Shadowbane

As I near the village, all I can hear is the sound of a couple pairs of window shutters opening and closing. One of the small cabins to my right has one of the shutters making so much noise. Sneaking over to it, I see that the wind is slightly lifting them up and dropping them.

They weren't properly fastened. They could have been in a hurry, or perhaps this is normal? People forget basic shit all the time, so this could just be another one of those cases.

I grab the shutters and lift them up enough to peek inside. The cabin is a complete mess. There are dishes and ceramics broken everywhere. The bed is ripped apart, and there is dried blood splattered across the wood on this side of the cabin, including the inside of the shutters.

... Or they tried escaping through these shutters and didn't manage to make it outside. I wasn't here when this place was attacked, but from what I saw in Viseux and Kellog, I doubt the outside of this cabin would have been much safer.

I close the shutters and circle around the cabin, entering the village square. Half the benches are destroyed and there are blotches of dried blood strewn throughout different parts of the square. The only thing moving here is the large pinwheel in the center of the square that's barely spinning. The squeaking it's emitting is much louder than it should be thanks to how quiet everything else is.

All the bodies are gone. I don't even see a single bone anywhere... Were they all turned into those skeleton creatures? I don't see any Xerath structures anywhere, but they might retreat back into the sky once they've completed their task.

Here and there I see doors smashed in, but there are a few still intact. I walk up to one of the cabins missing a door and find the same scene I saw earlier. Dried blood and a completely trashed interior. Attempting to make as little noise as possible, I sift through the wreckage looking for a map for a few minutes, But I come up empty.

Someone here is going to have a map, right? This is a tiny hamlet, but surely one of these cabins has a map of Viseux, or at least a diary that tells me the name of this place. I've never thought of it before now, but the average villager might just live their life merely knowing where they live, and not bother with things like maps... Which is going to be a real problem for me.

... Nothing. I've been through twelve of the twenty cabins here and there hasn't been a single fucking difference between any of them. I knew people lived simple lives in places like this, but I can't find any individuality anywhere here. After everything that's happened, I really need some good news right now...

I walk up to cabin number thirteen and go to reach for the door, but something stops me in my tracks.

... It's faint, but I sense something. An aura...? Could it be a trap? Now that I'm stronger I can actually pick up on things like this if I'm careful. No more walking into teleportation traps from someone like Nisha unless I really fuck up or walk into one while I'm distracted.

Pulling my hand back, I walk around the cabin to scout out all of the shutters, and find that they are all trapped.

... Hmm. I could check out the other homes first for a map, but someone who took the time to trap their home is bound to be quite different from the other people here, who apparently aren't interested in owning maps or diaries.

I run off toward the lumber mill in the distance, grabbing one of the two-by-fours lying around and bring it back to the cabin. I look around real quick to check for threats before removing my aura and enhancing myself. After I'm ready, I stick the two-by-four out and turn the handle, but it won't move at all. Locked, as expected.

I then move to the right a bit and try lifting one of the shutters. It takes some effort but the hinge snaps and a light purple flash appears around the shutter. No explosions, lightning, or elemental blasts of any kind. Instead, I can hear a faint alarm sounding out from somewhere. I leave my enhancements up and reactivate my aura before jumping through the window.

This place is also a complete mess... The Xerath were obviously in here too, but I don't see any blood this time.

The beeping stops, but I already have a general idea of where it's coming from. I walk over to the mattress on the floor and drag it backward, revealing the same wooden flooring I see in all of these homes. But after I walk on top of it, it becomes obvious that this is the spot I'm looking for. Bending down, I run my fingers over the floor until the pointer finger on my left-hand sinks down into the wood, leading to a slight popping sound as part of the floor pops up.

I grab the wood and pull it open, revealing a thick ladder that goes down for quite a while, and the only reason I know that is because of the bright lights at the end of the ladder. After one quick glance around me, I grab onto the ladder and begin to descend downwards. It takes about a minute before I reach the bottom, but I stop just before the lights hit me.

... Okay, between the slight enhancements and bright lights hitting my veil, I should have a few seconds to crush anyone down here waiting to ambush me before I run out of mana.

I count down from three, and once I hit zero I drop down into a small room full of herbs and crystal lights with a large desk nearby. Next to the desk the room hooks to the right into an area I can't see. I charge forward ready for combat, but what I find instead makes me drop both my veil and my enhancements.

... It looks like I found the one person here who managed to die naturally.

There's a mummified corpse on the bed. It's badly degraded to the point that I can't tell if it was a man or a woman. I head back to the desk and begin scrounging through it. In one of the drawers, I find one of the items I've been looking for.

A rather large diary. Not a map, but I'll take it. I can also imagine why this thing is so large. This person probably had very little else to do with their time.

Near the bed, there is a small table against the wall with a chair next to it. The only thing on the table is a chessboard with all the pieces.

Poor bastard had nothing to do but play chess with himself...

I sit down at the table and begin reading through the diary. At first, it's a rather interesting tale about how this man was sent here to find someone. There was another villager here who was apparently a follower of an Eldritch that caused the fall of an entire city up north, and Rai'ga wanted to make sure all of its followers were punished. Sadly, as interesting as this is, I'm not here for this, so I begin skipping through until I find the part talking about the Xerath attack.

Wow, it didn't take me too long to find this, so the rest of this writing must've been what happened afterward. Just how long was this guy down here playing chess until he died?

The man goes on in his diary about how he was at the lumber mill when the lumberers came running from the trees, screaming about a monster attack. It wasn't too long after that when the 'strange creatures with tubes on their bodies' began to kill everyone in the village. The man had managed to flee underground and activate his spell that placed the bed over his hidden area so they never found it. He went back up a month later and sealed the place up, putting alarm traps everywhere.

After another hour of reading the diary I mostly find what I was hoping for. The beginning tells me the name of this hamlet and the main city nearby, but it unfortunately doesn't give me any idea of how much time has passed.

Even he didn't know how long he was down here after all, and most of this diary turns into rambling after a certain point. Which I can understand, given what became of his life.

After deciding to keep the diary I realize that I'm still naked. So I spend the next couple of hours refining a tight one-piece outfit covering my entire body aside from my head and the bottom of my feet. I make the central portion of my back sticky and stick the diary to it.

It looks weird as hell when I wear these, but it gets the job done. I can't believe I lost my fucking armor already... I hope it's still there where I died, but I bet it isn't. The Xerath probably absorbed it.

With that out of the way, I walk over to the crates in the corner of the room and open them up. I sigh the second I see what is inside of them.

Well, at least they don't look rotten? It's been a while but I think someone told me they last decades, and I'm about to put that to the test.

I reach down and scoop up a handful of peanuts. After tossing them into my mouth I chomp down cautiously a few times and quickly realize that they are just as fresh as the ones I had in Kellog. For the next twenty minutes I shove peanuts into my mouth before there aren't any left in the crate.

There might be more in the crate underneath, but this is good enough. The diary said the nearby city is called "Glassdow", and I vaguely recall that as a place northwest of Viseux. However, the forest was on the eastern side of Glassdow, and the trees here are on the western side, so this hamlet must be on the other side of the forest. Assuming I'm right, then I should only need to go east until I reach the main road and then head straight south to reach Viseux.

I look over at the mummy, "Thanks for the food and directions."

After saying my thanks I walk over to the ladder and begin climbing back up. Once outside the reach of the crystal's light I enhance my legs and reactivate my aura. I reach the top and climb out of the hatch, closing it behind me. Walking over to the window I immediately jump through it and sprint out of the village, heading away from the forest.

If I come across the main road, that means I was right. If not, uh... Well, I'm not really sure what I'll do. I might have to return to that hamlet and run through the forest until I reach the city on the other side.

I stop next to a wide stone road that's clearly in desperate need of maintenance.

No one will be repairing these roads ever again, but they're not degraded to the point that I'd trip over anything... I think. And it looks like I was right about where I was located.

... I could go northeast to see if anyone is alive in Khan Uluhm, but that would probably be a wasted trip... I suppose it is possible that they retreated into the mountains and survived, but it's not like I could assist them in any way that matters. Odds are they all fled through the portal anyway, and now they're all refugees in a foreign country.

I turn to the right and begin running south down the main road. Every so often I run by a toppled wagon with no corpses in sight. Sifting through the wreckages mostly ends up a waste of time until I finally find something of value.

Heh, bombs invented in Xelba? I had no idea they were still making these in other parts of Urza, but I'm glad they were. I know exactly how to use these too.

I reach down, picking up the two small circular crystals and stick them below my chest.

After I make sure there is nothing else of value to be found, I restart my sprint toward Viseux. While I'm running I can't help but be awed at how eerie Urza is now. Every now and then I'll hear some birds or a wolf howling in the distance, but for the most part, I can't hear anything.

Nothing moving, nothing making a sound. Just a bleak world buried under a black sky. The occasional toppled cart almost gives me some kind of solace as it serves as a reminder that people used to live here. What if I'm the only person that's currently alive on Urza?

... I'm really not sure what I'll do. My first thought is to check out the area in Fin's journal, but hopefully there is something in Aresa's chateau that'll give me a clue to the well-being of my allies---no, my... Friends.

About four days later a familiar sight came into view. Although that isn't entirely accurate thanks to a few visible changes Viseux has undergone in my absence.

I thought maybe it was just the weather, but now I see why it was getting progressively more foggy the closer I got to Viseux. It's not fog, it's the smoke emitting from all of the Xerath monuments.

Even with my eyes, it's hard to see far into the distance right now, but every now and then a bunch of bright orange spots begin glowing on the monuments, and I can see a lot of them. There must be twenty or more spread throughout the city.

Instead of sprinting again, I decide to slowly walk over the bridge into town.

After all, this is their city now. If they have any of those aura devices active it'll basically be the same as setting off an alarm when I run through one. If I barely touch it while walking through and back out in time, I might be able to prevent them from detecting me. I don't know how I'll get to the chateau if the whole city is completely surveilled, but first I need to check and see if the Xerath's detection aura is even here.

I walk over the bridge and through the gate, and it's around this time that I start to hear something pulsating. As I get close to one of the monuments, I realize that the bright orange lights brighten in accordance to how loud the pulse currently is. They help brighten up the area around them a little, but not all that much thanks to how much smoke there is in town.

I continue walking down the main road until I reach the center of Viseux. I turn left and stay near the buildings on this side so I can actually see them through the smoke.

Not this building... Nor this one... Ahh, here we go. This one I recognize, so it should be close.

After passing by a few more buildings I come upon what I've been looking for. City Hall.

Alright uh, now what happened after I fled here? I ran through the square and tried running up a building near the end of the square heading towards Aresa's home... I'm pretty sure that's where it was anyway.

I continue walking in this direction, hugging the buildings, until I run into a building in front of me. To my left I see an alley with tall buildings behind it.

I can just barely make out the building over there, but I'm going to assume that's the first one I flew through...

Walking down the alley, I reach the building ahead and circle around it into the street behind. This street is quite wide so I have to walk a bit before I reach the next building, and the first thing I see is two very familiar holes on the front side of it. The hole I created on the second floor, and the one the Xerath created when it burst through the building.

I walk up the steps to the home and enter through the Xerath hole. After that, it doesn't take much effort to find the spot where I was killed. There is a big hole in the floor where the Xerath stomped me.

Jeez... The fucking thing hit me so hard he destroyed the stone flooring.

Peering down into the hole I see some destroyed pipes and my armor lying there nestled between them, but...

There's no body? Did they take me somewhere? That makes no sense though, because that would mean they took me and left the artifact armor behind...

The implications of this shouldn't bother me, but the idea that my body just disappears after I die is really creeping me out.

Well, I guess there is some silver lining. If I ever die in a place that people have access to; my body won't end up auctioned and then most likely placed like an object in some noble's home, or worse, it could be used... Ugh. You know what, I'm glad it disappears, but it's still creepy. And most importantly of all, I can't believe my armor is still here...

I reach down and touch the armor, commanding it to turn into a necklace. It begins shifting around and then reforms itself around my neck.

This is good enough. It can still protect me after I cap it on mana. Not that it's been able to help me much up to this point, but that's because I've been taking hits far beyond what people normally have to deal with.

I turn around and exit the building, heading back to the main street and turning left. The sound of pulsing is the only thing I can hear as I make my way down the street. About twenty minutes later I finally reach a familiar-looking building sitting all by its lonesome on a hill.

And it's completely untouched. I had a feeling it would be since it's a place of worship with power still running through it, but with nobody around to worship Shiva, it won't last forever. Not that I have any idea of how long it's supposed to last.

I reach out, touching the barrier, and my hand goes right through it. After confirming I still have entry, I walk through the barrier and up to the front door. Grabbing the handle, I open the door and walk inside, finding the main room completely empty.

No dried blood smears or upheaval of any kind. Just the same room I've seen all along when I enter her chateau.

"Hello?!" I yell out. It echoes off the walls for a few seconds, but in the end, nobody responds.

Hmm...

I walk over to the middle of the room where everyone normally gathers and immediately I see a stack of papers on the table with a weight placed on top of them. Moving the weight, I pick the papers up and sit down in my usual spot on the couch. The first thing I read is apparently one of the last messages, so I stop reading it and shift the papers around until I'm on the first page.

{Rei, I know you're going to read this at some point, so I'll tell you everything that happened. We made it back to the chateau just as the Xerath assault began. We all sat around in my Gazebo watching the invasion, hoping you, Ishar, and Keith would come running down the street, fighting off anything that came your way, but...}

So Ishar and Keith also didn't make it back... Keith can be revived, but Ishar? Maybe he uh... Maybe he made it to the north? I know it's a stretch but I'd rather not think about him dying until I see it with my own eyes later. I'll use my tracking ability focused solely on his soul, it should still show me the last movements he made in this area.

{A-Anyways, um, Nisha was freaking out, because she needs the artifact to revive everyone. There was no reasoning with her, and we had no reason to stop her, so... About a week later, we let her go. But Shana went with her. By then the obelisks had retreated and we couldn't see any Xerath anywhere, so she said they'll be fine, but they also... never...}

Never returned... I'll need to check out the temple after this.

{Terra'ka gave up on Urza. I don't blame him, but he needs Alicia back. He's allowing her to teleport us all somewhere but we don't know where to go, so she's taking us to her apartment in Aetheria. It's still going to take a while for her to figure out how to teleport me, but once she's done, she promises to come back here once a year to check for you.}

{... Don't take forty-two years to come back, please? Alicia is going to write something down every time she comes here, so you'll know how much time has passed. ----- Okay um, adding this in a few weeks later, it looks like Alicia figured it out and I'm the only one left. I'm leaving now... I'll miss you... See you soon, okay?! I better!}

I look at the other thing on the table, her board that still has the art of her hugging me.

Yeah... Hopefully soon, but the part I read in the last paper tells me that it's most likely not going to happen.

The next paper is mostly Alicia just checking in and marking how long it's been. On the fourth year, she finally says something.

{Rei, I hate to say this... But I can't keep doing this. It's really taxing warping to a world at maximum corruption that is currently under full control of a Xerathian god. The only reason I can warp here at all is because of Aresa's chateau which operates like a temple, but it still takes me multiple days of resting here before I'm able to leave, and Terra'ka doesn't want me wasting any more time on this. I feel bad, but there are so many other places he needs me, I'm sorry Rei... I'll try and let Aresa down easy.}

{P.S. I just read all of Aresa's notes and realized she didn't mention Fin's diary once. It's fully translated. That... Guy, I forget his name, had decoded it all for you. It's in Aresa's stack of books next to her chair. I read the diary, it should give you a good idea of where to go next. It makes me sick that I and Terra'ka won't be able to cleanse Urza for many years to come, but I promise you, we definitely will one day... I swear we will.}

... Well, I kind of expected this, and I don't blame her or Terra'ka since neither of them knew when I'd be back, or even if I would be back.

I stand up from the couch and remove my outfit.

Time to go relax in the bath for a while... I need to rest and think about what to do next. Regardless of what the diary says, my destination will most likely be the same, the area in the darklands south of Xelba. This will be my last chance to rest, so might as well enjoy it while I can.