by Phoenix Grey
Uden roughly turned Azure's head and emptied a health potion into his mouth. Part of it spilled down the side of his cheek, wasted. “Drink, you stupid son of a bitch, or you're going to die.”
Azure couldn't even concentrate on gulping, but somehow some of the health potion made it in. Enough to raise his health by twenty points and bring the pain back into focus.
Uden looked up and said, “Help me. We've got to get it off of him.”
Azure was so dazed that it took him a moment to realize that the half-imp was talking to his brother. Uden stood and disappeared from his field of vision. There was some barely audible whispering for a few seconds, and then the two men started counting together. Moments later, agony seared through Azure, but also a strange sense of weightlessness.
When Uden returned to attend to him, Lonnell was by his side. The half-imp rolled him over, which made Azure cringe and cry out. Why did everything hurt so much? Glancing down, he had his answer. The dawnflayer had fallen on him as he was running away, crushing his legs until they were nothing but blood and mush. Apparently, the Armor of Light hadn't been enough to protect him from his own stupidity.
"Well, that doesn't look good," he chuckled, trying to make light of a bad situation.
What was worse was that the dawnflayer didn't appear to be dead yet. It stared forward with empty eyes, breathing slowly.
"Just drink." Lonnell uncorked one health potion after another.
As Azure drank them, he felt like an inflatable bed. The healing process was incredibly painful and not without much cursing and wincing, but gradually, his legs began to fill out again, the muscles and tendons and bones repairing themselves with the aid of the magical red liquid. It took five potions to make Azure mostly whole again. As if it had been waiting for him to get well, the dawnflayer finally expired once the last potion was drunk.
Defeated Level 9 Dawnflayer. 81XP rewarded.
"That was close," Lonnell said, not sounding happy about it as he helped Azure to his feet and handed him back his bow and quiver of arrows.
"Too close," Uden agreed, walking around the dawnflayer to recover the daggers he had dropped during battle.
"But we got the job done," Azure announced proudly, wondering if there was anything on the dawnflayer that they could loot. "So what are we taking?"
"Well," Uden sighed, staring at the downed creature. "If we could get to its heart, we could take out its monster core. It's a valuable stone used in necromancy to generate a short-lived version of the monster to aid in battle. A dawnflayer's core would fetch quite a sum, but considering that the beast decided to use its last dying moments to try to crush you by landing on its stomach, I don't think we're going to get to it. We would have to turn it over."
"If it's valuable, then we should." He hadn't just gone through all of that pain not to come out at the other end with some sweet loot.
"I'm not sure we could," Lonnell told him. "It weighs at least a ton and is awkward to lift. Attempting it would drain our stamina."
"It will be worth it," Azure assured him. "Don't you think so?" He turned to Uden who shrugged. "Oh, come on. I'm counting on you to take my side on this." Azure's entire body slumped. "We would all split the money, of course."
"I would normally be all for this, but to be honest, I just want to get out of this dungeon. You aren't the only one who almost bit it this time," the half-imp said.
"You didn't even lose any health," Azure argued dryly.
"Because I was lucky. If I hadn't rolled to dodge at the precise moment that I did, I'd be dead right now. Honestly, we were both lucky."
"And we both deserve this." He crossed his arms over his chest stubbornly. "Will the dawnflayer respawn?"
"Not until we leave this area. And it would not respawn for us again. Only if a new group entered its arena."
"Then we have the time to do it," Azure continued to try to convince the brothers that taking the core was a smart idea.
"If we don't take the core, we can keep going and possibly finish this dungeon today," Lonnell told him, sounding firm. "If we take the core, we're going to have to rest again. There's a chance that Uden and I will go insane. I'm sorry, Azure, but I'm not willing to risk that. If greed is why you are here, then you shouldn't have come."
Holy shit. Lonnell had never spoken to him like that before. Did he really think that's why Azure was here with them? Loot had always just been a bonus, but he still hated the idea of not being rewarded for his hard work and almost dying.
"This is bullshit," he grumbled.
"I will do whatever," Uden said, though he wore a tired expression. "I can understand you wanting the monster core, but you must understand that if we take the time to claim it, it could change the outcome of this quest. My brother is right," he glanced over at Lonnell, "staying here for another night puts us at great risk. The monster core is not worth our lives."
"Think about this long-term," Lonnell continued with a much gentler disposition, "you can live today to loot tomorrow, or you could take the monster core, and it could potentially be one of the last things you do."
"Fine," Azure blew out an exasperated breath. He was tired of arguing. This was the dark sprite wings all over again, except on a much grander scale. He was certain that the monster core was worth at least several hundred gold coins. Maybe even enough to buy his Bag of Holding. It pained him to leave it behind, but perhaps there would be greater rewards once they defeated the demon.
"Good. I'm glad you are seeing sense," Lonnell sighed in relief before turning his attention to the back of the room. "Now we must prepare ourselves for what lies on the other side of that door."
"What door?" Azure followed his gaze. To be fair, it had been hard to see anything beyond the dawnflayer, not that he'd been looking. Now that the beast was down, he'd been too focused on its corpse to notice anything else of significance in the room.
"That door." Uden pointed a bony finger at a red door set in the wall. "The dawnflayer was guarding it."
"I'm pretty sure that wasn't there before," Azure insisted.
"It didn't appear until after the dawnflayer died," Lonnell informed him. "There's your loot. The dawnflayer was actually a key."
"That's not the same," Azure mumbled. "So what do you guys think is on the other side of the door?" He secretly hoped it was a treasure room, but that was probably wishful thinking.
"I don't know." Lonnell shook his head.
"Likely a trap," Uden responded behind him.
"It wouldn't be another monster?" Azure asked.
Uden looked at him, seeming nervous. “There's only one way to find out.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE REALM – Day 31
Was this reality? Azure wasn't sure what to believe, but his body had reacted instantly as soon as they opened the door and stepped through.
There was an altar, similar to what Bronna had been placed on when they had first tried to fool the demon into coming out of hiding. Except this time, the demon was already there. The room they had wandered into was ominous and dark. There were no windows and nothing casting light except for the candles placed on the floor around the altar. Instead of inscriptions in the dirt, there were marks made with, what appeared to be, red sand. Azure wasn't really sure what it was. In fact, nothing else in the room existed for him except for the girl on the altar.
Sheila.
How had she gotten here?
She laid on the altar, her eyes closed, her arms crossed over her chest like a vampire in a casket. Azure wasn't sure if she was asleep or not, but when he called her name, she didn't stir. She was wearing a flowy white dress that kissed the tops of her feet. It wasn't like anything he'd ever seen her in before. Not something from her wardrobe. Some type of sacrificial gown, he guessed.
The Dark One stood behind the altar. It didn't even seem to notice the three men entering the room―too focused on the sacrifice it was currently in the middle of performing. A tall, lanky thing made of shadows and darkne
ss, the demon was not as frightful as Azure remembered it being. Its glowing red eyes were trained on the girl before it, and it held a long, curved silver blade in its hand. The dagger was raised, centered above Sheila's chest. Words whispered all around them in some ancient, evil language. It sounded like Latin, but Azure knew it wasn't. The spell had begun. Sheila's body floated up from the table to meet the blade, and the dagger came down at the same time.
Desperation coursed through Azure as he lunged forward. He was screaming the word no, but he couldn't even hear his own voice above the whispers. He ran towards the altar, his legs pumping as quickly as they were physically capable of. He would sacrifice himself to save her. Throw his body on top of hers and feel the blade pierce through him. Do this one last selfless act. It didn't matter that she had dumped him for someone else. He still loved her. It was a strange and melancholy realization―that he was about to die for a woman who had betrayed him.
There was an intense flash of light. So intense that it drowned out everything in the room. It softened and lingered. Everything that had been in front of Azure was gone. He felt a strange sense of calm, like he was floating somewhere in between space and time. Floating without a care in the world. Hadn't he just been panicking? Hadn't he just been trying to stop something horrible from happening? He couldn't remember what. Now he was just floating. Floating, floating, floating in this warm white, airy liquid.
Things began to change again. It was subtle this time. The soft light turned to milk, and the milk started to slowly gray. At first, the difference was imperceivable. But then he noticed it more. The liquid got thicker. It transformed from translucent to opaque and began to cloud. Like a storm lazily blowing in, the gray darkened and darkened. There was a sudden feeling of desperation―like being swallowed up by something―like drowning. Briefly, Azure remembered being dunked beneath the ripples of the raging river when he had tried to escape from The Dark One. He remembered sucking in a lungful of water. This was much the same. He was now drowning in this darkness overtaking everything around him. It closed in on him, invading his open mouth and his nostrils. It consumed him like a giant beast until it was everywhere and he was oh so small.
And then all was black. All was black, and Azure suddenly wasn't afraid anymore.
Is this death? Is this what death feels like? I don't remember how it happened, but did I die?
Azure searched his memory and came up empty-handed. All he knew was that he wasn't afraid. Not at peace, but not afraid.
Then, as if vomited out of a dreamless sleep, he was thrust back into reality―a reality that he didn't remember but made sense to him nonetheless. He looked down at Sheila's body as she lay in a casket. Her eyes were closed, her straight dark brown hair resting beneath her head. They had not done her makeup in the right shade. There was no illusion of a sleeping woman. She simply looked dead. The dress they had put her in, a red number with puffed white sleeves, wasn't doing her any favors. Will had only seen her wear it once when she had convinced him to go to church with her family for Christmas Eve Mass. Neither of them had wanted to go. She was only doing it because her grandmother had come down to visit from Florida and Sheila had wanted to make her happy by appearing as much like a family as possible. Will had gotten roped in because he was the new boyfriend and wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. It was not a modern dress. Something that looked like it had come from generations ago. Modest and out-dated. She certainly wouldn't have wanted to be buried in it.
Will looked down at the black suit jacket he was wearing with matching slacks and a white button-down shirt. He didn't remember putting it on this morning. Come to think of it, he didn't remember Sheila dying either, he just knew that she had. Pain coursed through his head, and he reached up to massage his temples. Something was off. Something was wrong he realized, and he began to look around.
The faces of Sheila's family and their college friends stared back at him from the pews. Not so much stared, but glared and leered. Whispers filled the air. Dozens of voices. Somehow, he could decipher and sort them all out. They blamed him for Sheila's death.
"He's such a loser. If he weren't such a loser, this never would have happened," Sheila's mom said.
"Leaving her all alone like that. Of course, the girl would get depressed," one of their friends whispered to another.
"He never cared about her. She saw that," the other replied behind a cupped hand.
"It was his job to protect her. He couldn't even do that much." Her father glowered at him.
"It should have been him. She had a promising future ahead of her. He had nothing," her big brother added.
What was going on? He didn't understand, but the whispers continued. This time, right behind him.
Cold hands touched his shoulders. He felt breath on his cheek and a grumbling masculine voice followed. “You are stupid and lazy and worthless. You went off to pursue a career that everyone warned you against. You thought you were special, above all the rest. But you were always less than average in everything that mattered.
"Sheila was out of your league. But you thought yourself better than you were. You thought yourself worth waiting for. You only cared about yourself. You didn't stop to think about her career, that her life was already starting...without you.
"You were not worth waiting for, but she still cared. So when I showed her that you were in trouble, she came. And now she's dead. All of her dreams, gone. Because you were selfish. Because you couldn't let her go when you should have. You made her suffer because you were selfish. And now she's dead because you couldn't leave well enough alone.
"You are a horrible human being and an even worse boyfriend. There's only one way to atone for this sin"to make up for all of the misery that you caused." The voice switched to his other ear. "You must die."
The words tried to sink in, but they still didn't make sense. Yes, Sheila was lying before Will in a casket, and the voice was implying that he was the cause, but he still had no idea what had happened. Had she killed herself? Had she pushed him out of the way of a moving vehicle when they were walking somewhere? He didn't remember. Pain stabbed at Will's brain again. He winced and grabbed his head.
"Regret," the word boomed in time with his headache. "Repent. Die." A repetition began, growing louder and louder until it felt almost like a physical attack.
Will forced his eyes open, taking in his surroundings. Something was strange. A feeling of deja vu―that he'd been here before. Pews were lined in rows to the back of the funeral home. It could have been any funeral home in the world, but the flowers were familiar. Large bouquets of lilies and roses on metal easels. They were probably the same ones that had adorned hundreds or even thousands of funerals before. Something picked off of a website online. But Will was almost certain he'd seen the exact same ones somewhere before. Maybe in a movie or at a relative's funeral.
"This isn't right. I didn't do this." Will stared down at Sheila's cold, dead body. He should have felt regret but didn't, because somewhere deep down inside, he knew that he was blameless.
The voice had said a lot of truths. He had been stupid in assuming that his relationship would hold together if he moved. Few long-distance relationships ever stood the test of time. But they had both known that before Will had left, and while they were sad to be apart, he doubted that Sheila had ever gotten suicidal over it. She had her family and all of their friends to support her―far more than Will had. Besides, Sheila wasn't the type of woman to kill herself. Two of her best qualities were that she was smart and stable. Unlike most of the girls that Will had dated in the past, she hadn't been prone to mood swings or hormonal outbursts. Sheila approached every problem with logic.
"Failure," the word repeated in his head.
But he hadn't failed. He had simply lagged. Sure, life wasn't perfect. Will wasn't as far along in his career path as he had hoped, but he was still on the right trajectory. Working for Radical Interactive was amazing, even if it was boring most of the time. So
meday, they'd see his value, and he'd ascend to a better position. Radical Interactive was good about promoting from within. He had faith that all of his years of schooling would not go to waste. There was no real reason for him to be disappointed in himself.
And then he realized that this was all wrong. He didn't know who was whispering these foul words, but at the same time...he did. There was no fear within him. He was ready to face the monster head-on.
Turning around, a frightfully wicked beast stood before him. Familiar. Like something out of his nightmares. The horns atop its head had a red tint to them. Its jaw had no lips, just two rows of overly long pointed teeth. It stood a few feet away, just staring at him. Challenging him.
"You are a failure," it managed to hiss without even opening its mouth. "Despair and meet your rightful demise."
Will shook his head. Even his name was wrong, he remembered as he opened his mouth to speak. “No. It is you who is the failure. Your parlor tricks will not work on me.”
The scene around them faded away until it was just the two of them standing in the middle of a dark room. Clarity slowly began to return to Will. What he had just seen was not real. And in this world, he was not William Galvan. He was Azure, and he had a job to finish.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE REALM – Day 31
"Do not look it in the eyes." It had been a warning that Azure had heard time and time again. The demon's eyes could inflict fear. But for some reason, he wasn't even afraid of that. The Dark One did not have lips to speak. There had been countless times when it could have talked to him, but it never did. That meant this was still just an illusion.
A quick glance back showed Azure that he had been stripped of his weapons. His armor was still intact, though. The Armor of Light was likely what was currently keeping him from being scared out of his wits.