RE: Monarch

I laid my wife to rest in House Timbermour's crypt. What was left of it, anyway.
Up close, the devastation was every bit as bad as it appeared from a distance. It wasn't the first time I'd ventured through the wastes left by rampant magical fire, and likely wouldn't be the last. In some ways, those had been kinder. Because fire was wantonly destructive. It erased features of the dead, leaving them twisted, charred corpses.
It's terrible, of course. But once you've seen one immolated corpse, for the most part, you've seen them all.
The wave of destruction from the fissures was different—deliberate, almost. What it left in its aftermath was unlike any fire I'd ever heard of. An almost timeless decay, as if the houses and everything in them had endured a thousand years of harsh conditions yet somehow remained standing. The people of Kholis who had taken shelter inside the buildings were mostly intact. Their expressions of surprise, fear, despair, all preserved in monotone gray coloring that turned to ash at the slightest touch.
Millicent had somehow made it back. Despite my misgivings, they'd found her sometime after we'd sent the search parties home. She'd been stepping over her doorstep when it happened—clothing torn, harried and frightened but alive, two men supporting her: a servant and a villager who'd tried to help. Perhaps she'd heard the cries of fear, turned to see what all the fuss was about, and then it was over.
It took little force to turn their statue-like forms to dust.
A misplaced elbow or slightest brush of a shoulder and they'd crumble halfway, sometimes entirely. The only evidence they'd even existed lost in a heap of ashes that scattered in every direction. Discerning from their looks of surprise and general absence of pain, it seemed as if they didn't suffer much beyond the fear.
A small comfort. One I did my level best to cling to.
No matter how I racked my mind and combed through memories, nothing came to mind. It wasn't like I'd blown off some grand responsibility to cavort in Kholis. It would be nearly a month before the ships equipped with Dwarven siege weapons were ready. There was a degree of Elven and Dwarven encroachment on the capital, but this event hurt them nearly as much as it hurt us. If any faction had suddenly fled the continent, that would be telling. But as far as I knew, none had.
It was another question on the ever-growing list I had for Thaddeus whenever I finally nailed his feet to the floor.
To be honest, it was hard to think that far ahead.
The fire destroyed nearly everything. Most food stores appeared ruined, anything built from stone or wood heavily damaged. Even metals felt brittle beneath my fingers, flaking like dried clay. Only places and items within them that were relatively airtight remained intact. Basements and cellars still showed signs of corrosion, and the people within them had been taken all the same, but the structures were relatively intact. I placed Maya within the stone casket and two coppers from my purse atop her eyes to pay for passage. Maybe it's hideous to admit, but I couldn't bring myself to pray. It was so starkly obvious how little the gods must have cared that I couldn't imagine any of them were there at all.
I opened my mouth to speak, but words seemed so meaningless against the endless gray that it took a moment to summon them. She looked so different in death—the lines of worry that had plagued her were gone.
"You saved me, and I was too weak to save you in return." I reached out and touched her face. "You'd mock me for saying that, I know. Call it silly, considering the sheer magnitude of the devastation. But look at what
did. Simply by leveraging the resources you had, with the willingness to do whatever was necessary to accomplish your goal, and the determination to keep going even when it was destroying you from the inside. To press on when your light was fading. All without guarantee of another waking morning. The gods chose the wrong person. You would have been a far better choice to wield this gift than me."
The malaise pressed in on me once more, and I closed my eyes, fighting it as best I could.
"But that is not what fate had in store for us. And while I'd much rather curl into a ball beside your final resting place and wait for death to claim me than go out in that hellscape, utterly alone... the chance you gave me was paid in blood. I will not waste it."
I stepped back, hesitating. Burying her in the grounds behind our home had been my first thought. Lucius hadn't bothered building a crypt, likely believing we wouldn't need one for a very long time. But I lacked the knowledge and experience required to properly prepare her for rest, and the idea of laying her to rest in the dirt among the vermin sat poorly. Now, faced with the open casket, I couldn't bring myself to seal it. Her arms were twiggy and thin, like the slightest twist could break them. And while she was undeniably gone, she was more intact than anyone else in the vicinity.
All I could think of was that if there were gods left to see, who witnessed her sacrifice and looked down on it kindly enough to revive her, she would not be able to push the lid back in her weakened state.
So with no better option, I left it open, closing the door tightly behind me.
There was a matter of accounting to attend to, and once out of the crypt, I quickly busied myself with it. Given the effects of the corrosion, the untainted contents of my satchel, once an afterthought, were now an invaluable commodity. The dark leather bag was an old purchase from the Enclave, augmented with inscriptions for additional space, so naturally, I'd accumulated a great deal.
I lifted a carefully wrapped package with what appeared to be a piece of ruddy dried flesh sticking out of it, belatedly remembering it was exactly that. Jerky I'd made in the sanctum, carved from deer-like creatures who possessed a single horn, then salted and dehydrated in the desert sun. Somehow it'd gotten lost in the bottom of the bag, otherwise I likely would have already thrown it away. Grimly, I removed a piece and tested it with my teeth.
The jerky fought with leathery resistance, then finally parted.
Tough, but still malleable enough to eat. Food wouldn't be an immediate concern.
Water, though?
That would be the bottleneck. My canteen was already low, and refilling with something that wouldn't make me ill at best would be a difficult prospect. Making matters worse, I needed more than usual. Drinking mundane river or lake water was always dubious. Sometimes it worked out alright, but you never really knew who or what might contaminate it. The most obvious solution was to gather some and boil it, a practice I'd utilized countless times. Problem was, boiling didn't solve everything. Everything that lived in the rivers and lakes was likely dead, which made purifying their content significantly riskier. Furthermore, boiling water contaminated with ash—at this point,
most of it—was how one created lye, which, if it needs to be said, is notoriously bad for drinking.
My best bet, at least while I remained in anything that resembled civilization, were cellar cisterns.
But the expanses of wilderness would be considerably wider without a horse to shorten the distance and more difficult to conquer. Even with the considerable contamination, I'd likely be able to wring at least a couple canteens' worth of lake water through the straining moss if I was desperate, but that was a last resort.
Caves were a possibility, and a strong one that appealed to me the longer I thought of it.
Any sort of subterranean system without a north-facing entrance might have clean springs ready for consumption after a boil. And if it had water, it might have animals that had sheltered there, potentially solving my longer-standing sustenance issues in one fell swoop. The absolute best case would be finding a spring in a natural cave with limestone formations. Unfortunately, the odds of that were probably astronomical. About as likely as someone in the crypt downstairs suddenly regaining consciousness and strolling in.
I watched the door to the crypts for a few moments before looking down again.
Beyond supplies, there was an issue of mana. My pool hadn't moved since I'd sent up the signal fire the previous evening. No ley lines meant no magic, and this would be the first time I'd been without magic for quite a while.
There were a few small towns between here and Whitefall, all smaller and less populated. If I was going to stumble across worthwhile resources, it would probably be here.
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I shoved what little I had back into the satchel, dampened a cloth with half the contents of my canteen, swirling it once to confirm how little was left.
Then I stepped outside.
My hopes that things had gotten better, or at least settled down some, were immediately dashed. The sky and cloud cover were still dark enough to blot out the sun. Ash rained down, carried by the wind. Almost immediately, my eyes stung.
Shielding my eyes from the wind, I went house to house, searching for anything viable and untainted to add to my supplies. My instinct was to rush, to move through everything quickly, because the sooner I was done here, the sooner I could regain what I'd lost.
Every time I felt my pace quicken, I forced myself to slow down.
Lingering would be a death sentence. There simply wasn't enough left untouched, and even the air itself was hostile. Yet keeping a quick pace that tired me and forced me to lean harder on what little I had would be a net loss. Maya's logic held firm. The world as we knew it had already ended. The black beast wouldn't move up the reset point past wherever it was currently placed. As ready as I was to be over and done with this, the sort of constraints that typically bound me didn't apply here.
After several houses, I learned to skip cellars with any gaps in their doors. Even a pinky's width let the corroding fire creep in, pouring down the stairs and eroding brickwork that formed the cistern, tainting the water or flooding it out onto the ground entirely.
I managed to find another canteen, stuffed away in a messy storeroom.
It hadn't been accessed in some time, and several crates had been piled in front of it. Apparently, that had formed enough of a seal. The items in the front were still mostly ruined. I found the canteen toward the back, along with a small treasure of rags and cloths to use as filters.
In the next house, I found a jar of honey and some tack stuffed away in an old cupboard. Two windfalls back to back created a false sense of security. Made me wonder if I'd overestimated the difficulty, and the road forward would not be quite so hard.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
It took nearly the entire night. The searching went slowly due to the terrible weather and poor lighting. Something in the air—the ash itself, or some foul residue—was making me feel wrong, not myself.
Moreover, the search itself had a queer effect on me, setting my teeth on edge. Because while most of the buildings weren't populated, others were. Some of the people of Kholis, especially on the south side of town, had sheltered in place, either too frightened to leave their homes or too stubborn. They were simply frozen in the midst of whatever they were doing, as if time itself had stopped. Most were cowering in some corner of their homes, some amid a conversation or argument. Their sightless eyes watched me pass, questioning, judging.
Several times I spotted figures peeking through their curtains at me as I passed, only to enter the abode and find them still staring toward the street, waiting for the storm to cede.
Only for them, it would never end.
I wished they'd stop staring as I passed.
Over the course of the night, my mind grew fatigued, traitorous.
And I began to see the figures where they didn't belong at all.
Twice, I thought I saw bodies in the sky above, only to look up and find nothing.
By the time I finally found a cistern, I was exhausted from both effort and vigilance, and gave up on leaving Kholis before morning. I'd found more than I'd expected to find in the never-ending search for a cistern, and it would be awhile before I had an opportunity for sheltered rest once again.
I entered the place that for three days, Maya and I had called home. The pixie—whom we'd looked for but never found—had apparently returned there, her small body splayed out on the counter like an ashen doll. The pantry and cupboard I'd intended to check suddenly seemed less important, and I left her behind, climbing the stairs. My hand lingered on the bedroom door. All I wanted was to collapse somewhere and fall asleep. But there were too many memories in this place. Eventually, I retreated, returning to the first floor and taking solace on the darkened husk of a chaise that partially crumbled beneath my weight, where I closed my eyes.
And tried to sleep.
/////
I started.
Rousing came with many rude awakenings. The first was a horrible pressure in my chest, a maddening tickle that would not be soothed. I coughed so hard I nearly retched and sat up quickly as the coughs racked through me, dust visibly expelled through every painful hack.
Was it enough to kill me? There was no way to be sure.
The second was that the sun had not risen. At first, I wasn't certain that I'd slept at all, at least not for any appreciable length of time. Then, with a degree of dawning frustration, I realized that it probably had. The clouds were slightly lighter than before. It was a diminutive difference, barely more than a matter of shades.
Overnight, the corpses of those that remained outside had diminished in the winds. Small dust devils whirled about the paths and open areas.
I spent a while trying to establish what time it was before eventually deciding that it didn't matter.
I needed to leave.
Only now that I had the essentials, there were a few other places I wanted to go. The apothecary for one, though the odds of finding intact ingredients and potions were certainly not in my favor. And the blacksmith. I'd left my blade in the bedroom, where it was almost assuredly ruined.
To be honest, I didn't really expect there to be threats left to face. But a knife wasn't a suitable weapon on its own, and on the off-chance there was something still out there, I wanted to be ready. And if it was still intact, there was at least one other thing I needed to find.
I dampened a cloth, tied it over my mouth, and headed to the market side of town.
It had been my hope that sleep would soothe my mind. But as soon as I set foot out the door, the same uneasiness settled over me. After a matter of minutes, I spotted the shadow of a body overhead. The previous day they didn't have shadows, which meant my condition was getting worse. I hurried along the path, refusing to look up or even slow down until I reached the smithy, and slammed the door shut behind me.
Once inside, it was a relief to see that wherever the smith and his sons had died, it hadn't been here. There were no accusing gray eyes to watch as I trespassed.
Unfortunately, most of the metal had fared badly. The once-shining blades were scaled with rust and pitted, oddly colorful in their devastation, a kaleidoscope of blues, purples, and golds signifying altered temper. Most of the iron, steel, xescalt, and highsteel armaments were completely ruined.
Lowhil appeared to have fared the best.
Not daring to hope yet, I picked up a lowhil blade and whacked its jade-green broadside against the leg of a nearby display case. There was a quivering
the metal groaned, then suddenly fragmented to pieces that splintered further as they struck the ground.
The longer I looked, the more my mood soured. Despite residing in the middle of town, the blacksmith appeared to have been hit particularly hard. I'd thought it would be somewhat easy to find at least one relatively solid weapon here, but a cracked window had been the entire shop's undoing. The front portion, anyway, which represented the majority of the stock.
With the offending window closed, I gave up on the merchandise floor and checked the back.
My fortunes turned.
There was hardly a wealth to pick from, but I found a completed highsteel blade in one of several annealing chambers, still sealed by plaster. The smith, a perpetual busy body—gods bless him—had several such sealed chambers for multiple projects.
And in the last one, I found what I was looking for.
I opened the chamber and pulled out the sliding rack. The xescalt staff had been beautifully and painstakingly fused, complex inlays preserved and expanded upon. It was finally the right length for a full-grown adult, the seam in the center perfectly fused and reinforced, leaving little evidence that it had ever come apart. My pulse rose as I placed my hand on it, feeling a warmth radiating outward, as if it'd only just finished setting. Carefully I removed it from its resting place, raising it up to my eye like a looking glass. It was impeccably symmetrical, without even the slightest hint of a skew.
"The man knows his craft. I'll hold onto it for you until you're ready to take it up again." I smiled a little. There were knights that loved their swords less than Maya loved her staff. She'd had the gold to get it altered, and likely could have done so years ago.
The highsteel blade went into the only sturdy scabbard I could find. I also managed to scrounge up a simple leather strap with a loop for the staff. But I liked the warmth of it in my hand. And if you find yourself in a situation that requires a large amount of foot travel, there is no better companion than a staff. Compared to wood, metal would be a bit hard on the joints, especially over long distances. A little cushion would also stop it from ringing like a bell every step on a hard surface.
I searched for leather first, then eventually gave up and wrapped the top and bottom with cord, creating a cushion for impact, then let it slide through my fingertips and hit the ground.
It landed with a satisfying thud.
Suddenly the task at hand felt a little less daunting. Something about keeping a piece of her with me made the road seem shorter, less treacherous.
I almost missed the blue glow.
It was faint, barely noticeable until my eyes had fully adjusted. In the corner, hidden behind several rows of ruined supplies and falling apart supply boxes, was a pile of the stubborn ore the Sparkwright had tried his damndest to work with. Some had melted, forming black and blue slag, while the rest remained stubbornly intact. One had fallen from the top of the pile and somehow landed on the cast for what appeared to be a hand-and-a-half sword blade. The star-like effect I'd noticed was more pronounced, as the impurities had enhanced its darkness.
I stared at it, then shook my head. "Now you melt."
It felt like a mockery somehow. A surge of annoyance rose in my chest.
Before I fully realized what I was doing, I edged the toe of my boot beneath the cast's rim and flipped it on its face, where it landed with a clatter.
I searched for a while after that and found little else. That was fine. The sword and staff were plenty.
After taking the necessary preparations, I stepped outside again, my mind a thousand spans away. It would be a relief to finally be free of this place. My eyes were cast down at the ground as I wandered toward the apothecary, lost in thought.
Then I stopped.
A boot descended, another following shortly after it. I looked up slowly. The wearer was clad in banded leathers. Her form was lithe, almost too thin. Her white hair was shaved on one side, a long segmented braid hanging down to around the center of her back. A golden eye with its slit pupil watched me in amusement, and when she spoke, her sharp teeth glittered in the low light.
"Well, if it isn't you. Alive.
How fortunate." Thoth smiled.