Chapter Nine / Expedition

Sweat dripped down Arn’s face; his mask sticking to the contours. His body was hot and itching beneath his clothes. He swung down; the air catching and swirling around the end of his blade. He released his left hand’s grip and swung upwards into a horizontal strike as if to feint. Then took hold of the hilt in both hands once more. He repeated a pattern of strikes over and over, not knowing if it was really of any help; his unconscious mind recalling them. It didn’t matter, however, if it was martially helpful. He felt uneasy.

Arn took a breath and paused. He looked over to his left, a ceramic jug of water idled on the floor of the throne room, his cloak resting beside the jug. He approached it, then he took the jug and poured the water into a cup and drank. The water cooled his throat, yet there was a dryness that couldn’t be quenched. After finishing the cup, he returned to his practice.

Arn had spent most of his day in the Soul Forge producing Skeletons. Thousands of Skeletons were now at his disposal, and he decided to divide their numbers into production and supply. Most were assigned to the Woodcutter’s and Mining camps to continue to ensure there was enough for Ezbalath to produce weapons and armor. Supply lines running from the camps to the Storage Room and to the Smithy were established as well. The remaining number of skeletons were assigned to the Guard Room so they could be used as replacements should the front garrison require it.

Ezbalath had already produced a quarter of what Arn’s legions would require, which was faster than he anticipated. Arn did worry, however, that Ezbalath would work himself into a daze or that the quality of his work would be affected by the demand.

I’ll have to check on Ezbalath later. Arn thought.

Ezbalath’s health was not the only concern, however, but what he saw. So many questions about the world, and of himself swirled in Arn’s mind. Normally, these types of scenarios, where one is resurrected into another world, have a protagonist willing and eager to set off on a new adventure. At least that is what most fantasy adventures were like, Arn thought. He felt, however, himself only slipping into old tendencies. Stubborn, and suffocated by the isolation as a result. Arn is alone.

In between swings, he felt his arms growing tired. His feet grew heavy, like he was standing in sand. Yet, he continued his routine. He felt home sick.

“My Lord?” A voice called out from behind him.

Arn turned in surprise at the source of the voice, and Gelicarus stood waiting by the empty water jug.

“Gel, I didn’t even notice you. Sorry.” Arn said, sheathing his sword.

“Is something troubling you?” Gelicarus asked, his green eyes resting in the shadows of his dark hair.

Arn stood quietly for a moment deciding how to respond.

“My apologies, let me rephrase: If something is bothering you, my Lord, I am always here should you need me. You are not alone.” Gelicarus said.

Arn took a deep sigh, feeling the weight of his shoulders shift.

“Do you remember what your home was like, Gel?” Arn asked.

Gelicarus smiled as if embarrassed by the question; his smile brightening his fair face.

“Unfortunately, no, my Lord. I do, however, remember your’s. You spoke rarely of it, but what you told me of it I do.” Gelicarus said, taking Arn’s silence to continue: “The deep green valleys, streams of water that glistened in the sunlight, the fall which brought the changing of leaves and covered the ground in deep colors, and the moonlight settling over the early sleeping days of cold snowy winters. You always described it like a fairy tale.”

Arn closed his eyes, letting the description wash over him. Memories flooded him and reminded him of the term home. It felt so distant in place and time. The smells, the warmth of the sun, the sound of water gently passing over rocks, and the cold of winter. The cold spiteful winter, snow seeping into the crevices of his toes and fingers, chilling his skin and tucked in his fingertips. The winter that never ended.

Arn opened his eyes.

“Thank you, Gel, for being here. I needed it.” Arn said sighing.

Gelicarus bowed: “Of course.”

Arn took up his cloak, resting it again over his shoulders.

“I’m heading out, Gel. Please ask Ezbalath to only arm as many skeletons as he can in a day. Also ask him to take breaks. I don’t want him to overburden himself.”

“As you wish, my Lord. Where, if I may ask, are you going?” Gelicarus asked.

“I’ll scout ahead of the army and see what the enemy has in store for us. After a day – march the legion into the next floor. I’ll be waiting ahead.” Arn said.

Arn paused at the doorway, the glow from the light above disappearing behind the throne, and then marched himself through and down the hallway. His restlessness finally taking hold of him.

 

A tingling feeling fell over Arn as he passed through the gateway to the next floor, as if he had slipped through water. The shimmering behind him only confirmed the thought, which thereby disturbed him. If the gateways are portals, then they can be sealed. Arn thought. He could not linger on this, however - the stench of the hallway before him helping to alleviate his worry. The flesh pulsed through the corridor, puffs of heat and putrid puss spouting from sacks of blood clinging on the walls.

Stepping forward, his feet never touched the pulsing flesh. With audible squeals, the flesh parted and was violently eviscerated within an area around Arn and replaced with the stone floors, walls, and ceiling he was already familiar with.

So much for scouting. Arn thought. The hallway changed with every step he took, the flesh bending away from his presence.

The hallway stretched for miles, much like the direction he just came from, until he was met with another gateway. Purple tendrils coiled down from the walls like veins that pumped blood into the flesh blocking Arn’s path forward. Arn unsheathed his blade, and as he did so - the flesh began to part. Having seen this before, Arn slashed down and horizontally - cutting the barrier to pieces. The flesh barrier melted away into the floor, the gateway now clear of any obstacles.

The area that met Arn stretched beyond his sight line, having no walls, and obscured in meadows of flesh and bone. Light stretched down into the fields of flesh from above, only illuminating sections, which Arn could barely make out the flesh covering the ceiling above. As Arn moved forward, the ground was swept of pulsing skin and blood, and revealed a more damaged cobble floor caked in mud. Lingering, more of the area was expanded and revealed mud which didn’t transform into the cobble floor. On both sides of the damaged cobble, mud was found beneath the flesh.

Arn knelt and examined the stone ground directly beneath him: it was older and required filling in. It stretched further beyond and Arn realized this was more than a hallway – but a road, or perhaps even an ancient style of a highway. The damage to the road, however, became more noticeable as Arn followed it forward. Then the road disappeared, dipping into a ditch, into a hole, and then as the meat parted: a crater of some tens of feet wide and deep.

Curious of the origin of the crater, Arn descended into the crater. No obvious answer revealed itself as he walked along its edges and ran his hand over its surface. It was just a crater. As he was about to depart the crater and climb up on the other side – his foot caught something on the ground, something metal. He nudged the ground, and his foot hit the metal surface again. He knelt, dusting his gloves on one another to remove the mud caking them, and began removing mud from the surface. His sweeping revealed more metal, until finally he dug from the mud something he hadn’t expected: a plate chest piece for a suit of armor. Markings etched the edges of the armor, and Arn could feel a slight pulling sensation from them. He was unsure of what they were, but he made a guess: sigils.

I didn’t know sigils could be placed upon armor. Arn thought to himself as he revealed more beneath the surface. As he dug, however, the damage to the armor became more apparent. The edges of the plate appeared melted as if subjected to high heat. Arn thought of the cannon he had encountered before but couldn’t make any conclusions.

Arn then placed a hand on the chest plate, attempting to feel anything from the armor. If there are sigils, perhaps there’s magic I can manipulate. Arn thought. Yet, the sigils didn’t activate. Arn tried to remember what Ezbalath had said of magic: “Anyone can manipulate a fraction of the moving magic around us, within their own body… need to see your magical coil so to speak. It’s the core to a person’s resonance with magic.” Arn did not know how to feel his own coil, but he closed his eyes and took deep breaths. He steadied his breathing, letting the world ebb away into the dark recesses of his consciousness. There he heard thumps – like heartbeats in the darkness and could make out two different rhythms. One he heard and somehow recognized as his own, and the other – the armor in front of him.

Arn opened his eyes; his hand still resting upon the chest plate. Something remained here, buried beneath fields of flesh and mud. Arn felt a deep sadness coursing through him from the armor. Reach out and I shall take you with me.

He felt a tug as if someone had gripped his hand, and he yanked backwards. From the chest piece a bright object draped in golden hues untethered itself, parting from an invisible origin. Arn held the object, the soul, in his hand. It was warm to the touch, yet its hues only exuded a melancholic feeling in Arn. Arn examined the soul and the only word he could understand from it was: “Paladin.” He said aloud. “Come with me then.”

Arn placed the soul close to his chest, and then it entered another invisible space inside. He felt the pulses from the soul until it became quiet. Patting his chest Arn stood, and in the distance a screech echoed in the dark. The screeches became more frequent, and Arn knelt and braced his back against the mud slope of the crater.

Minutes passed by and the screeches grew more distant. Arn had heard the sound before from the creatures that stormed through the gateway. Arn peaked his head over the top of the hole and saw only the darkness of the area. Scouts. Arn thought, yet this could only be an assumption. Arn made his way out of the hole and onto the wrecked highway. He patted himself down as much as he could to remove the mud, some of it still clinging in clumps to his person and looked back at the gateway he had come from. Then Arn looked away from the gate and into the darkness of the highway. He marched onwards, the flesh parting ways in front of him, and followed the road.

The air stank of a wretched smell, of human feces and blood, but a comfort took hold knowing that it would burn away should he claim this floor. Should? Arn questioned. He didn’t press the question further. He could admit his doubt, but it seemed foolish to do so. His survival demanded that he remain focused, and since his arrival on this floor Arn could not shake a weight pressing down upon his shoulders. Something was further ahead in the darkness, something he could not feel doubt in front of.

Arn walked for hours. Screeches echoed in the distance many times, yet none ever seemed to get close. In the distant darkness, a larger encroaching blackness appeared on the horizon. The other side of the floor. Arn concluded. Yet every step he took seemed to bring him no closer to it, its visage placed there as if to mock him.

Looking to the east Arn could see yet another large black object, which jutted from the ceiling and into the floor. Arn squinted and could make out flesh clinging to it. Just like everything else on this floor. Arn thought. I’ll have to visit another time.

After another few hours of walking Arn came to a large flesh crevice. With his approach, the flesh burned away and revealed more mud – though it appeared damper than the rest. A river? Arn questioned while inspecting the mud running from the embankment. Then as the rest of the flesh cleared, a large stone structure revealed itself at the center. Its crumbling stone matched with the highway, which Arn then assumed once formed a bridge across. Arn stood, recognizing that the river flowed east towards the large object.

Arn looked down at the highway. Perhaps, with one of my abilities, I can reform the bridge. Just before Arn could reach out and proceed – another screech echoed in the distance. Closer and closer the screeching came. Arn slid down the slope into the riverbed and took shelter under what was left of the support beam. The screeching came from where he was on the highway, then after several minutes - went west. While the screeching was distant, it remained close enough for him to hear it, and others joined in. They were all around him. Arn took a piece of fallen rubble to use as a seat under the beam and waited.

There was little to do but wait. Console. Arn thought, and the screen appeared in front of him. The console gave him a rough layout of the areas he had discovered but revealed little beyond that. The floor was clearly much larger than the previous, stretching hundreds of miles in diameter, and he wasn’t even close to the next floor’s entrance yet. Transportation will quickly become an important factor.

Arn switched tabs in the console to his stats and abilities. Insight had risen substantially, but it was the only stat that was able to increase, and its use was not quite clear. Arn then switched to Power and was shocked. It had a point. Arn hovered over the point and read the description: Flesh and Blood - True as the body, and true as the soul.

Another vague description, great. Arn thought and closed the console in front of him. Nothing to do but wait now. Arn leaned against the pillar behind him and rested his eyes.

 

Arn’s stomach groaned lightly. The distant screeches dissipated until the air became still once again, and Arn opened his eyes. He stood and scanned the immediate area, then made his way up the other side of the riverbed. Reaching the other side of the highway, again he scanned the area and saw nor heard anything in the vicinity. Concluding nothing was in the area, Arn journeyed forward.

Upon taking a few steps forward, however, a dense fog quickly rolled in from the horizon. The fog refracted what little light escaped from the holes in the ceiling, bringing light to the area, yet its density was so thick that Arn could hardly see his own hands. Arn pressed forward, at least in the direction in front of him – the fog distorting any sense of direction.

A trap? Arn wondered. This fog is far too coincidental. With every step Arn felt more uneasy, resting his left hand on his sword, and with every step he felt the air shift. He was not alone.

Thumps echoed out in front of him, with every step Arn grew closer, and the thumps grew louder. The thumps paced themselves to a rhythm, a rhythm Arn is familiar with – a heartbeat. The beating grew so loud it was everywhere in the fog. The thumps drew themselves out longer into long beats, then suddenly into quicker thumps. The fog slowly withered away into darkness.

In the darkness a large black structure pulsed in front of Arn. As Arn adjusted to the darkness, however, the structure became clearer: A giant heart hundreds of feet tall shadowed over Arn. Writhing purple veins pulsed over its surface and pumped into the flesh below. The flesh beneath pulsed and shimmered around the heart, rippling outward into the fields of flesh. The heart pulsed rapidly, each thump shimmering into the ground and into the air. A shimmering red glow grew brighter beneath the flesh of the heart with every thump, until its glow illuminated the field.

In the field of flesh around Arn an innumerable amount of flesh creatures gathered, stomped, slid, groaning, and screeching to surrounded him. Millions dotted the plains of flesh, their howls almost silent next to the beating of the heart.

Arn looked up, and in the shadow of the glowing heart a being hovered in the air, their one eye watching Arn. The being screamed as it tore the bone and flesh halberd from its own body.

Arn unsheathed his sword, a droplet of sweat dripping down the side of his face, the pulses of the heart shimmering the air around his body and his breath almost in tune with the beats. His stomach lightly growled.