Lina can feel her heart pounding in her chest as she hears Ashen. She rotates her tied up form to see him and is relieved to see him standing but something is off.
Ashen looks over at them but his gaze makes their bodies tremble as his next words echo.
“How strange it is to wear flesh again.”
Evan is the first to recover his composure,
“Paladins! Defensive positions! This happens when someone gets attuned to their god but it won’t last forever!”
Lina is confused, how would Evan know that? She didn’t even know that a she is an attuned. It hits her too late, when her family died to the landslide, Evan was there, did he cause it? What does he know? Lina turns her head towards Evan to speak but some paladins drag her away from the possessed reaper.
The Reaper responds to Evan,
”Intriguing, so these are the mortals who brought this soul to me?”
Evan and his paladins gather with shields raised as they stand together between Lina and the Reaper. Evan says,
“Demon, there hasn’t been an attuned of your kind in millennia, why now?”
The reaper smiles eerily, the lips part in a wide unnatural arc before he responds,
“I made a deal of sorts.”
Evan stands with most of his paladins around him. Evan in the center preparing his blessing for what’s to come.
The room suddenly goes black as the flames go out around them.
Lina is at one end unable to see anything as she stares out into the abyss before her. She hears some screaming and flashing lights from the paladins but can’t see Ashen or whatever he has become.
Many of the paladins enchant their shields with energy to defend against whatever is happening as lights illuminating them appear in Lina’s vision. But as the lights get brighter, she feels vomit go up the back of her throat at what is visible.
Where Evan was standing with his soldiers is now a bloody mess. The reaper stands there hands soaked with blood and only Evan left as the 5 remaining paladins look inwards with horror.
Evan is on his knees before the reaper with his arm twisted painfully broken as he says without his usual composure as it is replaced by desperate pleas,
“Guards forget the Saintess, save me from this Demon!”
The reaper speaks in the same eery voice,
“You’re all so eager to die aren’t you?”
He reaches and grabs Evan by the head, Evan’s body is broken into pieces as it is absorbed by his touch. Flesh tears away to the Reaper’s touch as he rips the soul from their body as it turns to red dust flaking away in the room leaving a heavy iron smell.
The reaper then pulls the sword from his chest, the shadows gather around the Reaper’s wound and when they vanish, the wound is gone.
The room is silent by what they just witnessed, the reaper turns towards the next nearest paladin but suddenly he stops moving with his arm left outstretched, the reaper is holding his outstretched arm with his other arm, physically holding himself back, then reaper then speaks,
”Seems the little thief isn’t fond of this.”
The reaper suddenly stops shaking for restraint for a moment before he plants his feet and lowers his hands, then says to the paladins left alive.
”Go, flee from your deaths.”
The paladins grab Lina and the golden compass Evan left behind, but as they head towards the exit, the Reaper speaks again but without the eery overlay.
”No, leave the girl here.”
The paladins at first refuse, but then the reaper speaks again,
”Do not make me repeat myself, better you take her at a later date than fight Death yes?”
The paladins leave Lina behind, grab the remains of their companions, then leave through the large stone doors.
Lina is left shaking in fear as Death approaches her. He walks over to her in Ashen’s body, drawing his remaining dagger, and stepping towards her.
Lina doesn’t want to die but she’s filled with fear staring down the being covered in crimson blood, barely illuminated by the door open behind her from the retreating paladins.
But then he lowers the dagger and cuts her free from the ropes binding her, then he says in his usual tone,
”It’s me Lina, the crazy guy with bad luck.”
Lina breathes a sigh of relief that it wore off but as he finishes cutting her ropes away, he falls to the ground. She rushes to heal him but he isn’t in physical pain but emotional.
”Lina, have you ever killed someone before?”
Ashen is covering his eyes with his arm, he isn’t crying but seems like he is on the inside, Lina replies,
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”Yes, I have.”
Ashen smiles unnervingly,
”I guess we are both monsters after all, people have died to my misfortune, but that’s the first time my hands have done the deed.”
Lina tries to comfort him, she remembers how broken she was after she escaped the church and had to face what she did by herself.
”You weren’t in control, you weren’t you.”
Ashen shakes his head,
“That doesn’t change the fact that they died because of me, it doesn’t change the fact that they are dead.”
Lina wonders if he means everyone else who has died because of him and not just the 2 Death killed while possessing him.
She puts her hand on his arm covering his eyes, trying to comfort him.
They both take a while to rest in silence gathering their thoughts before they recover enough to continue.
Ashen is still wallowing in having killed someone even if he was possessed, Lina is conflicted about her own thing, having been confronted by Evan and her sin, Ashen risked his life to save her so she thinks he has a right to know, she says,
”Ashen, you probably want to know why the paladins of the church of life are after me.”
Ashen who is still covering his eyes with his arm replies without moving,
”No not really, I’m just glad you didn’t die because of me.”
Lina frowns, she feels he is obligated to know after all this, she continues by saying,
”Still I think you should know why I’m in this situation, The bishops of the church of life aim to sacrifice me because I’m the attuned of Life.”
Lina is quiet for a long moment before continuing
“The reason they want to sacrifice me is because if they do then they can rid the world of pain and death.”
Lina closes her eyes as she finishes, in her eyes what she’s doing is something vile. The church aims to do something so noble yet she does such horrid things just to live. She feels like she’s about to cry when Ashen’s response surprises her.
”That’s dumb.”
Lina opens her eyes and stares at Ashen who is now sitting cross legged on the stone floor. What does he mean that’s dumb? Lina asks in a frustrated voice,
”What does you mean it’s dumb?! You think I want to do all this? I just want to live, please don’t say things like that when I’m already regretting my whole journey.”
Lina feels broken, she’s already conflicted about her reasoning for all this, but his response brought her regrets to the surface, but Ashen clarifies,
”I meant their reasoning for trying to sacrifice you seems dumb, you running away seems good by me.”
Lina is stumped, he agrees with her running? With her surviving even if it means death and pain continue? Lina asks confused,
“What does you mean? Wouldn’t a world without pain and death be a good thing? And since I’m avoiding it then I’m a bad person right?”
Ashen looks up in the dark room for a moment before replying,
”When I was younger, I felt like ending my life sooner. So many people died because of my misfortune while all I could do was run away. I released their souls hoping to avoid becoming a monster but in retrospect I was in denial. I tried keeping people away with the act but didn’t even have enough funds to last another week. I just wanted to end it all, but then I remembered the words of the scriptures of death I once read.”
Ashen is quiet for a moment as he takes a deep inhale,
”Death should not be feared but avoided at all costs, most priests of death use this to say Death is a good thing to justify killing others, but in my eyes it’s different. Death is something good yes, but not something to be praised.”
Lina thinks of her life which was ignorant bliss then desperate fleeing and dangerous battles with other adventurers against monsters, she doesn’t see how life is worth living.
”I disagree, life seems like hell to me.”
Ashen chuckles softly before replying,
”Yes it is sometimes, but you’re still alive because of the thought of dying yes? You know if you die then that’s the end, you will never get another chance to live life ever again. To me, Death inspires me to survive and keep going.”
Lina is quiet a moment, that actually makes a little sense to her, but Ashen speaks next before she can,
”You said the church wants to create a world without pain or death but that sounds like hell to me, you may not be able to agree, but how about you continue living until you find your own answer? I certainly haven’t figured out my reason for living either, want to figure it out together?”
Lina smiles genuinely for the first time in a long time before saying softly,
”Sure, let’s live as monsters until your misfortune gets us killed another time.”
Lina may not know her reason to survive yet, but she’s determined she can find a reason to live as she journeys more. Lina says aloud as she asks herself,
”What does it mean to live?
After their talk, Ashen sits up and says to Lina,
“Thanks for that, it did make me feel better.”
Lina looks down at her hands, bloodied from their previous battle, while Ashen resisted death itself to kill, she had no issue killing her pursuers out of desperation to live, she then says,
“No thank you, no one had risked so much for me before.”
Ashen smiles genuinely and pulls himself to his feet, he then offers a hand down to Lina to help her up.
Lina gratefully takes his hand and he helps her up, then Ashen says
”Want to see what loot we can grab from the treasure room?”
Lina smiles and shakes her head as the pair head down towards the small door near the opposite side of the room, near the large pile of ancient dragon bones and dead bodies from the battle that as waged here.
They collect the stacks of bones from the ancient dragon and add it to their magical packs also filled with other bones they gathered from this dungeon.
They enter the treasure room and it is filled with a few coffins of wrapped corpses clothed in cloth. Towards the end of the hall they find a few items in a small chest.
They find a rusty sword, ring, bracelet, and some black cloth. Compared to the bones they got, this stuff isn’t worth much though they could possibly be artifacts charged with mana so they pack them anyways.
Ashen and Lina make their way to the surface half expecting the paladins to ambush them on the way out, as they leave they keep an eye out but no one is there which Ashen finds odd,
”I would have figured they would try catching you again after we left cause they are so persistent.”
Lina thinks about where they could have gone then recalls something,
”Evan was writing letters to his higher ups, with Evan and most of their group gone they must have gone to report to his superiors for reinforcements.”
Ashen laughs then says,
“I can’t tell if it’s my luck or yours, but if they have to travel all the way back to the Church of Life’s head temple, assemble an army, then travel all the way back here to track us again, this should buy you some time.”
Ashen is right, Lina has a while, even if the Paladins travel faster than her, it will take over a month to get all the way to the Church’s main temple from the center of the continent to the west. She then asks Ashen,
”Mind if I travel with you for a bit longer? Though it might bring you some misfortune.”
Ashen chuckles and responds with,
”Misfortune? Do you know who you are talking to? Sure welcome aboard the failure wagon, I’ll be happy to have someone who can put up with my terrible dramatizations.”
Lina smiles but walks ahead so he can’t see it, him putting on the death act to scare people away was kind of fun, but she’s more happy to start seeing the real him he keeps hidden.
She pauses in her steps as she looks towards the swaying trees due to the wind, she must also show him her true self she keeps hidden, first time she doesn’t have to focus on purely survival because of her sin.
Ashen then says,
”You got to pick our first adventure so I’ll pick our second, we got a bunch of high quality materials, let’s head south west to the land of the dwarves.”
Lina turns towards him, eager to see more of the life she was given, and he brought back from Death’s clutches.
Did you agree with Ashen’s revelation about death?
