Fifty Six
Micah and Vlad, Darkmouth Precipice
The eerie wreckage of the mining village of Darkmouth precipice was somewhat sheltered by the winds. It was built at the edge of a deep cavernous mineshaft, surrounded by mounds of refuse stone and excavated boulders.
The town itself was an old mining colony, rotted dusty buildings, discarded wreckage and an overturned trade cart.
It was so much worse than the dereliction Micah had seen in Ferus Town. The ruins must have been over 700 years old, and actively being reclaimed by nature.
Vlad seemed all too familiar with the layout of the town, in truth he grew up here, when it was alive and when he was human.
Micah noticed every single window in the town was shattered, the hitching posts free of horses, even the town well was in rubble.
"What happened here?" Micah asked Vlad. "And no lies!"
There was no sense lying to Micah, Vlad knew he could have his thoughts read by the impatient maleficus.
"I grew up here," he pointed to the largest and most rundown building in town. "I was the village elder's son & a foreman in the mines," Vlad confessed.
He could almost see himself as he was back then, an entitled young punk with an influential father. Neglected and ignored, taking his frustrations out on the miners he managed.
"You're breaking my heart," Micah's snide biting comments interrupted Vlad's nostalgia.
"Everything was fine until we dug too deep," Vlad spoke of the curse that began when they harvested a strange unidentified metal, crimson as blood but sharp as diamonds.
"That ore was the beginning of the end for us..." Vlad lamented.
Suddenly rustling noises from every direction rose up along with a chilling wind that seemed to come from nowhere, but Micah felt it deep in his bones.
As the skies grew darker, human silhouettes materialized all around them. Coalescing into lingering spirits of the people of Darkmouth Precipice.
Their hollow eyes and sunken features, the women and children too, it was difficult to witness their grim torment. Micah was having difficulty staying calm.
He returns...
The deserter...
The ghosts were encircling Vlad now, an ethereal cyclone with the cowardly vampire at the epicenter.
You left us...
Your kin...
The spirits echoed accusations.
Vlad was holding his ears trying to silence them.
A larger ghost stepped forward to part the flurry of angry spirits. This one was plumper and had the look of a wealthy merchant, yet still translucent and decayed.
"Son..." the spirit started.
Vlad's eyes shot open, transfixed by the phantom of his father.
"Father... I thought you were lost like the rest of them... the whispers had taken you," Vlad fell onto his knees.
Micah stood to the side disinterested. "We don't have time for this, on your feet, slave!" Micah barked as he drew Souldrinker and aimed it at the ghosts.
Vlad was transfixed by his father's gaze.
"Now!" Micah exploded, he held Souldrinker to the ghost's neck.
Finally... Souldrinker whispered.
Like an unplugged faucet Souldrinker drew all the spirits from the town into it, a veritable ethereal cyclone of helpless spirits was drawn into the blade as it consumed every last soul.
The winds grew turbulent as the blade soaked up every speck of the phantom entities.
The blade shook and hissed as the massive volume of spirits were crammed into it. The runes on the blade burned a fierce crimson and the whispers were replaced with uproarious laughter.
Micah was barely able to hold the blade steady through the turmoil.
Vlad's eyes streamed tears as he watched his father die a second time, but he knew better than to disobey his new master so he climbed to his feet.
Micah was breathless and overwhelmed when the town was emptied of ghosts, estimating at least one hundred spirits had been consumed.
He caught a glimpse of himself in a nearby glass shard. He was paler, his hair greyer and his eyes now shone with the same crimson light of his cursed blade.
His right arm was covered in black veins leading from his sword.
Vlad was equally dumbstruck. What just happened? where did everyone go?
The village was motionless once again. Free of spectral entities at least.
"I did that?" Micah stammered, his voice noticeably more echoing.
Vlad was bowing fearfully now "Master? Our destination is below," he awkwardly pointed at the mine entrance squeezed between two pallets of strange ore.
"Darkmouth Pits."