B2 Chapter 16: Hamlet of Death

Vale’s eyes shone as she walked beneath the lanterntrees. Quietus had instructed her to use her [soulsight of the witness] to seek out creatures that she could hunt.

They had stumbled across something strange in their search. While avoiding the griefwalkers and their hordes, they had chanced upon a paved road. It was in disrepair, and Vale could barely make out where it led, yet it persisted in the midst of the wilderness, leading deeper into the darkness.

“Do you suppose that elves actually lived in the Dreadwood’s depths, Lord Quietus?”

“It would not surprise me, young Fearshaper. After all, it would be a wealth of power for Fearshapers of death. The creatures here are incredibly compatible with your Fearcore.”

Mercifully, Vale did not glimpse even the slightest indication of life. She wasn’t particularly excited to encounter said Fearshapers.

It wasn’t long before they happened upon a small hollow.

As Vale peered inside, she saw a hamlet sequestered inside, dimly lit by the lanterntrees that bordered her. Decrepit buildings lined either side of the paved road. The settlement was abandoned, with no traces of life remaining.

“P-perhaps we should turn around.”

Vale let out a sigh.

“Why couldn’t I have been a Fearshaper of sunshine and rainbows. Feardamn my life!”

[Soulsight of the witness]

She invoked her Fear once more, and her lavender eyes began to glow as she glimpsed into the plane of souls.

“Quietus. I see souls everywhere. They’re in the houses. This is too dangerous.”

Vale felt her heartbeat quicken. Her invocvation allowed her to make out the presence of souls, but gave no indication as to their nature. She didn’t no just what awaited her in the hollow.

Then, her eyes snapped to a small light moving before her. Approaching her.

The skeleton of a lone elf melted out of the darkness of the hollow. He cut a striking figure, Vale’s head coming up only to his chest had they stood side-by-side. He wielded a golden greataxe marred with grime and the passage of time, casually resting against a bare clavicle.

“Could it be… Quietus… A dead Fearshaper? With its Phobia? Wait a minute…”

Then, she noticed a writhing black mass that filled its ribcage. Tendrils leaked out from between its ribs, swaying with uncanny, ethereal movements.

“What in Insanity is that monstrosity?”

She began to back away, but as she did, she realised that the distance between them wasn’t closing.

“Bodysnatcher. Perhaps it would be a good idea to withdraw. This one seems powerful to be controlling a fallen Fearshaper.”

Vale’s eyes widened as she cast a look of exasperation at her guide.

“You’re telling me that creatures of the same species can differ in their power?”

Then, her eyes widened. She noticed not one, but two motes of light originating from the skeleton. The bodysnatcher in its chest, being one of the souls. It was also accompanied by a tiny orange light in its skull. Her breath halted, when she realised that the orange light was trapped within a prison of black lattice that surrounded it.

“Vale! You need to-“

Vale’s eyes widened as the elf’s jaw moved wordlessly.

The Fearshaper swung its golden axe in wide arc, and she saw the air shift. She screamed as she lunged out of the way of the waves of air that arced towards her. She watched in horror as two lanterntrees toppled to the ground.

Cleaved straight through. 

That dead elf had invoked its Fear.

“That bodysnatcher got its hands on a Fearshaper of blades – we need to run! This one is too powerful Vale, we can find a weaker on-“

“No.”

She glared at the elf before her, stifling the panic, nausea and Fear that crept into her heart.

Then Vale grinned. She was surrounded by death, in the bowels of the Dreadwood.

This bodysnatcher was a master of it in its own form.

And yet… none of it could compare to the death of an Archcity. The very foundation from which her Fearshaping sprung.

In hindsight, it had been a weak, naïve and arrogant justification. Nonetheless, Vale leapt forwards, clumsily bringing her Phobia into reality – a large bone-white scythe that she struggled to wield with any semblance of competence. With another wordless whisper, the elf leapt forward, propelling itself through the air, cutting through it like a blade-

Only for Triol to intercept it mid-lunge, as it tore out of the undergrowth. Vale’s eyes widened. Even she had momentarily forgotten about her brother.

As the black skeleton latched onto its ribcage, it slowed the oncoming Fearshaper, providing her with a momentary opening.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Vale ran forwards clumsily, swinging down her scythe. Even with Triol’s diversion, she was full of openings, the elf could have cut her apart a hundred different ways. Yet, it made no move to impede the path of her scythe.

Was it arrogance? Born of its residence in the body of a Fearshaper of blades?

Perhaps it had intended to sever Vale’s skull from her body once her Phobia was trapped in its chest.

The most likely possibility.

What neither of them expected, was for Vale’s foolhardy strike to bear fruit. Her Phobia slid effortlessly through solid bone, as if incorporeal.

Then the Fearshaper hunched, unmoving, and she watched as the tendrils of darkness that occupied the Fearshaper’s ribcage slipped to the ground, torn in twain.

Her chest rose and fell rapidly from the exertion, the abrupt halt to their dance, as clumsy as it was. Her eyes widened in disbelief, and she stared at the scythe in her hands.

“Gravelords below… you did it!”

With her [soulsight of the witness] active, she watched as the soul that she severed from the creature’s body gradually rose into the air.

Vale watched as a flock of witnesses flew towards the soul, feeding from its remnants.

The familiar silver haze emerged from the creature’s body, and lingered in the air before her, waiting to be absorbed. Tentatively, Vale opened her Fearcore to it.

Her vision went black.

The bodysnatcher was not like its peers. Others attempted to dominate the souls within the bodies they shared. To overpower them, and smother them into non-existence. It respected the sanctity of its host, and drew deeply from its resulting power.

Invoking the Fearshaper’s Fear, as it did in life.

Vale screamed as she felt a new invocation, carve itself across her Fearcore. Unlike [soulsight of the Witness], she heard the screams of the souls of Anhedonia resonate with it, and build to a crescendo. Her Fearcore hungrily welcomed the invocation… no invocations. She struggled to focus as sweat poured down her forehead, trying to reign in the crescendo of Fear within her, the voices of the dead rising in an unholy chorus.

The one slight reprieve, was that she intrinsically knew that the invocations she had gained were compatible with her Fearcore, and the death of the creature irrevocably carved her new invocations across her core.

[Soulprison of the bodysnatcher]

[Fearecho of the bodysnatcher]

Vale steadied her breath as she felt her newfound invocations settled across her Fearcore, given form with the creature’s death.

Progress to Fearcore consolidation: [70%]

Vale gaped as the words wrote themselves in the air before her. The two invocations she had gained far exceeded the weight of [soulsight of the Witness] in developing her Fearcore.

Then she frowned, as her eyes read over the words written in her vision.

70%... already?

I barely even began my descent! Surely there’s more to Trepidation than this?

Her thoughts were interrupted by Quietus’ voice, filled with concern.

“Vale! Are you alright? You were in no condition to take on that bodysnatcher head on. It was formidable, to have possessed that Fearshaper-“

Vale, tormented by her curiosity and Fear alike, interrupted her guide’s words to bring her new invocation into reality.

[Fearecho of the Bodysnatcher]

Vale momentarily heard the screams of the Archcitiy’s heighten souls within her. She felt something flood from her Fearcore and rush out towards Triol’s black skeleton. She winced and stumbled as she felt a rush of light-headedness, the invocation having drained her significantly.

That must be my Alarum. The substance Quietus spoke of as powering our descent and invocations? I could hardly feel it when I used [soulsight of the witness].

She watched in awe and horror as she saw Triol wave a hand before him.

Invoking the Fear he had possessed in life.

The skeleton’s jaw moved wordlessly, yet Vale instinctually comprehended the shape of Triol Revenant’s Fear.

[Bestial subservience]

Vale scrambled backwards as the overgrown grass bordering the village path was pushed aside by the approach of the skeleton of a sleek predator that stalked forwards.

It was smaller than his wolves, but its elegance was unmatched. Even as a skeleton, devoid of its flesh and sinew, it flowed in its movements.

“I recognise this… It’s a deathstalker. Triol always went on about finding one and possessing it.”

Vale tightened her fists.

“It looks like he finally got his wish.”

“By the Gravelords… Your brother’s Fear…”

“I can call on the Fears of the dead. This is… Insanity.”

She laughed hysterically, and the towering griefwalkers in the distance inclined their heads in her direction.

“You know, Quietus… my father, for all of his power and command over death, could never influence the souls of the dead. For all of his abilities, he was never able to make his undead call upon their Fears, if they were Fearshapers in life. Revenants, were beyond him.”

Vale shook her head.

“Just like that… I got what he so longed for.”

“That is the shape of your Fear, Vale. You too, can call on revenants.”

She clutched at her stomach and hunched over, as it began to ache with the strain of laughter. She wiped tears from her eyes.

“All of that torture, death, tragedy, and I’ve obtained my father’s wish, just like that.”

Quietus stood silently as he watched his guide.

“I’ve become a Fearshaper that can violate the dead to a greater extent than he ever could.”

She gritted her teeth at the sight of it. Finally, she let out a sigh, and collapsed on the ground.

She turned her head to the body of the Fearshaper they had encountered.

“Only the most formidable of bodysnatchers are capable of controlling elves, let alone Fearshapers. You prevailed through sheer luck. Had the bodysnatcher not occupied a Fearshaper of blades, it would not have been so complacent. It also appears to have been weak, for you to extinguish it so easily – perhaps having sustained injuries, prior to your clash. This Fearshaper of blades languishes in Delirium – beyond you.”

The twin green flames in Quietus’ hollow eyesockets flared.

“Not for long.”

Vale invoked her Fear, her [soulsight of the witness] landing on the towering skeleton.

Her eyes widened, as she confirmed her suspicion.

Remaining in the skeleton’s skull was a small, pulsing orange light, now freed of its prison.

“Lord Quietus… I can sense…”

He pushed her reservations aside. She knew what she had to do.

She called on the invocation that she had gained when she had descended.

[Soul restoration]

She watched, as the slight, pulsing light began to burgeon, flooding its skull. Vale winced, and raised her hands, blocking the light that threatened to blind her, feeling a wealth of Alarum flood from her Fearcore, now allocated to maintaining the reanimation.

Then she watched as awe and terror warred within her, as her second revenant rose from its crouch before her. The Fearshaper of blades’ Phobia – the towering, golden greataxe casually resting on its shoulder extending upwards into the air high above it.

---

The kindly gardener watched in fascination as she confirmed her suspicions.

“So that’s what you’re after, Vetty. I see your ploy.”

She shook her head, with an exasperated laugh.

“Even after everything, claiming your kingdom and status as Fearshaper free of your Fear… it wasn’t enough for you.”

Then lips turned into a smile.

“A Fearshaper of death with a proclivity towards souls… it seems as if your daughter will be working hard for the both of us, you insecure old necrophiliac.”

Then, she turned her eyes to the Brimstone, who desperately evaded the denizens of the Emberwoods. Despite his attempts, his best efforts to obtain invocations from the creatures of flame were all for naught. His failure was not born of his own incompetence, however. His Fear was simply incompatible with many of its denizens.

At least, those which he had access to.

Finally, she turned to the Fearshaper of ice, who stood triumphantly on the corpse of her latest kill. A twisted monstrosity that should have been far beyond her competence to slay. Which had awarded her with invocations…

That broke the rules.

Where the Revenant spoke to souls, and the Brimstone to corruption, Shiver was a storm of ice and blood. She chased invocations with a hunger that reminded her of her own, all those years ago. 

Highlady Solastra Flora smiled, as she noticed that with the exception of the Brimstone, the invocations they had gained had successfully stabilised their Fearcores.

They had reached threshold necessary to stretch the bounds of their descent through Trepidation, and reap its true rewards.

They had finally reached the point, where they could defy the Singer.

She inclined her head towards her Navigator.

“Their descension is coming along well. Prepare for your deployment.”