Feeling the uncomfortable smell tickle his nose, Ashoka couldn't help but wince, instinctually covering his nose with a hand. He now very much regretted taking off the mask covering his features before.
After a few dozen seconds of silence, he let out a sigh.
Well, atleast my guess was correct.
There was a long running gash at the inner side of the wooden trapdoor, although somewhat somewhat faint due to the whethering of the elements. Not only that, the uncomfortable scent had only appeared when the entrance was opened fully. It indicated that Gaius's ability was at work here.
This was going to make his subsequent sabotaging much easier to set up.
Of course, now he had to do what he ought to. Looking at the menacing darkness that stared back at him from the tunnel entrance, Ashoka unconsciously took a step back. Shivers travelled down his spine just at the thought of entering it.
As it turned out, there wasn't really a cage to contain the abomination that he had to set free. This was reasonable considering only a mystically enchanted cage would be able to contain a Fallen abomination, and as far he knew, there were none in Casamir, much less any that could be acquired while being anonymous.
This meant that he had to personally venture into the darkness and lead the bloodtrail directly to the abomination's nose, to make sure it could instantly follow it.
Can't I just leave it at the entrance though...
The answer was a sharp Nope, and now, he could only pray that Gaius hadn't lied about his ability to put a Fallen abomination into deep slumber.
Taking another deep breath to calm his tense nerves, he pulled out a makeshift unlit torch by his waist. After pouring some highly flammable oil on the torch's clothed head, he rubbed his spirituality and ignited it.
Finally, he took a silent step forward, his form disappearing into to oppressive darkness.
The scent grew stronger and thicker as he travelled deeper inside, until it became more like a suffocating presence that pressed down upon him from every angle.
Eventually, he reached the very source of this presence. His torch illuminated to massive form ahead, which fortunately looked very much asleep.
It was enormous. Even curled as it was against the tunnel wall, it occupied most of the available space, its bulk pressing against the stone on one of the side.
Its skin looked less like skin and more like the surface of a dried riverbed. The gaps between the rock like plates seemed to be filled with black obsidian like tissue that caught the torchlight, only to reflect a faint red and yellow, akin to nearly solid magma.
It had four legs, each ending in claws that had gouged long parallel grooves into the tunnel floor simply from the weight resting on them. The claws on the front legs were longer, broader, built for displacing large amount of soils and rocks rather than walking. The back legs were dense with muscle even at rest, haunches raised slightly, coiled without meaning to be.
The head was the worst of it.
A long snout, broader than his thigh, tapering toward the end — and the end was wrong, ringed with folds of dark tissue that even in sleep seemed to twitch faintly. He had the distinct impression that if it opened completely like a trumpet, it could swallow an entire human within its depth without letting a single drop of blood touch the ground.
It was breathing Slowly. Each exhale was the source of the smell.
Ashoka did not move for a long moment, the blood draining from his face.
God... What a nightmare show. You are telling me I have to fight such things in the forgotten shore?!
He would've said that he would rather die, but clearly, that wasn't something on his bucket list right now.
Finally, he finished the bloodtrail by dropping the final drop right in front of the monster's snout. There was subtle movement by the monster, and for a split second, Ashoka started rethinking all his life choices. In the end, that was all that happened and the monster remained fast asleep.
With this, his main task was over.
But this wasn't all that Ashoka was going to do. He raised the flask in his hand high up. There was still some blood left inside, something that Ashoka had meticulously rationed till the end.
After a second's pause, he swiped his hand diagonally down, splashing the remaining blood on the monster's neck in a straight slash.
Following the strange action which looked almost ceremonial, he put the bronze flask away and picked up the torch.
Then, he walked to the right side of the monster, where there was a small gap between its rocky carapace and the stone wall, big enough for a person to walk through it.
Ashoka did just that, ducking low and passing through the opening. Arriving on the other side of the tunnel, he continued walking forward with silent, measured steps, soon reaching the exiting trapdoor.
Climbing up from the tunnel, he was greeted by the magical sight of the gigantic hardwood trees, their roots glowing with strange green ambience.
He couldn't admire the view for long, though. Without the protection of Gaius, the wilderness was incredibly dangerous, so he had to make it quick.
Straightening, he looked back at the open trapdoor, his gaze landing on the familiar looking cut mark running across its length.
He took a step forward, his hand reaching into his robes to take out the silver stiletto. Then, he bent down towards the part where the trapdoor connected with the ground, and using the sharp stiletto, cut off the hinges. With that done, his hand grabbed around the edges of the wooden trapdoor and pulled.
"Hmph!!"
So. Damn. heavy!
Straining his muscles, he lifted the wooden trapdoor off the ground, clumps of dark soil and damp leaves falling off its surface as he positioned it on his back to make up for his relatively weak arms. Since the trapdoor was almost as wide as his entire height, that too took some effort. With his legs finally steady, he walked inside the underground tunnel.
After that, it was only a matter of time. It took him a dozen minutes to reach the part where the Fallen abomination laid asleep, a few minutes to get past it, and then another couple dozen minutes to reach the other exit.
The time he had spent in the tunnel should've definitely left a deep and unmistakable scent on him, but strangely, it didn't. Ashoks thought of the trapdoor on his back as the usual suspect, the working of the enchantment still a mystery to him.
Appearing on the other side of the tunnel, he settled the heavy weight on his shoulder down to rest for a moment. In the meantime, he adjusted the orientation of the trapdoor on this side of the tunnel to be in an unstable position, so as to make sure it would fall down and close automatically when the fallen abomination exited through it. Finished with that, he picked up the trapdoor once more and travelled deeper into the outskirts and near the border wall.
After some time of walking, Ashoka once again arrived in front of the entrance of another tunnel, almost as wide as the one he had left behind. Of course, the one glaring difference between them was that this one wasn't concealed by a trapdoor specially enchanted by Gaius.
Presumably, many such tunnels had been built during the early years of Casamir, when the Awakened soldiers protecting it were weaker and fewer in between. Some were completed, used as safe passage for cohorts to retreat undetectably while under the pursuit of terrifying monsters. Others were left incomplete and almost all of them were eventually sealed away when they were no longer needed as Casamir and it's ruler grew vaster and stronger, eventually forgotten by all.
But, as it turned out, some were neither forgotten nor sealed, having fallen under the notice of Prince Gaius instead. They were clearly not useless either as the prince had used them to both conspire a rebellion as well as secretly travelled into the wilderness to retrieve the poision to kill his brother.
The tunnel in front of him served no grand purpose however, only being used as a decoy. It was one of the incomplete tunnel that hadn't been sealed before being forgotten, and as the light of Ashoka's torch illuminated its dark depths, he noticed the exaggerated claw marks on the walls of its cylindrical contour. It looked as if a wild beast had used its massive claws to burrow through the ground, eventually reaching the outskirts of Casamir. These were of course fake, only an imitation of what the real deal would look like, but they looked sufficiently real to perhaps even fool an Awakened.
After the Fallen abomination would eventually be slain, the awakened soldiers were bound to investigate how it actually infiltrated Casamir. They would follow the trail of destruction it would have left, eventually arriving in the outskirts, where the original secret tunnel that Ashoka and Gaius had previously used was located.
But Gaius obviously didn't wish for such developments, wanting to not have his connection to this incident be found immediately. So, he instead left a far more obvious and easily noticeable clue — the second tunnel, which Gaius had modified to look more like a natural burrow.
The awakened soldiers would find it, and knowing that the abomination's tribe specialised in digging underground tunnel, would take it as the explanation for how the abomination found its way into Casamir, before sealing the tunnel altogether.
Gaius, it seemed was confident in his power's ability to keep the main Tunnel's entrance hidden using the trapdoor, and unless an extensive search was performed by someone of the same calibar as Gaius himself — like Ascended Rurik, the legendary scout — even Ashoka doubted the search would bear any results.
And Ashoka wanted just that to happen, just on a broader scale. He wanted the soldiers to find neither of the tunnels.
Without any hesitation, he placed the heavy trapdoor he had so painstakingly carried to this place, and covered the entrance of the decoy tunnel with its massive shape. Then, he used the surrounding dirt and leaves to disguise it further.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, he straightened and turned around. Far across the distant lowlands, a solitary speck of gold ember burned silently against the black hem of the horizon. It had appeared somewhere around the time when Ashoka was dragging the wooden trapdoor to this location, and because of the Mountainous terrain he was currently in, he had noticed it almost immediately. He, of course knew what it was. It was the burning wreck of the old farmer's barn house that Gaius had destroyed.
It was also the meeting place for him and Gaius after they finished with their part of the plan. From there, Gaius would get him to the Royal palace as fast as possible before Eldrin was informed of 'Oswald's' rampage and called for Ashoka for guidance on what to do.
Thinking of Eldrin, Ashoka's expression distorted into a grimace. He still felt uncomfortable for everytime he thought of what he was doing with Eldrin's family, regardless of whatever broken state it might have already been beforehand. The only solace he had was that his actions had mostly kept the innocent civilians out of trouble, and to some extent, even helped them.
Pursing his lips for a short moment, he looked at the growing expanse of flame and smoke far away. Then, he took a step forward in that direction.
***
Oswald, wearing a dark hood to cover his features, silently made his way through narrow, darkness enshrouded passageways of the small town, trying to make his way to the town's outskirts from where he could head for the royal palace. The winding, cobblestone alleyways twisted like a serpent, swallowing the faint glow of distant, sputtering streetlamps.
The alleyways of the lower town were narrow enough that two men couldn't walk abreast without their shoulders touching the walls.
Oswald moved through them quickly, keeping his hood low and his steps even. The town was quiet at this hour, far beyond midnight.
He had left his house shortly after Sera had fallen asleep — somehow before him — shifting without disturbing her slumber. He obviously couldn't stay the entire night, lest he feared having his disappearance known to the guards or servants by morning. Besides that, he also other matters to deal within the palace.
The alley ahead branched left toward the market square and right toward the outer road that eventually opened into the farmfields and then leading back to the capital. He took the right without slowing.
It was as he was rounding the second bend that he noticed the figure.
The shadowy silhouette wore a dark hood that hid his face completely, moving toward him from the other end of the alley. This wasn't abnormal as far as Oswald was concerned, since he wouldn't be the only person moving in the dead of night. Vigilant but not yet alarmed, he moved closer to the left wall out of habit and kept his pace,
The figure didn't slow either. They drew closer. Ten meters, five. Oswald kept his eyes ahead without staring, but for some reason, he felt a certain sense of familiarity from the figure. Hm... Was it perhaps the robe? Maybe it was the stature of the man that was oddly similar to his own.
Then their shoulders bumped, and that was when Oswald felt the first sense of alarm creep in. It was deliberate, not the glancing contact of two people misjudging space in the dark.
Oswald stopped, and then turned, checking his pockets out of instincts for the unlikely possibility that he had been pickpocketed.
The alley behind him was empty. Just shadow and the faint outline of a corner twenty meters back, and the sound of quick footsteps already disappearing around it.
That was when the ringing started.
It was faint at first, akin to the sound of bronze bell vibrating right next to his ears. The strange thing was that it didn't seem to come from an outside source, but instead from within his head itself. The sound built, climbing from a low buzz into something sharper and more insistent. His temples began to throb.
Frowning slightly, he hesitated for second before chasing after the figure, having a suspicion that whoever it was had something to do with this clear anomaly.
Oswald followed the footsteps around the corner, then another, the alley narrowing further before opening ahead into the broad stretch of the main street. He was close. He could hear the steps still.
He emerged onto the main street, and that was his first mistake.
The figure was gone. The street stretched empty in both directions, torches burning at intervals, no movement between them. He scanned it once, twice, and found nothing.
It was then that the ringing transformed into blinding headache, hitting him all at once. It pierced through his skin and drilled through his skull like a knife being twisted into his temples. He had been dealing with headaches for almost two years by now, and this was somehow the worst of them all. The alarm in his heart only grew.
He pressed two fingers to his temple and put some pressure on his forehead. His body bent forward due to the excruciating pain that radiated through his head.
Just as he was recovering from the headache, he felt a sharp, rhythmic pain course through his forearm, pulsing as if something was trying to slither its way through his veins.
He looked down. His hand was already moving, pulling back the sleeve, tearing the section of cloth when it failed to cooperate fast enough.
His gaze quickly landed on the old scar that ran from below his wrist to the inner crook of his elbow, pale and slightly raised. It was a scar he had received almost 2 year ago, during the great raid. It, along with the burn scar on his face had never fully resolved no matter what was done to them. He had stopped trying to have it healed after the fifth attempt.
The burn scar was given to him by the same terrifying abomination that had broken his will to be a warrior any further, and perhaps the strength of the monster that had dealt it explained why the scar was so persistent.
This scar on his forearm, however, had no known sources as far as he could remember. He had only come to know of its specialty and existence when all the scars around it had already disappeared.
He stared at it intently.
The pulse came again, stronger this time. The scar itself looked unchanged, the same thin line he had looked at a thousand times — but the pain radiating from it was not the dull familiar ache that had long disappeared years ago.
He was still trying to understand what was happening when his vision started to blur at the edges, slowly expanding its reach.
He shook his head, as if wanting to shake away the defect in his vision, and then took a step forward.
At some point in time, the noticeable hum of crickets had became faint. Although he had taken a step just now, the sound of it came muffled and muted, as if coming from behind a wall.
Swish!
A sharp clean whistle of displaced air pierced the silence as something tore through it at deafening speeds. Instinct kicked in before the thought did and Oswald ducked low to ground.
A blade of dark steel passed just overhead, cutting through the edge of the hood over Oswald's head.
He was already on his feet before the attacker had turned around fully. The blood first drained from his face, then came rushing back in, flowing through his muscles as his body became battle ready. Before he could turn to look at the attacker behind him, he once again moved to the left, dodging the spear that came from the opposite direction. Sadly, he wasn't as lucky this time as his blood was spilt on the cobblestone road below.
An enemy attack! An assassination? And there are two of them as well!
His first instinct — when the situation was still somewhat calm — was to use reason. Ignoring the pain by his abdomen, he raised his voice and lifted both his hands to the side. "Stop!"
The street fell into silence once again, or atleast that's what Oswald thought. By now, he could barely hear his own voice.
"Do you not fear the Crown?" He asked, swallowing some saliva before taking a short breath, "Are you under the illusion that you will be able to escape it's judgement? Don't be fool and think it through first before attacking me, a Prince!"
A jumbled, indecipherable string of noise answered his words almost immediately, the meaning lost and incomprehensible because of his disappearing senses. The words carried a heavy hint of mockery, fury, contempt, and most of all, disgust.
Oswald's heart skipped a beat when he realised he recognized the tone of that voice. A tide of memories fled past his head — a battlefield of warriors, blood and a hundred corpses of slain abomination, and among them, the person who had once fought beside him, both of them ready to give their lives for each other — and then a name flashed passed.
Corvin!
Many questions ran through his mind in that instant. Why was he being attacked? Why were the attackers not afraid of the Crown's rule? And most of all, Why was Corvin among them?
The attackers moved once again, seemingly not caring about what Oswald had just said, and before he knew it, the small clash that had only lasted two strike soon turned into devastating barrage of furious attacks that fell upon him, and the street around him erupted into dreadful violence.
His vision kept blurring at the edges and he kept correcting for it. Instead of trying to see everything, he started tracking movements of the blur colors instead.
By the time their battle reached the town's shopping district, most the road they had passed through was already in ruin. Oswald was already hating the fact that he had no real weapon to use, when another pulse ran through his arm. This time, it took away his soul essence.
Or that was what he thought at first, because as he kept fighting, he realised that it wasn't, and that only his ability to sense its flow had been taken. And when that realisation hit, and he finally understood the nature of the ability being used upon him, all the dots of disjointed information and baseless clues finally fell into place — the familiar looking figure, the headache that had tortured him for the past 2 years, the scar without an origin, the pulse that ran through it, and finally the dampening of all his senes.
At first, a face appeared. It was a mirror image of his own, lacking only the scar that should have ran through the face but didn't. Next, the loathsome voice of that man echoed through his ears and only then, the more so hateful name that tore Oswald throat and rang in the ears of everyone around him, filled with indescribable fury.
"DAMN YOU, GAIUS!"
He was no fool, of course, and he could already somewhat guess what was happening currently.
He would have said more, cursed more, but all those words could never leave the confines of his mouth, choked by the unseen hand cast by the shadow of his brother.
Far away, on top of a two story building, the hooded figure of Gaius observed the raging battle in the distance silently. After sometime, he turned and disappeared into the darkness behind him.
***
By the time Ashoka arrived at the burnt wreckage of the destroyed Barnhouse, the fire had somewhat diminished. That was not to say that it had stopped spreading, of course. The fire had already engulfed one of the neighbouring farms and was still growing.
The Distance between him and the barnhouse was separated by a wide, flowing river, a stone bridge running over it to provide a passage to the other side.
As Ashoka neared, he noticed that the place was strangely devoid of any crowd, something he hadn't expected. Perhaps it was because of the distance, or perhaps it was the dead of night that no-one was awake to notice the fire, Ashoka didn't knew.
The unusual emptiness ot the place felt strange, and a sense of nervousness eventually crept into his heart. Yeah... He had never really been fond of such oppressive atmosphere.
After a moment of thinking, he let those feeling fade away and decided to go closer and explore. Even from all the way here, he could make out the destruction left behind by the battle between Gaius and his men. Half of the barnhouse had collapsed at some point, the flames at its base already mostly extinguished. The other half was still burning with raging flames, its structure crooked and leaning on the other crumpled wreck like a feeble old man.
He stepped on the stone bridge running across the river, not thinking much, and that was when a sense of unease first set in. The feeling came without any proper reason or realization, but it settled deep into his bones all the same, gripping his heart with anxiety. It became difficult to even breath, as if he had suddenly been transported ten metres underwater.
Ashoka frowned. Not knowing where the feeling came from, he tried to give it a plausible reason
Strange... Is there someone secretly watching that I don't know of? Why do I have a feeling that I shouldn't go further?
He would've definitely turned back, but that was also when he first noticed the figure, lying motionlessly a dozen meters to the side of the bridge.
At first, he was confused, standing motionlessly for a second with a dazed expression, then, realization hit him and before he knew it, he was sprinting towards the motionless figure on the ground.
Inwardly though, he was cursing.
That bastard, I'm going to kill him!
The reason Ashoka had told Gaius not to hurt anyone was simple. One look at the family would let anyone know that they would not be able to handle even one of their family member getting severely injured. Just the cost of taking care of them, let alone treating their wounds, could completely cripple the family economically.
More importantly, he just didn't thought that hurting anyone from the farmer's family was really necessary for the act to look believable.
The seemingly unconscious figure was lying face down, so he couldn't really see the face of the person, but the clothes seemed odly familiar. Ashoka quickly realised that it was the old farmer's son that he had previously seen during the court session.
He reached the boy and knelt to the ground in a hurry. His first instinct was to roll over the body to take a closer look at whatever injury he might have, but Ashoka quickly stopped himself. There was a good chance that turning him around could cause some unknown internal bleeding or a spinal injury to escalate further. Although the chances were low, he just didn't wanna risk it.
The next course of action was to check the breathing. If it was particularly faint, he might have to perform CPR on him immediately. The good thing was that Raymond had taught him the basic on that so he wasn't afraid of messing up.
After a few seconds, he calmed down his heavy breathing and the wild beating of his heart. Since he couldn't turn the boy's head and pass a finger below the nose, he had to visually confirm the condition of his breathing.
He stared at the boy's back intently, expecting it rise or fall. A second passed without anything.
Ashoka's heart sank, his breathing quickening without him realising.
There was nothing.
He was not breathing.
Ba-dum.
Ashoka's hand hung frozen inches from the boy's back.
Don't stay still damn it! Just because he's not breathing doesn't mean he's dead! Maybe an impact to the chest collapsed his chest... or maybe it's a spinal injury. What to do... What to do...
Ba-dum, ba-dum
By now, sweat had began to accumulate all over his face, his hair clinging to his damp brow. In a hurry, Ashoka lowered the mask covering his mouth and allowed the dark hood slip from over his head, letting his long hair fall down.
He grabbed the limp wrist of the boy, checking for a pulse. The hand was abnormally cold, but Ashoka didn't seem to notice.
Once again, he was met with disappointment.
Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.
There was no pulse.
Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.
Ashoka froze like a statue, his body turning stiff. But then, he forced himself to move. He turned the body over. If the heart wasn't beating, he would have to administer CPR.
The body rolled over like a sack, the head falling as if it had no support to speak of, like a marionette with its strings cut. It felt so... So utterly wrong.
Finally, he saw the face of the boy he had assumed to be unconscious all this time. His eyes were open wide, mouth open in an expression a mix of suprise and unthinkable terror. A deep, dark red handprint ran across the boy's neck, the skin around it abnormally pale.
Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.
Ashoka's mind turned blank, his eyes turning distant as he stared at the motionless body below him. A sharp buzzing appeared at the edge of his senses, as if a bullet had been fired right next to his ears.
Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.
He felt the blood rush past his ears, heard the beating of his heart as if it were in his very hands. His mouth opened, as if to let out a hoarse choke.
The world titled. The bitter, metallic taste of bile flooded his mouth, choking back any sound he tried to make. He turned around and doubled over, his palms landing on the rough, grainy soil as he retched hard.
"Ah... Fuck..."
A string of saliva and bile dripped down the corner of his open mouth. He felt dizzy, very very dizzy.
Perhaps it was because this was his first true encounter with death, different from the news heard over a simple phone call or from the voice of the spell over a distant death, but at the instant, everything felt so fake... so... Unreal... There was a fucking corpse by his side and for some reason, he felt the full weight of that realization still hadn't set in.
No, that wasn't the case. The realization had long set in by the time he had set foot on the bridge. His lawyer brain had probably connected the dots but his mind had simply refused to even acknowledge it.
Sometime later, he raised his head and wiped the burning traces of acid from his lips. Then, he looked at the corpse beside him.
Why? Why did Gaius had to kill him? He was only 17 years old, only as old as Ashoka himself, but now, he was dead, a cold shell without a life or a soul.
Ashoka couldn't even conceive the thought of himself dying at such a young age, after all, there was so much he wanted to do, so many things to experience in his life. But the boy who he didn't even knew the name of... wasn't he the same as him? Ashoka felt a knot tighten deep within him and he once again felt weak.
A few more moments passed in silence, broken only by the crackle of flames and heavy breathing of Ashoka. After some time, the last standing pillars of the barnhouse finally collapsed. The sudden noise caused Ashoka to gaze in the direction of the burning structure.
Perhaps he shouldn't have, but he did. And there, amidst the burning rubble strewn around the blazing inferno, there was another corpse, charred and black. The expression it might have had during the last moments of its life were burried under innumerable burns, but the eyes remained untouched for some reason.
They seemed to be staring at Ashoka unblinkingly, filled with the look of accusation, as if asking a single question.
'Why?'
Ashoka did not knew the answer to that question, and neither did he want to answer it. There were probably also the corpses of the mother and the older son inside the burning barnhouse, covered by mounds of debris. His breath caught, and he tore his gaze away before the flames could show him anything more.
And so, even as his legs felt as heavy as lead, he ran, away from the place.
Away from this infernal hell that he had created by his own words.
He justed wanted to escape.
And perhaps in his hurry, he did not notice the dark, hooded figure quietly standing at the centre of the stone bridge, not until he rammed into him.
Ashoka crashed hard to ground, completely disoriented. He felt as if he had hit a solid wall. Then he looked up, and finally noticed the figure who's hood and fallen back, revealing a face illuminated by the ember light of the flames behind.
The fierce, sharp eyes that pierced his soul like a blade; the suffocating presence that pressed down with uncompromising force; and at last, the smooth, hideous burn scar that ran across the man's face like hardened, melted wax, warping his features into a perpetual mask of malice—the glossy tissue gleaming orange in the firelight.
Gaius.
A torrent of emotions hit him all at once. He felt the sharp sting of anger, the heavy weight of frustration, and deep resentment. But the emotion that conquered them all—
—was fear.
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[A/N: Hello dear readers! Did you miss me? Idk about you but I sure missed you! As for the reason for such a huge delay, all I'll say is, at first, it was a headache, then it turned into a fever that lasted for like two entire week!(No, this isn't the ao3 curse, even though I post there. This is nothing!)
After that, I got a little busy with helping one of my friend with his original novel. I had to write this entire chapter in like the period of 4 days, while suffering from a headache, and it's suprisingly chonky, around 5k words.
The next chapter has some stuff that I had been wanting to write for a long time, but I can't promise that it'll come soon. I already know what happened the last time I promised something like that.
Anyways, see y'all on the next upload lol✌️]