Chapter 024: Spring cleaning

Once again I was reborn in the fleshy clutches of the Gore Altar. Only to emerge naked in front of Kytar, Vina, Menara and Ytar, that once again retreated to the place from which they could run away if something went wrong.

Sigh. Just... sigh. I donned my pants, ignoring Menara‘s giggle.

“What happened?” Kytar was surprisingly calm with this. I guess as a person living in Dragonspine Mountains he had a significantly higher level of calmness with nudity.

“We won and cleansed the second level.” I commented. “But we’ve run into an Aberrant. We‘ve exorcised him, but I died and the rest got scattered. Wait for me I’ll find the others.” Wait, now I think about it, there are no more any threats, right? “Actually, you are free to return to whatever you did earlier, the Hold is no longer in danger. Just for fuck‘s sake, don‘t dig anything until I’ll tell you to do that, ok?”

“Sure thing, boss.” Kytar saluted me. I sighed and departed towards the descent into the second level.

***

The first person I‘ve found was Vaera. He was lying, curled up among the massacred bodies of the Devoured Workers we destroyed after we returned to the Hold. Still on the upper level.

When I came closer, I could hear him crying.

“Nno... please... don‘t…” He was mumbling something I could barely understand. He seemed to beg somebody to not do something. Who might it be? Who was it that he saw? Sanity breaks did strange things to people.

I wasn‘t in a good shape, either. My death improved my sanity meter to 50/100, which still made me feel... strange. I felt as if I was a guest in my body, watching everything that happened without being able to do anything. Was it me who came here to help Vaera and the others?

Uh. Trying to think over existential matters when under effect of sanity slippage was a terrible idea.

“Vaera, can you hear me?”

“D…don‘t kill him, please.” He remained in his little world. Probably reliving the worst moment of his life. Was he seeing his followers slaughtered in the Black Woods by the pursuing mountain elves? I tried to move him, but his muscles were tense and he felt like a rock.

“KYTAR!" I shouted. He came after a while.

“What is it, boss?”

“Help me move him over to his room.” If we failed to do this, I’d have to call Menara as well. Which would have make me feel less manly than I felt now.

***

Together we carried Vaera to his room. It was a slow crawl, since he was surprisingly heavy, and unlike Kytar I had no aura skills to empower myself.

I almost choked when I saw the insides of Vaera‘s room. It looked... cute. A lot of fancywork, what looked like a collection of dolls and...

…No. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m seeing things. He has… A LARGE HUG PILLOW WITH DRAGON EMBROIDED OVER IT?!

I want to forget what I saw. Is there a spell to erase your memories or something? After seeing an Aberrant in person I thought that nothing could surprise me anymore, but… uh.

We laid him on his bed. He was still completely unconscious, mumbling something. He really looked like he was having the worst nightmare of his life.

We left the room.

“Bringing over Menara might be a good idea.” Kytar suddenly spoke. “She looks strong."

Eh, it won‘t be so unmanly if I’m not the one to suggest it, right?

“I guess it would be a good idea.” I sighed. “I have a feeling we will need to move more people around like that.”

***

We ran into Simea on the stairs. She sat there, her head in her hands. She wasn‘t crying. Just staring without a word.

“Are you ok?” She raised her head to look at me.

“Y…yes. It’s just…” Her eyes were empty. It’s like she wasn’t there and worked on autopilot. “I saw something I can‘t understand.” She chuckled nervously. “I don‘t understand. I don‘t understand. I can‘t understand. I can‘t understand.”

Ah, yes. I know that. They called NPCs acting like that Vacants in past game. Empty eyes, apathy, a tendency to get... jammed on words and sentences… one of many ways in which people reacted to the sanity break. One of the least troublesome, to be honest.

Looks like players could react like that as well in Gates of Eternity. It wasn‘t surprising anymore. If anything, I’m curious if corruption of players was a thing as well? Probably yes. That was terrible. Beyond terrible. We had to be ultra-careful when dealing with things connected to Pentagram then. Or to Beyond.

Wonderful. Freaking wonderful. We kept running into stuff like that. We should probably get a priest capable of exorcising corruption before it changes us all into murderous maniacs. Or worse.

“Come with me, Simea." I grabbed her hand. And gently guided her towards her room, leaving Menara and Kytar there. This wasn‘t a moment to have her sleep in my room, really. She wasn‘t putting any resistance. She was Vacant. She walked where I guided her, without a word.

Her room was almost spartan. A small bed. Table and chair. A small wardrobe which seemed to be filled with clothes.

I decided to pretend that I didn‘t see the small collection of... things she must have been using to fight with her natural urges as a night elf. She would be ashamed. Totally. Instead I simply had her lie on the bed and covered her with quilt.

“Sleep now. You will feel better after you wake up.” She obediently closed her eyes. Vacants were very susceptible for orders. They simply did what people told them too.

***

When I returned to the corridor in front of the stairs to the lower level I ran into Menara and Leria. Our Chosen One seemed to be having trouble walking, so our new blacksmith was helping her.

Divine blessings were equal to serious buffs to resistance against sanity damage, curses, mind magic and corruption. Gods would hate to have their most trusted servants broken in such an obvious and common ways. She was still a newborn Chosen One, with only a Lesser blessing. There was still a lot of room to grow. But it was enough to make her survive against a Lesser Aberrant, though I wasn‘t sure what would happen if I took longer to banish it.

Well, if I took longer to force my description on him, I would have my sanity broken and there would be no one with the knowledge about how you should act when faced with an Aberrant. Then, seeing the failure of its servants, it would probably walked around the Hold, crashing minds of every single one of us, before ruining Gore Altar and giving us a permadeath.

It was a close call. Really close.

“How do you feel?” I asked her when I got closer.

“Like something exploded in my head.” She grits her teeth. “Let’s not do it again, ok?”

“I can‘t promise you there are no more Aberrants down there... but I can promise we won‘t go deeper into the second layer of the Hold without being much stronger.” Which also included strengthening our willpower and mental resistance.

“Fine enough." She chuckled. “I will rest for a while.”

I nodded. “Sure. I’ll find Lena and try to clean the place. Take all the time you need.”

***

We took more than an hour to find Lena. Only when we searched her room, we found her curled up under her bed. She reacted to us with the look of sheer terror and loud hissing, so we decided to leave her there.

Obsessive fear of everything was also among common effects of sanity slippage caused by Beyond‘s influence. It was like it whipped a preservation instinct into a frenzy while switching off all higher aspects of their mind, making those afflicted act like animals. She would probably attack us if we came too close. I doubted she could use aura in this state, but I wasn‘t in a mood for wrestling with a girl ready to use her teeth and pretty much everything else to defend herself.

She, as well, should heal. It was a single sanity break. And done by a Lesser Aberrant. There were much more terrible things in Pentagram’s army. If we’d run into a Grand Aberrant, well. Things would be different. Most of those few mortals that didn‘t go irreversibly insane after seeing one ended up ascended into godhood. Which was everything one had to know to understand the level of danger associated with them. Normally you had to have your sanity break many times for your mind to suffer permanent changes.

Killing all of our afflicted wasn‘t an option. I returned to 50/100 sanity level because I suffered an affliction that made my brain literally break. Dying was my affliction. If we killed them, their affliction would remain. So we had to wait for a while. More time wasted, ugh.

***

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen.” I said loudly. “It is time to start the great cleaning of the Tyrant‘s Hold."

Me, Menara, Kytar and Ytar (only now I noticed how similar their names were, huh) stood in the corridor in the upper well that was still covered with massacred remains of Devoured Workers.

If they were daemons, they would dissipate after some time. It would be much slower than in a magical anomaly - where the reality itself seemed sentient and was really into recycling - but it would happen. But they were beasts. Rather than being creatures made of the Dark, they were existing under the laws of the Light as well, with magic only changing them.

This meant that they would undergo all this pesky natural processes. Entropy. Rotting. And the last thing we wanted to have was getting an epidemic started because of their rotting flesh cultivating some weird magical diseases.

Magical diseases were weird. Period. Not all of them, but with some the DFI really went far into the realm of WhatAreWeDoingForFuck‘sSake. Letting the husks rot was a horrible idea. Especially because they were tainted by Pentagram. This could spawn diseases that made local goddess of plagues and epidemics go full NOPE.

Because of that, we armed ourselves in brooms, rags, old sheets, gloves, buckets filled with water and disinfectant potions. And we were ready to start the cleansing of the Hold.

“So, what‘s the plan?” Menara asked.

“Well… you and Kytar use brooms and rags to clean the floor, walls and ceiling, while putting body parts onto the sheets.” And boy, there were a lot of them there. “Ytar empties the buckets in the toilet in the quarters and refills them with water.” Since I installed the magic crystal that I bought in the city, it should cleanse the water properly.

They nodded. Since they looked like they got everything, I continued.

“After you clean a part of the corridor, you and Kytar take the sheets with bodyparts into the second level of the Hold and drop them into the acid moat.”I wasn‘t going to build a great pile of mutilated bodies on the ground before the Hold, it was counterproductive. It would probably draw wild animals, and I wasn‘t going to risk mutating local predators into something weird. “I go after you and use water with my disinfectant potions dissolved in it to kill every potentially troublesome pathogens that might have already grown there.”

I wasn‘t sure if Kytar and Ytar knew what pathogens were, even if Imperium already knew about bacteria and had serious suspicions about viruses. If knowledge from World’s Requiem was to be trusted it already added bio-weapons into its vast arsenals. Including some gene-engineered diseases that were... unpleasant.

The details of pathogens was a knowledge limited to great alchemists and doctors. But they should get the general idea and I wasn‘t very interested in starting a long debate about how diseases worked.

“Alright! Onwards, to battle!” I shouted with enthusiasm.

***

The cleaning took us three damn days. Ten hours of hard, physical - and squicky - work a day.

It was beyond terrible. For two days we fought against the bodies in the corridor. When we finished them and cleaned the stairwell, we had the worst part of the job behind us. On the lower level we pushed everything into the moat. There was a complicated techmaturgical system behind it, replenishing the acid and drawing things it couldn‘t melt into an automatic hearth hidden behind the wall, when they were safely incinerated. If I was right, there was a small teleporter that threw things that couldn‘t be melted in neither acid nor fire... well, somewhere.

It was pretty advanced, really. Must have cost a fortune. Builders of this place spared no expenses when it came to security. It was a blessing for us.

After we pushed everything into the moat, we simply used water to clean the bloodstains and then disinfected everything. It was tiring work that made me - a mental hybrid of a human and a sloth - feel exhausted. Mentally more than physically.

At the beginning we used Ytar’s familiar as a light source. It wasn‘t the way you should use a Spirit of Light, but on the other hand Shimmer shouldn‘t have problems with that, not after we murdered a lot of beings of Pentagram. It was still a rather faint lighting. Our working conditions improved when Ytar - as a beastman he had an improved nightsight - discovered a switch in the wall.

I’d have told him to not use a switch found in ancient ruins - they had a tendency to be bad news - but he didn‘t ask me and used it instead. It turned out to be a light switch that illuminated the whole room. Making our work much easier. After a brief search we discovered similar switches in the rest of the rooms on the lower level. Their enchantment was so weak I failed to notice it with my Sense Magic.

We‘ve also discovered a writing on the wall in the room where we fought the Devoured Knight. It was large and written in the archaic version of local language. I decided to leave decoding it for later.

Work on the third day was even easier because Leria was finally back in workable conditions and lent us a hand. The rest was still hiding in their rooms, we had Vila - Leria insisted that we gave her something to do - bring them food and put it behind their door.

Midnight was smart enough to steer clear of everything that smelled with evil magic. Cats and dogs had the ability to detect things like that, one of the many reasons people kept them around. At least we didn‘t have to worry about him eating or licking something that would make him go mad and gnaw on our throats when we were sleeping.

He seemed to follow Vila around. Which was interesting. I saw her petting him few times. One of the rare occasions when she did something for herself. Cat-o-therapy worked? Surprising. Or perhaps the cat was actually trained for stuff like that?

***

Since at the end of the third day the rest of our team was still afflicted, we decided to continue cleaning and search through the ruined storeroom. I got an idea about how we should use this room and the one where the Aberrant was. After all, we had a blacksmith but without a proper crafting environment, right? But even before collecting necessary tools (which would cost a lot), we still had to clear it.

We left that for the fourth day. I‘ve spend the evening drinking wine and reading a history book about the current dynasty ruling over Kingdom of Northern Aevaria. A great tale of debauchery, backstabbing and madness, huh.

A faint knocking to my bedroom door interrupted me. There was only a single person whom I gave the spare keys to the study… Simea?

It was her. Wearing her nightgown, trembling slightly.

“S…sorry, ccan I come in?"

“Of course.” She must have recovered from the Vacancy. But was still shaken to the core with what we seen. I couldn‘t blame her. I still had nightmares about that encounter. Her sanity was no longer 0/100, but it most likely wasn’t far higher.

She sat on the edge of the bed. I sat beside her.

“How do you feel?” I asked her.

“Better. How long…”

“Three days.” She nodded silently after hearing my answer. “It’s called Vacancy. An affliction you can get when your sanity drops to zero.”

“I see.” She was silent for a while. “What was that thing?”

I told her everything I knew about Aberrants. With exception of the fact it was a Lesser one, the lowest step on this ladder. She... wasn‘t ready to discover that part. I was trembling each time I thought about how the Grand Aberrants had to ‘look‘ like. They were to Lesser Aberrants what gods were to mortals.

I decided to share my doubts about whether a programmer could create it.

“I see.” She looked down. “If this really is another world, we won‘t return home, right?”

“We will manage.” I answered with my most serious tone. “I promise you, if there is a way to return, we will find it.”

My most serious tone must have persuaded her. Or at least she avoided the argument. What a relief. I wasn‘t sure about that as I had my share of doubts. I only pretended to be sure since she obviously required it.

“Can I... sleep with you?" She finally said.

I nodded. “Of course, Simea."

I decided to not say a word when she hugged me right after we went to bed. She was still trembling a bit, and was visibly scared. If physical contact was required for her to feel better… I could manage that.

I hugged her back and held her until she fell asleep.

***

As expected, both Lena and Vaera recuperated more or less in the same time as Simea. When we woke up tomorrow and went to eat breakfast in the mess hall, they were already there. Especially Vaera looked like a shadow of his former self. I wasn‘t going to ask him questions about what he saw... but he answered them nonetheless.

“Things like that shouldn‘t exist.” He said when we sat beside him. “I might have been rather... indifferent to this crusade of yours, but now I’m officially in.”

I looked at him. He had determination written on his face. Barely visible through his sunken cheeks and bags under his eyes. “That’s… good?” I mean, how do you answer such a statement?!

“It made me live through the worst moments of my life. Over and over. For three days, according to what Kytar said.” He chuckled bitterly. “It felt longer there. If we fight things like that, count me in. They should all die."

…

Ok. Looks like he finally found an enthusiasm for spreading good. Okay, more like destroying evil, and even this on a limited scale for now, but it was still nice to not have to be afraid of him being a weakest link in our... guild.

Lena in the meantime seemed to be in a much better state. Probably because in her animalistic state she didn‘t refrain from eating the food Vila put beside her door. She still looked bad. Like a person who spend several days partying hard and now the hangover caught her.

Sigh. I guess we will still finish the cleaning of the lower level before we depart somewhere. Simea stopped trembling after the night (we didn‘t speak about the hugging part) but while still looking bad she was still in the best shape of all afflicted.

***

This time we separated our work differently. Menara, Kytar, Ytar and Leria were going to clean the storeroom. The first two provided muscle, Ytar was there to help them with things requiring less strength, and Leria was supposed to keep an eye on potential remnants of magic in the objects that were hidden within the rotten crates. While also lending a hand in hard work.

I, in the same time, had a different job. I would spend a whole day trying to decipher the relief in the hall where we fought the knight. It was certainly left by the Overtyrant cult - which I presumed was the Ardent Flame mentioned in the descriptions of Devoured mobs - and could contain clues to this place. The only problem was that this relief was in a horrible condition. It was old and weathered, but it also sustained damage - probably in a combat long ago. What‘s worse, the Devoured deliberately vandalized it, covering it in blasphemous graffitis I had to clean, while making no damage to the writings beneath.

It would be a looong work.

***

The first interruption I had to suffer was made by Midnight. I almost jumped when I heard his loud meow right behind me.

I turned my head to see him sitting beside the small table I put there. It would be my workplace after I finish uncovering the relief, I had papers there on which I would write the inscriptions while trying to decode them.

He meowed again.

“Eh, what is it, Midnight? I don‘t have time to pet you. And I don‘t have anything edible." He meowed and turned his head towards the door leading to the stairway. After I looked there, I discovered Vila hiding behind them and observing us through the opening.

Just how intelligent is Midnight?

“You can come in, Vila.” She hurried inside. Yeah, I guess she was yet to discover that the world ‘can' meant that she was free to choose. She was probably a child of slaves, conditioned since birth to obey orders and have as little personality as it was possible.

“Uhm… I didn‘t know if I could come in, and…” That was literally the longest sentence I heard from her since we met. There was certainly progress.

“Eh, you can go wherever you want, as long as you don‘t leave the caves.” I informed her. “Actually, don‘t go there.” I pointed my finger at the door leading to the acid moat. “It’s dangerous there. Outside of this room you can follow Midnight wherever he goes.”

The cat responded with a loud meow and calmly walked towards Vila. She looked at him, her hands crossed in front of her like she was trying to put a barrier between me and her. Then he rubbed against her legs, like he was trying to encourage her.

I’m beginning to think that the smartest person around is our cat.

***

Second interruption was Leria walking out of the storeroom. She did it regularly. After all, they tasked her with bringing rubbish-filled crates to the acid moat where they were safely disposed, but this time she spoke my name.

“Avhar. You should look at this.” I so don‘t like the sound of that. Urgh. And I almost deciphered a significant part of this damn relief.

I sighed and rose from the chair beneath the table that served as my desk.

***

What they uncovered was a whole crate filled with rings. Magical rings. Each of them looked the same - a simple metal band with a symbol of a burning torch engraved in it.

“Most are made from iron.” Menara, our blacksmith, said when I saw them. “But there are also many silver, several gold, few sculpted from mana crystals, and a single one that seems to be made from platinum.” Wow.

“I think I saw them somewhere already.” I said.

“Yes, Devoured carried similar rings.” Leria answered me. “Workers had iron bands, warriors had silver, and the knight had a gold one.”

“And we threw them into the acid?” Ytar asked, with a shock on his face. Well, I guess he never saw a treasure as big as this one.

“Wearing rings that were worn for who knows how long by beings of Pentagram is a horrible idea.” I answered him. “But I’m not sure about these. They were in a tainted environment, but I don‘t feel Pentagram‘s power on them.” I checked them with my supernatural senses. “Wait, there are still enchanted?! How is this possible?”

“Maybe because of the environment being filled with more magic than it should it received minimal levels of aether even without being enchanted for self-replenishment? I mean, this place is almost a magical anomaly.” Menara theorized. “They are on the edge of the spells losing their anchor. They need to be refilled to be of any use." Besides the platinum one. I could feel it still had a lot of power. Weird.

“Let’s leave it for now.” I decided. “Put the crate in our storeroom above. We’ll get them exorcised in case there is corruption left on them. Despite not feeling it I don‘t want to risk anything.” They all nodded.

***

It was late evening when I finally decoded a significant part of the relief. The story it told me… Oh boy. Leria will be ultra pissed, won‘t she?

As I presumed, a group calling it the Ardent Flame, dedicated to Overtyrant, once used this place and worked to purge the Dragonspine Mountains of the corruption. But it wasn‘t a cult. It was a religious order, with several levels of initiation. A giant one.

This relief mentioned at least several whole complexes scattered around this level. Including a FUCKING MINE. The part we lived in? It was literally an entrance to the Hold. The lower level was... ten times bigger? Twenty times bigger? Jesus Christ.

One day they unleashed something. The unknown sculptor claimed that it came from the mines, overwhelming the foundry and agriculture sector before anyone noticed anything. The Ardent Flame tried to fight it back, but after it captured what I presumed to be a central location, the order was scattered into several separated groups. One of them fled towards the entrance and held the line on the moat. When the tide of survivors fleeing from the deeper part stopped and was replaced by monstrosities never seen before, the surviving knights raised the bridge. One of them made the relief to warn the future generation of Ardent Flame members (or someone else, who discovered this place) about the things waiting beneath.

I guessed that the acid moat didn‘t work for long. Or... maybe the Aberrant slipped inside drawn by suffering and fear, forcing the survivors of Ardent Flame to collapse the tunnel before the stairway? This could explain a lot.

I wondered what happened with the Ardent Flame. They used an upper part of the Hold for some time. Did they die? Did they lose hope and retreat to the Imperium?

We literally got ourselves a dungeon. Right beneath our feet. It even had a Location Quest of its own. It was a real danger to our group, but... what if we reclaimed it? What sort of treasures must have awaited us deep there? Normally I wouldn‘t touch things from Pentagram-infested location with a ten meter long pole, but if Overtyrant touched these things, they might have resisted the corruption as the rings did…

I grinned. The future looked slightly less dark.