Through the Red Mist
by holyflpncows
We begin our descent into the miasma-filled basement.
I take the rear, keeping an eye on our new companion. I roll my tongue around in my mouth. The bloody mist is getting thicker, enough to feel like I'd lost a tooth. Up ahead, Feng Da opens a stone door at the bottom of the stairs and one by one we enter. The ramp opens into an oversized sewer system, choked with the bloody mist. Right in front of us is a deep trench, too wide to make a reasonable jump across. The group fans out. I examine the ancient stones and find patches of lichen, seemingly unaffected by the bloody mist. Strange. How does it survive when all other organic material seems to just be consumed by the mist? I snap my attention to a curse from Shen Po to my far right. His gauntlet lights up and he backs out of a hallway. To my left, Feng Da pulls out two hand axes and heads to the hallway on that side. Wen and I run to catch up with him. As I round the corner, I pull out my saber and change my footing. I turn my wrist up and shift to the balls of my feet, keeping my momentum, following the trajectory of Feng Da’s thrown axes. I push my weight forward, strike at a legged flesh monster, and continue my run, keeping my saber embedded in the creature and pushing it back several feet. I deftly pull my saber out while my feet dance away from the creature. I frown. As the creature lets out its last groans, it dematerializes into a swirl of... something. The claret-colored swirl takes off toward the sewer entrance. I exit the hallway and follow it, but it disappears into the wall across the canal. Wen’s frantic yelp catches my attention. Feng Da has already moved to Wen’s side to combat two more waist high amalgamations of flesh and teeth. From Wen’s hands, beams of frosty magic slam into both approaching creatures. Feng Da beats me to them, slashing his ax at one and slamming his war pick into the other. One turns into swirling essence, but the other is still moving. I thrust my saber into the flesh and it dissipates. There’s a loud cracking sound from the hallway we entered. We turn back to that area and find a large opening in the wall where the monster’s essence was disappearing. Black claws grab the edges of the cracked stone and hoist out the blood covered demon from before. Yawei shoots the creature with a red colored beam. I shield my face from the heat coming from it. When I lower my arm, there’s a unicorn standing close to Yawei. I don’t have time to ponder what's just occurred. I move quickly to Arslan, who is being swarmed by more flesh monsters rising out of a block of bodies in the canal. The demon is on its way as well. Not good. We're about to be outmatched. Step by step, I close the distance, seeing thin ice forming on the flesh monsters attacking Arslan. It helps him shrug them off, but not fast enough. The demon leaps, claws extended. No! Arslan stumbles. I lunge. Then suddenly Arslan is gone, wispy mist where his body had just been. I look near the entrance staircase and see him, leaning on his sword and catching his breath. The small knot in the pit of my stomach releases. I raise my saber up to parry black claws and wince as one still catches my shoulder. Another sound draws my gaze. Out of the crack in the wall, a second demon steps out. This one, however, is wielding a gnarled spear. Burning sands, I grimace. I nimbly step back, blood oozing from my wound—and right on time. Heat rushes over me as a large silver sphere of flame appears above the demons and body pile, and then crashes down on them all. It rises back up a bit and hovers, pulsing heat. Strange to feel such heat from a moon. I see Shen Po, ragged with a sigil fading in front of him. The unicorn trots over to him. Not wanting to risk another deadly handshake with the demons, I steady myself and draw in power. “Viske!” I whisper and direct the released power to the unarmed demon. It wails, turns from me, and runs back into the crack in the wall, disappearing. I have a feeling it won’t stay gone, but this'll give us a chance to focus on one target. I suck in a breath and join the group.The unarmed demon returned from the crack only to find its companion is now a corpse. It snarls and leaps back into the void. A few seconds later, another figure begins to emerge. First, forward-curved horns poke through, followed by a flat face plastered in scars. It reminds me of a bull, but the mouth full of sharp and jagged teeth claims otherwise. Then hairy arms, each as thick around as Arslan's body, pull and drag the rest of the hulking beast into the tunnel. I swallow. How do you fight something so massive as this? “What you want?” I'm surprised to hear it speak. Spark is the first to recover and answer. “We want this plague to go away.” The towering demon lifts its chin up. “You first.” It slams its massive fists into the wall, everything around us shaking more with each hit. We flee back upstairs. “Wait!” Arslan cries. The demon looks at Arslan, body working its way back through the crack now. “Do you know how to destroy this sword?” Arslan waves around his large blade. The demon just smiles and finishes the squeeze into its own realm. Arslan lets out a stream of frustrated noises. Rocks begin to fall around us. “Arslan!” I tug on the goliath. “Let’s go!” We rush up the stairs to catch up with the group, bloody miasma fading around us.
We all collapse just past the hospital doors, dust still settling from the crumbling hospital. It takes a while before we relocate to the inn. Shen Po and Spark begin working on cleansing the blood mist disease from everyone. And I get to work scouring the blood from myself and my clothes. The effort seems to be worth it though. At night, there's no sign of the miasma in town.
Arslan stays quiet for the first few days of travel back to Ulaanbaatar. I pull up next to him but don’t say anything. After a bit, he speaks. “I,” he begins, “saw him.” I lift an eyebrow. “I think I saw my father.” “You seem pretty concerned about that,” I say. “He was as tall as me, and he was in a brown cloak.” Arslan stares into the distance. “I don’t- I don’t know if the sword-” he's getting more frantic. “I saw him and he spoke to me. But it didn’t seem like he was talking to me now, it was like something he had said to me years ago, and I was remembering that moment. I couldn’t see his face, but I just felt like it was him.” Arslan lets out a deep breath. “He said that he was glad to see me again.” He closes his eyes. “And I just don’t know if it was real. I don’t know if the sword is messing with me or not.” I'm not sure what to say. I doubt that what Arslan saw wasn’t related to the sword. “Did your father ever possess the sword before you did?” I ask. Arslan is quiet for a minute. “My father made the same journey I’m making now. Is that what happens?” he asks. “If you fail, do you become nothing more than a memory?” “Potentially many people’s memories are trapped in the sword.” I take a breath, bracing for potential retaliation. “I advise caution. The sword may be using memories of its wielders against you.” Arslan hangs his head and stays quiet for the rest of the journey, distressed. Had I said the wrong thing? I wish I knew how to help him.
We meet Carnassa in her public hall several days later. We relay what we discovered and accomplished, and ask if she’s heard of A. R. Xew. Carnassa nods in acknowledgment, then tilts her head at the question. “That name sounds vaguely familiar,” she says with a pensive look. “You said he was working for Jin? I know that Kanbei calls a captain in his ranks Xew.” As we lay out our mats for the night, my mind works. Is there some way I can get to Xew when we confront Kanbei? Would I be able to convince the rest of the group to spare him? Maybe if we can capture him, then I can steal him away. As I slip onto my mat, I glance at Arslan, restless on his own sleeping mat. Maybe.
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