Chapter Text
"Get back."
Shield in hand. A war axe gripped by leather. Chipped, but bloodless.
He looked up and saw an abomination.
"I said, get back."
Nothing fazed the monster towering over the man and his child. While it stood there draped in scraps of armor and tattered rags, no flesh covered its darkened bones. No muscle or sinew married them. Only a skeletal frame held together by some twisted power stood in defiance to the natural world. A gaping maw parted, showcasing jagged teeth and a savagery that required no expression. A venomous hiss. The stench of decay.
It lifted an eager blade to the moonless night.
"Death Warrior!" Torin screamed, shoving the boy behind him. "Sam! Run!" He braced his shield, waiting for impact.
The child gasped but scrambled away. His small feet struck a path already stained with the blood of people he once knew. He ran with a desperate, frantic stride, eyes fixed ahead to avoid the faces of the dead littering the ground. Around him, lesser undead drifted through the shadows of their small village. Escape options were limited. He lunged into a cottage, slamming the wooden door behind him.
The death warrior swung its blade in a brutal, vertical arc.
"Dull pain! Heavy fortress!"
Torin's incantations invoked martial arts. Warrior's magic. They sparked a surge of power that ran through his body, granting resilience and a resistance to pain. The shield vibrated violently under the strike. The weight: impossible. It felt as though a mountain had collapsed upon him as his boots indented the ground. Years of training and the activation of martial arts surrendered to sheer momentum that destroyed Torin’s footing. He was thrown backward, hitting the dirt with a bone-jarring thud.
Before he could recover, a second strike whistled through the air.
"Flow acceleration!" He forced his muscles to move faster than thought, blurring into motion to dodge the strike and close the gap. An opening appeared and he lunged, attempting to bury his blade into the creature’s leg. Steel met bone, but there was hardly any damage to mention. The undead warrior counter-struck with a speed that Torin failed to track.
A stinging heat tore through his chest. The slash wasn't deep enough to kill, but the wound sapped his strength. He dropped to one knee, gasping as he clenched at his battered armor.
Torin waited for the killing blow.
It didn't come. Instead, the creature angled its skull, turning a hollow gaze toward the cottage that Sam dashed into. Did it prefer easier prey like some sort of predator? It moved with a terrifying, heavy lumber. The undead carried weight that shouldn't be possible for mere bones and blades. Whatever had inhabited that skeleton in life was something not of this world.
"Stop!" Torin pushed himself to his feet; gripping his war axe with trembling hands. His muscles wavered. His core screamed at him, but he forced his body to move through the sheer force of will. The next move required him to discard any sense of self preservation. At the risk of his own body, he initiated another martial art and poured his stamina, his arm and his soul into his next swing.
"Fatal edge!"
The blow caught the undead warrior's back with an audible knock. Bolstered by warrior's magic, his axe collided with its ribcage and splintered a single piece free. He watched a large shard of bone hit the ground just as the brute turned and bashed Torin with the hilt of its weapon.
"Dull pain!" he spat blood as he yelled, but the effect yielded no results. His arm had been broken. Ribs cracked. The massive undead creature followed up by booting him with enough force to hurl the downcast human into a wall and leave an impact. The fact that he didn't die was a testament to the unusual resilience that he held since childhood. The same latent talent that he displayed when he defended his former adventuring group.
Debris rained from the damaged structure, pinning his battered body with wood and stone.
His vision blurred. His body went numb. He tried shaking his head to keep himself from passing out, but he could not stop the slow creep of the void. Bodies of the villagers who once thrived here were strewn about and littered the same ground that the death warrior stood upon. It crushed their remains; desecrating them without regard.
As his field of vision shrank into darkness, he caught a glimpse of the monster's ribcage. He saw a jagged stub. One rib was missing. It was the only wound it bore as a consequence to its massacre.
Before that night, the village had about 150 residents. It seemed likely that only 2 remained. When the undead descended upon their village under the cover of darkness, simple farming tools were raised to face weapons of war. Farm hands, elders and nursing mothers stood against callous forces sent to exterminate them. Some had no chance to fight. They awoke to blades piercing their bodies.
Torin, a former adventurer, defied the undead with a respectable fight. But he could do little to save the others.
The death warrior turned its back and continued its bitter advance. Torin's body steadily surrendered to fatigue while blood filled his mouth with a metallic taste. He thought about the son that he had ordered to run away. Sam. There was a vision of his smiling face. He was holding his favorite toy.
As his senses faltered, the world around him began to vanish under a curtain of black. One final signal managed to pierce the veil that slowly drowned his senses. A distant scream that rose up in fear and withered in pain.
In the aftermath of its final war, the Re-Estize Kingdom had ceased to exist. A campaign of wrath initiated by the Sorcerer Kingdom saw to it that every settlement from the smallest hovel to the nation's capital fell to its fury. The Sorcerer King, Ainz Ooal Gown, commanded masses of undead, demons and other grotesque monstrosities that dwarfed human capability. They were as insurmountable in their might as they were unwavering in their crusade.
There were survivors, but his exterminations were so wide-spread and thorough that he was believed to have spared humans on purpose. Perhaps he wanted to extend their suffering. Perhaps he wanted them to spread frightening stories to neighboring lands. The debate fueled discussions.
Most of the original undead forces had been gone for a while. Many returned to their master in Nazarick, the heart of the Sorcerer Kingdom. Some of the weaker and meandering undead, however, were left behind and abandoned in the wastes of Re-Estize. Their ranks were full of slain citizens who had been turned to undeath during the massacre. They were useful in adding to the horror and chaos, but the Sorcerer Kingdom had little use for them afterward.
The desolate lands of Re-Estize would forever rot under Ainz Ooal Gown's shadow, an eternal reminder to his boundless wrath and brittle temperament. Humanity was a fragile thing. Its continued existence depended entirely on the whims of an Overlord with unfathomable power and unknowable aspirations.
Months passed. Torin moved on.
Far away.
A village once thrived where he stood, but he faced a graveyard, a remnant of dashed dreams and a world that used to feel safer. The crunching of his boots upon a decrepit path highlighted the utter silence while the stillness of the ruins channeled an eerie aura.
He adjusted the metallic shield on his back and scanned the surroundings, venturing inward. He had to have passed through here, he thought to himself.
Carefully, he intruded the lonely walkways, inspecting abandoned stores and dwellings for any signs of his target. Steel plates reinforced vital sections of his armor, but the leather underneath muffled most of the noise as he moved about.
For about a week, he had been trailing a criminal with a substantial bounty. Some lunatic wanted for theft and murder managed to piss off the wrong people before he fled. While the ruins of Re-Estize were dangerous to the living, they made for a great hiding place for people on the run. A trail led him here.
Jobs like these weren't uncommon. Torin returned to his former life after he lost his son to that towering death warrior months ago. That is what kept him here.
That singular focus.
Whenever he sought work, he gravitated to jobs that returned him to Re-Estize. The fallen kingdom was a sprawling wasteland full of low-tier undead, but he awaited the day that he would face that indomitable monster's hollowed gaze again. Every new venture was an opportunity to do just that.
He expected that whenever he succeeded in his search, they would settle things between them.
As a sell-sword, he did undesirable work that the Adventurer's Guild would refuse. When clients weren't hiring, he chased bounties. So long as the job led him to the fallen kingdom that he once called home, he opened himself up to work. It kept him busy. It made him stronger. And the money it brought in allowed him to outfit himself with better equipment.
At his hip, a heavy sword-mace replaced his old axe. The undead fell easily to blunt force, but the sharpened blades lining the head gave him more attack options. A simple twist allowed him to switch between crushing impact and lethal cutting. The hilt had tactile indentations that told him how he gripped it at all times.
If only he had coin left over to replace his beat up shield.
A weathered face hid behind tired eyes. He had a dark beard, cut short but scruffy. The stubble barely hid scars that spoke of close calls, the kind of fights that one muddles through. There was a saying that whatever didn't kill you made you stronger. He leaned into that philosophy and continued his trek.
Torin lifted his gray cloak and reached into a leather bag holstered to his side. He pulled out a flask of wine. Cheap stuff. Mostly empty, but that wasn't a problem. He always had more. The search began to bore him, so it seemed like a good time to finish it.
He pulled the opening to his lips and brought his head back. The taste had a sharpness, but he welcomed it. He wished he had a way to cool the drink, though. It would have been nice to feel something cold and soothing before what happened next.
An explosion.
Somewhere in the distance a loud, reverberating outburst broke the silence and shot through the ruins in an expanding wave.
He looked northward and saw a colorful plume of smoke rolling into the sky as it faded into the blue. The sensation had been a powerful one. The force felt like a thunder crack had whipped the ground from beneath his feet only to shock his legs.
He dropped his bottle and put hand to hilt as his sight darted around the area. The ruckus appeared to come from an old cathedral sitting high atop a hill at the edge of town.
Smoke drifted upward in a column that held aloft a rising cloud. It rolled under itself into a growing mushroom. That dilapidated building fumed with an aura of dust that slowly expanded and settled at the same time.
It was strange. That was probably the only activity to beset that structure in a long time.
There shouldn't be anybody here other than himself and potentially his quarry. The criminal he was hunting, however, did not have explosions in his repertoire. Even if he did, why draw attention with such a blast?
He gathered himself and walked forward.
While climbing the broken steps of the old cathedral, Torin stepped over a mess of rubble. Shattered stone, splintered wood, broken glass and human bones impeded his movement. He kicked over some of the clutter as he navigated the space.
It looked as though a large number of people gathered here and died together. The sight made sense. In times of desperation, people could only plead to the gods for mercy. They didn't understand that the monsters of Ainz Ooal Gown feared no gods but the one they served. Their master was just. They felt no sympathy for the pain they caused.
One of the skulls stood out. It was small. He winced at the sight and moved on.
No door or barrier barred entry to the building. It stood in shambles. Half a wall had collapsed. Large portions of the vaulted ceiling were missing, opening the space to the elements. Simply killing people did not satisfy those undead minions. They had to ruin any sense of hope that might have given the survivors something to cling to.
Torin waved his hand in front of his face. Wisps of blue and green still lingered in the air. He didn't know what to think of the colored smoke, but he continued his investigation. It was all so strange, but not nearly as strange as what he saw in the middle of the cathedral floor.
There, bathed in a dusty sunbeam, was a young woman laying on her back. The light caught her body and painted the area with a warm glow that served as a refreshing contrast to the decayed surroundings. A reminder of a time he could never reclaim.
No movement. It wasn't even clear if she was breathing.
The old wooden floor groaned under the weight of his boots as he stepped toward her. She wore a white dress adorned with patterns stitched with golden threads. A similarly colored plackart, vambraces and couplings shone under a brightly polished finish. There was also a blue cloak and hood exquisitely detailed with more golden threads. Sandy brown hair poured out of her cowl and covered half of her face. Her skin looked soft and spoke of a sheltered life.
To her side, an open satchel released a few potions that had rolled out along with broken vials and scattered scrolls. Everything she wore appeared to be something a noble might wear, but there was one item that stood out.
She had fastened a curious tome to her shoulder with a long chain. The tome itself appeared to be bound in leather dyed in crimson. It had golden decals that protected its corners and an emblem that resembled a twisted loop. The pages themselves emitted a soft glow that faintly brightened the area around the book. There appeared to be text on the cover, but the language was unknown. It looked like something you might find in a king's hall or a royal library.
Torin knelt to the ground next to her. He hesitated, placing a hand lightly upon her shoulder before giving a gentle nudge, "Hey?"
In his defense, he knew how to hit things. He was not a doctor.
No response. She laid still. Torin wasn't entirely sure if she drew breath, but she was remarkably in one piece. In spite of the loud and violent spectacle that had just occurred, how was she still whole? Blood seeped from her lip and she suffered minor burns under the singed portions of her wardrobe, but that was the extent of it. A fortunate outcome.
It didn't add up.
An explosion that loud and violent should have shattered her small frame. He scanned the wreckage around him, looking for patterns of damage, trying to make sense of how the blast even happened. That's when he noticed that she wasn't alone. A body leaned up against the wall in a slumped over fashion. That's what a blast victim would look like. It was a blackened heap, utterly ruined by force and fire.
Curious, but he continued to focus on the person that wasn't charred.
He brushed the hair from her face and sighed. Then he saw something that had escaped his notice. The section of the floor that the girl occupied seemed relatively fine. The surrounding floor, however, appeared untouched.
Untouched?
He looked over at the dead one against the wall. Then, he looked at the border where the untouched floor met the burned section. Something blocked the blast and created a clear division in the room. It formed a circle and the girl sat in the center of it.
Fate was not about to give him time to think it over, however. A strong, distant thud sounded off in the distance; rhythmic like a slow heartbeat.
Torin stood up and tracked the sound with his gaze. One thud after another echoed somewhere far away in a rhythm. One, two. One, two. Cautiously, he walked over to the side of the building missing most of its wall and knelt down behind some rubble.
On the far side of the village, he saw a figure that towered over the scenery. Skulking directly toward him in a slow, wooden manner, it carried an imposing tower shield as large as a man. It clad itself in black armor marred by protruding thorns as it gripped a blade in its other hand. This was another powerful undead on par with the one he encountered before. Its destination seemed clear.
In the past, such creatures were regarded as legend. Stories to some, a curiosity to others. They surfaced rarely, but when they did appear they left death and destruction behind them. Ever since the emergence of the Sorcerer Kingdom, however, they became far more numerous. People knew, far and wide, that the Sorcerer King could create them at will.
Fighting one was pointless. Taking one down required a powerful and well organized team of elite combatants. Torin had already chosen to die fighting the one that lived in his nightmares, but this was not the same monster. The one engraved in his mind carried two weapons. No shield. Bore light armor and tattered rags and it was missing one rib. This new creature simply needed to be avoided.
He shook his head and quietly contemplated his actions. He could not die here. Not with so much undone. Torin would have stayed in the cathedral if the lumbering monstrosity wasn't walking directly toward him. Blast. Its approach was slow, but inevitable. He wondered if it heard the explosion and came to investigate the commotion. They usually appeared to mill about mindlessly, but they were known to respond intelligently at times.
He really wanted a drink. His fingers nearly touched a bottle buried in his bag when he heard a weak, labored cough behind him.
Torin turned around and saw the girl on the ground, still laying in a dusty sunbeam. Only this time she looked at him. One eye shone through her tangled hair, it glistened ever so gently in the light.
In spite of everything else that had happened. Tracking the bounty to this specific area. The explosion. The impending nightmare in the distance. Torin always believed that this was the second turning point in the rest of his story. He firmly believed this because this is where he didn't simply respond to circumstance.
He made a choice that he didn't have to make.
She raised her arm and extended her fingers as he carefully approached her. A tear welled up in her eye and began to overflow. She parted trembling lips and uttered.
"Help."
Character Stats:
Torin Hostetler (Level 27 Human) - The Mourning Shield
[Guardian....10] [Fighter....7 ] [Mercenary....7] [Survivor....3]