---

---

A lonely knight trailed the lands of ashen mist and bone. His path; endless, silent, reaching far to the shaded horizon and further still. A thin mist had befallen the days of pale light, the starless sky offering no respite from the nights of bitter cold. Yet still he walked through those empty valleys and crypts thick with darkness, crossing the paths of all manner of horrors of the darkest kind from the deepest recesses of one’s mind. Persistent was his gait, unfailing in the face of adversity most severe; a wall of immovable steel in the tide of unstoppable hells and worse. Many had seen him pass by, a figure in the distance, his unblemished armour glittering faintly in the eternal twilight; over so many years he had become a spectacle to spectators from afar. Weary souls had chosen to follow the Turncloak Blade in vain, only to be torn from their very bones by the foul demons lurking within every shadowed corner. Some had chosen to cross his path, and those very same beings had suffered a fate that some would consider worse. The mornings following such fruitless encounters were marked by the knight dragging his freshly bloodied halberd behind him, leaving a trail of deep crimson in the dirt for miles upon miles.

His heading was unknown, but seemed to be always toward the static star glowing faintly in the dull amber sky. Obscuring the haggard source of light was an eternal mountain, utterly unreachable, towering within an illogical scale that seemed impossible yet starkly beautiful all at the same time. No doubt many souls had tried their hand at the impossible journey, but none as mighty as he. Perhaps his maddeningly dilapidated mind saw fit to carry him along the dark pilgrim’s path that so many before him had attempted…



He had emerged from a blackened forest not two nights prior, a place where the twisted quagmire of fear and panic permeated the very canopy, yet coupled with a contrasting ghostly quiet that seemed to resonate with the vastness of the place. Few survived their senseless treks through the fevered verdancy, many strung from the dying branches by a force entirely unseen. The sun had not once moved since he could once again see it sitting on the horizon, but this gave him a reliable heading — not that he needed one: the mountain was visible during the darkest nights as if it were the moon itself. Amazingly, he had been unmolested for the last thirteen turns of the light, but he knew that it would not last.
He came to rest at a small rocky outcrop at the side of the valley, half-hidden behind a bizarre growth that resembled a thorny bush. It swayed as if it were wracked with a slight, erratic breeze, despite the eerie lack of winds in that cruel land. He did not need to rest his feet, nor drink from a half-full pigskin that sloshed from side to side with a questionably coloured liquid; he simply stopped so the sound of his own footsteps would not fill his aural faculty. He needed to listen, his progress depended on such; he could no longer afford to cast his memories to the night, they were no longer expendable. He could only remember a single aspect of who he was once, a thought that gnawed at his remaining conscience by the day.



He knocked on his head twice in some vain attempt to push the poison memory back; or perhaps in a gambit to recall any other details. It was there, just on the tip of his mind, like a half remembered dream.



Who was the face he could see in blurs and flashes of light? Whose voice soothed him so? Even now when all was lost?



He clenched his eyes in frustration. He did all he could to remember any remaining detail in any amount of clarity, but there was no respite in this land. He embedded his halberd in the sand, retrieved it and repeated once more. His mind bounced back and forth in patterns of erratic madness and fear; internally there was chaos, externally there was silence. He knelt toward the dusty sun with his head bowed as though he were praying. Perhaps to some observers, he would have been seen to be crying, perhaps praying? Maybe his time was nigh and he desired answers above all else? Why had he been refused to this land of countless sorrows; what foul deeds had he committed in his life from before to warrant this destruction of a human soul? Why–

His thought process was halted abruptly, and he lifted his head, the weight of his helm growing heavier by the day. Footsteps. The sound of a man kicking the befouled sand. Tap. Tap. Tap.
He pushed himself to his feet, raising tall, his shadow long in the eternal twilight.

“Stop,” He started without ever looking back to catch sight of his unwelcome guest.

The footsteps did not stop. They grew louder, closer.

“Stop,” he repeated.

There was a moment of silence, where there was not even a wind to distract from the moment.

“W-why” a maddened voice asked. “Why! Why! Why! Tell me why!”

The Turncloak Blade slowly pivoted so he could sum up the potential assailant. The man was short, standing no taller than five and a half feet at a push, a shattered short sword clumsily pointed toward the Turncloak’s mass, tattered leather barely covering his bony frame. He must have frozen on the coldest nights, he had likely been killed many a time before simply by the icy wrath of the world.

“Why! Why!” He cried again, tiny specks of almost dried spittle shooting from his cracked lips with the enunciation of every syllable, no matter how mad.

“Which King do you serve?” The Turncloak asked seemingly without consideration. The directness of his query silenced the madman unexpectedly and they shared yet another moment of quiet before it was once again broken.

“I- I- I don’t serve! No King! No King!” the madman screamed without any sense of restraint.

Such a statement was all the Turncloak needed to hear, and with one foul motion he brandished his demonically sharp halberd and twisted while extending his arm, a slight flick of the wrist drove the steel between the eyes of the Kingless Madman, causing the halberd to grind to a halt within his flesh with a sickening thud. The body went limp, the shattered short sword clanged against the sand, and for a foul moment, the body was suspended only by its marriage with the Turncloak’s weapon. The gaping wound spread, and the body gently slid to the ground, collapsing into a lifeless pile; blood pouring from the devastating gash. He wiped the weapon upon the leathers of the slain man, fastened the haft upon his backplate, and turned his eyes to the looming valley’s sweeping sides and countless concealing details. Who else was lurking, awaiting their chance?

Let them try, he thought. Let them come.

He righted himself and continued his quest to the mountain.

After waking in this strange land, Rook had made his way through the forest and rested at a smaller stone that once could have been a shrub of some kind to drink a small portion of his water and eat a scrap of dried meat from his pack after feeding Artimus as well. After the short rest, he had began his trek through the forest yet again with Artimus watching over him from above.

Along the way, Rook spotted something in the distance and instinctually fell into a crouch behind a tree, signaling Artimus to land. The hawk landed on one of the stones a few feet from her master’s position. Rook leaned out carefully, examining the shape he saw; it wasn’t moving and seemed to hold the shape of a hare. The taste of salted meat made its way back into his mouth as he pulled his crossbow up to aim at the small creature, but he hesitated and then lowered the bow. It would be a waste to shoot it when he could just Artimus swoop down and kill the unsuspecting animal for him. So, with another signal from her master the great hawk launched herself from the stone and dove down at the hare, talons bared.

Her talons struck out as she neared the small animal, closing around it in preparation to scoop it up in one fluid motion. It would have been a beautiful and graceful kill, but her talons struck stone. The force of the hit sent the hawk spinning head over bottom to the ground away from the stone shape. Rook threw caution to the nonexistent winds and came out from his hiding spot and ran to the hawk. He crouched down next to her and began examining her for any injuries, but she seemed to be fine, other than a bruised ego and some slight disorientation. The hunter stroked the head of the hawk to comfort her when something moved behind him, unseen and unheard as his full attention was on the wellbeing of his companion.

Something in the shape of a man pulled himself free from one of the stones, breaking pieces of rubble from his arms and shoulders. He was clad in what once must have been polished mail, but now the mail hung in rusted portions about his dilapidated frame. He stepped forward and leaned down to grab hold of the piece of stone Artimus had attempted to kill and pulled it free of the ground below; it was but the top piece of an old helm in the same condition as the thing’s armor. Sliding the helm over his scarred features, the rusted warrior pulled what was left of a claymore from its sheath.

The sound of the age-old remnants of sword sliding from the haggard sheath is what caused Rook to turn from Artimus. With a mighty swing, the rusted warrior swung his claymore at the hunter. He attempted to move out of the way of the blow, but wasn’t fast enough; the sword cut into his arm and sent him rolling across the ground. Rook had barely pulled himself into a crouching position when the warrior charged him down, screeching, “You stole her! You stole her! She was mine! Mine!”

The rusted warrior kicked Rook square in the chest as he charged, slamming him into one of the stones. He brought his rust-caked sword to Rook’s throat and stared him in the eye. His assailant seemed to be in so much pain and confusion. He made to pull the blade across Rook’s throat, but Artimus soared through the air and struck out at the knight’s head, screeching and clawing. Rook took the opportunity to regain his footing and pull the axe free from his belt. He ran at his attacker and swung the axe at it wildly, but his blow was caught by a portion of armor still clinging to the berserker. With a lucky flail of his arm, the rusted warrior sent Artimus away and aimed another swing at Rook, who was able to narrowly duck under the blow, but his wound was taking its toll and slowing him down.

“She was mine,” the warrior screeched again before slamming its shoulder into Rook’s chest and toppling him over. He made a grab for his axe, but the warrior stomped down, hard on the hunter’s wrist. He heard a sickening crack come from his wrist; it had shattered under the weight of the armor-clad foot of his crazed attacker. The warrior twisted his foot over the wrist painfully and knelt down so he was face to face with his prey. Rook could now see the man’s face once again and the pain behind the eyes barely visible behind the helm of rusted steel. The warrior pressed his face closer to Rook’s and whispered, “She was mine. You… stole her.” There was the sound of metal cutting through air, a sharp pain in his chest, and then nothing.

He awoke with a gasp, taking in sweet air and filling his lung. He sat up quickly and looked around. He was alone in a circle of stones resembling trees, no not alone; a hawk fluttered down and landed on the ground next to him. She nipped at his finger affectionately. Artimus, she was the only thing he knew in this land. Other than her, he just had flashes of scenes from what must have been his life before this place. With a groan, Rook stood and began walking again, intent on getting out of this strange forest of stone.

”How long… how long have I been here? A week? No way of knowing. I just have to keep going. This forest… or whatever it is goes on forever. Am I going to end up like that… thing? How am I still here? It killed me, ran its sword through my chest. The rip in my shirt is there. I still have Artimus,” his thoughts beat against the inside of his skull relentlessly as he trudged through the forest of stone. His footfalls were slow and measured as he tried to walk with as much grace and softness as he could muster, not wanting to alert anything nearby of his presence. Artimus soared through the air overhead, ever watchful over him in this strange land. He kept his crossbow loaded and ready at all times now, ready for anything that could live in the place he found himself in. It was impossible to determine how long he’d been walking through the stone forest after he had awoken there.

He came to a halt next to one of the trees of stone, looking out over the land beyond this forest at long last. Looking out at the unknown land, he swore he could see something on the horizon. A mountain maybe? Or a castle? No way of knowing unless he made his way there. It was better than wandering through the forest of stone.

An unmistakable visage in the distance, the black knight with a massive halberd trekked through this hellish world without pause. As days passed, doubts grew within Maldron. With the very few memories remaining with him, and the old ones not coming back, the though of this being an elaborate test has vanished. Death has finally welcomed him to her domain, where Maldron sent so many others. Disappointment could be almost seen in his face - for being a bringer of death, he expected a grander welcome. Or any welcome at all. In an afterlife so alien and bizarre, he was lost and without a goal.

This uncertainty, the lack of direction distressed Maldron. He was a weapon without direction, without a master. A sword lost and forgotten, yet retaining it's deadly edge. Maldron already saw what happens after "dying" here. And most likely experienced it several times, though there was no way to tell. He could barely remember his awakening, but not much past that, or how he got here, tracking this black knight.

Why? Why was he even doing that? The knight was a formidable opponent, cutting down everything in his path. Where was he heading? Towards this strange mountain in the distance? No matter how long he walked towards it, the ominous mountain didn't get any closer. While the assassin was sure no one suspected his presence, he could not hide forever. Nothing to lose, since Maldron never had anything in the first place. Might as well sate that ever growing curiosity. It would also be a good opportunity to observe the black knight, find any potential weakness in his armor, patterns in his swings. The assassin was also rather looking forward to having a conversation with someone, maybe.

Breaking his cover, Maldron increased his pace, even as he saw the knight decapitate some poor soul. He couldn't hear the words they exchanged, nor he cared. Even if the knight was hostile, losing what remains of himself didn't seem so bad. Trying to guard what remains of yourself was bothersome and counterproductive for a weapon.

And yet, he was not alone taking interest in the knight. As inconspicuous as possible, Maldron walked at a brisk pace towards the knight and past the man's corpse which will soon vanish, and be reformed somewhere nearby later. Curiosity killed the cat, but will it be able to kill Maldron?

He wasn't satisfied, not one bit. The entire picture was just wrong, as if it didn't quite fit the image before him. The shoddy stool he was seated in was slightly cocked forward, maybe that was it? John shut his eyes, knowing that wasn't the problem. The trees just weren't focused enough. They were more than just broad shapes, but concentrating on them proved difficult. Something bothered him each time, distracted him from applying any sort of details to the dead behemoths.

A small cabin was just visible ahead, maybe twenty or so paces. It was worn down, yes, but it was his shelter in the storm and several days had been spent there without any sort of disturbance, leaving him free to do whatever he wanted. The house's stores had procured quite a bit after busting in a plank to a hidden cache. The bread was slightly moldy and stale, the meat dry, but it was food.

Most of his time had been spent drawing. He had only small fragments of memory, but apparently he had been quite the artist. He enjoyed it. Sitting there in silence, the only sound being the scratching of the quill on the dusty old paper of his journal. It both passed the time and helped him forget the loneliness and despair that usually plagued him. That, and his mind was failing. After nineteen days on this strange land, it felt harder and harder to grip the scraps still in his mind.

Drawing them helped. An image that would last longer than he would in this place. Even though he had used many pages so far, the tome was huge, and at this rate would last him years. The world was strange, filled with many interesting things. Just looking through it would reveal great towering giants, ghastly visions in the mist, and vast catacombs begging to be explored. Most of them were taken from a distance. It wouldn't do for him to be killed by some monster, and at any sign of danger, John usually turned tail and ran for his life.

That was what he would've done, had it been a roar or a growl. No, it was voices. Something he hadn't heard before. Not in this world he hadn't.

John found himself at a staggering run, only grabbing the journal and clutching it in his hand as he ran. The voice was strange, but it was distinct and clear and it was almost like music. Something was unsettling him, though. The voice kept repeating, ”She was mine! You stole her!” as if there was another person. Maybe there was another person? It was getting louder as he got closer, and stranger until he finally burst into a clearing.

There was… something. Armored in what once had been quality mail that had now rusted, was the form of a man. He couldn’t quite get all of the features of the haggard berserker that now stooped over someone. A terrified man with a beard was beneath him, a pair of mismatched horrified eyes that complemented a crooked nose. Of course, as soon as John arrived, the claymore was swung, and bright red blood spurted out, covering the rusted warrior.

He fell onto his knees from the sheer surprise, his eyes wide open at the shock. The first person he would have met in this hell, killed before his eyes. He felt like vomiting up the breakfast of slightly burned hasher of meat he had, but nothing came. The rusted warrior, now in full view, looked strange as it walked slowly back towards its resting place, settling down into the dead dirt. It looked like a mummified corpse, skin stretched taut against the thin bones.

The harsh beating of wings caught his attention as he looked up. A bird. A damn bird taking flight from the ground, flying up into the air as if it knew something. It looked like a hawk. All John knew was that it would take him where he needed to go. John would grab his things and follow it, regardless of where it took him. That, and he would leave the restless dead alone.

Jasper stopped his descent down the rocky hillside as he felt a tug on his chest. Sighing he turned around and saw his unwilling companion stuck in an opening between two rocks. "Runt! Yer stuck again?" He called out to the demon. A flare of light was his answer and he shook his head. "I'm comin'." He muttered, staring at the jagged rocks he had very carefully climbed down. He had done his best to avoid slipping on the spear points and plummeting to his death.

He looked toward the bottom of the hill, so close was the soft looking ashen sand. His feet felt like they were ripped to shreds and he didn't dare look down at them as he started to climb back up to 'Runt'. He have given the demon that name for no other reason than because it seemed to enrage it more than normal. It deserved it for it's behavior and attitude. From what he understood, they were very much stuck with each other. If they grew too far apart then it would become physically painful for them both. Something he learned and never forgot after growing frustrated with the creature and throwing it into a hole.

The pain he felt had been so agonizing that he couldn't move, couldn't even scream. He had laid there shuddering and writhing until his heart stopped beating. Then he died. He knew he did not just passed out, he had died. When he awoke again with Runt sitting on his chest and glowering at him and seeing nothing had changed, he realized he was in the afterlife.

Before that moment he hadn't thought he was dead. From his hazy memories he thought he had merely been taken away from his home and from his...Sister? Daughter? He had been wandering the wasteland with the hope that he was making his way home, making his way to answers of who he was. He hadn't been though. He had never been close.

The realization had crippled him and he hadn't wanted to get up from where he awoke. What would have been the point? There was no point. He was dead. Why not just lay in the dirt like the corpse he was?

It had been Runt that encouraged him to get up. The demonic creature had tugged on his sleeve, scratched at him and nudged him with his head non-stop for hours on end. As the creature persisted a thought occurred to him. Maybe Runt knew something he didn't? What if he was trying to lead him somewhere?

The small chance of hope, any hope at all in this nightmare land had reignited a fire inside him.

Jasper hissed when a jagged bit of rock cut across his palm. Sweat dripped down his brow, causing some of the grime on his face to streak in dark lines. "Almost...there!" He grunted, reaching up to grab another rock. He started to pull himself up by it and then he heard a crack. There was a brief moment of free fall before his back slammed into a rock at an angle, causing his body to slip off and tumble down the unforgiving hillside.

Panic swept through him as he tried to catch himself on something, anything to stop the painful descent. He felt his head hit a small rock and felt a crack before darkness.

===

Jasper awoke with a gasp, his eyes opening wide and looking up at Runt, sitting on his chest and staring at him as always. "...What?" He asked the demon defensively, holding out his hands. "Yer the one tha' got stuck." Runt growled at him before looking down at his chest and pawing at the hole in his tunic. "The stone?" He put his hands on his chest and pulled the fabric so Runt could see the damned thing. "'s fine. See?" It looked the same as always, right down to the little crack in the polished surface.

The fire or whatever it was that made up Runt's body flared and it jumped off to stalk away.

“‘Ey, don’t be miffed with me. I didn’t do anythin’ wrong.” Jasper mumbled, pushing himself up from the soft sand. At least they were at the bottom. He rubbed his hand over his head to shake out the sand in it, his eyes fixated on the hillside. His rust colored eyes traveled up until they looked at the top and into the swirling dark clouds overhead.

He watched the hill for any movement before getting up and following after Runt’s paw prints in the sand. “Y’know, things be easier if ya let me carry ya.” He pointed out, walking beside the small creature. It growled at him, flicking its tail in clear annoyance. “Fine, fine, let yer pride get in the way. If I could, I’d let someone carry me in a heart beat. Get off me poor feet for awhile.” Jasper looked down at his dirty feet that ached and burned as they always did.

Runt darting off out of the corner of his eye got his attention and he quickly followed after it. Sand flared up around his feet as he came to a stop next to the demon, staring at the impressions in the sand with wide eyes.

Tracks. They looked like human foot prints.

Jasper knelt down into the sand to study them carefully, not believing what he was seeing. He had never seen evidence of another person in this realm before. After what felt like an eternity of traveling alone and avoiding monsters, did another person really make these tracks? Or was it a trick?

“What do ya think?” He asked Runt, standing up to his feet. “Follow?”

The demon stared at him for a moment then it silently began to walk alongside the tracks. Nodding Jasper walked with the creature, anxiety and excitement making his stomach churn.

In the depths of the brackish water soft golden strands of hair splayed out around the pale woman. The crackling of fire echoed from the muddy shore, her dress, pack, and ax shimmered in the shadowed light. The dark cave around her gave little ground to the flourishing flames, the scent of cooking meat clinging slightly to the air. A ripple in the water as the girl shifted to stay afloat, a gentle movement in stark contrast to the harshness of her prison. Her skin glistened softly as ribbons of red gently trickled down into the water, a small laceration decorated her side. A gift from a crazed man, adorned in ancient armor, screeching something about someone having stolen her; whoever her was Shimmer didn't have the faintest of clues. It had been a few hours since the blonde hair girl had seen anything with a living soul, twice in one day made her uneasy, the beast in the shadows were really enough for her to know she wasn't alone. Clear blue eyes started up at the ever stagnant sky, the hints of cloud and ever bearing sun, the memories of the days event pushing to the front of her mind, reminders of how much she had changed in such few months. Changed from what she couldn't recall.



The hollow thunk of the ax digging into the skeleton's head echoed through the ever winding corridor, a disgruntled sigh escaping the strange girl's lip as yet again it proved a fruitless scavenge. The hunger clawing its way up through her stomach was a distracting concern that had been building for weeks. A shattering crack broke the stiffing silence as the corpse's skull cracked into tiny little pieces, the light shimmering on the dust of it, it seems it couldn't hold the force of the flat of the blade brought sharply down across its surface. A soft giggle followed the echo as the girl coaxed the shimmering dust to swirl in small circles between her hands, the soft glow of the ring hanging loosely on her neck mimicking their sheen. ”Pretty things don't last here..” She chided the dust softly, a self-decrepit smile toying at the corners of her lip, a slight hollow look, eyes hazed as she wandered off into the flashing images of memory, a hand reaching up to toy with the ring softly. It wasn't the first time in the past few months that the girl would loose herself to her own thoughts. As fortunate as she was to be left alone by the beast below, there was always the nagging doubt that one day she'd meet him. The one that stalked her shadow made himself known often, not all ending in death, no this one had a desire to play with his food it seems. The shiver at the thought of her constant watcher drew Shimmer from her thoughts as she looked around spinning slightly as she tried to see every corner, a harrowed look taking over her serene and calm look.

Hugging her arms as if to keep her tattered dress from falling off, the chill of the cave piercing through her once more, yet this place held no wind. No wind, and a chilling cold. Another thing to add to the never-ending list of things wrong with this place. A way to past the time, if you will. Her slender fingers pulled at the small bag on her wrist, the last of her provisions, a small handful of berries and little meat at that. Grimacing slightly as her stomach growled in protest at the offered meal, Shimmer continued to walk down her intended path, there was a bright light at the end of the tunnel but it never seemed to come any closer. Perhaps that was its intent, to make you walk for eternity contemplating each step you took and if you truly ever went anywhere here or in the little bit of life you scrambled to hold on to. Pondering these thoughts the small woman meticulously ate one berry at a time, trying to extend the use of her rations; the tattered shoes on her feet torn and tied to her, though parts of them still glitter with the color of silver and showed signs of once holding a heel, long broken off still clattered against the harsh stone path.

Stone, all of it was stone, only thing that seemed well was the abundant pools of water though not all were free of life. It was a game of chance, she had soon learned remembering her first time dying.

'She had been suffocating on the dust and dry roots she had torn up from the beds of mushrooms. The soft sparkle of the dull depths, too naive she was as she greedily drank from it, held more then just dirt and grime. A dark shimmer rippled through the deep water, a warning she ignored for the feel of sweet release for her harsh throat. A second ripple and the dark creature lunged eliciting a screech from the blonde, short lived and quickly silenced as larger razor teeth sunk into her flesh, her arm to be precise as it pulled. She toppled gracefully into the pool floating briefly before being drug down and down into the water depth the coils of the creature wrapping around her as she struggled briefly for breath. Bubbles of air dancing their way back up to the surface, how it shimmered from below, the lights on the water so much clearer from underneath. Then she awoke in a rock circle missing nothing more but another memory of him. Whoever he was.'

So lost in her thoughts, Shimmer forgot to watch where she stepped and presently found herself sprawled out against the cold coarse floor, her ax clattering a few feet to the left of her. Gasping slightly she let out the slightest whimper as she continued to lay there trying to breath through the growing pain in her side. Seems her folly would cost her at the least a bruised rib, though the feeling of uneasiness coursing through her sent her crawling for her weapons the pain in her side spreading and screaming like a white hot iron hitting water. Hissing as her hand curled around her ax she curled up around it, for a time she had forgotten just how fragile she really was, leave it to this place to cruelly remind her of her own fragility. Pressing her free hand against the offending rib she cringed at the heat radiating off it, a soft press sent her into a fresh round of whimpering as the pain slowly started to ebb into nausea. She wasn't sure how long she had lain there, an hour, a day, she had the hardest time keeping track of the day's passings.

By the time the pain receded enough for her to move, the slender woman had drifted off slight to sleep. The echoes of a forest surrounded her, as she smelt flowers, a pleasant smile finding its way to her face, the feeling's of excitement bubbling through her. A shadow was with her, she could never see his face but she knew him, or at least she believed she knew him, that she had to know him. The ring, her ring, glittered as he placed it on her hand, the soft whispers of love fell on deaf ears as a ragging scream shattered her escaped reality. The scream startled the girl into a sitting position, looking around her frantically once more. ”What was that...” She whispered softly crawling to the edge of the path, peering over the rock tops to see a man attacking another woman, she was rather plump as if she had just joined this hell. But he looked ancient as if he had wandered these paths longer then the girl had been alive for, or at least how long she had thought she lived. The strange woman let another small whimper while the man attacked her screeching about the woman having stole someone. The woman looked as confused as Shimmer did watching the scene below; she held up her hands as if to wards of the mans sword, as if her hands would stop the rusted blade on its intended path.

The scent of blood reawakened the blondes hunger, her stomach grumbled at the idea of fresh meat. A strange gleam entered the girl's eye, as she kept closure hefting her ax so her hand gripped loosely around the end of the handle, it was small enough to make for a decent throwing ax. If she could distract the man at the same time he hit the woman, perhaps it wouldn't kill her. If she was quick enough she could take a piece of meat before she died and disappeared. She continued with desperate and hungry eyes creeping closure slowly arching the ax behind her, it mattered little if she hurt him, she need the woman alive. So ample, so plump, so ripe. The thought sent shivers down her spine, fresh food not berries and roots. How long had it been since she had proper meat. The dead owner of her ax. Three months. A dark grin slowly spreading across her face as the madman attacked drawing his sword across the woman in a beautiful arc of blood that followed. Shimmer could appreciate the mans work, as her ax left her hand flying true to its path, a loud clang ringing out as it struck the back of his chest plating.

The warning that perhaps she should have held on to her weapon came too late, the man had a new target, a currently unarmed target, a target on a time limit. ”Now now we can be civil..”' Shimmer said smiling sweetly, scooping up a small handful of dirt before flinging it out towards the man making a lunge for her weapon, barely missing the tip of the handle before his blade found its mark, leaving a bright red stain across her dress. The searing pain drew a whimper from her, but the cut was shallow and superficial, unfortunately it seemed she was destined to destroy the right side of her ribs today. A soft growl echoed from her lips as she grabbed her ax whirling around, but the man was gone running off down the corridor chasing after some fleck in the sky. She shook her head slowly bringing herself up to her feet, each breath ragged and painful as she stumbled over to the girl. ”P-please...h-help me..” The girl whimpered reaching out of with a bloody hand towards the approaching figure, visibly relaxing as she noticed it was another woman.

Shimmer smiled softly petting the woman's hair whispered sweet reassurances, as she slowly counted the seconds. She would have at the most ten seconds, to make her move. Her eyes trailed slowly over the woman's body. Her ample frame, but it was the blood rolling down her outstretched arm that caught the girls attention, nudging her hungry. Taking the woman's hand softly she smiled telling her everything would be okay before casually bringing her ax down on the woman's arm effectively separating it from the rest of her. The look of horror on the woman's face as she disappeared was almost enough to sate the blonde woman's appetite as she looked at her new found food. It would take some cleaning and skinning. She never liked the skin. Or at least she thinks she doesn't like the skin. Dragging the ax slowly against the arm, a quick flick of the wrist separated the hand from the forearm, it had too much bone for her taste. The next flick of the wrist neatly severed the forearm from the upper arm, she would save the larger selection of meat for later as she ripped a section of her dress hem humming as she wrapped the two pieces up neatly placing them in her bad. It wouldn't do well to linger where there was fresh blood, more so when someone of its her own.

~~~~

The water rippled once more as the girl moved towards the shore, the warm flickering of the flame welcomed and beckoned her as did the smell of cooked meat. Her stomach growled once more in anticipation. The water fell away in waves across her slender frame, there was something alluring about her jutting ribs and the taunt way the skin stretched over her muscles and scars. The red gash on her side ugly and sore, blemishing the strange smoothness of her body, the dirt and grime momentarily washed away from her. A slight reprieve from the decaying world around her gentle pool. The murky waters had adsorbed the offering of red, returning back to its dark colors, as she stepped back onto the shore. Her dress laid splayed out next to the fire, the red washed clean regaining its white color. Wringing her hair out she ran her fingers vainly through her hair trying to untangle the knots and tangles residing in the golden strands; they shone and glimmered in the fire like bright threads of gold. Her movement's were slow and sluggish, her side still making its displeasure with her known as she inched the dress up over her hips hissing slightly as the fabric brushed against the newest wound on her body.

”Perhaps I should rest..”

She mused softly biting down into the crisp meat, the juice from it overflowed and ran down her chin, a quick wipe from the back of her hand saw it gone as she continued to devour the meet. It would be a strangle serene sight to see someone dressed cleaned devouring what looked like a leg of meat in the flickering fire. With each bite her mood lightened, it was a rare treat, something that wasn't simple berries and grubs, her eyes wandered aimlessly around her surroundings taking in the shadows the fire did cast. There in the earth, where those foot prints..perhaps they belonged to the madman from earlier, but what if he found a way out. Though she dreaded the idea of running into the man again, she did owe him for the damage to her side and she did intend to collect should he show himself again. Pleased that she had a plan, something to do besides aimlessly wander the pools Shimmer set to breaking camp. If not the madman perhaps she would find something else out here in this world. Something new.

In the void, the spire loomed. It extended upward like a blackened finger among the knuckled fists of stone that surrounded it.

At least, the Prince believed it to be the castle he has sought for so long. In the fog and the darkness, his very eyes could be deceiving him towards a mountain, for all he knew. Out here in the ash-like dirt, that castle in the distance was the dirtied noble's only guidance- fairly good guidance, at that, for the Prince was seemingly unable to ever gain any ground on the complex. But there it loomed, possibly eternally, on the horizon.

The Prince blinked away a stray blonde hair that had blown into his eyes. With some of the things he'd seen, he wouldn't be surprised if one day he woke up and the entire stronghold had disappeared, leaving the Prince's horizon and its onlooker lost. Not to imply that the Prince exactly knew where he was going, but the great building in the distance seemed an amicable goal, at the least. Working towards it had led the young looking man to some very strange and oft disturbing places of equally disturbing inhabitants. Of the inhabitants he's met, only one seemed to offer up any conversation, though it did little in the way of explaining...anything, really. The Prince had called it Tomb, for it had appeared to be a tall Tomb covered in cloaks of red and purple. He often thought about their conversation, trying to make any more sense to its riddles or odd references.

"At the age of six, you picked a rose. There were many around- but you chose one in particular. Why?"

"How do you know anything about my childhood? What are you?"

"Under moonlight, do roses bloom?"

"Er..yes?"

"You are a skeptical man. I offer you one answer."

It took the Prince a moment to fully realize what he was offering. But would this being's answer be any less enigmatic than its questions? The young man brushed his hair back and thought a moment.

"What is my name?" He had asked. The cloaked stone creature was silent for several moments, and the man was almost ready to walk away when its odd, almost mechanical voice perked back up.

"Your name matters not, Prince of Lies. What matters is your pick among the roses."

And so the formerly unnamed man took to calling himself the Prince of Lies. Or to others, should he ever encounter another being, just Prince. It seemed to fit with the vivid images that were on repeat in his head, one involving a throne and a king. The others were less than pleasant to think about. But was he a Prince, this ragged and torn figure of lean muscle? If so, was the castle on the horizon his? Or, rather, a member of his family? Did he have a family?

He shook the thoughts and questions away. None of them really mattered, ultimately. If the other memories offered any sort of explanation, he was dead. Or exiled, at best. Doomed to eternally wander this hellscape and reach for a throne in a castle he couldn't get to. The Prince turned from the castle and shifted the weight on his shoulders- he had taken to carrying his sword on his back, rather than his hip. Less practical? Probably. More comfortable? Definately. Luckily, his leather belt had been able to stretch enough to fit over his chest. The terrain before him looked harrowing, at best; an ashen valley, with a mountain appearing on one side with a forest down the other. The Prince had gone around the forest and had continued toward the castle, but his view was quickly becoming obscured by the encroaching mountain. So, he made the decision the night prior that he would backtrack towards the forest enough for the castle to come back into view fully and then work towards it at an angle, so as to gradually go around the mountain while keeping his best form of direction in sight. So today would likely be uneventful, then, as he trekked back towards where he had come from several days before.

Sighing as he pulled his dirty purple garments closer and making sure his weapon and pack were in order, he started off towards the hauntingly colorless forest.

Forgotten had been here for many days, and if anyone from her former life could see her now, they would certainly not recognize her. In fact, one would have to view her very closely in order to see a human at all. Her entire body was encrusted in blood and filth except for her bandaged arms, which somehow were meticulously clean. Her long, black hair fell in unkempt curtains around her, cloaking her like the fur of an animal. Her face was painted over the filth in swirls of colors, reds and blues, yellows and greens, a vibrant collage that disoriented and sometimes intimidated predators.
The most prominent changes, however, were not physical. The frightened little girl was gone, and in her place was a scavenger, a beast. Her heart had grown heavy and cold, and she no longer cared for anything, even her own safety. She charged at everything that moved, knowing that if she did not kill it, it would surely kill her. She didn't mind the dying, really. When all of your existence is defined by pain, a little more pain only made you more awake, more aware. So she charged everything, with no regard for injury or safety, charging them with only at knife and a plastic tray for a shield at first, expanding her skills with each failure and her tools with each success.
Even so, even she was not foolish enough to attack the Knight, that ebon warrior undefeatable in purpose and combat. She had first witnessed him a few days before, hearing the clashing of his latest challenger who, of course, was defeated with ease. Waiting for the knight to continue a little further, she leapt from the brush to scavenge all that she could from his victim in the few minutes she had, for not all who die will stay dead. She kept a wary eye on the knight the whole time, half expecting him to turn back for her, but he never faltered in his direction. She had been following him since, and never once did he fail to follow his path, or, more importantly to her, to provide for her with each of his discarded conquests.

Just five more minutes...
_{Wake up
Mmn, not yet dear...it's so early...}
WAKE UP
<sub>No...

like you

like you


even if it means giving up everything?
jingle bells
jingle bells
jingle all the way
oh what fun
it is to ride
on a one-horse open slay</sub>

It had been two turns of the light since the Turncloak had slain the madman in the valley, leaving him cleaved asunder for what manner of scavengers to forage from. The bodies here —and there had been many— would lie dormant for several minutes at the most before they would crumble back into salted dirt, as if they were being consumed alive by the land.

Funny. the Turncloak thought to himself, for this world would consume you mentally and physically should it be given the chance. The madman was gone by the time he had turned his head back. The body was no doubt disturbed, but for the life of him, he did not know what by. There were sparse, light-footed tracks that would sometimes appear far behind him on long journeys, perhaps they belonged to another human who was not so foolish as the last madman; the quietest moments on his endless journey would also be accompanied by the distant and soft jingling of bells. No sane creature here would willingly carry a bell with it, so the Turncloak concluded that he was being stalked by an Empty Human, or something far worse.

He did not let this worry him, for the Empty were weak with their madness and if one of the creatures dwelling here had made him their prey, there was naught that he could do to postpone the inevitable. So he continued on.

The Turncloak had estimated two days, but it could have been ten. Perhaps twenty? There was no way to tell in the perpetuity. Hunger pangs had begun to grow from the deep of his belly, he could not remember his last meal, it was prior to the last time he had died, he knew such for sure. Six deaths he had counted, measured each time by the agony they had caused: twice through hunger, thrice through fatal falls, and once —though the details were puzzled at best— he could only remember bulbous, glowing crimson eyes in the dead of darkness, a flash of leathery skin, and his very body ripped apart in mere seconds. The pain had been utterly inconceivable, as though every time his body was cleaved and shredded by some unseen, fell talons, salt were rubbed in the wounds. It was as though the beast had existed merely to cause a pain more excruciating then any other.

He still had the scars from that death. He was still naive and young to the land. He was not who he was now, that past iteration of himself may have remembered more about his past. What he would have given to know now what he used to…
Why he had settled on the ‘Turncloak Blade’ is a fact almost lost to him. Perhaps it was due to the one persisting memory of casting off a cloak, renouncing his King, giving himself to another. Or was that memory twisted too? His last bastion of identity befouled by time?

His trail of thought had come to an end. Bells again. Footsteps again. Strange creature. Empty creature. No different to what he may be. Soon.



The Mountain still loomed in the distance. It had come no closer yet the Turncloak had walked for days upon apparent days. Perhaps the land did this for a reason? To provide false hope in the form of a beacon of salvation. Truly this was some Hell indeed. There had to be a faster way; he knew it, he knew it. His hunger pangs had grown stronger and his armour had grown heavier. Maybe he should rest? He felt as though his mind were slipping away once more. It was repeating, repeating in the silence. Irrational thoughts crossed his mind daily, and false memories fleeting in and out of view. He would sometimes spy an oasis in the distance, liquid water glistening in the twilight, verdant palms waving gently in some summery breeze. He broke into a haggard run to these mirages of small salvation, his hopes promptly shattered by the desolate cesspools of bone and acid that took their place. He would spend hours then cursing his own foolishness.

Bells again.

How were the bells surviving?



The Valley stretched further still. It had no end. He knew it must have had no end. Twice in different lives had he tried to walk it’s clear span to the Mountain. Perhaps it was the curse. Perhaps he needed to free himself from the jagged canyon of death and despair. Maybe. Maybe.
Hungry.
Maybe he could consume the dirt. Maybe the next Empty beast who crossed his path would be his next meal.
Once he would have been repulsed at himself for such a thought, but the hunger prevailed. Thirst, too. His mouth was dry, drier than the land itself. His throat had closed up days ago, but even breathing had become an issue now.
Instinctively, he looked up to the sky to scan for rainclouds. There was nothing. Not even a sky. No blue, no black, no clouds, no stars. Only an inconceivable void, an impenetrable swirl of nothingness, coalescing in ribbons of corporeal fear and twisted rays of light, stretching from the static star across the darkness.




Three more days. There was not one more left in him. His trail had become heavy, thick with stumbling blunder. His tracks were erratic, confused, maddeningly psychotic. The world had fallen out of focus, the sides of the valley no longer existed to him. There was the straight path, or there was none. Every move dragged hellish pain from his vacant stomach, every single one causing him to grunt and lurch with the pain of it. The air he could strain through his parched lips and throat was hot and dry, it brought him no comfort.

Is there no respite here? Not even the comfort of cool air upon your lips?

This land exists to agonise. Only warm when the comfort of the cold is needed…

His knees gave way. His armoured form thudded to the sand with a soft burst of dust that fluttered back to settle without further sound. He used his halberd to suspend the rest of his body, to prevent his entire form from crashing to the dirt.

The bells shook in the distance.

Why did the bells follow so? Was the madman’s scavenger following also?

He closed his eyes, perhaps for the last time. He wanted to kneel.

Just for a moment.

Bells. Bells of all things. Whoever was causing that noise was good at hiding. The black knight had started showing signs of weakness, faint, but ever increasing. The behemoth managed to walk without rest, without stop for days, with his massive armor and weapon weighting him down. Luckily for Maldron, and the bearer of the bells, his pace was slow, giving Maldron precious time to rest and scavenge for SOMETHING. Hunger, exhaustion and thirst were the most dangerous threats, as the hostile denizens can be avoided. Lady Death must have quite a sadistic sense of humor, Maldron thought to himself. Or was it Lord Death? The assassin was not sure, nor he much cared - whatever gender he assigns to Death, it still an abstract concept. You cannot slay a concept, an idea, so his skills were rather useless here.

The forest he passed almost a week ago, eerie and dangerous, contained enough things one could use for survival. Roots, fungi, berries, maybe even a critter. Maldron doesn't remember seeing anything resembling a rabbit, or anything humans could consider normal food. But the assassin had it worse. He could not recall what was worse, but he felt like he went through worse conditions than that. Was he a pickpocket desperate for food when a child? Just before the strangers took him in and shaped him into a weapon? It was the most logical progression of possibilities. Either way, hunger, thirst and death accompanied Maldron for most of his life, and at this point, they were like a lifelong companion.

Inside his small pouch, various snippets of berries, roots and fungi were stocked. Several of them already had teeth marks in it and a chunk gone. Maldron assumed that he took a sampling bite to test if it's poisonous. That way, if he dies, he can check for teeth marks and know which ones are inedible. This just proved that Maldron has suffered at least a few death here, from poison of all things. There was also a large stock of small red berries in his pouch. When he saw them back in the forest, he simply felt they were OK to use. Not very nutritious, but sated both hunger and thirst, however slightly. They were also extremely bitter, eating them was a challenge in itself. But beggars can't be choosers, and in such a place, this was the food of kings.

---

And finally, the black knight stumbled. Delirious from hunger and thirst, he could no longer push on. He hasn't eaten anything since Maldron first started tracking him, and it was already more than a week. Now was his time to appear. Maldron would be now in control. The knight would be unable to fight back if worst came to worst, and Maldron could find something useful on his body. Otherwise, he could gain an ally, which would be a great boon. The knight was able to effortlessly cut down most of the hostiles that he encountered. Maldron had to always hide in shadows to avoid confrontations. It could be a mutually beneficial alliance - Maldron could provide them both with necessary supplies, and the Black Knight would resolve conflicts when they arise. In any scenario, the assassin is the winner.

Supporting himself on his halberd, the knight was barely able to stand. He could hear Maldron approaching, but had not the strength to face him. "Marching without stop, without food or drink, is incredibly stupid, you know. It is not a race. Carrying around all that also slows you down a lot. War equipment is ill suited for long travels." Maldron said as he approached the knight. Part one was to establish superiority in the knight's mind. Part two was to establish the knight's response. Reaching into his cloth bag, he pulled out a couple of the bitter red berries. "These are really bitter, but it should quench your thirst and hunger. It's not much, but consider it an investment." Holding the berries right near the knight's helmet, his next move will dictate Maldron's course of action.

On he went through the strange, deathless land he was trapped in. The forest was far behind him now, but the mountain never seemed to get any closer. His feet were chafed and raw from walking for… how long had he been walking? Long enough to deplete his once pitiful food rations; now they had gone from pitiful to nonexistent. He hadn’t died of hunger yet though. His waterskin was also significantly lighter than it was upon his first awakening. He had been able to ration the water to just wet his mouth once it became too dry to breath normally. It was uncomfortable business, but it kept him alive for now. His head pounded from the limited water he gave himself, and his vision was blurred at times. His steps were even becoming clumsier as he walked on.

Artimus was his one beacon, his one attachment in this world. She floated overhead upon the wind that never blew, watching over him. She never seemed to tire, only landing when he could collapse to peck at him to get back up and continue on his journey, if it could be called that. With her, he was able to draw strength enough to continue toward the ever distant mountain… or was it a castle? He had stopped caring, but the question would resurface while he walked as a sort of game he would play to while away to time, if time even existed in this place. If it was a castle, maybe he would find people willing to help or people like the knight that had put a sword through his chest, the scar of which stood out against his flesh through the tear in his shirt. It was a mountain, what then? He could scale it, and then maybe there would be a lush valley on the other side filled with food and water.

He shook his head; he couldn’t let his thoughts get ahead of him. He must stay alert in this land in case another hostile soul like the rusted knight came after him. For the first time in… for the first time since he left the forest behind, the hunter came to a halt without collapsing to the ground. He looked around the area he found himself in; it looked like a graveyard filled with busted and moss-covered headstones. Small lamps blazed at the other end of the cemetery. Suddenly alert, Rook hefted his crossbow up and made his way toward the lamps as quietly as he could. As the light from the lamps bathed them in their luminescence, he could see the few remains of animals and humanoids alike that poked out of the graves or littered the ground.

Shaking off a cold shiver racing up his spine, he continued creeping toward the lamps. He came upon an ancient-looking crypt with the doors hanging askew and crumbling; the light belonged to two lanterns that hung on either side of the broken doors of stone. Rook approached the doors slowly and did his best to peer down into the crypt, but the dark was as thick as ink and impossible to see through. Carefully, he reached over and pulled one of the lanterns free and swung it out over the first step in an attempt to see down into the unknown, but the void was only punctured enough to see down to maybe the ninth step of the stairway.

As if the light illuminated his own thoughts, Rook suddenly remembered an important detail, not of his life before but of this new land he had overlooked in his state of mindlessly wandering toward the castle on high; he was being followed, but by who or what? A creature of the night perhaps, on with wicked claws that would snatch the skin from his bones with a single, lazy swipe through the air? Or perhaps it was the Rusted Knight come to kill him once more for crimes he knew nothing about, but he would not totally deny the possibility of being innocent of them, as he could only remember a handful of distorted memories of who he was before. Now that he was alert enough to think, he peered back into the void of the broken crypt.

”Maybe I could go down and find a place to hide and ambush whatever is following me? Though, it’s hard to tell what I’ll down there.” Looking away from the crypt, Rook set his eyes on his beloved bird; she sat, roosted on a nearby headstone. With a shrill whistle from his dry lips, Rook signaled for her to take flight and circle overhead. With a flutter of wings, the hawk took flight and began circling the lonely graveyard and her master. Rook turned back to the crypt, only now noticing what was left of carvings around the doors in the light if his lantern; there were all sorts of skeletal figures ground down from age and time in gruesome scenes of dragging people away or skewering them on pikes. Ignoring the ghastly images, Rook stepped into the abyss, comforted only by the circle of yellow light that enveloped him.

Step by broken step, Rook made his way down into the heart of the crypt. His cracked lantern shed light on the narrow walls that seemed to close in on him; the skeletal figures here were not eroded with age but stood out as if freshly carved into the ancient stone. Perhaps he was descending into Hell itself, escaping from the limbo of the above world. It was difficult to tell how long the staircase stretched on for, much like everything in this timeless land. How long had he been on the staircase now? Was he stuck walking down these broken stairs for eternity now? No, he had to keep what wits he had left about him and think… He was being followed, and he would find a place to hide and ambush his pursuer, whatever it may be. Then, his lantern shone light on an opening along the wall of the endless staircase; the opening was large enough to permit him to squeeze into it and be able to steady his crossbow slightly under him. Perfect.

With the mind of a practiced hunter, Rook made the lantern look as though he had dropped it a few steps up from the opening and then crawled into the wall with great effort. He twisted around in the opening so he could see out onto the stairs, his boot kicking against something solid that was definitely not the wall. With another great amount of effort, he twisted around to look behind him, finding the opening went far deeper than he originally thought and that he was not its only occupant; there was a cracked and battered skeleton of some other poor soul near the end of the opening. Rook did his best to push the remain back away from him and squeeze further into the short tunnel and then twisted back around to take awkward aim out at the stairs, more concerned about his pursuer than exploring it fully at the moment.

One thing was certain - the temperatures had certainly been rising as she continued down the canyon. It had been cold enough to warrant pulling her coat over her shoulders when she had first woken, but now it had become almost disturbingly hot. The heat made her drowsy and dampened the clarity of her mind. The unscalably steep sides of the deep, narrow, twisting canyon would have cast ample shadows even if the sun were to ever rise high into the sky ... but as it was, the bottom of the canyon was a realm of perpetual shadows that nevertheless only offered smothering heat, even without the world's poor excuse for sunlight touching one's skin.
She had long removed her coat and was now carrying it in her arms, having wrapped it around the axe's handle and left only the iron head poking out. The bundle was not quite heavy enough to have made her arms sore from carrying it for extended periods of time just yet, but still she wondered whether it would be possible to fashion the coat's sleeves into a sling of some sort she could put around her neck, freeing her hands and arms of the burden. Probably not - the sleeves of the coat were too comparatively short and thick for the purpose.
Perhaps even worse than the heat was the fine dust permeating the air, dust that never seemed to settle as even the faintest gust of wind swept generous clouds of it up. It entered her nose and caked its damp insides; she could taste it in her mouth and forming a sticky abrasive paste that clung to her teeth. Every now and then, she could not resist rubbing a knuckle against her nose, or trying to pick or blow it, for it felt as though soon, no air would be able to pass through her nostrils. Tie a rag in front of her face, perhaps?
Worth a try, at least. Gathering the bundle under one arm, she slung the backpack in front of her and dug into it with the other hand, locating one of the cleaner strips of fabric she had stashed away. Attaching the cloth to her head in order for it to cover her nose and mouth required her to take a seat where she stood and temporarily place her coat and axe down on her lap, as tying the ends of the piece of fabric into a knot at the nape of her neck required the use of both her hands. With a deep breath, let her arms drop to the sides and shoulders sag as she finished. Better. The cloth itself likewise restricted breathing to a noteworthy extent, but as long as it kept most of the dust out...
Gather up the bundle again she did, and back up to her feet she got... A dry creek at the bottom of a canyon was no home for her. She needed one with shelter, food and water - the first the canyon barely offered other than in the form of a few deeper nooks and more spacious grooves carved into its walls by the running waters that had once formed this gaping rift in the landscape. The latter two were even more scarce.
She had, however, noticed a beetle earlier - a black one with a flat body, almost the length of her thumb (and chances were it could also draw blood if it were to clamp its mandibles down on her skin) -, but it had managed to skitter across the ground and climb into some crack in the canyon's wall before she could as much as begin to think on whether to let it be or go for it. They were edible in a true pinch, bud god did the brownish liquid they tended to squirt out when you caught one reek... (Who was she kidding? Herself? It was bug shit...)
All in all, it at the very least proved that there was some small life about, and hence a supply of food. Water, though, was a much more pressing matter. One could last quite a few weeks without food, but without water? A couple of days, a handful at a true stretch, and then you were done for. For now she still had some food and a decent reserve of water left that she only took small gulps from every few hours, but who knew how long this canyon spanned, or how many days would it be till she finds drinkable water or more than marginal amounts of sustenance... Viewed from that angle, a flask and a half to drink and small bundle of hard-dried provisions seemed all too little.

She had been starving at least once before, had she not?

If life - here, in this world especially - had taught her anything, it was to preserve her reserves as much as possible. Spare what food will not spoil for the last, and only eat a small handful of it when there is nothing else left and it feels as if your stomach is about to digest itself in the lack of anything else to process; from your container of water, merely take a small sip at a time, just enough to moisten your mouth and throat, and only when you feel you would not be able to persist otherwise. Refill at any chance, and if you happen upon a place with more food and water can you can carry, make it your home until the supply of one or the other has been diminished to the point where it could be taken along.
And never, never scorn food. Edible is edible. Beetles, roots, fungi that in another place and time would be thrown aside for their taste alone, even the fresh blood and flesh from dead beings, regardless of whether they might have been sentient before death. The dead had no use for anything.
Each and every meal in this world was a trial - either it was dangerous to obtain, disgusting in taste or nature, or what one might call morally dubious, if not utterly unacceptable. Evergreen sprouts - even the old, hard, wooden ones she recalled herself having once chewed on out of desperation in her old life - would have been a true delicacy in this place.
It was a harsh world, a world for beasts rather than humans ... and also a world that was now her only home. There was no way back, and right now she had to continue down along the creek.
The canyon was - somewhat relievingly - also changing in other ways than the ambient temperatures rising as she moved along. It had become wider, its bottom flatter and easier to traverse. And had the walls, though still impossibly steep and insurmountable, become lower? It was hard to tell from down where she was.
After another turn, she could see the glisten of some manner of fluid on the ground ahead. Not much - only a small shallow pond - or puddle, rather, as "pond" was too generous a label to assign the minuscule reservoir of fluid. As she closed in on it, it became evident that it was no water.
A distinct, sharp and acrid smell hung in the air around the puddle, getting the stronger the closer one got. The stench was mildly reminiscent of bile and vomit. It irritated her nose and airways and made her eyes water; breathing in made her want to sneeze and cough despite the fabric covering her nose and mouth.
Whatever substance this strong-smelling yellow-tinted fluid was, it had been steadily dissolving some mineral the surrounding rocks were largely composed of, and it appeared that quite some of it had evaporated since the puddle had first formed. There was a clear line marking the original level of liquid on the surrounding rocks - rocks which were otherwise gray and hard, but had become pale chalk-white and seemingly incredibly friable where the liquid had had time to work its way into the mineral. Carefully running one of her fingernails over the surface of one of those bleached-white rocks (perhaps from simple morbid curiosity) confirmed the latter suspicion - her nail penetrated the material with ease, leaving a deep rend as she dragged her finger over the mineral's surface.
She certainly did not want the ... vile fluid to contact her flesh.

Nearing her skin, she could see the otherwise transparent bone-shatteringly cold substance covering her hand becoming faintly yellowish, then orange, then red. Blood. Her blood. It was seeping into the liquid through her skin...

The shallow puddle of acidic bile was left behind. It was of no use of her, and staying near it was downright unhealthy, but in some small ways it proved she was on the right path. Logic dictated that it being there indicated that the creek at the bottom of the canyon had not been dry for years upon years. There had been a stream here, not too long ago, and she was presumably headed for whatever body of water it ended in - perhaps it was even actual water.
She came across another pool of the disgusting liquid a few hours down the road - this one was actually worthy of being labeled a pond, and it forced her onto a narrow ledge with her back against the inward-leaning canyon wall to get around. It was uncomfortable, and it made her wonder whether somewhere down the path, there would come a reservoir of it she simply would not be able to get around. (Was the liquid in this one also somewhat less concentrated than in the first small puddle?)
Nothing. There was a disconcerting amount of nothing. Only the canyon, the mostly-dry creek at its bottom, oppressive heat, wind that did not cool and only swept up dust, and sparse pools of acid. At least there was no beast more formidable than her.
It took another hour until she noticed something else noteworthy. It was a bizarre plant, its resilient roots digging into the canyon-wall at about her chest-height. It was the size of a small bush, its branches poison-green, leafless, and covered in wicked serrated thorns the length of one of her fingers each.
What marked it noteworthy was not the fact that it was a plant of some description in an otherwise almost life-incompatible environment - this place was awfully fond of taunting its inhabitants, as if purposefully planting twisted replicas of things they knew and found comforting in unexpected places -, but the no less than eight turnip-sized fruits clinging to its branches. The fruits, too, looked unsavory - dark brown instead of poison-green, but just as spiky as the rest of the plant.
Appearances aside, the fruits were actually edible once you got past their tough and dangerous exterior (with the aid of an axe or a cleaver, if not otherwise). Conditionally edible, anyway. They were juicy and probably rather nutritious, and tasted not quite as awful as one would expect, if a bit sour ... but, there was also at least one "but". They were also somewhat corrosive - they did not damage your teeth, and stomach acid was more than capable of taking care of them, but your mouth and throat were a fair game.* Eat more than one a day, and your mouth would bleed, and if your had some manner of ulcers in it, or you had cracked lips, or the juice of the fruit had already eaten through your skin - well, then the juice of those fruits hurt worse getting into these injuries than salted vinegar and pure lye.
She did not know how she knew that these spiky things were edible. There were things she simply knew, and she did not question them. Questioning some things was unhealthy.
She unwrapped her axe, setting the winter-coat down on a nearby rock. Contemplatively, she eyed the thorny plant, and then set to hacking at the points where the fruits connected to the plant. It was a bit harder task than she had first assumed, since rather than be cut through, the branches tended to simply swing back. Either she had to hit the base of the fruit at just the right angle, or get the branch between the blade of the axe and the wall... In the end, one by one, the fruits dropped to the ground. While going after the uppermost one, she got too close to the lower branches, and with the last swing, the serrated thorns of the lower branches tore three shallow, but nasty gashes into the index and middle finger of her right hand. Deep enough for her damaged fingers to steadily drip blood.
The next several minutes were spent sitting atop her winter-coat, catching breath and sucking on the backs of her injured fingers. For such a relatively small injury, the scratches surely took a long time before they stopped bleeding, and bled a lot. Even inanimate plants will fight you here before they let you eat parts of them.
She did not try to pick up the spiky fruits on the ground by bare hand right away - she first bashed the fruits with the flat and the back of her axe's head till their thorns broke off, eventually rendering them battered-looking and damaged, but ultimately mostly safe to handle. Seven of those were bound up and attached to the back of her backpack, one was split open with the blade of her axe.
Carefully (so as to not let the juice get onto her injured fingers) she set to eat that last one, using only her tool-knife for cutlery and the shell of the fruit as a bowl. She took the liberty of washing the lingering taste of the fruit's juice down with two rather generous gulps of water from one of her water flasks.
The roof of her mouth nevertheless felt slightly raw.

But even that was better than the continued pangs of hunger, right?

There were a couple more of the pools of acidic bile, as well as more thorn-plants, though none but one with ripe fruits, and that one was too high up the canyon wall to bother even trying to make her way to it. Would have been a too precarious endeavor with too small a chance for reward.
The canyon had definitely broadened further and it seemed that the creek now had only snaked in a portion of its floor at a time, rather than running the entire width of it. There was dirt to the sides of the rockier creek bed, and here and there she could see sparse yellowed tufts of some manner of coarse and sharp-edged grass.
There were no longer even grooves to hide in; the area felt ... open. Too open. The walls to the left were diminishing in height, and soon became but a low rocky ridge as the canyon merged with what appeared to be a much greater valley. If the canyon's broadening had left her feeling just a slight bit uncomfortable, then this new development in terrain was almost disheartening. She remembered running across a meadow and being happy in her old life, but here ... she thought she preferred forests and caves. Harder to notice things in advance, but the bigger monsters had harder time spotting her, too. It is not like she had a good chance of outrunning the bigger beasts...
She lowered herself closer to the ground, her posture like that of a cowering animal, and pulled against the rocky ridge left by the canyon-wall.
And it seemed that her caution was not for naught. Peering around a corner, she, for the first time since her last awakening, saw a living being that was bigger than her.
And it was a human being!
It was a tall ... man, she assumed. She could not see his face, or even tell much of his build besides the fact that he was big, for he was still far away and clad in dark armor from head to toe. Full armor complete with helmets tended to make all people look identical. Same with heavy winter-garments... He carried some manner of pole-arm, though the only kind of polearm she actually knew a name for was a spear. His "spear" had a head that was much like that of an axe, though very-very feeble-looking compared to her own axe's hefty solid iron head. Spear-axe?
Keeping behind rocks and tufts of dead sharp grass, she clambered closer to the knight (these armored men were knights, no?), peering in his direction and hopefully remaining unseen (it would be hard to see with what was essentially a metal bucket with tiny slits for looking through on one's head, right?). She felt ... incredibly nervous, not only because the person was potentially dangerous (if it were only that, she would not be going closer to him), but because it was a human and ... she had wanted to be around ones again?
For some reason she felt hopelessly outclassed. - Like a girl looking at the nobles passing through the small town her parents had taken her so they could sell their wares on the market. (She somehow knew such things probably existed in what she called her old life, but had she ever been part of something like that herself? She did not know...) But it was the old life... In this world, all were equal, no? She ... did not know what hand had put her out of her habitual hunter-scavenger-prey mode and into some sort of concern over societal norms and "appropriateness". It was ... confusing. She was not sure she liked it.
The dark knight was probably not dangerous ... he was staggering forward in an odd manner, dragging his feet and swaying slightly, even despite his armor leaving the impression that he was about to falter and keel over from ... exhaustion? injuries?
In any case, if he was friendly, it would be good, if he was not, she and her axe could easily overpower him, if he was already dying, then... she could definitely find something on him (or of him) he had an use for.

Two sensations were stronger than others: an oddly biting deep regret and the lingering realization that there ... were others? Also the feeling that she should take what could be taken; the dead had no use for anything.

As if on cue, the dark knight finally faltered, sinking to his knees and, in a vain, almost pathetic attempt to keep himself from slumping face-first to the ground fully, supported himself on his spear-axe. Still keeping behind whatever rubble and rocks she could, she persisted to sneak closer, not really certain whether to rise and introduce herself, or... Ah, to hell with it; she would be able to flee from him or kill him, worst coming to worst.
She had half-risen up from her hiding place when another man emerged from his hiding-spot, and her already round eyes widened to an almost impossible extent as she hurriedly drew back into a hidden position.
Two people!? Here, of all places?
Her first thought was that of carrion-birds, circling high above a weak or injured animal, waiting, lazily drifting, and if the animal finally collapses, sweeping in and reaping the rotting fruits of their patience. There was this suspicion that the second man had been following the first, and now when the knight was obviously on the verge of succumbing to this place, he showed up and walked right up to him. For some reason it irritated her, though she herself could perhaps be labeled a carrion bird herself.
Carrion birds avoided fight.
Giving up on a more stealthy approach, she stood, throwing her winter-coat clumsily over her shoulders and brandishing her axe fully. She held it in two, not so much in an actual combat-stance as in a manner that clearly and proudly declared to the world: "I have an axe, and if made to, I will use it against you."
Her eyes were still widened, and this time around, the nervousness and confusion in them was real. Her heart was pounding. Her hands were shaking slightly as she gripped the wooden handle of her chosen weapon. The axe was solid and comforting. The second man was with his back to her, and as she had made no sound loud enough to carry over, he probably had not noticed her yet. The knight could see her, if he only looked in her approximate direction...
What a sight she would be - a tall, sturdy woman with ghastly pale skin, with muscled arms and gaunt face, a rag still covering the lower half of it, in frayed garments and temporarily wearing a winter-coat in this heat just because she did not dare to leave it behind... To top it off, she was wielding a large, hefty axe. She blinked.
Did she even remember how to speak? She remembered herself speaking, even in here... But she had also become accustomed to being on her own, and to this world. She had even begun to look like this world - the pale muscled arms and long, nigh-taloned hands she could see as she glanced at the appendages gripping the axe's shaft were not the ones that were holding it when she was chopping wood near an evergreen-forest.

"I am not like these things," she had insisted, but she had also had the feeling that she was not being believed.

For an uncomfortably long moment, she stood still, and the second man spoke, "Marching without stop, without food or drink, is incredibly stupid, you know. It is not a race. Carrying around all that also slows you down a lot. War equipment is ill suited for long travels." The distance she was at made the words faint.
So this was why the knight was faltering? Exhaustion and no water? No water killed you quickly. Not taking care of yourself? Foolish, yes. But where would one put equipment here? She had been dragging her winter-coat around when she did not need it because it was practically irreplaceable, and she needed it. For warmth when it was cold, for sleeping on... That spear-axe looked useful. For walking-support, for poking at things, and as a weapon. Armor ... protected you, she guessed? Must be terrible with this heat, though.
The second man reached for something in his bag and seemingly offered them to the knight. "These are really bitter, but it should quench your thirst and hunger. It's not much, but consider it an investment."
Bitter? How would something bitter that fit in a human's palm help a starving, thirsty person all that much? If anything, it would make one even more acutely aware of how thirsty one was, especially if one's mouth was all dried up and no saliva was produced.
She was also still staying put, like some awkward statue of a scarecrow. Semi-sideways, still with her axe poised, she began moving towards the two, eyes still flickering nervously.

"...Not like them."

Not the most harmless-looking way to approach, was it? The both of them also could probably hear her now, if they had not noticed her before. She stopped a dozen and a half meters from the two, hesitating.
"Hey!? I..." Her voice was uncertain, and she did not even know what she had began to say.
"I mean no harm." Where from came the automatic assumption of hostility? (There was a deep sense of regret.) Her eyes flickered to the axe, then back to the men. "Precaution. The ... strangers. Yes. You're strangers. I don't know you, nor your intentions. Don't ... recall seeing people here. Not living and friendly ones, at least." Well, that was embarrassing...
"I..." Provided that neither of them had attacked her yet, she inched almost a dozen meters closer, trying to glance at what the second man was offering to the knight. Berries. "A human can survive a month and a half without food. Without water, in this heat? Two days and you're dead. He needs water, if he wants to live. Actual water. A few berries won't make much of a change." I have water. But announcing it right away would be foolish, and who was to say those people would be worth the "investment"? For all she knew these two would attack her as soon as they got the opportunity. So, now, the most important thing they had to know about her was the fact that she had an axe.

*Think fresh (and potentially even slightly raw) pineapples and how those can damage your mouth if you eat too much, but with five times as bad effect.

From the brief moments that John had actually gotten a glimpse of the bird standing still, he had committed the it all to memory, compiling them all together to form a painting of the noble creature. It had been a hell of a time trying to get time to draw it, the person he seemed to be following rarely stopped for rest other than sleep and brief lulls to eat and drink. Those too had been reducing slowly, was the man running out of food? John’s own supply still had enough for a few more days, thanks to cabin’s stock and the surprise of a running well.

He still wasn’t sure what the man looked like. He was just [b]too[/b[ damn fast of a walker. After what felt like days, John was exhausted. The only sign that stayed was the brief splash of brown that flew through the sky, the hawk following its master, and it was a man after all. The boot prints were too large to be that of a woman, and its gait was normal enough that John assumed it was no monster tricking him into walking towards doom. Then again, he was sure Doom was all he could hope for in this land.

As he stared at the image, unsure if it felt right or not, he was startled as he ran straight into an iron wrought fence, waist high and surrounding a cemetery. Even just looking around, John could tell the eery feeling that sat over it was there for a reason. Cracked headstones covered in moss were set in basic rows, only stopped by a lone building set in the middle. An entrance to the catacombs, he supposed. Flying high above was the bird, watching over him as he climbed over the fence. It refused to come down.

His short walk didn’t last long, there wasn’t much to the place. Nothing he could use, at least. There was just the corpses of the dead, packed tightly together. The ground here felt strange, too. Unlike the normal dry, dead dirt, this dirt felt… alive. Barely.

John knew that the man had gone down into the crypts, but had no idea whether or not to follow. Even his dumbed down senses could tell it was a trap, intentional or not. Resting grounds for the dead weren’t places you should go, at least not in this world. The lamentations of the damned combined with deep dark places always attracted strange things.

Death would follow him, but he knew he had to go down there, into the depths. He was frightened, but through the haze of fear, he would find someone.

His lantern shone bright as he descended the steps, a veritable beacon of hope in darkness that felt ever consuming. He was extremely glad for the light, even though it was going through his limited supply of oil. Without it he would have been stumbling blind. The weapon in his hand scraped against the ground as he dragged in, greatful for the noise in the otherwise silent crypt.

A loud crunch stopped him in his tracks as he looked around, expecting a great maw crunching the bones of the person. Nothing leaped from the shadows, it was just a skull crushed beneath his boot. John let out a great sigh while bending to examine the skull. It was old, obviously having been in the catacomb for centuries at the least. It was then he noticed a discarded lantern.

Laying a few meters ahead was a cracked lantern, discarded as if someone had fallen and left it there. Curious, John stood up and loped forward, holding his breath as he got near. Suddenly, there was yelp of fear to his left, and then a ptt-twang of a crossbow. John let out a gasp of air, pain surging in his leg as he fell forwards, rolling down the stairs and hitting the bottom with a crack, stunned and immobile as he listened to a dragging sound.

The twang of a crossbow shattered the stillness, the unmistakable thud of pulverised flesh pierced the unillumination. The hidden man had shown himself to be a cunning hunter indeed, luring his stalker to the deep darkness and firing to the shadows in the interest of his own safety, without regard for the man he had taken upon himself to wound or to kill. Neither Hunter nor Stalker had the sense to respect the peaceful dark of the Crypt, to leave the velvet shadows undisturbed; their presence instead rolling through the winding, endless corridors where all manner of savage devils lay with the promise of eternal sleep. Rue to those wicked souls within the embrace of the Broken Crypt, for their harrowed lives were once more in danger, but perhaps not from each other.

Something awoke in the deep. Something disturbed from slumber by a faint hunger impossible for the sane to understand. The lightless depths burst to life with the low rumble of the moving of a stone, the grinding of restraints. If there were any poor souls able to observe in that abyss, then maybe they would have caught a glimpse of something sauntering through the halls, inhuman eyes scintillating behind a thick fog of age old dust, disturbed once more by motion within a place so long devoid of it.

Click clack went legs in the dark. Tapping and tapping. A gibbering resonated through the halls, lamentations of some deformed mouth speaking some ancient and incomprehensible tongue like a prematurely woken mute whose mind was fixated on torment. Ghostly whispers ascended from the deep; a cold followed in the wake of their malice — a cold so bitterly frigid that even the coldest nights of the Land Betwixt above would shy from their severity.

Those sounds were more than shrieks from the dark, they were songs from Hell itself.

Tip.

Tap.

Something wandering on foul, demonic legs crept towards the thin light of above that seeped down the shaded stairwell.

And it could see so clearly the Hunting man pressed between a cracked corridor, with flesh oh so fresh, and a heart beating oh so fast.

In the valley, the Prince slumped along, half-mesmerized by fatigue. Rest was becoming increasingly difficult for the man to come by, as rocks and dirt draped in dirty, thin and worn purple robes made for a very poor bed. He was also careful of how he slept, for he didn't want to wake up sore. An ailment such as that could sometimes make a huge difference, from what he's experienced, and keeping his body free of physical soreness was just one of the small victories he could easily keep established, even if it meant sacrificing comfort.

"It's so grey." The man muttered to no one in particular. He would mutter to himself often- he was afraid of forgetting the sound of his own voice. The lack of color in this land was astounding; he was thankful for such vivid imagery in his memories, else he would likely forget what color even was. He walked slowly with his head tilted down. The sun was to his back- it's faint warmth felt nice on his neck- but such a bleak landscape was difficult to stare at for long periods of time. He shifted the weight of his sheathed blade on his shoulder- he had switched from carrying it on his back to resting the whole thing on his right shoulder, wrist draped over the hilt- as a fisherman would carry his pole or a woodcutter his ax. The young man's belly emitted a faint rumble, though the Prince had only just eaten some of his fruits and tubers he had collected in his pack. He was quickly running low, not that he was eating more than he needed, but rather this valley he had found himself in hadn't offered..anything, really. He had fully accepted that he must look like easy prey right now- no cover, slowly trudging, head down, blade anything but at the ready.

The Prince cleared his throat and glanced back behind him- still nothing. He let out a quiet sigh and felt his shoulders slump lower. He had started back towards where he had already come from..what, several days ago, now? His original hopes were to put distance between him and the mountain behind him so he could get a better view of the castle he knew lay behind it- but so far, his backtracking had done little but tire him out and waste food and drink. At this point he judged it may be better to simply go back into the forest that was a few days trek further ahead- he could probably scrounge up some more food to replace what he had used, at the very least. Assuming no manner of foul beasts lurked in the trees, of which the Prince was sure there were. It was his suspicion of such that he had avoided it the first time around, anyway.

As it normally did, his mind began to slip back towards what Tomb had said. 'What matters is your pick among the roses,' it had told him. What did that mean? Should he even bother contemplating the words?

A spur of motion in his peripheral caught his attention and brought his head up- he gripped his sword's hilt tightly.

A tall stone-like mass stood several hundred yards away. It's glass-like face reflecting the little light there was and offering only a look into the grey ashen valley it stared at. It's form was wrapped in voluminous red cloaks. The color of a rose.

"Tomb." The Prince muttered- not wanting to call that out to the being. The Prince had given it that name, anyway, for in their last conversation it hadn't offered its own.

The Prince took a few steps towards it but stopped abruptly- its mirror-face was reflecting the light of the sun at the Prince and it was blinding. Was it going to attack this time? As the man recalled, it didn't seem entirely intent on being immediately hostile, hence the conversation. In fact, it was difficult to discern what Tomb's intent was, at all.

The reflected light ceased after a few moments and the Prince found himself alone. The distant Tomb seemed to have simply..vanished. Did it teleport? The Prince remembered well that Tomb hadn't moved much last time he saw it; that was something that added to its unsettling aura. The Prince had moved on, Tomb watching him as he left, until the being was out of sight entirely.

The Prince felt like yelling. Or crying. He wasn't sure of the amalgamation of emotions he felt- fear that Tomb appeared as the Prince had thought of it; anger that the stone figure wouldn't allow another question; sadness that more conversation wouldn't be had. He clenched his non-sword holding hand tight and stooped to one knee, gritting his teeth. He felt weak.

"Damn it all," was all he was able to quietly mutter. The Prince wasn't sure why, but he always felt so afraid to yell, especially in this wide valley with very little to cover oneself with. He reassured himself of his health in his own mind, and given a few minutes the Prince found himself travelling towards the forest once more, his mind plagued with more questions that ever before. At least Tomb got his brain working, he'd give it that.

He was trotting up a deceivingly tall mound when his train of thought was broken by..a voice! The Prince halted his movement. It was faint, but it sounded like the voice's source resided on the other side of this mound. He heard another voice, the second much more faint.

The Prince crouched and lowered his blade off his shoulder. Clutching it in one hand, he crawled on hands and knees to peek above the peak of the mound- and there they were. The two voices had come from three bodies. Three people? All this time spent alone, and all of a sudden he comes across the most humanoid things he's seen as of yet.

An armored man stooped on his polearm- it was a faint tickle, but the Prince almost could remember men wearing similar armor in a memory- the one where he is knelt before the crowned figure, most likely a king. Beside the metal bulwark was a figure clad in black- it was difficult at this distance to discern any distinct features of the two beyond what they were wearing. The third appeared more feminine, judging by the long hair, but it was still tough to tell. She held an axe out at the two.

He wasn't sure what had happened prior to his gazing, but from what the Prince saw now it looked like a post-battle scene. The woman may have attacked the knight, besting him and his...companion? Perhaps she now offered mercy? The Prince hadn't heard any battle, though. Perhaps the speaking he heard were threats and a battle was about to begin? The Prince couldn't be sure. He tightened his grip on the sword and continued watching, hoping he was adequately covered by the mound.

"These are really bitter, but it should quench your thirst and hunger. It's not much, but consider it an investment."

_{like you}

For a brief moment, he could feel his last memory come alive before his very eyes. The touch of the cool winter breeze; the smell of the winter flora blooming in the highlands. The flash of gold and jewels. For that moment of relief, he was not trapped in that land of empty Hell, and he was with Her. Whoever she was.
Was this the end for him? The Nameless Turncloak who remembered not the side he left nor the side he turned to? The fickle dispute of nameless leaders over power that only resided in the minds of those who fought.

The breeze was cool and soothing.

And then, the empty heat of the Land Betwixt. A voice. Familiar? From a memory now lost?

“M-m-maaaarching without stop…” The voice seemed to blur and elongate with the nonsensical patterns of the sand as the world came back into focus. Black armour, the eyes of a killer. The Turncloak wearily turned his head to the newcomer. The man had the eyes of a murderer; as did he.
The next words out of the stranger’s mouth were lost to the Turncloak, drifting away on the nonexistent winds of the land. But he was offering him something: berries, or so it seemed. Juicy and succulent they looked, no matter how small and relatively feeble they truly were. They would keep him alive for now, long enough for him to regain his footing. He nodded his head to the man who donned black, and hastily grabbed the small handful of berries from him. He slammed the mouth visor of his helm upwards, stuffed the berries into his mouth and slammed it shut once again. With every fatigued chew of those seemingly succulent droplets of sweet life-giving juice he could feel his body rejuvenate somewhat, his mouth flushed of the deathly dryness. It filled him with just enough strength to hoist himself upon his pole arm and drag himself to his feet. His body was still numb and weak, but somewhat less so than he had been. There was indeed hope for this life – a little.

There was a connection between the two. Maybe it was delirium of near-death, or maybe it was true. Something unlike that of this chthonic world. He dared not divert his gaze from the man who had offered him temporary salvation, his focus entirely upon him: his saviour.

“Who are you? Did you once stand ‘front of a throne? I offer you thanks, life-giver and life taker. Do you feel nothing in this land, or are you a weapon of unparalleled lethality?” he asked, slowly.

He raised once more to his full height, the movement of his muscles restoring his strength and his resolve, once again shrugging off the pain of so many miles of empty wandering. He brandished his halberd, slowly becoming aware of those who had also shown themselves in the filthy crag within which he had nearly passed for the last time: his saviour in black, the axe-wielding woman whose confidence was enshrined by the weight of her weapon, the wearer of the bells who presented himself as a misbegotten yet dangerous fool, and a figure almost unseen upon the mound to the distance, shuffling amongst burned shrubbery, no doubt watching and waiting.

Who were these people? Tricks of the mind no doubt? Empty? Tricksters.

“Stand behind me, Lifegiver,” he sternly commanded the black-clad rogue, swerving between he and the Axe-Wielder and the Bell-Wearer, halberd at the ready, prepared for anything. He was weak, but capable. Capable of defending himself should it come to that. But maybe these people… were truly people. He could not know for sure — not yet.

“Tell me, Children of the Empty Land,” his voice rung out between the walls of the canyon valley. “Which King do you serve?”

Beat.

_Ring.

Floating? Perhaps not. It was a feeling hard to place a finger upon, where complete and utter silence became the loudest thing one could feel, where the consuming and wretched hermetic darkness was all the light that would reach one’s eyes. Perhaps it was like being in a tunnel burrowed below a mountain, unlit and featureless, with one’s body teetering between the edge of a hole and the safety of solid ground behind: that moment’s hesitation, the primal instinct and feeling of vertigo that accompanied standing at the precipice.

In a poetic sense, she was experiencing that very feeling.

It was chillingly cold, impossibly so despite the Valley’s viscid fever of a temperature. Her body felt immaterial—light, yet painfully numb and stiff at the same time. Every rapid breath was a desperate and short clawing for vital life-giving oxygen.

And the sound…

Beat. Beat.

Beat. Beat. Beat.

Ring.

It was if a bell tone was constantly ringing in her ears, accompanied by the sound of her own heart. She couldn’t stand it. Damn it all, damn it to oblivion.

Oblivion? The girl realized something odd. Where was she? What was happening? She felt a pressure coming from all sides, her consciousness finally flickered back into coherence. There was the creaking of wood straining, and the pain. So much pain all over her body, the prickling cold of numbness. She had felt this once before, once upon a death when her vital fluids were exsanguinated from her body by some creature of the dark.

“_{I need you down. Don’t stay there},” a voice played in her mind, clear and sweet, a lovely and nostalgic whisper—yet, it was also a desperate plea entirely unfitting of its chime, like a single out-of-tune note in a beautiful instrumental piece.

For an instant, what little light there was in the foggy morass was indelibly blinding. Oblivion’s eyes snapped open and visual information began to pour through every crevice of her mind, at first seeming impossible to withstand, but then coherence continued to build. She was raised from the ground, suspended in the air from a tree by wire-like vines. The tree’s vines had her strung like a broken marionette, one arm stretched toward the sky, another lifted to the horizon, her legs bent at odd angles. She was pale and her body was numb, and she struggled to take in any breath.

She recalled the voice’s plea and grit her teeth. Oblivion knew she had to survive this test, to stay intact and as whole as possible. She willed her muscles to activity, managing to free one arm from the vines. Where the plants had contacted her flesh were what looked like tiny bite marks, blood seeped from them. Oblivion took a few more gasps of air as she swiftly unsheathed her blade, the need to escape fully consuming her mind, the primal instinct to survive coursing its draught of energy through her veins to empower her.

The tree screamed as she cut the vines, one by one she freed herself from the hellish bindings until… weightlessness. For a moment she felt as if she were afloat, until the ground rapidly overcame her vision. Mercifully, the ground here was soft. The raven-haired woman sunk into the ground as if it were a bed of down.

So she survived, for now. She willed her body to flip itself over, lest she waste the effort getting away from the clutches of the leeching tree by suffocating face down in the mud. But, that was all she could muster. Weariness overcame her as the adrenaline faded away.

Tired… So tired.

Her eyes rolled to gaze upon the striations upon her wrists, then to behold the tree she had been latched to. Singularly amongst the others around it, that tree had life. Her life. Just how had she got into this situation?

A pathetic and resigning laugh escaped her lips. If anyone were there, they would have thought it more a cough, perhaps a raspy sigh. Only Oblivion would have been able to discern such a pitiful sound as a laugh.

She had been in this same forest of fog for fate knows how long, subsisting from the life to be found within and walking forward to wherever she may end up. There was food to be had, there, in the form of strange bulbs that sprouted from the ground. She ignored the fact that they looked like human eyes, complete with a root that looked like a nerve, she ignored their vile flavor and the urge to vomit from the moment she bit into one. They certainly weren’t poisonous.

The fog never lifted, it obscured the vision and befuddled the mind, she needed a way to know she wasn’t walking in circles. While she could live off of the eye stalks and drink of the water, there was always something watching, preying upon her just beyond sight waiting for her to make too much noise. It had killed her once, when she dared to try and sing her songs and lift her spirits. She still remembered it, the feeling of being drained dry, unable to move or even plea for it to stop.

So, she kept moving in silence. The trees there were soft as wet pulp, a mere stroke of a finger upon them would remove entire inches of rotten wood from the trunk. So she marked, and marked, and marked upon the trees with arrows. Until she came upon the one tree. She remembered the curiosity of its sight. Unlike the others, it was brown instead of black. Unlike the others, it had foilage. Unlike the others, no eye stalks grew about its base.

As they say, curiosity killed the cat.

She laughed once again, this time slightly louder. A twig snapped in the distance, still just beyond vision. It moved, the thing she called The Silencer, for it reacted to the sound of voice. Oblivion had once took the liberty of experimenting with it, stomping about and making noise to no effect, only to the sound of her voice did it approach.

This time, an actual sigh.

Moments passed as she lay, her body numb, but kept warm and uncomfortable by the dense humidity. Eventually, she was able to reach into her bag. Meat was what she needed at that moment. From the leather bag she produced a single strip of dried beef, sure to be worth more than a house full of gold in this land of oblivion and forgotten memories.

The taste, the texture, everything of the beef was immaculate. But more importantly, it nourished her in a way no other food of this land could. She took in a deep breath and felt the corners of her lips curl upward. For now, she would live. To what end, she knew not, but she would be able to move forward. Perhaps she would even escape the all-encompassing fog.

- - – – – — — — ——— ♦ ——— — — — – – – - -

Hours had passed, at least what would be hours if time had but a semblance of meaning. Oblivion continued onward once more in silence, her vigor renewed. The same could not be said of her morale, however…

A corner of her mind begged and pleaded for her to speak to herself, to assure herself that she still had a voice, to maintain those important songs that she inherently knew the importance of. But she knew that to do so would mean certain death, and with death would come true oblivion… Eventually, at least. A long sigh escaped her lips, and with it more crackling of twigs, perhaps accompanied by a baleful chuckle of an inhuman creature.

Oblivion marked another tree and continued to trod onward through the dirt and fog, cautious that the forest would not swallow her alive again.

Now then... 'Princess'... What should I do today? Then again, what else is there other than to walk endlessly through this mire?

Crouched in a dark corner, hidden away from the light and prying eyes of the creatures within the crypt, and warmed by the leather, weather-worn cloak that he wrapped around himself, he tried his best to sleep. His hand wrapped firmly around the steel hilt of his short sword, its sheathed point pushed against the ground. Where was he? the question still echoed somewhere in the back of his head. He tried to convince himself that it was unimportant, that the life he was living at the moment was imperative. But the question was a ghost if he had ever believed in that sort of nonsense.

It nagged and gnawed until he drew his attention to it. Between the hiding and watching for monsters, his attention was very short for anything non-urgent. Even if they were--arguably--of the utmost importance. He took a shivering breath, the shakes grasping him all of a sudden. He had felt it once before but that was in a different part of the crypts, near a specter unlike any creature he'd seen before. A being that brought icy and frigid temperatures along with it.

Was it the twang of metal that stirred its movement? Now that he thought on it again, that sound was a familiar one. It brought back fresh--albeit very short--memories. They flashed pass his eyes and banged on his brain with throbbing consequence.

He held the flag of another for a moment but dropped it upon witnessing blood fly through the air and a blade glimmer along with it. a few feet in front of him.

A man, a friend... perhaps, smiled somberly at him before having an arrow pierce his skull...

He re-clenched his grip on his sword and simply listened. The next sounds would decided his next moves, for he was not fool enough to head straight into the arms of that foul, cold beast. No, he was not fool enough. The prospect of engaging that monster the first time he entered was deplorable. And now that he had found a place where no creature roamed and he could grab a deserved, if not hunger-pained, sleep, he was reluctant to leave. Over six thousand steps since his awakening--not including rests and piss-stops--had accumulated to that moment. Who would waste such valued time?