Mask of Humanity

As Nicolai charged into the room he veered right, heading for the edge of the room, looking to get between the stone columns and the wall.

The moment he’d emerged the looming skeleton creature let out creaks and crunches as it began moving, slowly turning.

Nicolai’s eyes flicked left and right, up and down, checking his chosen path, checking the creature, checking on the undead on the balconies. He reached the columns and dashed between them and wall, heading towards the midpoint of the room and the waiting monster. It was moving slowly. It looked like he was going to get past before it could even finish turning.

Then there was a flare of bright light from above and he saw one of the undead up there pointing at him, its arm shining. The light twisted and he heard a sizzling rush of noise then a sharp crack. He skidded to a stop just in time, the bolt of burning light smashing into the ground where he would’ve passed between the columns.

Ah. A complication. Nicolai sprinted toward the next column and heard the same sizzling rush, but this time it fused, the noise coming from various places above. He reached the column and pressed himself behind it as a multitude of sharp cracks sounded. He felt the stone of the column vibrate where his back was pressed against it, saw flashes of light illuminate the walls and chips of stone fly.

He dashed to the next column, and in his time between he saw the monstrous skeleton had finally turned itself around. It transpired it did have a front-end. That front was the great skull of some beast that must have been a terror to face in life and was now even moreso in death, jaws that could swallow him whole with teeth like long knives of bone, curving backwards. The skulls eyes burned with blue light. The column shook behind him as cracking sounds rang out, and he ran to the next the moment they stopped.

The skeleton was lumbering toward him, gaining speed, the ground trembling. Would the column survive the collision? He didn’t know. The sizzling sound that preceded the bolts of light came from above.

The moment he heard the cracks and felt the column tremble Nicolai got moving, and he saw the skeleton coming at him as he emerged, waving its weaponry, doing the job of a mass of infantry all by itself. A spear and an axe were hurled at him and he ducked one and caught the other on his shield, but it was a hard blow that rang the metal and numbed his arm.

He heard a crack and threw himself to the ground, skidding towards the next column as a bolt of light burned the air above him and slammed into the wall. Stone chips rained upon him as he thrashed over the ground until the safety of the column, and more cracks rang out as he sheltered there, the column vibrating against him. The skeleton was left behind now, but it was following, if slowly.

Nicolai took a deep breath, listened to the sizzles and the cracks, found his moment, a lull, and moved. He made his way onwards, column to column, managing to time his runs in the lulls between the barrages of light bolts, leaving the slow skeleton behind.

The hard part came when he had found himself behind the final column, no choice but to run out from this shelter to the exit, where he realised he would be exposed for too long to simply wait for a lull in their launchings of the bolts. The undead launched their bolts of light with consistent speeds and timings, but they were no longer in sync. The sizzling and cracking was relentless, bolts of light pouring down on the column he sheltered behind at regular intervals.

The skeleton was creeping closer, gaining on him now he was still. He recalled how the first bolt had been launched, how the undead had adjusted for his movement, shooting at where it thought he would be, not where he was.

He was utterly focused on the moment, and the thrill was pounding through him in time with the beat of his heart. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt so alive.

Nicolai stepped out from his sheltering column and he walked at a slow, measured pace, not too fast, not too slow. He kept his head turned to watch the skeleton, and kept his ears tuned above.

Sizzle. He paused mid step. Crack. The stone before him was shattered. Sizzle, sizzle, crack, crack, Nicolai danced to the beat, twisting to the side then abruptly ducking low, projectiles of light and heat sliding past him. A spear was flung at him and he heard a sizzle. He stepped aside as the crack sounded and slapped the spear out of the air with his shield. Another sizzle, and he stuttered his step again then stone chips flew from the wall beside him. He took two more steps.

And then he stood below the shelter of solid stone, inside the hallway, the undead above unable to aim at him. Another spear wormed lazily through the air towards him. The world seemed to bend and fracture around it as he passed his polearm over to his left hand, stepped to the side then reached up and caught the spear from the air, letting its weight and momentum pull him into a spin, turning and stepping down the corridor, out the other side. He moved to the right to cut the skeletons line of sight on him, and that was that. A quick scan revealed nothing of danger waiting for him.

His mouth tasted of iron and the air felt clean and fresh, each breath filling him with vitality. The world swam around him as though seen through a heat mirage. He felt the beat of his heart in his wrists and his ears. He grinned at the spear in his hand and the light winking from its sharp metal point, then he cast his gaze over the new environment.

He stood at the intersection of a pair of large corridors, one extending straight ahead of him, the other to his right. He could see some distance down each before they turned. Doors lined either side of both corridors, some open, some broken, some closed. Chunks of broken furniture, doors, and random detritus littered the corridors.

As usual, the corridors were lit by the ever-burning torches, spaced at regular intervals. The torches had phased from the light yellow of morning to a fuller yellow, brighter, which he presumed signified midday. If the torches turned orange he intended to head back immediately.

There was a small statue on a pedestal in an alcove near to him. It depicted one of the People. They were naked but didn’t have recognisable sexual organs, perhaps because the People didn’t, or maybe they simply hadn’t approved of explicit nudity in their artwork, so Nicolai was unable to guess at the gender. The alien held a dagger to its own throat and rested on its knees, staring upwards with a pleading expression, its facial tentacles frozen in manic thrashing, some of them twined around the dagger and its own hands, and its third eye was ringed by an extensive pattern of tattoos that branched across its face.

Nicolai stood there for some time staring at the statue as his heartbeat and breathing slowed. It struck him with odd profundity. The artist had clearly put great effort into depicting the emotions of the statues face, with the eyes round and horrified, especially the third which fairly bulged, the mouth wide as though not just begging but screaming. He found himself wondering what the People who’d lived here had thought of it. Had it been an object of religious significance, one they had bowed to whenever they passed by? A piece of famed art which they came to look upon and ponder? Or had the majority of them considered it a piece of tacky trash, tolerated only because someone important had put it there, something they walked by without even a glance?

Stepping over, he examined it.

The Consort Begs

Here the Consort is depicted in the moment where she pleaded with the Prophet to spare the people of Eilsene, the city of her birth, threatening to take her own life if the Prophet did not accede to her wish.

The Prophet was a name he’d seen crop up a few times now, clearly a legendary figure, but this was the first he’d heard of a Consort. From the vague impression he had, the Prophet did not strike him as kind-hearted, nor did the People as a whole. He had a feeling the Consort’s wish had not been granted. Perhaps her severed head now floated in a jar somewhere.

The thought made him snort. Looking to pull himself back on-track, he reviewed the instructions Kleos had given him, and worked out he needed to head down the rightmost corridor. Kleos had described this area as a large complex of bedrooms, kitchens, leisure rooms, and so on. Effectively an extensive living area for many people.

Nicolai placed the spear he’d taken in the alcove with the statue. It wasn’t a bad weapon, but he felt the polearm was better for smashing skulls. If he took the spear with him he’d probably just throw it at something and forget about it. Leaving it here, he might be able to start building a little armoury back at his base.

As he walked he considered the problem of the giant skeleton and the bolt-of-light throwing undead that guarded the area immediately outside the door. He would have to run that gauntlet every time he wanted to leave and return. He’d managed it this time without too much trouble, and knew he would improve his methods at passing through over time. But what if he returned injured? What if he got in some real trouble, had to use all of his Orb of Rejuvenation, then was still limping when he returned? He wouldn’t be able to get past them all like that. He’d be locked out of his safe place, and then the night would come. Not good. Not good at all.

The problem was he really wasn’t sure what he could do about it. Clearing a way through the collapsed main exit would work, but then he’d be opening an easy secondary route into his safe place for others. He wanted to keep the big metal door to which only he, hopefully, had the key, as the only real entrance to the area. That reminded him he needed to find out what was down the dark tunnel beside the crypt, as it was currently an unknown, a risk.

As Nicolai walked and thought, he came to the first open door and paused, leaning to peer inside, polearm at the ready. A small room with a bed, table, chair and cabinet. He sauntered inside and rifled through it all but found nothing worth keeping.

That turned out to be the theme as he checked each room he passed, moving through the maze-like corridors. All the rooms were largely the same, nothing, really, in any of them, which led him to switch from a thorough investigation of each room to a brief check to assure himself there were no skeletons or other dangers inside before moving on. Some of the doors were closed so he opened them quietly, ready for anything, but there was nothing.

Emerging from one such room, Nicolai stilled, his ears pricking. He could hear something, a clickity-clacking, and the noise was growing louder. It sounded to him like multiple skeletons moving. It was coming from a short distance away where the corridor turned.

Nicolai didn’t want to hide in the room because there was no way out of it and he would be trapped if he was found. So he popped out and sprinted away from the source of the noise, back down the corridor.

He turned a corner just in time, as poking his head around it he saw a crowd of undead pour around the bend down the corridor. Tall and short, wide and thin, skeletal and zombie-like, there was quite a variety but all of them were well armed and looked more alert than the standard fare.

Taking the lead were four skinny skeletons wielding chains that ended in triple-hooks, and accompanying them there were two zombified dogs, or what looked very much like dogs, with dark fur that sagged in patches to reveal dried out muscle.

Behind these was a varied mix, a number of lightly armoured spear-wielding skeletons, a trio of hulking knights that reminded him of the footman he’d gotten the mace from, only with more complete armour, a pair of archers with bows that looked worrying serviceable, one very large zombie-like undead (he could see its dried out, half-rotted face), with curving armour that suggested it had been rather fat in life, carrying a staff and wearing a big hat with a faded, drooping feather. Behind these came even more, forged from similar moulds.

It was an undead patrol. Nicolai was immediately interested in the weapons and armour and whatever else they might be carrying, but recognised he wasn’t going to fare well if he fought them. Best to get moving before they drew closer.

That was when he saw one of the zombified dogs pause and cock its head, then raise its nose, sniffing. Could it still smell, even in death?

Apparently so, as it let out a bark and all the dead stilled for a moment then clanked and clattered and crumbled into a run, straight towards Nicolai, the dogs and chain-hook wielders in the lead.

Nicolai took off, fleeing back down the route he’d been cautiously moving along, trying to work out what to do. The dogs would presumably be able to track him by smell. He threw a glance over his shoulder and saw the two of them come skidding around the corner, their legs thrashing, then a moment later the faster undead with the chain-hooks followed. The dogs were getting further and further ahead of the rest. That was good.

He turned another corner, stopped, pivoted, raised his polearm high, and waited. He could hear the rapid clicking and scraping of claws on the stone as the dogs rushed closer. His body was tense and ready.