Chapter 154 (Patreon)

Clank, clank, clank. That’s the only sound I hear. The clanking of my metal boots as I walk up the stone staircase that, unusually, seems to be winding in an upward spiral, as if we were ascending a great tower. Clank, clank, clank. I listen to the sound of my hollow boots, to the sound of my skittering, as I climb up the way. I feel light. The weight in my arms is insignificant. The weight of guilt that I carry in me is somewhat heavier, but I have found out now how to make it lighter as well. How often have people made this clear to me? How often must I relearn this lesson until I finally remember it? That they suffer too.

For every day I dally, the dungeon-master suffers. For every hour I squander, the thief suffers. For every minute I waste playing around, the sub-bosses suffer. For every second I waste, every drop of energy and every precious moment, everyone around me suffers; because I’m not doing everything in my power to make the world a better place. Even if it's just this insignificant act. Climbing a set of stairs. This I can do. I look down to the elf. This little power, as insignificant as it may be, is enough to change my corner of the world. Is that not heroism? Is that not godhood? Something so simple, yet so potent.

I guess I am a dummy like they all say. Not that I condone talking yourself down, guy. You should never do that, because then you’ll eventually start believing it, tell you what. But sometimes you need to look at things objectively. I know I’m not very smart or clever, I know that I forget things a lot. Clank, clank, clank. I’m not very strong, independent of my bodies which aren’t very strong either. I make a lot of people upset and I’ve made a lot of people upset. I get distracted easily. Too easily. I’m not a good fighter and I’m not good at talking. I don’t think I’d be a good adventurer, truth be told, even though I think it’d be a lot of fun. Clank, clank, clank. But none of that matters. Because I can do this. I can climb a set of stairs. That’s enough.

That simple fact that I can do this. That I can move. That’s enough. That’s enough for me to surpass  the hero, enough for me to ease the drowning heart of the dungeon-master, that’s enough for me to protect this place that I still care about, even if I want to leave it so badly. Clank. What an odd word. Clank, that is. Clank. Clank. I repeat the word several times in my mind, saying it until it doesn’t sound like a real word anymore. Clank. Hmm.

I wonder if I’m like that? As if me, this first me, is an expression of the universe that has been said so often that I have become… void. What an odd thought.

My eyes gaze above me, as I see the light begin to grow. As the rays shine down towards us, like the hand of a beckoning god summoning me up higher yet. Floor eighty-four. We’re getting closer. It’s been a long road, but we’re getting there. Not me. Us. All of us. Even if I’m the one pulling this wagon, everyone else is inside of it, counting on me to do it. I won’t let them down.

Clank.

I stare out over the chaos before me, as I breach the precipice and gaze unto destruction. The thief wakes up at the noise and sleepily stirs in my grip, as the screams come to hit her as well. No. Not screams. Cries. Deep, thundering bellows that aren’t born out of fear but out of fury. Rage. No, no actually… it’s nothing that angry. It’s..

We gaze out together down to the world that sits below us, as we stand up high on the inside of a branch of a mighty, gigantic tree. We are so high up, that any fall from this height would be far beyond fatal for a human. I look upward, a great canopy of the titanous tree rises up higher still towards the ceiling of the dungeon, that is so impossibly far away, as it absorbs the crying hollers of the war below.

Thousands of shifting bodies swarm like ants, like water of a surging tide below us. The bodies sway and shift like the ebb and flow of the moon-tide ocean as the war below us continues.

They are blurry from this distance, from up on so high, but I see them nonetheless. All of them. Goblins, skeletons, elementals, hollow armors, spider-kin, minotaurs, and oddly enough… humans? They all take part in a great battle to which I can differentiate no clear faction. All I see is fighting, is bloodletting. Chaos unfolds beneath as there is a great slaughter, they all holler and charge. Great masses of bodies colliding in a new clash, slashing and hacking at each other, creating a great bloody mess below as they cleave each other in twain. Thousands of them. Every second, dozens die. The lush grasses below run red with blood.

What in the name of the dark-lord?

I think… trying to remember what this was. In the time I take to think, another clean hundred have died in the great onslaught, yet all of them, even from up here, I can tell have died with a smile on their face. A perfect war. Something white catches my eye, something that shimmers with a lustrous golden sheen and I look towards it. No. Towards them. They soar through the air, their wings gliding above the battlefield as they descend like swooping hawks. Like vultures towards the dead and for a moment I fear the worst as I watch, as one reaches the ground in the middle of a particularly brutal skirmish. It is madness on all sides. Ripping and tearing and cutting and for a strange second, I expect her to be cut into pieces as well. But as she descends, the group that is violently hacking at each other seems to spread out a little.

They seem to take a step to the side, as the woman lands below, standing in the midst of a tower of corpses. One of many. She raises her arms and a great light surrounds her, her white-blue shimmering body releasing a quake of magical energies as her wings spread wide. The corpses shift, they lurch, they skitter as they are pieced back together much like I myself would be when I am shattered in this body, except they are made of living meat and sinew. The bodies rise up again, the undead, the…

I glare. No. They’re not undead. They’re not even dead.

The pile of corpses that has freshly arisen now all go their separate ways, returning into the chaos, picking up their weapons so that they might fight again in this eternal battlefield. They like it. They enjoy it. This is what they love. This isn’t rage or hatred or anger. This is passion. Wow.

The thing, the valkyrie rises up once more towards the skies, returning to the air in order to wait for a new pile of corpses to rise up once more. It is far away from all the way up here, but she turns towards us as she ascends and waves a single hand, beckoning us forward towards the fray. Inviting us to take part of the eternal war.

Something is clanking. I look down, it’s me. My armor is shaking, I’m excited. The vibrating thief looks up to me somewhat annoyed. Sorry.

I look back to the battle below, feeling somewhat antsy, I kind of want to go, actually. So cool!