Once, there was a Hero. They overcame Chaos and the troubles it brought.
And, like all Heroes eventually do, they faded away.
But the world kept turning.
Time marched on.
The sky stayed blue.
And the depths rumbled.
"I love hot dogs. Look, I know I know. Hot dogs are filled with all of the garbage no one wants or should ever want. Pig intestines, cow spleens, moldy chicken guts, just about everything you don't want near your mouth. But hey, that doesn't stop me from loving it. I'm pretty sure the off color green ones were made of sneevils they threw into the grinder and called it a day but I won't stop. I don't want to stop. I love hot dogs."
The legionnaire stared at me, holding a sealed envelope in his skeletal hands. His teeth clacked together thoughtfully before he decided to speak.
"Hot dogs," He started. "You want to desert the Legion for your love of...hot dogs?" The way they said that made it sound like they had gave up their soul specifically to never have to eat hot dogs again.
"Yup." I replied, making a popping sound on the 'p' as I took a scan of the corridor.
The usual people were pacing through the fortress' halls and this lower ranked secretary was handling my resignation at the corner of the exit.
"You do realize that there is a certain permanence in turning back on the Master, correct?" Their words lingered in the air but the strange warm breeze flowing through the entrance of Dage's fortress was more threatening to me.
I hated sweating.
"Doesn't everyone?" I asked, impatiently raking my fingers through my hair under my hood and accidentally plucking out a strand. I pocketed the piece. "So, are we going to hurry this up?"
They took a pause and I could picture their disdainful expression twisting on a face that no longer existed. Obviously, if they were still taking the time to do that, they haven't been undead for long.
As opposed to them, I could faintly feely my heartbeat thump in my ears. But it wasn't the dark or the impending knife coming to let my guts drop on to the floor tiles. The musty wind was just that uncomfortable.
"I'd love to be anywhere but here in the next minute. And I do mean anywhere." I leaned back against the wall, crossing my arms.
"Is that so?" The skeletal secretary, and I call him that because I wasn't sure or much cared what else he could have been, turned his hallow gaze to the back of the envelope.
"Mmhmm." I nodded, keeping myself from sighing. The air was getting really sour.
"Hmph. From this point on, you are no longer a hand of the Legion." The envelope was held out to me and I took it before fully realizing what the secretary had just said.
"…Wait," I blinked at the envelope. "That's it?" Questioning the freedom that was tossed into my face might have been a dumb move but I had to ask. It was way too easy.
"Open the envelope."
I tried to undo the wax seal first but after looking stupid fumbling with it for a little, I decided to tear the entire thing in half. A pitch black bead on a silver chain slipped out and I hand to lunge for it to keep it from falling on the floor.
The secretary made a derisive noise but it got caught in his teeth when the trinket released a shock that ripped through my body. It ran up my arm and felt like it burst out the back of my neck, removing a weight I had grown used to bearing after all of those years under Dage's heel.
Knees weak, I braced myself against the wall and judging by how the undead secretary was holding up his arms to shield himself, it must have been a real light show. Ironically.
"Uh…Uh oh oh…" I coughed, expecting some wet skull shards to get spat into my palm but through some miracle, the process had been gentler than it actually felt. "Wow. Wow, that was it." I looked to the secretary for some confirmation but they had given themselves another foot of space between the two of us. "Um, are we done? Do I just walk from here or can I ask someone for a ride?"
"It won't be that easy." The secretary said.
"I know it's not. The fields are a bit of a walk but that ferry guy has a few coins stuck up there. Wait, is he undead? It's been a few years since I actually left the fortress." I rubbed my forehead with the back of my hand. Great, I'm sweating. Was anyone going to do anything about the heat?
"The journey back is the least of your worries."
"Oh. Oh you mean I still have to do something to be free," I clicked my tongue, squeezing the trinket between my fingers. "Right, garotting myself with a spaghetti noodle would have been easier than getting into the Legion. Why would it be easy to get out?" I slumped back against the wall. "Ok, what is…Do I still have to call him Master?"
The secretary ground their teeth for a moment.
"I don't know."
"Alright, what does that large gaping blue butt hole want now?" I asked and the secretary was doing that thing where he was making an expression I couldn't see. Maybe it was disgust. Maybe.
"Whether you are a part of the Legion or not, it is perfectly acceptable for me to strike you down for insulting the Master."
I spread my arms and raised my brow, inviting him to go ahead but he did the frowning-without-a-mouth thing again.
"What does that giant gaping blue butt hole want now?" I repeated myself and this time, I got a straight forward answer.
"Bring back what was stolen from the Master." The secretary told me.
"What is it?"
"That which was stolen from the Master." The secretary said and I could feel my own stomach acid curdle.
"And what was stolen was…?"
"Important." The secretary said curtly.
"Why?"
"It was the Master's. And it was stolen."
"Did the person who gave you this job know?"
"…It was slid under a door to me." The secretary confessed. "Look, we both know it's probably going to be blue and glowing. I am telling you this because it is a better answer than 'you'll know when you see it.' Oh, and I suppose there is another part of this quest I should mention."
"And just when I was warming up to you." I shrugged, seeing that the secretary was done with listening to me.
"You will be carrying this quest out with a partner." The secretary looked over their shoulder. "Oliver?"
Catching sight of a tuff of gold at the corner of my eye, I turned my head down and found some kid gripping my thigh.
"Why is he touching me? Is this Oliver? Why is he touching me? Is Dage kidnapping kids for ritual sacrifices now? Why is he touching me?" I pointed down at the child with the cheery smile that could have lit up a room of normal people. Instead, one of the Legion knights passing by took one look at us and began to rapidly shuffle backwards the way he came from.
The secretary turned back to face me and just about leaped eight feet into the air.
I had to clench my teeth to keep from swearing.
"Kid, how old are you?"
"Forty-eight." Oliver answered and for some reason, I found that I would have preferred him being forty-eight thousand. "But I've seen you, Mr. Necromancer. Carlos! You smell really nice for one."
I whispered a prayer and hoped it would ward this little freak away. But good things don't happen to people like us.
"You have your partner, you have your quest. You can leave." With that, the secretary began to hastily walk away. Finding that he was about to walk into a wall, the secretary turned on his heel and started in the other direction.
"No. No you don't leave," I rushed for them and reached for the back of the secretary's collar, wrenching him back. "A location. A vague town name. Pick one so I don't have to faff around with this touchy feely gremlin—did you pinch me?"
Oliver's grin spread wider as he 'shyly' looked away with his little fingers still pinching my inner thigh.
"Hurry up." I grimaced, feeling sweat slide down the back of my neck. This heat, I swear.
"…Fine." The secretary said before his head was pumped with arrows and exploded. I was left talking to a sizzling neck stump.
I choked on my own gasp and let the body go and the moment I did, an ax flew in and struck its chest, pinning it down on the ground. The secretary's bones lit up with blinding white light and dissipated completely, leaving behind its silhouette burned into the floor.
"Uh…Ha…Hooh dang um." Glancing around and finding that some of the other lingering Legion members were as clueless as I was, searching for an enemy that wasn't there, I held my breath.
But that heat; that moldy uncomfortable smell hanging over the fortress was getting unbearable. Maybe, it would be cooler closer to the throne room. Not to mention it was the most heavily guarded place in the area. Especially after the Alliance broke.
"Nuh-uh," Oliver dug his fingers into my thigh, hard. "We have a job to do. Or did you forget?"
"Dage can do his own errands," I grimaced at the pain and tried to shake tiny middle aged man off of my leg but he had me rooted. "We'll do them later! Let me just squat in his ugly house for a bit."
Then his house got uglier. A huge blast, coming from the hall leading down to the throne room, shook the fortress and the hall burst into flames. From the fire, a flood of paladins, clerics, mages of all kinds, and warriors from anywhere and everywhere spilled out.
I looked back to the entrance and the same thing was happening there too.
For the miniscule amount of Legion fighters in the fortress and the rest of them being who know where, it looked like we were all finally going to get what was coming to us.
"Cut down every last one! Don't let these freaks run!" The head of the ambushing wave shouted, raising their staff in the air. "Today, we bury the Evil forever!"
Dying was what I thought was going to be on my to-do list today, whether I wanted it or not but seeing how the other guy fell down?
"I'm not with them!" I scooped Oliver up and cradled him against my chest, ready to shame myself. "They kidnapped me and my little bro. Help us please!" I lied loudly, ignoring the sensation of bile crawling up my throat when Oliver caressed my cheek.
An arrow hit my shoulder and I screeched out a curse.
I tried to rip out the arrow but in my panic, I managed to stab it in deeper. Through my screaming, I could see the invaders readying their archers for another quick death rain.
It occurred to me that I should be reaching into my pocket for that strand of hair but my hand gave up on the way down.
"Alright, I know when I've lost." Letting Oliver drop out of my arms, I sighed and shielded my eyes from the coming barrage of arrows.
The dark trinket throbbed violently in my hand, growing freezing cold to the touch. Thick dark clouds spewed out of the bead and leaked out from between my fingers, forming a thick wall between us and the thousands of arrows.
As the arrows chipped away at our temporary defense, I decided to use the extra few seconds of my short life to watch through the few Legionnaires left being shot down through the tears that the arrows ripped into our shield.
"What was the point of that?" I glowered, barely moving my head fast enough to dodge an arrow that managed to get through. "It's only making it take longer to die in this nightmare hole."
The space behind us swirled, bent, and ripped apart, giving way to a portal.
"Then go." A voice that seemed to make the walls tremble emanated from the trinket in my grip. It was a tone I knew engraved deep into my soul but the name was just out of reach.
The shield began to crumble and Oliver grabbed my thigh again.
"I don't know if time is still on our side but—" He glanced at the trinket. "—Only he knows for sure."
The force Oliver used to thrust me through the portal broke my femur and as I fell backwards, flung through one space to another, I began to wail instead of scream.
Author Notes: Hey I know I promised some other stuff that wasn't OC heavy but here I am, ready to have fun. Uh, what can I say here? Oh right, shout out to my best little cousins! Who helped me out with the ideas and had a ton of fun with! As for where the ride will go, we'll see! And hope! of course we'll hope!