Chapter 299: 300: The bad times.

Fresh flies through the night, sparing a glance towards the south as she heads in the direction of the last dungeon that she assumes is on her list, the central-dungeon. It’s a good thing she doesn’t have to visit the southern-dungeon. Actually, she’s a little curious about it. But not curious enough to literally want to wander into the realm of the dead. Best to just leave it be.

She turns her gaze back forward, seeing the central-city coming into sight, the boughs of the giant tree breaking the horizon. The leaves are painted in an autumn orange, the verdant green she had once seen having now faded and left during the fall. Getting ready, she steels herself for whatever might await her there. Getting into the dungeon unseen is going to be hard. She’ll have to think about something for that.

Are her friends watching her? Fresh blinks. Last time she was outside like this, Jubilee had used the mirror. They’re probably all sitting around, doing that now, actually. She looks up at the sky, not sure where they’d be looking from if they are. So she picks a random direction and waves, hoping that they see her. “Hi, guys!” she beams, waving to the night. “I’ll be home soon!” she calls, as the broom continues to shoot ahead. The glow of the lights of the central-city come up to touch her and the broom rises higher, higher and higher still. High enough that she ends up flying through the giant branches of the tree.

Something screeches, Fresh yelps, the broom shooting to the side as some odd bird-woman, a harpy, she assumes, flies past her, its long-talons scratching the bark of the wood.

“Sorry!” calls Fresh out to the monster she must have startled, hoping it understands her.

The broom keeps on flying. Apparently, she isn’t going to be stopping here after all?

Oh. Well, that’s nice.

Fresh turns her head around, looking at the central-city she has flown over, now being on her way to return to the east. She lets out a long sigh of relief, looking back ahead of herself. Whatever it was time for, apparently, the central-dungeon isn’t involved. In a way, too bad. She was getting kind of curious and at least she isn’t doing anything evil this time.

But in another, more reasonable way, she’s excited to go home and to hug her friends and maybe cry a little, before going to bed. They’re opening tomorrow morning, after all.

Adjusting her hat, the terrible witch of the north, or the west, or the east, she’s lost track, honestly, leans in and flies faster, ready to go home and to call it a night.

Fresh smiles.

The world ahead of her erupts into light. Fresh yelps, covering her face as the distant horizon vibrates with a cascading energy, as if the glow of a thousand bolts of lightning, pulled and thrown from some godly quiver, had all impacted the world at once. Flailing, disoriented, she grabs onto the broom, swirling through the midnight sky that is so bright, it is as if the sun itself had come to rise anew, just past the break of the witching hour.

And then, something screams.

The world falls entirely silent, except for the loud, rumbling sound that crashes over the ground and as the dying light begins to leave the world once more, allowing the curtain of midnight darkness to fall back over and to recover the horizon. She sees the ground shaking, the great stretch of forest between here and the east shakes and moves as the ground rises upwards in waves, as if pushed away by a burrowing, titanic worm. As some calamitous ripple shoots through the ground, destroying the entire stretch of land that she can see from where she is, all the way until the edge of her vision. The forest rips apart, trees fall over as a great scar tears through the world, losing its energy only just before where she is now.

Darkness falls.

Terrified, entirely unsure of what just happened, Fresh hovers there for a second, staring out eastward, towards the source of the destruction, towards home.

Following her desire, the broom moves. However, against her will, it doesn’t go eastward. Instead, it goes up. Up. Further, higher, until she reaches a height that is beyond dizzying, until she feels the air become difficult to breathe and her head becomes light. The clouds part, moving away as if leaving only by her grace alone and as they depart, the wicked smile of the witch’s moon comes down to greet her, grinning at her from a distance so close, that she feels like the dew she can feel touching her eyes is its damp breath.

What’s happening?

Worried, Fresh looks back towards the east, turning her head. She yells a second time as once more, the world erupts into light. A new explosion. She shields her eyes, holding on to the broom this time with her tightly clamped legs.

The world shakes again, moved by the tremendous roar of whatever energy is being released there.

Squinting as the light begins to fade, Fresh stares at the thing to her left, at the red glow that comes from some distant, large city. The north. It’s fog. She can barely see it from here, from this far away. But she recognizes that cloud. It’s red. It’s the fog of a dungeon break, but it’s far more than that. It’s covering the entire city, like a poisonous cloud blasting out of an exposed cavern beneath the deepest recesses of the world. It grows, enveloping the entire silhouette.

“STOP!” yells Fresh, knowing that the fountain can hear her.

Terrified, Fresh turns around, looking over the boughs of the great tree, back towards the distant peak of the mountain. From it, she sees a red ooze trickling down, flowing along the rock like water from a blood-filled fountain.

“STOP!” yells Fresh. The fog continues to trickle.

She turns her gaze back eastward and then speeds towards it, now being allowed to move, now that the fountain had shown her what it wanted her to see. What is this?!

Fresh flies as fast as she can, heading east, shooting over the destroyed forest, shooting over the destroyed desert that a giant, glassed scar runs through, shimmering in the red moonlight. The sands of the desert are literally melted by some streak of incredible energy that had torn through it.

As the eastern-city comes closer and closer into her tear-filled vision, Fresh now sees the red-fog, creeping out over the world here too.

But there isn’t much of a world left for it to creep over.

Fresh flies into the mist, expecting to hear screams, expecting to see fire and smoke and bodies littering the streets.

But all she sees is a scar.

The eastern-city, most of what she can see of it, is gone. Blasted away by something, some deistic level of energy. It’s just… gone.

Her hands grip the broom in terror as she breathes in the red fog.

It’s gone.

Her eyes wander down to where the adventurer’s guild should be.

It’s gone.

She looks over at the harbor, once full of ships and life.

It’s gone.

She flies, going as fast as she can to their home.

It’s gone.

However many hundreds of thousands of people were here. They’re…

She lands, digging through the rubble of where she thinks their house should be. There’s nothing here. It’s all just broken and scorched rock and bricks. Screaming, Fresh falls down and begins throwing things left and right, trying to find something, anything, anyone.

Her hands find something out of place amongst the debris. Digging it out, she stares at a broken statue of a wooden chicken. Its head is missing. What happened? How could this have happened? Where is everyone… where… where…

Heavy steps ring out from the ruby fog. Boots. Metal.

Fresh turns her head, relieved. “Sham-!”

She stops, staring at the large silhouette that isn’t Shamrock’s. A suit of metal armor stands there, coming slowly through the mist. Large, proudly ornate boots step over the rubble that was once their front door. A fabric mantle blows behind him in some unseen, untouchable wind that she doesn’t feel on her skin, as the armor belonging to the hero, Garnett, walks towards her.

His gauntlets rattle as he lifts his sword, holding it far more competently than he had done on that night in the central-city.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” yells Fresh at him. The man, whose face she can’t see because of the helmet he is wearing, lifts his hands, energy beginning to glow around his sword as he stares at her with haunted, obsessed eyes. The hero, Garnett, if he has anything to say, says nothing. His posture says nothing, his gaze says nothing. He is entirely silent, entirely emotionless, entirely… lifeless.

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Magic collects around his blade, the same magic that had caused this destruction, that had caused both of those flashes of light. Hero-magic. A bell rings from a source that she can’t define, the sound coming as if from the heavens themselves, as with each strike of the chiming metal, comes a pulse of energy around the hero’s blade.

This. This hero-magic. This isn’t just something that kills. This isn’t like a fireball or a zap of lightning. This is…

It’s cleansing.

Fresh looks down at her body, looks at the wet stains that cover her hands from touching her face that black-water streaks down out of, falling down out of her crying eyes, out of her nose.

It’s permanent.

The bell strikes twelve. The hero swings.

But nothing happens.

Opening an eye, Fresh looks at the thing. At the monstrous hand that has shot out of the red fog that surrounds them, that has grasped the hero, wrapping its fingers around him.

“Five hundred eighty-nine thousand twenty-three,” says a voice. “PERCHTA!” it yells. Fresh looks at the silhouette of the dungeon-master of the eastern dungeon as it approaches her. The red-fog surrounds them, the dungeon-break is complete here as it is in the other cities. The things, the monsters, are no longer contained. “FIVE HUNDRED EIGHTY-NINE THOUSAND TWENTY-THREE!” it screams.

The hero presses his arms outward. The fleshy, giant hand that holds him ruptures, a wave shooting up the massive forearm, ripping the muscle and sinew from the bone as blood and red fly everywhere all around them.

The hero falls down to the ground again and then, lifts his blade anew, as if he were entirely, single-mindedly focused on this and this alone. The odd, frog-like, masked monsters that she had seen down on floor forty of the dungeon leap out of the mist and swarm the hero now as the dungeon-master excitedly walks towards her.

“You old ding-bat!” it yells, smiling a giant, toothy smile. “You actually pulled through!” exclaims the dungeon-master, grabbing both of her hands like a wide-eyed child, filled with wonder as it stares up towards a person who it cherishes. Shaking, terrified, Fresh looks at it. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you! Ah! AH~!” it shakes, its entire body quivering. Lights and explosions flash out from behind them as the hero fights the onslaught of dungeon-monsters. “I’m so happy! FIVE HUNDRED EIGHTY-NINE THOUSAND TWENTY-THREE! PERCHTA!” it shouts, letting go of her hands and spinning in a circle with its arms outstretched, as if it were overjoyed by the red fog, as if it were the first falling of crisp, new winters’ snow. “I finally have my home back! Thank you! Thank you!”

Fresh stutters. “I… I…”

The dungeon-master of the eastern dungeon spins around. “The wild hunt begins!” it cries ecstatically, stomping its feet on the ground and clenching its fists in front of itself like an overjoyed child. “I’ll do my best for you, Perchta! I’ll do my best for Yovel! I’ll never be able to repay you for this!”

Fresh, not able to say anything, grabs her broom.

“When it’s done” she says. But it isn’t her saying it. It’s the fountain making her. She can taste the black-water on her tongue. “Make sure it’s quiet up here next time, okay?” asks the fountain.

“You won’t hear a whisper!” promises the dungeon-master.

Fresh sits down on her broom and flies away, sparing a glance towards the hero, Garnett, who is tracking her with obsessed, unblinking eyes that shine under the glow of the witch’s moon as he throws the last frog-creature down onto the ground, crushing its skull with his boot.

The broom flies through the fog, flies over the destruction of her home. She spares a glance down at the glassy sands, seeing the destroyed remnants of a giant bow that is cracked in half, lying broken on the beach. The archer of the hero’s party is nowhere to be seen. The same applies for the rest of his party.

The witch, Perchta, flies into the source of the red mist, the eastern dungeon, and vanishes from the surface of the world.

Only after she is inside, only after she falls off of her broom and starts vomiting does the fountain give her control over her own body back, having used her for what it needed.

Fresh retches.

“Fucking gross,” says a familiar voice. Fresh lurches forward again, her stomach pressing itself in all by itself as she purges.

Crying, covered in gunk, vomit and tears, Fresh looks up at Jubilee who hasn’t bothered getting up from the drift-wood log that they’re sitting on, Basil who is fervently praying and a big, green hominid slime who is looking out a destroyed suit of dark-cobalt armor.

“Hi,” says Shamrock.

Fresh vomits again. Not because of that, but because of the other thing.

Razmatazz

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