Chapter 23: DD2 Chapter 017 – Ancestors

Creation felt like it had been turned upside down as Arilla fled through a palace filled with walking corpses and the meek humans who were seemingly content in their perpetual servitude. With their heads bowed low to the ground, the serving staff who populated the wide halls of Erebus’s estate never even dared to look up at her as she passed them. With the warm fog of alcohol sitting firmly over her mind, she ran almost blindly through the dimly-lit corridors and infrequently collided with the servants who were busily scurrying about like ants, intent on fulfilling the insane whims of their draconic master. When she knocked them down, they were all unfailingly polite, immaculately groomed, and totally lacking that independent spark of frustration or outrage that would have made them human. That would have made them people.

Their quiet submission disgusted her, even if it reminded her of herself. The meek little street-rat who had once been so grateful for Typh’s attention, but even then she had some grit, some fire, or at least, she liked to think so.

Here in Doomhold, her fellow Terythians, a people normally so fiercely proud of their hard-won independence, had been thoroughly cowed by the dragon that ruled over their city and his army of undead enforcers. In only a few generations the fight appeared to have been entirely bred out of them, a stark warning for what Rhelea might face if Lord Traylan wasn’t eventually ousted. Whatever passed for a spine in the people she loved with a patriotic zeal was long gone. Now they freely cooperated with and served the monster that had killed so many of their own when it took the city a mere century ago. 

Arilla understood on some level that those who resisted would have long since been culled from the surviving population, but in her current state she couldn’t bring herself to care. Perhaps if she didn’t have her own dragon problem then she wouldn’t have been so critical, but as she felt herself drown beneath waves of self-disgust she wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic.

“Gods, I need another drink,” she uttered, taking a moment to pause at an intersection to catch her breath as she examined each onward corridor in turn. The shadows that lined the halls beckoned her in one direction and warned her away from the others. Out of the corners of her eyes, she could see the darkness around her slowly stretched towards her while she rested, the shadows clear in their menacing intent. It wasn’t until she once again resumed her desperate flight that the gloom receded, her movement down what appeared to be the safest path warding away the indistinct threat.

The buzz of the skill-brewed liquor from dinner was finally starting to wane, and the clarity that it brought with it was completely unwanted. She cursed herself, first for succumbing to pressure and starting to drink when she knew that she wouldn’t be able to stop, and then again, for each and every one of her actions that had subsequently followed. Arilla didn’t blame herself for going to see Typh, even if the how of it currently escaped her. The confusing, almost labyrinthian hallways of Erebus’s palace had momentarily seemed as clear to her as a cloudless sky on a hot summer’s day. The umbral-gloom had almost retreated before her eyes, leaving a clear path to her intended destination.

After finding a pair of classed bed-warmers in her own lavish guest room, checking in on her patron dragon was the first and only thought that had circulated through her head. The urgent need to find her, to stop her from exploring her other options had been so compelling that she hadn’t even tried to resist it. The pervasive impulse had fed into her nascent jealousy that had been there since Erebus had first looked past her and directly at Typh. 

If she had done things differently then maybe she wouldn’t feel the need to run away with the same intensity that she had once run towards her dragon, but when she looked back at the choices she had made, they disgusted her.

First, the implicit threat of violence against Erebus’s people who she knew had very little choice in what they were doing, and then in succumbing to her drunken lust when she saw Typh right there right for the taking, for ruining whatever could have been with her unresolved anger that translated into a roughness that was frankly inexcusable.

Her shame was so great that even the once helpful shadows now rejected her, although the haze that had settled over her mind since dinner made it a struggle for Arilla to understand why that would happen. Whenever she stopped for more than a few heartbeats, long shadows reached out from the walls around her, clawing menacingly as if to grab at her. Each sconce held a pale green magelight that matched the fires burning in the eye sockets of the walking dead, a distinction that was far too easy to confuse for one another in the distance and the dark. The everpresent Shades managed to blend in effortlessly with the shadowy halls, likely through the use of a skill. Only their eyes gave them away, and only when she seemed to be close enough for them to reach out and touch her, something she couldn’t abide even if the reason behind her newfound terror escaped her, just like the knowledge of where she had been and for how long she had been running for.

When she tried to dwell on it, the thought of what she had almost done, of what she had been momentarily tempted into almost doing shamed her into running some more. The shadows became thicker, hungrier, even as they spurred her onwards and forced her to ignore that voice in her head that told her things weren’t quite right. She could feel her skill [Dragon’s Resilience] as it thrummed in her chest, but she didn’t understand why it was active and with the shadows all around her, she felt like finding out what was going on with her rebellious skill could wait until she was somewhere safe.

The quantity of Shades that had once been so prevalent in the other parts of the palace had gradually thinned out as she entered progressively less frequented parts of the building. Arilla turned a blind corner which revealed yet another long hallway, like the others it was ornately decorated, but unlike them, it was utterly deserted. A fine layer of dust that covered the floor, and the artwork was the only indication that the human staff had been slacking in their duties as it became swiftly apparent to her that no one had stepped down this hall in a very long time.

Against her better judgement, Arilla kept walking along the dusty floor leaving clearly identifiable boot prints behind her. She indulged her curiosity and followed the long hall until she came to its end where she was greeted by a pair of grand doors. The thick stone was inlaid with what were obviously intricate wards, silver tracings etched deep into the marble in a beautiful swirling pattern that reminded her of flowers swaying in the breeze. If she had seen this kind of artistry anywhere else then she would have been amazed, but here inside Erebus’s palace it was just another marvel. Arilla had already witnessed similarly magnificent decorations on what had ultimately turned out to be a broom-closet. 

Her mind went back to the last set of large stone doors she had encountered amidst a dust covered hall, and she hesitated, taking her time to breathe through her anxiety as she recounted her experiences with the Brood Mother. Imaginary mandibles snapped in her face, but the haze dampened down the remembered horror, and she pushed past it. An insistent part of her mind still screamed at her to stop as she leant against the doors, her arms expecting resistance and finding none, the hinges kept well-oiled despite their apparent lack of use.

On the other side of the massive doorway she was greeted by a rush of warm, albeit stale air as she looked in on a truly palatial suite, one that made both hers and Typh’s rooms look modest and homely by comparison. An intricate marble mosaic covered the floor with a beautiful vista of Traylra as it had likely once been, surrounded by the mountains of the Dragonspines on either side of it. Gold filigree embellished not just the floors, but the walls as well, where grand sculptures and masterfully-crafted art littered what was obviously a wide reception room. 

It was well-lit, by magelights a shade far more pleasant than those in the halls, mimicking that of daylight despite the early hour. The scent of thick incense filled the air—copal, if she wasn’t mistaken—as she felt herself being drawn almost physically into the room. Her booted feet made hesitant contact with the polished tiles, the act feeling almost sacrilegious as she trailed dust onto the magnificent artwork. The isolated sounds of her footsteps echoed out through the large room, reverberating off of the polished stone surfaces as she drank in the elegant atmosphere.

Arilla took her time as she passed through the room, examining each sculpture and portrait, feeling an appreciation for art that she had never knowingly felt before. She was unsure if this was a skill at work, or just raw talent, but it didn’t matter, the entranceway calmed her rapidly beating heart and her racing thoughts as she slowly walked through it. Too soon she had studied it all, and in her explorations she opened the door on the far wall which she then stepped through, entering the adjoining room. 

There, like in a waking nightmare, the boy she had killed, Galen, the heir of house Traylan, turned to face her. Her heart raced again, gorge rising into her throat, and for a moment she expected the broken bodies of Medrauts Rover’s and a horde of Traylan dead to emerge from the walls to claw at her, the ghosts of her past joining the Shades that still haunted this dead city.

Except as Galen turned, she realised that for all the many resemblances, that this was an entirely different creature altogether. The face was almost the same, but this person was noticeably older, the skin around the mouth and eyes lined where the passage of time had triumphed against their vitality score to make itself known. Of course, the most notable difference were the burning green fires where their eyes should be.

[Shade Level 200]

It moved towards her blindingly fast. Before she could blink a dead hand was wrapped around her neck, lifting her up into the air as the other slapped away her swung sword which sizzled audibly on contact with its flesh. The almost casual strike painfully ripped her Zzweihaänder from her hands as it was sent flying through the air, the blade turning end-over-end before it sank tip first into the marble wall where it only stopped after penetrating a solid two feet or so into the stone.

“You are not Erebus. Why are you here?” the dead thing asked disdainfully, its perfectly room-temperature flesh tight against her throat, its powerful grip effortlessly compressing her windpipe as she struggled to breathe. She made pathetic flapping noises with her mouth, a croak and a gasp somehow managing to escape as she roundly failed to produce words. The moving corpse cocked its head to one side before it released her to the floor as abruptly as it had first picked her up. “...Right, you need to breathe to talk. I forget about these sort of mortal things.”

The moment she hit the ground she frantically pushed herself back with her legs,. tToo desperate to get away from the creature in front of her to even attempt rising to her feet. The abomination smoothly grabbed her by the ankle and lifted her high into the air as it looked down scornfully into her eyes. Arilla somehow sensed its gaze on her even if its eyes had been burned away by the death-aspected mana that allowed the corpse to move.

“Put me down,” she slurred. The act of being dangled upside down was certainly not helping her sober up.

“Oh Gods help me, you’re drunk... Tell me, are you by any chance an adventurer?” it asked.

“Put me down!”

“The first human I get to talk to in a century, and it has to be an adventurer,” it said, its ethereal, rasping voice full of derision, before it finally acquiesced to Arilla’s demands and dropped her head first onto the hard marble floor.

As she groaned and cradled her now bruised head, it slowly walked circles around her, the creature oddly silent as it gracefully glided along the cold tile.

“Now what are you doing here? I highly doubt Erebus has opened his palace to adventurers, especially those still at pewter. Or is ‘Put me down’ all you can say in your current state?”

She looked up at the thing standing before her, a part of her knowing that in many ways it was still a person, but the inherent foulness to necromancy made it hard to see it as anything other than an abomination. Of course, given their respective level differences it wasn’t like she was in a position to say any of that. She knew that the differences in a single rank very loosely equated to at least a tenfold increase in power between comparable species. If there were a thousand of her, she might be willing to try her luck, but as it was she had to play nice.

“I can say other things,” Arilla said carefully, her eyes roaming to the door behind it.

“Wonderful! I can work with that,” the dead thing said, smiling wide in a rictus grin as it came to a stop between her and the exit.

“Why do you look so—”

“Familiar? No doubt you will have seen my son. I am told he survived the fall of Traylra and made his way south to reclaim Rhelea from the council of merchants that I leased it to. Or perhaps you know of my grandson, Galen? Erebus likes to taunt me every few years with news of the outside world,” the Shade said with obvious frustration. “Little tidbits here and there, mostly gloating about how Creation has moved on without me.”

“You’re...” Arilla trailed off, comprehension and horror finally dawning on her, firmly replacing the terror she felt at being completely at the mercy of a creature so thoroughly above her.

“My name is Gaius of House Traylan, and yes, once a long time ago, back when I was still alive, this was my city. Now I am just another trophy that Erebus likes to keep around in this empty palace of his,” it said, seeming to almost deflate from its initial boast of Lordship. 

“Now, who exactly are you, girl, and can you give me a reason why I shouldn’t rip you limb from limb and offer you up as a gift to my master?” it asked, almost spitting the word ‘master’ at her, clearly displeased with its station in life.

“My name is Arilla Foundling, and I’m here to rescue you,” she said stone-faced, trying desperately to mask the slur on her tongue.

The Shade laughed, and it was a terrible thing. All rasps and echoes, reminding her more of the sounds of a mage-battle than the noises that a living creature makes.

“Goblinshit!” it finally said.

The crystal tumbler felt heavy in Arilla’s hands. The brown-gold liquid managed to look both distinctly unappealing and like her only escape all at once. The adrenaline that had flooded through her had done much to sober her up as she tried to make small talk with the creature in front of her, her reeling mind unable to get away from how thoroughly fucked she was.

The Shade, or Gaius Traylan as he preferred to be called, had made it abundantly clear to her that he could and would kill her the moment she stepped out of line. He had also been completely transparent that at any moment, Erebus could decide to peer through his eyes in which case he would almost certainly be compelled to kill her immediately. She breathed at his sufferance and Erebus’s ignorance, which was why she was so perplexed by his abrupt change of tone that was accompanied with all things by the offer of a drink.

“...no idea what he’s doing with all those mages; he was obsessed with them back when I was still alive. I shudder to think what he’s up to without my moderating influence,” Gaius went on.

“Wait. You knew Erebus before he took your city?” Arilla said, finally paying attention to the old corpse's rambling story.

“Well of course. He’s vindictive and cruel, but he isn’t deranged. For a time, we were almost friends of a sort. We could have been even closer, but he had the terrible habit of impregnating every passably attractive human with a womb,” the Shade sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Not the worst hobby for a dragon to have I suppose, but it was an absolute nightmare to keep track of... All those children with ‘dragon-blooded’ on their status… what a waste.”

“But the stories say, the Shadow Dragon flew over the walls and took the city in an afternoon.”

“I wouldn’t believe every story I was told if I were you. The truth is much more complex.” Gaius replied. “Surely you of all people should know that by now.”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t. I know you’re no noble, and you certainly aren’t a resident of Doomhold, but you seem very well accustomed to the idea that dragons are sapient,” the Shade said knowingly. “Now, I believe that’s enough small talk. Are you going to help me, girl, or not?”

“I’m not sure I can actually help you escape. Perhaps I can get a message back to your son?” she offered.

“I asked for help, not a bloody message, girl!” Gaius said angrily, his rapidly rising temper setting her nerves on edge.

“How can I possibly help you? You’re a steel-rank Shade,” she stated matter-of-factly in a bid to remain calm.

“Well that’s simple. I want you to kill me,” he explained, almost congenially.

Arilla blinked.

“I’m sorry?”

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“You heard me correctly, I want you to use that big, pointy sword of yours to kill me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because if you don’t, then I’ll have no further use for you, and I’ll rip your spine out through your belly-button instead. It should be amusing enough. It will provide me with some relief from this unending monotony if you’re so intent on denying me oblivion,” Gaius answered without pausing, then as an afterthought. “You haven’t touched your drink.”

“I’m trying to give it up,” she replied shakily before gently placing the crystal tumbler down on the table between them, all too aware of how very real the threat was. “Okay, but why me? Can’t you—”

“Kill myself? Believe me, I would if I could, but Erebus’s hold on me is too strong. The best I can do is let you do it, and that’s only because he has to give me enough leeway so that I can hold a decent conversation.”

“Okay, but shouldn’t—”

“Girl. You’re running out of time,” Gaius said, looking past her. “Either pick up your sword or I’m going to start making new memories. Violent ones.”

She swallowed down the spike of terror as she remembered the threat, and that for all of his amiability Giaus was a steel-rank necromantic horror seemingly left alone to rot—if Shades could rot. Her eyes tracked the creature's almost human hands that she knew were strong enough to easily carry out his outlandish threat.

“Okay.”

Retrieving her sword from where it was embedded in the marble was relatively easy, although it did cost her more stamina than she would have liked. [Dragon’s Blade] once again allowed her to act with a strength score she didn’t normally possess. Still, once her brief second of skill-enhanced power faded her zweihander became uncomfortably heavy again, her gait suddenly graceless and lumbering as the sword sent her off-balance.

Fortunately, she had enough strength to carry out the Shade’s request without the constant use of her skill. She steeled her courage as she approached the necromantic horror who was already kneeling, his head extended and waiting.

“Well? Get on with it girl. We haven’t got all night,” Gaius said, shattering her resolve as he looked across at her expectantly.

“Fuck off! I’m working up to it,” she yelled back, earning herself the surreal sound of the creature’s echoing laughter, a wholly uncomfortable experience that she would have much rather have avoided.

“And here I thought you completely lacking any grit—”

Arilla bought her sword down hard on Gaius’s exposed neck. Her skills pulsed through her body and out into the very metal of her blade while her class remained strangely silent. The prospect of an easy kill had failed to elicit so much as a whimper of excitement from the violent mass of mana that was her class. She poured as much stamina as she could into [Dragon’s Blade], the skill level still lagging behind that of her class at 37. As her strength surged dramatically, she felt the energy push her muscles far past their natural limits, her tendons and bones straining under the tension of swinging the heavy piece of metal that was her enchanted sword.

With a loud clash, her zweihander sank maybe half an inch into Gaius’s neck. The Shade craned his head to face her with an unimpressed look on his pale face.

“Is that honestly the best you can do?” he mocked.

“Listen, this isn’t exactly how I pictured my evening going,” she explained, her arms already sore from the recoil of her failed strike.

“Pffft, adventurers.”

“Oh, shut up!”

She swung again, her muscles still straining, bones still creaking and maybe another half an inch of dead flesh was shaved off. Arilla kept at it. The notch in Gaius’s neck steadily grew, becoming increasingly ragged and frayed around the edges as its resemblance to living tissue was degraded with every successive swing of her sword. Nothing emerged from the wound, not blood, pus, dust, or ichor, just an anticlimactic thud as blow by blow she slowly and painfully began to decapitate the former Lord of Traylra.

Arilla was tired, sweaty and in no small amount of pain when a hammering on the doors she had entered the room through became impossible to ignore. The harsh sound of skill-enhanced weapons against stone disrupting her almost meditative flow of heavy, rhythmic swings.

“You’re running out of time,” Gaius pointed out, the Shade sounding almost concerned. His head barely hanging on to his neck by a thin thread of flesh that pulsed with tendrils of green and black mana.

“I should stop,” Arilla agreed, having no desire to meet, let alone fight, whatever was on the other side of the thick door.

“If that door opens and I’m not dead, then I’ll kill you before Erebus’s guards can take you away,” Gaius threatened.

Arilla looked at him.

“What? Did you think we were friends, girl?” the Shade said, staring back at her. 

“No, but I was hoping you’d be grateful enough to refrain from murdering me.”

“Not grateful enough that I’ll let this chance of escape slip me by. Now you’re wasting time, girl! Swing that sword!” he urged.

“But the door...” she protested.

“I’m sure your dragon master will be able to protect you from the fallout. Now kill me already. I’m so close, I can practically taste oblivion!”

“How did you know about my dragon?” she asked warily, hesitating to swing again, her sword resting on the floor.

“I’m dead, not stupid. I can practically taste its mana all over you—amongst other things. Not that I can taste, strictly speaking,” Gaius admitted while Arilla swung her sword. “And Arilla,”

“I thought you were going to keep calling me ‘girl’ until you died… What?”

“Thank you,” he said, a look of relief on his face as her sword descended for what they both knew was to be the last time.

Arilla’s blade bit through the last tendril of flesh that connected Gaius’s head to his body. The corpse’s body went limp as his head rolled across the floor visibly withering with every uneven revolution. 

A storm of mana rushed out of his body and against her class’s protestations filled her entire being. Instantaneously, it was painfully hot. Pewter ranks weren’t meant to kill steels and her body was suffering for it. It felt like manaburn all over again, but rather than seize and spasm she felt herself heat up. It wasn’t supposed to be possible to do what she had done, not without splitting the mana a thousand different ways, and if Gaius hadn’t been such a willing accomplice it wouldn’t have been. 

As the system reclaimed the Shade’s essential essence for her class, Arilla was utterly overwhelmed by the quantity of mana that forced its way inside of her. Her class thrashed in her chest as she tore at her shirt with her hands, bloodying her nails as she instinctively tried to rip the source of her pain out of her body. The torrent of power kept coming, flooding into her, giving no indication that it was about to stop.

Creation span and her nausea mounted.

Arilla puked, blacked out and came to, only to puke again inside a span of five seconds. Her body trembled with exhaustion as the doors to Gaius’s chambers erupted into large chunks of fragmented stone before a squad of bronze rank Shades barged through the opening with their weapons drawn.

Just in time for the system notifications to hit her.

*Congratulations, you have defeated a level 200 Greater Shade. Experience has been awarded.*

*Congratulations, Dragon Guard is now level 41*

*Congratulations, Dragon Guard is now level 42*

…

*Congratulations, Dragon Guard is now level 49*

*Congratulations, you have reached level 50. You must now rank up your Dragon Guard class before you can absorb any more experience.

Dead hands grabbed at Arilla and pulled her roughly to her feet. Her sword was still in her hands and she followed her instincts that were guided by her revulsion at being touched so. She fought them despite the pain, despite not being able to stand let alone see straight. The Shades all around her were vicious, bitter little things, but they were bronze rank and she was not—at least not yet. They outnumbered her more than ten to one, so to call it a fight was to be very generous. Still, because of her efforts the beatdown lasted far longer than it should have. 

The last thing she saw before she was dragged from the room was Gaius’s smiling face, his cheeks drawn back in a wide rictus grin.

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