Part 1 - Choice

Something was wrong with Frank.

Her stomach was unsettled. Today was a big day for Deli. The Pale Gate would finish its descent, growing in the sky. As it did seven times, every year. Deli would get to see her Lifecord. Etch it in memory for the months to come.

She was excited for all the progress she’d made, to see it reflected in the judgement of the Heavens.

The last day of the year came with a Trial. Deli felt the attention of her Ancestors on her. All she needed to do was call out, and her Trial would begin. Her wish this year, a simple one. Deli wanted some help or guidance in keeping up with the Hero she had sworn herself to.

But something was wrong with Frank.

Parties disagreed, they fought. Rare was the epic where they didn’t. The punishment wasn’t the problem. When they started with the training was.

On the eve of the End of the Year Festival.

That wasn’t the first time Frank had pushed her to train, on a Festival day. Deli hadn’t thought it odd, when they missed the Festival of Presence. She’d been in her first full company battle and had just started her training with Frank. Deli was too tired to consider such things at the time.

All she recalled was being exhausted. Elated that finally, she was a warrior. Fighting back against the dead, and Demons too.

The End of the Year festival lasted from sunrise to sunset. Deli had missed the whole thing.

Frank had his excuses. That was all they were. “Something is wrong with Frank.”

No one else did the things he did. Not Hero things, not soft-hearted things. Every morning, they trained. After noon bell, they trained. In the evening, they trained.

He trained longer than her. At the end of training, morning and evening, he’d sit down and carve. Or work on his fires.

Deli was not lazy. Nor idle.

No one else did this, she wasn’t imagining it.

Hunters could spend days on the hunt. Warriors days on alert, on patrol or before battle. “Or in one.” Everyone knew how terrible a winter march could be.

But at some point, they came home. To fires and firekeepers. To warm drinks and lively company. To share their stories and mingle. Speak with peers and celebrate. Live, after surviving their ordeals.

Frank didn’t.

His visits to Quel were his main indulgence. Everything else was somehow linked to training, magic, their patrols, or trade. “Or his soft heart.”

There was a pressure to act, a need to be moving, working in him. Purpose. He was always acting with purpose, never stopping. She’d peeked at his notes. He remembered people the same way he knew his runes. Wrote them down, by trade or craft. Likes and dislikes, topics to raise and avoid. Like they were monsters, studied to be fought.

It was wrong.

When Frank walked through a crowded room, joked and drank, or made merry? He was still working. Gathering rumours, sifting through them. Deli hadn’t seen it at the start, fooled by his easy smiles. “The work never ends.”

Deli knew the first month for a warrior was important and would shape who she would be. She endured constant training, being tired all day, every day. As the month came to an end, she feared the next would be no different. That the next year would be no different.

That was no way to live. It was not life at all. All the warmth of the fires of home were right there… but they kept to the edges.

Or Frank did.

Deli had managed to let loose for only a single evening this whole month. She listened to her elders and competed with rivals. The headache the morning after was well worth the fun she’d had that eve. But she’d meant to keep going, yesterday. That’s what Festivals were for.

He’d missed the festival for the fire. For the cold flames given to him by the sacred Tree. For a chance to fight his Curse. Deli understood that. He’d waited a long time to have Health to spare, to endure the cold fire’s touch.

Or so the avoidance had begun. They’d talked, after he’d woken from his ordeal. There was always another thing, something else that needed doing now. Frank didn’t regret missing the Festival celebrations. He regretted not being at the market. Listening to rumours, selling his stones.

That wasn’t right.

“What is the point of life, if we do not celebrate? Do not stop to sing and dance? Take the quiet times between the storms to find lovers and start families? If all we do is train, work and fight, we are no different from the dead.”

Frank treated joy and happiness as if it was a drink, to be doled out in moderation. Like companionship was a ration, to be given to soldiers by a miserly quartermaster. Deli did not know if he would stop to enjoy the flush of success, when her progress came in. Be happy for her for more than a breath. Or if Frank might have, somewhere in that big head of his, an exact number of breaths he could spare on it.

Deli had thought it convenient, his trick of checking the Lifecord at need. Watching Frank use the trick regularly, she now saw a downside to the trick.

Deli was looking forward to today, to the Trial. To her wish and seeing two months of progress. Frank had checked his Lifecord several times already, this month. It was as the wind or snow to him, common, ordinary.

Receiving her Lifecord was like a present from the Ancestors for Deli. A reward, a reminder they watched over her.

He’d taken all the joy out of his. Deli hoped it would be better, once he was rid of his Curse.

“The Curse must weigh on him.”

Yet she doubted Frank would change. The man was too stubborn for the Curse alone to explain this.

"Something is wrong with Frank.”

***

Frank decided they would skip training for the big day. It wouldn’t do for Deli to be tired for her Challenge. The Reclaimers announced in the morning that demons or the dead might get ideas and try attacking the town, after sunset. It was unlikely, but possible.

Frank was told where their post was, if the horns sounded.

From the sound of it, the caravan guards and his party, alongside the other new ones probably, would guard the barricades inside the walls, and in the surface tunnels. They’d be the final line of defence.

The Reclaimer company would handle the rest. Warriors were welcome to join the fight, if something happened or they wanted to test themselves. But not obligated to show up, as the Reclaimers claimed they’d made plans for this very night months before setting out for Blighttown.

Frank wouldn’t mind throwing some spells from the walls, but he wasn’t planning to be in the thick of it. “Not with a fresh party, and me still cursed.”

Apart from that, they were free for most of the day. They had a watch shift, late at night, as the year turned tonight, but that was it. Which meant that after a quick breakfast, it was time to severely weaken this curse. “And help out Katri along the way. I just need an appropriate price from her.”

He was not taking Deli’s objection lightly. He might prefer to help, but getting something out of helping, after Katri was in her right mind, wasn’t unreasonable.

“There’s just no way to bargain fairly with an addict.”

It was unfair, either to her or him. Or to both of them. An addict would promise anything for their heart’s desire, and break those promises as quickly as they made them.

Deli did have a point there.

Katri the Demonspawn couldn’t pay him for what he was offering. Not at the prices the Priest was charging.

Katri the Windblown? Frank had a feeling she could.

With debt held in such high regard among the people here, Frank had a feeling the Ilvir people weren’t big on loans. Frank didn’t share that belief.

***

Everyone was making their own arrangements for the morning. Some might prefer to take their Challenges after nightfall, but most that needed the dark for it had gotten up at midnight and taken care of it already. The update was at noon, so most people wanted to be done before noon.

Only those looking to challenge Demons or the dead from out of town would be waiting for tonight, after the update. That was a risk, as they might not find the Challenge they hoped for.

Finding the right house for the snow tunnel to Quel’s place wasn’t hard. It wasn’t exactly hidden, just not widely talked about. Getting there without the underground Growers noticing was a harder task. Frank had a feeling that wasn’t an accident. With how rumour and gossip ridden the whole culture was, all of the Growers were probably, well, not spying. Empire servants spied.

These people were more curious, hoping to catch a glimpse for the rumour mill. Even their gawking was honest, if not helpful, in this case.

It took a bit of referencing his maps, a short jaunt above, and some soft footwork, but they managed to get in to the bedding house with their supplies unnoticed. Quel and Katri were waiting for them, the house otherwise empty.

Frank had worried a bit he’d get there, and they’d be in the middle of something. It might have been just his imagination. They weren’t that impulsive. Or at least, Quel wasn’t. In any case, it was a delay he’d considered and taken into account as possible. It was nice to know he’d worried over nothing.

Katri had removed the makeup, horns and all. She was waiting for them in the standard tight pants and shirt everyone wore. A modest hammer hung from her belt. She threw on Lilijah’s outer shirt and Hunter’s cloak, for the ruse. Frank had pants for her as well. The boots were wrong, but Frank hadn’t been able to fix that.

Good boots were expensive. Good Hunter’s boots were part of their toolkit and cost even more. It helped that Lilijah’s cloak would cover Katri completely. Frank still worried about someone recognizing her and word getting back to Deathless.

Katri was silent as she dressed up as a Hunter, her face calm, blank. Only her eyes showed the effort it took her to stay calm, composed.

Before leaving Frank took her aside. Gave her a letter with the bill. “The terms of repayment.” He told her.

Katri took a moment to read it, snorted, nodded and stuffed it into a pocket. Frank took that as agreement.

Deli hissed beside him when they came back, but didn’t speak up. Thing was, Deli was from a culture that liked to brag, and talk about events, exaggerated or not. He trusted her to keep her Oath, but it was easier to keep secrets if fewer people knew them.

For there was one field where Katri was an expert and had lots of valuable knowledge. Frank had looked into her, after everything. She wasn’t a Warlock, but she had to know a lot about Demons, for people to fear she could become one.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Frank’s price were lessons on demons, disguised as lessons on the Confederacy from someone who’d walked the breath of it. Not that he wasn’t asking for those lessons too. Mostly as a cover, but they’d be useful as well. Discretion was part of the price as well.

The bill had a simple clause built into it: that Katri could renegotiate it, if the price was unfair, or she had a better one, once she was back to her old self. So long as Katri paid a fair price then, either to the satisfaction of the both of them, or before the judgement of the Master Merchant, Frank would be happy with today.

It put the onus on her to find alternative payment, and left the lessons as a fall back option.

“If she finds another way to pay me back, I’m ok with that too. But when am I going to find another person with first-hand experience with Demons?” One willing to talk to him, teach him.

The moment Katri was done dressing, she and Deli put on masks, the same ones Frank had gotten for the Miasma. Between the hooded cloak and the mask, Katri was unrecognisable.

She couldn’t be mistaken for Lilijah, as Katri was almost a head shorter, but she looked like another Hunter, with an overlong cloak. It didn’t suspiciously drag on the floor, and that was all Frank cared about.

They left quickly, keenly aware of the limited time Quel was buying them. Following the same path back out into the surface tunnels, but faster now. Any Growers nearby hearing someone leave would be lot less dangerous then hearing someone come in, and lingering around the entrance to see who it might be.

Once back in the common tunnels, they passed by other groups, growers, merchants, warriors. Not many, the tunnels were sparse. Which was fortunate with how tight some of them were. Katri kept her head down as they travelled.

Most people they passed were busy with their own preparations, out on their Challenges, or recovering from them. Distracted, and hardly paying attention at another party moving with purpose when they had places to be themselves.

At the stairs down, the guard warned them that they were only cleared for passage to the glacial root for their Challenge, not to wander from that path.

“Brar’s connections and an axe token well spent, for a little privacy and a potential boost to our rewards.”

They passed through familiar wide halls, silent but for the distant voices of the guards.

“At least this time, we don’t have to worry about traps.”

***

Someone had driven a spike into the wall at the top of the slide. A rope was hung from it. The line allowed them to get down with ease, and should help on the climb back.

Once they were down, Frank spread the blanket he’d brought on the ground, in case he was out of it again, after the fire. It wouldn’t do to survive his Challenge and the Frostfire, only to die by freezing to death from the cold of the floor.

Frank wasn’t sure how much Health he’d have at the end, so it was best to be ready for anything.

The floor and room were just as cold as he remembered. More importantly, the cold light and the Glacial Root were supposedly sacred. When calling on the Heavens, every little bit helped.

A Challenge was a chance that came once a year. A part of Frank considered what he was about to do rash, impatient, a waste. The reward for it could give him things he’d never get on his own, when he would recover with time.

Frank was past caring. This had gone on long enough. It was time to try and break this Curse.

Health = 40/42

Mana = 8

His Health was nearly full, and he’d be asking for healing as his reward. It should help him survive a longer burn. Frank would have to guess how much Frostfire to use, once he knew the strength of the reward.

“You have at least 40 Health?” he asked Katri, just in case. She was supposed to.

She nodded, still not speaking. Her face was covered in beads of sweat, showing some strain. Her eyes were angry. She was glaring at one of the walls, hammer clenched in her hand.

Deli stood guard as they spread out around the cave, giving plenty of space to each other.

Frank went over the plan again: “Remember, when the fires start, try and get close, and word your reward to come after we’re burning. It would be stupid for-“

“I’ve done this more than forty times. I don’t need you teaching me how to wish.” Katri cut him off, her voice harsh. “Look to your own duties, Frank.” Katri growled.

“No need to bite my head off. Right, then.”

Days of Will were different from others. There were only two of them each year, and from the moment the clock struck midnight on one, a pressure would start to build in his head. Hard to notice, at first, but there. The first time it had happened, Frank thought he was imagining the pressure.

On the Day of Challenge, the pressure would slowly grow, until it felt like standing in front of an audience. Like Frank was about to give a presentation that would determine if a project he’d spent months on would get funding or not.

By noon on the Day of Challenge, the feeling got strong enough he could feel it in the air, and even children should be able to pick up on the implied warning.

Pick a place, pick a moment, and face your challenge. Or when the clock struck midnight, the Gods would send you one of their choosing.

Noon was also when everyone’s Lifecords updated. Frank wasn’t sure why the position of the sun affected something the moon did, but that was how it worked.

Nearly everyone Frank knew picked their challenges. Letting the God of Will pick one out was a coin toss. Heads, you advanced, tails, it broke something in you. It wasn’t worth the risk.

Frank turned his eyes up to the dark cave ceiling. They were underground. Seeing the moon should have been impossible. He knew better.

As he looked, a part of the dark ceiling turned silver, drawing Frank’s eyes to it. The Pale Gate slowly shined through, as if dozens of meters of rock were just a minor inconvenience. The moon was tiny, being smallest in the winter months.

The Pale Gate was a full, silver moon. Pristine, with no craters or marks, maybe half the diameter of what the Moon looked like from Earth. Tiny, to him.

On the Day of Renewal, in the middle of summer, it would be so large that when Frank was still new to the world, it had felt like the moon was looming over the entire sky.

As he started up at the Pale Gate, flecks of silver light started coming out of the floor around him and down from the ceiling above. Like fireflies taking off, circling around him. Floor and ceiling lines of light spiralling to meet each other. A thin spear of the same sliver light came down from the Pale Gate and struck the floor right before him, spreading out like water along the floor.

The walls of the Duelling Arena came up around Frank from the glowing circle of silver fireflies. They formed to the music of ringing church bells. Today, their ringing was ominous, singing a funeral march.

***

Deli watched them begin their challenges. Frank’s was normal. The Demonspawn had to be different. Instead of the blessed light, she leaked foul corrupted smoke, prowling in a circle of her own. Instead of looking to the heavens, Katri looked at the floor. She held her hammer like a friend, stretching, swinging it around her in practice blows, waiting.

The Proving Grounds she called carried the same stench that wafted out of the room, whenever Frank left Quel. It was rank with sweat and sex.

Deli quickly backed away from the smoke. She still caught a whiff of it, one that filled her with a hot need to find a man, any man, and kiss him. She tore the useless mask off her face, and spat, trying to get the sickly sweet taste out of her mouth, quashing the unnatural urges.

She could hear Frank murmuring through his Trial. Katri’s was louder.

“Again we are back here, granddaughter.” a voice sweet as honey spoke, from beyond the sickly, purple smoke walls. “When will you stop denying your heritage? Won’t you at least give grandmother a hug?” The Demon asked, for what else could it be? Her mere voice made Deli feel lightheaded and numb, warm all over.

A red light shined inside Katri’s proving grounds. Through the purple smoke, Katri was but a dark shadow. Above her head, the shining hammer head’s blood red light cut through the walls of the Proving Grounds, standing out in stark relief against the confounding smoke.

“I’d rather fuck a bull than hug you, old hag. Let! Me! GO!”

With a piercing war cry, Katri’s shadow charged away from the wall of smoke and Deli lost it.

Turning back to her duties, Deli kept an eye out for any hidden threats, stumbling against the wall. The cost stone pressed against her cheek helped her recover.

Once her sight cleared, she took a closer look at Frank’s side of the cavern.

The walls of godly folk held signs of the gods. Frank’s did too. In the middle, where hers held the Eternal Tree, his was one she’d never seen, or heard tale of.

It was a gnarled, knotted root, sprouting dry, dead branches. The root was covered in frost. It was woven in a circle around a burning bonfire. The ice was chilled and cold, like a slow death, while the light of the fire was not warm, or welcoming. It was a scorching, pitiless thing that would burn until the fuel ran out.

Between the two, in the circle where the wood, ice, bones and fire clashed, was a single thin circle of pure green light. Caught in the middle, struggling on.

***

With the Arena up, all Frank had to worry about was the Challenge. He knew different people experienced the Worldvoice in their own ways. There was no reason it wouldn’t be the same for choosing a Challenge.

“I doubt others get a neat table like this.”

Challenge Type (Limit)

Challenge Tier

Physical (3)

Mental (5)

0

It is Beneath Thee

It is Beneath Thee

1

Endure the Cold Light’s Passing

(Body)

It is Beneath Thee

2

Shoulder a Home

(Strength)

It is Beneath Thee

3

Seek a Needle,

among Snow and Shrub

(Reaction)

The Fire Dances

(Instinct)

4

Carve the Litany of Admonition

into the gates of Blighttown’s temple

(Agility)

Face the Ghosts that Haunt Thee

(Logic)

5

Touch the Heart of a Glacial Root

(Body)

Suffer the Weight of Thy Convictions

(Will)

6

It is Beyond Thee

The Sky on Fire

(Presence)

7

It is Beyond Thee

Weave a Matrix

(Instinct)

Frank suspected how it was perceived had something to do with Skills and the character of the person being addressed. While it was possible everyone was getting a different approach, one tailored to them in particular, he suspected this was a case of some kind of universal magic. That what he was experiencing was just how his body and mind interpreted it.

As he got near the end of the list, Frank shuddered. He did not want to face the burning sky again. He probably would not survive a second meeting with all his Heroic Abilities exhausted, and this Curse on him. The last entry for Mental challenges caught Frank’s eye. Sometimes there were hints, titbits in what the Worldvoice shared, that could set Frank on the right track.

He might not have gotten his wish of magic for a day last year, but the denial had been educational.

Frank had never heard of a Matrix, but he was going to guess the full term was spell matrix. At a challenge of seven, what would it be?

“Editing a spell form on the fly? Modifying one permanently? Maybe making a new one?” Frank muttered to himself, as he considered the matter.

He didn’t know, but the term would join the glossary of magical terms he was keeping in his notebook. Frank went through his options. All the physical stuff was thrown out first. Either it would take too long, was too dangerous, or might deplete his Health. Not to mention most of them meant leaving the cave to do the challenge.

“It’s surprising a duel with some kind of spirit of ice, cold or frost isn’t an option. Maybe the duel is just higher up on the scale?” When he was doing them in the Empire, the theme of overcoming a Challenge was prevalent. This was more about…

Frank sighed. It was more about enduring the Challenge, if he wasn’t mistaken. “Different territory, different God, different challenges?”

It was a workable theory, but he’d need more data to prove or disprove it.

Whatever the case, physical challenges were out. He wasn’t quite sure what Physical 1 even was, but it was too low a challenge for what he wanted today anyway. A tier one reward would probably be no better than a round of healing with the priest.

Which left the mental ones.

“I would have liked to try a five this year, but that’s greedy, careless. If I pass, I’ll get better healing, but it’s more important I get some, then to risk it all and get none. I’m not about to gamble with my future.”

Frank had Logic four, a match for the rank of that challenge. With Will five to support him through the Challenge, he should be fine.

“I’ll face the ghosts.” Frank told the air. If actual ghosts came up to attack him, he could start the fire a little early, if pushed to it.

“It would be just like this world to give me no option for a fight in the physical section, and hide one in the mental section.”