It did not take long for Riven to discern that whatever this was did not belong to nature. Swathes of cloth-like material covered a shape ostensibly human, but its style of motion suggested nothing of the sort. This abomination crept along the lake floor, pulling itself along with one arm, the other dragging along lifelessly at its side. Its legs barely moving, it showed no inclination to haste.
There were no air bubbles rising to the surface.
Sydney frantically yelled to get She’s attention, his voice raw with urgency. But, below, her focus was impenetrable. She deftly removed the remaining obstacle to her efforts and, with an almost reverent pause beforehand, lifted open the chest.
The heavily ornamented interior was in stark contrast to the utilitarian outer shell. Where the outside was plain, weathered wood, the inside was richly appointed, lined with delicate inlays and intricate carvings that gleamed with a life the exterior had long forgotten. The sight was so at odds with the trunk’s humble façade that it seemed almost like an illusion.
The chest was home to a collection of riches, the treasure surprisingly intact beneath the lake’s surface. Coins glinted in the dim light, their surfaces touched only by a delicate patina of age - bronzed edges on silver and a deeper, almost amber glow on the gold. Some lay scattered, others carefully arranged.
Among the coins rested other artifacts - a necklace with beads that retained their luster, a string of pearls, remarkably unscathed, and a handful of rings, their gemstones clouded yet still vibrant in color. A dagger rested atop the pile, its blade darkened by the water but still smooth, its edge nearly as sharp as the day it was hidden.
Her heart danced even as her lungs grew heavier. A mirror affixed to the inner lid, its silvered glass tarnished but still catching slivers of light, doubled the treasure - and her excitement.
But then, out of the corner of her eye, growing clearer in the reflected watery gloom, was a horrifying sight. And, before she could wish it away, the image grabbed her from behind, plunging her into the scattering coins and shattering glass.
As she clasped her hands around the vice that sought to expel the remaining air from within her, through the haze of blood already forming, she saw in the mirror fragments a sea of treasure, several Shes, but one death - materialized and come to collect.
Sydney shifted from one foot to another, torn between jumping in to help and staying on shore. Riven experienced no such struggle, but still stood affixed with amazement - or was it dread? - unable to tear his eyes from the scene below. But it was Aelfric who experienced a more poignant kind of terror.
He stood by the entrance to the cavern, vaguely aware from the reactions of his companions that something very wrong was taking place below the depths. But here at the surface, before his very eyes, the unthinkable unfolded.
His heart stuttered as the bones littered before him began to shift, a soft rustle that grew louder and more sickening. One by one, the skeletal remains creaked and groaned, clicking together as if returning to some dark, ancient duty - each rib, each finger bone, remembering what it had once been.
Aelfric’s breath faltered, his scream barely a whisper. He watched one skeleton reach down, its clawed fingers closing around a rusted sword. Having retrieved the blade, its skull twisted fully around, empty sockets settling on him, this blasphemous scene somehow becoming even more unnatural.
He took half a step back, the monster’s eyeless, impossible stare both repelling and holding him fast. His consciousness fluttered. He reached for his dagger, but his hand found only space, and he faintly remembered it sat on the other side of his belt.
As though feeling a change in the air, Riven turned. But nothing he had ever experienced prepared him for this spectacle.
Before him had gathered the risen dead - five skeletons with rusted swords in hand. They had no distinction and stood uniform, united in an unholy purpose. Lacking any evidence of what held them together - clearly animated by some dark magic - their joints spasmed grotesquely, mocking the gods and nature.
Without taking his eyes off the undead, Riven swiped at Sydney with his left hand. Feeling Riven brush his shoulder, Sydney turned. A shocked expression dawned across his face, his mind torn between the appalling scene he had just witnessed and the impossibility of what stood before him now. Death had come to claim them. Not as an unseen hand or a cold breath, but as forgotten souls rising in the dark.
The skeletons advanced, their skulls fixed on Sydney and Riven with a hunger that had waited decades to be sated. Their bony fingers twitched against their pommels, creating a steady, eerie clinking as they methodically approached.
Not wanting to wait a moment longer, Sydney took the fight to the bony fiends. His sword swiped in long arcs towards the creatures, who jumped backwards from his blade like marionettes recoiling from unseen strings. Two of them completely ignored him and continued towards Riven, who tightly held his quarterstaff in both hands.
One of the skeletons stayed apart from the others. Slowly turning, its arm limp at its side, it approached Aelfric, bony feet obscenely creaking as the abomination drew closer, sword dragging across the cavern floor.
Meanwhile, at the bottom of the lake, She wrestled with her mortality. Her lungs ached. Her face pinched where it had been rammed into the mirror, the monstrosity pressing her into the trunk. In spite of the pain and fear, part of her was aware of the cruel irony that her end would come, in essence, choking on treasure.
Her legs tired from kicking, her elbows hurt from thrusting them back into the creature. She attempted to pry the bulging, swampy fingers from her throat to no avail. Her mind raced. Her heart trembled. Nothing seemed to affect this calloused, relentless agent of death.
Moving her hand across the contents of the trunk, it instinctively jerked back as she felt a cut.
The dagger.
Each second held its breath as her lungs burned. She strained to concentrate. Retracing her hand’s path, she commanded herself not to recoil as she blindly dug for the blade, slicing her fingers again. Fumbling around, she grabbed the handle.
And thrust the dagger backwards into the monster.
Above, Sydney struggled to contend with two skeletons. Just as one flinched away from a cut that nearly connected, he spun to parry an incoming strike from the other. Striving to even the odds, he swung at the creature’s sword, sending it clattering to the ground. Quickly, he stepped on the detached blade and kicked it backwards, sending it sinking into the lake.
He feinted at the first skeleton. It jumped back exaggeratedly. Then, in a flash, he thrust his sword through the other’s chest - right where its wicked heart would have been.
The skeleton looked down at the blade. Then at Sydney, as though taunting him. Sydney’s sword rattled against ribs, an empty noise that only seemed to embolden the creature. It clawed at Sydney, the tearing of fabric and skin sharpening his stunned awareness. He sliced at the creature again. His sword struck the fiend’s jaw, dislodging a chunk of it, several teeth clinking off of the stone floor.
The creature stood still momentarily, its bony fingers curling, its remaining jaw clinking - completely unaffected by Sydney. The other, as though encouraged by Sydney’s failure to harm its comrade, drew closer, its gait now more purposeful.
At the same time, two others pressed in on Riven, trapping him between them and the lake. They inched closer, swords pointed, jaws open. Having watched Sydney briefly, Riven feinted at one. He got the reaction he was hoping for: that excessive backwards hop. Seeing this, he suddenly and decisively thrust his staff through the other’s skull. The end of his staff protruded through it, pebbles dribbling from its shattered orifices.
At the other end of the cavern, Aelfric saw what had happened. Even with a skeleton encroaching, the sound of its dragged weapon grating on stone, Aelfric knew that that was not a normal strike. At the moment of impact, Riven’s staff had turned to stone, the magic bolstering the thrust.
An idea sparked in his mind. In the closing seconds with death approaching, Aelfric put his dagger away and grasped his torch with both hands. And concentrated.
Life or death would be determined by whether he had learned his lesson.
Aelfric closed his eyes, clutching the torch as if it were his last tether to the world. The sounds around him dulled - the clattering of bone, the scraping sword, the steady rasp of his own breath. All fell away, swallowed by the single, slender flicker of fire held within his grasp.
He remembered Riven’s voice, the quiet words spoken beneath the canopy of the Whispering Wood: “It is not just flames, but a part of you. Will it to move.”
He opened his eyes briefly.
The skeleton approached, its skull fixed on him in pallid determination. It slowly lifted the sword off of the ground, raising it above as it persisted in its deliberate charge.
Know that it is a part of you and command it to move, as you would your arm.
Aelfric took a deep breath, his fingers trembling against the rough wood of the torch. He pictured the flame in his mind, a fragile spark dancing in the dark. His heart beat steady and slow, each pulse pushing his will outward, feeding the timid flame, asking it to grow. Please, he thought, just this once, hear me.
The fire flared - a steady bloom, like a flower unfolding its petals, responding to his call. Warmth seeped into his fingers, then surged up his arm, wild and alive, painting his face in an amber glow.
Not impressed, the skeleton continued to advance. Aelfric stretched his arm forward, offering the creature to the flames as one may a sacrifice to a brutal god.
The fire leaped at it with the eagerness of a starved hound loosened from its chain. The flame caught, spreading across bone, consuming the brittle form with crackling fervor.
The skeleton stood in writhing agony. Its weapon dropped to the floor as the unholy creature convulsed, thrashing about like an obscene torch, otherworldly anguished cries echoing forth, as though from its soul, trapped in an eternal fiery abyss.
The other undead froze. They turned immediately, their skinless faces looking almost concerned at the other’s haunting, desperate cries. Weapons and claws clenched, they moved as one, appreciating the gravity of this new threat.
The burning corpse lay before them, its last vestiges of undeath disintegrating into smoke. The flames seemed to reflect off the eyeless sockets of the approaching creatures. The fire in their eyes locked on Aelfric, standing at the entrance to the cavern - smoldering evidence in hand.
Sydney charged from behind the fiends, landing a number of strikes at an advancing skeleton. His blade chipped off several bony bits. But the creature continued on. Mustering all his strength, Sydney swung at its ankle. The blow severed foot from leg.
He held his breath and prepared to strike again. Then, in awe, he stopped.
The skeleton continued onwards. Leaving the foot behind, it hobbled forth, alternating between the soft rattle of foot bones and the dull thud of the ankle bone landing on stone.
Riven dashed forward and, imbuing his staff again, slammed another undead from behind, loose stones bursting in the air. The impact shattered its back and it collapsed. From its prone position, it crawled forth, pulling itself along on its elbows.
He hustled over, panting. Standing over the crawling abomination, Riven delivered a final strike, crushing its skull, its twitching claws and feet curling into death.
Aelfric’s heart sank as he watched the stoic, relentless march of death. One creature approached almost solemnly, sword in hand. The other followed, hobbled but unyielding, claws grasping at the air as though pulling itself along the darkness. He cast a glance at his torch, its dying embers fading.
Backing away, he felt the incline of the tunnel behind him. He could escape, if he had a working torch, but that would do no good. These horrors would follow him - walking, hobbling on one leg, or pulling themselves along the ground. Unwavering in their pursuit, their purpose undying.
Meanwhile, in the murky depths, She swam towards the surface, legs straining, arms reaching upwards, as though climbing a sheer mountain. The sun’s glare drew closer, the air she needed just beyond the lake’s thin skin.
At the moment she was to break through the surface, she felt a jerking sensation pull her below, sending a jolt of pain through her hip. Sinking through the swirling silt, her lungs feeling like they were about to collapse, she came face to decayed face with the sunken, hateful, rotting monstrosity. The dagger still embedded in its shoulder, it extended its arms to grab her again, intent on wedding her to its grisly fate.
Her consciousness flickering, no longer concerned with rational decisions, she leaned into the monster. Wrapping her arms around it, she pulled the dagger out.
And stabbed it.
Again. And again. And again, her lungs heaving with each exertion, dried blood flaking off of the creature’s frayed wrappings. It staggered back, its mouth open in a silent scream.
She gathered all her might and buried the blade in the creature’s skull. Then, closing her eyes, she kicked off of the ground, half-expecting the creature to grab her into an eternal embrace. She swam upwards, kicking with all her might, knowing that her lungs would burst but determined that she would not suffer the indignity of her consciousness dimming in the clutches of that drenched demon.
And then, when she least expected it, she burst through the surface of the lake, her lungs hungrily taking in air. Clinging tightly to the stone, as though it would be of any help in resisting the creature from the depths, she gasped to catch her breath, grateful for each one she drew before the monster would pull her back to die below.
And when that moment did not come, she lay against the cold stone, each breath pulling her further from the lake’s chilling grasp. Her hands clutched the rock, her fingers digging into its solidity, her wits returning.
But the calm was brief. Ahead, chaos unfolded in firelight and shadow. Aelfric stood at the cavern’s edge. Closing in on him were creatures seemingly exiled from death. Unbelievable, she would have thought, if she hadn’t witnessed their kin in the depths below.
That thought sparked something in her, a returning dread, and she pulled herself onto the stony surface, apparently safe from one nightmare and now waking into another.
Then something shifted in the air. She felt it, almost instinctively - the subtle pull, a ripple that moved through her being.
Ahead, one of these creatures lay burning. Aelfric stood motionless, gazing at it, the fire reflecting in his eyes.
Then, inexplicably, the flames leapt.
The fire laying claim to the burning creature lunged outward, stretching and curving through the air like a living tendril, hungry and eager. It found the other skeleton, closing in on Aelfric.
In an instant, it ignited, flames consuming its dry frame with a fierce glow. She watched, transfixed, as fire blossomed from bone, branding them with their rightful destiny. It collapsed and clawed forward, in denial of its own destruction, a torch of fury and futility.
The burning skeleton writhed, its bony fingers stretched outward as though grasping for something, perhaps salvation. As the second hobbled by, the prone one’s claws extended in blind, instinctual desperation. The fire leapt eagerly from one corpse to the next, a voracious spark transferring in an absent heartbeat. The second fell onto the first, intertwined in an eternal fiery embrace, their limbs spasming as the fire consumed them.
She caught herself, breathless. It wasn’t just fire - it was something bound to him, an extension of the boy himself. She could see it in the way his eyes shone in the blaze, in the way his body held steady against the darkness.
For a fleeting moment, she understood the quiet power in him. More than the seed of a monarch, he was a spark - small and fragile, but capable of setting the night aflame.
This concludes our Pirate Cave adventure - but what is in store for our heroes next? Has She turned a corner? And how will Riven deal with her presence in the group? And what does Sydney think about things? Feel free to drop your theories in the comments section!
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