp, there was nothing to it then. She’d just have to jump down into the moat without any chest armor or clothing for that matter, get her souls and find another way inside. Maybe there was a way to open the front gates, a convenient lever perhaps, or a passcode hidden on an obvious sheaf of paper in clear sight.
She was rudely interrupted by a bag of cloth landing square on her face.
“Take it.” Sextus, thrower of bags said. “’S Nuvius ol’ tunic, belt an’ all. ‘E won’t be missin’ it.”
Elia stared wordlessly at the shirt-dress-thing in her hands. She was not going to ask who Nuvius was, what happened to him or why his tunic was almost too small for her. It didn’t even smell funny and beside clear signs of having been patched up more than once, the off-beige tunic would do well enough. The belt had a lot more bags to carry things in too. A definite upgrade.
“Why?” was all she managed to ask.
Sextus shrugged. “Travelers ought to stick together. Take it, ‘owever ye will, an’ blessing o’ Kao-joo upon ye.”
“Kao-joo?” she whispered while wiggling her way into the tunic. “That another god?”
He is the protector of travelers and seafarers at that. I think Sextus wants to show his goodwill not just to us but to the spirit of Kao-joo as well. It’s partially self-serving, before you get any unnecessary suspicions.
Ah, well, Elia had nothing against a bootlicker. He was probably faking it, Kao-joo probably had some dirt on him. “Not really used to hand-me-downs. Certainly didn’t expect this much from a guy who looks like a Friday night slasher.”
You can’t just say that about him, Sextus is nice.
“Well, he doesn’t appear like he feels entitled to us just because he helped a bit. Nobody likes a ‘nice guy’.”
I… well, all I can say is that I know the type and I empathetically agree with you. Also, is he not your type or why are you so vehemently trying to push him away?
That got her to sputter as she was half standing up. Between glances at the trio and worried looks to the way ahead, she finally managed a half-lie.
“I’m not comfortable engaging in romantic shenanigans with your body, Rye!”
They walked ahead towards the moat, serene silence in contrast to the past violence all around. Eventually, Elia’s head was filled with the humming of a happy tune.
You’re actually pretty considerate, as grumpy as you can sometimes be. You’re like a grumpy ol’ cat.
“I will stab you.”
----------------------------------------
Elia set one foot on a corpse desiccated like the aftermath of a vampire all-you-can-eat buffet. She slipped off nearly immediately, gliding in between the cracks of layered bodies with a wet squelch. Elia let go of the rope she had appropriated, fully immersing herself in the abattoir–moat. Rye had as always announced she was going to watch none of this whole ordeal and at the sound she let out a sickened whimper.
Time until lost items and souls dissipate: 6 min
Wading through a sea of dead people was not fast, nor was it the most pleasant of experiences. Whenever she pulled her naked feet from in between the squelching bodies it came back smeared red, black, and filthy.
Her souls were just under the bridge, floating a few idle inches above the surface, radiating a warm, gentle glow. Elia’s thoughts were already on how to proceed next when the souls were suddenly slurped under the surface.
“What. The fuck.”
A moment later, a pair of whiskers emerged from the same place, pink nose tasting the air.
“A… rat?”
And what a chonker it was, easily forty pounds of pure rodent. It burrowed through the bodies before stopping to sniff in her direction. She pulled her shield close moments before the human child-sized rat flung itself out of the ground and straight towards her.
Its teeth gnashed against her shield, then batted it aside with a headbutt as it went for her arm, eyes glowing with the strength of a million rodents. Its teeth closed a moment too late, and Elia dashed its brains out against her metal maul.
You have gained: Soul x36
You have regained–
She cut off the notifications as she heaved the rat to the side.
A-are we ok, Elia?
“Yeah, just a rodent of unusual size.” She rolled her shoulders, but noticed her left bracer had come loose. “That bite went through my bracers. Shit, I think I’m bleeding.”
U-use the wax! I don’t want to get any corpse rot, not here, not now.
She did, while waging the benefit of gathering enough common shards to trade for uncommon ones to using them right now. How likely was she to survive to the next checkpoint without screwing up twice in a row?
If only it weren’t for that stupid bird. She combined the common shards, snipping the die with gusto. Time went still as it bounced off the entrenched stone wall, rolled along the rat’s naked tail and finally stopped on the stretched out tongue of a bald woman’s corpse. A gray symbol that was unmistakably a tooth pulsed for a few seconds, then disappeared with the die as the world went round again.
You h–
Elia immediately pulled up the information on the boon, licking her dry chapped lips in anticipation.
[Body] Blessing of Dentus [Common] [Empty Socket]
You have been blessed by Dentus, saint of dental care. Gain teeth as hard as steel that shall never rot and always shine a pure beautiful white.
“Oh hey, a useless boon with an essence socket.” Like a turd with rainbow sprinkels. “Also, who the heck is Dentus?”
Oh, I know who that is! He’s depicted as a smiling man with a scruffy beard who really likes honey. There’s a nursery rhyme about him that goes something like this: Brush your teeth day in~ day out~, clean the filth inside and out~…
While Elia would have loved to listen to her companion’s lovely serenade, she was busy trying to ascertain the source of swelling sense of dread in her chest. Were there more rats, was the bird coming to finish her off?
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She waded under the bridge and for a moment all was well. Then her teeth fell out, all at once. Coughing and spewing them everywhere, she touched where her gums ached only to feel entire rows slowly making their way up from beneath her gums.
The entire process was not bloodless. By the time it was over, she had used a good part of her wyckwax to pad the inside of her mouth. Great, now the taste of old herbs and dirt was mixing with the coppery-iron tang of her newly acquired biters.
…and that’s how your teeth never~ fall~ out~!
Elia only had one thing to say. “Fuck saint Dentus.”
ELIA!
“I think I swallowed one.”
A what now?
By the vindicating sounds of retching, Rye had finally opened her eyes to the true horror of dental care. Regardless, Elia was a lot more interested in the man-sized hole in the wall. It was hidden beneath the shadow of the bridge and by the looks of it could have been dug by either man or beast. Holes in the walls were not usually a sound design choice for fortresses, Lord of the Rings taught her that much.
Hoping no rat would follow her to nibble on her toes, Elia bent down and crawled her way through the damp confines. What was initially a sound idea for circumventing the need to fight a giant stone bird quickly turned out to be dark, tight and a little anxiety inducing.
Only a little.
“I think I smell fresh air.” Elia said and immediately tripled her shuffling speed.
The tunnel had some bends and diverging paths, but none enticed her more than the way ahead. A cool draft washed over her face as she popped out from a dislodged grate in the ground. She clambered on out, immediately finding herself in a metal cage of some sort sitting in one of the many courtyards of the castle.
The cage was on a cart and empty, though signs of previous human habitation were still present. A lost spoon, a discarded blanket, a stain of unknowable liquid. A true mobile prison cell. Outside, the odd dreg patrolled atop the walls and a few more shambled around the exterior of what looked to be a simple door leading into the castle keep itself.
The cage door creaked open as she leaned against it. None of the undead bothered to approach, they were too busy doing undead things.
“You can open your eyes, Rye.”
Wow… those are a lot of dead bodies. I can see some… some knights?
“Those are definitely dead knights.” Elia stopped to poke one of the reclining figures of metal with her morningstar. The entire armor fell apart, revealing the oily residue of what was most likely undead sweat, but no undead. No body.
SHHH, THEY’RE GOING TO HEAR US!
For once, Rye proved correct as a towering undead peeked out from behind one of the dozens of strewn about cage wagons. Its limbs looked just a tad too long and besides a metal chestplate and helmet that slumped down over its eyes, a two-handed flail hung wickedly from its hands, three jingling chains ending in metal stars each as spiked and large as her own weapon’s.
“At least it’s not a knight–“ Her eyes went wide as the undead burst into a sudden charge.
She jumped away, flails thumping against the ground. Her back hit the cage. The moment it took her to analyze this undead as new, faster, and thereby unpredictable was enough for it to tear its flail free and nearly decapitate her with a wild backswing.
ELIA RUN!
“No.” She took a step forward, then three around its back as the undead tried to swing with an empty fist. “Screw running.”
One smack to the hips. Clearly not enough.
But he’s so big, you don’t have armor– EEEK!
“That just means–“
She dodged another swing.
“– means I need to be more–”
Her shield arm was blown clean to the side.
“– OW – more careful. Will you let me finish a–”
The undead twirled, a deadly pirouette in a hurricane of spiked metal balls that smashed apart a wooden post, sparking off metal as it tried to kill, kill, kill.
With endless stamina, it pulled back for another swing, but the flail didn’t budge. A ball was lodged in between the metal bars of the cage.
“–goddamn sentence!”
She bashed its knee repeatedly until the dreg bent down, then its head which it was so politely offering. It took a surprising six hits before the undead fell to the floor, dead outright.
You have gained: Soul x400
Elia huffed, heart pounding like a drum. “Woah, look at those souls.”
…that was so, so risky. Dangerous. Brutal. Nasty.
“Nah, for most undead you can just wait for them to flail at you wildly until they fuck up.” Elia rummaged through the body, finding another goody. “It went just as planned.”
You have gained: Bone shards [Common] x1
And what if it hadn’t? What if you tripped, what then? How can you be so sure of yourself?
Elia smiled and it felt good with her new teeth, clean and fresh. “My confidence skyrockets the moment there’s a flail at my throat. What are they gonna do, kill me?”
A tingling sigh sounded out. I guess without fear of death killing you, you can be as brash as you’d like.
“Exactly! Now c’mon, we have a castle to clear.”
I just hope there’s at least one person here who’s friendly.
----------------------------------------
Soul count: 7613
Shard count: [Common] x3 [Uncommon] x1
Elia stood in front of a door to the keep, having fought a bunch of undead and another flail-wielding madman just to get across the next two sections of the outer bailey. At least none of the ranged undead had begun shooting down at her from atop the walls. She figured that was just a question of time and making enough noise.
Predictably, the door was locked, because the easy way was never available to her. She tried everything, from knocking to unhinging it to simply using every boon she had available on it, minus Rye’s limited magic.
Door to the castle kitchen
A door, heavy and closed. Does not open from this side.
“Stupid door.” She kicked it, before turning with a huff. At least psychometry worked on doors better than on most architectural features. Touching the castle’s walls netted roughly the same quality of information as touching a pebble.
Wall
A wall, wide and tall.
With mounting frustration and fatigue, she took to walking through a nearby raised grate, ready to clear out the next courtyard of its undead inhabitants. At least these big guys weren’t stingy with their souls. She could probably return to Crossroad temple and get her strength upgrade right now, though the fact that its total cost was hidden and that she had to purchase new armor pushed her to continue on forwards just a little bit more, just a scooch.
Ten thousand souls. When she had that much, she was turning around.
Elia took one step out the inner gate and near immediately jumped back. A towering hulk of a creature sat slumped against the wall, literally within arm’s reach of her. A catfish ogre. What a sneaky position to hide an ogre in, she had almost overlooked it and–
It wasn’t moving.
Carefully, she tip-toed past it.
Not a flinch.
She poked it with considerable apprehension, jumping back as she expected it to get up like all the other undead.
It didn’t.
As she took a closer look, she noted that half of the flattened fish-face and neck was simply missing. A peek past the corpse filled her with more dread than happiness. Dozens of fish-ogres lay all around in in piles of muck and blood. Undead too, and knights slumped against walls or simply torn to pieces.
Holy grug, what happened here?
“The bird. I’m betting on the bird. Are you betting on the bird?”
It’s not a bird, it’s a roc. And they are supposed to be messengers of divine will and symbols of knowledge, not… aw beans, do we really have to go through here? I really, REALLY don’t like this, Elia.
“Neither do I. I want to run past this place and purge it from my short–, medium– and long-term memory.”
…ok, now you’re really scaring me.
She kept an eye on her surroundings as she snuck around, looting the plentiful dead as silently as possible.
You have gained: Throwing knives x10
To the right, a giant gatehouse stood closed, stairs up to the walls barred with anything these people could find to prevent anybody from ascending. That was the front gate by the looks of it.
You have gained: Bone shards [Uncommon] x2
The walls themselves? They were high, though not infinitely much. Straying close risked gaining the attention of any dregs stationed up there. There might even be a good position for the archer to ambush her from again, assuming there really only had been one and they were aligned with whoever headed this castle, or whoever was still alive in it.
You have gained: Coiled conch x2
Coiled Conch
Great shells filled with dramatic fire make for a devastating weapon that can disrupt even heavy formations of mortal knights and send war beasts into panic.
She raised an eyebrow, but simply strapped them with the loop of coarse twine they came with to her belt. Any weapon that didn’t rely on her pitiful strength was a good one. Undead were usually brittle enough that one or two weak swings to critical areas were crippling and she could then finish them off handily enough, but ogres and flail guys were proving a disconcerting trend of exceptions to the rule.
She turned to face her left, a gate much taller than it was wide blocking the path where the road continued through the mountain.
“Think that’s our way through?” She gestured to where the architecture grew more ornate, possibly gothic if she didn’t know for certain that she totally whiffed the historical architecture exam in art class.
Gods, I hope not. Ruthe, give me strength.
“I thought he was the god of peace?”
Mental strength, peace of mind. Where are the soldiers, where are the knights? What happened here, are the ogres on ‘our’ side or not?
“Answer’s ahead and if not, well, sucks to be us I guess.” She strode forward, weaving in between bloody carcasses. They had the same complexion as the gate, a rusted red. One open wing revealed a darkness so thick and ominous she could almost feel it on her skin, flowing out like some unholy liquid.
Even the vines and the walls themselves seemed to shrink back from this place, and the closer she got the less corpses lay on the ground. Their wounds – especially the ogres’ – weren’t inflicted by humans. Oversized cleavers and clubs had taken the lives of most of them, ogre on ogre, side by side. Entire arms were torn off and even the largest ogre she found, clad entirely in knight’s plate armor that must have cost a fortune to make, lay dead as dead can be. She found its trachea some ten foot to the side, torn out with the heavy mail protecting it.
Can’t we just… turn back? M-maybe we can talk with the roc, make up with it and it’ll just… let us pass?
A cold tingle ran up Elia’s spine and she exhaled, letting some of the tension drain out. “No. Not the bird. Not ever. Whatever is past that door is a thousand times more welcome than that murderous stone chicken.”
O-ok. I’m with you, magic and all, for however much that counts.
It counted a lot, but Elia let that unsaid as she strode forth towards the enveloping darkness. Nearly halfway there, a sound brought her to a halt. Dripping. First there was the sound of a single drop, then soon two and more that grew thick until they fell like dollops of cream. The darkness stirred, whipping a gust of air out the gateway. A single bony set of claws grasped the door wing and pushed it open, sparks alighting on the stone while a horrible squeal filled the air.
“Fuck.”
It looked like a massive dog from hell, drawn on canvas and fallen into our world, dark ink and all. A sharp maw stretched like an alligator’s, fur undulating rhythmically, dripping like living tar only to reveal white bleached bone that was quickly covered up by the pulsating black liquid.
“Double fuck.”
It flowed out from the doors and on the field, too many bleached paws and human arms carrying its sickening torso like a centipede. The head turned, malevolent eyes taking in the presence of the much smaller figure in front. What was supposed to be a long tail turned to face her, smiling with its own rows of sharp teeth.
The creature roared, with both ends.
S-S-SPIKY DOG!
You have challenged: Vita the Fane-Eater