B2 Chapter 18: Insight of the Griefwalker

Vale rose groggily, groaning as she sat up, awakening from her nightmare. Her gaze, wandered perhaps instinctually, to Triol’s skeleton, who stood before her.

The sight of him confirmed the suspicion that lingered with her, as her eyes passed across his shoulders. She sighed, leaning against the building she had taken shelter in. She remained in the decrepit village she had stumbled across, taking refuge in one of the houses that had maintained its integrity over the years.

“I think I’m beginning to understand, Lord Quietus. Why you warned us about the descent. It’s Feardamned horrible. I think I’d rather eat gravesoil.”

Quietus’ eyes, two small green flames in the rat’s eye sockets blazed with his pride.

“Indeed, indeed. You begin to understand. And glimpse the beginnings of what awaits you as you grow in power.”

Vale cast her mind back, and she shivered at the realisation that her insight brought her.

“Wait… In my previous dream, when I stood in the hall of paintings… Mother was there.”

Vale’s eyes widened.

“I felt her presence… but I only gained the ability to see her once I gained [soulsight of the witness]! No…”

Vale’s skin erupted into goosebumps, as she began to comprehend the significance of her guide’s words. 

‘You’ve begun to invoke and comprehend your Fear, in its most rudimentary form.’

“Then… what awaits me in Delirium? As we get more powerful?”

Her question was met with discomforting silence. With a sigh, she rose, brushing herself off.

She walked past the black skeleton, ignoring the pale arms that she now recognised, draped over her brother’s dark bones, weighing him down.

“Well… one thing is for certain. Ignoring the fact that I can now see the souls of the dead, my Fearcore feels more… stable.”

She wordlessly queried the system.

Stage of Fear: Trepidation

Guide burden: [Mythic]

Fearcore integrity: [Stabilised]

Progress to Fearcore consolidation: [70%]

The words that appeared her were a reflection of what she could instinctively feel as she extended her awareness towards her Fearcore. With the addition of her invocations, she felt her Fearcore materialise further. She felt the mass of darkness within her, hearing the screams of the dead that originated from it.

“That invocation… [Fearecho of the bodysnatcher] – it was a powerful one. The strange resonance indicates that I’m 70% of the way through the consolidation of my Fearcore… honestly, it’s far quicker than I imagined.”

Vale frowned, as she puzzled her meteoric descension.

“Surely there’s more to Trepidation than this? Killing compatible creatures and deriving invocations from them. I’ve only obtained a couple, and I’m almost at the end of my journey through the second realm of Fear?”

“Very curious... The knowledge that I was bestowed with indicates that once your Fearcore feels sated, you will be able to trigger its consolidation, stepping into Delirium. Does it feel sated?”

“I suppose… it almost does. It seems more material… which reflects what the resonance is telling me.”

“Then you do stand at the precipice of eligibility. With a few more invocations, you’ll be able to descend!”

Vale just shot a flat look towards Quietus, then poked her guide.

“Atrocities! You would poke a Gravelord?”

“You’re an adorable Gravelord. Let’s stop wasting time, we’ve got a percentage to hike up. Any suggestions?”

The undead rat nodded, and Vale followed the direction of his gaze. 

She felt a chill wash over her at what she had to do.

Vale rose to her feet, steel in her eyes.

Cold steel was better than none.

Still, as she puzzled over her descent through Trepidation, she couldn’t help but feel like she was missing something.

---

“Gravewoods, Emberwoods, Shadow Woods. All these lazy naming conventions-“

Vale muttered under her breath in a desperate attempt to distract her from the vast congregation of death before her.

[Soulsight of the witness]

Vale recoiled at the blinding light before her as her invocation kicked in. A “congregation” had been an understatement. She watched as four towering griefwalkers and their hordes stood in a circle.

On the ground, in the epicenter of the gathering of death, lay a dying griefwalker.

It was an eerily familiar scene to the one she had glimpsed depicted in Soulhaven’s halls, in the painting, grief.

“Are you sure about this, Quietus?”

Vale watched as witnesses alighted silently on the barren trees above them. Their gazes were inclined towards her.

“There is something I must tell you, Vale. I suspect that I know of your answer. It must be said nonetheless.”

Vale paused, her heart shaking her with every beat.

“You already know that it is possible to acquire an invocation that changes you. Sometimes, in ways that you may regret. Given the nature of the griefwalker’s purpose… This could create the most insidious of your invocations yet.”

Vale stared ahead at the grounded Griefwalker. Black tears, stained its wrinkled face, seeping from slits in its surface.

“I always disliked them, you know. Part of me blamed them, for empowering my father, giving him the power to raise the dead. To bend them mindlessly to his will.”

Vale’s lips twitched, drawing taught.

“I was wrong. They are kind, aren’t they. To care for and watch over the dead, as they do. When they are left alone, bereft of the ones that cares for them in life.”

Quietus inclined his head in solemn agreement. With her [soulsight of the witness], she saw what he did, they hadn’t much time, the griefwalker was close to death, the last of its light flickering. 

Vale emerged from the brush, walking with confidence towards the griefwalker. She weaved through the horde of undead, knowing with an odd certainty, that they would not bring her harm.

For when she looked upon the creature, she saw a strangely kindered spirit.

Bringing her Phobia into reality, Vale leaned on the pale scythe.

“You were kind, all of your life, caring for these souls, bringing them peace in your own way. You listened to their cries, their joys. You did not seek to subjugate their wills, you sought to provide their weary souls with a reprieve from isolation. It is why you weep as you do, is it not.”

Vale blinked away tears of her own, as she stroked the creature’s wrinkled face. There may have been a time when she recoiled at the sight of it, as she so often did with grotesque creatures. It was difficult to peer at it in the same fashion.

“My father… He killed one of your kind to gain his powers. That he is as weak as he is after stealing away a life as noble as yours is a reflection of his own failings.”

Her undead took position behind her, and she raised her scythe.

“Rest in peace, kind one.”

Vale severed the soul from the body, that clung by a thread to its corpse, freeing it from its discomfort in its final moments. When the haze of Alarum appeared, she opened her Fearcore to it, and drew the Alarum in. It melded seamlessly with her Fearcore, and it carved itself across her Fearcore with absolute ease.

She peered out from eyes that swept over the Dreadwood’s depths. The silent keepers of the Gravewoods, providing it with succor, and ushering souls to their final rest. As it glanced down at its flock, it heard their sorrows, their triumphs and their tribulations. The griefwalker tended to the souls as it guided the departed to their final resting places. It knew, that it would join them soon, and hoped to receive the same kindness.

[Insight of the griefwalker]

As Vale uttered the words, she was bombarded by a maelstrom of emotions. The crowd around her came to life, she heard voices and saw flashes of the past, taking a glimpse into the lives of the souls around her.

They were mourning. The loss of a companion, who had strode with them, relieving them of their loneliness in their noble duty. The horde around it, laid themselves down, astride it.

She felt an unfamiliar sensation. One only within the reach of those who had come to terms with their life, and equally, their death.

Serenity washed over her, and she watched as the souls dissipated into the air, relieved of their lingering regrets, resentments, and anger. Witnesses flocked to the scene, consuming the remnants of the souls that had come to their final rest.

Vale leaned against her Phobia, the striking white scythe that towered over her. Her body trembled. Tears fled from her eyes as she joined its peers in momentary grief.

Before long, her [soulsight of the witness] dissipated, from the fatigue of comprehending an invocation which rivalled even the likes of [fearecho of the bodysnatcher].

Progress to Fearcore consolidation: [100%]

READY FOR DESCENSION

As her eyes fell on Triol, she finally comprehended her guide’s warning.

She finally saw it.

The reviled black skeleton, a reminder of her family’s sins. The blood on her brother’s hands, felling Highlord Berevan Brimstone. A reflection of her own failure to inspire enough confidence in her brother to gain his support.

Yet, a brief sliver of insight finally reached her. As she glimpsed his soul, she noticed that it blazed with a desire for… redemption, brought within her comprehension with [insight of the griefwalker]. To right the wrongs that he inflicted. It was what drove him, at his very core, even in death.

She turned her eyes to her other companion, the Fearshaper of blades. In him, she saw a man burdened with guilt, at failing to protect his loved ones. The evidence of his failure had been written around her, in the small hamlet that had fallen to ruin. Hatred at his own inadequacy in life, even as powerful as he had grown. He yearned for the chance to be better.

Vale wept, as the voices, the wishes, the regrets of the dead around her finally reached her.

Irrevocably, they reached her.

For as hard as she tried to shut them out, covering her ears and shutting her eyes, the insights into their souls shone through. Where her father had gained the ability to dominate the dead, she gained the ability to understand them.

However, in the midst of her terror and uncertainty at the deepening of her understanding of souls, Vale came across a surprising emotion.

Pride, and relief.

All this while, she had thought herself no better than her father.

Violating the undead to a greater extent than he ever did.

She knew now that she had been mistaken.

Acceptance of the Fear she so reviled was no longer such an impossible dream.

Perhaps one day, she might even come to appreciate it.

---

Vale emerged to the gentle rays of the sunrise.

At long last, she emerged from the cavern from which she had descended through her Trepidation.

At her back walked her companions, a Fearshaper of death and a Fearshaper of blades.

One was a black skeleton, her brother, in death. Behind him prowled a deathstalker, a beast that he had raised with his reclaimed power. The result of her invocation [fearecho of the bodysnatcher].

The other was a Fearshaper of old. His form towering over her brother’s. Triol had never been a warrior, but the other skeleton made him look tiny. It effortlessly hefted its Phobia, a golden axe, slanted on its shoulder, that towered above them all. His bones had taken on a dark hue of burnished gold, as if formed of metal itself, to match the Phobia that he wielded.

Both of them, strode of their own will. Seeking to fill the scars of their regret with the hopes of redemption, which they carried in their every stride.

Witnessing the resolve of Triol and the Fearshaper of blades, Vale’s internal turmoiled quietened a degree. If this was what they wished for themselves, seeking second chance from their past lives, perhaps it would allow her to live with herself.

She would strive to give them the opportunity.

Vale’s thoughts were interrupted, as a vast tear in reality opened before her. Within it, she glimpsed an endless void filled with lights – no – stars.

A familiar grey hand reached out, and grabbed her, heedless of her scream, yanking her into its depths.

Then, two others followed almost as an afterthought, to grab her revenants.

---

“Highlady.”

“Report.”

“The Revenant has been secured. The Brimstone and Shiver are forthcoming. Shiver will be a challenge if she resists. Your command?”

Highlady Solastra Flora smiled, the flowers of her court now blooming in the daylight.

Black roses lined with golden edges graced her presence.

“Reunite them.”