None of this is real, he insisted, as the baron approached holding a long, slender knife.
None of this is real, his mind pleaded, as the blade sank deep into the flesh of his abdomen.
“It’s not real!” he screamed when it ripped, twisted, and tore.
Not real. Not the cut. Not the pain. Not the splash of blood that dripped down to the floor of the barren room, landing atop boards stained a deep, dark color.
“You may be a demon, but you bleed just like a human,” Baron Hulh said, setting the knife down on a small table that was one of two furnishings in the tiny room, the other a little stool the baron sometimes sat on. This was a nothing space, bare walls, wood floors, no windows, and a lone door leading to torch-lit stairs. It bore a single purpose, one told in the stains on the floor. “Your stubbornness is impressive. Even applying all my lord Frey taught me, you cling to consciousness.”
“Why?” Nick asked as the red bar representing his life flashed and pulsed. If he were to guess, only 2 percent of it remained, maybe 3.
“Why what?” the baron asked, pulling the stool closer to sit. “You mean this knife work? Because I have never met a demon in my lifetime, only heard the stories. Those stories, though, they’re enough to give a man the shivers. Supposedly your kind are capable of rapidly healing from terrible injuries. Consider this an experiment. I would learn the truth of those stories.”
“Maybe try asking instead of poisoning and torture,” Nick said. Blood trickled down the sides of his face from where the baron had cut multiple gashes across his forehead. He blinked, trying to keep the sting from his eyes as drops weighted his eyelids. “I like to talk.”
“You like to steal, too.” The baron gestured to the hand mirror that rested on the small table. He’d taken it from Nick’s pocket upon bringing him to his prison. “Is that why you’re here? To scrounge for Sinifel artifacts?”
Nick’s faint laugh was enough to trigger a coughing fit. His ribs ached. He suspected several were broken from the beatings delivered by the baron’s bare fists.
Three ribs are broken, yes
So helpful, Cataloger, thought Nick, then grimaced to focus.
“I don’t know anything about Sinifel!” he said with as much force as he could muster. “I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know where I am, or even why I’m here. And if you’d bothered to ask between beating and cutting me, I could have told you that.”
Baron Hulh folded his hands in his lap, his thumbs twiddling.
“There is one truth to the stories, so far. Your kind is fearless in the face of torture and death.”
“Yeah, that happens when you can’t die.”
A frightening look hardened the baron’s face.
“Yes,” he said. “I look forward to testing that, too.”
The baron pushed up from his stool and made for the exit.
“There is a legend passed down by my family,” he said, his back turned. “It claims God-King Vaan conquered time, not by his own power, but with knowledge granted to him by a demon. If that is true…”
He turned. His smile stretched from ear to ear.
“Then there is so very much your kind has to answer for.”
The door slammed shut, blanketing Nick in darkness. He hung there, his body aching, his shoulders begging for a stretch instead of remaining locked in place with his hands manacled to the wall.
“Cataloger,” he whispered. “Can you get me out of here?”
I cannot directly affect the material world
“Then what is the point of you?”
I am to welcome you and aid in your acclimation to this world
Nick cracked a madman’s grin. Blood from his sliced forehead trickled across his lips and his teeth and swelled on his tongue.
“Oh, I feel welcomed, all right.” He spat. “Why didn’t you warn me about the wine!?”
I am not to interfere where my involvement would preferentially treat or benefit one individual over another
Nick’s head hurt too much to parse that.
“Try again,” he muttered.
If you were to play a game of cards, I could not inform you of your opponent’s hand, because doing so would advantage you and disadvantage your opponent
“You’re saying you kept quiet because you had to be fair?”
That simplification is inaccurate
“You let me drink poisoned wine because otherwise you’d give my backstabbing host a disadvantage? Disadvantage in what? The game of ‘who can murder someone faster’?”
You exhibit rudimentary understanding of the concept
“Sorry, hard to keep things straight when I have more broken bones than health points.”
Cataloger had nothing to offer there. He closed his eyes and tried to think matters through.
“Cataloger, can you send me home?”
For the health of the visitor, and to minimize mental and physical strain, extraction must be done at dedicated locations—what you see as rings of stones
“Unless I die.”
Yes—then a death protocol unique to visitors is allowed to proceed
“Which means I need to hang here, suffering torture, for the benefit of my health?”
Yes
Nick thudded the back of his head against the wall.
“I hate this place so much.”
That is unfortunate
Nick twisted and thrashed against the manacles holding him. His “health” be damned, he wanted out of here. When that didn’t work, he let all his weight hang, willing to break his own hands to slip them through the manacles.
“Not real, not real, not real,” was his mantra to give himself the strength to let the cold steel tear through his flesh and dislocate his bones if that was what it took. Yet no matter how many times he told himself that, it wasn’t enough. The pain conquered him, and he relented.
“Not real,” he whispered again, realizing how much of a lie that was on his tongue. This place, this world of Yensere, was far too real to his senses to now believe otherwise. It might be digital, but if not for Cataloger’s occasional appearance, and the various graphics and text meant to aid his travels, he would never have guessed he was anywhere other than a “real” world, whatever that even meant anymore.
Fine, then, he thought. It’s real. Which means I’m trapped here, in a real place, about to suffer very real pain. And when real animals get their legs caught in a trap, they chew their real limbs off, so drop the excuses, Nick, and rip your damn hands free.
Nick couldn’t see the manacles around his wrists, but he could feel them. A single size for all prisoners, ones he suspected were older and larger than he was. He could do this. He didn’t need much give. Leaning his weight from foot to foot, he started to hop while building up the courage, then jumped while tucking his knees to his stomach.
All his weight pulled down, with only the manacles on his wrists to hold him aloft.
No give, not that first time. He gasped at the pain coursing through his wrists, his neck, and his upper back. The strain felt like it might pull his shoulders from their sockets. Perhaps it even had. Nick breathed hard, in and out, working up the nerve.
“Again,” he whispered.
Left foot, right foot, hop, hop, jump.
This time his left shoulder did dislocate. Nick hung there, his entire upper body shaking as he rotated, the horrid pain be damned. Turn his wrists. Grind the steel into his flesh. Blood itself could be a lubricant. Straighten the fingers. Curl in the thumb. Flatten the knuckles.
He slipped downward. Not much. Not even an inch. But it was something.
Left foot, right foot. Jump, this time while twisting.
Skin tore. His left thumb audibly popped, but the hand slid free. Nick positioned his feet back on the ground so he might stand, relaxing the pressure of his other manacle as he writhed. His left arm hung limp at his side. It had mostly lost feeling from the shoulder down. He feared what would happen when it returned.
“That’s one,” he whispered. He shifted the angle of his body the best he could and then leaped once more. The extra freedom meant he could apply all his weight directly onto that right arm. He had to bite his tongue to hold back the scream, but at last, it, too, tore free. He collapsed to his knees, both his hands cradled against his stomach. Blood flowed from them, though in the darkness, he could not tell from where.
“Cataloger, are my thumbs dislocated?” he asked.
Yes
“Will forcing them outward put them back into place?”
Yes
Nick grabbed his left thumb, his heart racing higher.
“Fuck me,” he said, and then pulled.
When the pain subsided enough for him to think, he grabbed the other thumb, counted to three, and did the same. That done, he collapsed onto the floor, slick with his own blood, and gave himself a moment to recover.
You know there’s several guards throughout, he thought, trying to analyze the situation he found himself in. Possibly one right outside the door. And if you’re found at any point, Logrif is going to come running, and you stand no chance against him.
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That meant a stealthy retreat was Nick’s best, and only, option. Wait, that wasn’t right. There was one final resort. He could find a weapon and take his own life.
“No,” Nick whispered. “You’ll die fighting, but you won’t die like that. Yensere isn’t worthy of it.”
As Nick lay there, he heard the soft sound of footsteps. His eyes widened, and he spun about to lie on his stomach facing the door. Panic threatened to steal away his composure. Was someone coming to check on him? Or did that bastard baron decide he wanted to have more fun before going to bed?
More sounds outside. A sudden clatter of metal. Nick lifted into a crouch, his legs tensed and ready. Maybe if he was lucky, he could force his way past them and then sprint back up the steps to the ground floor.
The door burst open, light flooding in. Nick squinted, his arm up to guard against the glare. All impulse to flee left him, replaced by confusion. He recognized that short blond hair and that silver armor. Cataloger immediately showed him her stats, everything redacted as before except for her name: Frost.
“You…you’re the ice person who killed me. Then saved me in the woods, I think.”
Frost lowered her sword, and her blue eyes widened. He was shocked to see just how young she was. His age, perhaps slightly older. She’d seemed so much more regal and commanding when dooming him to death by pitchfork outside Meadowtint. A slain guard lay on the ground just behind her, blood pooling underneath him.
“Your hands,” she said. “Did you escape on your own?”
“I had hopes to try.” Memory of her trapping him with her ice spell added a twinge of bitterness to his tired voice. “What are you doing here? If it’s to kill me, make it quick. I won’t refuse a quick trip home.”
The woman sheathed her sword and stepped to his side. Her hand gently touched his dislocated arm.
“We don’t have much time,” she said, ignoring his question. “But I think we have enough to fix this.”
She took ahold of his wrist and elbow and set his arm flat by his side. He allowed her to guide him, for though he did not trust her completely, the dead guard outside his cell helped immensely in that regard.
“Brace yourself, and lean away from me,” she said. “Also, this is going to hurt.”
Before he could react, she pulled on his arm while rotating it upward to extend ninety degrees from his body. Nick’s eyes bulged as pain shot through him, and he shouted with what little voice he could muster. His knees buckled, and Frost lowered him gently back to the ground.
“I’m pretty sure I got it,” she said.
“Fantastic,” Nick said, working to breathe in and out as he’d been taught.
Frost stood, glanced out the door, then moved to the little table. Nick’s shirt lay atop it, stripped off him before the torture began. She lifted it and then knelt beside him.
“Here, I’ll help you dress,” she said as he sat up. Though it still hurt immensely to move, Nick shifted so she could pull it over his head and then stole another glance at her. She was undeniably pretty, her nose cute and small and her eyes so vibrant a blue they might as well be the same sapphires as those encrusted in the hilt of her sword. And then the shirt was over him, breaking his sight of her.
“I didn’t do it to be cruel,” she said as she gently helped him slide his hands through the sleeves.
“You sure? My arm begs to differ.”
“Not your arm.” Frost’s expression softened. “When we first met. You looked so scared, so full of panic. You needed to learn the consequences of dying were not so dire, at least not for someone like you.”
And how would you know that if you aren’t also like me?
“And so you helped by killing me?” he said, keeping the other thought to himself.
“Nothing teaches like experience. I’ve kept an eye on you, watching you learn as I figured out what kind of person you are.”
“And what is that?” he asked.
She flashed him a large smile. He hated how much he enjoyed seeing it.
“Tenacious. Now, get to your feet so we can leave this awful place.”
Nick pushed to a stand, his left arm cradled against his body. His right he swung about in a few circles, testing its movement. At least it had escaped without too much misery, and feeling had slowly returned to his thumbs. Frost grabbed the short sword from the slain guard, flipped it, and offered him the handle.
“Here,” she said. “You look ready to fall over, but at least you can try to defend yourself.”
“Better than an old sickle,” he said as he accepted the weapon. Cataloger immediately flashed its statistics above it.
Item: Short Sword
Quality: Tier 3 (Good)
Classification: Weapon
A one-handed bladed weapon, versatile and excellent as both a slashing and thrusting weapon, and as such, has been a staple of military use for centuries
When Frost exited, he did not follow immediately. Instead he hobbled to the little table on the opposite side of the cell, grabbed the hand mirror, and shoved it into his pocket. It felt warm against his side, and he couldn’t shake a strange feeling of guilt.
That done, Nick followed Frost in the wake of her attempted rescue. He passed by bodies crushed with ice, not all of them soldiers. Servants, too, and to his shock, they held swords and daggers in their limp hands.
“They fought you?” Nick asked.
“They did,” Frost said, not turning around.
The door to his right burst open, and a servant in a suit swung a heavy club straight for Nick’s head. He ducked underneath, saved only by pure instinct. The thick piece of wood struck the wall, puncturing a painting of an enormous estate between two rivers, and he thrust with his sword in retaliation. The blade sank into the man’s ribs, and he gasped as blood dribbled down his lips.
“Tully?” Nick said, recognizing the butler. The older man collapsed to his knees, the sword sliding out of him. “But why? Why die for that old bastard?”
He would receive no answer. All red was gone from Tully’s health bar, all life gone from his eyes. Frost turned at the commotion, and seeing the butler, she shook her head.
“The baron commands their hearts to a frightening degree,” she said. “I don’t understand it, and I don’t want to. Let’s get out of here.”
The butler’s corpse hit the ground with a dull thud. Nick shuddered and forced the image out of his mind. Maybe none of this was real, but all of it was horrible. He needed to get out. Escape. Step into the light of two suns and be free.
In the entry hall, amid corpses and smashed furniture, stood Baron Hulh and his gargantuan bodyguard.
“To think, I was content with a lone demon to interrogate,” he said. “It seems fate has gifted me a second.”
“I’m sure your dead guards are equally excited,” Frost said.
“The guards are replaceable. You are not.” He gestured at Logrif. “Capture them.”
Frost lifted her sword, a meager thing compared to Logrif’s enormous club.
“Stay behind me,” she said. “I can handle him.”
“Are you sure?” Nick asked, glancing between them.
“Very,” Frost said, uncaring that Logrif looked like he outweighed her thrice over and towered a good foot and a half above her head. Nick readied his sword and trusted her. There’d be no getting out of this on his own—that much was clear.
“Your armor is very pretty,” Logrif said as he approached Frost like a hunting animal. His club lifted into the air. “I cannot wait to see it break.”
Frost sidestepped the downward slam, her sword lashing out to strike from Logrif’s staggering total of health despite initially hitting his breastplate. She did not follow it up, for despite his size, Logrif was deceptively fast. His club was already curling toward her after missing the first swing. She shifted away, anticipating the maneuver, and when the club swung for her waist, she dropped to her knees. The strike swished over her head, and as punishment, she thrust the tip of her sword into his abdomen. A large amount vanished from Logrif’s health bar for what seemed like such a simple hit.
How powerful is that sword? Nick wondered.
Logrif shouted a deep mixture of pain, anger, and frustration. Instead of swinging his club, he shot his knee out, surprising her. It struck her in the stomach, and she doubled over, hitching for breath as the club rose. Nick panicked as Logrif’s club lifted, and unable to dodge, Frost placed her silver blade in the way.
The two connected, all of Logrif’s immense strength pushing into it. Despite the quiver in her legs, despite the shake of her arms, Frost held firm. Nick’s eyes bulged.
How powerful is she?
Frost shoved the club aside, slashed at Logrif twice more, and then retreated while twirling. Ice built about her hands, and then she cast a familiar spell, which Cataloger finally put a name to.
Spell: Frost Nova
Thick chunks of ice lashed about Logrif’s feet and ankles, spiderwebs of cracks settling over the blue surface. Logrif howled, and a single smack of his club shattered the pieces to free him.
With frightening speed, he closed the space between him and Frost, catching her off guard. His club smashed into her side, and her armor must have been strong, for she endured a blow that Nick felt confident would have killed him in a single hit. In retaliation, she cast another spell, her arm rising toward his head.
Spell: Ice Shards
At such close range, Logrif could not hope to dodge. The shards tore into him, little jagged pieces like broken glass slicing into his skin. Logrif howled, instinctively retreating and lifting his own arm to protect his face from the cuts opening red lines along his face and forehead. Frost cast again with no hesitation.
Spell: Ice Lance
The lance was frighteningly sharp as it flew from her extended palm, and it struck Logrif square in the chest, hurting him even through his armor. He gasped, but the pain seemed to only ignite his rage. He swung his club when a second
Logrif lifted his club to swing, and in response, Frost raised her left hand. A translucent shield appeared, held firm in her grasp.
Spell: Shield of Ice
One blow from the club shattered it, the weapon traveling farther to strike Frost across the shoulder. Logrif put all his strength into maintaining the movement, so the follow-through lifted Frost into the air and flung her across the hall. She landed in a clatter of silver armor on the other side.
Logrif stalked her, murder in his eyes. Nick sprinted across the hall, throwing himself into Logrif’s path. His swing missed; more humiliating was how easily the guard dug his elbow into Nick’s stomach and flung him aside. Nick tumbled along the floor, which was slick with blood and half-coated with the ice of Frost’s spells. To his relief, whatever bruises he suffered were not considered serious, at least not by whatever metrics guided Yensere.
Still clinging to his pitiful amount of health, he pushed back to his feet and lifted his sword in his lone good arm.
“That it?” he asked. “I’m barely even bruised.”
The guard was hardly impressed.
“What hope have you?” Logrif asked as he lumbered closer. Blood coated his body from the many slashes inflicted upon him, and worse was the soaked spot in his armor where Frost’s shards had punctured his chest. His steps were uneven, and his health only a third of his original. That third was more than enough to keep him in the fight, though. “You are a mouse before a lion.”
“Ever corner a mouse?” Nick asked, tightening the grip on his sword. He would have only one shot at this. “They’re fast, and they bite.”
He did not wait for Logrif to swing. Instead he shot straight for him, crossing the space in three quick strides. He did not swing his sword. Instead he dropped, shifting so his weight landed on one side. His hip struck the floor, and coated with both ice and blood as it was, Nick slid without losing a shred of his momentum. He passed straight between Logrif’s legs, and upon emerging behind him, he twisted his body, ignoring the shrieking pain of his shoulder and the ache of his thumbs as he lay on his stomach.
He only had the chance for one slash, and he made it count. His sword sliced across the tendons of both heels. Below Logrif’s health, he saw a faint new word written in white: hobbled.
“You shit!” Logrif shouted as he collapsed to his knees. He did not try to stand. Instead he rotated his body so he might face Nick. His every muscle flexed as he extended his club, adding reach, adding power for the swing. Nick braced for the impact, a macabre grin on his face.
Guess I’m finally going home, he thought.
A jagged shard of ice smashed into Logrif’s wrist and forearm. The big man screamed again, his club slipping from his grasp. Both turned to see a limping Frost approach. Unnatural blue light shone from her eyes. Swirling white frost enveloped her left hand.
“You’re a brute,” she said, slamming her sword straight into his throat. “And all of Yensere will be better with you gone.”
Blood spurted across her brilliant armor from the thrust, easily claiming the last of the giant man’s health. Logrif gargled something unintelligible, his bleeding hands scraping at the embedded blade despite the damage it did to his fingers. The life left his eyes, and he dropped. The moment he hit the ground, Nick felt a surge of energy swell within him.
Reassessment
Level: 5 (+1)
Statistical Improvements:
Agility: 3 (+1)
Physicality: 4
Endurance: 3 (+1)
Nick pushed to his feet, his sword heavy in his hand, but not as heavy as it had been mere moments before. The rush of the leveling and his steadily rising health made him feel worlds better. He looked to the side, to where Baron Hulh stood by the door of his home, his eyes wide with shock.
“Demons,” he whispered, realizing his final bodyguard was slain and the pair had turned their attention his way. “You two truly are demons.”
He tried to flee. A wave of Frost’s hand, and
“He tortured you, didn’t he?” Frost said to Nick, her narrowed eyes never leaving the trapped baron.
“Yes,” Nick said, “he did.”
Frost flung more shards of ice, these aimed at the baron’s sword arm as it flailed about. They punched into his flesh, stripping away three-quarters of his meager health. The sword went flying from his grasp and landed beyond his reach.
“Then he’s yours to kill,” she said.
Nick approached the frightened baron, a sick, warm feeling tightening in his stomach. The mirror in his pocket seemed to burn like fire against his thigh.
“Wait,” the baron said, his eyes wide and bloodshot. “We…we can talk— This isn’t— I—I didn’t—”
Nick shoved his sword straight into the man’s open mouth. A part of him knew he should be horrified by the gore that followed, the tearing of the baron’s jaw, the slicing of his tongue. Instead he saw only a red bar drop to zero, and then the baron collapsed to the ground, his body still.
Nick’s white bar appeared only briefly, crawled a little toward another evaluation, and then faded.
“Good riddance,” Nick whispered.
Frost’s hand settled on his shoulder. Her touch was gentle.
“Go outside and breathe the fresh air,” she said. “You don’t need to be in here anymore. I’ll get us some food and supplies for our travels while you wait.”
Nick glared at the corpse.
“He deserved it,” he said, unsure whom he was trying to convince.
Frost gestured to the grand doors of the manse, whose lock was broken and hinges busted from her arrival.
“No one in this false world deserves anything but the fates we give them. Learn that, and you’ll find this all so much easier to endure.”