Chapter XLII: From the Frying Pan and Into the Flame (5)

CCCRRREEEAAAAAKKKK!

Hinges creaked as the old wooden door opened. An ethereal armored boot stamped on the dirty floor, disturbing a few millenia of accumulated dust.

Crunch!

The second armored leg came down and crushed something under it. The being, who currently had a luminous ball of light floating over his head, looked down only to find that he had caved in a skull that had been left lying around by someone.

It was of no direct threat, so it didn't manage to attract its attention for more than a moment before it began scanning the immediate area around it for threats.

It found none.

Soon, more footsteps echoed behind him as William walked in with his body being moved by bony spider legs while flanked by three of his Warped Juggernauts echoes.

The echo of the Darkspawn Soldier turned to look at its master and slightly lowered its head in deference.

William's [Soul Sight] didn't detect any sign of life of any kind, but he learned the hard way to not solely depend on it for scouting.

He looked at the Darkspawn Soldier, "Good job, continue scouting ahead of us and be alert for any sign of trouble."

The echo lightly banged its spear onto its shield in confirmation and began walking down the hallway they were standing in.

William and his 'bodyguards' followed several steps behind him. As they moved, the white-haired youth observed his surroundings all the while lighting the torches hanging on the wall via [Prestidigitation], giving the passage a measure of luminescence.

Every few steps they took, William saw bones of various sizes lying on the dusty ground - human bones. Some of the bones had what looked like the markings of human teeth engraved on them. Along with those bones, he found a multitude of shallow scratches on the stone walls of the hallway, which he would've missed if not for the illumination coming from the lit torches.

In addition to the scratch marks, strange things were written with some sort of dark paint. The palm prints on the writing suggested that they were written by hand.

Thanks to the [Comprehend Language] spell, he could read those indecipherable scribbles.

"The end is nigh!"

"The Goddess has abandoned us!"

"The Hunger!"

"THE VOICES! STOP THE VOICES!"

The last one seemed much more crazed and unhinged than the rest, which was emphasized by the skeleton crucified next to the writing on the wall by dark nails.

'What the hell happened here? Did the madness that consumed the nobles found its way into this place?' Questions went unanswered in William's mind as he moved down the hall. Only the steps of the echoes and the clicking and clacking of bone on stone made sound in the silent church.

Soon enough, the group came upon their first door.

With a command, the armored echo opened the door with a creak and entered through it. After a few seconds of nothing happening, it exited and motioned for them to follow.

William's spider legs moved by his mental command and drove his to the newly discovered room that turned out to be a kitchen of sorts. In the center of the room was a big, black metal pot that hung over a stove of some kind. Alongside the walls of the room were cabinets and other kitchen furniture that had cleaver, knives, pots, pans, and other utensils thrown haphazardly over it.

The Sleeper cautiously explored the room. On one of the cabinets, he found an old piece of parchment. Whatever ink used to write on it was already faded out after tens of thousands of years, leaving only a few nigh-faded words.

Thankfully, with the help of the [Comprehend Language] spell, he was able to read the last words remaining on the ancient parchment.

"Priest... Hunger... Dead... Food... Madness"

William's eyes unconsciously moved towards the large pot in the center of the room. He approached it with tentative steps of his spider legs and peered inside only to find the blackened human bones at the bottom.

Even if he had seen some worse shit in the outer city, witnessing the remains of blatant cannibalism made William want to throw up in disgust. Thankfully, he had nothing in his stomach to throw up.

"Madness, it can't be described in any other way," muttered the youth under his breath as his attention moved towards the end of the room where a skeleton lay against a wall hugging some tattered, faded-red fabrics. An old rusted cleaver lay next to it alongside another piece of parchment. Yet, the most eye-catching thing were the words written on the wall with some sort of dark paint.

"Praised be our Lord of the Dark!"

Driven by his curiosity, William moved towards the remains. Despite it being in tatters, he could see the exquisite craftsmanship of the piece of fabric in the skeleton's embrace.

Much like the other parchment, the one near the dead remains had most of the words on it faded and unreadable.

"The Whispers... Can't... Killing... Blood... Guilt... Goddess... Mercy!"

'Whispers, voices... come to think of it...'

With a thought, a shimmering runes belonging to a certain memory manifested from thin air:

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[Sinner's Repentance: Once, in a kingdom long erased from the anals of history was a man; a man who had no qualms in using his looks and silver tongue to achieve his carnal desires. For him, age was just a number, and consent was just a trifle. Using his supernatural abilities, he charmed and manipulated the mind of his victims to quench his hedonism. However, it all came crashing down one day when he tried his tricks on a target beyond his station: a War Saintess trainee.

The man got his eyes gouged out, his tongue cut, and his ears burned shut for his crimes and hubris. His handsome face was skinned and turned into a hideous mask for him to wear. His body and spirit were broken by his captors.

Yet, it was in this period of sensory deprivation that the broken soul heard the calling of his Lord.]

Memory Name: Sinner's Repentance

Memory Rank: Awakened

Memory Tier: IV

Memory Type: Tool

Memory Enchantment: [Condemnation], [Chains of Restriction], [Suffer No Evil]

[Condemnation]

Enchantment Description: This memory can be worn forced onto others via physical contact. It attaches to their skin and can't be removed by those of equal or lower soul rank than it.

[Chains of Restriction]

Enchantment Description: Spectral chains manifest and drain the wearer's soul essence.

[Suffer No Evil]

Enchantment Description: The owner of the memory can remove one of the following senses from the wearer: sight, hearing, or speech.

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'Are the Lord of the Dark and the Lord whose calling the False Shepherd seemed to have heard one and the same?' William scrutinized the old bloody writing on the wall. He was getting closer to reaching a new insight into the end of this kingdom. Yet, he still felt that he missed some key details to understand the entire picture.

With no other notable discovery, William and his entourage left the cannibal kitchen and moved further along the hallway until they reached another door. Using the same strategy from before, the group entered the room.

The stale air was the first thing he noticed about the room, followed by the broken fragments of wood littered on the ground alongside the ripped pieces of fabric. Unfortunately, no more notable details were found, so their stay in that room was rather short.

As they walked further down the hallway, the scratches and marks on the walls became deeper and ever and the bones became more numerous and more malformed causing William to raise his guard in case they encountered whoever or whatever made those marks.

Soon enough, they reached the end of the hallway where a single wooden door reinforced with a metallic frame lay. Unlike the other doors they came upon, this door looked like it had seen better days due to the multitude of deep marks on it as if some sort of beast gouged out the wood itself in an attempt to enter. For all intents and purposes, the door appeared as if it would break down as soon as someone so much as touched it.

Yet, when the Darkspawn Soldier attempted to open it, it wouldn't budge from its place. It tried again but this time with the full strength of an Awakened Demon. The door creaked in agony as it and whatever was blocking it were pushed by the echo.

After a while, a loud booming sound echoed from behind the door as whatever was barring it toppled over, resulting in it being fully opened. William nodded to the Darkspawn echo, which stepped into the new area and illuminated it via the ball of light floating over its head.

The room was smaller than the ones he had encountered before but it was far more densely packed with different items; the most numerous of which were books, shelves and shelves of hardcover tomes which seemed to be in surprisingly good condition.

It was also one of these shelves of books that had previously blocked the door, which now was lying on the ground in fragments with its contents sprewn over the floor.

William's eyes shined with hope as he finally found some sort of information to hopefully help him. His excitement over the new discovery made his belatedly realize that his Awakened Demon echo was intently staring at the corner of the room.

When William looked at the direction of the echo's interest, he found another skeleton lying on the ground next to some sort of writing desk. However, that was not what attracted the Lich King's attention. Rather, it was the pale, fading sprite of light floating over the skeleton that attracted the youth's attention.

His cerulean eyes widened as a window appeared before his eyes upon focusing on the fading sprite.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Fading Soul of the Craven Acolyte Damas]

Rank: Dormant

Class: Beast

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"Huh?" he was understandably surprised upon reading the information on the window. "It's... a soul - a remnant of one, at least. But... what's it doing over there?"

Not knowing what to expect, the white-haired Sleeper decided to play it safe and have one of his echoes approach the floating soul. He excluded his Darkspawn Soldier echo since it was one of his strongest ones and the smartest to boot, so he sent one of the Warped Juggernauts.

The hulking mass of muscles lumbered on its way towards the writing desk, each of its steps making the ground shake slightly. Upon reaching the target's location, the echo tried grabbing the target as it was ordered but completely missed it despite it continuing to float unmovingly in front of it.

'It's as if it can't see it,' the youth thought before looking at his Darkspawn echo. "Hey, can you see anything strange floating over that skeleton?"

It's true that echoes are nothing but soulless contructs made of soul essence; a Demon classed echo can still exhibit rudimentary levels of intellect.

The armor clad echo looked with its empty gaze at the place where William could see the soul floating nonchalantly; then, it turned back towards its master and shook its head in denial.

'So only I can see it? Maybe it had something to do with the [Soul Sight] ability. Great... not only do I argue with an imaginary copy of myself, but now I can also see dead people. I'm sure Schizophrenic King is much more apt to describe me than Lich King at this point.'

'Well, if the shoe fits...,' came Faker's unwanted remark from the back of his mind, which further soured his mood.

A sigh of exasperation escaped him before he focused his icy gaze on the soul sprite before him. With tentative steps, the spider legs created by his [Osseous Exoarmor] moved the youth's body towards the writing desk. William's grip on his soul reaving mourneblade tightened the closer he moved towards his target until... he was standing - or rather hanging from his spider legs - right in front of it.

Yet, the soul didn't move from its place or do anything in response to his approach. It simply stood there uncaring regarding the world around it.

Observing the soul entity up close, a weird feeling began coming over him. Like his instincts were telling him that he was supposed to do something. He faintly remembered something like this happening to Sunny the first time he used his Dormant ability.

If he remembered correctly, it was a case of his aspect instinctually telling him how to utilize his abilities.

Thus, deciding to trust in his insticts, he stretched his organic arm towards the sprite of light. Upon his fingers coming into contact with it, his vision turned completely white, and his ears rang as if someone had flashbanged him.

Soon enough, the whiteness gave way to shades of black and orange as the room quickly came back into perspective. However, there was something starkly different about the room. It appeared much newer than before, and he couldn't find any of his echoes for that matter.

The ringing in his ears also began to fade away and gave way to a whole other unholy cacophony of noises that came from outside of the door that seemed to have been fully blocked by a heavy set of book shelves.

Banging, screeching, scratching, cursing, crying, moaning. A cacophony of voices and much more came from behind the barricaded door as if some crazy horde was trying to break through the door and into the room.

In the orchestra of ear piercing noises, the faint sound of quill moving on parchment attracted the young Sleeper's attention.

Turning to the source, he saw a figure dressed in simple and nondescript red robes hunched over the writing desk as his right hand held a quill and was feverishly writing on a piece of parchment.

Unfortunately, due to his position, William couldn't get a clear view of the robed figure's face or whatever they were writing down, so he had to get closer.

Just as he thought that, his body simply drifted next to the writing desk where he could get a clear view of the robed individual. He had a handsome face that barely looked masculine enough to pass as the face of a male - like the face of a porcelain doll.

A less literary gifted individual may refer to one with such a complexion as a twink.

The robed guy's expression was scrunched in a grimace, and his breathing was labored as he wrote with one hand while the other held onto his side. It was then that he noticed he red liquid dripping from between his fingers and falling onto a small pool that had accumulated on the floor. In his defense, the red robe made it hard to recognize that he was bleeding.

Suddenly, the twinkish man let out a chest-wracking cough. Black droplets escaped from his mouth unwillingly and fell onto the desk in front of him. Then, he gripped his chest tightly before falling over next to the writing desk in another coughing fit that made him expel more black liquid from his mouth.

"Idsfen... jworj... swtown...," the guy spoke with a language unknown to William as tar-colored tears began pouring down from his eyes. He tried to stand up again and continue what he was previously doing. However, another hacking fit came over him that was even worse than the previous two. Now, black liquid was pouring out of every orifice on his face, resulting in a gruesome scene.

"Irthjnl... jfwkn..." the final words spoken by the man's dying breath were the last thing he the youth heard before his vision turned white again. Shortly after, he found himself in the delapitated room he was in before while surrounded by his echoes.

William turned his attention towards the soul sprite and witnessed as it dissipated into tiny motes of light, which flickered for a moment before disintegrating into nothingness.

'Was... Was that a vision? Or was it the last remnants of soul's memories?'

His eyes moved to the old parchment lying on the writing desk. It was the same one that the dead acolyte, Damas, was frantically writing in his final moments. Surprisingly, unlike the other parchements he had come across, the text on this one was not faded in the slightest. Unfortunately, the piece of parchment was covered in several places by black droplets that blocked the entire thing from being read.

He thought of using [Prestidigitation] to attempt to clean the black spots from the page, but he feared that he would also remove the ink from the paper as the spell could clean an 'object'. In this case, the paper.

"Sometimes I feel like the world has it out for me; why can't anything be simple?" he muttered his complaint under his breath before reading what little text was available.

"My fault... Coward... Orders... Defiance... Refugees... Hunger... Darkness... Corruption... Madness... War Deacon... Dead... Missing... Saintess... Mission... Relic... Protect..." he read the words thanks to the help of the [Comprehend Language] spell.

Thankfully, from his previous experiences in the outer city, the vision of the last moments of Damas, and the state of the building he was in, he could roughly infer what happened.

'Firstly, it was clear that Damas had something to do with what happened by probably going against some order that led to that shit show. The refugees he may have let in could have been the Crawling Husks before they completely fell into corruption and turned into nightmare creatures.

Although... Damas was an acolyte, and he mentioned a War Deacon. Are those ranks used in the temple or something? Was that War Deacon the one responsible for the place? If so, then it is safe to assume that they had a higher rank and considering the ornate red robe I found in that skeleton's hands in the kitchen. It is no mystery what happened to them.

Yet, it is weird that the holy place of the War Goddess herself was overrun by basically nightmare creature fodder. They surely had a few Awakened or even an Ascendant or two at hand to protect this place. Unless... they all had gone on a mission to retrieve the kidnapped Saintess. Since he was the one to dispatch the poor woman, it appeared as if something happened to them or they had failed in their mission - somehow.

Finally, there was the matter of the relic spoken off in the parchment. His mind immediately went to Divine Relics: items created by the gods that had peculiar and powerful functions. However, he soon doused the fire of excitement that was burning in his chest. Firstly, he was not sure if said relic still existed after several tens of thousands of years have passed. Second, he didn't know its location or whether there were traps in place to stave off would be thiefs. Even if assuming such a thing existed, his body was in no state to go relic hunting.'

"Yet, if we get our hands on such a thing, it could be our ticket out of this hell hole," the insidious voice of his imaginary self whispered in his ear causing him to grimace in annoyance.

Deciding to shelf the idea of finding the relic for when he was not in as much shit as he was currently, William turned his attention away from the parchment and onto the shelves and shelves of books in his purview.

He ran his eyes across the books on the shelves. Most of them were record books of logistics, Religious Philosophy, War Tactics, etc. He began scouring the shelves, and the books that had fallen on the floor thanks to his arachnid limbs. Any book that managed to grab his attention or that he found soemwhat useful was stored inside his [Pale Ring] for browsing at a later date.

Suddenly, his eyebrow shot upwards as he came upon a particular title that made him stop his search momentarily: Daily Logs of the Leonian War Temple.

He stretched his hand and took out the dust covered book from the shelf, giving particular attention not to accidentally damage the ancient thing.

The youth ordered his echoes to take defensive positions around the room before he dusted off the book and began reading its contents.

Hours passed with the only sound present in the room was that of pages being turned. Midway throughout the book, the effect of [Comprehend Language] had expired, and he had to recast it to continue reading.

Finally, the last page of the book was turned, and William closed the hard cover book with a gentle Thump!

"This... was unexpected," he stared at the book in his hand with a thoughtful expression as his mind processed what he just read.

Inside the book were the daily details about what happened in the Temple from day to day - probably written by a scribe of sorts. It mentioned any and all events such as the acceptance of new acolytes, donations received, blessing rituals given to knights, etc.

However, upon reaching the final quarter, the logs start taking a drastic change. The first change began when the congenital condition of the Crown Prince of the Leonia, Artorias, suddenly worsened.

Artorias apparently was the sole child born between the King, Leonidas, and the Queen, Ophelia, due to the queen passing away after giving birth to the sickly crown prince.

Yet, despite his sickly constitution, the Crown Price was exceptionally talented in the arts of war. So much so that the Bishop himself admitted that if he were in better health, they would've been looking at the youngest Transcendent in history.

Since he was born, the Crown Prince had been visited by the best healers the influence and wealth of King Leonidas Von Leonia could attract. Unfortunately, none knew of the malady that had befallen the sickly prince. The King had even went to followers of the other Gods himself and asked them for aid in curing his child; yet, for some unknown reason, all the Gods rejected him - even his own Patron God had refused to help.

This had caused a change in the powerful king's heart, as his visits to the temple became less and less frequent along with the donations that he gave to the temple.

Despite that, the temple could ill afford to antagonize the King for this clear slight against them. Due to the air of conflict and uncertainty brewing in the mortal realms, the temple had received orders to avoid any conflicts with their allies.

With the condition of the Crown Prince worsening, the King had become more agitated, and he became more desperate for a cure. Coincidentally, this had happened a few months before the news of catastrophic battles being waged in the Mortal Realms had reached the Kingdom.

King Leonidas had received direct orders from the Empire of the War God to bring his forces to fight in the war in the name of the War God. Yet, the King had turned a deaf ear to the order and had decided to march with the majority of his forces right into the depths of the underworld.

The Bishop had opted to follow the King in an effort to change his mind. After what seemed to be an eternity, the King's forces had returned from their impromptu campaign; yet, the once grand army was nowhere to be seen. Instead, only a shadow of its former self had returned to the kingdom.

Of the fifty-thousand Awakened soldiers, ten thousand Ascended Knights, and twenty Transcendent Knight Commanders only a few hundred knights and three commanders had returned. Moreover, the three commanders had received such heavy injuries that they had become permanently crippled causing their souls to regress in strength. The Bishop, a veteran Transcendent who was about to take the next step to become a Supreme, had also failed to return.

Meanwhile, King Leonidas, a Supreme of vast power, had been mortally wounded; yet he was still clinging to life when he returned.

Upon returning, the King had immediately had the Kingdom entering a lockdown as a defensive measure until their army could recuperate their losses. Meanwhile, outside of the walls of Leonia, a war was being waged that boiled seas and sundered mountains.

Surprisingly, shortly after the Leonian Army had returned from their catastrophic campaign, the Crown Prince's congenital condition had suddenly been cured.

It didn't take long for the now healthy prince to begin amazing the world as he formed his soul core merely a month after getting out of bed. Then, it only took a year for him to become an Ascended.

However, the situation inside Leonia itself was becoming stranger and stranger after the King's forces returned. The residents of the outer city had begun rioting due to a sudden series of mass disappearances that had been occurring with none knowing of the reason why. Then, there were the cases of strange behavior depicted by the Underworld Campaign survivors.

Worse of all, their Saintess trainee, against all warnings of the temple bishops and priests, had gone to the outer city to quell the riots in the name of the War God and had gone missing.

Shortly after her disappearance, a search party consisting of all of the upper echelons of the temple - consisting of four Ascended War Priests and nine Awakened War Deacons - had formed to find her whereabouts.

It was then that a strange and malignant darkness began covering the entire kingdom.

William placed the hard cover book down on a shelf and rubbed his forehead. He had an inkling of the great war that the book had been talking about. It was the war in which the Gods and Daemons and their respective forces faced each other.

"So... this Kingdom had existed during the God-Daemon war, and its king had been ordered to actually join in the fight. Yet, he refused and went to the Underworld. If I remember correctly, that was below the Hollow Mountains and was said to be the Domain of Nether, the Daemon of Destiny. But... what could he possibly have wanted to get from that place and how is it related to the prince's 'surprise' recovery," the youth muttered under his breath before letting out a silent cry as he unconsciously moved an abdominal muscle.

The lance of pain that came from the wound through his abdomen broke his train of thought, "Fuck... at least, the information given by the log helped me connect some clues."

With great effort, he managed to have himself sit on the writing desk in the room and gather his thoughts, "The source of all of this place's problems is most probably in the royal palace and if the outer city was any indication, I need to somehow defeat near five hundred Ascended nightmare creatures and three, hopefully crippled, corrupted ones. I think I have a better chance of escaping by trying to swim through the Dark Sea."

"You know what they say," Faker's spoke in his mind, "God chooses his silliest battles for his funniest clowns."

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A.N: And that's a wrap! Sorry for the massive delay in updating. My parents had returned from a trip, and our house had been flooded with guests for days on end, and I had to play the role of the waiter to bring them refreshments and whatnot.

Also, I admit that this chapter was a bit of a slog to write due to the 'lore' that I had to expand upon. I know, I know, there will be inconsistencies in the future whenever G3 decides to drip feed us more lore. Well, I will try to keep up with the changes as much as I can, but the fanfic is an AU for a reason.

On another note, I know some are getting tired of this arc (believe it or not, so am I). Thus, I will be trying to speed things up a notch so that we can get back to the Forgotten Shore as quickly as possible without it appearing as forced.

Just a fair warning, expect some minor things and tid bits of information being learned or done 'off screen' to reduce the need for repeating shit that many people already know.

Anywho, remember to drop a review for future readers and give some spare powerstones.

Until next time,

Have a good one.

P.S. WHat do you guys think if I had Sunny, who had somehow died while doing his third Nightmare, regress back into his younger current self (of course that version of Sunny will be the one from the OG Shadow Slave Novel where William isn't there). I think it will be required to level the playing field for Sunny, and it could lead to interesting interactions in the future. Don't get your panties in a twist. This is just a question and isn't an announcement or anything like that.