[Fsh] Chapter 55: Creature in the Dark

To stave off the Insanity that lurked at the edges of her consciousness, Vale recalled the words of Solastra Flora, that had instilled her with hope and dread in equal measure. 

The terrifying dimension of her Fear that Solastra had proposed that she elaborate upon.

Highlady Solastra’s words had been clear.

There was a way to mitigate the risks of possession that she exposed herself to, as a Fearshaper of death with a proclivity towards souls.

Where her Fearshaping was oriented towards the nurturing of souls…

She could also obtain an invocation that would widen the dimensions of her Fear, allowing her to kill them. Not in the conventional sense of killing, by rendering physical wounds to bring a life to its end. The death of the body, did not mark the final end to the soul.

Her mother’s wraith, that haunted her would continue to hound her until she brought her to her final rest. Asale Revenant’s restless soul was hounding her with its lingering wrath and greed.  While her mother’s efforts to possess her would wane after the withdrawals ended, she could continue to haunt her throughout her descent, along with other souls attracted to her Fearcore.

Marta and Pov had been wary of the solution conveniently offered by the Highlady. They intervened in the infirmary, ensuring that she thought over her decision properly before she accepted the Highlady’s “offer”, which had been posed to her directly after her near-possession.

She had been grateful for their intervention, but her decision remained unchanged.

Solastra had informed her that there was only one creature in her Dreadwood that was capable of bestowing such an invocation. When she had asked what it was, the Highlady had laughed, only to tell her…

That it was a creature that she had encountered before.

Vale had wracked her brain as to the nature of the creature to no avail, trying desperately to recall the paintings that adorned Soulhaven’s halls. Then she realised, that there was a tool that could help shed light on it, if Virgil and the knights were disinclined to do so.

Before Vale could send her query to Idriel, inviting the voice of her Singer to resonate with her Fearcore, she was interrupted by Virgil’s voice.

“We’re here.”

---

The dark corridor that they rushed through finally opened up into a vast, cavernous space.

It was shrouded entirely in darkness, leaving not even a section of it visible to the naked eye. Nausea welled in her gut as Vale crept across the boundary of the wall to peer ineffectively within. Virgil’s voice reached her in a whisper.

“Vale and Caledon, stay back. Leave this to the Dreadwalkers. Keep your Fearshaper of blades with us.”

Virgil hesitated, but relented at the nods of the Dreadwalkers.

“We might need his help.”

Vale blanched, casting a brief glance of concern at Caledon’s impassive expression. Even where they stood at the precipice of a fight, he seemed to be consumed by thoughts of his Fear.

I hope he’s ok.

What truly got under Vale’s skin was how Virgil had suggested that Bladey remain with them.

He was speaking as if failure was within the realm of possibility for Solastra’s strongest Dreadwalkers.

Why would Solastra risk so much for me?

She shuddered, her thoughts interrupted by her mother’s breath on her neck. She turned to Triol, who had taken his place next to her.

“You aren’t joining them, Virgil?”

To her surprise, he shook his head.

“I’ll just get in the way, without being able to walk through my tears. I’ll just be helping with two things.”

“What’s that?”

“Lighting, and a getaway.”

Virgil met her eyes calmly.

“We’ll need to be prepared to brave the horrors if we use the tears to escape.”

Vale fought off the goosebumps that erupted across her arms, as she watched the Dreadwalkers exchange hushed whispers.

Readying themselves for the fight.

Vale resorted to the single invocation that had served her flawlessly throughout her descent in the Gravewoods.

[Soulsight of the witness]

Their quarry was not situated deeper within the room ahead of them.

The darkness of the room beyond them had misled her as to its size. Her head swam as her eyes locked onto the soul of the creature, which also betrayed the scale of the room beyond them.

Vale craned her neck upwards, and she took an involuntary step backwards at the creature’s position in the distant recesses of the roof of the room.

Then, her attention was drawn to the shape of the creature’s soul.

Where others had glowed different colours, Bladey’s, for example, being an orange pinprick of light, their quarry’s soul was like a burning wildfire of void.

The very glimpse of it made Vale yearn to tear her eyes from her skull.  

Then, when she overcame her nausea…

She realised that the creature was staring right back at her.

[Light of the small sun]

Darkness fled in the wake of Virgil’s invocation, as the Dreadwalkers strode forwards.

What had initially appeared to be a hallway of sorts was actually closer to a tower spiralling into heights that Vale could barely perceive, while retaining the entire width of a grand hall. The cavernous room rose upwards, and despite Virgil’s invocation, light failed to disperse the darkness that collected in the deepest, highest recesses of the room.

Vale watched in horror as she glimpsed a chorus of gargantuan, nimble legs descend towards them, on a web that looked to be spun from the abyss itself.

Then Highlady’s words returned to her.

She had seen it before.

The brief silence ended with a scream that reverberated through her soul. The same one that had reached them at the temple’s entrance now tore through her where she stood, adjacent to its source.

Vale’s eardrums ruptured in a fraction of the time it had taken when it had first struck them at the temple’s entrance.

Vale let out a scream to join the wail of a frequency far beyond what she perceived, in unholy chorus. Blood tore from her throat, flecks of it spraying into the air above her. She coughed and was met with the metallic taste of her own blood.

Then something shunted into her soul.

Vale stumbled, catching herself with the wall’s edge.

“Virgil? You alright?’

As she blinked the tears from her vision, she realised that her companions were motionless, on the ground. Only Caledon stood beside her, unaffected, his eyes cast off into the distance, somehow managing to avoid the creature’s shriek as she did.

All of the Dreadwalkers, Virgil, Triol, Bladey and Reminisca were prone, having been knocked out by the creature’s scream.

“You’re kidding me.”

Staring up at the ceiling, the monstrosity revealed itself in all of its twisted glory.

The Highlady’s words returned to her, and she cursed Solastra, for she did recognise the creature.

Every elf that awakened as a Fearshaper would have recognised it.  

What greater creature could a Fearshaper of death fell, to deepen the dimensions of their Fear that resonated with souls…

Then a master of souls itself.

A spider of the same species as the dignified Matchmaker.

But there was something wrong.

Where the Matchmaker sported eight legs, like any ordinary spider, this one had double that.

Two legs emerged directly from the very middle of its abdomen, leaking black blood from the crack that split the spider’s chitin. Another pair of legs emerged from the creature’s mess of eyes that covered its head, bunched around the unnatural limbs. Dark, beady eyes that leaked blood of the void had burst from the emergence from the legs, and dribbled into the creature’s fangs, which spiralled into itself.

Then it disappeared from its perch high above her in the air.

In a second, it loomed over her in the deafening silence, interrupted only by the soft ringing in her ears, muted by blood.

Vale realised that she had subconsciously called her Phobia to her, the tall white scythe, her final act of defiance that gleamed in Virgil’s invocation, that was growing dimmer by the second.

“Vale… Run.”

“After all of this, dying to a Feardamned spider. Shiver will never let me live it down. I’m sorry, Lord Quietus.”

For a moment, Vale’s fear had been replaced entirely with rage and incredulity. She barely restrained herself from erupting into hysterics at the hilarity of it all.

She calmed, as the monstrosity’s jaws yawned before her.

Then, it lunged not towards Vale, but the bodies lying at its feet. Her eyes widened in horror, realising too late, that she was not its target.

The spider’s twisted mess of fangs cut into Clona’s torso, as the spider’s fangs effortlessly tore trails through the Dreadwalker’s armour, digging into her flesh. The legs that emerged from the clusters of eyes, moved independently of one another, casually spearing downwards to impale Rathos and Severim where they lay, eliminating them as threats.

With a twist of its body, it tore Clona’s head from her shoulders, consuming it whole.

Then the spider hesitated.

Dreadwalk: Seduction of the eternal spring

Vale was introduced to a Dreadwalker’s Fear of roses.

She watched as thorns erupted from within the creature’s body, spearing it through from the inside. It staggered backwards, unable to scream with the mess of thorns and roses that filled its maw, suffocating it.

Vale watched in horror, as the head the creature had torn off, grew back, on the Dreadwalker’s shoulders. Having lost her helm, Clona shot Vale a grin, her red eyes gleaming in the dark, and long, black hair shining in the remnants of Virgil’s invocation.

Using her flesh as a means to inflict wounds from the inside.

Then, the Dreadwalkers that lay prone, and motionless, their bodies speared through by the spider’s limbs burst into a flurry of blood-red rose petals, that swirled around them.

Clona had called an illusion of spring from her Dread. Then, she strode further in her Dreadwalk.

Dreadwalk: My field of roses bloomed in lifeblood

Gleaming blood roses bloomed across the entirety of the abyssal web.

Every step that it took would bring pain, and hinder its movements as the base of its feet were torn apart from the gleaming black thorns perverting the safety of its domain. Just as the Dreadwalkers began to assert their powers, calling their Fears, the creature struck back, its innumerable eyes locked onto each of its targets.

Vale gritted her teeth in frustration as she watched the countless wounds inflicted by Clona began to regenerate.

The creature with a familiar Fear of death, called the very invocation she relied upon to heal the damage it inflicted on her own ears, to a far more potent extent than what Vale could manage.

Flesh was within the creature’s domain, and the Dreadwalkers’ onslaught was trivialised as the creature’s healing outpaced the damage that they inflicted upon it.

Then she stared as the spider broke the rules.

With a flash of one of its many limbs, it called forth a slash of winter, sending a curving arc of frost that gradually expanded as it hurtled towards Knight Severim.

The young man’s hand was placed idly on the hilt of his Phobia.

With irreverence, the Knight bisected the oncoming arc of frost with a simple horizontal cut.

Then he waited, as Clona and Rathos danced around the creature, their Phobias flashing as they delivered blows that began to heal almost as quickly as they were delivered.

“What in Insanity is Knight Severim doing? Shouldn’t he be pressing the advantage? The creature can call fro-“

Vale watched as the creature called fire to it, and its independently moving limbs severed the air, carving motionless waves of flame that hung in the air around it, hovered around its body in motionless scars of light.

Then, it called yet another power to itself – the one that it had used to reach them, even where they stood at the boundary to the temple.

In that moment, Vale finally understood the nature of the creature’s power. The threat that it posed.

The monstrosity summoned the power of a guide of a Fearshaper of sound.

Its silent scream sent the blades of flame that hovered around it outwards faster than Vale’s eyes could track, cutting blinding scars of light into her vision as they flashed towards the Dreadwalkers.

The viscious arcs of flame and even the flaring light illuminating the tower, brought by Virgil’s delirum…

Winked out.  

Shadow reigned.

Dreadwalk: I strode in the shade of the twilight woods

Knight Rathos called his Dread, and Vale’s vision went dark.

Then she realised, that she was still calling her own Fear.

[Soulsight of the witness] was still active.

The invocation she had relied upon so heavily to pierce darkness of the Gravewoods she otherwise couldn’t breach, was rendered ineffective with the advent of Rathos’ Dread.

Vale stood in the shade of the twilight woods, alone, bereft of all those she cared about. Her wishes rendered trivial, in the majesty of the forgotten forest.

Then an arm circled hers, drawing her back into reality.

“Don’t lose yourself to their Fears, Vale. It helps to call your own Fear into reality.”

“I am.”

Without her soulsight, the only thing Vale could rely on were her aching ears, that she healed once more with [regeneration of the skinsweller].

The sounds of the Dreadwalker’s battle with the creature were disappearing into the distance, as the creature retreated into the heights of its web, blinded by Rathos’ Dread. 

Vale cast a glance at Caledon once more, and he just shook his head as she offered to heal his ears.

I need to speak to him after the fight. He hasn’t uttered a word.  

The fight far above them, beyond their reach, Vale finally turned to regard Virgil.

“I thought it decapitated Knight Clona? What was that?”

“Her Dread. The seduction of roses.”

The man gave her soft smile, as he stared sightlessly into the furthest reaches of Rathos’ darkness where the Dreadwalkers hunted.

“Like that makes any sense at all! Besides you used me as bait?”

“Well… they used Clona as bait. You… just happened to be standing nearby.”

Vale paused in her tirade, staring at him. Then she shook her head. Now wasn’t exactly the best time to engage in petty argument. She cast a passing glance towards Caledon who was silent, his eyes tracing the creature.

“It’s… truly the same species as the Matchmaker?”

Virgil nodded.

“A soulweaver. Few other creatures make souls their playthings. If it weakens you sufficiently, it can consume your soul, and use it to empower itself. This one, has gorged itself on the souls of countless guides. You’ve seen it invoke their power.”

“Virgil… the Matchmaker I saw was nothing like this monstrosity. What caused-“

Then Vale stumbled, as she watched the innumerable roses that blossomed across the soulweaver’s abyssal web, glowing a dark, alluring red-

Winked out.

No… Clona?

“We need to help! Virgil, is there anything we can do?”

The Fearshaper of stars frowned, displaying a rare break in his composure. Frustration and fear filled the Navigator’s expression.

“If we endanger ourselves, they’ll just be forced to divide their attention, protecting us. The only thing I can think of…”

Virgil’s eyes fell on the only resources she could possibly call upon, to lend whatever aid they could to the Dreadwalkers.

His gaze fell on Vale’s revenants.

Triol and Bladey turned to regard her.

Reminsca, the diminuitive Fearshaper of memories, backed away, retreating behind Bladey’s leg, as she began to quiver in fear.

Vale strode forwards, her hand encircling the revenant’s small arm, holding her tightly in her grip.

Bright, lavender eyes shone in the darkness as they fell on the child. Reminsca collapsed to the ground, burying her head in her arms, and bringing her knees to her chin. The girl trembled under Vale’s gaze.

“Learn to use them, Vale. Your strengths don’t lie in your martial ability.”

It was the words left unsaid that were significant.

They’re disposable.

Vale stared at the trio of revenants that stood before her. Her brother Triol, the beastmaster, was bereft of his beasts. Beside him, the Fearshaper of blades, that strode in his Delirium, his golden greataxe shining in the darkness, Rathos’ shadows fleeing its proximity as if afraid of being cut.

Finally, the young Fearshaper of memories, who trembled at her feet.

Vale fell to a crouch beside Reminisca. There was no need for [insight of the griefwalker] – Vale understood the young girl’s feelings perfectly.

When Vale laid a hand on her shoulder, she felt her flinch at her touch.

The little girl shivered as the sounds from the Dreadwalkers’ clash above reached her. Her voice fell as she directed it towards the girl at her feet.

“You know? When I raised you, all I saw was another tool to help me in my revenge. Someone to help Caledon manage his Fear.”

The words were like blades, cutting into the trembling girl.

Then, Vale poked Reminisca in the cheekbone, snapping her out of her reverie.

“If I were any wiser, I would have scooped you up, taken you to a place where you could live a life of happiness, and showered you in the love you deserve.”

Vale gently stroked the girl’s head as the girl looked up at her in confusion.

“The problem is, I’m hardly that wise. I tied you to my silly quest for vengeance. Viewed you just as my father viewed me, and my brother.”

The girl stared up at her with hollow eye sockets, in place of bright eyes that had shone in her youth. Then she turned to regard the skeleton,n whose bones were cast from black ivory, whom Vale pointed towards.

“I’m sorry for bringing you to this place of Insanity.”

The little girl waited for the Fearshaper to ask what so many did. What followed her sweet words of apology and self-serving regret, that she was all too familiar with.

Reminisca waited to be used.

The request never came.

“Virgil, take her back to Rael’s Inheritance if I perish. With me, Bladey, Triol.”

“Vale, what are you-“

“If you ever find another Fearshaper of souls, like me…”

Vale fixed Reminisca with her gaze and smiled.

“Tell them to give her the life she deserves.”  

Before Virgil or Caledon could interject, Vale strode into the cavernous room. Then his eyes widened, as Triol’s black, ivory bones disappeared into a mass of black, shimmering ivorydust, that hovered around Vale.

“Brave words aren’t going to change the fact that you’ll be holding the Dreadwalkers back-“

“Don’t you understand, Virgil?”

Virgil stared as Vale tore a dagger across her forearm, only for it to heal seamlessly as the girl called on her Fear.

Then, he watched as her skin rippled, only to part once more. Vale shaped her own bone beneath her skin, which speared out of her flesh as a weapon.

Even as her face twisted in agony.

“They won’t have to worry about me.”

Virgil knew that Vale Revenant was still a Fearshaper at the very beginning of her path.

A naïve girl that languished blindly in her Trepidation as she desperately carved a way to her impossible revenge. Who, despite her cowardice, embraced dimensions to her Fear that others would flee from.  

The black bones of Triol, shattered, dispersing into millions of particles of black ivorydust that shimmered around her, as Bladey wrapped his arm around Vale, and leapt upwards, to join the fight.

The coward, cloaked in darkness and darksilver, wielded a towering white scythe as she ascended.

To dance with Dreadwalkers on the precipice of her Sanity.

To dance to the tune of certain death, as she strode deeper into the depths of her Fear.

Virgil Starstrider finally glimpsed Vale Revenant’s true potential, as Solastra Flora had before him.

---

The little girl quailed in the darkness as she watched Vale’s revenant wrap his arm around her torso, leaping upwards with the characteristic agility of Fearshapers of blades.

It would not be enough.

Reminisca Revenant had glimpsed many who wielded blades with far more skill and elegance. The very basest of their bladedances were a reminder that the revenant of blades was but a babe yet to grasp the terror of his Phobia’s promise.

The shimmering black dust that comprised the beastmaster of death, who was also wanting. Useless, without the beasts that Fearshapers of his pedigree depended on. To fell a creature like the twisted monstrosity they hunted, he would need to call upon equal horrors, that were far beyond his grasp where he languished in Trepidation.

Most of all, the powerless girl, with her pretty lies.

Vale, who crawled in her Trepidation, turning her very own flesh and bone into a weapon, speaking as if it would make a difference in a fight between Dreadwalkers.

The girl, fully aware of her own empty, grandiose words.

Kind lies designed to reassure a little girl who cowered in the dark.

Despite it all, Vale had ascended to meet her Fear.

Reminsca Revenant trembled as her own Fear encroached upon her, cursed by it still.

Not even death could free her from her Fear.

As Vale Revenant departed, she was reminded of what it was like to be cursed by a Fear of memories.

She recalled the gentle words of her second father. His kindly eyes of the void, as he wrapped her in his embrace, a girl left bereft of her family. Offering her a chance at a new life, which he had been unable to deliver.

He had told her to welcome her Fear.

To invite the despair of her Fear, that sang and whispered to her of her eventual end, in Insanity. To embrace the haunting, and beautiful memories of the families she had lost, now twice before.

The little girl of ten, finally ceased in her trembling, as she was reminded of what she was.

The Dreadwalker of memories welcomed her Fear, gathering every drop of her alarum.

Reminisca Revenant strode in her Dread to bestow a single gift to a cowardly, ignorant and foolhardy Fearshaper of Trepidation, who strode Fearlessly to her demise.

A silly Fearshaper of death, who thought to instill confidence and hope in a child, with her pretty lies.

Who had given her a new chance at life and beautiful memories.

Dreadwalk: I strode in the wake of forgotten sublimity