The streak of light made a single second stretch into minutes. Mouggen screamed, Elia screamed, everyone was screaming. Even though Elia was sure the damage to her eyes was permanent and that she would never see anything but the non-color white, she saw the face of Yolon twist towards her, swimming through or perhaps between the wiggling waves of light.
He was coming for her, his deathrattle a final blow. She wasn’t the only one with an ability triggered by death.
A hand sprung out of Elia’s side, a blue so brilliant it may have been solid.
Leave. Her. Alone!
The blue mixed with the approaching voidslug and suddenly, the world popped like a point-blank soap flash-bang grenade. The world turned from deafening white, to simply blinding. She heard more than saw Yolon’s head flop to the ground, and felt as it near instantly melted into gooey fluid pooling around her face.
Rye had done something again. Something amazing. Something stupid. Her head felt like it had its own little Verdun playing inside of it, one hemisphere bashing the next.
Elia tried to focus on getting back up, but the rush of souls was something else. She could barely breathe, so much was flowing straight up her nose and pushing against every good button in her mind.
Her hand met Mouggen’s and it was completely cold, frosted over with ice.
“Please don’t be dead again,” she mumbled.
His hand twitched. He was alive.
Ascender slain
You have gained: Soul x8,000
Shardbearer slain
You have gained: Soul x20,000
She was not listening to whatever Mouggen was saying, as a larger, much more unwelcome notification droned against her overstimulated existence.
My little boy is dead. Lights out. Finito. You better keep your head down frenemie, because SOMEONE decided to screw around in the tower with shit best left unsmelled. FUCK, he had so many magic items. I gotta get them back. Alright, fun time is over, no more peace treaty. Whoever messes with my shit is going to regret it.
“Shi-it.” She sprung up onto her legs, snagged Mouggen by the collar, and stumbled her way to where she remembered the bowl was. “Shit shit shit.”
Pulling him to the bowl of respite took painful seconds, but she took a sip to fix her senses and her arm before seeing Cesare pull Nali over, then move on to Karla.
Right. He had the people, she had the loot.
Elia practically tore through the liquifying body of Yolon, finding a small mountain of shards in gray, green, blue, and a single purple.
Bone shard [Epic]
The shards of bone hide a power of divine origin, yet they can be found within every living creature. Their desire is to be together, as they aspire to become that great divine being from which they were torn.
They went into her bag, as did the soul of Yolon, which looked like a fetus-sized grown man curled up inside what was likely a representation of this world's moon.
Soul of Yolon the Lunatic
Yolon was a great mind who studied the moon and found a fell secret within it. After surviving the Passing Knight sent from up high to claim his life, he renounced the authority of the gods and declared himself the emissary of the moon.
She turned on her heels and hurried over to Partlight, or what remained of him. He too had some shards, but she didn’t have time to do much more than scrape them with his dimly smoldering soul into her bag.
Soul of Partlight
Partlight was a warrior who hailed from the sunlight shore before he was taken in by the Pontibat and given one of the twelve honorary burdens. He was destined to ascend and serve Aurana, yet he denied such an honor in favor of service to his order’s creed.
“Is that why you were watching? Did Rhuna steal your little champion?” The sky remained silent, as did her haze, and Aurana.
Whatever. She didn’t have time, Rhuna was coming and there was still so much loot to take. The ring of beads was gone with his entire arm, but his other weapon still seemed alright. Elia gasped as she tried to lift his handgonne. She wanted the gun club that was as large as her, she really, really did. “Gods, please. I’m American, this fits into my lore. Give me the gun so I can hit people with it.”
It didn’t budge. With a whimper she let it stay where it was.
“Right. Anything else, anything I’m forgetting?” A bright light flashed outside.
Elia looked out the hole Yolon had made with his deathrattle. The ground beneath the tower was a sea of ants and fire. Hundreds of undead were crawling out of the woodworks, cutting each other into ribbons, dying, then getting right back up again. Elia could make out soldiers from the 41st legion by their trails of flame, Avon’s knights by the smell of tar, as well as some dregs that seemed to make the forest bloom and grow around them.
The ground below was awash with violence and for once, Elia had had enough for the day.
“We’re leaving,” she told Cesare as he dumped Mouggen and Nali through an already activated portal in the bowl.
“So, about that dream,” Cesare said in between grunts as he pulled a heavy Karla after himself.
“The what?” If Rye had visited his dream, then she didn’t know. It made sense though. She always got so damn lucky with her boons. “Sorry, I didn’t really see that one, Rye did. Talk later?”
“Oh. Um, sure.”
“Where does this lead anyways?” Elia asked.
They both peered into the bowl’s portal. Predictably, it showed a ceiling. “Karla opened it up. I don’t recognize the ceiling, but better anywhere else than here.”
A massive impact shook the tower. They hurriedly stuffed Karla through the portal. Stone crumbled and a giant cog crashed to the floor right behind them. They turned around in surprise. A mass of fingers and feathers was crawling up the tower’s side, like some sort of cartoonish approximation of a feathered wyrm with a lion’s head.
It poked its head in through a hole.
“Frenemie?” The giant thing blinked, its jaws shifting until the face of Rhuna was staring back at her. “It was you! Hah! Wow, you’re unlucky. Really chose the worst time to give ol’ Yolon the one-two. And you killed my boy as well. Ah well, what’s in the past is in the past, and we can hang out now. I’ll show you my dungeon, it’ll be so much fun.”
“Run, run, run!” Elia yelled as she pushed Cesare through. Rhuna flashed towards her, covering ground with perilous speed. The portal closed right in front of her mouth and Elia was smothered by the absence of all sound.
*Gong*
The room she was in now was square, small, and boring. She looked around, finding only one door out among cluttered furniture. Where did Karla take them?
She pressed her ear against the door. Then, with a single push, she threw it open. A hundred pairs of eyes blinked back at her. Among all the things she hadn’t expected a ballroom, especially not one filled with the kind of characters you’d find at a Victorian halloween party.
One masked individual with way too many spikes scrunched his nose at her. Another looked fairly confused in between a mask of peacock feathers. A man right next to her bit down on a fruit. The sound echoed far in the sudden lull.
The smell of party-food was divine. Elia pointed at the cocktail the man was holding. “Can I have some of that?”
“Intruders!” he yelled.
Immediately, she was swarmed by a dozen dregs waiting for her on the other side. There was no escape, they didn’t even give her the time to yell before one of them bonked her over the head and she was knocked unconscious.
----------------------------------------
Elia was only vaguely aware of how she was picked up, and then put down some time later. Time passed, and she was blessedly unbothered.
She woke to the feeling of soft pillows, and a view of a ceiling covered in beautiful frescos. She looked around, and the entire room was decorated with a decadent kind of posh. If Elia had any complaints, it wouldn’t be about the generous space of her living quarters slash prison, but about the number of frills on her bed.
To her surprise, she didn’t find one thing to be alarmed about. Her captors seemed nice enough. She wasn’t even bound or gagged. Unless one counted the divinely soft, luxurious mattress, then nothing was keeping her from just standing up and strolling right out the front door.
“Curse you, makers of soft beds, my brutus, my kryptonite.” She shook a fist at the sky.
Aurana is watching
Valti is watching
Goddammit, now there were two of them.
“Fuck off!” Elia yelled, forgetting all the effort she had put into trying not to swear.
She flinched back, waiting for a sudden rebuke that never came. There was another new development she could do nothing about. Rather than treat it like a sword of damocles hanging over her head, she figured that if Aurana was actually bothered by anything she’d done or said, the goddess would have acted on it already.
So, why was Elia still seeing this message? Was it a bug in the system? A subtle warning?
“Are you a questgiver? Are you going to tell me to farm ten boar hides?”
Again, silence. For a peaceful moment, Elia closed her eyes.
She shot back up almost instantly. “I forgot the witch princess! FUUUUUDGE!”
“Girl, you have the best of the worst luck.” There was a voice she rarely missed. The Wolf was sitting at the gloomy end of the room, arms crossed. He didn’t look pleased. “I can’t even rightly say if what you have wrought was good for us or downright catastrophic. But you get to enjoy your rewards either way, as an undead. Well played, well played.”
As it turned out, he was just as useless outside of his capacity as a combat constructor as he was useful in it.
“Go bother Rye,” Elia muttered, before sinking back into the fluff.
“Go get her for me then. I have important business with her. What she did was… enlightening.”
Elia sighed and, with some effort, reached out for her. All she got back was a tinge of pain, like poking a sore bruise. “She’s busy.”
“Busy? Not dead?”
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“Busy,” Elia said, and didn’t quite believe herself. But it was high time she started trusting someone. Because trusting meant relying, and if she could rely on Rye, then that meant less of the annoying work went to her and maybe, maybe she’d find it within herself to ask what she really wanted out of life. “She’s just nursing a headache from Yolon’s dreamblast.”
“And you think she can handle it?”
“I know she can.”
The Wolf stared her down for a long while. “Then I will be back, before the coming of the storm. Make sure you find yourself at the center of it, or far enough away to keep out of the rain.”
He was gone with a snap, like spirits were wont to do.
“Prick.”
Elia leaned back into sultry softness. She turned and twisted, but found that she couldn’t quite get comfortable. What if he was right? She remembered hearing the gong play after touching a new bowl while on her retreat. If Rye was dead, then that was that. No returns. No take backs.
She tried to [Psychometry] herself. If it had worked once, maybe it would work again? One single use and she was pressed into the pillows, reeling from a thousand thoughts and memories swirling up at once.
Not a prima, this one. Only in name.
You never told me it was THIS bad, Elia!
Can’t even hold a sword right.
It’s cancer.
Failure. Failure.
It’s always wrong, again and again.
Elia groaned and all the eyes in the frescos seemed to look down as if mocking her. Rye was still there. She knew it because… because she knew. Poking at the back of her mind was less like touching the empty nothingness she had feared, and more like prodding a sore tooth.
‘Sore teeth are sore because they are still there. Damaged, but present.’
It was backwards anyways how Rye had to protect her from anything. It was one attack, just that one non-spell. But things were set in stone now. That it had come that far made her feel like she was just a bag of hot air. What a failure for a protector, and yes, Elia did see herself as such. The Old Maiden and her may have had differences with her callous approach to life as an undead, but she had played her part well nonetheless.
It was awfully nice how much she had cared about a stranger.
Elia searched around until she found Quibbles and extricated that pendant he kept hidden for her from his gullet.
Lovers’ Pendant
A pendant that opens in one part of two halves, depicting a hawkish woman in bronzeplate print. When worn, gently impresses the location of the other half on the wearer.
She stared at it, then stared some more. Eventually, she looped it around her sore neck. The effect was quite immediate, like a small nudge in her mind. There was no hiding that it was pointing out towards the maze.
Elia wanted to do something for Rye, but going back there? Even considering the idea blanketed her with a formless dread from all sides. What good would it do anyways? Likely, she’d just find Rye’s maid slash girlfriend slash newly minted half-bekki walking the endless halls as a dreg. There was no good reason to go back, only forward. It would do more harm than good.
Shame.
She jerked up. That was Rye’s voice.
“Rye? Are you alright?”
Again, there was no answer, which was downright annoying, if not rude. She was halfway to doing something drastic (see: going to sleep) when a pair of footsteps came echoing down the hallway. Keys jangled, the door squealed in agony, and a moment later, she was standing in her room.
Who was she? She, as far as Elia was concerned, was the single most accurate representation of a stereotypical lord of evil and darkness. Her skin was pale as marble, her mascara black, and the armor she was wearing above flowing strips of cloth constrained her like an iron maiden with the spikes pointing outward. She probably had a boon to summon skeletons, or suck the life out of someone with a single kiss.
“You couldn’t have arrived at a more inopportune time,” she said with the kind of finality that was usually followed with a bath in a piranha-pool. “I thank you for bringing the princess back into our fold. Rest assured, you will be rewarded.”
Her accent was striking, but rather fitting. Elia dredged her memories for what it reminded her of.
Then it clicked. Karla chose the destination. They were wounded from the fight, and Rhuna giving chase must have given her a drastic idea.
“Are you Karla’s… mom?”
“That would be my sister. Late sister. I am Camille Bouchard. You may call me Madame Camille, or Madame Bouchard.” She took a sip of the blood-red wine she was nursing.
Elia’s mouth made an O-shape. Right. Elia should have paid more attention. However, she was also not calling her ‘Madame’. The respect felt too unearned and besides, she was probably four to five times this woman’s age.
Unless she was wearing a good deception ring.
“So, you’re like some sort of important person in the pact?” Elia asked.
“The leader, yes. De facto, but not de jure.”
“You do look the part.” The part being evil, comically, evil-squared even. “So, is the maroon pact some sort of ‘league of villains’? Is that why Karla is so obsessed with being a hero? Is she in her rebellious phase?"
The evil Aunt gave her a look like she knew what Elia was thinking. Right. She should work on being sociable, being ‘nice’. Elia shot her a smile that might have been a grin and the woman sighed.
“No matter what you’ve heard, we don’t sacrifice children or drink the blood of the damned. The maroon pact is made up of outsiders and forlorn undead, and both have nothing better to do than to party. Hence, the outfit.” She bent one of her spikes, which looked like it had been cut from styrofoam. “As for Karla, well… you know her.”
“That I do.”
“And how, if I may ask?” Camille asked with a casual, yet demanding tone, as if she had a vested interest.
Elia was getting some unusual mom-vibes. “Professionally. We kill things together. Helped her run from Rhuna too. Twice so far.”
“I see.”
A servant came in, setting down a bowl on the nightstand with just that little bit too much gusto.
“Here. Eat. From what I was told, you have been eating nothing but gruel and animal feed for months.” Elia’s eyes practically goggled at the plate laid before her. It was filled with the kind of food that fit the words ‘entrée’ and ‘a little bit of everything’. The room smelled like garlic and the shrimps especially were practically begging her to eat them whole, head and peel included.
Elia dug in. The moment the first bite touched her tongue, she knew that god must have forgiven the french, for she was in heaven. Her entire life had worked towards culminating in this one moment. Food.
“Karla has told me much about you. An unwavering soldier, her twin-souled tutor, an oracle. Normally, people do the opposite of what you have, taking Karla out and leaving her to learn harsh lessons in ransoming. You have spared me much headache by bringing her back, even if she is once again confined to her… are you crying?”
“No,” Elia blubbered, then nearly coughed her lungs out as she inhaled a scallop. An invisible force seized her head, tilted it back, and flung the offending piece of seafood out. Karla’s aunt had telekinetic powers. And she also wasn’t one to hesitate. Noted.
“Normally, it is eaten with a spoon,” Camille said, offering her a set of tableware.
“Thanks.” She took the spoon and tucked it away in a chest pocket. Camille gave her a look. Why was she so judgy, Elia might need to stab someone later. But for now, all her attention went to the food, her glorious, glorious food. “This tastes like liquid orgasm.”
“Yes. You arrived just in time to crash the tail end of our Worgsday orgy.” Elia made a face. “Not that kind of orgy. Food, drink, entertainment. I believe you call it a party? With more magic of course. You wouldn’t believe the things a master pâtissier in this world can do with a bag of flour and sugar.”
Elia just stared at her between bites.
“The ‘dessert-guy’.” Camille sighed, slouching down one step further. She’d have made for a great thinker-pose if her face were more neutral and less I’ll-eat-you-alive. “You eat like an American.”
“Oh.” She chewed thoughtfully on a bit of oyster. “Well, you look like if Sauron had a girlfriend he dumped.”
Camille snorted once, gracefully, in place of a laugh. But she couldn’t fool Elia. The corners of her lips twitched, and her eyes were roaming less, looking more like she wasn’t bored by existence itself.
“As I was saying cheri, your reputation is quite confusing to me. Fifty years with no sign of change, and suddenly all the city is abuzz. What are you?”
For the first time in a long while, Elia had the thought that maybe running around murking whoever was standing in her way may not have been a commonly accepted lifestyle. She was making waves unseen, though it was her fault for voluntarily burying her head in the sand. Then again, Karla could have told her that murder was a severe faux pas. Or Mouggen. Or Cesare.
“Is everyone else alright?”
Camille swirled her wine, fixing Elia with a searching stare. “They are the honored guests of the maroon pact, yes. They will not be harmed, provided they are no harm to us.”
“Good.” She would inquire herself to make sure of it. “As for me, honestly, I’m just a bit lost? I got here like two or three months ago, and for most of that time I’ve only seen the same abandoned city district. So yeah, I’m pretty new here. Didn’t even know what souls did until a quarter year ago.”
“Mhm. And in that time you killed Commander Hall, Partlight, and Yolon too?”
“There were more,” Elia said absentmindedly. “Rhuna’s dog was a freebie, and I had help for the others. It doesn’t count.”
“Hall once lived on the mountain of gods, and Yolon was the bearer of a greater shard. It was the greater shard of dreaming. Had it been the greater shard of dreams, well, you wouldn’t have been able to enact your cute little escape plan cheri.” Karla’s aunt scoffed. “But they are both dead and you are not. If that doesn’t count, then what does? Fighting a champion in a fair duel, fighting a god?”
Elia frowned. A part of her did think that any victory not predicated purely on her own skill was worth less. She couldn’t replicate it. Just thinking on how much she relied on Rye during the fight against Yolon made her feel off.
Camille continued to stare at her. “I know you have it, the greater shard.”
Elia didn’t say a thing. Denying a fact meant she had to be sure its opposite was true. She cornered the last of the shrimp and continued on to some sort of pickled vegetable.
“I’m honestly not sure at this point. I haven’t noticed anything different.” Besides the lack of Rye. Elia winced. They weren’t merged yet. Hopefully. “If I do have it, should I be worried?”
Camille shrugged. “A greater shard is a piece of the world. Love, steel, smell, or the color ‘mauve’, they can take any shape, any form, desire, or concept. The broader the shard’s domain, the greater its power, yet it is limited by its wielder. A weak wielder of the shard of death would only be able to kill ants with it. A strong wielder of the shard of white chocolate might be able to drown you in a wave of sweet fatty delights.”
Elia imagined it, drowning in blissful sweets. What a great death. Nine out of ten, with minus points for the drowning part.
She returned to the present and realized why Camille was asking her so many questions “You were trying to suss out if I am a good vessel? Well, how do I measure up?”
“You’re alright, for a human,” Camille hummed. “You’d need to be at the caliber of Yolon to ensure that everyone in the world can go on dreaming. But unless you let yourself be killed, I doubt that your shard will fracture further.”
“What happens if it does?” Elia asked.
“The concept dies. It ceases to exist. So if your shard dies, there will be no more dreams. To prevent that, I wish to propose that you join the pact. We care for each other in life and dreg. How can I entice you? With souls? Weapons and armor? Perhaps magic, perhaps a boon?” Camille leaned forward just the slightest bit. “What does your loyalty cost, miss Elia-Rye?”
“I don’t know, let me think about it for a bit.” Karla’s aunt took a thoughtful, long drink of her wine. “Well, I'll tell you if I find it. But if you do want me on your side, I’ll need a lot more shrimp.”
Camille sighed. “I don’t suppose the council would approve of an ally who can be swayed by seafood. A shame. Your victories are larger than life, a moving of rooks and towers unprecedented for the last decades. Cheri, when you come around to selling yourself, don’t do it so cheaply.”
There was a knock on the door.
“A few more minutes! Christ, I hate this job.” She turned back to Elia, who had emptied her plate and was just as hungry as before. “Anyways, you are more than welcome to stay and take advantage of our hospitality. You have free reign to move how you like within our kingdom. For your rewards, see our local quartermaster. For anything else, ring that bell and one of the dreg servants will bring it to you. As for this conversation, you are not to mention three things to anyone: That you slew Yolon, that you may be in possession of his greater shard, and that I made you a personal offer without involving the council." That sounded ominous, but was entirely doable. Elia was planning on not advertising her greatness unless absolutely necessery. She was ripe for a year of vacation or two.
"Now… I will excuse myself I think we can have a more productive talk when my blood is not made of fifty percent wine.” Camille stood up, but not before placing a clear plastic bottle in her hands. “I will leave this here as a present, to show you what the pact can offer you.”
It was a very normal bottle, just like the many others she had in her pack. Elia poked it, just to make sure it wasn’t cursed.
Water bottle
A water bottle conjured from a faraway plain. Undead prize these treasured curios, as they are the only known vessel able to contain the water of a bowl of respite.
“T-thanks,” Elia stuttered, leering at the completely full bottle. This was worth its weight in gold, er, souls.
Camille stopped in front of the door. “Before I forget, there will be another party to welcome Karla back. You are of course cordially invited. Especially if you can somehow convince her not to do anything too stupid.”
Another party, with more food like this? “I’d love to. When is it?”
“Tomorrow.” Camille groaned again and was out the door.
Elia looked to where a small bell was sitting right next to her emptied bowl. She jingled it once, and within seconds her door opened and a lifeless dreg walked in, finely dressed in a dark tunic, a faceless mask, and a yellow leather cap. The theme for the last party must have been ‘villains and vineyards’.
Loathe as she was to get up, she wasn’t happy letting Rye stay in whatever state of existence she currently was. She’d need to check up on Cesare and Mouggen as well. And Nali. And Karla. And then she had to check her loot and, well, she had a lot to do. “Can you show me around this place?”
The dreg nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly so.
“Nice. You got a name?”
“S…a…”
“Alright. Sarah the dreg. We’re going to be best friends. Now, show me your wine cellars.”
After all, the existence of alcoholics implies the presence of alcohol. And Camille didn’t seem like the type of person to get drunk on cheap vodka shots. Then again, she shouldn’t get too drunk. She had some rewards to cash in, companions to check up on, and an uncle to find.