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Shoving his way through the remains of the Dirty Colossus, a giant doll filled with filth and flies, Alchemist moved on to the final area in the fetid swamp. Getting to the end hadn't proven difficult, exactly.
Tedious though? Absolutely. The Kobolds... Hadn't been violent. Admittedly their inability to percieve him may have had quite a bit to do with that but he hadn't felt it appropriate to just murder his way through a rejected, dejected people that were trying to preserve the only light that had ever voluntarily walked into their misery.
The Leechmonger demon, a disgusting mass of writhing bloodsuckers... Hadn't been able to stand up to his fire spell. Cremation had been designed to literally incinerate flesh.
Feeling the giant beast roar as its constituent pieces flash-boiled until it finally died had been nasty. It had been a gluttonous beast that would devour everything nearby until it had nothing left to feed on and ended up starving if not for its supernatural constitution.
Beyond the Leechmonger there had been a significant number of slug beasts, hiding this worlds iteration of the Holy Moonlight Greatsword. A pair of Black Phantoms had also stood guard over several of the more worthwhile treasures.
One wielding a giant knife, the Meat Cleaver. He'd stolen that before putting the phantom down. Another had been the dark iteration of a maiden by the name of Selen Vinland. She'd proven... Difficult.
Alchemist had long forgotten the details in how to deal with her. He hadn't remembered that the woman somehow, inexplicably, had access to a literal anti-magic spell that he wouldn't be able to get until after Jinx and Kary had handled the Storm King, a giant, flying manta ray at the end of their current journey.
Between the sudden loss of his active buffs and her blade, Blind, ignoring his physical defenses as though they didn't exist? He'd been thrown on the backfoot.
Sudden burning pain as his chest was sliced open when such a thing shouldn't have been possible does tend to be rather jarring.
Unfortunately for the phantom, Alchemist was well acquainted with the Bloodborne style of fighting. He'd gotten inside of her reach as she'd lined up another swing and activated Steal, making off with not just her sword, but her armor as well.
And a rather interesting little ring.
Bereft of her armor, her helmet, her sword and her shield? The black phantom had proven a pitiable foe.
Alchemist had needed a moment to recompose himself. The time had been spent looking at the blade he'd taken, and the quartet of duplicates that had been dropped into his inventory upon the specter's demise.
Blind was a falchion, it's handle being the most intricate part and made up of a kind of dark silver metal Alchemist couldn't place. The blade, well, wasn't quite real. From the hilt came an illusory, transparent length of immaterial. Overall it was a cleaving tool, though pointed so it was still capable of stabbing.
It was also nearly weightless. Alchemist had swung one about a few times before nodding to himself and deciding he'd liked how the weapon flowed. It lacked the weight and heft of his other tools, yes, but it lent itself well to more covert activities. Especially when he'd discovered he could will the blade to fade away, leaving him with a bladeless hilt.
After healing up and reapplying his buffs, Alchemist had pressed onwards with his new weapon clipped to his belt. Circling around the plagued shanty town, he soon found himself facing the second demon in the deepening mists.
Like the Leechmonger, the Dirty Colossus was especially weak to fire. Its size proving more a hindrance than a help, especially with its clearly telegraphed attacks.
Like the Leechmonger, it was felled with little fanfare. Its soul, multiplied into four, deposited into his inventory to rest alongside the Leechmonger's.
Stepping forth into the ever deepening fog, Alchemist inhaled the thick, fetid air and steeled himself for the next part. He'd been slow. He'd been patient.
For the most part, he'd even been unseen.
"Go forth, Garl Vinland." But he had not been unknown. The Arch-Demon residing at the heart of the valley was aware that someone, something had come. Had slain the bloodstained monsters guarding her. "And may you be unharmed."
At the depths, the colorless fog was stained crimson. In the basin at the bottom, where the filth collected, dozens of broken bodies lay partially submerged.
Alchemist cast Shield on himself and began his descent.
"Leave us, Slayer of demons." A woman's voice rang through the air, amplified and carried by the fog itself. "This is a sanctuary for the lost and the wretched."
"I'm aware." Alchemist said as he passed by a group of lizard-men with their arms held up high in fervent prayer. "And you are aware that I need to claim the Demon Soul in your possession."
"...You will not turn back, will you?" She, Maiden Astraea asked of him as Alchemist came into view of her knight.
Garl Vinland was a tall, imposing figure in darkened silver armor. The material, similar yet different to Blind, severely dampened the effects of magic used upon the wearer.
"I shall let no harm come to dearest Astraea." Garl's voice came from somewhere deep within his helmet, his hands wrapped around a massive mace. "May you rot in the deepest depths of this swamp!"
"Greater men than you, Garl." Alchemist held his hand out as the knight brought his mace, Bramd, in to strike at him. It was caught in Alchemist's palm. "Have tried and failed."
"What-?" The knight began to say before being cut off when Alchemist stepped forward and kicked the man, breaking his grip on the great hammer and sending him tumbling down the narrow walkway.
Without Berserk, Alchemist would have been unable to casually place the great weapon over one shoulder and continue to leisurely walk down after the corrupted knight.
"Please." The maiden whimpered as the fog parted, revealing the fallen saint. "Leave quietly."
"Why must you pests insist on intruding upon our haven?" Garl spat out as he climbed to his feet. "You abandoned us long ago; what right do you have? We live humble lives. Leave us be!"
"You assume much." Alchemist countered, ignoring the man as he made his way to the maiden, seated upon a raised stone. "I would speak before we act upon any... Unpleasantness."
"...What is there to discuss?" The woman trembled as Alchemist stood before her, his black armor pristine and untouched by the rot, the decay that filled the valley. "You seek the Demon Soul. Without it..."
"...Do you truly believe that the only miracles you can enact are through its power?" Alchemist asked as he buried the head of Bramd into the muck next to him, leaning on the giant weapon. "Is your imagination so limited? Do you really believe there's no other way to aid the sick? To ease the suffering?"
"You assume much." Astraea countered, returning his words to him. "The Old One is our god. Our every miracle is but a reflection of its absent mercy."
"And if there was another way?" Alchemist silently refreshed Shield and closed his eyes. He could feel the knight, Garl, stalking him nearby. Waiting for the moment that he made a hostile motion towards the maiden. Underfoot, in the water and mud, he could practically feel the directionless malevolence. The unknowing hunger and need of the gathered remnants. "If there were a way to help these poor souls without suckling at the demon's power?"
"...There are none." Astraea bowed her head, her once blonde hair, now stained a muddy red, shadowed her face. "If the only means of absolution I can offer these people come at the cost of my own soul? It is a price I gladly pay."
"...You don't know what evils you speak of." Alchemist shook his head and looked behind him. At the small, curious heads the would occasionally rise above the water. At the grasping hands that were abandoned before they could take their first breath. "Even the gods couldn't swallow all of man's evil. If they would fall to corruption, what will it do to you?"
Alchemist was tempted, incredibly tempted, to cast Greater Illusion and show the woman the bloated, sickly form of Queklain. The god he spoke of, the one tainted by its attempt to devour all the worlds evils.
He stilled his hand, however. Striking fear into the woman's heart would serve no purpose.
"Then I would join them." Astraea admitted, accepting her potential fate. "To fall in service... None should desire the end of a martyr. None should fear it, either."
Alchemist shook his head again. He'd like to call the woman a fool. A zealot.
Those, however, would imply that she was wrong. And in this world, in this place... She wasn't. At least, not yet.
"There are more things beyond your understanding, Saint, than either of us will ever imagine." Alchemist reached into his surcoat, reached into his inventory and grabbed a diamond. He had plenty to spare. Convenient, since he had plenty of wishes. "Watch. Listen. Pay attention!"
He ignored the woman's call, casually passed Garl as the knight rushed forth to reclaim his weapon and walked to the bottom depth of the swamp. Knee deep in the filth, the small hands and curious eyes he'd seen earlier took form.
Infants. Babies. Unwanted children that had been discarded and left to rot without proper funerary rites, their nascent souls taking form in the bastion of filth. Half-formed bodies made of plagued mud grabbed at his armor, reached for his hand as he held it down to the creatures.
Botchlings, he'd called them. One of the few innocent undead.
"Hush now, quiet now." He choked out, bile burning at the back of his throat as tears burned at his eyes. As one of the curious creatures grabbed at his wrist and tried to suckle on one of his fingers. With his other hand, he cast Wish and crushed the diamond, now just a lump of sand and carbon.
Something other, something alien took note as he cast a monstrously empowered Ceremony.
"I'm so sorry to bother you, Dee." He whispered as a ghostly hand rest itself upon his shoulder. As Maiden Astraea stood from her seat, hands clasped in front of her and mouth agape. "But they need names to properly pass on..."
"And I need help."
-----
Astraea struggled to understand this interloper.
A black knight that had, somehow, traversed the valley and did so without murdering any inhabitant he'd stumbled across. The demons and specters she could hardly complain about. Even channeling the Old One as she did, those things left her weary.
He'd handled her Garl as though he were a mewling kitten. Disregarding his every effort to strike him as though the blows were inconsequential. As though the impacts of the mighty Bramd failed to phase him.
And then...? He'd discussed philosophy with her!
The knight obviously disagreed with her choice, as she knew most would. Instead of arguing over the heresy, however, he'd expressed concern for her. For what she must become.
It was most strange that a stranger would concern himself with her fate, even as her knight and the myriad beasts born of the fog did their vile workings.
His next actions, however... The man stepped away from her, claiming he could show her another way. He'd stepped past her knight, Garl, and descended into the heart of the Valley. Voluntarily walking into the grudge, the rancor of the unborn. The unwanted. The source of the Plague upon the blighted land, the pool in which the oft sleeping Plague Babies lingered eternal.
She tried to call to him, to warn him! If he'd wished to die, there were deaths far kinder than the swift and painful bonerot as the screaming, mewling creatures would drag him below, swarm him until he'd either suffocated or else wasted through!
Neither happened. The man... Reached down to one of the abominations. He'd allowed it to grab on to him with fingers that would bend steel, laughed as it bit his hand, heedless of the filth that filled the sad, miserable creature.
And then she felt the magic. Whatever working he'd performed, knee deep in the swamp... It pushed back the Fog!
She knew not what he'd done, no, but she did know what he hadn't done. Whatever magic he'd used... It was not among the Soul Arts, miracles and magic alike dredged and stolen from the souls of demons. Fragments of the Old One and its impact upon the world.
"Fate has been cruel." The man intoned as he lifted one of the creatures into his arms. He held the incomplete form, the upper torso of a child made of mud, in his arms as though it were a real child. "And order unkind..."
"What witchcraft is this?" Garl questioned as he took in the scene, his great hammer resting on his shoulder as he took a step towards the unnamed knight.
"Hold, Garl." But Astraea placed a gentle hand upon his arm, halting him in his tracks. "There's something else here. Something... Greater."
"...I've no home to house you, nor a hearth to warm you." The knight continued as he held the giggling creature, as it waved its stubby arms at his face. "But I at least have arms to carry you. I see you, Annabel, and I accept you. Let me shoulder the cruelty done unto you, seek Justice against the forces that tethered you. Sleep, child, and when next you wake... I pray it's to something far brighter than today."
With his final word, a deathly cold chill settled upon the Valley.
And a great figure appeared over the knight! A monstrous creature, shaped like a man and twice Garl's height, made up entirely of shadows! Both its arms reached down and a pair of skeletal hands, completely bereft of flesh appeared from the shadowed sleeves and gently took the Plague Baby. Now slumbering, it did not even put up a fight as those hands came back up and brought...
Astraea fell to her knees as she saw the ethereal, ghostly form of a newborn child rise in the creatures arms. It held it against its empty breast for a long moment before the specter faded away.
In the knight's arms, the form of the Plague Baby quickly turned to rich, black mud. The disease, the hatred and the hunger cleansed from it.
"Astraea..." Garl leaned down to her side as the Knight in the pool of filth continued his ceremony. The great creature at his back placing an empty hand upon his shoulder when he would hesitate. "What is this? What is that?!"
"Death..." She whimpered, staring at the Knight, at the specter with nothing short of awe. "He... He's bound Death itself to him. The two of them, they're exorcising the spirits of the unborn, trapped here."
She swallowed heavily and latched on to Garl's hand, the tremors in her own rattled and clanked through his armor.
"Not... Garl, not even the Black Maiden could- What?" The saint struggled to find the words that would express her thoughts. To vocalize the fear she felt at such an impossible sight.
And the Knight? Throughout all of this, he'd continued to lift up the eager children. To name them and pass them on to his silent companion.
"Garl? What -Is- he?!"
-----
Jinx and Kary had returned to the demi-plane hours ago.
They'd taken turns showering, sorted out their loot after they'd doubled back and taken anything and everything that wasn't nailed down, and Jinx had even gotten a chance to show Kary something that the demon hadn't known.
How to make pasta.
It may not have been impressive but she was going to take whatever victories she could get!
Setting the leftovers in the mini-fridge for Alchemist, she'd settled into the common room and dug out one of the games he'd mentioned in the past.
Chrono Trigger. He'd compared this 'Old One' to some monster in the game called 'Lavos'.
She was decently into the game, working on getting some robot parts out of some kind of factory when she heard the door open. Glancing over, she saw Alchemist trudge his way in.
His armor had already been removed, his clothing looked completely clean but there was still a palpable stench as he came in. An almost solid wall of stagnant water, mold, must and mildew.
He smelled almost as bad as Gotham!
Whatever comment she'd been about to throw his way died on her lips, though, when she looked at his face. His eyes were downcast, puffy and red. His nose and cheeks were blotchy and swollen. He looked up to her, briefly, even gave her an aborted half-wave before he turned to the kitchen and out of sight.
His eyes had been empty and exhausted. He'd looked at them but Jinx was certain that he hadn't really seen them.
The bathroom door clicked almost silently behind him.
"That was... Odd." Jinx whispered to the demon that sat next to her.
Kary, chewing on her bottom lip nervously, put down the book she'd been reading and made to stand up. She froze on her first step when she heard the shower start up.
"I don't like it." Kary said back to her, voice at full volume. Setting the book she'd been working on down on the couch, she took another step forward. "I'm going to find out what's wrong."
Jinx paused the game and followed her.
"Alchemist!" Kary shouted at the door. "I'm coming in!"
The door opened without any resistance- Alchemist had never installed a lock. The only door that had one was the front entrance, and he never used the lock regardless.
They only really stopped honest people so Jinx understood why he didn't bother. Anyone that was serious about breaking in would either try another method or just kick the door in.
He hadn't left his clothes on the floor, he'd put a towel on the rack, it was mostly normal, really. If not for the blurry form of him sitting in the shower stall, obscured by the frosted glass of the door, she could almost believe they were overreacting.
On Bitterblack Island, when it was just her and Alchemist, they hadn't had much privacy. A few curtains hung up to seperate their beds, another one to block off the makeshift shower he'd made. It was still enough that, if she'd caught the angle right, she'd been able to see his silhouette through the sheet.
He'd always been in something of a rush. Not because Jinx had been there and needed to use it, just that he seemed to feel that the time wasn't productive. He rarely took more than half an hour, even if he'd walked up from the depths covered in crimson viscera or foul, brown rot.
"Alchemist?" Jinx was tempted to open the door, to check on him, but held back when she saw the round blur of his head shift to indicate he'd heard her. "Are you alright?"
"...Yeah." His voice was always a little scratchy, he often had to clear his throat when he started to talk. This, though? This sounded far worse, he sounded downright hoarse. "Yeah. Just... Ran into a bit of difficulty. I'm... I'll be okay."
Pink eyes met jade and both sets seemed worried. Kary seemed at a loss, unused to seeing Alchemist when he was struggling with something internally.
Chewing on the inside of her cheek for a moment, Jinx made up her mind and sat down across from the shower stall, her back against the wall.
Asking him to talk about it before he was ready would just get her nowhere. Whatever he'd done, he wasn't finished processing it. Whatever he'd been through, he was only just really feeling it now.
"You know?" So Jinx started instead. She motioned for Kary to take a seat on the toilet while she began to monologue. "When you warned us about the Shrine? I kind of thought things weren't going to be as... Weird as they were. I mean, it sounded pretty straightforward- Go in, kill the demons, kill the skeletons again, go even deeper and kill even more skeletons. Simple, right?"
"Right!" Kary agreed, picking up on what the dragon was trying to do. "Go there, kill that. Real simple mission!"
"Then we found the Adjudicator." Jinx grumbled, loud enough to be heard over the streaming water. "You told us we'd be facing big things in tight spaces. That, though? It was big, it was grotesque and its tongue cut through stone!"
"I nearly got eaten!" Kary whined, her hooved feet kicking back and forth. "I would've been swallowed whole if Jinx hadn't set up a pair of force walls that I couldn't squeeze through."
"Did you know that it had its own knife buried in its side?" Jinx continued, watching the still, silent form of Alchemist through the glass. "I ran into the broken end of that thing when I was trying to avoid getting cut by the blunt half it still had in its hand!"
"Then she ripped it out and stabbed the Adjudicator with it. A lot." Kary giggled and Jinx grinned as the story moved on. "We couldn't figure out why it wasn't dying until it fell over and we saw the bird in its crown. Once we'd figured out that the bird was the real demon and the thing fighting us was just a puppet? The fight got very short."
"It was disgusting!" Jinx whined. "I think more blood came out of it than what all three of us put together have."
"From there, we moved on. The other foes were largely unremarkable. Clever at time, yes, but rather fragile." Kary continued when Jinx motioned for her to keep talking. "It did not take us long to reach the reanimated body of the Old Hero."
"That... Wasn't much of a fight." Jinx admitted. "He couldn't see us. He couldn't hear us, either. He just flailed wildly around the room, attacking wherever I had Ghost Sound activate. Like you said a while back, about tradition? He seemed to get really spooked when I used the sounds of children laughing. He'd chase after that with that great big sword of his, then Kary or I would blast him with a spell. He didn't last long."
"For how big he was, he was actually rather disappointing." Kary offered her opinion. "A lot of wasted motion and he didn't hit either of us even once!"
"The Storm King, though?" Jinx noted that Alchemist had leaned to the side, that he was paying more attention as they spoke. "You told us it was huge but I didn't think it would be nearly as big as it was! I thought it was some kind of flying island at first!"
The soft chuckle that Alchemist let slip told her that she was on the right track.
"Of course, I'd seen what the flying demon stingrays had done so the first thing I did was put up a wall of force over us." Jinx kept going, a grin tugging at her lips. "I noticed a bunch of the lesser demons all circling around something, so I went to investigate while Kary had fun casting spells on the demons through the wall."
"If they'd been closer, I would've just stabbed them." Kary admitted, a smile spread wide on her face.
"Yeah, well, I found a magic sword that let me do that anyway!" Jinx was tempted to bring the greatsword out right there but the bathroom was too cramped for that. "I pulled it out of the stone and I could feel there was some magic left in that old rusted thing- So I Repaired it!"
"It was beautiful." Kary admitted, her feet swinging back and forth as her tail waved about in lazy arcs.
"I swung that sword and a blade of wind swept out from it!" Jinx waved her arm sharply, imitating the swing. "I must've killed five or six demons on that one swing alone!"
"It would've been better." Kary almost agreed. "If she hadn't swung the poor thing around like a club."
"Oh shut up." Jinx rolled her eyes, the grin still on her face. "It's a sword. You hit things with the sharp side and you poke them with the tip. You can try and make it romantic all you like, it's still just a big bar of metal."
"Hold on." Alchemist finally spoke up, interrupting the grinning girls as they got ready to start bantering. "Go back to the Storm King. How did you two kill it?"
"That?" Kary nearly fell of the toilet when she guffawed. "That was practically an accident! Jinx just stood there, holding the sword up over her head. She screamed out 'I have the power!' and you know what happened?"
"It's not that funny." Jinx sulked.
"What?" Alchemist asked, awkwardly standing up from where he'd been languishing under the spray of hot water.
"She got struck by a bolt of lightning!" Kary barely managed to get out through pealing laughter.
"Right while the demon was over her! Just Zap! Pow! Dead!"
AN/ I'd wanted to do another Christmas episode but without internet for the last few days, it was a bit hard for me to get much done.
Instead? Have another chapter.
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