by Wolfe Locke
John rolled out of the way and popped back to his feet and ran straight towards his other thrice blessed axe. Shield John was behind him, forcing John to bring his weapons up, ready to defend.
Then, Splitting John finally moved and called out in a guttural voice “I’ve seen enough.” With one fluid motion, he stepped up behind the doppelgänger with the shield and brought his axes down on his back. The double died, and John watched with his mouth agape. Splitter John repeated it with the still bleeding Shield John.
Just the two of us now. I think I’m approaching the end; he won’t spawn more. John was battered and broken and tired. The ring on his hand now burned so hurt that he could not even feel it.
Still, there was another challenge to overcome. I’m not done yet.
Nemesis – Do not delay. Your death here and now would have no benefit for me.
Lachesis – Nemesis is right. This is the place to let yourself become the monster. This other is beyond you.
I’ll make that decision. John readied himself as he joined the last of the doppelgängers in battle.
. The last double readied himself, and the two engaged in battle.
It became clear quickly that this double was better than all of the others. It did not attack carelessly, but efficiently and with calculation.
The double brought both of its axes down from on high, and when John raised his own axes to block them but the doppelgänger was ready for it and kicked out, planting a boot on his chest.
John went sprawling end over end. It was all that he could do to get back to his feet in time to block the double’s next blow. But he did it. John launched a flurry of blows at the double, but each was deflected.
The two fighters matched each other with speed and precision, neither finding an opening. But John knew the end would come sooner rather than later. He was already exhausted from the previous fights.
In that moment, John knew that he’d need to do something unconventional to win, something that if he lacked, the strength gained from his bonds, he’d never survive.
Instead of trying to dodge the next attack, John let it land. Hoping that the doppelgänger would think he had slowed. Pain exploded in John’s body as the axe bit deep into his chest. The only thing keeping him alive was the Body of the Depths ability and that the axe had missed his heart. The double smiled, but that was what John had been waiting for. With his right arm, John gripped the doppelgänger tightly against his body and rapidly let the monster within him off of its leash.
John’s body hardened and elongated as teeth spawned within the hole in his chest and spread further open, revealing a massive mouth where his torso used to be. The doppelgänger tried to escape, but it was too late. John held on as the struggling doppelgänger was consumed in a series of brutal bites.
With the last of the doppelgängers dead, John let the transformation go and let the magic within him heal his body. He stood there with an axe in his chest, wheezing. In a flash of light, John suddenly found all the dead versions of himself laid out in front of him. He could feel power radiating off of them. There were ten and John was certain most of them had represented the consequences of the choices of alternate bindings. But why, though? It’s almost like a warning. Why now?
All the doors disappeared except for one. That’s what I’ve been looking for. John walked toward the lone door, yanking the axe in his chest free along the way. He didn’t even feel it.
John opened the door, trying as best he could to prepare for what lay on the other side.
Chapter 33: In Fields of Green
* * *
John wasn’t expecting what he saw. Instead of a stairway leading down, he found himself at the edge of a lush meadow. It was green with tall grasses and dotted with the colors of various flowers. Nearby he spotted an Inn with a plume of smoke coming out of its chimney.
This has to be a dream. This has to be some kind of a trick. Tentatively, John proceeded forward. He fully expected something to rise from the grass, but nothing did. Soon he reached the establishment unmolested and went inside.
It was empty. John entered and looked around and was immediately met by the smell of food. I can’t remember the last time I’ve eaten proper food, though it doesn’t have the same appeal that it used to. May as well check it out though. He saw there was a table in the center of the room piled high with food.
Even with his recent meal in his monster form, John suddenly felt hungry. Standing there in front of the food, John forgot all about what he had been through.
If this is a dream, and I’m actually unconscious somewhere, just let me have my fill and enjoy a few peaceful moments.
John piled a plate high with food and sat down in a chair next to the hearth. It was lit by a fire that warmed the room, he ate in silence. All of his cares were forgotten. The wound in his chest had caked over in black blood and would soon be scarred over. In his present state, John didn’t care.
John simply sat there, eating and watching the flames dance in the fireplace. He should have known that it would not last. When next he brought the fork to his mouth, he saw not the meat and potatoes on his plate, but a cluster of writhing maggots. Really couldn’t just let me have this one, could you?
John jumped up furiously and saw that his entire plate of food was now the same. He could feel maggots crawling around. John spit them out onto the floor as his body was wracked with nausea.
A skeletal hand burst through the wooden floorboards beneath him and latched onto John’s ankle. He tried to kick it away, but another sprang up to take its place.
John thrashed with all the strength that he had left in his body, but it was not enough. Those hands grabbed him and started dragging him down into the ground. The floorboards bowed and broke. John was pulled through into the soil beneath.
His mouth and eyes were filled with the dirt. He could not see. He could not breathe. This is how it ends? Suffocation? Just when he thought he would die from lack of oxygen; John fell through the soil and onto hard ground.
He took deep, shuddering breaths, and then looked around, trying to get his bearings. Above him, there was no soil, just a stone ceiling that stretched onward and a room lit by eldritch light, and by that light John could see a row of headstones..
John watched as the graves before him churned. The dirt parted and skeletal hands pulled their way out. The undead within glared at him with eyes that glowed a pale orange.
When will it end?
John got to his feet, drawing his axes once more. He was so tired.
Slowly, the undead shuffled toward John, seeking to add him to their ranks once and for all. To his dismay, John saw that undead were not the only thing he would have to contend with this time around as fleshy ghouls pulled their way free of the dirt as well. Each of the ghouls wearing the telltale uniform and equipment that John recognized as belonging to adventurers. .
These beings were not like the undead skeletons. They still possessed some of the cunning they had in life. John knew only a few things about ghouls. Which was that they were a race of monstrous horrors that fed on the undead to sustain themselves. They looked like walking corpses, with white hair and skin stretched tight like leather over whatever they’d been wearing when first transformed.
Each of them carried steel swords that still gleamed with an edge.
If I never see another monster it’ll be too soon.
To his credit, John did not back down. He stood firm in the face of yet another horror. John was battered and bruised, but he was not yet dead. He was not yet ready to join the ranks that now marched toward him.
Well, the best defense is a good offense. John wasted no time. He was tired of this place and all that he had been through.
Soon John, you’re almost there. Just a little further. I forbid you. You cannot die here.
John gritted his teeth and refused to quit. He laid into the undead like a man possessed. He swung h
is axes this way and that, scattering bones in every direction. One of the ghouls jumped up on him and for a second, John thought it was the end. He reached up and tossed the ghoul off of him. It tried to capture his arm in a vice grip, but John kicked it away.
Even more skeletons surrounded him, but John didn’t care. He laid into them with his thrice blessed axes the enchantments on the blades allowing him to easily cut through bone. However, with each one he killed, it seemed another was there to take its place.
John was working on systematically destroying a group of the undead when a skeletal hand shot out of the dirt and caught his foot. He went sprawling, thrown off balance by the interruption. Skeletons and ghouls were on top of John in an instant. He lashed out with his axes from a downed position. I need to keep them off of me, but how can I with this many of them?
John was feeling overwhelmed. Skeletal fingers dug into his skin like daggers. The pain was intense and immediate. Then, there was a weird sensation in his head and half of his vision simply went dark. Am I dying?
John screamed and kicked and slashed with all of his might. “I won’t go down like this! I won’t let this be the end! I am John Younger, and no god will decide my fate!”
Just then, a dome of pure white light erupted from John’s thrice blessed axes, and all the undead were thrown away.
John did not wait to recover. He got to his feet and readied himself once more. The blast had only sent the undead flying, it had not killed them.
What was that? How did I do it? The radiant one?
But even as John thought about it, he tried to justify it as a stroke of luck. An action brought on by need and desperation. He would not be able to pull it off again.
With the undead and the ghouls out of commission, John looked down at himself to assess the damage. He was soaked in blood from so many tiny wounds, including the large one in his chest.
He kept waiting for the vision in his left eye to come back, but it didn’t. With a sinking feeling, John reached up to where his eye had been, his real eye and felt that it was gone.
John’s scream filled the crypt like the dying souls in which he now fought against. An unbridled rage filled him. He ran to the now recovering undead and ghouls and began to lay waste to them. He fought like a whirlwind. He fought like he had nothing left to lose.
The glow of his axes slashed through the air, splitting undead and ghouls where ever they stood to challenge him. Once again, a mass of them thought to come at him together, but John would not have it. He had been through enough and it was time for this to end.
John cut through them like they were tissue paper. Like they were as insubstantial as a spirit. He whirled to meet his next opponent and found…nothing.
Bones lay scattered at his feet. Dead and dying ghouls littered the crypt.
“Come on!” John screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. “Come on! Is that all you’ve got? I’m not done with you yet!”
John kept screaming into the surrounding darkness, but nothing else came. Eventually, his voice became hoarse, and he crumpled to his knees.
There, on the soil of the crypt, John cried. He cried for all he had been through and all he had lost. He cried at the thought of dying in this place, never seeing the outside world again. He cried because at that moment, he did not know what else he could possibly do.
John Younger, you have fought well. You have made it further than all but one before you. This is not your place to be. You do not belong here, but so long as you carry those who have bound themselves to you, I cannot let you leave.
You are close to the end of my dungeon. The end is near. I will offer you a chance at salvation once you see the truth of this place and its purpose.
You are almost there. You need only hold out a little longer. I know you John. You will not stop. Not now that you know how close you are
John considered the words but said nothing. There was something different about this place. It weighed heavier on his mind and soul. The weight had been building gradually as he descended, and now it was the worst that it had ever been.
Slowly, John got to his feet. There was a flow of power, and when John turned, he saw a magnificent gate at the back of the crypt.
Even in John’s current state, with everything that was going on, he saw it was beautiful.
It was silver inlaid with flowing gold designs. It gave off a kind of glow, but not like what came from John’s thrice blessed axes, but different.
As he watched, the gate opened inward, down the middle. John could not see what lay beyond, but he knew in his heart that whatever it was, it was the end.
Everything that he had been through. Every challenge, every trial, every loss had led up to this.
John did not wait around and stare. He was done waiting. He gathered what strength he had left and stepped over the threshold.
Chapter 34: An End and a Beginning
* * *
On the other side, John could hear a steady, almost drumming sound. It helped that a cool breeze was flowing from the same direction and he followed along on its path and kept his hearing focused and moved with a purpose. The entire time careful to watch out for whatever awaited him further in.
It wasn’t long before he saw a glimmer of green light shining through a small opening and he picked up the pace. The opening was overgrown with with roots and heavy with cobwebs. This differs from anything I’ve seen before.
John pressed through the opening and wondered why the “gods” he carried within him had gone so quiet. The opening led to a small cave that was full of bones and instinctively, John knew a fight was coming. More undead? Already?
A glint of light against gold drew his attention from the bones and towards a statue on a platform within the room. It was a golden statue bearing the familiar face of the Marcus Lumiere for whom so many had died while searching. The ragged man? Was that him?
The question was erased from his mind as John looked closer at the statue. He felt an aura of peace come over him, but there was something about the statue that seemed off. It was ringed by twelve chained pedestals as if to signify that it kept them restrained and not him.
A terrible pain erupted in his body, as if it was being torn apart. The essences that he had stored, absorbed, and even the gods he had bonded to himself were torn from his body. Brilliant prismatic orbs flew out from him and hovered over the individual pedestals until all twelve were covered.
John collapsed on the ground, suddenly feeling weak, as if his strength had been taken from him. I lost all the power I acquired, didn’t I? What am I going to do?
He braced himself against the ground and tried to get it. His hand brushed his leg, and he felt the familiar grip of his trusted weapons and hardened his resolve. The same thing I always do. He pulled them out and saw they had lost their shine and blessing placed upon them. Maybe it’s better this way. With his twin axes at the ready, John went forward.
The wall behind him collapsed. End of the line. I’ve known for a while now this was a one-way trip. Even if I wanted to go back, it’s no longer an option. The thumping sound drew his attention as he looked down again at the statue. The thumping got louder until finally John could see an otherworldly presence muttering from within the darkness that had settled on the platform.
The chamber filled with eldritch green light and the air grew tense, heavy with a dark malicious energy as the shade continued to chant. Beams of light shot out of all the orbs and joined forming into a dark cloud. That can’t be good. From within the dark cloud, a nightmarish vision crawled through. A twisted and writhing mass of black shadows over bones, its skin resembling a oil slick and near translucent.
A thousand tiny insect-like legs carried it forward towards the shade, and once it was closer, the shade disappeared with an exaggerated bow as it returned to the darkness whence it had come after whispering the entity’s name.
"Nightmare Chimera."
John Younger. It cannot be helped. The seal on the Twelve has been broken and I can no longer contain them. Defeat the monster they have become.
I have little choice, do I? John thought as the monster crawled forward. I accept.
Rocks crumbled and fell down behind him, as the monster roared. John dove away from the falling rocks and prepared to defend himself, but the attack never happened. Instead, the monster abruptly stopped as if it had sensed something and began to probe around.
I cannot bond with you until the Prince has been released. He is sealed with the statue near the twelve pedestals. If you take his place, then and only then can I grant you the power to take on this monster.
The monster had oil like tendrils which hardened into points that were sharp as spears and stabbed into the earth. The Nightmare Chimera rapidly diminished, it’s colossal form growing smaller as black ooze was absorbed into the floor of the cave. For a moment, John let himself believe that danger had passed, but it was short-lived relief.
The dirt erupted in front of him in explosion of dust and grime. John was forced to leap to the side as a spear of bone buried itself deep into the rock wall behind him. From within the whole, a red-eyed skeletal monstrosity emerged from the ground, pulling itself up on long bony forepaws out of the hole it had been buried in.
With a roar the monster came at it. It was somewhere between that of an undead and the howl of a monster of the abyss, The Nightmare Chimera with a quickness that seemed impossible for something of its size it jumped forward toward him. For a moment, John thought he heard familiar laughing.