Neverfall: The Dark Path (Book 2): A Gamelit Lit RPG Series

by C. Wintertide

  The second’s door was caved in already, and there was a very good reason for that. The villagers were not the problem. It was what was eating them. A Ghoul was hunched over the villagers’ corpses, shoveling their softening innards into its wide mouth. The Ghoul’s skin was a dark blue, almost black, and it melded with the shadows inside the simple room. But the wet smacking sound of feeding was unmistakable.

  Anger stirred in Luke as a feeling of wrongness surged inside of him. He leaped into the room with Dragon’s Claw held high, that icy coldness filling him. The Ghoul swung around at the last moment, its long red tongue hanging out of its obscene mouth. Dragon’s Claw sliced a diagonal line across its throat. Black blood erupted and rained down its front. Its long clawed finger ripped across his front, but Christopher’s Shield protected him.

  He thrust his sword into the thing’s chest so that it stuck out a foot between the Ghoul’s shoulder blades. The urge to Drain it soared within him, but he resisted its siren call. Luke stared into the Ghoul’s black eyes as it disappeared, leaving behind a mana potion and awarding him 150 experience points.

  “Luke, you okay?” It was Christopher who was asking. He put a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “It’s over. You killed it.”

  Evidently, he had continued to stand there for long moments after the Ghoul had disappeared. His tattoos burned, but he tried to ignore them. He slowly lowered his sword, and gave what he hoped was a comforting smile.

  “Sorry about that. It was just… it was the eating,” Luke partially lied. “The way it slobbered over them. Over… the baby.”

  For an infant was what the Ghoul had been snacking on. Horror clouded Christopher’s features as he took in the baby’s missing face, and the cracked open ribs where the Ghoul had been plucking at its organs. He quickly turned away, one hand covering his mouth, hurrying from the house.

  “Is he going to be sick?” Mack asked.

  “I sort of feel like I am,” Cassie remarked weakly. She did look a little green as she stuffed her face into Winter’s fur.

  Alicia’s stern face looked even sterner. “Bonecall must be stopped. NPCs or no… these actions show great sickness.”

  “Are you not glad that you agreed to ally with me?” Gloria asked.

  Alicia turned around and pointed a finger at the center of Gloria’s chest. “It was because you and Manon thought you had better things to do than manage this, that things have gotten so bad. We are only doing what you should have done regardless.”

  Alicia marched into the home to ransack it, leaving a rather disconcerted Gloria behind her. There was nothing of value. No key for certain, and not even a few coppers. Luke was glad to leave the ravaged bodies behind, though part of him wondered if they shouldn’t bury these people. He knew though that they did not have time for that, if it would even matter. Getting the axe and tools was a quest, but maybe the whole town being destroyed by Bonecall was, too. But he had a feeling it wasn’t. He didn’t think these people would ever respawn.

  The third cottage’s door was partly ajar. But it was completely dark inside. Cassie drew out her Bow of the Huntress and nocked an arrow, as Mack pushed the door fully open for her. At first, there appeared to be nothing inside, and Luke’s shoulders relaxed, but then there was a bone-like rattle. Something white and sinuous moved within the depths of the cottage. Cassie drew in a sharp breath before her bow twanged as something lunged out of the doorway. The arrow bounced off its bony skull.

  It was a gigantic snake over ten feet long and three feet wide made completely of bone. It was merely the skeleton of some great monster, but it was still alive. Or at least, it was still moving, and clacking its mandibles hungrily for them.

  “Naga! It’s a Naga! It’s vulnerable to bludgeoning damage!” Mack cried out.

  “Alicia!” Luke yelled even as he sent a wave of fire at it. The bones blackened and caught fire in places, but that hardly put a dent in the Naga’s health bar.

  “On it!” Alicia roared.

  She jumped towards the Naga with her cudgel held in both hands above her head. She smashed it into the skull with all her body weight behind it. The skull depressed where she hit it, and the body was driven down into the soft earth. The Naga’s health bar went down by half. The body thrashed, hitting Alicia’s side. She was sent flying. Her Shield was smashed as she flipped end over end before splatting in the mud.

  Gloria jumped onto the thing’s still-writhing back and stabbed it with her daggers, which did little to no damage. She was thrown off as it continued to buck even without a head. Mack chopped at the thing’s spine with Cutter, finally severing it. Red 25s flowed upwards like reverse rain. The Naga’s health bar dropped to a quarter. Alicia was back on her feet to slam her cudgel into the side of the Naga’s head. She batted off the skull with a massive 50 hit point strike. The Naga fell to the ground in a clatter of bones. Luke’s HUD told him that they had received 200 experience points and ten silver.

  “Where--where the hell did Bonecall get a snake that big to make his Skele-Naga?” Mack gasped.

  “There is an ancient boneyard near the keep. The lord and lady used to hire villagers to dig up the earth to find the remains of magnificent and frightening beasts,” Gloria explained as she sheathed her daggers. “Bonecall, evidently, has been raising them too, to serve.”

  “I heard something about a dragon being there.” Luke swallowed. He had a feeling it was bigger than the wyrmling they had found in the cave.

  Gloria nodded. “But the power required to raise a dragon is greater than it is to kill one. So he has not been successful at bringing a bone dragon back to life. Not yet in any case.”

  Luke grimaced. More dragons. Not good. His tattoos burned. What could he do with the energy of a bone dragon? He didn’t want to know. It seemed so beyond him. And it bothered him that he had the coppery taste of excitement on his tongue at the thought. His eagerness to Drain lives was disconcerting.

  They kept going through the village. The things they saw grew far darker than the Ghoul feeding or the Naga slithering. In one house, they found a runic symbol drawn in blood on the floor with a villager nailed in the center of it, face missing, flies covering the missing flesh like a moving tide. There were the stables that were filled with the demonic horses. Their eyes glowed flame red and they attempted to bite them. They reminded Luke of an Irish folktale he’d heard of the horses who fed on flesh. Luke set them on fire while Cassie and Gloria feathered them with arrows.

  Then there were the Skeletons that erupted from the long-forgotten family cemeteries that Mack and Alicia took out with axe and cudgel. The Ghasts that were crouched around the village’s well, like birds of prey, hissed and spat before charging them in twos and threes. It was only after the battle that Luke limped up to the well and looked down. A young man’s corpse could be seen bobbing in the water at the bottom. The Ghasts had been waiting for him to come out. He’d died instead.

  Luke and the others soon grew numb to the almost constant combat. His bones ached. He still felt the pain of blows even after Christopher had brought him back to full health. The tattoos burned hotter, or so it seemed, every time he killed an enemy but did not Drain it. He lost track of how many Zombies, Ghasts, Ghouls, Skeletons, and even a few more Nagas they faced. Mack passed out jerky, hunks of cheese and stale bread for them to eat. Gloria shared with them her water skin that had a light refreshing drink inside of it that truly seemed to give full health.

  “It’s your mother’s recipe,” she had told Luke.

  His lips had parted, wanting to ask about her, but not daring to. So he’d just taken another gulp of his mother’s potion before handing the skin back. Luke rolled his shoulders, before shifting Dragon’s Claw from one hand to the other. His right hand was numb from having held it so long. He wiped sweat out of his eyes with his left hand. There was only one more home to consider. It was slightly larger than the others. Perhaps it had been the village leader’s.

  “Almost made it to Level 7. What about you
?” Mack asked Luke.

  “Yeah, I think I’ll reach it after the next encounter in there,” Luke stated as he jerked his head towards the larger home.

  In addition to the wealth of experience points, they had received a dozen health potions, three mana potions, several dozen more herbs for Maxina, and 100 silver. Cassie had sniffed when she’d realized the amount.

  “We cannot keep doing the same thing and expecting something different. That way lies madness,” she had groused. “The game’s economy is broken! We’ve got to think of something else.”

  “Such as? I’m guessing you’re thinking of robbery or theft?” Christopher sniffed, his disdain for her idea evident.

  Cassie scowled at him. “You do not get to talk. We’re the ones who have been working our asses off to kill these things while you stand back! You don’t know how much hard work this is! If you did, you’d understand that a little bit of light burglary might just do the trick.”

  Despite having the spells that could affect the undead, Christopher had remained in a support role. Luke hadn’t wanted to pressure him. Besides, there was no need to. They were handling things just fine without his help attacking.

  “One does not have anything to do with one another. That’s false equivalency!” Christopher cried.

  Cassie stomped over to her twin. She pointed to her sweaty forehead, and then gestured to his dry one. “Look at all of us compared to you! We’re sweaty and stinking and really in need of a shower and a brush. But you look as pristine as freaking Legolas after the Battle of Helm’s Deep!”

  “I just… I’m a high elf. That’s how this works.” He shrugged.

  “No! That is not how this works! It’s because you only have to spin your staff rather than actually fight like the rest of us! You just want to stand on the sidelines!” Cassie snapped, and Luke suddenly had a feeling that this wasn’t about the game at all, but something deeper. Maybe about their parents’ divorce. She continued, “Letting other people deal with what’s going on doesn’t make you the strong or noble one! It just makes you the one that can pretend it’s not all happening!”

  “Cassie, I--”

  But she turned her back on him, covering her face with her hands. She rarely cried. He’d seen her do it like once in ten years, but she was crying now. She’d helped him so often, but Luke found himself frozen and tongue-tied at that moment. Christopher gently put his hands on her shoulders.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She angrily wiped tears away, but they kept coming. “I know you are! And… while I meant what I said, it’s this place. Bonecall tortured these people, and anyone should want to undo what he’s done, and take him down. Why don’t you want to?”

  Christopher looked down at the ground. “Because destruction is so easy, Cassie. Creating and tending are hard.”

  “Sometimes you have to destroy things to get to what’s better,” she said. “Sometimes you just have to freaking burn it all down!”

  She tightly wound her arms around herself and walked a little away from all of them. Luke understood her feelings. They mirrored his own. Everything in this village had been hard to take. It was evident that Bonecall had actually enjoyed himself here, twisting living beings into dead creatures that would serve him. It was utterly and completely wrong and needed to be stamped out.

  “It’s getting late,” Mack said after silence had reigned a little too long. “We should finish this up and get out of here. I don’t want to camp in this village tonight.”

  “I agree. One more house and then the forge. Then we’re done for the day,” Luke said, even as the thought of fighting any more exhausted him. But they were so close to completing this quest.

  Everyone nodded. Without anymore discussion, they turned to the final house.

  26

  KEY

  The door to the final house was locked, which wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was when Cassie went to unlock the door, a shaky, elderly male voice rose up behind it.

  “Who is there? Don’t you come in here, or you will regret it!” The voice quavered with fear and age.

  Cassie jumped away from the door with a gasp. Winter made a questioning whine, and crowded close to her. Luke unsheathed Dragon’s Claw.

  Luke spoke, “We’re… adventurers.” He grimaced. That likely sounded like another word for “looters”.

  “Well, there’s no adventuring to be done here! You’d best be off if you know what’s good for you!”

  “We’ve killed everything in the village,” Alicia growled. “Or… re-killed them. There is nothing left to fear.”

  There was silence from behind the door for long moments. Then the voice croaked, “Truly?”

  “Truly,” Luke assured him.

  “There’s nothing for you to kill in here, so you should go!” the voice told them.

  “But there’s something in there that we need,” Mack gritted out.

  “I don’t see--”

  “The key to the forge,” Mack interrupted. He rapped his armored hand hard against the door. “And we will get it. So you can open the door to us, nice-like, or we can bust it down.”

  “Mack!” Christopher sounded scandalized.

  “Don’t ‘Mack’ me! I want my axe! After all this fighting, I deserve it,” Mack said to their cleric, then turned back to the door. “Now, open--”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence as the door shot open, and a wizened face looked out at them. This old man was only about five feet tall with thin strands of gray hair that stood on end as if he had stuck a finger into a light socket. He squinted so much that his eyes appeared to be slits. He had a doughy body covered in faded peasant clothes. The one thing that set him apart from the other peasants was that he had a rather nicer long coat in dark blue around his shoulders. He held in one gnarled hand a hammer that trembled. Luke frowned. He was hardly an imposing figure, yet somehow he had survived when the others hadn’t. How? Or maybe why was the better question.

  “How are you alive when everyone else is dead?” Cassie asked, her eyes narrowing.

  For his part, the man was looking at Winter. “You have a pet wolf?”

  She dropped one hand to the wolf’s head. “Winter is not a pet, but an animal companion. He chooses to be with me. And he would rip apart anyone who tries to harm me.”

  That had been borne out in the battles they had fought. Winter had trounced a Skeleton that had gotten too close to her, ripping its leg off so that Alicia could bash its skull in. It had ripped out the throat of a Ghast who had dared to slash at her. It had tackled two Ghouls that had reached for her.

  “That such a fierce beast acts like a lamb around you bodes well,” the old man said. “Yes, yes, it must be true. You must be the ones. If you cleared the village, and can come as near as this then… yes. My time here might be done.”

  “What is your name?” Gloria did not have her bow out, though her hands drifted near to her daggers.

  “Thomas. Now come inside, and tell me your tale so I can tell you mine.” Thomas turned and hobbled back into the house.

  They followed slowly after him. Christopher paused again in the doorway. He paled again like he had in the forge.

  “Christopher?” Luke asked.

  “Magic. There’s something powerfully magical inside here. It almost… repels, but not quite. I cannot understand it,” Christopher said.

  “Good to know,” Alicia grunted. “Now let’s get in.”

  She shooed them inside the cottage. Christopher stumbled ahead of them, and then hugged the wall. The cottage smelled only slightly better than the ones where the dead had been. Every window was tightly closed. The room was lit by various fat yellow candles that were nearly swallowed by their puddles of wax. It was hardly bigger than those they had killed the monsters in. They stood awkwardly by the door as Thomas pulled out a sack from under his single bed, and began to put his meager things inside of it.

  “The key!” Mack gasped and pointed to the
small table in the center of a room where a stone carving that matched the engraving sat next to a candle. Mack moved to grab it.

  “Stop,” Thomas said softly, and Mack did stop. “You need to know what you are taking there.”

  “You are packing your sack. Where are you going?” Alicia pointed out.

  “I am finally going to be able to leave this place after you take the key. My presence here will no longer be needed,” he explained.

  “You seem very certain we’re the right people to give the key to. Not that we aren’t. We are. But still.” Cassie frowned.

  Luke’s brow furrowed. “I do not understand how you stayed here at all with the undead and other monsters we encountered. Not to mention Bonecall.”

  “The answers to both is the key. It has a powerful magic to repel evil. Denarius had it spelled by the great Queen Nurala herself so that no one of Bonecall’s ilk could get to his secret room beneath the forge, and what lies there.”

  “The axe!” Mack enthused. When there was no response, he qualified, “The weapon of the ancients.”

  “Yes.” Thomas nodded as he stuffed his few clothes into the sack.

  “And you’ve been protecting the key?’ Christopher asked, staring at the key with a look of dread. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

  “Bonecall tried everything to get me to give it to him. Destroyed every soul in the village.” Thomas’ shoulders slumped. “But I knew he’d do just the same--and worse--to them and more if he got his hands on it. The key gives protection. A limited circle of protection.”

  “Not enough to protect anyone else but yourself?” Alicia scoffed.

  “By the time I knew what was happening, there was no chance to bring anyone else inside,” Thomas answered wearily.

  “And you withstood seeing your family, friends, and neighbors turned into monsters?” Christopher looked faint for another reason.

  “As I said, I knew that they were dead already, and so many more would be if I did not resist,” Thomas answered.