Chapter 8: Sacrifice – Chapter 6: Intrepid Adventures

Stepping over the bits and pieces that once were a door, Aperio once again found herself wondering where exactly she was. Just like the room she had crashed into upon her return to this world, this corridor had all the hallmarks of Empire construction. It was barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side, and what little light the intermittently placed torches provided only served to underline the dreadfulness of the place. It even featured the fake window slits the Empire had in their cells. There was no sky to see behind them, only more stone. 

At least this was a mystery she could solve by simply leaving. If she was indeed in the Empire – something she had seriously doubted after her encounter with the Human party – it would be obvious as soon as she left the dungeon. Now she would just have to find a way out or, should that fail, try her hand at a very literal breakout. 

With a goal in mind, Aperio walked past numerous empty cells, briefly stopping whenever something caught her eye. More often than not it turned out to be a dead beast of some kind, though most of those looked like one-headed miniature versions of the dog-beast that had been killed by the Humans. Much like their bigger brother, these were probably killed by them as well. Not that she would complain; it did make the entire journey easier for her.

When it wasn’t a beast, it was something that would have been described as ‘priceless treasure’ by most people. A collection of sparkling accessories that would definitely not be out of place at even the fanciest of parties lay out in full view. There were also weapons to be found, mostly in the form of swords that looked far too ornate to be of any actual use, and she had once even spotted a full suit of armour that, while impressive-looking, could only serve as decoration. Nobody could fight in armour with shoulder pads bigger than their head.

All of these things were made out of a greenish-golden metal that she had definitely seen before, but couldn’t recall the name of. They were also completely useless for her. She had no use for jewellery that would probably try to bend your mind, and she also didn’t know how to fight with a sword. Putting on the armour? The thought of having her wings squished by the metal sent a shiver down her spine. There was no way she would ever wear something like that.

After walking past a few more discarded items and maimed beast corpses, she stopped. The blue mage took something out of the bigger beast, didn’t he? With that thought, she picked up one of the dead bodies for inspection. It was mostly intact, the only visible damage coming from a deep cut at its neck. She turned the body to look at the chest, the place she saw the blue-robed man pull something out, but couldn’t find anything that would warrant such an action.

As there was no hole in the chest of the beast, she concluded that the party had either ignored these little ones or that they did not have what they wanted. That was an easy thing for her to check. Without a second thought, she buried her hand in the dead beast’s chest. If she could do that to a human, and a wall, this small dog shouldn't be an issue, right? 

On the inside, her fingers quickly found something that should not belong inside a living being. Something with sharp edges and smooth surfaces, sitting where the heart should normally be. After closing her hand around the foreign object she pulled her arm out and let the body drop. She had found what she was looking for.

What she grasped in her blood-covered hand seemed to be a stone of some sort. It was dirty red in hue, and it had a certain warmth to it that seemed familiar. After a moment's reflection, she decided that it rather resembled the evil, mist-containing crystal, but without the same strength or forcefulness. She puzzled over the shiny stone as she turned it over to examine it from other angles.

They wanted something to warm their hands? That can't be it. There must be something more to these things. Maybe I should go back and get the one from the bigger beast? 

Shaking her head, she quickly discarded that thought. She had no desire to search through a pile of Human flesh for something she would not understand, or already had should it be similar to the one she just picked up. Instead, she pocketed the small stone and continued her walk down the bleak corridor in search of a way out. 

The further she got from the cell in which she had reappeared into the world, the more she felt like she was walking right back into the hands of her captors. Everything she saw looked like something the Empire would have built; the only thing missing was their weird insignia. She never quite understood why they plastered that thing on everything they owned, except the slaves. If she ever got the opportunity to ask she would do so, and then maybe brand the Imperial idiot that crossed her path with that stupid symbol.

Or maybe she wouldn’t; she had no real idea how strong she was now. Sure, beating that small group had made her feel pretty confident, but they might have been some weak idiots with more coin than sense. She would have to wait until she had met – and fought – more people, or monsters. The latter was more likely if the corpses that littered the ground were any indication. 

If she was fortunate enough – or, rather, unfortunate enough – she might encounter some of these single-headed dog-beasts in their living state. Then she would know if they were push-overs like the two mages had been. But, should they turn out to be more formidable than her previous adversaries, she might be in a bit of trouble. It was entirely possible that they could seriously harm, maybe even kill her. Not something she had on her to-do list just yet, she did just return from being dead after all. 

No need to head back into the void so soon.

It only took a couple more minutes of walking through the twists and turns of this desolate place before Aperio spotted a stairwell, one that looked entirely too well maintained for this place. None of the stairs had even the slightest cracks. 

Why do even stairs not make sense anymore? She stopped and looked around, seeing everywhere else in a distinctly sad state of disrepair. ...Is this really not a dream?

A loud clap echoed through the desolate hallway as she slapped herself and an all-too-familiar warmth spread across her cheek. The pain that followed was more intense than it had any right to be, but also served its intended purpose. This and the results of her previous [Reality Check] were the most conclusive evidence she would get: she was not in some weird dream land. Someone had simply decided that these stairs should be built strong enough to survive even the end times. Or dragons, but those two probably went hand in hand.

Or maybe, even, it was built to survive her arrival? 

When she had measured up the solidity of her limbs against the solidity of a wall, she had emerged victorious. Twice. But who would have known she would be here? And how would they even know she was still alive in the first place? It was frustrating her to no end, but there was nothing she could do about it now. It was just another thing that had to be solved later. After giving the first step an extra light tap, just to be extra sure it was really there, Aperio began her ascent. 

On the next floor, she was greeted by a very familiar scene. A dark and deserted hallway, at the end of which another door barred her way. Said door was promptly removed from its hinges as a fairly annoyed Elf gave a good kick; if this continued she would earn a title for destroying them all.

The room that was now accessible looked a lot more like a throne room and less like something you would expect to come before a dungeon, complete with expensive-looking marble flooring and weird sculptures of something she couldn’t identify that held up the ceiling.  It had once even featured an actual throne. Or at least a very fancy chair; she couldn’t really tell as it had been smashed to pieces. 

Normally Kings and Emperors didn’t want to see the people they threw into their cells, with perhaps the exception of watching their ‘favourite’ slaves suffer. But, even then, having potentially hundreds of them walking through your throne room every day? Aperio just shook her head. Not many things had made sense since her return so why should the layout of this place be the exception?

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On the other side of the chamber she spotted yet another closed door, which just brought another question to mind. Why are all the doors intact? They weren’t in pristine condition, but at least there were still in one piece. Something the rest of these ruins could not claim. She seriously doubted that the Humans that came through here before her would take care not to break them. They obviously wanted to get to that big dog – or the crystal.

Keeping in trend with the other doors, this one also featured a ward. In fact, it was the exact same as the one she had previously destroyed. To her, it was clear that someone had made this entire structure to keep that crystal contained: if she had to guess it was probably because the thing tried to enslave everyone that touched it. At least, she assumed it would try that with other people as well.

Her pace slowed as something dawned on her. Maybe those Humans tried to destroy the crystal? She shook her head. They probably tried to harvest it. To make more of those wretched things. Her features twisted into a frown as a more unpleasant possibility made itself known. Could they have been under the thrall of the thing? She had destroyed the crystal and the mist inside of it, but sadly that rarely broke the magic. Once cast, most spells of this kind could sustain themselves forever; even if the one that had invoked them was killed. But they would also always leave a mark of some kind – she probably should have taken her time to inspect the body of the mage after she repurposed his robe. At least that way she would have known for certain.

That would mean that the crystal had been alive. But that was something she could accept, easier than some other things that had happened since she had left the Void. When did I become so pensive? She quickened her pace as she pushed the thoughts from her mind. It was less successful than she had hoped; the nagging feeling that the Humans didn’t choose to attack her just wouldn’t go away.

“Talking would’ve been nice,” she mumbled to herself as she walked over the cracked marble floor towards the next piece of wood that required an audience with her foot. The meeting ended quickly as the door failed to make proper introductions and simply transformed itself into a myriad of tiny splinters. 

Truly magical.

The one thing that differentiated this floor from the last, besides its much grander appearance, was the absence of corpses. Or monsters. No matter where she looked she couldn’t find anything, living or dead. What she did find were signs of battle. Some blackened stone, and some marks on the walls that could have resulted from either angry claws or a very sharp sword

Aperio didn’t know how long she wandered around before finding the next stairwell leading upwards. Without the sun to help her tell how much time had passed, she could only guess. She wished she had one of those fancy watches the nobles seemed so fond of. That way she could have some sort of indicator as to how much time had passed. She'd never learned how to read them, of course, but still, counting circuits of big and small hands would be far better than nothing at all.

Luck, however, was not on her side. She had looked through many of the more opulent-looking rooms in hopes of finding a watch, or even something else that might have been useful, but could only different kinds of jewellery. There was no reason to touch any of those. Especially the necklaces, all of which seemed to be made of the same silvery metal as the one the blue mage had offered.

There was always the option of going back down, but something told her that she wouldn’t find what she was looking for there either. It would probably be for the best if she simply continued her journey upwards; maybe she would get lucky and find something that could help with the timekeeping.

Another remarkably pristine flight of stairs, a brief walk down a dark hallway and a fourth broken door later she was staring at a markedly different setting: there were no corpses and random trinkets strewn over the floor. Everything looked neat and tidy – if you ignored the obvious cracked and sometimes outright missing pieces of the walls.

A few tentative steps into the new floor brought no new insights. Only after she had wandered further into its depths did she find something. Rooms full of things, dead things. They reminded her of worms, but they were simply too large and looked a lot fluffier. 

Curious.

Wanting to get a better view of this new beastie, Aperio grabbed one of the more intact looking ones and hoisted it up. Her previous assumption seemed a decent enough guess: it did look like some kind of big, weirdly fluffy worm. But there was another thing she wanted to see. A wet crunch, some digging and a bit more blood later, she extracted another one of those stones from the maybe-worm’s now-mutilated carcass.

Unlike the previous stone she had procured, this one came in a mottled blue and felt cool to the touch. Intrigued by their difference, she fetched the warm-stone from her pocket and held it next to her newest acquisition. Having them side by side revealed another small detail that could be meaningless, but still caught the Elf’s eye. The red one was ever so slightly bigger, and if she recalled correctly, the one the now deceased mage had taken from the large two-headed monster was bigger still.

She pocketed both of the stones while pondering the implications of this discovery. Bigger stone means stronger monster? It would make sense if she simply went with how the monsters looked; a giant dog monster should be stronger than an oversized fluffy worm. But you never knew, it was entirely possible that these maybe-worms could use magic while the dog could not. She was decently certain that it could not, otherwise, it would’ve done so in its fight against the Humans.

But, like so many things lately, this would require further investigation that she simply couldn’t do right now. It would, most likely, also require asking a person that actually knew about these things. To do that, she would have to find such a person (and hope they spoke the same language), and to do that she would have to manage to leave this place.

The more floors she went through, the more bizarre the entire thing seemed. Every single one of them featured a different theme with different monsters. Even if said monsters were all dead. Why someone would build a place like this was beyond her, but at least she got more evidence that a stronger monster would result in a bigger one of those stones. Every time she would arrive on a new floor, she would look for one of the deceased inhabitants and remove the weird stone from its chest.

Some of them looked and felt like the ones she already had, just a bit smaller, while others were completely new. She even found one that gave her a very similar feeling to the Void: it simply felt right to hold it.

There were a few other things that gave Aperio pause however. She had no idea how long she had been ascending through these ruins now, but it had to have been days and yet she didn’t feel the need to sleep, eat or drink. Was that a magic of this place or was it her new self? Whatever it was, she was quite thankful for it. Eating partially rotten corpses was not something she wanted to do again.

She had stopped counting floors a while ago, as there were simply too many, but as she reached the top of yet another staircase something wonderful caught her eye. Bouncing off of the polished marble of the next staircase was a light that could only come from the sun. The thought of finally leaving this place gave her great feelings of joy – almost as great as the joy she had felt after being told she was to be sacrificed.

She was finally free.

GamingWolf

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