Standing there, Hal could only stare. The room just grew before his eyes.
Most of the far gate was blocked from sight by long, twisting roots that stretched down from some high space up above to dip into a circular shallow pool of oil.
He knew without a doubt that those were the roots of the Manatree. And he felt a pang of sympathy for the thing. It was in pain. Infected. The Manaseed bound to his soul cried out for him to set things right.
Hal was assaulted by the wrongness of the place. He felt like he stood on the precipice of some great bottomless pit. Every instinct told him to turn around and flee this place.
That first step was the hardest.
He took each step carefully, absolutely sure that any moment something dark and terrible was going to rush out and attack him.
Nothing did.
The Reaper came behind him, her armored steps even lighter than Hal’s leather boots. Each step brought a shiver through Hal’s spine. Every step past the first was more damaged, pitted by some unknown darkness that permeated the frigid air.
While the most recently sprouted step looked brand new, the deeper he descended the more the stone crumbled. It reminded him like aged and decrepit tombstones.
The Founder’s Fear
Your Exploration has risen to Level 2.
+10% Faster drawing speed (+10%).
+3% Discoverable range (+3%).
You are afflicted with Old One’s Blight.
The aura of being so close to an antediluvian gate is corrupting the very air you breathe. Being a Beastborne, you feed on this unnatural corruption, allowing it to strengthen you while it slowly inflicts Strain upon you.
HP, SP, and MP +20%.
HP, SP, and MP recovery +50%.
Strain Accumulation +50%.
Hal’s vision was drawn from the Manatree roots to the massive gate that took up the entire rear of the cavernous chamber. A grotesque abomination of a creature was carved in bas-relief on the gate like some sort of religious icon.
Mind-bending symbols were carved larger than life encircling the creature’s squid-like head. It had six fingers raised in a holy gesture and wore intricate robes. The unsightly creature made Hal sick to look at.
But it was Noth’s discovery that truly terrified him. The Reaper came around the stone-ringed pool of oil and froze. “Hal.”
The tone of her voice snapped Hal’s attention from the monstrous carving. She was standing a few yards away. He thought she was looking at the pool but as he came to join her, he saw the truth of it.
It was a body lying beside the stone pool. He couldn’t understand why she was frozen, staring at the corpse.
Not until he came around the curving edge of the stone and saw the man’s face.
His face.
“It’s you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Hal’s heart pounded in his chest.
Noth crouched down, studying his face. “He’s preserved,” she said, turning his cold lifeless cheek one way then the other.
A pale glint of light reflected on his brow. He wore some kind of jeweled circlet. The gold was heavily tarnished by age but the pale gem still shone brightly in the reflection of his Guild badge.
“Is he dead?” Hal asked, unable to tear his eyes away. The man had Hal’s face but everything else about him was so very unlike Hal. This man had fairly ornate plate armor, cunningly worked to fit his muscular frame.
A frame Hal certainly did not have despite his increased STR and VIT.
He was everything most guys wanted to be. His features were more chiseled, sculpted in a way Hal’s weren’t. Even with the opulent armor, it was obvious how built he was.
“Yes, but….” Noth trailed off without seeming to notice.
“But what?”
“But his soul hasn’t moved on. It’s… here.” She held a hand over his left arm and with surprising ease she removed the gauntlet, revealing a muscular forearm bearing the same mark as Hal’s. The only difference was at the heart of the mark was a tatooed number: #37.
“His soul is still… in the mark?” Is that what the Shadow Sages meant when they asked if he had a number?
“Yes.” The implications disturbed him. Would his own soul be trapped when he died?
Noth looked up and read his expression. “This was voluntarily done,” she assured him.
“But why?”
“That is the question.” Noth stood up and backed away.
“Ever the Witness?” he asked, noting the way she was distancing herself.
“I should not be corporeal,” she told him, more than a little trepidation in her voice. “Something is very wrong here.”
Hal motioned to his… self? His brother? Knowing what the shadows told him, this wasn’t technically a clone, but himself from an alternate timeline.
Maybe one where Al Gore had been president. Or one where Steve Jobs didn’t die from cancer. The possibilities were infinite. Maybe in this Hal’s timeline, he actually finished college. “You think?”
“Aside from that.”
Hal crouched by the man’s side, eyes misted for some reason he couldn’t pinpoint. This was him. Or at least a version of him. Did he die here, alone, and without any comfort?
More than anything else, that was one of Hal’s greatest fears. Dying alone and scared. He reached a hand out to touch the golden mark on the dead man’s arm. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.
“Don’t be,” said a voice not unlike his own but with a deeper, richer timbre.
81
Hal’s heart stuttered in his chest and he fell back, scrambling on all fours to put some distance between him and the specter of the dead man that suddenly stood before him.
Ethereal and fuzzy at the edges, he looked to Hal. His form shifted at the edges like a wind was constantly blowing, trying to dissolve him. He gave Hal a kindly smile.
“This must freak you out, huh?” asked the other Hal. There was mirth in his eyes and oddly, a sense of relief too. Was he pleased to see another Hal? He hardly seemed surprised.
Hal nodded, getting to his feet slowly, never taking his eyes off the ethereal specter.
The ghost looked down at his own hands, seeing through them to the body below. “I always wondered what it’d be like to be a force ghost or one of the wraiths from Tolkien,” he said with a chuckle and a shake of his head. “First thing’s first, let’s get the naming scheme out of the way, you can just call me Thirty-seven. What number are you?”
Hal looked at his own mark, expecting to find a number there. “I-I don’t know.” He held out his forearm. “I have no number.”
Thirty-seven’s eyes widened. “Well, that’s interesting. You haven’t met Rinbast then, I take it?”
Hal shook his head.
“Lucky you.”
Noth angled her head, watching Thirty-seven. The ghost turned to regard her. “Things keep getting more interesting,” he said. “Are you here to bring me to my final rest?” The tone of his voice told Hal others had tried.
The Reaper shook her head. “I am here as a Witness until I can return to my domain. Already I have tampered too much in the affai-”
Thirty-seven raised his hand to stop her. “Got it, not important. We’ve got Hal-business to talk about.” He made a shooing gesture. To Hal’s amazement, the Reaper shrugged and walked all the way to the rough wall at the side, out of earshot.
“You’ve got to teach me how to do that,” Hal said.
“It comes with time,” Thirty-seven said. “That, and Leadership. You have that yet?”
Hal nodded.
“Good, it’s one of the better skills once you Level it a bit. Level twenty gives you an extra party member if you’re the leader.” He shook his head. “Sorry, getting off track here.”
“Off track of… what?” Hal dared to ask.
Thirty-seven motioned to his corpse. “I’d like to spare you the same fate. If you’ve got a second.” Seeing no interruption from Hal, he continued
, “First, how much do you know about what happened here?”
“Not much, I’ve hardly been here a few weeks,” Hal answered.
That brought Thirty-seven up short. “In… Murkmire?”
“Aldim.”
“What Level are you? Why are you here? Scratch that. How are you still alive?”
And so, Hal told him all that he could remember from his first arrival to that moment, giving him the cliff notes as it were.
Up to and including his Contract to free the Coffin District – a name Thirty-seven didn’t recognize until Hal explained it – and re-establish the protection of the Manatree so the koblins might have a home. However temporary it may be.
“Gods be good, you really got screwed in some ways, but avoiding Rinbast probably makes up for all that.” He scrubbed a hand over his scruffy face. He still wore a ghostly version of his armor but it didn’t look ridiculous on him as it would on Hal. He looked like a proper knight, strong and just. Nothing like Hal’s younger, untried features, for all that they shared a face.
Standing beside the ghostly version of himself, Hal couldn’t help but see the differences. The man wore expensive, ornate armor.
Meanwhile, Hal wore tattered clothes that were barely holding on. If not for Elora’s [Repair Kit], he’d be practically naked. He doubted Thirty-seven’s armor needed repair after all these years even. Despite the age, it still looked new.
All he could do was shrug.
“So you know the Founder labeled this a failure,” Thirty-seven began again. “And you’ve guessed decently that there was a riot, a revolt to be exact. But you’re wrong about the Shadow Crawlers and other shadow creatures. They weren’t the enemy. Well, scratch that. They were at first when the Founder sent them against us.
“It started peacefully enough. Murkmire was a profitable and revolutionary town fast on its way to becoming a mecca for innovation and trade. The Founder originally wanted to encourage that. I came at his behest as I had the highest Leadership, Charisma, and had taken the Paladin Class, making me the obvious choice for diplomacy for the burgeoning town.”
He paused, staring at Hal pensively. “I don’t really want to monologue this, I’m sure as a new arrival you get that all the time. How about I show you?”
Hal raised a brow and looked at Thirty-seven skeptically. “How?”
Thirty-seven reached out a hand. “Grab my hand and I will walk you through my memories. So that you might let the blunders of your brother fill your plate.”
As wary as Hal knew he should be, it was nearly impossible not to trust him on an instinctual level. Thirty-seven had the same mannerisms, the same way of talking, as he did. Trust came naturally and so Hal hardly hesitated as he clasped the man’s hand.
Everything twisted and shifted, the world folded in on itself as darkness collapsed upon them.
They stood in an opulent room of bright tapestries. Thirty-seven’s corporeal body was dressed in a finely cut uniform of high-rank, judging by the embroidery, and stood with his back to the room.
The very picture of a leader.
The ghost of Thirty-seven stepped up beside the man’s memory of himself. He turned back to Hal. “They can’t see us or hear us. This is nothing more than a memory of things as they were. I’ve never been a great storyteller.” He motioned to the room. “Hopefully this makes up for that.”
“You said you were sent here… by Rinbast? You worked for him?” Hal couldn’t hide the incredulous tone that crept into his voice.
“Ah… yeah. That.” Thirty-seven rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Not much of a choice you see. The world is a harsh place. Other Founders aren’t too happy about Rinbast’s… extracurriculars.
“He told me the truth of what he was doing, gave me the choice to go out on my own, or accept his guidance. You’ve been out there, how long do you think you would have survived if you hadn’t been picked up by your friends? How did you even learn the language?”
“Not long,” Hal admitted. “Probably would have died the second or third night I arrived. As for the language… I had help. I get your point.”
Thirty-seven nodded. “It wasn’t a hard decision to make. I wish I could say it was, that I saw some evil glimmer of the man he would become but I didn’t. I saw my own face, a little older and wiser, but still recognizable. Still my own.”
Hal motioned to the man at the window as the wide double doors to the room banged open and another Hal came into the room wearing bright silvery armor.
“That’s Thirty-five.”
Hal just shook his head.
Thirty-five walked up to Thirty-seven. Just thinking those words as the scene unfolded made Hal snicker like a twelve-year-old. It felt like the poor setup to an even worse numbers joke like why seven was afraid of nine.
“The Great Road is progressing apace,” Thirty-five said with a casual air. “We’ll have a protected trade route between Murkmire and the capitol in no time. The people won’t fear Manastorms or raids anymore once it is completed.”
Thirty-seven nodded. “Good. Tell the Founder that everything is proceeding fine here. The Manatree is healthy and growing nicely. The dwarves have found a new rich vein to tap but I am worried about the increasing number of beastmen sightings to the southern woods.”
“I’ll send a detachment of men to go check it out,” Thirty-five said. “Might even go myself after I stop off at the Gone Goose to see Millie.”
“How is Tormand’s wife, and the little one?” Thirty-seven asked, his eyes brightening.
“She’s fine, the calf’s a big one,” Thirty-five said with a chuckle. “Already looks like he’ll be bigger than Tormand. I saw her on the way here actually.
“She doesn’t have the little tike to blame anymore about the babe’s making her eat more than two full-grown lamora men combined. As if she couldn’t always clear a feast on her own.”
“Sounds about right, tell her if she ever wants to stop being a Tavern Keeper and wants some Levels in City Councillor, the job offer’s still open.”
Thirty-five snorted. “You know she loves that place.”
“Worth a shot. She’s got too fine a head on her shoulders to be wasting it serving drinks and providing entertainment.”
“I’ll make sure she gets the message,” Thirty-five gave a mock salute and left through the same doors he entered.
“I know that tavern,” Hal said. “Giel ran it when I came to Murkmire….”
Thirty-seven’s ghost looked at him in shock. “Abegielamanonalos? How is he?”
In Hal’s explanation, he glossed over meeting Giel and Mira, only stating that two people joined his party. There was too much to say to include every little twist and turn of his story. Even as short as it was.
So, Hal told him the story of Giel in full. As he did, Thirty-seven waved his hand and the scene froze, letting Hal tell the story without interruption.
When he was done Thirty-seven’s jaw was clenched tight. “It seems he became a fine young man all the same. Tormand would’ve been proud to know his son died a warrior’s death.”
With another wave of his arm, the memory of Thirty-seven shifted.
They stood in council chambers, all rich wood and high-backed chairs. As before, the ghost of Thirty-seven and Hal appeared near the memory of Thirty-seven. He looked older, closer to the man that stood beside him in ghostly form.
“Over the years the Founder had great plans, all to the betterment of those around him. As ridiculous as it sounds, at one point or another there were dozens of different Hal’s running around doing one thing or another,” Thirty-seven said.
He motioned to the somber attitude of the room. “That was before the Manastorms grew worse. Nobody knows why or how it happened, but the Manastorms have begun to strike the Fallmark region in a rolling cascade of death and violence.”
The council, consisting of various races of both genders, seemed to huddle in that large room as if the man at the center of their table could protect
them from the thunderous booms outside that shook the walls.
“We must not give in to panic,” the memory of Thirty-seven said. “The Manatree is mature enough to fend off the Manastorms and I will stay with it to assure its health. The City Guard have all the walls manned and we remain ever vigilant. This storm will pass like all the others.”
“But those affected by the Manastorms are coming in greater number,” said an older orc with thinning gray hair at his temples. “If we keep admitting them in, our stores will run dry. We were not meant to house so many. I vote we bar the gates to all who seek entry.”
Several other hands shot up around the table. Thirty-seven’s did not and those he turned his dark stare on lowered their hands until only a few men and women remained.
“We can ration,” the memory of Thirty-seven said confidently. “You can do without fine roasted turkey and roast beast for a little while Almon. One of your ‘dinners’ would be enough to fill the bellies of fifty commoners. I will not see people starve while another’s table is full of finery.”
Hal watched the same scene play out again and again in rapid succession. Each time Thirty-seven spoke with greater and greater command. The look of hopelessness was replaced by one of eager anticipation.
“In time,” Thirty-seven said, placing an ethereal hand on Hal’s shoulder. “With the destruction of the Great Road and the isolation of Murkmire from the Founder, things began to change for the better. Nearly two years of hardships to be overcome.” Thirty-seven shook his head sadly. “And in one day, Rinbast nearly tore it all down.”
82
Hal watched as the memory rippled, revealing Thirty-seven at a desk reading a rumpled letter. “He can’t be serious,” he said, looking up to the messenger.
The man, wearing worn chainmail armor beneath a leather jerkin, shrugged his large shoulders. “Times have been hard all over. Murkmire fared better than many fledgling towns. Their Manasaplings failed them and they were wiped off the map.”
Beastborne- Mark of the Founder Page 67
