Oh dear, now this was very strange. Lucius had witnessed many curious fates that resulted from his flowers’ bloom. Some rejected their inner filth, others resolved to change themselves, and in rare cases they accepted what hid within and chose to persevere nonetheless. Roland, however…

  He was stuck, incomplete.

  The once mighty Peer before him now groaned and thrashed about, pushing aside the table as he clutched his head and muttered dark mumblings under his breath. His voice shook; his legs trembled. But most disturbingly of all, the right side of his body began to change. Little stems grew out, bursting through bloody. bubbling pockets of flesh, with hideous appendages of lips and sneering smiles attached at the end. Each one warbled a foul cry.

  Tens, hundreds, even more—It did not take long before they covered Roland entirely. The transformation was similar to Maugris’s own descent to madness; and yet, there was a clear difference between the two. Maugris succumbed willingly. His fall came about due to his refusal, his inability to accept the truth.

  But Roland did accept it. He looked inwards and found a monster that wore his face. Everything he buried, the doubt, guilt, such misery he wrought, was exposed in all its wretched reality, and he professed his sins with not a trace of denial. Yet, unlike Ruggiero or Renaud, the weight of it all was simply too much. He had enacted countless atrocities. His history was one mired in unforgivable horror.

  Where was he to go from here, now? Roland did not know. He could not move on, nor did he wish to. The noble, heroic spirit that once shone bright within him wouldn’t allow it. It recognized that he was an evil that must be slayed. The right from wrong, the pure enactment of justice and the selfish desire to live: Roland could not decide which one to follow.

  And thus, he was stuck in a state between—a purgatory of ceaseless inner conflict.

  >[Warning! Warning! The quest’s contents have changed]<

  Tragedy has struck your once united party, o’ heroes. You have succeeded in slaying the Lips of Refusal, and the traitor Sir Ferragut has breathed his last. Before he did, however, the Saracen man in one final act of resistance had infected Roland with the Demon King’s Fragment. Your ally is not who he once was; evil threatens to corrupt his heart. Your mission cannot be completed unless he is stopped, whether alive or dead.

  Reward: 3000 Cosmic Coins, a Skill Rank-Up Card, an Armor Enhancement Card, and decreased reputation with the Arabian Emirate.

  Failure: Death.

  “Lucius…” the man muttered, his appearance growing increasingly more deranged. “You must run away. No, you must stay. I cannot control it, this creeping urge of madness. Do not blame me for your death. It’s not my fault, not my fault. Get away, now!”

  As one never to refuse a fellow’s passionate plea, Lucius tipped his top hat and bid the man a jolly farewell, before swiftly turning around and prancing off toward the distance. Not a second later, Roland immediately gave chase, closing in on him from behind as the two trekked through the demolished ruins of what once was the pyramid.

  Lucius, for his part, quite enjoyed their little jaunt. Good things had to end eventually, however, and soon the gentleman came across his charming trio of friends. They had not the time to express their relief before they too, without a word, joined him in running away.

  “What the heck is that? What the heck is THAT!?” Mili shouted, stumbling over her steps before inevitably having Marco pick her up. “Is that Roland? Holy crap, what happened to him?”

  Harper summoned her fire hydrant and tried to blast Roland away, but the half-demonic man took up his blade and cleaved through the water as if it were paper.

  “Godamn. Yeah, I don’t think we’re winning this one, guys,” she said. “You want to give it a try, Mili?”

  The musician nodded and strummed her guitar, concentrating her electric force into one deadly blow. Before she could release it, though, Roland unwillingly opened his lips and spoke the demon’s spell.

  “Bitter cold freezes your fingers. Your breath turns hoarse.”

  A frigid wave surged amongst them. Mili couldn’t continue her attack, and the party’s pace gradually slowed, frost seeping into their throats and draining their strength. Their prospects did not look particularly swell; eventually, Roland would catch up to them, and his words of affliction would only worsen with time.

  Just when the others began to fear the worst, something surprising happened.

  The ailment disappeared.

  “Warmth swathes your being. Your legs fill with power.”

  Despite his new appearance, Roland continued fighting, continued resisting against his demonic corruption. When his counterpart spewed a curse, he reversed it with a spoken blessing of his own. The man’s sense of self hung stubbornly within.

  Even with this knowledge, the party could do little to stop him. They had witnessed his formidable prowess during his battle. None among the players, or even the paladins, could match his sheer physicality and inhuman aggression. Well, Lucius could if he really wanted to.

  Once upon a time in his younger years, the gentleman had trespassed onto a great, crystalline lake, where a knight known as Sir Bedivere of Camelot rested by the waters. Rather than returning Excalibur to the lady of the lake as the legends described, the man instead wielded the blade and guarded King Arthur’s tomb in the British countryside. Apparently, the holy sword granted immortality as well as invulnerability - who knew? It took Lucius quite a while before he emerged victorious, and in the gentleman's triumph he drank from the lake. From then on, his skin had been as clear and glossy just as he was in his twenties.

  But nevermind that, for where would the fun be in concluding this exciting skirmish so soon? A tragedy was not complete without an appropriate audience, and Lucius had a feeling their reactions would be most entertaining.

  “We’re in trouble, folks. Dead end ahead!” Marco shouted as they approached a crumbled wall. Before they could collide, Marco coated his shoulder in steel and then rammed his way through to the outside. A familiar darkness surrounded them. The chasm’s emptiness once unsettled the players; but now, they were relieved just to escape the pyramid.

  There, a bit farther out ahead, were the other members of the group. Lady Angelica and Sir Astolfo moved to greet them, only to back away out of disbelief as the horrid, lip-covered Roland shambled forth with a groan.

  “Roland…?” Astolfo said, covering his mouth. “That—that can’t be. How is this even possible?”

  He didn’t want to believe it, even when reality forced him to behold. Such pain and grief flashed through the young Peer’s eyes; and though he had already been exposed to the true viciousness that hid beneath Roland’s mask, it hurt him even more to see his former role model brought so low.

  Angelica was just as confused, but unlike her companion she swiftly took action and brought Lucius’s party behind her, where they rejoined with the other players. The lady held her mace and faced off against Roland for a time, waiting for him to take the first step, to strike the first blow, even though she knew that there was little chance of countering it. Perhaps in her heart she expected this to happen, one day. The fury and despair Roland displayed during the war was bound to reveal itself eventually. However, never could she have expected for the man to end up like this.

  “Are you still sane, Roland?” she asked cautiously.

  The man had yet to attack her and instead held himself back. The demon urged him to speak, to let free its twisted words, but he resisted even when it caused his teeth to clatter.

  “Can you understand me?”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Roland bid her a pained nod.

  “Then you know what I must do next.”

  A sad understanding seemed to be exchanged between the two. For so many years Roland had chased after her in an unrequited love, and now that it appeared his life would end before her mace… fate was ever so cruel.

  “Angelica… Angelica… it was always meant to end this way,” he said, voice drenched in remorse. “I am no different than that evil I once called lord. That is not true. I was only following orders. Orders, yes, but the method I chose to carry them out was made solely through my own will. I let my fear control my mind, committed horrors the Lord will surely punish me for.”

  Angelica gripped her weapon tighter. Anger rose up from her chest, and she reprimanded him with both disappointment and pity. “So this is how you choose to atone, then? You think with your death all the suffering you’ve caused will just go away?”

  “Perhaps not. It wasn’t me. The emperor is to blame! But at least in this way, I shall never be given a chance to err again. You will no longer need to suffer my advances, when you already have a lover of your own.”

  Panic spread through Angelica’s demeanor, and she stepped back, fearful of Roland’s impossible knowledge. “How do you know?”

  To that, Roland replied with a bitter laugh. “I am a deeply paranoid man. It was all to protect you. No, I was simply jealous. In those days of the war and the years after, your companionship was all that brought joy to my life when I had been mired in so much filth. I wanted to know what would make you happy, make you accept the love I thought inevitable between us, so I sent the night walkers to report on your daily life. It was then that I discovered your tryst with that man called Medoro, and I went mad. I considered killing him outright and hiding his corpse far from your sight. Thankfully, I still had some semblance of rationality and decided against it. Don’t you see now? This world does not need someone like me.”

  “You utter scoundrel,” Angelica muttered. Betrayal, disgust, fright and apprehension—this and all coursed through her in no longer than it took to blink, and yet there was something else mixed in with all those negative emotions. Something quite surprising.

  Forgiveness. For all his wrongs against her, she chose to forgive him.

  “The Roland I knew disappeared the day he became a Peer,” she said to him, voice low in recollection. “You changed so drastically, and quickly, that I had little time to understand. Why did you become so anxious, so frantic? Your actions terrified me, for I knew not what you would do next. It felt as if you were always fleeing from some unseeable nightmare. That appearance remained even after the war ended, but what unnerved me was how unbothered you were. You smiled, and laughed, and put on a heroic front for the people to fawn over, but how was that possible when the blood had still yet to dry from your blade? I found out the reason not long after. It was because you refused to take accountability.

  “You blinded yourself from the consequences of your slaughter, and I could only look on as the nation celebrated you as a bringer of peace. I’m sorry, Roland, but from that day on I despised you with all my heart. You were a coward, a shameless coward who could only run away. But even so I put aside my grievances and continued to help you against Ganelon. Why? Because you at least were trying to help people, and that was all the reason I needed. It didn’t matter what you did before. As long as you remained dedicated to making this world a righteous one, I would forgive you, for I care more about justice and Chivalry than a personal grudge. And you can, too.”

  Angelica lifted her mace, and then stuck it firmly into the ground. “Choose to fight it, Roland. Do not let it corrupt you. We cannot change our past, but the future is different. We can always strive to do better; and though some may never show forgiveness no matter how you try to make amends, that is okay. That is their right. What we can do is prevent another tragedy like ours from occurring again. Let not our worst moments define who we wish to be.”

  Roland stayed silent, unresponsive. Even the lips sprouting from his flesh seemed to have been calmed.

  When Angelica had no more words to say, another person stepped forth to make a stand. There, clutching horn in hand, was Astolfo. His expression was entirely blank, and he stared at Roland. He had a great many things he wished to say: some spiteful, some kind, and many still uncertain. Eventually, he decided that mere words weren’t enough, and so he blew into his horn, releasing a soft melody that drifted up and lit the darkness around them in pale moonlight.

  Lucius’s eyes widened, for right there, high above him, was a glowing projection of the moon. It floated peacefully whilst nestled below a bed of clouds, and to its side were innumerous stars all twinkling together in a nebula of white, and blue, and purple. Truly, it was a beautiful sight.

  “Do you remember the day we first met?” Astolfo asked Roland. The demonic man paused, before looking at the moon and nodding. “Right, it was a night just like this. The entrance ceremony for the next round of paladins was to be held the next day and, though I had prepared everything I could, I was too nervous to sleep and decided to go out on a little stroll. It was quiet, peaceful. Unfortunately, that also meant I was left alone with my thoughts. It’s pretty easy to start doubting yourself when you get into the wrong headspace. Did I really deserve to be a paladin? Did I work hard enough? Compared to everyone else, I was just a spoiled kid lucky enough to have money and connections in the right places. It felt like I had cheated to get where I was, and by doing so I was undermining the others who actually worked hard to get where they were.

  “I considered quitting right then and there. After all, it wasn’t as if my life would be over even if I didn’t pass. I could always inherit my family’s business and live comfortably. Right, that’s what I thought… until I met you.”

  Astolfo smiled and, ever slowly, approached Roland. The man tried to back away and shouted for Astolfo to stop, but nonetheless he continued until the two of them were an arm’s length away.

  “I remember you scaring me, suddenly showing up from behind and patting my head,” Astolfo said with a laugh. “Here he was, Francia’s greatest knight and leader of the Paladin Order, the one who conquered Arabia and brought the war to an end. I had always admired you, even collected papers with mentions of your exploits. You were my idol, the embodiment of Chivalry and someone I strived to become, so meeting you in person was like being right in front of a living legend.”

  Roland lowered his head and uttered a shaky sigh. “It was all a ruse, Astolfo. I was merely pretending to be someone I wasn’t.”

  Despite his words, Astolfo shook his head and then grabbed Roland’s hand. “Even so, it doesn’t change how I felt back then. At first, I was speechless, completely starstruck, yet when I actually talked to you I realized it was much more comfortable than I expected. You brought me to the city square, where I could see the moon at its brightest, and you said that all great knights doubt themselves in the beginning. It was inevitable, but what mattered more than power, or strength, or what anyone else thought about you, was your own determination. If you pledged to be the people’s champion, then you were already the finest warrior you could be. It didn’t matter if you fell down so long that you stood right back up with a smile. Those words still comfort me even now, so—”

  Astolfo reached out and brought Roland in for a wide hug. “Stand up, gallop on. The Roland I know wouldn’t let something like this stop him. He’d brave even the toughest challenges, hold fast against the forces of evil, and most importantly… he’d fight for good and righteousness. You’ve made mistakes and even hurt me, but you know what? You’re still my hero. So get a hold of your wits already!”

  Roland raised his hand to push Astolfo away, but he couldn’t. What could he say now, before this young man’s sincerity? He felt it clearly: the wishes, the dreams, the future still yet to be written.

  When Astolfo finally let go, he returned to Angelica’s side and waited with the rest of the party for Roland’s response. The man remained eerily still. His lips had yet to speak nor did he react to those around him. He simply stood there, fighting a battle only he could know.

  “... Angelica, Astolfo, Sir Lucius,” he said, breaking the silence. “Sometimes the guilt is irresistible. I know in my heart that someone like me should have died long ago, and yet I stubbornly clung to this life regardless, fooling myself into believing that I was forced onto this path, that my faults were not my own.”

  Lucius stepped up and addressed the man with a friendly wave. “We are all hardheaded creatures, my friend. It is never comfortable to accept that part of oneself could be bad or wrong, yet it is also so that recognizing it, and putting in the effort to change, is what defines a person’s true strength.”

  “True strength. Yes, that does sound quite nice. At first I feared change. I wished to be the radiant figure I imagined as a child, so when I found myself drifting further from that ideal, I grew afraid, and I thought all I had worked toward in life would have been for naught. But now I know that to be wrong. Perhaps I can never truly be that pure, innocent hero. Nonetheless, there is still good I can contribute, lives I can still yet aid.”

  Roland beheld his lip-infested body and stared at the corrupted bud fastened to his chest. The man’s life was one of constant denial, a delusion he followed well into his later years. Here lay the result of his long struggle. Should he accept it? Let his body be given thrall to this maddening force?

  No, he refused.

  Roland roared out with a voice loud and clear, before gripping onto the bud and forcefully tearing it out. The thing clung to him with tendrils of deepest black, yet still the man resisted, fought, rebelled at the fate cast against him, and he continued even still as the demonic lips cried out in pain.

  “Let it all end here, my cowardice, this tiresome scourge long infested in my heart!” he said, ripping himself free with one last shout. “No longer shall I hide from my sins. I will face it boldly, so that one day the hero of my childhood can be inspired in another.”

  People were complicated beings. What was it that made some cower and tremble before their past, while others found the courage to confront it? Lucius did not know. He could only watch, to immortalize, and to encourage these bright flowers full of potential to bloom.

  And bloom Roland did into something truly beautiful.

  >[Congratulations! The emergency quest has been completed]<

  *(NEW!) 3000 Cosmic Coins

  *(NEW!) Skill Rank-Up Card

  *(NEW!) Armor Enhancement Card

  The Esteemed Gentlepeople of the , to whom I am forever grateful

  [The Distinguishedly Dandy Gentlemen Hall of Fame]