Insert Heroics Here - Chapter 3
Chapter 3: The Island
The first sensation I felt after the storm was the desire to vomit and somehow purge all of my insides. Waking up with my back to the ground, I vaulted myself over and puked onto the wet sand below me. Sand, leeches and sea water exited my mouth and onto the ground, making my entire body convulse and shake in disgust, prompting even more vomiting. The bread I had for breakfast was the next thing to come up, except it was now colored by the blood inside of me, making me clutch my chest in agony before collapsing entirely, feeling a burning sensation that stretched from my tongue to my stomach. Any feeling in my limbs faded away as my frame embraced the uncomfortable but somehow appealing sand bed I've acquired. No desire to move because the pain still remained, however a spark shot through my mind, reminding me of why I needed to get up at all: Where the hell is Morrigan?!?
Rolling over onto my back and jumping up, feeling jolts of soreness race across my legs. I frantically looked around, seeing endless ocean and jagged rocks. I see no boat, no wreckage or any land for miles. No torn robes, discarded staves or anything that would belong to Morrigan. Turning on my heel, I run along the coast and search for her but the residing pain ignited like an explosion throughout my lower half, spreading to my spinal cord. I winced and continued forward regardless, letting panic overtake self-preservation.
Heading towards an expanse of jagged rocks and protruding stone, the search began for my only friendly face in this place, wherever the hell we are. Moving past the stone led me to a horrifying sight though. I saw several groups of what looked like knights in rusty and incomplete armor, prompting me to hide behind one of the sharp rocks.
Wanting to find another way around but curious at the same time, I focused my eyes on their helmets, some had half of their faceplates removed, revealing faces with lost fur, scabby skin and pale complexions. Were they wolves? What kingdom do I know of that has wolf soldiers? Most of them live in the North and don't work for royalty. The group was patrolling what appeared to be mass graves, giant holes in the ground filled with corpses. Upon closer inspection, the corpses seemed to be marked in a deliberate way. Their chests, whether male or female, had a red W painted across them. Their wrists were slashed open and their necks were covered with black and purple bruise marks. This wasn't just plain murder, this was deliberate torture. Something was different or unique about these victims and whoever ordered their deaths was a lunatic with a preference.
I took a step back and found my body pressing against something hard and metallic. There wasn't something there before and I knew this had to be a person behind me now. I turned around to confirm my suspicion: a scaly creature with a wooden mask covering the left half of its face. No, the mask wasn't on its face, more inside it. The wooden mask was burrowed into the flesh through a long and sealed up gash wound, the edges of the mask becoming part of the forehead, nose and upper lip. Raising his knife to meet with my eyes, I flinched and bowed my spine backwards. It attempted to push the blade into my face, I clasped my hands together and beckoned flame to shoot straight into the mask and scales like a ray of power. Knocked off its feet, the beast flew into the air briefly before hitting the ground. Pulling out the catalyst Morrigan gave me, I conjure flames to form a sword. I raise my weapon and charge towards the downed warrior. Slamming its leg into my own, I trip and fall as it picks itself back up. Blade in hand, the scaly fiend aims the weapon towards my eyes again. I block the blade with the catalyst and beckon flames in my spare hand, concentrating harder for a larger blast radius. I set fire to its clothes and saw the armor begin to melt into the scales. The creature screamed and jumped into the sea, trying to douse the flames. To my surprise though, it immediately rises from the water, revealing a lizard with melted iron clinging to its pale and scabby flesh. Throwing its dagger into the water, the metallic madman twisted his fingers and conjured up a sword as large as I am. The sword looked more like a giant bulk of iron barely balanced on a black hilt. Without hesitation, the lizard rests the weapon on his shoulder and starts charging towards me. With quick thinking, my flaming sword turns into a magma infused mace. I dodge his highly telegraphed swing by ducking under and then catching his blade with my chain. I pull and concentrate to hopefully melt the hunk of metal but the madman stomped into the ground and pulled onto his weapon with enough strength to break my stance and send me flying off the ground. I detached my chain and retracted my flame based weapon. The warrior stared at me before charging forth again, I dodged his attack again and bashed the catalyst against his ankle, breaking his poise and conjuring another fire blade in my hand. I raised my arms and planted my weapon into his back and through his chest. Those screams entered my ears again but nothing about that voice sounded normal or even reminiscent of a living being. The warrior thrashed and threw me off of his back, before turning to face me. A sword through the chest isn't enough to kill this bastard, so he must be Vacuous or something beyond normalcy. There's no other description to fit his ravage appearance and fighting. I need to take this abomination down by dismembering him completely.
"Whoever you were before, I hope your brain death was quick." I raised my blade to him and the warrior growled before charging at me once again. I launched myself into the air and landed behind him to plant my blade into the neck for decapitation. When the head came off, his arms swung the chunk of metal around and slammed into my right arm as I tried to dodge. I readied my blade in my left hand and clumsily cut off his left and right arm. The blade didn't go cleanly through and he threw himself around trying to lose me. Eventually the flesh gave and the warrior was left unarmed. Trying to still kick me, the legs soon came after and all that was left was a former warrior twitching and in pieces. The limbs did not spill blood on the sand, for if this reptile is vacuous; the blood in his veins has dried up and is beyond salvage or extraction.
I only knew of the Vacuous curse because Morrigan told me about it. Her old tutor was fascinated with the curse and wondered if any unique byproduct was made by any folk associated with the strange concept. According to him, a long time ago, there was an island of kingdoms not too dissimilar to our own that was ravaged by a curse that spread to every living being. The cursed beings would be possessed by a creature beyond comprehension and sight and display behavior that was not their own. Kings once known for being kind would become cruel and tyrannical. As time went on, their minds would degrade to a point where they would just turn into raving madmen. No idea of what happens to the spirit that possessed the person originally but I'm assuming that they feed off of the victim and leave them in an immortal purgatory that only knows how to kill. I don't want to believe in any of this crap personally but when everyone on this island looks like a zombie with slightly more coordination, I'm inclined to hold my grain of salt.
The soldiers watching over the mass graves before had disappeared into the forest that seemed to separate the coast from whatever civilization resided here. The sun was still hidden by the overcast sky, but I still had a feeling that the night wasn't far. I don't think I'll be able to find Morrigan in the dark and she might be in the forest. I run to the woods before crouching down and quietly transitioning from tree to tree. A feeling of warmth suddenly came to my head and chest, followed by a quiet voice saying something I couldn't understand. I smacked myself in the head a few times, in case I was going mad but the warm feeling persisted. I ignored it and ventured deeper into the forest. Step after step, I looked around, scared of running into a caravan of possibly vacuous soldiers. Failing to look ahead, I tripped over what looked like a set of tracks. Picking myself up, I look to see if the tracks led to anywhere and upon looking down the dark and lightless path in the forest, the warm sensation starting becoming more prominent in my chest. I considered the possibilities of what this could mean again and decided that this might be a good sign and marched forward.
I snapped my fingers and created a flame between my thumb and pointer finger. Spreading my fingers outward, the flame expanded over my palm. Walking down the tracks, I kept my arm outstretched to shed light on the dimming landscape. It wasn't night when I fought that creature earlier but it seemed that whatever remained of the sun hiding behind the clouds was dying and I was going to be left with darkness at an abnormally fast rate. Either that of the trees above are providing enough shade to lead me to that conclusion. As I walked, looking around like a lunatic for any soldiers, I found a decline in the ground where the tracks laid. I stopped at the lower elevation before gasping and seeing where these contraptions led me: a giant hole in the ground with a bottom that I couldn't see. The tracks went down the hole in a spiral with no stops or deviations from the circular pattern. Uneasiness settles in my stomach as well as a sense of something crawling onto the back of my neck, like a vile parasite threatening to break through skin and fur to drain me of blood. That sense of warmth still permeates but the bout of cold fear threatens to overtake it. I consider stepping back before hearing a scream come from below, a feminine sounding cry for help. I clutch my head and say to myself out loud: "Oh gods, that could be Morrigan down there. What if it's not?!? What do I do?!?" The scream came again and I frantically looked around. A mine cart discarded on the ground came into my view, a terrible but possibly worthwhile idea popped into my head. I grabbed the cart and threw it onto the tracks before jumping into the metal box. As the cart tipped forward to go down the spiral, a tinge of regret came over. Zero to sixty in a matter of seconds, my paws could barely hold onto the cart as I sped down the spiral. Even after three loops, I couldn't see the bottom and when I returned my gaze to the front of the cart, I noticed a giant pile of rocks blocking the path. I could feel my own eyes shoot wide open before jumping off the cart out of pure reflex. The black abyss entered my sight, prompting me to pull out my catalyst and try using that recovery spell I screwed up last time. I close my eyes and held my catalyst firmly in my two hands. A surge of power emanated from my palms in a different way than how my pyromancy feels, making me questions at first if I was doing it right but then I opened my eyes and found that my body was surrounded by a green orb. The ground finally came into view and I was now about thirty feet above what looked like a giant smelting pot. I disengaged the recovery spell and tried my hand at a another spell that would let me tether to something, I held my catalyst out and emitted a green rope like object that attached to a wall and let me swing over the pot and onto the ground next to it.
There was no more screaming and I couldn't see anyone else in what seemed to be this makeshift cave. The darkness from above was only put into overdrive here and before going farther inside, footsteps started to enter my field of hearing. I slowly stepped inside the abyss and started preparing my hand to make light. After snapping my fingers, a face briefly entered my sights before a yelp and smack of a blunt object to the side of my head made me lose consciousness.
My eyes opened to see not the present, but the past. Seemed I was dreaming of a memory, and I instantly knew which one it was since it was kind of hard to forget. This memory was of when I first met Morrigan back in Maurien. I took some gold from the queen's caravan that was meant to go to Lothvig and some other kingdom for trade purposes and was running over rooftops to get to my transport out of there. However, after running across one particular housetop, the boards broke underneath my feet and I fell into the house. Landing on my ass and clutching my rear in pain, before I can even get up, someone's foot slams onto my back, pinning me to the floor. The next thing I know, I'm tied to a chair by a wolf in a bathrobe, wearing what appears to be a scowl.
"So what was your plan little cat? Planned to take my loot and kill me for the sake of your queen? I have to say you're a pretty clumsy assassin."
I struggled before the wolf kicked me in my shins and ordered me to stay still. "Fucking ouch, I'm not an assassin you sadist. I fell in here because I was trying to leave this lousy kingdom and your roof is about as stable as the ruler's mental state."
"Is that so?" She said, bringing out a blade to press against my neck. "How do I know that you're not planning to slit my throat the moment I let you go?"
"I don't kill unless I feel the need to defend myself, so that's all on you ma'am." I responded, feeling my teeth grind together in frustration.
"Oh, how noble." She said with a condescending smile. "I however, am not noble." She picked up the chair with me in it and threw it all into the ground, slamming my arm against the woodwork. "And I can't take a risk when you might be the third one after my head today."
"I really didn't want to do this." Letting small flames erupt from my fingertips, I burn off the rope restraints and jump up to put my hands on her throat. Immediately being slammed into the wall by her now glowing blue hand, I feel the flames fade from my hands and my vigor drain from my body. "What the fuck did you do to me you bastard?!?"
"Settle down." She said, scratching her chin. "So...you're a pyromancer huh?"
"Yeah, what of it?" I couldn't move or even struggle, it felt like she robbed me of all the energy I could muster and I was just hanging on the wall with just one of her hands.
"I could use your help with something. If you comply then I'll let you go and maybe you can even keep that bag of gold you dropped in here."
"What did you have in mind?" I grunted, staring at my loot that was now resting on her bed.
"There's a caravan of soldiers that have been looking for me all night and day and I need to get myself out of here and back home. I want you there as a bodyguard til we get back there."
"Fine, where?"
"Ever heard of Lothvig?"
"Yes, I live there actually."
A playful smile came upon her face. "Well isn't that convenient." She dropped me to the floor. "You're a long way from home as well."
"Well, like you..." I started. "I had business here and that included stealing money from queen whoeverthefuck."
She giggled. "I like it, and I had similar business except that it involved killing some noble who was apparently terrorizing a lot of other officials and lower class folk. Even royalty hire dirtbags every once in a while."
"What did you do to him?" I asked, picking myself up slowly. I was still afraid that she might still try killing me.
"Hexed him. Made the lofty loon confess to his crimes and disembowel himself at a meeting."
"Gruesome but creative. Are you a mage?"
"Yes, but I learned all the stuff that a mage isn't allowed to know."
"And I'm just some bastard child who knew how to make fire dance in my hands."
"We're both scum of the earth it seems." She said with a laugh. "Let's go tonight, but you better behave or I will do to you what I did to that noble or worse."
"Fine." I dusted myself off before joining her on a steamboat on the south side of Maurien. "You can call me Alu."
"Ok Lulu. I'm Morrigan."
"It's Alu! Not Lulu!"
Pointing a blade at my neck again. "Don't give me lip, Lulu. Steer the damn ship while I work on some scripture." And what she meant by that is count all of the money in my bag.
The sky, the boat and Morrigan all faded to black before a white light overcame everything. I felt sore pushing myself off of what looked like grass and rubble. I looked up to see that I wasn't in the cave anymore and now in the middle of what looked like a luminescent forest. The trees boasted leaves that glowed blue and green while the trunks were decorated with dots of those colors. I looked behind me to find no cave or any familiar landmarks, the idea of the beach and this different forest being connected almost felt implausible. I took a few steps forward and saw a wide lake with a shimmering surface, adorned with a bridge that covered the gap as well as expanded ahead of the body of water, assumedly to the end of this forest.
The scenery has changed but my objective remains the same: Find Morrigan.