A Record of Ash & Ruin: The Grieving Lands

Book 2: Chapter 47: No Respite, No Surrender

In a time of the long ago, there was a man who lived happily with his three daughters. All three were graceful and of fair countenance. However, as is the nature of all things born into this world, his end would come to pass. A death vigil was held by his daughters, commencing with the eldest. She maintained an unbroken stoicism, shedding not a tear for him. The dying man asked her, “Why do you not weep?”

“I cannot mourn for those still living,” she answered gracefully.

Next, came the second daughter, and she held his hand as he waited to meet his end. They reminisced about their shared past - the countless joyful days, the painful loss of her mother, his adored wife. Despite the warm nostalgia of their shared memories, he observed a striking absence of tears in her eyes.

“Why do you not weep?” he asked.

"I cannot mourn someone who will find peace in a better place," she replied, concealing her true emotions behind a serene facade.

Finally, it was time for the youngest, his cherished child and the joy of his existence, to bid him farewell.

“Why do you not weep?” he asked.

She remained standing, her face etched with a maelstrom of rage and subtle delight.

“I cannot mourn you, for bitter joy fills my heart. I hate you with all of my being,” she spat, her words scalding with rage.

"What has filled your heart with such anger against me, my dear? What have I done to deserve your scorn?" he implored pleadingly, in a beggar’s tone.

Her voice was shrill and ringing as she answered him in bitter retort, “You have the gall to ask me this, you who would touch me in the night and call out the name of my mother? You always feigned ignorance, hiding behind the pretext of drunkenness. I have found it in my heart to forgive my sisters for their complicity, but I condemn you with all my heart. I do not weep, for it is I who have killed you. One poisoned cup at a time."

In the grip of utter desolation, he met his end with her bitter truth echoing in his dying ears. For the light of justice will always shine on those who seek to hide in the darkest of places.

- The Threads of Forgiveness, found in the notes of the playwright Vlan di Panoli.

Stately and inexorable, the undead thing made its way toward me, the weapon in its hand raised threateningly to strike. In response, I tried to work up a spark of anger, to fill myself with some token of fighting spirit. However, I failed miserably and only succeeded in raising my sword into a center guard, the tip pointing to face the new menace. Here, deep in this dark tomb, the sweat that had soaked into my gambeson had grown cold and clammy in new fear. I was to do combat with living death.

Advancing with the implacability of the grave, it struck at me, once it was within the measure of its khopesh, the gleaming blade blurry and deceptively swift. I wanted nothing to do with this horrible thing, and I edged backward, unconsciously. The undead thing paused, as if unsure at the result of its actions, before it fixed upon me with the baleful glowing orbs it had in place of its eyes. Its empty sockets lit with a lost soul’s luster. The dark guardian regarded me, analyzing the trespasser of its domain. Teeth clacking with a metallic sound, it launched a few probing strikes in my direction. The undead guard’s movements were, for the most part, stilted and slow. Almost predictably so, but interspersed among the cadence of its attacks were serpent-swift strikes that my eyes could barely register. It was, in short, a most-vexing opponent, for it was unpredictable, the slow strikes lulling the senses before it struck at me erratically, but at full speed.

I disengaged for a moment and drew upon my magical reserves to unleash Entropic Aura, hoping to hinder the undead guard I faced. The gray waves of entropy lapped against the skeleton, but the walking evil pushed through them unhindered. Grimacing, I quickly followed this spell with Drain, which was empowered by my Aura.

I could barely hear the inner voices, my longtime companions. They screamed in frustration as my dark energies made contact with the monster. This time, there was no flood of delicious stolen energy towards me. This skill was one of my aces, and I was thoroughly nonplussed as the Praxis Guard closed the distance to me and cut at me with its curved, heavy sword of war.

The sibilant voices within now howled, a howl that I echoed with my own frustration and blossoming rage. I was doing so damn well! I was finally making progress, only to be dumped down here, away from my companions and friends. On top of this, I was now forced to fight some insufferable creature that had the temerity to be resistant to my magic.

However, anger is a poor replacement for skill and discipline. Though I hacked away at the offending creature with a few counterstrokes of my own, my blows failed to find any purchase across its unnatural body. In reprisal, the undead guard scored a glancing hit across my vambrace, which I barely noticed in my heightened state of rage.

Fight the wielder, not the sword, I reminded myself. Another maxim threaded its way through my thoughts. Fight smarter, not harder. After all I had gone through, surely it was not my destiny for this to be my tomb.

Purchasing a few seconds by retreating yet again, I vaguely entertained the idea of just running away from the revenant, into the darkness and the unknown. Further threats could lurk within, however, and I was already struggling as it was. I needed to deal with this here and now.

To my chagrin, the long-dead warrior’s jilted movements were slowly turning smoother, as if up until now had been nothing more than a warmup, a rehearsal. Great, just what I need, I thought bitterly as the skeleton closed within striking distance again.

But just as the creature's movements became more natural, so too did my understanding of it. There was an almost mechanical pattern in its strikes. A high cut followed a low, which was, in turn, followed mysteriously by a wide swing of its other arm, which struck nothing but air. This last move in the sequence was important, as it gave me an opportunity to launch an attack of my own. With the insights gained through battle and my rigorous instruction under the overly-zealous Cordelia, I realized, none too late, that the dumb thing was swinging a shield it no longer possessed.

I was, in essence, fighting a machine. An undead machine, but a machine nonetheless. No matter how advanced, or magically-enhanced, there is no spell or line of code that can replace real human ingenuity.

Waiting for it to play this sequence, I launched a disciplined probing attack of my own that connected. I struck across its collarbone, and there was the dissonant clash of metal on metal. The shock ran up my arm, and I was utterly dumbfounded, for I had been expecting to cut deep into the bone. Barely able to parry its next stroke, I cursed my luck.

The thing before me was more than just a skeleton warrior. It was a damnable metal skeleton warrior. My cursed Luck! When it rained in my life, it truly poured misery.

It was time to try a new line of attack. Shifting my grip, I wielded my sword reversed, like a hammer in the ‘mordhau,’ the murder-stroke. However, unlike other blades, my weapon was designed to be used in such a way, and the Azag-Gishban felt solid and sure in my hand.

Predictably, like clockwork or the turning of the tides, the opening I had been waiting for came. With a resounding roar that surprised even me, I burst through the opening in the skeleton’s guard and launched a Power Strike at its hand. My blow smashed the skeletal digits of its hand, and magical or not, it was still bound by the laws of physics. The khopesh flew from its grip, clanging against rock somewhere in the purple murk. I had been foolish taking on the unliving monstrosity with the edge of my blade. The undead were always more susceptible to blunt attacks.

Flailing wildly at me, with weapons it no longer possessed, it did not seem so fearsome now. I took my time dismantling it, taking no small amount of joy in the process, repeatedly using Power Strike to cave in the metal. I burst through its knee with the hammer head of my weapon, disabling it for the greater part. Finally, I lifted my unstoried sword and caved in its metallic skull with a final Power Strike, the weight of my fear and hate lending strength to my blow.

I was panting, my body and mind feeling like they had been through the nine circles of hell. In a state of fear-driven frenzy, I had ignored the ‘cooldown’ on Power Strike, causing it to burn through exponentially more Stamina than it would have done otherwise. Though my Stamina was prodigious—monstrously so—it was not without its limits.

Just as I was going through the slew of notifications that praised me for my latest triumph, I began to hear the sound of eerie clanking footsteps coming ever closer. There was no respite for the wicked.