Chapter 10: Evacuation
It didn't take long for the party to run into trouble, fifteen minutes after they had initially entered they saw movement. Amongst the scattered torches, they noticed something vast, dark,, and brutish blotting out the flickering light that was in front of them. It had almost been the size of a human but the width of it would show otherwise. Its eyes were many and looked like they belonged to a fish, they glowed with a green baleful light.
It was terrible to behold, especially after seeing the numerous legs on the creature. It moved closer to them now. It still kept its distance but none of them wanted to get close. Though they had just fought undead, a massive spider was not on the list of things they wished to see. But it was moving through the inky darkness with a purpose.
The purpose was close at hand. Soon enough, a change had begun to take place on the bestial features of this spider. New lights had seemed to come to life around its muzzle, shining brighter than the eyes it possessed. With a slow, deliberate motion the spider had unhinged its massive lower jaw, and opened its mouth to feed.
At first glance, it was hard to tell what it was eating. Fragments had fallen out of its mouth that bore a myriad of different shapes. Bulkier pieces soon fell out of its mouth
For a few minutes, the monster gorged itself on the scrap that was in the tunnel, devouring everything it could find. This perplexed the group, usually, spiders eat out of a cocoon and not straight up food. The pickings for the beast had been good, whether it was corpses of wayward citizens who lost their way or other monsters that dwelled within this tunnel. The number of humans that went through this tunnel had been unknown, but the distant smell of rotting blood and corpses told them what they needed to know.
"We got to get past that thing." The Rogue had whispered
The Spider likely saw the party of four, it was wanting them to come out. Toying with its food so they would come and fall into the spider's trap. Christoff wanted this tunnel to be over already, he knew that a tunnel pointed out by the Theocracy would be full of implications, he did not want to see what awaited further in the tunnel.
Drops of water echoed throughout the tunnel, the air had been damp. Whatever this place's original intention was had been lost with years of neglect. Christoff recalled rumors of bandits claiming this as their home, but as time went on they had even left it. With a spider this big, he could hardly blame them as no big payout was worth it when it came to a beast of this size.|
"I'll take it." Scama whispered.
She stalked as best as she could with her plate armor, her tomahawk had been in her hand as she was readying to strike the beast.
[Doppel] She whispered
An ethereal copy of her hatched appeared and slammed into the spider's side as soon as she did. Whatever the spider had planned, it did not account for that. She moved with speed and confidence that few of her stature could possess, her slashes looked like a whirlwind of lethal movement. Mountains of green blood arced through the air as she slashed at the spider until it finally reared back and collapsed.
The three shadows appeared behind her as the spider fell, it was the party. Lilyette had finally spoke
[Anti-Evil Protection] She spoke, casting a spell that was supposed to protect the group from evil entities.
Christoff had walked near the corpse of the spider, it was alone which had been a blessing. If there had been more, the whole party would have had to have gotten engaged in combat.
"I would say search the area, but it seems you are already doing that." Scama said "Let's keep moving, I don't want to keep whatever wonders we have waiting for us waiting."
It took less than sixty seconds for the party to leave the area, advancing down the tunnel. Christoff had kept a lookout in the rear for anything that would attempt to surprise them.
"It seems as if this area is clear." The Rogue said.
"It seems that way." replied Scama. She turned to face the hooded man "Biall, you know what to do. The rest of you on me."
With the exception of Biall, Lilyette and Christoff had followed behind Scama. Biall, the Rogue in the party, was to keep to the shadows and act as a lookout as he scouted ahead. He could temporarily erase his presence so that would work in their favor.
"That went smoothly, Scama." Lilyette said, her voice echoing down the tunnel.
Scama ignored the comment, Lilyette would of likely added something else that would derail the topic anyway.
"Give it a rest, Lilyette." Christoff mumbled to the woman. "The spider is dead, there is nothing else that is in the area that we can see. It seems Scama knows what she is doing."
"Oooohhh, hear that Scama-san? Christoff is praising you." Lilyette said, nudging Scama on the shoulder of her plated armor.
Scama shoved her lightly "B-be quiet, Lily!"
Of course, Christoff paid no attention to this sort of thing. If he had actually been aware of how Scama felt, he could find some peace in his rather dreadful life. Torches had been lit down the narrow corridor, and remnants of camps had shown up as they passed. But interestingly enough, there were no corpses. No signs of struggle, nothing.
"Say, Christoff." The priestess had said, pacing back to walk side by side with him "What do you think of Scama?"
He remained silent at first
"She is a good warrior and she knows the strengths and weaknesses of her team." He replied
"Oooh?" The woman raised an eyebrow "You don't feel anything else for her?"
Christoff let out a sigh "What else is there to feel?"
"You know…affection?" She finally said
Christoff shook his head "Leave me be, priestess."
"So rude, you won't even call me by my real name." Lilyette said, making her way up towards Scama again.
"I think he likes you." Those were the only words that Christoff had heard the woman say before he tuned her out completely.
Christoff watched the lights of his fellows dim and vanish as the tunnel curved away. When they were gone, he turned to look at the rats that were scurrying beside him..
They stood quite still, they moved for a few moments but that was it.
Christoff sighed in his metal helmet. There would be no slaughter here. It was the others that would see bloodshed this day, not he. Of that, he was almost certain. He wished he could go with them, wished he still had a knack for this kind of stuff. Pulling guard on a tunnel had been something he didn't want to do, but Scama was not dumb. It was as if she knew he was a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off.
With nothing but a group of rats for company, and quiet inky darkness all around him, he turned his mind to the glories of the past, and cursed the fate that had left him alive when the rest of his Kingdom had died. Often during times like these, with little to do but await the vengeful slaughter he longed for, his thoughts would turn to death. A part of him, the most self-indulgent part, longed for it. He might have died with honor and glory countless times, but his fate had always been that of the survivor.
Even at his worst, lying in red pieces on a blood-sodden moor while the birds tugged at his entrails, death all but certain to claim him, fate had intervened, denying him the peace of oblivion. He was found, lauded as a great hero, and sent back out to the frontlines. Pride was one thing, but it had its limits. Let a violent end claim him, take him away to stand with the souls of his lost brothers. He hungered for it, but he would not speed its coming. He had long ago sworn his life, however long, to the service of King Ramposa III. Even so, years had come and gone. Just how much more would the king demand of that oath?
To himself, Christoff rumbled, "Perhaps today, I will find a worthy doom. Maybe today I shall be granted the release for which I long. Let them come for me, a great tide of them, clamoring for my destruction. Let us die together, the music of their final bestial screams carrying me to the other side, to the brothers in arms that await me. A violent, bloody end. By the tears of King Ramposa himself, let it be so."
The rats beside him twitched a little on hearing the words, and Christoff half imagined it was about to concur. But rats could not do that. Perhaps he was just imagining such a thing.. Perhaps the man's words echoed its own desperate wish.
'No. It was just a rat – not a man with words and thoughts of its own. Nevertheless, we are both denied death for the service we might render', thought Christoff as he looked down at the brown, damp fur of the creatures.
His sense of pride rose up then and rebelled against this growing malaise. He felt anger at himself. What was he doing, comparing himself to a rat? How could he allow such weakness, such self-doubt? They were nothing alike. He, Christoff, was a knight, a mighty warrior of the Troop once led by Gazef. He had not run because he was weak, nor had he committed some crime of heresy or treachery like countless others who dwelled in the kingdom have. Christoff endured because he was strong, resilient, indomitable, and relentless.
His was a life worth extending, no matter the price, no matter the suffering and the loneliness and the interminable survivor guilt. What was left of his kingdom still needed him. The Fourth Armament needed him. This upstart priestess, Scama, and her group… They would need him, too, before the day was out.
While filthy undead forces still threatened everything his Kingdom had ever fought and died to protect, he would go on, his bloodlust insatiable.
One day, when the time was right, death would bring an end to duty.
Let the King decide that day, not he, and not some filthy undying creature.
Deep in such thoughts, he walked the chamber's perimeter, his oil lamp lighting his way
The old mineworks sensed him, heard him, listened to his restless grumblings as it breathed slow icy breaths, waiting for the maelstrom of violence and slaughter that was to come.
Christoff's insides bubbled with anger and impatience. Better they had left him alone in that inn than drag him down here to stand guard in an empty chamber no one, not even the enemy, cared about.
A black pox on the wretched miners that made the tunnels to He ought to be with the others. Who knew what they were doing right now? Biall had not made any contact with him, could he have already been abandoned?
He raged at the thought of others seeing combat while he sat here like a glorified watch-dog. By the souls of all those lost, it was an outrage. An outrage!
Looking at the rats quietly covering the tunnel mouths and passageways at his back, an impulse flickered through him, only momentary, but there nevertheless. It was the urge to obliterate the little rodents. The rats had done nothing wrong, but such was the rage within Christoff that no one and nothing was safe when such a mood took him.
He cursed in the old dialect of his forest-covered village – a birthplace he had shared with some of his late fellow knights.. Even as he called the old curse to mind, his anger was cooled and was replaced by that deep melancholy to which he was far from a stranger. 'Am I the only one left who curses in such a way? Might there not be some remnant of the Royal Army out there among the stars, perhaps looking for others who survived the battle with the Sorcerer King?'
By Ramposa, there had never been darker days than those. Christoff had been there at the beginning. Now his armor was shot
Scars he had in great abundance, of course. So many, in fact, that his armor had been nearly falling apart. But though he had won honor and more with his deeds, when the time came to end his term of service, there was no home left to which he might return.
As far as Christoff knew, none left alive bore the icon of the Re-Estize kingdom..
He was no fool. Kingdoms vanquished. It happened. The war for dominion over this sprawling world demanded blood by the oceanful. It could not be won without sacrifice. But the knowledge did nothing to salve his spiritual wounds.
There were few places to take solace. One, of course, was in ending the lives of as many foul undead spawn as he could hope to encounter. It was why he became so enraged at the thought of others battling while he stood and waited. The other was in that narrow thread of hope, his most fervent wish, that one day, he would see the icon of the Royal Army on another knight's set of armor, and know for sure that Christoff Amadeus was not the last of his kind.
Fight on till then, he told himself. Earn that moment with the blood of your foes
He had heard a sound behind him, the sound of metallic clattering and a shuffling that echoed briefly from the chamber walls
Christoff had turned casually, unconcerned, thinking that perhaps his rodent companion had gotten into old pottery or something. As he did, there was a sudden roar and he could see an arrow whizzing past him. He was still turning when the arrow had struck his plate armor and bounced the arrow hit him with any more force, he may have been on his way to meet his fallen kingdom mates.
The sudden shock of feeling the impact and seeing the arrow had caught him off balance for a moment, He recovered his balance and was about to unleash attacks of his own into the dark abyss when, from the open tunnel mouths armed targets surged forward and the ones with bows had fired screaming as if they were possessed.
The thick arrows licked across Christoff's plate, tracing deep lines against the surface of his armor but was doing no real damage. No matter how many arrows they had sent, the attempts had been futile. The levels between the two had been clear.
"You cannot harm me. You made a fatal error in judgment and the price will be your lives!" Christoff snarled, clearly shuddering as he was engulfed in combat.
He decided to attack, he raised his glaive up in the air.
[Lightning Slash] He said.
Lightning acted as if it were called into his weapon and surged at the blade of his glaive. He swung downwards and as the glaive hit the floor, a surge of lightning went towards his targets. Multiple were incinerated and others still remained, locked in their futile attempts of resistance. Bodies gushed over the cold floor, some had been torn in half by the spell that he had just used.
Christoff met all of the trackers that had entered the chamber with deadly force, but they were not undead. They were people. Maybe bandits? He did not know.
The Knight had lost all thoughts of regret and self pity then. All he knew was a battle lust and the joy of slaughter. What manner of men would hurl themselves at a foe that outclasses them?
His arrogance and revelry in bloodshed undid Christoff then.
He heard a clang. A vibration had shook through his right side. He tried to turn and see what had happened, but his range of motion had been failing him. He finally managed to turn and saw a strange looking man with shining yellow eyes backing away from him.
"What have you done?" Christoff roared at him
Without waiting for an answer, he slashed his glaive almost as fast as quicksilver. The lightning had still been imbued in his weapon and when he was done there was barely anything left that resembled a human form at all. But, no sooner had the strange man been killed did he discover what the noise and shudder had been.
A Houroku Ball.
An explosion had rocked him, knocking him from his position and hurling him twenty meters across the chamber floor down the pathway that Scama and the others had taken.
Parts of his right arm and shoulder showered into the ground, a hail of flesh and scorched plate that had only moments before been one. His HP had dropped significantly but he ignored it.
With a roar of absolute rage, he struggled up onto his feet, leveling himself upwards with his glaive that was in his left hand He turned his gaze back to the center of the chamber, just in time to see the position he was at gather the attention of the other brigands who had been present. Another Houroku Ball was hurled towards him, he saw it coming and managed to get to a distance where the blast would not be as fatal. It exploded.
The concussive wave kicked him back and pelted him with a rain of small rocks. Christoff rose again, set his stance wide and roared at the remaining brigands. He raised his Glaive in the air, the weapon crackling with deadly arcs of lightning.
"To me, you brainless dogs! To me, you twisted fools! Christoff of the Warrior Troop will teach you how to die!"
The concussive blast had caused a minor quake deeper in the tunnels which the other's had felt.
In a mad blood lust of fury, Christoff had his whole reality warped. He was in the palace, the undead forces had been coming towards him non step. One strike. He sliced an undead in half, his torso flying through the air. He felt another ding as a sword crashed off his plate then a surge of pain as another connected to his right arm he could no longer use.
"King Ramposa still stands, the Sorcerer Kingdom will not prevail! See as the gates still hold, the palace stands!" Christoff shouted, head butting the brigand who had just connected with his arm. So much force was in the head but that it cracked his skull straight open, causing blood to pour out.
The bodies had piled, most of the brigands had fallen save for one who was cowering in fear. He was pleading for his life, begging for mercy while on his knees. Christoff did not see that, however, he saw a zombified soldier that was on its knees. With a menacing howl, Christoff delivered a final blow to the weeping man and severed his head from his shoulders.
Denial fails me. The tunnel vanishes at once.
I am standing on Katze Plains. The Royal Palace burns to the east.
No, it does not. It is the torches in front of me that burn. I know this. I cannot see it. The reality of the kingdom iis firm. I cannot pierce the lie.
A figure blocks my path. In the burning fog of red and black, I cannot see the color of his armor. If he seeks to interfere, he is an enemy. I raise my glaive, blood still dripping off of the blade.
"Christoff."' the shape says. "Christoff!"'
He knows me.
I know him. Biall.
The Tunnels. I am in the tunnels.
But all I see, tinted crimson, it is my kingdom.
Thunder. Flashes. Shaking beneath my feet
Impacts. There is shelter here
I cannot see the crater. The impacts are from the enemy's magic attacks. Fired from the stolen walls of the Palace
No. That is the lie. Surfaced from the curse.
'What do you see?' Biall asks.
Sinking. Sinking.
"I see you," I croak. 'Biall."
"Where are you?"
"In the tunnel." I lie. I cannot be shackled now. I must lead the attack
I walk forward. I stop. I try again to force the vision away. It shifts as if broken up by the meteor storm. I am not on Katze Plains. I am in the Royal Palace. Marble flooring beneath my feet. Luscious walls on either side.
Lies. Lies. Lies
"Where are you?" Biall insists. His shape gathers definition. A hulking figure wielding a staff
No. No. No
"The tunnels Scama led us to," I say. I think I do. My lips move. I cannot hear what I say for the clash of swords and the roars of battling knights near me.
That must be a lie too.
But I do not know.
All trace of the real is gone. All I can grasp is the shifting of the illusion. The knowledge that what I see is not real. If I lose that conviction, I am lost
.
More words from the Tyrant–
Biall.
–from Biall. I cannot hear them. I do not respond. I do not move. He repeats himself. 'Where are you going?'
Where?
Down this corridor?
No. No corridors.
The thirst for vengeance saves me. I was going to lead the attack. Truth and delusion intersect for an instant. I remember the goal of the attack. I remember the means. Where am I going?
"To defend the rear," I say
"Where is that at?"
I was walking towards it
Towards what?
Towards the Throne Room. I will find Ainz there. Sounds of battle ahead. The promise of justice.
No
No. I try to see through the presence of the Royal Palace. I cannot. But there was a chamber near me. Not far from here. 'Straight ahead,' I say. I point at a door
Out of my way.
The battle clash is growing louder. I am needed. I will prevent the Fall.
Out of my way.
"It is not." The figure before me is an enemy. But he does not attack. He stands still. My hand is closed over the haft of my glaive, but I do not raise it. Biall, I tell myself. A name from a memory of the future. This is Biall
I hold myself frozen. I cannot believe what I see. My cause is clear. My rage has focused. But the means of vengeance are slipping away. I grasp at the single immediate task: cover the rear. The task I cannot complete.
Motionless. Any step could be the wrong one. The Curse plunges me deeper into its lies. The false reality of the palace solidifies. It surrounds me with the presence of enemies. My strength is consumed in maintaining awareness of the lie. A slip and the curse will control my actions. I will attack.
"Do you hear me, Christoff?" Biall asks.
"I do." Teeth clenched, jaw fused to iron. Speech is a trial
"Do you see me?"
The shape before me. The shape of my enemy. He–
"No," I say.