Arubis raised her right hand, holding it toward him. A golden glyph shimmered on her palm, producing enough light that it was near-blinding. Riley winced, his vision gradually adjusting to the glow, while Arubis inspected him.
“I believe I could raise two of your stats,” she said in a low voice, her brows briefly knitting together. “I should say that, early on, you will need but a modest amount of Essence to raise your abilities. But, with each increase, that number shall gradually rise higher and higher.”
“Sounds about right,” Riley noted, his voice an irritated mutter. “Then... let’s see. I guess I should try to level my... hm... What should I improve first?”
“If I might make a suggestion?” Arubis asked, tilting her head. “Your Vitality is rather low. Even an enemy like this could kill you rather quickly. A higher degree of Vitality will make you tougher and improve your resilience to the insidious forces that wish you harm. It is no substitute for a sturdy suit of armour but, well, our options are limited in that regard for the time being,” she explained.
Riley nodded. He spared another glance to the dead spearman, examining his armour for several moments. He ultimately thought better of it. Robbing a corpse was distasteful enough, even if this particular corpse had rammed a spear through his gut recently. But his disgust at the notion aside, both for the moral and hygienic issues it raised, the simple fact was that the armour looked like complete crap.
The chainmail was rusted, falling to pieces in places. The helmet looked as if it would split in half from a stiff breeze. And to say nothing of the fact that the dead spearman was at least a foot taller than Riley, rendering it a totally crap fit.
The robes weren’t much good for protecting him, but they were at least comfortable and fit him like a glove. “Okay. Two points in Vitality.”
Arubis nodded, the glowing glyph in her hand blazing brighter for several seconds. Warmth washed through his body, fading almost as quickly as it appeared. He didn’t feel any different, in truth, but a quick check of the menu confirmed that Arubis had done as he asked.
“Um... thanks. Let’s... keep going. This fortress probably has some kind of exit somewhere.” Assuming the doorway hadn’t collapsed from the passage of time.
They passed through more rooms, their furnishings having rotted away to near-nothingness. Whatever most of these chambers had been, he could only hazard a guess. This time, Riley was cautious and slow in his movements. He peered slowly around each corner, and did everything he could to keep his footsteps as silent as possible.
Even if he could revive from death near-instantly, he wasn’t exactly in a rush to experience another spear in the gut.
He found more emaciated apemen scattered around the various rooms. Some of them barely even stirred at his approach. But those that did come at him, Riley cut them down. Having experienced death at the hands of the spearman, he was feeling much less reserved when it came to violence.
The deeper in they went, the more skeletons Riley found. Some of them were dressed in half-destroyed suits of armour, others were halfway buried between rubble. Fort Bane, at some point, had been rife with people. Now only desiccated madmen roamed the halls.
“Um... Thank you for supporting me, earlier,” Riley eventually said, not looking back at his companion. “This whole situation is awful. I don’t know why I’m here, but if I have to go through this crap... at least you’re better company than the Arbiter.”
“That would not be a difficult feat, my Warden,” she replied, trying to suppress a titter that rose in her throat.
Riley smiled despite himself. “So, what are Oracles? If you don’t mind me asking, at least. You look mostly human, but your eyes and your strange powers... Well, I get the impression that you’re something pretty unique.”
“Oracles, such as myself, are spirits given a slightly material presence to aid Wardens in their sacred mission. Our numbers have, over time, steadily dwindled. Yet we still exist. We still serve. The Malformed Chaos does not rest, nor do we.”
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Hardly sounds pleasant, Riley thought to himself. “So, you were born into this?”
“Tis my purpose. And I serve it graciously.”
“And am I the first Warden you’ve served?”
He trailed off as they entered a particularly long chamber, lined from one end to the other with tables and benches. A dining hall, of some sort. Riley peered deeper into the darker half of the room, where something glinted faintly in the shadows.
“I have served others,” she eventually admitted, a slight tension to her tone.
“Well, what happened? If Warden’s are immortal, I figured you’d serve them for life?” He pressed deeper into the room, drawn hesitantly closer to the glinting metal.
“There... comes a point where a Warden grows beyond our aid.”
“So strong they can’t have their stats increased further?” he asked.
“Essentially,” Arubis said. He spared a glanced toward her. Her gaze was affixed to the far wall, as if deep in thought.
Once Riley drew close enough to the glint, he could easily see the source of it: A hatchet, halfway buried in one of the floorboards. He gripped it and wrenched it free in a single movement, testing the weight in his right hand.
It wasn’t too heavy, he reasoned, and the blade still seemed to have some sharpness to it. Most importantly, he couldn’t see even a single speck of rust on the blade of the flat. Riley quickly checked it in his inventory.
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Woodsman’s Hatchet
A simple axe, found among the remains of Fort Bane. More of a tool than a weapon, it is still adept at cutting flesh if nothing more fitting will do.
‘When the plague began to spread in earnest though the Vergoll Empire, Fort Bane was cut off from outside aid. Supplies grew lean, men grew desperate, and even the woodsmen were forced to fight to defend their lives.’
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Riley narrowed his eyes, dismissing the menu with a gesture. “A plague spread through here? Must be pretty damn bad.” He was willing to bet these people hadn’t even discovered germ theory yet, if they were still reliant on medieval weaponry. And if the plague was tied to the Rot, then there was probably some kind of magic powering it.
His mind briefly wandered to the remains of the spearman, and the strange black growths that had been gnawing at his flesh. Was that the plague? Or something else?
Regardless, the axe was a good find. It may not have been an ideal weapon, but he had the stats to wield the thing (apparently), and it was probably a bad idea to whack every enemy with his staff. He didn’t know if the staff could break or not, but it was a risk he didn’t want to take. And an axe to the face was marginally more lethal to some choking fog.
He switched the staff to his left hand, the axe now gripped firmly in his right. “There might still be some stuff here worth taking, then. Guess it’d be a good idea to raid whatever supplies are here, before we leave. If this place is meant to be the tip of the east, and everything we saw eastward looks like frozen mountains... then we’re gonna want to head west.”
A knot of uncertainty lingered in his stomach. Riley was still far from pleased with the situation, but he had to make the most of it. Most importantly, he had to do what he could to prolong his own survival.
The phantom pain of a spear plunging through his chest sent a shudder racing through him. Never again. He couldn’t face that again.
“Tis very important to have a plan in mind, and it I’m heartened to see you doing so. Do not worry about me, I require no sustenance,” Arubis said. She was smiling again, something of a reassuring sign. She was the only friend he had at the moment.
“Right then.” Riley turned and stalked up the length of the decaying mess hall. “Let’s get back to it.” And so they set off again, stalking through the depths of Fort Bane.
Most of the time spent going from room to room involved dispatching more apemen, and the occasional soldier. The axe proved decently adept at chopping down the sturdier enemies. But, whenever he was faced with a larger group, Riley sent out a cloud of Blinding Mist to keep his foes stunned, making it easier to cut them down with less risk to himself.
All in all, he got a tidy profit of Essence for his troubles.
What he found significantly less of, however, was supplies. The people still in the fort had been thorough in raiding the food. And what he came upon was either rotted, or so foul that even a starving man would turn his nose up at it.
Having cleared through several chambers, adding a point to Vitality and one to Might for fear of losing the Essence he had accrued, Riley’s wanderings eventually took him to a vast, snow-blanketed courtyard. He told himself he’d start trying to improve the strength of his magic when he had access to better spells.
At the centre of the courtyard stood a raised stone platform, upon which were several mummified, headless corpses bound to broad iron stakes. The sight of it made Riley freeze in place for several long moments.
“Christ,” he muttered. He counted seven corpses in total, preserved beneath a layer of frost. His eyes roamed to the front of the platform, coming to a halt on a bronze plaque. Words had been hewn into the metal, in a language Riley couldn’t read.“Arubis... what does that say?”
The Oracle stopped at his side, folding her hands together inside her sleeves. “Ah. You do not know the local alphabet. Well, worry not. There is an ability that can aid with that.” She raised her right hand, placing it on Riley’s shoulder. Warmth flooded through his body, settling in his eyes. Slowly, gradually, the letters on the plaque were rearranged before his eyes, until they resembled plain English.
‘Upon this spot, beneath the eyes of Emperor Garrett, the seven leaders of the wildmen tribes were put to the sword by Commander Klaus. For his bravery and dedication to the Empire, he was dubbed the Bane of the East. Thus Fort Bane was built, and he was given command of it.’
Another shiver raced through Riley’s body.
“Who the fuck is Commander Klaus?”