145 - Meeting the Owner
“Food,” Speck whispered as it placed something inside Alexandra’s hand with a tendril of shadow.
Alexandra felt it in her palm, rough and uneven. “That’s a rock.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Speck, but I can’t eat rock,” she said, feeling her stomach tighten as they walked along the corridor. They’d picked the one going level to the ground. A somewhat random decision, as none of their senses gave them more information.
The corridor walls were smooth, lacking any depiction of the war they’d observed in the previous rooms.
Speck tucked the rock back into the ground, unbothered. “Rock. Good. You. Bad.”
“I’m not bad, I’m starving.” She pressed a hand to the wall as she walked.
The passage narrowed.
The floor started sloping down. At first it was gentle, but it soon turned steep. Her boots struggled to stay attached to the ground.
The air changed slowly, staler, drier.
“Something. Ahead,” Speck said.
Alexandra observed the depths of the corridor. “I don’t sense anything.”
“Further.”
She slowed.
The slope leveled out into a threshold. A seam in the architecture where the narrow passage gave way to a room. She stopped before it, put her back against the wall, and peered around the edge.
A chamber opened up beyond, bigger than any of the ones she'd cleared. The ceiling soared overhead. Six rows of three large, cylindrical stone columns held it. They were smooth just like the walls, devoid of carvings.
In the center, raised on a dais of the same stone, a single coffin rested. Longer than the others. Carved not with battle scenes but with a single figure lying in repose, hands crossed over its chest, head shaped unmistakably like a dog's.
Alexandra let out a slow breath. “Found it.”
She got Speck to hide, turned on her light, and checked her journal.
Find the owner of the tomb you’re currently exploring (0/1)
“I guess not,” she whispered, taking a step closer to the coffin. The effigy of the dog-person was pale stone. She didn’t feel anything inside. No elemental. This one hadn’t been contaminated.
“What do you think?”
“Something. Here,” Speck said from its hiding spot.
“Where?” she asked.
“Here,” A man’s voice sounded from right behind her.
She spun, boots skidding on dust.
Nothing.
She fed her light some more mana. Still nothing.
“Speck?”
“Not. Me.”
She backed toward the coffin, one hand grasping for support, and the voice came again, closer this time, or maybe just louder.
“Here.”
The air in front of her rippled like heat. A shape gathered inside it. Shoulders first, then a collar, then the face of a middle-aged man. Translucent.
Alexandra's hand found the hilt at her belt.
“I wasn’t expecting a divine class,” the ghost said, circling her. “What a pleasant surprise.”
Alexandra wanted to take a step back, but the coffin was blocking her.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The ghost’s shoulders slumped as it settled before her. “It seems the memory of my name has faded with the eons. Still, you’d expect someone to know whose tomb they’re desecrating.”
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“You’re…” Alexandra looked back at the coffin and the dog-headed statue. “You don’t look like him.”
“That’s not me,” the ghost said. “What’s left of my body is in the next room.”
“Oh.”
He smiled. “Oh, indeed. Well, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Leander, but back in my days, people called me the Veil Sealer.”
Alexandra raised an eyebrow. “Veil Sealer?” Wasn’t that Jenna’s title?
“It seems that you recognize that title,” Leander said, his expression turning sour. “I knew it. The cycle still goes on. Tell me, which god has laid claim on you?”
“None.”
“Please, I can sense your divine class. Deception will get you nowhere.”
Alexandra opened her mouth. “I’m not lying.”
“Fine,” Leander said, rolling his eyes. “So you’re an apostle. Which demon is it?”
“None,” Alexandra answered. “All the gods are taken.”
The ghost flew around her, looking at her from another angle. “An unbound heroine? Peculiar.”
“Peculiar? How?” Alexandra asked.
Leander settled on top of the coffin. “Heroes and apostles are only summoned when a spot is vacant.” He frowned. “Has a new divinity ascended? No… I would have sensed it. Unless… No, they don’t operate this way.”
Alexandra watched Leander’s ghost talk to himself, wondering if she should say something. As she waited, she took out her journal to validate her quest.
Find the owner of the tomb you’re currently exploring (1/1) -> Quest Completed: +10 exp, +1 PER
Daily Quest Streak: 113 -> 114
At least, it confirmed Leander was who he was claiming to be.
“Am I bothering you?” Leander asked, startling her out of her journal. “Is it normal these days to start reading in the middle of a discussion?”
“Ugh, sorry.” She closed her journal. “I was just checking something.”
“Hmm, that’s your class art. I see.” Leander drifted closer, studying the journal even after she'd shut it.
She glanced at the coffin, at the dog-headed effigy carved into the stone. “What are these? The dog people. I've seen them all through here, fighting some kind of war.”
Leander's expression flattened. “Ah.”
“That's not an answer.”
“No," he agreed. “It isn't.” He settled lower, folding translucent hands over one knee. “They called themselves the Kesh. Augustus and Valudipan built them. A joint venture, if you can believe the two of them ever agreed on anything.”
“Built them how? A bloodline?”
“No. The old-fashioned way. Stitched from beast and man, then bred for it.” He said it plainly, the way someone might describe a crop rotation. “Augustus had yet to develop bloodlines back then. He used this experiment as a stepping stone.”
“And you fought them.”
“Among other things.”
“Then why are you buried with one?”
“The Kesh were victims of this war as much as we were.” He drifted off the coffin, circling it once.
“So this is one of them,” she said, nodding at the effigy.
“That is their king.” Leander looked down at the carved face, the crossed paws, and something in his posture eased into old exhaustion. “I put him in the ground myself. Seemed right.”
Silence.
“But enough about myself, what brings you to my humble resting place?” Leander asked. “With a darkness elemental, no less.”
Alexandra winced. “I fell into an underground river, and now I’m lost.”
“I see.” The ghost scratched his chin. “That’s unfortunate.”
Her stomach grumbled.
“I have to apologize. I don’t have food for you,” he added, gesturing at his translucent body. “Don’t really need it in that state.”
“What are you anyway?” she asked. “Some kind of ghost?”
“I imagine you can picture it like that. To be accurate, I’m a sliver of Leander’s original soul that he left behind before dying.”
Alexandra blinked. “So you’re in that state on purpose.”
He nodded.
“Why?” she asked.
The ghost smiled. “I’ve always dreamed of doing that. Can’t you see the appeal? Tens of thousands of years have passed since my demise, and now a young heroine steps into my tomb looking for guidance.”
She looked at him. “I’m not really looking for guidance.”
“Nonsense.” Leander waved a hand through the air. “If you truly don’t have a divinity behind you, you definitely need guidance.”
“I don't have time. I’m not a ghost. I need food.”
“Which is exactly the sort of problem guidance solves.” He sat onto the edge of the coffin, perfectly at ease, one leg crossed over the other. “Fine, skip the philosophy. Practical matters first. There's a passage behind the third column from the left. It leads to a cavern filled with lizards. Just eat one and come back.”
Alexandra narrowed her eyes. “One of those lizards wouldn’t happen to be Gold, would it?”
“Might be.”
“Then how do you expect me to fight it?” she asked, raising her voice.
Leander shook his head. “See, that’s why you need guidance. Who said anything about fighting a Gold? You just need to catch one of the weaker lizards and escape.”
Alexandra frowned. That might be possible. She looked in the direction Speck was hiding. If the elemental went in, it was basically risk-free. It could catch a few lizards for her, and she had the means to cook them.
“I’ll do that,” she said. “Then you’ll tell me where the exit is.”
“Don’t be in such a rush. I’ve been waiting for this moment for eons. You gotta indulge me for a bit.”
Alexandra sighed. “Can’t you find someone else?”
“Now that I’ve awakened. This is my only chance. I’ll dissipate for good in a few days.”
She closed her eyes.
“Besides, I do have something useful to teach you. As an independent heroine, did you ever consider hiding your divine class from the prying eyes of the orders?”
She opened her eyes and locked onto him.
“How?”
Leander smiled. “Well, find something to eat first, and we’ll get to it.”
“Speck, could you grab a few lizards for me?” Alexandra asked, her eyes not leaving Leander.
“Lizard? Not. Rock?”
She inhaled. “No. Please get me some lizards.”
“Okay.”