On the way to Eris’ suite…
Oddly quiet out here. Or maybe I’m just feeling it now amid these damn mirrors, without Eris and with Anna silent and shivering from the icy cold aura of the Memory Crystal in her custody.
I’m holding her hand, guiding her forward. Her hand is icy cold and stiff, and each step towards the suite is an excruciating exertion for her. I don’t need to be a Healer to know that Eris’ Memory Crystal is taking a toll on her. I’m worrying and stressing out in my head, but I know in my heart that I gotta trust her. And that’s what I’ll do!
She’s the one for this task, after all. Like I said before – she’s no stranger to this feeling of emptiness. When Lady Claire saved her from that dark Dungeon and brought her into the Order of Selene all those years ago, she had lost her memories from her life before. She knows how much it sucks. And after going back in time… I know how much it hurts too.
“I understand now, Arisa…” Anna utters suddenly as she stares a thousand yards ahead, stopping dead in her tracks, tears flowing down her eyes. “I know why Eris chose to forget.”
I look at her and nod solemnly. By agreeing to hold the Memory Crystal, she’s experiencing Eris’ memories first-hand, reliving them within her head as if they’re hers. It can’t be anything pleasant, and seeing her like this… feels super shitty.
“Anna…”
My gaze falls upon the Memory Crystal in her hands. I find myself gravitating towards its icy chill, placing my hand on those writhing shadows, peering into its darkness alongside her…
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Four months prior, in a prison cell within the Convocation of Aria…
Old murals of divine Rinnah had been defiled by grotesque symbols etched in blood, casting eerie patterns of dread on the walls. Marble floors, cracked and overgrown with dark, twisted vines from years of abandonment and decay, pulsed with malevolent energy.
Lying defeatedly against one of those filthy, vandalised walls, Eris Aintree struggled to breathe, each breath bringing sharp pains into her chest like knives in her heart. It felt like the air was thick with some manner of oppressive aura. If anything, it was as if this accursed cell was alive, silently observing her plight with sinister intent.
It was a place she wanted nothing more than to flee from. However, she could not move even an inch – her ankles and wrists were held tightly by iron shackles bolted to the walls, and her fingers bled crimson, numb and bloody in places where she once had well-manicured fingernails. There was also the metal collar they had forced upon her, chained to the wall just like the manacles shackling her limbs. It had been fitted tightly around her neck, such that her flesh bulged a little around the top and bottom of its metallic frame. Every breath caused the metal to dig into her neck momentarily, a constant, painful reminder of her current predicament, and the fate that awaited her.
She had learned to stay still to spare herself further suffering. But it seemed like the entire place wanted her to scream herself hoarse, to have that metal collar punish her weakness and fear with pain. The esoteric and mad chanting from above the ceiling grated on her nerves and filled her heart with dread. She did not know what they were saying or doing, but the screams of despair and pain that followed soon after ascertained the worst of her fears. And much to her horror, she recognised the voices from some of those screams, and it kept her awake, eyes wide open with terror for days on end.
It had been like this for what felt like forever. Days? Weeks? Time seemed to come to a standstill in this hellish place. But right now, there was also the sound of unfamiliar shouting, yelling, the clashing of blades, and the sizzling of fire amid anguished screams. It was as though a battle of some kind was taking place above her. Even so, there was nothing more she could do but stay completely still as she silently held out hope for salvation.
This trip down south to Nevermore, the City of Dreams, was not supposed to end like this, after all. On the instructions of her Studio back home in Sharmarli, she had set off in a cosy caravan with her Manager, Roland Evenstar (she liked to call him ‘Mister Roland’ in the sweetest voice she could, much to his embarrassment), as well as a handful of junior bards under her wing.
It was everyone’s first time going there, for the eternally night skies and desert sands of the south had once been forbidden to humans and elves. But times had changed – in recent years, her songs had travelled there long before she ever did, thanks to her Studio’s marketing efforts, and she was popular. Very popular. And so, an opportunity to perform arose.
Performing for an undead audience was, admittedly, a rather scary proposition. However, the Studio had assured her that her participation would be good for both her career as a Bard, and a noble undertaking for the good of Nisha. Her visit was to be the first time that humans and elves would visit the lands of the undead in peace, strengthening the Promise that had ended a war of hatred between the holy and the unholy that had begun almost a century ago. And yet…
It was all a lie. When green grass and paved stone gave way to desert sand, she and her crew had been attacked by bandits. Or at least, what appeared that way. She and her crew had been trained and prepared to defend themselves in such situations, but what none of them expected was the mercenaries hired by the Studio to side with their attackers. Gravely outnumbered, she and hers chose to surrender, letting themselves be taken for ransom. Or so they thought.
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Surrendering was better than dying pointlessly, after all. It should have bought time for the Studio to pay for their release, or perhaps, hire a crack team of rescuers through the Adventurer’s Guild. But these kidnappers… these cultists of the Demon Cult, had far worse plans in mind. That perhaps, a clean death was the kindest mercy to hope for.
Slowly, fearfully, her gaze fell upon Mister Roland, her Manager. Or at least, what remained of him. He lay bloody by her side – he had been chained up in another part of this accursed place, but they had taken him here, such that she would bear witness to his torture. She was what they wanted, after all. And doing what they did to him was but a part of the process to induce within her, a change of heart.
But they had gone too far with their knives and torture tools, despite her pleas for them to stop hurting him. Or maybe, that was exactly what they wanted. He had not moved for hours since they left him here right next to her to bleed out, to die. For what felt like hours, she had called out to him, begging him to wake up, but there was no answer, let alone even the slightest shifting of his large body, big and wide like a giant teddy bear. And now, it hurt to look at him.
Tears rolled down her tear-stained cheeks. The metal collar cut slightly into the flesh of her neck as she sobbed, but it was nothing compared to the aching of her heart. And as she wept, the ruckus of clashing blades and searing flames grew louder and louder, and she noticed it.
Immediately, she fell silent. Whatever was happening, it was getting closer, and she prayed that it was the Studio sending in adventurers to save her and hers. Perhaps there would be a Healer and a Paladin among them, and perhaps they could save Mister Roland! But amid that growing cacophony of battle, she could hear cultists talking amongst themselves. Arguing.
“There’s no time left. Execute the prisoners. Even her. Especially her.”
“What!? Are you insane!? We should flee with them instead! We can use them to barter with the Sacred Shield for our safety. They’re coming, you know…”
“We can’t let them have her. It is the will of our Lord that she dies, if she isn’t to be its Voice.”
“But…”
Eris remained silent as their conversation was punctuated by a vicious slashing and stabbing. It was followed immediately by a cry of pain and a loud thud on the ground that cut through the din of everything else.
“This is our final act of service to our Lord. Do not question it!”
“Yes! Of course…”
“Quickly now! Kill them all! We have little time left…”
The sound of pain-filled screams amid stabbing and slicing echoed through the halls, louder than ever before. Her fellow prisoners were like her – bound and shackled, and they were easy to slaughter. And like the screams up above – she recognised some of the screams ringing out into the darkness, and it chilled her blood. But just like them, she could do little more than watch on in the face of certain death, eyes wide with terror as her executioner – a female Cultist with dishevelled black hair and bloody robes, strolled purposefully towards her with a bloody sacrificial dagger, a deranged glint in her eye.
“Please don’t…”
Eris’ words rasped painfully and weakly from her lips, her fearful gaze fixated on the short, gleaming edge of the Cultist’s bloody blade. And much to her horror, those words did nothing more than make that madwoman crack a leering smile as she knelt and readied her weapon to engage in her dark deed. From the madness in her eyes, she knew that this Cultist was the one who ordered her fellows to kill everyone. And she had saved the Demon Cult’s most valuable prisoner’s death for herself.
“Please…”
It was futile to plead for mercy. And yet, the words left her lips instinctively. Like breathing, almost. Even if death was a welcome reprieve to all that had happened and what she had seen, she feared it with all the dread in her heart. The dagger looked so sharp, eager to take a life. Her life, for the Demon Cult, for their Demon Lord.
However, before what remained of her life could be claimed, her eyes widened as Mister Roland suddenly sprang into action, into tackling the Cultist away from her with all his might. He forced his weight upon that madwoman, pinning her down even as she stabbed him in the back over and over, inflicting wound after wound in a frenzied bid to force him off. Alas, he would not budge, despite death by a thousand cuts.
“Mister Roland…”
“Eris… live. Survive… for everyone’s sake,” Mister Roland rasped bloodily, forcing himself to smile one final time. “I love you. I…”
“No! MISTER ROLAND! MISTER…”
His eyes remained open, his smile fading away as he fell silent and still, bloodier than before. The Cultist was still hysterically stabbing his bloody corpse as men and women clad in bloody and damaged silver armour stormed into view, weapons drawn. And as they did, Eris looked at them, observing dispassionately as they executed the madwoman, severing her head with one clean stroke from a sharpened longsword. It was a mercy killing compared to what the Demon Cult had done to those within these accursed halls.
Those men and women in shining silver armour who had slaughtered the Demon Cult, these so-called Sacred Shield, shattered her chains and set her free. Taking her into their custody, they took her back to Sharmarli and the Oracle they served. But for her, it was too little, too late – now, she was all alone.
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Back in the Hall of the Lightsworn…
The memories fade before my eyes, and my vision returns to reality. My senses have returned to me, and yet, I feel… uneasy. Upset, even. Pissed off at the Demon Cult!
Meh. That anger’s good for absolutely fucking nothing now. What’s done is done. I look at Anna, gazing quietly, knowingly, into the sorrow in her tearful eyes, while she does the same.
“So that’s what happened to her,” I say quietly, bowing my head. “Fuck.”
“That’s why she wanted to forget, Arisa…” Anna answers sorrowfully, tears slowly rolling down her cheeks. “You’ve seen what I’ve seen, living that memory. As she did. The horror. The horror…”
“Anna…”
I lean in and embrace her, holding her tightly in my arms. She’s pale like a corpse and very cold, and it stings a little as she loses herself in me. But I don’t mind it at all.
“But even in that darkness, that hell… there’s light. Hope! Her Manager… he gave his life to save her,” Anna states determinedly, her gaze burning with resolve as she looks me in the eye. “If she remembers his sacrifice, his love…”
“She’ll be able to accept this memory, and regain her soul.”
“Yes. It’s her past, for better or worse. It’s the only way to fill that hole in her heart, Arisa! I know that feeling and how much it hurts… and so do you, right?
“I do. But she won’t take it well,” I say, frowning slightly. “You remember what Lady Mezalune said, back when Eris chose to forget?”
“We’ll make sure she doesn’t do something she’ll regret in the heat of the moment,” Anna answers resolutely. “And after that… umm… I’ll do what Lady Mezalune couldn’t do for her! I’ll be there for her! And so will you, Arisa! We’ll help her get through this together!”
“Hell yeah!”
“I know what I have to do for Eris,” Anna adds, smiling weakly as she trudges forward with the Memory Crystal. “And I… ahh…”
“One pair of steady shoulders coming right up!”
Carefully and gently, I lift Anna’s arm over my shoulder. I look at her and we smile at each other momentarily before continuing onward together, making our way to Eris’ suite.