Knights Apocalyptica

“She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses,” cried the young Student; “but in all my garden there is no red rose.”

From her nest in the holm-oak tree the Nightingale heard him, and she looked out through the leaves, and wondered.

“No red rose in all my garden!” he cried, and his beautiful eyes filled with tears. “Ah, on what little things does happiness depend! I have read all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of philosophy are mine, yet for want of a red rose is my life made wretched.”

-Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince, and Other Tales (1888, 2nd Era)

“My skin is going to melt off, over and over again, until my body is purified.” Garin leaned back, his mouth agape. After they cut him off from the Goddess' coddling, Dame Morgana had outlined precisely what he should expect. Which almost sounded worse than what Erec had to deal with.

When using his Soul, the fires of it burned away the impurities in his body, and that ‘ash’ or residual remains collected in his stomach for vomiting. For those with an earth aspect soul, the impurities collected in their outer layer of skin. Then, like a lizard, came free again and again in a horrible and fascinating description of a putrid-pus-filled layer of skin. The more she described it, the more he was reminded of those Blister Crawlers he slew with Gwen and Sir Alister.

It wasn’t a pretty image, but luckily this stage of soul development only occurred in the ‘E’ rank, or as Dame Morgana put it, the ‘harmonization preparation process.’

So, while Erec would be puking his guts out to get through it, Garin would shed like a monster.

“I’m out.” Garin declared simply, shaking his head. “I do not want to be free of the Goddess, and I especially don’t fancy having that terror inflicted upon me.”

Dame Morgana pouted at them—then tossed a small crystal at him, hitting him square in the face. The impact of which, thrown by a Knight Commander, had enough power to deck the Initiate and cause him to fall onto the ground flat on his ass.

“Ignorance is not cute.” She declared. “Besides, this ‘Goddess’ doesn’t want you relying on her power. Think of it as a gesture of supreme pity. If you truly worship her, you’d be able to see that her true intention is for you to grow past it. And if you want to learn from me, one of the first things we must do is to prepare your soul to stand on its own.”

Erec pulled Garin back up and let the room lapsed into silence.

His friend, for once, didn’t have anything to say either. Instead, he stared at the crystal Dame Morgana tossed at him.

For Erec, this revelation began to put things in perspective for him. After that fight with the White Stag, he distinctly recalled a woman sitting on a throne. After he came off of it and spent weeks in the temple with the Church afterward, he’d thought it some form of illusion or hysteria after his fight. It didn’t help that the vision was after a battle with a monster that twisted minds.

There was a truth to what she said, which matched what his Blessing confirmed.

This Goddess, if she was a Goddess, desired for him to go his own path. To what end, he couldn’t know. But relying on a power that wasn’t his own didn’t feel right. And now, he knew, this silver fire? It was his, somehow.

“How do you know so much?” Erec asked.

“The world whispers in my ears; all I have to do is listen to the spirits that inhabit it,” Dame Morgana answered readily, giving him too great of a smile. “But, I suppose it might be hard for those without my gift to hear it so eagerly. Therefore, perhaps we should prepare for a spiritual journey—my apprentice is due for one, and you’re already a step ahead. Listening to the spirit's advice is one of the most natural ways to become your own force in this world. I could talk about all this until I’m blue in the face, but I don’t think my words will be enough to explain to Erec what this all means compared to you two seeing it for yourself.”

Erec stared at her. She spoke each word so confidently. What she’d said about souls seemed right, but something about the content of what she said and the almost wishy-washy certainty to it always left him doubtful.

Fuck.

“Damn you!” Garin said, squinting at the crystal. “…Fine. He’s not doing this alone. If the Church will go after Erec, I have no choice but to join him. Even if that means…” He shuddered. “Shedding my skin.”

“Wonderful!” she clapped her hands and smiled. “But I don’t have the ingredients for the ritual. Over the course of the next couple of days, I’ll keep an eye out for peyote. Then we’ll be able to make our preparations!” With that, Dame Morgana stood up and whisked herself away like a merry ghost. Erec watched her leave with horror and awe.

He’d heard about that plant. Dame Juliana made it very clear that while some forms of cacti were edible, ‘peyote’ was not one of them. It was toxic and led to both nausea and hallucinations. She was out of her mind. And now she would force them to partake in drugs for a ritual.

“Goddess, help us,” Garin muttered, clenching the crystal.

They hardly had a moment to dwell in the mystery that was Dame Morgana and all of this nonsense about souls and taking drugs before Olivia walked in.

She, predictably, was quite upset that Dame Morgana came and trampled all over her bed roll. She proclaimed the older woman to be a bad influence on Garin and chided her lack of work ethic—during the scavenging, the Knight Commander had spent the entire time singing and risking their position to any nearby monster. Dame Morgana claimed that since she’d felt the energy of the hierophant in the air, she’d known that her group wouldn’t encounter any significant strife.

It was so typical-out-there Dame Morgana that it only made Erec more nervous about the idea she’d proposed.

Regardless, seeing that Erec was feeling better, Olivia didn’t hesitate to use prayer to heal his wounds. It stung, hurt, and left him feeling drained, but it was better than leaving them open and risking infection.

With that little bit of care and venting done, Olivia pulled Garin away for some alone time at the fires, which suited Erec fine.

After the day he’d had, he was ready to spend the rest of the night alone and to recover.

There was a chore to complete first, but Erec screwed up his face and got to work cleaning out the room he’d been staying in, digging a hole deep in the interior of the building in a patch of rubble and burying the bucket of sickness. He scrubbed his things. By the end of the hour, the only trace of his ‘impurities’ left in his room was gone, giving way to the lingering scent of sage that seeped into everything.

Erec settled into his bedroll and stared at the sky. Then he read some when the sleep failed to come. After that, he spent some time, unable to sleep, pondering deeper thoughts.

Should he thank the Goddess for his survival? The thought, like an instinct, ran through him, but that didn’t feel quite right. The only one who could be thanked for the fact he’d lived another day was as it’d always been: himself for his Strength to push through a moment of life and death and then to thank the people around him who stitched him back together and kept his heart beating after he nearly broke it. Just as his mind finally settled and drifted to sleep, a noise pulled him back from the brink of dreamland.

Reacting purely on instinct, his head popped up, and he grabbed the closest thing to him—his book, ready to smash it on whatever monster dared attack.

Only it wasn’t a monster. A dark-haired girl perched next to him with her head tilted and mouth open. Like she’d been caught doing something embarrassing. Tucked over her side was a bag; filled with bottles of beer, gauze, and a few bandages.

“Enide?!” Erec asked, wincing.

Her eyes widened, and she put a finger to his lips, checking behind her before slipping next to him and whispering. “Hey, do me a favor? Keep it down? Not exactly supposed to be here, alright? Your people locked this place up tight, said none of us were allowed in. On account of y’know…” she gestured towards him. “Though, you’re looking much more chipper than when I saw them dragging you through.”

“Funny, what a bit of healing and…” Erec stopped himself from admitting to the dreadful vomiting. It didn’t seem right to disclose that to her. “…Purification rituals can do.”

“Purification ritual?”

“Uh, nothing to be concerned about. Feeling better, yeah.” Erec squinted at her. “So you used your Divine Talent to slip past Knight Commanders to…”

“Check in on you!” Enide forced her way next to him, slipping into a relatively relaxed posture as she dug out the two bottles she had packed away. “Though, maybe the medicine was a tad overkill, y’know, they didn’t quite explain what was going on, so I got worried.”

“Worried over me?”

“Still owe me questions about Vortex Industries, uh. Yeah, that’s right.” Enide said too fast before taking a knife and jamming the edge under the bottle cap. In a fluid movement, she popped both beers and slid one into Erec’s hand before he could get a word in. “Anyways, how about we ignore the details and celebrate instead!”

“Dear Goddess,” Erec shook his head. “Being around you, sometimes I feel like I’m getting whiplash.”

“Aw, don’t be like that. I'm glad you're doing okay, and the proper way to celebrate a victory is drinking!”

“I didn’t win.”

“You lived, didn’t you?’

Erec stared at the beer in his hand. The bubbles inside were peacefully rising to the surface, joining the bit of foam at the top. Enide was so close to him; he could almost feel her next to him, which did something weird to his heart. Out here, living was a victory, he supposed. That monster may or may not be dead after his and the Duke’s wounds against it, but regardless of its state, he was still breathing.

Wordlessly, he raised the beer in a toast to Enide—and then, with a quick challenge from her, competed over who could chug the whole thing the fastest.

It didn’t take long for her to notice the book lying by him and to pick it up and turn it over and over. A grin on her face. “A book of poems? Where’d you get this?”

“Took it from the Academy’s library. Not exactly supposed to bring it away from the Academy, but well…” Erec shrugged. “This was going to be a long trip, so I grabbed two other books too.” Enide was flipping through the pages, tilting her head as she skimmed the lines.

“Shoot, so the slinger has a reckless streak after all. Never would have figured. Not often I see these; libraries in Vega are shut up tight as a vault, and the Magi have a bounty for books.”

“Think you might be surprised by my, uh, reckless streak. If you don’t get to see books often, feel free to take your time and read through,” Erec fought off a yawn as the alcohol began to hit. Before he knew it, he was resting in his bedroll, Enide not too far away, her eyes rapt with attention as she roamed her way through the book.

Though he didn’t recall asking, at some point, he heard her soft whispering recounting his favorite poem from the lot; afterward, he felt her hand brush against his own.

Then it was dark.

When he woke up to the sun bright above, she was gone. The book was sitting where he’d left it the night before; almost like a ghost, he wondered if she’d been there until he saw the empty bottles in the room's corner.

“Erec!” Boldwick yelled, startling him from the early morning grogginess. “Up! Busy day!”

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