Partida Rol por web

Suddenly I feel it. I feel how my sword enters my foes tight, just on the right spot. - No one plays with me and lives to tell about it.- I tell at the now lifeless body, spitting at it, as I stand up and clean the blood from my sword on my clothes. 

As I realize that I have had no trouble to get on my feet, I look around looking for the mage. That's when I see his body at Erard's feet and I cannot help but smile. We could actually make a great team. Once again, I kneel to look for any money or valuable objects on the spearman's corpse. I only take a few seconds on it and then I look at my companions again.

- Where shall we head now?

Baster didnn’t bother to fight with the spell anymore, for it was easy to see what was about to happen. Ilesys managed to impale the spearman from the ground, and Erard rose and charged to the wizard and the guard. Three more corpses to the path of slaughter the trio had carved on their way through the palace.

I hope you don’t play cards a lot, she said to the other woman, chuckling, sitting up as the conjured force subsided.

And I hope there aren’t any more mages like that one around. Fricking bothersome.

Only one way forward, she replied, pointing to the door the wizard had came from.

After looting the poor corpses of the defeated foes, including one of the brutal weapons the orcs were carrying, you move ahead towards a small corridor from where the mage had shown up.

But just before crossing the door that limits with the next aisle, a long and narrow path that ends in a door, you stop for a moment. The air there smells funny, almost electrical, like the smell of a summer thunderstorm.

Also, you can't but remember the sick room with the riddle you had to get through before, as this one looks exactly the same.

But as you all well know, there is no other option than to move forward.

Shrugging and hesitating no more, you step inside.

Instantly, the door behind you smash closed and a bright blue light shows up both in the distant door and in the one at your back...

From her seat on the floor, Baster eyed the orcs' weapons lying beside both corpses. Crude looking weapons, halfway between axe and sord, sharpened slabs of steel with handles. She took the smaller of the two, as the other wasn't very different to her own two-hander.

A few swings were enough to test its balance. Orcs weren't famed weaponsmiths, but it was obvious they knew their trade. Heavier than her longsword by far, thrice its weight al least, yet easy enough to use by someone as big as her.

Before following her companiones, she took the orc's belt and scabbard, and put it around her waist. She smirked, it suited her better than her own.

Well then, she said. We've yet to met those big ones you mentioned, so let's keep on.

The next hall was familiar. It looked just like the one they had passed just a few minutes ago. No other way but forward, though, as she had said.

As soon as they were inside, doors bolted close. Baster was expecting another stupid riddle, not a trap, and yet the instant she smelled the ozone —which she didn't identify as that, of course— and noticed the light coming for her, for them, from the other end, jumped aside, hitting the wall with her armored back.

After taking the few coins I've found, I walk forward next to my companions as that seems to be the only possible way to go. But, not much time goes by until we reach the next corridor. The air smells funny. 

- What's that smell?- I ask, wondering if I have ever smelled it before. I think I have but I cannot recall the exact moment. What does look familiar is the hall. It is exactly the same than the one we left behind.- Please, tell me we don't have to play riddles again.- I roll my eyes at the idea but, suddenly I have a feeling that something is wrong there. 

And just as the doors slam close I jump to the exact opposite side that Baster has chosen, staring at her and Erard looking for an answer about what's going on.- Magic again?- I wonder. 

Simultaneously, from both ends of the corridor, two energy blue beams emerge flying towards each other.

With no real escape in the narrow aisle, there is no other chance to avoid the imminent impact but to jump to the floor.

However, such is the speed of the electrical beam trap that a moment of doubt is enough to get hit by the power bolts.

And that is what happens to the unfortunate Ilesys. While Baster and Erard manage to dodge the beans, the otherwise agile women flickers for a second to watch her companions make ground. Time enough for the beam to reach her body. A bright flash of pale blue light then burst from where Ilesys was, forcing Baster and Erard to close their eyes and cover them with their hands. When they open them again, Ilesys lays in the ground as well, her clothes and body badly burnt, her chest, breath and heartbeat still...

Both warriors jump immediately over the laying body of their companion in search for vital signs.

None.

Is like all life had abandon Ilesys body together with the explosion of pale blue light.

After what seems an eternity, Baster and Erard stand up giving up hope for their companion's life.

Suddenly, there is no light. Everything turns black.

Suddenly, there is no sound. Everything turns silent.

Suddenly, there is no more. Everything turns nothing.

And the nothing, becomes infinite.

A waste emptiness of absolute and eternal nothingness.

And in the nothing, a light sparks in the infinite horizon. And a sound burst with it. With the force of all suns and stars in the sky it burst and explode.

And there, for the first time, you begin to feel your own existence once again. Infinitely small. A mot of dust in the endless space. And the dust is suddenly carried away by an invisible wind. It pushes you towards the light. Towards the source of the sound.

And you travel.

You travel impossible distances.

You travel for an eternity.

There are no tears in his eyes, only resolution. There has been enough death already in his entire life to understand its meaning.

- We should move on. - he agrees, first with himself, then with you. All with unspoken words.

There is nothing else to do. Ilesys is dead.

Turning his back to the now fragile body of your death companion, he walks towards the end of the corridor. The door has burst open as soon as the beams faded away. The path is clear.

In front of you, a new room becomes visible. It contains what you have been expecting since the beginning of this mission in the palace: a set of stairs leading downwards, to the vaults of this now cursed place, where the scriptures you will be paid for finding should lay.

There is no point in carrying the body of a fellow comrade. Not yet. You are a warrior. An experienced one. The bodies are not buried until the battle is over. There might be still more enemies to defeat around this place, and carrying a dead weight along the lower levels of the palace will only encumber you. Additionally, if what you were told is true, once the brothers recover the scripture and ownership of the palace, you will always be able to recover Ilesys body.

So now is time to move on. Onward and downward...

A blue light coming straight to me. That was my last memory. After that...darkness.

Where was I? Was I dead? I had never given much a thought to death before, but I certainly hoped there was something else to it than just simple darkness. And silence. That was the worst part. I didn't like it. That emptiness, that feeling of being out there alone, nowhere to be found, not dead nor alive, that complete and utter feeling of helplessness...It would end up driving me crazy. I had no doubt about that. 

But then, something changed. Something broke the darkness, a light, a glimmer of hope. Should I approach it? Was that the entrance to heaven? Or maybe hell? What else could I do? I didn't plan on spending my life, or whatever this was, in that hole of emptiness.

As I come closer, the light becomes bigger until it explodes giving birth to a whole new universe. I try to cover my head with my arms but no life comes to my limbs. I can't feel my body. It's as if it wasn't there. All I can feel is that force. The energy that is puling me, with no mercy, towards the light. Towards that new world. My survival instinct begs me to close my eyes but I can't. I need to see...I need to know where I'm going, what Destiny has planned for me. 

As I travel, all I can think of is "How long?"

Baster gazed at the body on the floor. She thought the girl was the fastest of the trio, seems I was wrong.

She kneeled at her side, Erard doing likewise at the other side. She took her gauntlet off and put her fingers to the soft tissue of her neck. No beat, not a movement. Her chest was immobile, too. No breath was getting into her lungs

Well, shit happens. And usually, for lesser payments than we’ve been promised. A pity it wasn’t in combat, though. It was not the kind of death warrior thought up for themselves, yet any death was just death, she reckoned.

Baster closed Ilesys eyelids before standing up and silently following Erard downstairs.