Ciaran didn’t blink as he jumped back, turning around in the air and then ran as fast as he could. He wasn’t even sure if he could run from them — one is a human with a limited stamina and the other is a dead, flying ghoul. As soon as Ciaran left the vicinity of the square, the wyvern roared one last time before flying back.
Before Ciaran had time to question the reason for its actions, a ghoul, a dark mass of shadow with white, smudged dots for eyes and a gaping maw of a mouth, appeared next to him, its mouth widening and heading for his head. As it closed in on him, Ciaran jumped to the side, but not before his right arm was scratched by the edge of its sharp teeth. He didn’t feel the pain of the wound or notice as it began to bleed, but focused on the weapon he was gripping, his only way of escaping this situation.
The sword slashed through the ghoul. The ghoul’s form was split in half, but only for a second, for in the next, it reformed. The killing intent of every one of these ghouls radiated from them, making it hard to distinguish the specific source of each one. The ghouls he outran would fall back, but then a new line would rush forward and be split in half, falling behind as they reformed.
Ciaran’s starsight was working overtime, but the moon was still just a sliver of a waxing crescent in the sky — the Duvane bloodline magic was still weak at the moment and could only detect killing intent. It was enough to prevent him from being ambushed by a group of these monsters, at least, since he would detect their murderous rage long before he saw them.
He turned corners, feeling his muscles tense and burn as he breathed in as steady a manner as he could. The agility and stamina training his mother had put him through as a kid was paying off, but he still found himself with the occasional scratch from close calls with the horde of flying monsters constantly trying to kill him.
The bag he was still carrying was starting to drag him down, so he took it off and through it inside a building, along with the sack of food. The moment they were thrown through a doorway, he sped up.
He ran, he slashed, he stabbed, he didn’t notice the ache in his ears from the loud shrieking of the ghouls or his heaving lungs, the sweat dripping down his back despite the dropping temperature. As he ran, his stamina draining every second, his thumb slipped on the hilt of a blade and sunk into a groove. As he cut into another ghoul, his thumb pressed onto the groove, and a faint click sounded, the minuscule vibration traveling through his arm. His surprise heightened when flames erupted from somewhere, covering the sword and lighting the surrounding area. The moment his blade, alight with fire, cut through a ghoul, the ghoul burst into dust. Then something strange happened — the dust was sucked into the blade.
Ciaran didn’t have time to stop and think about it.
Legs pumping, feet pounding, blood coursing through his veins.
Slash,
Stab,
Slice.
This can’t go on. I can’t keep running forever, my stamina will run out long before the sun rises.
He remembered the complete absence of life or death during the day and assumed these ghouls only came out at night, so if he survived until dawn broke, he’d have an entire day to rest and think about the situation. He looked around at the streets he was running through, looking for something in particular, a position he could stand and fight in. As he ran through the market street he’d been in earlier, turning one ghoul into dust after another, he spotted a larger building in the distance and ran toward it.
As he approached, he had no time to read the signboard outside it and sprinted up the stairs. He burst through the doorway, the doors that hadn’t turned to dust were broken and hanging off the hinges, and into the building, only to realize that this was a library, and the shelves made of stone and scrolls and books were still intact. He ran toward the maze of shelves, quickly disappearing into the depths. The ghouls were still attracted to him — maybe because he was a living being, or maybe for some other reason, but they could all detect his location as if there was a tracker on him. The obstructing shelves helped to slow them down, allowing
Ciaran to find an corner of the room and place his back against it, holding his sword up as his body tensed and crouched, killing any ghoul that popped out and lunged toward him.
In the depths of the library, there were no windows, nor functioning clocks or lighting of any kind. Ciaran couldn’t see the entrance from where he was and had no way of judging the time. The light of the fire licking his blade was the only reprieve from the pressing darkness. So long as he felt the surging killing intent these ghouls emitted, he would assume it was still night. So long as the night continued, he didn’t let his guard down.
As time passed, Ciaran could feel the arm holding the sword up starting to ache, then it began to shake, every subsequent slash becoming heavier and harder. Sometimes, a large group of ghouls would come out all at once, and his left hand would support his right as he moved to kill them all. He sometimes switched the sword to his left hand despite being right-handed, if only to give his dominant arm a break. His attacks would be a slower and less precise, but he could still kill the ghouls, who had no tactics or techniques to speak of.
His back began to slump against the wall, the tide of ghouls continuing. He thought it would never end. All he knew was to slash, to slice, to stab, and to try to keep his body standing and his arm moving.
[Hey… kid… keep killing them for me…yeah? If you… do this solid for me, I’ll…]
Ciaran, exhausted and trying to keep his blurring vision steady, thought he was hallucinating when a voice whispered something in his mind. “Kill them, what else can I do? If I don’t I’ll just die.”
He shook his head, berating himself. He really must be going crazy from overexertion. Why else would he respond to a hallucination? Somehow, after killing a few more ghouls, he could sense their strong killing intent disappearing. Has daylight come?
As soon as the killing intent completely vanished, Ciaran slumped against the wall and dropped his sword, extinguishing the flames, before falling to the ground, his vision going dark as he lost consciousness.
~|(+)|~
Ciaran woke up a little, but didn’t open his eyes just yet. His starsight wasn’t active, so it was still daytime. He didn’t have to worry about the never-ending army of ghouls just yet, so he let himself lay down a little longer before blinking his eyes open. The place he fell asleep was dim. Without the light from the fire the sword emitted, he couldn’t see anything. His muscles, overused as they were last night, ached all over his body. He didn’t want to get up, but he couldn’t keep laying here. He had to go find his stuff. It’d been so long since he last ate, yet it wasn’t until now that his hunger erupted with a ferocity he’d never felt before.
Well, before he’d been a ducal heir. Now, he was a runaway, sleeping alone in some forgotten library. He groaned as he stood up, every sore muscle protesting, then grabbed the sword and tried to find his way back to the entrance, pressing on the hilt’s hidden mechanism and using the fire to light the way. As he walked, the area began to brighten and he lifted his thumb off the groove, snuffing the fire out. Bit by bit, it became brighter, until he found the source of the light — the daylight pouring through the doors and windows.
He walked through the broken doorway and stood atop the stairs before closing his eyes beneath the blindfold and tilting his face up to the sun. It was the end of summer, that period of time when the weather was not cold, nor hot, but the Lost Empire was much colder than the duchy, probably situated further North than Neix Keep. It was colder than yesterday. He could feel the chilly breeze ruffling his hair and touching his skin.
The light of day reached the wounds he’d forgotten about, and he looked down at them, wondering what to do. Should he wash them? But with what water? He had no medicine, either. The best he could do was to wrap something around it, but his clothes were dirty sleeping in a dusty corner all night, and he didn’t want to let the wound get infected. They weren’t that deep, anyway. He decided to put it off for the time being and do something about it later. Even if he didn’t do anything, it should heal on its own to some degree. They had clotted over and stopped bleeding already, and Ciaran had other things to worry about.
He took a deep breath, enjoying the peace he knew was temporary, then opened his eyes and set off in the direction he assumed he came from. The small movement tugged at the wound on his face that had just scabbed over, but he ignored it. It would heal on its own in time. He thought of the wound as a reminder to never forget what happened that night. To always remember his end goal of one day breaking his curse and avenging his family.
He had run through the market earlier, so he had a feeling he knew the general area where he had thrown his stuff. As he walked, warming up his stiff body, he looked through the buildings he ran past last night. As he did, he made sure to search for something else. A ring, so he could start working on making a proper storage space for himself. That way, he wouldn’t have to worry about carrying around heavy bags all the time.
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As he looked through building after building, he noticed something odd — he found pots on stoves and plates on dining tables, chairs knocked over and furniture shoved to the side. One room had a letter half written, maybe to a lover from the flowery language he could read, but the last written word trailed off as if the writer disappeared in the middle of it. Everything he found looked as if the owners left in a hurry, or didn’t leave it all but vanished on the spot. He became more and more curious about the mystery behind the Lost Empire. He found a few pieces of jewelry, including some rings, and took them all with him before finding the house he’d thrown his bag into. It was sitting on the floor as it had been before.
He dropped the jewelry he was holding on the floor and opened the cloth sack filled with food, finding some bread and tearing into it. He slouched his back against the wall, watching the dust swirling in the air as a shaft of light shone through to the opposite wall. As he ate, he began to realize something he hadn’t thought about until now. In all of the houses he’d passed through, any food they must have had would have definitely been gone by now. Hundreds of years passed, of course there wouldn’t be any more food, not even the gardens that grew fruits and vegetables would have survived until now.
This clock sack of food that Martha and Penelope thoughtfully packed for him was all the food he had for now. After it ran out, he would have to find some other way to get food to not starve to death. Thinking about the state of this place, however, he wasn’t sure how he could do so. Where could he hunt when living creatures were either unable to find this place, or chose to stay away from it?
He tore off another piece of the bread he was eating and looked through the sack, estimating how long it would last him and how much he should ration every meal. If he ate until he wasn’t hungry anymore, three times a day, it would only last him another three days or so. It would be better to try and stretch it out to at least a week by eating less. He remembered seeing a lake and a forest in the distance yesterday. Maybe he could go there another day to see if he could hunt something.
As he stuffed the last piece of bread in his mouth, he rummaged through his bag until he found the engraving pen he brought with him. It had a tip similar to a quill and a smooth, wooden body. Near the tip, carved into the wood, were small golden letters — O. K.
He wondered if they were his father’s initials. This pen, like the blindfold, also had a bloodline inscription that limited who could use it. He’d sensed it in his mother’s office, but ignored it. It wasn’t as if he needed to use it right away. He nicked his finger on the edge of the sword and pressed it to the tip of the pen, watching as the blood was absorbed and a small, golden inscription appeared, glowing and twisting as it unlocked for Ciaran’s use. After it vanished again, Ciaran picked up one of the rings he found earlier, starting the arduous process of making a space ring. It began just as any other inscription did — he controlled his mana to become thin like a thread, flowing through the inscription pen and out of the pen’s tip, attaching itself to the ring before making a small circle of mana in the air just above it.
After making the basic framework for the inscription, he began to inscribe the details that would describe the function of the spell, but before he could get very far, the ring he was holding cracked and broke into pieces. The inscription he began to engrave on it broke as well. Ciaran sighed. The bronze ring must have been too old and fragile. It couldn’t withstand such complex magic. He repeated his actions with everything he found, even using bracelets and necklaces and earrings. If he had to pierce his ears to make it work, he would. The function was more important than the appearance.
Unfortunately, they all broke, leaving Ciaran holding a pen he hadn’t used for longer than a few minutes, surrounded by broken fragments of metal. It seemed he would have to search more for something suitable. He sighed before turning his attention to his thirst. Eating that bread satiated some of his hunger, but left him more thirsty than he’d already been. He thought about the container that had the ashes of the clothes he wore that night. It would make a good makeshift water canister if he cleaned it out, so he took it out and dumped all the ashes and debris into a random clay pot on one of the shelves of the house he was in.
He could fill the canister with water so long as he engraved a spell that drew in water from the air and allowed to liquefy and fill the canister, but it was too dirty for him to do it right now. He also needed to bathe. After that long night, his skin was sticky with sweat and his clothes were dirty. In his mind, a picture of the lake appeared. The water in the lake wasn’t safe to drink as it was, so he may as well use it for something more practical.
With a new plan formed, he packed his things and swung his back over his shoulder, carrying his sword as he set off in the direction of the lake.
~|(+)|~
Hours had passed. Or at least, he thought they had. He had no watch or clock, and his only way of telling the time was tracking the sun and the moon as they made their way across the sky. When he left, the sun had been a little past the peak of the sky, and now it was getting close to the horizon. He may have about half an hour until the sun starts to set, and the ghosts of the past appear.
He was so thirsty that his head ached and his tongue was as dry as paper. When he reached he shore of the lake, next to a pier that extended into a small pavilion, he dropped everything he was holding and knelt, cupping his hands before drinking the water in big mouthfuls. He knew he had a chance of getting sick from the drinking the unclean water, but he had long since stopped caring. It would just be this one time, after all. After he engraved that water spell on the canister, he wouldn’t have to worry about water anymore. As he swallowed water, it ran down from the corners of his mouth. When he had enough, he took off his blindfold and washed his face, trying to avoid the wound. It would be a disaster if he got it infected because of his very lacking medical supplies.
He took a step back and started to take off his dirty clothes before heading into the lake to wash himself and his hair. It was the first time he was taking a bath in such a place, but he couldn’t be picky. He didn’t have any soap, but scrubbing his skin to get rid of all the dried sweat and dust made him feel like a new person, making sure to clean the dried blood from around his cuts as well.
After he finished washing, he waded close to shore and grabbed the pants and shirt he’d just taken off, then took them into the water and began to scrub them clean. He only had two sets of clothes — these, and another similar pair he’d stuffed into his bag when he was rummaging through the servant’s wardrobe. He had never done laundry before, and he didn’t have anyone to help or teach him now. He fumbled around with them in the water, trying to “clean” them as best as he could before hanging them on the railing of the pier. He would let them dry and take them back later.
He waded out of the water and onto the grass, not used to walking outside with no clothes on but needing to dry off a little to put on clean clothes. He looked at the blindfold in the ground and wondered if there was any point in wearing it. He was the only living being here — not even a fly could be found anywhere. It was a nation whose name and location had been wiped from existence, so he decided to keep the blindfold in his bag for now rather than wearing it. As he stuffed the blindfold into the bag, he grabbed the canister that used to contain his ashes and walked to the lake, filling it with water before dumping the dirty water out on the grass a meter away. He did this a few more times before thinking that it was as clean as it could get and grabbed his pen, beginning to inscribe the spell.
Golden lines appeared in the air just above the closed lid. It was a simple spell and wouldn’t take a lot of time to make, because the function itself was simple. The more complex the actions the spell had to take, the more intricate the inscription would be and the longer it would take to make. The chances of the inscription breaking during the process and having to start over were also higher. A spell that draws water from the air and turns it into a liquid in a specified container wasn’t overly complicated — at least, not for Ciaran. He didn’t have a great understanding of how his inscription skills compared to others his age.
After he drew the last line of the inscription, it gave a brief glow before twisting and interlocking. The spell had activated, and inside the canister, clean water was filling up. He had inscribed the spell so that when the canister was full, it would stop working, preventing an overflow. When the canister was empty of water, it would start working on its own, drawing water in again until it was full. Ciaran, satisfied with his work, opened the lid and drank a few mouthfuls before wiping his mouth and closing it, stuffing it back into has bag and taking his clothes out. He wasn’t completely dried yet, but he wasn’t soaking wet anymore either, so he put his clean clothes on and tied the belt again, happy to not be so exposed anymore.
He slung the bag around his shoulder again, letting it rest against his hip, grabbed his sword and walked through a few buildings on the street across the lake. Before the sun set, he needed to find a good place to fight through the night. It didn’t take long for him to find what used to be a restaurant. As he walked through the doors, the sun touched the edge of the horizon, and the ghosts appeared. All of a sudden, the dilapidated building was clean and repaired, fill to the brim with bustling customers and busy waiters.
He walked through the ghosts, trying to not shudder at the strange sensation he’d get whenever he walked through someone, and into the back kitchen. The kitchen, though dim, was lively as the cooks ran around preparing dishes for the customers. He made his way through them and to the back of the kitchen, which had a big blank wall that used to hang many different spices and plants on racks and hooks. There was nothing there anymore, but this place was as good as any. At the end of the room, the door on the left led to the dining area, and the door on the right led to an alley behind the building, which he’d seen through a small window next to the door.
He took his bag off and let it rest in the corner, gripping the sword and doing a few warm up stretches. His muscles, still sore, ached at the movements but he needed to prepare himself somehow. He watched as one chef was mixing something in a bowl, sprinkling spices here and there, and as a waiters came in through the door on the left and picked up prepared dishes to take them to different tables. He tried to calm his anxiety as he ate his dinner — an apple and half a roll of bread.
He never had the time to think about it last night, but now, he wondered how he made it through. So many of hours of nothing but fighting. He’d never been in actual combat before, just sparring practice, but he made it through somehow. He took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the sword, throwing away the apple core and keeping his thumb on the groove at the hilt.
The space grew darker, and before he knew it, the people that had once been preparing food and washing dishes had turned into dark, shadowy ghouls, their killing intent sharp and focused on him. Tonight, the sliver of a crescent moon had grown a little, allowing his starsight to work more precisely. His thumb pressed the groove down and flames erupted from the sword. He didn’t say or think anything else as the ghouls flew at him, shrieking and wailing again. He swung and killed, sliced and destroyed.
He killed one, it turned to dust and was absorbed by the sword, then killed another. He’d gotten better at judging the speed of their attacks and what direction they would come from, so he’d managed to avoid getting injured so far. One after another, he killed every ghoul in the restaurant and the surrounding few buildings.
As the first wave of ghouls had slowed down a little, Ciaran drank water from the canister and heard a faint whisper of something, a voice saying something. Some parts would be clear and easy to hear, and others would be lower and harder to discern, the sound muffled. It was a voice that was a little familiar.
[K…kid… How did you… find this place? I can’t believe this… I thought my consciousness would disappear… before I ever saw another living person. Say, what’s your name? Mine is Envil Duvane.]
