Published at 14th of October 2023 4:52 pm

Chapter 8 Ritual

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As the Ghoul approached the modest cabin, something changed in the air. The mist cleared out suddenly, revealing the cottage, somehow untouched by the ghostly storm. Looking back, he saw that he’d left behind him a moving wall of fog, a bank of clouds that hurtled by. He’d unknowingly entered the heart of the storm.

All wasn’t calm here, however. One aspect of the cyclone had only grown more prominent: the voices. It seemed as though all the hatred of the entire storm had been condensed down upon this one area. It was deafening: a cacophony of wrath and fear that echoed around him. The Ghoul eyed the surroundings suspiciously, but when nothing leapt out at him, he approached the cabin, a caution in his step.

That was, until he picked up the scent of the human once more. His nose had thawed after that first attack, and he was able to catch a whiff of his quarry.

He was inside the cabin.

He strode forward, arriving at the door in moments. There, he tried to open it, and failed. Something barred it. He planted a kick, causing the wooden slab to bend inward, creaking ominously. A second one did the job: the wood splintered as the door fell inward.

He stepped inside and looked around him. The first thing he saw was a maw filled with yellow teeth, lunging at him.

The force of the impact made him lose his footing and he fell to the ground with his attacker in a tangle of limbs and gnashing teeth.

It was another ghoul. The attack had taken him back outside, and he was left to fight off the assault on the dead grass. He quickly recognized this creature’s scent as the same ghoul that had killed one of the two humans he’d been following. It must have tracked the boy here. Any other thoughts that might have come to him were put aside as the Ghoul focused entirely on the obstacle at hand.

This knowledge that this undead had taken his prey only served to fuel the Ghoul’s wrath, and as he grappled with his attacker, he steadily gained the upper hand, deftly maneuvering the unthinking beast that only knew how to go for the throat. Once his hands were free, he used them to grip its head and twist, like he’d done with the undead from before. It appeared to be an effective method. The thing’s neck finally cracked, and it stilled, though it wasn’t dead. Its mouth opened and closed, still seeking the taste of blood.

Standing up, the Ghoul stomped down with his booted foot. When he lifted his leg, it had become messy with brain matter. Snorting, he approached the door for a second time. A shout sounded out just before he entered, and the familiar voice gave him pause.

“It isn’t working!”

A voice that was melodic to his ears, yet tainted with desperation. It cracked at the end as if the speaker had been shouting at the top of her lungs for some time.

“Why? Why won’t it accept—!”

The Ghoul entered and took in the surroundings. He had no idea what he was looking at. No—he could discern the individual parts. The floor was bare as before, and the intricate circle filled with chalky runes remained much as it had been when he was resurrected.

“Unbending energy! Accursed Institute! Even now, you oppose me?”

His mistress seemed to be in no danger, yet she kneeled on the floor at the edge of the circle, her entire body shaking. Her feet were bare and she wore a frayed gray robe. Little details that he hadn’t noticed before.

At the center of the circle sat his quarry. Only, there was one problem.

“I’ve only… I’ve only just begun…” the necromancer whispered.

The boy sat cross-legged within the smaller circle at the center of the larger one, staring vacantly at an object in his hand: a nondescript gray orb. He didn’t move or blink, and at first glance appeared to be drifting off to sleep. His eyes were half-lidded like those of a drowsy child. Only this couldn’t be slumber that claimed him, as his chest no longer rose and fell with his breaths. He was dead.

With a light gasp, his mistress collapsed. The Ghoul watched, unsure of what to do. After a moment, she seemed to recover slightly, shakily rising to her feet.

Then she turned towards the broken door where the Ghoul stood. She began walking. She didn’t even glance his way, and she probably didn’t even recognize his presence. She walked as if she were in a trance. He hurriedly stepped out of the way as she neared. Despite her apparent frailty, she walked with a noble determination.

She stepped past him and out of the cabin. At that moment, the volume of the storm seemed to increase once over. It reached a newfound fervor, letting loose an unintelligible wail of hatred, many voices becoming one.

With a last glance at the dead boy, the Ghoul followed her. His hunt had been cut short, but he didn’t show any dissatisfaction. He had to protect her.

The woman was standing motionless on the withered grass outside, observing the moving wall of fog that surrounded her home. She was speaking, but her words were drowned out by the voices of the storm. Was it his imagination, or had the fog bank grown closer to the house than before? It looked like it had advanced by nearly ten feet in the short time since he’d arrived.

He approached until he was able to make out what she was saying.

“—mere four hundred vengeful ghosts. Even the Men of Rock stood aside... what right do you cowardly wretches who hide away in this forgotten crack of the world have? Tell me! What right do you have to oppose my vengeance?”

She took a step forward, raising her voice against the tumult.

“My purpose?!”

Another step.

“What r—”

The Ghoul lunged forward, pulling her back just before the dozen hands that reached out from the wall of mist could seize her.

He threw her down behind him, and she hit the ground with a surprising agility, rolling into the fall. She blinked, looking up at him.

The Ghoul howled as he had done before, and the fog was blasted away to reveal a mass of ghostlike figures. Many of them quickly faded to nothingness without their protective shroud, but not all disappeared: two of the specters remained. These two were of the solid variety that he’d fought on the way in, but they didn’t pool to the ground like the others had, instead maintaining their shape as if through the force of their anger alone. They fell to the ground and began to crawl forward, ignoring the Ghoul in favor of the necromancer.

This decision allowed the Ghoul to quickly intercept the creatures and poke them full of holes. Though these two were more tenacious than the others, his attacks ultimately proved too much for them, and they dissolved under his skewer.

[Level Increased]

Miasma + 2

[Level increased] x 2

Dexterity + 1

Miasma + 1

“You…? One of mine?”

He turned to the woman. Her eyes scanned him, but they seemed to look through him rather than at him. It was an unfocused gaze, and even as she spoke, her mind was clearly elsewhere.

“An evolved variant? I expected a few, but… that ability. It controlled the miasma?”

Was this fog the miasma she spoke of? If so, he didn’t think that he controlled it at all. More that he had within him a similar storm to this one, only on a much smaller scale. He was able to call upon it to temporarily fight the larger one.

He shook his head to deny her, but she didn’t seem to recognize the action.

She laughed, but her voice was bitter.

“No matter. Things can hardly get any worse. An undead vessel… perhaps it will work. Perhaps that was the key all along. If my body contains the Lifestone, then an undead may indeed be the solution. But can an unintelligent being command such a Shape? No—there are antecedents! The monstrous Branded are capable of it. Yes, yes… then, perhaps a ghoul may suffice…”

She climbed to her feet, motioning him to follow. Continuing to mumble under her breath, she reentered the house. She gestured at the circle as he stepped through the door.

“Enter the circle. Do not break any lines of chalk.”

He did so.

“Ensure that the orb the corpse is holding does not leave the central circle. Remove it from his grasp and deposit the body outside of the circle.”

He picked up the body. At first, it remained frozen in the position it had expired in: sitting with the hand that held the orb still raised. Once he removed the sphere from its grip, however, it became limp in his arms, as if the object were the only thing keeping it rigid. He placed the orb down and deposited the body outside of the larger circle.

“Now sit where he was sitting and hold the Stone in your hands so that you can observe it, in the same position that the boy was in.”

She was pacing now, muttering fiercely. The Ghoul did as commanded, observing the orb he held. It looked rather like a dull gray pearl. As he inspected it, swirls occasionally appeared within it, appearing and disappearing at random. It appeared to be some sort of glass, serving as a container for something else: perhaps a gaseous substance. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t a stone.

The necromancer scrutinized the circle for any defects before sitting down at the edge and placing her hands on the ground.

Closing her eyes in concentration, she spoke. “Ghoul: do not let yourself be consumed.”

The Ghoul wasn’t given much time to wonder what she meant, because at that instant, a bright blue glow illuminated the cabin, she screamed a word—and the world vanished.

There was nothing.

He was left floating in a dark void. His body had disappeared, and he couldn’t even sense his limbs. One thing remained in this space, and that was the orb. As he watched, it appeared to expand in his vision, as if it were growing bigger… or as if he were shrinking. It grew until it filled his entire perception, and the void had transformed into grayness. And then, that grayness undulated, sending ripples out in every direction, and the Ghoul suddenly realized that he must be inside of the orb somehow.

Here, it was Death.

Not the Maelstrom that ate memories, nor the miasma that held within him, that fog that even now threatened to consume the necromancer’s hut, but something purer perpetuated this space. It was a toxic purity, threatening to unmake him. An agony began to build up, slowly at first, than more fiercely. Pain unlike anything he’d ever known pierced his soul. He was being eaten. He felt his consciousness begin to unravel at the fringes as pieces of him disappeared into infinity.

“Do not let yourself be consumed.”

The words echoed in his mind, reminding him to fight. With bleeding hands, he gripped his ego and forced the downward spiral to end. It felt as though his very brain were being dissolved, but he resisted. Fortunately, this consuming force wasn’t an active one. It was more like a side effect, a phenomenon made possible by its simple presence, like how water warped light. What he was fighting was an aspect of nature. No, a by-product. Such was this object’s presence that all it came into contact with could only be consumed. No, consume was the wrong word. It was Ending him.

After an unknown length of time, he felt the force pulling on him suddenly lessen. Still, he did not reduce his grip. Pieces of him that he’d lost slowly began to return to him. He hadn’t realized how hollow he’d been until he felt himself filling out. As he regained himself, he shuddered. Truly, this was dancing on a knife’s edge.

The force lessened still further, and more and more of him returned until he was once again himself. He sensed a glimmer of light at the edges of his perception. Soon, parts of him that weren’t even his own started getting pulled up by his actions.

Kai…po.

A name came to him. Images of a life he hadn’t lived flashed before him. Fragments formed a whole, far smaller than himself. This little identity was but a candle flickering in the wind, barely sheltered under his wings. He continued pulling, afraid that the flow would reverse if he stopped. He pulled, sucking up all the pieces of this human he could find. Then, he finally awoke.

Opening his eyes at last, he found himself in the position that he’d occupied before the ritual began. The incessant voices from the storm had quieted. The candles around the circle burned low on their wicks, and the orb that he held in his hand… had shattered. Pieces of glass littered his palm, remnants of the object. He tilted his hand, watching as they dropped to the floor, clinking. His suspicions were confirmed: the orb was simply a hollow container. Whatever was contained within it had vanished. But then where had it gone?

You have received the status effect: <???>

The burning orange symbols meant nothing to him, as always. He was shortly brought out of his deliberations by a voice.

“How could I… in my madness…”

It sounded out from behind him. He turned to find the necromancer kneeling before a torn cloth. A moment’s observation told him that the cloth was the same burial shroud that had once covered the body he now inhabited.

“Was my oath meaningless? Do I lack even that much resolve?”

Standing, the Ghoul approached. Hearing his movements, his mistress’s shoulders stiffened. Her voice rang out sharply.

“Stop! Do not come any closer.”

He stopped.

She didn’t say anything for a moment, but he could see her back shuddering as she breathed.

“Find something. Cover your—cover your face with something. Do not let me see your visage.”

Her voice lacked the same noble tenor that he’d grown used to. It sounded weaker, as if she were begging him to spare her some agony. The voice lacked something else, too—something he couldn’t quite place. Clearly, the ritual had sapped her.

The Ghoul looked around. There wasn’t much around. He could use the burial shroud, perhaps… but no, he would have to approach his mistress to retrieve that, and she might see his face.

Something was odd about this situation. At that moment, he realized the other thing that her voice now lacked. He paused, frowning. Her command held no compulsion for him. Until now, everything she’d said had been as if it were a creed from on high, but now he had a choice. A choice to obey or disobey.

He took a step closer, and she flinched.

“Stop!”

There was still nothing. No urge. Even her earliest command to “go and devour” had vanished from his list of compulsions.

What should he do? He maintained his other instincts. He felt his mouth salivating at the thought of hunting prey, rending flesh… but the woman in front of him? He stared at her figure that now seemed smaller than ever before, still hunched over the burial shroud, clutching the faded, tear-stained fabric. Tear-stained?

“It seems that you’ve escaped my control, ghoul,” she spoke, her voice shaky. “Do as you wish, then. Perhaps it will be a justice to die at your hand.”

The Ghoul took another step, closing the distance between them further. Why did she cry over the shroud?

“It’s as much as I deserve. What foolishness. Revenge? How can I enact such a thing when I cannot even maintain a grip on my own sanity?”

She spat the last word like it was a curse. Gathering up the material in her arms, she hugged it tightly.

“Do it, then,” she said. “End it!”

End..? No, he—he didn’t want—

Burying her face in the cloth, the necromancer whispered a final word, and it was almost muffled by the material. He still heard it, however, and because of that, everything changed.

“…Vanalath…”

If a bolt of lightning struck down in that tiny cabin, he wouldn't have been as shocked. The Ghoul staggered backwards, as if seized by a fit. Rage, sorrow, grief, and something undefinable swarmed him at once, throwing his thoughts into complete chaos. A name. That word was a name.

His name.

He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was an unintelligible groan.

For a long, heart-stopping moment, the two figures in the room didn’t move. The necromancer had retreated into her own world, oblivious to all outside of it, and the Ghoul—no, Vanalath—could only dumbly stare at her back.

As he watched her, he thought. More deeply than ever before, he thought. The gears of his mind, freed up by his evolution, rotated, churning up his muddy consciousness with their revolutions.

Finally, he moved. He went to the side of the room and began to rummage through all the boxes and sacks he could find. After a minute, he found what he’d been looking for. Within a small case, he found two masks. They were simple but well-made handiworks. They were carved of wood, and looked to be made for some sort of celebration, painted in festive greens and reds, though the vibrant colors had faded over the years. There were two masks inside the box: one frowning, one smiling. The expressions were caricatures of human emotion, but the frowning mask seemed oddly fitting. Lifting it, Vanalath attached it to his face, tying the leather straps behind his head.

He paused for a moment, testing how limiting it felt. His sight was restricted a bit, but his sense of smell was mostly unimpeded. His hearing remained unaffected. Standing, he started to make his way over to the necromancer.

He’d realized something in the moments between learning his name and finding the mask. Though he only became aware a day ago, he knew this much: existing without a purpose wasn’t in his nature. Before, though he’d been under a compulsion, the sense of purpose he’d felt was truer than anything else he’d experienced throughout his hunts. It was rivalled only by the intoxicating sensation of growth, but growth without purpose wasn’t a true goal. This woman had purpose.

What he’d seen from his mistress was ambition, an appetite that rivalled that of the undead themselves. That was the vital component Vanalath still lacked. Before he knew his name, he had been torn. If he hadn’t known what he lacked, he may very well have killed her the moment she asked him.

He understood nothing of the world. He knew things without explanations for why, but this wasn’t true knowledge. He wanted to learn. To hunt. To fulfill a greater purpose.

And this purpose, he knew, was inexplicably tied to the one who raised him. The woman who spoke his name, who shared that emotion that was able to drag him back from the Maelstrom itself.

Hatred.

Until he found what caused the unspeakable hatred that rose up within his gut at the mere mentioning of his name, he would follow this woman. He would bear that name.

Vanalath, in his approach to the necromancer, unconsciously neared the corpse of the boy, Kaipo, who had failed the ritual before him. As his foot landed on the floor next to the body, something suddenly changed.

A gasped shriek erupted from between cold lips, and the corpse bolted upright.

Both Vanalath and the woman turned, torn away from their thoughts by the sudden noise. Kaipo sat on the floor, looking around him with wide, terrified eyes. His skin was the whiteness of death. His previously brown eyes had turned a pale yellow, the same as all the ghouls Vanalath had seen.

Kaipo clutched his chest, panting despite the fact that he no longer needed air.

“Why… I-I died? Am I… no. No!”

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