The Second Life and Adventures of Benjamin Finn:
Chapter 8: In Which the Author's Path is Illuminated
The entire affair had struck me as anomalous if, in point of fact, chauvinistically so. Perhaps it was due to the fact that before me stood the first woman I'd had the pleasure of laying eyes upon in weeks. Perhaps it was simply the most logical response to lifetime of experience given that, from my youth with my brothers all the way through my time within the Swift Brigade, I'd never once had an opportunity to consider let alone know firsthand what it was to have a woman fighting at my side in battle. So it was that I found the whole thing at odds with my perception of normalcy; for here she was, Her Highness the Princess of Albion, the carefree darling of the royal family, presently crouched over the mortar, ruining her fine satin blouse and silk stockings with the black powder that invariably clung to every solid form within range.
Of course I had known that women had been Heroes and that the Princess's own mother had been the latest and most widely praised Hero of our era, until recently, that was. Yet in all of my boyhood fantasies I'd always envisioned – however speciously – meeting great towering men wielding battle-worn swords as wide as my shoulders and harboring voices that could rumble mountains to dust.
Certainly this fine-boned young beauty with her perfect manners, well-coordinated attire and pampered canine companion was in no way the personification of my childhood notions.
The mortar thundered raucously, distracting me once more from my ruminations in time to find deep brown eyes widen as the substitute gunner watched her shot hit with a precision that could put most of my fellow soldiers to shame; the crunch of decimated hollowmen satisfying to my ears in a way I'd grown to appreciate all the more over the past months.
Princess Wren's head swiveled towards me, and there it was that I first laid eyes upon the only smile which had ever completely stopped my heart, only slightly besmirched where a thoughtless swipe of her hand had streaked black soot across her chin and lower lip.
"Would you look at that," she chuckled with what I could only describe as fastidiously controlled girlish delight, "it seems I'm not half bad at this soldier business."
"No pal," I replied through a grin of my own, enjoying the way her smile widened in earnest, revealing the barest hints of dimpled cheeks at the moniker I had not thought to refrain from using on someone of her standing, "not half bad at all."
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It was upon this most recent penance inflicted upon me by my unconscious mind that I at last gave up my ineffective attempts at sleep and, deciding that exhaustion was preferable to the dreams that seemed ever ready to recount for me exactly what it was that I had won and then lost to my own irresponsibility, roused from my place before the cold fireplace to begin the day early.
It was not quite an hour later when the world beyond the windowpanes began to glow with the coming dawn that Wren at last descended the stairs after having dawdled about over my head for a short time and therefore giving me ample opportunity to prepare myself for the daunting task of upholding my vow so precipitously made the night before.
"Ah, there she is," I chirped as brightly as sleep deprivation and my present mindset would allow, gesturing with the hot skillet I had up until that moment been scowling into, "have a good sleep, did you? I thought I might try my hand at making breakfast. So, how do you like your eggs – nearly raw or burnt?"
Wide eyed and a bit incredulous of the scene before her, Wren approached the table cautiously, her fingers deftly completing the final twist in her hair knot as she took a place at the table I had already set for us.
"Do you have anything in between the two?" She asked with just as much unease as her initial assessment and I placed the pan back onto the fire, selecting an egg from the bowl at my side.
"Why don't I just cook the lot and you can pick the ones that might prove edible?" I offered and turned my attention back to my attempts at the culinary arts. "There's fruit and tea – don't let it sit."
Behind me the sounds of cutlery against serving wear clattered for a while, my signal that Wren had started to tuck in, until a lull in activity following by a slight shuffling caught my ears and attention. Determined not to make a show at fussing over her I instead focused my attention on muttering profanities at the splattering eggs before me when at last Wren made her close proximity to my person known.
"I really made a mess of this, didn't I?" Her voice was soft with regret and I found my spirits dipping with hers all too readily.
"No more than I did." I all but whispered, forgetting myself in a momentary lapse from that debilitating false levity and bravado as fingers ran unexpectedly across my back, following the uneven lumps that represented Wren's poor imitation of seamstress work.
The vest. She meant the bloody vest!
Relying on impulse, I mustered up an embarrassed shrug and turned, gesturing at my failure upon the stove with my spoon. "At least the uniform I can still wear. Sorry pal, it doesn't look as though any of this is going to be edible."
Wren blinked, clearly having expected our conversation to take the turn it very nearly had, and then recovered in time to peer over my shoulder and stare blankly at the debacle that had crusted itself onto the cast iron cookware.
"There's bread in the cupboard." She volunteered. "And cheese I think. We can make do with that."
"Make do?" I chortled derisively, removing my ruined eggs from the flame and abandoning the lot of it in favor of taking a seat at the table while Wren retrieved the rest of our cold breakfast. "I suppose you never did eat a proper Mourningwood meal, did you?"
"I had my travel rations." She admitted, breaking off a chunk of bread and handing the loaf to me.
"Bloody lucky," I murmured as though envious and grinned, yet the effort of maintaining this false good humor was wearing on me, and so it was that I concluded that a change in topic to something of legitimate gravity was in order, and would thus give me proper reason to drop the façade without breaking the oath I had sworn to my companion. "So, you said we'd be leaving in the morning for Aurora." I intoned with all the severity our quest demanded. "Did you have anywhere specific in mind?" With that Wren set aside her meal and leaned back into her chair.
"I've been thinking," the resident Hero replied, her arms folded beneath her breast in that familiar posture she unconsciously adapted while strategizing, "there is a place in Aurora that always struck me as odd. It's a long, narrow passageway with some sort of a grand ruin at its back. What's more, this place is crawling with creatures of the darkness – it almost seems as though it was constructed to host them in some places."
My interests were piqued at this; it was not the first I had heard of this desert corridor, but Wren's previous assessment of it had been little more than a brief warning to avoid entering that place, made while giving my fellow soldiers landmarks to use for navigating the inhospitable landscape that was Aurora. "You think that could be the cult stronghold?"
"I never could get into the ruin," she admitted unequivocally, "never had the time or cause to find the door's locking mechanism. And Kalin was just as mystified as I was when I told her of that ruin. But with the exception of Shadelight, if there was ever a place more perfect for a group of darkness worshippers, it would be the Veiled Path. As far as how to get into that ruin, I believe you bear the answer to that problem."
My curiosity compounded into an all-encompassing fixation at her admission. "I do?"
Wren very nearly smiled at the dubious expression I undeniably bore, and stretched a hand out to me. "Hand me your satchel." In moments she was rifling through my personal possessions until at last her fist emerged, clutching at a small metallic disk affixed to a rough leather cord.
The medallion I had pulled from the neck of the cultist in Industrial. My companion slid the disk up between two fingers, providing an unimpeded view of its roughly hewn face. It seemed a trivial design; a simple pattern of straight lines at odd angles which could represent anything from mountains to sunlight given the proper amount of imagination.
"If I recall correctly, this symbol is engraved within a depression upon the door that I could not open. I'm willing to wager that this isn't so much a medal of station, but a key of sorts."
"A wager is it?" I asked, feeling the slow creep of anticipation of a new mission steal into my spine, my enthusiasm apparently contagious judging by the manner in which my companion shifted to the edge of her seat.
"A trip to the Veiled Path," she qualified. It was too enticing; the thought of entering a place previously forbidden to me for the dangers it held. It felt very nearly like I was slipping into my old practice of escaping into battle, and yet this time I would be going off with Wren at my side.
Not a true evasion of my troubles, but a diversion just the same, and one that I desperately craved.
"You're on."
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Thus it was that our stay in Industrial came to its conclusion, save for the briefest of visits to Page for confirmation that no undue activity had presented itself in the night, during which Page betrayed no hint that she possessed any knowledge of the events that had transpired within Plum House, much to my silent gratitude. Yet where she displayed a merciful discretion with regards to our personal woes, she held no such restraint on the topic of our current quest.
"You aren't honestly thinking to take the group on by yourselves," the ever uncompromising Mayor of Industrial glowered at us reproachfully before speaking the words that left Wren and I nearly dumbstruck given their source. "I have to agree with Ben on this. You should not be going alone – not for something larger than reconnaissance, and let's not pretend we all believe this will just be a simple scouting run. You don't know the pair of you will be enough to defeat the cult. I'd feel better if you would agree to take a few dozen soldiers with you."
With this Wren sighed and pinched her nose irritably. "Do you have any idea how difficult it would be for me if I did as you asked?" She sighed, and I recalled the words she had spoken before Aurora's gates just a few short days earlier.
"I have to worry. It's so easy for me to hurt those I fight alongside. If I don't hold back it's possible I'd end up killing you by accident."
Given the events of last night I found myself with a newfound appreciation for the level of guilt one person could burden themselves with, and instantly became anxious to prevent that sort of terrible weight falling upon Wren's shoulders.
"We'll be fine, Page," I drawled with a nonchalance I wasn't so certain I should be feeling, "don't you worry."
"What?" Page's incredulity was plain upon her features as she wheeled on me, her prior mercies abandoned cruelly with my defection. "So that's it then? Instead of one of you flying off into madness, this time you're going off as a pair?"
"Enough!" Wren's voice reverberated in what was very near to the feminine equivalent of what I had expected of those invented Heroes from my childhood fantasies. "Destroying the cult doesn't matter! Once we defeat the Crawler, the cult will have lost its purpose. I'll not sacrifice lives for a vendetta – not when Theresa said that Ben and I were the only two who could truly put an end to this. Ben and I will retrieve my mother's body and then pursue the Crawler alone. If the cult proves too much for us to take on ourselves, or if it wants a fight after the fact then we'll do things your way."
This was by no means enough to mollify the thick-skinned former rebel, but her seething at the very least reduced to something silent and tolerable. "Fine. Just make sure you come back safely; no foolish heroics or sacrifices."
Allow me to point out that there were very few people presumptuous enough to believe they had the right to order the Queen of Albion about, and the Mayor of Bowerstone was one of those select few; not that she was entirely without cause, given her history with having to dethrone a king and then reign in his grief-stricken sister shortly thereafter. It was for that reason alone that I was certain Wren had refrained from truly putting Page in her place.
"We wouldn't dream of it," I replied and, feeling Wren's fingers take hold of mine, braced myself for the vortex that was Fast Travel.
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The Veiled Path. Wren had told me it would be dangerous, and I had anticipated a fair amount of risk given her prior assessments of the perils that lay within, yet I hadn't anticipated what stood before me. Suddenly all previous bravado and assurance I had expressed in the Plum House and when standing before Page dissipated as though it had never existed, and I was left feeling more dubious of our success than Page must have been.
"It's a damned suicide mission," I growled, giving up all attempts to estimate the numbers of the creatures of darkness after more than a dozen presented themselves before the first twist in the path. I could not imagine Wren having encountered so many fiends during her last visit to this forsaken place. Not even she had been foolish enough to risk herself so carelessly. At least, not the Wren I had known during the rebellion.
In all fairness, perhaps it wasn't unquestionably suicidal, but it clearly would have been a properly simple matter to die in that place if we were not exceedingly, excruciatingly careful. The corridor was narrow, but not so much as to prevent us from being flanked; the walls high and curved in over our heads, which meant that this crumbling passage would succumb to darkness faster than most places in the desert; and at regular intervals along the stairways unmoving sentinels flanked the path, with other shadow spawned beasts prowling at their feet. Briefly I contemplated a trip to Mourningwood for the mortar before abandoning the idea. Though effective against walking corpses, I had no illusions that the clumsy and slow cannon would prove any use against these creatures; not to mention the additional detail of how we should transport it.
With such a heavy presence of the Crawler's 'children', and the temple without a past waiting at the end of the stairwell, it all only further supported Wren's theory that this was where our enemy organization had ensconced itself.
"Not all of the sentinels were active the last time I came through here." Wren murmured in response distractedly, her fingers twitching with agitation and sending sparks fizzling into the sand as her prior confidence ebbed as mine had. No doubt my previous estimate of the increase in enemy numbers was accurate; our unwilling hosts clearly also aware of the previous lapse in security and had compensated to rectify matters since Wren last called on this place years ago.
With an irritated grunt I rolled my head upon my shoulders in preparation for what was no longer to be an exciting outing, but a rather worrisome excursion. "Oh well that just makes everything so much better."
"Do you have a better idea?" The question was not delivered with rancor or even a hint of irritation; Wren had far more pressing matters on her mind than my charms.
"No, but I wish I did."
"So do I." With a resigned sigh my companion lifted her hand out before her, the markings covering her body responding with a brilliant blue flare, the sparking about her gauntlet seemed ready to explode into great flaming gouts. There would be little point in attempting subtlety here – there was absolutely nothing about this place which would provide us an advantage let alone the ability to avoid battle all together. "Might as well knock and see who answers," she muttered, her voice growing to a wordless roar and she spun upon her toes and set loose a fireball large enough to consume a small house.
The first pair of gleaming golden monstrosities stirred to life, dark energies surrounding them as they roused, and beyond their backs more demon-spawn poured out from behind toppled stones and darkened corners and as her fireball sailed onward each and every one of the sentinels it passed roused from their pedestals.
Balls.
"We're never going to make it if we try to fight them all," Wren fretted quietly, glancing nervously at me.
"Forget it, pal." I replied, having surmised what it was she was debating. "You aren't leaving me behind – not even you can take them all on alone. At the very least I'm distracting. To them. Not you. I think."
"Fine then." Teeth bared, the Hero Queen reached out to clutch at my wrist and with her other hand dug a pale yellow bottle free from the pack. "I hope your legs can run as fast as your mouth."
"Damn hilarious." Yet when the world around us slowed in a surreal manner that only one of those outrageously expensive mystical potions could bring about, I abandoned the retort and strove to match pace with the Hero towing me up the path. Drawing my pistol to stave off any creatures that could not be avoided through speed alone, I discovered that no matter how skillfully I could manage a firearm under normal circumstances my ability to compensate for the alteration to time was sorely lacking.
Wren's hand dug into the pack once more as the effects of the first potion wore off, cracking open the seal and once more slowing the world around us as we sped forth. The concoctions didn't last long to start with, and that there were two utilizing the effects halved their duration.
"How many more do we have?" I panted and in response Wren wrenched at my arm, quickening her gait to something I could no longer match with any grace.
"Not enough. When we run out get to the top and open the door, I'll hold them off for as long as I can, so make sure you hurry!"
"Brilliant plan! Are you sure it's not one of mine?"
"Shut up Ben!"
When the last of Wren's predetermined insufficient number of potions was used the comparable safety of the temple was just on the other side of the thick stone door and yet it might as well have been on another continent for all the luck I was experiencing with my attempts to gain access while, at my back, Wren held our ever increasing predators at bay. Her suspicions on the operations of the door mechanism had been accurate, yet her deductions had not taken into account the maleficent nature of the cult, for said depression had indeed existed, but had recently been smashed to uselessness within the door, a dismal signal for what we could expect to find within. Yet given our present plight and, having no alternative means to escape this place and our swarming aggressors so long as Wren was embroiled against the shadow minions, I had therefore been forced to resort to my clearly inferior brute strength to gain access to the temple. Had our circumstances been any different I no doubt would have struggled on obstinately, yet this was no time for such luxuries as masculine pride.
"Wren! I believe this door could use a lady's touch!"
It was only when I heard the cry of alarm from behind me that the uselessness of my presence here struck me. Beyond a thin line of shadow-spawned monsters clearly bent on the hunt, Wren remained atop the precipice edge by virtue of nothing more than the balls of her feet and a death grip on the sentinel trying to slay her. For the love of her life she dared not fight back lest the creature falter and plummet over the edge with her, while around her boots an ominous purple glow was spreading from the gold-clad creature – that particular glow that came just before one of those energy attacks that could send even the likes of one such as Wren staggering, tendrils within the energy reaching out to grasp her ankles with terrible portent.
In that moment I experienced a panic the likes of which I had never before known.
Rifle drawn and an unintelligible battle cry in my throat, I carved a path with bullets through the monsters all the while fighting my primary instinct to take aim at the creature embroiled with Wren at the cliff's edge. Though it felt like hours, it took no more than a few moments before I finally reached the pair, and with everything I possessed I buffeted the monster from behind, sending it hurtling over the edge as my fingers locked over a fistful of Wren's shirt, my shoulder wrenching at the sudden addition of her weight and pain shooting up my arm as something hard dug into my palm.
Non-light flared…
…and the hand that had been gripping Wren's shirt was suddenly, heart-jarringly empty.
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I freakin' love Ben. I love what a fleshed-out and personable character he was in the game. Not many games take the time to really develop a character's personality, but Ben had it in spades, and it makes writing him so much fun! He's so sarcastic and at time completely inappropriate, but behind it all you can see that he really is a human being that can care and hurt like others. It gives me liberties to make him an ass in some scenes but give his inner monologues some depth as well as give him moments of real sincerity, because he is absolutely a character with a full range of personality faults and strengths.
Bravo, Lionhead, on the creation Benjamin Finn. This fangirl approves!