Open Chronicles The Basilicus Keep

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He barely managed to close his eyes in time, before the cavern exploded in blinding light.

Unearthly shrieks of dismay followed. These cries were nothing like the sounds spawned by throat or lungs of the living. Instead, they came out as wet, gurgling yowls with a faint, female undercurrent, as if a voice not of this world forced itself out through their rotten bodies.

The bright flare felt as if it might burn through his eyelids. Daring to blink his eyes open, he found the underdwellers cowering and retreating, their limbs shielding their terrible eyes. At once, he spotted the exit he had been looking for.

This was their chance. Perhaps their only one.

"Follow me!"

Charging for the other end of the cavern, a narrow corridor shot off from this deathtrap of a hall. But it was blocked by a towering figure, rising ten feet above them, bedecked in rusting gear, rotting leather and cleaned bones, all knit together by the same fungi that swarmed the entrance.

It had been too far away to be rebuked by the light. It stared down at Hugo with white, leering eyes.

For a moment, fear gripped his heart. But before it could overtake him, he envisioned the man who had allowed these creatures free reign, and red, burning rage subsumed his cowardice instead. In a roaring battle-cry, he charged the creature, both blades drawn.

DALL·E 2025-02-16 01.05.53 - An oil painting-style artwork of a younger battle-hardened warrio...jpgHis fury caused him to forget his own words of caution to Grul, spearing the creature with both swords, one planted where its heart should be, the other in a burning eye-socket, crashing into the wall together, his swords sinking into softer earth, pinning the creature. Its arms went around him in a sickly embrace, and a cloyingly sweet voice rippled out from its chest:

"You left us, Hugo . . ."

Hugo's enraged eyes flared wider open, peeled by astonishment. Claws sank into his ragged coat on his back. Leaving the swords stuck in the creature, he pushed up a knee between them, then, with his boot planted against it, he kicked himself free of its arms. Claws of bone and thorn ripped through his coat, grazing his leather armour.

The creature's reached out for him, like a mother desperately clawing for her infant, pushing itself and the blades gradually up. Hugo grabbed a third, shorter sword on his back, and with astonishing speed and ferocity, began hacking the restrained creature to bits.

At the end of his work, its torso split for its legs, its dislodged arms wriggling like worms, he stood panting, sweat and filth on his brow. The wound he had inflicted on its stomach revealed something . . . an old and torn gamberson of yellow and green, along with a silver medallion of a cockatrice.

The third blade fell out of his hand, clattering on the ground.

"Darius . . ."

He would recognise these pieces anywhere. The young man-at-arms swam before his vision again; his cocky, wide smile, his large forehead and impish, wide-set, nut-coloured eyes set against a shaggy mane of black hair, arms lazily cupped between his haunches. Wearing this gamberson, his eyes had been so full of life, eager to laugh and quick to join in a round of carousing and banter, always there to drive the jest home. For every scolding or discipline Hugo had given the boy, he had merely grown bolder, more outrageous in his pranks.

But there hadn't been a braver soldier in the Guard than him.

Now, he was reduced to this. A shambling abberration, writhing to touch him as if to remember its former life, its final whisper still lingering around it like an unholy aura. Hugo's jaw quivered, his fury melting before blackest sorrow. He fell to his knee, cradling the silver medallion in his palm - the pride and joy of Darius, seeing himself as a favourite of House Basilicus. Tears streamed down from his eyes, and he pulled up the medallion to let it touch his own brow.

Darius, you bloody bastard. You always strove to get the last laugh, didn't you? Even in death you mock me, though your good-natured smile has rotten away . . .

While Hugo struggled to reconcile himself with the sight before him, the underdwellers worked through their respite, beginning to recover after the blinding light . . .

The narrow corridor loomed before them. A door to salvation - or to their doom?

Grul
 
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Grul followed Hugo as he ran his smaller legs having to work twice as hard to keep up with the humans longer strides. There was a corridor just a few paces away they could make it there they might be safe from these things or at least make it so that their numbers weren't as devastating. That is when one of them seemingly unaffected by the flash of his potion stood in their way. And then it did something unexpected.... It spoke.

It knew Hugo's name and seem to blame it for its current condition, and that seemed to have an effect on Hugo. Yet this didn't stop the man from tearing the thing apart. After the grizzly work was done he stood over the body and seemed to mumble a name though Grul was too busy looking behind them to make sure they didn't get ambushed by the others as they started to recover from The flash.

Grul watch does The wretched things started to creep closer now. He couldn't wait for the human to regain his composure and he knew he couldn't physically move him so he tried the next best thing. He ran for the corridor and as he did he looked behind him and called out to the man.

"Listen, I don't know what's going on but get your ass moving! If you want your revenge you need to be alive to take it!" He called out as he ran past and towards hopefully a safer area. "So hurry up because the others are starting to recover!" And with that he disappeared into the corridor hoping that the human was right behind them.

Hugo Farlance
 
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Grul's rushed words stirred through him. The spell of his past broke and Hugo snapped awake to the present danger.

The goblin was right. They had little time.

He broke the string and brought the medallion with him, rushing to catch up to Grul. The expanse behind them turned a distant memory, as they charged down a winding corridor, following the glow of mushrooms.

If the creatures were in pursuit, they remained far behind. For now, the two cave-walkers had escaped the immediate danger.

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Strange, impossible roots encircled the corridor like a verdant ribcage. The humid air remained and the floor overcrowded with fungi, despite each stubborn step to distance themselves from them. Each touch of a mushroom cap released a cloud of spores. Spores that permeated the air and steadily infiltrated their throats and lungs.

"I should thank you, master Grul. I don't know what you did - but whatever it was, it drove off them 'dwellers like some holy iron branding their backsides." A wistful grin spread across his features. "I don't suppose you carryin' any more of that, eh?"

Grul
 
Grul shook his head in the negative at the humans inquiry about if he had any more bright flash potions. "Sadly no, is that particular potion's ingredients are hard to come by." He said as he looked around the corridor they were in.

The impossible growth, the sheer vitality of the floor here...... No cave system he had ever been in had looked like this. There was definitely something going on. And with the creatures they just got away from that only confirmed his suspicion that this was caused by something more then the mundane.

As they slowly made there way down the corridor now that they didn't hear those things chasing them it gave Grul time to look around and examine really examine what was going on with the plant life here. He'd already gotten one sample from the room before... And so he started taking other ones carefully putting them away in the same empty pouch at his side. Each cutting or shroom that he plucked carefully wrapped in cloth so as not to contaminate the other samples.

"Hugo don't mean to alarm you but there's something..... Odd going on here. This much growth shouldn't be happening in an underground area like this. It's not just fungal growth it's actual plant growth Vines and the like. Then there's those creatures, they seem somehow constructed of this plant matter. I'm not sure exactly what's going on but this overgrowth and those things there has to be a connection."

Hugo Farlance
 
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Hugo grunted, a low drone of a sound, like a beast trapped by bars. Indeed, the stones themselves seemed corrupted by some malignant force. He pocketed Darius' medallion in a pouch near his chest and brushed off rotten vegetation from his uniform.

"Aye, certainly some foul magic a-foot here. You'll find no argument from me on that. But I don't aim for us to linger and find out what it is. The sooner we're through, the better. Come on. It may have changed with all this flora, but I think I recognise this tunnel."

He trudged forward, the bitter tone of his voice replacing his wallowing grief. Hatred fuelled his stride, keeping despondent defeat at bay. All he needed to do was to remember the man to blame for all this.

While Grul matched his stride, soft whispers reached the pointy ears of the goblin. Coming from behind and further on, as if the darkness itself muttered, tasting his name, not with words, but with shivers through bone, goosebumps on the flesh.

Grul, Grul . . . Welcome Grul . . . We love you, so very much . . . Stay here . . . Stay and rest . . .
 
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Grul stopped for a moment and cocked his head to one side as these whispers came to him. They were strange and ethereal and felt wrong. As if they weren't speaking to him but violating him with their presence. He shook his head trying to dislodge The whispers and started to cast his eye about to see if there was something in the shadows of this corridor.

"Hugo.......... I don't wish to alarm you but I don't think we're alone and I'm not talking about those creatures."

Grul said this as he took a few steps to keep up with the human and make sure they weren't too far apart. He kept his eyes now not on the human and the path ahead but behind in the shadows around. And when he couldn't find anything there he reached inside himself for the power that flowed through him. He had cast the force bolt spell before but he still had enough magic in him for a few more if he needed to but he didn't cast anything yet.

"I'm hearing whispers in the dark...... It knows my name."

Hugo Farlance
 

No answer was forthcoming for Grul. The goblin had taken his eyes off Hugo for a moment to observe the darkness. And the darkness had gleefuly snatched his sole companion away.

Laughter could almost be heard, as if the earth itself mocked him. Words about to form, like unreleased whispers, died before they could manifest. But the tension of held, unborn speech boomed in his ears.

The corridor stretched along endlessly. The fungi crowded over him, flooding the air gaily with spores. Every breath a taxing labour. The air as heavy and hot as a forge. Prickling thorns and vegetation, scratching feet.

Then, in the lights ahead, a figure. A woman - long, dark hair flecked with gray, standing, twisted and bent as if looking for something on the ground, or as if her wrists were held up by invisible shackles. White, lidless eyes wrenched up, staring at Grul in a grotesque fashion. Still at a distance. Her face lit by bioluminscent mushrooms.

Helen. His mentor from the Crossroads Mire. Looking so lost. So feeble and old. Completely different from her brusque, confident manner, venerable and feverish. She reached out a shaking hand for him, beckoning him. rapid and unharmonious.

"Grul . . . Come here, please! Help me, Grul. I am trapped. Please, don't leave! Stay here . . ."

The power within him sensed a presence nearby, suffusing the very earth of the corridor. A presence as old as moss and rot, a regal figure with a crown of fungi, seeking to emerge from the vegetation itself. A queen, his instincts told him. One holding stewardship over that which lives and dies, that rots and grows in the soil.

A combination of Grul's arcana and herbalism granted him an answer, horrid and stark. She was inside him, now. Allowed in through the door of his lungs, her spores steadily growing from within.

Grul
 
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Grul's eyes widened as he realized what was happening... That shock quickly turned to anger as he continued to look at the twisted form of his mentor. It wasn't an explosive anger though it was a slow cold anger that's simmered instead of engulfed. He had no other thing to stare at to address this thing so he looked at his mentor.... At the twisted falsehood that was her.

"You really don't understand people do you? You think this will break me.... That this will cause me to do something reckless or plunge me into despair. But this has just convinced me of one thing, and one thing only..... You need to be destroyed."

As he said this he reached inside of him for his power which was slightly diminished from the spell he had cast before and the light he had been using. He stared at the thing that was wearing the face of his mentor and he raised his staff took a deep breath feeling this thing inside him slammed the staff into the ground and as he did breathed out shimmeringly hot air. He would normally not use this spell because it was unnecessarily flashy and took more power than was needed for the same effect other spells had. He took another deep breath and this time he felt the air in his lungs ignite the spell he casted keeping his lungs throat in the mouth safe as he exhaled and breathed out a jet of fire towards the thing. The spell known as dragon's breath ate through his supply of power quickly.... He'll probably not be able to cast a spell of this magnitude again until he's rested properly. He didn't care though...Grul only cared about one thing burning this thing in any way he could.

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The flames washed over the abberration, and it shrieked with an agony unknown to mortals. The flames purged away the skin and bone from this doppelganger, revealing nothing but hollow vegetation, mimicking a human frame.

It twisted and writhed, not in any manner known to a being of flesh and blood, jerking and convulsing erratically. Like a bundle of agitated snakes, it came shambling forward, reaching for Grul, as if to claim its vengeance. But then, as its legs scorched away, replaced by a skirt of twisting and writhing plant matter, it stopped.

Hollow eyes now glaring with his own fire, it straightened, standing tall, staring down at him. While no eyes rested in its disentigrating skull, Grul could sense a presence behind its gaze - heavy, ancient, and dignified, even in the midst of its own destruction.

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It pointed at him even while its arm turned into a memory of cinders, its finger of damnation evaporating, scorched particles mingling with the spores in the air.

" Hard as black ice, boiling like flame trapped in glass."
"When the time comes, you will betray him."
"You may as well attempt to destroy the earth."
" Such delightful vigor."
"We taste your anger, little one."
"Wiser than your companion."
"Or he will betray you."
"More foolish than your kin."
"It is sweet succour against our tongues."

The voices seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. They babbled, cackled, shouted, whispered and muttered all at once, muddling over one another, with little sense or rhyme, as if whatever spoke felt no shackles toward rules of speech or sanity. The only consistency remained their feminine quality, along with a flurry of wild emotions, each voice seeming to compete with one another to finish their sentence in full.

Then, silence. Ash in the air. The explosive magic of Grul had quieted this avatar of depravity, for a spell, and cleared a path of charred fungi.

Distantly, a weak echo of Hugo's voice could be heard - a stark contrast in comparison, singular and gripped by mortal caution. The corridor split into two paths further beyond.

" Grul? Where are you?"

Grul

 
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Grul fell to his knees as the figure finished it's prophecy? Taunt? It's statement. He breathed heavily trying to catch his breath as he felt as if he had been punched in the gut from the amount of power I spell like that took. His body was covered in a cold sweat.... His hands shook and his vision blurred slightly but he still got up to his feet.

He couldn't tell which path ahead of him led to the man who was calling out to him.... So instead of relying on sight Grul closed his eyes and let the voice decide his path. He chose the one he thought he heard the voice coming from. The thing had said either he or Hugo would betray each other but he didn't put much stock in parasites such as that.... Even a queen of a parasite is still a parasite.

As he followed the corridor he thought Hugo's voice had called down his leg still shook slightly and he still breathed heavily. His body ached and he felt every single one of his years of life.

"Hugo is that you? Or is it that fucking thing playing tricks on me again?"

Hugo Farlance
 
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Grul found Hugo at the left turn, by a flickering light. The warm glow of the torch touched upon Grul's closed eyelids, urging him to see again. Unshaped earth gave way to worked stone, and a section of collapsed ceiling and broken, rotting timbers mingled with the touch of fungi. Sparse signs of civilisation, clashing with the border of unnatural vegetation.

On this border Hugo lingered, back against the wall, rubbing his eyes with his arm. It seemed Grul was not the only one to have suffered visions - or whatever they had been.

"I'm tempted to ask the same, Grul. Starting to worry here your words be true. One moment you're gone, and the next, I see--" Hugo stopped himself, unwilling to give credence to the machinations of their shared torturer. "Pfh. Curses and bones. Some demon be plaguing us, that's certain. But how do you kill something like that?" He strode to his lighted torch, gripping it briskly from its sconce. Lighting the way ahead, the corridor continued with hills of rubble, and a section where such a large part of the ceiling had given way that it led to a grand hole. The piles of stone inadvertantly served as an unreliable staircase to this entrance. "There is our way out. That would be the dungeon bowels of the castle, I'm sure."

He was about to move forward, but stopped. Staring down at the back of his own hand, where he felt something.

"What in the sardin' frog's ass--"

He pulled off his glove with his teeth, glaring down at his own hand, incensed at the strange feeling pressing against his glove.

A great white pimple sprouted from the back of his hand, right on top of a throbbing, blue vein. But this pimple carried a small mushroom cap, bursting from his flesh like it was rich soil.

Hugo's chest petrified. What was that? It was . . . growing out of him. His shocked gaze swiveled
down to Grul, his face a white death-mask. His casual words belied this expression.

"Well, then. Reckon we're running out of time."

He cut off the growth with his blade, his hand bleeding profusely. Stopping the blood and the sight by pulling back on his glove, he hefted sword and torch, leading the way.

Together, they could now climb the old, sapped tunnel below the castle's walls, reaching into its deep cellars and dungeons. But something would enter with them, and like unwilling pack-mules, they carried this nefarious seed.

Grul