He passed through the colossal arched gateway at the exit of the ruins. A new hell stretched out before him.
The dry, cold scent of stone and dust ceased abruptly. It was replaced by a throat-burning, nauseatingly sweet and wet smell. A mixture of rotting lotuses, swamp gas, and clotted blood.
Kaelen paused on the final step of the ruins. He groped for his chest with his left hand. Under his armor, against his cold skin, the silver medallion was there. Liora. The little girl's face stood not as a memory in his mind, but as a physical weight in his ribcage. He had killed Groth, but he had not won a victory. He had merely stolen a grieving father's watch, along with his pain.
"Grief" seemed to have grown heavier on his back. The sword was filled with the sorrow of the soul it had absorbed.
Kaelen took his first step. His boot sank into the moss-covered ground. The earth made a squelching sound. This was a forest, but the trees resembled no trees he knew. Their trunks were pale gray and wrinkled; it was as if they were covered not in bark, but in the skin of an old, sick elephant. Their branches resembled twisted fingers opening to the sky, begging for mercy. And their leaves… There were no leaves. Instead, moss-like clumps of dirty hair hung from the branches, swaying gently in the wind.
The sky was lower here. A dense, milk-white fog had settled upon the treetops, reducing visibility to a few meters.
He moved forward. He had no sense of direction, only the instinct to survive.
After a while, his right eye—that emotionless Void—noticed something strange as it scanned the surroundings. The energy flow in the air was irregular. The roots of the trees were beating like veins beneath the soil.
Rustle.
The sound came from behind him.
Kaelen tried to turn, but his body betrayed him. That "power" he had taken from Groth had turned his left arm rigid. The limb felt as heavy as if it had turned to gray granite from his shoulder to his fingertips. His joints were locked. This was not protection; this was paralysis.
A shadow lunged from the mist.
It was human-sized, but it did not move like a human. It was like a puppet, its joints twisting backward, jerky and fast. The clothes upon it were rotted, its flesh fallen away. But what held it upright was not muscle, but a thick, thorny vine that entered through its back and wrapped around its spine.
The creature—a Root Puppet—glared at Kaelen with blue flowers dangling from its empty eye sockets and snarled. It swung the rusty, broken dagger in its hand.
Kaelen tried to lift Grief. He could not. His left arm would not rise. The sword dragged along the ground.
"Damn it," he whispered.
Reflexively, he threw that petrified left shoulder forward.
Clank!
The dagger landed on his shoulder. Flesh did not cut. The metal bounced off Kaelen's graying skin. Not even a spark flew, only a dull, dry sound of stone. Groth's curse had protected him. But with the violence of the blow, a deep, dull ache exploded in Kaelen's shoulder. His bones creaked.
Kaelen stumbled. The pain was not sharp, but suffocating. He could not move. Seeing its prey left defenseless, the puppet lunged again. This time, it aimed for his throat. Kaelen tried to scramble back, but the swampy ground held his foot. He fell onto his back in the mud.
The creature pounced on him. Its rotting fingers began to squeeze Kaelen's throat. Pollen falling from the blue flowers rained onto Kaelen's face, cutting off his breath.
Kaelen's right eye could see the main root knot in the puppet's chest, its weak point. But his hand… His hand could not reach it.
Death was blowing into his face like a rotten breath. While Kaelen's human side struggled in terror, his void side watched death with a cold acceptance.
Just then, a thin whistling sound was heard from within the mist.
Whizzz…
Then, a bulbous glass bottle appeared, spinning through the air. The bottle slammed into the back of the puppet atop Kaelen.
SMASH!
The bottle shattered. It emptied not liquid, but pure hell.
BOOM!
A greenish, chemical flame exploded. The fire did not rise upward like a normal flame; it spread over the puppet like a sticky gel. The creature let out a high-pitched, inhuman scream. This sound was a thousand times louder than the thin hissing sound wet wood makes when thrown into a fire.
The puppet was thrown backward, burning. Its roots were scorching, its flesh shriveling.
Kaelen rolled to the side, coughing and wiping the mud and chemicals from his face. His lungs were burning.
Heavy, rhythmic footsteps were heard from within the mist.
Kaelen tried to straighten up, grasping the hilt of Grief with his right hand—his left arm was still numb. "Who are you?"
The arrival emerged from the smoke like a ghost.
He wore a long, weathered leather trench coat. On his head was a wide-brimmed hat. But his face… He had no face. In its place, he wore a metal Plague Doctor Mask with a long, curved beak. The eye sections of the mask were covered with thick, dirty glass.
The stranger held a strange weapon in his hand. A hybrid of a sword and a meat cleaver. The blade was not straight but serrated like saw teeth.
The masked figure looked at the puppet writhing and burning on the ground. Then he turned to Kaelen.
"You are noisy," he said. His voice came muffled, wheezing, and metallic from beneath the mask. It was emotionless. "And quite clumsy."
Kaelen clenched his teeth. "You didn't have to help me."
The stranger did not answer. He approached the puppet on the ground. The creature was still trying to move. With a single fluid motion, the stranger raised that strange saw-blade and brought it down on the puppet's neck.
Crunch.
The sound was wet and final. The creature's movement ceased.
The stranger rested his weapon on his shoulder. He turned his mask toward Kaelen. Behind the glass, he was studying Kaelen's pale skin, black veins, and massive sword.
"You look like you crawled out of the earth," the stranger said. "But your scent… your scent is not fresh. Nor is it rotten. You are in between."
He pulled a silver flask from his pocket. He opened a hatch beneath the beak of his mask and took a sip. A sharp smell of alcohol spread through the air.
"My name is Verrick," he said, closing the flask. "I am the gardener of this forest. I burn the weeds."
Kaelen stood up. The sensation in his left arm was slowly returning, but it was still tingling. Groth's legacy was a heavy burden.
"I am looking for my way," Kaelen said.
Verrick laughed with a mocking tone. "There are no paths in this forest, Gray Skin. Only hunting grounds. And right now, you are in the 'Weeping Preacher's' territory."
He pointed with a finger toward a dilapidated structure barely visible among the trees in the depths of the mist. A chapel.
"I am going there," Verrick said. "I forgot something inside. If you don't want to die, you will follow me. If you don't have the strength to swing that sword, at least you'll serve as bait."
Kaelen had no other choice. Verrick turned his back and plunged into the mist. Kaelen followed him, limping, dragging Grief behind him.
The voice inside him, Elara… She was silent. Perhaps she was ashamed of Kaelen's weakness. Or perhaps she, too, was afraid of this forest.
When they arrived in front of the chapel, Verrick stopped. He signaled Kaelen to be quiet with his hand.
The chapel door was broken. From inside came a chilling murmur. Not the sound of prayer, but of moaning.
Verrick turned to Kaelen. His whisper was sharp as a knife.
"The thing inside was once a priest. Now, it is a part of the roots. We do not get along well with fire. Can you use that sword, or should I leave you here and go?"
Kaelen took a deep breath. He felt Liora's medallion beneath his armor. that regret, that weight… It gave him a strange strength.
"Open the door, Gardener," Kaelen said, his right eye glowing in the darkness. "I will finish it."