Hermera
The 7th of Mounichion
The Year 4631 in the Era of Mortals
Arche strained against the rope. With a final heave, he pulled himself up and grabbed the edge of the pit, fingers digging into the soft ground. Basil grabbed him below one shoulder and hauled him up and over the lip.
You have explored The Necropolis of Pygmaia.
You have gained Dungeoneering experience.
Dungeoneering has increased to Level 12.
+1% Chance of Spotting Hidden Things (+12%)
+1% Chance of Spotting Hidden Enemies (+12%)
+1% Chance of Spotting Traps (+12%)
Clouds roiled above, threatening an oncoming storm. The last rays of sunlight spread through the western sky, fading quickly. Arche led the plunge into the forest. Despite their exhaustion after a long day, none of them wanted to be anywhere near the ruins when nightfall came. It wouldn’t be the last they saw of the vampire; he could feel it in his bones. Aima would come for him, either to kill him or to capture him as her personal blood bag.
Death itself, a being called Thanatos, had said death could not keep him, but the repercussions would grow each time he died. If Aima succeeded in capturing him, she could drain him dry as often as she wished and he would still return to make more blood. The thought twisted his stomach.
For a few moments during their fight, he had connected with her mind. He’d felt her rage, her strength. She was a powerful necromancer, one who could summon legions to do her bidding. Aside from that, she was an extraordinarily powerful individual in her own right, her vampirism having starkly increased her speed and strength. She was a monster, now, through and through, so why did he feel such pity for her?
Maybe it was that undercurrent of fear, of grief, of loss. Pity mixed with the memory of her fangs sinking into his throat, his blood filling her mouth, and her leaving him to die. The pity turned to hatred and Arche held it close, burying it deep in his soul. Without it, there would be only fear. He would unleash it when they next met, if she was foolish enough to chase him. She was stronger than him but she wouldn’t always be.
His climb to power wasn’t over. He needed more.
----------------------------------------
The clouds broke open and released their deluge as the last tent went up. Rain poured in heavy sheets, pounding the land in a tirade of noise. Water collected across the leafy canopy of the Sylv and fell to the ground in huge torrents, creating small, muddy rivers in the slopes of the forest. Arche settled his back into the crook of a tree, bundled heavily in his cloak as the rain soaked into him. He hunched to protect the bread in his hands from turning into a soggy mess between bites as he watched the forest for signs of movement. It was impossible to hear anything over the sound of rain, but from his vantage he had a good view of the forest to one side of their little camp. Tess had taken up watch on the other.
They hadn’t spoken much since leaving the ruins. In truth, Arche wasn’t sure what to say. He’d pushed himself hard, moving from one thing to another, constantly distracting himself for days. He knew he was burning himself out, the exhaustion debuff proved it, but every time he allowed himself to sit and be still, he saw the grinning heads of Eten and Nete as they pushed an axe through his chest and killed him.
The memory alone was enough to make his skin prickle with gooseflesh. As Tess was quick to remind him, he had died. Actually no-kidding died. And, in death, he had met Death, whose impersonal attitude was, perhaps, even more upsetting than if he’d been a cruel and malevolent creature. It was also in death that he had met the one responsible for everything that had happened to him.
Ares.
That meeting was a reoccurring nightmare. He had defied Ares, even going so far as to promise him a war, but there was no shaking the feeling in his gut that he’d played right into Ares’s hands. That, more than anything, scared him. On one hand, he didn’t have any way to fight such a powerful being. On the other, growing powerful might be honing himself into a weapon that would one day be handed to the God of War. After all, Ares had gifted him the Spark that granted him the Divine Body skill and the ability to obtain his Profession of Demigod.
From that perspective, Arche owed Ares. Divine Body had become the skill he relied on to save his life and that of his friends. If what he’d been told was to be believed, his very existence in Tartarus was a result of Ares’s interference. That he had ever met his friends in the first place was all part of a larger plan. All of this should have made Arche grateful, but it left him uneasy. He was a pawn in a game he was only beginning to understand, with no idea where the edge of the board was, only that the ramifications of losing would affect everyone he cared about.
Arche’s head dipped forward, rainwater dripping from his hood and into the mud. He tossed the last of the bread into the underbrush, his efforts to shield it from the rain had failed as thoroughly as any of his plans. The back of his neck prickled. The rain drowned all other noise, but he had the distinct sense that something was out there. Arche pulled the hood of his cloak further over his head and activated his Stealth skill. The magic cloak gave him a passive twenty percent bonus to Stealth, but that bonus shot up to forty percent when he actively tried to hide. That done, Arche opened his mind and cast out his consciousness, searching for life with his psychic awareness.
The presence of his allies lit up around him. Most of them were resting in their tents and Tess still kept watch on the other side of camp. He extended his awareness farther, seeking life out in the forest. For a while, he didn’t detect anything out of the ordinary, then the unmistakable foreign thought pattern of an elf came into range. Arche withdrew his awareness and stood, hefting the Tridory. He turned and ran into the middle of the camp, calling out over the rain.
“Get up! We’ve got company.”
Before he had finished moving, a brace of figures stepped into view. A dozen in total, perfectly encircling the camp. Each wielded a bow, drawn taut with barbed arrows. Dark leathers and green cloaks helped mask them in the dark forest backdrop, but Arche knew what they were. Even if he hadn’t felt their minds, there was no denying the way they moved. These were Dawnwood elves. He forced himself to stop as they leveled their weapons at him. He held his hands up slowly, dropping the Tridory. Tess stepped away from a tree she’d used as cover, hands up as the figures approached. In short order, Helwan, Basil, and Cora exited their respective tents, at first in confusion, then in alarm as they realized how quickly they’d been surrounded. One of the elves stepped forward, lifting his hood back enough to give them a view of his face.
“What are you doing in these woods, interlopers?”
His voice was thick, accented in the lilting voice of the wood elves.
“What are elves of the Dawnwood doing accosting adventurers in the Sylv?” Arche replied. “We’re not in your lands.”
“Dawnwood’s influence extends as far as our concerns and interests do.” The elf fixed Arche with a sneering gaze. “But I recognize you. You are the human Lyssanderyli adopted. Lord Cypress should have had you killed when you entered our territory the first time.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“We have no quarrel with you or your people,” Arche said, biting back his rising temper.
“Perhaps, perhaps not. But in either case, you will answer what you are doing near a site of evil magic.”
“The ruins? As you may recall, Lyssa and I investigated them for your Lord.”
“That was then, this is now. You will answer or you will die.”
“We came here for treasure, cousin,” Cora interjected.
Arche and the elf turned toward her.
“Our village is poor and we knew that treasures existed in the caverns below. We came to take it.”
Cora bowed oddly, her body bending away from the elf. Arche stared at her, trying to figure out what she was doing, then realized she was showing subservience. Annoyance flashed through him, quick as lightning.
“Grave robbing, are we?” the elf asked. “Humans never cease to amaze, though it’s not just humans, is it? What have we here? A half-breed and a satyr, I can’t decide which is worse.”
“They’re both ten times the person you think you are,” Arche growled. “You have no right to threaten our lives here.”
“Haven’t I?” the elf asked, his voice catching a hard edge to it in a similar fashion that Lyssa’s did when she was furious. “You pass near our territory and provoke dark creatures, expecting us not to react? Shall we wait for elven lives to pay the price for your greed? Is that the right thing to do?”
“Our intent was to save lives.”
“I care less for your intent than I do for your miserable existence. The experience you offer is more than enough reason for me to kill you. Alas, I am under orders.”
Arche glared at the elf.
“Then what do you want from us?”
“Information. What did you encounter down in those ruins?”
“A vampire.”
“Mock me again and you will regret it.”
Arche reached up slowly and pulled the cloak back from his neck, revealing the scar where Aima had bit a chunk out of his throat. There was nothing to be gained by holding back what they’d found. At least this way, they wouldn’t have to send a messenger to Lord Cypress once they got back to Myriatos.
“Believe what you will. We found a vampire. She used to be an elf, a long time ago. She was entombed down there, but I think the dwarves found her and that’s when she started waking up. When we found her, she awoke fully and fought us.”
“Tch,” the elf scoffed. “You would be dead if that were the case.”
“I’m just telling you what happened, you can make up your own mind about it. We fought, she got away. I don’t know where she is.”
“We will investigate the matter. Where are you headed now?”
“To return to our village. A path that would be faster if we cut through your territory, something we were avoiding because you’re colossal cu—”
“To go home,” Tess interrupted, shooting Arche a pointed look.
The elf scowled, clearly aware he was about to be insulted.
“Very well. Do not cross into Dawnwood territory. You will be watched. We will look into the situation and we will handle it. If we find that you have lied to us, I will recommend to Lord Cypress that your village is not worth sharing the forest with. I think he will be amenable.”
The elf held up one hand and snapped all three fingers against his thumb. The rest of the elves faded back into the forest, bows still drawn taut. As the lead elf, too, moved to disappear, Arche Examined him.
Figoritolos
Level: 21
Race: Wood Elf
Age: ?
Height: ?
Weight: ?
Profession: ?
Trade: ?
Traits: ?
Companions: ?
Adventuring Party: ?
Health: 460 / 460
100%
Stamina: 410 / 410
100%
Mana: 280 / 280
100%
Arche filed the name away. The stuck-up bastard would get his next time they met. It would be suitable payback for threatening the lives of his friends so callously.
“Fucking assholes,” Arche muttered. “Makes me want to tear his fucking ears off.”
“Every time I meet them, I feel like I’m about to die,” Helwan said quietly. “And every time, I live on, and I keep meeting them, and it keeps happening.”
“What’s their problem?” Basil asked.
Arche shrugged. “The Dawnwood elves have hated humans for as long as I’ve known them. I don’t know why. Lyssa doesn’t like to talk about it. I reckon something bad happened a long time ago.”
“But if it was a long time ago, why would they still be upset?”
“Elves live in a perspective larger than any other race,” Cora said. “It is not for us to understand their influences.”
“Hah! Fuck that. They live a long time so they hold grudges for a long time. Not all of them, mind you, but enough to make life difficult.”
Cora scowled. “You shouldn’t talk about them in that way.”
“They’re people, Cora, not paragons. They’re not any better than you are, regardless of what they tell themselves.”
Cora’s scowl deepened but Arche turned away, waving one hand tiredly.
“You lot might as well go back to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”
“You need rest, too, Arche,” Helwan said. “Why don’t I take over?”
“Nah, all the excitement woke me up pretty good. I’ll get some rest later, don’t worry.”
The satyr gave a polite, albeit concerned, smile, but didn’t push the point any further. Basil and Cora were already crawling into their respective tents, ready to change out of their soaked clothing. Tess watched Arche settle his back into a tree, going back to his vigil over their camp. She walked over and sat down next to him.
“I don’t think this is an effective way of keeping watch,” Arche said dryly.
“And catching hypothermia is not an effective way of protecting everyone,” she retorted.
“Fair point.”
He held out his cloak and she crawled underneath. They sat together for several long minutes, watching the rain splatter through the trees. Arche could feel the heat of her between their wet clothing. It made watching the forest the last thing on his mind.
“I’ve decided I don’t understand you,” Tess said, breaking the silence.
Arche snorted. “Oh?”
“It confuses me because we shared our minds. I saw everything you had done, everything you had been. For a very short time, I might as well have been you. Despite this, you still surprise me, almost every day. It seems every time I speak to you, you’re someone else.”
“Seems a bit harsh. I don’t feel much different.”
“You’re angrier than when I first met you. That Arche saw light in the world. He saw something redeemable in a Rogue that had been sent to kill him and chose mercy instead of vengeance. The person you are now, I don’t know if you would make that same choice. I want to be able to quiet that part of my mind. To tell myself: no, you are still the same person I met. Still a kind man in a world that turns kind men cruel. I’m worried that would be a lie.”
Arche stared into the forest.
“I won’t blame you, if this world turns you cruel,” Tess continued quietly. “But I will mourn the man you used to be. Tartarus has enough cruel men in it. It could use a kind one.”
She untangled herself from the rain-laden cloak and stood, retiring to her tent. Arche stared into the woods until the downpour had quieted from a deluge to a steady drizzle, then to a mist. Above the canopies, the clouds scattered and the distant, rosy fingers of dawn peeked over the horizon, promising light and warmth to dry the forest.
Against the base of the tree, amid the patter of water against his boots, Arche had yet to notice the rain had stopped.