My entry for the August Writing Prompt :D!
“PLEASE! STAY BACK!”, an explorer screamed into the crimson sky. His voice didn’t travel far before it was silently scuffed out with the windy howls. There was no one who could save him either. He knew that. No one ever dared to travel to Akursius Keep. Ever. Tears unconsciously wet his face as he could feel his fate approaching him, hordes of blood-stained skeletons that surrounded him.
He wanted to run. He wanted to run far far away, back to shell island. Back to where the grass was green. But it was the painful scrapping of his elbow against a charred stone brick wall that reminded him there was nowhere to run. Faceless, cricket-y bones dressed in ragged clothing that screamed of guards, soldiers, and nobles were pressed up against him, crawling aged bones against his skin. Reminiscent of centipedes and spiders, James only hopped that he could reach his flintlock to end his misery.
The air was cold that day, as the unsettling ruins of a fallen kingdom came into his view. It seemed that no matter how many layers of clothing he put on, the chill seeped through to his bones.
“HAaaa”, James breathed out a slight breath. It lingered in the air as a cloud of white.
It was tiring working the sailboat on his own; His hastily recruited crew all bailed from under him along the journey. At first, he had a crew of 3, himself included. A mercenary from the city above the step stones and some poor cloaked fellow that he brought along with him. They had a really cool purple insignia on their cloak, and I was about to ask where I could get one, but then I noticed the rope. He was definitely unconscious and tied to the mercenary by a meter long rope. I was really unsure if this was some kind of fetish thing or what not, but from what I’ve learned it was best not to dive into those sorts of things with people.
The journey was relatively smooth from the stepstones to Akursius, save for the last pirate ship that showed up in the final stretch. I had to swerve into the outer reaches of the dark sea in order to evade them. Using the natural clouds as a smoke screen, I did a quick turn through the clouds made way for the keep using the border. The pirates turned away the moment the saw the clouds, I’m sure they didn’t want to risk entering the dark seas.
The mercenary did start acting weirdly though. He screamed “Where tf this NPC going?” and “Wait is that th-OH F- THE DARK SEA BORDER” as his last words. For some reason he started spazing out and even tried to kill the cloaked fellow and me. After that he disappeared into the waters, falling overboard and unfortunately taking the cloaked figure with them as they were tied together. I really wonder if this was going to be alright.
“Comn James, you’ve got this. This is going to be a great step into the unknown!” He mentally reminded himself.
“It’ll be like the cave back home, just another abandoned dark place…full of treasure”.
He remembered the excitement he had when he uncovered that hole in the mountain side, faintly making out a massive chamber of pillars and an altar. He definitely did not have the courage to head down the first time, but he kept coming back. Once with rope, then with a ladder, and finally when none of the previous worked. James Drake took a leap of faith. He broke a leg and had huffingly struggled back to the entrance, but James knew that not exploring the cave would eat at his adventuring spirit. It was no different with this trip.
Akursius Keep. Sailors spoke hushed whispers of this place. As if the dead would come back and curse their voyages just for mentioning it’s very name. Yet James had to know, he wanted to explore this mystery with his own two eyes.
“Damn that mercenary though, did he really have to attack the boat with wood magic.” James cursed out loud. Now all he could do was limp the boat towards the outer rocks. With how low the boat’s hull sank in the water he didn’t want to risk scraping the bottom. So James rested the boat against an even out cropping of rocks. There wasn’t a place to anchor the boat, but with the eerily calm waves around here, he shouldn’t have to worry.
Splash went his row-boat as he soon followed after it, rowing towards what seems to be the docks on the island. A couple minutes of silent rowing later, he carefully brought the boat to a stop, making quick work attaching the boat to the pier. Now that he had a look at it, the keep seemed much much less inviting than before. The sounds of the ocean seemed to have stopped, the sky turned a slight shade of red, and little whispers tingled his ears.
“Hmph, that’s just my imagination! This is a good atmosphere for exploring!”
Steeling his spirit, James made his way up the stone steps and into the main towers. They say the palace of Winterveil used to resemble a snowflake, which gave it the name of “The winter palace”. It’s unfortunate that none of that could be seen anymore. Only charred and dead-silent brick remained. James continued to move through the rooms, glittering with excitement. He scoured through the towers, from bottom to top in search for something new to discover. It had been mostly unfruitful save for the occasional eccentric architecture. Finally, he uncovered a massive vault door.
“This doesn’t seem like something that would open easily…”
The door was certainly intact, but the same could not be said for the walls around it. All it took was a bit of looking around to discover the left side had collapsed inwards, offering a glimpse into the room inside.
“GOLD! LOTS AND LOTS OF IT!” I shouted. The sound echoed through the hallway I came from. I had never seen so much in my lifetime. Just shelves and shelves full of chests! Ignoring everything else, I stepped into the chambers, admiring how this had gone untouched for so long. This could be enough to buy a fleet of ketches, maybe even Brigs! I started imagining all the other things that kingdoms would be able to buy with this much wealth.
“look behind you…”, A silent breath ran out. I swiveled my head towards the sound of the noise. It might have been my imagination, but I could have sworn a slight blur moved behind the bricks outside.
“Is anyone there?” I said not so confidently.
…There was no response.
"Okk… weird. But it’s not like there’d be ghosts here or something. " slipped out of my mouth. And I had really wished I could take that back. Stares like pins stabbed me as I realized non-socketed eyes glared at me from the gaps in the wall. I counted one, two, five, ten, then I stopped counting. It didn’t help the situation. It finally dawned on me that I wasn’t alone. Like termites, they started to crawl, unnaturally out of their hiding spots. On the ceiling, walls, over barrels and shelves. I took a back step and bolted. There’s no way I was going to deal with whatever that was. But that was a stupid move, a quickly approaching wall reminded me of that. I was still in the treasure vault. What an idiot!
My hands gripped the cold stone brick of the vault. The figures were still approaching, like dawn creeping up in the night. A menacing red fog came from their direction, with shifting shapes that almost resembled humans but ever so slightly off. The sounds were getting to me now, skitterings, whisps, and snarls only heightened my fear of what was to come.
…
It was close now, there was more red than darkness in the room now. I could not see where I had come from anymore, only deep redness. “Is this what they had felt in their last moments?” I thought. The thoughts got louder. Unable to take it anymore. I shouted. “PLEASE! STAY BACK!”
They only got closer. and closer.
Until they held my arms with their boney misaligned claws. It was now that I wish I still had my flintlock. It’d be a coward’s way out, but much better than what this coul-
“…ey buddy, why are you looking so scared?”
“w-what.” I stammered.
“you were looking a little lost over here so we decided to help.” A formless red mass materialized, wearing some sort of armor.
“you’re the first visitor to this castle in forever so we wanted to make you feel welcome! of course, we understand we’re not exactly the most… presentable folks here.” The fog continued to define its features, contouring a rather built man dressed in solid plate armor.
“I um- you’re not going to kill me?”
“oh no, no, no, why’d we do that?”
“Because I trespassed on your land, wanted to take your treasure, and stuff?”
The man chuckles. “We’re dead, that’s not a matter to us.”
“If anything, we want you to put the treasure to good use. All I ask is that you take a listen to some of our stories.”
“Huh. Neat.”
The fog that once drove me against the wall slowly cleared, showing the skeletons in their full form, as shifting red energy built onto their skeletons to create soldiers, sailors, mages, and more. This was going to be a long story to listen to.
“In the end, with the help of the ghosts I was able to haul a decent amount of treasure to the sailboat. It took quite a few trips, but it was well worth it. They even gave me some funny colored purple mushrooms. I think these will definitely sell for a lot as an exotic mushroom. What a journey.” -JD
Hope yall enjoyed the story, it’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything so I wanted to warm my hands up a little bit.