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B2 Chapter 12: Nightmares of Soulhaven
🕑 Added 2025-04-19 02:44:22 +0000 UTCVale Revenant stared out into the darkness of the Dreadwoods, her limbs burning with fatigue.
They had combed over the woods, and hadn’t found any sign of Shiver or their guide, Virgil.
Her thoughts still lingered on the grey hand that had emerged from what looked like the recesses of the night sky, to effortlessly encircle their guide, drawing him in as if pulled by invisible strings.
The Dreadwood was cloaked in the darkness of night. Where the trill of insects, and the sounds of creatures in the undergrowth should have met them, it was silent.
So much so, that it reminded her of home.
Soulhaven, the Archcity of Death.
For all of the tales that they had heard of the Dreadwood containing mythical, extinct creatures – they hadn’t encountered a single one. Bar of course, whatever in Insanity that hand was.
Still, Vale pushed on, her eyes having adjusted to the dark. Roving her surroundings for any signs of her missing friend.
“My dear guide… I Fear that you… -uck… are at risk of- won’t you slow down!”
Quietus Vingrave sat on her shoulder, and her erratic movements through the brush caused him to tumble and shift. Vale had ineffectively wielded her Phobia, the towering white scythe in an attempt to cut through the undergrowth to no avail. She wielded her scythe clumsily, and it was as useless to her against the plants that impeded her, as it was against threats she could expect to face.
“Vale, I think we should stop. We need to rest. I’ve lost track of how long we’ve been searching.”
Caledon’s hand softly encircled her arm, gently restraining her from her ceaseless advance.
“We can’t go on like this. If we continue, we’re more likely to be eaten by some monstrosity while we’re tired and delirious. We won’t be any help to Shiver if we end up dead.”
Vale paused, and it was only then that she realised that her forearms were caked in sweat. She was breathless, her chest heaving, greedily gulping in the air that had been denied to her in her harrowing advance. She noticed fatigue in Caledon’s hazel brown eyes, as the meagre flickering Phobia gave her a glimpse of his face, shoulders drooped in fatigue.
How long have we been searching for?
Vale’s eyes widened as she finally took in her surroundings. She hadn’t noticed the shift in foliage in their desperate, arbitrary search. The thick, verdant foliage that covered them had gradually become more sparse.
She stood at a precipice.
A boundary between biomes.
The land before her was devoid of life, covered with a spattering of dead trees. She felt her heart hammer in her chest, for she knew she had found the place she would find the creatures that she needed to descend. She didn’t need Idriel’s voice to tell.
Caledon’s voice interrupted her thoughts again.
“Perhaps we should rest here. We’ll have the advantage if anything creeps up on us, there’s better visibility here.”
They wordlessly collapsed, eyes hollow from the effort of their unsuccessful search for Shiver.
---
After they had set up a makeshift camp, Caledon sat helplessly, wishing to know how he would begin to untie the knot in his chest. There was nothing for them to do but to rest, alone with their thoughts.
Recover, before they continued in their search. He noticed Vale’s clouded lavender eyes, deep in her own thoughts.
“You despise her.”
The voice of his guide Zel, entered his mind. One that he had begun to be greeted with more often, since his departure from the Archcity of Fear. Caledon communicated with his guide, wordlessly.
No, I do not. Vale is innocent.
“Hate cannot be compartmentalised so easily. Harder still, to reign in resentment. Not only do you hate her brother, who continues to walk among you. Her sister, who tainted your final memories of him. You hate her, everything she stands for.”
Caledon paused, as his eyes lingered on his flickering Phobia.
Perhaps… I do. But it is an irrational hate. She has done nothing but support me, and if I lump her in with her brother and her father, where will the hatred end? My father’s death is still fresh in my mind, just… give me time Zel. To grieve him.
Caledon sat in silence, leaving his guide’s accusation unanswered. Then surprisingly, he was greeted with a tone of recognition. A vast departure from Zel’s usual sardonic words.
“Good. As a Fearshaper of corruption, you must learn to see through falsities. Most importantly, those that linger in yourself – so that they do not morph in to weaknesses to be exploited.”
Zel paused.
“Worse still, if you fail to accept the truth, continue to lying to yourself. You’ll be sure to join your father sooner than you expect, dunce.”
Caledon noticed Vale looking at him. He returned her gaze, and she shifted it away. The flames of his Phobia, stuck into the ground before them, flared, mirroring his emotions.
Caledon cleared his throat, putting an end to his wandering thoughts. Idle thoughts in the midst of a forest of deadly creatures would spell their end, if he was not careful.
“We’d better get some rest.”
He settled into his bedroll.
“Goodnight, Vale.”
“Goodnight.”
It wasn’t long, before the soft sound of Vale’s steady breaths reached him.
As hard as he tried, his thoughts continued to churn around the revalations that greeted him. The lingering pain of grief blossomed in his chest, a shadow that stalked him, as hard as he tried to push it away.
He forced them away from ruthless ruminations, to consider the immediate problem posed before him.
Of the trio, the strange voice that resonated with his Fearcore, providing him with information about his descent had made one thing evidently clear.
Stage of Fear: Trepidation
Guide burden: [Mythic]
Fearcore integrity: [Unstable]
Progress to Fearcore consolidation: [0%]
Retrieving generic resources in your proximity:
• Fireash bee [5% compatibility]
• Emberhare [10% compatibility]
• Flame wyvern [80% compatibility]
• Phoenix [1% compatibility]
There were few creatures in the Dreadwood, as vast as it was, that were compatible with his Fear of corruption.
Those that did resonate with his Fear, lay in the Emberwood. Even with a Fear of corruption, there seemed to be a curious link to flame, inherent in the nature of his Fearshaping. His Phobia was a core facet of that, in the form of the dark, metallic torch.
As his eyes lingered on the creature that was the most compatible with him, he shuddered. How he would even begin to fell a flame wyvern, was beyond him. If it was anything like his grandfather, Valeric…
His only other option were the second list of “resources” which had not been accompanied by a quantification of compatibility. Caledon’s eyes lingered over the descriptor next to the names, which were listed.
Named hunts authorized.
Sourcing named resources in proximity:
· Vivienne [Legendary]
· Slastraza [Legendary]
· Turkle [Mythic]
They could only be referring to one thing.
The words, unlike the former, sent a deep chill into his bones. Caledon closed his eyes, as his fatigue finally latched its hold over him.
Caledon dreamed of a warm night, in Brimstone Manor. Spent with his mother, father and Viveria. Smiling with Silas, as they watched a silly Highlord’s antics. Watching his sister turn the furniture to shreds with her rapier.
Basking in the warmth, of the eternal phoenix, Sale.
Father… the world is changing, and I wish you were here to guide me.
I miss you.
---
Vale walked through a barren castle in her nightmare.
Soulhaven, the Archcity of Death – home of the Revenants.
Its halls were empty, devoid of the living and the dead alike.
It was a small mercy, that once Fearshapers descended from Anhedonia, they were no longer condemned to confront their nightmares. They were no longer powerless, left entirely at the mercy at the dreams which haunted them, having no choice but to delve into them to acknowledge and confront their Fear to descend.
She could end it at any time she wished.
Still, she strode onwards along its halls, her eyes flitting to the grand paintings that her father had lined its walls with. Pale, white flames flickered from the torches that lined the corridor’s halls.
There was little that gave her insight into what drove Vetrian Revenant. The Deathbringer. Responsible for the Rampage of Undeath, that had touched every elf – from Archcity to the remotest village. He was the sole reason the Revenants were so hated. Why she concealed her identity, and her Fear.
There were few things that gave her insight into her father, but the paintings that hung on the walls of Soulhaven were one of said few. Depicting feats of Fearshapers that he had so admired. Fearshapers from different ages, that walked depths of Fear inaccessible to even the strongest Fearshapers of the waning age.
She looked at a painting with a simple title.
Grief.
The central subject of the painting was a horrific, quadrupedal creature. It had white, wrinkled skin, and long and narrow limbs which would have had it towering even over Brimstone manor in life. It had a featureless head, save for gentle slits, from which it wept a dark, black liquid.
The creature lay lifeless, on the ground, its head under a Fearshaper’s boot. The figure raised a sleek silver-grey sword in triumph. Even though his stature was small, in comparison to the enormous creature, the artist had taken great care to capture the elf’s features with precision.
A young, Vetrian Revenant stood over his kill, a griefwalker. He wore his signature cloak, which billowed out behind him. Sleek black fur from another kill – a shadow wolf – adorned his shoulders, giving his stature an air of grandiosity which he would have lacked in its absence.
Vale had often wondered why her father had committed the atrocities he had.
This painting was a hint. It revealed a disappointing, anticlimactic truth.
Vale gazed at the paintings that surrounded Grief.
Fearshapers that had walked the halls of Soulhaven in its glory, diving into the depths of death – one of the primal Fears of elves. Always, in service of life.
It was arrogance she saw in the painting. A petty, shallow goal.
Her father sought power.
The griefwalker he had killed had been his turning point in Trepidation. It had granted him the ability to raise the mindless dead. Which he honed, into the ability to control the hordes that he now did, taken to the very extremes of what was reasonable, as he descended through the realms of his Fear.
She had little doubt, that her father stood in Serenity, even if Lord Quietus disagreed.
Yet, despite Vetrian’s powers, he had been unsatisfied. It was plain to see, in the painting that adorned the grand hall.
Vale moved on from the painting, to one that stood at the very end of the hall. While the Revenant family had boasted Fearshapers that strode the depths of death, in service of life… there were many like her father. Hungry for power, trivial in their motives.
That could not be said, for her House’s founder. She stared at the single painting that House Revenant’s progenitor, and first patriarch had left behind.
Rael Revenant’s legacy.
Memories.
It was given a wide berth, even as paintings from other notable Revenants crowded the hallway, eager to instil awe in their descendants.
Where others chose to capture moments of glory, victory, and triumph…
Rael Revenant chose to capture his family.
Rael was a Fearshaper that strode at the heights of death, the envy of those that had come after. Yet, there he sat, as a colourful group of elves laughed around him, the painter rendering their expressions of joy and love, beautifully upon the canvass.
The legacy that Rael chose to leave, in this hallway of glory and dread, was his memory of a life well lived.
With, his revenants.
Undead, still possessed of their souls.
For the single quirk, in the painting that she had always admired, was that the elves that surrounded him, were wrought from ivory. Devoid of the trappings of life, it should have been a morbid depiction. Yet she could tell, in the way he laid a gentle hand on the shoulder of the revenant to his left. The cast of his gaze, as it lingered on the child by his side, his lips upturned with exasperation and happiness. The little girl he looked down upon, wrought from ivory like all the rest, held his hand in her own, ivory, grip. Her adoration of her adopted father clear for all to see.
It gave her hope.
Like her predecessor, Vale had awakened a beautiful Fear, just as her father had intended for her. The invocation she had gained with her descent from Anhedonia, that formed the very essence of her Fearshaping.
[Soul restoration]
“I hope I find what you did, Lord Revenant.”
Vale turned away from the painting, and… halted.
She felt her heart in her throat, as goosebumps erupted across her arms. She stared, at the long empty hallway before her in confusion.
She scanned the corridor before her, but as hard as she looked and strained, she could not decipher the cause of the strange sensation.
Finally, she emerged from her nightmare, greeted by the dawn sun.
Her eyes lingered on a black skeleton before her, his shoulders hunched.
White ivory had morphed into black, marred by whatever had twisted Triol in his final moments. She still remembered the flesh melting from her brother’s skeleton when she had invoked her Fear for the first time.
He stood silently by her side, a slight hunch in his shoulders, as if burdened by an invisible weight. Her eyes met his vacant eye sockets.
A chill ran down her neck, and she felt it encircle her neck.
You and me both brother.
