by Wolfe Locke
At some point during their encounter, Alexander must have used an ability. An ability that he had previously refused to disclose. An ability that allowed him to identify items. Likely a non-combat ability, which was likely why he refused to disclose it before. The man was not just a fool, he was insecure too.
“Problematic,” Seraph said to himself under his breath. “An insecure fool is a dangerous fool.” There was little Alexander could have done to make himself less of a fool in Seraph’s eyes. The man had attempted to coerce him, and ultimately, Seraph would ensure he paid a high price for that. Within the dungeon, the only thing that mattered was strength and the application of power. The dangerous nature of the dungeon cared little for anything else, but the people who lived in it cared about the actions of others and how those actions affected them. To Seraph, Alexander was as dangerous as a sword in the hands of an amateur.
Seraph dismissed the thoughts from his head because he needed to focus on the task at hand and finish looking through the office. He grabbed the stack of papers he had pushed aside when he laid the brooch down, careful to avoid knocking over the computer, and he quickly riffled through the paper, catching bits and pieces of what was written on them as he rapidly scanned them. In the piles of paperwork, he found nothing of importance—janitorial needs, maintenance reports, aging equipment, old service authorizations, class progress reports, and budget line items.
An old photograph on the corner of the desk caught his eye, and he picked up the frame to look at it. It showed a man in a crisp suit holding a woman in his arms. From the warm way the man held her, Seraph mused it was likely his wife, but both his face and hers had been torn out. However, like everything else in the room, the frame was not marred by fingers, grime, age, or dust.
A chill ran down Seraph’s spine. This was proof that they were not alone in here, and from the photograph, he had to assume that whatever or whoever else was here, they could freely move about without leaving signs of their passing. Seraph was unsure how such a thing could happen if they were in a safe area. The whole chain of thought made him nervous, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up.
He ran quickly to the office door and looked out, his heart pounding. He was able to get himself settled once he saw that the door to the general area was still barricaded. Paul was still sleeping, as was Erin. He promised at the least he would pay more attention to their safety and not completely ignore their situation, so long as it did not interfere with his own mission.
Still, something was missing
He gave the room another look. The poster of Einstein on the wall didn’t seem that relevant, and neither did the complete collection of Encyclopedia Britannica. He moved around to the other side of the desk, looking for drawers that he could open and check, and he was disappointed when he saw that there was only an empty steel shelf built into the interior of the desk, save for a short stack of post it notes that was almost depleted—an obvious sign of extensive use. Behind the shelf, he saw a long cord trailing down.
The computer, of course, Seraph thought. The thing I’m missing.
Seraph had forgotten the importance of computers; it had been a long time since he had needed one. He sat down in the chair, and after looking for a second to find the power button, he turned it on.
Notification: You lack the requisite intelligence to use this terminal. Requires 8 INT.
Notification: The skill “Tech Savvy” or “Computer Literate” is required to use this computer.
Irritated, he dismissed the prompts and turned the computer off. There would be other ways to solve this. He needed to find something out of place, something that didn’t belong. Something in this room was the answer. He looked at the bookshelf again, going shelf by shelf, and just when he was ready to give up, he finally noticed something on the top of the bookshelf. A place he had not looked before, there was a white 3-ring binder with post it notes sticking out of the sides. He reached up and grabbed it, pulling it down and laying it out on the desk.
The cover was beat up, partially torn, and covered in greasy hand prints. The opposite of the room, it read across the top “Findings from the Mist’s Edge - A Case Study by Reverend” and the top corner bore a mark that was secret to many but well known to Seraph. Three slash marks in each direction, the mark of Carrion Crow. It was the guild he had founded, the guild he had led into the abyss of the final floor, the Locum Malificar.
Chapter 14: The Wormwood Report
* * *
Seraph gently opened up the binder, afraid to damage what he himself viewed as a precious artifact. The report was something from another timeline that had somehow managed to make it back into the past, just like he had. It was something that would tell him of the fate of Reverend, and ultimately there might be some clue or hidden knowledge that would help him in his mission to strengthen both humanity and himself.
The binder cracked as dust fell off in heavy clouds, the binding stiff with age as he turned to the first page, and then the second, and then the third. Every page was the same; every page was empty. But rather than being angered, he smiled, a sense of relief flooding him.
Reverend did his work well and had set upon the report the mandated guild measures for secrecy. Few in the other timeline could have ever read the report, and none but Seraph could read it now.
Seraph closed the binder, grimacing as it cracked as he closed it, and then he put his thumb on the guild mark hidden discreetly on the corner of the binder. The mark responded to him and the blood in his veins—a blood he had once shared with every elite member of his guild.
His thumb pressed harder against the binder; the guild mark warmed beneath his finger, and he repeated the words he had himself dedicated to the task of secrecy. Words he had demanded that others must always use and always keep secret.
Seraph spoke low in hushed tones, his words laced with mana and tinged dark with hints of his power, and his voice directed at the guild mark.
He spoke the keywords that he had long ago chosen for his guild and its members to use.
“It is written. Be loyal to the nightmare of your choices.”
The guild mark glowed a crimson red and disappeared, fading out of existence. Nothing more than a tool of the guild to pass information in a coded fashion.
The binder quickly transformed into a small book with a leather binding. Eagerly, he opened it. This time the pages moved easily without tarnish or age, smelling heavy of fresh ink and newly cut leather. He quickly flipped to the first page and began reading the familiar handwriting that he recognized as belonging to Reverend.
“February 18th, 2048
This Tuesday marks the passage of six months since I first began my mission to further investigate the miasma that is spreading rapidly across the Earth.
Though they call it miasma, I do not. It is closer to a poison, a curse. It is a blight on the land and all it touches. With careful diligence and preparation, I have explored the border and been troubled by what I have found.
Of the monsters within I have seen little directly, though I have seen evidence of incursions—tracks in the ground and dragging indentations leading from within the miasma to scattered homes near the border and back again into the miasma.
The monsters within seem to congregate closer to population centers. I have used this fact to conduct various research.
I used many different instruments to try to collect soil samples, but all except the iron collection tool rapidly corroded before my eyes. The single soil sample I took was fallow and hostile to life. Everything save the iron I used to collect it with corroded and turned necrotic.
Against my better angels, I reached into the miasma covered in iron and found the protection insufficient. The exposed flesh of my left hand became alien to me, becoming necrotic and necromorphic as my hand rotted. I quickly withdrew and severed the limb, which in turn I saw spawn additional limbs and scurry away.
I did not attempt further information collection. I have since replaced
the limb with animated necromantic tissue, dead man’s bone, and a minor illusionary spell. I have found much to my misery that this hand I have created for myself has a persistent effect of death touch. I must be careful.
Though my guild has ample resources that could have benefited the mission, I made the decision to self-refer to this forward deployment to the contested outer regions without permission or further authorization. If successful, I know my master will forgive the liberty I have taken to further explore what we call the miasma, and what I call wormwood, for it is blight and the enemy of all life.
The infrastructure in the nearby towns has fallen into disrepair, and the roads are filled by both highwayman and refugees. Long throngs of hopeless people are traveling to wherever they believe they may find safety. The strongest among them hold their heads a bit higher. They all know the dungeon to be safe, and they know they may be allowed where only the strong are allowed to enter. It is not my place or duty to judge them and send them forward or dispatch them and end their journey. I have other purposes.
The dead are numerous, though most of the dead I have come across have fallen by the blade of the desperate hand and not by illness or monsters from the dungeon. Though I imagine for the dead it matters very little how or who killed them. Of those dragged into the miasma, I can make no assumptions if they are alive or dead.
I have so far been unsuccessful during my tenure here in finding a more appropriate cover for my actions and purpose within the area. Of work there has been very little. I have been forced to assume the mantle of interim principal of this high school.
It has not been terrible. Many of the conditions I had feared might cause others to be suspicious of my purpose have been mitigated by the extraordinary circumstances of the immediacy of the nearby miasma border. Many of the locals and elders within the community have long since fled, taking with them their families. Those who have remained are too poor, too sick, or too infirm to travel. As I shift through reports, I can see how every day fewer and fewer students remain.
Of the students who are left at the school under my care, I must say they have remained resilient and hopeful. A force I can barely register seems to be driving them with a will to survive. Though they have been left behind, I cannot act in accordance with guild tenets. Even in the coldest region of my own heart, I cannot do what duty demands of me. Even more so when the truth is evidence; I am all these children have. I have been unwilling even in the coldest region of my heart to find the strength to look at these children, look them straight in the eye, and tell them plainly that no one is coming to save them, and their loved ones have abandoned them.
I will not be that monster. Though I know on many levels, these children know and understand they have been abandoned. I believe there is no further purpose in chasing greater heartache. It is a small mercy I can give them to not mention this. These students who are left in my care, I cannot leave them. They are the left behind, those whose families could not afford to move them and absconded without them.
I have set up a shelter for these children in the main break area, and at night I tell them stories about happier times before the miasma and before the crows came. Most sleep peacefully with the lies I weave for their comfort. It is likely we will all be dead soon; I will not add to their misery or sorrows. Though the numbers of students in the school has dwindled over time, it has still been a heavy burden to bear. Soon I will bear it alone. I have seen the aids and the teachers, their eyes heavy and alight with fear, twitching and ready to depart at a moment’s notice. Their gaze heavy with guilt, they cannot look at me, and they cannot look at the children. I fully expect to wake up soon and find the lot of them to be gone having fled. By nature there are few options available to them; I cannot find fault in it. I will not condone another's decision to live, just because I have made a decision that prepares me for death.
I have sinned against my master. That I care for these children, that I am their caretaker and by rights have sapped my own strength to care for them, is considered a grand heresy by the Guild of Crows, and only equally grand results would result in forgiveness and a pardon of weakness for these children. By all rights I should abandon them and report only on what I have found, but I cannot. I cannot leave them. I have grown close to them. As the miasma approaches, coughing can be heard down the hall, a sign that the air inside the school has already begun to foul. I will not leave these kids behind and that means there's only one hope for their salvation.
I have planted a single dungeon seed I found early on within my time in the dungeon. I have planted the seed into the very foundation of the school, and while I have felt the stirrings of influence of the dungeon below me, it has not yet sprouted. It is my hope that it shall grow and eventually envelope this school that I love, extending its protection to these children whom I cannot and will not leave behind. I know first-hand the strength that the dungeon can grant to those within it.
Whatever infirmities and weaknesses these children may have, I know they will be rectified once inside the dungeon. I cannot lead them through the known dungeon entrance. I will not lead them to be slaughtered mere meters away from salvation for things outside of their control, for faults not their own, just due to the capricious and malevolent nature of the Crows.
I hear screaming outside and faint sobbing. It appears I am out of time. A teacher knocks on my door asking for guidance on what to do, but I have none. The miasma has never moved this fast before, and from my window I can see it encroaching—not in mere centimeters and inches, but in miles. It is evident it will soon be here. I tell the teacher to gather the staff and the children and take them to the break area. Be kind, tell jokes, and be easy on them.
The teacher paused for a second, asking if I’m coming too, but I am busy. One by one, I unbutton my polished suit that has marked my authority within the school, a suit of heavy polished obsidian armor beneath it. I will soon grab my gauntlets and war hammer. I do not know how much my life will be worth, but I will spend it gladly for a few more minutes of life for these children.
I shall leave behind these findings in the hope that one day my master will find and benefit from them—and through him all of humanity—in fighting off this miasma I suspect to be wormwood.
Signed, Timothy Reverend
7th Seat of the Order of Crows
Guild officer of Carrion Crow
“The Earth Shaker”
Seraph looked down at the binder, his eyes heavy in an unfamiliar way as tears dropped on the white paper below. He was proud of the man who had been his friend, and remorseful of how his own actions and policy had likely caused his death. He wiped the tears from his eyes and compartmentalized the information. Information heavy with implication that he would need to save and bring up with the guild once they were established. In this information was a chance that Reverend had saved the human race with his research.
Notification: Discovery of “Wormwood”
Details: You have obtained information on the miasma in the report by Timothy Reverend. He suspects it is something called wormwood. Find a way to fight or ward off this wormwood by February 18th, 2048, or lose control of the surface area of the Earth and all who live upon it.
He closed the leather book, not bothering to reactivate the seal, and stashed it on his person, leaving the office much the same way that he had found it. He closed the door behind him in reverence to the man who had worked in it. Only a few minutes had passed since he had gone in, but he felt he needed a minute to think. He slumped down near the sleeping forms of his still-snoring father and the light snores of Erin.
As he looked at the wall, thoughts heavy on his mind, he wondered who he was. He called himself Seraph, but was he really? Could he really be? The thoughts of his old friend and subordinate lay heavy on his mind. If he was still Seraph, would he have this feeling of guilt and sorrow? He didn’t know. He propped himself against the wall and waited for the others to wake up, watching as the hours passed and the thoughts
in his mind remained troubled and chaotic.
Chapter 15: The Ties That Bind
* * *
His wings flexed instinctively—a telltale sign of inner turmoil and anxiety that only those closest to him had ever managed to figure out. It was not a trait he readily revealed, standing in stark contrast to his well-groomed image of cold and harsh stoicism. He was anxiously waiting for news from the forward team, but he was more anxious to hear from Elle.
Rubbing his temples to relieve some of the tension he felt, he then clenched his fist in rapid succession as he worked the stress out of his body. Leadership was a trial all of its own. He looked at the rapidly updating map in the command center, feeling overwhelmed in a way he never had done before. That map marked the remnants of humanity on Earth. A sense of longing and bitterness fueled his thoughts as he wished for the simpler days when Carrion Crow was just a killers’ guild, not beholden to the responsibility of ruling the survivors.
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” he muttered to himself as a voice from across the room tore him from his thoughts.
"Seraph, you need to see this!" shouted Zoldos, his voice tinged in regret as his arms moved faster than the human eye could see. His movement was a blurry whirl, giving him the illusion of at least partial invisibility. A trail of green in the air as he worked to update the map with his empowered stylus was all that was visible.