[Skell]
"Not afraid of the dark, I take it?" Penelle spoke into the haze.
My eyes scanned the residential street we walked down, triple-checking the shattered windows of derelict, multi-story homes and the narrow alleys between them. Some buildings were piles of rubble. Others might've been livable not too many years back. All could've hidden undead.
"Why would I be?" I led our charge into the ruined town, walking along a road made moreso of spongy dirt than stone. "Darkness isn't so bad. It's even… comforting, in it's own way."
"Comforting?" Penelle broke into laughter more snobbish than it was quiet.
…This is what I get for sharing.
Then again, conversation wasn't just to fill the dead air - it was a tactical choice. True silence would build apprehension - cause alarm over every little noise. Alarm was exhausting. Better to give a sliver of attention to each other while keeping mostly focused on our surroundings.
Even if she doesn't deserve it.
"You live here in the capital?" my eyes rolled past a string of dead bushes and skeletal trees.
She swatted a lone fly. "Since birth. Proudly."
"That explains it, then; you don't know darkness."
Her eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"
"Selem's Domain: the one that keeps everything so bright and pretty, it makes even the shadows soft. Pitch black here might as well be a foggy morning elsewhere."
"What? Nonsense. All darkness looks this way."
"Wow," I scoffed. "You gotta get out more."
"How dare you? I've experienced more than enough."
"Really? You haven't even seen an undead before."
"Neither have you, dark mage."
"Of course I ha…" I caught myself.
Penelle stopped. "Pardon?"
"I… well-"
Footsteps caught our ears. Loud footsteps. The kind that sounded strangely familiar.
Fingers curled around my staff. Penelle's épée glinted in the dark. Our eyes came to the same silent conclusion: the noise came from ahead.
We cautiously pressed forward, noticing the passing homes had started to wear a different sort of damage. They weren't just age-worn. Crosshatched marks scraped against their stony exteriors. Rotted fences seemed to have caved in because of force, not time. And shambling from behind one… I saw myself.
Shivers froze my body. I never thought it was actually me - that was impossible - but it was my spitting image.
Not as I was then. But as I used to be.
Glowing purple eyes, dull and lifeless, still had enough sentience to regard me with recognition. Not as kin, but as living prey. The tatters-wearing skeleton changed directions, stumbling toward us. First slowly. Then it picked up speed, hobbling with an inhuman rhythm.
I tried to raise my staff. But my hands trembled. Because of fear? No. I could deal with fear. This was something new.
A skeleton. Mindless. Unthinking. Ravenous. Others think the same of you, don't they? Velora, Hyland - even Amara, at first. Is it right to pass judgement on this creature - killing it just moments after laying eyes on it?
…Would you be a hypocrite?
The skeleton came closer, less than a room away. My thoughts barred action.
Before it could reach us though, the skeleton tripped over an exposed root in the road and tumbled pathetically to the ground. The fall was awkward and the skeleton fell onto a sharp fragment of a home's wrecked staircase. I heard a loud snap. An ankle broke.
It thrashed wildly. Like me, it could still feel pain, but its flailing only turned the small fracture into a widening crack without it seeming to understand why. After banging its damaged ankle on the floor for long enough, the foot itself broke off.
The skeleton had no voice to cry its pain.
I could only watch it with pity. Fragile. Weak. Words that fit this skeleton like a glove. On its neck was the collar of the lowest level of undead: green.
"..e.."
For a moment, I wondered if… maybe our situations weren't so different.
".k.ll!"
My body budged before my thoughts did.
Overwhelming force from behind pushed me downwards. As I fell I was able to turn to my attacker.
Chasing me to the ground was a man's appearance. But he was different. Terribly wrong. Skin was greyish-green and loose and clouded by flies - flecks of spittle around his rotted teeth and wooden tongue. Grey, soulless eyes stared at mine with the fury of a creature lacking everything but the instinct to kill.
We fell to the ground with him on top. The monster reached fang and claw for my throat but I wrestled both back with my staff and Shroud. It had unexpected strength. Every ounce of my power just barely kept my flesh untorn.
And right as a yellow collar reached in again - a boot kicked the creature off me.
"Move, Skell!" Penelle commanded, fearful but resolute.
I scrambled aside just as the creature jerked itself upright. A warped roar bellowed from the humanoid monster, its sharp nails lunging for Penelle.
The fencer replied with an elegant stance. "Rapid Redoublement!"
Penelle's épée cocked back like a loaded spring. Then a thrust pierced the creature's chest - the prelude to a blurry barrage of dozens more instantaneous thrusts. Violent shakes overtook the creature as wounds riddled its entire body. One final strike slid directly between its eyes, ending it all.
She retracted the weapon and flicked it, black blood splattering to the floor. Not all of it hung onto her blade, though. Some leapt onto her clothes. Most spilled down the creature's body as it crumpled to the ground - looking more like an erupting volcano of blood than anything once-human. Judging by its fading collar, the two lit pips on our bracelet, and the fact that even regeneration had its limits - it wouldn't rise a third time.
My wide eyes drifted to Penelle, whose blood-darkened doublet contrasted a face paler then usual. "I… Thanks, Pen-"
"Did you lose your mind!?" she blurted. "Why did you just stand there? You nearly got yourself slaughtered!"
"It… it was all too much."
"Was it!? You-" she noticed the sharp rises and falls of her own chest, and thought a moment. "Look. I'm scared. Sun above, I've only ever dueled instructors and peers - not damnable monsters. But you must get your act together. I cannot be expected to shoulder the both of us."
I shook my head, starting to feel like myself again. "You won't be. That isn't happening again."
My eyes turned back, to the skeleton still cracking its broken ankle against the ground - counteracting its regeneration. "I'll prove it. I'll… kill one myself."
She studied me. "…Very well. I will keep a vigilant watch. And listen this time, if I call your name."
I spun around, meeting the gaze of the thrashing skeleton. We're the same. Despised for our very nature. But also, worlds different. These undead are monsters in every sense of the word. They don't have sanity. Morals. That husk's only instinct was to murder me. This skeleton would do the same if it had the chance.
My feet started for the monster. …I've gotta face reality: if I don't take these monsters out first…
They'll kill us without hesitation.
I made it to the skeleton, standing over its squirming body. It reached out uselessly to grab me. My own grip tightened.
Grounded. Defenseless. If I can't kill one now… No. I can kill it. I have to.
"Skell," Penelle reminded, more gently than I expected. "It will regenerate soon."
"…I know."
I forced open my eyes and raised my staff. We're not the same. We're not the same.
…We're not!
My roar split the silence as I shattered the skeleton's skull like a cheap vase. Pieces exploded into the darkness and its dim lights vanished somewhere along the way. Just as Amara said, destroying a skeleton's head ended the skeleton. And after looking at the headless corpse… it'd definitely been put out of its misery.
Our bracelets glowed again. This time, the third pip lit up.
"Seven to go," noted Penelle, coming to my side. "If they keep advancing like this, things may proceed smoothly. Though, I've heard of skeletons before - creepy as they are - but that maggot-infested fiend behind us-"
"…A husk," I collected myself. "At least, I'm pretty sure."
Sharp fangs. Feral movements. Aligns with an undead Amara mentioned before.
"You know its name? Dark mage - are you familiar with undead or not?"
I sighed. "I've seen one. One. That's all. Anything else is from a mishmash of info I've picked up over a lifetime."
"Then why hide that?" Penelle's eyes moved to the headless skeleton, then back to me. "Were the circumstances… unpleasant?"
"Like you wouldn't believe."
She turned away. "You've been hurt by necromancy? Strange. I… always supposed that dark mages had a fondness for undead. Even if they are not all necromancers themselves."
"…Come on." I tried to put on a smile. "Let's keep moving. I'll need you and your toothpick on high alert."
"Toothpick?" her pale face turned a raging red.
Then that red disappeared, her eyes shot open, and horror pulsed across her face.
My brows furrowed. "Penelle? What's wrong?"
"S-Skell… y-you shouldn't have shouted…"
I spun around.
Teeth and bone and flies surrounded us at every possible angle. Their owners? A horde of husks and skeletons. Glaring from rooftops, through half-broken windows, pouring in from between alleys, stepping over crumbled homes, and even more undead pooling behind us.
And we huddled in the center of the chaos.
—————————————————————————————————
A cacophony of shrieks thundered through The Dross' silent haze. The escalating buzz of flies engulfed even that noise - hundreds tailing the scent of rot like sentient black sheets.
Skeletons, plugging the narrow streets and crowding the intact rooftops, staggered unnaturally towards us like puppets tugged by invisible strings. The husks spurred like rabid beasts, pouring from windows and bulldozing past skeletons to rip us apart.
"There's too many!" Penelle's gaze twitched between the myriad monsters, voice near-suffocated by the flies.
She was right. Numbers varied in each direction. But no path was free of undead.
Penelle stepped back, though it only brought her closer to the undead swarming the street behind us. "I-I don't see an escape… Sh-should we press-"
"No!" I prepared my staff. "We'll… we'll forge our own path!" I pointed forward. "The second street to our left! It's got the fewest!"
She didn't respond.
As the monsters closed in, my eyes reached for hers. "Penelle - time's up! Are you by my side or will you turn tail!?"
Her eyes sharpened. "D-don't patronize me! A true fencer never leaves the bounds of a duel!"
"Then follow-"
The nearest skeleton lunged at me from behind - faster than expected. I spun back and swept its ankles from under it. Several more took its place.
"Hurry!" Penelle rushed for the narrow alley ahead. I tailed her as the monsters converged on us.
A husk half-bathed in insects lunged for my legs as we curved towards the street. I jumped over and ran boots down on its back, leaping off it to land back on the ground as it ate dirt. But my trajectory led me right into the arms of another.
Before its claws wrapped around me, I hastily lifted a leg and kicked it - the husk colliding backwards into a skeleton. Another non-lethal attack, but things were too volatile to take care collecting points.
Penelle glanced back to check on me. But she missed it: a husk slithering from an overhead window to land on her. I pulled the fencer behind me. Reeled back my staff as it dropped. And rammed the snarling undead in the spine and into the damaged wall.
The ramshackle wall broke first - the entire thing tumbling down in a dusty heap. There wasn't time to be impressed by my own strength; I turned to Penelle to see if she was okay.
She was. The two husks on the ground weren't - shrieking on the ground at her feet with their eyes stabbed out. We each realized the destruction the other had caused. Then silently agreed to move on.
We slipped into the alley, the horde crashing into the corners behind us to keep up the chase. Ahead awaited three undead. Husks, several feet apart, all speeding toward us. Buzzing filled our ears as the closest lunged with an outstretched claw.
I stepped forward. "Duck!"
With a heave I spun in a semi-circle, hurling my staff over Penelle's head. The end slammed its chest into the wall - several bones shattering underneath rotten flesh.
My partner wasted no time advancing as the first slumped to the spongy dirt. But the next husk's claws drew dangerously close, nearer to her neck than her épée.
"Penelle!" I shouted, too far away to make a difference.
I shouldn't have been worried.
"Contre-Sixte!" Penelle incanted, pointing her épée upwards. The husk's claws collided hard against the weapon.
Penelle buckled.
But she refused to fall.
In one elegant motion, she dug her épée straight for the husks' chest. "Riposte!"
No small puncture appeared when she connected. Instead she bored a hole the width of a fist through the monster's dead heart… and burrowed beyond into the building behind it.
Shade, her power arts are something else!
It fell at our running feet, but a pip didn't brighten at my wrist. No surprise there. I knew better than anyone that undead needed several fatal wounds to go down for good. But that wasn't as important as the horde clamoring behind us. We couldn't keep slowing down.
I caught up with Penelle, voicing an idea as we passed the alley's halfway mark.
"…You're flashier than I assumed!" she panted.
We took simultaneous action: I extended my staff, and Penelle leapt into the air.
The way she moved, with practiced steps and refined movements, vouched for a flawless balance. Leading to a plan that might not have worked with anyone else. Penelle landed on the end of my staff. Using all the power in my arms, I hoisted her both skyward. The fencer sprung into the air, soaring like a dove.
And diving like a bird of prey. Her legs and blade came forward as she landed upon the husk. Boots stomped on shoulders - épée tore its throat.
The fencer knelt over the body while I caught up.
I extended a hand as I passed. She went to reach for it. Then in the next second, curbed her hand and rose on her own. There wasn't time to dwell on that. We reached the end of the confined alley.
For what little good that did us.
"Abyss!" I cursed at the sight ahead.
A gasp escaped Penelle's lips, taken instantly by the all-encompassing buzzing.
Before us was our original destination - the town square. Buildings there stood taller and tended to be more structurally sound, but that didn't mean safety. Undead spread across the breadth of the square, crowding around broken street lamps and collapsed stalls draped in faded, shredded, unfamiliar flags. They didn't seem to notice us. That'd change soon.
But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst was the ravines. Two vast fissures in the landscape congregated in the square's center, approximating an "x" shape.
"This must be the heart of their territory!" Penelle's shout barely registered as a whisper. "If I'd known that…"
Think fast! You made a solid gap between those guys behind you, but that's shrinking by the second. You could- wait! Shadow Form! It's easily dark enough, and you could escape the horde risk-free! But…
My eyes turned to Penelle.
Her confidence rocked back and forth like a hyperactive pendulum - I saw it on her face. The fencer's eyes, though? They were a step ahead.
"Dark mage?" she asked.
"Quit calling me that!" I sniped back. The undead Penelle stabbed was stirring - the hole in its throat closing. And the horde wasn't far behind it.
"Listen!" She pointed to the far end of the square, to a building with boarded-up windows and a tower sprouting from its center. "We could take shelter there!"
"And get trapped with whatever's inside!?"
"The door is closed!"
"So!?"
"Undead cannot open doors!" she insisted.
I connected the dots just as the regenerating husk leapt for Penelle's ankle. My staff caved its temple in first. But ten more were seconds behind it.
"Across the chasm!" Penelle sprinted into the square.
Again, I took off behind her, chills prickling at my back.
If undead wanted into somewhere, they'd break through a door or crash into a window. But if those are both intact, then undead must've never gotten inside! Meaning that building just might be safe…
What wasn't, however, was the path there. In our fragmented section alone lit twenty or so yellow and green collars. Combat would be suicide against those numbers. So we didn't stop to say hello.
But as we blew past the first several, heads jerked. Attention fixed onto us.
Arms leapt for our wrists, fangs for our throats. We were quick enough to weave past them. The undead directly in our way wouldn't be so easy to outpace. Penelle - ahead of me - had thrust into her hands a split-second decision: run into the arms of this pack, or fall back and let the horde behind us catch up. Either choice would end in her being ripped into bloody gore. Two grim choices.
Penelle chose neither.
"Skell! Watch closely!" she didn't slow. "Third Intention!"
Penelle took a hard step to her left. And her right. And… her center? I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
Three fencers caught my eye, all rushing in different directions. Left and center's images raced straight into the pack's claws and bony fingers, drawing the most attention. And the right? Toward the least obstructed avenue.
Something about the first two was off, though. Penelle's makeup already made her pale - but these were even moreso, and it wasn't just her skin. Those two's entire bodies' were slightly off-color and… a bit transparent. As opposed to the right Penelle, alive as ever.
The false images dove into the undead's hungry arms. They clambered over each other to be the first to pick her bones clean.
Fangs bit into nothing. Claws only sunk into the closest undead in the pile.
And the real Penelle? Circling the confused pack with only a few on her tail.
A distracted few I barreled into staff-first, knocking down one and shearing the nose off another. Penelle's distraction hadn't just let her through unscathed, it left behind a tried-and-tested path for me to follow. Best of all, no more undead stood in our immediate way.
What did was the tear in the landscape. Up close, I realized how much wider the chasm looked than from afar. And I had no plan for how I'd get over it. My Shroud was decent, but it didn't grant enough power to leap across the length of a wide room.
As for Penelle, she accelerated toward the edge. At the point where the chasm plummeted into tenebrosity, the fencer took a huge leap, curling hair bouncing as she rose over it. Agile as she was, even Penelle stumbled on her landing.
But she drove ahead still. More undead on that side charged for her.
I couldn't think about that, then. My turn was up. I knew I couldn't pull the same stunt. So with a number of moments countable on one hand - that just finished playing five-finger fillet - my mind went to work.
Right before I reached the lip of the chasm, the barest hint of an idea came to me. The sort that, if I'd another second to consider, would've been tossed-out like trash, scoffed at, and never thought of again. But seconds were in short supply; it was all I had to work with.
My boots met the edge. I pressed my staff into the ground and pushed myself up and into the air. Momentum pulled me parallel to the chasm - soaring over feet-first with my back to its depths.
I never felt a more immediate sense of regret.
Wind rushed by my eyes as they dragged against the distant ceiling of The Dross. Fear chilled my bones as I started to lose height; I was sure I was falling to my death. Reality hit hard when I crash-landed against the chasm's other side.
Real hard. My head rang from the collision and my bones clicked in a way they normally didn't and probably shouldn't. Not that there was time to sit and groan. There was more than enough groaning all around me.
Lurching to my feet, I rushed through the waves of undead as fast as possible, struggling to catch up to Penelle as she drove through the converging attacks. The fencer's épée flashed around her route through their numbers, disabling those that got too close. But her movements were getting sloppy. All those power arts were exhausting her at an accelerated rate.
Some of the undead chasing her, though, turned their sights on me.
I slipped past some, delving into the rare pocket of momentary safety between them, but I felt the wind of near-misses around me. That changed when red blood and my own ear splattered against the ground, dug out by an errant claw.
It shouldn't have hurt. But the very edge of the claw scraped against my skull.
Pain screamed into the bloody stump that was left of my lost ear. I flinched for less than a second. That was all it took for a hard tackle from a skeleton to nearly knock me to the ground.
A shadow loomed over me as raw self-preservation shouted into my other ear. I upthrust my staff into the chin of a husk, forcing its falling body into three more and striking another to bolt through a path I'd forged on the fly.
"Quicken yourself!" Penelle stood in the building's open doorway, fighting desperately to ward off the approaching undead.
She's waiting for me?
My gaze flicked back. I was actually beginning to build a gap between those behind me as bodies crashed ungracefully into others. But the gap between me and Penelle was much wider. And the numbers growing at the door were quickly overwhelming the tired fencer.
I stopped still. "…Penelle! Shut the door!"
"What!?" she impaled the brain of a husk, bending back just as another set of claws nearly blinded her. "But you'll-"
"Trust me!" Flies and the dead converged around me.
A swarm of the dead did the same for Penelle. Even from afar, I could see the hesitance on her face. But as undead came inches away from her - she slammed the door in their faces.
Leaving me in the midst of my past and present life. The horde descended. Two options stood before me:
One: fight an unwinnable battle against untold numbers and die in process.
Two: push my button, forfeit, and "live" in a state worse than death.
Or… I could choose a third intention.
"Shadow Form!" I incanted, my body melding into the darkness just moments before a husk's swipe would've rent bloody gashes into my face.
I sank beneath a hundred dead feet, finding unlimited freedom amongst The Dross. No claw could touch a shadow. I could relocate anywhere.
Interfering with that thought was my vision, skating across the ground. Up ahead, undead slammed their bodies against the door to Penelle. It wouldn't hold forever. I made a decision.
My murky form directed itself to the tall building and glided forward like an arrow past dozens of collars. I wouldn't be able to open it in my spectral state, and even if I could, that'd only invite in a mass of unwanted guests. I'd need another way. A way I expected to find as I came closer: between the door and ground was the slightest gap - barely wide enough to slip through a letter.
Shadows, as it happens, weren't just thinner than paper - they took up no space at all. So any opening - even the narrowest slit…
Was mine alone to travel.
Sliding through the door's gap, I leapt out of the shadows on the other side, just in time to feel the weight of the Dross' heavy air and see Penelle's tense face just a foot away from mine.
"S-sun above!" Penelle jumped at my sudden appearance, her back pressed against the door. "How did y-"
Another buck at the door nearly broke her footing. She spun around to press palms into it. "Nevermind that! I need a hand!"
"Move over!" I charged into the door, counteracting the building force on the other side. But as we struggled against the tireless undead, one thing became obvious: even if we could keep the undead out, they wouldn't quit trying to get in. Not before Penelle ran out of steam. And there was no way I'd hold against the horde alone. Forever.
Wait… there might be a solution. But if I step away, then-
More force jolted my arms. Penelle and I nearly buckled.
Urgh. Not happening. Gotta find some other way to turn the tide! But what!?
Penelle's face held a spark of determination despite our situation. But her human arms had limits. They were beginning to wobble.
I half-turned, eyes bolting around the room. I found a long hall, lined in rotting pews with an equally deteriorated table or shelf here and there. Things that might've held against the horde many years ago. Not today.
My teeth grit of their own accord. There was only one option.
"…Penelle!" I yelled over the buzzing outside. "How long can you hold them back!?"
"Pardon!?" Sweat ran down her face, muddying her makeup.
"I've got a way to keep them out - but I need time!"
The fencer looked at me like I was insane. I couldn't blame her.
She opened her mouth, just to be interrupted by another bump in the dark. Penelle squeezed her eyes shut. "Ugh! Move aside!"
Snapping back, I saw her take on the burden of the horde alone. But there wasn't time to gawk. "I won't be long!"
I knelt, and focused. Slaying my own mirror image, battling my kind, fighting for survival… when it came to negative emotion, there was a dark feast to feed on. I supplied it all to my left hand.
"Hand of Decay!"
Ignited with necrotic magic, I moved for the crevice between the wooden door and stone wall, restraining my destructive power just enough to meld the two into one unified barrier. Finding the thin line between obliteration and gentle erosion was an invariably slow process. One I had no choice but to rush.
Soon the materials merged into a synthesis of stone and wood - strengthening the old hinges. But that was only under a palm's worth of space. There was an entire doorframe to work through.
"Agh!" Penelle cried, her arms quivering like flags in a storm.
Shade - gotta hurry!
My hand rose up the length of the door. Time for each space was trimmed down; intensity was turned way up.
Penelle's jaw clenched like a vise, cords of strained muscle surging up her neck. "How! Much! Longer!?"
More beating came at the door - stifled somewhat by my half-finished work. It couldn't swing open anymore. But it could still be broken down.
I waved along the corner and darted to the other side. "Not much!"
"Abyss!" She cursed. "Hu…rry!"
I did. Even so, there was still so much left. The door jolted again.
Against it, Penelle's entire stance faltered. Legs trembled. Face went blue. Her arms… they lost their last drop of strength. Both slid hopelessly down the length of the door.
But the undead? They didn't care - there wasn't any mercy. It was like the world slowed, the way I heard them rear up behind the door, then fling themselves at it. The door bent forward, right at my face, near to bursting.
Before a shoulder slammed it back tight.
What!?
Her arms were out of commission, sure. That didn't mean the fencer was. She charged into the door, pouring shoulder, knee, forehead - anything that still worked into holding back the horde for even a second longer.
An inch from the door, Penelle's eyes glared ahead. And the most primal roar surged from her lungs, overpowering even the ear-piercing buzzing on the other side.
A noise powered from something the monsters outside would never understand:
The will to live.
"HhhhhrrrruuaaaaHHHH!" she screamed to no seeming end.
…Long after I sealed the entrance airtight.
I stood up, surprised at my work. Before us wasn't a door anymore - it was a splotch of wood that at all sides was fused into a brown-grey blend with the surrounding stone. Thanks to the building's relative resiliency over the years, it wouldn't budge anytime soon.
That said, I was even more surprised at the fencer. "P…Penelle?" I reached for her shoulder.
One tap was all it took. She swayed weakly away from my palm. Legs stumbled. Then they completely gave out underneath her.
She faced a bad fall. My arms caught her before that could happen.
"Penelle?" I supported the fencer's back, her arms falling slack at her sides. "Are you okay?"
Pink eyes climbed to mine, lashes yawning open. "That will hold… will it not?" she heaved.
Abyss… that was amazing…
"A troll couldn't bust through there. We're safe."
Her gaze drifted aside, to the hall's lines of pews. "Then I suppose… a break… is warranted. I… need it."
"Yeah," I held her. "A break. Abyss, that sounds good."
She looked aside, pale cheeks gaining a tinge of red. "…Y-you may unhand me, now."