-9-
[https://i.imgur.com/LoYByv0.png]
The Citadel halls were thick with Aethermist. The twisting corridors were a maze on their own, but with the mist it was labyrinthine.
Shadows danced in the mist, playing tricks on our eyes. They caused some junior members to lose their composure—occasionally the sound of an arrow hitting a wall or a spell fizzling out on the stone, followed by an expletive was heard behind us.
We were now slowly making our way through a massive central antechamber. Numerous pathways branched off but we advanced straight through into the largest archway. The chamber opened up into a grand hall. Intricate stained glass windows lined both walls. Though most of them were severely damaged and even shattered, a few managed to have survived relatively in one piece. They depicted powerful warriors, clad in ornamental armor and wearing the crest of the Vanixian Empire, a great phoenix with its wings spread wide.
Large fluted pillars of granite rose up through the hall, each one disappearing into a seemingly endless void. From this darkness hung large chains, some swaying freely and others held taut by wrought iron chandeliers.
As the last member stepped into the hall, runes formed ahead of us. Magickal energy crackled around them, but no mental assault followed.
A bolt of purple magick shot overhead, striking the archway. A barrier formed in the threshold.
A magick seal.
The seal flashed brightly, and three runes formed in front of it.
That spiteful voice hammered in my head this time, “NO RETREAT COME FACE DEATH.”
There was certainly no retreat. The seal that prevented our escape was void magick, and there were few among the mortal races that could channel that power. We would have to defeat the Terror Demon if we wanted to escape this nightmare.
Mei signaled for the group to stop and everyone came to a halt. The clank of steel subsided and an eerie silence fell over us.
But not for long.
The sound of something creaking in the mists broke the silence. The noise grew louder and started emanating from all across the hall. Out of the mists shapes started to appear.
Skeletal warriors shambled towards us. They wore ornamental red armor, and their equipment was a mix of heavily armored knights to light armed rangers.
This demon literally wants us to face death.
I scanned the closest skeleton warrior.
TARGET
STATISTICS
VALUES
RISEN DEAD
HEALTH
STAMINA
MAGICKA
50 / 50
50 / 50
0 / 0
Huh. These are some incredibly weak foes.
In a one-on-one fight, any soldier could easily win. However, this was not a dueling tournament. We were outnumbered and the number of enemies was growing at an alarming rate as more of the undead poured in from the mists.
Julius cried out orders and defensive positions started to form.
Guardians formed compact shieldwall formations around our larger force. The clash of steel against bone and sinew echoed through the halls.
Rangers formed a firing line towards the back and unleashed a volley. Arrows rained down on the approaching horde of undead, but they did little to stagger their advance. Most failed to hit a mark or they simply glanced off the bones, failing to find any substance to stick their bladed heads into. Julius was quick to organize the rangers into a melee position after the failed volley.
Bursts of elemental fury sailed overhead as casters slung their spells at the enemy. Balls of fire and lightning struck their targets and exploded in an area of effect that devastated the oncoming horde.
For every undead fiend slain, another flooded in from the dark abyss surrounding us.
A group of rangers flanked me on my right. They each wielded short-bladed swords called faelx cresaerie in elvish, or commonly referred to as crescent glaives by divisionals. These swords were subtly curved with a single-edged blade. Typically held backwards against the wielder’s forearm, their short nature and aerodynamic blade allowed for their users to twist and dance around the battlefield, slashing their enemies apart in fluid motion.
One of the members stuck out, her eyes met mine from under a cowled hood. It was Mei. No longer on point, she must have fallen back with the rest of the rangers after the battle started.
"We need to push forward or we will be overrun."
Her words were sharp, without emotion as always.
She knew what I knew as well; that if we didn’t gain ground and eliminate the source behind this foul void magick, our stamina would slowly be chipped away. Eventually our defensive lines would falter. After that, our forces would be routed—and with no way of escape...
We would all face death.
Poetic. I guess.
A group of undead broke through the shield line ahead of us and charged our position.
Overhead, Valiance, our ebon-feathered overwatch, cried sharply. The reddened glow of MARK TARGET illuminated the shambling bones. Crimson flames and crescent glaives danced through the air and the vanguard of the faceless dead crumbled to dust.
In a huff of fatigue I gave Mei a quick response.
"We’ll push forward."
Committing to moving ahead, I activated the Communirune and reached out to the frontlines, focusing on Julius.
"Hey. Time to gain ground. Have any plans?"
"Just one, avoid dying."
"Great plan, really. Anything else you wanna add to that or—?"
"Nope."
The master strategist. Just yesterday Luke lavished praise worthy of a storybook hero. ‘He’s something else’ Luke had said—
BOOM!
A deafening explosion resonated from the frontline. It was followed by cries of pain, and some strong language in a gruff voice. I shot a frantic thought out to Julius.
"What happened, are you okay!?"
"..."
After a brief delay, and a few skipped heartbeats, he replied with a broken tone.
"One of those damned things just exploded. We lost three."
"Celestials…"
"I don’t think they’re gonna help us on this one, Airis. If you can rally troops and carve a path, do it. I’ll do what I can to keep our forces moving forward with you."
I turned to Mei and gave her a sharp nod, "We’re up."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I sprinted forward and pushed past the guardian’s shieldwall. Mei and the other rangers followed close behind me—they struck with precision, quick slashes that tore cleanly through ligament and sinew.
My attacks were much more chaotic in contrast. Striking out in wide arcs, I cleaved throngs of the dead with each swing. Flames lashed out, carving a pathway for us to advance.
As we pushed forward, the remainder of our forces fell in behind us. It was not a strong defensive line, every inch of ground we gained was traded tit for tat with injury.
By the time we had crossed the length of the hall, twenty members in total were severely injured; another fifteen were dead.
The hall ended at a great imperial staircase. Red granite was inlaid within white marble to create a dazzling crosshatch pattern as the stairs rose up. Two divided flights arched away from a central landing, adorned with gold embellishment.
Our forces pushed onto the landing and the remaining guardians formed a shieldwall between the banisters on the base of the stairs. Rangers and casters took positions on the divided flights.
The onslaught of undead had slowed—or at least it appeared that way. Without the need to defend multiple flanks our forces could focus fire, and we took advantage of this to see to our wounded.
The injured soldiers were centered along the back wall of the landing. I scanned the healer members of the raiding group, and was shocked to see that every one of them had almost depleted their magicka. Despite that, the Healers were already channeling spells to stop blood loss and heal wounds.
I spotted Hailey among them. She was examining a lightly armored woman, whose leg was twisted in a gruesome manner. As I got closer I could tell how bad the injury truly was. It was impossible to tell if there was a single definitive point the bleeding was coming from. Hailey’s healing magic wasn’t meant for damage like this. Spending high amounts of magicka to heal complicated wounds like this would leave her with a massive headache—and unable to function.
Nevermind the fact that she was almost completely out of magicka herself.
I placed a hand on her shoulder, "I’ve got this."
She spun around at my touch. Her eyes lit up when she realized it was me and mouthed a ‘Thank you’ at me. She looked like she was about to collapse any minute.
The bone needed to be set before I could cast my healing spell, otherwise the wound may heal up but the leg may not function properly. The woman was barely conscious. Explaining the process from setting to healing, I got a few nods from her and a raspy response through a clenched jaw.
"Just do what you have to…"
I channeled golden light through my palms.
“Blessed and divine light, I pray to you. Bestow your warmth unto me and save this one from harm. Heal!”
----------------------------------------
An hour had passed before our remaining force was back on their feet. Our defenses held against the horde of undead much easier with a single front. Cycling a few people at a time gave everyone a chance to catch their breath. Using what little supply we had brought with us, the casters had recovered a good portion of their magicka.
We were ready to push forward, but with swarms of undead tailing behind us the whole way there was no guarantee the path forward wasn't a death sentence that we were being herded to.
The way above the staircase led to a wide hallway with paths that branched off behind us in two walkways that encompassed the entire Grand Hall.
I was standing at the apex of the staircase looking down at the seemingly endless struggle against the undead when Julius came into view, brandishing his shield as if he were about to lead a charge forward into the sea of death—Instead, the shield started to glow with a soft silver light. The light's intensity grew and others took notice of his weird stance.
Blinding silver light erupted from his shield. A deafening ringing of metal chains clashing against each other filled my ears. A silver wall had formed between our guardians and the mass of undead soldiers.
Metal chains had been interwoven to create—what was in simplest terms—a net.
A heavily armored skeletal warrior charged the net, but was blasted backwards in a bright flash of light. More of the undead charged against the netting, enraged by the previous blast. They met the same fate.
"That should hold for an hour. At the most. Time to move forward." Julius, the now center of attention, walked up the stairway and the raid members followed.
The main hallway was constructed and decorated in a similar fashion as the hall we were leaving but with one distinct difference—
"Celestials above…" My heart sank at the unnerving sight.
There were hundreds of human skulls piled up from the floor reaching up the arches and pillars. Gasps of shock continued down the formation as the main force rounded the stairs. An eerie silence fell over the raid. I looked to my companions for comfort, but was met with looks of unease and worry.
"Groups One and Three, take center and form a forward line. Group Two, stay in the rear and keep that shieldwall tight. Group Four, fall in with the main force." Julius' orders clipped sharply in the hushed hallway. Words that should have echoed against the stone walls were dulled by the collection of grim totems that lined them.
The muffled footsteps of armored soldiers moving into positions disturbed the silence. The forward group formed up at the entrance to the hallway. The rest of us fell in behind them a few paces back.
"Move out!"
More skulls lined a massive doorway. Enormous wooden doors hung squarely in place, reinforced by steel plating. This was the entrance to the Grand Hall's Commander's Quarters.
Beyond these doors would have housed a lavish bedroom complete with a meeting room, a bath, and a small kitchen.
The guardians in the front pushed the doors in. They creaked open and slammed hard against the stone walls. Instead of a regal room fit for a noble, we met a grotesque display. The soft white stones in the floor were stained red and covered in dried blood. Along the walls on large metal pikes—human remains hung, impaled through the chest.
Julius took point while I followed closely behind with my sword ready. The dried blood cracked like mud beneath our footsteps. A feeling of dread came over me and a shiver ran down my spine.
The last member of the raid crossed into the room. I expected the doorway to shut and seal with another void seal, but nothing happened.
Julius continued to creep towards the center of the room. His shield shined brightly, a beacon of hope in contrast to the unease this gore filled room emitted. That bulwark was his only piece of equipment that didn't look like it had been damaged in a magickal blast. There were dents, punctures, and bends in the metal plating of his armor.
Soren and Alistaire followed closely behind him. Their equipment didn't look any better than Julius'. Soren's steps were hobbled, an uneven stride that favored his right side.
I brought up my party interface. Next to Soren’s interface was a small icon. Focusing on it, I was confronted with a grim message.
» SOREN SUFFERS FROM A CRIPPLED LEG
Hailey had come up to me and leaned her head against my back. I gasped when I read the message, my gaze lingered on Soren.
"He took a blow from a warhammer. Shattered his knee completely."
"What the—why would anyone heal it like that!?"
I was incredulous—I was so angry!
I was worried for my friend.
"He had passed out from shock and blood loss… Alistaire dragged him to a healer. It was either that, or he'd die."
"..."
I looked towards Alistaire. He was cautiously scanning the room, but he did glance over at Soren every few seconds.
“Sigils!”
I whipped my head to look for who had called out. An armored figure was pointing up towards the ceiling. Two sigils were forming above us.
“SO YOU HAVE CHOSEN DEATH.”
Painful reverberations that felt like they could fracture my skull trembled through my head. The voice was louder than before. Each word felt like a hammer blow to my psyche.
The others in the raid had the same reaction as me. Some were doubled over in pain, cradling their heads between both hands. Others had fallen to their knees and cried out.
Soren and Alistaire leaned against each other, clutching arms.
Even the stoic Silver Bulwark himself had dropped down, leaning against his shield anchored in the paved floor.
Three more sigils appeared in place of the first two.
The fracturing voice hammered again, “THEN YOU WILL DIE.”
A thick dark mist flooded into the chamber causing visibility to fall drastically. I could see clearly about an arm's length in front of me, but past that things started to become blurred and shadowed.
The flames of my sword did little to abate the encroaching darkness—though they did illuminate the mists around me. Effectively turning me into a beacon of light.
Hailey stumbled through the mist a few paces, and was now clutching the loose fabric of my sleeve.
"I–I really don't like this…"
I didn't like this either. I was terrified. I wasn't sure I'd even be able to mutter a single word of comfort to her.
They say your life flashes through your mind before you die.
Though I wasn’t yet dead—images of dead friends and comrades flooded mine. Towers of stone crumbling down around us. Hungry flames licking at our back as we fled home.
A frustrated scream, pleading for Julius to leave me behind and go with the rest of our people… to let me stay behind and sacrifice myself.
I clenched my right hand into a fist and lifted my sword with my left.
"We have to kill this demon. We conquer this city or die trying. There is no other outcome that is acceptable, and we have no other option."
A terrible shriek pierced the mists. My attention turned to where the awful noise had come from.
Three figures could be made out in front of us. A silver shield held high in the air. A wave of energy washed over us as Julius activated his SILVER BULWARK ability.
The mists stirred around them—swirling as if something was circling them. A dark mass came between us and broke my sight line.
The mass rose up out of the mists. Bowed legs that bent backwards as the figure stood, towered over us. Thick muscles rippled across its skin. Its head turned slowly, and where you'd expect eyes—glowing purple flames flickered in their place. The creature's head looked like that of a hammershark, something that you'd find in the deep ocean.
Infinite rows of jagged fangs smiled a wicked grin at me.
It was the creature from my nightmare.
This was the Terror Demon.
The true battle over the garrison was about to begin.
And with a movement so fast that I couldn’t see that the monster had even moved, a long arm crashed down on the three shadowy figures huddled in the mists.
"Aaaah–"
"S-Soren!"
A blood curdling scream echoed through the halls...