Page 27 of Destined to the Reaper

And then we were back in my room. He cupped my face with both hands and leaned in to kiss me. He vanished half a beat after our lips touched.

I woke up with a start. The brightness of the room indicated it was already morning. One glance at my watch confirmed itwas just a few minutes past eight. However, the vivid memory of it all convinced me that this had not been a dream, but an actual visit from Pharos to give me the instructions I lacked. Despite how undefined the facial features of his wraith-like form were, undeniable tension had oozed out of him.

Pharos was scared.

Whatever happened during that trip, I believed Cornelius had either begun to suspect foul play, or he had discovered the whole thing. Either way, we needed to act. To my relief, I felt properly rested.

After a quick analysis of my vision, I concluded that Pharos wanted me to go to the crypt today at noon. The question was whether that time should be when I reach the altar or when I started my descent inside that forsaken place. After debating it for a moment, I decided that he meant for me to begin the journey at noon. After all, he showed me the sun at its zenith right before entering the crypt.

I silenced the negative voice at the back of my head trying to crush me with wave upon wave of doubt. When it came to taking a stance on serious matters, I became the queen of second guessing. I had committed to a course of action and would see it through. If I allowed myself to dwell on it, I would soon become paralyzed by uncertainty. And now was not the time for this.

If we didn’t see this through today, all would be lost. I could feel it in my bones.

I quickly dressed and chowed down a more substantial breakfast than what I normally ate. Not only would I need the energy, but I couldn’t risk growing weak and hungry halfway through a potential battle. If my suspicions were right, we would be in there for a while.

I packed everything I needed for the mission and cast a series of protective spells and wards on myself. Considering the type of abominations I was likely to encounter in the crypt, thoseprotections wouldn’t do much. However, even the slightest help would be welcome.

My chest constricted as I placed an envelope with a note for the owner of the house I’d been renting and enough money to cover the remaining half of my lease in case I did not return. The mere fact that this was a possibility twisted my insides. As I got on my horse to head towards the crypt, my mind returned to Pharos.

He honestly believed I wouldn’t be able to make it out of there alive unless I gave him my soul. That thought constantly tormented me. I wasn’t ready to die. But I also wasn’t ready to surrender the most fundamental part of my being to anyone else, not even him. To me, it felt like another form of death, but one where I no longer even have any control over my destiny. If my time had come, I wanted to be whole when I crossed over.

I just prayed things wouldn’t become as dire as he predicted.

The forty-minute ride to the Duskwallow burial ground inside which the Hemdell crypt was located flew by much too fast. Having arrived a little over half an hour before noon, I took my sweet time attaching my horse in a safe place far enough from the graveyard. There was sufficient grass all around for it to graze if needed. I cast a spell on its lead to have it loosen on its own should my mount feel threatened, or should I not return within six hours. I fed it a couple of apples, patted it farewell, then made my way towards the burial grounds.

Tall, rusty iron fence gates stood open at the entrance. It always struck me as a little ridiculous for them to be there as no fence closed off the perimeter of the massive graveyard. According to legends, there had once been a beautiful fence surrounding the place. But conflicting, if not flat-out contradictory tales tried to explain what had happened to them.

Today, they would have been useless.

Invisible magic walls kept the foul creatures that lurked here contained within this cursed place. It wasn’t foolproof, to the extent that certain otherworldly beings were able to wander beyond its perimeter. Although also fiendish and malevolent, they fell into a different category. As I understood it, the protective wall only worked on mindless and feral creatures. Those who would never be deemed intelligent or even sentient, like wights, zombies, and nightmares.

My skin tingled from the powerful magic as soon as I passed through the open gates. The air immediately shifted, taking on the unpleasant scent of rot, mold, and decay that would greet you upon entering an abandoned house. The further in I got and the stronger the stench became. It had the putrid and festering edge of stagnant water. The entire place oozed with dark energy, but it was still mostly dormant. Not for the first time, I silently thanked the powers that be that my mission wasn’t time constrained. I didn’t even want to imagine how dreadful this place would be in the evening, had I been forced to come after nightfall.

The deceptive peacefulness of my surroundings, and the eerie silence made the beating of my own heart sound like thundering drums in my ears. My skin felt sticky and slimy, as if an evil mist filled the air. The way it clung to me felt like it was attempting to seep in and corrupt me like everything else here.

The graveyard was divided into various sections. At the entrance, hundreds of mostly damaged or destroyed tombstones marked the burial location of hundreds of people, most of them peasants, servants, and commoners. The deeper into Duskwallow you got, and the taller, fancier, and more impressive the tombstones became, reflecting the higher status of those they had been erected for. But even that didn’t spare them from being defaced or destroyed.

The beginning of the wealthy dead folks’ section was heralded by a path made of dark stones lined with a series of pillars on each side. My stomach churned as I glanced at the feminine busts sitting on top of them. They had a Grecian look to them, probably in honor of some priestess or deities to watch over the dead. But their faces held none of the grace and beauty they initially possessed. They had the faces of pure evil. As I walked past them, their dead eyes followed me, and their plump and sensuous lips parted in an unnaturally wide smile filled with needle teeth.

Despite the wickedness emanating from them, I didn’t hear any calls for an attack and didn’t perceive any attempts to do so from them. It was as if they were just gleefully anticipating this shit show that was about to take place. A shudder coursed through me, and I cast down my burning desire to tuck my tail between my legs and run out of here.

As respectably powerful as my arcane abilities were, it was becoming painfully obvious that I might be biting off way more than I could chew.

A swift glance around me revealed the presence of random bones and partial skeletal remains scattered here and there. Some protruded from the ground at various angles. I couldn’t say if whatever it belonged to had tried to emerge from the ground or had been stabbed into it. Either way, I expanded my bone magic survey abilities to perform a surface scan of them.

As suspected, most of them had little to no magic or life force remaining. Others had already sucked them dry or mostly used them up. While I would not be able to draw any magic from them if needed, I would still be able to manipulate them to turn them into constructs or bone Knights. They would be quite weak, but they made for a useful distraction, not to mention that there was strength in numbers. If a single one could be easily dispatched, sent as a swarm, they could overwhelm an enemy.

Comforted by that thought, I closed the distance with a building in the center of the ‘fanciest’ section of the graveyard. It had previously been an elegant and exquisitely adorned mausoleum. The once pale beige stones, decorated with sculpted figures and bas-relief carvings, looked almost burnt from the dark patches covering them. It was too dark and too slick to be dirt accumulated over the centuries. It reminded me of black blood. No vines or other wild growths could be found anywhere on or near it. Even the most parasitic forms of life knew to steer clear of this wretched place. No light reflected on its surface either.

I glanced at the sky to find the sun right overhead as I stood at the exact spot I had been in the dream-vision Pharos walked me through last night. A look at my watch indicated it was still a few minutes to noon.

For a brief instant, I considered waiting for both needles to be exactly on twelve before deciding to move forward. If Pharos had wanted me to enter specifically at noon on the dot, I believed he would have made sure to spell it out for me. Every second spent here increased the chance that I would face unpleasant company. I wouldn’t dally any longer than necessary.

As soon as I reached for the handle of one of the two heavy metal doors, they silently parted open before me. The stench of evil slapped me like a physical entity. I fought back a gag reflex. It wasn’t that the smell was so horrid. In fact, it was quite mild in comparison to some of the things I had been exposed to during my necromancer training. The first things that came to mind were a mix of rot, sulfur, and over ripe fruits. But it was the intense malice weaved into it that made my stomach churn. It was so intense I could almost taste it.

Steeling myself, I stepped inside to head towards the staircase. The moment I entered, something tugged at my chest,as if attempting to pull me forward. It took me aback at first, and then I realized that it felt like a slight psychic nudge from Pharos.

It was too different from the rare occasions he had done this before to be emanating from him. But I suspected it might be his body inside feeling part of his soul nearby and clamoring for it. As freaked out as I felt about venturing into the belly of the beast, the apparent confirmation that his body lay somewhere inside gave me a renewed sense of purpose and determination.

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