Chapter 101: 102: The end of days

“It’s ridiculous,” thinks Fresh as she leans back against the broken wall behind herself. As she feels the sum total of all of her efforts crumbling beneath her two backwards facing palms which press against the broken wood. This city. These people…

- These ‘people’. They’re ridiculous.

She can’t help but wonder, is there a single beating heart in any of their chests? Is there anything in their eyes or their spirits that could give credence to their humanity? Or are they just dolls? Just avatars possessed by the spirits of greed and self-righteousness? The memory of Basil’s frantic, twisted face returns to her mind’s eye, as she relives the priestess’ heartfelt confession about her true feelings of this place, of this city that they all had been attempting to call their home.

The man’s midnight armor glistens as a massive fist smashes into his gut, pressing him up into the air, sending him flying back a step, a chunk of his metal armor bends inwards and juts into his gut, as evidenced by a dark trickle that sprays outward as he lurches. A cheer erupts from the line behind the guardsman, as the only person really defending the plaza takes a heavy blow. His large boots smash back into the stones. He barely keeps his balance, the half-shattered bone-axe arching back, as he moves forward for another push against the giant monster, indifferent to his injury. As he charges straight towards the golem and the horde of gnashing teeth making their way to him, to her, by the second.

Fearless. All that the man shows is a glimmer in his eyes and a thrashing of his chest as his heart beats with a force that Fresh is sure that she can feel even here, even here where she stands. He’s not afraid of it, of any of it. Yet her own legs are trembling. She’s long since been physically able to move, but she finds herself still locked firmly in place. Spellbound by her own fear.

Ice and broken fragments of bone fly all over the place as the man and the golem seem locked in their fight. For every piece that he hacks away, another regenerates not moments later and Fresh doesn’t understand why. It’s ridiculous. It never seems to die. Is this normal for a golem? To heal itself constantly like this? Or is it because of her? Because of the moonwater of the broken cauldron of resurrection? Is her own magic the thing keeping the golem alive? Is her own magic the thing that’s going to get them all killed? It figure

She watches in a combined dread and awe as the swarm approaches them. How can he keep moving? How can he keep fighting? For what? For this place? For these people? Is any of it even worth the effort?

It’s not.

Not in her eyes. Not anymore. The pure, naive image that she has had of the city is now tainted. Befouled. Corrupted. But she still has to do something. She can’t just stand here idly. Somewhere out there, Jubilee is counting on her to do something.

Fresh turns around, running as fast as she can back into the wreckage and she grabs a long, bony handle which juts out of the rock. A large, two-handed bone-sword. The heavy thing lurches as she strains herself to pull it free from the rubble, but is barely able to. She pulls again, feeling a painful pop in her lower back that causes her teeth to clench and new tears to quickly shoot out of her eyes. But she pulls again and the bone-greatsword comes free. She isn’t able to lift it, but she can drag it. With a free hand, Fresh haphazardly rips out a bundle of her hairs, pressing them against the hilt of the monstrous weapon.

[Bone-greatsword](High){Curse of the Midnight Toll}{Curse of the Parting Breath}

A massive greatsword. The horrifying weapon carries a dark, ominous tinge to it.

+8 DMG*

+20 DARK*

Quality Effect: Wounds caused by this weapon can not be healed by HOLY

Curse: [Midnight Toll] - This sword does an additional 2x damage as DARK from an hour before, until an hour after midnight. Damage is halved when in sunlight.

Curse: [Parting Breath] - As long as the wielder breathes, this sword can not be broken. This sword must steal the air from a living being’s lungs once a day, or it will instead steal your own.

Weight: 12.0kg

Value: ???

Stepping back, putting everything she has into it, Fresh pulls on the sword, pulling it towards the door.

But she’s not going to make it in time. Looking back in fear, she sees the vampires arrive, their lashing necks swiping towards the man from the sect who is about to be overrun. None of their razor teeth pierce his armor, but there are too many of them and he is about to be entirely swallowed by their combined weight. To the side, she sees the priests atop the carts getting their magic ready again, only waiting for the man to die before they get rid of the threat of the vampires.

Ridiculous.

She should have moved faster. She shouldn’t have been afraid for so long. She acted too late to save him. Fresh watches in horror as the man from the sect, surrounded by writhing meat and teeth, vanishes beneath the mound piling on top of him.

She hates it here too. She isn’t sure, but she thinks she hates it here more than she hated her old life. At least now.

“Get out of here!” yells a voice at her from behind the golem and the world erupts into a crystal flurry. A single snap resonates, echoing around the plaza as seconds later, a giant glass pillar blasts up into the air, shooting up high towards the middle of the dungeon-gate. A large, dark-cobalt armored hand clutches onto the glass-tower, as it pulls him free from the mass of vampires that hiss in a seething rage down below. The hissing sound is nigh indistinguishable from that same sound which stems from the crowd to the side.

A small figure bounds over the golem’s heavy back, jumping as another jagged glass pillar bursts out of the stones, upheaving the paving. Fresh watches as Jubilee latches on to the tower, snapping their fingers again to create a platform for themselves and for the giant from the sect to drop down onto with a heavy, ungraceful clamber.

“Jubileeee~!” calls Fresh at the sight of her friend.

“Run!” yells Jubilee again from across the plaza at her and snaps their fingers. A wall of glass spears bursts out before her, separating her from the chaos.

A series of jeers and boos erupts from the line of guardsmen and priests, as the sounds of an intense fight make themselves heard from the other side of the glass barrier. Fresh narrows her eyes. This won’t do. She’s not going anywhere. She’s not going to run away and hide while her friend is out here, while someone needs her help. Right? That’s not who she is, that’s not who she wants to be. The subtle trickling of the fountain in her ear tells her that and she is sure that it is true.

Fresh steps back forward again, walking towards the wall of jagged glass that separates her from the vampires. With strained, tedious steps, she marches on, dragging the heavy sword behind herself with both hands, the bone-weapon scrapes noisily against the rock of the plaza. She’s going to get this to him. She’s going to do it. Even if she dies trying, she’s going to do it. Because it’s the right thing to do.

Suddenly, something surrounds her. A warmth. A soft light that is alien from the glow of the lantern at her side, as well as from the strange light that seems to be coming from the dark sky.

Fresh clenches her hands, looking down at them, as the warm aura encapsulates her shaking body. It feels like sitting in the sun on a warm summer’s day, like having a hot tea during a spring shower. It radiates a deep heat. She remembers this feeling. Looking over her shoulder, Fresh looks back towards the crowd, trying to discern a familiar silhouette. But she doesn’t manage. She feels a lot less alone now however, knowing that both of her friends are here now with her.

Smiling, lifting the sword much easier than before, Fresh runs towards the glass wall. “Thanks Basil,” whispers the girl under her breath, as she makes her way forward with the heavy sword held in both of her hands. With determined eyes, the girl stares up at the wall of glass, staring at the reflection looking back towards her. Its eyeless face smiles a wide smile which seems entirely out of place. The girl in the mirror-glass winks and the glass wall breaks apart, shattering into thousands of pieces as they fall down to the torn up ground below, shimmering like so many falling stars as they descend.

Jubilee probably won’t forgive her for this, but that’s okay, thinks Fresh as she runs forward through the storm. Glass falls down onto her black robe, onto her shoulders, onto her hair as she runs with her eyes held tightly closed through the mess, not breathing a single breath as she lumbers forward with the greatsword in her grasp.

Something hisses and she feels something wet splash against her face, the girl keeps running as a massive hand suddenly grabs her shoulder and yanks her back. With a fearful yelp, Fresh spins around to look at the giant man from the sect who pulls her back just in time, pulling her away from a striking vampire that he smashes his free fist against and sends flying. His shining eye, filled with a haunting obsession, looks down at Fresh, who gazes back at him with the same intensity, lifting the handle of the sword up to him with her free hand.

“Kill monsters,” says Fresh, nodding to him.

A heavy breath escapes his wet chest as his only response and she feels it blow over her face like a midnight wind. A giant hand, covered in black blood, grasps the hilt of the sword as the man lurches forward without saying a single word, charging into the swarm that surrounds them on all sides. Glass shatters left and right, filling the air as if it were coated in flocks of falling snow.

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“I told you to get out of here, IDIOT!” Glass erupts all around her, an undead head falls down next to her. Its taut skin is pulled over its hungry eyes, sealing them from the world.

“Jubilee!” cries Fresh, looking over to her friend who lands down next to her, jumping off of a glass spire. “I’m not going anywhere!” says Fresh, pulling out Jubilee’s glove and handing it back to them. “I -”

Fresh looks at Jubilee’s hand that is red from top to bottom. It looks like its covered entirely in fresh blood. “Jubilee!” Jubilee snatches the glove from her and turns around, slipping it back on. “I told you, glass is dangerous.” Jubilee snaps their fingers, skewering another vampire on a long spear. The creature lifts up into the air as the glass blasts through its long throat. Suddenly, the world rumbles, the ground shakes. The glass spear cracks in half as the golem charges through the obstruction as if it were nothing. “LOOK O- !” calls Jubilee, lifting a hand back towards her, just as Fresh sees the giant fist flying straight towards her head.

She sees her reflection just before herself again, just like a few seconds ago. But this time, it doesn’t shatter, as she looks at the girl in the mirror. The reflection isn’t in glass this time, but rather in ice. She stares at the confused visage who doesn’t wink back at her a second time.

Nothing happens.

Fresh looks down, looking at the blade of the sword pressing through the golem’s back, pressing through the round core at its center.

The world cracks, the stones shattering as the golem lifts up off of the ground. As the man from the witch’s sect stands behind it, grunting like a wild animal as he leverages the giant sword against the stones, as he lifts the golem up off of its feet in a display of incredible strength. As he screams a loud, primal cry, his deep, bassy voice echoing out over the plaza together with the scream of the golem, as it flips over the man who smashes the entire creature down behind himself. It crashes into the broken rock of the plaza.

The ice of its body shatters apart, flying in all directions like the shards of a broken plate. Glass flies out left and right, skewering the last vampires that still make their onslaught, lifting the many creatures up into the air, but never killing any of them, as they lash and flail about so far off of the ground. Their mutilated, mangled visages whip wildly in all directions.

It all goes quiet as Fresh watches the end of the fight. As she realizes again, as just before, how unusually bright it is outside, despite there being no visible moon tonight.

There is a loud crunch, as the man from the witch’s sect stomps onto the golem-core, crushing it beneath his heavy boot. The sound rings out around the plaza, echoing as all of the jeers and the cries from the crowd to the side suddenly go very quiet. Echoing, as the heavy clouds that cover the sky, finally begin to part half-way, as if ushered away by the noise that split the night. As if the death of the golem had set every one of their heavenly bodies into motion.

The world erupts into a half-light, as all of their eyes move towards the sudden appearance of the moon. It hasn’t been a moonless night at all. A full, looming moon hangs over the world, as it has done the entire night. The dark clouds that had obscured it now shift, however. The right half of it is still hidden by the clouds that seem to come together into a strange, odd formation, which seems almost unnatural in its construction. Murmurs begin to erupt from the crowd. Uneasy cries and shouts as fingers point towards the moon. Towards the thing that was clearly wrong and misshapen. They all bustle and move, the priests getting ready to cast their spell now, as several people point towards the odd thing that carries with it a strange, soft, purple tinge that hangs above the city.

The breath leaves the giant body in an instant as he exhales. “Yes…” mutters the man from the sect as he stares with possessed eyes at the strange moon. The core crunches beneath his boot as he grinds it into a fine dust.

“Yes!” he shouts again, lifting a hand and grabbing the lashing neck of a vampire, snapping it in half. The clouds shift, the light of the moon growing brighter and brighter as more if its left half comes into clear sight. The clouds all move towards the right, completely out of the natural order.

Jubilee turns towards her in an instant as they realize something, glass starting to form around their hands. “Get inside! GO!” they yell. The man lifts the giant sword, slashing it through the air one final time in a wide arc, severing a full half-dozen heads all at once, just as Fresh takes a single step back and away, her eyes growing wide and fearful as it begins to dawn on her.

“YES!” hollers the giant, his booming through the world as the clouds all move to the right, perfectly obscuring almost half of the moon. As the prophecy of the witch’s sect comes to be fulfilled, as evidenced by the crooked face that forms in the sky.

[Level up! You are now LEVEL 8 ! ]

{Cooking 3}{Crafting 6}{Gathering 2}{Adventuring 2}{Witch-Crafting 7}{Mercantile 5}

STATUS: ???

CLASS: [WITCH]

- of the Black-Fountain

OBOLS: 13226

SUB-CLASS: [CRAFTSMAN]

[INVENTORY]

The clouds finish their movements. Their overlaying of the moonlight gives the moon the clear, undeniable appearance of an unnatural visage. The appearance of a crooked face which stares down at them all, which stares down at the entire world with an eye that gleams expectantly. The clouds form around it, covering the moon in an entirely impossible manner, as if pressed into place by a cosmic sculptor, to give the celestial body the appearance of having a long, crooked nose and jagged teeth that smile down upon the world. The witch’s moon shines bright. But all eyes have left it and its haunting presence now.

All eyes, including those of the moon itself, stare down at one thing. At the single glassy window, that floats in the middle of the plaza. The one that shows her picture. Her name. Her class. The dark, glassy screen hovering just next to the girl, as it reflects the soft light coming from a thousand stars that shine above them, like godly eyes peering down onto the world to witness the birth of the witch of the north.

Razmatazz

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