The Founder's Regret

The delightful dinner and the comfort of hot water bath seemed like a faraway past as they navigated their way out of the mansion. He should not let his guard down earlier and memorized the layout when they entered that evening. What a fatal blunder... It was confusing, maze-like corridors spanning just about everywhere. The undeads, long since parted from their minds, chased them with utmost willpower. So far in his journey, Nash Laktje had learnt that whoever said experience was the best teacher must be living in some sort of God blessed cocoon. There was no use in having instinct and experience if one was bound to be involved in trouble again and again.

No, he thought, veering a bit to the right to dodge a dagger thrown by one of the undeads, there was nothing to be done when you had a companion keen to drag you in her bloody problem.

"So boring. I thought you were from some sort of a special force?"

Nash gritted his teeth. Sierra had not been helpful so far, running calmly beside him and only made any real move to fight when the undeads reached around her comfort zone. Which meant he was largely ignored if the undeads chose to run after him instead.

Yes, so far more snarks had come out of her mouth than spells. This had to be the most difficult pressure test he faced in his career.

"Oh, come on!" he shouted, exasperated. Now that they had made respectable distances from the mindless corpses, Nash took the time to assess the situation. About ten of them were there, and he could see faint traces of two more lurking from the other corridor.

Sierra told him that a good way to beat them was to burn them until they could no longer revive. Undeads couldn't think, so their attacks were haphazard and generally easy to avoid. However, the fact that they were extremely resilient made them formidable opponents in a pack. He had not donned any fire-inducing rune, unfortunately, so there was only one option available. He sighed. He had to let go of his last Flaming Arrows scroll.

"I've been saving these too..."

A bright light emanated from the scroll as he released the energy within. His own magic wasn't exactly praise-worthy, but the narrow passage allowed the fire to spread quickly. At last, their pursuers were reduced to a pile of ash. Sierra hummed in approval, but now in the midst of his frustrations, he could see that she was wearing a tired expression, as if the years her appearance deceived finally came out to form a shadow over her face.

He had no time to mull over this new discovery because he found himself almost pinned to the wall by a set of glistening daggers. Only they weren't daggers. A grinning butler came into view. He belatedly realized hose 'daggers' were actually nails. Several inches long, each glowed silvery-white under the moon. He cringed inwardly. If he lived to tell of the night, he could amuse his friends in the special ops for several years in a row.

"You didn't tell him of my presence," accused Sierra, clearly referencing the butler. She didn't seem happy about this. Her lips curled in distaste, her arms crossed menacingly. The butler went back to his act, giving her a perfect bow, only done mockingly.

"I cannot inform the master of the founder's presence. You shall die here!"

So another battle commenced. Unlike the zombies they fought earlier, the butler moved with both determination and strategy. He was like a trained soldier, employing tactics in addition to sheer power. They had the advantage considering the battle was two-on-one, but like before, Sierra didn't do much to aid him when he was tossed to the floor, or when he had to duck a really close call to his artery, or when he attempted a barrel roll to the other side of the brick wall. Oh, she even had the decency to roll her eyes!

She was doing that to infuriate him, if Nash guessed it right. Heaven knew why. Didn't she understand there was a life at stake, his life?

"You are quite nimble, but it won't be for long, you see..."

The butler closed his eyes. Nash braced for what unmistakably an incoming onslaught. He had to concentrate fully to avoid those slashes, each coming in with more speed than before. He couldn't do much damage on his own, and the butler was right. He couldn't avoid the attack forever. Time to rely on his wit, then. Insisting to battle wouldn't improve his position much.

He had another problem too. As the soreness of his muscles became evident, an uneasy tingling came from the twin swords strapped to his back. He had to end the battle before the temptation to use them overshadowed his better judgment. Grosser Fluss wasn't meant to be used for this. He wasn't going to let himself fall to the curse so easily.

Annoying or not, he was not alone. He could believe these True Rune bearers had abnormally long lifespan, but he didn't believe the runes could help piece their users back together after being impaled by the swords. Going berserk would only make the situation worse.

He readied a scroll, glancing hopefully to Sierra. Please, she had to understand what he was meaning to say!

"Flaming Arrows!"

Sierra's eyes widened a bit. "You said you ran out of them."

The butler made a defensive stance right away, but he snorted when a second passed and nothing happened. A sheepish look crossed Nash's face. That was their last chance. With a renewed fervor, the butler lunged forward to stab Nash.

Nash could feel the wall on his back. Grosser Fluss was becoming even more impatient. Just a bit more...He should be able to hold on...

"Running up of your little tricks? You'll have forever in death to play with them!" the butler roared. Nash used everything he had left to prevent the nails from injuring his vitals. One finally pinned him to the wall.

Please Sierra, do it quickly...

And he saw it n the corner of his eyes. He smirked at his captor, all too boastful grinning with manic glint in his eyes.

"I hope we never have to meet again."

The butler vanished along with a heart-rending surge of magic and white light. Sierra leapt to his side.

For a moment neither moved.

"You..should have told me earlier that you have something to beat them," he said once he found his breath again.

Sierra shrugged almost nonchalantly.

"I am the bearer of the Blue Moon Rune. I've lived far longer than you. You think I rush to this raid without any preparation? Well, you sure take a long time figuring that out."

Nash touched his neck. A close call. A really close call...

"Had I not known of the spell's activation time, I would think you purposely prolong it just to spite me out."

"Would you?"

Ouch. It appeared that she had taken offense from the statement. Well, nobody pegged him to be a 1000-year-old-vampire charmer.

"Let's go. It won't do if we waste more time here."

He nodded, sending a faraway look towards the hallway behind them. If everyone in the castle was a creature of the night, then Ayana should be one too. He shuddered. That sweet little girl! With his current condition and meager supplies, he couldn't afford initiating another lengthy battle.

Tempting fate.

Tempting fate. That was his talent.

Just as he finished the thought, the familiar thumping footsteps came from somewhere below them.

"It seems like our friends are catching up."

He sighed.

/

They went through several flights of stairs and endless empty corridors. The room hiked even higher as night stretched. At last, they stopped before a giant gate leading to the mansion's tower. It was sturdy, with oversized locks preventing them from moving further.

Taking several minutes to analyze the structure, Nash decided their best bet was to explode it altogether. There wasn't much gunpowder left in his traveling satchel, but it should be enough. Given a little bit of time, he could create a basic Howling Voice explosives.

"Sierra? Can you hold them up for a while?"

Sierra gave him an affirmative nod, steeping forward to set up a barrier. The sound was getting nearer. Once the barrier was completed, she leaned on him. Clearly whatever magic she did expensed much of her energy. He could feel her breath ragged a little. She sighed, examining her pale fingers as he shifted ever so slightly to test the weak spots in the wooden contraption.

The undeads came towards them, but they couldn't walk past Sierra's barrier. With that separating them from the flesh-eating monsters, Nash dropped his tenseness to focus on his craft. Silence felt awkward so he attempted a small talk.

"Who is this 'friend' of yours?"

When she replied, he was surprised to hear the tremble in her voice. He tilted his head to get a clearer look of her face. The confident, bossy woman was gone and in her place was a weary, wistful girl.

"There is a tale, a long one, and most likely boring. You don't need to listen."

'Girls want to be heard when they say so.'

Julie's voice reverberated in his head, calling for him from years in the past.

Sierra began her story.

/

It was almost like a fairy tale, only too grim and too real. She told him of her centuries of loneliness after she acquired the rune, of the day she met and saved a young man's life and fell in love with him over the coming years. She told him of a village they built and the family they made from people who had initially given up on their lives.

She told him of when the tragedy struck, when a newcomer named Neclord stole her True Rune. They could survive without blood as long as the rune was around, but when it was gone from the village, they had to choose between death or going rogue. One by one people she held dear was claimed by the reaper, the others who couldn't bear the reality fell into insanity. Some, including her lover, went on to feed on innocent humans.

She told him a tale of love and betrayal, of selfishness and selflessness.

As the real bearer, she was not affected by the loss of the rune. In the wake of destruction she made up her mind to pursue every single villager who had chosen the path of bloodlust, bringing end to their borrowed time.

She blamed herself. If she hadn't granted the power of the rune to those people, if she hadn't gathered them into the village, if she was not so careless with her rune, if he hadn't saved Rean Penenberg the knight that day and accepted her fate to be alone until the end of time...

As she poured her feelings into words, letting out what seemed to be decades of pent-up emotions, his earlier complaints of her gradually vanished, replaced with sympathy to the girl who shouldered too much burden on her own. She finished her story by the time he finished his 'bomb'. She noticed the change on his stance.

"That was so slow. I spilled too much already,"she pouted.

"The story. I'm sorry that you have to tell it."

"I told you, you didn't have to listen."

There, in what probably the rarest moment of vulnerability in her life, was Sierra Mikain looking over the moon with mournful gaze, her hair and robe silvery blue under the illumination. She looked like the image of a Harmonian goddess he once saw in the church his mother brought him to when he was little. Like many other things, it was something Nash Laktje would never tell her. He did, however, capture the sight in his memory.

The oddly serene moment ended as the barrier light faded, placing them once again under the siege of dead bodies. Nash tinkered with the bomb's trigger.

"Stand back and we'll see how much I'm worth."

It was a pretty explosion, if he was allowed to comment.

/

Report-02

Mission code XXX

The Blue Moon Rune is under possession of someone named 'Neclord'. Possible power-reanimating corpses.