Herald of death

Ethan triggers Predator's sight to listen for signs of life amongst the dead landscape. No sounds come back to him, no humans, no animals, not even birds. The only noise is the slow wind that moves the fog around. But he sees red forms hidden in the shadowed holes – insectoid monsters curled like springs. The mutated centipedes, spiders, scorpions, and cockroaches wait for prey to present itself before their lair. Their size could convince many that they landed on Skull Island.

Below the fog lie ravines bedded with muddy water. The splashes it casts as it flows westward fill Ethan's audition as he focuses on it. But amongst them, he can hear the gurgling of beasts whose presence is hidden. They lie below the mud like alligators.

A melody reaches Ethan's ears, sung by a woman. He turns towards it but fails to see its source. What he knows is that it is sung from a high place hidden behind the fog. The woman must be singing loudly for Ethan not to hear anything else from that direction.

'What are the chances that this is an abomination pretending to be a woman?' Ethan ponders. He looks back at the desolate landscape and decides that it is his best chance of finding a modicum of answers. Jumping down from his rock, he begins to move in the singing's direction.

Using Silent steps and Galewalker, Ethan moves through the forest like a blur. The beasts he spotted, and others immune to Predator's sight, try to catch him. But, by the time they are out of their lair, slashing at the air, he's already far. The corrupted trees seem more intelligent; they only move if their prey stays long enough in their reach.

Russ jumps out of Ethan's shadow without warning and bolts down a narrow passage.

'No, heel!' Ethan orders.

Russ comes back as soon as the thought reaches him and stops at Ethan's side. He squeals and tugs at Ethan's sleeve, clearly indicating that he wants to go there.

Ethan scans the place and realizes that he doesn't spot any monster where Russ wants to go. It bothers him, as his first conclusion is that their predator inhabits the place. But Ethan has rarely seen Russ so excited outside of exercise and training. In truth, he's only like that when he's about to meet people and dogs he likes.

Russ breaks off from Ethan to dart forward but stops himself and returns. Ethan doesn't smell anything that would attract Russ; what could be making him so excited?

Ethan moves into the narrow path, keeping his attention on the many holes in the rocks. Nothing attacks him. He exits the path into a small, empty rock clearing. Corrupted trees grow above the edging rocks, creating a protection that would force attackers to enter by one of three narrow paths.

A dead fire lies at the center, half covered by mud. The charred lumps of wood it still contains are wet and molding. 'Whoever camped here is long gone. At least it means there are … civilized people here.'

Russ breaks off from Ethan to dig around the edge. Under a thin layer of mud, he unearths monsters' bodies and a tan plastic bag. He picks it up with his teeth and brings it to Ethan. It is an MRE bag and its emptied contents. "Beef enchiladas? I thought they ditched menu fifteen. But that means it was just a soldier that came here with a dungeon stone, not a local."

Russ drops the bag and goes digging again. He finds a few steel casings hinting at the stranger shooting into the narrow paths. '7.62 steel cartridges? An Eastern or Asian soldier? But why would he have American rations?'

Russ stops digging to sniff the rocks. He's restless, behaving as if they were training his tracking skill with a treat to find. He follows a scent to the center and then to the edge, bouncing between the two until he gives up.

"Whoever that was is long gone," Ethan comments. He gives the place a final glance and walks back to the pathway. "Let's go. Shadow."

After another thirty minutes, Ethan finally sees the potential origin of the song. It has ended, giving him no certainty, but before him lies a towering castle. The building of black stone and dark metal lies atop a mountain. Its spires reach high above the clouds, and the city at the mountain's feet spans kilometers. A wall shelters it from the outside. Its width allows for entire garrisons on its top, spread every few hundred meters.

'Who would build a city the size of London here?' Ethan ponders. He glances around but sees no grand road leading away from the place, no harbor, not even a major waterway. He focuses Predator's sight on its inhabitants and sees thousands in the streets and in their homes. It isn't as dense as he could have imagined but definitely inhabited. 'Let's have a look.'

Ethan moves down from his observation spot and reaches the city's wall. It towers over him like a five-story building, its surface marred by parasitic ivies, moss, and mold. An entrance lies two hundred meters to the left, but twenty guards keep it.

'Invite,' Ethan commands; he walks into the shadowed wall. The fortification is solid stone from one side to the other. Ethan expected to have to come out inside of a tunnel before crossing the opposite wall. He didn't see any mark indicative of siege weaponry on the wall's exterior. What creature could require such fortification?

In the distance, high, as if they were standing on the castle wall, Ethan sees flaring red lights like lamps concealed by hoods. They seem to surround the castle, but he can also see some within its walls.

Exiting the shadows, Ethan looks up at the castle walls with Predator's Sight. He senses and sees guards patrolling them, but not the ominous figures.

'I've a feeling they are a countermeasure against people with Russ' ability. The question is, can they see the real world from inside like we do?' Ethan looks around before moving into the alleys connected to the city's edge. 'Are they creatures, monsters, or some sort of artificial creation? I doubt I can find the answers here. If this is a defense, any intel on them would be jealously kept.'

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

A trio of men, wearing linen clothes, walk past Ethan as he exits an alley to enter a main road. They are speaking Eldorian and are discussing whom Ethan assumes to be their employer. They all hold some amount of dark Ether in their bodies but seem unaffected by it.

The possibility that they just left work makes Ethan wonder what time it is. His phone will be out of sync until he returns to Earth, but judging by the total absence of sunlight, it should be night. It already was dark an hour ago when he exited the mines.

Clatters of metal reach Ethan's ears from an open smithy where two adolescent men are watching an older worker shaping a fence. The shop seems to be focusing on utilitarian pieces and not weapons or armor. And judging by the piles of finished pieces resting against the walls, business seems to be good.

'He should have sent me closer to the target. I must have gone in the wrong direction; this isn't some twisted, pretend kingdom. At least I should be able to get some info on the region here.' Ethan stops as he walks past a bakery. He sees coins exchanging hands and notices that they aren't like his. The pieces of metal seem smaller, thinner, and stamped with a face on each side. 'I hope silver and gold are worth their weight in whatever currency they have here.'

Ethan continues walking down the main street until he finds a general shop. He enters and makes his way to the counter, from where a young lady smiles at him. He summons a gold coin while his hand is hidden in his pocket before bringing it out. "Hi, is there a way I could exchange this –"

Ethan cuts himself as his gaze falls on the coin he holds. Despite having imagined one of his many standard gold coins, he finds himself holding the local currency. He rolls the coin over his finger to study the face. It is that of a man with sharp features and a bald scalp.

"I can break it down for you," the woman says, prying the coin from Ethan's hand. She places it in a drawer before taking out ten smaller coins and placing them before Ethan.

"Thank you," Ethan says. He sees a bundle of charcoal sticks on a shelf and grabs it. "How much?"

The woman grabs one of the coins she placed and exchanges it for eight of the lower denomination. "Just two Vern. Anything else?"

"No, that will be all," Ethan says. He grabs his change and stores the coal sticks in his Inventory from inside his pockets.

In an alley, Ethan summons a silver coin in his left hand and compares it to the ones he received; they are identical. He wonders if system coins have some property he doesn't know of and goes through every coin he can summon but finds no unmorphed ones. 'Identification.'

Silver coin

Silver coin

'So, they're not enchanted, and I don't feel any Ether or diagrams in them. How did this happen?' Ethan ponders. He yawns, suddenly realizing how tired he is. He stashes the coins into his inventory. 'It's been a month since my last nap. Might as well find a place to operate from.'

Ethan strolls through the streets for a while, searching for a tavern or an adventurers guild. He finds a few bars, but none of them seem to have rooms for rent. The more central parts of the city are only filled with mansions, domains, and rare restaurants.

'This city has no external access; travelers must be rare oddities,' Ethan thinks. He triggers Predator's sight to scan the city's buildings. The bustling night means that many of the empty homes are not abandoned. But his ability allows him to find a second-floor appartement where spiders had weeks to install themselves.

Walking through the door when no one was watching, Ethan climbs the building's stairs and reaches the apartment's door. It is left unlocked, and the home inside is layered with dust. The only trace of the inhabitants is a pencil-drawn portrait framed on a shelf, showing a father and daughter duo.

'Let's see if I can reproduce Alaric's trick here,' Ethan thinks as he closes the door. He steadies his heartbeat and folds his focus inward to his mind's eye. Forming a skittering lizard's image, Ethan imagines it hunting the spiders in the cracks of wood, beneath furniture, and on the ceiling. He fakes the hunger it feels, tightening his own stomach, and the excitement of having found prey.

Hidden spiders, centipedes, and cockroaches twitch in their lairs. Their minuscule souls feel what their minds cannot comprehend, and they flee by instinct. Their legs rattle against wood and stone as they skitter away, crawling towards the cracks on the windows' edges.

Within seconds, the apartment is empty. Ethan exhales, returning his attention to the real world. As the alteration of his soul vanishes, he smells a flicker of putrescent rot. He looks around for the source but finds no decomposing garbage or vermin's corpse.

'Maybe something on the roof,' Ethan thinks. He sighs and grabs a broom from a closet to quickly push the dust into the corners. Finishing with the bedroom, the only other room, he dusts off the bedding. The apartment is rather small but only has three entry points – the door and one window in each room.

Ethan opens the windows to close the wooden shutters. He dismantles the living room table for its planks and reinforces the shutters to ensure nothing will be able to open them silently. After summoning a flash grenade and nylon wire, he sets up a trap that would unpin and drop it if someone opened the door.

Sitting down at the bedroom's desk, Ethan summons the first entry of Verses of Power. He flicks his fingers and summons a flame to light the desk's lantern. Its oil perfumes the air with a hint of incense. Ethan opens the book; it is a handwritten work, one that must be worth a fortune. 'The books from Opal were printed.'

He studies the opening chapter – the art of creating a stable Ether environment for stabilizing complex rituals. The way the writer describes Ether echoes with Ethan's own experience. The more he reads, the more he realizes that the author was not only an expert in their field but also an exceptional teacher. Any question he has about a topic is almost immediately answered by the next paragraph or diagram.

Tired of the theoretical, Ethan closes the book and summons a fountain pen. He pries a piece of paper from the desk's drawers and sketches. The idea of letting dark Ether seep into him as he sleeps bothers him; it gives him the idea of creating a repelling ritual.

His first completed diagram shatters the paper it is written on in a spherical burst of force. 'Well, that description of dark Ether wasn't it.'

Ethan leans back into the chair and massages his temple as his sleepiness grows. He can hardly remember the last time he felt so tired. It has to be the night he and Specter Nine entered the abyssal keep. At the time he hadn't slept for three days. The fact that his body can endure a month without sleep still seems insane.

Music reaches Ethan's ears. He hopes none of his temporary neighbor plans on playing at night and turns on Predator's sight to pinpoint the source. It comes from one of the castle's towers, through an open window. The song seems to be played on a piano and resembles Beethoven's music in its cadence and arrangements.

'Chant a few hours ago and now music? Is it some kind of custom? Don't tell me that's how they mark the passage of time instead of church bells.' Ethan moves his enhanced senses to the streets to gauge the citizens' reaction. They seem numb to it, as if they were accustomed to the display. 'I hope it doesn't wake me up.'

Ethan's second attempt at a protection against dark Ether is successful. The ritual uses the threads of normal Ether to push back the dark ones, creating an isolated dome. He summons a coal stick and surrounds the bed with his creation. The ritual sparks to life as he pushes Ether into it, and soon the bed is free of any dark Ether.

'Time to try provoking a lucid dream,' Ethan thinks. He lies down on the bed, finding it soft and warm. Russ exits the shadows to lie down at Ethan's feet. Ethan relaxes his body and begins breathing in a rhythm while repeating a sentence in his mind. 'The next time I dream, I want to remember that I am dreaming.'