Interlude: The abandoned closet skeleton
Some weeks ago. . .
A skeleton, once sealed away with paper talismans in a closet, was unearthed when the town was abandoned. Before he could exact revenge on the demons who imprisoned him, his casket was reburied. Such is the curse of a revenant: immortality, while a boon, carries significant drawbacks.
Chief among these is vulnerability to being "killed" , though true death for a revenant only comes with the fulfillment of their grudge. Each "death," however, costs them a level. This revenant, unfortunately, had been repeatedly slain, regressing him to level 1, a stark contrast to his past life.
A further burden of revenant immortality is the heavy toll of dying at level 1. He had lost his old name, and his memories of life before death were vague. Yet, one memory persisted: the hero's betrayal of their party. Day after day, they fought relentless waves of demons, without rest, until the hero and the healer finally gave up.
He and the remaining party members fought, defeating enough demons to constitute genocide for any other race. He remembered his past as a human, exceeding the level 20 cap, and his ability to defeat, and having defeated, tier 3 demons. Yet, no matter his strength or level, it was never enough. The endless battle gradually took its toll on everyone, whittling down their forces. When a tier 4 demon, like a demigod, towered over the battlefield, they knew it was the end for humanity's last, best hope. A curse was on everyone's dying lips: if only the hero hadn't abandoned them. A whole race had placed their hopes on him, only for him to quit when things got too tough.
He died filled with bitterness and regret, expecting it to be the end. However, as a ghost hovering over the battlefield, he watched imps, demons he could easily defeat by the thousands, looting his corpse, and his bitterness only intensified. As the bodies were left to rot and grotesque demons cultivating death or decay settled among the massacre, a grey blob appeared before him.
“You bear a grudge.” The ooze spoke directly into his soul.
The slain warrior knew that he was being addressed by a deity, the god of grudges. “I curse this infestation of hell.”
“Will you pay the price to enact that curse?” The blob’s voice was flat, emotionless.
“What price?” The soul asked.
“You will not ever be alive, you will be a creature fueled by hatred.” The blob simply explained. “You will never find peace, not until your grudge is fulfilled.”
The man didn’t hesitate. “I’ll do it. As the tank for the hero’s party I will complete the quest the goddess of purity, Catalina gave us.”
“So be it.” The blob didn’t sound excited or disappointed, only emotionless. “Your class given to you by the goddess of purity will be forfeit. From now on, you will be one of mine, a dark knight of the god of grudges, an undying corpse with one unrelenting, unstoppable purpose, to fulfill the grudge that keeps you from finding peace until it is fulfilled.”
He returned from the dead, not as a living being, but as an undead revenant. He mercilessly slaughtered unsuspecting imps who were cultivating. More imps arrived to fight him, but none of the high generals from the previous battle appeared. The fact that he was no longer human meant they didn't have to engage with him directly. Eventually, enough imps, with the help of second-tier demons, defeated him.
They believed they had eliminated a persistent threat, but they were mistaken.
Another night later, more imps were sent back to hell while cultivating on the battlefield. This continued for weeks, then months. He cleared the battlefield but could not bury the dead. His grudge compelled him to seek out more demons. He moved from place to place, purging entire towns, then counties, of demons. Eventually, he reached the level cap of 20, allowing him to contend with a single tier 3 demon.
If enough tier 3 demons fought him, he would die. However, this was merely a temporary setback. It didn't take long for him to revive and resume fighting.
Eventually, the demons discovered a way to stop him, leading to his sealing. Yet, this too was only a temporary measure. The seals didn't truly imprison him; they merely isolated him from detecting demons. They learned how revenants function and developed countermeasures: if a revenant cannot sense the object of their grudge, they enter a state of torpor.
This, too, was only temporary. Nothing can resist entropy indefinitely; seals will eventually fail.
His initial release was likely intentional, a deliberate act by a demon who sought to unleash him upon rivals in another land. He awoke in an unfamiliar biome and tirelessly fought his way back to Level 20. However, high-tiered demons eventually collaborated to capture him, and the cycle of capture and release repeated several times.
The last time, his capture was his own fault. He had killed a demon-possessed baron, then returned to the demon's nest to eliminate them all. His plan went awry when he encountered the murdered baron's wife in a manor. He urged her to leave, but she refused, instead contacting her superiors. A Tier 3 demon and others arrived, defeating him. This time, he lacked the opportunity to reach Level 20 and lost a battle he previously would have won.
He sensed someone attempting to break him out, and as the seals shattered, he detected demons in the manor and town. Simultaneously, he felt a kindred power, diminutive but steeped in a familiar energy, akin to his own cursed, grudge-filled existence. Yet, he was merely a Level 1 skeleton in a buried casket. The presence eradicated all demons in the town, and without their proximity, he slipped back into torpor.
He only reawakened when demons returned to the town, resuming his efforts to break free and escape.
—----
“What happened here?” An imp mentioned to its kin.
A party of imps walked down main street, headed towards the adventurer’s guild. They had traveled this land, looking for more concrete evidence of the fabled 100 year old ginger, a prized cultivation resource.
“I don’t know.” Another imp said. “It looks like everyone packed up and left.”
“You think there are any stragglers?” The first imp asked.
“We should check.” An imp chuckled. “They might be hiding.”
None of the imps actually cared if there were stragglers or not. They had a silent agreement that it would be a good excuse to loot the town while not violating their contract.
By the time night fell, they had only amassed a pile of junk. The town had been cleaned out fairly well. The stuff left behind was mostly useless to them or too heavy to be used.
One imp threw a stone pipe into the pile. “Where’d you get that?”
The other imp pointed to the manor. “Got it from that noble’s residence. It might have gone to a bathtub, but someone already took the tub.”
“Looks like this place is a waste of time.” Another imp spat.
“Did you search the stables?” The imp pointed to the partly burnt building. “It might be a long shot but they could have something we could sell in the next town.”
“Not yet.” The imp shrugged. “We could just burn it and cultivate the fire.”
The imp nodded. Most of the buildings were primarily stone but there was enough flammable material around that they could start a bonfire.
It was at that moment that they noticed one of their number was missing.
“What happened to apprentice Kyle?” An imp looked around.
“I think they were searching the grounds.” The imp stated.
“Let's go look.” Two imps headed out, starting with the stables.
They rounded around the stable and one imp tripped to the ground. “What was that?”
He tried to get up. “Something’s grabbed my hoof!”
The first imp saw a skeletal hand grasping the limb, seemingly growing out of the dirt. “What in the world?”
A figure missing a hand, dressed in rags, came out of the stables, carrying a sword.
“That’s Kyle’s sword!” The imp cursed.
“You killed Kyle!” The restrained imp gasped.
“Bastard!” Was the last thing the imp said.
The figure stabbed the sword into the ground and shouted an attack, “Ground teeth!”
Reddish-black blades, curved and resembling teeth, sprouted from the ground, impaling two imps before vanishing into shadows as the figure withdrew his sword. The dark knight continued his nocturnal hunt, eliminating an entire party of imps. Over the following week, more imps appeared, and he dispatched them all.
Afterward, the revenant donned armor and armed himself with gear salvaged from the imps' drops, then journeyed downstream. He cleared another town, but the tier 2 demon controlling it proved challenging. However, the demon was not particularly intelligent.
The next night, he returned, baiting the remaining demons closer to the river. He had learned early on that the water dwellers despised demons almost as much as he did. They watched the shores, ready to seize any opportunity if demons ventured too near.
The demon had the dark knight on the defensive, and he played the part well, retreating and giving ground until he was knee-deep in the river. At his low level, he was no match for the tier 2 demon.
The tier 2 demon blazed like a fireball, slamming into the dark knight's chest with a flaming punch. This was precisely what the dark knight wanted. Water tendrils emerged from the river, grasping the demon's limbs.
The demon burned brighter, but the water tendrils coiled tighter. The red-skinned tier 2 demon was engulfed, extinguished, and dragged down into a watery grave. With the demon defeated, the dark knight revenant finally leveled up, becoming a level 2 dark knight.
He gave the invisible creatures of the water a respectful nod, finished clearing out the town of demons and refused to talk to any of the humans. He learned that mistake last time. When some tried to follow him, he shook his head. Eventually, he left them behind and headed downstream, searing for more demons in the next town adjacent to the river. Hopefully this trick would work enough times to get him to level 10 when he’d be able to face a tier 2 demon without any tricks.
And after a town to town purge of heading down river the dark knight reached what he felt should have been level 10, not by viewing a status screen at a church but by skills that had once been lost becoming active again.