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Kernstalion 45: The guardian
🕑 Added 2021-03-27 07:13:57 +0000 UTCAs I stared at the decapitated little carving, I patted the slight bulge on my chest and felt it poke into my chest muscles.
Let's hope nobody hits me here, I thought with a wince.
The things Rathica had told me played through my mind.
Absentmindedly, I placed the remains of the little statuette into my bag while scanning the room. Wondering what was in the chests, I began rummaging through them, finding a host of odd trinkets and toys. Plates, cups, cutlery, and clothing in different shades of green and brown filled the closets.
How come none of it's decayed? I wondered as I examined the clothing.
I tried to rip a thick, dark green and brown cloak without any effect and whistled. The material reminded me of leaves, but then thick and supple like leather. Remembering the cold wind, I put it on, tying it at the neck with a wooden button.
Scanning the other clothes, I pocketed two green shirts and brown pants so dark they were almost black. All of them were made of the same odd material, and I wondered what it was. Taking a few knives, forks, and spoons, I finally turned and moved to the door.
Could have bloody told me where that guardian is, I thought as I looked at the inhospitable ruins outside. The storm was still raging, the wind changing speed and direction every few moments.
When I stepped outside, the wind roared with a vengeance, and I almost turned back.
No, I must. I moved forward, wrapping the thick cloak tighter around myself to prevent the wind from ripping it free. To one side of the area was what almost looked like a boulevard, flanked by wooden pillars. It was the only thing that stood out, and I guessed it would probably lead me to somewhere important. Moving between tapered pillars that reminded me of branchless trees, I trudged on, constantly struggling to stay upright.
The pillars continued on as if without end; some had snapped off while thin stretches of wood connected others. I wondered if they had held up some sort of massive wooden ceiling once.
Hours that felt like days later, I stepped into a massive oval square, deaf and gritting my teeth. Opposite me stood a wooden temple carved into the side of what had to be the ancestor of all oaks, the greatest of them, well, if it hadn't been snapped eight meters above the ground. The other part of it was nowhere in sight. Dozens of ruined and littered paths led away from the square, one wider and giving a grander feeling.
So, either in the tree or along that road?
Deciding I was done with the ear abuse for a while, I made my way across the square. Halfway through, a thick branch careened my way. It happened in a flash, a slight shadow in the corner of my eye warning me just in time to drop to the ground. The branch passed through the spot I had been standing a moment before with a speed that terrified me.
Was that the wind? I thought, somehow doubting it. My annoyance at the wind faded, and my mind moved into overdrive. I stared in the direction the branch had come from. All I saw was more ruins that seemed no different from the rest. Scrambling back up, I looked around. As I turned to the right, I thought I saw something and snapped my gaze to it.
A long, gnarled black arm slung another piece of debris my way before shooting back into the ground.
Fuck! I cursed, using the push of the wind to jump almost four meters to the side and out of the way of the branch. My feet skidded, and I tripped on a tangle of roots, slamming into them. Looking up and around, I didn't see the arm, but that didn't ease my mind one bit. The wind calmed down as I scrambled up, and I heard a loud tearing sound behind me. Turning around, I was just in time to see the gnarled arm, all two meters, rise through the roots, slicing at them with a taloned hand.
Trying to jump back, I tripped over the roots again and cursed. A black fist shot towards me, striking me in the shoulder. I was flung from the roots, right when the wind picked up again, and it carried me halfway across the square. Slamming into one of the pillars, I felt something in my ribcage snap. My health-bar popped up, lowering into the yellow.
All distractions left me as the familiar sense of cold calculation came. Looking around, I saw the tree, ten meters from me, upwind. The hand was gone again, but that would be temporary. Jumping up, I ran in with the wind. Every time the wind changed, I moved in the same direction, using it to increase my speed while ignoring the stabbing pain from my chest. Counting, I tried to determine if there was a set time before the winds changed, something I knew I should have done before.
One, two-
Just when I saw another tangle of roots blocking my way, the wind turned and blew me at an almost ninety-degree angle away from them. My feet were lifted off the ground, and I spun around in the wind, trying to spot the arm. I saw it between two pillars, and my eyes widened. The talons had plunged into the wood of one of the pillars, and then the thing, whatever it was, ripped the entire pillar from the ground, roots and all.
Finalizing my spin, I managed to turn in the direction I was blown towards and land on my feet without tripping this time.
One, two, three-
The wind turned, and this time it blew me roughly towards the massive oak in the center of the square. Exactly what I had been waiting for. Jumping forward, I used the push of the wind to cross the few dozen meters remaining. Seeing the temple's black opening, I prayed to Rathica that I wouldn't jump into some den of monsters.
As soon as I flew through the entrance, the wind ceased, and the roaring vanished, and I was suddenly running inside a hallway much faster than my legs could move. Feeling my feet trip over each other, I tried to make a dive forward to spare my ribs but ended up slamming into the wooden ground. My health bar shot down until it was an angry blinking red quarter of its usual self.
The pain from my chest intensified, and I felt like I had breathed in water. I coughed and red blood splattered on the wood in front of my eyes. My health bar began very slowly draining away.
Pierced a lung?
I expected fear, but instead, my mind seemed to turn to steel. It felt almost as if some outside force was filtering all useless thoughts, leaving my mind as clear as crystal and with a single goal.
Survive!
I pushed up, quickly debating if I should resist the desire to cough or clear my lungs. In the end, I tried to hold it back, afraid I might be hurt more by coughing.
I stood, half bent over, with two arms around my waist and the other two holding my ax, staring around the massive chamber. The entire tree seemed hollow, with winding paths of tangled branches leading up to a balcony overseeing some sort of prayer circle. In the middle stood a small, wide wooden figure. It reminded me of a cross between a treant and a dwarf, with a beard made of vines and hair of grass.
Up, so the arm can't reach me!
Stumbling forward, I felt my energy drain rapidly. Wondering if there was any lifeforce remaining in the tree, I took one arm from my ribs and cast Share Lifeforce. Releasing the ax with one hand, I grabbed the wooden railing that led to the nearest ramp up and felt nothing. Not even a sliver of life remained.
Gritting my teeth to the point of almost splintering them, I moved up the ramp, listening for any sounds coming from behind. What was that thing? Some ground and tree monster?
I didn't get a reply and didn't expect one. As I stepped on the ramp, I heard a soft thud from behind and turned around. My skin began to crawl, and the desire to cough stopped for a moment.
The arm, four meters long and dripping dirt, was using long blackened nails to drag itself across the threshold towards me. Where it would have been attached to a body, there were only small rootlike tendrils, flailing about, ticking softly on the wood. As I stared at it, it stopped, and the hand rose up as the arm bent. Ever so slowly, the hand made a fist with a single finger stretched up, and it finger-wagged at me like a mother berating her child. The tip of the nail glistened in the little light that made it through the entrance, and I shivered.
"If you don't want me to go in here, perhaps you should try not killing me?" I muttered.
The hand snapped to attention and made a mum gesture as if to shut me up. Then it pointed at me and beckoned me to come towards it.
"What are you-"
"Mmmmmmm?"
My heart skipped a beat as a moaned query came from the side of the tree. I slowly turned that way, just seeing the hand cover its thumb between all of its fingers for a second.
Did it just signal me to hide? I thought before looking at a massive shape on the other side of the room. I had glanced over it when arriving and thought it a piece of debris.
"Ahhh, there you are, little arm!" A dull voice came from the shape as it stirred.
Without waiting, I moved up the ramp towards the balcony.
A yawn came from the being. "Who were you talking to?" it said as I managed to refrain from coughing while still rushing as fast as I could up the ramp.
As soon as I reached the top, I kneeled behind the side of the balcony and gazed around the corner at the thing that got up, unfolding its limbs from their personal embrace.
A massive one-armed golem moved forward. It barely had a neck, and its head was eight parts mouth, one part eyes, and one part empty wood. Its four heavily lidded eyes were looking at two things at the same time. Two were staring at the arm, and the other two at the entrance behind it.
"Did you finally grow tired of clinging to your fading memories of what you once were?" The golem said, its voice changed from slow and dimwitted to sharp and smart.
The arm raised itself off the ground, and it began signaling rapidly in some form of sign language that seemed to contain a lot of finger-pointing.
"No, no-no-no," the golem said, its voice dull again, and I could almost imagine it shaking its head if it had a neck.
"No way to go back, to be free of-" it said, before changing to the sharp voice mid-speech.
"Enough of you! Now come, arm, who were you talking with? Or better yet, who was talking to you?"
There's two of them, I thought as I felt something trickle down my chin. Wiping it away, my hand came back bright red. I need to find something that's alive- I barely finished the thought when my mind began whirring, and my gaze snapped to the golem.
Would that spell work on something alive? Probably not if it was awake, but what if it went back to its slumbers? Staying in my spot, I prayed the arm would leave and let the monster go back to sleep. Wait, how did that arm even see me? It would have to be able to see without eyes, and that might mean it could still see me. It had tried warning me- at least that's what I hoped. Perhaps that was why it threw those things? Taking a shallow breath, I moved back a little until I could barely see the arm.
Raising one of my hands, I made a gesture of a ring and then two fingers—just some random thing. Looking closely at the hand that was still signaling to the golem, I suddenly saw it make a ring and two fingers before continuing as if nothing happened.
"What was that?" the dull voice rumbled, seeming to somehow supersede the sharper one.
The golem's gaze flickered. "Stop that and go back to sleep, you remnant!" The sharp voice snapped before turning its attention back to the arm.
I ignored it and raised two hands to my head, acting as if I was sleeping, my eyes closed and slowly stilling. Then I snapped my eyes back open and looked at the hand. Mid signing, it suddenly balled into a fist and showed a thumbs-up before continuing.
"What are you doing? Did you finally lose your mind?" the sharp voice said. "Come, it's been such a long time, and on your own you can't even sleep through it. Join back with us, and I promise you I'll snuff you out quick and painless!"
Even from down here, I could hear the lie, and the arm just snapped up a few fingers in a gesture that somehow made me think it was supposed to be rude. Probably its equivalent to flipping the finger. The golem started growling and lumbered forward.
"Enough, I'll get you this time!"
Suddenly it burst forward, moving faster than I had thought possible, snatching for the arm. It was still too slow. To my amazement, the arm's stump somehow attached to the floor as it swung sideways before releasing the hold and flying through the entrance back out into the storm.
"NOOO! Get back here!" The golem roared, rushing after it.
Sitting still, I felt how my energy was depleting faster than I liked. Small spots had started to appear along the edges of my vision, and no amount of blinking made them disappear.
Roaring came from outside, seeming to circumvent even the spell that blotted out the storm. I couldn't even imagine how loud it must have been if I was outside.
A few seconds later, the roar came again. Then again. As I sat down, putting my back against the wall of the balcony, the roar continued. My eyes drifted closed a bit, but I quickly moved my head up, looking around.
No, don't fall asleep!
Then it hit me. What if I used Sleep with the trees? Looking around at the massive tree, I wondered if it would count. But the spell said minor and medium injuries… Did this even count? Listening to the roaring outside and feeling my mind begin to wander, I knew I was out of other options. My plan to suck the life from the sleeping golem would take too long!
There were dozens of doors, widely spaced along the balcony, the nearest a few meters from me. Trying to focus my flagging mind, I dragged myself to it. Inside, I saw a hallway with a door leading left and two to the right. It was far too small for the golem to enter. I hoped. Crawling inside, I found that the left one was some sort of sleeping quarters. Seeing the four beds, covered in wilting leaves, I made my way to the closest one. Instead of lying on it, I crawled below it and lay on my side, watching the entrance. There was barely a tenth of my health bar remaining, and I felt my muscles bulge when my passive triggered. It just added to the pain.
I barely understood what I was doing anymore, and only my insistent practice at casting the spells back in the library helped me cast the massively long spell. Even then, It took me three attempts before I finished it. As soon as the spell was done, I placed my hand on the floor.
The last thing I saw was a bright green glow, and small twigs sprout up from the floor.
