49. Hell Breaks Loose

When the skeletons rose, they did so in silence—and in unison. The graveyard turned, within the blink of an eye, into a battlefield. A second chance at victory for the warrior souls that had perished at the [Ossuary Entrance].

"What the fuck?"

Zacko, being the taller of the dancing pair, was the first to confront the dramatic change of scenery. He let go of Serac immediately, then put his fists up in a fighting stance, wide eyes jumping between too many threats to name.

Serac wasn't so quick to follow suit. She saw the veritable army of skeletons that now surrounded her… and her mind went blank. She couldn't comprehend any of it—only experience it and accept it as her new reality.

The first things to process were the changes to Pathsight. Upwards of a hundred new elements now flooded the overlay, as every one of the skeletons received its own Health bar, along with a label to reveal their designation: [The Accursed]. Thus, as the army moved, so too did the associated texts and bars, giving Serac a bad case of sensory overload.

Next, she managed to hone in on the features of individual skeletons. The things now stood at full height (even the dismembered ones), most of them as scrawny as a Serac, but some as tall as if not taller than a Zacko. It seemed at least several different races were represented within this army, attesting to the chaotic nature of their ancient war.

Yet the feature that most demanded a Wayfarer's attention (and alarm) was the magic that clearly infused these skeletons. Every single one of them now held a weapon in their bony hands. Swords, spears, and shields glowed and smoldered with a black aura—memories of war reforged in the flames of hell. The same black fire burned within the warriors' orbital sockets. Serac knew this because she'd just locked 'eyes' with one of them. And the moment she did, she felt also the collective gaze of an entire army.

The eyes burned with black fire. They burned with anguish and hatred for all who yet drew breath.

[Wayfarer Status Effect: FEAR]

[TRIBULATION active (x2): current buff at 10%]

Fear?

Now, that was a new one. But Serac couldn't deny it. She was scared out of her mind, and not only because a hundred skeleton warriors glared at her with murderous intent. There was something else at work here—an ancient magic that had seeped through the barriers separating one lifetime from another, one Kalpa from the next.

Memory. The most ancient magic of them all.

The army moved in unison, closing in on a pair of living souls—living, and therefore capable of fear. Long-forgotten memories drove this tsunami of malicious intent, and it was all a fearful Rakshasa could do not to get swallowed up.

Serac unholstered REVOLVER with a trembling hand and fired at the nearest skeleton. No aim, no lock. Just doing her best to tread water. The bullet in question found nothing solid to hit. The warrior, who even now readied a black-flamed spear to strike, was of the same incorporeal composition as a Bhoota, rendering it immune to Physical damage.

Serac was so scared she couldn't even voice the swear that rose to her throat. Instead, she staggered away from the spearman's attack, before emptying the rest of REVOLVER's cylinder in one go. She needed to cycle back and reload. Cycle back and reload so she could—

Except she couldn't.

She'd squeezed the trigger on a full cylinder, aiming at the spearman. In her mind, she'd activated [Chamber One: BLOOD FOR BLOOD]. Yet, no such message came through from Pathsight. And REVOLVER itself remained inert, ignoring a Wayfarer's desperate call for its magic.

"It's no use, Wayfarer," Trippy explained in a monotone that mismatched the urgency at hand. "The status effect [Fear] renders you incapable of accessing Mana. Any action that requires MP expenditure is disabled."

"What?" Serac finally found her voice, quite a bit shriller than usual. "Then how am I supposed to fight these things?"

No answer. She hadn't meant for the question to be rhetorical, but perhaps it was too much to expect Trippy to conjure up a solution where there was none.

"Leave it to me."

A solution did materialize from Zacko, who'd already masked his own [Fear] with VISAGE.

"What? But how—"

"VISAGE spends Karma, not Mana. Of course, I'm locked out of using any of my NINEFOLD techniques, but I can still do enough to fend these guys off."

"No, Zacko! If you do that, you're gonna go straight back into debt!"

"Let's worry about debt when there isn't a skeleton army bearing down on us! Now, if you wanna help, go and secure us an escape route, and hurry!"

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Escape route? Back down the mountain where we'd come? But then, the skeleton army would still be here waiting—

"Might I suggest the door, Wayfarer? This place is, after all, called the [Entrance]."

The door… of course! Trippy's advice contained more snark than urgency, but Serac would take it.

The skeleton door stood on the far side of the Hubstation, where the army and its soldiers were thickest. Seeing this, Serac froze for a moment, held by a 'fear' that was distinct still from a status effect. This type of fear, however, she could fight down with sheer force of will. And she forged on ahead, knowing Zacko depended on her to do the job.

It required every green drop of her Stamina to dash and weave her way through the oncoming army. Black blades grazed the tips of her horns and fiery spearpoints singed the air in her wake. Serac somehow managed to dodge through them and emerge on the other side of the bony confusion. She then crashed shoulder-first into the skeleton door.

It wouldn't budge! Serac merely bounced against the densely intercalated rib cage, and quite painfully at that. Panicking, she grabbed a bone that stuck out from the frame (almost like a handle) and pulled. No dice. Not even the tiniest movement to let a girl know if she was pushing or pulling the right way. The realization hit her like a ton of Huskbound bricks.

"It's locked!"

Had Zacko's earlier 'joke' been more accurate than he'd intended? Did the skeletal [Entrance] to the Ossuary demand a special ritual for its unlocking? Had all the ambitious souls who'd knocked on the Bone Lord's front door perished here… simply because they didn't have the key?

But Serac had no time to ponder the question, let alone to search for such an item. The army she'd just run past was upon her again, with her none the wiser about how to fight back. Black blades and fiery spearpoints. Hollow eye sockets that burned with the flames of hell and hatred. Serac cowered anew under [the Accursed]'s spell—cowered and sought desperately for a Mana-free solution.

There was nothing for it. If she couldn't fight back, all she could do was hole up and buy time. She unclipped mini-Ash from her belt and summoned its full, physical form.

A living castle—stripped down as it was—still took up an entire corner of the graveyard with its heft and size. Its 'reconstitution' produced a gust of wind that pushed back the skeleton army, giving Serac the time and space she needed to drag herself up to Ash's ramparts. But it was only a momentary reprieve. The soldiers recovered their 'poise' quickly enough, now turning their hellish gazes up towards the Rakshasa and her lonely battlement.

What can I do? Serac's mind raced for an answer that continued to elude her. [Javelins] maybe? They do Infernal damage, right? But there's no way I have enough [Javelins] for the number of skeleton soldiers…

Suddenly and without warning, something like an answer did come to her. Not from her own frantic mind. Not even from Trippy's unseemly monotone. But whispered to her in the foreign tongue of a third entity.

Memory. The most ancient magic of them all—one that needed no Mana to 'cast'.

As Serac stood atop a castle and looked down upon an advancing army, she remembered her own war from a previous life. At least a part of that recollection felt almost academic in nature—something she'd read before, perhaps in a book, or perhaps in an item description. Yet an undeniably large part of it came instead from lived experience—memories of kingship recalled across the expanse of lifetimes and Kalpas.

Serac, or the other that now possessed her, pointed her weapon straight into the sky and fired. REVOLVER's deafening report—amplified tenfold, hundredfold and more—resounded through the graveyard and the stormy valley beyond. All souls within earshot, living or dead, stopped what they were doing to listen to their king.

"Warriors, one and all!" not-all-Serac's voice boomed, louder even than her gun. "Champions of Chaos, mercenaries of Blood, and rebels without a cause! I know well the discontent that brews in your hollow chests—the defeat you've waited lifetimes to avenge. For the same fire burns in me still, never to be quenched but by the lifeblood of our enemies."

A part of Serac—the same part that spoke these words—experienced the speech as, well, herself. Atop Ash's battlement and looking down upon a graveyard full of stilled, attentive figures. Including that of Zacko's, who'd dropped his fists to now stare up at her, slack-jawed.

Yet… another undeniable part of her was one of the masses on ground level. An out-of-body experience. She saw and heard her own voice from outside herself, hanging onto a revenant king's every booming word.

"I come to you now to renew my vows. A promise, not only to you, but to myself and my own irrepressible ambitions. Promise of freedom—and the violence with which to win it! I only ask for patience. For faith. I ask that you stay your blades and keep them sharp."

Here, not-all-Serac paused for effect. It only felt appropriate, and both parts of her agreed. In response, the whole graveyard buzzed with an electric silence.

"For I promise you that a day will come when those blades will find the vengeance you so desperately seek. Wait for me, my friends. Wait for my signal to rise again and fight. And I'll tell you one more thing. When that day comes, cast your gaze away from the depths of hell and, instead, look to the heavens. For that is where you'll find me, your King!"

Serac fired another round into the air for good measure. Then her skeleton army responded in kind. The sound of rattling bones filled the air as a hundred arms raised their black-flamed weapons in salute. Burning eyes turned in unison towards the heavens, as if they saw their King there, reflected upon a fog of dust.

And this time, the sight of a hellrisen horde so united filled a Rakshasa's heart not with [Fear] but with bloodthirst of her own. What did a king have to fear? When she had armies to command and enemies to smite, up and down the slopes of Mount Meru?

[TRIBULATION active: current buff at 5%]

"Ow!"

Serac Edin—all of her—fell to her knees, as the base of her right horn erupted with an all-too-familiar pain.

Yet, unlike the headache once caused by her Penitent's Circlet, this pain was more localized. It was a discrete band that stretched from ear to horn. And, unlike the last time something like this had happened, she could no longer pretend she'd imagined it. The pain—familiar, intense, overpowering—was real, and all the more terrifying because of it.

Below her and upon the graveyard, however, the [Accursed] horde was still under the spell of a departed king. The skeleton soldiers lowered their weapons and began to move en masse, not to prey blindly upon a pair of living souls, but to reorganize themselves into rank and file.

Then, from somewhere behind Serac, a different noise rose above the rattling of bones. The creak of ancient hinges. The rumbling of heavy stone. And the rushing hiss of an [Ossuary] opening its doors.

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