[Raw]Dark Exodus -- Chapter 4

Chapter 4

We fought off another Kobold warband a few hours later. This one was smaller than the ones we had encountered before, and they were definitely on the weaker side.

“Pathetic,” Kitty spat as I heaved her out of a Kobold Shamen’s chest.

“Yeah, they probably taste a bit stringy,” I said, using Drain Blood to refill my stamina.

“If I am to regain my full strength, I need worthier tribute,” the eye said.

I paused.  “Yeah, about that. What would regaining your full strength entail?”

“I would be able to manifest at least a portion of myself in the material world, a simulacrum crafted in my glorious likeness,” Kitty answered.

“So you’d be able to escape the sword?” I guessed.

“No,” she replied reluctantly.  “I was sealed here by all the combined might of all the false gods. It would take their deaths, their stolen divinity, to release the seal on my prison.”

“Bogus,” I snarked.

“Indeed.”  Kitty sighed.  “Still, it would be good to be freed of this haunted existence, to breathe the brittle air of Yulon again, to hear the screams of my victims.”

I wasn’t about to free someone calling herself the Madness Behind the Stars on the world, even if Yulon was kind of a backward ass shithole.  Still, I could sympathize with Kitty, and if I could earn her a measure of freedom, I would.

Besides, It wasn’t like I was ever going to run out of stuff to kill.

It took me several minutes to climb a huge dune. I was still dressed in my traditional armor, full plate with white enamel and gold trim, the colors of Alleria. The suit had been custom-made for me by the kingdom’s greatest artisans and then enchanted even further to increase its protective properties.

I was a walking fortress, but that caused me to slowly sink with each step. Climbing the dune was a constant battle against backsliding. I made a note to find more appropriate armor at some point.

Huffing a bit, I finally reached the top.  Before us was a city.

Or, at least, the ruins of a city.  It sprawled in the valley between the two pyramids. Each of them was easily as tall as a skyscraper back home; I estimated their bases must have covered several square miles.

The city itself was of much more mundane design.  I could see where salvaged stone and clay had been used to build tall, thick walls that ran around the perimeter.  Fortified gates appeared in regular intervals, though most appeared to have been breached or toppled.

Inside the city was a messy spread of buildings, the streets between running in crooked disorder. The tallest structures topped out at three or four floors, though virtually every structure appeared to have balconies or a rooftop deck.  They might have been gardens once.

It was clear death had come roaring into the city.  I could see scorched ruins where entire neighborhoods had burned.  There wasn’t a single person on the streets, and all I could hear was the wind.

“Whelp, that’s kind of a letdown,” I groaned.

“There is still life there,” Kitty warned me.

“Really?”

“Vermin and beasts hide in the shadows.” The eye blinked.  “I can sense more intelligent life to your right, along the back wall on the opposite side of the city.”

I frowned.  “What, you can sense living beings? Why didn’t you warn me before, when those Kobold warbands ambushed us?”

“Did you need a warning against such weaklings?” she asked.

“Well, no,” I admitted.

She chuckled. “While I might not find our situation ideal, you are a worthy wielder Teddy.  As long as you continue to feed me fresh tribute, I will uphold our partnership.”

Our bond of trust once again reinforced, I tromped down the sand dune and toward the dead city.

==================================

Approaching one of the smashed gates, it became clear that some great siege had been waged there, years before.  Bodies and broken war machines laid up against the walls, joined by shattered ladders and fallen siege towers.

“It wasn’t the Kobolds.” I lifted a skull from the sand.

A pair of horns poked up through the yellowed bone.

“Some kind of demon?” I guessed.

Yulon was a world out of every fantasy nerd’s daydream. It was populated by a mix of races including humans and more monstrous demi-human species, along with the traditional tropes like elves, dwarves, goblins, and orcs.  I’d never seen a demon before, but the Alleria Kingdom preached they were a race of evil, man-eating monsters.

If I ever encountered a living one I’d give them a fair shake, but I’d cut them down if they proved a threat. At that point, it was me and Kitty versus the world, and I’d kill anyone who threatened my life or our freedom.

“Whoever they were, the Kobolds did not feast on their remains,” Kitty noted.

“Right, so these guys have probably been dead for a long, long time,” I guessed.

Pushing through the broken gate, I saw even more bodies were piled up inside the city’s walls.  Human skeletons lay in heaps; the nearby buildings had all collapsed, destroyed by the siege weapons.  Only the structures further in seemed intact.

“So demons attacked the city, laid siege, and eventually busted in?” I looked around.  “It certainly seems like they sacked the place.”

The street before us was clogged with wreckage, sand, and snow.  Frost hung heavy on the gutted buildings as we walked deeper into the city.  I paused here and there, to search for anything useful or interesting, but it appeared looters had already been through that area.

“Romo’s Book Shop,” I read a half-burned sign.  It was written in the same language as the merchant’s ledger I had found.

Kitty kept me up to date on the location of the living beings she sensed.  I navigated through the wreckage, bashing away obstacles or leaping over them when necessary.

We passed through a burned-out neighborhood.  Only scorched timber and burnt stone remained.  Beyond was an intact district.

Someone had painted a warning on the side of a wall.

HORNED RATS AHEAD, BE CAREFUL!

“Not the same language as the sign or the book,” I observed.  “Must have been left by looters or adventurers who came in afterward.”

“Rats?” Kitty scoffed.  “Who fears vermin?”

I shrugged as I walked down the road and past the warning.  “They did say Horned Rats.  Maybe they’re a kind of monster or something.  Who knows, you might even find them worthy tribute.”

The eye grumbled.

We’d only gone a few blocks when the first giant rat appeared

Corpse Gnawing Horned Rat Lvl 21

Corpse Gnawing Horned Rat Lvl 22

Corpse Gnawing Horned Rat Lvl 18

I didn’t even bother unsheathing Kitty. The first rat tried to jump on my back, I grabbed it, whipping it over my shoulder, and slammed it into the cobblestones.  The other tried to latch onto my arm, but its teeth couldn’t break through my armor.  I hammered my first into the top of its skull, killing it.

The third rat slunk low, biting at my ankles. I punted it away.

“That was anticlimactic,” I grumbled.

“Unworthy,” Kitty spat.  “If you dare use me to slay such vermin, I shall curse you for all eternity!”

“Shush, or I’ll use you to scrape the bottom of my feet the next time we stop to camp. I’ve got some calluses you wouldn’t believe.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” she yelled.

I chuckled.  “Watch me.  Respect is a street that goes two ways, lady.”

We must have killed a dozen rats by the time we cleared the infested district.  They swarmed out of burrows and holes, skittering and screeching. I finally got tired of it and unleashed Kitty.

“Cursed Slash!” I shouted.

An afterimage, a projection of pure, entropic energy followed the sweep of my blade.  The rats it hit were drained of all life and reduced to dust, while the remaining buildings aged and toppled, torn apart by the power of pure decay.

“Damn,” I lifted the blade.  “That’s way different than the Hero’s Slash I remember.”

Marcus’s mind control and illusions had changed my perception of the Skill, altering the energy blade to be a pure, blinding light that atomized foes.

“You do realize you don’t need to yell the name of your Skills,” Kitty informed me tartly.

“Really?” I sheathed the sword.  “Back home, at least in the cartoons, the heroes always shouted the names of their attacks.”

“You are no Hero,” the eye reminded me.

Exiting the blighted and now completely demolished neighborhood, we began to track the life signs Kitty had detected.  They weren’t far away, just a few districts over.  I picked up my pace, running down the ruined streets at what a mundane human would consider a breakneck pace.

Barreling through a wall, I landed in an adjacent roadway.  To my right, I spotted a group of humanoid figures bundled in ragged clothing. I couldn’t see them clearly, but I could tell they were children.

To our left was a horde of monstrous insects.

Deathmound Beetle Lvl 15

Deathmound Beetle Lvl 10

…

There were hundreds of them.

“Damn, who comes up with these names for these guys,” I complained, pulling Kitty free.

“One of the false gods, Davos.  The halfwit loves to come up with silly, dramatic names for the monsters he breeds and releases upon Yulon,” Kitty answered.

‘Really?” I blinked.  “What a jackass.”

“Mister!”

Looking over my shoulder, I saw one of the kids had crawled forward.  His hood had fallen away, revealing he was some kind of beastman.

I quirked an eyebrow.  “What?”

The kid looked at me with shock.  “Are you here to save us?”

I paused.  Was I?

“Do you kids have a town or a settlement nearby?” I asked instead.

He paused.  The kids behind him whispered anxiously.

“And if we do?” he replied.

I shrugged. “Then I save your hides and you show me the way there.  I’m getting a bit bored of wandering the desert and sleeping on the ground.”

One of the other kids whacked him on the arm, but he ignored it.  “Deal!”

I faced back toward the beetles, which were crawling forward.  A demented grin crept across my face.  “This is going to be fun!”

Leaping forward, I threw myself into the middle of the horde.  The insect chittered shrilly, and several unfurled wings, as if ready to flee.

“Slaughter’s Call!” I shouted.

The air shook as my taunt took effect.  In mass, every beetle turned my way and launched a suicidal charge.

I couldn’t help but laugh like a maniac as I began swinging my sword.

==================================

“Kid, what’s your name?”

The small beastman stared up at me in horror.  “What?”

“Your name,” I repeated, wiping some of the bug guts off my armor.

“Calic,” he answered.

“Right, Calic,” I sighed.  “Does your town have an inn? Preferably one with a bathhouse or something?”

“Yes,” he answered numbly. “My aunt runs it, they have a bathhouse out back.”

“Great, cause I am not going to bed stinking like this.”

“The smell is unbearable!” Kitty complained.

I paused. “You can smell?”

“It is one of the few sensations my jailers left to me,” she answered.

Calic backed up.  “Who was that?”

“My talking, cursed sword,” I answered, tapping the hilt projecting above my shoulder.

One of the other kids, a girl, inched forward.  “Who are you?”

I thought about it for a moment, then answered honestly.  “I’m a Cursed Knight who destroyed an entire kingdom before escaping via a completely random teleportation.  Now, are you going to show me to your town or what?”