The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes

"That's the fourth sword!" said Crucis, "We should dig there."

The party of three had already obtained three of the swords buried within the garden. Under Crucis' direction, the Mage DigdugMan had used spells like [Earth Shield] and [Minor Earthen Missile] to raise the soil in areas of the garden without much grass, as Crucis had guessed that these areas were the ones where previous players had dug for swords. Crucis and GemsBond would crouch and scan beneath the soil which DigdugMan had raised away, before the soil returned to its normal position. Once a sword was spotted, the group would move across and begin digging with their hands, and DigdugMan would periodically use [Lesser Whirlpool-Earth] to form a spiralling hole in the soil, making the digging faster.

"After Launce's gift, my spells are much more powerful," said the Mage, who was pleased to see that his [Earth Shield] was now much more large and firm, and hence also drew up more soil from the ground while in use.

"That's because it boosted your INT a lot," said Crucis, "it also increased my DEX, so I guess the main stat of your character class. But I noticed something else, did you notice that there's now a dark glow around your [Earth Shield], like, a smoky dark aura?"

"Oh, yes," came the distracted response, as the Mage opened his Character screen to inspect his new stats.

"Any idea what it does?"

"Look cool, I guess?"

Crucis laughed. "I guess we'll have to wait until the fight with Athur to notice. But it reminds me of a building I heard of, which was a 'Haunted House,' but had no ghosts inside it. It was filled with a thick, dark mist, and the idea was that groups of friends could just walk in and the gas would make them each see their other friends as ghosts or ghastly figures. They could have a sort of DIY horror session. That building was near one of the other starting towns, I think."

"Could be something like that, actually. Maybe it would help give organic special effects during the war he mentioned?"

"Good point. After all, these effects are probably supposed to characterise one side in the war. Launce did mention that he expected their return to result in great suffering, so perhaps they will be at the head of some nightmarish Army that players are expected to fight against?"

"Yes. But seemingly some players can join them, and we will have to. It might be a tough fight."

"We will do what we can."

Crucis was idly digging as he talked, and he felt his fingers brush against worn-out iron. He quickly clawed away the dirt from around the sword, and tugged it out of the soil. He heard the loud sound of an iron wheel turning nearby, and the accompanying sound of a large door sliding open.

"It looks like we've opened Athur's room," said GemsBond.

Crucis walked out of the garden, and onto the remains of the castle's main courtyards. Scanning the few remaining walls, he saw that the large, locked door at the entrance to the throne room, near the back of the castle, had swung open. This room had been gated off, ostensibly for the safeguarding of a historically-important site. Crucis beckoned his companions over to the throne room entrance, where they climbed over some barriers that had been set up in front of the door.

"You sure this is it?" asked DigdugMan, "There are still some barriers."

"Yeah, this is definitely the door we just heard opening," replied Crucis.

As they walked into the room, they saw four small, hollow, cylindrical containers in front of another door, which was grandiose and painted in violet and gold.

Crucis opened one of the cylindrical containers, and placed one of the swords inside. The sword begun to glow.

After the four swords were placed in the four containers, Crucis heard a loud creek as the door in front of them opened, revealing the throne room. It seemed much larger now than it had looked from the outside. At the far-side was a man dressed in red robes, who was facing away from them and seemed to be staring out of a window. Looking carefully, Crucis saw that the man was named [Athur], and was a level 40 boss.

The rest of Crucis' party also noticed, and started to slowly approach the boss. Athur continued to face away, seemingly ignoring them. However, as GemsBond prepared a [Strong blow] from behind the boss' left side, Athur suddenly spun around and swung his blade to parry the attack, then thrust his blade lightly into the Knight's side. GemsBond fell to the ground in pain, at 80% HP. Crucis was surprised to see that Athur's face was skull-like, with black holes in the place of eyes, and lines of shimmering gold and gemstones imbued into the face as if it was a crown.

Athur did not relent after GemsBond fell, but instead stepped forwards and attempted a fierce downwards cut, which the Knight tried to parry. However, the Knight's parry was awkward, and his blade went flying out of his hands. As Athur prepared to capitalise on this, GemsBond scrambled to his feet and attempted to run away. He was felled by a sharp thrust towards the lower back, which reduced him to 55% HP.

Crucis rushed in, and used a [Slash] to distract Athur. He was met with a fierce parry, but what got his attention was that his sword gained a shadowy, smoke-like aura when attacking, that resembled DigdugMan's [Earth Shield]. As DigdugMan also approached the action, Athur waved his hand and flung DigdugMan into a corner of the room, using the unavoidable move [Two by Two]. Crucis guessed that this meant that Athur would only fight two opponents at once. Using [The Empress Card], Crucis tried to trace the [Two by Two] move to see if he could use it, but as he expected the card did not allow him to learn this move.

"Heal Gems," he said to DigdugMan without looking around. The Mage turned to heal GemsBond.

As Athur prepared to strike Crucis from the left, Crucis parried, and then smiled as the grounded GemsBond began to pull at Athur's feet. Taking advantage of Athur's lack of balance, Crucis used [Parry grapple] to shove Athur's sword out of the way before striking at Athur's neck with a [Lunge] that tore through to the bone. Thick, dark smoke like his sword's aura seemed to billow from the wound as he struck. He saw that the boss had been reduced to 90% HP.

As Athur gathered his strength and tried to slash again, Crucis tilted his blade to the left to intercept the blow, then moved it in a twisting motion to slash at Athur's hands. This also easily tore away the skin, revealing finger-bones beneath them. Crucis frowned, then charged forwards and rightwards, past Athur's shoulder, to land a fierce horizontal [Slash] on the boss' neck. Using [Half-swording], Crucis shoved his blade firmly into Athur's neck and felt bones crack beneath it, then pressed the boss backwards until the boss' lack of balance and GemsBond's efforts caused the boss to topple harshly backwards. Crucis swooped downwards as the boss fell, keeping his blade pinned to the boss' neck while half-swording, and felt some clear cracks form in the boss' neck bones after the impact of the fall. The boss was now down to 45% HP.

However, Crucis was surprised when Athur's arm suddenly reached out and shoved him away, and he was surprised at the boss' strength. Athur kicked GemsBond far away, across the room.

"I am Athur, King of Kings," said the boss haughtily. Crucis noticed that the boss' pronunciation of Athur was more like 'Ah-huh-thur,' with a very short 'huh' sound.

"You cannot resist my power," continued Athur, "for it is the power of destiny."

Saying this, he raised his palm towards Crucis, who was struggling back to his feet, and Crucis suddenly went flying backwards until he was pinned to a wall. He realised with alarm that his [Silver Wasp Sword] had got stuck with its blade lodged inside the wall, and could not move. As Athur triumphantly marched forwards to attack, Crucis saw that DigdugMan was trying to form an [Earth Shield] to protect him. However, the Mage's spells seemed to fail.

"Fool! You have not yet seen my - that is, your sorcery cannot resist the power of destiny," thundered Athur, "A great wizard taught me the limits of magic, and you will not defeat me like that in my own throne room."

Athur walked up to Crucis slowly. Crucis quickly scanned the wall and tables next to him, to find anything that he could use as a shield. He saw a few small, gold goblets and red gemstones on the table beside him, alongside a large painting leaning against a wall. The painting was framed in hard wood, and was a portrait of a woman with light-blonde hair that grew black around the edges, whose features seemed to arch upwards with a slightly aristocratic air. A small plaque beneath the painting marked her as the 'Queen,' but while her name clearly began with a 'Gw,' the rest of her name had worn away. As Athur raised his blade to strike powerfully at Crucis, Crucis used his left hand to grab the painting, and shoved it at Athur's sword to deflect the blow. Athur's sword broke through the painting, but the impact was enough to divert his blade harmlessly away from Crucis.

Crucis thrust the top of the painting's hard wooden frame towards Athur's wounded neck, and the impact startled the boss, who suddenly froze up. This gave DigdugMan the time to slink behind Athur, and strike with a firm [Overhead slash] that sent Athur careening forwards drunkenly towards the wall. Crucis grabbed the boss in a [Chokehold], then slammed the boss' face into the hilt of the sword still submerged in the wall at Crucis' side. Athur's head smashed roughly into the sword's hilt, and after this blunt strike the boss fell to the ground like a rock, down to 10% HP. Crucis tugged lightly at his sword, and found that he could pull it out from the wall again.

However, as he looked down at his hand, he was surprised to see that it had turned into an ashen black, scaly hand with long, sharp, curved fingers, and it seemed to billow smoke into the air around it. Looking quickly at his HP bar, he saw that he had acquired a new status effect named [Nightmare]. Checking the details of this, he saw that it reduced the accuracy of his opponent's skills as the opponent lost HP, and increased the accuracy of his own moves. He saw that Athur's blade had fallen harmlessly to the side, and as Athur tried to rise to his feet DigdugMan easily pushed him back down with [Mana Strike]. Seemingly, the Mage could use his spells normally again.

Tentatively, Crucis walked up to the boss and used [Slash]. He saw more smoke billow from the place where his sword struck, and it rose to join a thin wall of smoke that was floating across the throne room. Crucis looked down at his arm again, and saw that by now it all appeared to be covered with black scales. He could feel that his skin was actually still the same as normal, but guessed that the smoke had transformed its appearance.

"Crucis, you look like some sort of demon!" laughed DigdugMan, "Your eyes are even glowing slightly red, and your face is black scales. It's like Venom from Spider-Man, or something. This smoke must work like the haunted house you mentioned." Crucis nodded. The Mage had also transformed slightly, and now seemed to have cat-like claws growing out of the ends of his fingers.

Crucis absent-mindedly thrust at Athur's neck with [Lunge], and felt his sword prick the wounded neck as Athur groaned loudly. As Crucis looked down at Athur again, he saw that his strike had inflicted a debuff on Athur called [Ague], which lasted for 5 seconds and had the chance of sending all of the boss' combat skills into cooldown if the boss used a skill during that time. He hence supposed that the three effects of Launce's bracelet were:

a) a sharp increase in the class' designated main stat. (eg. INT for Mages.)

b) creating a dark aura around attacks, which leads to the [Nightmare] effect as the fight goes on. As the smoke thickens, the [Nightmare] gets worse.

c) chance to inflict [Ague] upon striking the opponent.

Bracelets were typically quite strong, and this one was no exception. He guessed that this is because the game used a wristband on the right hand to let the player access the menu and change settings, so items of a similar kind were designated as able to affect the game on a more fundamental level. The issue was that it was now bound to him, at least until the war which Launce had predicted, and this limited his ability to switch around bracelets to adjust to specific situations. However, at this stage in the game, he figured that the bracelet's effects should still serve him well and Launce had ultimately helped with this offer. The only possible problem would come with the war, when he might have to face formidable opposition.

Smiling, he used [Stealth Cloak] to sneak behind the fallen Athur, who was cowering in a corner of the room, and sprayed [Vile Toxin Gas] over the boss' wounded neck. The boss collapsed to the ground holding his neck, as the wounds spread around the circumference of his neck like a spiderweb. Crucis could almost hear Athus' skin tear as the toxin gas' effect cause splits to appear across the boss' neck. Casually, Crucis walked away from the boss, then cheekily raised his arms and pretended to lunge at DigdugMan while saying, "Boo." The Mage jumped back, visibly startled by seeing Crucis' demonic, frightening form approach him. Crucis laughed quietly.

Soon, they heard a choked cry from.the corner of the room, as Athur died. Crucis was slightly miffed that the boss' drops were mostly equipment for warriors, and had little use for him. He couldn't even reach the Strength requirement for most. As he looked around the room, he saw that the golden decorations and gems had disappeared, along with the painting and other decorations. They were now in a barren throne room.

The three players caught their breath, and headed back to town. As they left the castle ruins, one of the guards spoke up loudly, saying, "Be safe!" DigdugMan turned around to thank the guard. As they walked away from the castle ruins, Crucis couldn't shake the feeling that someone unfamiliar was watching him from near the castle's garden.