They reached the crest of the narrow staircase, where the next floor seemed just as dusty and decrepit as the basement gaol. But, blessedly, Riley could see pale sunlight poking through the bars of the windows. The corridor ahead was still lined with jail cells, but at least he was able to see clearly now.

But the world beyond the windows did little to comfort him. All he could see were mountains shrouded in ice and fog. He couldn’t see a single trace of civilization anywhere outside. But the had to be something out there, some town or city he could get his bearings in.

Riley pressed on, keeping his staff raised high.

“Halt, a moment,” Arubis gently said. Her voice cut through the silence like a knife, nearly making Riley drop his staff in shock. “Have a look in the cell to your right.”

“Uh... alright.” He obliged her, craning his neck to peer around the collapsed bars of the cell. It looked, mostly, like any other cell they had passed. The only thing distinct was an ivory crystal sprouting from the floor. It came up to Riley’s knee and emitted a pale glow.

“This is a Lodestone. It is a relic of sorts, a remnant of a vast power. They are a vital tool for Wardens, you will come to find.”

He inched closer to the Lodestone. It glowed in his presence, as if greeting him. “Well, uh, first and foremost... what does it do?” he asked, blinking over at her in surprise.

“Many things. You may think of it as an anchor for your spirit. And, as you come across more of them, you can use them as a means of transposition. Instantaneous travel between any Lodestone attuned to you.”

“Fast travel? That... does sound useful,” he admitted. Riley paused and looked back at the Oracle. “So, wait, who actually created these things?”

“I know not,” Arubis admitted. “Their creation predates mine own. I suppose, by the standards of Oracles, I am something of a youth. Our knowledge has been ground down and splintered by the passage of centuries. They are... a vestige of sorts. A remnant of the divine.”

“And the divine forces are against this... Rot thing?”

Arubis nodded.

Riley left the cell behind and continued down the hall, the footsteps noisily echoing around him. At least some of the information was useful. He made a mental note of Arubis’ lessons, and resolved to start writing things down whenever he got his hands on a pen and paper.

“But... what is the Rot? Or... the Chaos? I feel like those terms have been used interchangeably.” They passed a vaulted doorway, into a wide room filled with furniture that had collapsed under the groaning weight of time.

“The Malformed Chaos is something of a blanket term, for a myriad of evils. The Rot, and creatures spawned of it, is the most numerous and dangerous of these forces. But, in time, you will encounter the other aspects of Chaos.”

“So, what? This ‘Rot’ just want to kill and destroy things? For no reas-”

Riley’s words were cut off by a horrid, enraged snarl. He spun around as a figure rose from the ground, adorned in rusty chainmail, a bloodstained black tabbard, and a helmet dented and scarred by the passage of time. He was a ragged man, more human than the apemen Riley had dealt with so far. But only barely.

His face, shrouded by a ragged beard, was marked by black pustules that were chewing into his brow. Even in the chaotic shock of seeing a spearman rushing his way, Riley couldn’t help but briefly focus on the strange, oily tumours.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He jumped back in a panic, only barely avoiding the head of the spear aimed for his throat. “Holy crap!” he gasped, jumping back from more thrusts.

The spearman was, at least, faster and more aggressive than the apemen had been. Though his scrawny neck made it clear that time had not been kind to his body either.

Riley swung blindly, the sharpened tip of his staff slicing a chunk from the spearman’s jaw. He was sent stumbling aside, a pained growl rising in his throat. Riley expected him to collapse as the apemen did, dead from a single hit.

Instead, the spearman gripped his weapon tighter and lunged at Riley with newfound speed and fury. The attack was so surprising, so swift, that Riley could only barely react before the sharpened tip punched clean through his sternum Riley gagged and gargled, all the air shunted from his lungs in an instant. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt before, an agony beyond compare.

The spearman flung Riley to the ground and wrenched the barbed spear free. Blackness flooded Riley’s vision.

DEATH.

Riley opened his eyes.

He sucked in air in a frantic gasp, his gloved hands wildly patting at his chest. No blood, no wound, no trace that anything had happened to him at all. Riley rapidly scanned his surroundings, stopping when his eyes fell upon the pale glow of the Lodestone. Arubis’ words echoed in his mind.

Think of it as an anchor for your spirit.

“I... did I just... respawn?” he asked, terror lining his words. Dying twice in 24 hours... that had to be some kind of record.

“A Warden generally cannot experience true death,” Arubis said. His gaze snapped toward her, the robed woman standing placidly in the door of the cell. “Your spirit is... immortal. When slain, your flesh will be reconstituted at the nearest Lodestone.”

Riley shuddered, sweating bullets beneath his bird-shaped mask. He felt like he was set to have a heart attack, giving him a hat trick of deaths in the span of a single day.

“Oh no...” he moaned, briefly closing his eyes.

“The only consequence of your death is losing the Essence you accrued. It was, in turn, absorbed into the creature that killed you. But you can reclaim it, so do not worry.” She offered him a pleasant smile, ignorant of Riley’s panicked grimace. “Still... it is a surprise that Fort Bane still has any soldiers left after all this time. Though that one seems to merely be a corpse, driven by a trace of Rot.”

“Being a Warden is awful...” he muttered, pulling himself slowly to his feet. He rested his weight against his staff, standing idle until the urge to vomit had subsided.

Arubis gently set a hand on his shoulder. “I know that this is a lot for you to take in and endure. But please... I know you can handle the Path of Strife. Use caution and wisdom, and you shall grow stronger and thrive.”

Her smile seemed genuine. And, in that moment, her snake eyes seemed far less intimidating.

“Okay. I’ll... try.” His legs felt like jelly, and he walked down the same frosty corridor with a newfound anxiety. He halted as he entered through the doorway, his roaming eyes settling upon the hunched figure of the spearman.

He stood a few paces from Riley, his back turned to the doorway. Blood dripped from his spear but there was otherwise no trace of Riley’s body. Riley took a step forward with his staff raised high. The floorboard creaked under his boot, causing the spearman to instantly turn around.

This time Riley struck first, swinging his staff in two quick motions that unleashed a cloud of Blinding Mist, and a second cloud of Choking Haze. Summoning two spells in sequence sent a small lurch of pain through his body. But anything felt inconsequential after experiencing a spear to the gut.

Both clouds washed over the spearman, who howled and thrashed about blindly. Blood bubbled from his eyes and streamed down his cheeks in thin streams, while his coughs echoed through the chamber. Riley quickly moved around him, avoiding the thrusts of his spear. He quickly took advantage of the opening, whacking the spearman across the back with all his might.

The impact smashed the decrepit figure flat on his belly, but didn’t kill him. And, much to Riley’s horror, his breathing already sounded as if it was returning to normal! Was the time limit of the spell so short? Or did a person need to be continually exposed to it for the choking effect the last.

The spearman was already starting to rise, blood and bile dripping from the corners of his mouth. “Keep down!” Riley shouted. He steeled his nerve and thrust his staff downward, the sharpened tip gouging a swathe from his throat. The spearman seized up and went still, an abundance of Essence flowing into Riley’s body.

He checked the menu quickly. 610 Essence, in total. The bastard really had taken it all for himself.

He turned to see Arubis gently applauding him. “Well done. Truly well done. Please, do not let death discourage you. Think of it as being a learning experience.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who got a spear through the chest.”

This situation was still utterly insane to him. But he knew full well by now that it wasn’t just some strange dream. This was, for whatever reason, his life now.

And if med school had taught him anything, it was that he simply had to knuckle down and endure whenever he was faced with something that seemed insurmountable. This was, admittedly, a thousand times more imposing than cramming for an exam.

He took a few shaky breaths, his attention focused firmly on the corpse. Just in case.

“So, uh,” he said, eventually turning his gaze toward Arubis. “Do you think I have enough Essence to get stronger?”