Mountain Pass
All day the four of them trudged mostly in silence. The nicely paved road was long gone, and the evening sky was turning orange between the mountain range ahead.
Bash chewed on a piece of stale bread and considered saying something stupid, just to hear his own voice. He had a feeling even the trees would boo him for ruining the mood.
Luis didn’t get the memo. He cleared his throat. “So...” Luis glanced sideways at Bash. “About earlier.”
Bash kept chewing. “Nope. Nothing to talk about.”
“Come on, man. There's something to talk about.” Luis's voice lost its usual playfulness. “That assassin was scared of you, Bash. A professional killer.”
Nora spoke without turning. “Leave it, Luis.”
“No.” Luis stopped walking, forcing the others to slow. “I'm serious. We're supposed to be a team, right? And I'm watching our friend turn into... I don't even know what. And nobody wants to talk about it?”
Nora finally turned, her expression cold and calculating. “He killed our enemies. That's all that matters.”
“That's not…” Luis ran a hand through his hair. “That's not enough, Nora. What happens when he can't tell the difference anymore?”
“Hey you guys,” Bash tried butting in, “I’m right here you know?”
“Everything is on the line.” Nora continued, locking eyes with Luis. “If the cost of winning is us all being a little broken… then so be it.” She trailed off and gave a shrug.
“No.” Luis shook his head slowly. “That's not worth it. That's never worth it.”
Patrick had stopped ahead of them. When he spoke, his voice was low enough that everyone had to strain to hear. “I sacrificed my morals fighting a war once.” He started walking again. “It wasn't worth it.”
Nobody spoke. Luis looked vindicated but took no joy in it. Nora's mouth worked, her expression flickering through several complex emotions before settling on troubled silence.
Bash watched Patrick's back and thought about what he himself had done. The energy singing in his veins. The laughter that had come unbidden. The slaughter. He shoved another piece of bread in his mouth and chewed aggressively.
‘It wasn't worth it... It wasn’t worth it... It wasn’t worth it.’
They continued walking, hurrying to catch Patrick.
***
Bash squinted at the floating text, which hung in the air.
[New Area Discovered: The Mountain Pass]
“Always the most creative names, truly inspiring stuff. Why not just call it ‘Slightly Hillier Hills’?”
He glanced at Patrick, who didn’t crack a smile. Luis still looked too troubled to laugh. And Nora stared straight ahead, stuck in her own head.
“Tough crowd, guess I’ll save my best for paying customers.” Bash glanced around at the trees thinning into rocky cliffs. The overlays of Investigator whispered metadata into his vision. Terrain tags, structural stability, and a faint grid of collision boxes woven into the stone.
Oracle had already kicked in, tracing thin green lines over the path ahead. Probability branches split off at every turn, into shadowed gaps between trees, into cracks where roots tore through old rock. Each thread pulsed with quiet warnings.
They pushed on. Bash tried to keep pace, his armor still riding funny, straps digging into his sides. The fireflies were beginning their dance under a pale sky, the mountain ridge growing taller and more menacing with every mile.
Patrick raised a hand, signaling for them to slow. His voice was low, steady, but tense. “Keep your heads on a swivel, there could be danger around any corner.”
In response a voice broke through the quiet. High, lilting, with a strange trill at the end. “There is nothing here... just you four. And me!”
They all froze. Steel rasped from sheaths as Patrick and Nora turned in unison. Luis spun, wide-eyed, scanning the rocks. “Where!?” Bash asked. Pulling up Investigator, transparent grids, and debug tags scattered across the rock face, but no enemy marker appeared in front of him. “I don’t see anything...”
The voice giggled. “Of course you don’t, ha... You’re not looking up dummy. Why does nobody ever look up?”
Bash tilted his head back. Perched on a jagged outcrop was a raven, black feathers gleaming wetly in the sunset, its oversized almost human eyes locked on him. It cocked its head like it was smirking.
He focused on the bird, and green lines of text spilled into the edges of his vision, overlaying the raven with metadata.
“A little girl,” Bash spoke in bewilderment.
The raven flared its wings and croaked, almost proudly. “I’m not a little girl, I am a raven! In bird years, I’m way older than you!”
Patrick frowned, his knuckles white around his spear. “What do you mean, little girl, how?!”
The raven hopped down the branches, with all the confidence of a diva who had just found her spotlight. “Ohhh, good story! I was carrying food, a fancy dinner, and smelly fish. I tripped. Splat! The whole tray spilled over Master Max’s lap.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Bash blinked slowly. “I would say turning you into a bird was a mild overreaction.”
She flapped her wings, mimicking the motion of the food falling. “I thought he was gonna kill me, because, you know, everyone says he’s sooo mean!”
Nora tilted her head, “They’re not wrong...”
“But instead!” the raven went on, her voice bright. “He turned me into a bird!” She shook out her wings proudly. “And I love birds, always have. So I guess he was actually... kinda nice?”
The silence that followed was heavy, almost painful. Nora stepped forward, her voice soft but steady. “What’s your name?” She extended her hand, palm up.
The raven studied Nora with her sharp black eyes. “Name’s Lilly. But my mum always called me her lovebird. Funny, huh?!” She hopped down in a blur of feathers, landing gently on Nora’s outstretched arm. Her claws flexed but didn’t scratch.
Nora’s face softened, something rare, fragile, as she stroked the feathers along Lilly’s back. “Oh, Lilly. You sweet thing. Maximus didn’t mean it as a gift. He meant it as punishment. He is an evil man. Remember that.”
Lilly blinked, tilting her head, then gave a nervous trill. “Evil? Maybe. But I still get to fly! And flying is fun, kaaaw!”
Bash muttered in disbelief, “That’s one way to cope.”
Luis just stared, wide-eyed. “Madre de Dios... this world gets stranger every day.”
A couple hours later it was starting to get really dark, the four human companions, plus one Raven, stopped when the path widened into a narrow shelf, shielded on two sides by jagged ridges.
Patrick raised his hand. “We’ll camp here.”
Nora dropped her pack, relief hidden under her usual steel. Luis didn’t bother with the ceremony. He flopped down right where he stood, armor and all, and was snoring within seconds.
Patrick glanced around, his voice low. “No fire tonight. Dangerous things are known to live in these mountains, and would spot the light for miles.”
Bash blinked. “Then how are we supposed to cook, second dinner?”
Patrick gave him a flat look. Nora ignored him completely, settling with her back to the cliff. The raven had taken to her like iron to a magnet. Lilly perched on her lap, head tucked under one wing as Nora absently stroked her feathers.
Now and then, Nora whispered something soft, the rhythm unmistakable. Lullabies. Bash couldn’t catch the words, but the bird seemed soothed, occasionally punctuating the quiet little cooing noises.
Bash chewed on some jerky, staring around the camp. “So this is it, huh? Party dynamics unlocked. We've got the tank, DPS, bard, and healer, and now...” He gestured to Lilly. “An animal companion. Next thing you know, we'll be combining our powers into Captain Shardent.”
Luis snored. Nora's eyes were closed. Patrick polished his spear with grim focus.
“Kaw kaw kaw!” Lilly flapped her wings, head bobbing. “You're funny! I like you!”
Bash pointed at her. “See? At least someone appreciates quality humor.” Sighing, he climbed to his feet. “I need to go to the little boys' room. Be back in a jiffy,” and walked off into the shadows.
Investigator outlined footprints along the trail he was following.
Curious, Bash followed the trail a few dozen yards further and froze. A body lay slumped against a rock, half-hidden by brush. Flesh mottled, stomach swollen, eyes long gone.
He backed away, straightening. “Poor bastard.”
Bash’s jaw tightened. “Great. Side quest inception.” He waved vaguely at the quest marker. “Nesting dolls of bullshit.”
He rubbed his face. “Next thing you know, I’ll be running the assassin’s guild, or in charge of the school of magic.”
Bash scanned the area, and something caught his eye. There was movement.
Bash's breath caught. About twenty feet past the corpse, half-hidden in shadow, a shape dragged itself across the rocks towards him.
Approaching slowly, Oracle pulsed warnings he didn't need. The smell hit him first, a rotting chemical smell. Next came the details.
The undead thing had been cut in half at the waist. Its lower body was gone, the only thing remaining was a trail of blackened intestines. The creature's armor hung in tatters, rusted mail fused to gray flesh that had long stopped bleeding.
Bash circled wide, as it crawled after him, watching the thing drag itself forward with skeletal fingers, nails broken down to black nubs. Each pull left smears of something dark and viscous. The creature’s remaining eye had a slight glow to it as it tracked him with terrible patience.
Half its face was missing. Exposed jaw muscles flexed as it tried to work a mouth that no longer existed, producing a wet clicking sound that made Bash's skin crawl.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed as it got closer. Bash stepped back, meaning to add some distance, but his heel caught on a root and he went down, ass hitting stone.
The creature was right there, close enough that he could see the individual tendons working in its exposed neck, could smell the grave-rot rolling off it in waves.
Its remaining eye locked onto his and it produced a sound, not a moan, not a growl, but something between a wheeze and a scream.
“No. No. No.” Bash scrambled backward, too slow. One of its hands wrapped around his left ankle.
He tried kicking but the thing's grip only tightened, as it tried to pull itself closer. Grabbing a large rock nearby, he turned and brought it down. The impact jarred his arms. He raised it, brought it down, again and again. Each strike wetter than the last until the thing finally, finally went still.
He sat there, breathing hard, rock still raised, waiting for it to move.
Bash stared at the notification, chest heaving.
One level. From half a corpse.
He looked down at the ruined mess at his feet, then back at the floating text. Either he'd been a hair away from leveling already, or something far worse.
“Okay,” he said quietly, dropping the rock. “That's... that's fine.” He wiped his hands on his pants. They were shaking. The thing had been cut in half, missing most of its face, and it had still almost gotten him. If there were more of them, whole ones, functional ones.
Standing, Bash glanced back toward camp. Patrick's silhouette was visible in the distance, on the boulder, spear across his knees. He thought about keeping it quiet. Let them sleep. Deal with it in the morning. Then he remembered Patrick's voice. ‘Tell us immediately.’
“Whatcha doing?” A voice spoke from the side, causing Bash to nearly jumped out of his skin. Lilly perched on a rock beside him, head cocked, beady eyes gleaming in the dark.
“Holy hell, kid. You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“You were gone a long time,” she said, matter-of-fact. “Nora was worried, so I said I'd find you.” Her gaze drifted to the mess behind him. “What's that?”
Bash stepped sideways, blocking her view. “Nothing. Just some old bones. Come on, let's get back, it’s time for bed.”
Lilly's wings lifted and dropped in what was unmistakably a shrug. Bash blinked. That was really weird coming from a bird. But sure as shit, that had been a shrug. A little girl, he reminded himself.
Before he could move, Lilly flapped up and landed directly on his head. Her talons gripped his hair. Bash froze. “Onward!” she demanded, like he was some kind of mount.
“Okay,” Bash grumbled, starting to walk. “So this is a thing now.”
When they returned to camp, Patrick was sitting on a nearby boulder, spear resting across his knees. His eyebrow rose slightly at the sight of Bash with a raven perched on his head, but chose not to comment.
“Found a couple of dead bodies about fifty yards out.” Bash said quietly. Patrick's expression shifted. The eyebrow lowered. “That’s not all… one of them was, like a zombie or something.”
Patrick was silent for a long moment. Then he nodded once. “Double shifts tonight.”
Unable to nod, Bash gave a thumbs up. “Uh, Lilly... can you get off my head now?”
Lilly hopped off and flapped back toward Nora. “Told you I'd find him!” Nora didn't say anything. She just opened her arm, and Lilly landed, tucking herself against Nora's side with a contented little coo.
Bash smiled at the scene, then turned to join Patrick. His gaze locked on the horizon, imagining more of those things roaming nearby, imagining what they'd do to someone asleep. A lovely thought to have while camping in hostile territory.
In the corner of his vision, Oracle flickered again, quiet but insistent. The Mountain Pass wasn’t empty, not by a long shot. There were dangerous things out there.