CHAPEL OF REPENTANCE

On waking, Keiron and Dante discover that their night-vision contacts have disintegrated—Ulrich had deigned not to let them know that the contacts were disposable. Keiron and Dante are annoying, but can do nothing to fix them. Now stuck with normal human vision, the group exits the chamber, trading it for the next. Opening the doors and stepping inside reveals a vast, cathedral-like room. The ceiling soars high above them. Mary estimates it to be around one hundred feet at the very least.

Out loud, Keiron briefly wonders if he could climb it.

Turns out he can’t.

Located in the middle of the far side of the room are the remains of an altar. Over centuries, pieces have fallen off, collapsing into piles of rubble where finely chiseled stone used to be. A sun motif, painstakingly painted in a corona around the altar has faded due to the tramping feet of people and time. Closer to the adventurers are marble columns to either side, massive supports for the unseen ceiling. Two rows of pews are stand guard over the central aisle. At the same time, they wait in supplication to whatever god had once reigned over the altar. Keiron spots two alcoves in the walls to the immediate right and left of them. He runs over to inspect the ones on the right. Dante wanders to the opposite side.

Their footsteps echo loudly on the flagstone floor, but they hear nothing else.

Keiron discovers an Oathbow, which he declares to be completely useless to him. Then he realizes its enormous resale value and takes it. In the next alcove, he finds a longsword. Disgusted, he leaves it in its dried-out wooden cabinet. On the other side, Dante has found a longspear and can’t be bothered to take it. Keiron agrees, as the resale value isn’t worth lugging it around with them. Before Dante can get to the next cabinet, Keiron has popped it open and found of Sword of Subtlety. He gleefully ditches his plain short sword and equips his shiny new sword. Well, it would be shiny, except that the Sword of Subtlety is a dull gray because it’s, you know, subtle.

Looking for things to smash, Dante wanders up the aisle between the two rows of stone pews. He takes note of the symmetrical stairways on each side, both leading to an upper balcony behind the altar area. The faintly violet shadows from the fading fungus hide any further detail. He’d have to investigate more closely and takes a step toward the left staircase.

His foot had just fallen onto the smooth top of a flagstone when a roar sounds from the top of the balcony. A blur of gray leaps from the balcony to the top of the four foot tall altar. Once the dust cloud from the creature’s landing settles, the group can see just what sort of being they’re doomed to face.

The creature, who vaguely resembles a human, is gaunt to the point of emaciation. Its desiccated skin is pulled tautly over its bones. It’s complexion is the ash gray of death, a mockery of would have been a handsome human. Its deep-set eyes are wide, filled with the crackling red of fury, a fire of unmet hunger fueling it even brighter. His clothing—or the remnants thereof—hangs from him in threadbare tatters. Spatters of blood add mottles of color to the dull, faded brown.

Dante, the one closest to the creature, shouts that it’s the Wendigo.

Keiron dives behind the cover of the solid stone altar.

Mary stands frozen in place, speechless for a moment. Then she says, in a rasp left in the quiet after Dante’s yell, “William?”

The Wendigo’s head snaps over to look at Mary, confusion replacing some of the anger.

Keiron sneaks over to the stairs on the left wall.

Mary runs towards the altar. As she runs past Dante, he sticks his foot and trips her, sending her tumbling to the floor.

Outrage sparks in the Wendigo’s eyes and it leaps in front of Dante. It sticks its wrecked face in Dante’s and shouts, “You have hurt my sister!”

Mary gets to her feet. “William? Is that you? You’re the Wendigo?”

The Wendigo’s—William’s—face twists in revulsion. “The Wendigo possesses me, yes. But I am…” He seems to struggle with the words, his actions echoing his next words. “Still in control. I have not eaten any human flesh for the entire week I’ve been trapped, nor have I felt the hunger enough to attempt escape for the purpose of hunting humans. But the Wendigo’s hunger… I fear it will overwhelm me the longer it goes without. Its will to sate his hunger will soon defeat my will to remain human.”

Dante brandishes his sword, ignoring William’s death-tinged breath. “We must kill him!”

Though secretly, she’d like her Wendigo-strengthened brother to tear the obnoxious Dante to shreds, Mary’s arm nonetheless flashes out to restrain Dante. “You can’t kill my brother!”

“He’s the Wendigo!”

“He’s my brother!”

William interrupts them. “I am not the Wendigo. The Wendigo possesses me, but not fully. I have a few days at most. But I believe I can be healed.” His eyes say otherwise. His belief is only a hope wavering in the face of the certain death of his human soul.

Dante glances at Mary. “Can he be healed?”

She scrunches up her face in thought, and then shrugs. “I don’t know. You’re the cleric. Don’t you guys heal people? Isn’t that what you’re for?”

Dante looks slightly offended at the description of his life’s pursuit. “Aren’t you a wizard?”

“I’m not sure if wizard is the right word. I mean, I have a wizard’s powers, but wizard sounds so… masculine.”

“Well, you’re not a sorceress. And wizardess sounds funny,” says Dante, always ready to debate. “I’d call you a witch, but your brother would kick my ass.”

“I would,” William throws in.

“But now I don’t know what to call you,” Dante says to Mary.

Keiron’s head pops up from behind the balcony railing. “Just call her a wizard. We know she’s a chick. I mean, she’s got bo—”

Mary glares up at Keiron, cutting him off. “What the hell are you doing up there?”

Keiron gives her a look as if she should’ve known the answer without having to ask. “Exploring. But I’ve only found a composite long bow, and a longspear. Useless.” He scowls, and then looks towards William. “Are you dangerous?”

“Not for a few days. I am still in control.”

“I wouldn’t piss him off, though,” says Dante.

“You should follow your own advice,” says Mary.

Dante tells her to shut up.

Mary mutters something about maiming him in particularly painful ways involving sensitive, private parts of the body.

Dante edges away.

“I’m coming down there, then,” Keiron says, and strolls back down the stairs. He stands next to the altar, careful to keep the stone structure between him and the Wendigo-possessed William. “I thought you were a wizard, too,” he says to William.

“No, I’m a ranger. My brothers are the wizards.”

“But you’re Eric,” says Dante.

William’s dry, cracked lips twitch in a near-smile. “Eric is my father. Was my father. It’s been a month, perhaps, since my father died. By now, Ulrich is the king, so he’s Eric now.”

“I’m so confused,” says Keiron.

Mary sighs in exasperation. “Eric is the inherited name of the Otherland King. When a person is crowned, they stop using their birth-name and are called Eric.”

“Oh,” Dante and Keiron say at the same time.

“But I haven’t seen Ulrich down here, so he can’t be Eric. Savas would be Eric by now.”

“How did you end up here?” Mary asks.

“After Ulrich told me that I’d killed Mother, I fell back into the Valley cavern entrance. Then Ulrich sealed up the door with some sort of magic, and I couldn’t get out. He must’ve sealed the Mountain exit with the same magic, because I can’t open that door either. And because I killed our mother and that makes me morally corrupt, the Wendigo was able to possess me instead of merely consuming my flesh. Instead, he consumes my soul.”

“You didn’t kill your mother,” Dante says.

William growls at Dante. “Did you kill my mother?”

“No! Ulrich did!”

“And how do you know this?”

“Your mother’s ghost told us. I mean, we can go back there and talk to her if you want. You can get the whole story from her.”

“I think you should tell me.”

“I think she should tell you.”

“You will tell me.”

Faced with no other option, Dante repeats the story Regina had told the group. William deduces that Ulrich had created an illusion of Regina, then, and somehow made him believe that he had killed his mother. That way, the Wendigo would possess him and not Ulrich, as long as the Wendigo was locked away from Ulrich.

“But if you’re not really morally corrupt, shouldn’t the Wendigo leave your body?”

“It doesn’t work like that. That’s what it needs to possess someone. But once it’s got someone, it won’t leave by choice.”

Keiron asks what would happen if they manage to cast the demon from William’s body. William explains that it would attempt to possess the next most-morally compromised person.

“It should possess Dante, then,” Keiron says. “And I bet he’s will to stay human is stronger than yours.”

“I think Keiron would be in the most danger of possession,” says Dante.

“I don’t think Keiron’s really in any danger of possession. You are,” Mary tells Dante.

“Am not.”

“How many times have you hit on me?”

Dante ignores the question. “How can we get the demon out of William, anyway? Wouldn’t we just have to kill him?”

William explains that the villagers of the Valley had used some sort of book to exorcise the demon from people who’d been possessed. He then asks if they have the book.

“Most of it.”

Keiron points at Dante. “Because he insisted on opening it, he made two pages disintegrate.”

Their primary plan ruined, the group brainstorms other ideas. Dante comes up with casting a circle of consecrated ground, but they decide it wouldn’t really do anything except cause William more pain. The only spells they can think of require wizards and clerics of higher ability. In the end, all they had was the book.

Keiron’s eyes light up and he looks over at Dante. “Don’t you have some sort of ability to put shit back together?”

“Yeah. I have a ritual that’s called make whole. But it requires supplies made of the same material of what’s broken.”

“So we need paper. Anyone got any paper?”

No one has any, aside from an unused spell that Dante possesses. But if he used the paper to make the book, he’d be without the spell forever. Keiron insists they explore some more before they use that paper. “Besides,” he finished, “we have a couple more days.” He turns to William. “Didn’t you say there used to be guides that helped people through?”

“A long time ago, I’m told.”

Dante muses out loud. “They would’ve had to keep—”

“Log books!”