choose your own adventure, a terminal episode / episode 24c
KNIGHT SWORD, A TERMINAL EPISODE
You leap forward, the soulblade flying from its scabbard, and deflect Ulmoch’s stab. His sword clangs off the soulblade, and the Night Raven staggers, yellow eyes wide in surprise. For a moment, just a moment, you see a hint of fear in his face.
But satisfaction soon replaces the fear.
“Ah,” says Ulmoch.
“No!” shouts Caius, but the furious attacks of the thing that used to be your father keep him occupied. “No, Rosalyn, run, run…”
Ulmoch moves so fast that you barely see it. One moment his black sword rests in his hand.
The next it is buried in your chest, the hilt between your breasts.
Pain floods through you. You hear Caius shouting, hear Dietrich screaming, but it sounds so distant, so faint.
“Just as easy,” says Ulmoch in his grating rasp, “as it ever was.”
He rips his sword free in a crimson spray. You fall, but do not feel yourself strike the ground.
KNIGHT SWORD, EPISODE 24C
Time passes.
You don’t know how much. It feels like an eternity.
After a long moment you feel a stone floor beneath you, and you sit up. You are in the ruined church of Moridun, its half-collapsed arches rising over you. Yet everything looks gray and cold, as if all the color as been leached from the world. As you stand, you see a man sitting on the steps to the altar, watching you. He is lean and gaunt, with a shading of stubble, and dressed in worn chainmail and leather.
The only color you see are the man’s eyes. Like chips of burning ice in his face, or shards of frozen azure flame. The eyes seem to flay you, drill down in your very heart, and a wave of terror shoots through you.
“Don’t hurt me,” you say.
The man stands. “No.”
“Who are you?” you say.
“Only a messenger.”
“A messenger of what?” you say.
“This message,” says the messenger. “Long ago, as your race understands time, the High God made a gift of the soulblades to mortal men, so that you might defend yourself from the dark powers outside the circles of the world. But the power of the soulblades carries of price. It can only be wielded through sacrifice.”
“The sacrifice of what?” you say.
“You must be prepared to sacrifice your life,” says the messenger.
You have no answer to that.
“The Paladins of old arranged a test,” says the messenger. “Those would be Knights of the Soulblade faced themselves, and if prepared to lay down their lives, could command the power of the swords. But you have laid down your life in truth. So, therefore, you face a choice.”
“To choose what?” you say.
“What will happen next,” says the messenger. “First, you may depart the mortal life, and never again trouble yourself again with its woes.”
You think of Dietrich and say nothing.
“Second,” says the messenger. “You may choose for the soulblade to pass to Dietrich. For he was prepared to sacrifice his life to save you from the Raven, and therefore has earned the right to wield a soublade.”
The blue eyes blaze brighter.
“And you may choose to take up the soulblade yourself,” says the messenger, “and become a Paladin. Though I warn you, if you take this path, you shall never know peace, and will know great pain before you die.”
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.