The Crypt

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 –Part 1


Black clouds laced with malevolent purple and red lightning semmed to crush down upon Jakob, seemingly only a few feet overhead. No rain pounded, no birds nor insects called, no thunder rolled, no wind blew. Everything was as silent as a tomb in winter. The cracked, dusty, sandy ground that seemed to stretch on forever crackled underfoot, seeming to Jakob as loud as cannonshots in the total silence. The dry mud had large, thick cracks running through it, and it was clear that rain and would never fall from these clouds. Jakob thought he wouldn't want to see the rain these clouds would make as he walked under the black and red sky. He wondered where he would end up if he strayed from this path, but he didn't want to find out.

He walked up to and crossed an old stone bridge, large holes gaping black where myriad stones had fallen into the cavernous abyss below. He absently picked up a small pebble and threw it straight down into the inky blackness. He craned his head and ears, starining to hear any feeble sound.

None came.

He continued off of the bridge as he did many times, crossing this time in a field of mud turned dark red with who knows what. Thousands upon thousands of footprints surrounded him, seemingly going everywhere, and not all human either. Some tracks he could identify, most being people, but other's were huge. A twenty-foot wide, five-foot deep hole with three distinct claw marks was the largest he could see in his varied travels across this path, and he could see another one far away in the distance, the field of dark red mud seemingly stretching on forever, with the uncountable footsteps embedded in them strecthing on as well. The footprints changed every time he crossed this path, but he had yet to see or hear any living thing in this place of nowhere.

He saw a familiar place up ahead, a large...well, large wouldn't be the word. An enormous stone manor spread out as far as his eyes could see, lit with flickering flames in black spiked sconces. He had long ago gotten used to the feeling that the flames turned into faces at the corner of his eye, screaming, tortured faces snarling in what looked to be eternal agony. Just as quick as he would see them at the corner of his vision, than he would whip his head back, and see only but flames. He had quit trying to see the faces long ago, and he walked up to the doors.

Huge, ebony black doors carved with thousands upon thousands of pictures, murals, and reliefs, all showing hideous deaths. It was said that every death one could possibly die was carved into these doors. He pushed against one door, and for all the hundred foot door seemed to weigh, it easily began swinging open.

He walked inside, but was not inside any building. He was in a labrinyth, a never ending series of tunnels and hallways and balconies that went on forever, with shuttered windows he dared not look out of, with hundreds of doors he dared not open. Someone was looking for him, and he knew he had to escape.

He did something different this time. He stopped right inside the doors, instead of walking inside the labrinyth. He wondered why he continually followed the path to the manor, if the manor held who was looking for him. He banished the thought and began walking, not really knowing where he was.

"YOU ARE MINE!!" a thunderous voice suddenly called, seemingly from everywhere. The voice sounded of dry bones being ground up, the voices of the world screaming, all at once.

The voice of death itself.

Stark terror gripped Jakob, and he ran, ran blindly like he did every night he had this dream, sprinted around a corner in a hallway full of doors.

And straight into a person.

He jumped backwards several inches from surprise and terror, until he realized who he was looking at.

A well-cut, gold-thread embriodered jacket torn in several places barely obscrued a ripped white undershirt that was covered in dirt. His unkempt, shaggy hair partially obscured a face of comparative youth, with piercing grey eyes. His breeches were coated with dirt and grime, and he noticed he wasn't wearing what he had gone to bed in. He was gazing directly at a large mirror, gilded frame worked with dragons and gargoyles catching the coarse light from the black sconces. He was looking at himself.

The mirror suddenly broke outward, large pieces of glass flying towards him. He felt a slight pain on his cheek, where the first piece of glass sliced his cheek, right before he heard, "I will find you."

A long, diabolical laugh followed the being's words, a laugh like a crazed lunatic, slowly rising in pitch til it seemed feverish, a mad cackle of one who embraced insanity and all that was evil. Flames came from nowhere, and Jakob felt his skin flay off in the heat, puff out and tear from his bones. His skin melted, and he saw no more.

Chapter 2 - Part 2

Jakob woke up, bolting upright, clear liquid running across his body. He realized it was tiny rivulets of his own cold sweat, running down from his terrifying dream.

He shakily stood up, and went to fetch a drink.

Bare feet padded across a good, thick rug with plenty of pile spilling over the sides to the gleaming, polished hardwood floor.

He entered his bathroom, complete with the newest, state-of-the-art running water faucet, and lit a torch on the wall for some light.

What he saw made his blood run cold.

YOU ARE MINE was scrawled in large, red capital letters across his fine silver mirror. The E had a long red streak trailing off of the end, as if someone was dragged away right after finishing, and the streak ended in a drip running down the mirror.

Pale hands trembling like an oak leaf on a gusty day, he drew his finger across the streak, and lifting it to his nose, smelled an awful, familiar, coppery scent.

Blood.

"Oh...Oh..." he incoherently mumbled, fear rendering him speechless. He shook himself rapidly from his terror-induced stupor, and, grabbing a towel, hurriedly wiped the terrifying words from his mirror. He began cleaning up, not noticing until he began shaving a small pain on his cheek.
He slowly raised a finger to his cheek, wincing slightly as he felt something small and sharp on his face. He grabbed the offending particle and pulled it out of his cheek, frowning slightly at the pain. He held up the small item to the torch, and his blood ran cold.

It was a piece of glass.

Chapter 2 - Part 3

A frantic pounding at a solid, ancient oak-plank door woke the room's occupant from his slumber. "What is it?" he sleepily murmured. The pounding continued, if anything, getting louder and faster. Mumbling under his breath, the man rose from his large, 4-posted bed, each post carefully and masterfully carved showing years of heroic exploits. The heavy red and gold embroidered silk curtains surrounding the bed parted allowing the man exit from his canopy bed. His feet flinched when they fell upon cold stone, and he rather quickly walked over to the solid door, somewhat relieved at the soft carpet overflowing with pile.

"I'm getting too old for this," he muttered under his breath, running his hand through his sleep-tousseled once dark brown locks, now streaked with gray.

The rapping at his door had continued.

"What is it?" the older man said, slowly opening the door. The rusty hinges squeaked their protest at the opening, as if they too were being woken.

"Urgen' news from De'sgro', M'Lud." The man's haste, coupled with his pronounced Densgrite drawl made his speech rather hard to grasp.

"Slow down, take a deep breath, and tell me why you felt the need to awaken me at 4 a.m." the man's deep bass rumbled. He stretched, corded muscles wrought from years of the battlefield shaking off the rigors of sleep.

"Th' King o' De'sgro' sayz 'at 'e reqoires a full regimen' o' ya' best men, sa'." the man drawled, only slightly more understandable.

"A full regiment?! We haven't needed a full regiment for an'thing short o' war in more than 30 years!" the man said, beginning to walk over to a closet. A click echoed through the stone chambers as the heavy, padlocked doors were opened. Shining white armor gleamed, freshly polished, resplendent in its enameled, gilded glory. Clearly more for show than for battle, his armor gleamed with the colors of his army, and his numerous medals hung down, polished to the same shiny luster. A tassle of red braided cloth hung from his right shoulder that classified him as a commander, and his scabbard was enlayed with gilt and pictures regarding several of his nearly innumerable heroic deeds.

The man was Sir Charlez Dorethi, Captain of the White Knights of Hyrifird.

"Right then, I'll go meet this messenger, and see what I think about it." Sir Charlez Dorethi said with a sigh, belting on his scabbard and placing his thin steel circlet upon his head.

"Thank ya' kin'ly M'Lud. Roight this way." the servant began leading him away at a fairly rapid pace, to the lower levels where the messenger awaited.

'It's going to be another one of those days,' Dorethi thought to himself as he walked down the stone stairs, worn grooves in the middle of each stair from centuries of feet. His steel boots resounded with a metallic clang off of each step as he followed in the servant's wake.

"Another one of those days..." he muttered.

"Pa'don, M'Lud?"

"Nothing."

Chapter 2 - Part 4

"Tell me...Why have you awoken me at this ungodly hour?" Sir Charlez Dorethi sighed, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. He shifted in his large oaken chair, inlayed with gilt and engravings recording a few of his heroic deeds. He swept his red eyes across the room, taking in the rich, silk tapestries with beautiful, expensive dyes, showing mythical creatures from tales of fantasy. Three tapestries in the center of the room heralded the the god Damely, showing him in full regalia, riding out to fight the forces of an unknown god. In one tapestry, the largest, demons and creatures of the abyss fought valiantly against the white knights, the strong right hand of Damely. Damely himself sat upon a monstrous white warhorse, aiding his people in the fight against darkness. Dorethi felt himself swell with pride, to be in control of such a glorious and righteous army, doing Damely's will.

The messenger's reply brought him back to the matter at hand, and the lack of his sleep. "Well, Sah, th'King hisself tol' me to come ta' you fo' aid. He is very worried about the 'appenin's in Mue'ta' swamp, sah." The messenger licked his lips rather nervously, a bead of sweat running down his forehead from his rapid flight to Hyrifird.

"What...sort of happenings are these that you speak of?" Dorethi said curiously.

"Wayll, fo' a start, people's a' been dissappearin' left an' roight, sah. And...ah..." the messenger broke off, clearly very uneasy about what he was going to say. 'He even looks a bit green,' Dorethi idly thought to himself, waiting for the messenger to compose himself.

"What? What is it? I'm still waiting, you know." Dorethi stated impatiently, metallic rings from his tapping steel-shod foot echoing throughout the stone sitting chamber.

"Roight, roight, sah. It's jes' I, ah...I...Well, foine. We, and boiy we I mean they, foun' a couple a' bodies...in the swamp, while searchin' fo' the victims, sah." The messenger look about ready to sick up Dorethi thought. He moved his shining white metal boots away from the expected path of vomit and urged the messenger to continue.

"What's the big deal? Surely you've seen corpses before. We live in a time of battle, of sickness. People die all the time. Two or three dead bodies surely can't make you feel that sick, can they?" Dorethi stated, getting discouraged by the messenger's apparent lack of stomach for what he had heard.

"Wayll, sah, one o' the bodies was a li'l boy, sah. We've foun' a total o' four bodies, total, sah. But they weren' ordinary bodies, sah. They...they...'ad..." again, the messenger appeared unsure of whether he could tell Sir Charlez Dorethi the horrible truth about the bodies. Even the memory of seeing the boy's body had him on the brink of nausea.

"SPIT IT OUT ALREADY! WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE BODIES?!" Dorethi shouted, totally losing his patience for the poor man, little patience he normally had made even less by the hour. His shout echoed through the chamber, resounding off of stone bricks and making him appear even louder than he was.

The messenger visibly swallowed, took out a hip flask probably full of brandy, took a sizable swig, and replaced it. "Foine. The bodies 'ad no skin on 'em, sah. Not a stitch; e'en on the lad."

The messenger smirked rather nauseously, and, turning to the side, allowed dinner to re-visit.

Varze sat down hard on the oaken chair from his stance after yelling, and thought that throwing up probably was a good idea.

Chapter 2 - Part 5

Sasha sighed as she drank her tea, idly watching the continued rain and hail of the storm. 'Three days,' she thought to herself, 'and this blasted storm still won't let up.' Apparently from reports gained from travelers, the storm extended all the way from the outskirts of Hyrifird, past Rayner, covering Densgrove, drenching the Barber Village with rain, blanketing Eteldon with hail, and completely covering Arleton from the western gate all the way to the rumored to be haunted Jolly Wench's Inn. Some odd happenings had been taking place there as well she recalled, everything from people being found dead to spirits and specters possessing people.

"The whole world has gone crazy," she finally muttered under her breath, taking another sip of tea. A storm that lasted three days without moving? It was unheard of. She glanced over at her now-partner-in-crime, or so she liked to think, Rennin Dominar. He had been nearly tearing his hair out lately from the absence of progress.

Rennin was still pacing the common room, smells of Bacco smoke and old stale wine partially dissapating with the lack of customers. The storm was forcing everyone to stay at home, he reasoned. Poor Joe was really hard up for some business.

Rennin sighed loudly, a rather annoying habit he had picked up as of late, at least, to Sasha. "Hit me, Joe." Rennin called over to the portly barkeep, who was "washing" a dirty glass mug with an equally dirty cloth.

"Fine, Rennin, here ya go. Tha'll be 2 gold pieces, pleas'." The rotund man slid a glass of semi-cold ale towards Rennin, who, raising it to his mouth, drained the entire mug in less than 5 seconds.

"Damit all, we've wasted too much time while this damned storm keeps up. Sasha, if this storm isn't gone by this time tomorrow, we're going, rain or not." Rennin firmly declared, setting the mug on the scratched oak countertop with a none-too-delicate clunk.

"But it's pouring! Have you even LOOKED outside recently?!" Sasha protested indignantly. "I refuse to leave and go for a little 'walk' while the sky opens up a waterfall over our heads! Besides, it's hailing too! More than 3 people have DIED from being bludgeoned with hail the size of hens' eggs!" Sasha continued, trying to make the stubborn man see reason.

Rennin tossed his long dirty blond hair over his shoulders, a gesture she had finally realized was his version of an indifferent shrug. "What, afraid you're gonna melt? Have a backbone, woman." As if the gods wished to punctuate his words, an extremely loud clap of thunder directly overhead caused the entire inn to shake. The wind whistled through the shutters, and between the cracks in walls. The unearthly moan caused by the howling wind sent shivers up Sasha's spine.

She didn't want to go for a different reason, not because she was afraid of 'melting' or from some rain. There was something about this storm that terrified her more than anything she had ever seen, heard or felt before.

Some say a woman's intuition is never wrong.


Chapter 2 - Part 6

Malevolent black and red clouds striated with frequent laces of dark purple lightning filled the sky. Although seemingly only a short distance away, close to the touch, they were unreachable. Total silence reigned, as usual. No wind blew the clouds in their speedy flight through the heavens. No thunder followed the chains of purple energy. No animals frolicked, no birds called. Like always on his frequent trips through this strange land, the dry, dusty ground popped and cracked as dry twigs under his feet, seeming as loud as the absent thunderclaps in the deafeningly total silence. The ground seemed to extend onwards into the realm of infinity, and like he sometimes did Jakob Tenreal wondered to himself where he would end up if he strayed off the beaten path into the dry wasteland to either side of him.

As he strolled, bereft of any emotion through the barren waste, a bridge spanning an enormous craggy canyon nearly sprang up in front of him, black holes gaping like the maw of some terrible beast where the incredibly huge stones had fallen through, merely from the rigors of gravity apparently. He had never seen the bridge any different than it was now, never any more stones, never any less. He wondered if the bridge was made with the holes already placed, so stalwart of construction it appeared. Nevertheless, he had no urge to be around when one did fall, and, as always, crossed the bridge as quickly as safety would allow.

He paused on the other side, and, becoming nearly a tradition, looked over his right shoulder at whence he had just come. The enormous stone bridge, complete with canyon, were gone. Also gone was the dry, cracked ground. Smooth dark red mud covered this part of his nightmare for as far a the human eye could see, covered and laced in and through with myriad multitudes of foot, hoof, and claw prints extending in various trails for eternity, to Jakob's eyes anyway, some of shapes he had never even dreamed of.

The footprints were always different, every time he visited this obscure and frightening land that was continually lit with luminescence that appeared to come from both nowhere and everywhere at the same time. He jumped into a huge track shaped not unlike a clover leaf that delved down more than 10 feet into the muddy ground, displaced mud pushed up higher around it. More footprints covered the bottom of it, and seemingly effortlessly jumped up the side without leaving a trace, continuing on the other side.

Jakob continued on, unaware really of his surroundings, being led by a mysterious force that told him the way every time he came here. He had never seen any creature in this land, neither living nor dead, but the footprints continually changed, even though he himself had never seen them change.

Just as suddenly as he had come to the stone bridge, an enormous mansion of ebony black wood, dark grey stone, and red flickering flames sprang up before him. He approached the massive ebony wood doors, more than 5 feet thick and extending higher than he could see, carved with hundreds of thousands of reliefs and murals, all depicting a different way for a man to die.

He pushed one open, and it swung in easily, an oddity he rarely noticed. He stepped inside, into not a mansion, but a labyrinth, filled with thousands of doors he dared not open, and hundreds of shuttered windows he dare not look through. The flames in the sconces flanking the multicolored walls of the labyrinth shone a dark red, though the flames themselves were blue. He tried to avoid looking at them. In the corner of his eye, the flames became faces, screaming and writhing totally silently in apparently excrutiating pain. He had quit trying to see the faces in the flames long ago, as he soon noticed it was futile to get a good view of them.

He could feel that someone was looking for him. He started running, sprinting in terror, trying to flee the entity following him. He didn't know what would happen if the being found him, but he wasn't anxious to find out. Why he continually journeyed to this place merely to flee an enemy was beyond him, but he had never questioned it. However, he had noticed one thing unusual.

He noticed that lately he was beginning closer and closer to the stone bridge. He had normally started in the same spot, run until he got into the doors of the mansion, proceded to begin running, then awake from his nightmare. But for some strange reason, the dream was going furthur. The incident with the mirror was totally new, which is why it frightened him so badly.

He dashed around a corner and ran straight into someone, but he was prepared this time.

Or so he thought.

Shielding himself from the flying glass he thought would be propeled at him from the broken mirror, he waited for a moment.

No glass.

He quit shielding himself and looked at his reflection. His torn well cut gold embroidered jacket covered a white ripped undershirt caked with dirt and grime. Shaggy unkempt brown hair partially obscured his face. He remembered his reflection from last time, and noted he was wearing the same clothes. 'Apparently I wear these clothes every time I come here,' Jakob idly thought to himself, examining his piercing grey eyes in the looking glass, gold worked dragons and gargoyles flanking the silver glass of the mirror.

Then, something different happened.

His reflection began screaming, a high, hoarse, bloodcurdling shriek that chilled Jakob's blood and nearly sent him quivering with fright. He jerked away from it like he had been burned and began running again. He looked over his shoulder at the screaming reflection. It hadn't moved. As he had his head turned, he saw his reflection's skin peel away and begin to rot. His muscles decayed and he watched himself be apparently tortured to death while rotting. Muscles pulled away from the bone as the long screams continued, echoing off of the stone and gilt until Jakob wanted to go mad from fear.

Turning a new corner, he ran into someone.

Grabbing Jakob's arm with a grip so hard it hurt, a black figure knelt his face close to Jakob's, and, with breath smelling of brimstone and fire, said in a voice that sounded of flesh tearing and martyrs screaming, "I FOUND YOU." Eyes that seemed made of the fires from Hades squinted in maniacal mirth, and the figure laughed, a low cackle that gradually rose in pitch until it became the feverish outburst of a madman, one who suffered from the ravages of insanity and enjoyed it.

Jakob's arm began to burn as fire spread from the figure's clenched hand and consumed him. Jakob felt his flesh rend and melt, tear and burn in the intense heat.

The figure's laugh tormented him to darkness.

Chapter 2 - Part 7

Jakob jolted upright in the darkness, wet clothes clinging to his body with the cold sweat of his latest nightmare. Goosebumps raised up on the bare flesh of his arm, and he felt very cold. The usual cozy heat of his covered canopy bed was absent, the humid warmth he had gotten used to sleeping in gone. He felt around with his hand for the hanging silk and velvet sheets normally draped around his bed, to pull them open, but they too, were missing.

He felt something hard under him, and, after a moment of panic, realized that he was sitting on a chair, a carved yew writing chair that normally sat next to his escritoire, a comfortable place to sit while writing a letter, among other things.

Jakob chuckled to himself in the pitch blackness. 'I must have dropped to sleep while writing a letter.' he rationally thought to himself. It was odd, though. He swore he remembered climbing into bed and pulling the canopied sheets around him, then snuffing his lamp. "Maybe I'm just going crazy..." he sighed to himself under his breath.

A sudden pain twinging in his hand made him aware that his fingers were gripped around something absurdly tightly. He felt around with his left hand for the small gilded box of sand that he always kept a hot coal in for lighting candles and lamps, or for making his wax seal. He found it, and lit a large oil lamp that sat on the carved escritoire.

Squinting from the sudden addition of light, Jakob adjusted the wick length for optimal lighting and examined his cramped right hand.

His knuckles were white from gripping a goosefeather quill pen like it was the last twig on a tree separating him from a fall off of a cliff. His fingers were tightly cramped and felt knotted around the quill, and it took the combined efforts of his left hand and his right to successfully pry his fingers from around the pen. He gently massaged his aching knuckles, grimacing slightly from the cramped pain.

Jakob stood for a moment and stretched, fingers twinging slightly. He crossed to a mirror and examined himself for any ink blots he might have gotten on his face from falling asleep on a possibly wet piece of parchment. He noticed none, and sat down at the desk again, to see what he had been writing. Hopefully seeing the parchment's contents would jog his memory into remembering what he had been doing the night before.

The writing was scribbled, appearing to be extremely hastily written. At closer inspection, the writing became legible, but what was on the page was rather unusual.

It was very repetitive, with the entire content of both sides of the parchment being only two words, repeated over and over.

"Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me...." over and over... Jakob counted. It reapted 179 times, ending about two inches from the bottom of the back of the parchment with a long streak, as if the writer had suddenly been startled or jolted very badly.

"What the...? I didn't write this...did I?" Jakob wondered aloud, a little uneasy. He set his arm on the table and propped up his head on his hand, and began to think. A fierce and sudden pain bloomed in his left arm, a few inches above his wrist.

'What did I do now?' Jakob inwardly sighed.

He looked down at his arm.

Virtually impressed upon the flesh of his arm was a handprint, an ugly purple bruise being highlighted by distinct finger marks...as if he'd been grabbed.

He gingerly touched the bruise on his arm, and felt a pop. A blister...

The entirety of his left forearm was severely burned...extending from the bruise.