Chapter Text
Steady breathing. Steady breathing.
Keep quiet, he’ll find you if you don’t keep yourself fucking quiet.
The knight in gold felt his breastplate dig into his burning skin. His skin… his skin was burning—
He didn’t… no, he couldn’t feel it. No matter how hard he tried to feel some kind of pain, some kind of sting…
God, my head hurts.
The lord broke off a rock from the cave wall as if it were nothing but a slime ball.
He didn’t question how he had known the exact way to position his hand on the wall to break the rock away with such ease.
He couldn’t feel it, even as it dug into his arm, his golden rerebrace already collecting kicked dust on the floor. He watched it break the fabric of his undershirt. He watched it break the skin of his bicep. But he couldn’t… why couldn’t he feel it?
Pull yourself together.
He tore the rock from his arm and hurled it at the opposite wall, the cobblestone breaking into fine powder.
A silverfish wriggled out of the stone he’d broken, making its way towards the lord as he tried desperately to control his breathing.
He pulled his sword from its sheath, ready to kill it like usual, but his head began to pound again.
He pictured the first silverfish to ever crawl out of a stone, he pictured the nest which this very silverfish hailed from. He knew exactly how many stones the silverfish had infested before choosing the one he’d broken with his fist.
And he witnessed the end of the silverfish’s life firsthand as he stepped on it. He picked up his discarded rerebrace, securing it on his arm and ignoring the blood oozing out of the wound on his bicep.
He creaked through the cave, his armor beginning to rust with every droplet of water the dripstone above him released.
He needed to get far away from this wretched place. He had left that book in his mine’s chest. He knew it wouldn’t be enough. He understood the consequences of his neglect to protect those dreary crossroads from any old thrill-seeker who chanced upon them.
But he also couldn’t feel his face. His arms. His legs. Every time he tried to blink, his eyes forced themselves back open like they were refusing.
He felt himself grow slower.
Don’t. Stop. Moving. Forward.
But not even his own head, as painful as it felt, could save him now. His weary feet gave out beneath him, and he felt himself slide down the deepslate wall.
Maybe this isn’t so bad.
Now, cruelly, he couldn’t keep his eyes open for the life of him.
Maybe a zombie will happen upon my sad self and put me out of my misery.
He fought his eyes for a few more seconds, but even the most formidable of knights have to succumb to slumber.
He didn’t dream of anything. Anytime he began to, he would end up at those damned yellow gates, and he would shut himself back down again.
It was a deep sleep. He distinctly smelled smoke, but it only served to settle him deeper into his stiff slumber.
When Der opened his eyes, he was face-to-face with the golden gates. He blinked. The smell of smoke clouded his senses, and he looked around for fire. When he found none, he realized… that it was coming from him.
His shoulders were steaming, as if he’d taken a flint and steel right to the skin. But it still didn’t hurt. Not like it should’ve. Not the way his head was still pounding.
He staggered away from the huge gates. There was no way he was staying here any longer. But…
What if someone finds it? That would make you responsible.
He did his best, but he was no match for the thing taking over his senses.
Fear. And something that burned into his retinas in the color yellow.
He reached into his satchel, pulling his pickaxe and some deepslate from it. And, being extremely careful to steer clear from the thing inside the gates, he slowly covered them up.
Rock after rock, he placed and placed and placed. He had lots to think about to fill the silence.
The eldritch abomination picking its way through his brain. What had happened to the bird whose feathers made his pretty red plume. Who had mined the gold that was welded into his trusty sword.
Since when do I know all of the local disc maker’s songs by heart…?
Days and nights blurred as he cemented the gates away from the left side of the crossroads. Then, he covered up the right side for good measure.
He blocked off the maze, sealed away the tunnels, swam his way through the oasis, and eventually managed to build his way back up to the gates made of trees.
How cruel. How… how stupid he felt.
For a man who knew anything about everything, Der couldn’t recall a single good reason he had walked through those leafy gates and down to the crossroads.
He dragged himself through the dark stony corridors until he saw the light of his original strip-mine opening ahead.
He all but collapsed into his old chest, digging through it and taking the valuables inside. He reached into his satchel and retrieved his book and quill.
Even cemented, those gates were a hazard. For all Der knew, they had slithered their way to another unsuspecting individual’s cave already.
So he wrote.
At the crossroads, don’t turn left.
Don’t be fooled.
It isn’t from this world.
Run Avery.
Why Avery? Why in code? Well… thanks to his new influx of knowledge, he knew that the only person residing nearby was a man named Avery, who lived bordering a nearby swamp. The nearest village was on the other side of the mountain that his cave was dug into.
And the code…?
Well… he didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t want to freak him out. Maybe he didn’t want someone who wasn’t this Avery guy to find the book, read the message un-coded, and be even more confused.
He dropped the book into the chest and looked into the sunlight above him. Like it was calling for him.
But… he couldn’t. He couldn’t let himself.
So the sun’s golden knight dug himself a new tunnel. He covered his tracks with stone, and hollowed out a little crevice to put down a furnace, crafting table, and chest in.
He then threw down some moss carpets he’d raided from his other chests, chucked his sword into a corner, and collapsed into another deep, dreamless sleep.