Maze of the Undying

"We say the word 'life' as if we know what it means, as if the meanings of living and dead are simple and uncomplicated."

-Sir Jessup Quen, Knight-Commander of the Third King

1:

The man walked cautiously, but not cautiously enough. He was too heavy. A stone clicked beneath his foot, and razor thin blades shot out from the narrow walls. He was dead before he hit the ground.

2:

He awoke as if for the first time, in a faintly familiar place. He could not remember his name, nor could he recall why he was in a dark cell some ways underground. The greatsword on his back seemed to be his, as did the metal plate armour he wore. It wasn't full plate like one would find on a Knight or a Lord, but lighter plate found on a foot soldier, metal chestpiece and leather undersuit, made for moving quickly. Apparently not quick enough, he thought cynically, surveying his surroundings.

The man wore no helmet. A scar ran along his bottom lip, splitting the middle of his mouth. He appeared to be a hard man, perhaps a veteran from the last war, or a sailor of the furthest seas. Maybe a hired assassin sent to kill Kings. There was no way of knowing, as the darkness in his mind was as thick and black as the darkness around him. Drowsy and sore, the man stood up and stretched. He was not overly large, but found his muscled body weathered and rippled. If he felt the urge, and gained the energy, he was sure his body could prove itself up to any task. He was tired, although he'd just woken up. His mind was weary. His head pounded with the force of a thousand hangovers. How have I gotten here? He wondered. How do I get out?

The cell door creaked, as if responding to his question. Specks of rust spoke of untold abuse over its time. The cell was old, if not ancient; cracks in the wall proved that fact. The only light sputtered from a single torch outside the cell door.

He didn't question why the door was open, or who he had to thank. He did, however, realize that someone had put him in the cell in the first place.

The man drew the massive sword at his back. Cautiously, he stepped outside the cell.

The dark corridor seemed to shudder with age. At any moment the man was sure the stone walls would give in and the ceiling would come crashing down. There was something engraved in one of the bricks, but it appeared too eroded to make sense. The odour of mold was strong closer to the wall. The man stepped back, and saw fit to sheath his sword. The way was silent, and such a cumbersome blade would only hinder him in close quarters.

He tapped the sheath absentmindedly, and summoned a knowledge of blades. The broadsword he carried did not appear to be made for slaying men — the forward edge was smooth while the rear was serrated. The point curved ever so slightly to allow for a hook-like slash, where one could rip away soft armour, or thick hide. Who am I? What was I trained to do?

Five more cells lined the wall next to his, and he found them all empty. Not a trace except dried bloodstains in one. Blood that seemed curiously fresh marked the bed sheets in another. The man wondered if the blood belonged to his comrades, if he had any, or just past victims of this hell that was now his. How long had this place been here ? Did he even

At the end of the corridor, the path split left and right. That didn't bother the man, the letters written in blood were far more disturbing. He found he could read the script, as it was written in common tongue:

Left

The letters seemed to be written with a shaky hand, and covered the far wall facing him. How old was the blood? He stuck a finger out to determine their wetness.

and instead was blinded by a vision. He viewed the scene once more from his own eyes, and saw himself writing the letters.

As quickly as it had come, it was gone. The man stood in shock a while, breathing hard and blinking fast, as if the vision was still in his eyes.

He gave a shaky nod to no one, and then followed the letters' advice.

Another torch danced weakly up ahead. As he reached it, he realized the way forward was pitch black. He reached for the torch, pulling it free...

A string pulled the torch back. The man heard a fatal click, and then the sound of the ceiling caving in.

Heavy stone bricks shattered his legs, his ribs, the man could not move anything but his arm. He received another vision, and was gifted with a memory. Touching his finger to his bloodied ribs, he shakily traced words into the wall.

"dont pull torch".

And then, as the blood trickled from the man’s mouth, he closed his eyes and died.

3:

Tired and groggy, the man woke up in his cell. He wondered who he was and why he was in a cell. The cell door had heavy rust on it, the hinges creaking with every movement it made.

The man drew his sword and surveyed the corridor. There were letters engraved in the brick, but were far too weathered to be read. He sheathed his sword when he was satisfied the other cells were clear, and stepped carefully towards the attached corridor.

Left

The blood-written letters brought a vision of himself writing them. Had he? He could not recall. He scratched his stubble with a shaky hand, and followed the corridor left.

It was dark, indeed, but the sheer blackness of it was overwhelming. Beyond the second torch, it appeared almost as a physical wall built of shadows.

He reached for the torch without looking, and his fingers touched something wet instead. His finger smeared the first word, but the letters were redundant in conveying the message.

dont pull torch

The vision was more clear, if more painful. He was crushed by bricks while writing this message. How could that be possible? No bricks appeared to have been moved, and he was intact. He was not dead. How?

The man recalled stories and legends from the back of his mind but could not sift truth from fiction. His predicament was his own. Perhaps it was a vision of what could've been? But then who had written the message?

"Escape first. Figure life’s mysteries out later." He said to himself in a voice of stone. Obviously there were traps here intended for him. Someone was trying to kill him. Oddly, he felt more in his element than he had before.

The man walked for some time, following corridors and marking dead ends. He cut his hand and used the blood to write messages as he had before. It all looked the same, all smelled like moldy stone. Eventually, after hours of effort and marking dead ends, he came to a corridor where a dim light shone at the end. Another torch.

Bad mistake by the hunters, he thought. They had set up torches where they were putting traps so they could see. They didn't move them afterwards.

It was a good assumption. The man, however, didn't think that someone else had anticipated he would think that. A snare caught him by the leg. The rope pulled with ripping force, the man's head smashed the ground before he was left hanging upside down. The ceiling above him opened, and the rope began to slowly pull him up.

Quickly, with one last burst of adrenaline, he swirled two fingers in the blood dripping from his head and circled the ground where he had stepped. He was pulled up into the ceiling, where the panel closed, and the man began to suffocate in a space he barely fit in. There was no air. He used his legs, pushed with all his might, but it was of no use.

Death came before the man's hope died, leaving him to die struggling, writhing for his life like an insect. Though likely his imagination, the man thought he could hear malicious laughter as he lost consciousness.

4:

Marked traps and marked dead ends? The man thought himself a genius. Or rather, the past version of him a genius. He wasn't quite sure how it worked. Perhaps a scholar could figure it out, but he was not an educated man. He decided he would take his tale directly to the University of Rygen if he got out, so they could make sense of it. He wondered how he had remembered Rygen, a University who trained scholars in both academics and magic, when he couldn't remember his own name. The unknown is enough to drive a man mad, more so when it's so close to being understandable.

He wondered why his belongings remained on him when he woke up. His sword and armour were not a part of him, why did they remain with him? Perhaps the spell to revive wasn't precise, just put him in a bubble and shoved him back. Was it possible he was going entirely back in time? No, then the markers wouldn't be there. Nothing made sense to the broadly built man.

He traced his finger across the scar over his mouth. I had a life. He thought. Did I have a family? Children and a wife? He hoped not. He felt like he'd been in the maze for years. Perhaps he had.

The man saw the circle of blood he had made, and stepped around the carefully concealed noose. He had made it a point not to touch the walls, and moved slowly to keep his balance.

The torch burned dimly, and he recalled his assumption. Traps around the torches. Probably another trap before the torch as well. Whoever made the maze was both an asshole and a genius, he decided.

Genius indeed. A skilled mage as well. For when the man approached the torch, it showered him in flames with the force of an explosion, the shockwave knocking him against the wall, unconscious, before the flames began to melt his crackling bones.

39:

He had made it past the corridors. Praise the Gods, he had made it. The man almost smiled but decided fate would take it personally, and redouble its efforts.

The Man found himself in a large room, only to be struck by an earth-shaking roar. The sound was immense, a magickly-assisted shockwave, physically pushing him back.

The blood he had written behind him was blasted away by the force. He cringed, but realized this beast’s roar had travelled down the corridor as well. His blood messages would be erased. He couldn't die now, or he would lose everything.

He drew his sword — a broadsword of the two-meter caliber. It was nearly as large as he was, long and hooked and serrated for half a metre above the hilt. He gripped it tightly, and found his body still knew how to fight. Honed muscle memory never fails. The beast ceased its roar, and stepped out of the shadows.

Wide, red-veined wings filled the room. It stood on six legs — two in the front and four in the back — like some sort of insect, but the build was much more reptilian. Scales glistened among the utter blackness of its skin, surreally. Without the torches along the roof, the man wouldn't have been able to see the creature at all.

A swipe of claws. A flash of steel. The man deflected the force of the creatures' strike and rolled in closer towards the beasts' soft underbelly.

He swung savagely, his blows quick but calculated. Dodging wildly, he thrusted the blade into the creature's stomach up to the hilt, then yanked it free. Acidic, black blood sprayed onto him. The man began to dissolve, the acid taking his eyes first. He screamed desperately as it seeped into the front of his brain, and the pain intensified tenfold. It was a bubbling, prickly pain that made him wish it would hurry up and kill him. He did not die for the better part of an hour, until the liquid finally took the whole of his brain.

299:

The man plunged the steel into the beast's underbelly, then rolled free. His eyes were a pale blue, flecked with traces of crimson. When he cried out in victory, the entire maze seemed to shake before him. He had conquered it. He knew every nook and cranny of the place, every corridor, every brick. He knew how many steps it was from his current position to his cell. He was as familiar with it as a man could be. Even so, he dared not get his hopes up.

He dropped to a prone position, and began to crawl. He moved beyond the creature for the first time, unhindered by the floor spikes he remembered. When he reached the far wall, he pushed it open.

Bright blinding light overtook him. Light as he'd never knew forced his eyes closed, and he turned back to the maze, ducking in fear. It took him several minutes to notice that this was not a trap. This was sunlight, bearing down on him. He stood as his eyes adjusted painfully, and a single tear escaped his control.

Quietly, a dark figure appeared to his left. The pale-eyed man held his sword up in anticipation, his face chiseled into stone once more. The darkly-dressed man chuckled.

"You are free, Kallias of Millondrias."

There was a moment of silence between the two. The pale-eyed man did not recall the name he was called nor the land he was from, even when the other man spoke it.

"Free?" The pale-eyed man asked. His voice sounded strange to himself. This was what he wanted, but not what he had anticipated. He had planned all this time to get out of the maze, but never what he would do when he escaped.

"I will release you of the curse of Undeath, and you may leave. You will be a mortal man once more, and do as you please." He grinned evilly, though his words seemed genuine. Try as he might, the pale-eyed man could not distinguish this Being as human. Some faint sense told him otherwise. He held his sword close, eyes dark.

"Oh come now!" The Being snapped so violently that Kallias jumped back. He was shaking, and he knew not why. Something, some ancient instinct warned him that this Being was to be feared. The Millondrian clutched his sword in a grip of iron.

The Being's' face changed so quickly the man questioned if the outburst had even happened.

"Look at these wide open plains, that river at the base of the hill. Will you not cherish nature's gifts?" Again, he grinned evilly, as if the wrath of a thousand demons would not sate him. There was no expression that could make him human. He was something else entirely.

The pale-eyed man looked out at the plains, and saw an open area for ambush. He looked at the flowing river, and saw a chance to trip and drown. The waterfall would throw him into rocks, and his life would end forever. He would not wake up.

The man trembled now, knowing he had degraded this far. Knowing his mental state of mind would never return, that he could never see anything as more than a danger. Kallias unsheathed his sword, and against every instinct in his body, turned his back on the Being, who laughed uncontrollably.

The cell hallway was dim, and his eyes adjusted easily. Before he sat back in the cell, he smoothed over the engraved brick. Mud covered his fingers. Confused, Kallias turned to the brick and wiped off another stone-coloured glob of mud. The letters became readable, but they were not letters. Only marks. Six vertical marks with a line across the first four. As the man touched them, he received one final vision, and picked up the nearby sculptor's knife.

The man carved another mark beside the sixth, and returned to his bed.