Chapter 5: Suspicions of Conspiracy
814 A.D. Amiens, France
"From my research, it is apparent that the endeavors of mankind are mere puppetry at the hands of the Ancients. Whenever a king vows reform, the Ancients move quickly to stifle it. Under the auspices of Emperor Charlemagne the Frank, the new Holy Roman Empire was at the height of its power."
A young man knelt before one of the church's monks. The monk gestured for him to stand. Anthony, a messenger to Charlemagne the Frank, was handed a scroll. "Deliver this to our lord and Emperor, Charlemagne the Frank. No one but him must see it. They are words for his eyes only. At once!" The monk turned around and left, and Anthony walked off. When he heard a door open and close, he paused and glanced around to make sure no one was there. When he was sure it was all clear, he ducked into a corner and opened the scroll. Anthony caught a glimpse of strange symbols before yellow lightning hit him, knocking him to the ground. The messenger slowly got to his feet, rubbing his head.
"What sorcery is this?" a stunned Anthony asked. "A spell? I am bewitched! If this was meant for Charlemagne… then what will become of him? I have to warn him of this treachery!" He ran for the monastery where Charlemagne was, hoping to reach him before it was too late.
The monastery was silent, except for the hushed whispers of the monks. Anthony walked in between the pews and spoke to a monk standing by a coffin. He informed the messenger that a member of the order fell to his death from a tower. His tone was guarded, making the young man suspect that this was a lie. Anthony looked down at the casket, swallowing hard. He didn't want to do this, but he knew he had to. Pushing aside his fear, he pulled the lid off the casket. All around him, monks whispered feverishly among themselves. The corpse in the casket had a torn and bloodied face, and there was a gaping hole in his chest. The monk nearest to Anthony pulled him aside.
"You have proven what we have feared the most. This poor man has been a victim of great evil. Look how his body has been defiled. As if something has burst out from inside him." The monk pulled out a sword, a Scramasax, and handed to Anthony. "Here, take this for your protection, and find the Bishop! He must be informed of this horrible discovery." He walked away, leaving Anthony alone in the monastery. The door to the visiting chamber where was at was locked, so the young man walked up the stairs to the second floor. But to his surprise, the scenery around him shifted and changed, as if he was being pulled from one reality into another.
"What devilry is this?" he asked himself as the screams of hundreds of people reached his ears. The man walked forward, noticing two statues, one on either side of him. The one on his left had no torso, and the name Pious Augustus was engraved under it. To his right was the statue of a girl. The name on it read Ellia. Anthony wondered who these people were as he walked towards a statue of a hand a few feet in front of him. When he neared it, the hand opened up, revealing a book bound with human skin and bone. It beckoned to Anthony, as if yearning to be possessed once again. He picked it up, and strange images flooded his mind, showing him what happened to Pious and Ellia.
Anthony was back on the steps leading up to the second floor, as if he had been there all along. He took his Scramasax in hand and walked up the rest of the steps. Suddenly, the curse the scroll put on him flared up, and pain racked his body. When it stopped, Anthony looked down at his hands, and was shocked to see that they were gray in color. It was as if the very life was being drained from his body. No, I can't dwell on the thought. I must save Charlemagne, no matter what the cost! Looking up, Anthony spotted a strange gold medallion with three small circles arranged in a triangular pattern on a desk. As he picked it up, it pulsed with power and vanished.
"The medallion… It's vanished!" Suspecting that the book he had found had something to do with this, Anthony opened it up and flipped through a few pages. On one of him, he found the medallion he picked up, the 3-Point Circle of Power, in a space on the page. A bit confused, he closed the book and looked around the room. Behind him, a blue urn with a ghostly blue symbol on it sat on a shelf. Anthony picked it up and examined it, but the urn slipped from his hands and shattered as it hit the floor. In the midst of the pieces was a green rune, which glowed and vanished when he grabbed it. A quick check of the Tome confirmed his thoughts. The rune was now in the book. Quickly scooping up the pieces of the shattered urn, Anthony checked the bookcases in the room. He noticed that amongst the tomes and manuscripts was a single book pristine on the dusty shelf. The messenger pulled it out some, and to his right, a bookcase slid back, then sideways into the wall. There was a wooden ladder leading down into a dark passageway.
After he climbed down the ladder, Anthony walked into a corridor, and was surprised to see three greenish colored creatures turn to him. The nearest one was the tallest, and it had a rune in its body. Scramasax in hand, the young man dispatched all the creatures by merely slicing off their rotting heads, then throwing his sword into their body to finish them off. After picking up the rune the first creature dropped, he exited through the wood door at the end of the corridor.
A monk was swinging his torch at the three walking corpses that attacked him. He managed to set the nearest one ablaze, but dropped the torch in surprise as the creature flailed around and fell down the steps, catching a piece of tapestry on fire. It burned up, unveiling a wooden door. Before the brownish colored monsters could attack the monk, Anthony took them out. He turned back to the monk once he was done and asked him what he was doing down here.
"I was carrying a sacred urn from the baptismal font when I was confronted by the Bishop. He brandished a large blade, and his eyes burned with an evil fire. Frightened, I dropped the urn out of shock, and ran… When I returned to retrieve the urn, I found only the sword the Bishop had left behind. Here, take it. You will need it." The monk pulled out a two-edged sword and handed it to Anthony. He took the blade, then picked the torch up from the floor. With it, he was able to see the dark area down the steps, and pick up the fragments of the green urn. Once he had all of the pieces, he walked through the door.
Anthony walked down the stairwell off to his left, picking up a stone tablet on the floor. It had a symbol carved in the middle, with two words on it. "Magormor, item? What does this mean?" The tablet vanished, and he guessed that it was now in the Tome of Eternal Darkness. He heard the plodding sounds of one of the creatures' footsteps, so he took his sword in hand and cut it down as soon as it came around the corner. As it fell, it dropped the same rune that was inscribed on the stone tablet. This rune must be Magormor… But why did the tablet say item under it? Pondering this, he entered the door at the bottom of the stairwell.
Pain filled his body once more, and it felt like something inside him was changing, shifting around. Anthony winced, then examined the room, trying to put out a thought in his mind. What looked like a skinned man was fighting against the same creatures he had seen all over this maze, and it easily defeated the smaller creature. Off to his right, another of the creatures attacked Anthony. He brought the sword around, cutting through its torso. The reddish colored zombie came at the messenger, who found a harder time defeating it than the others. But it fell to his blade nonetheless. He noticed another stone tablet on a wood pedestal. This time, there was only one word, and they engraving matched the rune he had found in the blue urn. "Xel'lotath," he said weakly, and it vanished. The curse the scroll had put on him was starting to take its toll, and he prayed that he could find Charlemagne before he became too weak to go on.
There was a fountain in the room, and the face on it was that of a demon. From its mouth poured a sickening fluid that emitted a horrible smell. On another wood pedestal near the fountain was a red urn with a blood red symbol on the side. It was filled with the same liquid that was in the fountain. Wondering if he could use it somehow, Anthony picked it up and walked over to a tapestry on the wall. Remembering how the creature from before caught the tapestry covering the door on fire, he used the torch to set it ablaze. Behind it was another door, which he went through.
He was in a hallway that branched off to the left, and was about to walk around when one of the walking corpses came his way. It was cut down easily, and Anthony walked through the next door. As he entered the strange library, he saw the Bishop open a secret doorway and limp through it. The door closed behind him, and there was no visible way of opening it. Anthony walked forward, noticing a strange plate set into the floor. Three circles were arranged in a triangular fashion, as if something belonged in each circle. He put the filled red urn in one of them, and it fit perfectly. "Now, just to find a way to repair the other urns…" Something on the table in front of him caught his eye. It was a scroll with strange, geometric patterns on it and a drawing of a sword. Just under the drawings were some words.
"That which is broken, shall be fixed. That which is dull, will be sharp. Thus is the nature of the Enchant Item magick." Anthony smiled weakly. This was just what he was looking for. The spell scroll vanishes, and he guessed that it was now in the Tome. On one of the libraries shelves on the right side of the room was a stone tablet engraved with a symbol. The messenger picked it up, looking at the name on it. "Antorbok." The codex vanished, and Anthony knew that he had what he needed to cast the spell. Taking out the shards of the green urn, he focused hard. A female voice began to recite the runes he had found, and green symbols appeared on the ground. From them, green lightning shot into the urn, repairing it instantly. He did the same with the blue urn, repairing it also.
Anthony returned to the fountain, filling up the two urns, then placed them on the stone plate set into the floor. The door the Bishop went through opened up, revealing a corridor that branched off to the left. Another one of the brownish colored corpses walked around the corner, coming his way. But like the others, it was cut down in a single swipe. In front of the young man was the door to the Bishop's room. An uneasy feeling was in the pit of Anthony's stomach. Swallowing his fear, he opened the door.
The Bishop was standing before a shrine dedicated to a demonic god. As Anthony closed the door, the Bishop turned to face him. His eyes were blood red, and his face was torn and bloodied. He wasn't a holy man; he was a demon. "So… You have come to return my book… Very well, then. For your efforts, I promise a quick, and merciful, death." Anthony gritted his teeth and enchanted his sword. He ran at the Bishop, unaware of the two red corpses on the ground, and slashed at the demon's head. It snapped back, but he appeared to be unfazed. The Bishop swiped at Anthony, who ducked under the blow.
"Die, foul demon and servant of Satan!" he cried as he thrust the sword into the Bishop's heart. Mustering all his strength, the messenger pulled the blade to the left, cutting through the demon that was the Bishop. He collapses to the ground, dropping a gold key. On either side of Anthony, the two corpses got to their feet and attacked. When he finished them off, he gazed down at the Bishop, who was still struggling to get up, despite his wounds. Anthony reversed his sword in his hand and brought it down hard on the Bishop, and he stopped moving. Pulling out his sword, the messenger grabbed the Bishop's key on the floor and ran out the room.
As Anthony walked out the door, the curse within him acted up again, making him scream in pain. He was finding it hard to fight the curse, and he felt as though all the strength was gone from his body. Up ahead, two more corpses attacked him, but were easily cut through. Back in the Bishop's library, two of the brown colored corpses attacked him, but they fell just like the other ones he encountered. In the hallway leading back to the room with the fountain, Anthony encountered a strange red creature that resembled a scorpion. What he didn't know was that this creature was a Trapper; a being that could send humans, creatures, and objects to the Trapper Dimension. When Anthony tried to run past it, the Trapper let out a strange sound, and red light shot out in circles. The messenger got caught up in the light and vanished from the hallway.
Where the young man found himself at was a strange place with five floating pieces of land and gray mist under them. In front of him was a glowing circle of energy that would change colors to purple, red, green, or blue every few seconds. On each of the pieces of land was a circle of light with one of those four colors. When the circle glowed purple, Anthony stepped into it and found himself on the piece of land with a strange shrine. On the floor up the steps was a purple symbol in the middle of a gold circle. The messenger stepped into the circle, hoping that it would lead back to his world, and he vanished.
He was now back in the hallway where the Trapper had caught him in its attack. Deciding to be a bit more careful, Anthony snuck past the one that was in the room with the fountain. Three corpses attacked him in the stairwell, but quickly fell to his sword. Despite his fatigue, Anthony ran as fast as possible, not pausing to look at the monk he saw earlier. When he entered the corridor that led back to the ladder, pain filled him once again. It made him feel so weak that he was pretty much limping down the hallway. He climbed up the ladder, barely noticing how his hand looked decayed, as if he was becoming one of the corpses that he had fought.
Walking towards the stairs in the monastery's library, he felt and heard heavy footsteps on the floor. But when he looked around, he didn't see the source of the noise. The footsteps drew closer, and all of a sudden, a great red beast with three heads sticking out of the front of its torso walked through the wall. The creature, a "Horror", stopped in the middle of the room and let out an almighty roar. Behind it, a red barrier formed from the floor to the ceiling in front of the stairs, blocking the way down. Anthony enchanted his sword, gripping it with both hands.
"Accursed beast of Satan! I will not let you stand in my way!" He charged at the monster, slashing at its heads. The beast roared in pain as the right head was hit, and red lighting shot into the young man's body. He staggered backwards, but attacked the monster's heads once again, ignoring the pain in his body. Anthony jumped out of the way of the incoming lightning, then slashed at the last remaining head on the Horror. It roared weakly and collapsed to the ground, unable to fight anymore. The messenger stabbed his sword into the Horror, just as the barrier in front of the stairs dissipated.
In the monastery, three walking corpses attacked, but Anthony did not let them stand in his way. He cut through them with ease, ignoring the pain in his weary body. He pulled out the gold Bishop's key as he ran over to the door and unlocked it. It was time to inform Charlemagne of this treachery against him.
A Conspiracy Revealed
As Anthony opened the door, he saw Charlemagne's blackened corpse lying on the stone steps leading up to a large stone chair. Five monks were standing over him, and they all turned to Anthony when they heard the door open. "Nooo! Charlemagne!" he cried in anguish as he ran for his emperor's body. The curse on him flared up again, yellow light pouring out from his chest. "I have failed you…" Anthony fell to the floor next to Charlemagne, his decayed body smoking slightly. The monk on the top step looked down at the two as he spoke, his voice cold and uncaring.
"You are a fool for trying to save him, Anthony! His fate was decided many centuries ago, as is the fate of this world. Despite your fate, there is little to save you from the power of Chattur'gha!" As he said the Ancient's name, a reddish colored creature with bladed arms burst out of the monk's chest, the blood of its host dripping off of it.