by Hugo Huesca
Alder stood in front of him, his forehead covered in sweat and his cheap tunic torn to rags, but very much alive, and relatively unhurt.
“I thought we had lost you,” the Bard told Ed while extending him a hand to help him up. “But Lavy insisted that competent Dungeon Lords are harder to kill than that.”
“She thinks I’m competent?” asked Ed. He accepted Alder’s hand and propped himself up.
“Not exactly. She said either you’re a competent Dungeon Lord and you would survive, or you would die and we would be rid of a weak Lord.”
“Charming.” Ed glanced at his surroundings. He and Alder couldn’t have been more than a mile away from the cave. Ed had lost his footing when he and Kes reached the top of a rugged rise in the terrain. He could see the path he had left while sliding on the ground.
Seems like the drones brought us back in a straight line, not taking terrain into account, he thought tiredly. In that case, using the creatures as guides wasn’t the best idea. If they had reached a precipice instead of a hill…
He caught a glimpse of Kes’ legs protruding from a nearby bush. She seemed to be just coming back to herself, and she was cursing like a sailor. Ed could guess why. The bush was very thorny.
“Where is Lavy now?” Ed asked. Klek was missing as well.
“Ah, well, she and Klek are headed back to the cave,” Alder said. “To deal with Klek’s former batblin cloud, you see. We ran into them not even five minutes ago. I stayed here in case you made it back.”
“Ah, all right, then,” Ed said, and sighed. “The batblin cloud. More mobs. That’s exactly what I wanted to do right now, deal with more mobs.”
He glanced nervously at the hilltop. There was nothing stopping Amphiris and her kin from rushing down and attacking him here, in open space.
Ed hurried to help Kes up, anxious to reach the relative safety of his dungeon.
“Mob? Spiders aren’t that organized,” Alder said.
16
Chapter Sixteen
Sephar's Bane
Ed ordered his four remaining drones to carry Alvedhra again, since Kes looked as exhausted as he felt. The mercenary didn’t complain, though. Instead, she marched next to the Ranger’s body, giving Ed and Alder gloomy glances every now and again. Since she was now his minion, and he was thirsty for information about the world, he flashed his Evil Eye at her when she wasn’t looking and took a fast glance at her stats, without actually reading the descriptions.
Kessih of Greene
Species: Half Avian
Total Exp: 432
Unused Exp: 22
Claims: Peregrine of the Cardinal Command Army (Revoked), Citizen of the Volantis Enclave (Former).
Attributes
Brawn: 15
Agility: 14
Endurance: 14
Mind: 11
Spirit: 9(+1 Minion of Dungeon Lord Edward Wright)=10
Charm: 8 (+1 Minion of Dungeon Lord Edward Wright)=9
Skills
Melee: Improved (IV)
Swordsmanship Focus: Improved (IX)
Survival: Improved (V)
Military Discipline
Knowledge (Volantis Enclave): Basic (VI)
Flight: Advanced (VI)
Drill Instructor: Improved (III)
Hunting: Basic (IX)
Tactics: Basic (VII)
Talents
Cleave: Improved
Power Strike: Improved
Shield-Master: Basic
Improved Sight
Regeneration: Basic
Improved Metabolism
Resist Disease: Basic
Resist Environment: Basic
Avian Bone Density
Dungeon Minion - The owner is a Minion under the command of a Dungeon Lord. The Minion receives bonuses according to the Lord’s power and is recognized by all the Lord’s dungeon as an allowed entity (unless otherwise specified).
That’s a lot more skills and talents than what Alder or Lavy have. Or what I have, for that matter. Still, there’s something strange about her. From what I’ve seen about the cost of talents, since she has four hundred experience points she should have quite a few more talents. And what’s up with those claims of hers?
He would have to take a closer look at her stats later on, see if he could figure it out. One of those skills was different from the others, he was sure of it. But, before he could look again, he was interrupted.
“What’s the deal with her attitude?” asked Alder.
Ed explained how the mercenary wouldn’t trust him with Alvedhra, and how they had ended up forging a pact.
“I can see why she didn’t like it,” said Alder. “Besides, you know, pledging her life to the living embodiment of the Dark and all that. From her perspective, it looks like you took advantage of her feelings for Alvedhra to recruit her.”
“I can just break the pact, right?” asked Ed. He shrugged. “I’m not forcing anyone to remain by my side, much less if they don’t want to be.”
Alder winced in a way that didn’t forebode anything good. “I mean…yeah, you can end the pact at any time, as long as you don’t end it because you’re planning to break the conditions of it. You would have to wait awhile in that case, let your minion have a heads-up. But…”
“But, what?”
No, Ed really didn’t like the way Alder coughed and refused to answer. Instead, the Bard said, “Well, it’s complicated…”
“We have all day.”
“I’ll tell you why it’s complicated,” said Kes, loudly, without moving from her spot by Alvedhra’s side. “I’ll even assume you don’t know this already and aren’t simply feigning ignorance.”
Ed looked at her expectantly.
“Sephar’s Bane,” she said. “That’s why—whatever happens—I will never be able to return to Heiligian lands, or see Alvedhra again. That’s the price you asked of me, Dungeon Lord, and I won’t easily forget it. This pact of ours won’t allow me to lie to you, so here’s my truth. Once I know what your dark designs are, I will oppose them at every turn, as little or as much as my status as your minion lets me, even if it ends up costing me my life, even against the threat of torture—”
“Fine,” Ed waved his hand dismissively. He was tired of trying to explain himself to the mercenary. “Sure, you do that. But tell me, first, what is Sephar’s Bane and why its smell was enough to make Amphiris angry enough to risk her own life against us. You can do all those other things afterward.”
Kes scowled at the way Ed ignored her oath, but after a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Mindbrood. That was—is—Sephar’s Bane.”
“I’m listening,” said Ed. “Before you keep going, you should know I’m not from Ivalis, but from a different world called Earth. We have no magic—no Objectivity—there. I don’t know your culture, nor your customs, geography, or monsters. Imagine you’re talking to a five-year-old…just don’t be too condescending.”
“I see,” said Kes, dubiously.
“I can vouch for him,” Alder told her. “My own pact involved him not lying to me.”
“So you say, Bard,” she said. “Don’t think I’ve not noticed you’re a Heiligian man in service of a Dungeon Lord. A traitor once can be a traitor again. And I’m not one to trust the word of a Bard.”
Alder shrugged. If Kes’ words had been an insult, he had either hid his reaction well or he truly didn’t care.
“The mindbrood is one of the most terrible creatures to crawl out of the Wetlands,” said Kes. She made a gesture with her index finger and her thumb, to indicate a size no bigger than a slug’s. “It starts life being quite small, and will spend days crawling around, starving, looking for a host. A giant spider is a favorite prey of theirs, but humans do nicely, too. When they find an unsuspecting host, they crawl through an ear, or their mouth, or their nose. Really, any orifice will do. They travel through the host’s body until they reach the skull, and then they feed on their brains. Slowly.”
Goosebumps
traveled down Ed’s back, and that had little to do with the cold. He could picture a slime-covered slug, inching toward a sleeping man’s ear, closer and closer…
And yet, Earth had brain parasites. They were nasty, yes, but hardly warranting such a reaction from the spiders and Ed’s companions.
“Then what happens?” he asked aloud.
“It’s hard to explain, since I’m not a medic,” Kes said. “During this part of its life, the mindbrood’s body is…like a hard, sticky jelly. As it feeds on the host’s brain, it grows, and it molds itself to fit the empty space it just cleared.”
Alder distractedly covered his ear with one hand, like he was protecting it from unseen parasites.
“But that’s not all it does,” Kes went on. “As it molds, it also replaces the parts of the brain that it just ate, bit by tiny bit. That’s what the jelly of its body is built to do, understand? According to the Church’s Clerics and doctors, the brain contains a person’s memories and thoughts. Those should be gone after the mindbrood eats them, but aren’t. Instead, they are copied by its body, and the victim never suspects a thing. They can still think, they lose no memories…they never realize they’re slowly being replaced, that each passing moment they become less and less, until they just wink out. Leave a mindbrood to feed, and in a couple weeks all that’ll be left is a body controlled by a slug hiding in the skull, thinking it’s still the person it just ate.”
“That’s insane,” Ed whispered. He remembered how Kharon had spit a black heart out of his body, how Ed had the alien thing beating right now in his chest. Would he even notice if his brain was being eaten right now?
Fuck you, Murmur, he thought grimly.
“And that’s not all,” said Kes. “That’s just part of the mindbrood’s life-cycle. You see, the monster thinks it is its own victim, but all the original instincts are still there. Inside the skull, the slug matures, loses its jelly-like quality, then it hardens. Becomes a cocoon. When the time is right, when enough food is nearby, it hatches. It feeds on its former body, and on anyone or anything close enough. It grows strong, becomes a creature capable of making any Inquisitor fear for their life. And then it lays eggs, somewhere with lots of living animals, and the cycle stars anew…”
Hundreds of tiny slugs crawling in a dark night, slowly bridging the distance into an unsuspecting village, through open windows, through straw beds, sliding wetly through an open mouth…perhaps a child’s mouth, who just an hour ago was playing with their brothers and sisters, and now would wake up with something slowly replacing them, slowly eating their conscience and they would never know…
Ed placed a hand over his mouth and tried to push back nausea.
“I can see why the spiders went insane, if they thought I had brought one of those with me,” he said.
Then he went pale. He had an unknown entity functioning as a heart. Sure, it didn’t fit Kes’ description, but maybe…?
Murmur said there wasn’t a hidden part to our deal. Only our bet, he reassured himself, though with little success. A ‘he said’ wasn’t a convincing enough reason to assume Ed wasn’t infected.
And if he was, he would never know until it was too late.
“Tell him about Sephar,” said Alder, whose expression was as ashen as Ed’s.
“He was a Dungeon Lord,” the mercenary said. “A long time ago, before my mother was born. Not a powerful one, like Dantal or Zailos were in their time, but he was cunning, and he was cruel. He built his dungeons close to human cities and raided the cities frequently. He liked to take hostages—women and children—to force the city to pay tribute to him to ensure their safety. He did this for many years until Heiliges had had enough. The Inquisitors reunited a contingent of heroes and adventurers and struck all of Sephar’s dungeons at once. They imprisoned the Dungeon Lord, and they released the captives, reunited them with their families. Sephar had lived too close to Heiliges cities, he had nowhere he could hide, no secret base he could retreat to. People thought that was the end of it.”
Oh, no…
“Except, during his youth, before he became a Dungeon Lord, Sephar had been a Ranger. An explorer once hired him to lead a team to approach the Vast Wetlands—there are still people stupid enough to try to get close to the unending swamps, but they almost never return. This one was no different. They all died…except for Sephar, who returned to civilization with a Lordship mantle, and a single mindbrood’s egg doused in sleeping potions to keep it from hatching.”
“The hostages,” Ed muttered. Women and children, Kes had said. Sephar liked to take women and children hostage.
“Indeed. Investigations later on suggested that it was part of the contract between Sephar and the Dark entity that had granted him his mantle. Every single hostage was infected with a mindbrood, Edward. Down to the last little girl. A slug eating at their brains, tiny bite by tiny bite. When the Inquisitors found the hostages, they were all drugged by sleeping potions. No one suspected a thing. They thought Sephar just wanted them drugged so they wouldn’t cause any trouble. Instead, once the potion wore off, the mindbroods kept eating, and they hatched by the hundreds in the unsuspecting population of three different cities, and a dozen villages.”
“What happened then? Could the Inquisitors stop them?” Ed asked.
“Even a single mindbrood is enough to cause a terrible outbreak,” Kes said. “The magic required to identify a person infected by one is rare in Heiliges. The creature thinks it’s the real person, at least until it’s too late, so it can naturally fool the Light’s detection. After all, a parasite is not Dark-aligned, not even this one. It’s but an animal, acting by instinct. In short…it was a massacre. The monsters waited in the shadows at every corner, hiding everywhere. Sewers, abandoned houses, mansions, castles, basements, wells…you name it. Laying their eggs, bringing victims to their nests. Every time the Inquisition thought the outbreak had been contained, entire families hatched again.”
Alder flicked a bead of sweat away from his forehead and added, “It was worse than that. At first, no one knew what was going on. Sometimes, even today, monsters manage to slip past a city’s defenses and attack the populace. Back then, people simply left the city until the guard or some handy heroes had killed all the monsters and it was safe to return. A werewolf or two can’t do damage if they can’t find anyone to bite, after all. When the mindbroods started hatching, many townsfolk went to hide in nearby villages or in the countryside. And then the monsters among them hatched…”
Kes nodded grimly, and said, “The entire tragedy lasted almost two months. News about the bloodbath reached even the Volantis Enclave, and it shook my people to the core. It was feared, back then, that the entire kingdom of Heiliges risked extinction. It didn’t help that other Dungeon Lords used the confusion to make their own power-moves. The only way the Inquisitors could stop the brood was to kill every suspect, infected or not, and burn their bodies. I’m talking entire cities, Edward. Whole villages, put to the sword, and set aflame afterward. Men, women, children, the elderly. Everyone. Not even the nobles or the rich were spared. The Inquisitors killed even the settlements where no mindbroods had been discovered, just because they were close to a single outbreak. Only this brutality allowed Heiliges to survive, and it hasn’t been the same ever since.”
“The Culling, we call it,” said Alder. “We don’t like to talk about it, even if almost all who lived it are dead today. The fear is still there—that even by speaking about it we may end up rekindling it. It’s not probable, though. Safety measures are different, nowadays. Better. There are protocols that every peasant child is required to learn as soon as they are able to walk. The Inquisition has better tools, more knowledge, new spells. And less mercy. If necessary, it will quarantine an entire city, close the gates, keep anyone from wandering off.”
“And kill them all again, if it comes to it,” added Kes.
“More would die if we didn’t.”
The mercenary shrugged. “I’m not saying I w
ouldn’t do the same in Heiliges’ place. I just want our Lord here to know what he got himself into. Edward, as you can imagine, Heiliges wasn’t happy with the Dungeon Lord. Sephar was subjected to the worst tortures imaginable, drawn out for as long as the best healers in the kingdom could manage. And when Sephar’s mind was so broken that torture wasn’t effective anymore, they tossed him into a brood-filled pit. They feasted on his brain at will, and days later the pit was set on fire. In the end, his own monsters destroyed him, see? That’s why the mindbroods are called Sephar’s Bane.”
“Yes, I can see that,” said Ed. He glanced at the mercenary’s ashen face. “Is this why you can’t return to Heiliges? There’s no mindbrood here that I’m aware of. Amphiris had the wrong person, unless Murmur is known to lie during his pacts. Kharon assured me my mind would be left intact, and the creature you describe definitely doesn’t.”
“They don’t lie, even if they like to stretch the truth a bit,” explained Alder. “If they did, only fools would accept the mantle.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Kes. “Don’t you understand? It’s not enough that entire cities are quarantined under threat of mindbrood, it’s the way people think of Dungeon Lords! They’re dangerous maniacs, willing to perform the worst brutalities to please their gods! Heiliges doesn’t rescue hostages anymore; they have seen what a Dungeon Lord can do by abusing mercy and compassion. Anyone captured by a Dungeon Lord is presumed dead, and if encountered, will for sure be dead. The Inquisition won’t take risks anymore. This not only applies to hostages, but to minions, as well. Anyone who pacts with a Dungeon Lord will share their fate, no mercy allowed. Even after the pact breaks, the crime is never forgotten. If your Bard or I ever stumble into a Heiligian’s path, it will be their duty to send the Inquisition our way! Hell, it should be Alder’s duty to put an end to his own life, just because of the taint of his association with you. That, is Sephar’s Bane. And you’re tainted, Dungeon Lord, no matter where you come from, whether you want it or not. The mantle is crime enough to have you and yours executed, and nothing you ever do will be able to change that!”