The dark mage fell to the ground screaming in pain as he held his bleeding shoulder. With his off hand shaking he tried pulling the blade out but found it was firm where it was.
The mage looked down to his left arm which was a total mess. The skin had turned deathly white and cracked like it had been out in the hottest summer for days. When he tried moving the arm it was weak and sluggish and came with a sizable amount of pain. The mage slowly turned his attention from his arm to the dark mage who was now fully preoccupied by removing the blade from his shoulder.
He strided forwards with hate in his eyes and picked up the first thing within his reach with his right hand which just so happened to be a chair. With great pain in his left arm he raised the chair up and over his head and brought it down on the dark mage’s face. The mage ignored his and the dark mage’s pain and continued again and again slamming the chair onto the dark mage.
When the dark mage finally stopped moving the mage felt both his arms crying out in exhaustion, slowly that feeling spread to the rest of his body and he felt his legs buckle under his own weight. He dropped down and sat on the ground next to the dark mage’s corpse, he looked at what remained of the chair laying next to them both and the wand that the dark mage used to deal such devastating injuries.
The hate and rage and malice had left Arthur leaving only the hole in his soul. He was so very tired and wanted nothing more than to go home.
But home was gone, she was gone.
And so instead of standing up or tending to his injuries Arthur just sat there leading against the bed and waited as his strength left him and his vision turned black to a slumber he would never wake from.
He had cheated death once over five years ago, he was just thankful he had gotten a chance to change things and leave something behind, even if it didn’t all work out.
**********
Arthur felt himself floating across something entirely unfamiliar as his eyes stayed closed, he tried to open them but found it was an impossible task. Part of him was concerned, but the fact that he was dead helped alleviate any worry he felt in his soul. It wasn’t like he could die while already dead.
But strangely enough Arthur felt something change in his surroundings, he felt his body move into what felt like a kneeling position and he felt stone beneath his feet. His hand was resting against something made of stone that made his hand cold. Slowly his eyes opened and he raised his head to look at a sarcophagus.
Arthur felt confusion as he looked at the sarcophagus, it was beautiful and intricate, something he could only imagine for a king. He tried looking around the room but his body was forced in one spot, the only thing he could use was his eyes which painted a narrow but enlightening picture.
He was in a tomb, he could see the walls carved from stone and smoothed to perfection. The decorations that covered the shelves carved into the walls denoted that it was someone of great significance who was laid to rest.
The only thing that stood out to Arthur was the mural behind the sarcophagus. It was painted with a vibrant red that for some unknown reason made Arthur think of blood. Most of the mutual was strange symbols that he didn’t understand, but in the very center was an eye, an eye somehow looked as if it was made of flowing blood just like the one he pushed away nearly five years ago.
Arthur would have felt his heart beating with urgency if he could, instead he was forced into what felt like an unnatural calm like his emotions were a copy of the real thing.
Suddenly his vision turned and he started walking away from the sarcophagus and towards a stone doorway with an iron door. He pushed the door open slowly showing just how heavy it was and almost accidentally slammed it shut again. From there he turned to the right and started walking down a hallway towards what Arthur thought was the exit.
As he walked Arthur found that, like before he was unable to do as he wished with the sole exception being his eyes, he looked around everywhere for anything that might tell him where he was. Only after passing several more heavy iron doors did he discover there was writing above each one, and only after passing several was he able to figure out they listed the names of the one or more occupants and how long they lived for. He didn’t always have enough time to fully read each of the signs, and the poor angle did nothing to help, but he did his best to memorise each one as best as possible.
Eventually he reached a larger room with a bench on each side of the room and on one of those benches was a priest dressed in those same red robes that he saw in that dream from five years ago. The priest kept his head down as he appeared to be in the middle of a prayer of some sort, he was more than happy to leave the priest in peace when his body suddenly started walking towards the priest and speaking to him.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Arthur felt surprise in his mind but could feel nothing else that he should have been when he lightly tapped the priest on the shoulder and he slowly realised he was there.
“Oh my, good evening your Majesty. I didn’t see you there.” The priest said as he quickly stood and gave a small bow towards Arthur and when he raised his head Arthur was given a proper look at the priest's face.
The priest was an old man, much older than anyone he had seen before, and yet somehow he stood as straight as an arrow and looked very healthy.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what brings you here to the royal catacombs? If I recall correctly the last time you were here was when your dear father was laid to rest.”
“You recall correctly Deacon, I just came by to apologise to my father.” Arthur heard his own voice as he watched and listened to the conversation.
“Apoligise? Whatever for?” The priest by the name of Deacon asked with confusion.
“Well you see, I am going to need to kill several of fathers friends as well as their children.” For a moment the room went quiet. Despite the casual nature of the conversation Arthur and by extension Deacon and this royal he watched through could feel the weight of the words.
“Many of the noble families that once supported father have decided they wanted to rebel against me. They of course didn’t do so peacefully, as such they killed several knights and other important people related to taxation and maintaining communication with them.”
“And now the only way to deal with this situation is to kill them all one by one and replace them with those who are loyal to you.”
“Yes, that is correct.”
The two stood in silence as a heavy air filled the small room. Arthur’s view was cast downwards as the royal he watched through avoided eye contact with Deacon. Then suddenly Deacon reached into his robe and pulled out a pendant. The pendant was made from a red metal and depicted an eye, the very same symbol that was in the tomb Arthur saw the inside of.
“Please take this your majesty.” Deacon said as he pushed the pendant towards Arthur. “I pray to Armok that you will never need it, but war is an unpredictable thing and I feel you are far too young to take part without something like this.”
Arthur slowly took the pendant in his hands and ran his fingers across the small metallic eye as it gave off a dim glow. “This has been enchanted?” He asked as his eyes looked back towards Deacon.
“Yes, with a powerful protection spell. It should protect you from anything rivaling a demon brute, but you will need to manually activate the spell yourself as it is an old enchantment. Not quite like those new fancy enchantments that are always active.”
“Thank you Deacon. I will be certain to return this to you when I return.”
“Oh there is no need for that, your majesty. I am an old man, I have no more need for such things anymore. I would much rather you keep it.”
For a moment the royal Arthur watched through said nothing as he held the pendant in his hand. “Thank you Deacon, I know how important this is to you and I will do my best to keep it safe. But I must insist that I return it to you when this is all over with, I can only imagine what the others would say if they knew you gave away such a valuable relic.”
As the world relic was spoken the world around Arthur slowly started to distort and fade away like smoke until Arthur was left in darkness and his mind started fading as well.
**********
Slowly feeling returned to Arthur and he felt himself on something soft. Part of him was uncertain of where he was, yet the rest was certain he knew exactly where he was.
‘I am dead.’ He felt a sense of resignation as the words echoed in his tired mind.
The afterlife wasn’t something Arthur put much time into learning about. All he knew was that there were more than one, typically each god had one for their followers.
But Arthur didn’t follow any god and he doubted that going to one of those afterlifes was as simple as wanting to.
For what felt like a while Arthur was far too afraid to open his eyes. The possibility that whatever he would see would be horrible stuck to his mind mixing with the few stories of terrible afterlives where those who went suffered for all eternity. Eventually a feeling of resignation filled Arthur’s mind and he slowly opened his eyes, but not to what he expected.
He expected either something beautiful like the paradise like those who follow Solarius go to or something terrible like how the abyss was described by the preachers he passed in the streets of Antium, instead he found himself looking up at a smooth stone ceiling. For a moment he was confused, it looked just like the ceiling of the old dwarven settlement he woke up in the first and second time.
Arthur sat up and as he saw more a feeling of dread crept up his spine and into his stomach, the layout of the room he was in was exactly like the room he woke up in both times. Arthur started breathing heavier as he stood from the bed that was identical like the rest of the room. He quickly walked over to the study on the right side of the room and looked inside and everything looked exactly the same as when he first arrived, the armor and sword, the layout of the room, even the papers on the desk, everything was exactly the same.
Slowly with trembling hands Arthur walked towards the last door, the one that led to the hallway connecting to the rest of the settlement. Slowly he pulled the door open that felt much heavier than it should have and when he looked out he saw what he dreaded most.
The hallway looked exactly the same like nothing had changed.
For a short while Arthur just stood there looking down the hallway as the dread grew and felt like bile churning in his stomach. Slowly he closed the door and sat down leaning against it as his head faced downwards.
