Chapter 147: Chapter 147: Hollow Armor

Metal clanks around me, as we walk in formation down the long stone bridge. Our pole-axes clanking in unison, as we march together in a thin formation down the way, patrolling the path to keep watch for any outsiders. I shake my body. Puffs of hot, fallen ash fall out from the inside of my hollow core, as several cracks and crevices make themselves seen through my movement. We have to empty ourselves once in a while, it becomes troublesome to move when there is too much of the ash inside of us. Weight isn’t an issue, but it is an unnecessary burden. Following my lead, the others do the same, as we continue walking down the bridge towards the staircase on which nobody else stands.

 

  Looking at it, I come into focus again and realize that I’m on the bridge again. The same bridge I was just a fire elemental on before. That’s lucky. No, I guess it isn’t actually. Well, maybe a little. I got cheated out of a few lives there, but it looks like the dungeon-master is trying to get me to pick up the pace again. Instinctively, I reach up with my hand to scratch my head in thought. My hand meets nothing and simply glides over the hollow core of my breastplate. Oh. Right. I don’t have a head. I’m just a hollow suit of magical armor. Apparently I don’t have a helmet either?

 

Ah, wait. No.

 

  I notice a presence jammed beneath my right shoulder, and setting my pole-axe to the side for a moment, grab my helmet that was lodged beneath my arm and place it snuggly on top of my body, where it snaps into place with an odd clicking sound. Not much changes except my vantage point, but that’s something I suppose. Looking around, I decide not to wait for the hero-party again a second time. The others can take care of that for me. I have other work to do.

 

  Walking over to the edge of the bridge, I listen, as the other two suits of armor continue on their route. Indifferent to my vanishing. I guess this is how the thief must feel all the time I think, as I stare down into the flaming abyss below. The many fires burning bright once again so deep down there, not yet having been extinguished by the dead-light. It’s a long drop. Any human would die for sure, alone from just the great distance, that’s ignoring the fact that the bottom is a burning hellscape. I suppose if I were the dungeon-master, that’s where I’d put the stairs. I sure hope so, because this is a one-way trip.

 

  Swinging my heavy metal body over the cracked stone wall that serves as a guard-rail, I lunge over the side and begin to fall down towards the abyss. Warm winds howl around me, whistling as they seep through the cracks and crevices of my empty armor, that seems to stretch outward just a little, as if the resistance of the air were stretching my limbs out wide. The ground gets closer and closer and not many seconds later, I collide with the stone below.

 

  There is a loud, almost deafening crashing sound as my hollow armor smashes into the burning rock beneath me. Pieces of me shatter off and fly in all directions from the force of the impact. The world spins and rolls, as my helmet is sent flying off somewhere, landing in a pile of glowing cinders that nest in front of my eyes.

 

  Something yanks at me, and the world spins again, as my head begins rolling back to my battered breastplate, together with all the rest of me and a moment later I am whole again. My ‘body’ having been pieced back together by whatever magical force allows me to persist. Dungeon magic, most likely.

 

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  Rising up to my feet, I scuff off a heap of ash from my body and look around at the place I’ve landed in. Raging fires and burning souls surround me, all of them dancing and weaving in patterns indiscernible to my eyes, in movements I can’t decipher anymore. They flicker and waver and shift in all directions, but their purposes almost seem otherworldly now that I watch them from an outside perspective. Turning my head, I see one gestalt, a single black heap of ash floating through the void.

 

  I raise a hand, eager to greet my friend. But I stop myself as I watch him pass, his haunted eyes affixed to the bridge above. Shaking my head, I lower my hand and turn around to go the other way. I hope you have a nice day today, Piotr.

 

  Instead I march down through the inferno, ash and coals flying around my metal feet as I march. The intense heat scorches and burns at my armor, singeing the hot metal and bringing it close to a red-hot glow, as my boots begin to absorb the raging heat. But they hold together and that’s all I need them to do, as I keep walking forward through the ashes.

 

  Down here it is pretty barren, there is little that stands out, save for the large dungeon wall that spans from down here to all the way up there, the outer boundary of this side of the space. It’s massively high, but thankfully not so wide, relatively speaking. High rising flames tower along the edge of it especially, and I walk towards them. Stepping into the new inferno, all I see around me is red. All I see is the raging flames, but I ignore them and reach my hand out to touch the wall behind them.

 

  It is solid and hot and so I turn to the right, running my left hand along the surface of the stones as I march down the length of the outer wall, searching for anything that is out of place, for anything that is missing. A minute passes, then two, then three and still I keep walking down the room along the outer wall. Climbing over heaps of ashes and bones, I keep on moving until eventually I find something.

 

I find nothing.

 

A hole, hidden behind a particularly large wall of fire. Smiling inside, since I don’t have an actual face, I step through the gap and look at the ash covered staircase inside.

 

 

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