Chapter 139

Cairn of Immortality

Sylas was told to follow--and the 'old man Lukas' as he'd gotten to call the man leading him left the room, took a sharp right, and began descending the stairs. That descent led into the hallway at the end of which another set of stairs leading downstairs existed. And another. Then they walked up for a bit, it felt, before, once again, descending further. All the while, neither spoke. Sylas was too busy inspecting the many decorations that they passed--anything from grand, though still ordinarily painted portraits framed in gold, to grotesque statues of men and women being wildly dehumanized in many ways.

Beyond the decorations that he could at least relate to somewhat, there were other, more morbid ones--such as a mummified, naked corpse of a woman seemingly in her late teens with a plaque in front that read 'She dared raise her hand against her Young Master'. There was a look of horror on her face and many-a-lash across her skin. Some resembled wounds inflicted by a blade, and some by a whip, and some yet by a blunt object. She wasn't alone--along the way, Sylas had encountered seven such instances--five of women and two of men. Most were in their late teens with the exception of one woman who was well into her middle ages. The plaque for her read 'She wrongfully accused her Young Master of abuse'.

Though Sylas was suspicious of the ‘wrongfully’, he didn’t say anything, continuing to observe. It was a good look into the nuanced culture of the ‘paradise’--though he’d known Valen for a long time now, he similarly knew that the young Prince was hardly a good representative of the culture at large. Sylas had realized that very early on when he noticed that the Prince was mightily naive when it came to the Kingdom’s business.

As he was slightly lost in thought, he nearly bumped into Lukas’ back before halting himself, realizing they had reached doors made out of thick iron. A motif of a man on his knees, arms spread out toward the sky, welcomed him, carved into the doors.

“I will warn you,” Lukas said suddenly, his voice muffled. “If you turn ignorant to what you see inside... I will kill you. No matter what.”

“Alright, let’s go back, then,” Sylas said.

“H-huh?” Lukas nearly toppled to the side at Sylas’ response, causing the latter to burst into laughter.

“Ha ha ha, joking, joking. You are way too tense, old man.”

“You are my age.”

“I guess we’re both old, then,” Sylas said, sighing. “Let’s go. Let’s see this mystery that could be the death of me.”

“...” Lukas nodded and suddenly slammed his fist into the center of the door, where a tiny nook existed. Sylas felt energy seep out through the man’s arm and into the nook as the doors grew alight with milky white, the color beaming and blossoming, enriching further the motif--now, above the praying man, a beacon of holy light descended from the sky.

The doors creaked and cried and bulged as they began to separate on their own. There were no gears or machinations driving them--purely magic. Bit by bit, the gap grew larger--but Sylas was incapable of seeing anything inside as it was ebony dark. Within a minute or so, the doors gaped whole, revealing an utterly dark room. Lukas walked in and Sylas followed, appearing fearless. Just as he broke the threshold, it was as though he stepped into another world, finding himself inside a well-lit den.

Rugged rocks were its walls, jagged protrusions escalating outwardly like spikes in an uneven circle. They all surrounded a particular thing in the center, standing suspended midair above a pond of incredulously breathtaking water dyed in faint twilight. The ‘thing’ was a set of rocks stacked on top of each other, yet melded into one seemingly. Chains stood wrapped around them, runes glowing on their surface, wound tightly round as though suffocating. The stacked rocks looked old old, as though they came from the time before time, and were now just a touch away from turning into ashes. It was then that a window appeared in front of him, once again.

[You have found a ‘Cairn of Immortality’]

[Though thought of as completely destroyed, you have discovered the solitary remaining Cairn in the known world. However, its usefulness and magic had been sapped by the Antimatter Chains, rendering it virtually useless]

[Quest: Find a way to reestablish Cairn’s bridge to the Beyond]

[Reward: Unknown]

Sylas sighed inwardly; of course, of course, he'd be dragged into yet another insane thing right off the bat. He remembered quickly what Cairns were--when he fought the 'man' in the village, he yelled out rather aggressively that 'they'd' destroyed all Cairns and that there were none left. Alas, there were some left. Well, one at least. Then again, there was also the caveat of ‘in the known world’. That phrase, Sylas realized, hadn’t been tossed in there just for the fun of it. It was purposeful.

“So?” Lukas mumbled, his hand already on the blade.

“What has your Kingdom done, old man?” Sylas elected to play the role of a sagacious man. “If my King were to see what you had done with a Cairn, he’d burn down every last bit of your heretical land.”

“... I feared this,” Lukas sighed, glancing at Sylas. “You must leave. If my King were to learn you’re here... both you and your Princess would die,” Sylas glanced back at him, feigning indifference though, inwardly, he was mightily curious.

“I don’t fear your King, old man,” Sylas said. “What I fear... is the reckoning for that,” he pointed at the suspended rock. “How long do you think you’ll hold out?”

“... it... it wasn’t us,” Lukas grumbled, gnashing his teeth. “It wasn’t us.”

“Undo the chains, then.”

“We can’t!” the old man exclaimed. “Do you think we hadn’t tried?! Everything! We tried everything! But there is nobody alive who seems to recognize the runes!! His Majesty... His Majesty nearly died trying to undo them!!” Oh? Sylas attention was immediately dragged to that statement--since another small bit of the greater picture had just been painted. “Do you recognize the runes?”

“I do,” Sylas lied.

“Then you can undo them?!”

“What? No, of course not,” Sylas scoffed. “I’m a brute, like you. I just mean I saw them back home. Some of our torturers used them as... tools.”

“...”

“Can I ask you something?”

“... ask,” Lukas said.

"My dear little Princess said something interesting when we landed on your shores," Sylas said. "She passed out for a moment and said it was due to a 'backlash'. Her tie, she said, to the Beyond was weakened so much that she suffered from whiplash. Is it because of this? Did you do this to all your Cairns?”

“... your... the Princess is one of them?” Lukas asked.

“Them? Who ‘them’?” Sylas corked his head.

“The Blessed.”

“Back home, we just call them Nobility,” Sylas shrugged. “My King asked me, too, if I wanted to be ‘washed in the basin of Divinity’. But... alas, I am a brute. I have no use for gods and their might. I am too barbaric for it all. You didn’t answer my question.”

“... this is the last Cairn on the continent.”

“... what?” Sylas feigned shock and reeled back in horror. “What... what do you mean?!”

“They... they were all destroyed,” Lukas said. “By the founding Tribes. The records simply said that it was ‘for the greater good and that we shouldn’t question it’. Alas, our Kingdom’s founder... hid one of them. And--Y-Y-Y-Your Majesty?!!!” Lukas suddenly exclaimed in horror as he fell to his knees, trembling as though surviving through an earthquake. Even Sylas felt his blood freeze for a moment before undoing the fear and looking to the side where saw a regal man standing. He didn’t realize when or even how the man appeared.

The man was tall--almost six-five, from Sylas’ quick estimate--and had long, graying hair and well-kept beard decorating squared jaw and a face that had lived for a long time. His eyes, beyond their sun-golden hue, seemed almost primal. They were glued to the suspended rock, full of emotions.

“Leave us, Lukas,” the man spoke in a low tone, causing Lukas to immediately sprint out as though hunted by ghosts. The doors closed behind him, and Sylas realized that this would likely be where he’d die this loop. “You fear me not, you say?”

"No," Sylas smiled instead of giving in to the inbred fear. "Should I?"

“I cannot say,” it was the King--perhaps for the first time since coming into this world, Sylas had met someone ‘noble’. It went beyond the name and appearance and even general countenance. He’d met quite a few men and women with arrogance bounding the sky, but this man... was different. It was subdued, subtle, otherworldly, even. The man walked up and stopped by the edge of the pond, looking at the rock still. “All men hold their own fears. If you do not fear me, then you do not. What is it like south beyond the waves, if you do not mind me asking?”

“What is it like?” Sylas felt a tingling sensation--a warning. Something was off. And yet, he couldn’t pinpoint what. So, he did what he did best--made stuff up. “Hot,” he said. “All the time. We haven’t had snow in over a thousand years.”

“Oh, really?”

“Hm. Our winters are merely tempered summers,” Sylas continued.

“Strange, then, that your Princess looks like she does not even know what sun is,” the King said, causing Sylas to cringe inwardly. By now, he knew that the man was just messing with him.

“Mostly because she doesn’t,” Sylas said.

“... she is quite a beautiful woman,” the man said, shaking his head at the rock before turning toward Sylas and smiling. “Unfortunately for my smitten son, her heart is wholly taken. You must be quite a charming lad to have swayed a Maiden of Gods to abandon her self-imposed vows.”

“...” Sylas reeled back for a moment before sighing, shrugging his shoulders. “Took a while.”

“I can imagine,” the King said. “Since you are here and Valen is not, it must mean you have found the portal.”

“... say what now?”

"It is too early, I am afraid," the King said. "The winter will be long--and you must endure it. I suppose, though, I could help you a bit. South of the castle there is a village--and judging by the look in your eye, you have already been there--but it is not the village that is of your concern. You are not strong enough, yet. Further west of the village, back into the mountains, there is a set of caves. They are home to a long-standing group, one behind all those scalding Ghouls that have come attacking you."

“Okay, seriously, what the fuck?!”

“Deal with them,” the King said as Sylas suddenly realized... he couldn’t breathe. As in, his body refused to listen to the simple order of ‘BREATHE’. “And do not take the portal here again. If you do, I will immediately kill you. Fulfill the promise you made and arrive at the gates. Then, I shall tell you the whole story. Good luck, little earthling.”

[You have died]

[Save point ‘Death’ has been initialized’]

“AAAAAGHHHHHHH!!!!” JUST WHAT THE FUCK DID JUST FUCKING HAPPEN?!!!