[Vicious] Chapter 3
Some hours later, when the sun was high in the sky though hard to see through the large treetops, Rys was on the verge of regretting following Tif on her grand quest.
They had walked far enough that Rys had no idea where their camp had originally been though he could faintly hear the sound of water falling somewhere in the distance. Tif was still smiling at him every now and then, apparently pacified by his admitting of not knowing much about his heritage. She hadn't asked any uncomfortable questions as even his friends were wont to do and instead seemed to be thrilled with the fact that she could talk his ear off about everything involving dark beings and he would listen. Apparently where she came from, fellow goblins had started to tune her out a long time ago.
Eventually, they came upon an old sign, lopsided and the carvings worn enough that he had a hard time figuring out what it said. It was a piece of wood on a metal pole, both leaning towards left though he could see no path. Behind it was just more trees and more darkness.
Tif seemed to think differently as she grinned, looking quite creepy doing it, and continued on with renewed vigor.
He shared a look with Hadyn and followed after her as she veered off to the left following a nonexistent path in a creepy forest. What self-preservation instincts Rys possessed screamed at him that it was a bad idea, but he had promised her and he really had no idea where he was. The forest was huge and he couldn't recognize a thing, despite the fact that it pretty much looked the same everywhere. Big trees with high and dense treetops, making it hard for the sunlight to shine through the leaves and leaving a gloomy atmosphere on the ground. It was the very definition of a Dark Lords creepy home.
At times, Rys could see old swords and other weapons littering the ground as they passed, but most looked old enough that they wouldn't be of much use anymore. One metal shield had an old black symbol etched into it that resembled a dragons head. It was easy to see why Tif thought you needed the protection of the forest in order to survive if the number of old weapons laying around meant something. Once they even passed a large tree with a diameter big enough that Rys wouldn't be able to hug it that had the old runes for 'Death Ahead' carved into it. It didn't exactly seem encouraging.
Rys shivered slightly as they passed a skull on a pike that looked old and disfigured enough that he almost couldn't stand to look at it. At his side, Hadyn nudged him a little when he started to slow down and he gave it a light pat on the back and started drifting towards the skull. As unsettling as it was to look at, he was pretty sure there were words carved into it.
As they had walked further and further into the forest, as he assumed that was what they were doing, the trees and weapons got older and older. The weapons looked ready to fall apart and many of them already had and the trees were bigger while some looked decidedly dead.
The skull, looking half-crushed, sat on the pole and Rys had to bend down in order to get close enough to make out the Old Runes that were written on it. He tried to ignore the question of weather or not the person the skull belonged to had been alive when it had been etched in. It was scary enough already. After concentrating for a couple of minutes he could finally make out what it said, 'Traitor' written with runes that no-one used anymore.
He backed away to where Tif and Hadyn stood waiting for him, both somehow managing to express the same level of impatience, despite one being a wolf and another a goblin.
"Hey, are you sure we're going the right way Tif?”
She glared up at him. "Of course I am! Our Elders were very specific that it came from the older part of the forest, closer to the ruins of the Fortress of Morgan." she explained, sounding pissed that he doubted her.
He gave her a questioning glance, but didn't pursue the matter, sensing she was mad enough that he doubted both her elders and her that she wouldn't explain it to him. Still, he wondered in the back of his mind what the Fortress of Morgan was. It sounded important when she said it in her low voice as if she thought he should know what she was talking about. Maybe it was a goblin thing. She had told him that goblins were a species that held grudges and had a hard time to let go of the past. They tended to cling to things and information they valued, therefor being the only race that still taught about life before the elves came to Meira.
He nodded to himself and again followed after Tif when she gave a huff and started walking on the path only she could see again. Hadyn drifted further away from them but Rys figured the wolf would come and go as it liked anyway and didn't give it much thought. They made their way through the rough patches of grass intermixed with dead grass and roots big enough that they had to go around them. Tif never stopped walking, she seemed to be completely focused on finding this dark presence that she had been ordered to locate.
Rys' cloak brushed roots as he passed them but he didn't stop to examine the old things littering the ground anymore, he had a feeling it'd just make him feel more unsettled. Despite the creepy aura the forest seemed to radiate, it was calm and quiet. There was no sound of birds chirping or footsteps scurrying on the ground. The leaves bristled slightly in the wind, but even that only served to make the forest seem more eerie. As they traveled, more and more grass went from dark green, a color similar to his eyes, to dead and the leaves and trees followed. They were big yes, but they still gave the impression of death.
Even Tif seemed to be able to sense something was wrong as her large brown eyes narrowed and she started slowing down her pace.
"I think we're getting closer." she said to him quietly.
Rys nodded absentmindedly at her and looked around them when they stopped. Dead branches hang down from equally dead trees, the ground was covered by a thin layer of fog and the lack of sunlight made it hard to see far ahead. Evening were starting to fall and the sun was lower in the sky, low enough that barely any light made it as deep into the forest as they were. It gave the view of the forest a decidedly gloomy atmosphere.
He took a deep breath, tightened his hair tail at the base of his neck and flicked the few pale strands of hair hanging around his eyes out of his face. His eyes narrowed as he took a firm step forward and Rys looked down and gave Tif a gentle smile, his long canines only slightly visible.
"Well, come on, you want to get there before night falls, don't you?" he asked her.
She gave a rigid nod in response and walked forwards as well.
Rys shook his head as he resisted the urge to laugh. Despite Tif's decidedly weird looks, disfiguring facial scar and oddly proportioned small body, she still managed to look almost cute when she was serious. However, he had the feeling that if he laughed at her now, even if it wasn't meant in a bad way, she would leave him behind in the forest and continue on her own, leaving him to be forever lost and the elves who cast him out with a victory. Rys may not hate the elves for casting him out, but that didn't mean he wanted them to win. He was determined to show them that he could survive on his own, even if he had to walk through a positively dreary forest to do so with a wolf that still scared the soul out of him half the time and a strange goblin that insisted she was a proper warrior of the goblin race, even though she wasn't yet an adult.
The continued forwards slowly, careful to not get caught on the roots and rocks poking out of the mist covering the forest floor. Tif had to climb over the occasional roots that were to big for her to step over and that she couldn't crawl under. In spite of the fact that it was getting colder the closer to night time it came, she didn't seem to be affected by the weather. All she wore was a dirty cloth around her lower body and Rys still wasn't used to her utter lack of modesty. Regardless, it didn't seem to bother her at all.
In contrast, Rys had dragged his hood up to cover his head in order to keep his long pointy ears from getting cold. It was an uncomfortable feeling.
The closer in they got, the more the fog covered until it was all the way up to his knees, basically burying Tif in it. It was an odd sight to only be able to see the top of her head but she hadn't stopped walking and so he hadn't either.
"So..." Rys began, "do you need me to carry you?"
Tif stopped so suddenly she crashed into his legs when he didn't stop in time to avoid her. "Wha-what?! No! I'm perfectly capable of walking on my own!" she shouted in objection.
"Well I just thought that you'd have trouble seeing where you're going in this fog." he mused. "But if you don't want my help then that's fine."
Tifs body twitched and she let out a loud groan. "Fine." she muttered under her breath, so low he almost couldn't hear her.
She then proceeded to grab a hold of his cloak and clamber up to his shoulders, her feet pressing down on his hips. Rys almost fell over as he tried to balance with her hanging on to the back of his cloak, almost strangling him for a moment before she managed to get a good grip on him. "There," she sniffed. "now keep going straight forward.”
Rys took a hesitant step forward, careful to make sure his feet didn't catch on anything and before he knew it, they were making decent headway into what had apparently been a path once upon a time. He walked slowly, trying not to move suddenly to keep Tif from falling off. Although it felt weird to have her clinging to his back, he figured she was probably starting to get affected by the dim atmosphere and was keeping such a tight grip on his cloak in order to get some comfort without seeming weak, so he didn't protest.
Their walking eventually led them to a large old black metal gate as the trees were getting farther and farther apart. Night was on the edge of falling when he pushed his way though the gate, grimacing when it made a horrible sound as he pulled it open with all of his strength.
He could practically taste the magic in the air. And he wasn't even a magician.
He felt Tif shiver against his back and hide her face in his shoulders. Rys cautiously stepped inside the gate, faintly registering the fact that the fog that had covered the ground for so long now was starting to recede. He slid the knife at his waist into his right hand and gripped it tightly, listening for any sign of a monster close by. A place this full of dark magic was a perfect place for mindless monsters to make home. The energy itself could probably keep them sustained enough that hunger wouldn't bother them when they couldn't eat. It was potent enough that it was all Rys could do not to turn tail and run.
It made the rest of the forest seem like a meadow of daisies.
Hesitant step after hesitant step brought him further into the grounds. The grass was just as dead inside the gate as it had been outside of it and Rys had to put effort into not trembling as he walked. The very air seemed to breathe raw dark magic.
The feeling it gave him was a mix between scared out of his mind and pure paranoia. He swore he could feel someone watching them!
He pulled his hood back down in order to see better and let his enhanced senses out. He stood still, Tif clinging to him with a death grip and flickered his eyes between the shadows that surrounded them, trying to catch a glimpse of what was observing them. He used his ears to listen for the slightest hint that something was coming for them and tried not to show his fear. He was really starting to miss Hadyn now.
And then the magic seemed to press down on them before retreating back, taking the darkness with it. Suddenly the shadows that had seemed so threatening were just that, shadows. And in the wake of the fog and darkness leaving, something else grew visible. Something magnificent.
And it was glorious.
In a terrifying way, of course. This was an old partly dead forest, after all.
The ruins of a fortress stood before him and Rys wondered how the hell he had missed it. It was huge and eye catching, made in black stone with parts entirely caved in and others almost completely intact, as if all you had to do was walk in and you would see a household still operating. Torn banners that were impossible to tell what they had once said hang from high towers, now on the edge of falling over. Pieces of the roof were missing and the double doors of what he assumed to be the main entrance were askew and barely holding on, the wood having long since rotted. The glass of the tall windows were cracked and some had completely fallen off, leaving the fortress with a somber air.
The cloud of magic that had covered them ever since they had entered what was apparently the front garden of the fortress left as quietly as it came and Rys felt Tif relax against him, her hands releasing the tight grip they had had since they had walked through the gate.
Rys felt her gently climbing down from where she had hanged onto to him but he couldn't take his eyes off from the sight in front of him. The hand holding the dagger went slack as he dropped it, not even paying attention to where it landed. It was a useless thing anyway, he was sure he could probably pick up any one of the old weapons in the forest and they would be more useful. He took a shaky step forward, not being able to tear his eyes away from the castle and the faint thought of I wonder where the feeling of being watched went? entered his mind.
Rys didn't dwell on it as he and Tif took cautious steps closer to the large doors covering the entrance. They could probably climb in through the broken parts of it to get inside, but that felt disrespectful to what must have once been an amazing castle and the people that had lived there. Not to mention that what intuition he had was screaming at him that breaking in like that would be a horrible idea.
He got the feeling that the magic would come back and choke them to death if they did anything disrespectful to the fortress.
The forest just got more terrifying every second he spent in it.
After walking some fifty meters, they stopped in front of the doors. Rys carefully put his hands on them and, gripping the metal handles, he pushed as hard as he could. He saw Tif start to push as well out of the corner of his eye when nothing happened. With a grunt and a loud groan, the doors gave way and fell off from the hinges, falling down with a loud thud on the floor behind them.
Rys and Tif blinked simultaneously in shock at how easy they fell down. They had thought it would be much harder to push them open, but apparently even the hinges were in horrible shape after however many years it had been since someone had last been in this place. It was a shame, as the sight of it – even torn and broken as it was – was completely breathtaking.
They glanced at each other, saw that they were thinking the same thing, and went in. Rys stepped through first and it was like walking into another world. The atmosphere was completely different, the very air seemed to vibrate. The magic that swelled outside when they opened the door fell over them, feeling like a thick blanket in a mountain of snow. Rys’ eyes were wide open, their dark color glittering as he looked at the massive room with a large staircase in the center of it. The coloring was just as dark and torn as the outside, yet it seemed warmer somehow. From the roof candles hang down, as if just waiting for someone to light them. There was no dust to be seen, as if it hadn't been abandoned at all.
He could hear Tif gasping in amazement beside him as she stepped inside as well and he had to agree with her. This sight was even more amazing then the waterfall in Light Valley that he could spend hours staring at. There was just something...magical about it.
Rys took another step forwards and slowly picked up speed as he walked on what had once been a carpet. In the middle of the room, he stopped and just stared. Along the sides were massive black pillars, supporting another floor, with characters etched into them. He pulled his cloak off and dropped it on the floor, trying to take in everything he was seeing. Even in Light Valley, he had never been in a place so filled with raw magic. The magic around them were undeniably dark and what most would classify as evil, but he couldn't sense any malice. For even a non-magician like himself to feel it it had to powerful and old.
The most powerful magic he had ever felt.
Even broken as the castle was, it was still a sight to behold.
Tif hurried over to him, huffing as she asked, "Is this where the dark presence is coming from?"
"Undoubtedly." he murmured in response, still turning around to see all of the room.
"So how do we exorcise it?" Tif asked.
"Wha-what?" he stuttered out in surprise. "I'm a blacksmith, I make weapons! What makes you think I would know how to exorcise something this powerful?!"
Tif only stared up at him with large unblinking eyes.
"I mean, this magic is powerful. I've never felt anything this potent! The only way to get rid of it would be for a magician to banish it. Even then, I doubt they would be able to get rid of everything. Some powerful people must have died here for it to still be hanging around and I don't think pissing it off by attempting to banish it would a good idea." he whispered to her, trying to keep his voice low. He had no idea if the magic could understand what he said, but he wasn't taking any chances.
Tif hummed. "I see." she continued, "Well, if you say so. I suppose I need to go report this to the Elders and see what they think about it anyway."
Rys let out a relieved breath when the magic around them, basically drenching them, didn't react to what they had said. He was tense enough as it was, he didn't need the added stress about wondering why magic this old was suddenly this active again. To still be this powerful, it can't have been active this entire time.
He may not be a magician, but he could still read books. One good thing being mostly ignored was good for was that no-one bothered to stop him from reading whatever he wanted, even if it wasn't technically something he should read as it had nothing to do with him and sometimes contained some dangerous knowledge. Elves tended to hoard things that way, even if the knowledge itself was dangerous and it would be better left forgotten, they just couldn't get rid of it, and it remained in their libraries and treasuries.
Free for someone to find and use. They were lucky Rys had no ambitions to be an Overlord, because he had read some horrible things.
"Well," he said. "why don't we spend the night here and continue on tomorrow? Do you think your Elders would like to meet me?"
Tif nodded and said. "Mhm, yes. They would love to meet you. Goblins usually doesn't get out much, I'm sure they would be delighted to meet a Higher Dark Being such as yourself."
— —
Spending the night in an old castle still haunted by the magic of the dead, was in a single word; terrifying.
In the middle of the night, when they had already falling asleep, Hadyn returning woke Rys up and almost scared him to death. He was still on the edge in case the magic changed its mind and decided to suffocate them. So Hadyn sneaking in in the middle of the night – when it was too dark for him to see anything around him as the fire had already been put out – was enough to make him frightened like hell.
He just wasn't cut out for these kind of things. Rys was an reader that made weapons for money and liked to be alone. He did not like to walk around in a supposedly sentient forest haunted by the dead to find old castles still filled with magic to the brink. These kind of things were what heroes and adventurers did, not half-orcs. He had no desire to be a hero or whatever this was shaping up to be.
In the stories about ancient heroes and their good deeds, defeating the evil dragon, killing the bad trolls and winning the war with the orcs and so on, they always had a tragic backstory of loss and suffering, like it was some kind of cosmic joke. The ones that didn't have the textbook tragic past usually experienced tragic events and loses on the quest while attempting to win against the new Dark Lord or whatever. Rys had no desire to be one of those people, his past may not have been the happiest, but it sure as hell wasn't tragic either. The recent events in his life were enough to make him furious, but he had no plans to try to take revenge. His revenge would be to show them that he didn't need them and never had.
Elves were stubborn creatures, they wouldn't acknowledge their wrongs even if it was spelled out to them anyway.
He had no intention of going down that road.
Rys laid down on the cloak that had recently replaced his bed again when he finally determined that it was only Hadyn returning from where-ever he had been and tried to go back to sleep. Hadyn laid down next to him, the wolfs head laying on his chest and Rys felt a smile flit across his face for a few seconds before he went back to dreaming about his childhood and his family in Light Valley. He tried to ignore the ache being away from them left in him and concentrated on happy memories. He would see them again someday, he was sure of it.
— —
Waking up was a chore he would never get used to. Rys was definitely not a morning person, he preferred to sleep in for as long as he could, but the past few days he had been forced to wake up fast once he realized where he was and who he were with. It had not been fun, so the fact that it was taking longer for him to wake up this morning told him that he was starting to get used to Tif and Hadyn and being around them, even if only a little.
It was both promising and unsettling.
He squinted his eyes open as he stared at the sunlight streaming in through the broken parts of the castle. The magic that had surrounded them the night before seemed to have been satisfied with what it found, as its presence was much less restricting today. Rys looked around with groggy eyes to see Tif sitting up some meters away in the big hall, seemingly explaining something to a enraptured Hadyn. Sometimes Rys wondered if the wolf was really only an animal, it seemed far to smart for it and this just highlighted it. He would have to look into it once they left the forest. Assuming Hadyn followed him, that is. This forest was its home, it probably wouldn't want to follow a stranger it had just met out of it.
Rys half-listened to what Tif was saying, something about goblin traditions and a warrior's tournament as he sat up and dragged his hand through his loose hair, it had apparently fell out of its tail during the night. He brushed it away from his face, contemplating cutting it as it reached his waist, but pushed the thought away in favor of getting some food. Although not all elves had long hair, most did as they, like him, had the habit of forgetting to cut it. With everything they did, all the time they had, it wasn't unusual for an elf to have hair down to their knees because they got caught up in a project and forgot to get it cut. It was one of those things that elves never tell anyone else, they let them think it was a fashion they favored or something. Now, people were more shocked when they saw an elf with short hair than long.
His hair had both tangles and ruffles in and Rys settled down against the pillar he had been sleeping next to in order to try to make some sense of it. While he may not care for it, if he left the tangles as it was, it would only be more troublesome later. It was already enough of a pain to fix.
He pulled his hands through the mess that masqueraded as hair and exhaled in despair as tried to fix it. This was what happened when he didn't keep track ot if, it mutinied against him. His pale ash-colored hair was only there to annoy him. An elf's hair was supposed to be like silk, even unbrushed, but his hair was rougher and easier to tangle. His mother used to braid it for him when he was a child, but had stopped after she had had her third child, his younger half-sister. Rys had never managed to learn to plait it by himself and so now it became a mess when he didn't sleep with it in a tail.
Once he was finished, he stood up and made his way to where both Tif and Hadyn were sitting next to a still smoldering fire. He bundled his cloak up on the way there and when he was next to them, he let it fall to the floor only to sit on it. He was worried it was starting to smell, considering how he had treated it the last few days. Usually, he only used it once in a while, when the weather was bad enough that he needed it otherwise it just collected dust in his closet.
It was already starting to look more and more brown then the dark blue it was originally due to the fact that he slept on it on the ground.
"So do you know how to get out of the forest?" he asked Tif.
She nodded. "Yes. The forest is several kilometers deep and we're about as deep in as you can go. It took me almost three weeks to get to where I met you and then there's a mountain behind us as well." she gave him a happy grin as she continued, "But the forest seems to like you so maybe it'll be faster to get out!”
"Yeah..." Rys started, "I'm sure time will pass by so fast it'll seem like no time at all.”
The rest of the morning was spent picking up their things and attempting to push the large double doors back on their hinges as they didn't want to leave the castle that vulnerable. Unfortunately, it seemed as if that ship had already sailed as nothing they did made the doors stay up and they were heavy enough – even halv rotted as they were – that Tif and him only had the strength to try a few times. Eventually, they had to leave it as it was and hope for the best. With the magic that was still hanging around, admittingly less then before, chances were that anyone that attempted to rob the place would get themselves killed.
So they packed up their things and Rys gave one last longing glance back towards the fortress half fallen apart and then they started walking back out, through the dead trees and all. Although it gave off the same eerie feeling as when they entered, it wasn't nearly as frightening this time around, maybe because they had already seen it. Nonetheless, Rys kept his eyes peeled for any surprises of the malicious sort as they traveled. It was still a freaking scary forest after all.
Hadyn once again kept them company as they walked and when lunch came around, even brought back two dead rabbits for them to eat. It was sweet of him so Rys promised that he could sleep by his side again once night fell. He had started to get used to his presence when he was asleep. Oddly enough, it made him feel safer. Not safe, as it was still a giant wolf that could most probably kill him in seconds if it ever felt like it, but safer as he seemed to keep away other monsters. It was something he appreciated as he had never claimed to be a good fighter. When the rage and bloodlust fell over him he was deadly and vicious, but otherwise he didn't really know how to fight.
In bloodlust, there was no time to think, everything was instinctual.
Afternoon came and they finally started to see greener grass and trees that didn't look dead. It hit him as he was walking next to Tif and Hadyn that he had no idea where he was going to go once he was out of the forest. His home was gone, if he ever tried to go back he would only get himself killed and he had no place else to go. He had no friends outside of Light Valley, no relatives he could ask to stay with.
Everything he had ever known was gone and he was alone in a world much more terrifying then he had ever thought. Before this he had never felt magic that dark or powerful before. The only magician that lived in Light Valley practiced mostly healing which was a Light Art and even as powerful as that was, Rys had never been in the presence of it. Before his exile he had never seen a creature as big and terrifying as Hadyn nor a goblin like Tif. He'd barely even read about them.
The gentle breeze of the wind rustled the leaves on the trees and Rys smiled at the beauty of it. The trees were turning slightly smaller and greener as they got further and further away from the fortress and Rys felt his body shiver in response to the feeling thinking about the castle gave him. There was just something about it, something aside from its obvious magical presence and magnificence. There was something he was missing, he could feel it, something that should be obvious. Well, he thought, it would come to him eventually. All he had to do was wait.
They had a forest to leave and a goblin cave to find. He got the impression it wasn't going to be as easy as Tif thought it would be. Ah but, wasn't that the fun of it?
Well, Rys thought, at least I won't get bored.