Fritz reactivated all his Treasures in a panic and ducked under the soaring shadow. His barrier burst as soon as it appeared, and time slowed slightly, letting him turn his dodge into a controlled roll under the Hound’s raking, roiling, black-tarred claws. Sensing danger, he used his barrier ring again reducing a deadly blow to his back to a stinging line of cold pain. The powerful parting strike knocked him to the ground face first and he inhaled a mouthful of dry dirt.
Pushing himself up and back to his feet was a pain and was made all the more difficult by his injuries and the terrible weight of the moon as it loomed overhead. Fritz coughed and spluttered but rose anyway with a blood-slick Quicksilver in hand. He turned to face his foe, counting a tally of his Treasure’s remaining capacities and weighing his own fatigue.
He had used the ring and the belt twice now, rendering them with one use left each, that is if his ring actually had three Capacity. He cursed that he never thought to check, he wouldn’t be making that mistake again, one way or another. His stamina reserves were a different situation entirely, while he had come into the fight feeling fine, he could feel the drain from the tarry venom slowly slithering through his veins. Every act was becoming more taxing, every step tired him, and with every beat of his heart the numbing sensation spread.
Still, he faced the Hound, preparing to face another swift charge. What he saw made him grin viciously. The great beast wasn’t even looking at him, it had its head curled to the side and was attempting to bite and pull something from its side. My dagger, almost forgot about it, Fritz remembered, that’s right pull it out and suffer.
As if it heeded his command it did so, tearing the bone blade free and dropping it to the grey soil. It staggered slightly as thick black blood poured from the wound. If it had been any other dagger it might have been no more than a painful cut, something that would heal quickly enough. But the beast hadn’t counted on the curse held within the blade. Its wound didn’t stop bleeding and it sniffed at the free flowing cut and growled, spinning its head toward and locking its gaze upon the one responsible for the bitter hurt.
Fritz stopped grinning as his Danger Sense flared all over his body, feeling the multiple bites, slashes and breaking bones that were to happen in mere moments. He called on his barrier ring, hoping it would have one more use. The shield encased him even as he pulled on the belt using its other imbued Ability. He felt noxious magic flow into him and fly up his arm into and over Quicksilver, causing it to drip with viscous black-green venom.
The Hound rushed him and his blade, Fritz stepped out of the way of the sliver fangs, his boon-enhanced body now more able to keep up with his powerful senses and caught a shadowed claw with a parry. He dragged his sword's tiny black teeth over its paw as he repelled the blow, shearing into its flesh and delivering the deadly venom.
He knew if he didn’t have his high Perception and Awareness the beast’s Gloom Strike would have killed him. But he did, and he forced the Hound to retreat as he thrust forward with a well-practised and precise riposte. Quicksilver’s sharp point struck the middle of the Hound’s brow, missing its light-eating eye by a hair, due to a last-second dodge. The strike barely cut through the Hound’s hide and was stopped completely by its skull, jarring his arm.
Fritz felt the phantom pain of his forearm crushed by mighty jaws and quickly withdrew, silver fangs bit down about to tear off his hand at the wrist, but instead, his barrier let him slip away with only a burning, bleeding gash over his arm. Its fang had parted his flesh like paper and had left searing-cold, sliver spittle over the wound.
Fritz hissed, then screamed, dropping Quicksilver, ducking under a sweeping claw and rapidly retrieving his sword with his clumsy, numb hand. Danger Sense warned him of an impending bite that cut out when a whistling arrow thudded into the Hound’s neck, driving deep and stopping the attack.
Through the haze of pain, Fritz could see Sid aiming her bow at the beast as it turned its gaze on her. It was about to run at her when Sid loosed another arrow and called out,“Stay!”
Again the command reverberated off the metal moon and across the barren plains, this time though more of the Treasures magic was focused upon the Hound, rather than the scattered indiscriminate order from before. Fritz was stunned by the compulsion, but so too was the Hound, stopping mid-step and trembling against the mental bonds.
Slipping through the imagined ropes of mind magic, Fritz sprinted forward, activated the belt’s venom and chopped down onto the frozen Hound’s neck with Quicksilver. Its venom-slick edge met the black fur and cut a small furrow into the beast's hide. He cursed, the blow had been more like a cut from shaving rather than the decapitating strike he envisioned. Fritz pulled the blade down across the side of its thick neck, putting his whole weight into the movement and grunting with the effort. The hound turned its boiled white eye on him, growling as it struggled against the magic holding it.
Quicksilver tore into the flesh with difficulty and he felt like he was going to be hit in the chest with a hammer, but he kept to his course, attempting to saw through the Hound's tough skin and cut into its vital veins. His sword struck silver bone and ground upon it with a whine, Fritz's arms ached and burnt as he pushed and pulled, spilling venom into the slowly growing wound. The hound stopped struggling and blurred, Fritz was slammed with a vicious force, knocked from his feet and flung nine feet away.
His back hit the ground, the wind was driven from his lungs and Quicksilver clanged to the dirt beside him. Fritz expected to die then and there, motionless as he was, his ears rang with Sid’s screaming, and Bert’s bellows. But death didn’t come, yet. Danger Sense was quiet, he took in a breath, then another, then he seized his sword and stood, using Quicksilver to prop himself up as he gasped through bruised and probably broken ribs.
He stared at the hound as it staggered, stumbled and steamed, with acid searing its skin and another arrow shaft planted in its side. Its eyes glanced this way and that, hatefully assessing, pitilessly scheming. It sat upon its haunches, inhaled an enormous breath, bent its head to the silver sky and howled.
The air around the beast rippled in waves, a cloud of dust burst out in a ring. The sheer force of the sound sent Fritz and his crew to their knees, the clarity of the note sent them reeling and screaming, all other noise drowned out by the violent pitch. Then it was the moon's turn, Fritz saw his friends fall limp as the calamitous echo cascaded down. It was more than just sound, more than just a howl, there was a tearing terrible pain, a hollowness that rang in the soul.
While Fritz was kneeling covering his ears weeping and screaming, his gaze was drawn inevitably to the Hound. It was pulling in the silver light, its fur drinking in the power and turning the blackest black he had seen outside of a nightmare. Fritz got the terrible sense that it was burning its own energy and life for a burst of dark power and cruel cleansing. No longer did it even look like a hound, it stretched and thinned, taking on the taller more terrible visage of its lesser kin, save for it being a shadow, a void, a wrongness in the world.
The howling ceased, and the sky was silent. The Hound lowered its head and stared at Fritz. It had no eyes that he could see, but he knew it glared at him ravenously and he knew that it was going to eat him. Fritz quavered for a moment under that gaze and saw motes of black and shadow wisp off of the Hound’s body like smoke and ember. He wished he was anywhere but here, not in the Spire, living out his only life somewhere anywhere else.
No! Snap out of it! One last stand!
Stand? He was kneeling and the Hound was preparing to charge, salivating black tar, clamouring to consume him.
How can I stand? His legs were numb and would not move.
You always push too much. How about one last push? Fritz could do that, he drew Quicksilver up from where it had been stabbed into the dirt and used it to push himself to his his feet.
His whole body ached, his legs trembled, and his back and chest pulsed with numbing cold. His ears were wet with blood and still ringing. His vision was dark at the edges but he was determined to survive. No, he was determined to live and to live well, with his friends and with his family. He wouldn’t die here, not to some bloody big, bloody black, bloody dumb dog.
He called upon all his wits, guile and will to stand and stand tall. Fritz straightened his back, stilled his tremors and flourished his blade in invitation. He smirked confidently, hopefully infuriatingly, at the Beast, knowing full well that all his Treasures were depleted and his stamina was all but spent.
This was his last chance.
“Have at you then!” Fritz challenged, his voice dull and quiet to his damaged ears.
The hound flickered and disappeared, Fritz felt his body freeze with an icy cold that he could hardly comprehend, but it was merely an echo, a premonition of his end. It was hard to tell which direction the Hound would strike so he felt with his Awareness concentrating on the false cold. There, on his back was a point from which his demise radiated.
Fritz spun to face the Hound thrusting Quicksilver forward in a long lunge, his blade passing through the shadowy, translucent flesh without cutting. The Hound's silver fangs came down on his neck even as he pushed his useless blade deeper. Then just before the jaws closed around his neck and tore out his throat, at that moment with an exacting, precise motion Fritz placed Quicksilver where he needed it to be.
Right... there! He activated Gloom Strike. The shadows poured forth from his centre, coalescing over his sword. He felt his darkly empowered blade cut away the incorporeal flesh, shear through insubstantial muscles and pierce its void-black heart.
Fangs met Fritz’s neck, but no bite followed. Hot black blood spilled over his hand from the heart rending wound and the beast whined its last into his ear. The Hound died.
The deep shadows fled its form, revealing sickly pale skin and it slumped to the grey dirt without another sound, Quicksilver lodged in its chest like a bitter spike. Silence followed, and the sky shook, trembling in grief perhaps. The silence filled Fritz completely, hollowing out his mind body and soul, then it took his vision.
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And he saw no more.
---
Sid was watching Fritz face down the monstrous black thing she could barely see in the shadows. She struggled to get up from where she lay, the howling had knocked her out for a moment and she still couldn’t feel her body, though it was starting to buzz uncomfortably. She locked her eyes on the scene before her, willing herself to stand, but without much use. She was stuck there. Watching uselessly, weakly as Fritz was about to be killed. And worst of all she almost wished it were her facing death instead. What had that dumb, pretty idiot done to her?
Sid felt tears coming but pushed them away, she needed clear eyes to witness his last stand. She saw Fritz take a haughty stance and slash his sword flashily, then he smiled.
No, he smirked,. The prick! How dare he smirk at his death, the smug bastard! Sid raged in her head.
The thing disappeared completely from her sight and in the same moment she saw Fritz spin and thrust his sword out like some fancy fencer, stabbing into the tall, dark silhouette of the Hound as it reappeared behind him. The strike had been nearly perfect, but it left no mark on its hide. The Hound made to bite his neck, Sid tried to cry out but her throat wouldn’t obey her. And as suddenly as it appeared the shadow fled, and left in its place was a pale, ugly blight hound with Quicksilver spiked through its chest.
Sid did cry then, but only a couple of tears, not for Fritz as he fell like some tragic hero, definitely not, it was just all the stress. Idiot Fritz, you better not be dead! She demanded of the quiet.
---
Bert staggered to his feet after Fritz fell like a sack of fish. He wobbled over to where his friend lay, wincing from the cold and the numbness, he was really getting sick of being poisoned. He knelt and looked him over, checking Fritz’s wounds. He wasn’t looking good, but he wasn’t dead, that was good enough for Bert as he made to pick him up and haul him the last mile if he had to.
“Is he okay?” A voice croaked from behind him.
“No, but he’s not dead,” Bert said, his voice coming out unusually hoarse.
“Good,” Sid sighed, relief plain in her voice. She made a choking noise as if holding off tears, and Bert nearly smiled. Really the two of them were such fools.
Bert went to lift his blood brother but Sid stopped him with a suggestion, “Wait a moment before you move him. We have to cut the seed from this thing.”
“Can’t you just catch up?” Bert groused.
Sid just stared at him blankly, and Bert sheepishly said, “Okay, I’ll wait. But hurry up, sky’s falling.”
The moon moved again and Bert thought he could feel some of that weight Fritz had been whining about.
Sid knelt by the dead hound in all its ugly gory glory and began to cut its rib cage open with Fritz’s bone dagger that she must have recovered from where it fell. Bert looked at the foul beast’s corpse and decided that it was disgusting and that he hated it. He nodded to himself. Yes, my monster companion will be far greater than that thing, just you wait Spires, Bert daydreamed.
“Hold his fish blade,” Sid said handing off the sticky blood-drenched ‘sword’ to him.
“Of course. He would have a fit if we left it behind. Or he’d cry. Let’s hide it when he wakes up, then pretend we forgot it,” Bert suggested.
Sid stopped searching through the opened chest of the hound and asked, “Why?”
“I uhh. Thought it’d be funny,” Bert replied, a little disconcerted by the question.
“He just cleared the way to the staircase and saved our arses. We can cut him some slack for that right?” Sid said coolly.
“Okay. When you put it like that it seems a little mean to lie to him,” Bert said deflated. “We do it your way then.”
Bert wiped Fritz’s fish blade clean on his vest, not caring about the dark stains as he’d have to use its refresh imbuement later anyway. Then he placed the mostly clean blade through the top loops of Fritz's pack and watched Sid as she rooted through the hound's remains.
Sid tore some dark twisted organ from the beast’s open guts and yelled in triumph, Bert had thought it had been the Hound’s heart but it must’ve been the mysterious Aberrant Seed they kept going on about. Soon he would learn what Seeds did and if they’d be helpful in his own plans. He rubbed absently at a pocket on his pack, mumbling, “Soon.”
Sid stored the palm-sized, malformed sphere into a pouch and stood, she stared down at the dead Hound, and asked, “Do you think we could drag it?”
“Maybe,” Bert hedged, not wanting to put in the effort.
“I think we should, fangs and bones seem to be made of some kind of silver. Could be worth a lot,” Sid stated.
Fritz groaned in his unconscious state, Sid and Bert looked at him, then at each other. They quickly packed what little was scattered close by. Bert lifted Fritz over his shoulder, finding his friend surprisingly light.
“Wracked with spindle-itus,” Bert said shaking his head and grabbing a back leg of the dead hound while Sid seized the other. “Hope it has a cure,” He grunted as they started dragging the much too heavy, tar-leaking corpse.
They pulled themselves toward the Stairway, the moon getting ever closer and the weight bearing down on them. They panted and sweated, toiling up the grey hill.
So heavy, so tired, Bert activated his wonderful amulet once again, then fed it gold triads from his pouch.
They pressed on, through the crushing pressure, a host of lesser hounds following, without any intent to attack, just licking at their Lord’s trail of blood.
They made it to the top and saw the Stairway, too tired to whoop and yell in excitement they trudged forward. They passed into the green marble stairway, lay down their burdens and sat on the stairs unable to take another step from weariness. They looked through the arch into the bleached grey world as the moon fell ever closer.
---
Fritz awoke, it was not one of the best ways to wake, he was cold and numb all over, his arms burnt and his chest felt hollow, but he was alive, he knew that much, you couldn’t be in so much pain if you were dead. He groaned opening his eyes to green marble stairs, then turning his gaze to the two figures sitting beside him watching the grey wastes as the sky closed in.
Relief flooded him, both his crew were safe and in the stairway, just as he had planned. Well, not exactly planned, but he had hoped. But why hadn’t they carried themselves all the way up to the Well? He searched their faces and saw they were utterly exhausted, and it looked as though they were transfixed by the sight beyond the stairway’s arch.
Fritz also looked out, seeing the skeletal, bleached forest stretch out as far as his eyes could see, broken only by the hill and its ring of barren soil. The metallic sky was falling quicker, faster and faster. He thought he could hear more howls, what was left of the blight hounds weeping in joy? Despair? Surrender? The silver moons surface broke the tallest bleached branches, they snapped and shattered, the sound was like a storm of endlessly cracking lightning.
The archway flickered, between black and grey then became a solid sheet of green marble, the world beyond lost, forever.
He heard both Sid and Bert sigh, it was somewhat of a surprise to think that they could appreciate what they had just seen, just endured, really. Were the Spire floors real worlds? Or just constructions, or even illusions made real by the Spires. Fritz tried to shake the questions out of his head but found it hurt too much and it wasn’t really the time to contemplate such things anyway.
“Let’s get moving shall we, I’m in rather a lot of pain, if you don’t mind,” Fritz croaked out as regally as he could. “I may even be dying.”
There was movement, then there was rustling, and everything went dark again. He felt like he was carried, floating in the black. A burning cold light coursed through his mind, body and Sanctum. His world was lit up again and let him see where he was and where he now lay. Most of his aches and pains had fled and he now felt warm from the slight dry breeze flowing over him.
He opened his eyes and stared blearily around the room. It was similar to the very first landing room but with a forest of blue-green crystal pillars dancing with weird light within. The green marble walls were gone, replaced with a clear glass that revealed a view of an eerie lake rippling below them under a dome of smooth stone.
Distracted as he was by the familiar sight of the lake, he instead checked on his crew and saw them smiling at him. They were weary but healed, probably by the large misshapen orb that burned with a blue-green light and sat in the centre of the room. The Well, he supposed and found that his hand was pressed to it and that he could feel new Power spinning in his centre. That can come later, he told himself, sitting up and watching his crew with mounting excitement.
They all seemed to realise the importance, the near impossibility of the climb they just completed in the same moment.
They looked at one another, their grins got wider, and Fritz's eyes began to leak as he took their ecstatic expressions in. Fierce joy bubbled and boiled over.
They broke out into uproarious laughter, mad peals of cackling and insane mirth. They whooped and cheered, and Fritz stood and took them both into his arms. They embraced each other in a huddle, and not just for warmth this time, this time it was in gratitude, comfort and no little love.
Against all odds; they had done it; they had survived; they had won.
“We did it?” Fritz asked in a glorious haze.
“We did!” They cried together.
Then the Well pulsed with golden light.