When I offered my typical streamer smile she recoiled.
“I suppose that must be a little surprising to see,” I said as I covered my mouth.
Kneeling down I looked at her with concern, “Are there any other villagers around?”
She seemed reluctant to speak but eventually pointed toward the area where the village sloped upward to slightly larger structures.
Nodding I turned back to her, “Did you ever hear stories about people like me? Remnants?”
“That’s why the soldiers came. They said they had to burn everything because the Remnants were here,” her voice was a whisper as she fidgeted and nodded.
“Yeah, those soldiers aren’t the best people,” I looked for the best word. Studying the ground for a long moment I realized I had a good one, “they’re bullies, and I’m no fan of them. I’m going to help the town if I can.”
Offering a closed smile, I asked, “Do you want to hide or do you want to come with me?”
She seemed to consider the question for some time and then nodded, “I will stay with you.”
“Alright, I’m going to get rid of a few more of those creatures. If you see one, tell me and hide immediately,” I said as I waved for her to follow.
We set out from there through the rubble and weed strewn streets of the small hamlet. While we did not encounter any further villagers we did find four more of the Eternal Hunters rummaging through the rubble and searching the streets.
Two of them were killed separately by luring them away from others and into some of my newly crafted Explosive Fire Wards. I activated Surging Blood and struck the creatures from stealth with my Backstab ability. They were downed with relative ease and I ended both fights with my Essence Pool nearly recovered. The last two creatures I fought as a team. I took this opportunity to activate my Dance of the Rose Hurricane ability.
The creature's black sap Essence flowed out into the air around me and turned into sharp hardened chunks. The faster I moved, the faster the tiny projectiles whirred and spun. When they struck the two howling creatures they left tears and cuts in their fibrous flesh. Before long I left them as heaps of sap stained plant matter that were barely recognizable from their original forms.
Each creature was different. While they were all made of tightly bound vines some walked on two legs and some on four. One of the creatures somehow functioned quite well with three. Some had lashing and grasping trunks covered in spines. Others had the horns of a bull or gnashing jaws like a wolf.
As we were nearing the center of the village I felt cold brush my hand and looked down to see the ghostly child trying to pull me toward a building that still had most of its first floor intact. She floated over to a set of stairs next to the entrance that descended into darkness.
Glancing up the hill toward what I assumed was the town hall at the center of the village I followed her, descending the steps to a door that was only half on its hinges. The girl passed through the wood as if it weren’t even there.
“You brought them here!?,” called a ragged and raspy male voice from beyond the door.
There was a pause and then he answered a response I couldn’t hear, “You keep saying that. I don’t know what an imprint is. All I know is that our folk are being hunted in the streets. That is my only concern.”
Pulling the rotten door aside I climbed into the burned out cellar. There were several of the featureless gray specters huddled in the chamber. All eyes turned to me as I ducked inside and made my way toward the center.
The previous speaker stood there, half his face skeletal and the other haggard and bearded. He muttered once again to someone I couldn’t see, “It’s one of your people.”
Narrowing my eyes at that, I quickly plastered on my most winning smile as I offered a weak salute to the ghost, “My name is Florin and I am here to help.”
The little girl grabbed the man’s hand and she nodded quickly to him. Several ghostly figures in the room roused to get a better look at me. The man growled while turning to look at an empty spot at the table opposite him, “I’m not sure that inviting one of your kind to help us would be wise, seeing as one of you caused it.”
Studying the empty spot I muttered, “I heard you mention that this person you are speaking to is an imprint. Were they one of the original Remnants who used this town as a base of operations?”
The man seemed to listen for a moment and then said, “Yes, they were.”
Rubbing the back of my neck, I nodded, “Alright, do they seem to know how someone would end this curse?”
The man nodded, “He says that he thinks the reason that the town was attacked originally is because his ally who became the Lady of Flame left something of hers here and she feared it being found. To end the curse you must find that cache at the town hall and destroy it.”
The man snapped his head to look at the empty void and said, “He says that it's imperative that you don’t open the cache or the curse will never end and,” he looked glum and looked down at the sad little girl as he said, “and you will be cursed as well.”
“Does he have any idea where the cache is?”
The man shook his head and said, “He says that it has to be somewhere in the ruins of the town hall.”
I checked the readout on my wrist to see what time it was and then nodded. I looked down at the little girl with a big smile and said, “You should stay here. I’m going to have to rush this a little but I promise you guys I’ll end this curse.”
Lydia announced the change to the quest:
“Quest Evolving
Purge the Unquiet Dead from Vertcollin Hamlet
XP Gained: 700
XP Reward: 700
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The perpetually hunted dead citizens of Vertcollin are in contact with an imprint of an ancient Remnant. That individual suggested destroying a cache left by the Lady of Flame at the village’s old town hall. Destroy the cache.
Note: If you open the cache you will fail this quest and suffer an unknown curse.”
Looking around at the gathered spirits, I saw little enthusiasm for my statements. Most seemed resigned to their fates in various states of ghostly decay. As I neared the stairs out I paused and turned asking, “What is this Remnant who you can see called?”
The man turned and looked toward the empty chair across the table. He seemed surprised but turned back and said, “He said that you and he are old friends. He says his name is Heartrose.”
Staring at the empty space for a long time I offered a nod to the invisible figure and departed up the stairs. I paused at the top as a hulking skeletal figure regarded me from above.
Blinking in brief surprise, I smiled and said, “Sakurai, I didn’t think I would see you out here in the hamlet.”
In our short time apart she had clearly gotten an equipment upgrade. She was carrying an intricately runed spear and a shield with a faded and chipped livery that looked like a flame ensconced stag. In addition she was wearing a new suit of heavy plate armor that looked similar to what I had seen several of the officers wearing at the Braithan fortress.
She offered a small bow and said, “Theodora indicated that you had set off into the hamlet alone. I chose to follow both in hopes of furthering my development and assuring your victory. I followed the blood trail you left in your wake.”
Tossing her a group invite I immediately shared the quest to clear the village, which she accepted.
Her shoulders slumped and she bowed again, “I bring unfortunate news about our quest to heal the girl Mystal.”
“I did notice she isn’t with you,” I asked with a note of concern that surprised me.
Sakurai sighed and said, “We did heal her and she even woke up. She seemed fine physically but did not recognize me. Then I told her that I had to find Nomura, as a recent trap had divided us. When I returned she had vanished. I searched for her for an hour but was too exhausted to continue.”
She gave me a pained look as she finished, “When I logged in an hour ago I searched for her again…”
She was cut off as, at the end of the street, a sound echoed out into the city. We turned to see one of the creatures letting out a painful sounding warble. It sounded vaguely like the distorted voice of a woman screaming in pain.
Raising my weapons I muttered, “Let’s finish that discussion later.”
She affirmed with steel in her voice as she raised her spear and shield, “Yes.”
I was already sprinting over the rubble to meet the creature. In the distance I could hear the howls of other monsters deep within the village offering up their own cries in answer to their comrade. The two of us met the creature and began cutting it apart, Sakurai a stalwart bulwark taunting the monster into throwing itself against her considerable defenses and me bleeding it dry.
We had not finished the first of the creatures when three more careened around a distant corner. The two of us continued on, dragging the first creature in our wake as it bled to death and Sakurai spun through the next three causing them to tear at her with claws or bash at her with fists.
Leaping up, I jumped off Sakurai’s armor and into the mass of twisted vines, claws, and bone. Everywhere I went I left a cut and a spray of black sap. Before long I was basking in the rush of a Blooded buff. The two of us got into a rhythm of slaughter as we fought our way up the slope to the town’s square. Monsters joined from every direction. The ruins were a cacophony of monstrous roars that sounded vaguely like human screams.
When we crested the slope I activated Mesmerizing Dance to deflect damage as Sakurai grabbed up the newly arrived creatures. She was surrounded by five of them now, and I had stacked bleed debuffs onto three of them.
A blood curdling screech filled the air and I felt it pass through me. A debuff rolled into my notifications and I curled my lip as two larger creatures, both with four legs but with very different physiology, trundled up into the town’s square.
One of the beasts had a head and upper body made of weaving tentacle vines covered in thorns and moved on clawed feet. The second had a head branched into four petals that snapped open and closed with a disgusting fleshy sound accented by the clacking of the teeth haphazardly covering the flesh. Its four legs ended in massive gnarled hands and a tail that hummed like high tension wire as it slashed behind it.
The entire square shook as they let out simultaneous but very different howls. I ignored them, bounding through the creatures gathered around Sakurai weaving my blades as I flipped and rolled past them applying Slice to every foe I could. I managed to suffer a significant gore from one of the thrashing beasts as I rolled away and I noted with a hiss through my teeth that my health was nearly at half already.
Sakurai activated her spin again and several of the attacking hunters went down spraying the giant skeleton with their ichorous blood. She was a tower of steel with her shield raised and flickering green light in her eye sockets under her simple helm. I called out to her, “Gonna try to regen some health. Pick up those two big guys. I’m ten seconds from joining you.”
I knelt next to the hunter that was bleeding out as she charged up the slope like a wall of steel. I grabbed one of its slick and sticky vines and winced as I stuck it into my mouth and sucked the ichor out of it. I looked down at my readout and was relieved to see my regen spike immediately.
Sakurai drove her spear into the first beast, the tentacle mouthed monstrosity. She became enveloped by the writhing appendages. I growled through my teeth and stood charging toward the battle as I reactivated my Mesmerizing Dance as I jumped through the tentacles of the snarling beast. I slid under its body dragging my right hand blade across its viney undercarriage and spraying black ichor down on myself.
The second beast charged in and my skeleton comrade brought her shield down with a clang as a bulwark against it. She took the charge without so much as a shudder in her legs. When I came up from my roll I ran toward the second creature rolling aside as its massive toothed maw dropped into the stones with a crunch. I activated my Blazing Boots and instantly stabbed its chest twice spinning through a cascade of ichor as I rushed to avoid being stomped.
When I emerged from under the creature I saw that Sakurai was in dire straits. She was fighting both creatures on the backfoot, slashing and cutting away tentacles and deflecting massive gnarled fists.
I rushed in toward the flower headed beast and jumped into a spinning slash leaving a series of gushing wounds in my wake. Landing gracefully, I grinned before being violently yanked off my feet. The creature’s wire-like tail was around my ankle and dragging me across the open ground.
Making an attempt to lean down and cut at the wire my strike was thrown off when I was pulled to a violent stop. Looking up to see a massive gnarled hand drop onto me with a crunch that was equal part my bones and the stones beneath me. My own black blood burst from my lips and onto the hand that bound me.
The other monster let out a piteous howl as it was dispatched by Sakurai and its constant blood loss. My beastly foe bowed its head and wrapped its head flaps around my exposed upper right chest and arm. I snarled through bloody lips, “Well, this is going to be really fucking weird!”
The flaps of its mouth tightened and dug into me. The four flaps twisted into a swirl and I saw notifications dropping into my notifications over and over as the haptic readouts on my right arm went completely blank. I spun the blade in my left hand and repeatedly drove it into the monsters head as it tore my right arm off with a spray of ichor.
You have lost a limb!
You may not wield a weapon in your left hand!
It was thrown backward a second later when Sakurai collided with its side and sent the beast stumbling backward despite its size. Staggering to my feet, I cursed at my loss of an arm. I stuttered and gasped, “This feels super weird…”
Sakurai called out, “Help!”
Rushing to help despite feeling off balance I resummoned my Left blade into my remaining hand. I knew that my health was still dropping due to the heavy bleed effect of losing an arm but was determined to help Sakurai even if I was destined to die. While my ally bashed away at the creature I sprinted down its side and managed another pair of cuts into its flank.
As I staggered past it the beast let out a pained whine and stumbled before collapsing to the ground. I hissed through my teeth and made my way to the monster's side, finding a suitable place on its viney flesh. I sank my fangs into it, gulping its sap-like blood until I sensed I was full and the wound in my shoulder where my arm had been was closed.
