Chapter 24 – Dungeon Break
Pumbaa: “Shall we run for our lives?”
Timon: “Oh yes, let's.”
Pumbaa, Timon: “AAAAAAAAAAH!”
– The Lion King 1 ½
– ***** –
“Owowowowowow…”
No, these echoing melodious modulations weren’t the mating call of a stammering canis lupus, but the sound of the shaman White-Bat-Who-Coughs-Blood-Under-The-Pale-Moonlight-Of-Early-Winter-But-Not-Too-Early-More-Like-A-Third-In-When-The-Snow-Is-Already-Thick-But-Not-Enough-to-Go-Skiing-Early-Winter – It sounded better in the original language. – who was performing the ancestral choreography known as the “Pain Dance”. For this tribal rite, the performer held their head between their hands, crouched to the ground and swayed back and forth like the proud mushroom under the wind, while chanting the traditional babble supposed to exorcise the suffering felt.
Truly magnificent…
*nom**nom**nom*
“…owowowow. It hurts! Damn, you violent woman!” Victoria complained as she stood up. “I’m sure you’re the reason there is a ‘bear’ in Shield Bearer. You Bear Shield! Kumashi!” <1>
“Oh. Stop whining. You deserved it this time, and I didn’t even hit you that hard.”
“Maybe, but I am that weak! I’m a delicate flower that should be treated with care!”
“I’ve never been a flower person.”
*nom**nom**nom*
“… I’d guess that.”
“Anyway. Now I’m stuck with a cursed shield AND a cursed armour. Do you at least have some idea how to ‘feed’ the [Gorgon Shield]?”
*nom**nom**nom*
“… Well… About that…”
*nom**nom**nom*
“… If I could hazard a guess…”
*nom**nom**nom*
“What?”
“Well… That skull has been munching on my dress for quite some time now.”
*nom**nom**nom*
The shield had previously equipped itself on its own accord, in order to unseal the [Chimera Armour], and Athena was yet to unequip it. Both the women lowered their gazes towards the decorative snake-haired skull, which was mechanically masticating the hem of Victoria’s white garment.
*nom**nom**no-
As if noticing the puzzled stares, the metal head stopped its chewing and “looked” up, two red light dots in its empty sockets acting as ghostly pupils and switching alternatively between the two bipeds in the room. A few seconds of awkward silence passed, then the skull reported its attention back to the delicious piece of cloth, ignoring the irrelevant onlookers.
*nom**nom**nom*
“HEY!!” Simultaneous shouts. – This is becoming a slapstick comedy…
The shield didn’t even seem to hear them though.
Unwilling to get stripped by a cannibalistic piece of equipment, Victoria tried to pull her dress out of the skull’s jawbones, but couldn’t achieve anything with her puny strength. More practical, Athena sent the shield back to her [Inventory], where it obediently disappeared, but not without taking a good chunk of the white dress with it.
Once again, Victoria didn’t anticipate and fell backwards on the floor.
- 19 HP
As she vindictively cursed Newton’s Third Law <2>, gravity and physics in general, the dhampir accepted Athena’s helping and got back up. Then she noticed the tall woman’s gaze, and looked down at her own appearance.
Victoria was now wearing a very risqué raggedy slit dress, and her slim left leg was sliding out, revealing its smooth white skin and part of a panty waistband. Not even bothering to look apoplectic, Athena was clearly enjoying the view, a faint smirk on her serious face.
“Oh! Stop with this ‘that’s karma’ self-satisfied attitude! Weren’t you acting all shy earlier?”
“Earlier is earlier. Now is now. There’s a definite difference between the ridiculous display of a princess hanging upside-down flashing her transparent underwear for the whole world to see and your current erotically teasing appearance.”
“Ero…”
Athena suddenly noticed what she just said and her face reddened like a sunburned tomato.
“Oh! Now you’re blushing?! So it’s not only your fists, you’ve no control over your mouth either? In fact, I think you have no control at all…”
“…”
The tall woman looked away, unable to deny the princess’ statement, and Victoria just let her shoulder drop with an indulgent smile. Somehow she was just as unable to stay annoyed at Athena for more than fifteen seconds. Well, she usually never stayed angry for long, as it require too much concentration to constantly recall at what she was supposed to be angry, but she still found Athena’s tantrum especially endearing.
*sigh* “Anyway… At least now we know what the shield needs.”
Athena thought she had just been left off the hook, like a turbulent kid by her lenient mother, something that hadn’t happened in a long time. It was a weird sensation, a tad pride-crushing, but not unpleasant. She was a bit surprised too, because Victoria seemed like the kind of childish person who would hold grudges, yet the princess had shown no hints of anger even after repeatedly being abused.
Well, Vicotria did protest a bit and even called her a bear, but Athena had the feeling – though she wasn’t very good with humour – that Victoria’s purpose was more to place a bad pun than to actually insult her. The Progenitor’s Soulbound was starting to understand that her “master” simply went at her own pace and that common expectations shouldn’t be used to anticipate her mood.
Therefore not sure how to react – a feeling she was progressively getting used to –, Athena carefully asked:
“The shield… eats clothes?”
In her usual thinking pose, Victoria distractedly replied:
“Mmmh… clothes… yes… no… Magical items more likely. I would have preferred clothes, it would have been cheaper. And it could become a problem if Jelly was-”
“Jelly?”
“That’s the name of the shield. I first thought of ‘Skull Face’ or ‘Snake Wig’, but ‘Skull Face’ isn’t judicious given the number of undead in the area. It would just get confusing. And though I like ‘Snake Wig’, it sounds a bit too silly. Since the most famous gorgon is of course Medusa, whose name in French is Méduse, which also means jellyfish, the name of the shield should be ‘Jelly’, obviously.”
“Obviously…”
“Obviously,” Victoria nodded. “Anyway, what I wanted to say was that it will become a problem if Jelly starts to eat magical items on her own accord like that.”
“So… The shield is female now?”
“Of course, since her name comes from Medusa! Try to follow a bit. So, where was I? …Ah, right. If she starts eating things right and left, we could lose something important. Actually, we should do more tests later, just to be sure, and we should also check if she really is sentient or if this was simply something akin an automated feeding program. The description did say the shield was imbued with the soul of a gorgon, so… Aaaah! I want to do those experiments right now!” She shook her head like to get rid of something, then added: “But, first, we should get out of here.”
Athena nodded.
“I agree. Safe area or not, experimenting in the middle of a dungeon is still dangerous.”
“Oh. That’s not it. I’ve done plenty of funny things in dungeons. I’m just sick of this place.”
“… I see.” The Shield Bearer didn’t attempt to fix, or even comment, the princess’ deficient common sense.
“Although, since we’re going to travel together for a while at least, let’s set some base rules.”
“What kind of rules?” Athena asked, sounding a bit wary.
Although Victoria didn’t strike her as the kind who would discriminate – be it only because she didn’t care –, the Shield Bearer had a long experience of being taken advantage of. As a tank without a party, she had had several times to almost beg her way into other’s in order to access high level dungeons.
One could wonder why she didn’t simply went solo, but there was a reason why she thought she wasn’t able too. Everyone couldn’t be Elric and just cumulate both great offence and high defence, so even if Athena the Shield Bearer was able to singlehandedly – though slowly – slay a boss if she fought all out, there was always the problem of being outnumbered by weaker monsters. Her health pool may be exceptionally large, but it wasn’t inexhaustible for the cause. Several time she had ended up surrounded and, without enough attack power to kill her enemies fast, she eventually died under the piled up small damages. Long range and magical foes also weren’t a threat to disregard.
As such, the most rational way to tackle a dungeon was to belong to a party. Because of the overall dislike towards tank players though, statements like “let’s set some rules” were rarely followed with pleasant words.
Actually, since a gap larger than thirty levels prevented adventures from partying together, this option was already crossed out here. However there were plenty of other ways to be unfair so Athena reflexively switched to a defensive mind-set.
She needn’t have worried though.
“Rule one. No inopportune punching. I am fragile, so try and behave. Rule two. No talk about real life matters. I don’t mean full-on RP, just no personal talk. Rule three. You call the shots. I’ll guide you out of here, and I have a business to take care of near the exit of Nowhere, but I have no plans whatsoever for what comes after. And planning is a hassle, so you do it. The only thing I know for sure right now is that I want to be with you, therefore I’ll just tag along with whatever you feel like doing from now on. Is that okay?”
Athena blinked, speechless.
From her words, it was clear Victoria already considered this a long-term relationship, something the prudent Shield Bearer wouldn’t have even thought of before at least a couple weeks of cooperation. As for the nature of said relationship, what the princess had said was confusing at best.
In fact, Victoria had just thoughtlessly stated her objective, but the words “I want to be with you” were still looping in Athena’s mind.
“Wha…” she began, but stopped.
“What do you mean?” was what Athena was about to say. However she herself wasn’t sure what she wanted those words to mean. True, their first meeting had been less than two hours ago, but Victoria was a beauty, a beauty with an unstable personality who upset Athena’s pace and had done nothing but cause her trouble, but who also acted as if nothing happened after being subjected to several of her uncontrolled fits of rage.
The strangest of it was, as far as Athena could tell, that Victoria sincerely didn’t care. At all. Up to now, aside from her mom and sis, people would always become wary of her once they had seen her completely snap. She could tell, even if some were sensitive enough to try and hide it, pretending it didn’t bother them. And that was only some. Most actually just called her a “psycho bitch” and ordered her to never get close to them ever again, which she could understand.
Victoria however, instead of looking afraid or even angry, had… laughed. Laughed and treated her like she was some funny klutz who had spilled tea on her dress, and not someone who had just almost strangled her to death for no decent reason.
Athena couldn’t understand.
With her feelings constantly dancing between annoyance, surprise, irritation and gratitude, the tall woman really didn’t know what she actually felt towards the crazy princess.
Unable to find an answer, she decided to leave the matter aside for now. After all, the self-proclaimed Deep Explorer had promised to guide Athena out of here, which the latter guessed also included escorting her back to the Tame Zone. The journey promised to be long, which gave the confused Shield Bearer plenty of time to clarify her feelings.
Aside from her inner turmoil, Athena had no problem agreeing to Victoria’s “rules”. She was curious as to why the princess banned the topic of real life, but, if anything, she understood there were some things people didn’t want to tell about themselves. She actually was grateful to Victoria for allowing her to avoid the subject without making it awkward. The princess, on the other hand, had no confidence in her ability to discuss her life without letting “her” true gender slip, so she thought just shutting up was the safest option.
– *** –
After pondering on unrelated issues for a while, Athena finally gave her assent. The dhampir princess flashed a happy fanged smile, spun around, and enthusiastically began to walk towards the door.
“Wait, aren’t you going to change?”
“Why? You like it that way,” Victoria replied with a shrug as she stepped out of the room.
*rumble* *rumble*
The answer once more left the tall woman’s mouth hanging open, but a self-derisive rapidly began to creep its way on her lips.
*rumble**RUMBLE**CRAK*
Suddenly, a wide fissure opened in the ceiling. Victoria looked back and her eyes widened as a large four poster bed tumbled down in the empty armoury, along with innumerable blocks of stone, right atop of her. Seeing this, Athena’s smile instantaneously withered and her brain went into overdrive. She dodged a falling rock, then another, and dived like a rugby player scoring a try, catching the stunned princess and using her own body as a shield against the ceiling avalanche.
A wooden leg of the bed violently hit her back and both of the girls were propelled in the staircase outside the room. Yet, twisting her body unlike what could be expected from someone wearing a full-body armour, Athena managed to be the one landing first. The shock ejected all the air out of her lungs, but thankfully the damage was small. Worried, she looked at a dishevelled Victoria laying on her chest.
The dhampir was holding her abnormally bent left arm, face twisted in pain, and gasping for air. For the first time in four months, she cursed this body that wasn’t even able to endure a little fall without breaking.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. It’s just a crack.” Victoria’s sharp tone didn’t allow any refutation.
She sat down on the floor in the stone dust, took a piece of cloth out of her [Inventory], as well as a few wooden sticks she kept to train her [Carving] skill, and skilfully made a makeshift splint with Athena’s help. In Untold Tales, adventurers would never heal badly except in some specific cases, but tending to the wounds always helped speed up the recovery process. Besides, a broken limb hanging lose hurt like hell.
“You seem quite used to this,” the Soulbound commented.
“I am. Though I’d like [Survival] hadn’t been reset to beginner one. I still remember how to do it, but the bonuses would have been welcomed. ”
Athena let out an impressed whistle. [Survival] was an advanced skill that could only be obtained by the merging of all the basic skills related to outdoor survival, from [First Aid] and [Bandaging] to [Emergency Cooking] including [Mycosis Immunity]. On top of giving the player high resistance to most of the common pathogens found in nature, it also decreased the stamina consumption and increased the healing speed of treated wounds even if rudely bandaged, instead of simply stopping the health loss.
Because parties almost always had either a designated healer or a sufficient stock of potions, levelling up [Bandaging] enough to have it evolve into an advanced skill was considered – quite literally – a pain. Therefore, despite its usefulness, adventurers with [Survival] were quite rare and almost exclusively solo players. Even if Athena knew Victoria’s current appearance was the result of a curse, hearing this frail girl casually mentioning a skill only possessed by confirmed bushwhackers was still somewhat unbelievable, especially right after she broke her arm by merely bumping a bit too hard in a wall.
Having completed her makeshift mending with a sling, Victoria stood up and peeked inside the devastated armoury. The large and fluffy bed that used to be in the bedchamber at the top of the tower was now laying broken – and a lot less fluffy – in the middle of the room, covered and surrounded by heaps of rubbles.
She took another step inside, and looked up at the ceiling, or what was left of it as a gaping hole now gave a good view of the four above floors.
“Pfiuuu… Is this what they call une descente de lit ?” <3>
“Is it really the time to speak French?” Athena had followed her inside the room.
“Mais voyons, mon amie, il est toujours temps de parler la langue de Mol- Ow! Did you just punch an injured person? I thought we had agreed not t-”
“You said no ‘inopportune’ punching. A bed just fell down four floors and you’re speaking foreign nonsense. I thought a wakeup call was opportune.”
“Right…” Victoria reported her attention to the wreckage in front of her.
To allow people from all over the world to play, the game actually included a translation system. However, since Whatever liked to make things more lively, this automated translator only worked with the main language a player registered when creating their account, so talking foreign was possible.
Incidentally, the official language of Belgium had been switched to English twenty years prior <4> to put an end to the incessant feud between French-speaking, Dutch-speaking and German-speaking people. Rumour has it that, in the middle a umpteenth stormy meeting over that very matter, the King <5>, who was present, had left the room furious and shouted to all the ministers “GO FUCK YOURSELVES!! ALL OF YOU!!”, of course in English, which everyone agreed was a very good idea.
Politics… But let’s not digress any further.
“Mmmmh… Yes… important… cannot leave it… yes…”
Victoria walked up to the bed, mumbling and carefully avoiding the wood splinters as to not injure her bare foots.
“Is there something?”
“Mmmh… Wha? Oh-oh! Found it!!”
“What? Do you know what happened?”
Smiling broadly, the princess triumphantly brandished a miraculously unscathed, if a bit dirty, pillow.
“It’s safe!”
“WHO CARES ABOUT A FREAKING PILLOW?!”
“I do!” Victoria pouted and clung to the large dusty cushion, directing a theatrically reproachful glare towards Athena. “Ma Fluffy! Don’t worry Fluffy, Mommy will protect you from the mean woman.”
“YO-”
*RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE*
A loud sound evoking the fall of large boulders echoed in the distance, and Athena interrupted her shouting to stare apprehensively at the ceiling. Then a knocking on her armoured elbow made her look down again and she noticed Victoria was already back next to her.
*rumblerumblerumble*
“We should run,” the princess said with a tensed smile.
“Uh?”
“I just remembered what was bothering me since I passed through the window.”
“Yes?”
“Haha… well, this castle is really old…”
“Yes?”
“And it’s a miracle it isn’t falling apart.”
“Yes?!”
“I think the only thing that kept it up was the barrier.”
“YE- Oh.”
“Yes.”
– *** –
*RUMBLE**CRACK**RUMBLE**BAM**CRACK**RUMBLE*
“YOU SHOULD HAVE REMEMBERED EARLIER!!!”
“HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THE ENTIRE CASTLE WOULD COLLAPSE?!”
“YOU JUST SHOULD HAVE!!”
“WHO SAI- ROCK!! LEFT!”
In the staircase of a dark collapsing tower, in the thundering noise of falling rocks and cracking walls and the angry shouts of two women, a strange spectacle was taking place: a tall dark knight with cursed armour, piggybacking a thin pale girl with white dress, clinging to a dusty red pillow with soft… stuffing.
Athena, Victoria and Fluffy, improbable trio, were running for their lives – though Fluffy didn’t really care, as he was a depressed pillow –, or, more precisely, Athena was running for their lives. Victoria would have fainted from exhaustion if she ever tried to outspeed a slug, and Fluffy was legless – poor Fluffy.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Athena sped up while Victoria continued to multitask, shouting at the irascible Shield Bearer and simultaneously using her voice for [Echolocation] – still available out of bat-mode, though less accurate – in order to direct them in the corridor where the sodomites Will-o'-the-wisps had apparently died out along the barrier.
The dhampir suddenly “heard” the space around them widening and deduced they had reached the throne room.
*RUMBLE**RUMBLE**BAM**CRACK**RUMBLE*
“THRONE! JUMP OVER!! CAREFUL WITH THE STAIRS!!!”
“I KNOW THAT! I REMBEMBER THE DISPOSITION OF THE ROOM!!!”
“HOW?!”
“I HAVE A GOOD MEMORY!! FOCUS ON THE FALLING ROCKS!!”
“HOW CAN SOMEONE HAVE SUCH A- RIGHT!!!”
Athena abruptly ducked to the left and Victoria felt she was going to throw up. She had never had motion sickness before, but since motion sickness occurred when there existed a disagreement between what the eyes saw and the vestibular system's sense of movement – useless trivia – it might be possible that similar problem could happen with [Echolocation]. Difficult to confirm without asking a bat… or a vampire…
*CRACK**RUMBLE**BAM**BAM**RUMBLE*
As the pair – Fluffy had been sent back to his slot in the [Inventory] for asking “Are we there yet?” too often – crossed the vast room under a rain of stones, the Bloodsoul Mage suddenly felt a weird… poking and she unconsciously turned her head to the left, catching glimpse of a bluish sparkle in the darkness.
Ah!
*CRACK**CRACK**RUMBLE*
“STOP!!” Victoria shouted.
“WHAT?!”
“GO TOWARDS THAT COLUMN!!”
“WHICH COLUMN?!”
“THAT COLLUMN!!”
“WHER-”
The blue light once more flashed.
*RUMBLE**CRACK**RUMBLE**BAM**CRACK**CRUMBLE*
“WHAT’s THAT?!”
“KALAMEET PROBABLY!”
“THE DRAGON?!”
“NO! JUST THE [MANA GEM] HOLDING THE SOUL!!”
“SHOULDN’T THE UNDEAD DISAPEAR IF THE CURSE IS COLLAPSING?!?!”
“KALAMEET IS SPECIAL!! I THINK HE WAS PART OF THE ORIGINAL CASTLE DEFENCE!! WHAT GOT DISCONNECTED IS ONLY THE LEY LINE POWERING THE RUNIC CIRCLE!!”
“WHAT’S A LEY LI-”
*BRAM*
A boulder as large as a small house crashed into the floor a few metres away from them. Athena tacitly agreed the explanation about ley lines could wait, rushed to the faintly glowing spot and ripped the crystal off its socket. Without magical power, the ostrich-egg-sized [Mana Gem] easily came out. After passing it to Victoria, who sent Kalameet to play with Fluffy, the Shield Bearer spun around and dashed towards the exit, slaloming between the falling rocks and jumping over crevasses that would have sent them down in the underground labyrinth.
– *** –
Headison was confused, confused and worried.
A couple hours ago, a humongous power wave with an anguished feeling to it had swept across the castle, calling back from the abyss all the recently defeated undead far ahead of schedule. He had felt something was amiss ever since, and now his worst fear had come to pass as his beloved [Bluerose Castle] was crumbling before his very eyes.
“Eddy, what the hell is going on?”
“I have no idea Taz- TAZIUS!? You can talk?!”
“Oh! …Yeah.”
Tazius hadn’t been able to even stutter a full sentence since that day.
Edison lifted his severed head to stare at his friend, who blinked back at him with the same bewildered expression. In the eyes of the big [Dullahan], a long lost sparkle of mischievous intelligence was dancing yet again for the first time in two millennia. In fact, the Head Guard was surprised at how well and alert his second-in-command looked – despite being still, well, dead.
“That’s…” Edison whispered.
*Bang**Bang**Bang*
Both the [Dullahan] were startled and quickly pivoted their fleshy skulls towards the black metal door they were guarding.
*Bang**Bang**Bang*
The knocking sound resumed, even louder, and a high-pitched muffled shout echoed from behind the gate:
“…dison … can feel …ou there …pen this …cking door …”
Tazius casted a sideway glance at his partner.
“Eddy, isn’t that…?”
“Yes, I reckon it is…”
*Bang**Bang**Bang* “…ISON FOR …UCK …AKE…” *Bang*
“You should open.”
“That’s going against the king’s order.”
“You opened for Ambrose Corbin back then.”
“And look at the mess that followed!”
“Eddy… You’ve always been too much of a stickler for rules. Open to the princess.”
“But she is… and the kin-”
“The king is long dead, Eddy. And so are we. Even if we were told she turned into an unholy monster, aren’t you and I proof that being a monster doesn’t necessarily mean being a mindless beast? Even knowing the truth, are you going to let Princess Victoria, the last of the true royal line, perish simply so that you can be a dead guard who followed the orders of a dead king to the end? ARE YOU GOING TO BETRAY YOUR LIEGE, EDISON CORTVAR?!”
Even before the cursed day when the Corbin entered the castle, Edison Cortvar and Tazius Prometh already had spent almost their whole life together. Edison helped keep Tazius’ unruly temperament in check and Tazius prevented Edison from getting blinded by his stubbornness.
Thanks to their teamwork, the two had climbed up the hierarchy of the Royal Guard up to the point they were appointed to the [Bluerose Castle], most secret base of the Erwynian Royalty. After the fortress became the princess’ prison, they were two amongst the few who knew the truth about Victoria’s condition.
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However, they had forgotten all that, until today. Death and memory didn’t work well together, and being turned undead by an untamed power had been painful enough on its own to damage their minds. The earlier mana wave had somehow revived this lost part of them, but neither knew how long the effect would last.
Once again, Tazius hoped appealing to his friend’s sense of duty would outweigh his single-minded obedience to the late king’s orders. After a brief reflexion, Edison made up his mind and stepped towards the door as he took the key out of his pouch.
*click-click-clonk**crrreeeeak*
The old gate turned on its hinges with an unpleasant creak, and a tall deformed black and white creature rushed out of the throne room. Just in time too, as the opening was brutally obstructed by large piece of ceiling, filling the air with a dense cloud of grey dust.
“Damn! *cough* Headison! Wha- *cough* What took you so long?! *cough*”
As the dust cleared out, the bicoloured creature revealed itself as a tall copper-haired warrior wearing a dirty ominous black armour and carrying a thin white girl.
The pale young woman was barefoot, had an arm in a sling, and was wearing a once-immaculate dress that now was so tattered that Edison almost blushed, despite having no blood. Yet the combined effects of the passive [Nobility Aura] and instinctive recognition of one of the [Rulers of Darkness] instead made both the [Dullahan] kneel.
“My apologies, your Royal Highness. I was caught up in irrelevant considerations that unforgivably delayed my actions. My behaviour was unsightly for a member of the Royal Guard and I will accept whatever punishment you deem suitable,” Edison gravely declared, head lowered – head that he was holding in his right hand, so it looked a little silly.
Victoria and Athena’s eyes widened at the scene. The Shield Bearer because she had never seen an undead act so civilised, and Victoria for another reason.
“Headison… You… You’re talking norma-”
*RUMBLE*
“Princess.” Tazius interjected in a clear voice, much to Victoria further bewilderment. “Sorry for the interruption, but I think we’d better get the hell out of here before we get buried under the castle. I don’t know how Eddy and I would fare, but I’m pretty sure you’d croak, not to speak of your servant.”
As high-level sentient undead, Tazius and Edison were sensitive to Soul Magic and thus able to perceive, if faintly, the link existing between the Progenitor and her Soulbound. With the overwhelming presence emanating from the dhampir princess, despite not having a single clue as to where this dark knight came from, they immediately assumed Athena was Victoria’s subordinate.
“She’s not my servant, but my friend,” the pale girl immediately retorted with a frown.
Athena made a complicated face. She still wasn’t used to her companion’s way of rushing things. In the tall woman’s opinion, they still were barely more than new acquaintances, but Victoria apparently lacked a few stages in her relationship scale.
“My apologies, your Royal Highness, to you and your… friend. But Tazius is right. We should leave speedily,” Headison replied without giving any sign of moving.
*RUMBLE**RUMBLE*
“Ah! Yes. Let’s… Eeeeh. Please raise your heads and guide us out.”
“Yes, your Highness!” both the undead guards replied as they got up.
Walking up to the wall, Tazius extended an arm and pulled down a torch support. A low buzzing could then be heard and the stones split apart in fits and starts, revealing a dark tunnel just large enough for two slim people to walk side by side, or one very large armoured person.
“Good this thing still works,” the tall [Dullahan] commented.
*RUMBLE**RUMBLE**CRAK*
Seeing the princess interrogative look, Edison shook his head that he was still holding in his right hand, took the lead and then gestured them to follow. Tazius silently took the rear guard, closing the entrance behind them as rocks began to fall from the ceiling of the corridor.
They began running in total darkness. The lack of light didn’t seem to bother the two undead, and Victoria somehow managed with her [Dark Vision], but Athena was going blind and had to rely on the sound of Edison’s footsteps and on her passenger’s directions.
After a while, the rumbling sounds faded. Edison turned his head backwards while still sprinting at full speed and finally answered the earlier unspoken question:
“This secret passage was built as an escape route in case of invasion and it has several entrances throughout the castle. Since it was supposed to resist even large scale magical assaults, it’s far sturdier than the rest of Bluerose, but even then, I’m afraid most of the exits collapsed over time. I’m not sure myself as I rarely took it, however I know the exit closest to the castle still is accessible. It actually opens in the outer courtyard, between the main castle and the outer wall. Because the danger here is the collapsing building itself and not some besieging foe, I reckon this exit will do. I just hope we won’t meet anything.”
“Would the other undead attack me?” Victoria asked.
“Most likely. Tazius and I are conscious enough to recognise you both as Princess and great dark existence, but most of the… creatures,” his tone seemed somehow sad, “in this castle are mindless animated corpses. If you can’t use your powers to control them, the ones that don’t fear you enough for what you are will attack you on sight.”
“What do you mean by great dark existence? As it something to do with the [Rulers of Darkness]?”
Victoria remembered the gods of Light cursing her for being one of the [Rulers of Darkness], something she had no information about.
“I am sorry, your Highness.” Edison answered as he confidently turned left at a crossing. “We just can feel the powerful dark energy surrounding you and our undead instincts tell us you are an existence to be feared and revered, but I can’t be more specific. I think I recall some legends about those [Rulers of Darkness] you spoke of, something in relation to the Great War. But scarce is the information about what preceded the [Dark Age]. And I am unfortunately not very knowledgeable when it comes to History. I am truly ashamed not to be able to be of assistance.”
The princess cast a rapid backwards glance at Tazius, who shook his head in apology, as he didn’t know anything either.
“No, you’re doing plenty already. Thank you,” Victoria said before pondering of what she just heard.
The Great War, uh… Somehow this turned out bigger than expected.
Most NPCs living in areas the slightest bit civilized knew of the Great War and of the [Dark Age] that had followed. How not to? Those times of fear had only truly begun to end a little more than two years ago.
The Great War had marked the end of what served as Antiquity for this world, or at least here on the Pandore Continent, a period locals called the [Magic Age]. For what Elric had gathered through his travels, it was a time when magical power was common, so much that even the humblest peasant would have possessed at least a bit of it. Back then Runic magic had been the norm and artefacts had been part of everyday life.
Victoria supposed the [Twilight War] that her [Hereditary Memory] had revealed in the descriptions of Athena’s shield and armour was another name for the Great War. It seemed very likely, although she had no proof. She felt like she had read the term somewhere before, but Elric had read so many obscure ancient texts over his two years of exploring and never bothered to remember what he didn’t thought was relevant, so the current Victoria couldn’t be sure.
Information about the [Magic Age] was scarce, and about the Great War near inexistent. Nobody really knew what happened or why it happened. The only points scholars agreed on were that the conflict occurred roughly seven millennia ago, and caused the collapse of the ancient civilisation and an explosion in the number and strength of monsters, plunging the Continent into an age of chaos and dread.
During the [Dark Age], newly discovered, or rediscovered, magic or technology would here or there keep the danger at bay for some time and allow a brief period of peace and prosperity, like it had seemed the case when Seras had been younger – although the peculiar isolation of the Erwynian Kingdom might also have protected it somehow – but those were fleeting dreams rapidly swallowed in the vast flow of History.
Only the gods-sent arrival of the adventurers and their abnormal growth rate had truly started to tip the balance, resulting in the current existence of the Tamzon, separated from the Wild by the Frontier. However, even if local historians had readily baptized this era the [Great Rebirth], in truth only three kingdoms were already fully included in the Tame Zone, the ones abusively called the “Three Superpowers”.
In the West, near the [Cobalt Ocean] was [Firstland]. The capital [Start] was known as the world’s commerce hub – a bit pompous, but not untrue given the current state of things – and many races lived in this country, especially human, elves and dwarves.
Although the king was human, he had married an elf and their three children were halfs, including the princess whose birthday was coming soon. Both the sovereigns were kind and wise, so there was close to no discrimination in [Firstland]. Once the monster threat had been subdued, it had become a fairly good country to live in.
North-East inland of [Firstland] was [Wesen], Kingdom of the Beasts, or beastmen actually. Although the country was theoretically ruled by the “Beast King” in the capital [Faunia], it was actually more of a congregation of tribes who settled on the same territory and acknowledged a form of central government.
Independent yet paradoxically animated by a strong feeling of kinship, beastmen would always stick together against exterior threats – not including two tribes ripping each other guts – which made the military power of [Wesen] a force to be reckoned with. Incidentally, Horizon’s [Phoenix Castle] was situated in [Wesen], near its western border.
South, and almost as large as the two other combined, was the [Holy Land of Altor], a human theocracy, whose capital [Lumiere] was historically the headquarters of the main religion in Pandore – amongst humans at least. Although there was a king in Altor, the true power was undoubtedly in the hands of the Head Priest.
The aforementioned religion was a polytheist faith with divinities of varying importance. The two Greater Gods were originally Chaos and Order, but Chaos’ status had somewhat shifted towards a figure akin to the Christian Devil over the centuries. Not really surprising since it was difficult to imagine a popular religion happily advocating chaos as a doctrine. In fact, saying chaos was a doctrine was a contradiction in itself.
Furthermore, for someone knowing Chaos in person, it was even less surprising that people considered him evil.
– *** –
After spending several minutes unsuccessfully racking her brain to try and exhume some pertinent information about the [Twilight War], Victoria came to the logical conclusion that… she didn’t care. Her current interest was Athena, so what importance held Pandore’s greatest historical mystery and a few measly millennia of horror and death?
If the Shield Bearer somehow ended up wanting to dig deeper into this matter, then the Bloodsoul Mage was ready to become the world’s expert on the [Magic Age] if necessary, but until then, the other [Rulers of Darkness], if there were any, could go fuck themselves for all she cared. <6>
“We’re close to the exit,” Edison suddenly stated.
“Really?” Athena asked.
She had stayed silent the whole run, leaving Victoria, who was distractedly guiding her, ponder on whatever the slim [Dullahan] had told her. The Shield Bearer herself didn’t really care about this world’s History and had no clue what this Great War was beyond NPC general knowledge.
Because this concerned the odd princess though, Athena was becoming interested. However now wasn’t the best time to ask, so she silently added the matter on her mental to-ask list and focused on not tripping in the dark tunnel.
“Yes,” Edison answered. “One more turn an-”
*RUMBLE*
Victoria looked back along with Tazius, and both of them paled – a notable feat for anything remotely undead.
“Eddy…” “Athena…”
“Yes?” “What?”
“RUN!!”
Behind them, the supposedly sturdy passageway was collapsing at an alarming rate, the tumbling rocks quickly gaining ground on their unusual group. Three pairs of legs abruptly accelerated and a princess suddenly felt like doing a little cheerleading to encourage her troops, but had to renounce by lack of pompoms.
After a sharp turn left, the passage suddenly widened and a wall appeared before them in the distance. On first look, this appeared to be a dead end – an appellation that too often turned into a bad pun – and Athena wondered how they were going to open the hidden door in time, while Victoria thought she would have to sew herself a set of pompoms and a miniskirt.
“Tazius!”
“Hi, Sir!”
On Edison’s call, the big bulky [Dullahan] sped up even more, passed the two others and positioned himself in front, tilting his body for his left shoulder to face the wall and holding his head behind him under his right arm.
They didn’t plan on opening the door.
*CRBAM*
In a loud explosion of rock and dust, three dark knights, though only one with a head on her shoulder, and a laughing white girl sprung out of a wall and inside an faintly lit underground room, visibly connected to the outside, much to the bewilderment of the short green occupants of said underground room.
Not paying attention to the stunned goblins, Tazius, Edison and Athena continued to run at full-speed towards the exit, while the rumbling sound rapidly swelled behind them. Victoria, on the other hand, scanned though the green populace in search of two familiar figures. Thankfully, Ru and Mia had somehow evolved to hobgoblins – basically the same, but taller and a tad less dumb – after taking the lead of what was left of their tribe, so they were a bit easier to spot among the mass of their seemingly identical cousins.
Having located the couple, the princess on her black mount shouted:
“KASSEL BROK! REN AVEY!!”
She had picked up goblin language too over her months of peek… observing.
Despite the strong accent of the odd female huma lookalike who smelled like death and blood, the short chiefs rapidly understood the situation, and soon, Victoria’s group was followed by around fifty panicked young goblins and two chained mountain trolls someone had apparently remembered to bring along this time.
Goblins’ intellect was very inconsistent.
Although the greenies couldn’t obviously keep up with the three other’s speed, their destination wasn’t far so they managed not to fall behind too much.
Stopping in the outer courtyard, Edison and Tazius looked back at what was left of the once mighty [Bluerose Castle], which was finishing its transformation into a big pile of rocks.
Athena imitated them, quite awestruck as the sight of a whole fortress collapsing under endless thunderclouds wasn’t something one saw every day.
The goblins looked puzzled at what the others were looking at, but only Ru and Mia seemed to understand they had just lost their home and their faces showed somewhat worried expressions.
Victoria wondered if blue and red pompoms would go well with strips on her miniskirt and what kind of logo would look good on her top, while also taking a rapid series screenshots of the impressive accelerated crumbling process, promising herself to send them to Lautrek.
– *** –
An hour later, Bluerose stopped rumbling.
It had taken quite a long time because undergrounds tunnels kept collapsing one after another, each time making the rubbles sink deeper. By then, Victoria had grown bored, and was now sitting on the ground and observing the two green chiefs evaluating their losses. Some of their tribesgoblins had apparently been either not in the room or had been to slow, and had perished.
Ru and Mia had a few difficulties counting the survivors, partly because the stressed youngsters refused to stay put, but mostly because goblins couldn’t actually count past four. Victoria wondered why they even tried while Athena ended up snapping and went up to the greenies to count them herself.
For a couple minutes, the Progenitor enjoyed watching her Soulbound having a loud and completely inefficient shouting contest with Mia, with neither of the parties involved understanding a word of what the other said. Victoria was actually glad the susceptible Athena didn’t get what Mia was saying, since the female goblin was being quite rude. On the side, Ru had strategically chosen to stay out of the “conversation”, once more displaying a wisdom much uncharacteristic of his species.
Chuckling, the princess then turned her head towards the [Dullahan] pair. Edison and Tazius were standing in the middle of the vast courtyard, looking quite lost as they stared at the ruin that had sorta be their home for at least two thousand years. Victoria sighed, stood up and joined them.
“What are you two going to do now?” she asked from behind them once she got close enough.
Edison started upon hearing her sudden question, then let his shoulders drop, but Tazius simply held his head towards her with a gentle smile and said:
“Nothing Princess. The curse is dissipating and the power raising the undead of the castle with it.”
“So you’re going to die?” Victoria felt tears swell up in her eyes.
Damn! Mary was right! I am too freaking emotive.
She had grown quite fond of the pair, already back when they were only the comedic [Dullahan] duo with the crazy Headison and the retard Tazius, and even more with their regained memory.
Edison smiled too, and walked up to the calmly crying princess, before patting her head. Victoria thought having her head gently patted instead of punched was nice once in a while.
“No, your Highness, we won’t die. We already died a long time ago. We’re just being freed. You shouldn’t cry.”
“Yeah, Princess. Don’t cry. It’s actually pretty scary to see all that blood flow out of your eyes.”
“Blood?”
Victoria brought a hand to her cheek and was startled to see it come back covered in red fluid. She was indeed crying tears of blood.
“Stupid vampire body,” she whispered loudly.
Well, blood tears are pretty cool…
“Your Highness.”
The dhampir princess wiped her face with her sleeve, and looked back at Eddison’s head, which he was holding at her height. The already thin layer of flesh covering his skull was rapidly shedding away and turning to dust, yet a releaved light shone in his blurry sunken eyes.
When he talked, it was in a deep ceremonial voice, yet warm at the same time:
“You Highness, Princess Victoria Sangbleu, First Princess of the Kingdom of Erwyn, Heir to the throne, I, Edison Cortvar, humbly ask of you to relieve me from my duties in the Royal Guard.”
Trying to hold back her tears <7>, Victoria noticed an icon telling her [Court Etiquette] had something to say about this, but chose to ignore it.
“Sorry, Edison, but I-”
Edison shook his head.
“I don’t expect any answer. I just wanted to be true to the protocol until the end. This is my pride.” He lifted his decaying skull towards the ruins, then back towards the Soulblood Mage. “I truly loved Princess Victoria. Everyone did. She was a sun that warmed the heart of anybody laying their gaze on her. Even if she is now a cold moon walking along death, it was truly a pleasure to see her again.” He had a derisive chuckle. “Haha. Maybe it’s because I’m undead now… I don’t know… I feel so tired. It’s been such a long time since I last felt tired.”
He marked a pause, then his wavering gaze briefly became sharp again.
“Truly a pleasure to see her. Even if you are not her.” He bowed. “Please, take care of her Highness for us.”
Victoria’s eyes widened upon hearing those words.
“I-I’m sor-”
“No need to stutter, Princess.” Tazius intervened, he too now reduced to barely more than bones. “The Corbin explained us most of the situation… I think. I wasn’t really myself back then. No need to apologize for not telling us, we didn’t ask either.”
“I have no idea how to help Se- Victoria,” Victoria bluntly stated.
“Of course you don’t. If it was easy, that idiot Ambrose would have found somethi-”
“TAZIUS! That’s the crowned prince you’re speaking of!”
“Relax Eddy.” Tazius briefly lifted his free hand. “Anyway… Elric was it?”
Not-Really-Victoria casted a worried glance behind her, but Athena was still arguing with the goblin matriarch, so she turned back towards Tazius.
“Yeah.”
“Then, Elric, please take care of the princess. I don’t ask you to do anything special, just, if you come across something useful, please take the time to see if there’s anything that can be done.”
“I make no promises,” Victoria/Elric replied, well aware of her/his inconsistent mind. “But I like the princess too, she reminds me of my little sister somehow. So if I find something interesting, I might remember to give it a try.”
Tazius smiled… well, the skull that used to be Tazius’ head seemed to grin a bit wider… then both the [Dullahan]’s armours fell to the ground like puppets whose strings were cut and wind carried white dust away.
Hearing footsteps behind her, Victoria didn’t turn around.
“So they’re gone too,” a husky voice rose in the windy silence.
“Obviously. They were mini-bosses in the dungeon. No more castle, no more dungeon. No more dungeon, no more mini-bosses. No more mini-bosses… no more mini-bosses.”
“But you still have the boss dragon’s soul, right?”
“Right… Hahaha,” her laugh sounded a little broken as she turned around to smile at Athena.
The Shield Bearer’s face lost all colour.
“Wha-What’s wrong with… Are you okay?”
“Oh? Yeah. I think I cut my eyes or something.”
“WHA-”
“Let’s go. We’ve still a forest to cross and I’m sick of this place.”
Swallowing a comment, Athena silently followed the princess towards the loud group of goblins. Turning their backs to the ruins, they walked in direction of the outer ramparts that somehow still partially held. Thunder rolled in the valley, along with the sound of a multitude of approaching monsters attracted by the collapse of the castle.
Then…
*ting*
In the top right corner of both women’s vision, a small golden icon marked “SA” had appeared, and all around Pandore, adventurers received the same message.
“The Blood Progenitor walks the world once again.”
– ***** –
<1> “Kuma” means “bear” in Japanese. And Kumashi is a character in One Piece. Kumashi is a giant stuffed bear zombie, though it is debatable whether or not an animated stuffed animal can be considered a zombie. I think it’s more some sort of sentient golem, but who am I to question the logic in One Piece?
Spoiler :
http%3a%2f%2fimg4.wikia.nocookie.net%2f__cb20130...umashi.png [http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130219134720/onepiece/images/archive/8/80/20130507210309!Straw_Hats_Inside_Kumashi.png]
Well, the “shi” in his name probably has nothing to do with shields…
<2> Newton’s Third Law of Motion: “For every action (force) in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, if object A exerts a force on object B, then object B also exerts an equal and opposite force on object A.” So if object A suddenly disappears, object B usually plotzs.
<3> “Descente de lit” is actually French for “bedside rug”, but can be literally translated as “descent of bed”, hence the pun.
<4> We assume this story is taking place around the second half of the twenty-first century.
<5> Yep, for those who might not know, Belgium still is a constitutional monarchy, with a King and all.
<6> Somewhere, a bony squirrel sneezed.
<7> That was true for the author too. I’m to freaking emotive.
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This is it! Now maybe they will start to do something. I don’t know, it doesn’t really depends on me.
Next post will be the epilogue of the first… well… the zerost volume, since there wasn’t exactly any plot here.
Please leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments.
And for those who do not remember, “SA” is short for System Announcement. It was briefly mentioned in chapter 10 along with the release of Untold Tales 1.9.
RIGHT! Tales of the Blood Princess recently passed the 200 followers. Thanks everyone. Here’s a little amv.
Spoiler :
Anyway, thank you for reading and see you next volume… and for the epilogue too.
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