Insouciance

A winter tale about how everyone around dies.

It happened in the wonderful land of Haveria, famous for its cozy towns and fertile fields, bright as though they had absorbed warm sunlight. People here live happily, the laws are reverently observed, the streets are clean, and the varied flowers and ripe, appetizing fruits delight the eye of any passerby who wanders into a garden. And what happens here in winter! The streets blaze with millions of evening lights, sleighs plow across the vastness of snow-covered roads, now and then showering hurried passersby with waves of snowflakes. It was during one such marvelous winter that this story took place.
Throwing back his hood, he leaned against the stone window opening and held a scrap of parchment under the moonlight seeping past the towering spires of the black castle. A smooth cap of white hair, broken only by a pair of fluffy pointed ears, stirred slightly in the wind. Several snowflakes settled on the map, making the man nervously brush them onto the filthy remains of the carpet. Heavy steps sounded behind him, and the room abruptly filled with orange light. A man encased in metal armor held a torch, whose light danced strangely over the shining red cloth of his garments.
- What are you digging around for here? – he thundered.
- This place is not marked on the map, - the ranger answered, looking somewhere down at the tower walls drowning in darkness.
It was not hard to identify the man as a ranger: light clothing, only a leather vest for armor, a compact crossbow on his back, and of course a special cloak embroidered with the guild's coat of arms. The man with the torch was an inquisitor; one glance at his red garments, embroidered with sacred scriptures, was enough to dispel any doubt. The heavy hammer hanging at his belt likewise gleamed with skillfully engraved letters.
- You can examine it by daylight, - the inquisitor said. - We need to return.
With those words the warrior left the room, leaving the ranger alone. After thinking for a second, he rolled the map into a tube, shoved it into the inner pocket of his cloak, and followed the little torchlight receding into the infinity of the enormous corridor. Being here alone was unsafe even for him, an experienced traveler, but at the moment he was far more troubled by the lack of fire and light needed to study their current position in detail. The place where they had ended up did not match the papers they had received at all.
The ranger caught up with the inquisitor near the long staircase descending into a large hall that had apparently once been a dining room. In one of the dark niches to the left of the stairs a campfire burned; when they came close enough, the sounds of music could be made out. It was a golden-haired bard, sprawled on a sack of clothes, strumming his lute and muttering something under his breath. His audience was made up of the expedition members who had remained in camp: a grim paladin sharpening his two-handed sword; a little sorceress sitting on a stone slab with her arms wrapped around the bag in her lap; and a red-haired bandit woman in a broad-brimmed hat, armed with a pistol and a curved saber. The others had not returned yet.
The white-haired man settled on the other side of the slab, closer to the fire, and began laying maps out from his pockets. Someone clapped him on the shoulder and sat down beside him. The red-haired girl handed him a mug of warm wine and whispered, "found anything?" He only shook his head in reply, muttering, "nothing matches." The little sorceress with yellow ears tore herself away for a moment from the bard's songs and cast a cautious glance at the whispering people, squeezed her bag tighter, and turned away offended. This man avoided a representative of his own kind, yet whispered without pause with that suspicious woman, pfft! Still, the ranger was always taciturn; he preferred studying dark storerooms filled to the brim with dust and cobwebs to human company, and answered any questions with two or three ambiguous phrases.
Some time later, the other scouts returned with less than cheerful news. The inquisitor's apprentice, a young swordsman in leather armor who looked wildly at the people around him, and an alchemist-scholar in glasses wrapped in two cloaks at once, had reached a dead end. Apparently it was a dead end like the one found by the inquisitor and ranger on the other side. It was now absolutely clear that the maps they had did not match the terrain.
- This is strange. Apparently we are in some kind of garrison, - the scholar suggested, - but there is a ravine behind it. How are we supposed to get to the castle itself?
The last two to arrive in camp were a lean warrior with a large, very sharp thin sword, probably a samurai, and a scout sent by the general himself. They had managed to find steps leading to a wide underground passage designed for a small army. The scout said she had often seen similar structures before. If her words were to be believed, there was an entire complex of rooms underground meant to aid the castle's defense.
Since the only defenders of the garrison were now fat rats rustling in the corners, the group immediately moved down. The frozen torches on the walls hissed softly when anyone tried to light them and crumbled in torn scraps onto the steps. Halfway down it suddenly grew colder, and the cold air rolling in waves smelled of rot. The sounds of night nature did not reach here; the silence was broken only by the rustle of torches, soft steps, and the clank of armor. The ranger stopped and signaled to the others.
- Do you hear that? – he whispered.
Among the crackling fire, nagging drops, and gusts of wind, another sound could clearly be heard, like a low growl. The white-haired man cautiously moved forward toward the passage blackening in the torchlight. The scout followed him. The last two steps were completely covered in ice, and the stream of rot grew so strong they had to cover their faces with their sleeves. Before the people's eyes appeared a large hall with twisted columns, so large that from where they stood its end could not be seen. The stench abruptly ceased, the low growl vanished, and before the scouts lay an empty, cold, dark hall.
When the group gathered on the fragments of a broken column, it became clear that a second tier lay above them and that they had to find a way up. They decided to split into two groups of five and move in different directions. The ranger led the group that included the inquisitor, his faithful apprentice, the eared sorceress, and the bandit woman. The other, led by the scout, included the enormous paladin, the lean swordsman, the scholar, and the bard, who was unquestionably the key member of the detachment.
After a while, a cracked black wall appeared in the torchlight. The scout slowed her pace, looking around. The sound of drops breaking on stone grew louder as they moved along the wall, becoming clearest near a dark passage in its lower part. But the staircase here led not up but down, and dampness breathed from it. On the other side, the second group found an upward passage closed by a barred door; the clean stone steps had plainly been used constantly.
Closer to the meeting point agreed upon at the opposite end of the hall, a strange noise began to reach the people. Scraping, slapping, countless taps. The scholar took from his bag a mechanism like a pistol, coughed, turned a lever, and fired a red flash into the darkness. For several moments, the twisted faces of living dead and the broken skulls of skeletons moving toward the heroes emerged from the dark. A wild howl and growl rang out, and a huge wolf with a crescent burned into its forehead leapt from its place and rushed into battle.
A couple of minutes later, all ten heroes, sheltering behind a heap of rotten furniture remains, were fiercely fighting off hordes of unclean creatures. The inquisitor's heavy hammer struck with incredible force, smashing bones and burning the flesh of risen corpses with sacred fire; the letters on it glowed red. Flaming bolts stuck into watery bodies, broke joints, pierced skulls, and turned enemies into moaning meat crawling over the floor. The pistols, with which only two were armed, sent streams of fiery shot forward, each burst lighting the hall red with a crash. Of course, the bard made the greatest contribution, maintaining his friends' morale with majestic melodies.
Huge teeth snapped in front of the inquisitor's apprentice's nose, forcing him to use all his agility to dodge. The gigantic wolf pressed the defenders, not even noticing their pathetic improvised barricades.
- We have to go! There are too many of them! – someone shouted.
- You cannot get away from this beast! – the inquisitor thundered angrily, raising his hammer again.
With a roar he lunged forward, aiming the hammer at the wolf's head. A powerful blow struck a sheaf of red sparks and caused the creature considerable pain. Along with an enraged growl, a cloud of green mist that burned the eyes burst from the wolf's mouth. The sacred letters dispersed the unholy stench, leaving the inquisitor and his opponent in a small circle of light cast by a torch thrown onto the stone floor. Nearby, in the greenish haze, cries, coughing, the howls of the dead, and flickering torchlights could be heard.
The wolf attacked first, swinging both front paws at once. Sharp claws left four black scratches on the surface of the armor. "This is my territory," the wolf growled, preparing to leap. What happened next no one could say for certain, but in the end the bard found the bleeding inquisitor beside the body of the slain wolf. He was breathing heavily and still clutching his chest, where ten neat black stripes darkened: two blows with two paws, as he later told it.
The undead kept coming, forcing the heroes to retreat. The bard and the weakened inquisitor hanging on him reached the grate that closed the way upward.
It turned out that the grate had long since lost any dependence on the mechanism that raised it; the white-haired man tried in vain to tear the heavy metal from the floor. The bandit woman, holding a torch in one hand, fired at the outlines of undead bodies flickering in the dark. The sorceress rummaged in her bag, quickly sorting through vials and pouches of herbs. The undead drew ever closer; in anger the young sorceress shook half the contents out of one pouch, searching with tears in her eyes for the precious container. The bard propped the wounded warrior against the wall, grabbed another torch, and began helping the girl search. At last their efforts succeeded: the sorceress poured a pinch of blue powder into a vial of pink liquid, making the potion grow hot like stew in the tavern "Abode of Hospitality."
- Drink it! – the sorceress shouted to the bard. – It will multiply your strength many times over!
- Give it to the inquisitor, he is much stronger!
- He is wounded, he will not survive it!
The bard shuddered at that news; the prospect of dropping dead from an unstable potion frightened him far more than the pressing dead, from whom one could at least run away. And of course, what would happen to these people if, by some stupid accident, he died such a stupid death?!
- No, no, let someone else drink it! – he shouted, moving to the inquisitor, who was gritting his teeth and writhing on the floor in pain.
The sorceress jumped up and ran to the ranger loading his crossbow. After explaining the drink's effect to him, she sighed and told him about the possible consequences. After receiving her assurance that the potion would work as intended in any case, the white-haired man drained the vial of bitter, burning liquid in one gulp. A few seconds later a violent, uncontrollable trembling ran through his body, his muscles cramped, and he fell to the ground with a cry. Another minute later he was roaring as he dragged the huge grate upward, opening the passage for the others. The bard hurried to drag the inquisitor inside, while the bandit woman leapt down from her perch and hastened to toss the bag of supplies into the passage. The dead were approaching.
The white-haired man looked back and saw the little sorceress hastily gathering the potions scattered over the floor. A roar came from a dead body that had emerged from the darkness. A pale hand seized the girl by the leg. She screamed as dead hands dragged her toward the crowd of living corpses climbing through a stone crack in the floor. With all his newly gained strength, the ranger jerked the grate sideways, making it jam in the stone. Running up sharply, he kicked the rotten body in the chest, and the upper half of the enemy flew into the air in a hundred slimy scraps. Throwing the squealing girl over his shoulder, he picked up her bag with everything she had managed to gather and ran to the others. Setting his burden on the steps, the ranger pulled the grate, hanging a meter and a half above the ground, down; it struck the stone with a heavy clang, blocking the undead's path.
Halfway up the stairs the group stopped. The sorceress gave the wounded inquisitor a healing draught, after which he immediately fell asleep. Having finished with one casualty, she approached the other: the trembling ranger holding himself against the wall. The potion of strength had ended its effect, leaving only painful consequences in his body. The eared man reacted to nothing, staring blankly at the staircase vanishing into the darkness. When the girl tried to seat him on the floor, he collapsed onto her unconscious. Finding herself on a wide step with the white-haired head on her chest, she had to ask for help from those who remained conscious.
The scout took the first step into the wide tunnel, whose floor was carpeted with murky water. It smelled of something sharp and alchemical. Tree roots that had grown through the walls and ceiling had an unusual bluish color. The torches trembled in a wind from no clear source, threatening to go out.
- The unholy water of the Irsus Sea, - the paladin concluded, looking at the cloudy swirls.
- Impossible. By all calculations we should be somewhere else entirely! – the scholar objected, trying to fish another map out of his wide pocket.
- One of its outflows is above us, - the lean warrior said, touching the tunnel wall with his hand.
- So what now, do you want to go back to the army of corpses? – the inquisitor's apprentice asked with a snort. – We go forward. This passage has to lead somewhere.
- Put out the torches. We do not know how long we will have to walk, - the scout said. - Stay close to one another.
Soon, the only source of light in the tunnel's pitch darkness was the torch in the girl's hand. Nothing disturbed the silence of the ancient passage, unfriendly to foolish accidental visitors. Nothing except the howling wind, the ominous slapping of feet through cursed water, the hiss of the torch, and the holy warrior's quiet prayers.
Someone persistently shook him by the shoulder, repeating the annoying "wake up" again and again. The ranger opened his eyes and immediately squinted at the bright light. The red-haired bandit woman stuck a torch into one of the many cracks in the wall and pulled a flask from her bag.
- Another potion? – the white-haired man asked with a grimace.
- Yep, straight from my cellar.
The burning rum pleasantly warmed his whole body, which was only just recovering from magical overload. Sitting up, the ranger looked over their small forced camp. The inquisitor, noticeably recovered, was chewing dried meat and washing it down with beer from a wineskin. The bard almost inaudibly plucked the strings of his instrument, singing suitable words in a whisper. The little sorceress counted the surviving potions and powders; a barely noticeable reddish light came from her bag.
- The staircase leads to the second tier, and from there a long passage stretches into the castle, - the redhead reported. - Some creatures definitely live there.
- Did you find this place on the maps? – he asked his friend.
- Hah! If we use them as kindling for a fire, they will be much more useful, - she laughed. - The ones that brought us to the gorge are right; the rest are just nonsense!
- Damned Order of the Phoenix, - the ranger spat.
The group moved upward. Snow flew through a hole in the ceiling, forming a small drift by the arch leading to the second tier. The inquisitor scooped up a handful and began rubbing it over his chest, in the place where the wolf had left its ten black scratches. Apparently the wounds caused the warrior great discomfort.
Below, beyond the parapet, there was pitch darkness and absolute silence, as if nothing had happened there for years. The bard picked up a stone from the floor and threw it down, hearing nothing in response except a soft knock.
- What happened to the others? Did they escape? – he said thoughtfully.
- Most likely, - the inquisitor croaked, clenching his fist in a fit of pain. - My apprentice is not so easy to take.
Before the heroes stretched an incredibly long passage. Moonlight entered through numerous holes and cracks, making it easy to estimate its length at least roughly. The ranger immediately understood what the redhead had meant when she spoke of creatures living here. The snow showed prints of paws, feet, and strangely shaped hooves, as though a circus of freaks had run through.
The first meeting with a local resident happened very soon: the bandit woman sharply shoved the bard aside and ducked. A large boulder struck a cracked column, and the one who had thrown it received a bullet in return. The heroes surrounded the creature bleeding green blood and showing no signs of life. Outwardly it resembled an upright goat with three human legs and horns protruding all over its body.
- I have never seen anything like this, - the ranger concluded after examining the corpse more closely.
- I feel the work of black magic, - the inquisitor rumbled.
- Creatures created artificially! – squeaked the sorceress.
As they advanced toward the enormous wooden gates leading into the castle, the vile creatures became more numerous. The ranger shot about twenty of them; the inquisitor killed five more hiding behind the shield of a broken ballista. The bandit woman conserved ammunition, stepping carefully with saber drawn.
A small door had been built into the gates, and it yielded without trouble to a couple of hammer blows. Inside awaited a hall that had once served as an armory. Rows of rusty armor glittered in the moonlight, blackened grindstones lay ominously on the floor among wooden debris. The ranger walking ahead stopped when he noticed a suspicious figure at the end of the room, passed the torch to the bard, and loaded his crossbow.
- Welcome! – a voice thundered in the darkness. – Be guests of our castle!
Several torches on the walls lit at once, illuminating the hall. The figure turned to the guests, giving them a chance to see a pale face, bright red eyes, and an impeccable suit in the latest aristocratic fashion. A black cloak, playing in the wind from a broken window, did not touch the floor. The figure floated in the air. Seeing that his appearance had produced a reaction satisfying to him, the man laughed.
- Who are you? – the inquisitor asked, proudly stepping forward.
- Who am I? – the man spread into a languid smile. – Ah, merely one who seeks knowledge, the secrets of the greatest scholar, into whose castle you have deigned to appear without any invitation.
- It cannot be... – the sorceress whispered in horror, clutching a table covered with gray film.
- Oh yes, that man was truly magnificent, splendid, brilliant! The creator of legions of creatures whose power exceeds every imaginable limit! His experiments brought many most wondrous discoveries...
- Creator of ugly cripples, heretic, false scholar, defiler! – the inquisitor interrupted.
- Ah, what conversation can there be with ignorance? Behold, then, what I have been able to create with a small portion of his wisest legacy!
The man clapped his hands and dissolved into gray smoke. From three wide doors poured disgusting creatures with weapons in their hands; they wheezed, gurgled, squealed, and screamed. Most of them looked like asymmetrical mixtures of pieces of random animals stitched together with tight threads. The heroes retreated to the wall; the ranger picked up a decrepit wooden shield from the floor and covered himself with it while loading his crossbow. Several monsters shriekingly fell onto the stone floor, stung by the red-haired bandit's accurate shots. The main restraining factor was a flask of oil that flew into the crowd of approaching creatures and wrapped the bodies of the ugly beasts in fire.
- Got any more?! – the inquisitor roared after the throw.
The little sorceress immediately began searching for other fiery mixtures.
- There! – the ranger shouted, pointing to a closed door apparently leading to an officers' passage.
- And then what?! – the red warrior shouted, stepping forward toward the enemies. – There are hundreds of them here!
- The sphere. We must bring it into the castle, - the white-haired man reminded him.
- It will help us! – agreed the eared keeper of the sphere of fire.
- Go! – the warrior ordered with a sigh.
- What do you mean, "go"? What about you? – the bard wondered.
In answer, the inquisitor ran a finger along one of the ten deep scratches, showing his friends blood blackened by deadly poison.
- I cannot go farther. Here my last battle will take place! Go!
After those words, the inquisitor moved toward the monsters cautiously approaching from the right side of the fire. More than a dozen enemies fell to the punishing hammer guided by the furious warrior's hand before he ended his earthly path in battle for a righteous cause. Breaking the lock in the decayed door, the four ran forward through a narrow passage hung with rotten tapestries and paintings.
Meanwhile, underground, the other five made their way toward the castle through a long tunnel. The caustic water of the Irsus Sea ended after a while, though it had managed to soak their shoes thoroughly. The torches went out, became covered in sticky residue, and refused to light again; the stench was foul. By the time the tunnel changed into open space, a semicircular platform cut into the rock above a precipice, the people had begun to cough. Below they could make out snow-covered trees, a snowy plain, and mountains in the distance. The moon did not light this place very well, protected as it was by an overhanging rock, but snow was falling in full, forming a cold half-meter carpet across the whole platform.
But ahead of the heroes waited the long-awaited gates leading to the lower tiers of the castle. Inspired by the prospect of at least some change from cold, damp, and stench to, at minimum, dryness and no wind, the people quickly crossed to the other side. Inside, a spiral staircase awaited them, leading far upward. After resting a little, they continued on, climbing the broad steps into the unknown.
At last, breathing heavily, the inquisitor's apprentice stepped onto the stone floor of a room resembling a cellar. The barrels had long since rotted and become covered with whitish cracks; the stones of a small oven by the wall had taken on a strange color. Everything suggested that alchemical experiments had been conducted here. The paladin approached the remains of a rack on which shards of several flasks lay and tried to examine them more closely in the torchlight.
- The reagents dried out long ago, - a voice sounded from the dark.
Everyone started at once, searching for the speaker with their eyes. He proved to be a medium-height spearman, bald-headed. The stranger's skin was black, and his eyes burned red. On his shoulder sat a raven no less black than its master. Moonlight entered the room only through a barred opening right under the ceiling, but the strange fellow apparently felt perfectly comfortable even in complete darkness.
- Who are you? – the paladin asked commandingly, placing a hand on his sword hilt.
- The one who will not let you pass beyond this laboratory, - the new opponent answered.
- One on one! – the inquisitor's apprentice shouted, drawing his blade. – Let us finish this quickly, unless you are a coward!
- Gladly, - the other nodded, throwing the raven into the air.
The next instant he was already beside the hapless duelist, slicing the armor leather at stomach level with the spearpoint. Only an astonishing reaction, trained in dozens of duels, saved the young man. The samurai, who had stood motionless until that moment, made a sharp lunge and brought his keen blade down on the attacker's head with a cry. The man managed to defend himself by putting the spear's metal shaft under the blow. Reassessing his chances of victory, the stranger shouted something to the raven in an incomprehensible language, after which the bird flew upward.
- He sent it for help. I have seen that before! – the scout shouted.
- Then we kill him quickly, - the samurai said firmly and rushed to attack.
The paladin gladly supported him, driving the opponent toward the wall with all his might. Unaccustomed to such fights, the inquisitor's apprentice advanced hesitantly from behind and suddenly ran into an invisible barrier. An arrow fired by the scout likewise bounced from the obstacle with a scrape. The spearman lightly struck the floor with the blunt end of his weapon, and barely visible gleams ran across the rounded glass wall blocking the friends' path.
- Nothing will save you, - he said grimly.
- We will deal with him! – the paladin called to those left beyond the barrier. – Go. We will catch up!
As the samurai later told it, something incredible happened inside the improvised arena. The spearman appeared here and there, mercilessly striking with his sharp spear. It seemed he himself was part of the darkness. Easily parrying the blows of two seasoned warriors, he found the tiniest gaps in their defense.
Holding his bloodied side, the defeated swordsman watched the stranger pierce the paladin's throat with the spear, and then, before the body had even cooled, perform a black magic spell. The holy warrior, whose body now looked more like chunks of bloody meat encased in armor, rose to his feet, looking at the world with the empty eyes of an animated corpse carrying out its master's will.
- Pursue your friends. Kill them all, - the spearman ordered.
They paid no attention to the still-living samurai.
The scholar shook the magical compass, trying on the move to make out the direction of the sphere of fire. The needle pointed somewhere upward; the other members of the party were close. In a wide stone corridor equipped with several windows, the three friends encountered several hostile creatures that caused no trouble. The corridor led them into a large hall with a very high ceiling; tall stone columns strangely caught the moonlight breaking through many holes in the dome above.
- We are in the ceremonial hall, - the scholar explained, stroking his beard. - The main laboratory, if I understand correctly, is behind one of the walls.
- How do you know that is where we need to go? – the duelist asked suspiciously.
- The Master of the Order told me, - he answered.
- So you knew where we had ended up?! – the warrior growled, grabbing the scholar by the collar.
- I was not sure! At first, I assumed we were heading...
- Shh! Do you hear that? – the scout interrupted, freezing.
A barely audible squeal of pain came from somewhere above; torchlight flickered in the farthest box, then people appeared. The scout whistled loudly, attracting attention. The ranger, immediately noticing the trio below, pointed his torch toward the end of the hall, where a large dark arch could be seen. As they moved forward, bodies of people and monsters began to appear, as if a great battle had taken place here quite recently.
- Look! – the scholar cried in a strangled voice, pointing to a huge circle of scorched stone located closer to the dais.
Heaps of ash, frozen in the cold, had probably once been disgusting local inhabitants. In the center lay two bodies: a mage in red, his back burned to the bone, held in his arms a black-haired girl stuck with arrows but almost untouched by the flame. It seemed someone had learned of this place's danger and sent a cleansing detachment, but had misjudged its strength. Just as had happened to the heroes themselves.
Approaching the arch, the trio saw the torchlight of their friends waiting for them. Now there were seven of them. The apprentice could not believe they had simply left the inquisitor to die and was extremely angry. The paladin and samurai could take care of themselves, so they decided to go on. The sphere of fire, kept at the bottom of the sorceress's bag, had grown very hot as they approached the laboratory. In the dark glass ball, fire seemed to be awakening, swirling in a hurricane of bright shades.
The gates to the laboratory, for there was no doubt that this was what they were, stood open. Moreover, creatures carrying firewood, coal, and boxes of unknown contents were constantly entering through them. Work was in full swing. Slipping in unnoticed was impossible; they had to look for another way. According to the information they had, the sphere was supposed to activate on its own, cleansing this place of evil, but how that would happen was unknown.
Suddenly, a familiar voice came from above.
- You managed to get here? My respects, - the pale aristocrat said, gazing down at the heroes from a high balcony.
A shout rang out, then another; there came the tramp of feet and the clank of armor. Realizing there was no choice left, the heroes dashed through the laboratory gates. Finding themselves in a very long room lit by dozens of oil lamps, they discovered around them a hundred, perhaps more, ugly monsters growling viciously. In the middle of the laboratory, on a wooden throne, sat a bone mage commanding the process. Arrows, jars of explosive mixtures, throwing knives, and bullets flew. The worker monsters, panicking, hurried to hide under tables, behind cabinets, in empty vats, or simply tried to run past the killers who had suddenly burst in. The gates abruptly opened to their full width, showing the heroes their former ally, dead and in bloodied armor. At the same time, the ancient mage hurled a chain of lightning at the guests, striking the scout dead.
Giving free rein to his boundless anger, the duelist instantly crossed the distance to the wooden throne and thrust his blade into the mage several times. The skeleton, deprived of the ability to cast, pulled the warrior to itself and seized his throat with bony hands. Unable to pull his sword from the enemy's body, the duelist did the first thing that came to mind: he in turn grabbed the bony neck with his hands, trying to break it. He suffocated without ever letting go.
With a pistol in one hand and a saber in the other, the red-haired bandit woman attacked the bolder enemies, clearing a path for the sorceress, who pressed the bag with the red-hot sphere to her chest. New enemies flew through the gates: several knights in black armor, and behind them huge monsters, three meters tall, growled. The little sorceress ran forward, hoping at last to find the position in which the sphere would deign to activate, but something strong seized her cloak and jerked sharply, making the girl fall to the floor. A huge sword pierced the bandit woman's back, after which the resurrected paladin's enormous fist finished the job, sending her on a short flight to the nearest boiling cauldron. Golden boiling liquid spilled across the floor, boiling alive a monster hiding under a table. The sorceress looked up at her former ally walking toward her and tried to rise. A heavy throwing knife smashed into the dead paladin's face just above the nose, stopping the enemy for several seconds.
- Forward! – the ranger shouted, drawing a second knife from his boot.
But he did not have time to throw it. One of the black knights slashed his chest with a sword, knocked him to the ground, and stabbed the bloodied body again. The scholar grabbed the sorceress by the shoulder and dragged her forward. The bard, of course, was at that moment fighting fiercely, one against five black knights, with fire in his soul, thirst for vengeance for fallen friends, and a desire to help the survivors. The sphere still refused to work, though it had heated to a high temperature. Time was running out, enemies were closing in from every side, the bone mage had almost thrown off the duelist's body, and the aristocrat was entering through the gates with an important air.
- Throw it into the cauldron! – the scholar advised.
- What?! We cannot! – the sorceress squeaked.
- There is no choice!
The scholar snatched the dark ball with fire at its center from the girl and pushed it into the boiling cauldron of golden brew. Some splashed onto his hand, leaving a severe burn.
- Now, prepare yourselves! – he commanded.
The small device in his hand sparked, clicked, and transported the three heroes to the hall of slaughter, straight to the couple asleep in eternal sleep. At the gates they met the samurai, who had managed to bandage his wounds himself. Heavy steps sounded; the heroes were being chased. Their only advantage was that the enemy did not know their exact location, and they had to use that! The samurai told them of a passage he had found into another underground tunnel leading toward the garrison.
Hardly had the heroes stepped onto the cold floor of the underground passage when a monstrous explosion rang out above. Later they would see the castle engulfed in flame, one part of it collapsing into the abyss before their very eyes. The sphere of fire, the "Phoenix Sphere," as they later learned, brought exactly that kind of cleansing. Only by a miracle did they manage to remain alive after that suicidal adventure. Their fallen friends would forever remain in their hearts, stirring only warm memories of the time they had spent together.

At last, it is finished!
The bard set down his pen with a smile and leaned back in a comfortable chair upholstered in soft leather. Now this story would become known to every resident of Haveria! Every person would be moved by the feat they had accomplished!
A girl with light hair entered the room, carrying a tray with a cup of tea and half-moon pastries. The bard coughed, stood to his full height, and proudly declared:
- Finished!
- Oh, congratulations! – she said, setting the tray on a small table in the middle of the room. – How long did it take you, thirty years?
- I simply had no inspiration! Who needs stories written without inspiration? – the bard sighed. – You know, you were my muse, occasionally.
- I am not even a real girl! – the muse laughed. – I am a homunculus you demanded from the Order as a reward, do not forget.
- Pfft! Who needs them... you are much better.
- All right, - the muse smiled, - let me see.
- Of course, here, - the bard handed the girl the written pages.
- Is this an accurate account?
- Yes.
- And here, is this true? I did not know you were good at fencing.
- Of course!
- And here? Mmmm... who are these people, anyway? And what castle is this? I have never heard of it...
- That is enough, give it back!
Pleasant snow drifted through the half-open window, the fireplace burned, the tea was warm, and the pastries were delicious.