TVisTV Book 3: Chapter 35 (RAW)

Chapter 35 - History Lesson

When you know who you are; when your mission is clear and you burn with the inner fire of an unbreakable will, no cold can touch your heart, no deluge can dampen your purpose. You know that you are alive.

- Chief Seattle.

The Knights were a tangle of relief and exhaustion; sweat cut through the expensive oil on their collars so sharply Seraphina could smell the salt beneath the perfume. Blue Zajasite lanterns guttered along the slope, painting everyone this small part of the world blue.

Sir Smith lay flat on the browned grass, chest heaving, bone tired but none the worse for wear. Close by, Filippe leaned on his Lucerne hammer as if it were the last upright post after a storm, one epaulet torn clean away by grasping dead fingers. Gascoigne sat with his back to a toppled cairn, drawing a whetstone down his blade with a slow, eager rhythm—the calm of a man for whom violence was a familiar room. Seraphina would have wagered good coin he had edged over into a new level in the last engagement.

Hadraine looked the worst of the lot. He cradled the two halves of his broken spear like a priest with a broken reliquary, eyes distant. Sir Frest—ever cautious, ever thorough—went about the field with his mace-flail, prodding heaps of bones and meat. He brought the spiked head down with a wet, decisive crunch more than once.

Fighting, it seemed, could hollow some people out.

“That was well fought, all of you,” Seraphina said, lifting her visor so the night air could bite her cheeks. Authority carried in her voice even when she meant to be gentle. “Rest and abide a while.”

“Yes, milady,” Smith managed, rolling to a seated slump.

Filippe gave a ragged half-bow before folding onto his knees and taking a long drink. Hadraine did not appear to hear. He ran his thumb across the splintered shaft again and again, muttering something strange.

“What are we to do with this lot?” Frest asked, gesturing with his flail at the carpet of corpses and scattered armor.

“Cornelia will eat them,” Seraphina replied.

“Eat them, milady?” His brows climbed. “I would not think eating such things good for your pet’s stomach.”

“You need not worry,” she said, thin smile touching her mouth. “Cornelia can eat such things. Look—there she is now.”

The three-headed serpent came on like the rapacious beast she was, gorging with obscene efficiency—bones, grave-meat, the powdery dust of the dead. Three sets of jaws worked in concert, a relentless machine of appetite.

Not yummy, came Cornelia’s grumble in the back of Seraphina’s mind, but I cannot stop. Want more.

Seraphina allowed herself a small, indulgent smile. Junk food, for a Hydra. The world—this world—endlessly inventive in its silliness. She had discovered “moreish” for a monster.

The young noblewoman had time, plenty of it. The Liche had been dealt a grievous blow; it would take long, hungry hours for the thing to knit itself together again. Perhaps days really. She would wait, marshal her strength. The girl would strike when she was at her strongest. 

She rested, sitting quietly as she watched Cornelia feed.  Going behind some tall stones, she pressed her palm over her chest and invoked the litany for healing. Warmth uncurled, flowing across her skin and sinking down into muscle and bone as her Health was restored.

The Knights would have to make do with whatever Health potions they’d managed to bring. If Frest was particularly nice to her—polite, attentive, properly grateful—she might use the Heal spell on him when she had the Mana for it. Seraphina was in a generous mood, after all.

While they settled, the girl took inventory of herself, paging through the ledger of her achievements that only she could see—her Status. 

As for Tia and Kiwi, they did not do much in the way of settling, taking off to explore the cold hills. She allowed them this freedom as she could not take them underground as they would be of little use there anyway.

[STATUS] Seraphina de Sariens - Noble (Human lvl.27)

STR:

DEX:

CON:

INT:

WIS:

CHR:

LCK:

57

29

56

32

12

43

32 [37]

Health:

Stamina:

Mana:

Experience:

888/1140

99/99

19/19

238/11447

[Skills & Proficiencies]

Improved Swords

(lvl.1)

Bows

(lvl.3)

Crossbows

(lvl.4)

Throwing Weapons

(lvl.2)

Dodge

(lvl.3)

Improved Critical Hit Mastery

(lvl.1)

Improved Riding

(lvl.3)

Monster Taming

(lvl.5) [Imp. lvl.2]

Herbalism

(lvl.2)

Daggers

(lvl.5)

Improved Unarmed

(lvl.1)

Rest

(lvl.5)

Power Strike

(lvl.4)

Slings

(lvl.4)

Polearms

(lvl.3)

Medium Armor

(lvl.3)

Heavy Armor

(lvl.2)

Improved Blind Fighting

(lvl.1)

Stealth

(lvl.1)

Dash

(lvl.2)

Power Throw

(lvl.3)

Dual Wield

(lvl.3)

Club

(lvl.2)

Axes

(lvl.1)

Endure

(lvl.1)

Spells & Magic

Heal

(lvl.5) 5

Silent Casting

(lvl.3)

Wail of Judgment

(lvl.4) 10

Crystal Dagger

(lvl.5) 1

Mana Regeneration

(lv.4) [Imp. lvl.2]

Crystal Spear

(lvl.2) 2

[Gifts]

Strength of the Old Ones:

+25 Strength

Resilience of the Old Ones:

+25 Constitution

Legacy of the Dragon Turtle:

+1 Constitution, +1 Luck, +10% Water Resistance, +10% Physical Resistance

Undead Exorcist

+10% Dark Resistance,

Chance for all attacks to be imbued with Holy against Undead.

The new Undead Exorcist Gift was welcome. It was just a shame it only triggered against the Undead; adding Holy damage to all her attacks would have been a lovely, if wildly overpowered, bonus.

Next time, she swore she would put a point or two into Intelligence so she could cast Wail of Judgment twice in quick succession without relying on her new Helm. Between her Improved Mana regeneration granted by it and the Mana-rich environment of the Barrows, she’d had to wait only a little while for that last point of Mana. 

The blonde girl had almost credited her fancy new helm for nullifying the usual crash at “zero” Mana, but that was not quite how the system of this world worked. This world tracked Mana in fractions even if the Status window rounded to whole numbers. With Improved Mana Regeneration, actually hitting true zero, or the slight negative that triggered Mana sickness, would be extremely rare.

Seraphina herself was in generally good shape; her sword was not. Her trusty zweihander, forged from some of the best spring steel money could buy, was still, at the end of the day, only steel. The edge was chipped in places, and the tip had a faint bend. It would need a good smith’s care before it was battle-ready again.

She might have to borrow a weapon. Going back in with only an estoc would be asking for trouble… then again, her gauntlets and armored boots could carry her through in a pinch—they dealt bludgeoning damage, after all. 

***

Seraphina de Sariens made her choice and let it stand. “Sir Filippe. Lend me that hammery thing of yours.”

He blinked, hollow with weariness. “My polehammer, milady? Lucy?” The name came out sheepish. “Whatever for?”

She gave him a long, level look, cool as the air rolling off the Barrows. The boy had actually named his weapon of all things. “What is the chief use of such an instrument, Ser Filippe?”

He tried a smile and could not quite find it. “Yes, milady… only the day’s done—night, rather. The field is won.”

At times men could be so infuriatingly dense. Remember patience, she schooled herself.

“A thing of darkness birthed from the last cries of its folk does not die so tidily,” she said. “Roots of evil run deep. I mean to go down and rip the root free, once and for all.” 

To her Knights her voice sounded clear and high. But there was steel within it, like a warrior princess out of an old tale.

I should have brought Haze to see this, she thought, and felt a brief sting of regret. The bard would have lapped this up and made it a part of my saga.

Others might have called it boasting. Her knights had seen. They had watched her take apart a long dead practitioner of the black arts with song of the Divine on her lips and good steel in her hands. They knew there was a power in her and they were proud of it, and shamed by it all at once.

“Give her the hammer, Filippe,” Gascoigne said, more curt than unkind.

“I was just about…” Filippe faltered for a moment, then gathered and remembered himself. “It would be an honor, milady.” He offered the weapon with both hands, biting at his lower lip.

Seraphina had to stifle a small laugh. She took the haft; the wood was smooth where his palms had polished it over the long ears, heavy with old work and battle. “I’ll return Lucy when my business in the Barrows is done,” she said, and the sweetness in her smile chased some of the doubt from his face.

She watched her pet feed until the moon slid behind a rag of cloud. When at last the crunching slowed, Seraphina stooped and worried a shard from the Liche’s shattered crown—a curved sliver with a riddle of black runes etched along the inner bone.

“Here,” she said.

Cornelia’s left head blinked, the middle head sniffed, the right head angled curiously. Three tongues tasted the stale singe of foul sorcery. The Hydra’s tongue flicked, tasting the air as if in confirmation. 

This is not cake, not yummy, the thought rolled through Seraphina’s mind, oily and petulant. 

“You don’t have to eat it,” Seraphina said, keeping her hand steady. “Just remember it. Follow it. Find where the rest of this creature hides.”

Follow, Cornelia agreed, and the word came like a dog’s happy tail.

Seraphina tucked the shard into her bag and cinched it tight. “Let’s be off, then.” 

The Barrow’s dark mouth waited. She turned toward it with the hammer on her shoulder and the moonlit night at her back, following her pet.

***

Together they went down into the barrows, into the cramped throat of the old stones, where years had stacked like silt at the bottom of river. Seraphina’s lantern breathed its pale Zajasite blue into the pressed earth of the passages. She carried Filippe’s Lucy on her shoulder, the weight growing more familiar with each step. Not wanting to leave the boy defenceless, she had kindly lent him her estoc. 

Cornelia flowed ahead, sinuous despite her bulk, three heads angling and tasting the air. The hydra went low and wriggled as it went, scales rasping softly on stone.

What remained of the dead came to meet them, a last gasp of resistance.

They were small things at first, apprentice creations of the Necromancer’s craft. A drift of hand-bones skittered over the floor like pale crabs. A child-tall skeleton tottered from a niche with a rusted knife still wired to its palm. A smear of black smoke took the shape of a woman’s head and whispered a complaint as it drifted across the light.

Cornelia dealt with them. The right head belched a short, rude cough of fire; the drifting smoke shrieked and turned into nothing as it was purified in the fire. The left head spat a rope of acid that hissed over the skittering hands and glued them to the floor as they melted. What remained, she scooped and swallowed up.

A small amount of experience flowed into Seraphina.

Tastes rude, the serpent complained. And old moss.

“We’ll find you proper meal after,” Seraphina promised. “Maybe a cow or perhaps some naughty children.”

Cornelia’s middle head turned around and lolled its tongue, pleased. Deal.

A few of the Barrow Wights made a braver show. One came hunched in old mail, grave-silt falling from it like dark snow and bearing an ancient spear. Wanting a small break from the tedium, Seraphina stopped Cornelia from simply deleting it with breath, and let the Undead thrust with its pathetic weapon. 

The girl slid the shaft with Lucy’s beak, and broke the Wight’s neck with a backhand of the hammer’s face. Bone exploded like soft chalk, the skull flying off into the darkness. Another Wight leapt naked from a side tunnel, an ancient khopesh in hand. Seraphina met it with her gauntleted knee and then an armored fist, driving the thing to the flagstones. The bones smoked as Holy purged the Wight of its unnatural life.

The dread of the Barrows had lessened and the Strength of the Old Ones sang in her bones. She had the measure of this place and its master and found it lacking.

The girl and her serpent went deeper.

The passageways repeated themselves: thresholds cut to the measure of forgotten men, walls engraved in spirals like worm-tracks, alcoves with the ash-print of old offerings. The air had the musty taste of a place long faded from memory. 

As they pressed on, a memory uncoiled: a dreary afternoon while a developer droned on and on, pitching lore bandages for repeatable content. One slide leaned on a Liche and its phylactery—kill the boss, wait a while, then come back to run the Palipula Barrows again. In Seraphina’s estimation, it was a serviceable fiction for why the creature of the Barrow, those unquiet echoes of the past, respawned. 

She was sure they applied similar things to other locations…

And all of this rendered the Liche more of a keeper than a true guardian of the place. So long as it endured, the game had repeatable content.

The trick was placing such a thing beyond the reach of the players.

She smiled without much humor.

Cornelia paused at a three-way fork, tasting the air with her forked tongues. The heads bobbed, then selected the least promising passage, the one with nothing notable at all, and surged on with certainty.

Twice they passed doors that wanted to be opened. One was bound with bronze locks patterned so that they hurt the eyes if you looked too long; another had carvings of archaic kings with blindfolds. Seraphina spared them no more than a glance. She would not be lured by treasure rooms when the sands of the glass was running.

There would be time soon enough to hire droves of unlucky Adventurers to set off the traps and die in the dozens later.

They came at last to a hall that had forgotten itself. The stone here was cleaner, as if scrubbed. No alcoves; no offerings. The lantern’s light showed a blank run of wall and a floor without the wear and dip from centuries of feet. Cornelia stopped so sharply that her tail thumped Seraphina’s shin.

Here, Cornelia sent to Seraphina, all three heads intent. The smell-mark goes through stone. Behind, behind.

Seraphina studied the face of the wall. Nothing. No seam. No glyph. She took off a gauntlet and let her fingers hover out and over the stone, drifting along its smooth surface. The air was colder at one place. Draft, perhaps, so slight only her patience caught it.

False walls, she thought. Of course. 

She backed up a pace, rolled her shoulders, and shook out her hands. The polehammer might do, but she wanted to return it in one piece to Sir Filippe. Besides, a fist would be a more honest measure of her Strength. And, more satisfying.

“Stand back,” she told Cornelia.

The Hydra’s three heads lifted together, before she slithered behind her.

Seraphina set her feet shoulder-wide on the flagstones and brought her gauntlet up to guard, then drew it back. Strength like a tide filled her as she summoned Power Strike. As she had been taught, she struck with the whole line of her body.

Stone does not usually scream, but this wall did. For a moment the wall forgot it was stone and exploded from the force of her blow. Dust billowed as an echo ran down the corridor.

Behind the cracked masonry yawned a narrow cavity, a slit of stone like a hungry mouth. Zajasite’s blue light breathed into it, finding a black gemstone couched in stone dust—cloth, old as this grave, threaded and knotted it to the earth and rock of the wall like like sinew to bone.

There you are, Seraphina thought, and her smile was small and sharp.

The gem spoke in a voice like ground glass dragged over slate. “You are tenacious, treacherous child of the Old Ones. But know this: shatter this vessel and you shatter a memory—a people. Such evil draws punishment. Even should this vessel be destroyed, I will seek another cradle, another place that hums to my malice. You are only giving me my freedom. And, though robbed of clear memory, my long hate for your kind, will live on. I shall become a Curse most powerful.”

“How precious,” Seraphina murmured, brushing stone-dust from her with a gauntleted knuckle. “The wicked lecturing me on morality. Your histories are twisted. Did you picture my ancestors as just rapacious raiders? They prevailed because their culture proved superior. For they knew humanity and mercy.”

The girl drew a breath before she continued, her voice clear and lilting. “You, on the other hand, were the ones stacking altars with small, still bodies and calling it piety. Spare me the sanctimony, Queen Alamea, the Shadow of the Two Trees.” She let the title glide like over the dark gem. “Though I suspect your priests kept the foulest ledgers from your eyes. While you slit throats for bountiful harvests, my people bred hardier, more bountiful crops. Rotational farming, as well. These are but a few examples. You people chose nature above humanity. Worshiping a ball of fire in the sky… what utter piffle.”

“You speak lies and disrespect,” the phylactery resonated, its dark heart flushing as if indignant. “Victors warp the past into something that is pleasing only to them. I have heard similar tales from tomb-thieves. The truth is that the Arana barbarians destroyed the Palipula, and I will never forgive them. We were peaceful, but they slaughtered us, an entire people, because they simply wished for more.”

Seraphina laughed—low, cold—a sound with more malice in it than the Liche could muster. “No. It was the Palipula—those who were forced to pay tithes in firstborns, generation after generation—who broke your priest-kings. They made kin with those you named ‘barbarian’ and came with new vows and newer iron.”

Triumph lit in her eyes, but beneath it, the first strands of Justice danced in their depths. “Yours was a kingdom built on other people’s pain—on a near-industrial scale, not that ‘industrial’ would mean anything to you for you can scarce grasp such a concept. You think the Palipula destroyed? Only your evil was destroyed. The tribes endure to this day. Their blood runs in me. I stand proudly before you as proof, for my name is Seraphina de Sariens. A name that comes from ‘of the Saripelana,’ you Curse-blind relic. We won. You lost. And yes, the victors rewrote the chronicles… by striking you from it!”

She clawed at the gem and tightened her fingers. Cloth stretched and tore. Stone grated in rough protest. Then, with a single, contemptuous wrench, Seraphina tore the phylactery free from the wall.

It screamed.

Not in air—there was no breath in it—but in waves of thought emitted by its crystalline heart. The sound knifed outward, a psychic keening that would leave the hillfolk and half of Meridian sweating through fevered dreams for days. 

“What I have planned for you,” Seraphina said softly, “is worse than simply being disembodied...”

To Seraphina de Sariens, the second best thing to becoming a queen was destroying one.

From behind her came the slow, delighted rasp of scales. Seraphina tossed the gem once to the waiting maw of her pet.

Cornelia swallowed without chewing. The gemstone slipped past fangs that had cracked helms and dragon scale, slid into a furnace belly where more than acids sang their work. God-beasts were not named for their links to the Divine. No, they were named so because the old stories claimed that they could devour the gods if given a chance.

A Liche would be a much simpler meal than a god.

In the darkness, Seraphina listened to the last thin shivers of that mind’s scream as it went down and down, and smiled a smile filled with a deep satisfaction.

Finally, she had gotten the experience that she had been due.