The wrecks' coast
In the inn of the "Sea Serpent", Artoria was the first to wake up. She shared the bed with Rin Tohsaka. The young woman still slept deeply, her face turned to hers, and the blond knight had a light smile. The rested features, her friend looked like an angel... It was enough that she opened her mouth to erase this impression.
Taking care not to disturb the Magus, the King of the Knights washed her in the basin of water, and then began to comb her hair. The mat she wrapped around her head required a lot of work. After brushing her hair, she separated the gold threads in three, casting part on her two shoulders. Then Artoria attached those who were still falling into her neck and used them to form a bun. Then she made two braids that she held around the bun with pins before tying them together with a blue ribbon.
Despite the noise in the inn, nothing had awakened Rin. Amused by the heaviness of her sleep, but also a little annoyed, Artoria came to shake the Magus.
There was a grunt followed by a few unintelligible words.
Artoria sighed and called her while continuing to touch her shoulder.
- Five minutes...
- No, Rin, we have to leave as soon as possible. You have to get up and get dressed. We're not safe here.
These few words caused the Japanese to react, who finally got into bed. However, the glassy gaze with which she swept the poor furniture of the room could hardly be qualified as alert.
- I am going down to order us breakfast.
Saber left the room, leaving behind Rin Tohsaka, struggling to wake up.
To tell you the truth, the Magus looked like a zombie... okay, a very pretty zombie... but brought back to life by an amateur necromancer. The pale skin, long black hair... now tangled, she was covering the world with a bovine look and slowly began to lean to the side. Recovering, the girl yawns and stands before moving very softly towards the toilet bowl... hitting the wall... staring at it for thirty seconds before changing direction to the real bowl!
The sword at the side, but only dressed in a gambeson (an armor of quilted fabric) Artoria went out into the corridor to discover that Shiro was already up. She heard him talking to the cook, an Argonian. When she arrived in the great hall, the King of the Knights had an amused smile. The young Japanese reincarnated... gave a cooking class to the inn owners.
It was so predictable. First Shiro Emiya didn't like anything more than helping others. Second, he was the best cook Artoria ever met.
The teenager finished frying rice while Deep-Dive, the cook, would fry a mixture of vegetables and meat. Although busy with his own task, Shiro watched over his neighbor's work:
- Well, we will now add the sauce... unfortunately we don't have any sake, mirin, or even soy sauce for the preparation and will have to settle for the white wine and tomatoes that I made for you.
The lizard woman nodded as Shiro discovered Artoria looking at them from the bottom of the stairs:
- Sit down, we'll finish soon. Rin is coming?
- If she hasn't gone back to sleep...
The two friends sighed simultaneously. The Magus had the deepest sleep they had ever seen and had an extraordinary ease of going back to sleep.
Artoria sat at a table where she could see the two cooks working. Shiro now incorporated the rice sauce, with the precise gestures worthy of the chef of great restaurant. This did not prevent him from giving advice to Deep-Dive who was preparing an omelet.
The smell rising from the kitchen caused a rumble in her stomach, while the water came to Saber's mouth. Watching them was a real torment... that contributed to the final reward.
After placing one third of the mixture on the omelet, Shiro replaced Deep-Dive to show her how to flip an omelet without breaking it. Then he came to serve Artoria. Fortunately, the typical Japanese rice omelet was not the only dish and the fish, toasted toast, butter and jam quickly gathered around the King of Knights.
Rin - a bit more alive- came to join her, accompanied by Shiro who had finally finished his cooking class.
While they were eating, the Magus awoke enough to speak:
- So what is the program today? We arrived in Verandia, but we still have to find the two fragments of Crystal that Le Fey placed on us so "precisely".
Tohsaka's usual irony actually insisted on the vague nature of the prophecy. In the last ten days, the young people had crossed mountains, plains and waterways as Le Fey had said. But the last two elements of his description of the route they were to follow were more particular... a shipwrecker's coast and a forest where the gallows grow.
Artoria looked calmly at her friend. After years of reign guided by Merlin's advice, she understood her frustration:
- Prophecies are generally understood only once they are fulfilled.
- Why do the gods never do things simply? Maybe give us a map with indications like "here, crystal fragment"?
Shiro and Artoria exchanged a half-exasperated, half-amused look. The amber-eyed blacksmith took an ironic view:
- You almost sound like a goddess yourself.
Rin squished her eyes and smiled in a perfectly evil way:
- I would probably make a goddess more than acceptable.
As Shiro shook his head, Saber simply emptied her third plate. While demanding a supplement from her lover, she turned to Tohsaka:
- And what kind of goddess would you be?
In a surprising way Rin blushed and turned her head aside, fleeing Shiro's gaze. She hesitated before answering with a very small voice that did not resemble her usual assurance:
- A goddess of love.
Arturia and Shiro made heroic efforts to try to suppress the mad-laugh crisis that threatened to erupt. What seeing, Tohsaka pounded with anger. A moment later, she stood on her chair, one foot on the table and pointed to them with an accusing finger:
- Dare to say that I will not make an excellent goddess of love!
Shiro looked down. He too had a touch of red on his cheeks, but for a very different reason. White...
- Rin... you forgot again that you wear a very short skirt.
- Hiiiiiii... perverts!
- Um... it's not like I asked to see your pan...
A noise startled the honest people walking in the street. As if someone had violently slammed a door.
Far from there, in a land where eternal snow fell, was a strange ring-shaped building. A Mesopotamian goddess with little clothing suddenly sneezed and stopped: "Would anyone dare to disrespect Ishtar?"
Hollow Bottom was a community in the Duchy of Verandia. It was a place hard to see, a fishing village with a few plank huts around a cove. The place smelled like rotten fish and was only decorated with fishing nets drying out. A pier of rotten boards was home to boats that were oscillating in the dirty water where debris floated.
Rin, Artoria and Shiro crossed Hollow Bottom along the imperial road, one of these solid paved roads built by Cyrodiil's engineers. After descending into the coastal valley, the track went up north, cutting off a peninsula.
The horses carrying the travelers followed by a pack animal skirted a high limestone cliff. From there, they discovered a coast landscape of wild beauty covered by a grey autumn sky. The Azurian Ocean stretched westward almost indefinitely, overflowing with seagulls screaming in the wind. To the south, one could see an island. It was not so distant from the land and the ocean, at low tide, revealed a narrow beach that connected it to the coast. Here, a succession of limestone needles carved by erosion emerged.
Hazily discerning something, Shiro reinforced his sight:
- Wrecks! Shipwrecks!
Artoria, who followed him holding the horse carrying their luggage, look towards the stone teeth:
- What about wrecks?
Shiro turned around and no one could have missed the mark showing a perfectly drawn hand, in red, on his left cheek.
Although busy sulking, Rin agreed to speak:
- Artoria, can you ask this pervert how many ships there are?
Saber gave Shiro a poor smile. Shiro once again paid for their friend's bad character. However, she did not need to convey the message because the blacksmith had heard it perfectly.
- Three ships, Rin. Two are merchant ships, the third a warship. They probably ripped open on the reefs in a storm, but... there's a lighthouse at the end of the island.
Tohsaka rubbed her lips, eyes lost in the undertow at the foot of the cliff.
- We found the shore of the shipwreckers...
She took a map out of her bag and unrolled it, following the path with her finger. The village of Hollow Bottom, the peninsula with the island... even the rocky teeth and the lighthouse were represented on the scroll of vellum ragpaper. The road went further north and turned east towards the capital of the duchy, the city of Crestshade. The city was about two days away by horse, but before evening they would wait for a vast forest that stretched almost to its ramparts.
Probably it was the "forest where the gallows grew".
- Let us not linger!
Shiro wanted to protest, but Rin cut him off:
- Nothing can be done about the shipwreckers and nothing for the victims. What do you want to do? Wait until the next storm? Very noble, but people are waiting for us to release them in Wayrest. The most important thing remains to find Excalibur and to save Menevia.
Shiro nodded. He remembered a certain evening spent watching the moon with his adoptive father. "You can't save everyone," Kiritsugu said. "Even a hero has to choose who he wants to save". It was the memory of another life, but he was just beginning to understand it.
The imperial way had reached a century-old forest. Oaks, birches and elms now lined it on all sides. Autumn had stripped these trees and the bare branches were tending in the cold wind that was circulating between the trunks, swirling heaps of dead leaves.
The night had fallen and above the travelers the two moons of Nirn shone.
However, the trio continued to advance, in search of a place to establish their camp. In front of the small group, Shiro suddenly stopped. Hearing faint cries:
- They... they...
At the turn of a large tree, a small clearing had been set up at the side of the road to accommodate... pillories placed on top of a mound. There was an old man dressed in habit, his head and hands caught in a heavy shackle of wood. His hail voice reached the blacksmith. He muttered incomprehensible things and staring at the shadows of the forest.
Shiro glanced around him and discovered movements behind the tree curtain. Jumping from the horse, he summoned Kanshou and Bakuya.
- Rin, will deliver the old man. Saber, we are not alone.
-I saw, just note the knight.
As the Magus sprang from her horse and move towards the prisoner, unfamiliar grunts rose from nearby woods. Rin came to rest, her right arm extended, and her left hand in support. His pair of Chinese swords crossed in front of him, Shiro retreated without losing sight of the movements of the shadows. Saber the flank on the other side drawn sword, raised shield. The horses showed signs of great nervousness...
And then they came out of nowhere!
Clothed in ragged clothing, their faces were decomposed with eyes like sinkholes of shadow. Their mouths opened in a terrible grimace discovered yellow fangs.
Six of these undead were rushing towards them, much faster than zombies.
-Gandr!
A barrage of black projectiles haloed with red crossed the night. Two monsters collapsed. Shiro already acted. Throwing Kanshou, he mowed one of the creatures. A third jumped towards Rin... but was repelled by the shield of Saber, suddenly interposed. As the undead struggled to get up, the adolescent's sword blew his head off his shoulders.
Although half of the attackers were already eliminated, the others showed no signs of fear.
Returning like a boomerang, Kanshou sank into the back of a second opponent. Shiro materialized a double of the Chinese sword to block the attack of an undead abomination that tried to tear him with its long claws.
The monster was cut in half in an instant by Saber, who had just jumped beside his lover. The amber-eyed blacksmith spun it around and his blades described an X in the air, neutralizing the last of the undead.
The silence fell... bodies littered the ground, but none rose.
Shiro slowly lowered his twin blades:
- What was that?
- Ghouls, replied Rin. These are the living dead who appear when humans die in cursed places. These are cannibal monsters whose bites paralyze their prey. The one who is killed by a ghoul becomes one. Despite this, their tongue is much sought after by alchemists because it is the main ingredient of the Potion of understanding languages.
Shiro grabs Saber's disgusted pout from the corner of his eye. He preferred to talk about something else:
- Should we not help the old man?
Tohsaka nodded. As Shiro loosened the ties of the gangue, the young Magus lay the old one on the ground. Unfortunately, he was very weak. Nevertheless, he opened his eyes and smiled at them:
- Thank you very much, young people.
- Why were you there, asked Rin.
The old man tried to laugh, but it was only a coarseness that ended on a straight cough:
- Why? In Verandia, there is no reason... the Black Knights caught me on the road with their big horses and seized me because I had violated a Duke's arrest... I still do not know which... they condemned me to the pillory... until hunger and cold kill me... wherever the harpies of the forest devour me.
Saber, who stood guard with a sword in her fist, clasped:
- Condemned without trial? Without even explaining why?
- So it is in Verandia, Duke Astrum Galliasta condemns whom he wants. All tremble before him and no one would dare to oppose his decrees.
The old man's voice was weakening from moment to moment. Freed from the fear of the ghouls, it seemed to go out. However, he still had something to say:
- I have nothing to offer you for rescuing me... except what I saw... south of the road, there is a river and an island in the waves. There used to be a monastery there... and there's nothing left but ruins. I was one of the monks... but we lived a dissolute life... having abandoned our vows... as I disapproved, the gods spared me. Every night, the ghosts of my former brothers haunt the ruins... However, there remains a sacred chalice on the altar. It repels the undead and the water that is poured into it is blessed... a line of holy water cannot be crossed by an undead or a demon.
Having completed his explanation, the old man's eyes closed one last time.
After having buried the monk, the three friends went back on their way, always looking for a place to spend the night. They moved eastward for half an hour... and were attacked by monstrous creatures. They flew with bats' wings; their heads looked like the skinny skull of a horse riding on a man's chest and arms!
The fight was a little longer than against the ghouls. Demonic creatures were more powerful, but fortunately vulnerable to ordinary weapons although their skin is as hard as leather. Cut into pieces by swords, struck by spells, the three monsters fell to the ground to turn into puddles of atrociously familiar black mud...
- Angra Mainyu, swore Saber.
Rin shrugged her shoulders:
- Do not tell me that you are surprised that it is rife in the duchy? He placed Astrum Galliasta at the head of Verandia to make this place hell. The despair of the inhabitants now nourishes Avenger. And when the suffering, hatred, and all the other curses they suffer have reached a certain threshold, Angra Mainyu will be brought back to life as a true god of evil.
They finally reached a small clearing by the side of the road and set up camp there.
Luckily, the night passed without bad encounters.
The next day, they decided to visit the monastery that the old man had told them about. A path led them to the bank of a river. As he had told them, an island stood in the middle of the current. And the ruins could be seen from the shore.
There was even a boat to make the crossing. Next to it, they saw a man dressed in black leather, his gloved hands crossed on a two hands sword. He had an agreeable face and smiled as they approached:
- You need to go to the other side? I am the ferryman!
Rin came in sniffing; there was a smell of decomposition around the boatman:
- In fact, we would like to go to the island.
The man nodded:
- Be careful, it is haunted... finally, ghosts do not appear until nightfall. If you come back before sunset, there should be no problem. However...
With one hand, he pointed to the horses.
- My boat is too small to take your mounts. It would be better if one of you stayed here to guard them while the other two explore the ruins.
Tohsaka suddenly felt uncomfortable, what the man said was perfectly sensible, but something made her uncomfortable. It was Artoria who spoke:
- I'm staying, both of you go to the island.
With a gesture of the hand, she caressed the sheath of Caliburn... which Shiro had once again traced for the King of Knights. The meaning was clear and Rin smiled:
- Very well, if you insist.
From the shore, Saber saw the boat land on the island and her friends get off. They soon disappeared among the ruins of the monastery. The ferryman, supposed to be waiting for them, turned around to come back to her.
Artoria watched him set foot on the ground without saying anything. The man smiled, enjoying the girl's appearance:
- You are naive teenagers... you let yourselves be separated so easily. I'll be able to get a whole new body... Do you smell this rotting smell around me? I've been occupying this corps for three days.
The young knight nodded:
- I see... then you are a monster who steals the bodies of his victims after killing them.
- Absolutely, terrifying, isn't it?
Saber gave him a frigid look:
- Despicable...
The undead turned his magnetic gaze to Artoria:
- Put your sword down.
The magic order met with unexpected resistance. Far from being affected, the teenager with golden hair drew Caliburn and attacked in the same movement. The monster was fast and agile, he backed off the first attacks... but he seemed to struggle.
Suddenly, Saber jumped over the undead and turned into the air. The ferryman remained motionless for a few moments, and then collapsed, cut in half from the shoulder to the hip. Artoria had struck while falling back...
The exploration of the island was almost without difficulty.
A small band of goblins attacked the teenagers. Rin alone would have been enough to put them on the run. With Shiro's help it was quickly over.
The monastery was abandoned. Wild grass grew in the dormitories and the commons were reduced to a few walls under rotten roofs. The temple of Stendarr however remained largely intact because it was built more solidly.
On the high altar, Rin discovered a large golden copper bowl carefully engraved and inlaid with a small ruby:
- That must be what we are looking for.
Shiro used Structural Analysis to ensure:
- Yes, that's right.
They returned to the place where they had landed... except that the ferryman was no longer there. Nevertheless, the boat was on its way to reach them, awkwardly maneuvered by Saber. As soon as she approached the island, their friend told them about the latest events.
- An undead taking the bodies of his victims?
Rin rubbed her chin, intrigued. Then she looked at the chalice in her hands:
- Saber, you think you destroyed it?
- If it were a living being, I would be affirmative. However, it is a kind of possession entity. Breaking a bottle does not destroy the water it contains.
- All right, let's go back to the north shore.
After a few oars, they boarded near their horses to discover that the part of the corpse including the head had begun to crawl towards the forest with the only remaining arm. At this sight, Tohsaka had a perfectly evil smile:
- Thank you, Mr Undead, I needed a guinea pig for an experiment.
The monster turned around, staring at her with his bright eyes. Rin simply activated her Magic Circuits to free a flood of Prana which drove the hypnotic influence of the creature out of her body.
Leaning towards the river, the Magus used the sacred cup to collect some of its flow:
- So let us see if holy water really destroys the living dead.
She poured the contents of the chalice on the head of the monster who continued to crawl in vain hope of escaping destruction. What happened was as spectacular as it was horrible... the flesh of the creature was attacked as by acid while white vapors rose to the sky. The ferryman screamed for a few moments and then crumbled into burning ashes.
- I think it was a good thing we came.
The trio left and the whole day went by without bad encounters. Circling the forest from the east, they arrived at the end of the day in Crestshade, the capital of the duchy. The gates of the fortified city were already closed. Fortunately, Shiro had seen the sign of an inn in the outskirts.
The houses were built on the edge of the forest and Rin winced. The first trees all carried hangmen that oscillated according to the wind:
- I believe we have found the woods where grew the gallows mentioned in the prophecy of La Fey.
Saber nodded seriously. Her gaze swept away the surroundings, noting the deserted fields, the scattered and famished herds, abandoned houses open to all winds.
The few inhabitants outside fled as the riders approached. Artoria's face froze. Once again, she had to face a bad sovereign. Vortigern was not lacking in emulations whatever the world or the time.