NOVEL NEXT Chapter 134: Master of Puppets
An abnormal day-night cycle continued. A brief night ensued, the horizon to the north and west never quite growing entirely dark.
"Psst. Zilara to Yonah, over. You can go ahead and shut off that Target spell," said Zilara over a campfire. "He's halfway back to the city walls, now."
Some minutes later, an arrow symbol many leagues to the west blinked out of existence. Yonah had done her job, despite housesitting their hideout down in the redoubt. The benefits of a 'mission control' of this sort to thieves on a heist were immediate and invaluable. Fortunate, then, that the other bands of the would-be thieves guild didn't have such a useful utility item.
They camped where the road met the first uplifted volcanic vent of the Fellmarsh fumaroles. It was a common stop on the route, evidenced by faded burn marks of a dozen long-gone fires. A foul odor pervaded the campsite whenever the winds came in from the east.
"Phew," Zilara said, pocketing the one-way communication snail.
"You're going to have to get used to that," Jelena said with a chuckle. "Sure we can craft some nose-plugs with enough reeds. What about you, 'Kidu?"
"Olfactory senses are superfluous. I can disable them at will."
Calaf and Jelena raised their eyebrows at the wildman's boast.
"Alright." Jelena turned to Calaf. "Every step we take is further than we've ever ventured before, I assume."
"Assume." Enkidu snorted, arms crossed. "I'm going to patrol the perimeter. Entities in the Fellmarsh are prone to… wander."
The wildman left with a shrug.
"Well, I'm turnin' in to rest my eyes," Zilara said. "Wake me when dinner's ready."
That left Calaf and Jelena to tend to a dire-goat roasting slowly around the fire. Oromund's meal from the day before had left them hankering for finely roasted meat. Dire-goat meat was said to grow more tender and flavorful with higher levels, and this goat of the Fellmarshes was level 82, so it ought to be at its peak of succulence.
"So, dear, it's been getting steadily colder," Jelena said, shuffling closer to him.
Calaf nodded, shifting his shoulder to accommodate the relic thief as she sauntered up to him. Weather patterns this far north trended towards chilly gales, even with the onset of late-spring pilgrimage season.
"Going to need some extra furs in the tent," she added. Her left, eyepatch side was facing him.
It didn't take much of an excuse for the pair to lock lips. Conveniently alone, Jelena scooted into the wayward Paladin's lap. The fire and roasting dire-goat would have to tend to itself. Soon, Calaf provided the now-familiar head-tilt, the pair still in a passionate embrace; a silent signal to take things back to the tent. Jelena shed her eyepatch—the scars beneath seldom dampened the mood—and began to pull Calaf to his feet by the neck guard.
At once, the roasting goat collapsed into the fire. Jelena, who was facing away from the roast and more concerned with things right in front of her, jumped clear off Calaf and onto her feet, knives out.
"What was that?" she asked after a time, then chuckled nervously.
The roast was bent at an odd angle, goat's head pointed at the pair. Meat sizzled on the firewood. Still, the din had not alerted the others.
"Hurry up and put it back on the stick so we can sneak off," Jelena said.
Calaf rose to do so. As he approached, the modest cookfire exploded into a raging bonfire in a mighty conflagration. The Paladin was sent reeling back from the heat.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
A conflagration of goat-flesh and firewood rose to about half Jelena and Calaf's height. That same dire-goat face angled its head to gape at the pair.
"Hnnng," the creature communicated sans vocal cords in a dry, raspy tenor. "This form will have to suffice. It has been some time since you ignored our entreaties at the Battletower, Calaf of Riverglen."
Calaf gazed into the blazing fire. "You're not—"
"Not the full might of the chorus," the reanimated goat gurgled. "Just a single voice. It takes some time to gather the strength to speak of my volition."
Reasonably certain they weren't under immediate danger, Jelena pocketed her knives.
"By the heretical pagan desert spirits, were we about to eat that?" she asked.
"Hnnng." The reanimated goat head drooled out bile. "Longer, still, to find a suitable host. Your forefathers had preparatory techniques. Preservatives, to keep the rot at bay. Desert, tundra, naturally arrest decay. Brands, too, were meant to stop the spread. But time rots everything. Down in the warmer southern reaches. Here in the marsh. Conditions are ideal."
"Why are you here?" Calaf asked.
"There's not much time. Before the chorus overwhelms. Would have met in the shrine. But the conditions were too cold. There was no sufficient host." The goat head shifted to focus on Calaf. "You have been to the four shrines. Resting places of the liberation party, or locations with great significance to them. You have seen the ancient gospels."
"Most of them," Jelena said.
Calaf said nothing. He wondered how wise it was to share info with this creature. Nevertheless, the entity noticed his trepidation and the implications of Jelena's words.
"Oh? Mia's shrine is among the holiest places in the church. If a gospel was hidden there, they've doubtless transferred it to the church vaults. There is still much for you to learn, if you dare to seek out the truth."
"Who are you? You, specifically?" Calaf asked.
"That name is long-gone. But you have known of it," said the possessed goat. "We know much. The minds of ages all returned to the rot. Even with the trade-offs, this ascension is worth it."
The moving corpse made a cackling sound. Previous instances of the rot died in contact with fire. But this lone voice of the dead continued to swarm and writhe as the flames licked at melting dire-goat fat.
"The chorus has designs on the bones of the old lord. Do not underestimate their—our—their!—our!" The goat writhed about as if struggling within itself. "Intent. Things will soon be put in motion at a scale far beyond your lifetime. But there is still time—"
The goat gurgled, its guttural voice warping into the sound of dozens of competing voices.
"—to preserve the situation for your forebears. As it—hrrrr—was in our time."
The rot's garbling phrase was punctuated when the edifice burst like some kind of smoldering meat volcano. Dire-animal fat flowed off the bonfire, and the creature's head was no longer recognizable amidst twisted sinews and tendons.
"That was…" Jelena began.
"Some kind of voice of the dead," Calaf said. "I've heard it before."
This speaker was a singular voice, where before it took the form of a cacophony, all speaking over and yet with each other. Both instances were booming, guttural voices, even when speaking at a whisper.
"It said we knew who it was," Calaf said again after a time.
Some figure from the past. Long dead, part of the chorus. But what corpses were unaccounted for? Gustavo was a smoldering skeleton. Roland's body was dust. Mia's body was entombed in the Shrine of Shamana crypts…
The furthest tent flap opened. Zilara poked her head out.
"What?" she looked at the smoking meat-geyser. "How did you ruin supper? It's been ten minutes!"
"Long story." Calaf rose. "You don't want to eat this anyway."
They would have to take their dinner from inventory rations. There was plenty to go around. It just wouldn't have quite the savory flavor of a flame-cooked dire-beast.
After supper, the mood (and goat) soured, and the crew retired. They awoke an hour before sunup and continued their journey due east.
The ground grew damp and spongy as they neared the eastern extremity of the plateau. This was still an extremely highland zone relative to the sea level abode of Riverglen. But the land was full of depressions and uplifts with boiling pools amidst acrid smokestacks. Sulphur emerged in hazy clouds from deep within the ground, evidence of a long-dead caldera predating even the Demon Age.
This volcanic fumarole was the sight of near-continuous battles in the final push of the anti-demon crusades. The killing fields were long dead, human blood and bloodless demon corpses sunken into the geyser pools and porous ground centuries past. But the sheer volume of death left a damp, rusty look upon uplifted rocks and a slight red to many volcanic pools. The Fellmarsh was nigh. Final hurdle on the path to the grand cathedral.
Only the hardiest and most faithful of pilgrims would dare venture this far down the path. Most visitors were hardened adventurers or high-level clerics.
Calaf's boot stepped off the path. It sank deep into a bit of quicksand. He tried pulling it out fast, only for it to sink deeper still. The knight pulled it out slowly. Only then did he free the boot.
"Stick to the path," he said.
A geyser burst in the distance, sending boiling water far into the air. This specific geyser was a common marker by the path, a regular occurrence that burst every hour and a half. One last hurdle, in this case the inhospitable environment itself, remained between them and the end of the pilgrimage path.
The rest of the party looked to Calaf expectantly. He took a step forward…