Warning: claustrophobia (only a little while)

The necromancer’s essence disintegrated upon my touch, slowly unravelling at the seams. It was an enchanting sight, to see another’s existence finally give up, to see it collapse in on itself. I had to stop myself from staring at it, since the spectacle wasn’t something I should get used to.

Still, this whole situation had turned out a little too conveniently for my taste. What were the chances I would happen to have just the tool necessary for the job? Had the king foreseen me being sent on this mission? Did he guess there would be a necromantic essence here, or did he plan this together with the church, a condition of their alliance disguised as a contract for a witch hunter?

Even though this had all worked out to my benefit, I felt a bitter taste in my mouth at the thought of being controlled, no, guided into my choices. There was nothing I hated more than the illusion of choice. If every reward came with its own conditions, I’d rather not accept any.

The church and the king could go fuck themselves in the ass with any future ‘quests’ they came up with, the bastards.

A few seconds later, all signs of the necromancer’s remnants had disappeared, and all that was left were his dusty old throne and wrecked throne room.

Ding! Combat finished. [Hollow Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Hollow essence Knight] level 13!

The sudden increase in level came as no surprise, though the amount was far lower than expected. Hadn’t that essence once been a tier 5 classer?

Then again... just because the classer had been tier 5, didn’t mean that his essence would be too, I guessed.

With a disappointed sigh, I decided to continue on ahead.

“Ready to leave; boy?” I asked Revan, who replied with a guttural low growl of assent.

We navigated our way back to the maintenance room, where the chain kept that kept the castle in place started. I opened the creaky wooden door of said room, and found myself face to face with a sight that I had hoped to postpone for a while longer. On the other side of the room, the dry man was sitting leisurely on the chain, while reading from a small book that had a small knight drawn on its cover. Even from this distance, I could see that it was a children’s book.

The dry man’s dirty cloak hung loosely over his shoulders and swayed from the wind that came through the entrance, while his straw hat was placed on the ground next to where he was seated.

The moment I entered, he put away his little booklet and a small smile appeared on his face.

“I see that you succeeded. This bodes well for my own request, young man.”

Clenching my teeth, I held back the sarcastic retort I was about to say and took a more neutral route instead.

“Were you confident that we could leave this place alive because of my gauntlets?” I asked. After all, had it not been for these puppies, I would have been imprisoned in this castle until the end of my lifespan.

“Not at all.” He replied gleefully, taking pleasure from seeing my grimace. “If you couldn’t handle a single necromantic essence, there would be no way for you to fulfil my request anyway. The package I want you to deliver is rather delicate. I don’t need idiots or weaklings destroying it by accident.”

“Right...” I simpered, a little put out at the thought of being tested.

“That being said, I would’ve done you a favor and freed you from the prison after a few decades. No need to thank me.”

“I wasn’t going to...” I said quietly to myself.

“What was that?” he asked with a dangerous glint in his eyes.

“Nothing.” was my quick reply.

The dry man snorted and chuckled, before lifting his palm at me. I felt a sudden tug at my cloak, heard it tear, and then noticed an object fly into his hand in a single motion.

Suddenly, the dry man was holding the chalice, causing a sudden panicked rush to come over me. Instinctively, my hand went for my sword and Revan’s eyes glowed in the doorway. The dry man held up his other hand in a gesture of surrender, though.

“Hey now, calm down, little one. I don’t intend to keep this thing long-term. Just complete my request and I’ll give it back, with an extra reward on top. It’s not like you could saunter into necropolis or the eastern territory with this in your back pocket anyway, right? My eternal rival would notice your presence immediately.” He explained.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I leaned against the wall.

“What makes you so sure he won’t, even without the chalice? You seemed to notice me at the first sign of trouble...” I asked. If the dry man was expecting me to hide from another tier 3, he was being delusional.

“Aha! Well, you see, the thing is, the old abyss watcher does exactly as his name imply. Watch the abyss, and not much else. He only has a few subordinates and even they stick to his castle. Compared to my own goons, who rule basically every inch of the west, it’s a different situation. The old fellow would never leave his catacombs if it wasn’t for necropolis’ lord throwing a big party. Furthermore, he hardly has any skills related to reconnaissance, unlike me.”

“Okay... and where do I find your package?”

“At the peak of his fort, no doubt. My powers wane the further we get from the ground, and he knows that well enough. You’ll know what it is when you see it. Just escort the package back to the border before the abyss watcher returns to his home and you’ll get your reward. With your particular skills, this task should be a doozy. Contact me upon your return, just saying my name in my territory will suffice. Oh, and stay out of necropolis at all costs. The old fucker will be monitoring the place.”

“Got it. When do I leave?”

Instead of answering verbally, the dry man lifted his hand again. All of a sudden, I got lurched through the air and thrown into the hole where the chain was attached. I waved my arms about as I fell, momentarily caught by surprise. As I panicked, I heard a small voice originating from above me.

“Now.”

-Scene transition-

A day later, Revan and I were approaching the northern border with the east, where we would cross into the abyss watcher’s territory. Necropolis, the thriving undead city, was located in the south of the between lands, right on the border of east and west. We were giving it a wide berth by staying far up north, in hopes of avoiding any contact with the place, even if the abyss watcher’s fort was in the southwest. The journey would be a bit longer, but still.

Revan and I had been sneaking through the dried-out forest step by step and stayed away from any other settlements. Surprisingly, we had come across three more instances of civilization during our time in the wasteland. One of them had probably been a village, while the other two were lone huts of some sort. The smoke rising from their chimneys signified that they were being lived in, however. For our own safety, we stayed away from them. Didn’t want anybody to track our location.

Eventually, we arrived at what was, unmistakably, the eastern territory. I say this because the dry forest suddenly cut off, instead turning into an obsidian-colored rocky landscape. This time, there wasn’t any foliage of any kind, which made the area seem even more dead than the dry forest had.

The ground seemed to be granite, and random boulders and peaks jutted out of the landscape, hiding the horizon behind a collection of sharp edges. The jagged peaks were too small to be called hills, yet too large to navigate around. At the same time, they would give Revan and me some much-needed cover to head towards the abyss watchers castle, which was still a week away if we traveled slowly.

Unfortunately, night was starting to fall. The darkness it brought with it wasn’t an issue, but I kept to a normal sleep schedule to remain alert. That meant that I had to set up camp somewhere nearby. Staying out in the open was a big risk, so Revan and I split up to search for a cave.

Crawling across the sharp boulders was starting to wear on my stamina, since I refused to use skills to help me. The noise would attract who knew what to our location.

Luckily, Revan stomped his foot twice to let me know he had found something not long after we had split. A few minutes later, I found what he was talking about. Near the top of one of the granite rocks, a small hole had been dug. It looked round and didn’t pierce that deeply into the rock. Seeing that it was just barely big enough for one person to sleep in, I crawled inside and pulled out my sleeping bag. After eating some jerky, I dozed off while Revan held guard. Expecting a full-night’s rest, I eventually fell into deep, rhythmic sleep.

In the middle of the night, however, I was suddenly awoken by Revan’s fearful cry. His roar sounded strangely distant, but I was still up and ready to fight within moments. As I moved to crawl out of the cave, I noticed that the entrance was blocked by something. A strange green gem the size of the entrance was keeping me inside.

Suddenly, a strong thud reverberated throughout the rock, as if something had smashed into it. Then another, and another. In a panic, I slammed my fists into the crystal, but it didn’t budge. There wasn’t enough space to draw my sword, but I had other options. Onyx chains appeared around me and slithered around my contour. They sharpened and shot at the crystal, where they slowly started chipping away, digging deeper and deeper. A few minutes passed, and breathing was becoming more difficult. Unfortunately, I was still stuck, though the chains had made good headway. Throughout this process, the thuds had continued rhythmically, shaking the rock about with me in it.

Slowly, time kept passing as I tried everything to get out. The air continued to lessen, until, finally, one of my strikes was enough to break through the cracked green crystal. I crawled out and felt a few sharp edges cut open my skin, but I didn’t care enough to slow down. Finally, as I reached the edge of the cave and another thud reverberated, I finally realised what was going on. The rock I had slept in was moving. It had stubby little legs but no arms. The strange giant golem had been carrying me throughout the eastern territory, while Revan followed close behind. He let out a happy cry when he saw my face, but we weren’t safe yet.

That was because our huge walking cave wasn’t alone. Throughout the landscape, the darkness was illuminated by massive golems that had a single, green eye. An eye roughly the size of the green gem I had destroyed. Furthermore, the eyes had settled on me, as their friend, the golem I had been inhabiting, collapsed into pieces, dead. I rushed out of the rubble and jumped onto Revan’s back, just in time to see dozens of green lasers pass through the stony corpse of the dead golem, leaving orange, melted streaks where they had passed and annihilating the body.

Knowing that these things took ten minutes to kill each and were out to get revenge, I saw only one option.

“RUN, YOU BONY OLD GECKO, RUN!”

Revan didn’t need to be told twice, and took off into the darkness, dodging frantically as green lasers lit up the night.