A near unstoppable force barreled downslope, on collision course with one very stoppable person–shaped object after the other.
You have gained: Soul x41
You have gained: Soul x89
You have gained: Soul x55
Rye was screaming. Elia was cackling glee incarnate.
She jumped, then ground to a stop in the dried–out riverbed. Bolts whizzed overhead, the odd ball of conjured ice leaving splotches of frost along her path. She recognized a dreg by the lingering axe wound in its head. Most of them had come back again though more were missing entirely.
They couldn’t keep up with her. Nobody could and those that tried soon had to chew on five pounds of morningstar to the face. The dogs were the only real threat. Despite being able to lift an undead off its feet, her strength proved just that tiny bit wanting against a horde of six coordinated skeletal hounds.
SPIKY DOOOGS EEEEE–!
She fled, arriving just as quickly at the first checkpoint bowl, turned around and conked three undead laying in ambush across the head. She leapt into the sinking chapel just as an arrow embedded itself into a tree beside.
“Not this time, not today!”
You have gained: Soul x104
You have gained: Bone shards [Common] x1
You have gained: Wyckwax x1
C–can we take a small break? Five minutes? I, my legs are wobbly. I can’t stand.
“You’re a mental manifestation, a mopey moralizer, you don’t have legs. But yes. Five minutes. I think I got hit by an arrow somewhere.”
After a short refresh, next was the road. It wasn’t much different than the travel downhill, except that now that she wasn’t pressed for time, she got a better look of the area all around. The swampy forest still loomed to her right, and though she should have spent some more time looting the remnants of past skirmishes, Elia was distracted when she saw a deer frolicking in the forest.
It was on fire, specifically its head though it didn’t seem in pain. It turned its skull-head towards her. As she reached for a knife, an undead wielding nothing but a dagger surprised her with a throwing knife of its own that dinked off her new armor. It died, though she took her time, waiting until she memorized every step of how it moved Its hefty knife was a trophy and reward she was all too happy to yoink.
Petal knife
This hefty shortsword has one edge and a wide, curved blade. Kindred of the swamp favor these for gutting giant catfish, though against an unarmored foe they prove just as effective.
“Well damn, that’s pretty lit.”
I think it looks crude and wicked. Swords and knives ought to be straight.
“Girl, as the foremost expert on knives in the world, I can tell you that this is one level below a machete and that much more dangerous in the right hands. Namely mine.”
She pocketed the knife and looked ahead where the ruins of the first wall sunk into the forest. Now for the gauntlet run.
Troubles started the moment she entered the field in front of the castle keep. She had died here enough times to know the positions of all the dregs that could prove a threat to her, knowledge which was immediately knocked out of the water when an arrow hit her roughly against the side.
“Ow!” Luckily, plate armor was made for blocking arrows and her chest plate held firm.
Ducking, she ran ahead, three more arrows leaving her without a scratch before she had to jump into a ditch and hide. She looked down, found that a forth had done a bit more than scratch her lower thigh, right below where the chainmail ended. A great shot, by all means. If only she wasn’t the target. Now, how to dig herself out of this ditch?
The protective trench ended a few dozen feet ahead. She’d need more protection to guarantee her sprint for the gates. A shield would be nice, though most of the gear worn by the dead and undead was absolutely sodden with muck, if they even had gear at all.
“I’m starting to get an odd impression that most of these people were peasants.” Elia gasped as she broke the arrow’s shaft.
They do have a lot of forks, flails, and other improvised tools. Not that they could ever hope to take down the walls.
“I dunno. They had a lot of siege towers. And something has to have taken down the previous four or five.”
Rye snorted, dismissively. Probably the fault of creatures like the Fane Eater, or something equally horrifying.
“Yeah. Probably.” Except all the corpses were either human or of the fish ogre variety.
Elia crept through the muck, ever forward until she found a shield. The only thing it had going for itself was size, as it was little more than a smattering of wooden boards held together by nails and prayers. Elia lifted it, groaning as it smacked away from the muck. Heavy, slippery, waterlogged. It would do.
“Whoever is shooting those arrows, I’ll kill them once I have a better shield.” She muttered before setting into a weighed-down jog.
Arrows whizzed and thunked into her shield. Some punched as far as a foot through. None made it past her remaining armor.
With a leap, Elia flung herself into the fortified camp and rolled to a stop next to the bowl of respite.
Hooray! You did it!
“Urk.” She spat out a hefty helping of bloody mud. That couldn’t be healthy.
Hey, don’t wipe your mouth with our cape, it’s not a napkin! I spent so long on that and – oh, it’s all dirty now. Elia, whyyy?
“Sorry.” She said and actually meant it. It was a nice cape, faded blue embroidered with a yellow string Rye had bartered for at the Temple. An ear of rye grain was embroidered into its corner and Elia was certain she picked the color specifically so it would mesh with the yellow dog on her coat of arms. She liked it, perhaps more than she ought to.
*Gong*
Elia took a sip from the bowl of respite. The soldiers weren’t here anymore, only a few discarded bandages and wooden balls empty of wyckwax revealed that anyone had ever been present. And a loose tooth. Probably one of hers.
“Fuckin bullshit ass inquisition.” She kicked an unhappy looking weed. “Stupid Rhuna. Suck my non existent shnuts.”
One relaxed jog later she had said hi to Dorothy the door, run past the field of dead ogres and the former domain of Vita the Fane–Eater and into the small cathedral where Elia half expected the Rhuna woman to pop out of and ruin her day again.
Luckily, it was a Sunday. The inquisition took god’s day of rest very seriously, as was commonly known. Elia breathed a sigh of relief.
Soul Count: 2805
Shard count: Shard count: [Common] x4, Bone shards [Uncommon] x12
“Whew. That was something. Took us what, thirty minutes? Damn, I can’t wait to see which undead thinks it’s hotter than this Jalapeño.”
“How about you start with me?” A tinny voice drawled. One of the statues next to the altar moved and Elia threw a knife at it. It sailed right past, or through, she was only certain it didn’t hit. “You made it to the keep after all, still mostly in one piece. Color me a shade of impressed.”
Elia swirled to parry with her petal knife and follow up with a lethal bop to the head. Did Rhuna send someone to keep watch over this place? Had they found out? A slit throat would set her back to the checkpoint outside the walls, still much too close to escape anyone waiting in the keep. If the few gains she had made her this strong in spite of the crippling undead curse, would someone with so much more time and luck on their hands really lose her?
The figure rose, forcing her to look up as always. A hound’s mask. Black armor. A twisted sword near seven foot tall.
It’s… the rude knight. He was… RUDE and–and MEAN!
And possibly a plant. An informant. A spy. And there as only one thing to do when confronted with a possible spy. Act completely normal.
“’Sup?”
The ‘sup’ echoed in the impeccable acoustics of the cathedral. Then there was silence. Pure and utter silence.
He needs to apologize, or tell us his name. It’s only proper.
“Sooo… are you here to kill me too, or can I go through to Loften now?”
The knight scrutinized her for scant few seconds. “Your posture. It sickens me. Tell me, where did you learn to fight?”
“Picked a bit up here, a bit there. Earned a bachelor’s in whoop–ass at non–ya–fuckin’–business. You might’ve heard of it.” Her eyes warily jumped between his great sword and the pointy helmet that hid any sign of the confusion her words tended to effect. A verbal flashbang was beneficial at times, or came across as abrasive, but the lack of any reaction was now making her nervous. “…mostly self–taught, though.”
“Perchance, did you train under a knight for a time?” He chuckled, a short mirthless laugh. “Not long, by the looks of it. You make a good crone grasping for her crutch. A sorry excuse, even for a fool thinking themselves a knight.”
If he was trying to get a rise out of her, it wouldn’t work. Nothing would. Elia was invincible (barring a long list of exceptions) and the master of shit–talk.
“If that’s all you got to say I can see why they gave you a muzzle.” This time his laugh turned loud, guttural and somewhat creepy. “Glad someone appreciates me for who I am. Rye.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Hm, what? Sorry, I was thinking about what you meant with muzzle and – ohhh, he has a pointy visor helmet thing. I get it.
It was a hounskull helmet, though stylized to lean even further into its name-giving design. “You’re supposed to laugh.”
Haha?
“Nevermind. Let’s just go through that gate to Loften and get rid of our skin condition with some magical Aloe Vera or whatever.”
And thus she did. Said gate followed the road this entire castle was built around. It would of course be filled with undead, as every place was, but that was a road bump more than a reason to turn around. Elia took one peek out the gate, paused for a solid minute before stomping back to get all up in the dog knight’s cheeky little face.
I–It’s alright, Elia. Rocks fall all the time in the mountains, bridges break when not maintained. The pass isn’t, well, passable, but we can find a way around. Please don’t be mad on my behalf, I can wait.
“Back so soon? Must’ve been quite the heroic journey, that holy thing which you undead so crave.”
She could hear the shit–eating grin on his face. The day had started so well. Trawling her mind for any reason not to suckerpunch this man in the gut was met with the understandable reasoning of ‘metal strong, fist weak’.
“Oh. Oh!” A light went up in her head. “I get it. You’re a questgiver.”
A what?
“A questgiver. A lore dispenser. Set dressing. And this place, this castle, is a dungeon. Don’t worry, I’ll play along nice and well. Dungeons always have rewards at the end.” She gave the man a wink while leaning on the checkpoint bowl. “So. What’s your deal? Fallen knight, vagabond, edgy cosplayer? Looking for revenge, peace, or ten rabbit pelts?”
Is ‘set dressing’ a type of salad sauce?
Ignoring her criminally ignorant companion, Elia thought he would make a nice protagonist for a revenge story, the Berserk type. He had the looks. Now all he needed was motive and possibly a cape. But not one as cool as hers. A tattered one would be just right.
“I am The Wolf.” He said with capital letters Elia could feel. “Whom I serve is none of your concern. When I arrived in this castle on the hunt for corruption, I found it rotten to the core. You’d do well to turn around. The demons of the past aren’t yours to judge. Better not to get involved. Better to find another way.”
Oh. Mister wolf, if you can hear me, I vouch for this person. Elia isn’t a demon, she’s just criminally weird!
“Gee, vote of confidence right there.” Elia muttered before turning to the Wolf. “And? Anything else?”
His hollow eyes bored daggers into her face, but she was immune. That was what helmets were for. She still needed a visor for hers, one that didn’t make her look like she ate children, preferably. Or maybe one that did.
“I highly recommend you take our meeting as a divine omen,” He nodded back towards the gate, blocked by a landslide ten feet out. “Cease your journey at the doorstep.”
“Or else? Buddy, sounds like you’re making a threat.”
With a single step he was towering above her and for the first time Elia felt his height might be a problem beyond creating a neck cramp. Slowly, he leaned down and whispered into her ear.
“Loften is not the dream, not for you. Not for anyone. Your hopes are greatly exaggerated; good reason and lost souls block the path. Turn around. I can only recommend it.”
And then he stepped away, leaving Elia to brush off her pauldron where his touch still lingered like a sharp bite. At least he didn’t break her neck and call her a non-person. Compared to Rhuna, he was practically a puppy.
“I’m still waiting for the point where you give me genuinely helpful information. I kind of have nowhere else to go, besides forward.”
Y–yeah! If he had any honor as a knight, he would help us. And tell him to apologize for being needlessly intimidating!
They stared each other in the eyes, her, a 5’1’’ undead shriveled like dried jerky, him, a 6’11’’ man in a charred metal fursuit. The idea of seeing someone like him at an anime convention inspired a smile. There really was too much detail put in the anthropomorphic parts of his armor.
“There are many ways to Loften, but for an undead like you… you should take the high road.” He looked up, then shook his head, a snort giving his disbelief a disdainful note. “Maybe the traitor lord won’t notice you sneak on by. That is, if you make it past his knights.”
“Pshh, what’s a knight compared to these?” Elia flexed an arm. “I can take five knights, in a fight if I have to.”
He shook, a deep laughter rising to rattle his armor like a concert on tin cans in e–minor. Rye was giggling like a madwoman too.
Oh Elia, sometimes you really show your ignorance of the world. The knights of Loften are more than simple soldiers in armor, they are the best of the best and direct subordinates of immortal servants to boot. Two steps removed from actual gods. Every one has at least one boon elevating them to the first line of defense for our holy capital. The Old Maiden had magic herself, see?
No, Elia did not see. The Maiden was special, and this place was clearly not. It was just another step on the slog ahead. Since continued laughter didn’t allow for any reasonable interjection, she threw up her arms and walked towards one of the doors leading further into the castle.
“Fine! I’ll prove it. I’ll show you all how awesome I am. Training weights are off. Off I say! This is real shit, this is happening and it’s happening now. You hear me?” She peeked through the door, saw a gaggle of undead littering the hallway, then powerwalked back to kick the bowl of respite before she forgot.
*Gong*
She turned, back towards the dregs ahead, all the while flipping off the rude man in wolf–plate. “Fuck youuu!”
----------------------------------------
On the upside, the knights were undead as well. It was becoming increasingly obvious even to someone as obstinate as Rye that whatever plague or curse made people return after death didn’t care about fanciful walls, honor, or stalwart defenders. She didn’t burst into tears when the first knight they encountered turned around and tried to behead them without so much as a warning and neither did she berate Elia and moralize about the barbaric nature of not asking politely before stabbing someone in the gut.
Elia would have preferred any of the above in place of the waves of anguish wafting over through their shared head.
“Stop taking my amygdala, I need it so I can ignore it!” She yelled as a chop beheaded a nearby candlestick, narrowly missing herself.
On the other upside, they were proper undead. Dregs. A shadow of their former selves, infinitely more hungry for souls and thereby infinitely more predictable.
Somehow, Elia was still losing.
She staggered backwards, stumbled over the corpse of another dreg before throwing a side table over and booking it. If she could gain some distance, Rye could work her magic. Maybe. If not, Pacifism might gain another victim.
Tearing down dim halls hung with torn tapestries was the reward for confidence turned petty hubris. She only had a moment to regret running all too straight before a side table plus heavy vase shattered against her back.
Within seconds, she tumbled and rolled to a stand before staring down the close helm dripping some unknown oily substance as she met the knight’s sword and board with her knife and morningstar. The substance wasn’t really unknown, it was the same damned film that crept out of every crevice, clung to every surface and suffocated the blankets of ivy growing in through windows and murderholes wherever the two met.
“Get. Off!” In a twist, Elia pushed the sword to the side only for the knight to nearly take her head off – the second time in the past minute – with the sharp edge of his shield.
It was basically a shield and an axe in one and all Elia had was a piddly buckler, setting a trend that this knight could do everything she could, but better. More armor, more weight ergo more hitting strength, more reach, and worst of all, sense enough to never leave itself overextended.
‘Doesn’t even have a boon like Rye claimed it would’, Elia thought in between parrying blows while searching for improvised projectiles.
A vase, a prayer book, an armor rack (very noisy), some knives, a pot, a cauldron (apparently they were in a kitchen now), an assortment of candles and candlesticks and the no doubt priceless portrait of one lord ‘Jacobius III’ all found themselves thrown, lobbed or toppled towards the restless knight. The painting slowed it down for the longest split second before it transmuted priceless art into two halves of worthless canvas.
They want to kill us. Everyone does. The giant. The soldiers. The knights. The great Rhuna. Gods, did we do something wrong? Did I? Are we crazy, Elia, or did the world go off the wrong end? This is because of our sins, isn’t it?
“Don’t gimme philosophy, I need something more applicable! Physics!” Elia got a solid hit, cracking her mace against the knight’s hip as she redirected her velocity right in front of a flight of stairs, but it felt like hitting a rubber ball filled with water. “Mass times acceleration equals – shit!”
One step too far and she was tumbling down the stairway. The long stairway. Floor, ceiling, floor, wall, ivy, floor, carpet, ceiling, floor, floor.
‘Definitely took one right too early’ she thought, head swimming as she reached the bottom.
The knight was taking his time, one rattling step after another. He knew she was starting to flag, that he could reach her in three leaps. God, she hated smart dregs.
“Or maybe just a stupid undead.” A wan smile pulled at her lips. As he set into a sprint, she rushed forward, grabbed the carpet spilling down the stairwell and pulled.
The knight fell, armored limbs twisting and turning only to jerk in surprise when his face met Elia’s mace. One hit was enough to stun, quickly followed by another. And another. The visor crumpled inwards, spilling red–black juice out the openings of his armet helm as her enemy fell still.
You have gained: Soul x1600
You have gained: Bone shard [Common] x2, [Uncommon] x1
“H–home run.” Even with hands on her knees, panting like she’d run a marathon, her first thought was to how high the reward was and how little it felt. “Rye, you still there?”
Mostly. Just, you know… worrying.
“Alright. Shoot.”
I just… I thought the knights would help us. Like the fairytales, them, heroes in shining armor, us the damsels in need of un-damseling. If not The Wolf, then the others in Glenrock Castle might have lent a hand. I thought that they might have escaped this… undead epidemic, if not found a way to fix it. But all I’m seeing is death, despair, more death. I’m scared. Scared that if this pandemic has gone as far as the gates of holy Loften, it might have come to Arvale, come home. Scared that if we’re just seeing a small part of a much larger catastrophe, then our chances of ever getting there turn from slim to none. I… what if the capital is just as bad? What if we have to fight our way through an entire city’s worth of undead knights and worse?
“I mean, I wasn’t looking forward to fighting my way there, you know. It’s not fun when you’ve got a perpetual handicap.” Elia swiveled her head until it gave a satisfying pop. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t need doing.”
Though, dunking on the other undead was cathartic. Except, the high-level zone of the castle kept turning one-sided slaughter into the same old, against-the-odds struggle.
Sometimes I forget that this isn’t all you’ve ever known.
Sometimes, she forgot that too.
“Welp, nothing to do but take this one knight at a time. On the plus side, it’s a lot of good loot.” Elia said, taking one look at her mace head dangling from its mounting before swapping it for her newly acquired longsword. It was long and heavy. Enough weight for a good chop and cut. Exceptional for stabbing.
Twinpeak Longsword
A balanced straight sword made of tempered steel. When the call to man the walls arose, swords like these were wielded by the knights of the northern watch, though they only helped against threats from the outside.
“Huh. Ominous.” She was about to step away before any other undead thought about investigating all the racket when a thought hit her.
Against threats of the outside. An implication of other threats, inside ones. Assassins, thieves, traitors? The lion–armored woman was looking for a traitor but didn’t waste a second breath at the state of the castle and the castle itself was supposedly held by a traitor lord, though the walls under him were still defended.
Would the shield reveal more?
Tar–sodden Knight shield
A long leaf-shaped shield made of hardened steel, enough to protect the common knight from bolt and lance. Steeped in primordial tar, it possesses enhanced durability against physical damage and rust. Highly vulnerable to fire and ice.
Elia would have jumped with joy at the description if she wasn’t sure that the oily sheen covering every part was starting to seep through her leather gloves. She threw it away, making sure to wipe them thoroughly on the carpet.
She played DnD. She knew what a cursed item looked like. One last thing rested in the knight’s pouch and Elia quickly snatched it before the blackened blood could seep into that too.
Mending Wedgling
A marble wedge imbued with the rune of mending in copper ink. Ruthe was the first to pioneer the art of imbuement, wringing wonders from the grasp of dead stone. Trace the rune and touch to any object to undo effect until whole again.
“To undo effect…” the wording stuck her as odd, but the issue of the oily tar wouldn’t leave her mind. “Rye, listen up. Do you remember the wording for the Fane–Eater’s soul?”
Yeah. Do you want it word for word?
“Preferably.” As embarrassing as it was, once the soul was integrated into her being she didn’t know where she needed to touch to tickle out its secrets with [Psychometry] anymore. Like losing a remote or a computer mouse because you moved a sofa over it.
Well, the Fane–Eater was a ‘she’. She was a guard dog for the castle, but got corrupted by eating tar, whatever that means. It bloated her body and that led to… wait, that thing wasn’t a beast from the forest?
They shared a look at the corpse in front, blackish ooze mixing with tepid blood. Slowly, Elia pulled the mangled helmet off its head.
“It’s stuck.”
Be careful. Don’t touch that ink stuff. It looks… evil.
“Sure.” Elia grunted. “At least. We got. Gloves!”
With a crack, the helm came loose and the head with it. Oil flooded the wrinkled carpet, but their attention was fixed on the head. Bending and pulling off the visor revealed a near featureless skull, a warped and mangled mass of ossified tissue around cancerous bulbs. There was no muscle and what skin grew along the head was supple with the tarry black. It sloughed off in long, running strips and when she looked closer, what used to be a tongue twitched towards her. Like a worm.
Elia thought nothing could scare her. But Rye’s scream shook her to the core, so much that she flung the head against the wall. It left a wet splash on some tapestry detailing a retinue of soldiers and armored men accommodating a group of poorly robed clergymen, a shining figure at their back.
“What the fuck. What the fuck.”
Something was seriously wrong with this castle.