Chapter XXIII: Marking Territory

The Wildlands South of the Heian Kingdom, The Great Plateau

Month of the Garuda 37, 172 ,328 DE

Reaching the keep without running into any patrols, we hide in the shadows off the side of the road leading to its front gate.

Vorn sighs very softly. "Those walls are decent for a shithole keep in the middle of soft southern lands. I don't see a good place to climb them."

I do not reply. I continue scanning the walls of the keep. Despite being old, the walls remain solid. Carved from massive blocks of stone three meters on a side, the walls stand over thirty meters in height. That seems a bit extreme, half again the height of the walls of the compound below. The walls block our view of the small keep hidden behind them.

"Where the curtain wall meets the cliff, I see a way we can climb them."

Vorn frowns. "I was wrong. You're not a boar. You're a mountain goat."

Looking at Vorn, I display a condescending smirk. "Not up to the task?"

Vorn snots. "The Halls of Diyu, I'm not. Lead on, Mountain Goat-sama!"

The guard patrolling the top of the keep's curtain wall appears bored and unobservant, but I still use every shadow and scrap of cover. We reach the point where the curtain wall meets the cliff without being seen.

When it was built, part of the cliff was cut out so the stones of the wall could be set into it, with the cliff covering their back edges. Mortar was used to pack the gap, but after a century or two without the keep being maintained, the mortar weathered and crumbled. Erosion has left numerous chinks and holes that can be used to climb the cliff.

Jamming my fingers and toes into the gaps between the curtain wall blocks and the stone of the cliff and twist them, I quietly ascend the wall.

"Damned mountain goat." Vorn's softly mumbled complaint rises from below, but no human below the Core Formation realm at the very least could hear it of the constant susurrus of the mountain winds.

Hanging from the cliff, I peer through an embrasure in the crenelations. After a few minutes, two patrolling separate Cultivators reach the end of the parapet walkway and turn around to go back. When the first one heads back a second time, I climb up into the embrasure and look down the wall.

Torches from pools of illumination surrounded by seas of darkness. The second Cultivator listlessly walks back this way, A third patroller walks away from the second in the opposite direction. The overlapping patrol paths seem a bit of a joke, considering how inattentive the Cultivators appear to be.

The keep blocks my view of any other sentries. Except for a three of four meter walkway between the keep wall and curtain wall and a probably courtyard up front, it appears to take up the entire interior area. The back of the keep abuts directly against the cliff. No Cultivators stand watch on the roof of the keep, and it is low and close enough that I could make the leap from the parapet walkway.

Clambering out of the embrasure, I jam my toes in the gap between the wall and the cliff. Hanging upside down, my head reaches down to near Vorn's.

"How far can you jump? Vertically and horizontally."

Vorn's eyes open wide. "I'm not sure. Why?"

"Can you jump up four meters while crossing three to four meters? You just need to be able to grab a handhold at the end. One that's four meters up."

Vorn nods. "That's easy."

"There are patrols. We'll be in their line of sight, but it's much darker here than where they'll be. When we move, we have to move fast."

Vorn nods. "Okay."

After the patrolling Cultivator turns around and heads back, I climb back into the embrasure and motion for Vorn to follow. Dropping on the walkway, I crouch in the deepest darkness next to the embrasure.

Vorn moves almost silently. He even manages to not scrape his sword on the stone. Crouching next to me, he examines the keep's crenelated roof and looks toward the patrolling Cultivators.

"Now?"

I nod. "Now."

Taking one large step, Vorn springs into the air. He effortlessly crosses the distance and grabs onto the bottom of an embrasure. As his feet hit the wall, they make almost no noise, and his bent legs absorb his momentum. Pulling himself with just his arms, he launches himself into the embrasure and disappears from my sight.

As I look at the patrolling Cultivators, they show no sign of having noticed Vorn. With two short, quick steps, I leap toward the embrasure. Grabbing the merlons on either side of the embrasure, I pull myself into the embrasure and crouch down.

Except for Vorn, the top of the keep is empty. A closed door in the cliff at the back of the keep provides the only egress from the roof. As I pull the door open, its hinges creak. I pause and listen for a few moments, but I hear no sounds from the stairway behind the door.

As I silently descend the stairway, Vorn follows, moving almost as quietly. If it were not for his boots, he could probably move as silently as I do. At least, he should be able to do so on a smooth, even surface. On leaves or in brush, he still has a way to go.

After two switch backs and three flights, the stairway ends at another door. The scents of more than thirty humans linger in the air, but after listening at the door, I hear no signs of anyone on the other side.

This door open silently, revealing an unadorned corridor that heads toward the front of the keep. A single door opens off the inside wall. The outside wall should be the outer wall of the keep.

As with the corridor, no sounds issue from beyond the first door. Opening it, we find a narrow guardroom or spy-room, only two meters deep. Drilled in a variety of angles, multiple peepholes in the interior wall give a reasonably good view of nine or ten meters of an empty audience hall or throne room. A single throne sits on a dais at the back of the room. An ornate closed door closed sits in the opposite wall. From the front of the dais forward, thick purple drapes cover the wall.

A single door sits in the narrow wall facing toward the front of the keep. A quick search does not reveal any hidden doors. The second door opens into the throne room, but thick drapes, like those we could see on the opposite wall, block our view of the rest of the room. I would suspect that the person, who had this throne room built, was a calculating, untrusting individual.

Moving to the door leading out from the side of the dais, we listen but hear nothing. Opening the door, we find a room about the size of the corridor and spy-room on the opposite put together. It has two doors, one opening toward the front of the keep, and the other opening into the cliff again.

Listening at the door leading to the front of the keep, faint sounds can be heard, and the fresh scents of two humans drifts through the thick crack at the bottom of the door.

With saying a word, I hold up two fingers and point at the door. Vorn nod and we move to the back door. No sounds can be heard from behind it, and the faint odor of machine oil wafts from it hinges. Opening the door, we find a small with two flights of stairs. One leads up. The other leads down and deeper into the cliff. The stone of the stairs leading deeper into the cliff looks different, as though it was melted, where the stairs leading up look carved.

Without consulting Vorn, I lead the way down the melted-looking stairs. At the bottom, I stop and stare at the black, metal door. Hundred of sigils have been etched into its surface.

After a few minutes, the odor of Vorn's impatience fills his scent. His words come out barely at the volume of a whisper. "Do you understand those sigils?"

"I partially understand some of them. They're related to space, but I don't know what they're supposed to do."

"Should we open the door?"

I do not reply for a few moments. "I have a feeling bad is on the other side of the door. But we won't know what it is without going in."

Behind me, Vorn tense up. "You're scared?"

I shrug. "Not exactly. But I have the feeling whatever is on the other side of that door is nothing good for us."

"Open it." Vorn's whisper carries conviction, but his scent betrays his nervousness.

The doorknob does not turn. Pulling out the bent nails that I kept, I pick the lock. It takes several times as long as the padlock. With twice as many tumbles as the padlock, this lock proves much more complicated.

Click.

The lock releases with a clearly audible sound, but after a few moments, we hear nothing from beyond the door. I open the door, revealing a roughly six meter by ten meter room.

At the center of the room stand a meter high, two meters long, meter and a half wide block of stone. I do not know if I should call it a table or an altar. Six metal pedestals that resemble forty centimeter tall cable holders surround an almost forty centimeter on a side metal chest. From the chest's open lid, faint polychromatic smoke rises into the air. The smoke splits into six parts, and each part flows toward a red fruit, the size of a grapefruit, sitting on the metal pedestal.

At the back of the room, metal crates, about a meter on a side, line the walls. Sigils similar to the ones in the door cover every visible surface of the crates and the chest on the altar.

"What the hell is this supposed to be?" The confusion in Vorn's soft-voiced question matches the confusion in his scent.

"Corruption!" With a wave of rising revulsion, I spit out the single word.

"Corruption?"

"Your bitch aunt is deliberately corrupting the Blood Fruit with Chaos and feeding it to the Ferocious Beasts in the Demonic Wildlands. I just don't understand how she's bringing anything corrupted by Chaos past the Watchtowers. It has to be related to the sigils on those crates."

Moving to the back of the stone block, I quickly flip the lid of the chest closed, and the flow of polychromatic gas ceases. The chest has a hasp lock built into it, and using my bent nails, I lock it.

The weight of the chest surprises me. It weighs more than a hundred kilograms, but I secure it to my backpack with some rope that I keep for hanging game or carrying game. Putting my pack back on, I move around a little to adjust to the awkward weight.

"Let's go. I want to see what's on those airships."

As we pass through the throne room, I pull my dick out of my loincloth and piss on the throne.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Marking my territory. After we get this chest to Old Man Jones, I'm coming back here to take this keep and gut your bitch aunt like a fish. While she's still alive."

The bitch princess deserves worse for spreading the corruption of Chaos, but I do not have a decade to waste torturing her.

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