63. Levels of Bullshit


    Serac shot to her feet as soon as she reconstituted, hand already reaching for REVOLVER. She’d half-expected to wake up in the middle of a raging dust-storm, and was ready to ‘defend herself’ again, should the need arise.


    To her relief, the room was quiet—and unchanged since the battle against the Maidens. The door to the Inner Sanctum remained ajar, but the lack of ksshhh-ing wheels or thudding footsteps indicated that the Pishacha army had gone back to sleep.


    “Yeah, I already took a peek and checked,” Zacko suddenly spoke from behind Serac, causing her to jump in startlement. “Throne room is pretty much back to looking the way it did when we first walked in. I’d guess that RELIQUARY thing is a bitch to move around, and I don’t blame the Bone Lord for not wanting to bother.”


    “That,” Serac panted, massaging herself to calm her beating heart, “and he’s counting on us going back for him anyway. Which—let’s face it—we are.”


    “Hm,” Zacko agreed with a thoughtful frown. “I suppose so, but we’re gonna need a better plan than just trying to survive for as long as we can.”


    “And whose idea was that in the first place?”


    “Mine. But that was before I found out the boss could sic an entire army on us. And before you decided the best way to counter that was to shoot ourselves in the face. Literally.”


    “Right,” Serac mumbled sheepishly. “Sorry about that. But I had a really good reason to do it!”


    “And I believe you. What did you—and I assume Trippy—figure out there near the end? I don’t know what it is, but you seem to have a sixth sense for these—what should we call it?—hidden mechanics.”


    Serac took a moment to compose her answer. Like Zacko had already alluded to, it wasn’t something she could state in clear, logical terms. But while her understanding of this ‘hidden mechanic’ was rather vague, she was nevertheless absolutely certain of its existence.


    “All this time, I found it really weird how [Enlisted] was barely an inconvenience,” she tried her best to explain. “Like, it shows up on Pathsight in big bold letters as a ‘negative’ status effect. You’d think it’d do a little more than occasionally make us have these intrusive thoughts about joining the Bone Lord’s army. If anything, it helped more than hindered us, especially during the Maiden fight.”


    A sly look came over Zacko then, and he nodded slowly as he chimed in, “I think I see where this is going. [Enlisted] on its own doesn’t seem to do much more than make us more sensitive—or maybe the better word is receptive—to the Bone Lord’s magic, but…”


    “But when combined with the full effects of [Ossify]”—Serac returned the nod—“it finally fulfills its true purpose. That dog-and-pony show we went through with the Pledges… that was us unknowingly priming the magic—by entering a sort of implicit agreement with the Bone Lord.”


    “And if we were to turn into one of those Bone Husks, we’d be finalizing the contract,” Zacko muttered with a hint of rising anger. “We’ve already entered the Bone Lord’s shroud. Repeatedly and of our own volition. Stay in it long enough, and we’d leave behind our likeness, encased in Bone. And that’d make our [Enlistment] a permanent arrangement. Forget intrusive thoughts; we will have joined this damned army—and voluntarily at that, at least according to Skeleton Creep’s twisted logic.”


    “I’ll bet you that’s what he does with all the people he calls his ‘vassals’,” Serac piled on, herself now fuming. “The Rakshasas that made up Hanuman. The children in [the Sanctuary]. Even… even the Maidens. I’ll bet you he tricked Sundara and Meetra somehow; got them to swear Pledges without meaning to, then…”


    Serac trailed off. Once again, she subconsciously touched the raised imprint of a bloodstone cameo upon her chest. She looked to Zacko for reassurance, only to find a rueful yet knowing sort of smile.


    “I might not have seen eye to eye with those girls,” he spoke gently, seeming to make an effort to soften the blow, “but even I gotta give them credit for being straight badasses. And that also means I respect them enough to give them the benefit of the doubt—that whatever Path they decided to take, no matter the kind of fucked up shit it led them to, they did it because they truly believed in it.”


    Serac acknowledged this with a heavy-hearted sigh. As much as she wanted to believe that her fellow Rakshasas wouldn’t willingly champion a tyrant’s reign of terror, she also knew it to be wishful thinking. And Zacko was right; it was disrespectful to the Maidens themselves.


    Essential to being a freesoul was the freedom to choose—even if that choice led to killing innocents or turning your back on your own family. Serac would and did whole-heartedly condemn such a choice, but she could never discount it.


    In a Realm full of souls punished for unknowable causes, Sundara and Meetra had reclaimed and owned their own sins. They’d lived and died by those sins, and that was something no one could take away from them, for better or for worse. Indeed, one of them had even left behind a physical relic of that sin—and in a manner that directly and heavily weighed upon a fledgling Wayfarer.


    But… one problem at a time. Before the Wayfarer could hope to continue her journey, she first had a Realm Immortal to smite.


    “So, you got any bright ideas, then?” She turned to her partner, though not with much optimism. “Something a little more viable than just don’t get hit?”The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    “What we’ve got is a classic case of—actually no, this isn’t classic at all.” Both of Zacko’s eyebrows were dead flat, which meant the man meant business. “Not only does this boss pump out an ungodly number of adds—and pretty strong ones, at that—he’s also set a hard time limit with what would essentially result in permadeath. Man, this is a level of bullshit I haven’t seen even in Manesfera. Are we sure we’re still in Naraka? This guy’s meant to be the ‘lowliest’ of the Realm Immortals?”


    “We have a way out of that ‘permadeath’, don’t we? Even though it’s really unpleasant.”


    “Unpleasant, and also really costly. What Karma were you on before we went in—like, almost 20 thousand? Worst comes to worst, you’ll have to give that up, but we’d want to avoid that as much as possible. Otherwise, you won’t hear the end of it from Trippy.”


    “This time, we have to be in it to win it,” Serac agreed, though not with much conviction. “Which feels ridiculous to say, considering we didn’t even manage to get one hit on the Bone Lord.”


    “We need a way to remove or at least crowd-control the adds, just so we have a chance to actually do some damage…” Zacko’s face didn’t show it, but the speed and ferocity with which he now rubbed his beard made his frustrations apparent. “You don’t happen to be a necromancer by any chance, do you? Or know any spells to charm the enemy? An undead army of our own would be so useful right about now.”


    Serac shook her head wistfully. An army of their own would be the silver bullet the Wayfarers needed. But alas, in their current situation, that fantasy couldn’t be further from—


    “Wait just a Ksana!” Serac suddenly exclaimed, startling even herself. “Maybe we do have our own army! I have no idea if this would work, but it’s got to be at least worth a try.”


    Zacko looked at her like she’d grown a third horn in the middle of her forehead. Then, his eyes widened a touch with realization.


    “You don’t mean—?”


    “The skeletons at the gate!” Serac shouted, swelling with unearned optimism. “They think I’m their ‘King’ or something, right? Maybe that means they’ll listen to my commands!”


    Zacko frowned with abundant skepticism.


    “Look, I know I said the afterlife works in mysterious ways, but this is a little out there, even for me. Besides, the front door’s locked, remember? Even if the skeletons do somehow cooperate, how will we let them in?”


    “Wouldn’t be much of an army if it couldn’t knock down one measly door!” Serac’s volume rose, even as all rational thought fell by the wayside. “Come on! We won’t know until we try!”


    Serac burst out of the room and bounded down the stairs. Zacko reluctantly followed.


    The entrance at the bottom of the Ossuary was as tightly shut as ever. That didn’t dampen Serac’s enthusiasm one bit as she pushed one ear against the seam and listened.


    The world just outside the Ossuary was… as quiet as a graveyard. Why had Serac expected any different? But even if she couldn’t see or hear anything, she knew she could count on at least one constant.


    “Ash?” she called out, as loud as she could. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”


    A moment’s silence. Then—


    Crreeeaaaakkkkk…!!


    An enthusiastic ‘yes’ in castle-speak, loud enough to match the Steed’s master. Serac’s heart instantly filled with hitherto unknown warmth.


    “I’m so proud of you, buddy! You were a good castle and waited, just like I asked! Now, those skeleton soldiers that tried to attack us earlier… they didn’t give you any trouble afterwards, did they?”


    Grraaawwww…


    That was a ‘no’. So far so good.


    “Are they still… you know, around? Up and about? Lined up and ready to go?”


    Crreeeaaaakkkkk…


    “Excellent, excellent. Can you, uh, see if you can direct them into this building? I dunno, maybe… try bashing into it a few times. Lead by example. But be careful not to hurt yourself!”


    A moment’s silence. Then—


    Brraahhmm!!


    The whole staircase shook as Ashvanaga’s full weight crashed into the structure. It was doing it! Leading by example! A living castle—even a stripped-down version—was much too large to fit into the doorframe, but at least it could bash the side of the building…


    … And, with any luck, inspire a skeleton army into action.


    It was after the third such impact that a new set of noises joined Ash’s solitary siege. The clickety-clack of at least a hundred pairs of marching feet. The grating and gnashing of skeletal joints and the weapons they brandished. And the unmistakable crackling of the Infernal flames that burned within the skeletons’ hollow frames.


    Bang! Smash! Wham!


    Now, it was the door itself that shuddered in earnest, buckling under the weight of a besieging army. The seam remained shut… but for how long?


    “Holy crap!” Zacko remarked, along with a disbelieving chuckle. “You know, my mama always used to say: fight fire with fire. But this? This is more like fighting bullshit with bullshit!”


    “Well, keep up the bullshit, boys!” Serac cheered into the door. “We’re gonna show the Bone Lord that there are levels to this thing!”


    Then came a particularly hefty knock. The seam finally parted, but only just a crack, before whatever force that wanted to keep the door closed held firm. From this crack emerged one bony finger, wriggling and struggling to find purchase.


    “Hurry!” Serac yelled as she stood to one side and tried to claw her own fingers into the seam. “We gotta help them out!”


    Zacko mirrored her movement on the other side, and together, the Wayfarers tried their darnedest to act as a wedge. Serac in particular squeezed her [Substance 7] muscles for all they were worth, trembling all over with the effort. All the while, the army at the gate never stopped their siege, banging and smashing with ever more strength and numbers.


    The crack widened into a gap, just enough for the Wayfarers to grab hold and pull in earnest. Then the finger became a whole hand, then two, then a skull face that squeezed through the opening—with its hollow yet blazing eyes blackened by Penitence and thirsting for redemption.