TQG 61

61. Adversary

I propped the small mirror from my inventory on the desk as I tried to get the last of the mud off of my face.  I had changed out of my filthy clothes and now stood in the cell the monk had assigned to me wearing only my smallclothes as I washed the filth from the night’s activities from my body with the help of a basin of water and a rag and a bar of soap.

I still had one stack of [Exhaustion] and [Weakness] from the poison, but my health had regenerated back to almost half of its maximum.  Unfortunately I had gained [Hunger], and there was no way I was about to ask the monk who had already poisoned me once for something to eat.  I had another day or two before [Hunger] became dangerous, and hopefully I would be rescued by then.

Once I had gotten most of the mud and dirt and blood from my body, I sighed and pulled a nightshirt from my inventory to wear in the small, dusty bed.  My ruined clothes I left in a pile on the ground.  Collapsing into the bed, I almost let sleep overtake me, but I realized I should check in with my guild and give them an update.

Hail

Hey everyone.  So, I’m still alive.  Barely.  I almost died a couple of times last night.  I really think I need you guys to find me and rescue me soon, or else I’m probably going to die again.

Dimple

We’re searching for you as fast as we can, Hail.  We’ve tried asking Lady Gwen, but she claims that the portal had some sort of magical interference which changed its destination from where you were supposed to go, and she doesn’t know where you are either.   We have a few allied guilds helping us look, including <Peasant’s Revenge> and <Ragtag Muffin>.  Do you have any more details that would help us find you?

Hail

Yeah.  Um, the wildlife seems to be around level 40, but the native who is sort of keeping me hostage is level 50, and he has a pack of Ramsay hounds that obey him.  I’m trapped in an abandoned Temple of Thedum, but it’s really old and rundown, so I’m not sure if it appears on any maps or if it’s ever been discovered by Travelers before.

Sellamander

Hostage?  Hail, have you been kidnapped?

Hail

Sort of?  I don’t know.  I’m pretty sure that if I try to escape the hounds will rip me apart, but the monk who controls them hasn’t exactly threatened that.  He’s just poisoned me and made me dig a hole and fill it in.

Peotre

A hole?

Hail

Yeah, I know, it’s weird.  Please guys, I really want to get out of here, so I hope you find me soon.  But I’m exhausted.  I need to go to sleep now.  I’ll check in again if I figure something else out that might help you find me.

Peafowlet

He says he’s been poisoned and you focus on the other part?   What’s wrong with you Peotre?  Hail, are you okay?

Hail

I’m fine now.  I mean, I almost died from the poison, but then I developed [Poison Resistance], and it’s level 3 now, so I was able to fight it off.  If the monk wanted me dead, I’d be dead now.  I think he just wants free labor, because he says I have more holes to dig when I’ve rested.  I’m going to sleep now.   I’ll check in again when I wake up, okay?

Dimple

Get some rest, Hail.  Don’t worry, we’ll find you soon.

Closing the chat window, I collapsed into the old musty bed and pulled the threadbare sheets over me.  I fell asleep in moments.  I dreamed of running through a forest, something fast and evil in pursuit.

~~~~~~~~

I refreshed [Arcane Weapon] on my shovel, and it sank into the dirt like it was passing through warm butter.  It was a little trick I had learned when I was digging the second hole to make things a bit easier.  I needed every advantage I could get, as my [Lingering Weakness] and [Hunger (2)] debuffs were limiting my Strength and Endurance by thirty percent.  Unfortunately my magic did nothing to reduce the weight of the dirt as I threw it out of the hole.

It was late evening, the sun would set soon.  I had barely eaten since I’d revived, and I knew that once my [Hunger] debuff reached five stacks my vitality would begin to decrease.  Once it reached ten stacks, I would gain a damage over time effect that would slowly kill me.  The monk had tried to feed me porridge when I’d awoken, but my [Detect Poison] spell had lit up like crazy when I’d cast it.  So I’d put the bowl in my inventory without saying instead, and when he had noticed that the bowl was gone the monk had dragged me back out to the back of the temple to dig the rest of the holes while the pack of Ramsay hounds kept me from running away.

The guild still had no idea where I was, but they assured me that hundreds of Travelers and Natives were searching for me now.  I indulged myself in fantasies of my rescue and the vengeance I would visit upon the monk as I worked on the third hole I was to dig.  I glanced at the leader of the Ramsay hounds and imagined Tarisha turning it into a puff of black mist.  The hound looked back at me as though it were daring me to use my own blade to try to make my fantasy a reality, but I knew that I would die in the attempt.  So I continued digging.

Shortly before dusk, the monk returned to check on my progress.  He nodded and escorted me into the shed, which smelled just as foul as before and had twice as many flies buzzing around, and together we threw another sack filled with rotting meat into the ground.  I began to fill the second hole as he disappeared back into the temple.  Filling the hole was easier than digging it, but before I got too far, my curiosity got the better of me.  I jumped down into the hole and tore open the sack to examine the contents.

The rotting face of a dead man is what I found.  I cried out in surprise and fell atop the rotting body, then scrambled my way out of the grave.  I had thought that I had been burying spoiled food, not a person!  After all, why would you bury a body when you could just have a priest perform the funerary rights and they would vanish into mist?

The hounds began to growl at me again, apparently angry that I had discovered their master’s secrets.  They appeared ready to pounce, and in a panic I sought the nearest shelter I could.  I [Dashed] to the shed and slammed the door shut behind me.  The shed, where three more bodies lie in burlap sacks.  I covered my mouth with my shirt to try to block out the smell.

I could hear the hounds circling the shed and growling.  Occasionally one would scratch against the door, but it held against them.  I was trapped, but for the moment I was safe.

I went to the three remaining bodies and tore open the sacks to reveal the faces within.  Two men and a woman.  Ordinary looking, completely unknown to me, I looked for clues to how they had died, but I was no physician.  I found no obvious wounds, but that only meant that the final blow had not been a critical.  They must have been weeks old to have begun to smell so rotten!

There was, I realized, something that I could do about the scent.  The bodies were already in close to the funerary position, and so I simply held the rite to send them off to their next lives.  They turned into motes of white light and began to rise into the air.

Abruptly the ceremony went very wrong, with the motes turning to darkness as they were seemingly yankedfrom Thedum’s embrace.  They circled around me for a moment and I had the sense of malevolence from them.  And I once more felt the presence of a god, but it was not the pleasant benevolence of Thedum.  For the first time in my life, I had drawn the personal attention of the adversary.

“Hello there, little avatar,” a smooth female voice said, everywhere and nowhere at once.  “I’m sorry dear, but you can’t have these souls.  They belong to me.  Thank you for finding them for me, however, I was wondering where they had vanished to.”

“You cannot harm me,” I told the manifestation.  “I walk in the light of Thedum, you--”

“Oh I wouldn’t dream of spoiling the game that way, little rook,” the voice said, sounding coy.  “And as I said, I am truly grateful for your assistance.  No, I think that I shall reward you instead.  Perhaps you would like to know--”

“Get back!” the monk said, kicking open the door.  “Hail, take shelter!  This is not a battle that you can win.”

“You!  Of course it was you!” the goddess of darkness shouted.  “I should have known.  Has your god broken his stance of neutrality?”

“This is personal,” the monk growled.  “These souls are mine, and you may not have them back!”

The monk waved his hand, and the swirling motes of light coalesced, reforming the rotting bodies that they had been before my interference.  The adversary screamed in frustration, and I sensed something pulling at the bodies, only to hit a barrier which it could not pierce.

The adversary laughed.  “Oh, very well.  They were minor pawns in the first place.  They are not worth the effort it would take to reclaim them.  But I shall remember this.”

The malevolent presence of the adversary faded, leaving me alone with the monk who had stood up to her, and three corpses which I now believed he was responsible for creating.  He sighed, took a flask from his robe, and quaffed a drink.

“Damn fool boy, is there no way to keep you out of trouble?” the monk muttered.  “Do you think that I would go through the trouble of burying them if there wasn’t a reason for it?  These are the men responsible for the deaths of your family members, and you were about to grant them absolution you fool!”

“What?” I demanded.  “My grandfather and my uncles were killed by Travelers, not--”

“Who do you think has been passing out quests to slay members of the royal family, boy?  These were members of the assassin’s guild, before I got to them.  The ones responsible for issuing quests.  Had they returned to the adversary, then they would have simply respawned with a new face and continued to wreak havoc upon your family tree.”

I clutched at the handle of my [Gemos Longsword] and eyed the monk suspiciously.  He had stood up to the adversary, and he had won the battle for the souls of these men.  Yet I knew for certain now that he was no worshiper of Thedum.

“Who are you?” I demanded.  “What god do you worship?”

The monk sighed and took another drink from his flask.  “Do you not recognize me, Hail?  We’ve met before, although I admit it has been several years and I was not particularly pleasant towards you at the time.  You played with my grandson when you visited my villa outside of the capital.  I believe that he had significantly more fun than you did, at the time.”

The monk turned to me, and his face changed from the pallid gray to one which I recognized from my childhood.

“Uncle Auroras,” I whispered.

“Yes, I do go by that name,” my great-uncle agreed.  “Although most who know of me simply call me the gray man.”

I felt weak in the knees, as one of the many boogey-men that my nurse Beckah had once used to threaten me into good behavior stood before me.

“The Gray Man isn’t real,” I protested.  “If you were the Gray Man, you would be thousands of years old.  You can’t be--”

“There is always a gray man,” Auroras countered.  “Each of us lives a mortal lifetime, and when we pass on, the mantle moves to another.  I have been the avatar of my deity for forty years, Hail.  Now let us go somewhere less fragrant, for we have things we must discuss, as one avatar to another.”

I swallowed, and I found the courage to stand.  And I followed the Avatar of Death back to the abandoned temple.