Chapter 6

Five minutes passed in complete and utter silence.

Adrian remained quiet and focused, his eyes closed. His breathing slowly calmed down as the smells around him once again came to the forefront of his thoughts.

He opened his eyes and looked around. The flame of his oil lamp was moving steadily. The monsters were dead and lying where he left them. He took a deep breath and checked his dagger and clothes. Everything was in order, if a little bloody.

A tap on the door made sure nothing else waited inside.

Adrian was in no physical condition to move the corpses out to the terrace and drop them down but he could explore the new room he had freed of creatures.

This one was rather long, various cabinets, tables, and dressers drawing his attention. The simple beds, lack of rugs, or decorations made him think of this as another room for servants. Servants, maids, or butlers. Whatever they had once called themselves.

The three people he had killed in the corridor only confirmed his suspicions.

He silently moved inside, opening every drawer and cabinet as he checked for anything useful. The cabinets here weren’t locked, except for one but he luckily found the key on one of the tables.

The smells inside weren’t much better but he fought through his urge to just leave again immediately. Adrian found a moderately fresh servant shirt that he dusted off and bound around his face, covering his mouth and nose.

It helped a little, the shirt itself less contaminated by the rot thanks to being at the bottom of a closed dresser.

Chest – Servant Shirt [Common]

The thing wasn’t very useful beyond it’s normal life use. The Royal shirt at least provided some stats. Not that he could really use them for anything right now.

He found more bandages, various small knifes, forks, and spoons. None of it seemed too intimidating. Neither was it made of silver. He assumed the servants had used it to eat their meals here. The one plate he found on a simple round wooden table suggested as much.

It luckily didn’t have more than a few rotten crumbs on it.

Something caught his eye when he moved past the table. He curiously grabbed one of the dusty cards, cleaning it off before looking at it.

It depicted a knight with a sword, a single symbol on each corner of the card. The similarity to something like poker cards was obvious. He didn’t exactly want to stare at the knight however.

Adrian quickly collected all the cards, many of them lying on the floor. What happened here?

The thought crept up again as he looked at the room from a different perspective. A plate on the table, a card game set up. Beds that aren’t made.

Other than the layer of dust on everything, this room could have been occupied mere moments ago.

He continued his search and finally found socks and shoes. There were quite a few sets of servant’s clothes in various sizes.

Boots – Servant Shoes [Common]

The socks didn’t reveal any hidden information but were surprisingly comfortable.

Adrian felt quite a bit more confident about himself now that he was wearing shoes instead of slippers, despite the make and quality being vastly inferior to his previous footwear. He didn’t care about the Wisdom he was giving up by switching out his boots, not knowing how to use magic in the first place.

He felt the soreness in his body now. The bruises he hadn’t noticed before. One of the beds seemed comfortable enough and he took a breather, sitting down as he continued to scan the room.

Something below a corner of the bed sheets stood out to him.

He revealed a small booklet, bound in leather with worn pages inside. A quick scan revealed more of the symbols and scribbles he couldn’t comprehend. The obvious titles on each page suggested a diary of sorts. Meaning those could be dates, numbers.

Adrian checked the cards he had found and indeed confirmed that some of the symbols matched.

He chuckled to himself at the thought of learning this mysterious language. Surviving should be my main concern right now.

The thought didn’t leave him however. If he could somehow unravel the language, he would surely be able to uncover some secrets about Faenhold Castle. Perhaps he could outright find out why he was here, how he got here.

He put the diary into a small flimsy cloth bag he found sitting next to the bed, adding the cards, three rolls of bandages, and a few pairs of socks.

A few minutes later, he continued his search.

One of the two closets revealed a find he hadn’t expected.

There were tools inside. A hammer, saw, and most importantly, a hatchet.

None of them had a quality above common, something he assumed by now wouldn’t provide any bonuses like the ones listed with adequate or high quality.

Adrian put his dagger onto the nearest bed and grabbed the thing. He found the wooden handle quite sturdy, the weight comfortable in his hand.

The blade was rather dull but with about half a meter of length to the handle, he still preferred it as a weapon compared to his tiny letter opener.

Maybe I can fasten the dagger to the hatchet somehow, he wondered but dismissed the thought again quickly. The only thing he would trust to do a reasonable job was duct tape, and he didn’t have any lying around.

The forces he would unleash with a hit of the hatchet would surely rip out the dagger anyway, potentially even injuring him.

He decided to use the tool on its own. Not intended as a weapon but surely usable as a makeshift one.

Adrian gathered up everything he found and went back to the royal chambers. He spent the next half hour trying to sharpen the hatchet with his dagger. The results were quite unexpected.

He glanced at the blade of his newfound weapon and sliced it across the door of the wooden dresser. It left a tiny gash.

Before the growing confidence left him, Adrian continued with his exploration, returning to the servants quarters and finishing his search.

Nothing else immediately useful revealed itself and he was forced to push onward.

One closed door remained in the corridor. Beyond that were stairs leading down.

He sneaked past the door and checked the stairs first, finding them to be a spiral staircase made of stone. It only lead down.

He decided to keep that one for later and went back to the closed wooden door.

Once again, he placed his oil lamp to the side and gripped his weapon. This time it wasn’t just a flimsy dagger anymore.

Of course he hadn’t just left behind his trusty letter opener. It currently rested on the floor to his right, his confidence in both his attire and dexterity not high enough to wear it somewhere on his body. Not without a sheath.

Adrian took a deep breath and grabbed the door handle, opening it inwards with a push before he stepped aside.

He waited for a moment, preparing himself as his muscles tensed, the hatchet gripped in both hands. Then he heard a noise. A growl, quite similar to those of the servants but the shuffling sounded different. He heard metal clinking, heavy footsteps getting close to the door before the person walked out.

Fuck

He was looking at a shriveled up man clad in leather and steel armor. A crude metal helmet protected the sides and back of his head, leaving his face uncovered.

Adrian didn’t hesitate, his hatchet slamming into the creature’s chest with full force. He nearly lost his grip, the blade penetrating through the chest piece with relative ease before getting stuck.

That was a problem.

He watched in horror as the man lifted his right arm and with it the shortsword he was carrying.

Compared to the knight, this guard’s movements seemed crude, untrained and simple.

Adrian still found himself on the defensive, letting go of his weapon to dodge sideways, avoiding the stabs before he frantically grabbed for his dagger. He missed twice before he finally managed to grip it.

Should have aimed at the throat, he reprimanded himself as he slowly walked backwards. He hoped the dried up undead would fall over the corpses littering the hallway.

The creature growled and sped up, sword kept close to its body as it prepared to stab again.

He winced as the undead stepped over the bodies and reached him.

Adrian stepped right in the small hallway and stabbed, his dagger slashing into the soldier’s neck when he felt a cold pain from his left side.

He gritted his teeth and ripped at the dagger, slicing it across the monster’s throat before it got stuck. He kept rattling the weapon when he felt something slide out of his side. He didn’t dare look down, instead ripping out the weapon and stabbing it straight into the undead’s unprotected face.

That finally seemed to have an effect as both of them hit the wall behind Adrian, slowly sliding down in a deathly entanglement.

He felt something warm on his stomach, the strength leaving him as he ripped and tore at the dagger stuck inside the monster’s face. They reached the stone floor in a clatter, a blinding flash of pain going through him.

His vision went black.

Adrian woke with a throbbing headache. He felt tired, exhausted, and very much in pain.

He didn’t move instantly, knowing that whatever injuries he had sustained could get worse if he moved carelessly.

There were two distinct sources of pain. One was his head, the back of it to be precise. He must have hit it when he went down. And the second one was the wound on his stomach.

He forced himself to look down and found that the bleeding had stopped at some point. The sword must have missed something important. It looked half dried but hurt with every breath.

The monster hadn’t fared as well, sprawled out in front of him with a dagger stuck in its mangled face. Its upper body was lying on top of his own legs.

Still alive, he reminded himself, thinking about just taking a nap here.

Stay awake.

The thought made sense but on the other hand, the smells weren’t so bad. His wound would surely heal and if he slept, the pain would be gone in an instant.

He managed to stay there, his eyes focused on the hallway before him. There were four corpses and he didn’t plan to add a fifth quite yet.

A hallway in the Faenhold castle not far from the royal chambers resounded with the subdued chuckles of a man that did not belong.

Adrian winced at the pain of moving but he couldn’t help himself. The reality of the situation dawned on him coupled with the blood loss and fading adrenaline. It created a mixture that temporarily overshadowed the pain and fear he still very much felt.

It took him a while to calm down. He first thought about bandaging the wound but the closest bandages were inside the servant quarters and his main problem was the undead currently lying on his legs.

He very carefully moved the corpse away from him, ignoring the gore flowing onto his legs and the increasing pain until the man finally rolled over. The sudden move hadn’t been good but Adrian simply pushed his shirt harder onto the wound.

Wet blood soaked through a large part of it now, staining his hand as he grit his teeth.

As he slowly stood up with the help of the nearby wall, Adrian realized that bandages wouldn’t do. They might but with a wound like this, an infection was inevitable. He didn’t feel like dying again.

His vision blurred as he slowly stepped back towards the royal bedchamber. Not much time had passed since he had started the massacre in the corridor but to him it felt like hours.

He finally managed to open the door and walk inside. The magical healing potion was right where he left it. Adrian glanced back behind him, somehow sure something would come and kill him just before he could recover.

But nothing did.

You should maybe keep it for worse injuries.

The thought was but an afterthought, his shirt already lifted as he slowly dripped the potion’s contents onto the nasty wound.

It hurts NOW, he thought as if to justify his wasteful behavior. A chuckle went through him as the wound closed, the thought of wasting an incredibly potent and expensive alchemical creation on a non lethal injury sounding very comical to him right now.

He sighed and carefully closed the bottle again, two thirds of its contents still in there.

“Thank you, magical red juice,” he murmured and put it into his chest of drawers.

His mood still a little delirious, Adrian managed to push onward. Images of the monster stabbing him repeated in his mind but the main thing he was concerned about right now was pushing that very creature off from his bloody fucking floor.

He looked at the massacre in the hallway, his wound nearly entirely gone, only a slight itch reminding him of the deep cut. And the blood of course. His hand was still wet with it but he didn’t care. It made the situation seem more real to him. The cost of the battle.

A battle he had won.

Adrian still ached, more so than before, the health potion doing nothing for his constitution. Still, he found the process of dragging the creatures out onto the balcony cathartic. As if it was a ritual to send them off.

The three servants were pushed over the railings before he inspected the last one he had killed.

He had left his dagger behind in the hallway, fully focused on his task.

A soldier maybe? Or a guard.

“Any clue magic tree?” he asked without looking at the thing.

He spent the next few minutes carefully opening the straps of the leather armor, removing each piece from the corpse before he rolled it over the railing too. He had no energy to shout after it or even care. Adrian just wanted them gone.

A glance inward revealed that his battle hadn’t been entirely unfruitful.

Soulbound:

Essence – -40

Level – 0

Vitality – 10

Endurance – 10

Strength – 9

Skill – 8 [14]

Intelligence – 12 [17]

Wisdom – 11

Soul skill – Slot 1

Twelve essence for that one… seems entirely unreasonable looking at the practical difference.

Dude had a fucking sword.

He ignored the feeling of unfairness, instead looking at the gear he had taken from the soldier.

It didn’t take long for him to replace nearly all of his current set with the newfound equipment. Most of it provided fewer bonuses but right now he had more use for Strength than he had for Intelligence, even if the latter somehow improved his mental capability other than just boosting magic spells he did not possess.

Equipment:

Helmet – Faenhold Soldier Helmet [Adequate]

Vitality +1

Chest – Faenhold Soldier Leather Armor [High]

Strength +2

Warrior Soul Skill Damage +2

Arms – Faenhold Soldier Bracers [Adequate]

Fire Magic Resistance +2%

Hands – Royal Faenhold Silk Gloves [High]

Skill +4

Rogue Soul Skill Damage +3

Belt – Royal Faenhold Belt [High]

Intelligence +2

Light Magic Mana Cost +2

Legs – Faenhold Knight Pants [Adequate]

Skill +2

Boots – Faenhold Soldier Boots [Adequate]

Skill +1

1h Weapon –

2h Weapon –

Off Hand –

The gloves only provided a bonus to a warrior soul skill, something he didn’t possess. The belt and pants were of common quality.

He did try and squeeze into the second pair but found them too tight to manage with his already present Knight pants.

Adrian again looked inward to see how the changes applied.

Soulbound:

Essence – -40

Level – 0

Vitality – 10 [11]

Endurance – 10

Strength – 9 [11]

Skill – 8 [15]

Intelligence – 12 [14]

Wisdom – 11

Soul skill – Slot 1

It was the first time he had gotten a bonus to his Vitality and Strength, abilities likely much more useful to him than Intelligence or Wisdom.

For now at least.

He thought the new equipment quite comfortable, the bracers and boots giving him something solid to add to his confidence. The helmet was very tight but it didn’t impair his vision and provided some protection to his head.

The chest piece still provides its bonuses, despite the cut, he thought as he walked back inside, a finger checking the damage he had dealt with his hatched and dagger.

It still provided much better protection than just his shirts, the leather thick and sturdy. Enough perhaps to deflect a glancing blow.

The corridor was mostly clean by now, only his tools remaining strewn around the floor. The splatters of dark blood mixing with his brighter one added an eerie feel to the scene, one the smells didn’t help either.

He left the door open to air the place out for a while.

The first thing he picked up was the simple shortsword the Faenhold soldier had wielded. He grabbed the handle and found it much more comfortable than expected. It had weight to it but much less than he expected. Perhaps a kilo or two.

Adrian gave it a few slashes through the air, feeling a little stupid until he was reminded of his situation. If anything, he should be practicing with the thing as much as he could.

This wasn’t a tool like the hatchet or his dagger. It was a weapon made to maim and kill, with little other use than warfare. The thing wasn’t particularly sharp but it had a pointy end already covered in blood. His to be precise.

1h Weapon – Faenhold Shortsword [Adequate]

Strength +1

He smiled after reading the information, giving it a few more swings before he felt himself tiring out.

I really need to work out, he thought, not being too hard on himself with the lack of food he currently had access to.

The fighting hadn’t killed him but if he couldn’t secure something to eat anytime soon, his focus would lessen.

Adrian left the other weapons where they lay, knowing how much it had helped against the soldier to have a backup on hand.

Push on, he thought, unable to move for a moment before he lifted his sword and stared at it. You can do it, you have an actual sword now.

He smiled and took a deep breath, shivering before he tightened his grip on the weapon once more.

Soulbound:

Essence – -40

Level – 0

Vitality – 10 [11]

Endurance – 10

Strength – 9 [12]

Skill – 8 [15]

Intelligence – 12 [14]

Wisdom – 11

Soul skill – Slot 1

Equipment:

Helmet – Faenhold Soldier Helmet [Adequate]

Vitality +1

Chest – Faenhold Soldier Leather Armor [High]

Strength +2

Warrior Soul Skill Damage +2

Arms – Faenhold Soldier Bracers [Adequate]

Fire Magic Resistance +2%

Hands – Royal Faenhold Silk Gloves [High]

Skill +4

Rogue Soul Skill Damage +3

Belt – Royal Faenhold Belt [High]

Intelligence +2

Light Magic Mana Cost +2

Legs – Faenhold Knight Pants [Adequate]

Skill +2

Boots – Faenhold Soldier Boots [Adequate]

Skill +1

1h Weapon – Faenhold Shortsword [Adequate]

Strength +1

2h Weapon –

Off Hand –