How do I find myself in these situations so often? For a moment, a brief moment, I thought we had found Danya's coffin. We were in the ruined fort west of Vallaki, trudging through the dark in search of anything that might bring us wealth enough to go a few more days in the comfort of a tavern before being forced to resort to treading the depths of the mists for another scavenge. There, in the dark, in a chamber that should have been empty, we found something. Candles and a shrine of a make I could not recognize gave luminescence to that place, there in the dark, dividing the light from the shadow like an unholy sanctum. Walled off behind fortified structures was a coffin of stone set in place like a false idol.
As a man that does not believe in coincidence, my mind raced to the assumption of whose it could be. I had with me only a small companionship, half of which were newly misted, but I had Ero at my back, and that seemed as if it would be enough should my suspicions have proven true. With what little preparation we could make, I blasted the retaining barriers to rubble using the harnessed power of the sciences. We forced the lid open, and we found only vacancy. It was night. Whatever called that cold stone home was likely out and about, and when it returned it would easily recognize the damage inflicted upon the sanctuary it had kept secret by way of some unholy coven. If it returned in waning hours of night, it would not have time enough to move its coffin, this much I knew. We had until the next dusk.
We fought to the nearest exit, past the dead that had made themselves at home in that place, and stole away like thieves in the night. Wary of the owner's return, we skulked through the dark the whole way to Vallaki. As Ero went to gather strong allies, I prepared the tools I would need. A stake carved from ash, bottles that contained fire which could sunder stone, and the Gearling device I that hoped to never need. Over the years I have been approached by several that wanted to learn the ways of the Weaponmaster, and each I had turned away, for they always failed to recognize the first lesson. No matter how skilled of a swordsman you may be, you can no more master metal than man can master the gods. No amount of training or will can ever make that steel strike true for you, it must have the mind needed to drive it home. Your mind, is always your first weapon, and everything else a sidearm. Today, my weapon of choice was the destructive power of science.
Ero, a powerful woodland priest by the name of Atticus, Mina, Inno one of the newly misted, and myself made the return before the sun could sink behind the horizon. Time would be short. If the creature was resting, it will have made preparations for our return. An uneasy sense filled the back of my mind that I dared not share with the company. Fear could undo stronger men and women. There was at least familiarity to it all. The closer I came to death and peril, the sharper my instincts became, and the more the man I was began to surface. At every stop and junction I set my eyes to keep the vigil. At every spare moment I found myself instinctively checking my weapons and supplies. I felt... at home, there in the darkest of places, I found pieces of myself I had lost. What does it say of me that I have to delve into the heart of the night to find myself?
We descended through the most direct route, entering by way of a tower where the most phantoms would congregate in a black mass. With steel blessed, we cut through them, rendering them to little more than the wind they appeared as. We made our way to the chamber to find the coffin unmoved. As we sprung our assault, we were confounded to find it empty still. The chamber door slammed shut, and the ambush began. Never before had I seen such a mass of vampires, moving as a legion to drown us. They filled the chamber, running across the ground, and crawling through the doorway onto the walls and ceiling to reach us, to drown us beneath cold lifeless bodies...
When the butchery was done, we barred the door. We had wounded bleeding out, and precious little time. As my comrades saw to each other's wounds, I set the charges I had brought with me around the coffin, stacking them in places that should test its integrity most. Pacing back, I drew and prepared the pistol. I knew not if we would survive the day, only that I was determined to cause as much havoc for that box's owner as I could before I died.
"That's sodding enough." With a crack, the bullet hit home, and the blast blew stone apart.
Our sabotage must have been known to them, because that sound heralded the next wave of combat. The door smashed, and this time their kin entered in full armor, swords gleaming with a wicked glee. Behind them a mage spun death upon us. I clutched the brooch at my chest; warded, I entered the fray again. My fear drowned beneath a calm, an acceptance. I felt that perhaps, death would finally free me from the land of mists. How arrogant, now that I look back upon myself, to assume Helm would find me worthy of such rescue.
Worse than before, we were broken and battered. I had gorged myself on the tonics I brew, and still we were bloodied, but alive. A vampire witch, not Danya, fled as the last soldier fell and I shouted to the others before I gave pursuit. "I'm going to buy you time, Ero get out."
What a valiant excuse to shake hands with the reaper, the coward that I was, fearing life and the burden I carry more than the pain of swords. The vampire was swift, my arsenal of deadly devices was faster. Wands, bullets, bottled death. Despite it all, it kept running, singed, broken, charred. I almost admired its tenacity, but when I closed, my blade, most reliable of my tools bit into its leg, hacking halfway through its knee. When it was stumbling I was upon it like a wolf on meat. I had forgotten how long the halls of that wretched place were, and when a tower door burst open with the rest of its kin, staring at me standing over their massacred kind, I had realized my own folly. A look over my shoulder reminded me just how far I was from allies and hope. All I could do was utter a single dark laugh, resigned to my fate. This was it, and my mind swelled with the mantras and sermons I had once held so dear.
"Though I walk through the final moments of my twilight, I continue on with my head held high and no fear in my heart. I will stand in judgment of those who travel on, and find my place in the hall of olden dreams beside He of the Eyes that Never Sleep. Helm wills it."
Never before had I fought with the fury I found there. With a grace that I thought dulled with age, I moved beneath the arc of a sword. Mine relieved of him of his leg, my shield flattened his nose against his skull, my boot kicked the door shut behind him, trapping him with something more terrifying than himself, trapping him with me. He tried to climb up on one leg, my sword burst from the back of his head, pinning it to the door. When it battered open again, they had filled the stairwell, but the doorway was mine. That small portal, through which they had to march one by one, was where I made my stand, and one by one, they were hewn to meaty chunks. They took their toll, every few volunteers that pushed themselves to the front of the lines would eventually have fortune enough for a sword to find purchase on my body.
My collarbone shattered beneath a savage chop, a hole sloshing blood from my side, a tear in rendered muscle across my leg that made it hard to stand, all while a second witch of theirs flung magic from behind their ranks. She watched, her magic seeming powerless to stop me, as I made murals of her kind all along the walls, writing death poems at the edge of my sword. She fled up the stairs as the ranks dwindled. I didn't have the strength to finish this. Finally, I felt alive. I smiled a demon's grin, all bloody teeth, and awaited the end.
I was surprised when Atticus appeared at my side, burning brand in the shape of a blade held tight in his hand. "We will finish this" he declared. I admired his candor, and with his help, found strength enough to finish what I had begun. The last foes fell like wheat beneath the scythe. We had only a moment to look upon the works of our hands, him perhaps with some measure of horror at the realization of what man could become, before we heard the marching of armored boots above. We piled a few bodies against the door, and fled down the hall towards our companions, chased by the sound of battered wood and the darkness filling with scraping armor on cobbles and walls. Together we escaped, together we fled into the night, and together we were doggedly pursued by more than just the dead.
The entry remains half finished, the well of ink depleted, with Ave's face buried in his folded arms on the desk in exhausted slumber. An open bottle sharing the communal space with him reeks of the scent of Tsuika, and a pistol lays cocked across his lap in healthy display of paranoia. (//part 2 coming soon)
