Vraxious- Sanctuary

  Slev’s nearly unconscious form screamed soundlessly as his face was pushed against the boundary. A shadowed thing within the dark pressed its own face right up against the other side, its jaw unhinging wider and wider as its teeth clacked against the barrier. “Like I said! What the fuck is this? So...I think the blood loss is going to get you in a second. I'm going to drop this nice little bracelet here. When you revive again, put it on, and you might live long enough to answer some questions.”

  Vrax lightly tossed a mark of Vurune a few feet away from himself; if the shit tried anything, he would just activate his stigmata, and it would rot right off his damn wrist. Slev tumbled back into reality on his hands and knees, scurrying up and grabbing the mark in sheer desperation. His shaky hands put it onto his wrist as fast as he could manage.

  Duchess huffed in annoyance, obviously still considering just skewering him. Vrax gave her a hard look. “If he tries anything stupid, go for it, but I’ve been patient enough, and I want some goddamn answers!” Slev looked up from his seat on the ground; he was heaving ragged breaths with a slightly wild expression.

  “Ask your fucking questions and then let me out of this hellpit!” Slev said venomously. Oh good, his mind is still fine; he's just absolutely done accruing a lifetime of trauma in one really shitty afternoon.

  Vrax wanted to shake his fist at the man. “That, I keep asking what the hell is that, and those!” Vrax gestured with both hands as clearly as he could at the forms that were now swarming towards the border where they were standing.

  Slev's breath hitched. “There are things worse than the dark gods, hungering things that lurk beyond the embrace of our deity’s domains. Most don’t have names, but they always want one thing to consume. To snuff out the annoying sparks that are our souls and the light of the gods and render all to peace and shadow. The only people who ever encounter them outside of rifts are those fools who project their minds across realms, until now, I suppose…”

  Vrax raised an eyebrow. “They can’t be that nebulous; they can die like anything else, right?”

  Slev looked panicked. “You don’t get it; they devour souls. They shouldn’t be here. The only place you would ever see these things is in the darkest fool of a cult’s lair right before they all disappear mysteriously. The king himself has been squashing any rifts they sneak through. They are a threat not just to your life but to any chance at an afterlife. They are legion, and those are but a small fragment of something unfathomable. They are known as the tranquility in the dark.”

  Vrax sighed. “Well, good to finally have a name, even if it is kind of dramatic. I get it; they eat souls. That's honestly pretty unsurprising. There are way worse versions or species than the weird fuckers knocking on my wall, also unsurprising. But it sounds like you know of them in a more existential dread kind of way than any real practical knowledge. And if the king fights them, that means they can be slain or at least banished.” Vrax frowned for a moment.

  He walked up to the barrier and pushed on it. “Hey, Duchess, can you let one in real quick? You can eat it if you want.” Slev’s screaming interrupted Vrax.

  “Did you not hear a word I just said? We will both die! And not just in here, erased best case, consigned to an existence with our soul slowly being eroded inside a nightmare for eons, worst case!!”

  Vrax gestured at Duchess. “So far she’s fine, and she keeps popping out there to hunt them when she gets bored of the things in here...besides...we won’t know until we try, and I happen to have some very soul-filled bait here other than myself for once.” Slev’s face twisted between hate and fear and settled into shock as Duchess’s eldritch scrawling lit up with a light that shouldn’t exist, and she pressed against the boundary with her claw. There was a tearing noise that sent a tremble deep through something metaphysical inside them, and the barrier was breached.

  The closest shadowy figure stumbled to the tear, squeezing themselves into the opening, which was already sealing itself shut again. Duchess grabbed it by the face and helped it through, tossing it to the ground a few strides from all of them. “The darkness hungers, but so do I…..” The voice was that of the mad noblewoman spilling from Duchess as she sinuously curved her body towards the rising figure.

  The tranquility was a deranged thing. Roughly in the shape of a man with flesh of shadow that writhed under the pressure of the reality Vrax’s sanctum cast upon it. Every part of it struggled to maintain its shape. Fingers would grow too long before reeling in; its face would implode inward before wrapping back around to imitate a horrific farce of the humanity before it. There were two features that didn’t shift with the rest of its form. The long blades of dripping shadow protruding from its forearms and its mouth with no end that greedily gulped down the traces of life around it and seemed to feed into the abyss itself.

  It was unsettling how everyone of Vrax’s and Duchess’s movements seemed to ripple on the thing’s flesh as if their very motion was anathema to it. Vrax circled wide around the side of it; every step he took pulsed across it. It unhinged its jaw, spreading it impossibly wide as it stared at Slev, who was cursing up a storm and folding Vrax’s sanctuary next to him into a sharpened bulwark.

  Hoooollyyy shit, this is fucked up, but let's see how bad it really is. Vrax focused his predator's gaze on the abomination. There was a momentary hitch, like the system didn’t have plans for a mortal viewing one of these so openly, and then its true name was laid bare to him. [Tranquil Lesser Scavenger Tier-1 ](lvl44) [Threat: Moderate/Existential]. Oh psshh, we can totally kill that. Don’t love that it seems like the bottom-of-the-barrel version of them and is still that high a level.

  Duchess and the scavenger moved at the same time, the scavenger bolting straight for Slev, unhinged jaw clacking madly and bladed arms outstretched. Duchess leapt past it, flicking her tail at a leg; the blow cleaved straight through the ankle, and the creature fell into a tumble as its stub hit the grass. Oh, that wasn’t so … The creature's entire body reformed in a bizarre display like billowing shadow; it was suddenly on its feet and staring at Duchess.

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  Then, without turning, its entire form billowed sideways straight at Vrax. What the fuck! He leapt backward, but it just jittered forward farther before exploding from the cloud of shadow, both blades madly slashing into his chest, raining dizzying blow after blow. The ground around them slagged as his armor struggled to consume the surroundings fast enough to power his shield. Vrax danced back, timing his steps so that the rain of blows started just missing him, the creature overcommitting to every attack. By the time he stepped under a blow, past it, and made some breathing room, there was a corridor of rot nearly twenty strides long he had fled through.

  I would be flat out dead if my armor hadn’t had fuel. That fucker hit me nearly a dozen times. Vrax didn’t get the chance to formulate a grand plan; things went downhill again. It billowed towards him in sharp, short bursts, popping out to slash and then apparating into a cloud of darkness again. At this point Duchess was even having a hard time getting ahold of the elusive foe, only managing one solid claw rake along its back. Vrax landed a smite square in its chest in exchange for a savage blow across his helm that carved a furrow after blasting through his shield.

  The smite didn’t rot away a chunk of it so much as where his magic touched was unmade, punching a clear furrow through to the other side of where its collarbone should be. The scavenger shrieked and swept over Vrax, reforming behind him, holding him tight in a dreadful embrace, maw opened wide over his head. Vrax gasped as it started drawing something from inside him; a white shimmering thing beyond essence was dragged out of him. Vrax felt his limbs deaden and grow cold as part of his soul was drawn into its mouth.

  The scavenger was suddenly ripped away from him in a maelstrom of tendrils. Sunshine's ever-changing form dug into it as its tendrils whipped it from side to side along the ground. The creature billowed away, attempting to escape the nightmare that was eating it piece by piece. It failed wherever it ran to; sunshine threw itself after it in a never-ending hateful storm of gnashing teeth and ever-sprouting thorns, completely ignoring the wounds it received in its single-minded pursuit.

  Finally Sunshine's savagery began slowing the creature; its billows became shorter and shorter as it spent more time corporal, being eaten chunk by chunk. It stayed psychical for one moment too long and was beheaded by Duchess at the same time Sunshine stuffed its headless corpse into its maw, tendrils slashing wildly in its own mouth to mulch the annoying prey.

  Vrax staggered under the wave of essence that hit him; it was unlike anything he had experienced before, more like drinking straight from the tap of reality than any normal wave of power. The waterfall filling his essence lake in the distance suddenly gushed essence downwards. A devourer playing in the previously gentle falls was ripped from the sky and dunked into the essence lake.

  It rose from the water looking like a soaked, disgruntled cotton ball. It let out a coo of displeasure and unfolded its face to wring the water dry before grumpily stabbing at the now coursing waterfall a few times.

  There was a moment of stillness as Duchess let out a low, mimicked chuckle and Slev let out a noise like a deflating balloon. “What the fuck was that!!! What is wrong with you, this place? What fucking god are you even a paladin for? I want out. I quit. Let me leave. I'll quit the fucking inquisition; just let me the fuck out before you let another one of those things in just to see if you can kill it, you absolute fucking menace.” Vrax raised his eyebrows at the sheer desperate force of Slev's shouting.

  “Calm the fuck down, man. I don’t even think that thing was the worst thing I’ve fought this month.” Vrax scolded, and Slev sagged behind his cover, looking expectantly at Vrax.

  “What now…?” He asked weakly, obviously afraid of the answer.

  Vrax gave a very, very menacing laugh as he pointed towards the boundary. “Well, obviously, we go take a quick peek.” Slev tried to bolt and was immediately Tackled by Vrax, who got ahold of him by the back of his jerkin. Slev spun, placing a hand on Vrax with a look of hope.

  The world fell out from under Vrax as he was unceremoniously spat back into the real world. He struggled out of the bush he was lying face first in, whirling to find Slev already ten strides away at a dead sprint. “Don’t you fucking run from me! You wanted into my sanctuary so badly! Guess what? We are going back. I need some fucking bait!” Vrax sprinted after him; Slev was either surprisingly fleet-footed or powered by sheer adrenaline because Vrax was having a hard time catching him.

  Jonathan stepped out of the tavern door, looking at them as they ran by with a cocked eyebrow. “Help me catch him!” Vrax shouted at Jonathan as they sprinted by.

  “Why!?” Jonathan called back, jogging to not lose sight of the two as they ran at a dead sprint down the street.

  An entire planter box hit Slev from the side like a ballista bolt at a potentially lethal speed, exploding in pottery and a small puff of blood. Slev hit the road face first and slid through the muck for a few feet before coming to a whimpering stop. Torvald stood to the side looking extremely pleased with himself, already picking up another projectile in case he needed to hit him again.

  Slev started bargaining before Vrax even reached him. “Literally anything—I’ll be your double agent, I’ll report troop movements. I am not going to lose my fucking soul to your insanity!!I’m a member of the Inquisition; I know so goddamn much!” Vrax slowed. Well, shit, if he isn’t lying, that is a hell of an advantage.

  Jonathan looked between the two of them in concern. “The fuck did you do to the new stable boy?”

  “He’s not a good guy; he’s with the fucking church!” Vrax said in exasperation.

  Jonathan looked unconvinced. “With you I’m certainly not taking anything for granted, man; you feed people to hell dragons.”

  “Oh, shut the fuck up, go get a class change, and become a damn adventurer like you obviously were meant to be.” Vrax grumbled at the farmer; he looked completely untouched in the last battle, where Vrax looked like he got whaled on by a few hammers and buried alive.

  Jonathan put his hand up in frustration. “It’s not that fucking easy, man! It's a large fortune if you can even get an audience. The only way my dumb ass is going to get to actually use the skills I've spent my life honing is if I get a fucking divinely granted class or become a goddamn king's guard! Fat fucking luck of either of those things happening! Jonathan was surprisingly passionate in his outburst, looking slightly embarrassed afterwards.

  Vrax could fucking feel Torvald’s head turn towards him with a shit-eating grin before he walked closer and addressed Jonathan, “Wait, Kingsguard is a granted class?” He asked with what could be described as malicious curiosity.

  Slev tried to interject, but Torvald just slapped a hand over his mouth. “If you ruin this for me, I’m feeding you to Vrax.” Torvald whispered to Slev excitedly waiting for Jonathan to answer.

  “Uhh yeah, kings can grant a select few people a special class; it’s the only other way I know of beyond gods or paying a dragon’s hoard to have a Soul Weaver let you start again.” Jonathan said it almost absentmindedly, like it was something he had thought of so often it was simply a rote response.

  “Isn’t that fucking fascinating!” Torvald said with a massive smile, staring straight at Vrax and over-enunciating every word.

  You traitorous hunk of muscle and ego, yes, we need allies, but fucking anyone other than him! He almost killed me as a damn farmer. With a combat class, he would probably be as bad as you! Vrax just stayed silent as Jonathan looked at the bizarre wordless exchange in front of him in confusion.

  “Do, do you guys know another way? Or any sovereigns that are recruiting?” He asked with almost a heartbreaking amount of hope. “At this point I’d literally swear to serve anyone to get a fucking class change.”

  [Ravenous Grove King’s Guard Oath Offered]

  [Accept]

  [Decline]

  [King's Guard 0/2]

  You have to be fucking with me right now...