Book of The Dead

Feolin watched with horrified fascination as the gates caved in, finally tilting back to blast off their hinges and collapse with a dull roar. She hadn’t believed it would be possible, not really, to break into the castle. It seemed impenetrable, an unmoving mountain of stone that by all logic should collapse under its own weight. Yet, somehow…

The Slayers gave a bloodthirsty cheer. Weapons raised into the air as they roared and screamed, each pushing to be the first through the gates. MacRielly would be in there somewhere, screaming bloody vengeance as he shoved others aside, trying to be the one to get to the Duke first.

Nearby, Tyron Steelarm watched it all unfold from atop his strange platform, his face expressionless, but his eyes burning. As always, a contingent of his undead remained about him, but others continued to engage in the battle, firing arrows, flinging spells, exchanging fire with the defenders on the walls.

Somehow, the appetite for violence amongst the Slayers still hadn’t abated. They didn’t even need to kill the Duke, for the Emperor surely would, but it didn’t seem to matter.

For her part, Feolin had seen more death and suffering in the past ten days than she had seen in the decade before. The streets were choked with bodies, the noble quarter reeked of blood. She’d seen the Necromancer pick through it all like a crow, going from slaughterhouse to slaughterhouse with his army and dragging away the dead.

It was grim work, but she understood the need for it. However, it was difficult to view the man sympathetically when every time she saw him, even from a distance, he looked as cold as a corpse himself.

“Are you coming?” a voice asked.

It took Feolin a moment to realise that someone was talking to her, and even longer to realise who it was. It was the Necromancer, speaking to her from atop his perch.

She looked back to the gate. She could already hear the screaming and clash of blades, the flare of magick coming from within. No doubt the castle would soon become another charnel house.

“I don’t have any desire to see it,” she replied.“See what? The worst of our impulses laid bare? The depths of cruelty your fellow Slayers will sink to when they’re no longer bound by the curse? Are you afraid that you will walk in there and start to believe that the Magisters were right all along?”

He didn’t sound impassioned, or upset, he barely sounded curious. Feolin wondered why he was talking to her at all.

“The Magisters are platinum ranked arseholes,” she told him, “but that doesn’t mean I need to see their guts spilling out with my own eyes. I find all of this…” she gestured vaguely toward the city, “... unnecessary.”

“Freedom without vengeance,” Tyron nodded. “Thankfully for me, not many of your fellow gold rankers felt the same way.”

She felt a flush of hot anger at those words.

“Why? Because you couldn’t enact your vengeance without them?”

“Exactly,” he nodded. “Without them, I would have no chance of getting inside the castle. Every noble in there is going to die, along with all the men and women who sided with the Duke against us. However, that’s not the only reason I want to get in there. I mean, aren’t you curious? You don’t want to know what is hidden within the bowels of the castle?”

Feolin had a creeping suspicion that she very much didn’t want to know what might be down there.

“Why?” she asked warily. “Do you have some idea?”

“Oh, I know,” Tyron said, showing some hint of emotion at last: a quick flash of a smile. “I want someone like you to come with me, someone who isn’t…” he gestured toward the fighting at the gate, “... so enthusiastic. Who knows what they might do when they find what I’m looking for.”

“You want a witness.”

“That’s right. I want a witness.”

The gold slayer thought about it for a long moment as the fighting continued to intensify in the distance.

“Alright, fine,” she eventually agreed, hoping she wouldn’t regret it. She looked up at Tyron. “Why are you up there, anyway?”

“I’m standing on a ritual circle,” he explained. “I need to maintain the flow of power. I’m not up here because I think I’m better than everyone.”

She looked down at the skeletons carrying him around on their bony shoulders.

“I can admit it doesn’t look good,” he said.

“Fine. Pull me up and I’ll go with you,” she said, walking over and reaching up with one hand.

Tyron looked a little surprised at first, then he reached out to clasp her hand and easily pulled her up onto the platform. Despite not being fighters, their gold ranked strength was enough to perform an act like this without a hint of strain. 𝖗â𐌽𝐎ᛒÊ𐌔

Once she was up there, Feolin could see that indeed there was a potent ritual circle carved into the platform, which Tyron remained in contact with at all times, giving him control of the flow of power. It was an interesting spell, and as a mage, she found herself drawn to examining it, leaning in to study the sigils and connections.

“It’s a ritual that empowers my horde,” Tyron explained. “Any undead connected to me can also draw power through the circle. In addition, it gives me an enhanced mental connection to each of them.”

“So you can know what each undead under your control is doing?”

“I could already do that, but in a vague way. This ritual gives me a much stronger bond. Are you alright if we start moving?”

“Yes, of course.”

With a lurch, the skeletons below began to march, the platform holding surprisingly steady on their shoulders. From the elevated perch, it was much easier to see what was going on, and she watched as the undead gathered around them, forming a vanguard that began to press toward the breach in the wall.

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During the fight, the Slayers had managed to bridge the enormous moat using boulders and huge chunks of stone that they’d thrown in before someone was finally able to tear the drawbridge away. It was still there, half sunk into the bloody waters on its side, a huge hunk of riveted metal, humming with enchantments.

As they drew closer to the fighting, Feolin steeled herself, drawing on her own power in case she needed to defend herself.

The undead marched silently, as always, no fear, hesitation or anxiety in their movements. Among them, the powerful wights, decked out in plated bone armour and wielding potent, enchanted blades walked, along with the massive skeletal giants, smoking swords swinging with each lumbering step.

It was insane to think a single Class was capable of creating an army like this. Beyond the rifts, what a weapon he would be! With this many undead, he could hold a rift by himself for days on end!

As if sensing what she was thinking, Tyron spoke up.

“It’s a shame, isn’t it? When I first got this Class, I wanted to prove that I could do good with it, that I could be a weapon against the kin. If I did that, I’d be accepted, and allowed to serve as a Slayer, just like my parents.”

Hopelessly naive. Feolin tried not to show it in her expression. She failed.

Tyron snorted. “I know,” he said. “Defeating the rifts was never the plan. It was never what they wanted. They need magick to fuel their power, and without the rifts, there would be no magick. No brands, no Classes, no control. When everything is built upon the foundation of a world with arcane energy, when you depend upon it to exist… suddenly, a world filled with more and more of the stuff doesn’t seem all that bad.”

“You aren’t talking about the Duke… or even the Emperor… are you?” Feolin asked.

The clash of steel and screams of the dying were so loud now. The Slayers had plunged through the gate and ploughed into the waiting Soldiers like a tide of ravening barbarians. Gold ranked abilities boomed and howled, crushing armour and shattering stone. Overhead, magickal energies clashed in the sky, a series of rolling booms and flashing lights made it seem as if they were fighting in a fierce lightning storm.

Rather than throw the undead directly into the thick of the fighting, Tyron seemed to take a different approach. The undead scattered around the courtyard once they were through the destroyed gate, running for the doors, stairs and towers. Undead mages shielded the rest from harm while they battered at barricades, trying to force their way in.

Once the skeletal giants arrived, they made short work of the barred doors, smashing them in with only a few blows. Just like that, the undead flowed into the castle, swarming over the walls and towers while Tyron stood in the courtyard, atop the platform, eyes flicking rapidly from place to place.

Ahead of them loomed the great fortress in which no doubt the Duke huddled with his few remaining troops and mages. The Necromancer barely gave it a glance.

“Aren’t you going to join the assault on the Duke? Your undead would be a useful weapon against the nobles.” Feolin asked.

Tyron shook his head.

“I will send undead, but I won’t go myself, not at first. There is something else I need to find.”

His head snapped downward and he grimaced.

‘What?” Feolin asked.

“Ghosts have gotten into the lower levels. We can go down now,” he said.

At once, the skeletons lowered the platform down to the ground, nearly causing Feolin to stumble. The moment it touched the ground, Tyron stepped off, and the light of the ritual faded. She joined him, matching her stride to his and he moved unerringly toward one of the splintered doors.

“We have to go down?” she sighed. “Just how deep does this place go?”

“All the way to hell,” Tyron replied, his tone flat.

Skeletons formed around them, in front and behind, and she knew the others were still combing through the castle, hunting, seeking, killing. Even as he walked down the seemingly endless stone steps.

The two descended far below, down the steps and into the darkness, accompanied by the glowing purple light of the undead. It was eerie, even to Feolin, who had experienced great terrors through the rifts.

“Have you ever wondered what happened to the Slayers who went mad?” Tyron asked suddenly over his shoulder. “The ones who couldn’t handle the pressure and went rogue?”

“They were killed,” Feolin said shortly. “I’ve seen it myself.”

“Some of them were killed,” Tyron replied, “the ones they weren’t able to subdue. The rest get hauled away by the Magisters and Marshals. What happens to them?”

“They get tried and executed, I imagine.”

What else would they do with them?

“Half right. You know that people who are Slayers tend to have children who are Slayers, right?”

Feolin’s mouth tightened.

“I know,” she said.

“And you know why the brothels are positioned so close to the Golden District?”

“I do.”

“Then the rest is self-explanatory.”

“I don’t see how…” a monstrous thought began to creep into her mind. “You aren’t saying…”

“What I’m saying is that every year, dozens of Slayers were brought here, to the underground. The reason doesn’t really matter to me.”

He threw open a door in front of them, and Feolin gasped at the sight that lay beyond.

“What matters is that they all died here.”

A stone lined pit in the centre of the room seemed to descend into perfect darkness, but even from the entrance, she could see the bones poking out.

“The entire castle is sanctified ground, no need to worry about naturally forming undead,” Tyron noted, stepping forward to look into the pit. “A mass-grave of fallen Slayers. Are you sure you don’t want to look?”

Feolin felt sick.

“No… I’m fine.” She grimaced. “Is this what you came here for?”

“Not quite.”

He turned his back on the treasure trove of bones and led her out, closing the door behind him. Once again, they set off through the darkness, striding through the narrow corridors in their various twists, turns, rises and falls.

It was hard to tell if they were moving closer to the surface or deeper down. It was hard to find any sense of direction at all, in the dark, but eventually the atmosphere began to change.

Soon, she realised just where they were. The guards were long gone, fled or recruited to fight, but it was clear the dungeons beneath the castle had been abandoned. Except, not entirely.

Moans, screams and pleas echoed from the damp stone walls as those still locked away, likely without food or water for days, cried out at the sound of footsteps. When they saw the undead, the prisoners fell silent, cringing back in their tiny cells, turning their faces away from the light of the skeletons’ eyes.

Row after row of cells, Tyron marched past all of them, Feolin on his heels, until he came to one and stopped. For the first time, she felt she saw a hint of genuine emotion in his face as he gazed at the crumpled old man lying on the floor of the cell.

“You know this man?” she asked.

“That’s Master Willhem,” he replied softly.

“No!” she gasped, turning back to the unfortunate prisoner. She could see some resemblance, but it was difficult to match the esteemed Arcanist she had seen only briefly with this wreck.

“What happened? Why would they bring him here?” she muttered.

“I happened,” Tyron said.

She waited, but got no further response.

“Is he…” she hesitated to continue.

“He is hovering on the edge of life and death, but there isn’t anything anyone can do to save him now. This place has made his condition worse. Old-age can’t be healed.”

“Is this why you wanted to come here?”

“Yes.”

Tyron knelt down and lifted his hands to grip the bars of the cell, profound emotion welling deep in his eyes.

“I will witness your final moments, Master Willhem,” he whispered. “And then, you will come with me. You’re just like me now. You want to make them pay.”