Chapter 157: Heads Will Roll

Good child, good child, you better hide;

The monster's on its way;

Your mother's wails is all you hear;

As they take her away.

Good child, good child you better hide;

The monster's here to get you;

You better hide tight neath your bed;

And pray you'll not be dead.

-an excerpt from a Vridian rhyme.

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Maraus, Year of Severus, 15, I.R., the 57th day of Fall, Arenfall

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Lord Prestonheim was in disbelief as the grisly scene slowly unfolded before him on his way to the hole. The ground was slick and slippery with some foul substance he was yet to know what and the baffled knights surrounding the area made it look like a scene of massacre.

As he approached it, the heads began to show popping out from the thick mud covering it. The heads looked fresh…newly dead that is.

"By the gods! Simolineos!" One knight exclaimed as he tried picking up the head of his fallen comrade.

Lord Prestonheim rushed to him and immediately grabbed his hand before he could touch the severed head. "Don't…touch…it" He commanded. "We are still not sure if that is the real thing or just of the many tricks this damned hole had given us!" He added while he stared intently at the bubbling muck flowing out of the corpse's orifices.

"Go and escort the prince here!" He commanded the young knight. As the young knight ran to get the prince, Lord Prestonheim decided to investigate on the area. "You! Yes, you there! Get me a stick, a long one at that!" He told one bewildered knight.

While the knight frantically looked for a stick, Lord Prestonheim approached the dreaded hole. The knights surrounding the hole were jittery. Their shields were certainly put on guard while they assumed an attack position with their blades pointing at the damned hole.

He nodded at the knights as they gave way for him to come a little bit closer to the hole. Lord Prestonheim drew his sword and slowly approached the hole, planning to take a peek at the hellhole spewing this madness into the surface.

The ground was soft and slippery, slick with the black foul sticky liquid oozing from the well earlier. His heart began to pump rapidly as the he was approaching the mouth of the well. His mind was filled with fearful thoughts of what monster may lie beneath the hole.

Lord Prestonheim grabbed a light rune from his satchel and activated it. He threw the glowing rune inside the hole hoping to illuminate the dark pit below. He gestured to his knights to brace themselves in case something goes awry.

He went closer, close enough that his eyes could already see a portion of that damned hole. The portion of what he saw was just thick bubbling liquid coming off the ground. The viscous fluid glimmer at the shine of the rune, unfortunately, the light was short lived. The glowing rune was then devoured by the liquid consuming the light in the process.

Lord Prestonheim went away from the hole after taking a glimpse at it and decided it was too dangerous to even try and peep at it from the surface. He looked around and was annoyed to see how slow the knight was in granting his command.

"Where's my stick?!" He shouted. The jittery knights looked at each other until one of them decided to get the knight whom the commander ordered to get the stick. The knight came back bringing a long thin branch. Lord Prestonheim grabbed the stick from the knight and scolded him for being too slow.

After some words he imparted to the knight, Lord Prestonheim went back on the muck-filled heads and started poking them, checking if it was indeed a real head and not some illusion. As he was poking at the heads, Prince Arterius came bringing some rugged sacks along with him.

"What are you doing, godfather?" The baffled Prince asked after seeing Lord Prestonheim poking at the heads.

"This…" Lord Prestonheim poked one of the heads again. "I am just making sure that no monster in the depth would come out and crawl out these!" After poking the heads for a while, Lord Prestonheim was finally convinced they were real.

"But—" Just before the prince could finish his sentence, the ground shook once again, this time even harder.

The slick mud wasn't giving him any favors, Lord Prestonheim along with some other knights lose their footing and got slathered in the thick foul liquid he swore never to touch. He tried his best not to get the foul liquid into his mouth and nose. It took a while for the ground to finally stop its violent shaking, by then the poor knights and Lord Prestonheim was already covered in the slick liquid.

"Don't get this liquid into your mouth, no matter what." He shouted after he regained his footing.

The liquid itself smelled rotten as it stuck on his skin. Lord Prestonheim did his best to not gag from such a foul-odor. The last thing he wanted was his men seeing him gagging over such things. He looked around and saw the Prince was doing fine, albeit shaken from the quake. The good thing was, he wasn't covered in the same vile fluid as they were.

"Are you alright…phew..phew…Prince Arterius?" He tried his best to avoid the liquid from going into his mouth.

"I am…" The Prince Arterius replied dusting himself off. "But it looks like you're in a total mess."

"Yes, I know." Lord Prestonheim sighed. "Stand back, Prince Arterius! We are still not sure what this liquid is." He gestured his hand to turn the prince away from him. "All of those who're cover in guck, please rinse yourself clean and avoid that black liquid getting in contact in your mouth and nose!" He shouted.

The knights nodded and the untainted ones ran to carry pails of water to wash their dirtied comrades. Lord Prestonheim also commanded the other knights to retrieve the heads and get them burned as soon as they could. While the people were running up and about, a sudden sound echoed from the hole.

"Did you hear that?!" Lord Prestonheim said as he raised his weapon. "You there! Take the prince away from here!" He commanded as he pointed the soiled knights to prepare for a possible skirmish.

Just as the knight took the prince away from the area, 305-M arrived with a bagful of scrolls.

"W-what are you doing here?" Lord Prestonheim asked the annoying redhead.

"Well, the quakes! The quakes were terrifying! The earth might swallow us whole and I am just preparing to take my leave!" the redhead answered.

"Good riddance to you then!" He said while signaling the knights to ready their shields.

"Yes…and to you as well!" 305-M smirked. "I am taking the prince with me into—"

"HEEELPPPP! ANYONE!!! Help!" The voice finally broke out from the hole.

"Someone's down there!" The knight immediately approached the hole.

Lord Prestonheim immediately blocked the knight from going towards the hole by standing in front of him. "Don't go there! We are not sure whether he is…"

"Alive?! Hmm…indeed he is alive!" 305-M declared as he peeked at the hole.

"How did you…" Lord Prestonheim approached the crazy redhead.

"It's not like I'm not trained to do stuff that you do!" The redhead quickly replied while squinting at the hole to see clearly what was below. "Besides, now you get to play as the merciful Commander now…oh, wait! What do you have there in your arms?! By the gods! Is that?" 305-M turned to him with a worried look on his face.

"What did you see?" Lord Prestonheim calmly asked while trying to control his hand from accidentally slashing the annoying slave into two.

"Well, you have to see it for yourself." 305-M said.

Lord Prestonheim noted how the normally arrogant slave's tone became somber and brooding. It seemed like he'd seen something that had upset him so bad he was showing his emotions. Curiosity got the better of him, he wasted no time to take a peek at what 305-M could've saw—at that day, he wished he never did look at what's below the hole.

"By the gods! NO!!! Syleon!" The poor commander wanted to jump off the hole to see if his eyes were messing with him. What he saw broke his heart; carried in the arms of a surviving naval knight was his friend, Commander Syleon Crovar dead and torn to pieces with only his torso and his head intact.