Divergent Paths
Dave leaned up against one of the few remaining pillars, panting heavily and rubbing his sore head. He wanted nothing more than to remove all this hot, chaffing armor and just lie down somewhere and fucking rest. But that blast of magic had, among other things, given him a wicked headache and nearly every motion he made sent a sharp pang through his skull. So he just stood there, one arm leaning against the pillar, catching his breath and watching Vantas.
As far as Dave could tell the angry little midget was reeling from the magic too, though he was also hell bent on getting to Maryam. The girl had been lucky enough to land to the right of the demon, opposite the direction where its lifeless body collapsed after she'd driven that monster of a sword into its head. She landed hard and hadn't moved since.
As the mind numbing pain in his head dulled to something a little less numbing he dropped his shield as brought his hand up to raise his visor. Leaning his armored shoulder up against the pillar he struggled to pull the thick leather glove off his right hand, exposing his bare forearm to the cold mountain air. He used the glove to wipe the sweat from his face before dropping to the ground and sitting back against the pillar.
His journey to the Northern Asylum had been a long one, and making it in the thick suit of armor would have been next to impossible. By the time his body had begun breaking down he'd sold most of the plate armor off his chest and long since discarded his right pauldron, vambrace, and gauntlet. He'd been worried that losing that much weight, while making the trip to the Asylum more manageable, would bite him in the ass once he actually arrived.
As it turns out, he was right to discard the armor. Had he been fully suited he would've collapsed from exhaustion and been crushed by the demon.
Once his breathing returned to normal he turned his head toward Vantas and Maryam, watching as the annoying little bastard gently helped the other undead sit up. He called out to them, "hey Maryam, you alright?"
She looked over her friend's shoulder, said friend currently occupied with fussing over some sort of injury on her leg, and answered back "Aside from a small gash on my leg I'm quite alright."
Dave gave a half-hearted thumbs up before slumping his arm back down, leaning his head forward, and shutting his eyes. He'd ask about the important shit, like where she got the sword, what the hell that blast of magic was, and why Karkat is a fucking idiot, after they'd had a damn breather.
And then the light came back.
He gasped, eyes widening, as the magic worked its way back into his skull. Distantly he could hear Karkat screaming "FUCK" over and over again, though the magic was screwing with his senses, making it seem like he was hearing Karkat's shouts from underwater.
He'd felt this once before, on his first mission outside Astora. He'd been younger, only fifteen, and never so much as touched any sort of armor tougher than the light leather vest and bracers Dirk taught him to make. His only weapon had been a plain but sturdy shortsword, the only weapon Dirk was willing to let his younger brother leave their armory with.
His task was simple: "Take some of these dragon tongue seeds to an alchemist in Toadstool Hollow. It's a small hamlet about a day's trip north of the city. Watch your ass."
And watch his ass he did. Even though any roads that close to Astora would be regularly patrolled by the king's soldiers, Dave wasn't letting his hand leave the hilt of his sword. He knew danger could come from anywhere, Dirk had seen to that.
Unfortunately for Dave 'anywhere' apparently didn't register with his brain as a magic seal carved into the doorway of a paranoid wizard too deaf to hear the delivery boy knocking. Ten minutes later he was nursing a vicious headache and wiping vomit from the corner of his mouth with a handkerchief offered by a deaf ass wizard who explained in agonizing detail how you can weaponize a magic rune by inscribing it with too much magic. The overcharged rune would release pure, concentrated magic that could basically fuck the brain of any nearby sentient beings into next week without any collateral damage. And the stronger the wizard, the more dangerous the overcharged rune.
Were Dave not such a stone cold badass he would be pissing his chainmail at the idea of meeting the sorcerer who'd set the runes in the undead asylum. The fact the he'd sweated out whatever liquid that might be left in his recently restored body was probably nice too though.
~)
It was up to Kanaya to translate, and for the last half hour she'd been etching her translations into the cold dirt of the courtyard with an errant metal bar scavenged for her by Karkat, who was currently resting at the fire with Dave, who'd removed most of his armor and was wiping the insides and joints down with a rag soaked in some sort of strange oil-like substance.
Clad in nothing but cloth shorts, the foul mouthed knight certainly cut an impressive figure. She thought she ought to be very attracted to him, he was essentially a cruder version of the main character in several of her favorite books, but she just didn't feel anything other than a desire to see what he would look like in something a little more red and form fitting than his armor and surcoat.
Shaking her head and pushing that issue to the back of her mind, something she'd gotten quite good at back at home, she turned her eyes back to her work. Unlike the knights Kanaya fully expected to find a new message scrawled in magic in the ground once the blinding light of the magic dissipated. She wasn't expecting the entire floor of the room to be covered in them however. Once she'd explained to her companions what exactly the brightly glowing markings were Karkat assigned her the task of translating and later, using a short piece of metal bar he'd scavenged, inscribing them into the ground around the flaming sword, which the markings referred to as a bonfire, as way of passing on the information on to any who might come to that place after them.
As she worked it became clear that the messages contained a great deal of valuable information from their mysterious benefactor, who according to Dave must be an extremely powerful wizard. Among the information were instructions on how to fill the Estus Flasks; as it turned out the slow moving flames of the bonfire itself could be stored in the dull green bottles, which when consumed can supposedly heal an undead of any wound. Kanaya had been certain to relay this information as soon as she read it, and now all three of them had a green flask filled with liquid fire strapped securely to their waists.
The messages also revealed the secret behind the dual mysteries of Dave's restored body and his miraculous blocking of the demons hammer. Apparently the undead could return their bodies by resting at a bonfire after obtaining a small black sprite aptly named humanity, which Dave informed her he'd found on the corpse of a bandit he'd killed on the way up here and that the sprite had crumbled into his hand when he'd applied just the slightest bit of pressure.
They'd also learned that when an undead killed something it stole that something's soul and that when they rested at a bonfire they'd be strengthened by it. Kanaya personally found the idea of making herself stronger by stealing souls a little disturbing, though it did answer the boys question as to how Dave blocked the demons hammer, something Kanaya kind of wished she'd been there to see. Apparently Dave had killed a "shit ton of bitch-ass spider fetish bandits" on his way up the mountains. A separate message elaborated on this, explaining that an undead will steal the soul of any dying sentient creature as long as they are in its general vicinity. And while Dave and Karkat both attested to feeling significantly different once they approached the bonfire after the demons death, Dave stating that his armor was nowhere near as heavy as it should be and Karkat claiming to feel like he could catch an arrow with his teeth, Kanaya felt no different. She wasn't sure what to make of this, and their mysterious wizard friend left no messages that might illuminate the issue. As it was, she pushed the issue aside for later.
One mystery that hadn't been solved however was the inclusion of her name in the message urging her to take down the demon. When she'd told Karkat about this he'd become very unsettled at the prospect that this mysterious wizard was watching them somehow, though Dave merely muttered "fuckin' wizards, man" and waved the issue off. She got the impression this wasn't the first instance of magic related shenanigans he'd run across.
Finally, Kanaya finished scratching the last bit of information into the frozen dirt. She informed Karkat of her completed task, and he immediately rose from his position by the fire to address the group.
"All right, now we've done our part to make someone out there in the future a little less of an ignorant shit lord, only without frying their brains in the process unlike the asshole who left those shitty messages for us. Good job. Now, Strider, time to put this supposed super strength of yours to the test and find out whether or not this magical old fart is blowing metaphorical steam up our collective metaphorical asshole. Go open that big fucking door."
Kanaya could tell Dave wanted badly to verbally lash out at Karkat and was happy to see him restrain himself and give a grunt of assent instead, shrugging on his surcoat and some thin chain-link grieves before rising from the fire making his way across the ruined room towards the large door on the other side, carefully going around the corpse of the demon lying just to its right, the large sword still stubbornly lodged in its cranium.
A part of her liked to think the withering glare, the very best one she could manage, she shot Dave's way had been what had kept his mouth shut, though in fact he found her attempts at being threatening kind of hilarious. He did however know that it was much easier to just go along with the angry little fucker rather than spend forever arguing with him only to have Maryam jump in and mediate, making both of them feel like a couple of whiny kids in the process.
He braced both hands against the door and pushed as hard as he could, the backs of his feet lifting of the ground as he tried pushing himself off the ground to get more force on the door. Slowly, his face turning red from the exertion, Dave forced one side of the giant metal double doors open wide enough for the three of them to slip through.
From the courtyard Kanaya watched in amazement at the Astoran's incredible show of strength. Not that she doubted the wisdom of their mysterious benefactor, because clearly this individual was a very wise and powerful entity who was assuredly watching over them. It was just that, actually seeing a mortal man move something like that was just awe inspiring. And from the muttered curse she heard from somewhere to her left, she felt confident that Karkat agreed.
~)~)
Karkat found this whole "Dave has super strength" deal just a little bit disturbing. It wasn't that he was expecting the bastard to turn of them or anything, hell the shithead had been right behind Karkat when he'd fallen into the demons room. While Karkat personally felt that that was a dumbass decision, there was no reason for both of them to die, he appreciated Strider having his back. As far as Karkat was concerned he and Dave were even for saving each other's lives. Mutual life saving aside however he still found it unsettling how easily the knight could dispatch him. The slight increase in his reflexes would be useless against Dave so long as Karkat lacked a decent weapon. And even then the other knight had a fully restored human body while Karkat had to subsist on short bursts of returned muscle mass from the bonfire.
As Dave returned to the fire to begin the process of storing his cleaning tools and donning his armor Karkat motioned for Kanaya to follow him out the newly opened door and out into the graveyard. As she caught up to him and they made their way up trail to what seemed to be the very summit of the mountain he questioned her about Dave.
"So what do you think of that walking shit can?"
"I think you and he will get along well. You two can bond over you shared distaste for proper language."
"Oh ha-fucking-ha. You just think your such a gods be damned comedian don't you? Seriously though what's your read on him."
"Well take in mind that I am in no way an expert on reading people though I suppose I can give you my opinion on him if you wish. I think he is very crude for a man of his supposed station, though so are you and you've been nice enough. He has given us no reason for us to distrust him and his skills and equipment have been useful. I guess he's okay, is what I'm trying to say here."
"Hm."
"Is there any reason in particular you're asking?"
"I've been thinking about getting off this mountain."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kanaya visibly cringe. He immeditaly stopped and turned to face her. "whoa, what's wrong?"
"I suppose this conversation was inevitable wasn't?"
"What conversation? What the fuck are you even talking about?"
"You're leaving, yes? I understand of course I could hardly expect someone like you to willingly waste away here in the asylum and it's not like I could come with you. Even if I could restore my body completely like Dave there's no way I'd ever make it off this mountain, not without falling the whole way down and I doubt even an undead could survive something like that I mean clearly we don't age and we won't starve but both you and Dave have killed several mad hollows so clearly we're not immortal."
Karkat stopped dead I his tracks, grabbing Kanaya's arm to stop her too and looking up at her with eyes she would've described as child-like had she not watched him kill hollows by stabbing them in the neck repedetly with a rusty piece of cloth wrapped metal not two hours ago.
"Hold up there Maryam, what are you saying? I'm not fucking leaving you here you flighty broad, so quit with that horse shit right this fucking instance! I'll give you fucking fitness training, I'll set up camps where you can rest along every flat surface I find on this ass biting mountain, I'll do something, but for the love of all those cocksucking, ass licking deities who've conspired to shit on everything I do, I fucking swear I'm not just going to leave you here on this gods forsaken mountain! What kind of heartless bastard do you think I am!?"
Few a few seconds all Karkat could do was stand there and try to catch his breath. Even with the minor restoration he'd gotten from his recent bonfire rest, he'd still apparently overestimated how long he could go without pausing to breathe.
For her part all Kanaya could do was raise the hairless, dried patches of brown skin that used to be her eyebrows as high up as they could go and struggle to respond. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was thankful that Karkat had worn himself out a little with that speech, it spared her from him seeing her repeadetly open and close her mouth like damned fish, starting to say something but halting right at the last second. How in the hell was she supposed to respond to this?
Glancing to her right she could see Dave still at the bonfire, struggling with his armor. Confident that she wasn't about to humiliate him she bent down slightly and gave him the smallest, lightest hug she could manage and muttered a quick "Thank you".
Pulling back she immediately felt embarrassed under Karkat's wide-eyed incredulous stare. He quickly turned his head however and muttered an embaressed "welcome". Kanaya smiled at that, happy that she hadn't been too presumptuous with her impromptu thank you hug.
Karkat just frowned harder, grateful that his alabaster skin had rotted far beyond the point where it could show a blush. He continued walking up the trail through the graveyard and towards what appeared to be the peak of the mountain, gesturing for Kanaya to follow. "C'mon Kanaya, lets see if we can spot any landmarks up there then head back and discuss this bullshit with Strider. Maybe he's got a half decent plan for getting off this bitch. Hell, maybe he want's company and he'll let us tag along?"
Karkat only said that out of some uncharacteristic optimism and a desire to keep Kanaya's spirits up. He highly doubted the Astoran would want to half hollows with him when he went down the mountain. Still, Kanaya seemed to be under the impression that it was a serious possibility and he saw no reason to burst her bubble.
"It wouldn't surprise me if he did want us along" she said. "You two do work well together."
"You can fuck right off with that notion Maryam!"
Kanaya just smiled, she was beginning to become accustomed to her companions pessimissim. Together they made their way up the trail, and somewhere below them in a hollowed crevice on the side of the mountain filled with the remains of trees scavenged from distant lands, woven into the shape of a nest, the great crow awoke from its slumber.
ST: Currently in the process of editing previous chapters to make them slightly less of a hot mess. You also may have noticed no more typing quirks in dialogue. While editing it out of previous chapters is a long and tedious process I think it looks better. Anyone disgree? Not sure if i'll keep quirks that would show up in regular speech (wavy accent, fish puns, slight lisp) or not. We'll see.
Just one more chapter and the Asylum will finally be done. Thank you jesus.
