He hoped they wouldn’t have to face an army of the dead, but what else was there to expect on a world covered in death?
“Ready?” He turned to the others, who stood behind him.
Raz nodded, while Katya pulled a wand out of her pack and slung it back on her back. “Yes.”
Serenity stepped through the door and suddenly the others were not with him.
He stood on a battlefield on the plains of a world he recognized. This was Rn’kat, the last stronghold of the Rn’ta. They had attacked him over and over, sending their best and brightest to die at his hands.
He’d tried to spare them, tired of death and killing, but all that meant was that in another ten - or twenty - or fifty years, he had to kill more children.
They all looked like children by then. Angry that he’d killed their father or cousin or grandmother, because he wasn’t willing to simply let them destroy him.
Serenity felt tears roll from his eyes as he stepped forward. He’d brought the battle back to Rn’kat to end it once and for all. He had, but there were none left. It was a scene he’d seen too many times, but he couldn’t let it stop him.
He couldn’t stop. If he did, that would make everything he’d done - everything and everyone he’d sacrificed to survive - meaningless. So he walked forward.
[Mind Resistance increased]
This wasn’t Rn’kat.
This was Ahtoliat. It had beautiful oceans, once. They were gone now, after-
Raz stepped through the door into the courtyard of the Sunrise Clan manor. It wasn’t in good repair. Raz could vaguely remember when his grandfather died; he thought things had been in better shape then, but that might simply have been the expensive furnishings he’d kept out to cover the signs of time.
It was quiet. No one came out to greet him. That wasn’t unusual; there weren’t many people at the manor anymore. He remembered the parties of his childhood and was just as happy for the quiet. The party-goers had fun, but he had to stay in his room.
The one time he remembered sneaking out and not being caught quickly, he remembered being fed a fruity drink until the world started spinning and he became really ill. His mother had been even more careful after that.
He shook himself and headed up the stairs to the front door. Mother was probably in the library-
The world skipped and he was standing in the remains of the library. His mother’s body lay in front of him, torn and covered in blood, on top of a pile of the books she’d valued so much. They were cut and bloodied - probably ruined - but it was his mother's face he focused on.
She looked peaceful.
Raz fell to his knees in front of her. She was the only family he’d had that he cared about. The only family he’d had that cared about him. The others had no meaning at that moment. His aunts, uncles, and cousins seemed to fade; even Aki was forgotten as he grieved for his mother while she lay in front of him.
Raz would never be certain how long he lay prostrate in front of her before he realized something was wrong. He didn’t even know what it was. He ached from lying there and he ached from crying. That wasn’t what was wrong, though. He should ache. His mother was dead. And she was in front of him.
No. That was what was wrong. He’d never gone back.
He’d never seen his mother dead.
This wasn’t real.
[Mind resistance increased]
The scene faded and Raz was looking at a bare stone room. He was only a few steps past the entrance; Katya was a little farther in, but she was crouching, sobbing, the same way he had been.
Serenity was halfway across the room slowly putting one foot in front of the other. He didn’t seem to be aware of his surroundings.
There had to be something causing this, but where was it?
The damaged buildings of Salleth rose around Serenity. Salleth had been a shithole even before he destroyed it, with only those too young to serve and nursing and pregnant women exempt from military service - and the military kept only a few people stationed in the city itself. Serenity supposed that was what happened when you were conquered by an expansionist empire that didn’t quite believe you were people. They were just dogkin, after all; what made them more than beasts?
Too young to serve ended as soon as you were tall enough and strong enough to be useful. Age wasn’t important; they’d happily put youngsters on the front line to slow down their enemies.
Male outsiders were supposedly popular with Salleth’s women; it had quite a reputation. Of course, those outsiders had better stay away from the press gangs. Rumors said that the women would happily report a man after they were done with him.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Serenity doubted the rumors were true. They were spread by the empire that had conquered Salleth, after all.
Even so, they’d had more truth than he liked. All he’d found when he brought his own army through Salleth was pups half his height and women.
Most had fought to the death. He’d wanted to rescue them, once, but they weren’t willing to accept it from a necromancer.
Serenity felt a blazing hatred for the Xiot’c. He’d been fighting them for decades, since they captured his home city, one of the few places he’d found that didn’t have problems with necromancy as long as he didn’t break any laws (and kept the undead outside the city for health and safety reasons). He’d had his base there for a few years while he recovered from the last war and tried to quietly sink into obscurity while building a life that - maybe - didn’t revolve around war, dungeons, and Great Quests.
That plan was shot, ever since-
Ever since-
No, this wasn’t right. Vengeance had killed the Xiot’c and destroyed their empire, but that never happened. He was Serenity, not Vengeance.
[Mind Resistance increased]
Katya stepped through the portal, finally able to return to the Akert settlement with the best news possible: she had the Etherium! As much Etherium as they needed to move everyone and all their things! She’d had the original estimate a month ago, but there’d been one well-paying dungeon run, then another, so she’d stayed a few days later than planned once or twice - but that didn’t matter. She had enough extra that they’d be able to do more than just move, they could thrive!
She hurried down the street; her uncle’s booth wasn’t far from the portal, and he’d want to -
Her uncle’s booth was a destroyed heap of burnt wood.
No. Oh no.
She hurried down the street, passing more burnt booths and small shops as she went. Her mother’s smithy, her father’s bakery, her aunt’s enchantments booth - all burnt. All since the last rain.
When she arrived at her parents’ house, she’d already passed the smoldering remains of two other houses her family lived in. Anywhere else, it would have been “owned” but here they weren’t allowed to own or even rent. They could be kicked out whenever a noble wanted.
And it looked like that had happened.
She maintained hope until she saw her parents’ house. It was the last refuge, the place everyone was to run if something happened.
Unlike the others, it hadn’t been burnt.
It was still burning.
Her oldest brother’s body lay in the doorway.
There was no hope. If only-
If only I’d come when I told them I would. If only I hadn’t let the money tempt me into staying longer. They’d still be alive, we’d have been gone.
This is my fault.
She collapsed to the ground crying.
She wasn’t sure how long she was there when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
A guard - they must be here for me -
“Miss? You’d better-”
“DON’T YOU DARE! THEY’RE DEAD AND-” Katya screamed as she whirled on the guard. “WHO DID THIS???”
She didn’t recognize the colors the draykin was wearing-
None of the noble houses would hire draykin-
Pain tore through her head as reality fractured.
[Mind Resistance increased]
It took her longer than she liked to realize that the person holding her shoulder wasn’t a nameless guard, it was Raz.
Her family wasn’t dead, it was all a trick of the dungeon.
Serenity shook himself. He didn’t know why he walked through a gauntlet of memories; all he knew was that he had to keep walking. There was a way out, and if he found it, the memories would stop.
He wanted them to stop.
They felt recent now, jagged and fresh instead of dulled and half-forgotten due to the passage of time. It wasn’t true, but it would take time to push them back into the haze that had shrouded them and kept him safe from more than he could manage.
He took another step, and he was in what was perhaps the most familiar memory of all. The longest and most recent of the Final Reaper’s memories.
The world he’d retreated to after everything was dead. He’d never learned the name the locals had once had for it, or its history. That lack of knowledge was part of why he’d chosen it. It meant nothing to him, and he didn’t have to see the faces of those he’d lost. Those he’d failed. Those he’d killed.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” That was the saying, wasn’t it? A famous Psalm. These days, it did not end for him as it ended for others. “Death holds no fear for me. Death is not evil, but the End, and the End should not be feared.”
Why was he walking? At the end of things, there was no more reason to push forward. No more reason to keep going. There were no more threats, other than himself.
And he could not kill himself. He knew how, perhaps. It might even work, but he’d never tried. There was no point.
There was also no point in moving forward. Yet he would. He’d set himself a task, even if he didn’t remember when or why, and that task had him setting one foot in front of the other. Slowly, but slowly didn’t matter. Only that he kept moving.
Something changed. There was...there was someone ahead of him.
After a moment, he recognized her. “Katya,” he greeted her. And next to her, “Raz.”
It was good to see them. It was good to not be alone.
“Would you walk with me?”
It was easier with them by his side. He heard Katya say something, then Raz, but it didn’t mean anything.
They had reached the other end of the room. Serenity didn’t know how long it had taken; it felt like it had taken days, but bearing up under a different horrible memory for each step would have felt like days even if it had only been minutes.
The reason he was walking was ahead of him. He saw it resolve out of darkness into a form that was more or less man-shaped on top, but trailed into a floating cloud of darkness on the bottom. Even the more or less man-shaped portion gave off wisps of darkness.
A wraith. A powerful one, at that.
Serenity stood in the plains of the world he’d chosen as a refuge from memory and faced a monster he knew wasn’t there.