Hello, one and all! Thank you in advance for opening this story and giving me a chance! And to all you returning minions out there, sorry for the radio silence, but it's great to be back.
This is one of the reasons I've been quiet lately. I was selected to be part of the Darkest Dungeon 2 2023 Fanzine, and this is one of the stories I wrote for it. I'm a little proud of this one, I'll be honest, and had a great time writing it. It was also amazing to be part of such a talented crew creating art for one of my favorite franchises.
For those who want to see some of that, either look the project up online as the "Darkest Dungeon 2023 fanzine" or look through the official Darkest Dungeon Twitter to see where they gave us a boost! There's some phenomenal writings and visual art there for those who love the series like I do.
Anyway, enjoy!
"You fucking bastard!" Alhazred shouted as he tried to punch Tardif in the face. Tried. Even the bounty hunter's mask was lightly armored, so all the occultist managed was to injure was his own hand. Tardif barely even flinched.
The smaller man let out a wince, then a yelp when the Helion tackled him. "The Hell has gotten into you, ya runt?" the larger woman grunted as she trapped his arms behind him.
The doctor and her nun companion caught up a second later. They had been busy tending to the wagon, repairing the damage from the latest salvo of cultist arrows. Neither had expected a fight to break out when meeting an old... colleague was probably the best word for it.
"Stand down, all of you!" Junia ordered. She didn't even need to brandish her mace to make her point, simply set her hand on the handle. The armored priestess had only raised her weapon on a team member once, literally knocking sense into him, and Dismas still had some stiffness in that shoulder. She pointed at Tardif. "You, speak. What is his problem with you?"
"Ask him," Tardif said flatly. The hunter adjusted his mask, careful not to reveal the face beneath it.
"You're still too much of a coward to admit what you did!?" Alhazred started into a tirade of insults in his native tongue. Paracleseus was quietly thankful she only understood a few words of it. Those that she did catch were rather... creative.
The doctor was a mere twenty pounds heavier than Alhazred, but when she spoke, she commanded the room better than even Junia. "Enough. All of you. Boudica, release him. Tardif, make yourself useful, find something on the wagon to fix. Alhazred, join us. Punch me, and I will remove the hand."
Everyone fell in line silently. Not that it was much of a change for Tardif, a man who had never spoken a sentence containing more than six syllables. But the quiet that fell across the team was almost oppressive. The bounty hunter stood at the wagon, still within ear shot as he worked on the damages. Everyone else formed a tight circle with Alhazred at the center, trapped between the three women who had spent the evening braving a living Hell alongside him.
"Speak," Paracleseus commanded. Even through the thick mask and goggles, her words were strong. They carried the raw will of a doctor who knew blood she had spilled just as much as she had saved in a body.
Alhazred growled, his dark eyes locked on the bounty hunter. He barely seemed to acknowledge the others. Boudica fixed that by slapping the back of his head. "Out with it, ya fool. What's gotten into ya?"
Only Junia seemed understanding of any kind. Or at least willing to listen without judgment. She placed a hand on his shoulder. Firmly, as a supportive friend, not as a hostile teammate like the others. "This is about the failed expedition, isn't it? The one you took together into the Weald?"
"He let her die, the fucking coward!" Alhazred shouted, starting at Junia as he pointed at Tardif. "Missandei's blood is on his hands! And he should be burning in Hell for it! If no one else will do it, I ought to be the one to send him there!"
A hammer flew across the way. Barely dodging Paracleseus' shoulder, it struck Alhazred squarely in the chest. The occultist's necklace shattered under the impact, as well as several ribs. Tardif barely moved from his position. His point made with the throw, he went back to work without a word.
"Fucking Hell, can't go twenty minutes without one of you injured," the doctor grumbled. Not even acknowledging the strike itself or how close it went past her head, she began tending to the occultist's chest. Her gloved hands tested the impact to see if any organs were ruptured. She was leaned in close, the beak of her mask an inch from his face, when she whispered with uncharacteristic softness, "What happened, Alhazred?"
He was still coughing as she spoke. Nothing vital was broken, but the wind had been thoroughly knocked out of him. Junia was towering over him now protectively. Boudica was as well, in her own way. She had taken position between the two men, ready to brawl with the bounty hunter if he tried another stunt like that. If those two came to blows, it would be a spectacle to see who would win, pure rage and strength against calm training and tactics.
Finally, as Paraclese checked Alhazred's pulse, did the occultist speak softly through groans of pain. "Missandei died as we escaped the Weald. It was clear that only two of us would make it. When she offered to sacrifice herself... Tardif did not stop her. And he stopped me from taking her place."
"I remember your return from that expedition. You were heavily wounded," Paracelsus said, thinking aloud more than anything else. She stood up, having decided the occultist would live. "How was her death his fault?"
"He... We were fools, going out alone as we did. We should have waited for William to recover and join us. But I pushed us to find the Hag in the wood, and Tardif agreed. Missandei tried to tell us no, but joined to keep us alive... She did, in the end..."
Alhazred had begun to barely cry as he spoke now. His voice was cracking every few words as he tried to continue.
"Fool is right," Boudica scoffed. "Ya felt invincible after coming back from the dead like ya did, didn't ya?"
"NO!" He immediately shouted back, voice broken with tears. "No... I shouldn't be alive. But if I am... I should do something with it... I should find something worthy to give my life for, this time for eternity... I should be the one in the ground, not her. If I die taking something monstrous from this world, it means I at least came back to do something worthwhile... to make up for a lifetime of wrongs... I should have died out there, saving Missandei. Not the opposite."
"Start from the beginning, Alhazred," Junia said softly. Like a true sister of the cloth, ready to take confession. No tone of judgment in her voice, no implied emotions to read into. A simple, pleasant request. As if to punctuate the sentiment, she added a soft, "please."
The occultist shook his head for a moment, forcing the tears that had begun to run down his throat into silence. He watched the ground intently as he spoke, shame and fear of retribution motivating him in equal measure.
"We knew where the Hag was hiding. And we thought as a small group, we would surprise her, end her before she got one of us in that blasted pot again. We believed the three of us would not be noticed by the other creatures of those woods...
"Some of the bandits were still there, seeking vengeance for those we had already killed. They fell easily enough. But in searching their camp, we... I did not watch behind us. An ooze consumed me before I even knew it was there. Tardif and Missandei were able to pull me out before I was swallowed completely. I was not able to save my spell focus, though... The academic's skull was melted in seconds.
"Then the dogs joined. I had my knife, and one good hand to fight still. Tardif and I were able to beat them back. Neither of us fell, but we both gained more wounds with each kill. When Missandei's bolts took down the last ooze, only one wolf remained, and it was quickly split in two by Tardif.
"By now, my eyes were half blind from the ooze's acid, and my hands weren't working quite right. Tardif was using his axe in his off hand, the good one with a bone jutting from it. Missandei was the only one who seemed intact. Until the tree trunk crashed into her chest... one of those giants had found us in the chaos. Tardif focused on its weak points while I swung madly with my knife. I'm not sure what I cut, but I got a few good hits in, I believe, before Tardif took its head.
"Finally, we had a moment to breathe. And to realize how doomed we were. I was almost useless now, Tardif down to one arm and only a handful of caltrops. Missandei's only wound was the worst, though. Her entire right leg was shattered. Both bones on either side of her knee were sticking out through the skin, and she was bleeding badly. On the wind, we heard more of them coming. At least corrupted canines, but likely worse followed. We knew we had failed. The Hag would live another day. The only question was if we would."
Alhazred had given up on standing by this point. Not quite collapsing, not quite lowering himself to the ground, he made himself into a tight ball that collapsed into the dirt. His eyes had taken on a glossy look as he stared at the abyss rather than anything in this world.
Boudica now properly towered over him as she guarded him from Tardif's further ire. Though her own eyes now flicked back and forth between her charge and her target, her body language showing more protectiveness than most had ever seen from the beast of a woman.
Junia had shifted from a battle sister to an almost motherly figure. She crouched beside Alhazred, lingering close enough to be comforting without invading her personal space.
Paracelsus was the one who didn't change at all. Outwardly, at least. The doctor held firm, silently observing the scholar as he told his story. Whatever judgments she made, she was keeping to herself.
"I volunteered to stay," Alhazred continued weakly. "I knew, even if I made it to the hamlet, I likely would be left lame or dead. I thought if I could buy them time with my knife and Tardif's caltrops, they could flee to safety. Maybe I would get lucky and they would bring reinforcements, drag what remained of me back to be buried. A pipe dream, really, but it was all I could hope for. Missandei disagreed. Not that we needed to stall them, but who should do it...
"She said she would, that she was too slow, but could still fight them. That her fleeing would only cause her companion to die. She told Tardif to hook me around the waist so I wouldn't get lost. I argued, said I was likely useless now anyway, and that she should live to fight another day. She said that was the point, that my sacrifice now would be in vain if she were killed as they escaped... that I was too wounded to even be a distraction now.
"Missandei said I wouldn't be able to hold them off as long as she could, but I might be able to make it to the hamlet. As long as Tardif showed me the way. I tried to push her towards safety, to tell her to run without me... I missed, and fell. My eyes failed me completely, the impact ruining whatever sight I had left after the ooze's burns. We had no more than a minute until they were on us. I begged Tardif to drag her to the hamlet and to leave me with the tools to hold them back.
"Instead... instead, he scoffed. He grabbed me by the collar and ran. All I could do was flail like a beheaded chicken at my savior... Missandei didn't hear me say goodbye, I don't think... But Tardif heard every insult I hurled his way for choosing our lives over hers. For making me and him survive when she should have been the one making it back to the hamlet.
"Tardif can scoff and grunt all he wants. The wrong ones survived that night. He knows it in his heart. I should be dead, or maybe he and I. But not Missandei... At the very least, she should be here. Not us. Not me."
Alhazred had collapsed sometime in the middle of his story. His words were barely clear as he choked back the tears. Now they flowed freely as he crumpled into himself. The once smart, proud man, who wielded the skull of his tutor to challenge the greatest horrors man did not understand, was now nothing more than a crying welp on the ground. As he admitted that he craved death. Or redemption.
Boudica had given up on guarding the hunter. Instead, she just glared at him before picking up the whimpering occultist. "I'll get him into his room, get some ale in him. A little alcohol will do him some good."
Junia and Paracelsus just nodded as the man was carried away. There was a minute of almost complete silence. Almost. The man at the center of this story barely seemed to pay it any heed. He was still working hard on the cart, repairing all of the holes and the damaged walls that had barely protected them as they had ridden here.
"What do you believe we should do now, doctor?" Junia asked softly, looking to Paracelsus "My teachings say I should forgive. Or at least accept his help. But my heart... it misses Missandei. I can't stop myself from feeling she should be here with us, not him. Even if that is what she wanted."
Paracelsus did not speak a word for several seconds, which slowly turned into minutes. Her thick mask and gloves made her impossible to read, even to someone who considered her a close friend. When the doctor had decided to hide her emotions, none could convince her otherwise. It was hard to tell if she was lost in thought, actively forcing herself down from a mental ledge, or debating which organ of Tardif's to take first.
The hunter did nothing. He worked silently on the wagon, seemingly accepting that what would come would be what comes.
"... the gold we found on the cultists. Give it to me." Paracelsus finally said that softly, only holding her hand out for the pouch.
Junia dutifully handed it over. "You are paying him to come with us?"
The doctor didn't answer. She simply took the coin and walked towards the hunter for hire.
Tardif didn't even look at her. He was busy ensuring that the wheel he had reattached was secure. The sack of coin hit him squarely in the side of his head.
"For Alhazred's life. And for you to disappear," Paracelsus said simply. "You will take it. And we will never see you again."
The hunter stopped to pick up the sack, finally. He opened it, counted the coin quickly, and then closed it again. He nodded.
"Goodbye," Paracelsus stated as she turned to walk away.
"Missandei wasn't wrong," Tardif said softly, just loud enough for the doctor to hear as he put the coin pouch on his hip. "If he'd guarded our back, we would all be dead. She still would have died dragging him back, or I would have died carrying her."
Paracelsus stopped. Her back remained to Tardif. Her hand came up, seemingly ready to tear the mask off and speak to him. But a moment later, it lowered back down. She shook her head. "I know."
"Then why take him and not me? One pessimist to another."
"... I would rather have a well meaning idealist to balance me. Than to let you convince me to sacrifice the others for my own skin. I have done enough of that in my life. You will not trick me into doing so again."
"Hmmph." Tardif dropped the tools where he stood. Then he simply turned to walk towards the stables of the inn. He never even looked back at those he almost called friends in a past life.