Hadespera
The 21st of Elaphebolion
The Year 4631 in the Era of Mortals
Dawn broke over the trees. Pink sky peeked through amber clouds like rosy fingers reaching for the night. Arche wiped the sweat from his face and looked out over the valley. He hadn’t slept and every last muscle ached, but he’d gotten the job done. He’d also propelled himself all the way to level twelve in both Menial Labor and Digging, leaving him a measly thirty-eight experience away from Level Fifteen.
Lyssa sat on the ground nearby, cleaning the dirt from her nails. She had called him an idiot a dozen times at least over the course of the night, and probably worse things in the language of the elves, but she had helped him anyway. A few monsters had crept out of the woods to investigate, but a few well-placed arrows caused them to scurry back into safety. Lyssa had slept while he worked and took over when he was too exhausted to go further. The effects of a full night of manual labor were hard to ignore, but there was vindication in a job well done.
Exhausted — Tier 1
-50% Vitals Regeneration
+15% Chance to Make Mistakes
+50% Stamina Drain of Physical Tasks
People were rising in the village and several were already approaching. Callias led them, but Arche spotted Vik, Elpida, and Gigator among others he didn’t know. Helwan was also amid the burgeoning crowd.
“So you’ve proved you can dig a hole. We’re all very impressed,” Callias said in a flat voice. “Torch it.”
One of the guards stepped forward and hurled a lit torch onto the pile of bodies. The beastmar ignited quickly, blazing brightly in the light of the morning sun. Arche was forced to take a step away from the sudden blast of heat.
“You think you’ve proved something here?” Callias asked. “I assure you, you’ve only proven your own stupidity.”
Arche narrowed his eyes. A small voice in the back of his mind told him to let it go, but he was too tired and too annoyed to listen to it.
“You sure talk a whole lot to say nothing, don’t you? As unenlightening as our conversations are, I have better ways to waste my time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take a bath and a nap.”
“You think you talk to me like that and just walk away?” Callias snarled. “I am in command, here.”
“Well, yeah. I’m not one of your people, as you’re quick to remind me, and unless you’re going to have your guards there try to kill me for mildly sassing you, I’ll speak and think how I please. Of course, if you did sic your guards on me, that would only prove my point.”
“And what point is that?”
“That you care more about your image and your money than anything or anyone in this town.”
Callias sputtered at him, more shocked than anything, but Arche could tell rage was coming. The crowd was suddenly a lot more interested in the exchange, excited whispers filling the air. Lyssa stepped up next to him.
“Careful,” she whispered. “We’re outnumbered.”
“By all means,” Callias said at last. “Please, continue to talk however you wish. But know that you will receive no aid from me. Good luck surviving when your supplies run low, when winter sets in, when you have no coin to trade.”
“You forget, Callias. I am not from your city. I have lived in these woods. You will get your people killed by your own greed and ignorance. You’ve been here, what, a week by my estimate? How many times have you been attacked?”
“Twice!” someone called out.
“Twice,” Arche echoed, layering the word with as much contempt as he could muster. “And yet you still camp out in the worst vantage in the entire valley and refuse to even place a watch. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to get these people killed.”
“Insults are one thing, commoner, but accusations are another. Kneel and apologize now, and that will be the end of it.”
Arche took two steps forward. The guards flanking Callias drew their swords, each one a bundle of caution and nerves. Arche gave a mirthless smile.
“I kneel for no man, least of all whatever you are.”
Callias, to his credit, refused to be intimidated.
“You will learn your place or you will find none here.”
Arche turned and left, heading toward the river. The crowd parted for him, too astonished to say anything.
“I’m not finished with you!” Callias called after him.
“But I’m bored of you. If you really want to continue this, you can berate me while I bathe.”
Callias took a step after him, as though he intended to do just that, but quickly thought better of it. Instead, the village lord stormed off toward the village proper. Lyssa caught up to Arche easily and fell into step beside him.
“That was foolish.”
“True, but damn if it didn’t feel good. Do you want to spend the next however many years bowing and scraping for a pompous asshat like that? I’m not putting up with it.”
“I haven’t even agreed to your idea.”
“What idea?” Helwan asked as he joined them, followed by Vik, Elpida, and Gigator.
“Bold move, kid,” Vik said, his mouth curving in a smile from beneath his hood.
“Your words showed scales.” Gigator nodded his approval.
“You’re an idiot,” Elpida grunted.
“Something we agree on.” Lyssa nodded.
Arche looked back and forth between the small crowd. “Are you all coming to watch me bathe? Because at this point, I feel like I need to start charging people.”
Five pairs of eyes rolled at him.
“Come find us later, kid,” Vik said. “I think we’ve got something to discuss.”
The three fighters left, leaving Arche alone with Lyssa and Helwan.
“What idea?” Helwan repeated himself.
“Arche wants to start a revolution,” Lyssa said.
“That’s a bit of an overstatement.”
They reached the river. Arche side-eyed his friends, but they apparently had no intentions of giving him any privacy so he pulled open his inventory and started depositing his armor and clothing into it. Wearing only his pants, he gave a running leap, tucking his arms around his knees and inventorying the last of his clothing as he hit the water.
He surged down into the dark, his feet quickly finding smooth stone at the bottom of the river. The cold was overpowering, especially so in his exhausted state, but the water was a balm to his aching muscles. The previous fear he had experienced during his last swimming attempt was still there, lurking under the surface, but he managed to keep the rising feeling of pressure in his chest at bay by staying close enough to the bank that he could stand. Initially, the water came up to his navel, but that felt too exposed so he kept moving inward until the water came up to the middle of his chest.
“I’m not going to start a revolution. I’m going to get Callias removed from power.”
“That’s, erm, certainly a bold strategy,” Helwan said delicately. “The people here seem to be scared of him. It seems he has some powerful connections back in Ship’s Shape.”
“What’s that?”
“Oh, that’s the city I’m from. They’re from the same place.”
Arche narrowed his eyes at the satyr.
“You’re bullshitting me.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“No way it’s called that.”
“It most certainly is!”
Lyssa sat down and dipped her feet in the water. “In any case, I have not agreed to the plan.”
“You don’t think Arche would make a good leader?”
“Actually,” Arche cut in. “I don’t want to be the new leader. If one of us has got to do it, we should make Lyssa be in charge.”
“Now that’s a much, much better idea.”
“Hey!”
“I mean no offense, but Lyssa is clearly the calmer mind when it comes to decision making.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“And yet I’m still offended. Never mind. How did your night go?”
Helwan dusted the shoulders of his tunic proudly.
“I have, in fact, established myself amongst the people as a musician, a mage, and a megaloscholar.”
Arche summoned his shirt from the day before and began rinsing it in the river, trying to rid it of blood both red and black. “Sounds like they like you. Anyone give you trouble?”
Helwan shook his head. “No, not yet. There have been some looks, but I think for the most part I’ve been accepted. How long that will last if you draw their lord’s ire, I don’t know.”
Arche gave Helwan a flat look.
“You know I’m on your side, whatever action you decide to take,” the satyr said quickly. “You two saved my life, after all. I haven’t forgotten that I’d be spider food if it weren’t for you.”
“Enough! Enough with the moroseness! I think we’ve all saved each other’s lives a half dozen times by now. We’re all square. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to wash the rest of the mud out of my shirt and take a nap, and not necessarily in that order.”
“I’ll go stake out some prime camping territory, then. Do try not to have Callias arrest you until you’ve freshened up,” Helwan said as he began walking away.
“That depends on him!” Arche called back.
He inventoried his shirt and sank into the river up to his neck, letting his eyes close.
The current ran all around him. It pulled at him, making him dig his toes into the soft mud at the bottom of the river. A small, intrusive thought whispered to let the current pull him under, to drift along the river and see where it would take him. He fought that urge as the water surged against his hair, arms idling just below the surface.
Swimming has increased to Level 2.
-0.5% Stamina Drain while Swimming (-1%)
+2% Swimming Speed (+4%)
Arche snorted. Other than his less-than-graceful entrance his feet hadn’t left the riverbed and he had no desire to go any deeper into the river.
“Something funny?”
Arche opened his eyes and turned around. Lyssa had also entered the river. He hadn’t realized she was still there, let alone had joined him. Now she was standing in water just below her jawline, not ten strides away, just as naked as he was. It was so unexpected that he could do nothing more than gape.
“I…I…uh…”
Words failed him. He blinked, then turned away. A strange heat flooded through him despite the cold of the water, leaving him decidedly uncomfortable.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice a few octaves higher than normal.
“I fought all day and dug all night. I need a bath as much as you do.”
“Okay, I get that, but why are you doing it right here?”
Arche heard a small splash behind him and shuddered. His mind filling with a thousand images he didn’t necessarily want to picture.
“Why shouldn’t I be here? This is where the water is, no?”
Arche ground his teeth, realizing that there was no way to be tactful about the situation.
“You’re naked. I’m naked. That doesn’t make you uncomfortable?”
“I am a daughter of the forest. We live in nature and know the natural element in all things. You mortals may hold shame in the self, but we do not.”
“It’s not always about shame, sometimes it’s just about privacy. No one likes to be reduced to a piece of meat.”
Behind him, Lyssa’s voice took on a slight edge.
“Is that how you view me, Greenstick? A ‘piece of meat?’”
It was a trap. Arche knew it was a trap, but he was trying to be genuine and he was so thoroughly thrown off guard that he blundered forward anyway.
“No. I think of you as my friend. Someone I trust, someone whose culture I barely understand, and someone I respect too much to be comfortable around while naked.”
There was another small splash behind him and Arche screwed his eyes shut.
“Oh, so you would only disrobe with those whom you don’t respect? Perhaps I should call Callias down to bathe in my stead. Then you might be comfortable.”
“Come on, you know that’s not what I mean. Besides, you mean to tell me you’re not at all uncomfortable with me being right here? What if Helwan was here?”
“You are something entirely separate.”
“What, your ‘companion?’”
“No. An idiot.”
Arche snorted and tried to focus on rubbing the dirt out of his pores. Whatever her claims about shame or the lack thereof, it felt intrusive to look at her. It seemed he had found an uncrossable schism between elven culture and his own, whatever that may be. Regardless, he wanted a private bath, so he let the current pull him a little farther down the river. Not out of sight, but far enough at least that he and Lyssa were in no danger of accidentally bumping into one another.
If that happened, he would never live his embarrassment down.
The feeling of floating in the water was one Arche had to grow accustomed to, the simple thought of it making his heartbeat faster. He walked a few more steps and found a dip where he was barely treading water. He wasn’t quite ready to go underwater again, but he was more prepared than he’d been the last time he’d gone swimming.
Swimming has increased to Level 3.
+2% Swimming Speed (+6%)
-0.5% Stamina Drain while Swimming (-1.5%)
He found a spot near the bank where the ground fell away and the current spun him in soft circles. He floated on his back, eyes closed as the weariness and weight of the past two days struck him. Before he knew it, he was fast asleep.
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Fire licked his flesh. He was consumed by it. An inferno roared in every direction. The heat blasted at him, piercing his flesh and cracking his bones. Every sensation was agony. Arche sunk further into the flaming depths, unable to struggle free. The scent of cooked meat filled his nose, then his nose melted and he could smell nothing. His skin hissed and bubbled, falling away from his charred bones in great, hulking husks of flesh. His vision went dark as his eyes melted, but around him the fire burned ever brighter afterimages into his mind.
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“Arche!”
He awoke, gasping and sputtering. Water forced its way up and out of his throat in uncontrollable spasms. He was lying on his side on the riverbank, half out of the water, and trembling like a tree branch in a storm. Lyssa stood over him. She was dressed, to his great relief, in a simple green tunic that ran down to her knees, a cord tied the fabric to her at the waist and above the stomach. Concern was etched into her features.
“What happened?” he gasped.
“You fell asleep and drifted beneath the water. Are you all right?”
Arche thought back to the dream. His every hair was on end, his body quivering from the memory of it. Falling asleep in water, he’d dreamed of consuming fire. Strange.
“It seems Tartarus is committed to scaring me into an early grave. Can you let me get some clothes on?”
Lyssa raised an eyebrow but obliged him by turning her back. Arche sat up and opened his inventory. His shirt was still wet from the earlier wash—which was to be expected as items in the inventory retained their state from when they entered—but he figured it would dry out as the day went on. When he had finished, Lyssa had turned back around.
Arche had never seen her without her leathers. There was something vaguely foreign about the sight of her looking like an ordinary elven woman instead of as the armored, highly capable huntress he knew her to be. The two, he had to remind himself, were not mutually exclusive.
A shiver ran down his body. It was hard to catch his breath.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Bad dream.”
“You’ve been having a lot of those, lately.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m any closer to figuring out why.”
“Well, you should get some rest. Proper rest.”
Arche stood and summoned the Tridory. It flew toward him from farther up the bank. His Mana dropped twenty points from the effort, causing a flicker of discomfort.
“You should be careful how brazen you are with that ability.”
Arche leaned heavily against the spear. She was right, of course, but he was too tired to care.
“Go on,” Lyssa said. “I’m not quite done here.”
Arche stumbled into camp, trying to find somewhere to set up his tent or roll out his bedroll. His exhaustion debuff hadn’t disappeared with the little bit of sleep he’d gotten. The near drowning had interfered with that, no doubt. He found an empty space and was about to retrieve his tent from his inventory when Helwan grabbed his arm.
“Wha—?” Arche started to say, but Helwan ignored him and led him through the canvas jungle.
They stopped in front of an unassuming tent.
“You’re practically dead on your feet,” the satyr told him. “Give me your tent and I’ll set it up next to mine. For now, use mine and sleep it off.”
Arche was too tired to protest. He crawled inside the tent, laid the Tridory down next to a bedroll, and fell asleep still fully clothed and dripping water.
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Arche sat up, his heart pounding. He was surrounded by an ash-laden field. Hills and plains stretched the horizon around him and before them were the burned and hollowed husks of what once must have been a bright and verdant forest. Dark, translucent husks of humanoid forms drifted all around him, each with a small green flame the size of a candle floating within their shadowy silhouettes. They seemed to appear and fade; one moment, almost tangible, the next, practically invisible. Arche stood, reaching for his spear.
It was nowhere to be found.
He tried to access his inventory, but nothing happened. He tried accessing his profile, his vitals, anything, but nothing happened. He turned as one of the humanoid shades passed near him and saw a figure kneeling. Unlike the shades, this one was solid.
“Who are you?” His voice came out more timid than he intended.
The figure reached out and touched a prone shade, cupping the green candle with both hands as the silhouette dissipated into nothingness. One hand moved around the flame in a steady motion, then the figure gently tossed the green flame into the air as though he were letting go of a bird. The flame flew off toward the horizon, a glinting coin somehow suspended from it by a dark thread.
The figure stood and turned toward Arche. It was dressed in all black. Black metal in interlocking plates adorned the figure’s torso and legs, a black cape billowed dramatically behind it. An amorphous helmet covered its face, constantly shifting between human expressions and a smooth metallic surface. The only thing revealed were its eyes, which had pinprick white pupils in a dark sea of black sclera.
“You should not be here.”
The figure took a step forward.
Arche felt a cold within his stomach and looked down to see that his form was translucent, much the same as the shades that flitted about beside him, though more defined. He looked back at the figure, which had stopped in front of him, eyeing him.
“Who are you? What did you do?”
“You’ve gained awareness.” The figure ignored Arche’s questions. “A trick of the Moirai? Or perhaps Hypnos has singled you out. It matters not. I will speak to the Oneiroi of this. Forget what you have seen here. Lingering on it will not bring your soul peace.”
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Arche woke with a cold knot in his stomach. His clothes were soaked and his limbs felt leaden. Sweat from the nightmare had mixed with river water to soak through the bedroll. Curling his lip in disgust at himself, he slowly extricated himself from the wet clothes and put on a simple shirt and pants. The fabric was stiff, but dry. He hung the wet clothes on a thin cord strung between the poles of the tent, hoping that they would dry quickly. He didn’t have many clothes and didn’t really want the ones he did have to mold or sour.
Daylight poured in through a small opening at the front of the tent, telling him that he had not slept the entire day away. Arche held his hand out and found the comforting grip of the Tridory, the weight of it pulling him fully into reality.
“It was a dream,” he told himself. “Just a dream.”
It didn’t matter how many times he said it. He couldn’t quite believe it.