Mathew was officially grounded. That is to say, he was locked up in a room by a group of people who thought they knew what was best for him.
"Listen, guys, I am sorry about earlier. I don't know what came over me… let's talk this over." Mathew tried his best to sound reasonable. He heard some shuffling outside his door and knew they were listening.
"It's me, your master." He tried. "Shouldn't you be doing what I order you to do or something?"
A timid reply came through: "I-if you are really the Master, what is your name?"
Mathew held his aching metal head. If he had eyebrows, he would have knitted them together in thought, trying to dredge up the vessel's memories.
While listening to the conversations of his captors, Mathew had learned a few key pieces of info about the place he had woken up in, as well as the body he now inhabited.
The name of the 'vessel' that he now inhabited was Mathias Dread, and he had been some sort of high priest of a very fanatical cult. Each one of the cloaked figures that had bowed to him in the assembly hall was one of his followers.
Currently, he was located in a large temple, or abbey of some kind, which housed almost a hundred acolytes that had left their previous lives behind in order to follow their charismatic leader.
They called themselves the Disciples of Dread, which made them sound much more impressive than they actually were.
This cult worshiped some sort of goddess, though the only name they referred to her by was 'The Lady'.
When Mathew had woken up in the assembly hall and started to freak out at everyone around him, his followers had acted immediately and locked him up in a guest room. Apparently, the previous owner of his new body had left some safeguards behind in case he wound up possessed or insane.
The only way out now was for him to convince them that he was still their Charismatic leader, and that he hadn't lost his mind or been taken over by the devil.
Unfortunately, it seemed that almost all of his new body's memories were gone, and there were still plenty of holes in his recollection of his old life as well.
Once he realized he couldn't rely on his own mind, he tried to answer by instinct instead, hoping muscle memory would not let him down:
"Mathias Dread," He said, trying to sound confident.
There was a short silence, followed by a hesitant:
"We are sorry master, but we cannot trust you even if you remember your name. You instructed us to keep watch of your body when you ascended to the kingdom of our Lady. We are just doing what you told us to do." They sounded genuinely sorrowful as they spoke.
So he had guessed the name right. Perhaps the remnants of Mathias's memories had carried over after all?
"I have to be honest with you guys, I did ascend, but I came back. Unfortunately, the process left my memories in a jumble. But I'm still your master, I remember that much. Will you let me out so we can talk face to face?"
He was mostly rambling at this point, but sprinkling in a bit of honesty here and there couldn't hurt.
"We want to… but what if you are possessed by a Nightspawn? We can't know it's really you…" The voice was filled with regret, and Mathew decided to push a little more.
If those two mysterious beings, Alchemy and Sequence, were telling the truth, then Mathew had been sent to an entirely different world.
If he wanted to get his old body back and get back to his own world, he needed to learn more about where he was, and the first step to doing that was getting out of this room.
"How can I prove to you that it's really me?" He asked earnestly.
He heard muttering on the other side of the door, and a quick back and forth, during which he picked up the word 'spear'. Then one of the acolytes spoke:
"We have a test."
…..
A large group of a dozen or so acolytes escorted Mathew to a part of the temple that seemed to have been walled off. Large planks of wood were placed over a heavy metal door.
The door had a strange golden device attached to it that was about 15 centimeters in diameter, and vaguely resembled a faintly glowing sundial.
One of his followers explained: "In your absence, Master, we were careless. While devoting all of our attention to safeguarding your body, we failed to secure the temple itself, and a Nightspawn creature somehow made its way inside. We have done our best to seal the door, but for some reason the power of the Sigillum we have in place is waning. We fear the creature could break out any day now."
Mathew assumed the sundial-like device on the door was a Sigillum. Was it some sort of mystical combination lock? How did it work?
"So.. What does this have to do with me proving my identity to you guys?" Mathew asked. Another acolyte pointed at the door.
"There is a series of hallways and rooms beyond that door. One of those rooms is the weapons room, and in that room is your favorite spear. Go find that spear, and bring it back to us. Only then will we believe that it's you."
That seemed way too simple a task to Mathew. He just had to go grab a spear?
"That's all?" he pressed.
"That's all, master. We will begin once you are ready." Mathew shrugged and then tried to sound authoritative as he reached a hand toward the door:
"Open it."
All the acolytes spoke in unison: "By the Lady's will."
Once he was through the door, they closed it behind him. He hoped that they hadn't sealed him in there permanently, though. Mathew didn't want to trade one prison for another.
The hallway was completely dark, so they had given him a small candle to take with him. It was a long hallway, and there was no way to distinguish the various rooms from one another.
Every door looked the same, and there was no writing or markings to differentiate them. How did the acolytes navigate then?
Maybe everyone else simply had the layout of the temple memorized.
Mathew sighed softly. It seemed the only strategy available to him was checking every single door one at a time.
Most doors he opened were bedrooms with single cots in them. A few were closets with rags, buckets, mops, or brooms. One door he opened seemed to be a kitchen of sorts, with a wooden table in the middle, and several cabinets against the wall.
At the end of the hallway he came to a fork, where he could go right or left. He chose right, and began checking every door once more.
As he neared the end of this hallway, he reached another fork. Before he could decide again on a direction to go, however, he heard the sound of movement down to his left, echoing in the hallway.
He then recalled his followers mentioning something called a 'Nightspawn' wandering around the halls, and he his heartbeat instantly started beating at a million kilometers an hour.
He had seen plenty of grim things in his life, but nothing could prepare him to face down a literal monster. Was it possible that the monster might see the light of his candle?
Mathew panicked and attempted to snuff it out.
He instinctively tried to blow on the flame like a birthday candle, but no air came out of his metal mouth, so he simply used the thick fabric of his sleeves to do the trick.
Once the fire was out, Mathew noticed something strange: His metal 'eyes' could see in the dark.
It seemed one gift of this body was some form of night vision. Sure, everything was in shades of gray, but he didn't even need the candle after all.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a thousand appendages moving at once filled his ears, and a large shape filled his vision.
A monster was moving down the hallway, not a meter away from his face.
As the creature walked past him, he held his breath. His heartbeat pounded in his metal ears as he seemingly escaped its notice, and it continued down the hallway.
He had averted his gaze and avoided looking at it directly, but he still got a good look at it with his peripheral vision.
It was a large bulbous creature, about the size of a large dog, and was an inky black color. It had dozens of insect-like legs to scuttle about with, and dozens of beady black eyes all over. Its body had the shape and texture of a leather sack, with tufts of fur sticking out in random places like garden weeds.
He watched as the creature reached the end of the hall, then turned down another one, leaving his sight.
Mathew took in a shaky breath and decided to peruse the direction the creature had come from to lessen the likelihood of running into it.
After checking a few more doors, Mathew finally found the room he was looking for. Several racks and desks lined one wall, housing several bows, a few small swords, and some polearms.
Mathew wanted to shout in triumph, but he didn't dare make any noise that could alert the monster to his location, so he settled for silently pumping his fist in the air.
He entered the room, and walked over to the weapon racks. There were at least 3 spears, which all looked relatively distinct.
How was he supposed to tell which one was his? He really couldn't recall anything about ever using a spear… perhaps it was a trick, and the acolytes were trying to pull one over on him? Perhaps Mathias really used a sword or some other weapon?
He dismissed the thought. He hadn't known the Disciples of Dread long, but so far, he had seen nothing but unwavering loyalty from them.
Mathew concluded that his only option was to find the spear by instinct, just as he had done in order to find Mathias's name. He tried the first spear, feeling it with his hands, but felt no intimate connection. The next spear he tried was the same.
He felt foolish inside, but he didn't let the feeling deter him from his mission.
As he gripped the final spear, he thought he genuinely felt a difference. The texture of the wood in his hands, the weight as he lifted it, each and every groove and weathering on the shaft, it was inexplicably familiar to him.
It was as if he had held this weapon a thousand times, even though Mathew had never held a spear in his life. He was certain he had found what he was looking for.
As he turned with a spear in hand however, he accidentally knocked into one of the other polearms, and it caused a domino effect on a line of weapons, causing a few of them to clatter to the floor.
Matthew's heart dropped, and he twisted quickly to look at the door, which he had left wide open.
He could hear a faint scuttling sound in the hallway outside, and it was getting louder and louder by the second.