There was a novelty to waking up in straw bedding that wasn’t going to wear off anytime soon. It was the best of times when the blonde-maned girl could open an eye, see nothing but a ceiling tiled in an unfamiliar blue and matted red pattern and roll over with a comfortable sigh. There was still time until her other half woke up, time she was intent on spending in blissful morning daze.
Her haze had other plans as it crept up underneath her eyelids.
Hello there my bestest frenemie, it’s me, Rhuna! I took the liberty of [yoink!]-ing your number so we can stay in contact, plan out our dramatic confrontations and all that. Now, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Whaaat, THE great Rhuna is taking time out of her day to message me, a good-for-nothing shit-for-brains undead’? Don’t get your tiddies in a twist, you’re not special, I’m not mad you yoinked my little Karla-shaped lootbox at all. I’ll totes murder you someday over it but until then count on me sending one of these every time the world resets and I have to explode a bunch of legionnaires, meowing traitor furries and quote-unquote ’rebel scum’ all over again. Anyhow, I’ve some wars to win.
Toodles~ - The great Rhuna
P.S. Hey, so I know you’re pretty old grandma, but did people really end their letters like this? LMAO, I feel so lame writing this.
P.S.S. Karla eats her hamburger ingredients separately. Lol, what a psycho.
P.S.S.S. And welcome to Loften.
Elia, with all the impetus of a sleep-addled tomcat, craned her neck, feeling the cricks and cracks through her body protest. Hamburgers existed in this world and she didn’t have one yet. This might be a problem worth getting up for. She could already see Rye’s face the first time she bit into burgery delight, spilling tomatoes and sauce all around and–
ELIA! I’M A KNIGHT! I RAN AWAY FROM HOME! I’M A KNIGHT! AAAAAH!
–and scream in her ear about have-beens and obvious trivia.
“Mmmfgh, shuddup.” She buried her head deeper in the hay. “And put Rhuna on mute, or read.”
There was an exactly ten second long period where Elia thought she might be allowed some more shuteye.
Elia, this is terrible – I mean, it’s great, but whyyy!? Why, past me, whyyy? I had a life, I was going to inherit, I had brothers and sisters to care for! Why a tax-knight, why in Loften? Oh gods, I probably had to travel the provinces, count money like beans and pretend I was tough and strong to the many people thinking they can get away with intimidating me just because I’m small and innocent-looking. The expectations! The STRAIN!
“Hah, you’re a bureaucrat.” Elia laughed and felt an oppressive tingle smother her with her pillow.
THIS IS NO LAUGHING MATTER. The tingle receded and Rye sniffed. I-I ruined my life. Maybe I had a reason, but you don’t just… up and leave home, travel a few hundred kilometers and become a knight in Loften.
“I thought you’d be more excited. Did the knights of Glenrock ruin your fairytale-idealism of ‘oughts’ and ‘should be’s’?”
It… it was Sam’s dream, not mine. She didn’t want to serve my parents forever. That's why she worked hard, saved every coin, and tried to learn the basics of reading and math from me. And let me tell you, without a tutor, progress was agonizingly slow. So, she had to work for us for years before she could even think about signing up for the preliminary selection. A lot spoke against her. Sam’s parents died when the gouging pox came, and they were not citizens, but newly resettled from a conquered province. It was her dream, hers.
Elia waited for Rye to calm down a bit before asking her burning question. “So… can you sword fight now?”
I-I think? Better than before, maybe? I know that I didn’t enjoy squire-camp and least of all the practice bouts. It’s not much fun sword fighting when half of the group can just toss me.
“Hah, mood.” Elia took a look around. She was in a small barracks, and this was not Crossroad temple. The air smelled of water. At least no attendant was babying over her. On the other hand, her wounds were already bandaged, and some parts of herself roughly cleaned. Whoever lived here simply had a better sense of privacy then.
“Ahem.” She looked to the left where Karla had been patiently sitting at her bedside in a suit of form-fitting leathers. She looked to be positively vibrating. “Good afternoon milady. I brought you some food.”
Elia took one look at the modest bowl of gruel and tore into it and the spoon out of the girl’s hands. She assaulted the meal, cornering every little sludgy cereal before annihilating it with her boon-empowered spoon, which only chipped the bowl twice. It even had little crunchy bits – probably some kind of small shrimp – and after every bite she bit back a shiver, a sob, and a moan.
Food. Finally. The taste, the weight, the feeling of anything on her tongue and in her stomach was divine. It had been so long. Now she could die in peace.
Her ravenous appetite didn’t seem to bother the young girl, who was looking at her with a reverence that made her lament that there was nothing left in her bowl to distract herself with. ‘Hero’ those eyes seemed to spell, ‘my hero’.
Evidently, there had been a misunderstanding. Evidently, Karla was not going to listen to a reasonable explanation of why she shouldn’t latch onto the nearest person-shaped thing.
Everything about the girl was neat. Her clothes, her not undead-skin, her neat, black curls. Her arms were respectably toned though even then they hid exactly how much she was capable of. She had blocked Hall’s flail head-on for Christ's sake, and his golden energy nova. What was someone like her even doing out here? As far as Elia could tell she had everything the two of them could have ever wanted. And yet she was out here of her own will.
She was crazy in a way Elia hadn’t seen before. Nice-crazy. Terminally-naïve-crazy.
“Did you grow up in a tower before that Simon guy caught you and whisked you away from your overprotective, possibly control-freak guardian?” she asked.
The girl gasped, put a hand to her chest. “How did you know? Are you psychic, or an oracle?”
“Educated guess.” Full-metal Rapunzel over here certainly didn’t have the look in her eye that people living in a world of undeath carried around.
The glow in her eyes intensified by a thousand lumen. Elia scooted back a tiny bit, even as the girl offered her another helping of grub. “Did you lift me into bed?”
“Yes.” Taking in her build, the girl had more than simple muscle. A good boon? A good soul? Or was her armor magical, with a plus five to benching people?
“Did you bind my wounds?”
“Yes! And cleaned them. And what was left of your armor. And your toad.” Quibbles croaked, lounging in a bowl of his own, eating something remarkably similar to Elia’s grub. “If I may, are you a hero of legend? An ascender? A knight on a holy quest? You must be; I’ve never seen anyone escape THE Rhuna, not in less than three pieces. Legends must be your business on a biweekly schedule.”
Technically, she was a tax collector, though evidently that was not what the girl wanted to hear, nor the answer Elia wanted to give. “You were the princess, right?”
Karla did her best impression of a bobble-head. “And I want to accompany you on your adventure. I am a great tank, I am almost nineteen years old, have one crowd control boon, some magic, and am professionally trained in swords, spears, axes, warhammers, shields, bows, crossbows, arbalests, conches, daggers–.”
Elia held a hand in front of her face, chewing on the princess’ pitch as much as on the last of the gruel. A round something popped in her mouth, sweet and with a sour tang. “What is this?”
“Pedecud. They have a slugapede out back.” She mimed something long and barrel shaped. “Oh! Have you seen it made before? They take the ‘pede, feed it acorns, bugs, what have you, then tickle it until it spits this out the front.”
Ewww.
Elia stared at her bowl, the bowl that was licked spotless. “Delicious.”
“I shall acquire more post-haste!” Karla shot up and disappeared into the corridor, humming some song Elia swore she could almost place.
What a nice and honest soul. We ought to let her join, Elia, and don’t give me any excuse of ‘oh, I’m fine on my own’ or ‘she stabbed me in the back’. She didn’t betray you, she defended you. Simon is the villain and he got his just comeuppance.
Elia swallowed one last time. “She’s gonna die if she’s with us. Do you want to see her die?
That earned a mental jerk. Y-yeah? Well, I won’t let her. She isn’t weak, she can help us, Elia, even if she’s a bit lacking in the common-sense department. Also, she’s a PRINCESS! I’ve never met a princess, I thought they all died out.
“Like the dinosaurs?"
What? No, like unscaled dogs.
Karla returned with a second helping of cud, which disappeared even quicker than the last. It was still hot.
Elia looked up at the girl fidgeting in place. “So. You want to come with us. Why’s that? Don’t have any retainers, any protectors, or other friends?”
“N-no. Not out here. I thought I had finally found one, but…” She gave a sad smile. “Simon left me. He left me! Didn’t even follow after through the bowl and when I looked back, all I saw was LIONS.” Karla appeared to be near tears. “Please don’t leave me too.”
What was that feeling in her chest, that small itch, that creaking and cracking. Was that… compassion?
“... sure, fine, we’ll put you on sidekick. Temporarily. You’ll need to keep up, I run a sink-or-swim ship and we’re all out of liferafts.” Elia grumbled as she tried to get a second round of shut eye. Karla squeed, and did that thing bunnies do when they are happy.
Look at her go. Now that was a nice thing to do. I am proud of you.
As the girl bounced into the distance and peace finally returned, something moved to Elia’s right. In the bed next to her, a pair of fluffy fox ears poked from the sheets.
“Hullo,” Pim said sullenly.
Great, more loose threads. Lim was lying in bed next to her brother though she didn’t say a word, simply staring at the ceiling with wide yellow eyes.
“We didn’t mean to leave you.” Pim said from behind his fan. “We had to flee. Rhuna would have taken us, punished Lim more than she already has.”
“Could’ve told me your bell could summon rocs. Could’ve told me your sister found you while I was off being tossed around by Commander Hall.” She fixed him with a glare, and he withered. “Would’ve saved us all trouble.”
“No!” he near yelled. “You would have left us without the oath! I… it was my idea and as emperor, my word is worth solid copper. I shall take responsibility.”
Elia eyed the catatonic Lim. “Isn’t she supposed to be your protector?”
His mouth opened and closed.
“Lim had a true brother when she was alive. She came back. He didn’t. She found me, unearthed me from my sarcophagus; I was too weak to lift the lid. She is my best guardian, my loyal Maylim. I… you have my utmost gratitude for undoing our curse, though I fear the oath was all that kept her going.” Lim mewled, claw-tipped hands grasping for thin air. He grabbed them and laid down beside her until she calmed down. “Sister. We are saved. Rest now, I shall handle the reward.”
Gently, he pulled one of two rings from his fingers and placed it in Elia’s hand.
Liar’s ring of humankind
A ring of illusions worn by outcasts or those undead who appear too far gone. When worn, retain a partial illusion of humankind. The illusion is physical, convincing even under rigorous touch.
All folk are human, but after the birth of undeath some were seen as more human than others. A dreg always walks in circles, though some are more adept at keeping up a facsimile of humanity.
When Elia looked up again, Pim’s face was desiccated, leathery skin pulled tight over wiry muscle, cheeks and eyes sunken pits. Where there used to be smooth skin there was instead a thin layer of patchy fur like a sick cat. Anyone who didn’t know him would have thought him a kid monster and Elia had to finally admit that there was no likeness between the bekki and the catgirls of old-world media.
“Not the cat ring…” Lim started shivering. “Not the cat…”
“Shhh. It wasn’t yours.” At Pim’s voice she visibly calmed down and when he snuggled up to her again she finally closed her eyes to sleep. “We are bekki and Rhuna hates us for it. Leave us be. I want to be with her and heal.”
Well, if anything, she didn’t need a cue to leave. The heat of her rage had died down, leaving only the ugly feeling of unfinished business and a karmic debt to probability nipping at her heels. Good things rarely happened to her, so much that she was suspicious even now. She set off to explore this place, find a bowl, and get back to Crossroad Temple. At least there, safety was a guarantee.
But first the ring. Around the next corner Elia finally had enough of feeling it between her fingers and slipped the loop of entwined copper and bone on. She watched as her wrinkles buffed out, as scars faded away, and the black veins marking undeath retreated beneath her skin. She found a room with a sink and peered deep into her reflection, turning her head this way and that.
Her face was pretty, rounded square jawline, no sunken cheeks, unclouded blue eyes. She smiled. She frowned. She stretched out her tongue. There it was, a face she could vaguely place as human. Vaguely, because the bruises that had sown her body were simply washed together, giving her skin a unifying purple hue. Also, she still smelled of blood and death.
Gods… it’s me. It’s really, really me.
Rye sounded like she had just gotten a kitten for Christmas. A single hand fizzed, touching her reflection in the water.
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It even removed my pockmarks.
Elia’s favorite scar was gone too, the one bisecting her left eyebrow. In her poorly developed fashion sense, it made her look dangerous, gave her an edge, and made her cooler. Maybe it was a fault of the ring that it overcorrected. Maybe she should ask Karla where to find a better one, one like hers.
I think I’m going to cry now.
“Surprise~.” She made jazz-hands at her reflection before pinching a strand of hair. “Gonna have to do something about this hair though. Waaay too long for combat. Also – ugh – we are so going to need custom fitted torso armor now. Not bad though, not bad at all.”
A flash flood of emotion blasted her brain into paralysis as Rye started crying.
I, I’m me again, almost… sorry, but I, I just… it’s all a bit overwhelming, y’know?
“Ow, ow, ow.” There would come a day when Rye would kill her through the sheer power of SAD, but that day was not today. “Is it because of our new look, because you empathize with Lim and Pim, because you found out you’re a knight or because the city is on fire slash drowning slash falling into a deep dark hole?”
All the above!
Rye sniffled as Elia walked into a walkway that opened up to give a good view of Loften, or at least the overgrown jungle part they had landed in.
But I can’t worry about how I feel. We need to go out there and put out the fire.
“Woah woah, hold it Rye. That’s more than a two-girl job.” She stretched with a satisfying pop. “I’m absolutely drained after that much overtime. Say, let’s take a few days to relax.”
But the fire…
“The fire isn’t going anywhere.” She gestured out to a city that had as much structural coherency as vegetable fried rice. A blend of buildings and building styles mixed into a still aesthetic cityscape, though some parts were obviously anachronistic in design. Case in point, there was a roman aqueduct crossing right over a gothic church bordering a red-brick treehouse of all things. “Look, if you ignore the pandemonium in the distance, I’ll give you a nice present.”
You’re quite poor at delivering convincing arguments.
Elia threw up her hands. “Fine. C’mon, enough rest Quibbles, we’re going out to throw some buckets of water at a wildfire and die of carbon monoxide poisoning.”
Quibbles squealed in protest. He was so comfortable in his little moist bowl, he hadn’t eaten enough yet. But oh, the terrible, slave-driving altruist demanded he go forth, and just when they had cured her of her chronic pacifism. It seemed Rye was determined to get them killed with one justification or another. Maybe they could drive out this disease the same way they had the former.
Elia took a step towards the distant pillars of inferno. “Alright. Here I go dying again.”
W-wait! I’m not ready, well, I mean… we can take some time. To prepare, of course.
“Of course,” Elia said while collating all the ways she could steer Rye’s mind away from selflessly burning themselves alive.
They entered an open-air bath, pools of clear water ranging from sizes fit for two people to an Olympic swimming pool, all of it surrounded by stone pillars and roman arches. Some of it was under renovation with abandoned wooden ladders and stone blocks peeking out beneath an invasive underbrush. There must have once been a ceiling, but instead of debris leafy vines crawled their way across the floor, merging in most of the pools where they turned the water muddy. The tiling was held in faded, once colorful tones and a statue of a man surrounded by twin snakes emerged from the middle of the largest pool.
A bathhouse.
“And thereby a library, a place for socializing, for feasting, and for whoring.” Elia walked past a pillar only to discover some less than divinely inspired statues, algae growing around sharp and pillowy lips where they stood above a pair of secluded pools. She picked up a stone tablet, depicting a variety of pairs, thruples and groups in compromising positions, half of which looked so uncomfortable they might break the spine of at least one of the people involved. “Is this a… karma-sutric instruction manual?”
No, it’s a menu.
“Hah.” She dropped the tablet in one of the dirtier pools. “Ew.”
Prude. I recognize this place, it is… agh, I forget who sponsored this bathhouse, but it was some rich senator who promised it would be done within the decade and evidently didn’t manage to finish it. It was built over an older temple that had long been a ruin, now to serve the populace and our gods once more. That man over there with the serpents is Kao-joo, god of travel, exploration, and the seas, and this pair here is Rokokoko, goddess of loveliness, passion, fertility, and virility, with one of her paramours.
“Guess that must be your patron deity then.” Elia said and immediately felt pokes and pinches assail her up and down. “No, goddamit, s-stop – aghfkfhrf!”
Stop. Making. Me. Seem. Like. A. Hussy.
“But you are!” While trying to dodge into a pool all Elia managed was to stumble over a traitorous loose tile and get her hair wrapped up in a vine. “Whenever you’re not scared, you’re horny!”
Shaddup! Desire is beauty and beauty need be proven, relentlessly! Beauty is a sign of godly goodwill! Beauty is justice! No one gets to carouse in the circles I do without engaging with the charms of harmless fun!
“Your idea of fun is my idea of an orgy!”
I use ample protection! And not every orgy is about sex! ... ok, most of them do have a lot of that, but no host ever has a revelry focused purely on one thing. It’s about the feast, the music, the people from all walks of life. It’s about letting loose, forgetting the strains of life and not being judged for it where otherwise I’m under scrutiny eighteen hours a day twelve days a two-week!
Elia paused, having finally caught the mischievous possessed hand. She had to right her tunic and more importantly her underwraps because even if the illusion ring wasn’t perfect, it simulated the inconvenience of body parts going where they shouldn’t well enough. “Well, if this illusion’s accurate I can’t see why the cool kids wouldn’t let you in at first glance – ack, no, not the tickles!”
I swear, if I didn’t know you, I’d have taken that as a flirt. Take this! And that! Here!
She was left groaning and laughing on a lounging chair when she noticed someone approaching and promptly fell off, tearing the nearby table and tin tableware down with a clatter.
It was not Karla who peeked over the chair but a man, a young man with a boyish face, short blonde curls, and a mischievous grin that implied he was up to the kind of trouble she specifically would love to be a part of. He leaned down to offer a hand. In the same motion as pulling her up to eye height, he placed a tiny white flower he had plucked from his garland in her hair.
Oooh, charming. Wait… bathhouse… temple… is he this place’s attendant? Wow, do people select for beauty or are they all so… cute?
Elia took a step back. He signed an array of hand signs in the air and though she had never learned sign-language, the meanings pressed themselves into her mind.
“No, I don’t need a special massage!” she yelled, trying not to stare too much at his humble getup of only a loincloth, his grain-embossed choker, and his single jasper earring.
I do!
The boy made some more signs. He smelled nice, the crown of dandelions adding to the scent of just having come out of the shower.
“No, I also don’t want to partake in your ‘other’ services.” She brushed a tin cup from her chest, made a hand sign of her own and he laughed, rather, made a laughing face without any sound. “I just want to find a bowl of respite, spend my souls, eat, then sleep.”
I want a special massage! Here! Pick me!
The boy shrugged, scratching his cheek while looking off into the distance.
“Wait, you offer that as well?” More signs, more furrowed eyebrows. “There’s a man down lower who sells food and other items. There’s also a mage – conjurer? Sorcerer? – who is quite… cold-blooded? Is she a lizard?”
He laughed again and for a moment Elia swore she felt something spark between his green eyes and hers.
A mage? A mage! Oh, Elia, we ought to talk to her. Maybe I could relearn my bolt, no need for a boon.
More signs. It was a very nonverbal exchange.
“Yes, I am aware that you were the attendant of this bathhouse-temple. Is bathing also, like, a religious thing?” The boy made a so-so gesture and gave his hand for Elia to kneel. “Alright, check this soul please.”
Soul of a forlorn knight
The idea of what it means to be a knight often outlives those burdened to fulfill said expectations. Yet those who hold true often find their service recognized, even after death.
He eyed the soul, beckoning the steely flame into his embrace.
[Body] Soul of a forlorn knight [Common]
0/??? Small increase to constitution
0/2100 Small increase to tenacity
“Huh. I can’t have two greater souls of the same type, can I?” The boy shook his head, then made another few signs like he was trying to solve an invisible rubix cube. “No, I don’t want mine removed, this one’s just common. Oh, something good happens when I have one for body, sense, mind, and soul? Well, I’ve got two uncommon ones already, so I guess I’m halfway there?”
He wiggled and wobbled and set into a frenzy of gestures, excitement overruling the intricacies of language. “Ascension?”
What?
“Uh, this boy here, he says that if we get a full hand of vessels, then they will and I quote ‘lift each other up, to ascend to greater heights and greater perils’.” She scratched her nose. “I guess that means they all become stronger? Didn’t the other attendant say as much?”
That… sorry, but did he use the word ascension? As in, ‘ascender’ ascension, like the heroes of yore? That means becoming de-facto immortal, like unaging-immortal. The gods surely will take notice of us, give us an impossible task or more to decide our worthiness. That is, if they take notice of anything with Loften how it is…
Well, that part wasn’t something she was looking forward to. The mundane trials had been more than enough for her so far, thank you very much. “I’d guess they’re busier with the whole citywide apocalypse. C’mon, I’ll try and switch so you can front for all the social stuff. And once we’re done, we can visit Crossroad temple and get you your four-course massage with happy end.”
Yay~. Let us not tarry then, onwards! To the merchant! To the mage! To massages!
She wiped away a kernel of pedecud and – still kneeling – turned to see a blushing Karla to the side, an armful of food bowls balanced on the one arm she wasn’t using to block her eyes.
Oh no, look at you, caught out in the moment~.
“No.” She pointed at Karla. “You will not make another misunderstanding of this.”
“Y-yes ma’am! I didn’t see one bit ma’am!”