Kryos
Kryos looked sideways at Vaelin. Her ears were flat against her head—which he knew from watching wyrmlings in the Drakemount meant they were either cornered, ready to flee, fight, or incredibly scared. “What’s going on?”
Vaelin looked at him, and her gaze looked past him, as if he wasn’t there and she was seeing through him and at something farther beyond. “It’s . . .” she went silent and looked back. “Don’t touch it.”
Kryos looked back at the caravan, and saw that some of the caravaners had begun to get off wagons and move over. He raised his voice and said, “Hold up! We’re checking something out!” Then, he looked at Leona. “Want to scout the perimeter?”
Leona nodded and blended into the surroundings as she slipped away.
Kryos looked back at chains, glowing with their pale, ghostly-white light, and felt a chill down his spine. Something about those chains told him a story of loss; but not a loss that was gone forever, more like the loss of something given to another with the knowledge that it wouldn’t come back. He had an inkling of what it might do, given Vaelin’s words, but he didn’t want to push her.
Vaelin’s breathing was shallow and rapid, as if she was hyperventilating. Kryos gently put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed just a little. “Hey,” he softly said. “Breathe. Just breathe. Tell us what’s going on.”
Leona appeared next to them as she dismissed her Skill. “I’d like to know that also,” she said, voice not as soft as his, but close enough, as she crossed her arms.
Vaelin
Vaelin took a deeper breath and swallowed. “This is . . . the chains are similar. The bells, the setup, it’s almost the exact same as my clan’s rituals—but without wagons. In our culture, it is done in the plains, away from the town, and we use temporarily erected tents.”
She closed her eyes as she vividly recalled the process, having seen many, many of the Estenartaya clan go through the process. The healing of her people, that her Class was based around, was some of the most potent on Vorunor, because it was far easier to heal one’s own wounds with MP rather than someone else’s. Taking the pain of others upon oneself meant that the healing could be accelerated, and all the hurt washed away all the quicker. But, it was also the most dangerous form of healing, as miscalculation could mean doom.
This ritual? It was a means to heal any injury at the ultimate cost.
“This is a Mending Camp,” she solemnly said, opening her eyes. “But I doubt it is called that here.”
Marn walked up. “We call it the Burden Ring.”
Vaelin looked back at him, and immediately sensed a negative condition about the shade-man thanks to her Empathic Instinct. He was . . . remorseful. Vaelin looked back to the spiritual chains. “The way that this works is that each wagon hooks to a post, and each passenger is to place one hand to the wood of a post. A Bond-Bearer—well, this Rift has called them Burden-Binders, like the man talking about weird shaped bread in the wagons—stands in the center.”
Leona tapped her foot, glancing back. “Blackness is closing in. Sorry, I don’t mean to rush you.”
Vaelin nodded, understanding that she needed to get to the point. She walked toward one of the posts, and felt Kryos’ hand grip tighter. As she looked back, he said in a stern, almost admonishing voice, “Don’t go sacrificing yourself.”
She shook her head. “I just need to look closer.” Kryos let her go, and she walked over. Each wooden stake had varying bells, and each of them carried a different emotion in their jingles and ringing. “Ah. I see.” She turned around to face her allies and Marn. “The Bond-Bearer, Burden-Binder, whatever you want to call those with my role, they are meant to stand in the center of this circle of wagons and chain of phantom pains, and take them all on.”
Kryos walked up. “Well, we’re not having you do that.” He looked back at Leona. “Can you think of some other way it might work?”
Leona walked up to the same post Vaelin was standing next to. “Maybe, if I understand the mechanics a bit more.” She looked at Vaelin with a near-inquisitorial expression, like she had taken with the toll men. “What does each bell do? Each post? What do the chains do?”
Vaelin wasn’t quite sure, but she made her best guesses. “The different types of bells feel like different emotions.” She pointed to the iron ones on the post next to them. “These ones, when they ring, feel like a deep, dull pain—like when you bruise your knee.” She then walked to her left and pointed at a cracked, silver bell. “This one feels like the fear you might have if you were trapped in a coffin and buried alive. As for the wooden stakes? They could be representative of people. The chains just represent the burdens are all connected.”
Vaelin looked back at Marn. “I would imagine all of the burdens must be reprieved before we will be allowed passage, yes?”
Marn grimaced, but nodded. “That’s why we brought the nut-job.”
Kryos looked at the caravan leader and Vaelin sensed the hatred flowing off of the half-dragon at the statement of treating a person like a commodity. Once more, she was reminded of his earlier words at the toll gate.
Vaelin looked back to the ring of ghostly chains, and saw the familiar-to-her, silvery circle at the center of all of them. It made her relieved, in a way, because she knew exactly what they were up against this time. This was a challenge she understood.
“Hmm,” Leona said as she tapped her foot.
Leona
Well, Leona thought, the caravan is running out of time. She looked back at the encroaching darkness, which was seeming to pick up speed. We have to decide quickly on how we’re going to approach this obstacle. If we don’t decide now, we’ll lose wagons, people, or even our lives.
The solution was obvious—put Vaelin or the old, weird bald man into the center of the ring and have them complete whatever ritual was involved. But, the bald man had kept both Leona and Vaelin alive with some healing—according to Kryos. And, Leona knew that more chambers lay ahead, so having their Mender down for the count with inherited pain and burdens would not be ideal.
She needed a workaround. Leona had to solve this, just like she did with the toll men. This was just another toll gate, but with a spiritual branding to it instead of a more commercial one. The toll men tried to turn Vaelin into payment, this time was no different. The only difference was that there weren’t ghostly men and crossbows involved.
“I have an idea,” Leona said. She put a hand to one of the wooden stakes, and Vaelin reached out to stop her, but Leona shoved her palm against the wood regardless. She felt a deep, dull, throbbing pain in her stomach, and grimaced, let out a grunt, and pulled back. Thankfully, the pain faded. “Ah,” she said as her mind began working. “I think I get it.”
“Get what?” Kryos asked as he walked up.
“We don’t need Vaelin or the weird guy to take on all the pain and whatnot,” Leona said. “We just need enough people to distribute all of the afflictions amongst everyone.” She looked at Vaelin. “Actual injuries, though, you should be the one to take those on, since you can cleanse those from yourself, right?”
Vaelin was about to reply, but Leona was interrupted as the weird, bagel-man ran up from the caravan.
He was completely lucid as he said. “Has my time come?”
Marn, the caravan leader, replied, “Well, Orin, we could use you—”
“No,” Kryos replied.
“Actually,” Vaelin replied. “We could . . .” She looked at Leona. “If you can find the sturdiest-looking people across the caravan, they can each touch one of the poles, taking on the burden associated.” She then looked at Marn. “You can stand in the center—but I’m going to put Cease Feeling on you, so you don’t suffer, and we reduce the injury. Then, I can transfer it to myself, which cuts it in half. Together, we can negate much of the burden, and then I can cleanse the remainder.”
Kryos looked at Vaelin with a firm expression, then Leona. Leona said, “Hey, it’s a plan, and we’re running low on time. It’s a workaround. Let’s capitalize on it.” She ran down the line of wagons and began tapping people—sturdy looking men and women—and ordered them to the front of the caravan with haste. Once she reached the back, she saw, surprisingly, Kryos in the center of the rings of wagons. “What’s going on?”
Kryos looked at her, and sat down on the ground. “I’m a lot sturdier than this Orin guy. Vaelin can still do her plan, but I’ll take on the injury load. You’ll need to keep people from tapping out and leaving the posts. The more people that survive to the end, the better the reward, right?”
“That’s the theory,” Leona said. She then looked at Vaelin. “Do your job, and don’t let him die.” That last part came out with a bit more of a pleading tone than she intended, and Leona hastily assigned the various people she had volun-told to their posts, ordering them to put their hands above the posts. “Okay . . . here we go! Give us the count down!”
Vaelin
Vaelin was standing behind Kryos, and she raised her hands, spending MP just as her ancestors of old would spend their mana to harness their innate spiritual energy and connect to the aura of those surrounding them. Except, instead of those auras being people, she could feel the wooden stakes, and the bells carrying the pain, misery, and torment. Each one was a unique, different type of misery all its own.
As the bells began to ring up a cacophony of tones, Vaelin said, “Now!” and knelt, placing her hands on the ring Kryos was sitting inside of. The same instant, she activated Cease Feeling. And, she saw Kryos’ body almost . . . firm up. His hair was dragged down by some unseen weight, and his armor settled lower on his shoulders.
Leona’s voice echoed out from behind the chains and circled wagons. “Get your hand back on there!” Then, there was movement. “Don’t stop touching that, or the blackness will swallow the road!”
The shade-people began speaking through pained voices, their words intermingling and assailing Vaelin’s ears.
“Someone has to carry it, why not her?”
Another said, “She knows how. Why do we have to?”
“Why am I so sad? Road-wanderer beyond, why does it hurt?”
“Let her stand,” another said, “let us rise!”
Vaelin knew their words were accurate, but also wanted to stick to the plan. She knew that the plan was sound. The silvery sphere between her and Kryos was filling up, and the physical harm he was receiving was being stockpiled, reduced, and re-applied over that ten-second duration. Judging from his strained breathing, cursing, and the constantly-draining HP bar she could see in her HUD, she knew this was going to test their limits.
The glowing chains attested to that fact: they weren’t halfway done.
A voice whispered in her ear. Soothing, charming, as it said, “You could take it all. All the pain, misery, it’s your job.”
That final word sent a shiver down her spine as she knew it was the truth. She knelt down and said, “Kryos—”
“No,” he growled back. “Stick to the plan.”
The voice whispered again, “He’s suffering. Surely you see that? The whole caravan suffers. Give them reprieve.”
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Leona’s voice echoed from somewhere outside of Vaelin’s line of sight. “Hey! You let go, your wagon goes in the back! Do you want to be closest to that black void?” Then she let out a curse. “Shit, one collapsed!”
Vaelin immediately sent a burst of MP in that direction, tethering herself to the stake that was unclaimed. Flashes went through her mind—a mother holding her child, who was starving to death on the side of the road, begging for food—and a deep sorrow welled through her thoughts.
Kryos began grunting in pain, and let out a gasp. “Healing,” he croaked out.
Vaelin immediately used Damage Transfer, and the harm that he had suffered, and all of that pain in the silver sphere between them was cut in half, his health was fully restored, and Vaelin took it all on. She collapsed to her knees, and was clutching onto Kryos’ shoulders as the pain raced through her stomach, chest, and up her neck. It felt like thousands of tiny needles, jabbing into her. She used Stabilizer’s Reprieve to cleanse herself of as much as she could.
Kryos’ hand reached back and he put it on her shoulder. “I can take more on now. Thank you.”
Once more, the voice whispered in Vaelin’s ear, but it was quieter, as if it was fading away. “You’re letting them suffer when you should be the one suffering.”
No, Vaelin thought. I am not going to go past my limits.
“Damnit!” Leona’s voice cut through. “Another passed out!”
The voice whispered, “You could carry it all.”
I could, she thought.
“You could stabilize everyone,” the whisper added. “It’s the right thing to do. The ritual demands sacrifice. Your clan would take the oldest and have them suffer the worst burdens so the rest could live, yes? Do the same. Carry the load.”
Vaelin cast out a flicker of MP once more and grabbed the now-dropped burden, taking it onto herself. Another vision flashed through her mind—a soldier, on the battlefield, cutting an opponent in half. But not just an opponent, a sibling who chose the wrong side in a conflict. She felt the deep remorse spread through her bones.
I’m not taking all of it, she thought. Just what is needed. I’m going to listen to my Anchor, and I’m going to keep my Party as healthy as possible without making myself a liability.
The silvery glow of the chains faded, and the remaining silver sphere between Kryos and her finished distributing into him. He let out a groan and stood up. The wagons all rolled to the sides of the road, the wooden pylons vanished, and the bells ceased ringing.
The various caravaneers all looked depressed, panicked, or otherwise traumatized. Leona rapidly moved from one to the next, and ushered them into a group, then herded them to Marn, and said, “Get them re-distributed across the wagons by weight. We have to move soon.”
Vaelin was pulled to her feet as Kryos stood up, and she was still somewhat hanging off of her shoulders. He took in a shuddering breath. “We did it,” he said.
Vaelin let go and regained her footing. She rapidly glanced at her HUD.
-----
Vaelin:
HP: 210 / 240
MP: 110 / 250
-----
Kryos:
HP: 178 / 260
MP: 150 / 180 {150 from Toggled Skills}
-----
Kryos cracked his neck and turned around to face her. “We cleared it. Let’s get the wagons—” he grabbed Vaelin and threw her behind him.
She went sailing through the air and tumbled end-over-end a few times. As she got to her feet, she saw why the Guildmaster had flung her back—a monster had appeared right behind her, and where she had been standing, a huge pillar of black smoke smoldered from a crater that leaked black fire.
Kryos
We beat it! Kryos thought as he was able to get his mace into his hand but had to dodge to his right as another fist slammed down. Why do we still have to fight if we beat the chamber?!
A shape had risen from the road. It was humanoid, and just a head taller than Kryos, but had several legs that extended behind it like a long tail, each leg kicking out at some unseen threat that it wanted to keep away at all costs. The central trunk was covered with thousands of layered scars that were carved into blackened flesh with dozens of bleeding wounds that were pouring a vile, brown liquid onto the road. Burned handprints overlapped the body, just like the various palm-prints across the wagon’s sides from before.
The thing’s back was bent over in a hunch, and dozens of bells were strung from its body, as if the weight of all of the different horrors witnessed and surrendered had been stacked and stacked, only to finally be conglomerated and unleashed. It kept reaching out toward him like a starving person might reach for food—the dozens of grasping, regular-length human arms seeming to long for some tender touch that they once had.
And then another massive fist of amalgamated corpses slammed down, and Kryos had to dive to dodge, as the place he had been standing was impacted, and a column of black fire surged upward, carrying screams of agony and twisted malformed facsimiles of words:
“Give it here!”
“I can still carry.”
“Do not waste the pain. Give it to me!”
“The road moves when I break. I hunger!”
Vaelin said, “It’s not the ring that was blocking the path! It was this thing! This entity beneath it!”
Kryos swung and impacted it—hard—and the thing let out a weird mix of a giggle and chortle of delight. It seemed to swell in size, and Vaelin shouted, “Don’t strike it! Pain makes it stronger!”
Then how do we beat it? Kryos thought.
Leona was on the opposite side of the creature, behind it, and she had no weapons in her hands. She grabbed something from the back of the foot-worm-tail, and the monstrosity let out a shriek, wheeled around, and tried to grab at her.
Kryos immediately dropped his mace and wrapped the thing in a bear-hug, activating Pressure Field and willing the matter-tearing damage portion to cease. “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!”
Blistering, black fire began to seep out against him, and he gritted his teeth as he smelled his own flesh starting to smolder. He had some resistance thanks to Singularity Stance, but he could feel the pain.
Leona
Vaelin had told her that it was all connected. The bells, the posts—all of it. The monster was a conglomerate of pain and burden, and so to defeat it, they had to remove those burdens from it.
Thankfully, Leona had spotted those items. The bells would be a pain to get to, since those were wrapped around its neck, but the posts were all along the weird, worm-leg back end. She was able to grab one, yank it out, and the board vanished into ashes once she had ripped it free.
For a moment, her heart flickered with fear as the thing wheeled about and its gaze settled on her—a twisted compressed mix of dozens of faces, smashed together, and glowering with pure rage. But Kryos had wrapped his arms around it, and he slammed it to the ground, just like he had done with the crocodile creature in the other Rift. A silvery cord connected him and Vaelin, and a sphere began to form between them.
Good, Leona thought. She’s doing her job.
Leona still thought that it was absolutely unfair that she and her allies had cleared the chamber but still had to fight things. It was just like the toll scenario from before. They had won, and now they had to deal with a fight. It was infuriating.
She let that rage fuel her speed as she moved between kicking limbs, ripping out the posts that once held pain, regrets, worries, grief, and sent them hurtling into ash and dust.
But, there was a problem. She went to pull another plank, but when she yanked back, her efforts were in vain, as it wouldn’t budge.
Maybe a different one? she thought.
She moved down the line and tried another one, but it didn’t move, either. Hopping off the tail, she scanned the posts, and realized her mistake. The two she had tried to remove were just wood, not covered in burned hand prints. Cosmetic, perhaps, but not part of the monster’s weak spots. She had to choose the ones that were actually tied to the whole entire setup of the chamber. Spying one, she dashed up, dodged one of the flailing legs trying to kick at her, and yanked the board out with ease.
Grinning with her discovery of the proper way to deal with the threat, she made her way down the tail, removing wooden chunk after stake, watching them fizzle to ash as she kept going.
Once she reached the trunk of the body, she flicked her knife out and slashed through the cords cutting the bells around the thing’s neck. They were all pinned under the creature, and she shouted, “Kryos! Roll it!”
The man complied, and was able to do some move where he bucked upward with his hips, on his shoulders, and then rolled the monster sideways. With a smooth flourish, Leona grabbed the chain of bells, and threw them to Vaelin. “Here! Do whatever it is you need to!”
Vaelin
Vaelin caught the chain of bells that Leona tossed her way, and looked at Marn, who had a shocked and panicked look on his face. “How many caravans have sacrificed Burden-Bearers?”
The man simply said, “We had to move. The road hungers.”
“That’s not a number,” Vaelin replied.
Marn said, “Numbers are for people who could make choices.”
Vaelin scowled, knowing that there was a better way—having learned there was a better way than that of her ancestor’s path, and her clan’s traditions. She looked back at the bells, all strung together. They were no more than metal, now, as their agony, their misery, and their torment had long-since been absorbed by others. All that was left now was to destroy the monster itself.
I’m not expendable, she thought as she pointed her spear at the cluster of bells. Not to any Adventuring Guild as a Mender, not to this Rift and its challenges, not to my clan and its traditions . . . not to this Party I’m now standing with.
She activated Damage Transfer, took on Kryos’ pain, cleansed it with Stabilizer’s Reprieve, and then stabbed her spear through the knot tying all of the bells together. The single, unifying force gluing all of the burdens together—a shared purpose—was severed, and the monster’s connection to the physical world was severed as well.
“May your souls find peace,” she whispered.
Kryos
The monster Kryos had been wrestling into the paved road vanished into dust.
He stood up, grabbed his mace, slotted it into his belt loop, and then turned to see Vaelin, supporting herself on her spear, smiling at him. “You stayed standing.” Kryos said. He then leaned over, and felt a wave of lethargy spread over him, as he tried to stand up, it took a lot more effort than he thought it should. Shadowy, steel-colored chains seemed to weigh him down, and as he pulled up the rest of the way, they stuck to his scales and seemed to brand themselves into place.
Leona walked up behind him. “You did good holding the thing.”
“You did great making it so we could kill it,” Kryos replied. He held up his arms. “Can you see this?”
Leona was about to reply, but golden chains appeared, connecting him, Leona, the volunteer caravaneers that had now gone back to their places, and Vaelin. “What’s this?” Leona asked. She then yawned. “And why do I feel so sleepy? And . . . sad?”
Kryos was going to reply, but then a voice like thunder shouted from somewhere in the skies above.
“Let each carry, so all may rise.”
The golden chains connecting the group seemed to be light and ethereal, made of raw magic or pure emotion. These chains didn’t seem to have a weight to them, they instead floated and were seemingly asking nothing of the people bound to them—unless, maybe, they were chosen to be held.
Vaelin walked over, using her spear for support. “The earlier message was ‘let one carry so many may rise’. I think this means that there might be some level of damage transfer automatically enabled going forward?” She then sighed. “We beat the ritual, yes, but the monstrosity that arose was unleashed because we broke the ritual. We conquered it in a way no one had ever done before.” She smiled at that. “The ritual can never happen again. We have forever disabled it by breaking it and killing the beast that might have reasserted its presence.”
She looked at Leona. “You and I are sharing the burdens taken by those who touched the stakes earlier.” She then looked at Kryos, and her eyebrow shot up with curiosity. “You are sharing it, but not suffering.”
Thanks to my Trait, Kryos thought as he pursed his lips and headed back to the wagons. That’s not good about the whole transfer part, though. The passengers won’t be able to take the same punishment that we can. And, losing them means we’ll lose out on better rewards—at least if Leona’s instinct at the start of the Rift is anything to go by.
He made it to the wagons, and as he was about to speak, Marn said. “We should check the Charter. What has happened . . . it hasn’t happened before. Perhaps it will reveal information.”
Kryos couldn’t fault the logic and shouted down the line. “Bring up the CHARTER wagon!”
A few moments later, the driver brought the wagon up, and Marn opened it up. The floating map that appeared was almost completely filled, but the road ahead was blood red instead of a shimmering gold.
“What does that mean?” Leona asked.
Marn looked at a loss for words, but Orin, the old Burden-Binder and codger who seemed loopy, said, “The Red Run! Quick! We need to move!”
Kryos looked back at the hungering darkness approaching, and his eyes went wide as he saw it was almost upon them. “Crap! Okay! Everyone, get moving! Now!” He ran over to the Dragontrail wagon—but he felt slower. Heavier. The chains imprinted on his arms were like a burden all on their own to carry. Still, he made it over, held his hands together, and tossed Leona up. She deftly landed on top. He was a bit gentler with helping Vaelin up, and then he climbed up himself.
The CHARTER was closed up tight, and Marn hopped onto that wagon with Orin, maneuvering to the front of the column.
The moment that happened, the world shifted. The skies above turned a stark, blood red. Droplets of grey rain began to pour down from the cloudless sky, and spattered onto a now deep, crimson road. Howls echoed from the yawning void of darkness behind them—but not howls like the monsters in the first chamber. These were howls of something far, far worse. Something that heralded doom, destruction, and no chance of escape.
Kryos knelt down and gripped onto the top of the Dragontrail wagon. “Go!”
Leona pushed the mechanism to move forward, and they took the lead of the caravan, keeping a cart-length in front of the next nearest one, but not outpacing them.