Chapter 67: Ruins

Chapter 67: Ruins

“It was interesting,” Leland recounted.

After his long stint in a different reality, he shifted his body uncomfortably while laying on the rough floor of the forest. With a groan, he sat up, pushing away his sleeping bag and looking at the dying embers of their fire. A glance to the moon told him he had been speaking with Lily for most of the night.

“You go to bed, I’ll stay on watch.” It was then Leland noticed a small squirrel resting in the crook of Jude’s arm.

Jude eyed him slowly, trying not to wake his sleeping friend. “You going to practice your new contract? I can be the testing dummy. Pain doesn’t—”

“I didn’t make a contract,” Leland interrupted. “Also, what’s with the squirrel?”

“Animals like me,” the Legacy of Berserkers said. “And why not?”

“The Lord of Healing was busy with Lord-y things, I guess. I was given a recommendation on which Lord to contract next, though.”

“I don’t mind staying up if you want to do that now.”

Leland strained his back, cracking his spine with a multitude of audible pops. “No,” he said, adding a new bundle of sticks to the fire. “I don’t want to contact a Lord in a forest like this again. Not that smart to begin with, not to mention how stiff I feel.”

Jude accepted that answer then laid down, shifting the squirrel to his lay on his chest. With a yawn he said, “Wake me if anything happens.”

With his friend quickly falling asleep, Leland was left alone with his thoughts. Quickly they devolved from his time in the Lord of Healing’s domain to his struggles with his own Legacy. Removing his grimoire from his hand tattoo, he perused the first pages, checking them over for any changes. His slow page flipping eventually came to an end and he stared at the last page.

Gently, like he held an ancient document, Leland tugged at the seam between the back cover and his locked spell. Saying it didn’t move was a lie. It did, just not in any meaningful way. Before he could see the last word in every sentence, now he could see the edge of the letter before. It wasn’t much .

“What am I doing wrong?” he asked his tattoo after returning his grimoire to it.

The depiction of the crow didn’t move. Didn’t react. Didn’t make any hints toward his question.

“Silent treatment now? That’s nice. Thanks, my Lord.”

That did get a reaction from the tattoo, but nothing more than a slight shift and a proper glare. Leland glared back, like somehow his irritated staring would help him in his struggles. One thing was for sure, he felt better after doing it.

Then, he didn’t.

His state of mind changed like a light switch, and suddenly he felt guilty. “Sorry,” he muttered to the bird.

The tattoo rolled its wings, turning back into its original pose.

With a sigh, Leland thought back to what the Huntress had suggested. Searching his mind. Rather quickly, he drowned out all noise from his other curses, focusing intently on the screams. They were so vivid, so real. Like a stadium of people all burning at the same time... or a city—

The thought slingshotted Leland from his own mind. He started panting, like a child afraid of the dark. Why had his thoughts drifted to a city being destroyed? The question loomed over him, knocking all semblance of tiredness from his heavy eyes.

Just what is this curse? he asked himself, finding solace in not having an answer. Maybe, maybe, he wasn’t ready for the answer. Maybe he... he...

Something fluttered on the periphery of his mind. He reached out for the revelation, finding it deep within the recesses of his Legacy. A warning? Or maybe a set of instructions? He couldn’t decipher it. He couldn’t understand it. He pushed a bit more, focusing on the blurry information deep within his mind.

His focus snapped and the revelation fell apart like a derailed train.

Desperately, Leland fought to reconnect the dots. But the damage was already done. He lost it. It took a few minutes, but eventually Leland faced the facts. He was close to something important, something that he wasn’t sure if he truly wanted to know.

And that scared him.

“Not at all.”

“Could be nothing,” Glenny supplied.

“At the very least, it’s a cool title,” Jude said before swirling around an imaginary magic staff. “All shall kneel before me, the Son of the Calamity!”

His voice echoed off the tall trees, reverberating back like he intended to give his childish showing more pizazz. Jude smiled triumphantly.

“Righhht,” Glenny added with a shake of his head. “Something like that.”

“I don’t know, guys. I feel like the word was a hint, but I have no idea what to do with it,” Leland said plainly. “Good pantomime, though.”

Jude beamed.

“You’ll get there,” Glenny said. “But for now, let's table the discussion. We’re here.”

The others perked up at their friend’s declaration, both looking around like meerkats trying to see over the underbrush. A small sign was all they found, one that looked like it was erected a century ago.

The sign, in bold yet faded letters, read “Hargrave Armory.” It pointed off into the bushes, a small snaking path leading through the trees. The boys stopped before the sign and stretched. They went over the game plan one last time, yet all agreed that since it was their first time fighting undead, they would go slow for the first few encounters.

They followed the path and eventually came upon an overgrown clearing. Leland felt the need to whisper the history of this place, stating that ‘all information is good information when it comes to battle.’

The others muttered in agreement and Leland started spouting off information about the, now, ruins. Once upon a time, the Queen had posted armories along the front lines. A fortified location for soldiers to quickly gear up, sleep, and eat while defending the rest of the kingdom. Some hundred years later, the humans had garnered enough territory to make the armories obsolete.

So, here they sat. Forgotten and long abandoned. Including the souls of those who died here.

“And so, undead started sprouting up,” Leland finished.

Glenny frowned at the story. “Why didn’t the Lord of Souls help those souls pass on?”

Leland thought about the question for a long minute. He didn’t know, but it was a good question. “Not sure, but I’ll make sure to ask him when I contract him.”

With that, the group pushed out of the underbrush and into the clearing. The former armory had frankly fallen apart. Once fortified walls now stood as rusted metal and bug-infested rotted wood. The two story building had partly collapsed, leaving most of the roof caved in like a mine after an earthquake.

A stone pathway led into the building, no doubt for ease of moving wagons so long ago. Now, the path was cracked with the power of nature. Flowers and grass grew high out of the stone, the lack of trees making their reach toward the sun all the more encompassing.

Occasional scratches were etched through the path, each still housing traces of sediment. Crouching down and rubbing the scratch, Glenny spoke up, “These are fresh. The wind hasn’t displaced the—”

His words cut off at the same moment his eyes went wide. With a practiced motion, he launched up, yanking Leland and Jude to the ground. They pressed into the tall grass, only Glenny’s sparky cloak obscuring their bodies. Jude began to question his friend’s actions, but a dull thud followed quickly by the sound of metal on stone, stopped him.

Slowly, something passed by the obscured trio. It limped into their vision, a jostling padded vest flapping haphazardly with every step, only held on by a rusted suit of metal. Then their eyes were in line with a sword. Massive, iron, and jagged like a broken kitchen knife. It dragged across the path, slicing through the grass like a thin lawn mower.

The undead continued its patrol, eventually rounding to the other side of the ruins.

“That,” Glenny coughed. “was an undead knight... which makes this quest increase a rank.”

“Eh, we can take it,” Jude proudly said.

The others stared at him like he had kicked a dog, although neither disagreed.