By the time they decided to stop, Sunny was on the verge of fainting. After hours of traversing the rough mountain slope, his body was nearly at its limit. Every muscle ached, every joint protested, and the shackles on his wrists had graduated from sharp pain to a dull, persistent burning that he suspected meant the nerve endings were starting to give up.
The small clearing where the road widened was somewhat protected from the wind by a protruding mass of rock, but it was still too cold to rest with any real comfort. The soldiers got busy herding the slaves into a tight circle and lighting a large bonfire, although not before tending to their horses. The heavy wagon carrying food, water, and other cargo, to which the main chain was firmly affixed, was pushed forward to block the worst of the wind.
While looking around, Sunny noticed the young soldier from before watching the mountain with a complicated look on his face.
'What a weirdo.'
The stronger slaves fought their way toward the bonfire while the weaker ones, like Sunny, were forced to sit at the outer edge of the circle with their backs freezing in the cold. Any movement was encumbered by the shackles, so the broad-shouldered slave ended up exactly where he'd started despite all his efforts to push closer to the flames.
"Damn Imperials!" he hissed.
The soldiers walked among the slaves giving out water and food. Sunny received a few sips of icy water and a small piece of rock-hard, moldy bread. Despite its unappetizing look, he forced himself to eat the whole thing, only to be left as hungry as he was before.
The shifty slave looked around in anguish. "By all the gods, they used to feed me better even in the dungeons!" He spat on the ground. "And most of us innocent men in the dungeon were there waiting to visit the gallows, too!"
A few steps away, where the paved road ended and sharp rocks began, a scattering of bright-red berries grew from the snow. Sunny had noticed them before, clustering here and there along the road, and even noted how pretty those resilient things looked against the white. Shifty's eyes glistened as he tried to crawl toward them on all fours.
"I would advise against eating those, friend."
It was the gentle-voiced slave again. Sunny turned and finally saw him in the flesh for the first time: a tall man in his forties, lean and strangely handsome, with the dignified look of a scholar. How a man like that had ended up a slave was a mystery.
"You and your advice again! What? Why?"
The scholar smiled apologetically. "These berries are called Bloodbane. They grow in the places where human blood was spilled, which is why there are always so many of them along the slave trade routes."
"So what?"
"Bloodbane is poisonous. A few berries might be enough to kill an adult man."
"Curses!"
Shifty flinched back and glared at Scholar as though the older man had personally put the berries there to humiliate him.
Sunny did not pay them much attention, because while looking around, he had finally recognized the site of the camp as the place where, in his vision at the start of the Nightmare, the bones of the slaves were buried under the snow. He was willing to bet that whatever had killed them all was going to happen soon.
As if to answer his thoughts, a thundering noise rang from above.
And in the next second, something massive came crashing from the sky.
Turning toward the sound, many slaves raised their heads only to see rocks and heavy shards of ice raining down from above. They panicked instantly, lurching away in a cacophony of screams. Entangled by the thick chain, those in front fell to the ground and pulled others with them, and the whole procession collapsed into a writhing mass of bodies.
Sunny was one of the few who remained upright, mostly because he'd been ready for something like this. Calm and collected, he gazed at the night sky, his Attribute-enhanced eyes piercing the darkness, and took one measured step back. In the next second, a piece of ice the size of a man's torso hit the ground right in front of him and exploded, showering everything around with sharp shards.
Others weren't as quick. As the bombardment continued, many were wounded and a few died outright. Agonizing wails filled the air.
"On your feet, fools! Get to the wall!"
The veteran soldier was shouting angrily, trying to herd the slaves toward the relative safety of the mountain slope. But before anyone could move, something massive came crashing down between the caravan and the cliff face, sending a tremor through the stone beneath their feet. It landed right in the gap the soldiers had been trying to funnel people toward, and for a few seconds everything went silent.
At first it looked like a lump of dirty snow, roughly round in shape and as tall as a mounted horseman. Then the creature unfurled its long limbs and rose, and it towered over the stone platform like some nightmare omen made flesh.
It had to be at least four meters tall. Two stumpy legs supported an emaciated, hunched torso, and disproportionately long, multi-jointed arms extended from its shoulders, two of them ending in horrifying bone claws and two more, shorter, ending with almost human-like fingers. Its fur was yellowish-grey and ragged, thick enough to stop arrows and swords. Five milky white eyes regarded the slaves with insect-like indifference, and beneath them, a terrible maw crowding with razor-sharp teeth hung half-open, viscous drool running down its chin and dripping into the snow.
What unnerved Sunny the most were the strange shapes moving endlessly, worm-like, under the creature's skin.
'Well, that is just too much.'
The creature moved. Its claws slashed in his general direction, but Sunny was already one step ahead, jumping sideways as far as the chain allowed and placing the broad-shouldered slave between himself and the monster.
Those sharp claws, each as long as a sword, sliced through the broad-shouldered man a fraction of a second later. Streams of blood flew through the air, and Sunny, drenched in the hot liquid, hit the ground as the corpse fell on top of him.
'Damn! Why are you so heavy!'
Temporarily blinded, he heard a chilling howl and felt an enormous shadow pass over him. A deafening chorus of screams filled the night. He tried to roll the corpse aside but was stopped by a forceful lurch of the chain that twisted his wrists and filled his mind with white-hot pain. Disoriented, he felt himself being dragged a few steps before the chain suddenly slackened and he could control his hands again.
He pushed the dead man's chest with both palms, straining against the weight. The heavy corpse resisted stubbornly, then finally fell sideways, setting him free.
But he didn't get to celebrate, because at that moment, with his hands still pressed against the broad-shouldered slave's bleeding body, he clearly felt something wriggling under the dead man's skin.
He flinched back and crawled as far from the corpse as the chain would allow, which was about a meter and a half. The body was starting to convulse with growing violence. Strange bone growths pierced the skin, extending like spikes. The muscles bulged and wriggled as though trying to change shape. The fingernails turned into sharp claws, the face cracked and split, baring open a twisted mouth with one too many rows of bloodied, needle-like fangs.
The Spell didn't do this. Or rather, it wasn't supposed to. There were rules for what type of creatures could appear in any given Nightmare. The First Nightmare was almost always populated by beasts and monsters, rarely with a demon mixed in, and Sunny had never heard of anything stronger than a single devil appearing. But this creature had just created a lesser version of itself, which was an ability that belonged exclusively to tyrants and those above them.
'How powerful is that damn [Fated] Attribute?!'
But there was no time to think about it. The monster rose slowly, clicking, and Sunny cursed and jumped forward, grabbing the slackened chain.
One arm of the newborn larva shot forward, five jagged claws aimed at his face. Sunny sidestepped it with one calculated movement, not because his reflexes were exceptional but because he'd spent his whole life fighting for survival on streets that were their own kind of teacher. Presence of mind was the only combat technique he'd ever mastered, and it was the only one that mattered right now.
He threw the chain around the monster's shoulders and pulled, pinning its arms to its body. Before the creature, still sluggish from its transformation, could react properly, he wrapped the chain around it several more times, nearly losing his face to its snapping maw in the process.
"You two!" he screamed at Shifty and Scholar. "Pull on that chain as though your lives depend on it!"
Because they did.
The two slaves gaped at him, then understood. Grabbing the chain from opposite directions, they pulled as hard as they could, tightening its grip on the monster and keeping it from shaking loose.
The creature bulged its muscles. The chain creaked against the bone spikes, sounding as though it was about to snap. Sunny threw his hands up and caught the thing's neck with the short, thinner chain connecting his shackles together, then circled behind it and pulled, using his own back as a lever and the weight of his entire body to drag the shackles down against its throat.
He pulled with everything he had, the monster's bone spikes pressing into his back, its body convulsing against his. Sweat and blood rolled down his face.
Every second felt like an eternity. His strength, what little he'd started with, was draining fast. The wounds on his back and wrists were screaming, and the muscles where the bone spikes had pierced him felt like they were being torn apart from inside.
And then the monster went limp.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Mountain King's Larva.]
Sunny fell to his knees, breathless. His whole body felt as though it had been through a meat grinder. Even the adrenaline couldn't wash away the pain and exhaustion. But he was exhilarated, and the satisfaction of killing the larva was so vast that he forgot to be disappointed about not receiving a Memory.
'Three seconds. You can rest for three more seconds.'
He forced himself to look around. The larva was dead, which was great. But he was still tied to it by the chain, and Shifty and Scholar, both pale as ghosts, were already working to untangle it. Further away, torn bodies and pieces of flesh covered the ground. Many slaves were dead, and a few who'd managed to escape were running blindly into the darkness.
'Fools. They're dooming themselves.'
Mountain King was hidden from sight by the bright glow of the bonfire, but Sunny could feel its movements through the subtle tremors in the stone and hear the desperate screams of those slaves who were still alive. Angry bellows indicated that some soldiers were still fighting, though it was clear they wouldn't last long.
What pulled his attention most was the fact that several of the maimed bodies were starting to move.
More larvae. One after another, four corpses rose to their feet, each as disgusting and deadly as the first. The nearest was mere meters away.
'I want to wake up.'
Strange clicking filled the air. One of the beasts turned its head toward the three slaves and gnashed its fangs. Shifty fell on his ass, whispering a prayer, while Scholar froze in place. Sunny's eyes darted to the ground, looking for anything he could use as a weapon, but there was nothing, so he simply wrapped a length of chain around his knuckles and raised his fists.
The larva dashed forward in a flurry of claws and teeth. Sunny had less than a second to react, but before he could do anything, a nimble figure moved past him and a sharp sword flashed in the air. The monster, beheaded with one strike, fell gracelessly to the ground.
Standing there with a valorous expression was the handsome young soldier. He looked calm and collected, if a little grim. There was not a speck of dirt or blood on his leather armor.
'He is. Awesome,' Sunny thought, before catching himself.
'Poser! I mean he's a poser!'
With a short nod, Hero moved forward to face the remaining larvae. But after a few steps he turned and gave Sunny a long look, then took something from his belt and threw it.
'Save yourself!'
With that, he was gone.
Sunny caught the item reflexively. It was a dagger, short and simple but well-made. He looked at it, then at Hero's retreating back, then at the chaos still unfolding across the platform.
He should have been looking at the body next to him.
The broad-shouldered man's corpse had been lying where it fell since the start of the attack, half-tangled in the chain that still connected all three slaves. Sunny had killed the larva that was born from it. He had watched the thing die. He had heard the Spell confirm the kill. So when he turned his attention away from the corpse and toward the living threats on the far side of the platform, it was because he had already categorized it as dealt with.
What he didn't know, because there was no way for him to know, was that a tyrant's worms didn't always stop at one. Mountain King had seeded the broad-shouldered man's body with more than a single parasite, and while the first had transformed quickly and drawn all of Sunny's attention, the second had been slower, burrowing deeper into the chest cavity where the flesh was warmer and the conditions for metamorphosis were better. It had been growing the entire time Sunny was strangling the first larva with his shackle chain. It had been growing while he caught his breath. It had been growing while Hero killed the other one and threw him the dagger.
By the time Sunny heard the wet cracking sound behind him, the second larva was already halfway out of the corpse.
He spun. The thing was pulling itself free of the broad-shouldered man's rib cage, slick with blood and viscera, its bone spikes still extending as it moved. It was smaller than the first one had been, not yet fully formed, and its movements were jerky and uncoordinated in a way that might have made it seem vulnerable if its claws hadn't already been fully grown.
Sunny raised the dagger. He had time, he thought. The thing was still emerging, still awkward. If he moved fast, he could get the blade into its throat before it finished pulling itself free.
He lunged.
The larva's arm came up faster than anything half-born should have been able to move. Its claws caught the dagger and ripped it from Sunny's grip with a force that nearly took his fingers with it. In the same motion, its other arm swept low and hooked into his leg just above the knee, and the pain was so immediate and so total that the rest of the world simply vanished.
He went down. The stone platform hit his back, and then the larva was on top of him, and he was pinned the way he'd pinned the first one with the chain except there was no chain to help him now and no leverage and no Scholar or Shifty pulling from the other side. There was just the weight of the thing pressing him into the ground and the bone spikes digging into his chest and the claws working their way through his stomach with the patient, mechanical inevitability of a machine that had been designed for exactly this purpose.
Sunny tried to push it off. His arms wouldn't cooperate. He tried to scream, but his lungs weren't working the way lungs were supposed to work, and the sound that came out was barely a whisper.
Somewhere behind the larva, he could hear Hero fighting. The soldier was too far away and too occupied with the other creatures to reach him in time, and Sunny knew this with the same cold clarity that had allowed him to calculate the wagon's trajectory earlier. Hero would come. Hero would kill this thing. But Sunny would already be dead by then, because the claws were deep now and the blood was leaving him faster than the cold could replace it.
He stared up past the larva's clicking maw at the night sky above the mountain. It was very dark. There were no stars.
'I should have watched the body,' he thought.
It was a stupid last thought. Practical and self-recriminating and utterly without grandeur, the kind of thought that belonged to someone who had spent his whole life calculating odds and angles and had finally miscalculated one that mattered.
The cold was inside him now. The pain was fading, which he understood meant the damage had gone past the point where pain was useful. His vision was narrowing to a single dim point, and even the [Error] Attribute, that unreadable wound in his status, felt very far away.
His last coherent thought was that he'd never gotten to find out what it meant.
Everything became black.
And then, in the darkness, a faintly familiar voice rang:
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial...]
Step. Step. Another step.
A dull ache radiated through Sunny's bleeding feet as he shivered in the cold. His threadbare tunic was nearly useless against the biting wind. His wrists were in agony.
He was on the mountain. He was in the chain.
The broad-shouldered man walked ahead of him with a measured gait. The shifty slave behind him cursed under his breath in a language Sunny did not know but somehow still understood.
Sunny stopped walking.
The slave behind him slammed into his back and swore. The chain yanked taut. Someone further down the line stumbled, and a horseman shouted something angry and indistinct.
Sunny did not hear any of it.
He was staring at his hands. At the shackles on his wrists. At the raw, bleeding skin beneath them, identical to how it had looked before, down to the exact pattern of the wounds, because this was the same skin and the same shackles and the same moment on the same mountain that he had already lived through.
'What?'
The wind screamed. The chain clinked. The broad-shouldered man glanced back with irritation.
'What?'
He summoned the runes. They appeared, shimmering, exactly as they had the first time. The same Aspect. The same Attributes. The same corrupted fourth line sitting there like a wound in the interface.
Aspect: [Temple Slave].
Attributes: [Fated], [Mark of Divinity], [Child of Shadows], [E̷̢͓͔͚͗̒͝r̷̨̛͔͓͚̅r̸̡͔̼̈́̊o̷̧̜͚͑̚͠r̸͔͓̈́].
Sunny dismissed the runes and kept walking, because the chain was pulling him forward and his body knew how to walk even when his mind had stopped working entirely.
'I died,' he thought. 'I died and I'm back.'
The cold bit into him. The shackles burned. The mountain loomed above, vast and indifferent and exactly as it had been before.
'I'm back.'
He kept walking.
He did not understand what was happening.
He did not understand at all.