Chapter 61
Odium Reach
Silence lingered between the two, the sounds of the sterling wind composing a low symphony, ever so often interrupted by the hum of the inverted pyramid. Asher was scared--not of the aged, withered figure in front or of what it could do to him, but of the force of being compelled to say yes. It was almost as though there was an intangible yearning rooted deeply into his soul that transposed into a majestic, magical voice that hummed as often as the pyramid did, speaking: Say yes.
It was debilitating, trying to suppress the emotion. He was at war with himself, forcibly gluing his lips together so they may not part and squeeze out the words of acceptance. It wasn’t natural... but it wasn’t magic either, from what little Asher could comprehend. It was simply the figure’s inborn visage--it wasn’t just him, Asher noticed. It was the world around, too, that seemed compelled and bewitched under the man’s presence.
When the wind would blow, it would not blow against his face, only the timeworn and haggard robes. They parted just enough to reveal ashen-gray cloth underneath, a singularity of colors all but blinding.
"... can... can you shut it off?" Asher barely managed to squeeze out a plea without accepting. It was growing and gnawing, almost like the hunger that overwhelms when the blood sugar drops aggressively. All he wanted to do was sit and wolf down a handful of chocolate and other sweets, yet was forced to stand--or, rather, he forced himself to stand.
“Hm, my eyes have not betrayed me,” the figure said and Asher immediately felt the overwhelming pressure dissipate, almost like ash in the wind. He felt like he’d just come up from a long dive, gasping for breath, desiring more than he could intake at any one time. “Do forgive me. I ever so rarely leave for a broader plane, and even more rarely interact... that I forget. Wit eludes me in old age, nascent journeyman. Time weathers even the finest steel.”
“What is it?” Asher quizzed, settling himself.
"... in so much a blessing as it is a damnation," the man replied with a faint, humming laughter. "For all the good it had given me in life... there are seas of blood and tears it compelled into existing."
“If I say no,” Asher said. “Would you turn it back on... and make me say yes?”
“If I desired so, you would have already done my bidding, young one,” the old man chuckled rather heartily, the folds of his skin dancing ever so slightly. “I’ve no use for mindless slaves and dogmatic believers. The world is beset with them already.”
"Are you the Duke?" Asher asked. It seemed that the old man was rather chatty and willing to share, and Asher decided to bombard him with as many questions before he was told that 'it's enough'. Random questions, even, that have nothing to do with each other, all to expand the pitiful pond of knowledge that he had.
“The Duke?” the old man mumbled, stroking his chin. “Ah, you mean the Unholy One. Ha ha ha, you know, even my close retainers would be executed on the spot if they said something so absurd, ha ha ha.”
“Uh--I’m, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“I don’t mind a curious thought. Rather, I find it inspiring these days. I know you yearn for many answers, and that your mind is boiling with endless questions, but this will not be the place to find them. Your predicament and I have little to nothing to do with one another, I’m afraid. I am not one of the youngsters gambling on your fate, nor am I the child overseeing them all. I am simply a silent passenger, one who, on occasion, stops and gazes at the tendrils of the forsaken. You have caught my eye, and I simply wish to test you, as I have tested thousands and thousands before you.”
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“Wow. What a way to tell a guy that he ain’t special.”
“Ha ha ha, is anyone though, truly?”
“You?”
"Hmm, me?" the man shook his head suddenly and looked up at the increasingly cloudy skies. It looked like it would rain at any moment. "Perhaps, mildly. But the world echoes the shrouds of the inalienable sonorously, young one. Heroes of ages, names oft inked into the ageless tomes. What is real and what is false? Ten thousand years of history to be perused and verified. Ages weathered by folk long forgotten. If you wish to understand this world, nascent journeyman, I plead you abandon those ambitions. Taut darkness shrouds the visages of time and the hearts of men, and you will merely lose yourself journeying into the harsh void."
“Where... where am I? Can you please tell me that much?” Asher asked, prompting the man to look back at him, engaging once more in silence.
"Beneath you lay infernal flames, and above tombs and coffins regarded in gold, gilded with starstones. Anything else?" the man's lips curled up into a faint smile, as a parent would smile at a curious child.
“Just one,” Asher said. “If I accept... will it help me eventually become free?”
“Free of bondage? Perhaps,” the man replied. “Free of stigma? Nary a rebirth would, I’m afraid.”
“... then I accept,” Asher said.
"West of the Emporium, beyond the lush Aeonian Plains and over the Q'thal Mountains lies Myth Empire," the man said, reaching with his right arm from beneath the robe. The thin, skeletal almost, and patinated arm curled and coiled for a moment before straightening out, the long fingers opening up toward him, palm facing up, whereupon a ball of rotating, colorful energy appeared, swirling. "And further west, beyond the vast lands of Myth, there is a Valley of Thousand Empires, a burial lands of forgotten myths. And even further west beyond, at the far edge of the continent, unbound to any Kings or Emperors, there lies Odium Reach, a castle cast in a greasy, black stone, lands which the sun never graces. Your quest is rather simple: challenge the High Commander of Odium Reach... and slay them. Fret not: if you fail and are killed... you will not truly die. You will simply wake up whence I took you from, and we shall forever part. So fight nascent one, fight with no reproach, fight with no fear, and fight with no reservation. Death shall not be your undoing."
The voice began to fade and though Asher had a litany of questions, his lips would not part, his voice would not leave... he was compelled into silence. The swirling ball of energy erupted suddenly like a budding flower, overcoming the world with light that was both warm and cold, its embrace tantalizing and electric.
Light overwhelmed him, blinding his eyes as the kaleidoscopic world abruptly turned wholly dark. When Asher opened his eyes, he found himself elsewhere--gone was the jungle, and gone were the two strange pyramids. Instead, he found himself at the bottom of a rising slope that heaved out to what looked to be a rugged cliff. He could hear the stormy waves in the distance batter against the eroded stone, heralded forth by rather speedy winds.
Above was just darkness--dark and stormy clouds surged across the entire sky, spitting out a strange mist that seemed to cover all directions at a certain distance, preventing him from seeing further out. To his left and right were stretches of empty, sordid, dead land--there was not even a blade of grass to be seen, only ashen dust and occasional dead stumps of trees. To the back of him was more of the same, the rest shrouded in the impenetrable mist.
The central point was the sturdy construction set against the edge of the cliff--four-towered castle made wholly of strangely reflecting black stone stood imposing over the distant mist, a malignant growth atop an already corrupted land. It was worn down and decrepit, holes lining up its aged walls, most of the four towers in the process of crumbling, with its gates wholly rotten, entrance exposed.
Its size, Asher quickly realized, was somewhat deceptive--at a distance, it appeared relatively tiny, somewhat like the castle during the Castle Hold Stage. However, a deeper inspection spoke otherwise--the land itself was quite wide, the width of the visible cliff side extending well beyond a mile, with the castle occupying the vast majority of it. It protruded forward, too, taking up all the flattened parts of the slope toward the top, and even then some further down, supported by the writhing columns that seemed made of living flesh.
There, it was deathly silent. He could hear nothing--not the sound of the horn, not the sound of the roused men preparing for battle... just effused silence.
Just as he was about to break out into panic as he did not have a weapon or seemingly means of acquiring one, the world halted and the familiar screens appeared. Only two weapons were offered, the borders of both gilded in shifting colors of endless hues--a sword and a staff.
The very first row, at the very top of the two 'cards', had letters hewn in perfect, holy gold, their edges glistening, reading only one word.
Divine.