You have gained: Soul x23
Soul count: x14286
Shard count: [Common] x15 [Uncommon] x15
Rye nearly collapsed as the flood of corpse-munching rats died down. She could have chosen any other place to sit down, but she managed little more than staggering back a few steps before her legs gave out under her. Her feet were cut up and her left boot had a sizable hole. Forget Rats, forget dregs and knights, Rye felt like she wouldn’t even stand up to a particularly harsh insult after this. But a part of her wouldn’t dare admit as much to Elia.
She applied the necessary wyckwax, let the strain in body and mind melt away and – much sooner than she would have liked – stood up to march on. And on. And on. She passed a stairway leading up and the flanking pair of torches burning without the smell of soot, but she was transfixed by the single cell not jam-packed with human remains where two hazel eyes stared back at her.
“Hello?” The unfamiliar voice nearly froze her heart. She knew she had heard something other than rats and mice.
It was hard to tell who or what was sitting in the nearest cell. The creature – and it could still have been an inhuman thing, as so many of those imitated speech to deceive honest people – had a body like an amphora, barrel-like with a gentle taper to the bottom. Its head sat nestled into the top of a torso without a neck and four limbs were squeezed together in front of it, each twice as long as its body. Together with its swirly carapace it gave off the impression of a giant beetle with human eyes, a big nose and a beard. The rats didn’t dare approach the nearby light. Proximity to it and the exit was the only thing that had saved the stone-folk man.
“H-hi?” Rye said, inching closer. The stone-folk of Amun-Rei were a known oddity, living their hermit lives alone and dedicated to one particular vocation or another. They were friendly and entirely incapable of harming anyone. “A-are you alright?”
“Been better.” The man’s bushy walrus mustache wiggled, but he did not move besides. He had a grumbling voice and a slow rhythm to his speech. “Another Forlorn, an accursed undead. Didn’t expect someone from outside to speak your empire-language fluently, did you? I don’t mean to judge, but you are far beneath Glenrock, too far. Take care, there are worse than rats and wardens ‘tween these cells. A demon lurks below.”
Rye stayed quiet. She was certain she had already found all the demons this place could hide. Everything in these walls was wrong, twisted, left to wither, and die. Ponderously, she stepped up to the rusted metal bars. “Hold on, I’m going to get you out.”
The stone-man chuffed.
“Don’t bother. I made these cells myself, they won’t bend nor break. The warden has my keys, but he wandered off to Ruthe knows where after catching the sickness.” He turned to the side. Behind him, a few corpses had been piled high to grant him even a modicum of personal space. “I miss the disagreeable old codger. Pox on him for leaving me!”
Drats. Rats and drats and poo on it all.
“Oh, don’t pity me.” The man’s laugh was like stone grinding on stone, but still sounded hollow. “No tears lost for a traitor, not for me. You ought to leave like all the rest.”
“And what about you?”
“I… will wait until walls topple, the ground cracks and the sky falls on my head.” He curled up back into a cylinder. “It is only just, for my treason.”
“No. It is not just.” A mote of steel was growing, steadily and surely in her heart. “To leave you, to leave anyone in here, with those things… that is horror, plain and terrible horror. Unacceptable. Inhuman.”
“Is it now? Would you still say the same if I revealed to you that when I was needed most, I refused my services to sharpen steel and forge weapons any longer?” He nodded towards the dead person behind him. “They took me in when I was but a pebble. I lived among them, ate with them and they treated me like a friend. I am Pascal. Metal-carver, spark-singer, smith. Your armor shows marks of my handiwork, as an apprentice that is.”
Must be a mighty fine smith if he made this chest plate as an apprentice. Snug fit, not too heavy, and feels like it could block just about anything.
“I am Rye. Just Rye is fine. As for my armor, well…” How was she supposed to say that she bought it off a scavenger and whoever it was made for was long since dead? “I am holding onto it, for now.”
He chuckled again, in that rumbling fashion of his. Was it something she said? He probably had little reason to laugh down here. Best not to judge.
“If you want to leave, take the way through the kitchen. The lower egress is blocked, a fiery thing lives there.” He pointed down the hall, where the darkness grew ink black. The smell of cinders hung in the air, but not like it came from any fireplace. It was too pungent, too rich. “Even the knights grew wary, collapsed the ceiling on it. Fools. Dead things cannot die.”
Well, that’s fuckin’ ominous.
Elia was right. It sounded like the kind of creature that would make her faint on the spot. She wasn’t Captain Rye, she had no cape and too much fear besides. A knight was an impossible ideal to revive and live up to; she was only Rye. Just Rye.
And Elia.
“A-alright, I am not going to think more about that because if I do, we won’t be getting anywhere,” she turned to the man to give a smile filled with all the confidence and false bravado she could muster. “I’ll be back. Stay right where you are.”
Heh.
“Shush, you!” Now, where would a warden keep their keys?
The answer was that Rye had absolutely zero clue. She wandered about the holding cells for a while longer, but eventually decided that any reasonable person would have stayed anywhere but here. As she ascended the only stairway, a different odor assaulted her nose. It smelled of plant rot, compost, and mold. The stockpile she entered was teeming with life and not just in comparison with the abattoir below. Above the sacks of moldy grain hung fuzzy blobs that must have once been hams, dangling among its fellows and the roots bursting in through gaps in the masonry. Something else stood untouched by the flourishing decay all around.
“A bowl of respite. Oh, thank the gods.”
*Gong*
Heyyy, Ryyye, that means it’s my turn, right?
Rye only answered in a disapproving groan.
I’m good to go, rarin’ to go, quite ready to go and DO SHIT!
“N-no, you’re still too drunk.” And Elia would no doubt leave the man behind. They had no obligation helping him after all, no oath, no curse. As she felt a toe realign, Rye realized that she was quite the only hope he had. How dreadful.
Sooo… you taking a short rest here?
“I… I can still go on.” She took another big sip. It was unfair how easy going on seemed after a single mouthful. “If we had this back at home, you can bet everyone would be working double shifts, especially during the harvest and sowing season. Maybe we do now. Ugh, imagine the pressure.”
Hah, you ain’t felt nothin’ yet. Wait until you don’t have a single boon and are forced to collect as many shards as possible or watch yourself shrivel up into a raisin. Now that’s pressure right there.
“… I didn’t mean for you to trump me.”
She entered the next room and happened upon a kitchen that was entirely too nice for this place. Sure, it looked like it was made to feed a hundred hungry soldiers, but all the cutlery was in its place, the counters were brushed of all the dust and there was even a fire going beneath a boiling pot.
She came closer and realized the fire was the same as the torch, burning without smell or consuming the charred logs beneath.
“H–hello?” she called, but nobody answered. Something smelled fishy.
IS THAT STEW!? I NEED THE STEW! Elia yelled, but turned to whining and pleading on the spot. Please, Rye, please, please, please, PLEASE. I haven’t had warm food in ages. Real food! I’ll let you stay in control as long as you want, all I want is one bowl. Half a bowl. Alright, one spoonful.
She had never heard Elia sound more desperate.
“I… Elia, we need to help that man, not eat.” With a sigh, she trotted towards a bubbling pot. The remains of a lobster (ew, people ate those!?) boiled in a thick red–golden sauce. She realized then that in the near week since she woke up in the maze, she had only subsided on water from the bowls of respite too. “It does smell pretty of good. Oh heck, I’d be cruel not to feed you every now and again.”
Her arm greedily grabbed for the nearest ladle before slamming it into her face with so much gusto it nearly spooned her eye out.
“OW! Elia, what did you–“
Ffffu– no, this–this ladle, it’s too powerful… gah!
Watching Elia wrestle the utensil as if it were on a leash was amusing, or would have been if it didn’t yank the rest of her body forward again and again. She was getting dangerously close to the fire when a block of knives fell over and began to levitate.
They flung across the counter, one cutting her across the wrist as cupboards flung open, shooting wooden bowls and heavy mugs at Rye as she ran for the door.
“Ack, ow, agh!”
We’re under attack! They booby-trapped the kitchen, those vile bast… who does that!?
The door slammed on her nose – always her nose – and she had just enough time to turn around and bat a cleaver away from separating her head from her torso. The next open door closed moments before she could reach it. She was stuck in a room of animated kitchenware.
“Eliaaa, heeelp!” The hefty cauldron rose, chasing her as it swung around like a wrecking ball. A piece of scalding lobster splattered against the wall. “ELIAAA!”
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Blast the doors open! Magic!
Rye tried, Rye failed. It took too long to focus on any one thing and as she was halfway through conjuring a bolt, a pan karate-chopped her in the neck. The next thing she knew it was raining expensive crockery in a sharp porcelain hailstorm. Her arms were absolutely bloody without her vambraces, and she felt shivers crawling up and down her body.
In a bid for safety, she crawled under a nearby table, knocking over chairs before pulling them underneath like she was some chair-snatching creature building a nest. It helped, though her armor put in just as much work, protecting her head and chest while she shakily applied wyckwax all over.
After a frightful minute spent being pelted by everything that wasn’t nailed down, the storm subsided. She stood up on two shaky limbs. She was alive, dizzy and laden with injuries, but alive. The doors were still locked, but they weren’t the thick outer doors she had seen before. She walked up to the nearest door and blasted a hole into it with a point blank [Heavy Hailstone Bolt].
Behind it was a cupboard, as she was disappointed to find out and hiding within it was a dreg with a staff shaped like a cooking spoon. It was a poor place to be hiding and Rye had a scant moment to turn away before he crumpled to the floor, bolt thoroughly having smushed his guts in.
You have gained: Soul x600
She threw up again. And again. And again. At some point, she remembered Elia looting the corpse.
Look, Rye, look what he had in his pockets.
You have gained: Essence of Keenness
She didn’t even care at this point. All she wanted was to get out. The rest of the doors unlocked without a fuss and stepping out she was greeted with a familiar sight. Undead milled about, dragging triple headed flails behind them while the nearby lower wall had the occasional conch thrower patrolling along the top.
Oh look, we’re back on the ground floor. Really came a long way, didn’t we?
Rye let the insane giggle boiling in her gut rise to the fore. All of that and all she managed was to go further down, further back to the start.
“I… this place is funny.” But there was still a good deed that needed doing and only herself to count on.
She turned on her heels and went back inside.
----------------------------------------
Rye stood in front of a massive door. It looked much the same as the one guarded by the host of knights at the top, rusted hinges and criss-crossing chains implying entry as somewhat inadvisable. Some force had snapped the chains and bulged the door outwards, bending steel like clay. This was a very, very stupid idea.
“Fear the flame. Fear it,” the old man in his cell had warned.
Clearly, something wasn’t right in her head if she thought this was where to look for the keys. Then again, Rye would much rather confront the nebulous horror beyond this door than the known horror of sifting through hundreds of corpses barehanded.
This is a bad idea.
“O-oh? Is it now,” Rye said with barely a tremble in her voice. “Are you sober enough to recognize that much?”
Sober enough to recognize a boss room. Like the giant. Or the Fane–Eater.
Rye gulped. There was no obvious sign besides the door but she felt it as well, a feeling of intrusion, of standing on the precipice, like the moment before jumping into deep water. Malice hung in the air, poorly disguised by the smell of rotting corpses and age-old ash covering the floor like the insides of a kiln. The odor of cinder was overwhelming now, mixing with heated rocks in the dry air.
A staff in one hand and a borrowed torch in the other, she bravely stepped forward and waited to see what new horror aside from cutting cutlery and gravity the world would throw at her today.
The ground parted. A mound of ash rose until it sloughed off the form that lurked below. It spread wings sheathed in crimson scales as it shook the dirt from its clawed feet, light reflecting off of them like razors.
Is that a…?
It bellowed, nay, it roared a mighty roar to end all roars until the end of time, and the world was ground to nothing but dust and death.
“BuCAAAWK!”
That’s a disco chicken.
“Oh, thank the gods.” Rye looked – looked down for once, at the critter that nearly grew to her navel. “It’s a cockerel!”
A COCKOREL! Great Scott, it’s the size of a turkey. What evil! Rye, don’t let its regal appearance fool you, this poultry is packing peril. I can feel it, smell it. Can we eat it?
“I know it’s – what? No, Elia, it’s a guard cockerel. It is friendly.” Rye gulped. “At least, to its handlers it is.”
You’re a brave girl, braver than most I’d say. Go on then, face this threat to mankind. And then we eat it.
“N-no! We will not eat him.” Rye lowered herself into a crouch and cooed at the red-scaled beauty. “C’mere little guy. Don’t be afraid.”
Red was a rare color for a cockerel, the normal rainbow luster only visible at a sharp angle. But no chicken could resist her friendly advances born from years of experience handling livestock. If only she could get close, she could finish this in one swoop.
What are you DOING!? Remember the hierarchy! Initiative, reach, speed, strength!
The cockerel seemed torn between chasing off the intruder and approaching where Rye was so enticingly pecking the ground with her hands. When it spotted the sugared fruit in her palm, the battle was all but decided.
By the time it had gotten to the fruit, Rye was stroking its wattles and showering it with compliments.
“Who’s a good little chicken. You are. Taking a little dust bath, weren’t cha’? Ooh, look at those tail scales. You’re such a big and strong cockerel. Did you see some keys around? Oh, of course you did, you little nugget you.”
Alright, now that you have his trust, let’s turn him into fricassee.
“Elia!”
Also, stop stroking the cockerel, you’re severely limiting my variety of jokes.
“He isn’t just any cockerel. He has a name, and it is Theodore.” She scratched him under the chin, to which he gave a satisfied chatter. “And maybe I don’t want you to make any jokes or turn him into dinner. Here, come on, pet him as well. He doesn’t bite.”
With some reluctance, Elia took the offered hand. Theodore pecked it.
OW! Motherf–… alright, you’re gonna be soup soon, you hear me? Tasty, fatty chicken soup, with a carrot, leek, some alphabet noodles, parsley–
“Eliaaa, he is not for eating. You have to pet him with the flow, not against it. Be glad he didn’t breathe any fire.” Because breathing on Elia’s arm meant breathing on Rye’s arm. Then again, being set on fire would complement the day in a morbid way. “Have you ever been set on fire?”
I, yes I have, but… excuse me, did you just say these fu–, these things breathe fire?
“Yes, yes they do. I’m happy you cut yourself off mid cuss. You are making steady steps towards civil behavior. Now, pet the cock!”
With even more reluctance and just a little bit of complaining, Elia followed Rye’s instructions until the cockerel was leaning into her every pet and pat.
A victory, finally, after so long. “It feels good to make friends instead of enemies, right?”
It’s so cool! Like a snake, but it’s a bird. I always wanted a pet snake, or lizard, or any pet really.
Rye didn’t even try hiding her pride as Elia filled her mindspace with novel sounds of childish giggling glee. Now that something was going her way for once, she was twice as willing and able to find those blasted keys. “It’s not a bird you dork, it has scales.”
That’s a stupid argument, but you know what? I’ll accept it. A bit of self–deception never hurt anyone.
She succeeded in entrancing her other half so thoroughly that only now did she notice the iron chain linking the chicken’s foot with the wall.
“Oh no. You’re a prisoner here too, aren’t you? You poor little thing.” She eyed her staff, lost in thought. “Wait right here.”
The cockerel watched as she circled around, digging up parts of the chain from the ashen floor until it was entirely visible. With staff in hand, she muttered a prayer and conjured a bolt aimed for the weakest link.
The metal gave, though not completely. Rye conjured another bolt and then another. By the fourth, the ground was thoroughly cratered with impacts and the air full of floating particulates. The chain however was broken.
With a face of triumph, she turned to the cockerel standing pressed against the wall with two candle-sized flames burning above its nostrils. She had startled it, clearly, but even more clearly she could hear the jingle of keys beneath its feet. Of course, the cockerel is smart and man’s best friend, who else would a warden entrust their keys to?
“C-can I have that, please? I need it for a friend. Here, I freed you.” She held up the broken link before throwing the chain on the floor.
The dull thud reverberated further than she expected. The floor sagged.
OH SH–
Without the time to take a single step, the ground fell away in an avalanche of ash and loose dirt. Rye screamed as she rushed down to unknown depths – a remarkably poor decision as her mouth filled with more grainy dust. She outpaced the frontrunning wave in seconds and the last thing she felt was a dull thud that knocked the breath from her body.
All around there was nothing and the inside of her head reflected just as much clarity. Stars. She was seeing stars that swam here and there, winking out at their leisure.
Something touched her and she nearly screamed. It was a hand, but she couldn’t see it, only feel it and–
Shhh, it’s just me.
“Y-you?” She coughed, hoping that her sight would finally adjust to the darkness all around. Why was it so hot down here?
Rye, you need to get up.
An ember light glowed in the dark. A fairy? No, those existed only in fairytales, hence the name. A torch then? Her head thudded and hurt like never before, but she knew for certain that fire didn’t run in cracks along the floor like rivulets of rainwater.
Rye, I’m serious. We fell a long way and I can’t get you up. We need to move, now.
“I-I’m trying,” she groaned as the smell of ash and cinder threatened to choke her eyes. “Elia, I can’t stand.”
Get up Rye. Get up!
“Why? Why do I have to get up? I can’t stand, Elia, I just can’t.” Panic was starting to overtake her. If only she could see, she could know exactly how scared she ought to be.
A heavy breath washed through the room, hot and dry like a smithies’ bellows. The ember flared into a bonfire, baleful and red, as it cast a mountain of limbs and faces in crimson color. Rye shrunk back when one of them moved, then screamed when the entire mound followed suit.
She tried to run, but couldn’t find her legs, couldn’t feel them, couldn’t see them buried beneath the lake of ash. An arm too big for a giant dug her whimpering form out of the ground and a smaller one cast in perfect asymmetry cupped her chin, forcing her to look at the towering assortment of limbs, torsos, and faces in the shape of an antlered worm.
They were all made of stone, of wood, of pure white bone marbled in blistering lines like cinders after the wood had burned down. It lifted her up to come face to face with three solitary faces like masks.
“FIRE,” a brassy voice like stone grumbled.
“Death,” followed a gentle voice like wind in the canopy.
“Re-BIRTH,” said the last, its tenor a squawk neither man nor woman nor human at all.
Rye couldn’t say a word as her mind raced into a thousand dead ends. The beast, the fiend, the demon held her tight. Closing her eyes held no escape as she felt the heat of the flame cradled in a bowl of limbs atop its back lick at her desiccated skin. Was this a riddle, was this a trap, was it a prisoner too, why was it here, where even was here, why her, why her, why her?
Die, creepy fucker!
Elia had found her one useful arm but swinging at the demon only tore a chip of brittle rock and dead bark from it. As useful as clipping a nail, if even that. The creature didn’t exactly care, nor did it seem aware of what a soft and squishy thing had landed in one of its hundred arms. With a twitch that could have been accidental, a thumb the size of her arm wormed its way through her chest plate, parting metal like it was nothing. There was no pain, only the dull sensation of something searching inside her chest, thin tips scrabbling, scratching.
Her mind flew loose. Elia yelled war and damnation. Air pressed out of her body like a leaky waterskin.
“F-fiiiii–?” she wheezed. She wanted to say death, because in all her experience death at least was certain, was safe.
The bone head smiled as a fiery fissure cracked down its limb, igniting her tunic, her hair and all.
“FIRE!”
“Death.”
“Re–BIRTH!”
“FIRE! Death. Re-BIRTH! FIRE! Death. Re-BIRTH! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!”
Elia was quick to slit their throats. The chanting followed them into their death and would stay in the corners of their dreams for a long, long time.
You have died
The Warden below turns your boon [Noble Equines] to ash
Divine grace protects thee, loyal undead
You have lost: Ring of Grace x1
Even as she awoke, Rye curled up into a ball, rocking gently back and forth as a hoarse scream stayed stuck in her throat. Elia killed her. She was safe. There was no reason to panic, none at all. Elia killed her. Everything was fine.
“Demon.” She murmured and forced herself into unconsciousness.