The roar of thunder filled the desert air for a moment as Lucien clashed with the draugr again.
Mictlan's Demise flashed through the air, dealing yet another shallow wound to its arm, and the two separated again.
By now they must have clashed a dozen times at least. Every time Lucien managed to nick the monster, deposit a small amount of sand within it. But he didn't leave unscathed either. His armour had multiple deep gashes on it, the one on his chest being the most grievous.
That last strike had cut through his armour and into his chest. Deep magenta blood had stained the stone-like metal and continued to flow out. Lucien had already lost a lot of blood today, he couldn't afford to lose any more.
On the other side of the wall, Nephis had just finished dealing with her enemy.
He had to finish this fast.
By now, there should have been enough sand inside his opponent. Lucien commanded the sand inside it to move and the draugr froze, feeling something foreign flow inside it. The sand flowed in three streams, reaching its three remaining arms, and filling it up.
Its arms began trembling as two forces fought for dominion over them. Lucien grimaced, he was met with more resistance than he expected. The two fought to a stalemate, leaving the draugr awkwardly standing with its arms in front of it.
Then, focusing on only one hand, he suddenly stopped fighting in the other two. As the opposing force suddenly disappeared, the two arms of the draugr violently slammed down to its legs, the pommel of its sword stabbing into its own leg.
In that one moment of confusion, Lucien commanded all of the remaining sand into one arm, and the resistance all but disappeared. Before it could even realize what was happening, its own hand turned against it. Raising its scimitar, the hand controlled by Lucien lined the blade against its head and jammed it in.
[You have killed a Fallen Demon, Draugr General.]
[Your Spirit surges Brighter.]
With that, he dismissed the Remnant, and the wall of sand began crumbling, allowing Nephis to walk through.
Pretty soon, white flames descended upon him, burning away his wounds. The cracks in his armour had also begun to repair themselves, courtesy of the [Living Stone] enchantment.
At that moment, a voice spoke from behind them, "My, oh, my, that was certainly an interesting way to kill that thing."
Nephis frowned, and looked at the body of the last draugr, who was still holding the sword that was stuck in his head.
"How?"
Lucien glanced at her through tired eyes, and then sighed and held up the Remnant. It took him about a minute to explain what he had done. It was a simple process afterall, he'd used the daggers to deposit sand in the monster's bloodstream, and then used the [Lord of Ash] enchantment to control its body from within.
"And here I thought you could just control minds." Eurys shook his head.
"Yeah well," Stifling a groan, Lucien stood up, "Sorry to disappoint."
In the sky above, the sun was nearing the horizon. They had a few more hours before night fell and the Deathless awoke.
"We should go," Lucien said, turning his gaze back towards the Hollow Mountains, "There's not much time before nightfall. We need to find shelter before that."
His now red eyes gazed across the sand dunes in the distance, Nightveil's enchantment activating to help him find something. Maybe another temple like the one before.
Nephis raised an eyebrow, "Can you not do what you did last night again?"
Eurys nodded, his words dripping sarcasm, "Yes let's go back to the cramped sand room why don't we. Very cozy if I might say so myself."
Lucien frowned, "You're a skeleton, what does cozy even mean to you?"
"..." Eurys stared at him for a while, "Fair point."
It was at that point when something caught his eye. In the distance, something black glinted in the evening sun. As Lucien's gaze passed through it, information flowed into his mind.
It was an armoury in the past, where the soldiers of the daemonic army stored their spare weapons. The top floor was completely gone, much like the temple, leaving only the floor underground.
"Theres an armoury over there," He pointed towards it, "It should hide us once night falls."
Nephis nodded, "Then we know our destination."
They didn't reach the armoury until the sun had begun to set. Behind them, in the darker corners of the desert, the deathless had already begun rising from their slumber.
The floor of the armoury was somehow worse than the temple, long cracks lined the surface of the stone, parts of it were entirely missing. It felt like a single wrong step would send them all crumbling down. At the corner of the room, a set of stairs led downwards.
Staring at the sketchy staircase for a few moments, Nephis turned to face Lucien and asked:
"Is there anyone inside?"
Lucien shook his head, his storm sense didn't catch anything underground.
"It's empty."
Nodding, Nephis began making her way down to the lower floor of the armoury. Lucien followed close behind her, his hand resting on the pommel of his blade. Just because there was no one inside, didn't mean there wouldn't be traps.
The inside of the armoury was…in rough shape. To begin with, it was never a big armoury, only a temporary place to store extra weapons and treat the wounded. But Lucien didn't expect it to be this small.
The lower floor of the armoury only consisted of a rectangular hallway, half of which had already caved under the sand. What remained was in utter disarray. Once upon a time there had been stone racks on either side of the hall, storing all kinds of weapons. Now, all of those had been turned into rubble, and the few weapons that remained were in no shape to be used in battle.
"This place has certainly seen better days." Lucien muttered under his breath."
"It is enough for our purposes." Nephis replied, carefully navigating her way to an empty corner in the room. "As long as we don't make too much noise."
Eurys walked down behind them, staring silently at the weapons strewn on the ground. "My, oh, my, what a familiar sight."
He walked up to one of the swords and knelt down, picking it up and staring at the blade.
Beside him Lucien picked up one of the spears and studied its design. Its shaft was carved out of the same black stone as the rest of the ruins. The blade, however, was made from a white metal. There were six runes etched on its surface, but Lucien couldn't tell what they were supposed to be.
"What are these?" He asked, storing the weapon into the Soul Sack and reaching for one of the axes.
"These were just the standard issue weapons given to the lower ranked soldiers." Eurys said and put down the sword, "There's nothing special about them."
Lucien shrugged, picking up the sword Eurys dropped. That too went inside his soul sack.
Outside, the fighting had already begun, and the world shook every few seconds.
Lucien spent a few more minutes to grab as many of the weapons as he could, before heading to the empty corner of the room where Nephis was sitting.
"You should get some sleep." Lucien said, sitting down near her. "I'll wake you up once the night passes."
Nephis raised an inquisitive eyebrow, "What about you?"
"I can go without sleep for a few more days," Lucien answered, "You need to be in top shape to survive."
She did not argue against that. Dismissing the metal parts of her armour, she laid down on the cold stone floor.
Lucien sighed and reached into his soul sack, pulling out two items. The first was the diary he had been using to study the runes of the gateway in Nether's Citadel. The other was the spear he was looking at earlier.
Resting the spear atop his leg, Lucien began copying the six runes into the diary. Something about them felt important.
His eyes briefly glowed red as he activated the [Eyes of the Beholder] enchantment of Nightveil. Near instantly, six words were pushed into his mind.
Destiny.
Desire.
Dread.
Imagination.
Repose.
And…
What was that last word again?
Lucien furrowed his brows, trying to remember the last word that had entered his mind. For some reason, he seemed to have forgotten about it. What was it again?
Ah yes, Oblivion.
Why was that so hard to remember?
Just to be sure he'd remember it, Lucien wrote down the words. That was all the enchantment had told him about the runes. There had to be some importance to them.
'Six words, six runes…' Lucien frowned, glancing between the runes and the words. No…it wouldn't just tell him what the runes mean right?
It had never done that before. Usually it'd just give him vague information about the rune and let him figure out what it meant. That'd allow him to gain an innate understanding of the rune. Simply giving him the answer did not help him at all.
Picking up his diary, he walked up to Eurys, who had chosen to lay down silently in the middle of the room.
"Do these words mean anything to you?" Lucien said, pushing the book towards the skeleton's face.
Eurys stared at the page for a long time, tilting his head to get a better look at it. Then, he said:
"What language is that?"
"..." Lucien blinked, and then sighed. Right, they spoke different languages. Normally the spell would translate for them, but clearly it didn't work for written words.
"I think it's called English?" Lucien shook his head, "Anyways, I'll just tell you the words then."
Eurys sat up and waited for him to continue.
"Destiny, Desire, Dread, Imagination, Repose, and," Lucien glanced at the page, "Oblivion.
The skeleton stared at him with his hollow eyes, "Now where did you find that set of words?"
Lucien shrugged, "It was carved into the spearhead as runes. What do they mean?"
Eurys chuckled, "My, oh, my, you haven't connected the dots have you. Don't worry, I'm a generous skeleton, I'll help you this once."
Picking up one of the broken swords, Eurys held it up in front of him, "Which side do you think this armoury belonged to?"
Frowning, Lucien glanced around the room. There was nothing of note in the long hallway, only the broken weapons strewn across the ground. Standard issue weapons, Eurys had said, for the lower ranked soldiers.
The eccentric skeleton knew this place, he knew the weapons kept in it. And which side was he on?
"The Daemonic Army."
"Correct," Eurys tried snapping his fingers, but the bones simply clanked against each other. Ignoring that, he continued, "There were six Daemons participating in the war, and there are six runes etched on this sword."
A chill ran down Lucien's back, and his gaze fell onto the diary again.
Destiny, Desire, Dread, Imagination, Repose…and Oblivion.
Six runes, six words revealed by Nightveil, and six Daemons.
"The runes…define the Daemons." He breathed out. No wonder Nightveil didn't tell him anything more. He was just an awakened, he was not supposed to get insight into the Daemons.
"Well, not them exactly, just their domains." Eurys shrugged, "I don't know all of their names, but I knew that Desire was Hope,"
Inside Lucien's mind, the rune of Desire got a new meaning added to it. At the same time, an onslaught of information about the Daemon crashed into him. The Daemon of Desire, of Dreams, Emotion, and Passion.
"Dread, was Ariel."
The rune of Dread changed next and information came crashing in. The Daemon of Dread, of Truth, and Fear. And the one who built the gargantuan Pyramid. At the same time, Lucien fell to one knee, a deep throbbing pain assaulting his head.
"And Destiny was-"
"Nether."