The sun hadn’t yet risen, but the creeping dawn casted queer blue glances over the cathedral’s black spires. It was a cathedral, there was no other way to describe it. It was tall, slim and leering, made of those ageless black bricks that also constructed the wall around the city. The cathedral had no windows, only gaping eye sockets with ancient memories of colored murals that would have sparkled in the sun. The only color was the front door that had rusted to a peachy orange and was missing its handle.
Heavy thumping footsteps paced from the camp to Jarrah's side. Eddie yawned and stretched out his arms. Looking at his flex, Jarrah did not want to find out how much force his arms could produce. They must be thicker than my legs. Eddie had slung his oversized battle-axe over his shoulder and in his other hand he held a whetstone.
‘You’re up early,’ Jarrah said.
‘I’ve gotten used to it now. All those early hunts and now my body just wakes up at dawn, no matter how damn much I want to go back to sleep.’
The blue continued to creep up the sky and no matter how many times Jarrah blinked that damned cathedral was still there, sitting and growing in his mind's eye. It was taunting and Eddie must have felt it too because the sigh he let out was deep and painful, like a man preparing to walk the plank, knife to his back.
‘We finally made it,’ Jarrah said, ‘I thought you would be happier.’
Eddie looked back to the camp, Jarrah followed his eyes. Five tents - tents being a glamorous word for the little plastic triangles raised by stakes and set around in a circle. One tent was made of particularly shaggy material as the party had not expected a fifth member to join them halfway. Aria, Rowan and Alek would be sleeping soundly.
Enough time for an unwanted, but sorely overdue chat.
Eddie sighed, he must have felt it too.
‘I should be happier,’ Eddie said, ‘but I didn’t know.’
‘You didn’t know what?’
Eddie didn't respond straight away; his eyes had bags despite just waking. ‘When I accepted this quest, I didn’t know what we were getting into.’
‘The mission was direct from the Church, wasn’t it?’
‘It was and they didn’t tell us this dungeon was actually a city. A city from what I can tell is an identical copy of every capital city in Purgatory. I don’t think they even knew.’
‘Well it’s missing the angel in the sky, and the people too,’ Jarrah said, ‘I don’t know which one I am more grateful for.’
Eddie chuckled. ‘The angel was a scary bitch, but at least she kept us safe. The people however, served no purpose for me, just a pain in the ass.’
Jarrah gave a short laugh.
‘The deal did seem too good to be true,’ Eddie said. ‘We get the first crack at an undiscovered dungeon with instructions to confirm its existence and clear it to the bottom floor.’
‘How did they even know about it?’
‘You see that map Rowan is always fussing over? Apparently some priest found that in an old storeroom in the cathedral laminated in wax. They made a copy and gave it to us. Overall, its a simple quest for the staggering two centuries of lifespan we will be paid out.’
‘Fifty years each?’ Jarrah asked and whistled.
‘Hey, you already signed the contract. Twenty percent of the profit is only forty years.’
‘I didn’t realize you were a thief.’
Eddie opened his mouth with a scary look in his eyes - he was good at those - but when he laid his eyes on Jarrah’s smirk he relaxed. ‘Lately I have been lashing out at everyone, but you have copped more than your fair share. For that I am sorry.’ Eddie seemed genuinely apologetic. ‘I need your daggers moving forward, entering a dungeon without a cryptic-knight sounds like a death sentence.’ Eddie paused, perhaps hoping Jarrah would tell him not to be sorry, but Jarrah could sense Eddie was not finished, not truly. ‘I am sorry, but I had a job to do,’ he said, ‘as the party leader I have to consider everyone and prioritize their safety. This placed extra stress on me, this trip has been full of them,’ he looked over at the sleeping tents, and Jarrah knew he was looking at Alek’s, ‘and now I see this, the next looming obstacle. What am I to say when I return to Kerioth? What should I report? At this point I don’t know what to do anymore.’
‘Well I see two options, we keep going, or we turn back.’
Eddie grumbled at this. ‘I don’t feel like either would end well. Tell the Church we failed, or tell them that we saw something they would rather keep hidden.’
‘I’ve heard rumors of forgotten cities,’ Jarrah said.
‘I have too and I don’t think the Church likes those rumors very much.’
He said it. Jarrah didn’t expect Eddie to acknowledge it, but he had a feeling archbishop Suraj would not want people knowing there are uninhabited cities out there in the world. A fundamental truth the Church taught was that there were twelve cities, only twelve. Twelve countries named after the twelve apostles. Each city had an indestructible wall, a cathedral and a guardian angel placed by God himself and set to be ruled under the Church. They claimed one of the twelve had fallen from grace, Capernaum which had its walls, cathedral and angel taken from it until only the apostle plate remained. But if there were more than twelve…
I need to get to the bottom of that cathedral, Jarrah had his own motivations for joining Broken Fang on this quest, motivations best kept hidden from Eddie and the rest. I thought this mission was odd, but I never expected there to be a… If I can get my hands on the halo, then this could finally give us a chance.
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‘Do you think there is even a dungeon under there?’ Jarrah asked.
‘I don’t know why, but I am almost certain there is. Maybe not the same type of dungeon I have explored before, but there is something there, I can feel it.’
Jarrah nodded, he could feel it too. ‘Then I think we should proceed. Are you worried the Church will turn on us when we return?’
‘No, but it will be an uncomfortable conversation to have “Hey did you guys know that the twelve cities are really thirteen at least” I don’t think they enjoy contradictions to their doctrine. That said, they would be fools to get rid of the strongest party in Kerioth.’ Eddie flexed his bicep again with a chuckle.
‘The self-proclaimed strongest.’
‘I don’t know how they do things in the western continent, but that kind of comment is considered disrespectful here.’
Jarrah smiled and Eddie returned it.
‘No, I think we will be fine,’ Eddie said, ‘I trust the Church, they pay well enough for that, but sometimes I just don’t believe em.’ Eddie got quiet for a moment and looked around, as if there would be anyone to hear him in this desolate city. ‘Have you heard of what they call the whispers?’
Yes. That was the simple answer.
‘No, I haven’t.’
Eddie stared at the cathedral’s looming presence distantly, ‘I’ve been around a while, longer than you by at least a century I would say. Fought in the war of three kings, a nasty war that one - the last true war many say, but politics was never my strong suit. That’s probably why I’m still here doing quests as an adventurer and not some bigshot in the official world.’ He laughed at himself. ‘I never trained in any fancy knight school, never joined an organization, freelance was the best for me… but when you have been around a while, no matter the trade, you hear people talk.’
Eddie was getting old; Jarrah could see it in his eyes. His iris had faded to a pale blue that in certain lights looked grey, perhaps another century of color remained. He maintained a physical appearance in his mid-twenties, but Jarrah guessed that if he physically aged a decade or two more the madness would start creeping in.
Eddie continued, ‘The best quests were always handed out by the Church themselves. Find this thing, kill this person, join this raid, protect this outpost, slay this beast; hunting monsters being my specialty. The Church of Iscariot is generous and I never had a reason to listen to the rumors, but this quest has me doubting.’ Eddie paused right as the sun crept over the distant black wall. ‘The whispers are what people mean by a demon talking to you.’
Jarrah feigned surprise, doubt. ‘Demons can’t come to Purgatory, everyone knows that.’
‘Can’t come here, true, but people say they can whisper in your ear, get you to do things, give you gifts in exchange. The Church says that’s impossible too, but if you were a demon, whose ear do you think you would whisper in?’
Jarrah paused to make it look like he was thinking. ‘Someone in charge.’
‘Aye, and that's what they say, that the high rankers in the Church and holy-knights themselves get whispered to. Maybe the whisper instructions to kill more people, send more lifespan to Hell, or maybe it's all just rumors.’
Jarrah needed to be careful with this conversation. ‘Sounds like the propaganda the revolutionaries post around the outposts.’
‘You calling me a fucking revolutionary- No. I don’t like them at all, but that doesn’t mean the Church might have some nasty truths hidden.
A yawn cut through the morning air, it sounded like Rowan had woken.
‘Don’t go sharing with the others that I’m thinking like this.’ Eddie said.
‘I won’t, but what has got you thinking about demons of all things?’
Eddie looked up to the empty sky above, the unnaturally empty sky. ‘Maybe it's the fact we aren’t under the angels' protection so far out here. Maybe it's that ugly looking chapel.’ His eyes turned back to the camp. ‘Or maybe it’s that kid, just looking at him gives me the chills.’
That boy, with his soot stained hair and glossed over eyes. That boy who was broken from the moment Jarrah saw him. That boy who tended the horses with a cheery smile, but Jarrah could tell it was false and he was a breath away from collapsing back into his own knees, rocking back and forth.
‘Alek has done nothing wrong, the way you treat him is unfair.’
Eddie huffed. ‘He creeps me out, everything about him. For a start I am not sure I have ever seen someone so young in Purgatory; what is he ten? Eleven? For him to even be here he must have done some fucked up shit for a kid, this isn’t Heaven.’
‘We’re here too,’ Jarrah reminded Eddie.
‘Yes, but he is a kid, a child. I have never seen a child in Purgatory, it’s always some old fuck who de-aged to look like their ten, not an actual ten-year-old.’
‘The revolutionaries say that children do come here, plenty of them as well.’
‘And what? They all magically disappear?’
‘No, they claim that the Church kills them. It kills two birds with one stone for them, no useless mouth to feed and who has more lifespan to steal from than a child?’
Eddie shifted uncomfortably.
‘But that's just what those revolutionaries say,’ Jarrah said.
‘Yeah… well back to the kid, him being young isn’t the only thing. He arrived in the middle of the wilderness, which until a week ago was impossible. On top of that he walks around all gloomy when he thinks no one is watching and he's one step away from being an invalid. He’s a burden and a ticking time bomb. The point is he is strange, things that surround him are strange and now we are in a strange fucking place that shouldn’t exist.’
Jarrah didn’t think the kid was too strange when you considered what had happened to him. If Jarrah had died at his age, there was good chance he would be in a state of shock as well. But when he walked through that barrier without a coating, that was another matter entirely. Jarrah decided he wouldn’t tell Eddie about that, he didn’t need to give him another reason to dislike Alek. The kid didn’t deserve Hell, Jarrah was sure of that.
‘When we first found him,’ Eddie said, ‘when I saw you lying in a bloody heap next to him I really thought he was a demon. I thought he killed you.’
‘You know he didn’t’
‘But it got me thinking: as the party leader if one of you did die on this mission I would never forgive myself. That means I need to avoid any unnecessary risks and remove any additional threats. He is not a party member, and if he turns out to be a threat,’ Eddie gripped the handle of his battle-axe seemingly by instinct, ‘I will personally eliminate him.’
