The Sanctuary of Sorrow
The Sanctuary of Sorrow
The rain was falling—a deluge beyond human reason, as if it meant to wash the world away in shades of blue and black.
Aslan pressed forward through the downpour, the hood plastered to his skull. The sodden fabric carried a faint briny tang.
Feels like being marinated alive.
He'd been caught by monsters before. The thought that something might be seasoning him for later was hard to shake.
The path to the Sanctuary of Sorrow was wet, saline, and suffocating.
Like walking across a vast weeping eye.
The weather crawled past irritation into something colder—the edges of dread—but turning back wasn't an option. If he didn't reach the sanctuary now, he had no idea how events would spiral.
Lost in the idle thought, still crouched low, Aslan reached back and pressed down on the shoulder of the girl following behind him. A jerk of his chin pointed through the sheets of rain.
"Huh? What?"
The girl could barely keep one eye open in the downpour. She squinted at him through nearly closed lids.
He kept his hand on her shoulder and answered low.
"We're heading straight for it. So keep your voice down."
She forced her eyes wider and caught the blurry shape ahead. She flinched.
Where Aslan had gestured, something that defied the word "strange" drifted through the air.
A formless body, near-mist, its churning shape dominated by a single sharp feature: a distinct silhouette that bled cold blue light. The silhouette of a veiled woman. Divinity rippled gently over its outline.
The creature was a banshee.
The final state of a worshipper of the God of Sorrow and Death who, instead of passing into the afterlife, chose to remain in the world.
Undead, in any standard fantasy game. Here in Geladrion, it was worse: a creature that wielded minor divinity, seduction magic, a life-draining kiss, and a sonic scream.
That made them difficult to put down. Physical attacks didn't work well, and magic fared little better thanks to the ancient god's residual divinity. With the right tools, they were walking experience points. Without those tools, they were the sort of problem you didn't pick a fight with.
Aslan moved on murky instinct, the two women following in single file behind him.
He navigated from trace to trace, closing in on the sanctuary.
The closer they drew, the more monsters they found—swept up by the floodwaters and left dying.
A whimpering dog-like beast. A shambling imitation of a giant. A serpent with a body that stretched on too long. All of them waterlogged, twitching, in their final moments.
Aslan ended them as he passed, sliding the blade of his two-handed axe into throats. Every monster in his path.
When he finally pushed through the last curtain of heavy rain and reached the sanctuary, he stayed low and peered ahead.
Kiii-ya-aaaak!
Grrrrk—yipe!
At the sanctuary's entrance, monsters were tearing into each other in the rain.
The creatures the priests had brought versus the banshee.
The banshee exploited its shapeless form to lunge at blinding speed, draining life or shrieking brains to pulp. The monsters clawed at it, but whenever it sensed danger, it simply rose out of reach.
Aslan watched and let out a low breath.
The ancient gods had fallen eons ago. And still their monsters fought the newer gods' beasts. The sight unsettled him—mostly because it was something you never saw in the game.
But the pattern was shifting. The ancient god's creature couldn't win. The master's battle had already decided the outcome; the servant had no way to overturn it.
By the time the banshee's body was gradually being torn apart under the onslaught, Aslan had drawn his bow.
The same longbow requested from the Margraviate. The one that had pierced Ereta's eye.
The bowstring drummed against the battering rain, but the monsters didn't turn.
Aslan aimed into the melee and pulled an arrow from his quiver—an awl-tipped shaft—nocking it against the string.
Creak.
The drawn bow stretched and groaned. Aslan listened to the sound in silence, then loosed.
Twaang!
The arrow flew. Nearly straight despite the rain, sprouting from a monster's skull.
Twaang. Twaang. Twaang. Twaang!
The taut string snapped forward again and again, awl-points punching through giant-kin heads. Every pull and release sent another creature sprawling. The numbers thinned fast enough that the monsters finally noticed him—
Kii-yaaaaaa!
The banshee closed in at low altitude and screamed. The monsters never finished turning. Blood poured from eyes, nostrils, ears. Then the banshee's head was crushed in the jaws of a massive serpent, and it died.
Aslan let his last arrow fly over the scene.
Twaang!
The shaft punched through the venom-dripping serpent's head. The ground before the sanctuary fell still. No one left moving.
In the quiet, Aslan exhaled the breath he'd been holding and put the bow away.
"What the hell is all this..."
Angie stared at the carpet of monster corpses, sounding sick.
"..."
Ereta bit her lip, her expression tangled.
Aslan could read the emotion. He chose not to speak. Seeing it for herself would be persuasion enough. He tapped her shoulder twice and moved forward.
A trail led through the bodies, toward the entrance.
Human footprints and the tracks of things that weren't human, intermingled.
"...Whoa."
The sanctuary's interior was strange.
Dark, sullen walls were crowded with pulsing lines of pale blue light—veins that gathered into clusters forming what looked like writing. The script ran floor to ceiling down a corridor that stretched deep into the structure. Angie's gasp at the threshold wasn't surprising.
Even with a monster's corpse pinned to the wall by trap-spikes, dead and mangled.
Aslan approached the body, shifting the bow to his other hand.
A pressure-plate trap. Standard. The triggered plate was hidden beneath the dense blue script, nearly invisible. The extended spikes carried the same pale glow as the walls. Beside them, blood smeared the stone—and that blood led onward.
A trail.
The priests had passed this way.
Aslan followed, gathering information as he went.
Every activated trap along the path had cost them a monster. Occasional blood spatters at inconsistent positions suggested some had been wounded—the priests hadn't gotten through untouched.
Some of the spilled blood carried toxic properties. Aslan read the composition and began piecing together the roster.
A giant-kin corpse meant the Giant's Priest was here. Venomous blood meant a priest of the Poison-Spitting Dragon. Most of the group were monsters, but the human footprints stamped over the bloodstains made one thing clear: there were worshippers among them too.
Aslan sorted the intel and asked Ereta a clipped question.
"Ereta. Any cult outposts near here?"
"...No. The closest one's all the way up past the Forest of Laughter."
The woman who'd been so listless answered and tightened her grip on her weapon. Aslan began to see the shape of things.
They were in a hurry.
And they were nervous.
They wanted something badly enough to force sacrifices instead of carefully checking for traps.
The trail ended in a wide chamber lined with coffins.
A campfire sat in the center, bedrolls laid out around it. The space had clearly been used as a rest site. Now it was cold—and piled with bodies.
Aslan walked toward them.
Weapons are mostly beside the bedrolls. Were they the dead's?
Notably, the arms had been left neatly arranged near the bedding. The chaotic splatter of blood on the floor suggested there'd been some resistance—a struggle, maybe—but no time to grab a weapon.
They'd been taken by surprise. Attacked when no one expected an attack from that direction. Which meant the violence had likely been accompanied by orders rather than external force.
Jumped by one of their own. Betrayal? Infighting? Or...
Either way, the ambush hadn't been clean. It had met resistance, but overwhelming speed had prevented any real arming. The majority of the dead were giant-kin and their worshippers, along with their priest. Evidence enough.
Aslan's gaze settled on a woman's corpse—the Giant's Priest.
Throat torn open. The seething poison within had twisted her face into a mask of agony.
He couldn't guess what had sparked the internal violence, but he intended to use everything he could. He stepped to the bedrolls and picked up a large single-edged blade, tucking it into his belt.
"Angie, grab whatever weapons you can. Ereta, you too."
"...I'm fine."
Ereta declined. Angie had already scooped up a mace and an oddly curved sword. Aslan waited just long enough for them to finish, then pushed on.
Past the chamber, deeper into the sanctuary, the number of sprung and spent traps increased. So did the bodies—monsters and worshippers alike.
They were nearing the core.
A thin tension rode the air. A rotting stench brushed his nostrils and clung.
Aslan breathed it in deep.
At this depth, the dungeon boss would come soon.
The path opened into a long corridor. Traps and corpses lined it. The blue script flowing down the walls was drenched in blood. The deepest part of the Sanctuary of Sorrow.
Aslan raised a hand at the noise spilling from the far end.
"...Kill..."
Kii-yaaaa—
The distant noise was a clash of steel and seething rage. Aslan listened to the shouts tangled in the din and crept forward. Arrow on string. Body low.
He stopped at the corridor's end and looked into the sanctuary's blazing heart. He frowned.
The Sanctuary of Sorrow was a dungeon. That meant it had a dungeon boss—a named monster.
The most renowned priest of the God of Sorrow and Death. What she'd become after her god died and madness took her. Named Banshee. Daughter of Sorrow.
She was fighting the priest of the Poison-Spitting Dragon.
Most of the monsters lay scattered on the floor, dead, but a few still hurled themselves at her.
The Dragon Priest's decaying skin wept venom like pus as he fought. Only the whites of his eyes showed—reason long gone.
The battle raged.
...At this rate, the Daughter of Sorrow wins.
The fight had already tilted hard. Half the priest's upper body was gone. The surviving monsters were spent or dying. The Daughter of Sorrow looked nearly untouched.
Aslan drew his bow from the shadows.
Whoever won, he'd finish the survivor. More efficient that way.
He was just settling deeper into the dark when—
Crack!
The banshee, mid-swipe at the Dragon Priest, spewing some indistinct energy, snapped her head around.
Turned at an angle no human neck could achieve, staring straight into the shadows where Aslan hid. His shape burned in her rotting blue eyes.
"...What?"
Before his surprise could settle, the banshee wheeled. Her dress flared as she spun in the air and came straight for him, abandoning her attackers entirely. A direct line. The charge carried murderous intent.
"...Damn it."
Aslan hurled his longbow to the floor—half alarm, half irritation—and pulled his two-handed axe free.