Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 101: Haunting

It proved impossible for Erec to follow Garin through the wasteland without his friend spotting him. Given the sheer empty space, there wasn’t always a rock to hide behind... Well, Erec pressed forward anyway.

That wasn’t to say he was obnoxious about following his friend. Garin noticed him but would always look away and return to his travel.

So, Erec kept a respectful distance away but kept a keen eye on him, wishing he knew what to say to bolster his friend’s confidence.

Garin seemed to drag his heels as he kept walking and didn’t stop. Even when the sun went down, and the cold air came out in force, Garin kept moving forward. It was apparent that he didn’t intend to pause and make a camp.

Questionable, but then, maybe he wanted to keep on his toes. Dame Juliana hadn’t given explicit rules or conditions on how they’d be tested.

Still, it struck Erec as odd. Erec shivered as he followed along, the walk only doing so much to keep them warm. Were he in Garin’s shoes… Maybe that wasn’t fair; his friend wasn’t him and had a different way of solving his problems.

And Garin knew that Morgana was out to target him for an individual test tonight, with Goddess knows what.

How became the question as the night dragged on and the pearly white moon took the center of the sky, miles passed beneath their feet as they walked through the wasteland.

It became harder to justify this to himself. This test had some basis on their grades, and who knew how they were graded? Without the instructor’s direct supervision, how would they even know how their students were doing? Unless Dame Morgana had some form of scouting technique. That wasn’t a massive stretch, given her special status and high rank.

Wandering forward… Couldn’t be good for their grade. Would that mean that Garin doomed himself to shelter due to his anxiety? His friend hadn’t stopped once for shelter, even when they wandered past a nice rocky outcropping.

He kept going, restless, into the night.

For the third time on their trip, Erec considered yelling and reaching out to his friend to encourage or reason with him.

This wasn’t his test… But he wanted to. He wanted to show his support somehow, to ease that tension his customarily laid-back friend felt.

If Garin wanted him to go away—he would’ve said something. Erec knew that, at least by being visible to him, it had to be doing something to take him off the edge, but it was just that. A silent show of support. Could he do more? How much was he willing to risk?

For too long, it felt like he hadn’t done enough to support Garin; he’d let his friend fall behind in favor of himself.

Erec wrapped his arms around his chest, tucking his hands in his armpits to keep them warm as they kept moving. Always moving. The two of them walked circles in the wasteland.

And that’s when Erec heard a noise.

A noise that shouldn’t be possible out here; not quite otherworldly, unlike a monster, but unfamiliar.

Strange howling haunted the air like a note sung at perfect pitch. The noise pierced and sent shivers barreling down Erec’s spine, and to the distance, he saw Garin freeze in his tracks. Erec looked around, the knife slipping into his hand with ease. Rolling across the wasteland to the east was a blanket of silver, a roaming body of gas across the wasteland.

Working on instinct, Erec yelled out to his friend and stripped off his shirt—wrapping the cloth around his mouth as his eyes widened.

It’d been drilled into them from the start of this class that strange occurrences like this, particularly with heavy gas, were a bad sign. Without their Armor, the best bet was to inhale as little as possible and seek high ground. As the blanket of silver fog approached, Erec held his breath, looking for a solution.

[Relax, non-toxic. Water vapor only. But it shouldn’t be possible in this environment.]

Erec took a deep breath, the knife shaking in his grip as his shoulders untensed.

Of course, this was impossible—the walls alone prevented roaming walls of gas from getting inside, let alone mist from the dry environment. But the constant warnings and studying he’d done lately on lands further from the kingdom had gotten him paranoid. His eyes drifted to Garin, who’d also opted to cover his mouth. Erec signaled to him that it was fine—before unwrapping his shirt.

Rapidly though, the image of his friend in the distance was beginning to get harder to make out. This mist was getting thicker as more rolled across the wasteland, limiting visibility.

In a minute, Garin became a shadow in the fog.

Erec stumbled after him in the mist. The knife clutched tightly in his hand as more haunting howls drifted around him. They seemed to come from everywhere, yet nowhere.

With all this mist, it was impossible to tell what was lingering inside. His best bet was to get to higher ground…

They’d passed by a rock formation not too long ago. If Garin were smart, he’d try to trek back to it—it’d give them perspective on what was happening. As Erec turned about, trying to find his tracks, another howl rippled across the wasteland.

There was a sense of loss as if it’d been ripped from the past and torn into this war-wrecked world. A ghost of what was.

Erec shouted out for Garin, yelling for him to meet him at the outcropping—to the response of more howls, so after giving out the plan, Erec shut his mouth, not wanting to draw more ire out of the fog.

VAL helped him retain a sense of direction in the swirling silver, cutting their way back toward the outcropping. His tracks were helpful, but with the fog and the constant howling, it would be too easy to lose track of his steps and get lost. He could only pray Garin retained his focus and made his way back.

If he shouted again—he was afraid of whatever was lurking and moving in the corner of his vision would begin its attack on both of them.

Instead, he plodded along.

Shapes shifted about in the mist, black figures darting around and vanishing as quickly as they appeared. Every time VAL would give him a call out—but they would disappear the moment Erec saw them. With a flimsy knife in hand, Erec struggled to reassure himself there weren’t any monsters here.

There couldn’t be within the walls.

Even if the voice in his head whispered that a Rift could open anywhere—they couldn’t easily open within the walls, the glyph work stabilized the magic around here to make it very unlikely.

But what did the kingdom truly know about the Rifts?

As the madness began to take root and the shadows around him thickened, Erec reached a mass of rocks. It extended upward—so he climbed the rock formation. A good fifteen feet in the air—and he’d freed himself from the mist.

It was a surreal sight to see the sea of swirling fog below.

[Well, clearly, anomalous energy is involved. I’m getting very sick of the properties of this so-called magic… What is this absolute ridiculousness? Really. This is not how mist should behave, yet the properties, humidity, and composition define it as mist.]

There, below in the sea with this vantage point, it was even more clear. Shapes formed from the mist and dashed around, complete beings created only to evaporate back from the primordial sea of fog they sprang from. It was hard to make out their shapes with the layer of fog above, but it was impossible to deny how they were spawning.

[Oh, that’s certainly odd.]

It looked like… An old-world animal, a wolf.

Their howls tore through the night, and with his vantage point, Erec began to look further. In the distance were little bubbles of light. Campfires. The mist seemed to withdraw from the flames, but the wolves circled the barrier, pressing what he presumed to be his fellow initiates.

But Garin didn’t have a fire. Somewhere below, his friend was dealing with these things without any safety.

And because of that, he’d lose the test.

The key to this test was fire and shelter—it had to be. That and maybe something else, and no doubt this Morgana had planned even further to pry into Garin.

There wasn’t a way in hell he’d pass now.

Erec’s knuckles went white on the grip of his knife as his vision bled into red. Cold fire burned steady in his core.

[I’d advise staying up here, it appears you’ve found a solution to the problem, and I think this would qualify as a pass.]

“He’s going to fail.”

[It’s on him to complete his task. If he fails the evaluation, it’ll show he’s not fit. Is that not fair?]

“Screw fair.”

Too long. For too long, he’d left his friend in his wake and obsessed with himself; if he could find a way to give him an edge… Erec dived off the rock, his feet kicking up a plume of dust to mingle with the fog as he hit the ground. Not hesitating, one of the shadows coalesced in the mist and sprang at him, fangs wide as the wolf tried to take a bite. Erec’s knife slipped through the air, point diving directly into its skull.

The creature disappeared like smoke, vanishing into the mist again.

Fire might’ve kept his classmates safe, but… Well, Erec didn’t need it. With enough power, you had to conform to your own rules.

Erec waded deeper into the fog, shouting out for his friend as he dodged and slashed at the wolves as they appeared out of nowhere and vanished into nothing once defeated. They circled. They howled. A never-ending enemy of ghosts that tried to stop him from digging deeper into the fog.

More of the wolves came and went, getting thicker as he backtracked toward where he last saw Garin. Multiple ones threw themselves at him, but as Erec drew on Fury, he was too fast for them to react.

What could prey do to a predator?

And eventually, after screaming his throat raw, Garin answered.

It was a far call, almost an illusion as much of a ghost as the howling of these fog-wolves. But it was a direction. Erec pressed towards it, the fire inside burning as bright as ever, only this time, the fire was as cold as the night air.